OK its what teachers do then.
1. Don't know where you're getting your information, but no teacher I know likes teaching to the test. Both of my parents are teachers, my brother is a teacher, my wife is a teacher, all four of her siblings are teachers, and all of my college friends went into teaching...so yeah, I'm around a lot of teachers. Teaching to the tests isn't less work, it is more...and it kills the creativity of students and teachers alike.
2. As for the citizens dictating what students should learn, I agree. There needs to be a common core standard otherwise the religious right would be teaching Creationism as Science. How the teachers teach common core should be up to the teacher...as long as the information is taught.
3. Pay largely depends on the district and state the teachers live in. Even in New England, my wife gets paid extremely poorly compared to other districts...and even her pay is better than what teachers from the South get paid.
4. Teachers I know love to use technology in the classroom, but they are limited by the district budgets. Some districts get to use interactive touch-screen smart boards connected to the internet where they can use Skype and youtube and all sorts of other educational programs. My wife's district on the other hand just got rid of their projectors and transparency papers last year.
5. What you just said here goes against what you said earlier. NCLB, teaching to the test, etc. are major issues. My wife can't fail a student. Period. No matter how much she tries to help students, even if she writes out the answers to a quiz, gives it to the student, and gives the student plenty of time to finish the quiz with notes, para help, etc...if the student is too lazy to take the quiz, then guess what...he still passes. That is NCLB at its core.
1. I'm getting my information from the same kind of sources you are getting your information. My teacher parents, my teacher/resource/principal/school board president wife, my teacher kinds, my wife's friends, etc. All I can suggest is that there are big differences between education systems and student populations in Mass. and Cal. My experience with unions go way beyond education though so I probably presume that union teachers are much union aerospace engineers which is what I found in California. Since I was involved in developing testing regimes my sense is that these processes are pretty much wrapped up in expected skill levels by grade.
The only teachers I know in California have the standards for accomplishment posted in the room and on computer in the classroom with links to past standards tests and skill item for use by students. That integrated structure is not teaching to the test. It is hard as hell to construct and maintain given the proclivities of school administrations and school boards. It is when teachers mostly ignore standards in the classroom and use test guidelines in their place that I call teaching to the test. Too often I find such is the practice in both engineering and teaching. there seems to be a gravitational draw to concentrate on personnel evaluation items that draws most workers to use them in place of best practices (achievement standards in education, engineering practices in aerospace).
I'm getting pretty tired of the appeal to teacher creativity as an excuse to let teachers do what the damn well please. They are supposed to be professionals, not artists, who have strong training in best teaching and motivational practices for children. We don't conduct classes with gurus in public schools. Rather we hope teachers can handle up to 40 students (6-12), control them, and direct them to use tools and resources, including applied training, to gain understanding and mastery of standards based material so they can, when pumped out of this system operate as informed and competent citizens.
We all have our favorite teacher, the one who got our attention, captured our imagination, and inspired us to excel and find our strong suits for life. This is not what teachers are driven to do. Rather inspiring the individual is what some gifted or common life story teacher we all encounter we describe as reasons for our success. Teachers are happy when they see their students take what has been tasked for the teacher to present and captured it. Many are like kindly nuns in nature.
2. Common core standards in California are drawn against standards for achievement by grade set by the state in most areas of learning. I suspect its similar in Massachusetts. Doing it by school district is rally missing the point of common core. I agree that teachers should have leeway in teaching core, but, it is essential that the teacher have strong links in their programs to state standards which, in the case of California, are research justified by the state.
3. Of course. However pay within districts still primarily guided by who has been there longest which is one of those areas where unions have dug in their heels. If your teaching professional connects standards with tests and reinforces that with hands on applications where students can really discover and master those connections and standards one would hope that that teacher was rewarded. This should be especially true if: that teacher is one who developed software for progress training in a game form suitable for Hispanic English as a second language eighth graders; provided students with individual in-classroom computers out of his own pocket and couple them into a community system in the classroom; got students to master principles of mechanics by having them build and test wooden cars and gain skill in tool use; tied all this to English language standards for eighth graders; and was rewarded by them achieving testing results at par with Beverly Hills. Hell, he's better than that Stand and Deliver guy.
Now if that's what you mean by creative as a normal thing I apologize. Otherwise you have to see my point about rewarding those who outperform all others by some means other than units and years served.
4. Refer back to three. My son pays for the computers inter-connectivity, video, and extra access to internet resources beyond those provided by LAUSD. He feels it is the right of students to have access to what technology is there. Sure some of his computers are a bit out of date, dating back to 2007, sure he's dedicated gamer and programmer, sure he's had four years Spanish training, sure he's an expert in English for Hispanics and yes he only got part of that from university. he's pretty much at war with administration mainly because they can't suck it up and bring the district into the 20th, much less the 21st century. The union is not really his friend, enemy actually, so he just perseveres.
5. Lumping NCLB, testing, core, with seventies don't make him feel bad policy is just keeping the same old dogs to fight new wars. My boy was written up once in about 1997 for failing precious little students. he made his case, got his results and the local administration backed off. Well, not exactly. The gave him low achieving students for two classes for the next three years. The parents all knew his reputation, his standards, and they kept the fire to their kids feet. Result no fails, his kids out performed the advanced class at Barendo MS, and scored well above district average in science and English. Kids can be interested even in gang infested neighborhoods is the takeaway here. I've no sympathy for a teacher who can't get a kid to pay attention obviously.
If one disconnects coddling and satisfying administration political agendas from teaching one will have a much better school system. I've even suggested to my boy that he go visit his kids at home with their parents to establish a better repore. Its a bad gang area, but, he's considering that or finding a way to pick up parents and bring them in to meet twice a year.
Thanks for the post.
