Blog Post #14

After reading Teaching Our Children Can Be a Profession by Joel Klein, I realize that there are many problems with our school system, and how teachers are viewed by others. In the article, Mr. Klein lists several of these issues and some solutions to the problems.

Problem: Teachers need better training
Solutions:

• Better academic training
• Recruit from the top third of our graduates
• Create a 'national teacher examination"
• Require a supervised internship for 1 to 3 years

Problem: Seniority should not exist in the school system and teachers should be rewarded based on merit.

Solutions:

• Create merit based ladders to promote teachers based on specialty exams
• Grant teachers showing true mastery college graduates to serve as teaching assistants
• Provide standards to remove incompetent teachers

In my opinion, I think that teaching should most certainly be professionalized. Teachers are trusted to shape the minds of children, which in my opinion, is one of the most important jobs in the world. Teachers are held to a higher standard than most people, however, they are not well respected. Many people think that teaching is an easy profession, and I think that's where the problem starts. Joel Klein makes several good points on how we can work to make teaching more professionalized. 

For starters, he suggest that teachers get better academic training. I agree with him completely. I think that teaching is something that takes experience to become good at, and students should get more of that before they are set free in their own classroom.

Joel Klein also thinks that employers should recruit the top third of our graduates. I think that this is a good idea. Not only would it ensure that only the brightest students actually became teachers, it would also make them strive to do better while in school. I would not want a doctor who had made C's just to get through med school, and I would not want my (non-existent) children to be taught by someone who skimmed their way through school either.

Albert Shaker thinks that we should create a "national teacher examination." I think this is a wonderful idea. Many other professions take exams like these, and teachers should be no different. Being able to pass a exam once finished with school would be an excellent requirement.

In the school system, once you're tenured, it is virtually impossible to fire you. If you're not tenured, it is very likely that you will get laid off if cuts have to be made. Joel Klein suggests that instead of rewarding teachers based on seniority, we should reward them based on performance. I agree with this as well. Just because a teacher is new does not mean she is a worse educator than the teacher down the hall who has been here for 12 years. 

In the article, it says that teachers who show true mastery should have college graduates assist them with teaching in their classroom. Extra help in the classroom is always nice, especially when it's coming from someone who is so well educated. I think that this would be great motivation for teachers to do their best and it would also be very beneficial for students. 

Lastly, it said that standards should be in place for removing incompetent teachers. As I stated earlier, it is very difficult to remove a teacher once they are tenured. However, I agree that if a teacher is not performing to standard, it should be easier to have them removed.  

 I found this article to be very informative and interesting. I agreed with every point made and think that it would be wonderful if some of these things actually happened.