Our school system is moving toward a business model, providing accountability for process and product in the classroom. While it is tedious and time consuming at times, it does focus the classroom teacher on what measurable difference is being made by our application of curriculum and methodology.
But one factor is still missing in the equation, no matter what changes we make in the schools and the classrooms. The parents have to be held accountable for the behavior and performance of their students before real, measurable success can take place. If we have no buy in from the parent we rarely get buy in from the student.
I have lived in Europe, and my children have attended European schools. The family knows from the first day in preschool that their child's behavior and performance will determine their future. They DO NOT see the educational system as a right, they recognize it as a priviledge, and treat it as such. Teachers are held in high esteem and their reports and input to the family hold their weight because teachers are looked upon as trained professionals. When the school has to buckle on standards and put up with destructive and disruptive behavior because parents might sue, we lose the power in the classroom to be effective and constructive.
America as a whole has to change their perspective on what a free, appropriate public education is before we can make progress toward excellence. Standards for ALL of us, teachers, administrators, parents and students, need to be defined and enforced without exception.
13 years in this business has taught me one thing. I can and do make a difference with my students every day. Almost all of them show measurable academic progress. Some of them soar. And some find that they are valuable in the eyes of at least one person in their life. It can't be measured, but I know it's there, from the look in their eyes to the enthusiatic hugs and thank you's I receive when I run into former students "in the real world." That's the greatest reward I will every receive from teaching.
If I wanted to be rich, I would have been a lawyer!
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Obama’s No-Brainer on Education
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If Stern can say that, why not Obama? All the criticism of Obama's moving to the center is misguided. General elections are won among moderate swing voters, many of whom would respond well to a Democratic candidate willing to show he can slip the ideological stranglehold of a retrograde liberal interest group. Obama's right that the NCLB-inspired testing mania is out of control, but wrong to give teachers "ownership over the design of better assessment tools." That's a recipe for no assessment, because the teachers unions, for all their lip service, don't believe their members should be judged on performance. They still believe that protecting incompetents is more important than educating children.
Obama claims that he's bold on this topic. But he hasn't been direct enough about reforming NCLB so that it revolves around clear measurements of classroom-teacher effectiveness. Research shows that this is the only variable (not class size or school size) that can close the achievement gap. Give poor kids from broken homes the best teachers, and most learn. Period.
To get there, Obama should hold a summit of all 50 governors and move them toward national standards and better recruitment, training and evaluation of teachers. He should advocate using Title I federal funding as a lever to encourage "thin contracts" free of the insane work rules and bias toward seniority, as offered by the brilliant new superintendent in Washington, D.C., Michelle Rhee. He should offer federal money for salary increases, but make them conditional on differential pay (paying teachers based on performance and willingness to work in underserved schools, which surveys show many teachers favor) and on support for the elimination of tenure. And the next time he addresses them, he should tell the unions they must change their focus from job security and the protection of ineffective teachers to higher pay and true accountability for performance—or face extinction.
© 2008
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