I attended an education reform conference last week as part of a panel on the "new media landscape" before a group of advocates and funders. I had the chance to sit in on a few other sessions, and some of what I heard got me thinking about the phenomenon of so-called "teacher-bashing."
Like many phrases tossed about in the current education debate, "teacher-bashing" is overused to the point of abuse. Up to now, I've tended to side with education advocates who scorn the phrase because it's trotted out by teachers' union spokespeople and their allies whenever someone criticizes a contract provision, or tenure, or speaks in favor of using standardized test scores as part of a teacher's evaluation.
But the more I listen to the way some "reform" advocates talk about teachers, the more I hear an underlying disdain that helps me understand why some educators are quick to trot out the "teacher-bashing" canard.
Here's the crux of the problem as I see it. People who denigrate some teachers for not being good enough to meet society's current educational demands are aiming their disdain at the wrong target.
Rotate your perception about 90 degrees and you'll see it differently. Yes, there are ample studies and reports that find a large percentage of today's teachers come from the lower third of their college graduating class. There are also compelling new studies that show schools of education are guilty of rampant grade inflation. To top it all off, teacher licensing exams in most states are calibrated so low that few people fail them.
Add those factors together and what you get in the aggregate is a teaching force that consists of people who have not had to demonstrate a great deal of skill, knowledge or capability to land a teaching job. Within the teaching force are many people who, despite not having had to demonstrate it, are in fact skilled, knowledgeable and highly capable.
But there are others who aren't particularly skilled, knowledgeable or capable (or some combination of the three). And because there are 3.2 million teaching jobs in U.S. public schools and our quality-control systems are dysfunctional or non-existent, some of those people get teaching jobs and spend their careers teaching.
Are they to blame for this? Of course not. Yet this is where the "teacher-bashers" enter, and where those who criticize the bashers have a legitimate point. It's absurd to blame someone for landing a stable job with decent pay and great benefits for which they perhaps aren't qualified. We're blaming the wrong people. If we want in the aggregate to have a higher-quality teaching force then we need to do a couple of basic things.
First, we need to make schools of education less academic and more geared to realities of modern classrooms. Then we need to make those ed schools more selective.
Next, we must make teaching jobs more desirable by offering teaching candidates a relevant, high-quality training regimen (teacher residency programs, for example), before they enter the field and throughout their teaching careers. And then we need to trust teachers and give them the kind of autonomy and authority that creative people need to feel fulfilled in their jobs.
Finally, we need to pay teachers what they're worth. Among other things, this means doing away with the traditional salary schedule.
Look, I'm not saying anything original here about how to make teaching a more desirable field.
But in the rhetorical wars that have broken out in recent years, some well-intentioned people have started blaming teachers for not being good enough when they should be blaming the institutions that have made teaching jobs in public schools both too easy to get and too often exercises in bureaucratic frustration.
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-I agree. The target of disdain SHOULD be parents unfit to have children in the first place.
“But in the rhetorical wars that have broken out in recent years, some well-intentioned people have started blaming teachers for not being good enough when they should be blaming the institutions that have made teaching jobs in public schools both too easy to get and too often exercises in bureaucratic frustration.”
-I got my BA in one subject, then, busted my chops to earn the requisite credits to earn a teachers certification. Since, I have strived to improve the lives and learning of my students.
What PO’s teachers most, is when feds and other dilettantes with power fire ENTIRE schools populated by student of parents who DESPISE learning, knowledge, and standard English.
I'm a teacher and I don't know of a single school system in the US that doesn't have a means to fire bad teachers. What I see is a lack of will in administrators to administrate. Every single teacher I know is under a 180 day contract that has the ability not to be renewed. I've seen teachers jobs mysteriously disappear in May due to "school population fluctuations" and the teacher let go and then on Sept 1 we suddenly have the kids show up and another teacher is hired. Do I think those teachers were fired? I sure do.
There are two parts to a teacher's job. One part is their effectiveness in the classroom and the other part is their skill at being good bureaucrats. I've seen great bureaucrats who were lousy teachers and I've seen great teachers that couldn't turn a piece of paper in to the office on time to save their souls. When your husband talks about bad teachers, which ones is he talking about? What is "bad" and if the teachers are bad for the kids, why is he tolerating them?
I've been reading about a new iniatative in Iowa to create apprentice, career, mentor and master teacher levels and I think that's really an interesting concept. Master teachers would have 20% of their time going to apprentice teacher's classrooms to show them how it's done.
One VERY good comment I read was the suggestion that their proposal is all backwards. Why take the Master teachers away from students and give apprentice teachers kids to practice on? Apprentice teachers should have lighter loads and go in to the MASTER teacher's classroom for two years instead. Give the master teachers an aide and someone to train. Give the apprentice the experience in a well run classroom. I think that's a great idea.
Hardly innovative.
The only thing the the education industry knows how to do is:
a) Invent more "educationbabble". That requires research an funding.
b) More pay.
c) More paid incentives to get more useless education courses.
d) Avoid ever firing a teacher for not teaching. Only on "moral grounds". Even then, really only if they are caught making porno films or sleeping with their students.
e) The whole public school system needs to be restructured, with teachers understanding that it is to be their first job out of college. One to ten years, then onto something else.
When I am introduced as Dr. Thompson, I get the same respect as I did in previous professions. When I walk into my school as a teacher, I'm treated with the same disrespect I faced as a ditch-digger in the 1970s. Teacher-bashing, by administrators, was unmistakable.
I don't want teachers to have more rights than others, but "reformers" by using vams for high stakes are denying us rights of every other Americans. The government should not take the property (ie job) of an individual without evidence it can link to that individual. Even in an "at will" state, you can't fire a person for their opinions if you are claiming you are firing for cause. That's what's "reformers" are doing in many places. they are driving people from our schools for their opinions, while claiming they are just trying to get everyone "on the same page."
Yes, some teachers suck at what they do. Some teachers should have never gotten into the profession. Heck, I have a friend who made it all the way through a master's program and even got certified to teach, who has no business being in front of a classroom. But, you can give the greatest teacher ever a bunch of students who just don't want to learn, and that teacher will struggle.
Today the poison comes from the right and it's equally irrational. Teachers are called lazy, greedy, incompetent jerks. Politicians and business leaders just nod and pile on. Facts, like what teachers really earn (I make $52K a year and I'm a nationally ranked teacher of the year) and what our vaunted retirement is (mine will be 25K a year with no COL and no Social Security) are ignored.
We wouldn't blame soldiers for the bad decisions of the commanders nor do we would blame policemen for enforcing laws we disagree with. But today it's fashionable to blame teachers for educational failures when the problems in the classroom also come from sloppy administration who refuse to fire the bad teachers out there, irrational state mandates and unsupportive parents.
There are bad teachers. But there are many, many more good teachers who dedicate their lives to YOUR kids and it would be nice if we could do better for them.
I agree that in the media the teacher bashing comes more from the right, but what is more demoralizing - hearing teacher bashing in a generalized way? Or is it the parents who are sending abusive emails and blaming you when their child lies to get out of trouble or doesn't do well? At least in the media there are supporters, on both sides, who are fighting back for teachers. In the schools, or at least in the school I was in, we didn't want to upset the parents so teachers were often "reprimanded" in front of the parents for something that they didn't do.
I'm at the point where I'd love to invite anyone and everyone who bashes teachers to come spend a day in my shoes. They can wake up at the crack of dawn, spend a whole day teaching and managing my classroom of 29 students, grade, plan, attend meetings, deal with parents, and the countless other parts of my job that seem to be forgotten - then we can see if they're going to continue calling me a "glorified babysitter". The real problem is that all of these people, parents and politicians, left and right wing, seem to think that because they attended 3rd grade 20+ years ago they are qualified to judge a 3rd