A few weeks ago, I received an email from Professor Dr. Jochen Krautz, a professor of art education in Germany, who is one of a growing number of European scholars who do not like the test-based accountability that is being enforced internationally by the OECD through the PISA examinations. He and colleagues are producing articles to argue against test-based accountability and for recognition that teachers are the experts in teaching. I look forward to posting more articles from scholars in other countries who recognize the absurdity of an international horse race for higher scores on standardized tests. The goal is not “real education,” he says, but the ability to answer the questions posed by unaccountable bureaucrats.
This is one of the articles he sent me: Professor Dr. Hans Peter Klein wrote “Quality Management by Marking Schemes Dumping.” It is translated from German to English, which causes an occasional surprising wording (like the title), but you will get the point if you read the 2 page article. It begins like this:
It has long been all over town: The methods of alleged “quality management” in education do not lead to greater knowledge and skills, rather they conceal the fact that students know less and are capable of less. Ever more beginners, particularly in the natural sciences, lack basic knowledge and skills to successfully take up and complete their studies. However, the kind of trouble caused by ministerial guidelines which teacher teams are facing and let out only behind closed doors, is something the public must know about.
How knowledge and skills develop as the basis of real education and how this can be achieved best during lessons, has been well-known for a long time. Why are teachers not given the freedom to take independent decisions how to organize their lessons according to their professional training? After all, they are the experts.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
So now the major issue has morphed into “accountability” reform. I lifted this link from Peter Greene; it is well worth reading:
http://www.ascd.org/publications/educational-leadership/mar99/vol56/num06/Why-Standardized-Tests-Don%27t-Measure-Educational-Quality.aspx
Written in 1998, but still rings true. All reformers should be required to complete a close read. And of course they don’t have to worry about using prior knowledge.
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WATCH OUT for G.E.R.M.
Pasi Sahlberg quote: “Lessons from Finland help you to kill 99.9% of GERMs.”
Read: http://pasisahlberg.com/global-educational-reform-movement-is-here/
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And what happens when you give a certification test to prospective teachers and they don’t pass it? In NYS. colleges can lose their accreditation if less than 80 percent of their students pass. Results of the 2014 edTPA in NYS have come in:
“SUNY colleges saw their pass rates drip to 60 percent and 70 percent from above 90 percent in previous years. The test — which shows a prospective educator’s ability to teach Common Core skills, was passed by 68 percent of students statewide.”
College graduates are going back to school to pursue other fields, or working unrelated jobs and trying to pass the tests which cost $100 to $300.
http://www.lohud.com/story/news/education/2015/01/16/teacher-candidates-new-tests-financially-crippling/21876835/
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Sorry, that should have been “…saw their pass rates dip…”
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Good for the Germans! German culture values specialization, so Germans wouldn’t listen to a businessman tell them how to change education. Their system is based on “master” and “apprentice”. The Germans also pushed out Walmart because they didn’t want to see their charming downtowns destroyed. We can learn a lot from the Germans in many realms: engineering, education, infrastructure, construction of homes, etc. If you don’t believe me, go visit any German town, village, or city, and compare it to the U.S. The Germans also have a true Democracy that works for the betterment of all, not just for the rich. Ironically, we taught them how to do it after WW2, and they took it seriously and did it right , while we collapsed into our situation now. Oh well, great cultures rise and fall!
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The Germans are also waaaaay ahead of us when it comes to transitioning off of fossil fuel to alternative energy sources, which will make and break countries in the coming decades.
While the fossil fuel industry and other corporations continue to suck the life blood out of the US economy for short term gain, the Germans and the Chinese are investing in their future and leaving us in the dust.
America once listened to its scientists and planned for/invested in the long term (eg, with infrastructure) but in recent years (including under Obama, unfortunately) has succumbed to largely corporate short-term-profit-driven policies* directed by politicians and political appointees.
*Not just in the area of education, but in pretty much all areas.
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History is interesting: apparently, academic freedom and tenure to protect academic freedom was implemented in this country exactly because, at around the turn of the 20th century, the US was left behind in inventions in medical science. They found, the problem was that companies’ short term goals dictated medical research and education in this country, so they went to the most successful—even legendary— country, Germany, and implemented the main ingredient of their higher ed system, academic freedom and tenure. It was a 50 year battle.
So what the reformers want to do (and they are doing the same in higher ed as in “lower” ed), is to experiment with a method that has already failed. Hm.
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Allowing teachers to teach is the way it was in the “old days” before NCLB put teachers on a leash. Those were the days of creative expression and excitement! Those were the days when research meant something, and educators’ knowledge and experience were valued. Those were the days of meaningful curriculum writing, collegial respect and support, team teaching, and diversifying instruction and support teams designed to meet the needs of ALL students. Now we have monetized our students and endlessly scapegoated our public teachers while expensive testing is promoted over real learning. We ignore the realities of poverty. Instead, the government has assisted in the assassination of public schools by giving favored status to private entities, most of which exploit our most vulnerable while starving the neediest schools.
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How can teachers be the experts when we pay administrators and test developers so much more?
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“Let teachers teach.” Sounds good.
Let me tell you what I saw. I watched a person teach a high school history class on the Industrial Revolution. He didn’t teach facts about the IR, he just talked in general about this with the kids in a circle. Noting substantive was taught. At the end of the “lesson,” he told the kids to “invent something with toilet paper rolls” and bring it to class the next day.
Kids later told me that they never learn anything.
Today, he is the head of the local union and he is too busy to meet unit members until after they first meet with site reps first, then the grade level coordinators.
Tough job, I guess.
“Let teachers teach.” All right, then.
Let me teach the conservative view of the origins of American Government. Let me teach views that folks here oppose. Let me teach what I think is the meaning of “limited government,” or “strict constructionist and loose constructionist.”
Really, at some point we all must admit that the education of our youth is just too important to be feeding them fluff and opinions.
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You can just turn on Fox News and get your skewed view of America. The conservative view of America is one of interpreting the Constitution for your own personal gain. Your government is to be used as a tool of the wealthy and corporations to ensure inequality remains and a rigid class structure is enforced. It is the tea party rallying cry of “Less government! (… just not my government)”. Your view is one of entitlement and intolerance where unearned income is given privilege over earned income and those true Americans who actually work for a living rather than siphon off wealth from others. Your compassion extends only to yourself. Like all conservatives, you prefer step over less fortunate Americans and spit on them in contempt rather than reach down and offer a hand up. We have to listen to speeches of “personal responsibility” from trust fund babies and privileged hypocrites who have never had to work for a living or endure hardship. Today’s conservatives would rather self destruct and take everyone with them than acknowledge science, rational thought, and reason. The mythical “free market” is your religion, except when you have to suffer its severe consequences. Then you cry for government protections or bailouts. Your judgement is based on anecdotal stories which are largely fabricated or embellished in an echo chamber to support your misogynist view of teaching and oppressive views of anyone who does not look or act like you. Conservative leaders are failures in government, able to only obstruct and without new ideas. Now that Republicans have caught the car, they have no idea what to do and only prove they are unfit to govern. Conservatism today is a phony clown show.
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“Just let me teach….”
“Uh, let’s re-think that.”
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If your account/assessment of this teacher is accurate, then you have reason for concern. Your local administrators have not been doing their job. Don’t give me the old saw about union thugs preventing the disciplining of incompetent teachers. How a seemingly incompetent teacher managed to avoid being fired and rose to union head is a little hard to imagine (unless his brother-in-law was the Superintendent). It takes years to become a union head. I don’t know how big your union local is, but it is usual for members to meet with building reps and a chain of command before the union head.
In any case, it is a mighty big leap to assume that your anecdote represents a typical teaching scenario. Despite the damage that has been done to public education over the past thirty years, teachers still manage to teach under ever worsening conditions.
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Yes, that is correct–local and district administrators haven’t done their jobs. I sense they either don’t know how, don’t want to , or have had their butts kicked too often by the union to realize that some teachers have more power than the “leaders” and this plays right into these “power teachers'” personal agendas.
I don’t think bad teaching is the reason public education needs reforming. Most teachers I’ve seen are great under difficult circumstances. And, my district might be uniquely horrible. But while I am on that subject, I would reform the laws so that teachers like me who are stuck in a bad place and who have too many years in, can move elsewhere without taking a pay cut. I see this a limitation on my right to employment.
I don’t talk in abstracts, I analyze what I see happening on a daily basis. After reading some of the responses, besides the hate diatribes, I think what I am seeing varies from place to place.
Still, it is harmful to kids.
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I would have liked to take my salary with me when I changed schools as well, but since school funding is usually a local issue with more or less state support, no two districts have access to the same pot and no two districts have the same needs. I believe the same is true of any public service job where you switch jurisdictions. I would guess the tradeoffs were supposed to be in time off. However, in roughly figuring the hours I spent the last year of teaching, I worked the equivalent of a more than a full year with no time off. The satisfactions inherent in teaching have also been stripped away in an attempt to reduce teaching to mechanistic components that can be delivered in a standardized mode and/or reduced to a technological problem.
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So, Diane says we need good people to enter the profession. They won’t do it if problems like this aren’t solved, and if they have no flexibility and control over their teaching career. I’ve heard it said that the lack of mobility for teachers is “communistic.” I would tend to agree. People have always “voted with their feet,” and smart money says highly qualified new talent won’t enter the teaching profession unless this and other problems I have mentioned here are rectified. They also like competition and knowledge that if they do a good job there will be some kind of payoff or reward. If Diane is looking for “love of learning and teaching” type candidates, that might not attract the best of the best. Even so, we have both kinds of teachers now, and most complain that they don’t get paid enough.
Go figure.
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For years now, I’ve been receiving the daily Dilbert comic strip every morning. I first understood Scott Adams’s brilliance when I went to work for a large corporation back in the ’90s, and find his humor still relevant today. After listening to my teacher-wife’s descriptions of her principal and superintendent, I realized that Adams has to branch out—we’re in the age of the Pointy Haired Principal!
The imposition of business management methods on the schools is nothing new; it’s started with the Progressives in the early 20th Century and is well documented by Raymond Callahan’s book on the Cult of Efficiency in Education, which he wrote in 1960. Callahan’s comments are also very true today.
Callahan chastized the teachers who caved to the business reforms a century ago. I hope and pray that teachers today will not put with this. It’s time to strike. Parents don’t understand what’s happening, and until teachers put everything on the line the odds that those of us fighting Bill Gates’s billions won’t get beyond those of a snowball in Hell.
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moosensquirrels:
Re your comment:
“I hope and pray that teachers today will not put with this. It’s time to strike. Parents don’t understand what’s happening, and until teachers put everything on the line the odds that those of us fighting Bill Gates’s billions won’t get beyond those of a snowball in Hell.”
It is fitting that today, January 19, we remember and celebrate the life and the words of Martin Luther King Jr.:
“Courage is an inner resolution to go forward despite obstacles;
Cowardice is submissive surrender to circumstances.
Courage breeds creativity; Cowardice represses fear and is mastered by it.
Cowardice asks the question, is it safe?
Expediency ask the question, is it politic?
Vanity asks the question, is it popular?
But conscience ask the question, is it right? And there comes a time when we must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular, but one must take it because it is right.”
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Well, put GE2L2R. Thanks.
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You have provided no context on the time period when this happened. You have decided to mock all teachers of American history as purveyors of “fluff and opinions,” without disclosing whether you or not you are a member of the union you dispise.
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15 years ago.
Just as recently as three years ago he was still incompetent or lazy, or both. But, he still was employed as a “teacher” despite his well known reputation because he couldn’t be fired. Of course, like water does, he has sought his own level. Meanwhile, kids didn’t learn a thing.
Let’s not test those kids or the teacher. Let let him do as he wishes and let the kids become adults without having had a full education.
So, I am “mocking all teachers of American history as purveyors of fluff and opinions?” How on earth did you deduce that?
And what about you?
How long did you work in a public K-12 school? When? I would like to know what possible context people have when they see poor teaching, or when they see the teacher promoting her own agenda, but shrug their shoulders and say, “Oh, well.”
How does that help students become learned?
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The bogus narrative that “all public schools are failures” is just as false as “all teachers are excellent.” Try to remember that one rotten apple doesn’t spoil the barrel. As for removing a poor performing teacher, it has always been possible, but there is process to follow.
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It is said, “The only way a teacher can lose his/her job is if they are in prison.”
The truth is, it is so expensive to fire a bad teacher, or a teacher whose attitude poisons the school environment, that districts don’t want to spend the money to do it. Process? Yes, and it gets quite expensive.
Kids are the victims.
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Veritas,
Our biggest problem is retaining teachers, not firing them. About 40% of teachers leave within five years of starting teaching. We should have high standards for entry into the profession. If principals are awarding tenure to incompetent teachers, then we have an administrator problem. And yes, teachers should have due process before termination. They are professionals, not busboys.
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>”Kids are the victims.”
Right. And that’s what privatization deformer gangs are taking kids as hostage for hostile takeover of public education by thrusting phony, bogus, unscientific measures called standardized testing and VAMpire machine. Alternative measures? Charters, vouchers, iPads? Forget it. None of them has ever made remarkable outcome in terms of student’s academic progress. So, they use economic statistics as strategic deception.
And in even some nations that have different education system from US, kids are being victimized for various reasons–such as nation’s pie-in-the-sky educational ambition–such as institutionalizing national examination hell or test-based knowledge system to become #1 in PISA tests. Or some country like Japan where education ministry is requiring all Japanese of English to teach English in second(oh wait, it’s foreign) language(!)–without considering the psychological stress students have to deal with to pass high school or college-entrance exams. History repeats itself. Right?
All kids learn after they get out of school is how much education is being assaulted by power-that-be and corrupted politicians who have little or no academic or research experience whatsoever in K-12. And this is going to be a global trend. Screw that “globalization” in the marketplace narrative by an international testing giant.
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As I see it, our biggest problem is making it affordable to execute due process and remove poor and unprofessional teachers. They are a scant minority, I believe.
Our next biggest problem is finding a way to motivate those who don’t understand personal accountability without shifting power into the hands of weak administrators with limited intellectual powers and limited leadership skills.
Then, we would need some concessions from the progressive crowd that students who don’t do well in school must either be poor or disadvantaged in some way, and therefore cannot be held accountable. Smart college kids don’t want to enter a classroom thinking they must be made in the image and likeness of Sidney Portier in order to be a successful school teacher.
Do these things and then we can talk about getting more people, and better qualified, to become teachers.
Last, once we take care of these things, maybe the reform movement will pack up and leave.
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“Then, we would need some concessions from the progressive crowd that students who don’t do well in school must either be poor or disadvantaged in some way, and therefore cannot be held accountable.”
Say what!? Who ever told you that progressive and accountable are opposites? Recognizing a child’s roadblocks to learning and giving them a pass because of them is not progressive. Recognizing roadblocks and trying to help them to deal with them is. Not holding students accountable, I’m guessing, is a reference to passing students when their work does not justify it. Of course that is an oversimplification of the problem, and you know it. It has nothing to do with whether a person holds “progressive” views or not. Are you really interested in advancing the conversation?
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I apologize for not responding sooner.
I would say this about roadblocks:
First, we must not assume that all children who don’t learn have some type of roadblock. I base this on my own observations.
We must push them to do better and we should make it clear that not trying your hardest will result in a penalty–retention, perhaps.
The goal should be to separate the “Can-do’s but won’t” from the “Truly cannot do.” That, without a moment of hesitation, is how I see things.
To make an analogy, I would shrink the tumor and then treat it.
I also strongly believe that there is too much waste in public education: waste of time, money, and effort.
Once we know the students who truly have roadblocks, I would pay proven teachers (specialists) double or triple to help these poor kids. I would recuse myself from that privilege since I cannot effectively teach students who are far below grade level. There are great people who could help these kids. I think more money is not the answer; re-allocating money and wiser spending could be an answer. The union must not object to the pay discrepancy. If they do, they contradict any claim of being ‘pro-student.’
While there are true roadblocks for our students, it has now become expected that everyone should get a pass. My teachers in the ’60’s always held the line by saying, “if i do that for you, I have to do it for everyone else.” This is not true today, and carte blanche exceptions for too many people who could otherwise help themselves, in my opinion, rule the day. We’ve made students weak and passive in many cases.
Of course, I sound like a conservative who might not really care about people. I just want to teach those who can do to actually believe in themselves, stop being lazy and cruising through the system, and then find the truly needy children and throw lots of money JUST AT THEM.
This may not be a satisfactory answer for you, but I learned the value of “pushing” under-achievers when I taught private school kids many years ago. I am still surprised at how many students, not all, rose to the level of competency.
Now, if you care to make some final comments, I welcome them, but I must move on and focus on the task of work.
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It’s difficult to accuse the general US teacher population with laziness. They are insanely overworked which is inexcusable since their main task is to motivate children, to show them the beauty and excitement in the world around them.
Think about the fact that US teachers teach 1100 hours per school year while Finish teachers’ yearly load is 700 hours. US teachers teach the second most hours according this statistics
Click to access 48631419.pdf
As you can see, the average is 800 hours. The 1100 hours is 40% more than the 800. Does the richest country in the world want to say, it doesn’t have money to change this statistics? It would be pretty embarrassing to claim this even for tea party fans.
If this statistics changes, the profession will be more attractive to highly qualified people. I promise. 🙂
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Wierdimate,
I am 60 years old and can still teach 6 high school periods bell to bell. Students don’t need less instructional time! Most teachers are highly qualified.
Tell me, why do teachers fight so viciously for the best classes each year (high school)? Perhaps that is unique only to my school. In fact, it just may be. Why aren’t those teachers who create this hostile and unprofessional environment removed? Why aren’t they disciplined? Why does admin side with them? Some intimidation from the bottom up, perhaps.
If I must write a book about the behind the scenes horrors of selfish teachers and weak administrators, then that might stir things up.
Here’s a gem: one of our site union reps said to another colleague, “If I can get the principal to give her (another teacher) an awful schedule, we might get her to retire.” The SHE was an excellent teacher and she did retire out of frustration! You’d think the union rep would be trained to defend rather than defenestrate.
I’ve got more. It’s a horror show.
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Interesting. Year after year, I talk to students whom I had recommended highly for teaching jobs, and who tell me about high stress, burn out due to long hours, lack of academic freedom. Since other countries all task teachers much less than here, I conclude my experience is typical, and yours is exceptional.
My own kids are in the supposedly best high school in Memphis, and they have no free time during the day, and even weekends and breaks are filled with projects, home works.
At the university, I get the “outcome” of this system which wants to control every minute of a child’s time: the student who doesn’t know how to think, doesn’t dare to experiment with new ideas, and is mostly trained to follow instructions.
.
Teachers, students need time to reenergize, students need to find out what their own thoughts are.
The paranoia that US students are behind other countries’ students because they don’t put enough hours in is unfounded. So is the belief that so much has happened in science in recent years that students need to learn more than a generation ago.
Even at the university, I mostly teach math that was invented in the sixteen-seventeen hundreds. Calculus books are getting heavier, ever more expensive, but the essential material hasn’t change for 300 years.
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You make some valid points, but some of us in the profession wonder why so many students are fatigued when they do so little? You might not see those types of students. Motivated students in AP classes do, as you say, a great deal of work with added pressure. But, they are resilient and generally reap the rewards later.
Would you argue that the Common Core, in and of itself, was created to address the problem of “students not being taught to think?”
Math teachers tell me it is very conceptual, uses multiple representations with real world examples to teach difficult topics such as functions. They also tell me that sometimes they must deviate from this approach because the students need drill. Or, are you against the Common Core?
As for teachers being burned out, we all get tired but we have plenty of time to recuperate. And, most of my colleagues don’t complain about academic freedom, but about the political nonsense and power struggles that occur, along with the top-heavy administrative demands that are here today and gone tomorrow.
Also, notice that few care to address my comments here. I was wondering if they have come to the conclusion that the comments are “personal” and therefore are not important to the discussion. The personal comments and observations exist and are the direct result of a system that does not have, but needs, mechanisms for making people work within certain professional guidelines. Educators should not be exempt.
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Veritas,
If I remember the stats correctly, teachers in the US spend 70% of their time disciplining in lower grades. Even at a university, it’s difficult to hold the attention of students for one hour. Nobody enjoys listening to even Robin Williams for 6-7×55 minutes a day, with only a 5 min break in between. Does anybody claim, this schedule was conceived with the kids’ best educational interest in mind?
Yeah, I know math teachers who do claim, they have no problem teaching 6 hours—but then I get their students at the university with a clear attitude towards math. The disconnect between teachers and students is among the greatest in math. When somebody finds out that I am a math prof, there’s a 90% chance that the first reaction will be “I hate math”. Even other univ profs seem to be almost proud to tell me that.
I do believe your own experience, that you teach 6 hours a day, and your students enjoy every minute of it; that your students have time and energy to think about their own take on issues, and you listen to them a lot. But, it’s highly arguable that your experience is applicable to the general population.
On the other hand, it does seem to be the case that there’s a vast amount of “we object to testing, test based accountability, corporate influence, etc” on this blog, but there’s not much description of the teacher-preferred alternative system that makes sure that high quality teaching is happening. If somebody writes “teachers need to be accountable for how my tax dollar is spent on education”, it doesn’t mean, they are paid by corporations, and a non-personal response would be useful to all. A “teachers shouldn’t be held accountable” is not a useful answer.
But again, I haven’t seen older posts on this blog, so my impression could be wrong.
Space is too small for common core. Imo, the basic educational idea is not necessarily bad (this is why many people got sold on it), the implementation is. This top-down, military management style doesn’t work well in education which is inherently democratic.
I think teachers and the public should take academic freedom seriously again to restore democracy in education.
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If teachers spend 70% of their time disciplining it is because they’ve been brought up poorly at home, if at all. The lack of a proper beginning in the home then manifests itself in the school. Unfortunately, schools because they are “democratic,” are confused about how to deal with discipline. Most here don’t believe in adult authority. That is step one among the destructive ideas driving up the cost of education and thus over complicating the true mission of educating children.
“Nobody enjoys listening…” and you are correct, which is why students cannot learn. They’ve been taught at an early age to talk without listening. By the time they get to you and me, they just want to socialize because they believe that they are in school to do just that. You should know this. They are supposed to construct their own understanding of math, if that is possible prior to a certain age. Our students, however, are not like Plato’s; and like you, I can judge the teachers before me when the kids don’t know and understand terms like minuend, subtrahend, and difference; or dividend, divisor, and quotient. In not knowing these terms, it becomes possible for them to say, “Subtract two from ten” when clearly the problem tells them to do the opposite; or “Ten divided by two is the same as two divided by ten.” Words matter, and so do algorithms. The only thing that stops me from judging elementary teachers is I know where the problem lies: its the friggin system. Even my students, who I sometimes chastise, hear me tell them that the system has made them, conditioned them, to think that they can just show up: of course, the district didn’t retain them when they didn’t master the material; that would be undemocratic! Either that or the district didn’t provide them with an adequate teacher. I don’t defend adults. The kids have been harmed by education players who don’t believe in truth. They are relativists. Those kids are conditioned to think they can just show up because attendance, self esteem, and matriculation matter more than mastery.
It’s part of that pathetic excuse that kids don’t learn because they are either poor, handicapped, or disadvantaged.
You stated you might be inclined to believe my students enjoy every minute with me, and you are correct for the most part. They keep telling me they enjoy my class, but they don’t learn enough from me because they CAN’T; it’s too late when they are four or more grade levels behind and they are trying to learn a high school subject. Another false idea propagated by public education theorists who’ve screwed generations of kids out of a better life because they don’t want them obedient to adults and they don’t want them to sweat and work at learning because it must, above all, be fun and easy. Jo Boaler has done a great deal of work trying to get kids to love math; the problem is that it makes the teacher cater to students desire for play over work and it assumes that just because kids don’t do well in math, there must, absolutely must, be something wrong with instruction. So, now, we cannot be ourselves as teachers: we must be like Jo Boaler, or any university researcher saying the same thing.
I have a simpler plan: fix the system and save a ton of money.
Life doesn’t work the way that some people dream.
So much for education needing to be democratic.
I responded to Diane’s post because I thought of the pathetic excuse for a teacher who has no business being a teacher, who now wreaks havoc being a discriminatory union boss. I responded because the ideas that are presented on this site are flat out wrong and do damage to student learning. Blame rich people, corporations (I don’t like their power or influence any more than I like big, bad government’s influence and tendency to ruin), blame men, blame white men, blame successful people, blame America.
The dream of equalizing people is only ruining children, and they aren’t poor kids or people of color. I am speaking from my experience where I currently work, and I don’t need statistics to tell me to shut up.
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Ah, so we are then talking about understanding that there are two basic groups of people (George Lakoff): those whose family has a dominant authority figure (usually the father) who makes most of the decisions, and those whose family is nurturing, and the decision making is more democratic.
The first type of people believe kids need to be disciplined, corrected to be proper citizens, and they need to earn everything; they don’t deserve anything just by being born. The second type of people believe kids have the right to many free stuff, like healthcare, education.
About 30% of the US population is of the first type and 30% is of the second. The rest is somewhere in between. But the two “solid” groups usually don’t change their opinion, and the best that can be achieved is that they respect each others’ views.
Science usually cannot be done very well in an authoritative environment. Correspondingly, it’s not a great idea to teach science in a lecture format where kids take notes, and memorize concepts, follow recipes.
My kids’ math books contain more concepts, definitions, formulas than I use in my research. Nuts.
The current ed system failed my son’s education: the incredibly gifted kid was full of unusual ideas how to approach math problems, but since 6th grade, nobody has been interested in what he has to say. Math education with all these exams, tests has no time for individual input. Obedience is the norm.
My daughter’s least favorite subject is math since she has to learn all these definitions, concepts by heart. They make sense for the tests, but their value is close to zero for understanding math.
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Oh, yeah, you are right. Today, let’s kill the following:
patriarchy
discipline
obedience
truth
God
personal responsibility
duty
families
I’m just wondering why you said science and authority are incompatible? I thought science was practiced by the authoritative Catholic Church in the Middle Ages. No matter. Some subjects are more hands on than others.
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Oh, and patriotism…it has to go to too.
And the Founders of the US Constitution were just kidding when they spoke of separation of powers and limited government.
And the Ancient Greek philosophers are just tools of the rich, white guys.
Chesterton said it best when speaking of early man:
Civilization first appeared when the fathers began to stay at home.
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Veritas wrote “And the Ancient Greek philosophers are just tools of the rich, white guys.”
I wish all teachers read Plato and contemplate how much they would want to change Socrates’ apparent teaching methods and Plato’s way of writing textbooks. They may even think about giving more coverage to him and some of the other ancient guys.
It wouldn’t be a waste of time due to their relevance in current thought and science: for example, one of the two main current physical theories, Quantum Mechanics, was inspired by ancient Greek philosophers’ work.
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a highly qualified teacher knows his or her subject material. He or she also knows what works with students and what units are very difficult for students (Industrial Revolution/ Russian Revolution, “Cold” War; or in English conventions of grammar or literary devices). Putting too much emphasis on “the scantron God” (standardized testing) takes away from the teacher’s class and eventually makes his or her grades meaningless. If the grades become meaningless then classroom motivation and discipline decay too. If all the emphasis is “accountability” the temptation for administrators or teachers to cheat or let the students teach is enormous. We have an APEX program on the computer so students can make up credits. I only know the program indirectly from students and from subbing occasionally in that room. I find it amazing that students who are completely incompetent can pass all their APEX tests in just weeks and get credits for a Semester or Two Semester class. But then who is really taking the tests? Students tell me there is a black market business to log in with someone else’s ID and take the test. The time to do this is when the classroom teacher is absent. The teacher of record knows the students and has a special screen to watch log in and monitor each screen from his or her desk. But substitutes do not have access to that screen and cannot monitor (easily) log ins. All they can see is students are “on task” taking the test. If there is a way to cheat (using cell phones to take pictures of a good student’s screens or test papers) or having someone else log in for you using your password it will be done. Belief in mass testing like this is scientism. Mass testing is merely a dip stick. Ask any classroom teacher who has graded A VARIETY of assignments (maps, essays, charts, short answer etc.) and that teacher will know more correctly the academic level of student than a scantron test alone. And more importantly that teacher will know what remediation the student needs. I find mass testing an important piece of information to VERIFY and CLARIFY what I already know -the student has low reading ability or the student cannot do basic arithmetic or does not know literary devices or has poor grammar or punctuation skills. But once that information is shared it is up to the teacher to motivate and instruct the student. And yes, the student has to be willing. I had an Asia student who is a senior. He was DESPERATE to pass his English exit exam. He asked if he could study with me after school and during lunch for SIX WEEKS prior to the exit exam. In addition he attended Saturday sessions with other teachers. The result? He improved his CAHSEE (exit exam) score not 5 points or 10 but 39 points easily passing the exam (350 is passing and ALMOST scoring “proficient at grade level” 378 -380 is proficient). I don’t need to add he improved more than any other of his peers. One could put students in two categories : 1) those with almost 100% attendance and who also came for extra tutoring whenever they could 2) those with poor attendance -long tardies and 20% or more absenteeism who NEVER came for tutoring and who only occasionally completed class assignments. Most in the second category (not all) failed. Those who passed showed very little improvement and most passed by one 1 point or more. BEWARE OF THE SCANTRON GOD. BEWARE of COMMON CORE COMPUTER TESTS as a panacea. At best they are an imperfect dipstick. Such tests should inform classroom teachers. They should not drive graduation rates or have anything to do with school rankings or school sanctions. Quizzes and tests should be used only as review exercises to help students learn and to help them identify their deficiencies. The real test, as my old DI said, is the battlefield. The real test as I tell my students…is life itself. Learn as if your life and career depended on it. Because it does.
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In the article, professor Klein writes “The press even believed that this was
done in a silent agreement with the respective governor since in the USA this method
of achieving better ranking positions has developed its own culture taken from the field of sport. ”
I don’t know if this was covered in this blog since it isn’t searchable, but what if the competition is completely taken out of education? Isn’t that where the problems began? Just assign pass fail grades. Isn’t that how it was in the beginning?
Emphasizing cooperation instead of competition would take the wind out of the sail of the reformers: there would be no race to the top, there would be nothing to measure, to rank.
Prof Klein and many people seem to be nostalgic about how education was, say, 15 years ago. Was it really that great? When I came to this country for grad school 30 years ago, I was shocked to see how much students were studying to the test, and it was next to impossible to motivate them to study in any other way but giving them tests and quizzes. That was the culture they brought with them from high school.
As for retaining teachers, are you guys sure, the high turnover rate is due to the recent accountability measures? One of the main (imo, THE main) task of a teacher is to make students excited about the subject she is teaching. My understanding is that US publc school teachers teach 6 classes a day with barely noticeable breaks between classes. At least this is what I know to be true here in Memphis, Nashville. Then there is grading, preparing, communicating with parents, etc. Nobody can stay enthusiastic under such a load.
This emphasis on keeping students excited should explain to the public why teachers need to work less hours than other professionals. Most countries do realize this and accept it. Does the US? Well, US teachers and students have a much greater load than most the countries with exemplary education systems. According to this stat, only Chile makes its teachers work more than the US.
Click to access 48631419.pdf
So US teachers teach 1100 hours per school year, Finnish teachers teach 700 hours, the average load in the participating countries is 800 hours. Think about these numbers a bit.
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@veritas, maybe you should write a book just to have a glimpse of what is reality for some. It would complement the picture. I have seen and suffered bad teaching by teachers. To state the obvious, the label itself, i.e.the teacher, even when certified, does not equal good teaching. And I have suffered gridlock when poor teaching is embedded in poor systems. I can understand your frustration.
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PS: I work in education in the country that tops the US in teaching hours!
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Most teachers are doing a great job. I know a fine teacher who is being victimized by colleagues who resent her ability to teach out of her credentialed field. She also is politically conservative and not fond of unions. People are making her life miserable and you would think admin would protect her.
They don’t. And, why doesn’t it matter that she does so well that kids and parents like her? She’s treated like a number.
Someone once said, “Education politics are so fierce because so little is at stake.” I would tend to agree with the hypothesis of that statement.
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