Posted on 01/15/2005 7:15:35 PM PST by Coleus
Teachers who fail
A survey of certification-test scores yields alarming results More than half a million Florida students sat in classrooms last year in front of teachers who failed the state's basic skills tests for teachers.
Many of those students got teachers who struggled to solve high school math problems or whose English skills were so poor, they flunked reading tests designed to measure the very same skills students must master before they can graduate.
These aren't isolated instances of a few teachers whose test-taking skills don't match their expertise and training. A Herald-Tribune investigation has found that fully a third of teachers, teachers' aides and substitutes failed their certification tests at least once.
The Herald-Tribune found teachers who had failed in nearly every school in each of the state's 67 counties.
But it is the neediest of children who most often get the least-prepared teachers.
Students in Florida's rural outposts and inner cities, those from housing projects and migrant camps, and those from black and Latino families were far more likely to have a teacher who struggled.
An analysis of the test scores of nearly 100,000 teachers found that children from Florida's poor neighborhoods were 44 percent more likely than their wealthier peers to have a teacher who failed the certification tests.
The findings raise questions about Florida's education reforms, which require students to pass standardized tests to advance, yet allow teachers to fail exams dozens of times and still stand at the front of a classroom.
And they highlight challenges that have dogged public schools across the country for years: How to attract more of the nation's top minds into a profession where salaries are low, and how to steer those teachers into inner-city and rural neighborhoods where children need the most help.
A state education official said Friday a recent study confirms that student learning suffers under teachers who repeatedly fail the tests.
The Department of Education study, the first of its kind, found that students learn less under teachers who had failed more than three times, said DOE spokesman MacKay Jimeson.
Nine percent of teachers failed portions of the tests at least four times, according to the Herald-Tribune study.
The state report, which wasn't released Friday, led DOE officials to reverse statements they had made last spring. The officials said then that they hadn't reviewed teacher scores because the tests have no bearing
2. Does certification guarantee anything? Many elite private and boarding schools don't have state-licensed teachers, years ago, many nuns teaching in Catholic Schools didn't have college educations and we turned out fine.
What? Public school teachers who fail tests? Hypocrisy I tell you! I demand we need to make these tests easier.
/sarcasm
Why is this a surprise. The teachers today are educated by the same failed education system that is used to teach our children.
Our teacher colleges are the pits. Saw in the news yesterday that we are "importing" teachers from other countries such as India & Pakistan. Whatever it takes is okay with me. I know of some real bozos who are teaching kids today and it makes me cringe....
Sadly, today's schools of education and journalism are the equivalent of what we used to snicker about 30 years ago when someone said they were a P.E. major.
Having said that, I would much rather have a teacher who passed a diffcult certification exam with a high score, and had no formal education, than one who had a Master's degree and failed the exam.
Headline writer/editor fail English.
1. A student who rereads a paragraph is demonstrating which of the following skills?
A. paraphrasing.
B. using context clues.
C. confirming.
D. predicting.
2. Mrs. Brown has a culturally diverse group of students. Which consideration is most important when selecting literature for shared reading experiences for these students?
A. assessing student reading levels.
B. providing opportunities for exposure to literature that reflects the students' cultures.
C. designing reading activities and language materials in multiple languages.
D. providing many opportunities for oral reading to improve the students' English.
3. The largest single item in the budgets of most state and local governments combined is
A. administration.
B. defense.
C. public welfare.
D. education.
4. For a student to understand how a witness experienced a historical event, the best resource would be a(an)
A. textbook passage.
B. artifact.
C. primary source.
D. encyclopedia.
5. Which of the following body systems provides body structure and internal organ protection?
A. endocrine.
B. skeletal.
C. muscular.
D. nervous.
6. The most important consideration when creating a developmentally appropriate physical education lesson plan is
A. equipment management.
B. safe and secure environment.
C. activity preferences of students.
D. availability and location of facilities.
7. The parts of the atom located outside the nucleus of the atom are the
A. electrons.
B. quarks.
C. neutrons.
D. protons.
8. Identify the system by which a paper document is converted into electronic form and transmitted to another site.
A. word processor.
B. electronic mail.
C. Internet.
D. facsimile.
9. Select the most appropriate unit for measuring the length of a new pencil.
A. millimeters.
B. centimeters.
C. meters.
D. kilometers.
10. Choose the most appropriate word to complete the sentence.
Although down by 21 points at halftime, the football team ______ and won by a field goal.
A. intervened.
B. persisted.
C. relented.
Their unions a HUGE aside for the moment, let me ask this: why are we continuing to allow school districts -- with their vastly different funding resources, curricula philosophies, underpaid or no-paid elected officials, and so forth -- rather than develop a system much like is provided in other government agencies? In other words, why are teachers employees of the individual, wide-ranging school districts, rather than say, of a state government? Why is there not better oversight, personnel assignment and so forth, so that this inequity cannot exist?
There is much that is broken, but that a child in District A is afforded a public financed education that is inferior to child in District B, well, is this fair? Is it acceptable to treat citizens inequitably?
The students, the taxpayers who fund the education system, the businesses that rely on its graduates for its labor resources, and our society itself, do we not deserve better than the status quo?
Are you serious?
Some of those didn't strike me as being that easy. Also at least a couple depended on one's opinion.
Are you serious? >>
About what?
Agreed. Most are dumbed down liberal koolaid drinkers.
Headline should have been, "Newpaper editor cannot speak english at 3rd grade level."
I'm in Ireland, but I will say one thing...being educated by the nuns had it's drawbacks, but those women KNEW their stuff.
A friend of mine is a University graduate with a double major Music and Maths - and a H.Dip in Education. So he's a qualified secondary school/high school teacher.
However, he only does relief work (he's very busy as with gigging as a pianist, has a choir, etc) in schools - but does some relief work in schools. He particularly fills in for teachers on maternity leave. But, it's not always a music and maths teacher that's out. So he can find himself teaching music and perhaps English.
NO offence to my friend, who is a great guy. But he has terrible English. Can't spell for nuts. Uses badly constructed sentences. And yet, he'd be employed to teach English lit. at exam grade for High School.
When he told me this (and he admits that while he's a good teacher - his knowledge of ALL subjects is limited), I lost faith in the education system. And Ireland's education system is pretty good.
But at least when the nuns were teaching us Latin, Science, Maths, English, French etc. you were SURE that they (tough taskmasters that they were) were teaching you.
That student teachers are not required to be proficient in the subjects they teach only in the mechanics of the act of teaching?
You got me on that one.
The headline on the actual news site is different and grammatically correct.
So apparently this headline was supplied by the Freeper posting the article. I'm sure it's just a typo....
importing" teachers from other countries such as India & Pakistan.
Yes if they can't indoctrinate our American youth with home grown commi-liberalism by hook or crook shove
anti-christian islamo muslimumbo jumbo down their throats.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.