Posted on 07/29/2012 2:05:32 AM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
Looking to boost the quality of science education, Florida has just made it tougher for aspiring teachers to pass required certification exams.
But the move to ensure that would-be science teachers know their subjects well could worsen Florida's shortage of science teachers. That could leave middle and high schools scrambling even more to find instructors for biology, chemistry, Earth-space science, general science and physics classes.
.... The State Board of Education this month bumped up the scores needed to pass the teacher-certification exams in those five science fields. As a result, the passing rates for first-time exam takers are expected to drop sharply.
The passing rate for the biology-teacher certification exam, for example, is predicted to fall from 87 percent to 68 percent, the Florida Department of Education said. The rate for the middle-school general-science exam is projected to fall from 78 percent to 58 percent.
"Of course, we applaud anything that increases rigor," said Sherry Southerland, a science-education professor at Florida State University and co-director of FSU-Teach, a program that aims to train more math and science teachers.
But middle- and high-school science teachers are always on Florida's list of "critical teacher-shortage areas," meaning there aren't enough of them to fill all the open jobs.
Tougher certification exams "will only exacerbate the problem," Southerland said.....
....State test data make it clear Florida teacher-preparation programs train relatively few new science teachers. Last year, 611 people took the biology-certification exam, for example, compared with more than 1,600 who took the exam to teach middle- or high-school social-studies classes.
(Excerpt) Read more at articles.orlandosentinel.com ...
Want that teaching your kids?
My junior high years were hell, and school was largely responsible for that.
I was stuck in a large, experimental classroom situation where they did “team teaching”. It was three teachers; one math, one English, and one Social Studies. I guess the idea was to lighten the workload for the teachers or make it more efficient for the teachers to teach more kids per period. I was in the back of the classroom, where I couldn’t hear a thing and couldn’t see the board, and actually ended up in resource because my grades were so bad.
They ruined me for college during those years.
I finally did graduate from college after putting in a lot of effort on my own and ended up with a 3.3 in meteorology, from the kid for whom school ruined math. I did it all on my own. No thanks to THEM.
Cults of Personality are very common in communist societies. They are the source of Faith and Practice for the communist's social "life". Of course homeschooling is not allowed in the communist model.
I strive very hard to be general in comments about our nation's system of government owned and run godless and socialist-entitlement schooling.
I am not looking for commendations or anything except for you ALL to realize that some of us are actually trying to make a difference from the inside and that a little kindness goes a long way.
In a fully privatized system of schooling we would likely have far fewer students in need of adult education. Rather than having government teachers offering challenges to take their difficult students off their hands, we would have schools that would, instead, **welcome** hard to educate children. Why do I believe that? Reason: Look at the New York Times advertising section for summer camps. There are private summer camps for even the sickest and most difficult children imaginable and they are welcomed and loved.
BobL: Please do not post private correspondence.
verga: You might want to consider your language.
Spend a LOT of time teaching them how to get back on task and how to ignore each other. But it's FUN and rewarding.
“BobL: Please do not post private correspondence.”
Concur...I’ve received hundreds of private messages, but none that were profane - and never posted any. I only posted this one because of that - and will again, as long as Verga feels it necessary to correspond that way.
I feel that civil discourse should apply to both private and public messages.
Please do not post private correspondence on the forum, if you have a particular problem with an item, you may forward it to the Mods or paste it in an abuse report.
Thank you.
In every other profession a professional is expected to **REFUSE** the job if they are asked to commit malpractice or cooperate with it. For instance, a nurse is expected to **REFUSE** to administer blood that is not properly labeled and tested. It doesn't matter if the president of the hospital personally orders her to do so.
Teachers KNOW KNOW KNOW that the conditions under which they are asked to practice are unsafe, impossible, and will result in very poor results for all the children whether they are well behaved or not. Yet,...EVERYDAY teachers agree to MALPRACTICE!!!! Sorry, I have absolutely NO NO NO sympathy for any professional who willing agrees to MALPRACTICE!!!!
Where are the malpractice attorneys and class action suits when vulnerable kids need them?
I just read this post to my husband. His quip about professionals refusing to commit malpractice was, "Except if their a whore and will commit malpractice for a paycheck!"
I have repeated posted that not all parents should homeschool even though it is the best and most natural way to rear a child to secure and satisfying adulthood. There are parents who are too stupid, too mentally ill, too materialistic, too self-centered, too selfish, too ill-educated, too sick, too poor, too distracted, etc,. to homeschool. These children will need to be institutionalized for their less than ideal schooling.
Our Founding Fathers supported **education** something that rarely happens in our nation's government indoctrination centers.
So?...If you think I am wrong about little education happening in our government schools, prove me wrong. Where are the studies that separate out that which is learned in the classroom from that which is learned IN THE HOME.
These studies ( conveniently for the teachers unions) have NEVER been done. Why? Reason: Because if they were done it would be plainly shown that nearly all learning by the child is acquired IN THE HOME due to the hard work of the parents, the child doing home assignments and projects, and paid and unpaid tutoring. These studies would likely show that the only thing the government schools do is send home a very **expensive** curriculum and administer very **expensive** tests. The cost of this afterschooling curriculum is up to $30,000 per year per child!
And...Yeah! I am shouting. We are spending up to $30,000/year/child for a system of so-called “schooling” that NO ONE has ever check to see if it is effective. Do we do that with medical treatments or with pharmaceuticals? NO!
Want that teaching your kids?
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Professional government teachers, being “Oh! So “professional”!”, would never do this to their students.
At one time, for our Founding Fathers, going to college at the ages of 12 and 13 was **normal**!
Our Founding Fathers wanted an educated public. They would be horrified to see the stupefaction that is misnamed, “public” schooling.
I have a doctorate today **in spite** of institutionalized, Prussian-model, prison-like schooling. It took nearly five years to educate myself, on my own, before having excellent success in college and graduate school.
I’ve got one of those type of stories too.
They were opening a new Vocational School (1976) and wanted students. They played it big time, told us that we were guaranteed a job and life would be beautiful if we went. I was well on my way to college in 10th grade. 3.95 grade average. But my art teacher told me I had talent so I tested and was accepted to “Commercial Art”.
A year and a half later, when jobs in that profession were few and far between, they told me I didn’t have the talent and should go into “copywriting”. I had enough credits to graduate in January, so I bailed, got a job and went to community college in the fall.
ONE girl got a job in commercial art (classes of 20 for five years). The school is now a Night student training center. They saw my grades, they knew I could have gone to college, but they were selling the school.
Yeah, it takes a while to undo the damage.
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