Teaching is a challenging job. Anyone who disputes this statement has probably never tried to get a classroom of children or young adults, to engage in any productive academic task. Teaching and education fills a vital need in our society by helping shape and prepare our young people for their future roles as community members in an ever changing world. Finally, teaching is a profession. It isn't something that can be done well without training, preparation and a strong dedication to the students, families and communities who are served by our public schools.
Sadly, there are many who don't understand or accept these truths for any number of reasons. It may be simply due to ignorance of the challenges that are inherent in guiding a diverse group of learners towards achieving academic success. Not enough members of our society truly know what it is like in a classroom in 2015. Some people don't respect educators because of the mis-perception that teaching is a lesser profession, or not even a true profession at all. There is simple jealousy at the misconception that educators work short days, have summers off, and enjoy Cadillac benefits because of ill-gained, union coerced contracts. Finally, there isn't universal agreement in our society as to just what we are trying to accomplish through our public school systems. If public schools exist for simple skill building and transferring of "facts" then they fill a different role than if we are trying to instill a sense of community, curiosity and a lifelong love of learning.
Recent years have taken us farther down the path towards creating a system of public education that provides a basic educational foundation resting on acquiring a set of skills within a set time-frame. This approach relies on students moving through a series of predetermined benchmarks and standards and assumes that all students will be relatively uniform in their achievement. Along the way we measure and quantify student achievement using standardized tools, and work to "fix" or "intervene" with students who fall behind. In short, the emphasis on standards and testing has created an environment that is competitive, based on individual "success" (defined by people outside of the educational community), and designed to achieve very narrow and specific outcomes for students.
The United
States has lost ground among developed
nations in promoting quality education for its students — a troubling trend
that the Common Core State Standards is designed to counter.
homes.yahoo.com
Gov. Scott Walker says his state's "ACT scores are up
and Wisconsin
now ranks second in the country." But scores are not up, and the state's
national ranking is misleading.
factcheck.org
Instead of working as a community to address our challenges in a positive way, our current leadership in Wisconsin is taking the approach of disrespecting educators, dismantling public schools and dividing communities. The idea that we need to privatize education and undermine public confidence in our public schools flies in the face of truly looking for equitable and socially just solutions to the existing challenges we face in education.
monologuesofdissent.blogspot.com|By
Heather DuBois Bourenane
“My son and his school are not for sale,” said Peg Randall
Gardner of Milwaukee, ten hours into a hearing
on AB1, Wisconsin’s
latest school privatization bill. “These are real children living real lives in
the classrooms of our state, and it’s their future that this bill sells out,”
she told the Com…
progressive.org
This misguided approach to
"fixing" public education also targets the professionals who work in
our schools. The idea that we can
achieve better educational outcomes by deprofessionalizing our educational workforce
is simply ridiculous. While it is true
that we need to find ways to add diversity to our school staffs, we also need
to recognize that education is a profession that requires significant training
and expertise.
Scott Walker to propose alternative teacher licenses, drug
tests for public benefits : Wsj
The governor announced Thursday several budget proposals
that he said will help make more Wisconsin workers ready for jobs.
host.madison.com|By Dee J. Hall |
Wisconsin State Journal
Gov. Scott Walker is proposing an alternative pathway for
people to become licensed as teachers in Wisconsin.
www.channel3000.com|By Channel 3000
A new proposal by Governor Walker that would allow
potential teachers with "real life experience" to...
weac.org
The disrespect that is shown to those
working in our schools has consequences.
In order to learn and achieve our students must be engaged and
motivated. Few students will find
significant success unless they feel connected to their schools, their
curriculum and the educators who work with them in classrooms. Yet, the current climate fails to recognize
the importance of this reality. We see
lip service given to the importance of engagement and community, but in the end
we can see the emphasis being given to test scores, assessments and measurable
academic progress. Measuring engagement
of students and educators is less precise than measuring knowledge of
"facts", but it is every bit as, if not more, important.
Each year, K-12 schoolteachers in the U.S. who are
not engaged or are actively disengaged miss an estimated 2.3 million more
workdays than teachers who...
gallup.com|By Gallup, Inc.
Teachers overwhelmingly report that they love their jobs,
but hate their workplaces. Teachers weigh in on why they love the classroom and
how...
blogs.kqed.org
Is this agonized self-doubt found across most professions?
Is there a dentist blogging out there whose most popular post is “Are You A Bad
Dentist?”
Oklahoma is experiencing a critical shortage of teachers—and
here's why
The Oklahoma legislature is failing teachers—and students.
Oklahoma has led the nation in ...
dailykos.com
This disrespect extends beyond the
morale of educators and the impact that has on students. It creates a system where the professional
expertise of educators is disregarded, ignored and invalidated. Educators have long worked to build
community, nurture individual skills and provide instruction at a level
appropriate for their students. In our
drive to close gaps we change our instruction and spend more time engaged in
activities that fail to engage and motivate our students. We get trapped in a cycle where we define
success by test scores, and fail to meet our students' most basic developmental
needs. Testing has a place in our
system, but not on the lofty pedestal it currently occupies.
If test-based accountability were going to be a great boon
to public education, wouldn't we know it by now?We've been doing this
federally-mandated get-good-scores-or-else thing for over a decade now. If it
were working, wouldn't we know...
www.huffingtonpost.com
China’s high-pressure high school and
college examination system is contributing to a wave of student suicides, warns
a study released Tuesday by the Beijing-based nonprofit 21st Century Education
Research Institute.
businessweek.com|By Dexter Roberts
This system of standardization and
assessment does more than demoralize, demonize and degrade educators. In fact, if it actually helped our students
then professional educators would willingly change their ways and
practices. However, in the drive for
creating a system that produces "career, college and community ready"
graduates, we too often fail to see the reality that our students operate
in. Race and class are huge factors in a
student's success in K-12 education and beyond.
In addition, each student is an individual and has a variety of life experiences
and circumstances that further complicate and enhance their educational
progress. By tying educational success
to specific indicators and outcomes we don't truly address the needs of our
students.
The real issue is not teachers, but concentrated poverty.
alternet.org
Current trends in education are
deeply disturbing, but there is still time to change our path and regain
control of the process. It begins with
educators and supporters of public education being vocal in their opposition to
the proposed "reforms." It
continues with community members listening to the professionals who work in our
schools and joining the fight. Our end
goal should be a system of public education that is truly public in nature, not
the current system that rests in the hands of an elite few. A system that respects the work that
educators do, and that recognizes the value of every student.
The Good, The Bad and
The Ugly. . .
The Good . . . Dr. King's message resonates as
loudly now as it did decades ago. We are
stronger as a society when all citizens have opportunities and equal
rights. This unites those of us with a
Progressive vision of social justice and gives us hope for the future as we
struggle against those who would "divide and conquer."
Martin Luther King Jr. insisted that gains toward racial
equality must be accompanied by living...
host.madison.com|By WILLIAM P.
JONES, UW-Madison history professor, and PETER RICKMAN, community organizer
with Wisconsi...
The Bad . . . As a proud, lifelong Wisconsinite it
is so demoralizing to think that the rest of the nation will be judging us by
the actions of our current governor. As
he prepares to enter the national political stage we will need to make the rest
of the country understand that his views are not those of all Wisconsin
citizens. It is terrifying to think
that simply by tapping into the deep pockets of the Koch's, Walker could be considered a legitimate
presidential contender.
The competition among Republican presidential hopefuls for
the support of the Koch brothers heats up this week at an invitation-only
seminar that kicks off the “Koch primary.”
nytimes.com|By ASHLEY PARKER
Real political leaders don't use
recycled ideas that have failed miserably in other places. They look for new, improved ways to resolve
the challenges we face.
Several states had a theory: mandating drug tests for
welfare applicants would save taxpayer money. The results have been nothing
short of a fiasco.
msnbc.com
The Ugly . . . As we face the prospect of right to
work legislation in Wisconsin,
it is important to remember that we are already a society that is less
respectful of workers than most other developed nations. Without the protections of unions to elevate
all workers we won't see any improvement in our status.
Economist Heather Boushey explains why that hurts the
economy as well as American families.
billmoyers.com
