Today I came across a review of the new film, Waiting for Superman, at Pajiba, one of my favorite movie review sites. Go here for the review and all of the comments http://www.pajiba.com/film_reviews/waiting-for-superman-review-hey-teachers-leave-them-kids-alone.php#comment-419002 Of course, the discussion turned to what exactly is wrong with education today, and here is what I said:
1. NEA is not a union; it is a professional organization. In my state, we are not allowed to form unions, so I have to rely on NEA for my professional insurance (which I pay every month for). I have to have this insurance in case a student's family wants to sue me directly, so please don't bash the NEA. It has its flaws, but it has essentially no influence or power in my state.
2. Tenure is also not an option for me. Again, in my state, I have to renew my certification every five years. Don't assume that just because a teacher has been at it for a while that she (and it usually is a she) is sitting on her ass doing nothing.
3. It is extremely difficult to measure what makes a good teacher, and test scores do not tell the entire story. Last year, my students' scores were off the charts amazing. I only had 6 out of all 100+ of my students not pass the end of course test that my state requires. My AP Language students' scores were also 10 points higher than the national average. However, my students this year are much, much lower than my kids last year, so if my abilities as a teacher were to be measured simply by test scores, it would look like I have gotten worse.
Most proposals for merit-pay are tied to measuring a teacher's worth through test scores. This is the easiest way for administrators, parents, etc. to measure a teacher's effectiveness and value, but it should not be the only way. It is very difficult and time consuming to measure what makes a good teacher, and most states aren't willing to create a reliable way of doing this that doesn't only go by test scores.
There are also some serious concerns about the effectiveness of merit pay based on this recent study from Vanderbilt. We should be very cautious. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/09/21/AR2010092103413.html
4. Bad teachers should be canned. I know I said that it's hard to determine what a good teacher looks like, but it's pretty easy to determine what a bad teacher looks like. Teachers who only give out worksheets, never push their students with challenging assignments, constantly yell, etc. are probably bad teachers. When I can hear a teacher two rooms down from me and across the hall yelling at her students every day, I think I can pretty safely say she is a bad teacher. When I hear the teacher next door to me finish the day's lesson (which is usually a worksheet) with an hour left in class and the students just sit and talk with one another, it's safe to say she's a bad teacher.
5. Parents and students have very little responsibility in education today. If a student does not do well, the blame is put on the teacher. The "unofficial" policy at our school is that no student fails a class without the teacher notifying the parent before the end of the semester. I guess the three progress reports that the school sends out and allowing parents to electronically access their child's grades at any point in the school year isn't enough notification.
6. The entire system needs to be changed. As much as I enjoy American literature, I know that the majority of my students aren't interested in it. Frankly, I find it hard to justify why they need this class to graduate. It would be much more beneficial if I could teach a writing class to my students and let the literature part of the current curriculum be an elective. As it is, there is so much pressure to get through a certain number of novels and short stories each year that writing is put on the back burner. As a result, many of my juniors come to me not able to write a complete, coherent sentence, but they know all about one or two particular pieces of literature. We need to have a serious discussion in this country about what it means to be educated and what skills and abilities we should require of our students. Our current curriculum is too focused on content rather than skill.
That's about it for now. I've gone on for far too long, and I'm getting very tired of making these points again and again whenever conversations about education come up.
