Chicago students describe what it was like to attend racially segregated schools for 12 years. (WBEZ)
At least one person hired at a turnaround school didn’t know the offer was conditional. (NYC Educator)
Teacher Mike Albertson cheers the news that Flushing HS won’t close this year after all. (Urban Ed)
Online teacher training is seen as one solution for problems facing public schools. (Hechinger/TIME)
AFT chief Randi Weingarten suggests a “bar exam” for teachers to boost confidence in them. (Atlantic)
To write a book in two months, Diane Ravitch is going to blog only four times a day. (DR’s Blog)
A national Common Core observer says New York is offering guidance everyone needs. (Flypaper)
A guarded defense of the Gates Foundation’s “engagement” bracelets. (Dan Willingham via Eduwonk)
Advocates say the number of homeless students in America is “horrifyingly high” and growing. (HuffPo)
A teacher recalls how a student came out to him: by first ostentatiously confessing drug use. (Yo Mista)
Philip Nobile
Bill Clinton has Rwanda, Al Sharpton Tawana Brawley, Anthony Weiner Weinergate, and Randi her phony state teacher certification. It’s just a thought that came to me when I saw the Atlantic link. I guess I’m not taking our leader seriously anymore and don’t know any teacher who does.
Guest
Randi should just shut up. Maybe there should be a “bar exam” for Union bosses.
Lguastaferro
A National Exam for teachers is a way to get a dialog about the outcomes we should expect from teacher preparation programs. Teachers complain they feel woefully under-prepared. Many programs offer little meaningful clinical practice. And they also accept and graduate people who shouldnt be in education because ed school is a revenue maker for many universities who under invest in their programs. An high quality exam created by a consortium of teachers and other leaders in the field would raise the status of the profession — weed out weak candidates — and force education schools to be more selective and also more focused. Randi is onto something great here
Celia Oyler
I agree that there is great unevenness in teacher education programs, both within states, as well as between states. And I agree that many universities have used teacher preparation programs as “cash cows” and have not invested in quality teacher education. Many university programs, however, do have substantial opportunities for classroom-based practice (my program is 4 days a week of student teaching across two full semesters). The student teachers are formally observed at least 10 times by their university-based supervisor, and they also have 4 formal “three-way” field-based performance evaluation meetings as well as portfolio-based assessment meetings at the university. Additionally, our program has a non-certification rate of about 10-13% each year.These student teachers — whom we do not deem ready to teach — are not recommended for certification. Some decide they really want to keep trying and these students get an additional student teaching placement for one or sometimes even two semesters. Many who are not recommended find very fulfilling other careers in education; just because we deem them unable to assume classroom teaching responsibilities does not mean they do not have the heart and brains for wonderful work with kids. It’s just that classroom teaching is really complicated and requires a lot of on the spot taking in of data and making quick decisions as well as a fabulous vision for long-term planning, to say nothing of knowing how people learn and how to motivate a room full of unique individuals.
I do not think a national exam can measure someone’s readiness to teach. Yet that is basically what NYS has signed on to with the Teacher Performance Assessment being published and run by Pearson.
I think the real issue is that teacher education program must become better gate-keepers of having multiple and collaborative measures of readiness to teach. We must balance advocacy (people take different amounts of time and different kinds of supports as they learn to teach) and gatekeeping (not everyone who loves kids and really wants to be a teacher can get good enough even with tons of support).
Many times we encounter cooperating teachers who are reluctant to fully confront a student teacher and lay out all the problems they see and say, “I support the College in saying you are not ready to teach.” They have developed a relationship over the semester with the student teacher (advocacy) and they are very loathe to say the things directly to the student teacher that they say to us. In these cases we ask, “Would you want this teacher on your grade level team next year? Would you want this teacher teaching your child/grandchild/nephew/niece?” On every such occasion when we ask this question, we always get back, “You’re right. I have to be direct and honest.”
We must assume mutual responsibility for our profession. We cannot cede it to Pearson or the state.
Mr. Flerporillo
Consider the range of problems facing public education. The whole array of problems identified by teachers, parents, students, politicians, education reformers, and the general public. The idea that any of these groups would feel better about the state of public education if only there were an additional state certification process would be laughable if it were funny.
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