Why do we even have teachers?

[LC EFA]

CTLawGuy  (1000+ posts)  Journal  Click to send private message to this author  Click to view this author's profile  Click to add this author to your buddy list  Click to add this author to your Ignore list      Wed Mar-11-09 10:59 PM
Original message
Why do we even have teachers?
   
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All over this board I hear two arguments against "merit pay"

1) It's impossible to tell who the good teachers are and who the bad ones are so the system would be impossible to implement fairly.

2) Teachers have no (or little) control over the success of their students so it wouldn't see any results even if it were fairly implemented.

IF THESE ARGUMENTS ARE TRUE, then why do we pay people whose work we cannot evaluate and whose work makes no appreciable difference to students? Why not save money and get rid of all teachers, instead giving kids books to study?

*dons flamesuit and helmet and cowers behind rock*

----------------------------------------------------
In all seriousness, please think about what is implied from the arguments you make. I understand that not everyone likes unions and not everyone likes public schools, and many of these people favor "merit pay". That does not mean that any form of incentivizing hard work is automatically bad or meant to destroy unions or the public school system.

What is MORE likely to destroy both teachers' unions AND public schools is a sentiment among the public that teachers are ineffective (and unwilling to improve) and the public school system is a failure. If teachers and their unions are more willing to accept incentives to perform better, it can stave off this public sentiment.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x8258456

Firstly, We have teachers because some people need to learn enough to become productive and innovative, who else are you going to soak for money in order to create the next generation of basket weaving art appreciators.

Starry Messenger  Donating Member  (1000+ posts) Wed Mar-11-09 11:04 PM
Response to Original message
1. Not everyone uses books to teach.
   
I teach ceramics. :D I like it because it is easy to see student results and progress.

Nice pot dude, now get back to flipping them burgers.

jpgray  Donating Member  (1000+ posts)  Wed Mar-11-09 11:07 PM
Response to Original message
3. I'd say rather it's impossible to quantify expected student success generally.
   
Edited on Wed Mar-11-09 11:08 PM by jpgray
Because teacher success is rather defined by how they do with students, no? Continuing education is fine for extra pay, in my view, as is volunteering for extracurricular work with disadvantaged kids. But how do you create a generalized system that accurately determines how all the varied, situational classes out there are expected to perform with a decent teacher? Assuming you can do this, why not push out your lousy students to improve your rating if you're a teacher? They take an enormous investment for a very small return, and you could make more with a smaller, more advantaged group. If we attach dropout rates to the standards to avoid this dodge, that opens up another can of worms, since the unlucky newbie who shows up in a shit school may well get the class whose 15+% dropout rate has everything to do with their past experiences and nothing to do with the new teacher.

I'm waiting to hear some actual concrete standards that can hold up, that don't encourage teachers/admins to cook the books, and that don't encourage the school system to shit on disadvantaged kids at every opportunity and get paid more for it.

Traditionally, before the education system was turned into a watered down, PC, feel good waste, this was measured by examination of what was learned through rigorous testing. But hey that pot was pretty cool, so you get an A.

sense  (161 posts) Thu Mar-12-09 01:25 AM
Response to Reply #4
21. They are wicked!
   
Why is a union who's job it is to ensure teacher's have a good job environment and decent pay, allowed to dictate what will and will not be taught in schools and how and when it will happen. Unless you're at the bottom of the rung you cannot have a good experience at school because the attitude is that the only ones who need to be taught are the ones at the bottom! My state requires by law that all children be taught at their rate and level of learning, yet 98% of teachers and administrators refuse to even believe there are different levels and rates of learning. The dumbing down of American kids happens everyday, all day, in our schools because the unions protect the jobs of adults over the very lives of children. The children might as well be inanimate objects for all the consideration they get!

You must be new here.

Hello_Kitty  Donating Member  (1000+ posts) Wed Mar-11-09 11:21 PM
Response to Original message
11. Jesus god. Because we have PARENTS!!
   
Some folks want to make teachers - people who devote themselves to a career that requires an incredible amount of training for low pay and the patience and enthusiasm of a saint - jump through all kinds of arbitrary hurdles to get a pittance of a raise.

Meanwhile, any pair of dipshits can squirt out a series of genetic replicants. Then can proceed to park them in front of the TV and feed them processed chicken nuggets and then get a scrip for Prozac or Adderol because they're too "difficult". Every parent gets a deduction and a child tax credit no matter how much of a ****-up they are. How about we implement a "merit system" for parents? How about we start reducing the tax breaks, or even fining parents who can't be arsed to make sure the kid goes to school prepared for class every day, hmm? How about we start "firing" parents who are too incompetent to handle the job? Why are we blaming the people who have the kids 6 or 8 hours a day while giving a pass to the ones who have them the rest of the time?

Students being required to actually learn from their educational experience is an "arbitrary hurdle" now is it ?

FlyingSquirrel  Donating Member  (1000+ posts)  Wed Mar-11-09 11:29 PM
Response to Original message
13. Here's a better idea:
   
Pay all teachers WAY MORE regardless of whether they "deserve it" or not.

The end result will be that people like me who would probably be good teachers if we weren't allergic to being shafted will enter the profession. It won't help in the short term, but in the long term it will do much more to improve things than "merit pay" could ever do.

You win the "Most Idiotic proposition of the month award"

sense  (161 posts) Thu Mar-12-09 02:24 AM
Response to Reply #15
32. I agree
   
Here's a thought. Let's quit grouping children by age and group them by something relevant. Or, maybe we could teach them what they want to know, when they want to know it.... which is the most effective way to learn and the method we all employ, except when we're in school.

The prize has been won. You're runner up.

ContinentalOp  (1000+ posts) Thu Mar-12-09 02:36 AM
Response to Original message
36. False choice.
   
It IS possible to tell who the good teachers are. Same as in any other industry -- managers, peer evaluation, on the job observation, "customer" complaints etc. The kind of stuff that schools have always done. Bullshit metrics applied across the board will never work.

We can also assess the producer by the quality of their product.

EFerrari  Donating Member  (1000+ posts)  Thu Mar-12-09 05:44 AM
Response to Original message
45. You misstated the arguments. It's not that teachers can't be evaluated
   
or that they don't have SOME control over how much students learn.

It's more that our schools have been f#cked for thirty years and deciding to fix that by focusing on individual teacher performance is stupid. It's like reviewing an actor in a burning theator. First you put out the fire.

Indeed the education system has been backsliding, but who's the responsible party for that little ****up.

[thundley4]

I blame many of the problems on Dr. Spock which allowed that whole "give children timeouts, instead of a paddling", thing. Then there is welfare which rewarded single mothers which further eroded discipline at home. Next , there was taking away the authority of teachers to provide corporal discipline. Almost forgot, forced busing did nothing to improve schools either.  How about the "feel-good, everyones a winner attitude" that is being forced into schools?

[rich_t]

I blame many of the problems on Dr. Spock which allowed that whole "give children timeouts, instead of a paddling", thing. Then there is welfare which rewarded single mothers which further eroded discipline at home. Next , there was taking away the authority of teachers to provide corporal discipline. Almost forgot, forced busing did nothing to improve schools either.  How about the "feel-good, everyones a winner attitude" that is being forced into schools?

That everyone is a winner crap, is just that...  crap.

Kids need to learn in school that life isn't fair.  Thet are totally unprepared for the real world after they spend 12 years in feel good propoganda factories.

[Carl]

How is this for a test.....if you argue that you shouldn`t be evaluated and paid based on your job performance as evidenced by the quality of the product produced then you probably shouldn`t be employed at that job to begin with.

[rich_t]

It probably doesn't help that far too many parents take zero interest in their kids educations. 

Don't check to make sure homework is completed and correct

Don't go to parent/teacher conferences (I assume that most schools still have them)

Don't take an active interest in the curriculum etc.

They use schools like government funded day care centers.  This makes the teachers job harder than it should be in many cases, especially with little brats that don't get any discipline at home.

[The Village Idiot]

I blame many of the problems on Dr. Spock which allowed that whole "give children timeouts, instead of a paddling", thing. Then there is welfare which rewarded single mothers which further eroded discipline at home. Next , there was taking away the authority of teachers to provide corporal discipline. Almost forgot, forced busing did nothing to improve schools either.  How about the "feel-good, everyones a winner attitude" that is being forced into schools?

I don't think teachers are way 'underpaid'... in DC they spent close to $28,000 per year per kid. far too much. but at least they got rid of the $6000 vouchers that saved taxpayers $22,000 per kid that used it.

[Lord Undies]

Once was a time when teachers were respected and vital parts of a community.  June, Miss Landers, and The Beaver really did exist.  A teachers was an extension of the home and education, real education like The Three R's, was the goal.

Today, for the most part, teachers are gloried babysitters - agents of the state - who serve as conduit between the Little Minds of Mush and liberalism.  Parents, for the most part, are both out of the home - if two do indeed exist at all - and most being products of modern public education themselves, don't have the sense or the skills to change a thing.

The only way anything will ever get back to normality is by getting the federal government completely out of the picture.  Public schools should be exceptionally local entities who are funded by and answer to only the community they serve.

[Duke Nukum]

It seems like ever since Carter created the Dept. of Education the decline of public schools has hastened.

[Chris]

CTLawGuy  (1000+ posts)  Wed Mar-11-09 10:59 PM
Original message

Why do we even have teachers?

Whenever I see a DUmmy admit to being a teacher, I ask myself the same question.

[Splashdown]

How is this for a test.....if you argue that you shouldn`t be evaluated and paid based on your job performance as evidenced by the quality of the product produced then you probably shouldn`t be employed at that job to begin with.

It's hard.

Imagine you're a 6th grade middle school teacher. Language arts, for the sake of the argument. Your job is to teach a variety of kids some state-imposed standards. Now these kids come to the middle school from 3 different elementary schools. Some of the kids have serious family issues, and some of the kids have had hugely varied educational background. Your job is to take this wide variety of students with different starting points, and move them to a standard. Let's throw in two or three students with learning disabilities.

Are you going to finanically punish a teacher who has a failure rate of, say, 20 percent? Should a kid fail 6th grade English? Who's fault is it? What do we do with a kid who has failed 6th grade 3 times? Now we have a 15-year-old in a class of 11-year-olds.

I think the difference, here, is that it's hard to analyze the success of a teacher based on current students.

+++

That said, there ARE ways to evaluate teachers effectively and fairly objectively. Are the students engaged? Are the teacher's tests reasonable for the students' abilities? Does the teacher actually teach and follow up his or her lessons?

+++

It's hard. The best answer, I believe, is community-based schools. Every parent needs to pay something. With "Free" education, you get what you pay for. That's why private and parochial schools can do such a great job. You can't imagine how much more successful students are when parents have some skin in the game.

[Carl]

It probably doesn't help that far too many parents take zero interest in their kids educations. 

Don't check to make sure homework is completed and correct

Don't go to parent/teacher conferences (I assume that most schools still have them)

Don't take an active interest in the curriculum etc.

They use schools like government funded day care centers.  This makes the teachers job harder than it should be in many cases, especially with little brats that don't get any discipline at home.

Truer words....

[Chris]

It's hard. The best answer, I believe, is community-based schools. Every parent needs to pay something. With "Free" education, you get what you pay for. That's why private and parochial schools can do such a great job. You can't imagine how much more successful students are when parents have some skin in the game.

Our local school board has been trying to change over to community-based schools, to avoid 30- and 45-minute bus trips like the ones I had to take to go to a rotten school downtown in the name of "integration".  The NAACP and their liberal ilk are trying to scare the school board with labels of "racism" and "Jim Crowe" to keep it from happening.

[Splashdown]

Our local school board has been trying to change over to community-based schools, to avoid 30- and 45-minute bus trips like the ones I had to take to go to a rotten school downtown in the name of "integration".  The NAACP and their liberal ilk are trying to scare the school board with labels of "racism" and "Jim Crowe" to keep it from happening.

Because of busing, one area in Northern Delaware (Joe Biden's haunts, btw    ) has the highest--or second highest--per-capita number of private schools in the country.

[Carl]

It's hard.

Imagine you're a 6th grade middle school teacher. Language arts, for the sake of the argument. Your job is to teach a variety of kids some state-imposed standards. Now these kids come to the middle school from 3 different elementary schools. Some of the kids have serious family issues, and some of the kids have had hugely varied educational background. Your job is to take this wide variety of students with different starting points, and move them to a standard. Let's throw in two or three students with learning disabilities.

Are you going to finanically punish a teacher who has a failure rate of, say, 20 percent? Should a kid fail 6th grade English? Who's fault is it? What do we do with a kid who has failed 6th grade 3 times? Now we have a 15-year-old in a class of 11-year-olds.

I think the difference, here, is that it's hard to analyze the success of a teacher based on current students.

+++

That said, there ARE ways to evaluate teachers effectively and fairly objectively. Are the students engaged? Are the teacher's tests reasonable for the students' abilities? Does the teacher actually teach and follow up his or her lessons?

+++

It's hard. The best answer, I believe, is community-based schools. Every parent needs to pay something. With "Free" education, you get what you pay for. That's why private and parochial schools can do such a great job. You can't imagine how much more successful students are when parents have some skin in the game.

I hear ya and I came from a rural school and a house that if you effed up at school there was nothing they could do to you that would compare to what you would get at home.

I guess my statement there really isn`t completely practical in the current day and age other the the basic idea that if you are arguing (as it seems the DUmp is) for no standards or oversight then it is because they don`t want to perform.

[MrsSmith]

One point we're missing is that while there are parents that don't care, the schools are very proficient at blaming the parent for the school's faults.  My middle child has great difficulty reading.  For 5 years, from his 4th grade through both 6th grades and into 7th, I talked to every teacher repeatedly about his reading difficulties.  Every single one insisted that he could read JUST FINE.  Nothing I said made a dent in their certainty until I found out that I could force the school to test him.  I did... by calling them weekly for months.  They finally had him tested...though I found out later that he was not tested as he should have been...nevertheless, the results showed that he had a...wait for it...reading problem. 

We had a big meeting with his 7th grade teachers, the tester, the assistant principal, etc.  They discussed the results of the test with me, then I asked what could be done to help him learn to read.  I was told to have him read to me at home...just as though we hadn't done that for years and years.   

Then I was informed that the school had no responsibility to teach him to read.  He had reading problems BECAUSE I was a single mother.  End of meeting.



The best thing about NCLB was the change it forced on that school system.  They've had to greatly improve in the last few years.  Unfortunately, it was too late for my son...who still can't read a  job ap without help.   

[Vagabond]

One point we're missing is that while there are parents that don't care, the schools are very proficient at blaming the parent for the school's faults.  My middle child has great difficulty reading.  For 5 years, from his 4th grade through both 6th grades and into 7th, I talked to every teacher repeatedly about his reading difficulties.  Every single one insisted that he could read JUST FINE.  Nothing I said made a dent in their certainty until I found out that I could force the school to test him.  I did... by calling them weekly for months.  They finally had him tested...though I found out later that he was not tested as he should have been...nevertheless, the results showed that he had a...wait for it...reading problem. 

We had a big meeting with his 7th grade teachers, the tester, the assistant principal, etc.  They discussed the results of the test with me, then I asked what could be done to help him learn to read.  I was told to have him read to me at home...just as though we hadn't done that for years and years.   

Then I was informed that the school had no responsibility to teach him to read.  He had reading problems BECAUSE I was a single mother.  End of meeting.



The best thing about NCLB was the change it forced on that school system.  They've had to greatly improve in the last few years.  Unfortunately, it was too late for my son...who still can't read a  job ap without help.   

My younger BIL will spell the same word three different ways in the same paragraph.  He has massive trouble reading.  I asked him to count up the e's on a page in a book I was reading once as a test.  He got frustrated when he couldn't understand and acted out.  His high school gave him a diploma to be rid of him, there is no way he met the requirements to graduate.  He came from a two parent family, and they were very engaged in his schooling.  I agree the schools need work in that area.

[VivisMom]

One point we're missing is that while there are parents that don't care, the schools are very proficient at blaming the parent for the school's faults.  My middle child has great difficulty reading.  For 5 years, from his 4th grade through both 6th grades and into 7th, I talked to every teacher repeatedly about his reading difficulties.  Every single one insisted that he could read JUST FINE.  Nothing I said made a dent in their certainty until I found out that I could force the school to test him.  I did... by calling them weekly for months.  They finally had him tested...though I found out later that he was not tested as he should have been...nevertheless, the results showed that he had a...wait for it...reading problem. 

We had a big meeting with his 7th grade teachers, the tester, the assistant principal, etc.  They discussed the results of the test with me, then I asked what could be done to help him learn to read.  I was told to have him read to me at home...just as though we hadn't done that for years and years.   

Then I was informed that the school had no responsibility to teach him to read.  He had reading problems BECAUSE I was a single mother.  End of meeting.



The best thing about NCLB was the change it forced on that school system.  They've had to greatly improve in the last few years.  Unfortunately, it was too late for my son...who still can't read a  job ap without help.   

I am appalled, but not at all surprised.

I had a 9th grader who was unable to comprehend his textbook for my class. I remember once asking him to read a paragraph and summarize it for me...and he couldn't do it. I was stunned. How on earth did a functionally illiterate 14 year old get into a GT school? I went and asked the guidance counselor to test him...and they told me no. So when his grandmother came to the parent-teacher conference, I told her that I was concerned about his reading comprehension, and asked her to please request that the kid get tested for reading problems. I'm pretty sure they gave her the runaround, too.

In some ways, they were right-that particular teacher didn't have the job of teaching your son to read, that was the job of his first and second and third grade teachers. What I want to know is why your child was allowed to progress that far in school without a teacher intervening! Why did not one of his teachers from the primary years say anything? How did they NOT know? Or why did they ignore it! I know it's hard to tell a parent you think their kid may have a learning problem, but sheesh! It's better to know and be able to help than to screw the kid up for life!

On behalf of teachers, I apologize. Not all teachers are like that, I know I certainly wasn't, and I'm sorry that you and your son were treated so poorly. But stories like this only reinforce my belief in sending kids to private school.

[MrsSmith]

I am appalled, but not at all surprised.

I had a 9th grader who was unable to comprehend his textbook for my class. I remember once asking him to read a paragraph and summarize it for me...and he couldn't do it. I was stunned. How on earth did a functionally illiterate 14 year old get into a GT school? I went and asked the guidance counselor to test him...and they told me no. So when his grandmother came to the parent-teacher conference, I told her that I was concerned about his reading comprehension, and asked her to please request that the kid get tested for reading problems. I'm pretty sure they gave her the runaround, too.

In some ways, they were right-that particular teacher didn't have the job of teaching your son to read, that was the job of his first and second and third grade teachers. What I want to know is why your child was allowed to progress that far in school without a teacher intervening! Why did not one of his teachers from the primary years say anything? How did they NOT know? Or why did they ignore it! I know it's hard to tell a parent you think their kid may have a learning problem, but sheesh! It's better to know and be able to help than to screw the kid up for life!

On behalf of teachers, I apologize. Not all teachers are like that, I know I certainly wasn't, and I'm sorry that you and your son were treated so poorly. But stories like this only reinforce my belief in sending kids to private school.

The problem was that  he scored "OK" in reading comprehension tests.  Even though every 3rd or 4th word was wrong, he still got enough sense to make over 70% on comprehension. 

Eventually, years later, I met a lady who had taken her child for comprehensive testing, and I learned that the school had NOT tested my son for learning disabilities...they had simply done an ability test.  My 4th child had many of the same symptoms, but not they were not as extreme.  She was still a minor, so I spent nearly $1000 getting REAL testing done on her...turns out she had both ADD and Dyslexia.  I talked to that tester about my son's symptoms, and she was sure he was, at minimum, dyslexic.  The fact that his ability testing scored everything as average except reading, which was way below, and spatial mechanics, which was at 97%, only confirmed it.  I also learned that teachers and educators are NOT required to learn anything about learning disabilities!  There is no comprehesive education required for those that will be dealing with those very disabilities. 

I don't know what the NEA does aside from donating money to Democrats...but they can't be doing anything useful if they haven't even gotten to the point of training teachers to deal with ALL children.

[EastFacingNorth]

Hello_Kitty  Donating Member  (1000+ posts) Wed Mar-11-09 11:21 PM
Response to Original message
11. Jesus god. Because we have PARENTS!!
   
Some folks want to make teachers - people who devote themselves to a career that requires an incredible amount of training for low pay and the patience and enthusiasm of a saint - jump through all kinds of arbitrary hurdles to get a pittance of a raise.

I may very well get BS'ed for this (what else is new?) but the bolded portion, going from my personal experience, is bullshit.

I spent two years studying higher math for my degree.  At my university, as at I'm guessing most universities, something like 80% of the math majors were also education majors, with the remaining 20% a more-or-less even split between applied math and math theory.

A lot of the applied guys would take math theory courses as electives, and us theory guys would take some of the harder applied courses if schedules permitted (PDE's, numerical analysis, etc.).  We did it because we enjoyed the material and/or enjoyed the challenge.

The ed majors, on the other hand, only took those higher-level courses (think anything past multi-variable calculus) which they needed for their teacher certification.  Things like number theory, modern algebra, probability - nothing that's difficult at the intro level, or at least it had better not be if you're supposed to teach the stuff.

These kids would complain about how difficult the material was, and how it wasn't relevant to what they wanted to do.  (Yeah, because algebraic topology and measure theory are really relevant to my helpdesk job.)  They shyed away from challenge.  They were SLACKERS.  No curiousity about their supposed passion, no drive to improve themselves.  More often than not, when you asked them why they wanted to teach math, they'd say something along the lines of the shortage of math teachers guaranteeing them a job.

The only way you can claim that math teachers, at least, have "incredible amounts of training" is if by training you mean the Marxist drivel they teach over at the Education department.

FlyingSquirrel  Donating Member  (1000+ posts)  Wed Mar-11-09 11:29 PM
Response to Original message
13. Here's a better idea:
   
Pay all teachers WAY MORE regardless of whether they "deserve it" or not.

The end result will be that people like me who would probably be good teachers if we weren't allergic to being shafted will enter the profession. It won't help in the short term, but in the long term it will do much more to improve things than "merit pay" could ever do.

Behind the batsh*t insanity, FlyingSquirrel actually has something resembling a coherent thought.  The awful pay of teaching professions does tend to turn off the more competent.  Even without any Education credentials, there's fast-track programs where with my Math degree I could be teaching in a year or less - and be getting paid to get a Master's in Education at the same time.  I know, I looked into them right before graduating.  But considering that I easily make twice a teacher's starting salary working in a call center, and I make, oh I'm guessing 4 or more times a teacher's hourly rate tutoring high school math on the side, why on Earth would I bother with something like that?

[mamacags]

I blame many of the problems on Dr. Spock which allowed that whole "give children timeouts, instead of a paddling", thing. Then there is welfare which rewarded single mothers which further eroded discipline at home. Next , there was taking away the authority of teachers to provide corporal discipline. Almost forgot, forced busing did nothing to improve schools either.  How about the "feel-good, everyones a winner attitude" that is being forced into schools?

AMEN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Flame]

The problem was that  he scored "OK" in reading comprehension tests.  Even though every 3rd or 4th word was wrong, he still got enough sense to make over 70% on comprehension. 

Eventually, years later, I met a lady who had taken her child for comprehensive testing, and I learned that the school had NOT tested my son for learning disabilities...they had simply done an ability test.  My 4th child had many of the same symptoms, but not they were not as extreme.  She was still a minor, so I spent nearly $1000 getting REAL testing done on her...turns out she had both ADD and Dyslexia.  I talked to that tester about my son's symptoms, and she was sure he was, at minimum, dyslexic.  The fact that his ability testing scored everything as average except reading, which was way below, and spatial mechanics, which was at 97%, only confirmed it.  I also learned that teachers and educators are NOT required to learn anything about learning disabilities!  There is no comprehesive education required for those that will be dealing with those very disabilities. 

I don't know what the NEA does aside from donating money to Democrats...but they can't be doing anything useful if they haven't even gotten to the point of training teachers to deal with ALL children.

I've been fighting the same thing with my older son since he was in 3rd grade.

[MrsSmith]

I've been fighting the same thing with my older son since he was in 3rd grade.

Given what I now know, I would very strongly advise spending the money on the real testing.  If I'd had any idea what I could do, I'd have done that for my son.  I'm endlessly grateful I found out what was going on with his younger sister before it was completely too late.  It is so painful to see your very intelligent child go through life feeling like he could never do anything right due to problems that his educators SHOULD have been trained to discover and repair.  It's so frustrating to hear educators whine about parents when they can't even do their own jobs.     Our schools need to stop acting like parents to every kid there and get back to TEACHING.

[delilahmused]

Hello_Kitty  Donating Member  (1000+ posts) Wed Mar-11-09 11:21 PM
Response to Original message
11. Jesus god. Because we have PARENTS!!
   
Some folks want to make teachers - people who devote themselves to a career that requires an incredible amount of training for low pay and the patience and enthusiasm of a saint - jump through all kinds of arbitrary hurdles to get a pittance of a raise.

And yet they're constantly being out shined by homeschooling parents who have no formal training, many without a college degree. A defining moment for me was when they gave my son a test to see how "special needs" he was. When you're on that track in public school you might as well give it up because if you think the regular classroom is dumbed down, wait until you experience a special needs one. I'm not talking short bus, I mean kids they think need extra help in math or reading. They NEVER help your kid enough to get them out of there and into a regular classroom.

Anyway, one of the things on the test that measured comprehension and writing skills was a question that that asked the student to describe what was going on in the picture on the page. Now Jake is a very literal person (it's probably why he's a good Marine) so when they said "describe" that's exactly what he did. What they wanted was to have the kid make up a story about what was going on in the picture. Had they said exactly what they wanted, he would've made up a story. They tried to tell me he had problems with reading comprehension. I told them they were full of crap.

Cindie

[VivisMom]

The problem was that  he scored "OK" in reading comprehension tests.  Even though every 3rd or 4th word was wrong, he still got enough sense to make over 70% on comprehension. 

Eventually, years later, I met a lady who had taken her child for comprehensive testing, and I learned that the school had NOT tested my son for learning disabilities...they had simply done an ability test.  My 4th child had many of the same symptoms, but not they were not as extreme.  She was still a minor, so I spent nearly $1000 getting REAL testing done on her...turns out she had both ADD and Dyslexia.  I talked to that tester about my son's symptoms, and she was sure he was, at minimum, dyslexic.  The fact that his ability testing scored everything as average except reading, which was way below, and spatial mechanics, which was at 97%, only confirmed it.  I also learned that teachers and educators are NOT required to learn anything about learning disabilities!  There is no comprehesive education required for those that will be dealing with those very disabilities. 

I don't know what the NEA does aside from donating money to Democrats...but they can't be doing anything useful if they haven't even gotten to the point of training teachers to deal with ALL children.

That's a HUGE part of the problem. In my program, I was only required to take ONE special ed course, and it was crap. The professor was hugely known in the special ed field, but he couldn't teach worth shit. I also happened to be his grad assistant, so a lot of what I knew about special ed I got from the stuff he was working on outside of teaching. When I had a kid in my class who had an IEP, it was horrible-they always managed to schedule her IEP meetings when I was in class, and then I got blasted for never being at them. When I mentioned that perhaps they could schedule them when I wasn't teaching...that didn't go over very well.

What I saw as a big issue was that even when a teacher did pick up on things-in my case this kid being functionally illiterate-when we went to the people who were supposed to help, we got stonewalled. I would have loved to be able to take this kid aside every day and help him with his reading, but I'll be honest and tell you that because my degree was in secondary ed, I had no clue about how to even begin to help. My training helped me with a lot of things, but teaching a 14 year old reading comprehension wasn't one of them.

Most teachers are inadequately trained to deal with kids who are not within the norm-academically or emotionally. The last study I read (which was awhile ago) said that only around 1 in five new teachers would still be teaching in three to five years. The burnout rate is tremendous, for a variety of reasons-lots of work, low pay, high expectational outcome vs lack of support from school admin, kids who are discipline nightmares, parents who don't care. It's a nasty, vicious cycle and throwing money at the problem doesn't help, which is all the NEA does. The NEA is a load of crap. I despise them. They don't DO anything. I feel the same way about teacher's unions. Worthless.

That being said...I would hazard a guess and say that most teachers LOVE your kids. They want them to succeed, want them to do well, and would go out of their way to help your kid. But they are also very overworked, have to go through a metric ****ton of red tape on a daily basis, and have the school admins breathing down their neck to make sure that all of their students pass the state assessments.

[ace61502]

Private schools aren't always better. I went to a private school for 7 years then transferred to the county schools. At the private school I was in the honors program. At the public school I flunked out of honors in the first semester because I was so far behind.  That public high school boasts the highest ACT average in the state. My 29 only helped a little.