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Showing posts with label Teachers. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Teachers. Show all posts

Saturday, May 20, 2017

Laughably Wrong

Nikto has been doing a great job covering all the Trump stuff this week so I thought I would focus on something else: education. Being that this is my area of expertise, I had a pretty strong reaction to this recent story in the Minneapolis Star Tribune regarding the loosening of regulation in obtaining a teacher's license. Here's the part that cracked me up the most.

"If this bill passes, there will be a teacher shortage," Cwodzinski said. He predicted that community experts would be unprepared for the multifaceted demands of the job: "When ... they find out that we have papers to grade 'til midnight and curriculum meetings that go 'til five on Fridays and classroom management issues, and safety and discipline ... and Lord help them when they're told you can't go potty until the bell rings," he said.

Let's take this crap one piece at a time. Only English teachers grade papers until midnight. If any other teacher is doing so, it's because they assigned them. Most instructors give multiple choice assessments or assign other forms of work. Curriculum meetings are never on Fridays and invariably are professional days off or are on staff development days. If an instructor has classroom management issues, they should adjust how they deal with the issue. There are a myriad of methods (ENVOY, PBIS) that are effective with any sort of student. This would include discipline. I'm not sure what he means by "safety" but there are only a few drills a year, usually done in the fall and spring, that don't take up much time. Finally, teachers go to the bathroom all the time during class. Tenured teachers leave their rooms unattended all the time. I'm not a big fan of it but if you have to go, you go. Further, you can always get a paraprofessional to come to your home if it's an emergency. So, all of his protestations are nonsense and he is laughably wrong.

As to the larger issue of easing the path to being a teacher, I think it's going to have to happen. We have a teacher shortage in this state, in particular with math, science, and special ed. Who will fill these roles once even more baby boomers retire? Besides, administrators aren't going to hire someone who is underqualified. There doesn't need to be a state law saying who is or isn't qualified. A principal will simply not hire someone who doesn't have the degree they desire.

I had to jump through a lot of unnecessary hoops to get my license. People are turned off by this and that's why there is a teacher shortage. The real issue is tenure. It needs to change. Yesterday. Seniority should be taken into account but only in terms of not allowing districts to cut people simply because they make too much money. Unions need to get tougher on teachers who are just phoning it in and teachers evaluations should be done by outside, private entities.

Administrators should be given greater leeway to hire and fire based on performance. If that happens, the quality of both teaching and candidates coming into teaching will improve.


Monday, April 14, 2014