Academic slums ( Dumb Government Teachers)

http://jewishworldreview.com/cols/williams121907.php3 ^ | Dec. 19, 2007 | Walter Williams

[wintertime]

(snip)

American education will never be improved until we address one of the problems seen as too delicate to discuss. That problem is the overall quality of people teaching our children. Students who have chosen education as their major have the lowest SAT scores of any other major. Students who have graduated with an education degree earn lower scores than any other major on graduate school admissions tests such as the GRE, MCAT or LSAT. Schools of education, either graduate or undergraduate, represent the academic slums of most any university. As such, they are home to the least able students and professors with the lowest academic respect. Were we serious about efforts to improve public education, one of the first things we would do is eliminate schools of education.

The inability to think critically makes educationists fall easy prey to harebrained schemes, and what's worse, they don't have the intelligence to recognize that the harebrained scheme isn't working.

(snip)

[metmom]

Public Education Ping

This list is for articles relating to public education. mcvey and republican professor have asked me to take over the list. If you want on or off this ping list, please FReepmail me.

[metmom]

ANOTHER REASON TO HOMESCHOOL

This ping list is for the “other” articles of interest to homeschoolers about education and public school. If you want on/off this list, please freepmail me. The main Homeschool Ping List by DaveLoneRanger handles the homeschool-specific articles. This is becoming a fairly high volume list.

[mysterio]

Having gone through public schools myself, I don’t believe our schools are deficient hellholes. I saw kids (that applied themselves) get great educations, and I saw other kids (who jerked around and never took a book home) fail. Parents were the difference.

[Physicist]

Not to say that teachers are not aquatically paid

That sounds appropriate for a curriculum that has been watered down.

[Some Fat Guy in L.A.]

I know an 8th grader whose “advanced” math teacher’s idea of teaching math is to let the kids watch reruns of “Numbers”.

[DeLaine]

Thinking critically is a necessity for a teacher. Hmmmm.

[metmom]

Actually, if the teachers are, in fact, at the lower end of the spectrum in general, that means that all those parents who homeschool their kids, who are not teaching majors, are actually better qualified to teach their own children than your average public school teacher.

[DeLaine]

Come and stick up for yourself. :)

[gracesdad]

“In the late 80’s, I worked part time as a file clerk in the education department at my college. I looked at a lot of high school and college transcripts of education majors. A majority of these transcripts were filled with C’s and D’s. “

Where I live you don’t get into college with a transcript like that, not even as an education major.

[mysterio]

Anyone who feels their skills are better than the vast majority of teachers can easily transition into the profession. Perhaps more should consider doing so. I am considering it, though not for any reasons of ego. I won’t do it until I feel I can do as good of a job as my parents do every day.

[gracesdad]

“I know an 8th grader whose “advanced” math teacher’s idea of teaching math is to let the kids watch reruns of “Numbers”.”

Time to get out of that school. My son took geometry.

[VOA]

The fact that Walter Williams and Thomas Sowell aren’t lauded as
national treasures from every rooftop morning, noon and night is a
national disgrace.
The fact that they are invisible to the MSM is a crime.

Well said.
A year ago or so, Thomas Sowell was interviewed for a half-hour on
FOX News (by Fred Barnes?).
When I told my fairly educated and conservative parents that they
needed to watch this Thomas Sowell interview, they said
"Thomas Who?".

That's when I realized how effective the MSM is when they want
to make someone, even a major mind, into a "non-person".
(A lesson they learned from the Soviets, I suppose.)

[TruthConquers]

“And the teachers are supposed to remedy that problem? Impossible.”

So, are you admitting that public government schools will be a failure in inner city schools? That the very idea of forced compulsory attendance of masses of children does not work, and the teachers are not accountable for, the results?
Because the parents are more responsible?

Then why have the money stolen from the public for massive fraud of so called “education?”

If it really all just comes down to the “parents involvement”, you MUST admit that the schools will always fail.

[VOA]

bump for Walter Williams...
my favorite fill-in host for Rush!

[BikerJoe]

In the late 80’s, I worked part time as a file clerk in the education department at my college. I looked at a lot of high school and college transcripts of education majors. A majority of these transcripts were filled with C’s and D’s. Dr Williams column is spot on.

My wife works at a computerized testing center (they test doctors, accountants, insurance people, teachers, GRE, MCAT etc.)

I won't say that ALL the teachers who are tested there are stupid, but by far, the stupidest people tested there are teachers, as far as not understanding things, not following directions, lacking common sense and "other" problems.(Like the girl who started to masturbate because "she was nervous")

[TruthConquers]

“...one of the first things we would do is eliminate schools of education. “

This is the crux of the problem.

Eliminate the schools of education, because the last thing they actually teach has nothing to do with a real education. Period.

[eleni121]

bump!

[JenB]

Even if competent people were allowed en masse to become teachers without jumping through the education industry’s hoops, it wouldn’t be a good thing. the new, hihgly qualified teachers would probably do a good job, but who would do their jobs? If you take the hundred thousand smartest people in the country and make them teachers, all of a sudden a lot of airplanes won’t get flown, hearts won’t get transplanted, inventions won’t be made... the country would fall apart.

[metmom]

The problem with transitioning into teaching is four years of a teaching degree that costs money and is useless for anything else.

When I went to college many years ago, the college I attended had a teaching degree program. The courses from that program were not interchangeable with those from any other degree program.

I have my degree in meteorology and have had science courses at the college level in everything except geology. These were courses specifically required for science majors so were generally recognized as more rigorous that the teaching major science courses. Yet they will not transfer into a teaching degree program.

I would not be interested in going through four years of college again, taking and paying for courses I would learn nothing from.

There likely would be plenty of well qualified teachers available if there were some way of taking a short make up type of course, that would touch on those subjects necessary for teaching, while letting the rest of the education or practical work experience count for something.

The thing that always blows me away is that a person is not allowed to teach public school without a teaching degree, yet the college professors who may not have a teaching degree, teach teaching majors. So the profs are qualified to teach the future teachers but not the students the teachers would be teaching. They can teach college but not high school or less.

[Teacher317]

My SAT scores were in the highest 1% nationally, including a perfect math section. I left the public schools because I was never allowed to teach the best way I knew. I was written up for daring to challenge the kids even though, year after year, my kids were always in the top two in the district. (That darn woman at our rival school almost always my number, dagnabbit! But still, 2nd out of 16 ain't bad, either.)

NOTE: Write-ups including teaching mnemonic devices, even though we were encouraged to prepare them for the state test, and there was a memory section on that test... giving extra credit assignments that (horrors!) seemed related more to science than to math... posting a modified version of the Ten Commandments (which paraphrased each and eliminated religious references: Don't steal, don't lie, don't envy others, appreciate your parents, etc)... the very liberal principal was tired of my questions during faculty meetings too, so he was happy to see me go.