Posted on 08/08/2002 9:23:25 AM PDT by NormsRevenge
Edited on 04/13/2004 3:29:41 AM PDT by Jim Robinson. [history]
IF members of the state Board of Education aren't embarrassed, they should be.
The board approved a sham compliance with a new federal education law. This week, the California congressman who co-authored the No Child Left Behind Act responded to the board with a blistering letter.
(Excerpt) Read more at bayarea.com ...
B.S.Just give people back their money so they can send their children to the school of their choice.
You'd see improvements OVERNIGHT!
Just let the parents decide where to spend the money for their own kids and the problem of qualified teachers will solve itself. Many of the public schools will probably close, and the NEA will be reduced to irrelevance, but that's the way it should be.
We need more "non-credentialed" teachers in the public schools systems to help break the stranglehold of Big Education on our childrens' futures.
But that would interfere with the dumbing down process, which in turn would cost the Rats voters, which is unacceptable to them.
Bingo! Teaching is filled with people, as you say, who are in the bottom percentiles of intelligence and teach because they couldn't get into other careers. (Check out the GRE scores of different majors and you'll find that education majors score way, way below other majors on the same exam.) But licensing and certification are artificial methods to try to create the impression that teachers are highly skilled, that no one without those credentials could do the job.
I've got a little personal experience that happened last week. I just moved back to America and decided to look for teaching jobs in the area of teaching English as a second language (ESL) because I heard there was such a great demand due to immigration. I contacted one school district which was desperate to fill one position. The woman I spoke with said they had one applicant, but she was not satisfied with his credentials, despite the fact that he was licensed and, perhaps provisionally, certified. She asked about my education and experience and was very impressed. (I have an MA in linguistics, taught for several years in China, provided professional guidance to other ESL teachers, was the editor for a professional ESL journal for 3 years, and have developed and directed training courses to train others to teach ESL.) The woman said that she hoped she would be allowed to interview me and I e-mailed her my resume. But soon she wrote back and said that guidelines did not allow her to consider me for the job because I am not licensed.
As if that weren't bad enough, the next day I spoke with an education professor at a nearby university to find out what I'd have to do to get licensed. My jaw dropped when she said that I would have to enroll in education courses and go to school for about 2 and a half years to complete the requirements. Meanwhile, people who are licensed and teaching, say, math or industrial arts, or anything else need only to take a very minimum number of hours to get certified to teach ESL. No one I've talked to can defend the system and they all seem very embarrassed by it, but it's an effective way to increase job security for teachers...and just as effective at keeping OUT good and clearly qualified teachers.
I am here to tell you one does not have to be an expert on a subject to be a good teacher as long as you are smart enough to find the right curriculum.
Amen.
Amen.
Ditto Amen.
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