WHO ARE THE TEACHERS?
As the media usually present teachers, they fall into two groups. One is composed of incompetents endlessly leeching unearned pay from taxpayers. The other is made up of self-sacrificing, saintly souls devoted to the students whom they inspire to amazing accomplishment. Examples of the two types are constantly featured in the media, and the public can hardly be blamed for assuming that the stereotype is a fairly accurate picture.
The actuality is different, of course. For a better picture, begin with some revealing statistics. As of the school year 2005-06, there were 5,995,000 public school teachers, and every one of them had at least a bachelor’s degree. More than half, 56%, held master’s degrees, and there was even a scattering, .08%, with a doctorate. Women made up 79% of the profession and men only 21%, though in 1961, 31.3% were men; apparently many men fled to other fields. As custom would have it, teaching children continues to be pretty much the province of women. Given the general label of women’s work, teaching salaries not surprisingly rank low among the professions.
According to the 2005-06 survey, the average work day for teachers was 7.4 hours, but the average teacher spent 50 hours a week on professional duties. That figure might help to explain the disturbing fact that 50% of all new teachers quit within five years.
Numbers can’t tell the whole story. Working conditions for teachers bear little comparison to those of other professionals. Hours are set and assignments made for the teacher; a teacher on duty literally is locked into a schedule. A duty-free lunch is seldom as long as 45 minutes; elementary teachers supervise playgrounds and lunchrooms in addition to teaching classes. Submission to a routine signaled by ringing bells is only part of what a teacher accepts as infringement of professional status. More troubling is the fact that the teacher is told what, when, and how to teach. Creativity, intellectual strength, range and depth of knowledge are all at discount if not simply ruled out, and teachers are reduced to pushing “teacher proof” curricula. Such restrictions are usually based on the current demand that students score well on specific - district or state devised and mandated - tests. Basing the success of public education on such “proofs” of learning is an issue deserving its own blog, which will be coming.
Idealism is a common characteristic of the teacher, but it is challenged by the daily reality of the classroom. Public schools can’t pick and choose their students (as can private and charter schools); they take everyone who shows up. “Everyone” includes children unable or unwilling to meet classroom requirements; a thousand problems may create the underachieving or misbehaving child, but it is still the teacher’s job to lead that child into educational achievement, no matter what. At the same time the teacher must not neglect the children at the other end of the scale who are ready and willing to learn.
These goals collide with insufficient materials (individual teachers spend hundreds of dollars from their own pockets to provide them), uncomfortable and overcrowded classrooms, inadequate textbooks, and a lack of supportive services such as school nurses and librarians. Moreover, teachers often work under the authority of principals with little teaching experience but big egos, whose judgments can create problems and even kill a career.
In spite of these and many other roadblocks to job satisfaction, teachers persevere in their very stressful work, and those who choose to do it vary in their ability to do it well. As is true in any profession, some muddle along below expectations and others rise to levels of excellence. Every adult remembers that one really superior teacher, the one who caught the hearts and minds of many, who lives in recollection as a life-changing, life-nurturing force. Such individuals are as rare in teaching as they are in every profession, as they are in life. To expect all teachers to meet that standard is unrealistic and unfair.
Just as there are exceptions at the top, there will be exceptions at the bottom. Sadly, most adults can also recall a teacher unworthy of the profession. The media inflate the problem of bad teaching by telling the public that such horrors abound and cannot be fired. Simply not true - another blog will show how incompetents can be removed.
What needs to be remembered is that between the extremes works the vast majority, teachers who are competent, hard working, and successful in meeting all the requirements of their profession. They sign on for jobs that tax their patience and challenge their ideals. They, not the extremes, are the heart and soul, the essential driving force of public education.
Sunday, July 19, 2009
Sunday, July 5, 2009
Failure Is a Myth
Failure Is a Myth
One topic which universally interests Americans is public schools. Mention anything about teachers or school kids, and the conversation is off and running. Much of it is fueled by the media, which usually tell us the rightwing propaganda that things are not going well. Certainly there are problems, but it is worth noting that in Los Angeles, for example, polled opinion about public schools varied according to whether the respondents did or did not have children in the schools. Not surprisingly, those who knew the schools first hand liked them better than those who knew them only by hearsay. We think a few statistics might help everyone see the schools as they are, not as they are said to be.
To begin, it must be kept in mind that the United States is the only country to require school attendance for every child until age 18 or graduation. We alone among nations attempt to put every child through an academic curriculum for 12 years. Every child, no matter what his or her academic capability, is entitled to and must receive the full educational program. A grand goal indeed. The rest of the world keeps their best students on an academic track as they test everyone else into trade school type curriculum.
How many kids are there in our schools? The astonishing total in 2008: 49.8 million, which is a 26% increase since 1985, and the number is projected to increase 9% by 2017. Of these, 3,328,000 are projected to graduate from high school in 2008-09, among the highest number in the industrialized world. That much public education comes at a price: the projected figure for the school year 2008-09 is $631 billion, which amounts to 7.4% of the Gross Domestic Product. Note, however, that despite the increase in enrollment, spending went up only one-half percent in ten years.
The story doesn’t end with high school graduation. From 1998-2008, 29% of the U.S. population had graduated from college with a Bachelor’s Degree. Few nations in the world can equal that number of college graduates.
It’s not all good new, of course. Some kids do dropout - more in some areas than in others, but even so, the total dropout rate fell in the years 1987-2007 from 12.6% to 8.7%. Dropout rates closely reflect the economic status of the students, the poorer the student, the higher the dropout rate.
Overall, these figures indicate that public education is doing a good job for a huge number of kids. Who’s doing the teaching for all these students? A lot of teachers - 3.2 million of them. And how well are they faring? In 2006-07 the average teacher salary was $50,816, not a bad figure. However, that number represents an increase since 1996-97 of only 3%, and inflation has grown more than 3% in 10 years. Also, behind that salary lie ten to fifteen years of experience and some 80 college units beyond the BA degree. Teachers still do not earn fully professional salaries.
Obviously, statistics indicate that American public education is not, as the common myth asserts, falling into failure. The myth of failure of public education is “proven” by unsatisfactory test scores or inner-city drop out rates, and it is necessary to remember that inner-city children, who live under dreadful conditions, not surprisingly score lower than more privileged children and pull down a school district average. It is not public education which has failed; it is poverty which has succeeded.
Our public education system, with its ideal of educating all our children, is under threat in a society which does not prioritize funding for education in the many communities where schools are the only place in which children can hope and strive for a productive adulthood. In too many pockets of poverty throughout the nation teachers struggle to meet the needs of their overcrowded classrooms, to open the door to a better future for their students. Their very presence, their continuing efforts, are part of the success of public education.
(Statistics from Digest of Educational Statistics - National Center for Educational Statistics.)
One topic which universally interests Americans is public schools. Mention anything about teachers or school kids, and the conversation is off and running. Much of it is fueled by the media, which usually tell us the rightwing propaganda that things are not going well. Certainly there are problems, but it is worth noting that in Los Angeles, for example, polled opinion about public schools varied according to whether the respondents did or did not have children in the schools. Not surprisingly, those who knew the schools first hand liked them better than those who knew them only by hearsay. We think a few statistics might help everyone see the schools as they are, not as they are said to be.
To begin, it must be kept in mind that the United States is the only country to require school attendance for every child until age 18 or graduation. We alone among nations attempt to put every child through an academic curriculum for 12 years. Every child, no matter what his or her academic capability, is entitled to and must receive the full educational program. A grand goal indeed. The rest of the world keeps their best students on an academic track as they test everyone else into trade school type curriculum.
How many kids are there in our schools? The astonishing total in 2008: 49.8 million, which is a 26% increase since 1985, and the number is projected to increase 9% by 2017. Of these, 3,328,000 are projected to graduate from high school in 2008-09, among the highest number in the industrialized world. That much public education comes at a price: the projected figure for the school year 2008-09 is $631 billion, which amounts to 7.4% of the Gross Domestic Product. Note, however, that despite the increase in enrollment, spending went up only one-half percent in ten years.
The story doesn’t end with high school graduation. From 1998-2008, 29% of the U.S. population had graduated from college with a Bachelor’s Degree. Few nations in the world can equal that number of college graduates.
It’s not all good new, of course. Some kids do dropout - more in some areas than in others, but even so, the total dropout rate fell in the years 1987-2007 from 12.6% to 8.7%. Dropout rates closely reflect the economic status of the students, the poorer the student, the higher the dropout rate.
Overall, these figures indicate that public education is doing a good job for a huge number of kids. Who’s doing the teaching for all these students? A lot of teachers - 3.2 million of them. And how well are they faring? In 2006-07 the average teacher salary was $50,816, not a bad figure. However, that number represents an increase since 1996-97 of only 3%, and inflation has grown more than 3% in 10 years. Also, behind that salary lie ten to fifteen years of experience and some 80 college units beyond the BA degree. Teachers still do not earn fully professional salaries.
Obviously, statistics indicate that American public education is not, as the common myth asserts, falling into failure. The myth of failure of public education is “proven” by unsatisfactory test scores or inner-city drop out rates, and it is necessary to remember that inner-city children, who live under dreadful conditions, not surprisingly score lower than more privileged children and pull down a school district average. It is not public education which has failed; it is poverty which has succeeded.
Our public education system, with its ideal of educating all our children, is under threat in a society which does not prioritize funding for education in the many communities where schools are the only place in which children can hope and strive for a productive adulthood. In too many pockets of poverty throughout the nation teachers struggle to meet the needs of their overcrowded classrooms, to open the door to a better future for their students. Their very presence, their continuing efforts, are part of the success of public education.
(Statistics from Digest of Educational Statistics - National Center for Educational Statistics.)
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