No Teacher Left Behind
by David on July 6th, 2010
The education profession in America is under attack. School districts are laying off teachers, increasing class sizes, and cutting “frills” like art, music, and sports. Those teachers fortunate enough to have jobs are blamed when their classes fail to perform well on standardized tests. They are burdened with an ever-increasing load of paperwork, in the name of “accountability.” They are virtually prohibited from displaying initiative and creativity by administrators who have never been taught even the rudiments of management and are themselves evaluated solely by test scores.
Successful primary education is a partnership between parents, students, and teachers. Parents must provide a home environment that encourages learning. Students must take responsibility for their work. Teachers must motivate children to learn. Absent the first two, the best teacher in the world will fail. But in America today, only the teacher is blamed when students perform poorly. Why? Because, though both teachers and parents are voters, there are a lot more of the latter than the former. And, for reasons that are too deep for me to fathom, we can only see children as victims, not as contributors to their own success or failure.
Twenty-five hedge fund managers made $1 billion or more last year. I suspect that every one of them came from families that actively encouraged education, and that they all were ambitious in school. At the other end of the scale, in a weakening economy, where there are six applicants for every job opening, many would-be workers simply lack the skills to compete. What consolation is it to them, and what good is it to us a society, to realize too late that “bad teaching” is a false and futile excuse.
Tags: community development, economic predictors, education, teacher accountability, unemployment rate
[...] No Teacher Left Behind | ShoreBank Voices [...]
[...] No Teacher Left Behind | ShoreBank Voices [...]
[...] No Teacher Left Behind | ShoreBank Voices [...]
[...] No Teacher Left Behind | ShoreBank Voices [...]
[...] Nο Teacher Left Behind | ShoreBank Voices [...]
Finally! Why don’t people understand that by supporting teachers we ARE supporting students? Simply put, supporting teachers is a “teach-a-man-to-fish” strategy while giving kids money for good grades, performance management, Chief Area Officers, and IDS are “give-a-man-a-fish” fixes. CPS isn’t doing its own homework on looking at the theory of change and creating plans around sustainable solutions.
Thanks – it’s nice to know there’s someone in th corporate world that understands that schools are a part of a community – not an isolated island of learning that is not affected by what is going on around them.
David says thank you and that he fully agrees!