Teacher plan is OK'd

Dallas Morning News ^ | February 27, 2004 | TERRENCE STUTZ

[thestob]

AUSTIN – Thousands of college graduates with no teacher training are expected to be put in charge of classrooms this fall under a controversial plan approved Friday to ease the state's teacher shortage.

The plan creates a new two-year teaching certificate that allows college graduates to become instant teachers in grades eight through 12 if they pass a state test and their degree is related to the subjects they would teach.

State Board of Education members cleared the plan on Friday even though a bare majority was against it. Opponents on the 15-member board were two votes short of the 10 needed to kill the plan, which was devised by the state agency that licenses teachers.

The eight opponents of the plan included all five Democrats on the board and three Republicans. While those critics blasted the idea during the board meeting, none of the supporters spoke in favor of it.

[basil]

I love it, myself. People who have actually worked in the real world have much to teach, I should think. Besides, they may not have been steeped in all the political correctness that is pounded into the heads of education majors.

[Xenalyte]

Me too. It's fun to watch the teachers around here get all exercised about competition from those who have done time in the real world.

[Fenris6]

Will be very interesting to see how college kids handle the PCBS of the Teachers Unions et al.

[pepsionice]

The teachers union got all upset 10 years ago when the Feds stood up the Troops to Teachers program and sent out 10,000 military folks over the years as teachers. The interesting thing, is that military folks are typically anti-union. There are various schools around the US that suddenly had anti-union teachers employed, and the younger teacher crowd became impressed with the anti-union stance of the military personnel. My guess is that these business people will be anti-union as well.

What naysayers ought to think about....for at least 100 years in American history....we did not have education specialist teaching. In fact, for a long period...we had no college educated people teaching. And we did fairly well. Lincoln didn't get a college graduate teaching him...so perhaps its not such a bad thing.

[rottndog]

First step in being "credentialed" in California is to take the CBEST Test. This tests COLLEGE GRADUATES at a 10th grade reading level. Best thing to do for public education is to ban teacher tenure, ban teacher's unions, and shutdown teacher's colleges.

[secret garden]

They claimed they wanted to do this about 18 years ago but then would only allow minority applicants to teach.

[GeronL]

BUT BUT BUT,, these teachers have not yet been indoctrinated with the communist GOALS 2000 agenda!!

[Eska]

This is alot of talk about nothing. Vast majority of teachers in my state are not certified in all areas they teach; required by No Child Left Behind. Emergency certifications have been around forever. Bottomline is that new prospective teacher must have degree in say math or science, pass Praxis II area certification for feds and then start at 34 grand/year. You are not going to get alot of takers in high crime urban areas where the teachers are needed.

Double beginning teacher salaries and you will get highly qualified people, but that will never happen; unless prop taxes triple.

Most teachers leave teaching after 10-12 years, they burn out. They top out on pay scale and still get out of teaching. Teach for a few years and you will understand why.

Just more politics as usual.

[Xenalyte]

Are you in Texas, by any chance?

[El Gato]

I'm not sure how great an idea this really is. I'm sure everyone who's attended college, especially the larger schools, have had teachers or "grad assitents" who knew their subject matter quite well, but couldn't teach it worth a darn.

The US military sends virtually all of it's instructors to special training, some fairly short, others not so short, before they let them teach. Even the DI's/TI's go to instructor school before they let them put on the Smokey the bear hat.

Fact is, in Texas, you cannot get an undergraduate degree in teaching. You get a degree in something else, with a "minor" in teaching, which consists mostly in "how to teach", although for math, especially elementary math, they end up teaching a fair amount of subject matter as well. Texas already has alternative certification, that at least gets the prospective teacher some training in teaching, usually the summer before they start, and then continuing in "summer school" and "night school". The husband of a friend/coworker of my wife just finished such a program, although he did take quite a few of the required courses before getting into the program, so that he wasn't limited to the districts that sponsor the alternative certification.

The biggest problems in education today are the result of over politicization and bureaucratization. Time was when the only "higher authority" than the school district superintendent was a county school superintendent, and then only for the really small districts, the larger "independent" ones did not answer to the country superintendent. Then the states got involved, and now the federal department of education. All those upper levels of management require paperwork, which comes down on the teachers, taking up time they should be spending with the kids or planing.

[Straight Vermonter]

Double beginning teacher salaries and you will get highly qualified people, but that will never happen; unless prop taxes triple.

I won't say anything here about your math. I will, however, say that doubling the starting teacher salaries is fine as long as they will accept double the class size. These classes with 16-18 students are ridiculous.

[rottndog]

There is absolutely no correlation between the amount of money spent and the quality of education produced. Average class size in Japan is 50+, teacher's salary much less, and gee, I think their kids are just a little more educated.

[q_an_a]

about three years ago a teacher was at a party and talking with a group of people when, annual reviews became the topic. The teacher was amazed to learn that most people in the private sector have to face a review once or twice a year. When asked how often in his 15 year career he had had a review his answer was "Never". This is an example of how out of touch with the "real world" our education system can be in some of it's programs.

[TaxRelief]

If the "real" teachers don't like it, they should leave.

[Eska]

The dynamics of classroom size; mainly controlled by urban or rural location. Inner-city or native village schools also have much higher rates of dysfunction, FAS, child abuse problems, and most of the kids are 4-5 grades below level.

Teach say alg 1 in a nice suburban school and 35 kids are not a problem. Teach a high school class where 80% of the kids are FAS, all the girls were raped at age 6, massive drug/alcohol problems, weapons, massive social dysfunction, and for the most part the 11th graders range from a 2nd to 8th grade level; 20 kids will eat you alive.

The teacher breaks the class into groups according to skill ability levels. So you use 4 different books and teach 4 different classes in one hour. This gives each group about 15 minutes of instruction time for an hour long session. Not enough time. Add in all the behavioral problems that will arise in some schools and you get an idea why small class size is important.

You always have 3-4 kids with tough emotional problems. The kids that will be institutionalized at 18; and sometimes these kids are very bright students. Now if we could only provide the one-on-one attention they require. The type of kids that urinate in the classroom, have violent outbursts, exhibit destructive tendencies, have psychological problems, and generally disrupt the classroom instruction. It seems as though each year there are more of these type of students in every reg ed classsroom; comes from public law 94-142 ad least restrictive environment; from the FEDS.

No simple answers mainly because all our ed problems begin in the home. Its a reflection of how as a people we are raising our kids.