This is not harrassing teachers

I won’t question the info. that you have presented but I have a concern. I am in my 40’s and no one use to expect a person with skills in science to be proficient in spelling or reading. All that mattered was that you could do your “science” job. I still have mixed feelings about this because there are some people that can’t become excellent spellers. Do you think that these individuals should not be allowed to teach? They often do know how to spell the words that they use in the application of their science but are not able to spell words that they don’t use often. I’m on the fence about this issue because I know PhD’s that can’t spell but are highly regarded in their area of expertise. Should these people be kept away from our children?

Terry

Terry raises an excellent point here. People who are dyslexic often struggle their whole lives with spelling, but can be such gifted people in so many other ways. Should they not be allowed to be teachers?

I don’t question the validity of this article either, but I’d like the link as to where it came from, so I can read more.

Thanks.

Teachers from my generation could pass those tests quite easily. The reason that they could was because they were hard working and dedicated.

Our flawed educational system is not entirely the fault of our failing teachers. Failing teacher are merely a symptom of a much greater problem.

Here is an example. If you were to read the works of Jean Piaget developmental psychologist and scientist you will see that he PROVED conclusively more than 50 years ago EXACTLY what concepts children at different ages are capable of learning. Today’s curriculum from K-5 is too advanced for children that age. Chicago math LOL. Our retarded educators in their ivory tows 160K a year salaries really dropped the ball on that one. So it is quite easy to see how our current educational system can screw up a child.

The majority of teachers today are incompetent. A science teacher should know the rules of grammar. These people are education role models. :(

About all our educational system has donr to try to coorect itself is shift the blame onto students and parents.

[quote=”Cathryn”]Terry raises an excellent point here. People who are dyslexic often struggle their whole lives with spelling, but can be such gifted people in so many other ways. Should they not be allowed to be teachers?

I don’t question the validity of this article either, but I’d like the link as to where it came from, so I can read more.

Thanks.[/quote]

If a teacher is LD then their should be accomodations made but since schools fight parents in every way when an IEP is needed how much luck do you think an LD teaching candidate will get. I would suspect that even on the same playing field an LD teacher candidate would out perfom his or her non LD peers. LDers are used to hard work.

Assuming that the article is genuine…

I have a real problem where such a large percentage of people considered for a professional job as important as teaching would fail a basic proficiency test. This was 8th grade proficiency, and yet these people supposedly graduated both high school and college.

I also do not believe for one minute that a sizeable percentage of these people are persons with LD’s. After the miserable experience so many LD kids have when in school, I doubt many want to go on to become teachers ;) Perhaps a follow up on the article could clarify that issue.

I do not think that teachers (overall) have bad intentions, but I do think that regardless of how inadequate the pay may seem, some basis for certification is absolutely a must. Afterall, if the people leading the classrooms cannot pass basic proficiency, what right do we have to expect anyone to do the same as a student?

I will take a teacher who is capable of passing on information in a manner different children can understand over a teacher who can diagram a sentence any day!

IME it is often the most math/science oriented teachers who are the poorest at getting their points across. Being able to recite the Periodic Table doesn’t reflect one’s people or communication skills

And, think about it. When exactly are these tests being given-how many years have these folks been teaching in their current grade or subject.

Homeschooling my 6th grader this morning, we worked on determining missing angle values of trapezoids and converted numbers into base two. Yesterday we worked with modifying prepositional phrases and coordinating conjunctions.

I don’t know about you folks, but I had to relearn this stuff as I was teaching-way too many years have passed since I used it. I imagine the same would be true for a teacher who has been teaching kindergarten for 20 years. And I’m talking only 6th grade material, not 8th

It would be interesting to see if this test was given to ALL college graduates, how many would pass? We would be naive to think this is just a teacher issue. Of course I understand why it is important for teachers to pass this test, I am not arguing that. I often think that we get second opinions from doctors and dentists. They really should know what they are doing the first time through something. It’s different I know…

Dad what do you mean when you said there needs to be some basis for certification? In the state of MN you MUST pass a proficiency test before you are certified. There is NO way around it. I am sorry to say that I thought that was true for the country but unfortunately it is not :( Maybe that is where we should start? Make a mandatory, for the whole country, test that teachers need to pass?

Dad I am glad you feel that teachers overall don’t have bad intentions. I honestly feel that some of the BEST teachers may not be some of the smartest. Teachers need patience, confidence, people skills, energy, a passion for education and a strong drive to be effective. A “smart” teacher may or may not have this. There is a lot more to teaching than knowledge of basic skills in todays world. Dad thanks for hanging in there and recognizing that we do (overall) have good intentions.

Amen Marycas! I missed your post. We posted almost the same point but you did it with more style! :D I can tell you are a teacher at heart! Your child is lucky! Thank you for your support.

Yes, I would like to see the test given to all college graduates. Also, I would like to see the test. Spelling is an issue for 15-18% of the population. There are ways to deal with this. A teacher can admit he or she is less than perfect, invite students to find spelling errors, ask students for assistance when spelling, model what you do when you don’t know how to spell a word. Be upfront and honest.

I would like to know how the grammar was assessed. The real issue is whether the teacher uses correct grammar in speaking and writing. The issue is not whether the teacher can identify a series of words by the type of phrase-type or clause-type. I cannot do that. That kind of descriptive knowledge has little to no application in the real world of communicating clearly and effectively.

It always alarms us when too many people fail a test. My questions are: was the test a reliable and valid measure? We don’t seem to have that data.

While I am on the subject, I didn’t catch my syntax error because I failed to reread carefully to check for errors before posting. But, indeed, I do see my error.

I think it is quite telling that the majority of teachers fail a test that is gerard for 8th graders.

I would guess that most college graduates would pass.

Then they dumbed down the test and 1/2 still failed.

Get real. If a person can not pass 8th grade they should not be a credentialed professional.

I was thinking… Do all college graduates take either the ACT or SAT? If so, wouldn’t this count? Don’t all colleges demand a decent score to get in? I am not sure if all colleges ask for this. I know my husband’s and mine did.

Guest now I know that you are just in this to argue. It is absolutely incorrect to assume most college graduates would pass with exception to teachers. I am also interested to know if you are basing any of your facts from other articles or just the Mass. one? You haven’t brought up once the MN stats. or what Gov. Carlson has stated.

Vermont is in a similar mess and there is little ethnic diversity in Vermont.

The figures don’t lie. Gina, you may be the exception but the fact remains our educational system is in crisis. It is also a fact that US teachers are not making the grade.

Guest please answer my questions.

I was thinking… Do all college graduates take either the ACT or SAT? If so, wouldn’t this count? Don’t all colleges demand a decent score to get in? I am not sure if all colleges ask for this. I know my husband’s and mine did.

No they don’t. Many students start out in 2 year schools where SATs are not required for entrance.

Other colleges are diploma mills.

You would think if they could score hight on the SATs they would be able to pass 8th grade subjects.

This link says it all. Please don’t kill the messenger.

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/education/july-dec98/testing_9-15.html

I realize that this sort of thing makes people uncomfortable but it is all true. Getting angry with me will not change the reality of the situation in our dismal schools.

Has anyone noticed the convenient timing of these “bad teacher” posts? If you have been reading the papers, you will see that there has been recent debate in Congress and the press over the No Child Left Behind Act and yesterday Congress voted to relax some of its requirements. I’m not really a fan of the Act, but I resent having a parenting board taken over by people who are trying to push political goals rather than to share information about parenting children with LD. Call me a cynic, but I think that is what is happening here.

Doreen

[quote=”Anonymous”]Has anyone noticed the convenient timing of these “bad teacher” posts? If you have been reading the papers, you will see that there has been recent debate in Congress and the press over the No Child Left Behind Act and yesterday Congress voted to relax some of its requirements. I’m not really a fan of the Act, but I resent having a parenting board taken over by people who are trying to push political goals rather than to share information about parenting children with LD. Call me a cynic, but I think that is what is happening here.

Doreen[/quote]

Conspiracy! oooooo! Like someone is going to influence public opinion in the country by posting on LD online.

All the protesting in the world is not going to change the facts that our schools are in terrible shape and our teachers are a huge part of the problem.

How can a reasonable person expect our schools to ever be at a respectable standard when 59% teachers teaching in them are unable to pass 8th grade level material with a grade of 65%. This test is easier than the one for a GED. I personally tutored a woman with an IQ of 84 who was able to pass New York State’s GED. I am not saying that today’s teachers are retarded. However; if they had the ambition and drive of this retarded woman our schools would not be in the shambles that they are in.

Here is another analogy. Let’s say a man owns a car repair shop but he knows nothing about cars. He does, however; know how to pick good mechanics. His business will be a success.

Let’s take it a step further. A mediocre mechanic decides hw wants to go in the car repair business but because he has srt low standards for himself he won’t hire any ace mechanics. Instead he hires mechanics worse than him so he can feel superior and easily boss them around. His will fail.

Not only does our educational system dumb down the students they dumb down the teachers. For every teach who is a fireball there are 4 or 5 duds.
Management like Julius Ceasar want to be surrounded by lazy contented easily led robots. These robots do the same thing to the students.

It is also sad that school superintendents make salaries in the 6 figure range.

So folks in this case Henny Penny, Chicken Lickin, and Turkey Lurkey are correct. The sky is falling.

I do not think that you are being a cynic Doreen, I think that often messageboards and other forums such as these get hijacked by people with agendas other than that which is implied by the nature of the board…

That being said, I also do not think that we can completely divorce a topic like NCLB from a board like this, as good and bad, laws and policies like this will have a very direct impact upon our parenting process…

I like NCLB and I do not want to see us back away from it until it has run its course. I think it is an impossible law, I think that long before we reach the 100% target we will see that it is failing completely, and I think there will be more than a little fallout from this law that will cause some very interesting times in public education.

Somewhere between the haranging, misused stats by insurgants like “guest” and the belly-aching by the over-worked (?), under-paid (???) professional educators lies the actual truth. While the timing of provocative posts like this thread may be attributed to the discussion of NCLB, many of the source articles supporting the dumbing down of our public educational system date from well before this current media craze and cannot be attributed to NCLB (although the reverse may hold some degree of causation).

I do not feel sorry for teachers. They chose their profession, just as most of us do. We all work under ever changing conditions, that is the nature of life. If you do not like what you are doing, you are free to change jobs, careers, whatever.

Don’t know about your state, but in my state opening rate for a teacher is higher than both the average and median wage. Average salary for teachers is just short of double average salary for all workers. They work exactly half a year (contract is for 180 minimum work days). They do not pay as much for their health care as I do, and far less than many workers making far less. They also do not pay into their own pension fund; other tax revenues are used for this.

I think the beginning of the decline in public education came when we developed the notion of “schools of education”. Prior to the teaching colleges cranking out teachers, teachers were expected to have mastery of their subjects. As we added the generic education courseload to their undergrad load, we took some of their core subject away from them (they still must take general course distribution to qualify the degree).

It is important to understand the difference. Teaching is an art, a skill. You cannot take someone who is not by their very nature a teacher and make them one through lecture and test. I believe eaching is an innate people skill, like direct selling and telling jokes that some people are born with and others will never achieve. So to waste a college student’s time with classes designed to instruct them on how to teach while they should be getting a better grasp of history, literature, math, chemistry, etc. is setting the groundwork for the problems we are facing today.

Another problem, and one that has a very mixed baggage load with it is the increased number of children expected to be in school since the early 70’s. In years past, children like mine (autistic) were excluded from school. Children who presented profound behavioral issues were likewise given the boot. Kids who had moderate MR or LD’s were steered away from college prep into industrial arts. Many simply dropped out at some point between jr. high and graduation. Today, these children are included in schools, expected to keep up, and now achieve mastery.

I am not saying that this is wrong, unreasonable or misguided; the world is very different today than 50 years ago, and the jobs which an illiterate could get and support a family back then are very quickly drying up. However, until the public schools as a system adequately address how to impart today’s required knowledge into those who are less than easy to teach we are going to see a large number of children who fall under “failing” today as compared to 50 years ago.

As I said, I like NCLB. Our public school system could use a shake up to bring meaningful change to meet the changing needs of our society.

Guest, did you read all of that article? There are some serious questions about the Mass. test. There are testing experts who have dubbed it hard, who feel it is the hardest thing out there Furthermore, when students who gained acceptance into prestigious private colleges sometimes fail this test too (they needed good SAT scores to get into their colleges), then I think we need to revisit this test and scrutinize whether it is as easy as it was promoted as being.

………..a critical reader questions what he or she reads. How many Americans are critical readers? Or, do we simply read a newspaper or magazine article or see something on TV about a test and assume that because we heard it, it must be true?

Are you in that group? I think you need to reread what the expert from Stanford University has said in that interview/article. She and another person said it was not as easy a test as it was purported to be.

Was the test field tested? If it was at a ninth grade level, did they actually verify this by giving it to ninth graders?

Perhaps the test needs to be field tested with other groups of college graduates: business majors, arts and science majors, etc. to determine what the average pass rate for a college grad actually is before all graduates of teacher training programs are accused of stupidity.

I would be highly surprised if the promotors of this test can support ever statement they purport to be true.

[quote=”Anitya”]………..a critical reader questions what he or she reads. How many Americans are critical readers? Or, do we simply read a newspaper or magazine article or see something on TV about a test and assume that because we heard it, it must be true?

Are you in that group? I think you need to reread what the expert from Stanford University has said in that interview/article. She and another person said it was not as easy a test as it was purported to be.

Was the test field tested? If it was at a ninth grade level, did they actually verify this by giving it to ninth graders?

Perhaps the test needs to be field tested with other groups of college graduates: business majors, arts and science majors, etc. to determine what the average pass rate for a college grad actually is before all graduates of teacher training programs are accused of stupidity.

I would be highly surprised if the promotors of this test can support ever statement they purport to be true.[/quote]

Oh I see after we get done blaming the kids and their parents now let’s blame the test. Yeah that’s it single out 1 question and call the whole thing unfair. Gimme a break!

Oh BTW other states with different tests experience the same thing so I seriously doubt that the test is too hard. I would bet that an 8th grader form the early 60’s could pass it easily. You know what I mean back in the good old days when teachers had ideal students. :roll:

Unbiased investigation:

http://www.suntimes.com/special_sections/failing_teacher/

Real good articles. 10% in Chicago failed. Oh my! That is awful :D Then the next sentence says and SOME nineth graders passed it. What is that ? 1 in 100?

I dont know if its known outside the state of IL, but our IL governor has proposed closing the State Board of Education and putting education under a different department(more closely controlled by him)

The details have not yet been laid out and he has a tendency to come up with all sorts of idea and then determine no way to provide the funding to make them happen

But…it is an interesting thought

Yes, indeed. Let’s consider blaming the test. there is a science to producing good tests. by the way, no it is not the case that as many fail the test everywhere. In Chicago 10% failed the basic skills test given to teachers. I agree, that is too many. So, are teachers smarter people in Chicago?

Let’s order more field testing of these tests. Let’s see how many RNs can pass or how many CPAs pass. We really don’t know what that statistic means without more investigation.

That is a problem with so-called criterion-referenced tests. We say “people need to know all this stuff.” Then we write a test of “all that stuff” and arbitrarily select a percentage score that represents the lowest permissible passing grade. then we go out and give the test and then we see how many pass.

I can do that. I could write a test and go test a group and then say, gee this many people failed this easy test I created. that must mean they are ignorant and stupid.

A standardized test is at least subjected to a standardization process through field testing.

How many would have passed this test in the 1960s or the 1880s, that is moot. No one in that era took the test. We will never know.

[quote=”Anitya”]Yes, indeed. Let’s consider blaming the test. there is a science to producing good tests. by the way, no it is not the case that as many fail the test everywhere. In Chicago 10% failed the basic skills test given to teachers. I agree, that is too many. So, are teachers smarter people in Chicago?

Let’s order more field testing of these tests. Let’s see how many RNs can pass or how many CPAs pass. We really don’t know what that statistic means without more investigation.

That is a problem with so-called criterion-referenced tests. We say “people need to know all this stuff.” Then we write a test of “all that stuff” and arbitrarily select a percentage score that represents the lowest permissible passing grade. then we go out and give the test and then we see how many pass.

I can do that. I could write a test and go test a group and then say, gee this many people failed this easy test I created. that must mean they are ignorant and stupid.

A standardized test is at least subjected to a standardization process through field testing.

How many would have passed this test in the 1960s or the 1880s, that is moot. No one in that era took the test. We will never know.[/quote]

Unbelievable! Take the test in the Chicago Suntimes article. My 9 year old niece passsed it but 10% of teachers failed it. I know mildly retarded people that could pass that test.

Click the 20 or so links to more factual unbiased articles that show the embarrasment that is the American teacher.

The reason that people of lower inteligent can pass those tests is because they have something mant American teacher do not have. It is something called a work ethic.

Take the test and if you can come back here and say it is unfair or too hard even the people who are trying to defend American teachers will chuckle.

I do have a test that I would question. It is the test that evaluates a child for having ADHD. That one makes me chuckle.

Testing CPAs…

We do this. That is what the CPA test is all about - separating the chaff from the wheat. Some accountants have to sit for the CPA exam a dozen times or more in order to pass. Nationally, a small percentage of persons attempting the CPA exam pass, almost none on the first try. (Compare that to the Bar exam or finishing Med school; both have a much higher pass rate because Law and Med school do the winnowing.) Additionally, accountants must participate in continuing education for as long as they practice.

Testing RN’s…

Nursing is a more difficult courseload than education (you can like that or not, but it is the truth). Once graduated, nurses must following continuing education programs defined by the state they are licensed in.
However, nursing differes from teaching in one very important aspect… Teachers have far less oversight than nurses have. Nurses act as assitants to the primary medical care providers - doctors who run hospitals, clinics and private practices. In this respect they are less like teachers and more like TA’s or paras.

Both accountants and nurses have something which teachers for the most part are without - very direct measures of their effectivness, the accuracy of their efforts and very a significant civil penalty tort system to punish those who are less than capable. For much of the potential for “malpractice” a teacher may committ, they are well protected by the district’s insurance and local and state legal resources.

Teachers cannot have it both ways… Either they are truly professionals, able to demonstrate basic competancy through uniform testing (and 8th grade mastery is really quite low all things considered) such as other professionals are, or they are as a group unable to do so, and should be subject to greater oversight by those who are. To suggest that math and science teachers should not have a basic graps of how to read and write is ludacrous, and to suggest that elementary ed teachers should not have 8th grade proficiency in basic knowledge is to say that in essence, elementary teachers are really just glorified day-care providers, and should be compensated as such.

At the very basic level, the story out of Mass. really begs the question, where did all these teachers go to college and receive degrees when they had such difficulty in reading, writing and math?

After reading all this, why don’t isn’t there a surplus of teachers?

I passed the CBEST, CA basic skills test for teachers, years ago and the NTE (in about 1981).

You are still, Dad, not dealing with the issue that two testing experts felt this test has problems.

The reason I suggested testing RNs and accountants with the test is to establish whether these groups can pass this test! The professional tests that these groups take are not BASIC SKILLS tests. They are tests of knowledge in the field. Teaching also has such tests. More are being added.

When the fail rate is 10% in Chicago in their basic skills test and almost 50% in MA, I have to ask what the MA test is really testing. If a test is thrown together and we are told it measures x or y, we cannot be certain this is the case without field testing.

My husband told me of such a test in psychology several decades ago. It was designed by a professor and his graduate students to measure something. They SAID it measured a certain trait, but it was all done unscientifically. In the end the test did more damage than good and it DID NOT measure what they thought it measured.

It is imperative that this test be scrutinized and put through rigorous evaluations to PROVE it is both reliable and valid. My first thought is that it may not be a valid measure for what it is said to measure. If a larger group were tested, then we might know more, esp. if we tested these so-called brighter people than teachers.

My understanding of the test in MA is that it did indeed stand up to scrutiny, that the only voices which say otherwise are those which disagree with the concept of testing teachers. Had it not stood up, I do not believe the uproar about the attmept to curve the results would have taken place. There would have been the admission that the test is unsound and the matter would have blown over ;)

What YOU are failing to understand Anitya is that trying to compare nurses or CPA’s to teachers is an apples/oranges situation, which I believe I expressed.

I stand by my statements and also by my opinion that I like NCLB and I feel that expecting teachers to have base competancy is worthwhile.

The story you relate about your husband’s experience is annecdotal, and unless you have the details about what he has related (especially a citation in a trade publication which outlines the experience) it remains just that - anecdotal.

guest: “After reading all this, why don’t isn’t there a surplus of teachers?”

I do not believe there is any one, single reason. And the shortage of teachers is very regionalized; believe it or not there are actually areas in the country with a surplus of teachers.

One reason for the shortage is populations shift faster than demographics can respond to. It can take several years for the tax collection system to cover quick changes in populations.

Another reason is that many of the areas which have the greatest shortage are that way because of individual reasons. Example, inner city schools have a great shortage because the general living climate in their area and the working conditions in the school itself discourage a great many people from accepting jobs. This is especially true in areas with large pockets of minorities (for whatever reason, perceived or real). One example is the very low percentage of Latino teachers despite their being a large minority in America and growing.

Certain subjects have trouble attracting teachers because in those specific fields the pay discrepancy between public schools and private industry is too great (math, science, computers).

To be certain, NCLB and teacher standard testing will add to this (it is really too soon to see widespread fallout from NCLB, another couple of years and we will see enough change to decide the particulars).

I think another factor which gets very little attention is the degrading of the perception held by the public for teachers as professionals. As bad press grows (for right and wrong; not all criticisms of the public schools are either deserved or accurate), people will begin to turn away from teaching in favor of other careers with less “baggage” attached.

Believe it or not, I truly think that the push for higher standards in our professional public education system will turn some of this around by reassuring the public at large that teachers are worth respect, that they are worth their pay (and maybe a little more) and that they do accomplish their primary mission, turning the next generation of Americans into good citizens.

I find it interesting that lawyers don’t complain about the state bar exam being too hard. Doctors don’t complain about the medical boards being too hard. Infact you never here about any other professions whining that their tests of compentency are unfair.

What is even more intriguing is that the vary tests that these teacher are whining about were devised by people in their field those people being fellow educators.

The Mass test is a legitimate test for testing teacher compentency. The basic skills test a test that most 5th graders of 30 years ago would have passed easily.

All the tests throughout the whole entire country are not unfair. The truth is many teacher are incompetent.

Dad, there are two types of tests teachers are taking:

1. Basic skills (math skills, reading skills, etc) which are not directly related to content area teaching.

2. Content area tests that assess a teacher’s mastery of the content area she or he teaches.

Accountants and nurses, lawyers, etc. all take tests from category number 2. Anyone can take a test from category number 1, it is not related to any specific subject or class.

I think it may be you who does not understand that we should perhaps determine how other subgroups of college grads. would fare on a basic skills test to know whether this phenomenon only applies to teachers. If it applies to other groups, then we need to learn WHY the scores in this state are so poor.

I would not ask a nurse to take a licensing test designed to assess competency at teaching reading. I would not ask a teacher or a nurse to take a competency test on California law. I could ask general population to take basic skills if I really wanted to know whether this test appears to be a validated measure and if I also wanted to know if our teachers really are a substandard group.

Finally, where can I read the documentation of the field testing that was applied to this Mass., otherwise saying this test was validated rigorously is really just undocumented hearsay.

[quote=”Anitya”]Dad, there are two types of tests teachers are taking:

1. Basic skills (math skills, reading skills, etc) which are not directly related to content area teaching.

2. Content area tests that assess a teacher’s mastery of the content area she or he teaches.

Accountants and nurses, lawyers, etc. all take tests from category number 2. Anyone can take a test from category number 1, it is not related to any specific subject or class.

I think it may be you who does not understand that we should perhaps determine how other subgroups of college grads. would fare on a basic skills test to know whether this phenomenon only applies to teachers. If it applies to other groups, then we need to learn WHY the scores in this state are so poor.

I would not ask a nurse to take a licensing test designed to assess competency at teaching reading. I would not ask a teacher or a nurse to take a competency test on California law. I could ask general population to take basic skills if I really wanted to know whether this test appears to be a validated measure and if I also wanted to know if our teachers really are a substandard group.

Finally, where can I read the documentation of the field testing that was applied to this Mass., otherwise saying this test was validated rigorously is really just undocumented hearsay.[/quote]

I would ask a teacher to be tested on stuff commonly taught in schools.

Good teacers want rigorous testing bad teacers don’t.