Posted on 01/30/2010 10:11:01 AM PST by Born Conservative
Pennsylvania earned a "D" for policies to promote teacher quality, according to a report card released by a national advocacy group on Friday.
Most states did as badly or worse in the report by the National Council on Teacher Quality, which advocates for tougher teacher evaluations and more rigorous teacher preparation.
Michael Race, a spokesman for the Pennsylvania Department of Education, noted that Pennsylvania had fared slightly better than the national average, but "both sets of grades show room for improvement."
Race said that many of the report's criticisms were addressed in the state's application for Race to the Top, a $4.35 billion federal grant competition that required states to reform policies dealing with teacher evaluation and preparation.
According to the report, Pennsylvania does not require teacher evaluations and tenure decisions to be based on student achievement, makes it too difficult to fire bad teachers and fails to oversee teacher preparation programs. The report also said that elementary teachers are not well-prepared to teach math, and that the state sets low expectations for what special education teachers should know. In addition, it called Pennsylvania's teacher pay and benefits "inadequate incentives" to attract and retain good teachers.
"What they say, to some extent, is true," said Thomas Yarabinetz, superintendent of the Greensburg Salem School District.
However, he said, the absence of policies at the state level does not prevent districts from employing quality teachers.
"It's true that the state does not require it," he said, "but I can't imagine any effective school district that would not look at test scores (as part of teacher evaluations)."
Yarabinetz also disputed the criticism of teacher pay and benefits.
"I think in this area most teachers are well-compensated," he said. "We certainly don't have trouble getting teachers."
(Excerpt) Read more at pittsburghlive.com ...
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I had a horrible math education in public school. I was essentially math illiterate until I began teaching my own kids. The right curriculum can make all the difference! I have learned more teaching my 5th and 3rd grader than I did all the way through school. And most importantly I have overcome my fear of math and I did not pass it on to my children.
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No surprise here, but it sure affirms the homeschooling community.
Penna. needs to ban teacher strikes.
Nearly 20 years ago the state of California had something called a basic skills and knowledge test
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Every state should require that every teacher pass the GED for high school drop outs. They should give them a month to prepare. Any teacher who doesn’t score at least a 90% should be fired. ( That would probably be most of them since the math section would probably bite them.)
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And PA has the audacity to so heavily regulate homeschoolers and make sure unreasonable demands of them.
They should impose those same standards on the public school teachers that they make homeschoolers bear up under.
EXACTLY!!!!!!!
That was the exact same thing that happened with me.
Which leaves me wondering two things....
One, how can a university educated public school teacher have such a bad grasp of grade school curriculum, and two, why can’t they learn it as they teach it, as we did?
The strikes aren’t nearly as bad as the tenure.
By law, teachers are only allowed to strike as long as the district is able to complete 180 school days by June 30. The teachers still get paid (not while they are striking, but since it’s a contract for a yearly salary, they get their full pay eventually).
Tenure takes away the incentive needed to do a good job, as well as to excel (although despite tenure, there are good teachers). It ties the hands of administrators, and from what I’ve seen, this in turn causes at least some administrators to not address things that need to be addressed. Overall, it creates an atmosphere of non-motivation.
Hey, a ‘D’ is good enough for government work!
Unlike homeschooling parents, teachers are assigned a grade. They don't get to review elementary school math from grade 1 forward.
I wonder how many of our government teachers could pass the GED for high school drop-outs, even if they were given an month to prepare. Not many I expect.
And...Yes, I had the same experience. I learned a lot from teaching Saxon Math with my kids.
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