In Urban Classrooms, the Least Experienced Teach the Neediest Kids

Purpose of Education

First, all stakeholders should believe that the purpose of education is to create production citizens.

I agree with both Allison and Dawn that financial support, parental intervention, and commitment to educational excellent are needed.

When the prison population has a higher increase than college atttendance, there are serious problems in the United States. Throwing money at the problems and instituting new programs every other year have been ineffective. We should take strategies that worked and apply them to the new realities in our country.

Leadership in this country should invest in education as if not doing so is a terrorist act. Education should be tied in with our national defense. If leaders saw education as ensuring the security of our nation, they would act differently.

broken system

Our entire education system is outdated and broken. We're still running schools on an agrarian calendar that isn't applicable to today's world. We have expectations of every student meeting every standard, unlike any other country in the world.

We're "training" teachers by having them study subject matter in depth. The training we need as educators is on human relations, behavior, how to teach children whose lives are ihn shambles, where to turn for help when your students are addicts or the children of addicts, and understanding of class differences.

We have allowed parents to become disengaged in the education process. It is truly sad that in a school of 350 students I cannot get more than 5 parents to come to an advisory meeting, unless of course we're planning a promotion party or changing the dress code. What message is that disengagement sending to the kids? Yet parents come in all the time complaining that we don't involve them in decision making. We send letters, e-mails and have automated phone call reminders. Do I have to have a chauffering service too?

It's a shock to the system the first time a student curses at you. It's a bigger shock to the system when the parent comes in cursing and defending their child's disrespect. As a principal it's interesting to me how many people seem to think that rules do not apply to them or to their children. Not only is our educational system broken, but in large part our society is broken. That's a really tough fix!

For the 7.5 hours a day we have our students our teachers, paras, and principals are working on teaching how to get along with others, how to behave within the "normal" parameters of society, and how to cope with crisis...on top of the subject matter that 100% of our students are expected to master. Most days I feel the need for a superhero's cape! I choose to work with these students, because that is where I think I can make the biggest difference. I'm sure I could go other easier places, but I don't see the fun in that.

Until we change our society this problem will never be fixed.

It's time to act as citizens

Rather than complain about the writer, posturing politicians or uncaring parents maybe it's time for everyone to take a look at themselves. Are there people who don't care? Most definately, but at least the writer is attempting to look at education with careful deliberation and try to find answers. How many of us can say we have done more than read an article in the newspaper or listen to the local school chatter to then procede to make a proclamation of the failing education system while we continue sipping our coffee and reading the entertainment section?

I am a parent, I know many teachers who care and many who are burned out. I know politions who blow so much hot air they could be the source of global warming and shocking to some - others who care deeply. I've heard the chatter, read the studies and had the arguments. I have been to more school committee meetings where I have been the only person in the room that I've lost count.

Why should politicians listen to us when we say nothing? How can parents know how to care and support their children when they've lived a life where no one has done so for them? No one has taught them? How can we expect teachers to work miracles with no experience, no supplies and buildings falling around them? We can't. While it is possible to rise above these challenges, we've all heard the inspiring stories, the hill is VERY steep. So shall we all fall down and give up? No.

We need stop unfunded mandates - they are helping to destroy our school budgets and in turn our schools but we also need teacher support, training and incentives. We need to utilize the laws and resources the way to they were meant to be utilized and frankly this will never happen until each of us actually tries to make our voice heard. The "posturing" politions will never change unless we require them to change.

We need to support the parents who have no support - that does not have to mean throwing money at the situation - mentoring is one free option. We need to reach out to our communites and say "what can I do to help," and when the door is slammed in our face because "it's impossible and things are never going to change" we need to knock on the door that much louder.

There are no pat answers but success is possible. When people take ownership of the system, work with what they have, demand more from themselves and others and refuse to settle for less amazing changes can be made. If we take the suggestions of people such as the writer - people who have truly studied the problems and add our voices AND ourselves things can change. We have had so many successes in this country - we can do it here.

Another Posturing Politician

Ironic to see all this complaining about quality of education at the same time that thousands of teachers are being laid off nationwide. I find it hard to believe that the writer, or anyone else other than teachers, really cares about education. It's all a bunch of political posturing - how many times have we all seen so-called 'education candidates' proceed to slash education? The plain fact is that nobody wants to actually pay what it costs to provide quality education. It is time to put up or shut up; enough unfunded mandates.

w

"...when given the chance, teachers often choose to transfer to more desirable, low-poverty schools." And why is that?

Because high poverty schools are much, much, much more likely to produce teacher burn-out. And why?

- Because the students haven't had middle-class norms taught and reinforced at home, and so they are more difficult to manage than middle-class kids

- Because their parents are a lot less likely to actively support what teachers are trying to do and will even undermine the mission of the school

- Because it is extremely hard to feel like one is getting much traction with this set of students and that gets discouraging

- Because when things are going wrong, it is impossible to communicate with their non-English speaking parents, or with parents who have a chronically disconnected phone

- Because it's draining to deal with so many kids whose parents have serious substance abuse problems, untreated mental health problems, and/or are have a history as suppliers/consumers of our nation's huge illegal underground economy (drugs, prostitution, theft/robbery, etc.).

- Because (in secondary schools) it is stressful to have your things constantly getting stolen and damaged, and to be cursed at and threatened (or to see so many others be cursed at and threatened) on a near daily basis.

- Because the social setting where America's underclass resides is alien to teachers, most of whom are middle-class. They can only tolerate this environment for so long.

This type of atmosphere isn't for everyone. It is also why inner-city teachers BEG for small class sizes. Fifteen of these students are much more tolerable than 30; teaching them is not an easy thing to do.

PS: Has anyone else noticed the contradiction of saying we MUST have experienced, skilled teachers in these schools, but then lavishing praise on, and claiming superior results from, TFA teachers who have only had five weeks of summer training before they are thrown into a full classroom of challenging students who are multiple grade levels behind?

Good Analysis of the Problem, One Quibble

In this solid article, the author writes: "This will require a long-term commitment to systemic reform including investing in low-poverty schools to make them more attractive teaching placements and funding incentives to initially attract experienced and, we hope, higher quality teachers to low-income schools. Will this require dollars beyond what we have? Not necessarily. Federal law already provides schools with money to pay for this. It's just that the funds typically go to reduce class sizes or provide professional development for teachers instead - strategies that have mixed results. Some of these funds should be redirected to pay for incentives drawing teachers into high-poverty schools. This is also a great use of stimulus money."

Should some Title II dollars perhaps be used for recruitment incentives? Sure - but let's not take that too far. The problem is one of retention as much as it is one of recruitment. Title II funding should and can be used for *high-quality* professional development, induction and mentoring focused on improving teaching practice - efforts directed at making teachers more effective. In addition, we need to work with school leaders and policymakers to improve the working conditions in these hard-to-staff schools and districts. We need to provide educators time to collaborate and a role in school decision-making--things that don't cost a whole lot of money. Research has shown these factors are often more important than money in keeping the highest-quality teachers at hard-to-staff schools.

http://eduoptimists.blogspot.com

Teacher effectiveness

John,

I agree with you completely. Teacher experience is a partial predictor and the one proxy that's widely available today. As we learn more about teacher effectiveness it must be the measure by which we gauge success. One would hope that the incentives provided in the stimulus will encourage more experimentation and research in this area. In the meantime, the comparability loophole has to close. If it doesn't, we are likely to end up with similar imbalances no matter the measure.

Experience v. effectiveness

I think that teaching effectiveness should be the proxy--not experience. And, don't tell me that we can't measure effectiveness! We can look for teachers that have the characteristics most predictive of teaching effectiveness and then then measure performance in some fashion. Will this be perfect? No. But, it's better than just relying on experience.

Whistling past the graveyard

Yet another article on inner-city education that fails to assign blame where it belongs: on the parents of the children who attend these schools. We can throw all the money we want (and hire all the best teachers we can find), but as long as inner-city kids are shown little to no discipline at home and aren't encouraged to pursue an education, they will fail.

Urban school teachers

The novice teachers do have advantages - usually youth and energy. Students may accept those attributes over knowledge and experience.

We are missing the point. The outcome should be more knowledgeable, motivated, well-informed graduates. We should use 'star' teachers in all classrooms - available through the Internet - supported by classroom teachers. The 'star' conveys the subject expertly and can make specific assignments. The 'star' can answer questions submitted by thousands of students in an asynchronous or synchronous communications.

We are teaching using 100 year old methods and getting inferior results. How long will the public put up with this? Those who can, go private, leaving the rest of us to happenstance in terms of the quality of our teacher. We can do better with a 'staar' system.