The fact of the matter is that there are many excellent, competent and dedicated teachers often working in systems that reward incompetence and slovenliness and penalize excellence and dedication.and
Needless to say, teacher incompetency isn't the only explanation for our education malaise. Parents who don't give a damn and students with minds and attitudes alien and hostile to the education process figure in as well. There's not much politicians and the education establishment can do about these factors...
I think teacher education courses should be more rigorous, and I agree with what Williams says about secondary teachers having a degree in their subject, not in education.
I think they would have a hard time getting enough warm bodies in today's classrooms if they implemented that, however. Lots of people don't want to teach (I'll let those who aren't teachers tell us why they aren't...)
Nice tag line! I didn’t take SAT’s. I was living in Denver when I was a senior and the ACT’s were the way to go out there. Pretty sure I had a 25 or 26 for math, and I remember having a 32 for verbals. It blew my counselor away. Always sucked at math. Probably because I was little (in Georgia) I remember being told not to worry about math, that only blue stockings were good at math. My granny, God bless her, had no idea what she was saying.