SwiftVets.com

[academicanarchist]

Quite a bit, particulalry just before the tests. That is one of the fundamental flaws with the whole idea about standardized tests, since teachers felt compelled to spend a lot of time preping students. The principals in Texas K-12 schools have a lot of power, and can and have fired teachers whose test scores were not high enough. It is an example of CYA. This is an issue that teachers across the country have raised. WHen I began teaching in higher ed in Texas, I was teaching at an open admissions university. The legislature and the Higher Education Coordinating Board were making a big issue of graduate rates, measured by the sixth year that students were in college. The fallacy was that the open admissions university was being judged by the same standard as universities with much higher acceptance standards such as the University of Texas and Texas A & M. There was a trade off in imposing standardized test for advancement, since students had to show proficiency in basic subjects such as math. The real plus of the reforms in the early 1990s was the no pass, no play rule.

[academicanarchist]

Quite a bit, particulalry just before the tests. That is one of the fundamental flaws with the whole idea about standardized tests, since teachers felt compelled to spend a lot of time preping students. The principals in Texas K-12 schools have a lot of power, and can and have fired teachers whose test scores were not high enough. It is an example of CYA. This is an issue that teachers across the country have raised. WHen I began teaching in higher ed in Texas, I was teaching at an open admissions university. The legislature and the Higher Education Coordinating Board were making a big issue of graduate rates, measured by the sixth year that students were in college. The fallacy was that the open admissions university was being judged by the same standard as universities with much higher acceptance standards such as the University of Texas and Texas A & M. There was a trade off in imposing standardized test for advancement, since students had to show proficiency in basic subjects such as math. The real plus of the reforms in the early 1990s was the no pass, no play rule.

[carpro]

[carpro]

[academicanarchist]

Politically, I am not an anarchist. I took the handle, because my approach to dealing with many jerks in academia was as an anarchist, raising the discomfort level for people who deserve to have this type of treatment. In response to your other question, before teachers gain certification, they have to pass a test in different subject fields. If a teacher will specialize in Social Studies, then that is the test they have to pass. The was no change when Bush came in, and as governor he really had minimal influence over the development of education policy. The group that had the greatest influence was the school boards, the legislature and TEA. It remains to be seen what will come of the "No CHild Left Behind" initiative, which, as I pointed out earlier, is in its infancy. To be honest, there really was no change in K-12 education when Bush became governor. In terms of the standardized test, I have mixed feelings. I do not like teaching to the test, but on the other hand it is necessary to guarantee a minimal level of proficiency in reading, writing, and math. The last point I will make is about the turnover in teachers, and the pay level. Texas is still very low in terms of teacher pay. If you drive around Houston, you can see billboards that say "will you be my teacher." That is not a good situation. More often than not, principals will over react to a situation, and take the least path of resistance, meaning to fire a good teacher. I investigated a case a couple of years ago involving a woman who had taught in Louisiana, had moved to Texas, and took up teaching again. A mother claimed the teacher had bruised the child, when the evidence was extremely weak, but the principal axed her. In the course of my investigation, I found out that the woman was in desperate financial straits because of a deadbeat husband who earned good money, but had not paid child support in years. The husband's parents, being outstanding citizens, refused to tell officers of the court where their son was, even though he worked for his father. The mother had been forced to move about every 10 months. It was a sad situation to see how the mother had been treated. However, I think she also saw $$$$$ and made a false charge against the teacher. Another woman, encouraged by a corrupt school district cop, also made allegations months after a trivial incident. This mother had also made false charges against her ex-husband. The principal dutifly went to the house of the first mother to receive the complaint, and the rest is history. The principal was protecting her own position, and axed a good teacher.

[carpro]

First, let me say teachers,considering their responsibilities are definitely under paid.
Now, understand I come from a different time. It was a time when you took your subjects, were tested, and passed or failed based on that result. It was before schools started passing kids to make them feel good or vainly try to boost their self-esteem.
Result. My own kids came out of school with an education I think was inferior to mine. My daughter graduated with honors, but couldn't write a coherent paper without mispelled words, run on sentences, etc., until I taught her.
Will more money for teachers really solve the problem?
Being a taxpayer, I don't think I'm getting my moneys worth now.

PS Relieved you are not an anarchist. I'd hate to try to deal with anyone left of a socialist on this forum.
_________________
"If he believes his 1971 indictment of his country and his fellow veterans was true, then he couldn't possibly be proud of his Vietnam service."

[mikest]

[academicanarchist]

I graduated from High School in 1974, and also feel that I received a good education. I also remember in elem. school the teacher having a paddle that kept the students in line. The one problem that I had in High School was that by my senior year I was bored, because the level of education being taught was to the least common deniminator. I went on to college, and did well, and went on to earn my doctorate in history from U.C. Berkeley. Now to answer your specific question. I believe that teachers going into K-12 should be held to very high standards on entering. I do not like the idea of having teachers tested periodically, because that will be one more distraction from what they should be doing. I favor instead a system similar to Continuing Legal Education for lawyers here in Texas. Namely, teachers would have to take a certain number of hours of professional seminar per year, or perhaps over two years. Not all people who go into teaching should be there, but good teachers need to be retained, and should be paid higher salaries. In that sense, it is a good investment for the taxpayer. What is, in my judgment, a waste of money is the high cost of administration in K-12 and higher education. One last point. I taught for eight years at the same university where Rod Paige, the current Secretary of Education, was the Dean of the school of education. I met him several times, and he was a nice enough man. However, I shuddered to think about some of the teachers that his program was producing, and I knew from first hand knowledge. I taught the Texas history class, which was a requirement for all teachers in training. What you said about your daughter not knowing how to write applied to most of the future teachers that passed through my classes, and were produced by the teacher education program that Paige headed. And not many passed the class. Just before I left the university, and this was shortly after Paige became Superintendent of HISD, the new interim dean of the education school sent out a memo to all chairs in the academic programs asking for help, because the school of education had serious problems with accreditation, because of the low passage rates on the standardized state test, that in my judgment were not rigorous enough. The interim dean wanted the academic programs to bail out the school of education by spending time teaching the future teachers how to pass the standardized test. I quite frankly was disgusted at the proposition, and did nothing to help them out. Given his track record as the dean in producing future students who were not qualified, I was also disgusted at his appointment as Secretary of Education. Finally, if students fail, they should not be passed. I was not popular as a teacher, because I did something radical, I expected students to write. This was difficult for them, because other instructors happily gave multiple choice exams. I hope this answers your question.