Alabama is certainly an innovative state. Its political leaders seem to want to take the “reform” drivel about innovation to the very depths. “Reformers” have been saying that teachers don’t need added degrees; they don’t need certification; they don’t need any professional education. Of course, they were promoting TFA.
But Alabama took the claim to an extreme, according to this parent in Huntsville:
It’s even worse now. The state boe passed a resolution on jan. 14, 2016 stating that anyone with a high school diploma can be an adjunct teacher.
This is worse because the subs with a hs diploma couldnt work in a single classroom for longer than a certain amont of time (5 weeks maybe?) But now they can be assigned a class and work indefinitely, as long as it’s part time.
Next, the “reformers” will tell us that we don’t need teachers at all, that computers can teach kids just as well as live humans with an education. Oh, wait, that’s what they are doing already, and they call it “personalized learning,” just you and your computer, face to face.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
(sp) Moron Alabama?
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Unfortunately, the joke here is that under Kasich and the tea party, Ohio is becoming Alabama with ice.
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It figures. When one thinks that nothing could be more stupid and ignorant than what has already been done, they come up with this.
WHAT is this country coming to????
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OMG. Stupid is as stupid does.
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This country is coming to total chaos.
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Each of the people who voted for this should go teach a class for one week without any help from the professional teachers; let’s see how they do.
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“personalized learning,” just you and your computer, face to face.
This won’t work. Soon after getting rid of the teachers, children will learn how to hack the system so they can play video games or watch porn. That is what real “Personalized Learning” means.
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Any politician that voted this into law should have their children or grandchildren subjected to this policy. I would love to challenge someone like Bill Gates to teach for a week.
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“Reformers” have been saying that teachers don’t need added degrees; they don’t need certification; they don’t need any professional education. Of course, they were promoting TFA. “(Quote from Diane)
There certainly is a move to recast the work of educators as a trade, bot a professions, and recently under the rhetorical banner of “elevating educators” and “impacting students”– the usual double speak of reformers. TFA is not the only model. ESSA has a bunch of loop holes and incentives for bypassing typical requirements for being employed as a teacher.
Alabama is just returning to the 19th century and early half of the 20th century, when a high school diploma (perhaps with some courses in a teacher ‘s college) was enough to get a job teaching.
Since at least 2012, the pushers of the Common Core and their friends in high places have been forwarding the general idea that scholarship in and about education and “traditional” credentials don’t matter as long as a person is rated “effective” on the job.
Effective usually means capable of raising test scores and preferably every year…continuous improvement at minimum–better yet producing “more than a year’s worth of growth” in one school year. That feat is one of those fictional possibilities conjured by statisticians, taken much too seriously and uncritically by too many administrators.
ESSA actively encourages hires of people who have “promise as teachers” with a bypass of formal requirements, especially for STEM.
There is a great hoopla in Massachusetts about making all teacher prep coursework fit into the same rubric that is used to evaluate teachers on the job, with student test scores prodcued by graduates of teacher education programs one way of evaluating the “effectiveness” of those programs. “Data-link systems” in development since 2005 will be extended so school-based teacher evaluations are used to evaluate the efficacy of the teacher preparation program… and for up to five years after the first year of employment.
The new system has been in the works for several years, but is now being aided by a $3,928,656 grant from the Bill and Melina Gates Foundation (another $300,000 for start-up costs). The initiative, called ‘Elevate Preparation: Impact Children (EPIC)” will kill off much of what remains as academic freedom for students and faculty in teacher preparation.
Instead, courageous prospective teachers (and everyone who is engaged with their preparation) will be moved through a program where everyone’s performance is audited and documented with checklists galore under an industrial-strength scheme of “human capital and workforce management.” The system is comprised of interlocking parts (multiple gotcha’s). It includes nine forms for auditors of progress and calibrations of this with that, and among many “resources” a spreadsheet with 872 tests available for purchase, or item rating, or swipes (borrowing) from other states.
Here is the new (and grandiose) target for teacher education in Massachusetts:
“The Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (ESE) believes that educator preparation can and should produce teachers who are ready to be effective on day one. We are working toward an ambitious goal that by 2022, candidates prepared in Massachusetts will enter classrooms and demonstrate results on par with peers in their third year of teaching.” http://www.doe.mass.edu/edprep/
This is the face of “outcome only” “impactful” education, with a grand plan to micromanage students and the educator workforce including full scripts for pre-and post observation conferences with student teachers….
I have been looking into the EPIC program for several days. Someone should send the writers of the jargon-filled rhetoric from the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education back to school for some “trainings” and possible “learnings” of new “skill sets” from real teachers of English.
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I can’t think of any career or a whole lot of plain “jobs” where anyone in their right mind would think that they were going to get even near the same level of performance out of a newbie as you get out of a seasoned veteran. Do these people have functioning prefrontal lobes/brains?
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the real irony is that they want “rigor” from individuals who have even less academic content knowledge…
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What’s next? Staffing the Alabama classrooms with Border Collies?
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Well, at least border collies would be orders of magnitude smarter than the people coming up with these policies.
And they love kids too — and kids love them. The collies, that is.
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What’s wrong with that? It was once the rule, I believe in Indiana, that you were eligible to teach any grade you passed. If you passed 3rd grade, you could teach third grade.. Would get rid of the teacher shortage. Murray Levine
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So if you passed Pre K 3, you could teach it? Lovely!
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I believe this is the operating rule at TFA
If you pass their 5 week training program, you are qualified to run the organization.
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Glad that I am retired. The insane are running the state.
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Come on…everybody knows that anyone can teach.
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Yeah, those who can, do; those who can’t, teach.
Krazy TA, we need you to jump in with the correct version of that little ditty.
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Those that CAN teach do, those that can’t, rant.
I hear a lot of self-appointed experts ranting these days when they’ve never stood in front of a classroom.
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I found the quote that Krazy shared with us: “Those that know, do. Those that understand, teach.” ~Aristotle
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..and those that blow “lead”.
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2old2teach: thank you for coming to my rescue!
😃
In appreciation, I include two more of my favorites.
“It is the supreme art of the teacher to awaken joy in creative expression and knowledge.” [Albert Einstein]
“I cannot teach anybody anything, I can only make them think.” [Socrates]
Hey, you know one of the two had to be a very dead and very old and very Greek guy!
😎
P.S. Ok, as an added bonus, let’s try to lighten up a little. And who better to do that than some homegrown talent?
“To be good is noble, but to teach others how to be good is nobler and less trouble.” [Mark Twain]
😏
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I count on you to lighten the mood periodically with some pithy wisdom from Groucho or Mark Twain. Both of them seem well versed in the funnier side of the human condition.
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LOL!
But, it is impossible to teach nobility, like it is impossible to teach integrity. You either is or you ain’t!
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2old2teach: I would thank you but I detect a note of under appreciation for the Marxist underpinnings of self-styled “education reform.”
Give credit where credit is due: where else but among the many members of the education establishment aka leaders and enablers and enforcers of corporate education reform would you find such stern adherents to such perceptive axioms as the following?
“Whoever named it necking was a poor judge of anatomy.” [Groucho]
😏
Oops! Sorry. That’s the answer to the question of “Name a panel at the upcoming TFA ‘Happy Thoughts’ Love Fest.”
Sorry about that.
Susan Lee Schwartz: I would accept your compliment, but I am afraid that when the rheephormsters give me so much material to work with, they deserve all the credit.
Look, when you read that the TENN ASD needs more time to see if proven failures can succeed, you know that they have been reading up on their Henny Youngman:
“If at first you don’t succeed… so much for skydiving.”
😱
I rest my case.
😎
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Sadly enough….we can’t blame this one on the legislators. Our State BOE voted this in…UNANIMOUSLY. I have a video of the vote. They spoke of career tech classes and how important it is to have people with particular skills (like welding) come in and teach the kids. They felt, for the career tech field, a certificate was not necessary and the process to long and drawn out.
HOWEVER, the resolution states something vastly different. It’s obvious, once you read it, this had little to do with career tech and a whole lot to do with getting cheaper labor in.
Thank you, Dr. Ravitch, for bringing attention to this.
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In NYS even the teacher assistants need post high school training.
Back to those one room school houses with unmarried young women teaching students not much younger than themselves.
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Hey! I went to one of those schools in the ’50’s. K-3, in an upstate-NY hamlet– clapboard w/bell in the cupola c.1823. Taught by one married, certified & seasoned educator who did an excellent job. 4th-6th in a somewhat larger village w/2-3 grades per classroom, equally well-staffed. Those same ladies later were the veterans at the spiffy new elementaries attended by my younger sibs. They were part of a long tradition of excellence.
And their forebears from the early-20thc. were far more educated than their farm-wife contemporaries, & old enough: students rarely attended beyond the age of 13
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Virginia,
I am sorry that I deleted your comment, but I warned you yesterday that I would not post any more comments from you about the value of VAM and how smart kids (TFA) are so superior to experienced teachers. Enough is enough.
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So I guess this is what they mean when they say “Back to Basics”.
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A tradition of excellence being shredded by Alabama et al. They are not turning the clock back, they’re throwing it out the window (like the moron did).
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Well, this whole reformy thing is being driven by a fellow who dropped out of college: Bill Gates.
So the idea that teachers don’t need a college degree is actually quite billogical
“Pattern for Success”
Gates dropped out
Which bred success
Little doubt
That dropout’s best
Design a test
That none can pass
And Gates’ success
Is theirs at last!
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Reblogged this on Politicians Are Poody Heads and commented:
So, by this logic, if you learn to play “Chopsticks” on the piano, you can teach music. If you can draw a simple stick figure, you can teach art. If you know what escargot and Roquefort are, you can not only teach foreign languages, you can teach cooking, as well.
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Diane, thank you for spreading awareness about the assaults on public education in Alabama! We need all the help we can get down here! I would love to see people like Diane Ravitch, Peter Greene, and Carol Burris at a public hearing in front of our legislators. We truly appreciate your spreading the word and for the work you are doing to defend our public schools.
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