If you need a cause...

[asterroc]

theferret asked his readers for causes to get outraged about. My response is below.

---

Cause: Education (primarily K-12, but sometimes higher ed as well)

Who to target: Your Senator and Representative

Who started the protest: The National Education Association, the highest-level union for K-12 and higher ed teachers and professors.

General: Issues are ever-revolving and to be entirely honest despite being a teacher I sometimes disagree with the official union stance. But when I check out that page every month or so, and when I feel strongly I use their tool to write to my legislators. They always include information about why they have the stance they do too, which is quite informative. Many of the issues are based upon No Child Left Behind, which unfairly punishes K-12 teachers for aspects of student performance which are out of the teacher's control, without providing the means to teachers and schools to improve student performance.

The NEA webpage can generate an email to your legislators that you can customize to your heart's content, or you can insert their suggested text. You can also write letters separately if you like, but I've gotten responses from my legislators to my emails sent via the NEA's email tool that were no less personalized than responses to my physical letters.

Details: The issue currently on the legislative action page is regarding No Child Left Behind, and under what conditions it would declare teachers "unqualified". Every year the current proposal would automatically declare that the bottom 25% of teachers were not qualified to teach - even if everyone were super excellent, this would mean that the bottom 25% who were merely excellent would be set up for being fired. And if everyone were crappy, only the bottom 25% who were super crappy would face punishment while the 75% merely crappy would get away scott-free.

It would make this decision based primarily on students' scores on standardized tests, which is not a judgment of the teacher's ability, but a judgment of (1) the socio-economic status of the district that the school is located in, and (2) how much the teacher teaches to the test. Schools in poor neighborhoods would end up continually firing teachers, and wouldn't be able to find anyone to fill those holes as the applicants would all know that they had no hope of being in the top 75%. And it would target reading, math, and science teachers, when we already have problems filling all the math and science teachers' desks.

Comments

[spazzy444.livejournal.com]

When I was in HS they gave all of the students a mock TAAS (The state test for Texas, which has since changed to the TAKS test) test for reading, math, writting. Well I happened to leave early (due to personal stuff) on the day I had to do the math one. I got called away about 1/4 of the way through my test. My Teacher was an ass and we clashed badly from day one, so he went ahead and submitted my exam, instead of letting me finish it on the make-up day telling me I'd have an "unfair advantage" over the other students (...it was the TAAS test for God's sake - we'd been taking this same test for YEARS).

So needless to say I did very badly on the mock-exam, so the school sent me to TAAS prep classes. I was forced out of class 2 days a week and made to sit in a class w/ all the other students who failed it or didn't take it.
How sick is that - when they force students into a prep class because they were afraid of bad scores. I was taken out of class (an elective) where I could actually LEARN something to instead be babysat on how to take the state mandated exam.

[rumorofrain.livejournal.com]

Holy SHIT! They want to take away ONE QUARTER of the country's teachers' licenses based on STUDENT scores?! That is unbelievable!

What an awful system. All it will serve to do is make fewer teachers willing to teach in the places that need good teachers the most - the places where kids are most likely to get bad scores on standardized tests. Yeesh.

I sincerely hope that does not pass. Could our educational system even survive with 25% of its teachers being fired annually?

[zandperl.livejournal.com]

To clarify, the bottom 25% of teachers wouldn't be fired immediately. If after a few years of review they fail to get out of the 25%, then a letter would be sent home to their students' parents. If they still failed to improve after that, then they would be fired and could not EVER be rehired at Title I (low income district) schools.

The not being rehired at Title I schools is particularly problematic, as these are the schools most likely to have students scoring poorly on the standardized tests in the first place, so Title I schools will end up with an even higher turnover in teachers than they already have.

And a second clarification, it wouldn't be ALL subjects, it'd be reading, math, and science. These three subjects already have a hard time attracting and retaining teachers, so ... yeah. It sucks. Why would (most) mathematicians and scientists teach when they can easily make 2-3 times as much in industry?

[tiurin.livejournal.com]

Being treated like the hired help is why I am no longer teaching HS math and science.

The only way I'd reconsider is if I taught at a magnet school.

[zandperl.livejournal.com]

I was praised recently by a few different people for "doing so much for the college." Well you know what, the only way I have time to do that is by failling to do things for my students. I haven't graded labs from February. :( They don't even hire me to do everything I do.

What do you think of teaching at private schools?