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....
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?
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.
I see many preparing teachers in the college where I work spending most of their time taking learning how to teach classes and struggling to get through even the most rudimentary science classes. These graduates will in all likelihood be teaching our kids science.
No wonder our nation lags behind in education.
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.
That is a true statement. But they don't tell you why. These schools are so bad that they can't get good teachers. The teachers leave just as soon as they can. Clean up the schools and put discipline back in and then the teachers that know what they are doing will come back.
If a major is listed with the certificate it means a certain number of courses were taken in that major. 12 units of college math for a math minor, and 16 units for a science major. (In my case -- CA school certificate)
As far as basic skills tests, they are being implemented to weed out teachers who got in when the district needed warm bodies. Frequently a foreign born teacher has weak language skills and fails the test. Many teachers got through math by guess and by gosh, and really need more math before they be allowed to teach it.
Without good skills, a teacher had a big chance of creating a "turn off experience" for a student. The kid thinks "Gee, I have to teach myself this stuff, the teacher does not know it, or is unable to address my questions, this stuff can't be very important or I would not be led by someone who does not know what they are doing."
There are plenty of great teachers who don't pass the test for one reason or another, but these basic tests are not that hard, and most districts allow unlimited retakes. So the teacher who wants to keep the job will find a way to learn the material necessary to pass.
As for the psyc stuff in the teacher credential, most of it is a waste. Teacher certification also covers things like legal liability and how to avoid being sued. Good things IMO for a teacher to know these days.
We have been discussing inexpensive ways to fast track kids through high school to avoid the liberal agenda:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1315730/posts?page=84#84
Unfortunately my thread title was not well thought out, because some parents might instinctively skip over it due to attached stigma, whether real or imagined.
All teachers should pass some kind of test. The one I had to take in OK was extremely easy. In TN, I had to take the NTE which was extremely difficult, but I passed it. College programs need to teach teachers.