What do you believe should change in Education?

[FaithManor]

:confused1:  People are teaching subjects in which they are not proficient??

 

I have zero experience with public school beyond 4th grade...as evidenced by my surprise.

My daughter taught high school chemistry in our district by default when she was 16.

 

Let me tell you how this worked.

 

The teacher assigned to teach the class graduated "highly qualified" for teaching science with a natural science degree for teachers, a specially designed program at crappy state U down the road in which all of the coursework is 100 level. So she never took an upper math based science in her entire four years of undergraduate work.

 

Yes, you read that right.

 

She took a physical science class which at most required pre-algebraic skills, an introduction to geology course, an introduction to biology whose prerequisite was a life sciences course that I would peg as 90 level or "remedial if you take this class majoring in anything else in this college it will be because you scored too low on the ACT/SAT that we can't place you in a real college class" kind of class, followed by an earth science class, followed by two semesters of "science methods for teachers" classes, followed by a health class, followed by a CPR and first aid class (I think  vitally necessary skills for every teacher but should not be counted as college credit for a secondary education science major), followed by a "science for nature lovers" course which was supposed to inspire the education student to come up with ways to incorporate nature studies into middle and high school classes, followed by a conceptual physics class which was algebra 1 based so again, not an upper mathematics related science course, and it ended with a museum studies course that was about 200 level.  Oh, I forgot one. Crappy State U offered for credit, "Science Bulletin boards that teach". Worth two credit. Not kidding. There is a reason that though it is the closest "university" to us, I have NEVER let my kids take a DE class there.

 

Now let that sink in for a minute. 

 

So fresh out of college, she was assigned a high school chem class that was roughly algebra 2 based in terms of necessary math skills and reasoning needed to complete. It was for juniors and seniors. She couldn't make heads or tails of the text, nor solve the problems, so every day she came into class, wrote an assignment on the board, and sat down and wrote lesson plans for the life science course she was teaching. She told the students not to bother asking questions because she couldn't help them. She assigned labs, it was up to the students to figure it out. At least she didn't blow the kids up though. She was smart enough to know when she'd been beat, and went online and found middle school chemistry experiments for them to do so no one would be working with anything particularly dangerous. At least she had labs. The biology department was just having kids watch videos. Sigh....

 

Anyway, our honorary daughter was in the class and really worried. At the time she thought she might major in biology/pre-vet and go to vet school so that would mean needing to be prepared for two semesters of college chemistry plus organic chem which is a brutal class, and at one of the two main flagship universities too which meant large classroom sizes, not a lot of professor attention. So since I was teaching chemistry in our homeschool, she began coming to our dd for tutoring. She asked dd to teach ahead, I hovered nearby in case they had any issues, and on Saturdays she came here to do labs appropriate for the difficulty of the text. DD, a natural born teacher, began writing "lesson plans" for her best friend/practically sister to take back to school. So by week 6, honorary daughter began teaching these lesson plans to the rest of the class. The teacher was so impressed and so happy to not have to worry about it herself, that she began copying the lesson plans, signing her name to them, and showing them to the principal as proof she was teaching. Sigh....I let it go one because the reality was that the school didn't have anyone else they were going to stick in the job mid-year, and I didn't want them to call me and pressure me to renew my teaching license and come take over the class on substitute teacher pay. NO THANKS! Their sub pay is the absolute pits.

 

Thus, my homeschooled teen taught a local group of 19 students non-AP, high school chemistry.

 

Now that said I launched an all out complaint to the school district - ya, ya...I know...I am NOT their favorite person -  at the end of the year after honorary daughter's A was posted to her transcript. 

 

I would hope this is a weird aberration, an educational black hole that almost never occurs anywhere else. But, I've heard enough horror stories to know that there are many people teaching classes who have little to no training in the subject material they are assigned. We do not have the Finnish system here. The "highly qualified" part of NCLB was supposed to address this issue, but because it did nothing about investigating colleges universities where the teacher education department is the pits and allows this kind of thing, it didn't fix the problem.

 

I am pro teacher. I am generally not pro teacher education in this nation because I think that it is sorely lacking. I would rather there was no such thing as an education major. Instead you pick your subject, get a degree in it alongside everyone else that chose that major, and with the same standards, then applied to teacher education as a master's degree. Pay commensurate then with being a subject matter expert, and respect as well.

[Tenaj]

It was tried here, rural, and it did not work. Most students had no transportation, many could not afford the fee. It ended up just preventing the dual income professionals' children from having a high school team to play on in addition to two town rec leagues and their travel team for soccer, lacrosse, vball, bball, baseball, and of course their was no option for running, wrestling or football as other schools didnt drop their teams, so there was no league for those privaye clubs to join.

The math...boys and girls club wanted 150 per student for a 6 week middle school season, one practice, one game, no transportation, using town fields. They didnt intend to pay the rent to the town that LL or Pop Warner does to maintain the fields. Taxpayers pointed out that it was far cheaper to keep the sports at the schools, and that engaged more poor students. After a year of fundraising, and no sports, the school returned to offering sports. The entire price for the entire year is equivalent to one out of district bus route, and people pointed that out and demanded that the day of one student, one aide, one driver per bus be ended.

 

That would be the problem . . the implementation because it wouldn't work for only  one school to do it.  It would have to be a mass decision in order to have the change work and that's just not going to happen any time soon.

 

I do like that Ohio has made it possible for homeschoolers and private schoolers to participate in the public school sports programs.  We haven't taken advantage of it yet but I think my sixth grader may be trying cross-country next year as a jr. higher.  

[SparklyUnicorn]

Yikes Faith....

 

 

[DawnM]

Something I remembered today after reading this thread.  When I was in LA Unified, there was a time when there was such a shortage of math teachers that the district offered 4 math classes for free (paid for by the district) in math.  If you took those four math classes, you automatically got a math credential.  

 

I had several fellow teachers who did it.  

 

I thought it was nuts.  I knew 4 classes would NOT prepare me to teach high school math.  

 

But what do you do when there are literally no teachers applying and over 100 openings in that department?

[Tenaj]

Speaking of math and elementary teachers ....

 

This goes back a ways, but when I started college in 1983, I wanted to be a teacher (elementary / special ed).  I signed up for the required math course and bought the book.  I looked at the book and realized I could never take that course.  I mean it was like 3rd / 4th grade level.  I was sure I would flunk because of inability to participate in something so ridiculous.  I begged my advisor to allow me to take a different series (algebra / trig / calc / analytic geometry).  And I was not a math nut in high school (I early graduated with algebra I & II and geometry).

 

I don't know what they require now.

 

Elementary school teachers don't need to understand calculus, but it concerns me if they need to go to college for a year in order to know middle school math.  The concern is the ability to reason, break things down, explain things, to decide on an approach to problem solving.  When my kids were in 1st, the school had just adopted Singapore Math, and the teacher was at least as confused as my kids were.  She didn't have ideas for how to interpret and communicate this strange stuff to the kids.  Imagine if it were higher than 1st grade ....

 

The point isn't to learn the math in that education math class, it's to learn how to teach it.  My oldest dd is 6 weeks from graduating with her Special Education degree.  She started out as Elementary Education then switched.  The math class she had to take for graduation was all "Singapore" methods.   I've mentioned this on the boards before, but she grew up on Saxon math and her education professor declared her hatred for Saxon math, but my dd was the one helping the others with their math in that class and excelling at the practice teaching of concepts that they were doing. 

 

All that to say two things:  (1)  At least at her college, they are training the teachers in the singapore method of reasoning, and problem-solving and (2)  I say "phooey" to the idea that Saxon doesn't teach conceptional math :)

 

If a certified teacher is honestly having trouble teaching first-grade math, whether or not she's ever seen Singapore-style math before, than there are bigger problems than just her math abilities.

[SparklyUnicorn]

 

If a certified teacher is honestly having trouble teaching first-grade math, whether or not she's ever seen Singapore-style math before, than there are bigger problems than just her math abilities.

 

What problems though?  Someone could be brilliant at teaching reading or grammar, but just has no knack and/or desire to teach math.  I don't think math and reading are the same skills at all.  Of course there probably are teachers out there who can do both no problem.  But I don't think someone is necessarily stupid or a bad teacher if they aren't good at some subjects. 

 

My BIL teaches German in Germany.  He is lousy as heck in math.  I honestly don't think he could teach even basic math, but he is brilliant at a lot of other things. 

Edited November 22, 2016 by SparklyUnicorn

[DawnM]

The point isn't to learn the math in that education math class, it's to learn how to teach it.  My oldest dd is 6 weeks from graduating with her Special Education degree.  She started out as Elementary Education then switched.  The math class she had to take for graduation was all "Singapore" methods.   I've mentioned this on the boards before, but she grew up on Saxon math and her education professor declared her hatred for Saxon math, but my dd was the one helping the others with their math in that class and excelling at the practice teaching of concepts that they were doing. 

 

All that to say two things:  (1)  At least at her college, they are training the teachers in the singapore method of reasoning, and problem-solving and (2)  I say "phooey" to the idea that Saxon doesn't teach conceptional math :)

 

If a certified teacher is honestly having trouble teaching first-grade math, whether or not she's ever seen Singapore-style math before, than there are bigger problems than just her math abilities.

 

 

I teach ESL currently.  I am at 2 schools.  One is an Elem. school.  It is my first time teaching Elem.  Since the kids have such trouble in math, they have asked me to help two 1st graders and one 3rd grader with math.  

 

They do these very funky number lines that I don't get (common core math.)  I plan to look it up better this weekend and see if I can figure out what the heck it is.  I am sure there is a video on it somewhere.

[SparklyUnicorn]

Something I remembered today after reading this thread.  When I was in LA Unified, there was a time when there was such a shortage of math teachers that the district offered 4 math classes for free (paid for by the district) in math.  If you took those four math classes, you automatically got a math credential.  

 

I had several fellow teachers who did it.  

 

I thought it was nuts.  I knew 4 classes would NOT prepare me to teach high school math.  

 

But what do you do when there are literally no teachers applying and over 100 openings in that department?

 

Yeah that is why I have no hope of them moving to having dedicated math teachers in all or most grades. 

[shawthorne44]

They used to differentiate.  At least they did when I was a kid.  Then people started saying this was inappropriate because it makes some kids feel bad and it means kids on the lower end of the totem pole don't get the same quality of education.  I can see both sides to this. 

 

 

On the other hand, when you mix all the kids together, the kids on the bottom end of their grade will always be the bottom in their classroom.   Whereas with differentiation, many more will be average or leaders.  

 

A co-worker's daughter's school went from differentiation to 'inclusion'.   After a few weeks she told her mother, "I didn't realize it before, but I am dumb."    THAT is what inclusion gets you.  

Edited November 22, 2016 by shawthorne44

[FaithManor]

What problems though?  Someone could be brilliant at teaching reading or grammar, but just has no knack and/or desire to teach math.  I don't think math and reading are the same sills at all.  Of course there probably are teachers out there who can do both no problem.  But I don't think someone is necessarily stupid or a bad teacher if they aren't good at some subjects. 

 

My BIL teaches German in Germany.  He is lousy as heck in math.  I honestly don't think he could teach even basic math, but he is brilliant at a lot of other things. 

And see this is the issue. At the K-6 level, one can be completely lousy at a subject one is teaching. It is acceptable.

 

That is why we should have subject matter experts in every subject. I have zero issues whatsoever with the 5th grade English teacher being brilliant in literature and writing, but NOT teaching math because if you handed her a set of linear equations in two variables, she wouldn't be able to solve it. But if she can't solve it much less explain the process she used, she shouldn't be teaching math because she will be likely to under-prepare her students for thinking critically about mathematics even if she can do basic some of the operations or stare at the manual long enough to finally figure it out. However, due to how teacher licensing is done, these teachers who have a subject in which they are truly lousy will be teaching those subjects. At the K-6 level, each classroom as one teacher for all core subjects. One. Now in some districts with a lot of money, the school may be able to shake that up a bit had have instructors teach to their respective strengths. But in most non-monied districts, this is not the case. For the most part, universities will tell you it is pretty rare for a K-6 major to pick math as one of his/her two areas of "specialization".

[SparklyUnicorn]

On the other hand, when you mix all the kids together, the kids on the bottom end of their grade will always be in their classroom.   Whereas with differentiation, many more will be average or leaders.  

 

A co-worker's daughter's school went from differentiation to 'inclusion'.   After a few weeks she told her mother, "I didn't realize it before, but I am dumb."    THAT is what inclusion gets you.  

 

Huh..I didn't even think of that.

[shawthorne44]

I would both eliminate all federal standards, AND allow tracking AND the curriculum completed should be included in the records.  

 

So, for example, in the first example, when moving to Boston the child would have been put in the track that was using the next book on her path.   It would have been the slow path in Boston.  Then when moving back to CA, it would have been the fast path there.   But, because of tracking the differentiation would have been automatic.  

 

I also think that tracking should be re-evaluated every year. 

[regentrude]

:confused1:  People are teaching subjects in which they are not proficient??

 

I have zero experience with public school beyond 4th grade...as evidenced by my surprise.

 

Oh very much so.

A German teacher friend of mine was asked to teach Spanish because the school has no Spanish teacher - so the German teacher was a few lessons ahead in the textbook. I hear from many of my students that their foreign language teachers did not actually speak the language they were teaching.

 

Many of my students (I teach physics at a university) complained about their high school physics being taught by teachers who did not actually understand physics. One biology teacher skipped the conceptually difficult chapter on angular momentum with the explanation that she did not understand the material.

 

One 4th grade math teacher in our town argued with student and parents (STEM profs with plenty of math expertise) over the solution of a problem and was wrong, but kept insisting through a chain of 12 emails that her way of doing the problem was the correct one. I've seen the emails; the person has no business teaching math.

 

I could go on.

 

ETA: Just read what Faith wrote about the 16 y/o teaching chemistry because the teacher was not capable. That is school sanctioned educational neglect.

Edited November 22, 2016 by regentrude

[Guest]

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Edited September 10, 2020 by Æthelthryth the Texan

[Carol in Cal.]

I've only read about half of the responses, this is my view of the original question.

 

The main thing that should change about the school system is that they should always and primarily prioritize the children.  In every decision the question that determines what to decide should be, "Is this really the best thing for the children?"

 

I think that through middle school multi grade (2-3 grades each) classrooms with kids learning individually at their own levels should be the norm.  

 

I think that education that wholistically incorporates being in wild nature at least 1 full day per week would be very helpful.

 

I think that foreign language immersion classes about half a day per week would also be very helpful starting at the earliest ages.

 

Regarding getting second career folks to teach math or science, I think that the Windfall Elimination Tax should be withdrawn or exemptions made for those people, so that they and their spouses don't take lifelong hits to their social security benefits for moving into the public sector.

 

 

[SparklyUnicorn]

In a sane, competently functioning organization you would say "hmmmm.....why do we suck so much that we can't attract a single soul to this position? Perhaps we should rethink key factors like management, pay, and workplace culture!" But that will never happen in the overall public school system because no one wants to take responsibility and it's always someone else's fault. 

 

In a company, you would jack the pay or go oversees and recruit or do any of the zillion other things that companies due to successfully retain and attract staff. But school's cant do that for myriad reasons, so like a previous poster, I don't hold much hope for it being successfully changed. 

 

Although if there aren't many math teachers there aren't many math teachers.

 

Old instructor guy I mentioned was originally studying to be a social studies teacher.  He was not half bad in math so the guy at the Uni told him he should go into teaching math because he'll never be out of a job (whereas with social studies there is a lot more competition).

[Carol in Cal.]

Regarding what has hurt education, partly it's the women's movement, and I don't see that changing nor do I fault the women's movement for this, but before women could have serious careers, teaching was kind of the epitome of what a smart, well-educated woman could do for paid employment.  So woman teachers were really, really smart and very well educated--they knew the material they taught at a mastery level, and they were excellent at learning more if necessary.  We don't have a society where the best and brightest of any group are forced into teaching anymore.  I know a lot of excellent, smart teachers, but undeniably there are also a lot of teachers who would not have been able to teach 80 years ago who are now in the profession.

 

Also, textbooks and methods are experimental and poorly edited in a lot of cases, and imposed on teachers who may or may not thoroughly understand them.  I considered using Scott Foresman to teach DD how to read, and it was absolutely overwhelming.  Likewise a developmental math program that read like recipes to me--I could see the instructions, but instinctively felt that I shouldn't just follow them if I myself didn't know what they were getting at.  I hunted down methods and materials that were good for her AND that I knew I could present well and amplify on, and that was great for us, but in a school setting I would have been stuck with whatever materials were purchased FOR me.

 

Also, in general, the cultural challenges with violence, toxic online bullying, poverty, lonely affluence, lack of spiritual lives, lack of consensus on behavior and moral norms vary tremendously from one learning environment to the next, and teachers are often ill-equipped to deal with the range that they run across.

 

[Guest]

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Edited September 10, 2020 by Æthelthryth the Texan

[SparklyUnicorn]

If you paid enough though, you would attract math teachers from all over the world and have them crawling out of the wood work. It would be a draw also for (competent) people to major in it as another career possibility. It would also allow you to have a higher bar for what is an acceptable math or science teacher, because it would become competitive in a good way.

 

But honestly, it's hard to get people (after paying a huge amount for college already) to sign up for a career with a low salary cap. Particularly when you know in most other industries you could exceed the salary within a few years. I honestly think that's why you don't have a ton of men in the teaching profession (below college level) anymore. Why would they when they can go elsewhere, with higher pay, more autonomy, and more prestige, you know? 

 

Teachers salaries though (and what takes from them like, union dues, union salaries, and administrator salaries) are a whole 'nother discussion. Along with how much money goes into building all of these shiny new school buildings with metal roofs and decorative stone surrounds and pavered driveways.........but now I'm getting OT from the OP. 

 

I always lived in areas where teachers were paid fairly decently so I never thought of them as low paid, but yes when you put their earning potential into perspective there are limits to their earning opportunities that they don't have to the same extent in the private sector. 

 

I have a friend in Mass who started out relatively well paid and after a short time was making 75K.  She told me though that that is about as high as it will go.  There may be some cost of living increases, but there will be no big advances in pay staying where she is at.  That's not terrible pay, but she could make more doing something else using her math skills. 

[shawthorne44]

I forgot another one.  Schools should be required to actually finish the %$%$ textbooks.   There is no good reason for the giant gaps in my education which were planned in thanks to my teachers.   American History, for example, was taught across two grades with the civil war as the dividing line.  In the first year we only studied up to about the 2nd or 3rd president, and then school ended.  In the second one, we spent the entire class getting from the civil war to 1900.   Then the teacher said we needed to know which country was with us in one world war and against us in another (Italy).    The reason for that question was that the teacher was required to ask a question on WWI and WWII.  

Texas History we spent 3 months on the conquistadors, 3 weeks on the Alamo including watching the John Wayne movie, and 3 days on the civil war.   

[OneStepAtATime]

The point isn't to learn the math in that education math class, it's to learn how to teach it.  My oldest dd is 6 weeks from graduating with her Special Education degree.  She started out as Elementary Education then switched.  The math class she had to take for graduation was all "Singapore" methods.   I've mentioned this on the boards before, but she grew up on Saxon math and her education professor declared her hatred for Saxon math, but my dd was the one helping the others with their math in that class and excelling at the practice teaching of concepts that they were doing. 

 

All that to say two things:  (1)  At least at her college, they are training the teachers in the singapore method of reasoning, and problem-solving and (2)  I say "phooey" to the idea that Saxon doesn't teach conceptional math :)

 

If a certified teacher is honestly having trouble teaching first-grade math, whether or not she's ever seen Singapore-style math before, than there are bigger problems than just her math abilities.

 

I agree up to a point.  Certainly a really good facilitator of learning should be able to help children learn even if they aren't experts.  On the flip side, there are a lot of experts who are abysmal at teaching.  Our teacher training programs are frequently really, really, really lousy at giving future teachers the skills needed to not only have a fairly solid understanding of the material they are teaching but to actually be able to TEACH it.

 

The assumption that a certified elementary education teacher should automatically be able to teach really well every single subject they are required to teach in elementary is not actually recognizing how hard it can be to teach a subject well if they have a poor grasp of the subject (even at a basic level), especially since students can be all over the place in ability when they start school.  

 

Also, those early years are far more important than I think many are willing to recognize.  When teachers are trained in early elementary education I think our training system fails to acknowledge how quickly a student without a solid foundation or who has underlying learning challenges that need additional outside the box instruction can fall behind.  It also fails to recognize that a student who has real gifts in a particular area can get bored then jaded then frustrated and disinterested very quickly.  A teacher needs to be trained to help students that are at very different levels of learning.  If they have a poor grasp of a particular subject, and have not been trained in how to actually TEACH that subject well, the students suffer.

 

If a teacher is teaching 1st grade but never had a strong grasp of math, for instance, and has one or two very gifted math students, unless they are specifically trained in differentiated learning and how to find resources to help those children, the children will more than likely not be given the chance to advance at the depth and pace that is best for them.  The teacher won't know how to help and may be embarrassed to admit that the student may actually have a stronger grasp of math than they do.  Yes there are 1st and 2nd grade math teachers that have poor number sense, poor conceptual understanding of math and cannot teach beyond what is in their TM.  But they may be GREAT at teaching other subjects.  They just are required to teach math, too, whether they understand it well or not.

 

 Conversely, if a student has learning challenges in math and needs a more outside the box approach,  or more targeted instruction, or needs a more global picture before being introduced to the pieces, and if the teacher has not had much training in actually teaching math, and has a very weak grasp of math, they won't know how help the student.

 

For instance, DD was never able to learn long multiplication in the standard U.S. format.  It never made sense in her brain (undiagnosed dyscalculic at the time) and her teachers had no idea how to help her.  None.  She also had a very weak number sense.  All she was taught in school was rote memorization (which she also couldn't do) and standard algorithms.  Not the WHY of anything or a different way to see the math or a different way to approach solutions or a slower pace with very targeted instruction while she learned the material.  I only knew rote memorized material and standard algorithms, too.  I couldn't help her at the time.  I followed what the teachers said to do.

 

When the teachers saw her getting wrong answers they had no idea what the underlying issues were or how to find out. And they were unable to look at the details of a problem and tweak out where the missing pieces were.  She wasn't getting everything wrong.  Only certain things.  They couldn't help her.   They didn't have the training or the background knowledge.  They just kept passing her on to the next grade level hoping someone further down the road could help her or things would just finally click.  This was true for her kinder, 1st and 2nd grade teachers who admitted math was a weak subject but it was also true for her 3rd-5th grade teacher who had a degree in math and understood math very well.

 

By 5th grade she was in terrible shape and multiple grade levels behind but they kept passing her.  Over the summer between 5th and 6th she went to a summer school program where the teacher was TRAINED in how to assess where a student was at, what their strengths and weaknesses were and different methods for approaching math.  It made a world of difference.  The teacher had a conference with me about a week into school (she did that for all parents) and I realized that she knew more about DD and her functionality in math in just the 2 days of informal assessments she had done with her class than DD's math "expert" teacher of 3 years or her kinder/1st/2nd grade teachers who were not experts and actually felt they were very weak in math.  Was she just a whole lot smarter?  No, I don't think so.  She had very specific training in her field.

 

For instance, this particular teacher after assessing DD suggested she needed a different approach to long multiplication.  She tried a couple of different methods then taught DD the lattice method for long multiplication of large numbers since it seemed to fit how she processed math.  I had never even heard of lattice method.  I didn't know there WERE other ways of multiplying.  Suddenly the whole process made sense to DD.  DD was able to multiply very large numbers far more quickly and CORRECTLY.  And she finally understood what she was doing and why.  It was like night and day.  She just needed a teacher that understood the subject AND had been taught many ways to teach it AND had been taught how to effectively assess her students and work with them individually.  The teacher training made a huge difference.  

 

If DD had had that type of instruction all along I seriously doubt she would have fallen so far behind.  Would math still be hard?  Yes.  It will never be a strong subject for her.  However, because of that experience and now homeschooling with a mom that may not be great at math but is very willing to find different ways of approaching material and finding better explanations, she now likes math and is making progress.

 

Another example, my mom has several degrees in language arts and in teaching language arts.  This is her area of expertise and she loves the subject.  She taught in Middle School and then High School for many years.  What she was never taught in ANY depth was how to help students with dyslexia and other reading struggles.  She ended up as a Reading Specialist and was in charge of the advanced AND the behind reading students.  She did great with advanced and average students.  Not nearly as great with struggling students.

 

Unfortunately, besides poor training in general, the methods she was taught to help students falling behind in reading were poorly designed and not based on scientific research for why reading can be hard for some.  Also, because this was an area of strength for her, it came naturally.  Therefore, she didn't really know how to break down the pieces that were automatic in her head.  And her training did not show her how.  All she could do was limp them along.  And she was not taught how to differentiate the learning in her classroom.  She learned her own methods over years and years of teaching but it would have helped immensely to be trained ahead of time.   

Edited November 22, 2016 by OneStepAtATime

[Crimson Wife]

 

They do these very funky number lines that I don't get (common core math.)  I plan to look it up better this weekend and see if I can figure out what the heck it is.  I am sure there is a video on it somewhere.

 

Is it the engageNY curriculum? That is *HORRIBLE*. I've used Right Start, Singapore, MM, Beast/AoPS, and MEP (can you tell I've got a mathy kid?) so I think I have a decent grasp on conceptual math up through basic algebra at this point. But a LOT of the primary grade engageNY worksheets that my youngest comes home with leaves me totally confused as to what the student is supposed to do. :glare:

 

[madteaparty]

I agree on the property taxes not being tied, but I'm seeing from the side of the high property tax area. It is NOT fair to us either. The property tax funding issue can actually be much more complex than that higher value areas have better schools. It's not that simple. At least in Texas. I live in a high property tax value area. It means we get much, MUCH less from the state. We get squat from the state. We also have a stable school population meaning we don't have a lot of students moving in or out. That also means we get even less from the state. In order to maintain the school district here, because we are a high value area, we are honestly penalized- we have to have disproportionately higher property and sales taxes, which then creates a catch-22. People in lower incomes can't move in because they can't afford the property taxes on the houses. That then shrinks the incoming elementary population and the pool of tax payers.

 

The state needs to have a transparent, FAIR funding procedure. I don't know about other states, but in Texas, it is neither. The only thing that allows our high tax value are to maintain the schools to the level they are is the ability of the citizenry to continually swallow tax increases and have involved parents who can afford to pay for things out of pocket to the benefit of the school. As a district we do far more with less per student than surrounding areas and are continually punished for it each year. It would almost be better sadly for finding IF parents were less charitable and test scores dipped. It's a completely insane system here in Texas.

 

ETA- The higher tax rate you have, the less the state gives you. So just because you're a high tax value area doesn't mean you end up with more per student. Here you end up with less. Our students get 6k something a year. One of the lowest rates in all of he surrounding Houston area. Every surrounding district gets hundreds to thousands more per student. It's what we manage to do with that money per student that keeps us a top rated school. For now. That and that we can do what we do with 6k per year and I see some states get 20k per kid and still end up total failures. Amazing.

NYC does not tie funding to property tax and it has one of the most unequal, segregated school systems in the country.

I still agree with education not being tied to the property tax thing. I pay mad mad taxes but I don't mind because I love the public schools, and believe a well educated population is a social good.

Edited November 22, 2016 by madteaparty

[FaithManor]

Regarding what has hurt education, partly it's the women's movement, and I don't see that changing nor do I fault the women's movement for this, but before women could have serious careers, teaching was kind of the epitome of what a smart, well-educated woman could do for paid employment.  So woman teachers were really, really smart and very well educated--they knew the material they taught at a mastery level, and they were excellent at learning more if necessary.  We don't have a society where the best and brightest of any group are forced into teaching anymore.  I know a lot of excellent, smart teachers, but undeniably there are also a lot of teachers who would not have been able to teach 80 years ago who are now in the profession.

 

Also, textbooks and methods are experimental and poorly edited in a lot of cases, and imposed on teachers who may or may not thoroughly understand them.  I considered using Scott Foresman to teach DD how to read, and it was absolutely overwhelming.  Likewise a developmental math program that read like recipes to me--I could see the instructions, but instinctively felt that I shouldn't just follow them if I myself didn't know what they were getting at.  I hunted down methods and materials that were good for her AND that I knew I could present well and amplify on, and that was great for us, but in a school setting I would have been stuck with whatever materials were purchased FOR me.

 

Also, in general, the cultural challenges with violence, toxic online bullying, poverty, lonely affluence, lack of spiritual lives, lack of consensus on behavior and moral norms vary tremendously from one learning environment to the next, and teachers are often ill-equipped to deal with the range that they run across.

This reminds me of the Ohio elementary school teacher who was one of the Mercury 13. If you don't know about that group, it was a group of ELITE female pilots who trained in the sixties for the astronaut core and then were denied admission. She was AMAZING, and I can only imagine what it must have been like to be her student.

 

We used to teach a LOT more at the high school level. There were high schools in Oklahoma, Texas, Arizona, etc that Aviation courses, and their own airplane hangers with school owned planes. Can you imagine? I know some kids that would be ever so happy to stay in school, jump the hoops of courses they don't like, must so they could graduate with a pilot's license and aviation mechanics certification.

 

We've lost a lot, a huge amount of steam educationally.

 

Seriously, I know kids that if you said, "You need physics and trigonometry by 11th grade in order to enter the two year aviation program", would be all over that like ugly on an ape, and would be studying their brains out even if the coursework was hard for them just to be able to do this. I think there are a lot more "carrots" like that. My dad stayed in school because of practical drafting (not taught anymore), introductory mechanical engineering (not taught anymore), metalworking (nope to that too). My mom practically had a degree in textiles and fashion design by the time she got out of high school. Nobody expected her textiles instructor to be capable of teaching statistics, but what that woman could do at a sewing machine was astounding, and she passed that on to a number of young ladies who probably would have otherwise hated school. But they jumped whatever hoops the school said they needed to in order to get admitted to those specialty programs.

 

We've narrowed the scope, and then turned what's left into a mess. 

[Arcadia]

I have a friend in Mass who started out relatively well paid and after a short time was making 75K. She told me though that that is about as high as it will go.

Massachusetts average pay is supposedly $75,398 while New York has the highest average pay at $77,628. My school district is a unified district and the highest pay is supposedly $93,288 but the pay is actually slightly higher. Teachers locally do try to get promoted to curriculum specialist or vice-principal as those are better paid. Then they try to get promoted higher up. The district superintendent gets paid $250k.

 

Link has the average numbers for California as well as the average for the states

http://www.cde.ca.gov/fg/fr/sa/cefavgsalaries.asp

[Crimson Wife]

Pie-in-the-sky: schooling is about academics, not free babysitting, an excuse to have sports teams, or trying to remake society to have equality of outcomes (though we should continue to strive for equality of opportunity).

 

Realistic: place children by where they are in the curriculum and have them go through it at the pace appropriate to them. Stop pretending that 100% of children are 4 year university material and offer high-quality vocational training. Decouple school enrollment from the housing that a family can afford.

[SarahW]

After following Diane Ravitch and Peter Greene for several years now, I am opposed to school choice, or the money following the child. Detroit shows us what can happen; charters are not the answer.

 

I want homeschooling to remain legal and not excessively regulated. Bundling homeschooling in with a voucher system will only bring more government involvement into homeschooling, and drive up costs of goods and services as curriculum providers begin to notice that families are suddenly working with thousands in government funds.

 

I want taxpayer dollars going only to public schools that are for all children (in other words, don't send public money to religious schools), and I don't want our most vulnerable children subjected to abusive methods and strange theories (such as in Moskowitz's Success Academies) -- see Gary Rubinstein's blog for some videos and commentary on that. If parents want alternatives to public education, they should cover the cost. Or some of the entities promoting school choice could come at this from the other angle: Religious organizations could start private schools. Billionaires in favor of experimental charters could fund a particular school, instead of convincing the nation to convert to their plan to attach the money to the child for all of America.

 

Equality doesn't come from detaching funds from public schools and attaching them to the child. Free appropriate public education is a solid American ideal that we should retain, no matter how tempting the billions of dollars being offered to convert to school choice (by people who have no expertise in education).

 

Well, since I currently have my child in a "charter" Christian school, paid for by the government, and moved him to this school because his previous "public" school was causing him to mentally melt, I disagree.

 

The school choice system here might never actually work in America. The cultural differences make it impossible to do a wholesale adoption of any system and expect the same results. But on this issue I think Ravitch is quite myopic. Some kids respond better to a Montessori system, or a unit study based education, or a heavily creative environment. Why should only rich people have the way to choose these things?

 

One of the reasons, though, that school choice here works is because there is strong federal education standards and regulations. There's pros and cons to anything, of course. The teacher's at my kids school have been trying to move towards having the students do more interest-based unit studies, but were struggling how to do that with only a few teachers and also hit the required standards. But it is the local school which does wonders with building kid's social skills, so there we are.

 

And in full disclosure, the fact that it's a Christian school didn't really factor in, except as a bit of a negative, since it is Reformed and we most definitely are not. But it hasn't been a problem, because it's really not a problem. But this isn't America.

[Lang Syne Boardie]

Well, since I currently have my child in a "charter" Christian school, paid for by the government, and moved him to this school because his previous "public" school was causing him to mentally melt, I disagree.

 

The school choice system here might never actually work in America. The cultural differences make it impossible to do a wholesale adoption of any system and expect the same results. But on this issue I think Ravitch is quite myopic. Some kids respond better to a Montessori system, or a unit study based education, or a heavily creative environment. Why should only rich people have the way to choose these things?

 

One of the reasons, though, that school choice here works is because there is strong federal education standards and regulations. There's pros and cons to anything, of course. The teacher's at my kids school have been trying to move towards having the students do more interest-based unit studies, but were struggling how to do that with only a few teachers and also hit the required standards. But it is the local school which does wonders with building kid's social skills, so there we are.

 

And in full disclosure, the fact that it's a Christian school didn't really factor in, except as a bit of a negative, since it is Reformed and we most definitely are not. But it hasn't been a problem, because it's really not a problem. But this isn't America.

As you're saying, it really is apples to oranges. If I recall correctly, you're in the same country where my BIL and SIL raised their family. Their children attended private Catholic charters. We've all frequently spoken of the differences in the education challenges and options in these two such different nations.

[FaithManor]

Starting teacher wages are $35,901 on average in Michigan. Average. That means there are some pretty big LOWS. Locally newbie teachers begin at $29,000.

 

That is a take home of roughly $2100 a month.

 

Rent

Car insurance (very high here in Michigan due to No Fault)

Car

Utilities

Food

Medical insurance (for singles, since the school district has consistently upped the amount teachers pay on the premium while not handing out a pay raise in 9 years), it is around $600.00 a month now.

 

Getting the most inexpensive apartment locally, driving without collision coverage on the vehicle, and going with the cheapest average on utility bills, with the above, the new teacher has already exceeded income and is functioning in the red. This is without student loans.

 

So really, we aren't doing a lot to attract people to teaching. A two year aviation mechanics assistant degree which can be procured from a community college at a much lower cost than the teacher ed degree pays out just at the little regional airport closest to us, $10,000 a year more.

 

Locally, CNA's only make $2000 a year less and on about 10 weeks worth of training at a cost of less than $2000.00.

 

Not good.

[Guest]

.

Edited September 10, 2020 by Æthelthryth the Texan

[Crimson Wife]

I don't see what is "public" about the government-run schools we have now. If I prefer the public libraries in the surrounding towns to the one in my own, I am free to use those. Ditto for the public parks, the public pools, the parks & rec classes (though I do pay a slightly higher fee than residents), etc. Nobody is barring my access to those.

 

But if I decide that the high schools in surrounding towns are better than the one that my child is zoned for, I am forbidden from enrolling her. This despite that the bulk of the funding for those schools come from the state general fund rather than property taxes (only 14% of the school budget at the "best" high school in the area comes from local taxes).

[Guest]

That would be the problem . . the implementation because it wouldn't work for only one school to do it. It would have to be a mass decision in order to have the change work and that's just not going to happen any time soon.

 

I do like that Ohio has made it possible for homeschoolers and private schoolers to participate in the public school sports programs. We haven't taken advantage of it yet but I think my sixth grader may be trying cross-country next year as a jr. higher.

The problem is the cost. All of the facilities would have to be rented by the various groups, despite taxpayers already paying for them. The students have to provide their own transport...frankly out here in rural land, there isnt enough parking for every kid to drive to school, even if the parents could afford the vehicle and insurance, and for many a driver. Just doesnt work financially for the poorer students, which is why they arent in the numerous existing rec or travel leagues. We actually ended up with our facilities rented out to richer school districts, and the local rec teams squeezed out. A true winner take all situation.

[DawnM]

Crap.

 

I am out of likes for the day.

 

I like all the contributions.

[ktgrok]

2. The U.S. Federal Government should get completely out of public education.

 

Totally disagree. That's how we get kids in Alabama learning creationism as science, and texas kids never learning about civil rights. (picked random states...feel free to insert state of choice). 

[ktgrok]

Equitable doesn't mean equal. It means to each according to need, fairly. It doesn't actually take as much to educate a well-prepared, well-equipped neuro-typical suburban kid as it does to educate a poor child with disabilities in a poorly-resourced urban or rural community, for ex. I want to see a greater emphasis on equity.

 

Agreed. 

[Arcadia]

Those averages are scary low, if we're considering that they include some very experienced, long term teachers. And the states on the high end have crazy high costs of living I assume? .

This townhome housing program is what my school district does to help. Local rents have reached close to $3k for a one bedroom condo, more for a townhome.

"Teacher salaries at Santa Clara Unified start at around $55,000. But the South Bay has one of the highest concentration of people earning top 5 percent salaries in the country.

When the school district built the facility, turnover for the first group of teachers to live in Casa Del Maestro dropped below average. The typical rent for a two bedroom with a garage at the complex right now? $1500 a month. "

http://kalw.org/post/how-one-bay-area-school-district-making-sure-teachers-aren-t-priced-out

[MotherGoose]

Something I remembered today after reading this thread. When I was in LA Unified, there was a time when there was such a shortage of math teachers that the district offered 4 math classes for free (paid for by the district) in math. If you took those four math classes, you automatically got a math credential.

 

I had several fellow teachers who did it.

 

I thought it was nuts. I knew 4 classes would NOT prepare me to teach high school math.

 

But what do you do when there are literally no teachers applying and over 100 openings in that department?

I'm not arguing with you here... just wondering (for myself if no one else) why do we homeschoolers think we can teach anything without certification? That's a frequent argument against homeschooling. Could an inexperienced public school teacher with a desire not self educate himself or herself in order to teach higher math?

[Guest]

.

Edited September 10, 2020 by Æthelthryth the Texan

[prairiewindmomma]

Having lived in a state with crazy ideas about the adequacy of public education (science in Kansas), I no longer think that allowing local school boards or states to determine the scope of coursework.

 

My ideal school:

1. All children are screened for functional hearing (including Auditory Processing disorder) and functional vision and for motor delays as part of kindergarten screening.

2. All schools have adequate facilities and equipment: mold free, properly working HVACs, safe water supply, carpet free, no portable shelters....

3. All schools at all grades have at least an hour of vigorous exercise planned as part of the school day.  Motor coordination work is part of this.

4. Music, art, and foreign language are on the schedule weekly.

5. Math and language arts are taught by specialists in those areas. Students falling behind receive effective, immediate, intensive services.

 

My list is much longer, but my day is short.  I haven't found a school that does these five---#3 seems to be a sticking point handled by after-hours sports.

[LMD]

I haven't read all the replies yet, but my first thought is changing the mentality about sending kids to school = childcare so parents can work. We seem to be straddling the ideas of childcare and academics and coming up with longer school days with mediocre academics and I think that's the worst of both worlds.

 

Ideal for me, for working parents, would be first - more workplace flexibility and reasonable cost of living. An average family should be able to thrive on 1-1.5 of a full time average wage, and it should be common for that 1-1.5 to be made up of options like 1X0.8 and 1X0.4 workers.

 

Then, the 'school' should be part family daycare and part academic charter/coop. Small classes, like 5-10 students, with the ability to individualise lessons.

Then you'd have other adults running the family part, get kids to help with chores and day to day running of the place, cooking, activities with younger/older kids, outdoor activities with adults who are ready and willing to mentor interested kids in things like gardening and carpentry.

And plenty of free time to make use of the board games/books/art supplies/animals/outdoor spaces/musical instruments/science items. Kids can arrive early for breakfast, class times would be set, something like 9.30-12.30 and 1.30 - 3.30? Kids can stay until 5-6, until parents can come and get them. No homework beyond "discuss this idea with your parents"

 

So basically, homeschooling in a (non crazy/cult) commune lol, with a classical/montessori feel. Totally pie in the sky.

[Arcadia]

I'm not arguing with you here... just wondering (for myself if no one else) why do we homeschoolers think we can teach anything without certification? That's a frequent argument against homeschooling. Could an inexperienced public school teacher with a desire not self educate himself or herself in order to teach higher math?

Hubby and I outsource teaching to tutors who are subject experts but who do not necessarily have teaching credentials. A college lecturer does not need to have teaching credentials. I don't teach my kids any of their subjects.

 

My neighbor teach high school english in a private school for more than a decade already and her students all did well. I do not think she wants to torture herself relearning algebra, geometry, precalc and calculus just to help her child with homework. She would rather pay for an after school math tutor.

 

If an inexperienced public school teacher wants to educate himself/herself to teach high school math, I don't see any harm in paying for it. Teachers have annual CEUs requirements so why not math education just subsidized by the school district instead of full pay.

 

If an inexperienced teacher is willing to self educate himself/herself to teach higher math, there is a lucrative tutoring market out there which might be more enticing than remaining a teacher in a last in first out system.

[shawthorne44]

I really like the screening idea, and it makes sense.  

 

I will forever be grateful to the scoliosis test I got in the public school.   They caught it in enough time for a new surgery to mostly correct my problem.   

 

My parents were diligent, loving parents.  I was going to summer camp and they required a recent physical, so  I had one every year like clockwork.  But, did the jerkwad test for that?   Noooooo, because he couldn't charge extra for it.

 

[Penelope]

I'm not arguing with you here... just wondering (for myself if no one else) why do we homeschoolers think we can teach anything without certification? That's a frequent argument against homeschooling. Could an inexperienced public school teacher with a desire not self educate himself or herself in order to teach higher math?

I don't think that a public school teacher needs certification, necessarily (not all private schools require it, and some of them are excellent), but for middle and high school, they do need subject knowledge and teaching experience, or at least some teaching and classroom management skill.

 

Homeschooling is fundamentally different than classroom education, so that is why the argument for homeschoolers needing training similar to what a public school teacher should have really doesn't fly with most homeschoolers. But it is why I am very careful in how I outsource classes, since a class situation is not the same as facilitating learning for your own child at home.

Edited November 22, 2016 by Penelope

[Janeway]

Elite sports would not be funded through public school budgets. The tax dollars would go to education. If sports are covered, it should be club level, everyone gets a chance. Footballers like to claim we can spend all these tax dollars on football because they make so much money. Fact is, if they made so much, they would not need so much tax money. Education tax dollars should go toward education.

[Janeway]

No more testing. Just have an 8th grade exit test. Get rid of College Board's grip on education. Get rid of the feel-good component, otherwise known as every child kept behind.

[Arcadia]

I was reading Most Likely to Succeed at the library and the author mentioned Finland closing 80% of their teacher training colleges. I actually like having less but better teacher training colleges, and for teachers to have less teaching hours.

 

"After a mass closure of 80 percent of teacher colleges in the 1970s, only the best university training programs remained, elevating the status of educators in the country. Teachers in Finland teach 600 hours a year, spending the rest of time in professional development, meeting with colleagues, students and families."

http://ideas.ted.com/what-the-best-education-systems-are-doing-right/

[creekland]

When I dropped down a math level (thinking it would be similar math but slower paced) one of the worst aspects was being in a room filled with behavior problems.  Really, really terrible. I couldn't hack that.  I went back and struggled and accepted that I wasn't going to get excellent grades. 

 

But yeah so you think having a few kids who struggle in a mixed classroom is as bad as a room filled with kids who struggle?  I have no clue if that is the case, but I can understand the desire to try something different with the class configuration.

 

That's not the case.  Our lower level classes are not always filled with behavior problem kids. Some of those classes are absolute gems to work with - eager to learn - and thankful to do it without all the "smarter" kids showing them up. I enjoy them as much as I enjoy the higher level college bound kids.

 

That said, many lower level kids are behavior problems (overall) because they've learned to despise school.  If too many of them get in the same class, it certainly can be the pits.  It depends upon luck of the draw really.  

 

On the other hand, when you mix all the kids together, the kids on the bottom end of their grade will always be the bottom in their classroom.   Whereas with differentiation, many more will be average or leaders.  

 

A co-worker's daughter's school went from differentiation to 'inclusion'.   After a few weeks she told her mother, "I didn't realize it before, but I am dumb."    THAT is what inclusion gets you.  

 

THIS is what I see essentially all the time.  It's sad, because then kids give up knowing that, "I can never do it."  Some will go on to become behavior problems or try other forms of escapism.

 

 

If you paid enough though, you would attract math teachers from all over the world and have them crawling out of the wood work.  

 

I don't know that I agree TBH.  I spent my 10th grade year in an exclusive private school in FL.  We had the best teachers there that I've ever had, yet those teachers were the lowest paid.  We once asked my Bio teacher why he worked there rather than the higher paid public school nearby.  His reason?  "I have freedom here and I don't have all the headaches I'd get from public school."  He didn't want to be told how to do his job and he didn't want to deal with behavior problem kids (those didn't exist in this private school).

 

This was back in the early '80s.

 

When teachers leave the school where I work to do something else (college teaching, other jobs), they tell me the exact same reasons.

 

Keep the chronic behavior problems out of school and let teachers TEACH and you'd both attract and keep better people.

 

Then too, it needs to be easier to weed out the "bad" teachers.  If enough students complain and test scores (appropriate for the level being taught - not grade but academic ability) aren't there, it needs to be easier to tell teachers they NEED to find something else to do with the lives.  Some, literally, are just doing it for the money.  They don't care about the job and it shows.  Some also can't do the job, plain and simple.

[happypamama]

Along with these ideas about salary, we should make it so that two full time incomes are not needed for necessities. A second income should be able to be used for luxuries and not be needed to afford health insurance and food. You should be able to afford basic medical care, a reasonably decent house in a decent area, and reasonable food on one income without needing welfare or going without basic necessities. So then parents could feel okay with having one parent at home fulltime, and that parent would be able to volunteer at school, advocate for the child as needed, be involved with homework, etc. I'm not saying that working parents don't do those things, but it has got to be harder. The laundry, meals, sleep, baths, etc. don't disappear when you're busy (as I've found out recently, being largely a single parent for a few weeks with a DH who needed my assistance a lot and who couldn't do much with the kids and house at all), and something has to give somewhere. Dad used to talk about open house night. His top track kids generally had both parents show up; those parents had both the luxuries of babysitter money and leisure time to attend an open house. The middle track kids typically had one parent come, and the lower track kids were lucky if they had a grandparent make an appearance. Their parents were either not in the picture, or the parents were working multiple crummy jobs just trying to keep afloat. I can't help but wonder how many kids weren't reaching their full potential because there wasn't parental support to help. My dad took time to explain math concepts I couldn't remember, mom proofread my papers, they took me to the library (and read to me when I was little), they had consistent meals and clean laundry for me, they nagged me now and then (appropriately -- they also knew when to let me sink or swim on my own) about deadlines, they insisted I not work much because grades mattered, they came to school stuff, etc. I don't know all the reasons why some kids don't get that parental support, but I just think that the necessity of two incomes really stacks the deck against some kids.

[happypamama]

And also, I'd like to see school choice universally. Every parent should be able to use a portion of the state/local money spent on their child for public school to facilitate that child's education in whatever way they choose. Maybe I'd like my academically oriented kid to go to the next district over because that district has a dual enrollment program deal that mine doesn't have, but maybe my friend in that district would rather have her artsy kid in my district with its fantastic theater program, but she doesn't care about the dual enrollment. (Idk if we have a good theater program; it's just an example, although it does irritate me that my district doesn't do dual enrollment and others nearby do.). And maybe our friend just wants to Homeschool. Why can't we all direct at least some of those funds to where we think is best for our children?

[KungFuPanda]

I'd like to see national standards, but just as a basic outline of objectives to hit each year. I'd like to see teachers treated as professionals and awarded accordingly with an increase in salary and support. I think it's nuts that a teacher has to become an administrator to progress in her career. The admin. class should be support for the teachers like nurses and office personnel in your doctor's office. Keeping excellent teachers in the classroom and making teaching a prestigious and competitive field would change everything. If there MUST be tons of paperwork, give them a secretary to do it. If you train talented people well, they MAKE good things happen. You can't pull this off with a bureaucratic checklist.