Union Boss: What’s the Rush on Increasing Teacher Quality?

Townhall.com ^ | December 30, 2012 | Kyle Olson

[Kaslin]

When American Federation of Teachers President Rhonda “Randi” Weingarten proposed a “bar exam” of sorts for teacher prospects, it was hailed as a step forward in improving teacher quality, EAGnews.org reported.

But some of Weingarten’s underlings don’t know what all the fuss is about. She either didn’t run the idea past her deputies, or they didn’t approve and she trotted it out anyway.

Norwalk Federation of Teachers President Bruce Mellion said if teachers would be subjected to such a test, they better get a pay raise.

"What we're doing is testing, testing, testing, testing. At some point we need to run schools with quality administrators, Central Office and let teachers teach in classrooms and stop making them crazy. It's over-evaluation. It's paralysis by analysis," Mellion was quoted as saying by The Hour.

He also said the process of testing an evaluation should be “slowed down.”

Weingarten’s proposal seems reasonable on its face. The concept certainly has merit. But it could only likely be administered by the federal Department of Education, furthering a national power grab over what should be a state and local responsibility.

A 2009 McKinsey and Company study quoted former AFT President Sandra Feldman as saying, “You have in the schools right now, among the teachers who are going to be retiring, very smart people. We’re not getting in now the same kinds of people. It’s disastrous. We’ve been saying for years now that we’re attracting from the bottom third” of their graduating class.

But there’s little urgency from some union bosses like Mellion, a leader of a school district that received a “4 out of 10” rating from GreatSchools.org.

GreatSchools.org also reported only 68 percent of third-graders and 73 percent of eighth-graders are proficient in reading.

The National Center for Education Statistics reports that the Norwalk School District has a 13.52 student-to-teacher ratio, well below the national average. Apparently class sizes aren’t the problem. Norwalk spends over $19,000 per student as well, so money isn’t an issue, either.

But to Mellion, teacher quality is definitely not the culprit. Then what is?

Teacher quality is indeed a major issue that must be addressed. But that process will be painfully slow as long as there are union leaders who fight accountability every step of the way.

[Gene Eric]

>> Norwalk Federation of Teachers President Bruce Mellion said if teachers would be subjected to such a test, they better get a pay raise.

To Hell with individual integrity. /s

[conservatism_IS_compassion]

A “bar exam” for teachers is an elitist idea for denigrating homeschoolers.

As matters stand already, there is no dearth of highly educated people who don’t make what teachers do, and can’t get a teacher’s job without taking brain-killing “education” courses. And there’s gonna be a lot more of them, when Obama gets through RIFing the military. Staffing security with courageous veterans who know how to respect, and use, firearms would be no problem if the pedagogy business weren’t unionized and teaching positions weren’t political plums.

[GOPJ]

Years ago my child came to me with a problem. A math question on a test had been marked wrong when the answer was correct. The simple request was that I speak to the teacher and get the test score corrected. I agreed. This first ‘error’ in an otherwise perfect run of flawless test grades seemed a big deal to my young child.

I thought it would be easy - and fun to meet the teacher anyhow. I was wrong.

The math problem was simple division with a remainder. I went to the classroom - explained in a light manner what the problem was... out of the blue the teacher took offense. She said the answer on the test was wrong. It wasn't. I asked her to explain. She showed me the answers in the back of the arithmetic book - where she had taken the test questions from... She looked at me with dead angry eyes and asked if I thought I was smarter than the people who wrote the book. I said it was a misprint - and started to explain. That angered her more.

It was my first brush with a ‘union goon teacher’. She was defensive because ( as I found out later ) other parents had also complained about things like letters sent home with spelling errors... etc.

She stayed on as a ‘teacher’ and I started on my path becoming a conservative... A bad teacher's like being mugged - a recruiting tool for Republicans..

[JoeFromSidney]

A "bar exam" for teachers is not the answer. The real answer is to let school administrators from big schools offer better pay to good teachers from smaller schools. After all, that's how we run sports teams. Bring up the good players from the minor leagues. The manager of a baseball team doesn't need to have potential hires pass a test. He's already seen their performance on a smaller scale. By the same token, a competent school administrator will hire those teachers who show good performance on a smaller scale.

How will the school administrator recognize good performance? In a really free society, where parents can send their children to whichever school they want, it will soon be apparent which teachers attract students and satisfy parents.

[9YearLurker]

It’s a for the good since it set you on the conservative path, but I think your kiddo would have learned better had he/she taken it up with the teacher directly—and seen first-hand how fallible the teacher.

[Perseverando]

[9YearLurker]

I actually don’t buy the teacher quality argument.

IMO they’re using a purposely ineffective curriculum—from whole language reading to very-fuzzy math. They are teachers unions and very good at not ‘killing the job’.

[4Liberty]

Average Public School Mission Statement: “Maximize union dues for democRat party contributions, not student performance.”

[conservatism_IS_compassion]

A “teacher” who lacked the ability to do a simple division problem! That is the reductio ad absurdum of my brief against grade school teachers - the prevalence in the profession of people who want to teach children, but who consider long division to be higher mathematics. Which explains why a child who loved word problems in arithmetic which the rest of the class hated could get to tenth grade without knowing that he was good at math!

I had a teacher who was on strike lie to my face about the upcoming school board meeting which - as she knew and I strongly suspected - was to be closed to the public. And she knew that I would find out that she had lied! ‘Course I was conservative long before that . . .

[conservatism_IS_compassion]

A “teacher” who lacked the ability to do a simple division problem! That is the reductio ad absurdum of my brief against grade school teachers - the prevalence in the profession of people who want to teach children, but who consider long division to be higher mathematics. Which explains why a child who loved word problems in arithmetic which the rest of the class hated could get to tenth grade without knowing that he was good at math!

I had a teacher who was on strike lie to my face about the upcoming school board meeting which - as she knew and I strongly suspected - was to be closed to the public. And she knew that I would find out that she had lied! ‘Course I was conservative long before that . . .

[TXnMA]

What makes you think that "big" schools deserve better teachers than do "smaller" schools?

Believe me, America's hellhole cities are not the "major leagues" -- in any category other than the hubris of the imbeciles who choose to remain there.