While it’s easy to throw the blame at teachers, the problems of K-12 education in the US have so many facets they are likely unsolvable. The parents of the daycare society view teachers as simply an extention of the babysitters they dumped their spawn on 1 week post-natal. Anyone remember how the nuns kept discipline? A rap on the knuckles with a ruler. Now, that’s assault and battery. And having students sit in seats according to how they did on the last test? That hurts the little darlings’ self-esteem. In the public school teachers were respected. No more. Remember when students were actually held back and made to repeat a year? Aagin, no more. Schools became assembly lines. Remember when school boards actually had competent members? And when principals themselves had taught for 15-20 years? When there wasn’t a Department of Education in DC, and all decisions of importance were local? When there weren’t unfunded mandates?

I agree that teachers deserve scrutiny, but they are only part of the ed system.

Greetings:

My favorite education anecdote:

Back in 1993, almost 20 years after receiving my first B.A. degree, I returned to college to study printing management. As an older and self-supporting student, I was on a compressed schedule and wanted only to take courses that I felt had a specific benefit to myself. Unfortunately, there was a college requirement that I take an English Composition class and I preferred to take a computer course instead. So, off I went to see my guidance counselor.

When I arrived, I laid out my case and presented samples of my previous academic and professional writings. Regrettably, my counselor remained not only unconvinced but also somewhat didactic. “Mr. Sullivan,” she began, “we cannot let you graduate from Cal Poly not knowing how to write.”

“Well, then,” I replied, “things have changed since the last time I went to college. Back then, you didn’t get into college not knowing how to write.”

Someone I know said that nobody has ever flunked on of these education masters courses. I’m sure that’s a bit of exaggeration, but still….

“Our yet to be born (in my case) grandchildren (or great grand children) won’t be.”

True. So I guess the solution is to train them to think before they start school, and do everything possible to avoid letting schools train them not to.

He says that a teacher that a teacher getting a masters degree is nearly useless in predicting how a teacher will educate their students.

There’s some truth to this. If you’re working full time as a teacher, you’re limited to either taking classes at night or via distance learning. Depending on your area, your choices in night-school masters degrees is usually limited to MBA, MPA, and various education degrees. You might find an occasional masters program in nursing or family counciling.

Since many districts won’t count graduate units in business or nursing, few teachers would take such courses.

Most teachers get their masters in education. Having an MA in educational administration, and olmost three dozen graduate level education courses under my belt, I can tell you that these courses are a joke.

I have two masters degrees, and can positively say that every class I took for my geosciences degree required more work than the entire MA program in education. The difference in rigor is so great that a masters in a legitimate academic field (such as Math, Chemistry, Geology, History, Econoimics) requires about 12 times as much scholarship as an MA in education.

A doctorate in Education from Harvard carries with it all the prestige and rigor of an AA in small engine repair from a lesser ranked community college.

Worse yet, much of what is taught in education classes is irrelevent or wrong. Great emphasis is placed on diversity issues, often to the detriment of crucial teaching skills. The credential program I completed prior to my MA consisted of a dozen graduate courses, each requiring about 40 hours of class time. About 200 hours of my teacher training was taken up by multiculturalism, yet I received only 13 minutes training in phonics.

Of those dozen classes, I can only think of one as being at all usefull.

The program leading to my MA in education was no more usefull, except for the fact that one leftist professor actually had us read some of William Ayers crap. Even our hippie-left professor thought Ayers was out there.

The sad thing was that almost everyone realizes how useless education classes are. Nobody in my MA in Education program would leave thinking “boy I learned something tonight.” We all knew we just had to put in our 480 hours, pass our comps, get our diploma, and take our transcripts in to the district for our raises. We were putting in the time to get a raise, not because there was any value in any of the education programs.

In contrast, my MS in Geosciences was about 12 times as hard. And unlike my education classes, I use something from the MS program almost every day.

American students would be well served by shutting down all our graduate programs in education, and having teachers earn masters degrees in the subjects they will be teaching.

So I guess the solution is to train them to think before they start school, and do everything possible to avoid letting schools train them not to.

Your odds on bet for success at that is to not put them in public school in the first place. Public school teachers have a high tendency for insufferable arrogance, and after a very short time tend to be somewhat slow-witted and out thought by most teens. They get frustrated, angry, and dismissive of the kids thinking for themselves, even when they get caught in blatant mistakes or hypocrisy.

So if they go to public school, take a daily active interest in what they are doing, help with homework, reassure them when they detect bullshit that they aren’t insane, the system really is screwed up. Tell them what they want to hear, get out of the system to college as quick as you can. Standing your ground and fighting is like trying to empty the ocean with a thimble during a storm.