This is a pure-rant post for me, and not much of a rant at that.
| “[Our kids deserve] the very best teachers that money can buy.”
This statement just made me cringe. First, it brought to mind the old joke where the punchline is, “Madam, I belive we’ve established what you are. Now we’re just haggling over price.” But more importantly, are the best teachers really those that come at the highest price? Can you, in fact, “buy” teachers? And further, doesn’t this statement lay any perceived failures squarely at the feet of teachers, and teachers alone, yet again? It always sounds good when candidates for office say that education is important to them. Education is important to me, too. But in my opinion, it’s just a “feel-good” soundbite. While no one has a magic formula to ensure that students learn, the people making these statements rarely have ANY knowledge about what works and what doesn’t in education. |
Holly is responding to political ads, and how education (like every other substantive issue) becomes vacuous in the game of political football that takes place this time of year. While it may be a feel good sound-bite, it does hit a few issues for me:
- I love the experiences I’ve had mentoring high school students and doing outreach projects with middle schools; the longest-running project of this nature I’ve been involved in lasted a full semester, linking my class via various distance ed. technologies to a class of high school students over two hours away. But there is nothing about the bad politics, low pay, and lack of respect high school teachers receive that makes me want to teach in one.
- While there is no magic formula, I do think small class sizes and parents who actively participate in their children’s education will make bigger differences than any standardized test or Super Teacher you can buy. If you really want to see that No Child is Left Behind, then you should make sure that No Parent Is Screwing Up. Accountability where accountability is due, please.
But the rant gets better! (Or, it links in more of the websites that I regularly read…) Chief WatchPuppy Matt Lavine points me to this tasty tidbit!
| Education Secretary Rod Paige called the nation’s largest teachers union a “terrorist organization” Monday, taking on the 2.7-million-member National Education Association early in the presidential election year.
… He said he had made clear to the governors that he was referring to the Washington-based union organization, not the teachers it represents. Weaver dismissed Paige’s distinction between the union and its members. “We are the teachers, there is no distinction,” he said. |
(via The Billings Gazette, running an AP newswire story)
Ah. Well. Good. Excellent. Talk about incentive. Even if I interviewed for a teaching position in the US, the fact that I’ve lived abroad might make them think I was attempting to join an Educational Terrorist Cell.
In related news, I received my absentee ballot for local elections back home… today. I need to get my ballot back for the Primary elections by… Tuesday, March 2, 2004. They mailed it 3rd class three full weeks ago.
Bastards.