Policies, Politicians, and School Reform – Part 3
Unlike private schools and parochial schools, there are many uncontrolled variables that contribute to students’ success in our public schools: They include parent involvement, at-risk home life, truancy, special needs, behavior problems, class sizes, English as a second language, etc. For these reasons, I will argue “There is no objective way of determining the best and brightest public school teachers.” Instead, I will suggest that teachers, who do the best jobs of meeting the needs (which aren’t always academic) of public school children, are the ones that are committed to self improvement: They learn from fellow teachers. They attend workshops, seminars, colleges and universities. And they rely on the knowledge and skills they acquired from years of teaching experiences.
All public school teachers know that teaching isn’t generic. It isn’t a one size fits all type of deal. Instead, classrooms vary in the number of students with special needs, number of students at risk, number of students with a parent or both parents missing from the homes, the number of students without homes, the number of students that speaks English as a second language, etc. Some students are going to have parents that are in jail, others are going to have parents that are addicts, and still others are going to have parents that are working shifts at night (so no grown-up is at home during the hours that they are home); the job of taking care of the children is the responsibility of the oldest child. Simply being smart and knowledgeable about the subject you are going to teach doesn’t prepare you for these scenarios. Collaboration with fellow veteran teachers, knowledge and skill acquisition through continuing education, and experience from years of being on the job does.
Finally, I hope by now it's starting to become clear that many of the problems affecting student achievements are external to the control of classroom teachers and, in many cases, external to the control to the schools and the school districts. Although there are many politicians who would like to believe other wise, poor student achievement in public schools, today, has more to do with unemployment, poor wages, the stress that parents are experiencing, unnecessary reduction in entitlements, lack of insurance coverage, etc. In short, the education problem throughout the United States isn’t occurring because schools are failing to hire the best and brightest teachers; it is occurring because we are failing to vote for the best and brightest politicians!
In tomorrow’s blog (Policies, Politicians, and School Reform --Part 4), I will the third myth in education: Public schools are not providing our children with high quality instructions, especially in reading and math, and as a result our students are falling further and further behind the children in other countries.
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