For example, my 12 year old granddaughter was struggling last year in 6th grade with the math curriculum. When we talked to the classroom teacher about the problem, the teacher stated she and her colleagues were still learning the new material and were unable to answer our questions, or help the students. She complained about the new curriculum, but explained that teachers were powerless to do anything about it.
That's the world of public education today. Teachers, the good ones, are hamstrung by policies which originate elsewhere and by people who haven't got a clue as to how children should be taught.
Why is there such a large turnover in teaching materials and curriculums in our public schools? I would think that it is counter productive.
It would seem to me that oce you found a method that works you would stick with it. The money spent on new materials and training for the new curriculums must be astronomical.
Sounds to me like any typical socialist program. Once government socialism takes over excellent service is scarcer, that which is available is of poorer quality, and all of it is more expensive.
Socialist schooling? What were the 19th century progressive reformers thinking?! What we have today was inevitable!
Well put. I am a teacher in the Deep South. No union. Contract from year to year. I make less than half what teachers up north make. I do not want the federal government in education. I agree with the problem with textbooks. I use the oldest books I can find. The new books are garbage. I proudly do not have an education degree. My degree is in history and that makes me “highly qualified” according to the school system. I only had to take 9 hours of education courses to get my license.
I'm an engineer; but this astounded me. Let me see if I understood this correctly. A college degreed adult, does not understand math well enough to teach a 6th grade student, in a manner that was different than before? Am I missing something?
My reaction is pretty straight forward - you have an incompetent Math teacher. The basic rules of Algebra, Mathematics and Geometry have not changed. If your teacher cannot grasp a different way to present Mathematics, Algebra and Geometry - I'd say the problem isn't with the ciriculmn, it's with an incompetent teacher who should have her Math teaching certificat revoked before she does more damage to her students.
You forgot to mention one important fact: those who operate the schools, those who teach the teachers are usually persons who are by comparison with their old schoolmates and peers in the colleges and university, not well-educated. Probably 70% of the school administrators in Texas are former coaches, and while I think that most of them have more native intelligence and common sense than many who have taught academic courses, that means our schools are run by people who know little or art, literature, math and science. They are easily sold a bill of good by the peddlers of the latest educational fads. You know that a common joke among teachers is that the “reformers” keep rebranding ideas that have beeb tried and failed. School administration is a kind of appointive politics, and even the largest of school systems are run by people who have run out of new ideas.
SoldierDad, I understand your issue well. My wife is a teacher and you are right, the Administration is completely out of touch with the teachers and in no hurry to create a system that in their minds may endanger the cushy spot in the pecking order they occupy.
We need to find what works and stick with it, whole language instruction is a joke and the root of most reading problems but it is in widespread use today even though the results are abysmal.
In the Corporate world I had more control and paid for performance and the curriculum my group provided was measured consistently for outcome and not changed randomly with each new “thing” that came along.