Posted on 06/24/2013 11:38:53 AM PDT by Rusty0604
An important education story from earlier this week that we failed to note: a new study run by the National Council on Teacher Quality has called U.S. colleges of education an “industry of mediocrity” that churns out ill-prepared and under-qualified teachers. The Wall Street Journal reported the jaw-dropping statistics:...The report contends that it is too easy to get into teacher-preparation programs, with only about a quarter of them restricting admissions to applicants in the top half of their class. The typical grade-point-average to get into undergraduate programs is about 2.5 And meanwhile, teachers unions ensure that these incompetently prepared people are given lifetime tenure and protected evaluations.
(Excerpt) Read more at blogs.the-american-interest.com ...
Those who can, do. Those who can’t do, teach. Those who can’t teach, become politicians.
Bad teachers are a symptom of systemic failure, not the cause.
“I remember when I was in college we would joke that if anyone was in the teacher program it was because they couldn’t qualify for anything else. “
Indeed. I would want a teacher in specific subjects at any level higher than grade school to have at least an undergrad degree in that particular subject. Virtually all of our modern “education” courses could be presented in a semester or two.
(After all, Bill Ayers has a doctorate in “education”. Does that not completely specify the - total lack of - standards?)
Apologies to all of the very very fine teachers out there. You know who you are...and you know that you’re that way because of your intellect...and not those dorky courses given you in your education major. Come on...admit it.
Unionization and Mediocrity goes together like ham and cheese, like Abbott and Costello, like bacon and eggs . . .
It’s a societal failure. U.S. teachers generally come from the bottom 20% of college students. These bottom 20% teach the next generation of students, who end up worse than the previous generation. Now we take the bottom 20% of this group, and so on and so on. We’ve been through about three generations of this process since public education was any good, and what you see is the result.
Finland is praised for the success of their education system. There, teachers are selected from the TOP 10% of college students, and their results show it.
(All info presented is statistical. Of course there will be outliers in either situation.)
I met some of my kid’s elementary teachers that really didn’t understand math. They just followed the materials they were given and couldn’t explain things well. That’s a shame because it is hard to undestand more complex math if one hasn’t mastered basic math concepts. I remember thinking at the time that they should have seperate math classes for the kids; taught by math teachers.
In college,no one wanted to hang out with the ones in the Coll of Ed curriculum... they were TOO embarrassingly, stupid.
Nothing has changed.
This is why Teaching colleges are at the bottom of every university that offers a degree in "Education".
It's a shame that political correctness has replaced failing those students who cannot/do not meet the minimum criteria for passing a class.
They are all sociologists... to administer the PC curriculum, and to conduct social experiments in the classroom. The class room IS a social experiment and not a place for children to learn.
If you ever look at a kid’s text book you would be sick to your stomach.
The unions try to claim that this is because teachers don’t make enough money, but these days this isn’t true. They get 3 months off a year, guaranteed pensions, tenure after working a few years so that it’s impossible to fire them even if the molest children, etc.
I remember my wife had an education professor on her master’s thesis committee in the late 70s. He told Ann her work was superior to most of the doctoral work that went through the education school.
I coached public high school baseball in SoCal for three years. I looked at my player's US History, Poli-Sci, Algebra, Chemistry, Physics and Biology texts and thought them all essentially reasonable. My fellow coaches and I always emphasized grades first.
"Are you doing okay with your subjects, guys? Does anyone feel like they need any help with anything?" These questions were asked constantly. Tutoring was also available for them.
Not that there weren't and aren't problems. Though they don't quite appear at the level you suggest. At least not here... Not yet.
(Not LAUSD.)
Thomas Sowell said this years ago. Someone wanting to be a teacher would have to have a degree in a subject; then, the teaching certificate could either be a 1 year to 18 month program; or, they could make it a Masters Degree. But, there would be no more Bachelors Degree in Education.
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