Well then, you’re also proof that not all public school teachers are stupid.
If they made education courses harder, do you think there would be more teachers or fewer teachers? Do you think they’d have enough teachers to fill all the classrooms?
Why or why not?
In Virginia, colleges no longer offer an “education” major per se for prospective teachers in middle and high schools. One majors in a subject area, then gets a Masters in Ed with the required courses. I’m not sure what el ed majors do. Maybe they still do education majors, but not middle/high.
I think there would be more qualified teachers.
I never thought merit pay or the merit system, rather than the union way/mediocrity, would work back when I wasn’t involved in education/teaching. I started thinking/believing in merit back when I first started teaching and saw just how many teachers shouldn’t be handling our most valuable resource (children).
If teaching was respected as a profession (get rid of the union and all its perks and mediocrity), hold teachers to the same standards as we hold other white collar/college educated professions, get rid of tenure, make it a competitive field both in the college major and in the profression, I think we’d have more qualified teachers.
There’d be enough teachers, who still think of the profession as a noble one while still making the path to certification harder and then continually holding them accountable, just like every other profression that isn’t protected by the union. Our students have a dumbed down curriculum, not just the teachers to blame for that, and we have teachers that aren’t qualified, yet most can’t get fired unless they commit a crime (and even then it’s up in the air). We have excellent teachers but they’re lumped in with all the rest (per the union and so called fairness). They’re encouraged to maintain the status quo. They’re not encouraged to continually succeed, improve.
We always hear about how we need teachers but we don’t have the jobs available in the suburban/great districts at least here in NJ). We have a shortage in the inner city schools. We’re not getting the best and brightest there nor are we getting them in the better working environment of the affluent school districts.
Teaching should be held in the highest regard (these are our kids, our most valuable resource) and it isn’t. I think the educational path (college) is partly to blame. More blame falls on the Union. Great teachers are valued and lumped in with mediocre and down right awful teachers. That’s a huge problem, imo.
Get rid of the Union (teachers’ union), promote a rigorous educational path (college courses), test teachers regularly - like most professions have to adhere to standards, make those tests mirror the background and experience.
Make the state boards and NTE (as it was called when I took them) and now Praxis reflect the knowledge. Keep teachers accountable (once you get tenure, it doesn’t stop there, the job security shouldn’t stop there) and constantly educating themselves. Reward those who succeed, fire those who don’t. Just like in almost all profressions.
Teachers aren’t going to be valued, considered profressionals until we get rid of the union and all its perks. Many wonderful teachers are leaving the profression because their education, intelligence, experience, success, isn’t valued or isn’t held above the most mediocre teacher. All are the same - it’s a socialist system.
Get rid of the union first, the socialist system/mentality in the field (and it will be difficult to do that since even some of the best teachers stick with the tenure/union perks), make parents accountable for their childrens behavior while in the classroom.
Get the Union out of the schools and the rest will follow, imo.