Since October, I've been working as a substitute teacher in the public schools. Also, I have two daughters in public school at the elementary level: 4th and 5th grades. I was a classroom teacher from 1978 to 1986, ranging from high school to middle school. I've seen and experienced some things since beginning the work. Some good and some bad. Same thing with my role as a parent of school-age kids. While lots of things about the system are industrial, I don't find that the teachers themselves are uncaring. In all, I've probably worked in 20 different schools and worked with kids from Pre-K to 5th grade. I've also done several jobs in English as Second Language and as a Resource Teacher for Exceptional Children-- mostly Autistic kids. Admittedly, my experience is only a slice but it's a fairly thick slice and it is through several different loaves. Just curious to get a conversation going about public education in America in 2011 and see what people have to observe and/or offer.
i guess you missed the whole big thread full of teacher bashing. to some, the only reason people teach is so they can do nothing and cash huge paychecks every other week.
I think an interesting way to analyze chroic problems with public education is to compare the US public education system with other countries in the world. Is public schooling in a far better situation ANYWHERE else? Does public schooling outperform private schooling anywhere else? Sometimes I wonder if public schooling is even a good idea at all. I think privatization is important, and the government can serve its role by taking that money and helping more people in need of financial aid. More importantly, ensure that schools don't end up in the same place as media > consolidation and concentration in power, hence a strong bias towards certain viewpoints.
Do you have a link that that thread? I don't remember it. Of course, that notion is foolish. You can't be in a room full of 25 kids and not work your ass off. I'm working in a class for autistic kids this week and next and there are only 6 kids in the class. It's constant. It's tiring. It can be stressful. The day runs from 7:15 to 2:30. No breaks. Lunch with the kids.
In NC, we have EOGs (End of Grade tests). All teaching is geared for regurgitation of the material on that test. I think some aspect of compensation is based on those results. But the process of industrialization has just begun. Going from school to school, I've noticed incredible differences in school culture. Some I like; some I don't like. In some schools the most important thing seems to be able to be quiet and orderly. In some schools, kids are allowed to be kids-- within a reasonable limit of mis-behavior. In some schools you have to be a martinet to even survive. These tend to be the schools in the very poorest of neighborhoods where parental support is spotty. You haven't lived until you've been the only white face in a classroom full of children and taught the life of Martin Luther King, Jr. That was interesting.
Very good article. Teacher's get way too much flak sometimes for the failures of public education. http://www.indystar.com/article/20110313/NEWS1003/103130398/Teacher-says-debate-has-ignored-crucial-issue-parents?odyssey=tab|topnews|text|IndyStar.com
It's too bad taxpayers can't sustain the ability to enable $100,000 + total compensation like the teachers in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, (once had) to ALL teachers...but that is another story. . . In this day and age when the economy sucks, you have teachers still giving 100%...Many perhaps not all, don't mind not receiving $100,000 +...They do it for the love of teaching...(for some reason it seems to be the teachers with more experience that have this "love" for teaching... My daughter is in 5th grade and has an awesome teacher...We will call her: Mrs. "G"...Mrs. G, has over 30 years teaching experience with much more life experience as well...She is a black lady and missing a tooth, but always smiling whenever you see her. Full of energy...Quite a contrast from the perky, relatively hot 20 something teachers my kids had before (such as 1st grade, 3rd grade) But while these young teachers were definitely attractive, they left a bad impression. They always seemed rushed during meetings, limited in time and seemed ready to leave once the kids left... On the otherhand, Mrs. G made it known that she would stay after school for "no cost" tutoring to any of her students that needed it...One day I was late on picking up my daughter (and embarrassed), but there was Mrs. G, standing outside the school waiting with my daughter still smiling and reassuring me it was no problem. . . My daughter on the first day of 5th grade wasn't sure of her teacher, now she tells me she is her favorite. ..more important, I have seen the grades improve, the confidence in my daughter improve. . . I am afraid as time passes, there will be fewer and fewer Mrs. G's ... I know the need to earn a comfortable salary is important, but I honestly feel mrs. G would do this job for a dollar an hour... Teachers really do make a differance, I just hope future teachers for my daughter will be like the one she has now. . .
My main complaint about the public school system in Minnesota is the amount of classes that are offered to students. While it is good to have variety, when states face budget problems, do we really need a huge variety of classes? In the Lakeville high school curriculum there are 18 (eighteen) separate art classes. There is a class in retail merchandising, sports, entertainment and fashion marketing, game and web development, broadcast media, film analysis, child development, creative crafts, creative foods, fashion design, architecture, geology and space systems, forensics and the science of crime, physics of music and lgiht, etc. These all appear to be great opportunities to learn, but do we really have teachers qualified to teach such a huge variety of classes? Schools continuall ask for more money every election, but when I take a look at the classes they offer, it is hard for me to vote for it.
Very easy way to fix public education. Get rid of all sports programs. They have nothing to do with educating kids and the money can be directed to better resources.
1. I wonder how much these classes really do cost. It seems some of the classes are capable of being covered by existing teachers. For example, my guess is that if the school has a computers teacher who teaches some form of programing, that teacher can also teach "game and web development" with a very modest degree of additional training. In a private HS I taught at, we had a film analysis class taught by the English teacher. So, I am not sure they are hiring a ton of extra people for these. Besides, if a kid is not in the "game and web development" class, he/she would still likely be in another class taught by another teacher, which still carries cost. 2. I think having a variety of classes if valuable. You want to keep students engaged in school. Having choices beyong English and Algebra makes a school a more interesting place and, I think, improves the performance even on the traditional "core" subjects.
It would be interesting to see some actual numbers on what sports programs cost vs the revenue they bring in.
would you get rid of music too? arts? i could be wrong, but i imagine the costs of "sports" (really PE) in elementary school is fairly insignificant, and is important in the overall development of the child.
My Mom taught in Milwaukee for 5 years and has been teaching in Houston/Pasadena for 25 years and she still took post graduate classes in order to make more money teaching and she has never, ever even come close to making $100k + benefits. Other than that, your story is pretty spot on.
I think a lot of us turned out O.K. with the basics. We didn't have to be kept engaged in school. We had an Art class, we had two choices for foreign language, we had a progression of Math and Science classes. We had PE. We'd play flag football in the fall, basketball in the winter and softball in the summer. We didn't need aerobics or darts or golf or tennis or bowling for PE. In the last election we voted at the public "Elementary School for International Studies" where they pride themselves on teaching Chinese to 6 year olds. It's a bad idea to be asking for a bond referendum and having folks vote there. Do we really have teachers competent in teaching Crime Scene Analysis? Do high schools really need a curriculum that is dozens of pages long?
And this is based off of your feelings/opinions or facts? I find it hard to believe that the issues with this country's public education system is spearheaded by sports programs. I could be wrong, but I doubt it.
I think you could make a distinction between PE and competitive sports. PE at all levels must be pretty dang cheap. When you form teams and play against other schools and need to get matching uniforms, stadiums, better coaches, new equipment, etc, it can turn into an expensive thing. Not that I'm advocating getting rid of competitive sports; but maybe schools shouldn't go quite so crazy on it.
I don't get many chances to defend mcmark, but I think he is simply talking about a simple re-allocation of resources to more essential services-- in high school primarily. My ES girls have PE once a week. Two years ago they dropped Foreign Language altogether-- Spanish. Our ES offers a Fall and Spring 6-week after-school course called "Extra! Extra!" which can be taught by anyone who can convince the School they know enough about something and have a sensible curriculum. The school offers the space and the teacher is paid directly by the parents.
My assumption was that he was talking about extra curricular sports (football, baseball, basketball) not physical education classes. In many schools, boosters pay for sports eq and uniforms, so I would be interested to see that actual data on what is spent for these activities vs. the revenue generated (mainly from football).
A lot of us did. But that doesn't mean everyone turned out OK under a traditonal curriculum or that even those of us who turned out OK couldn't have done better education-wise with more choices (or, of course, other innovations/improvements to the curriculum and pedagogy). Also, there are stuff that probably were considered "extra" at one point (computer programming and web development, for example) that will be more or less "basic" at a later time. In the end, it's matter of cost-benefit analysis. I can see how having too many classes, especially ones without teacher trained to teach them, can be ineffective and costly. On the other hand, I do think many of what you consider "extra" can in fact be quite beneficial. If the school district want voters to approve paying for them, though, they probably should do a better job explaining these benefits to the voters.
theres no way in hell my daughter is going to a public school...shes white,and i dont want her to be tormented with racist bullies like i went through. and that was 20 years ago, im hearing its worse now.. plus, have you seen what little girls are wearing at the malls these days? thats because of public schools and peer pressure....my daughter is wearing a uniform and will be a doctor while the girls going to public schools will have a kid by age 16 and be on welfare at age 18.....its happening more and more each day and parents dont care because they think "grandbabies are cute" ...what suckers.....bad parents is what i call them. shes going to be away from drugs in public schools,away from gangs, and be enrolled in church programs and science clubs and private tennis academys and gymnastic academys. see, i have money so i can do those sort of things...lucky me.
