Taking Personal Responsibility
If you believe that out-of-field teaching, temporary certificates, and high turnover among mathematics and science teachers are unacceptable outcomes of current policies, and if you believe that high-quality teaching is the right direction to take, then declare yourself. It is up to you to put an end the former and ensure the latter.
Ask them: “What is being done here to attract more teachers into mathematics and science teaching?” “How many teachers here are teaching out-of-field?” “What are mathematics and science teachers paid here and why?” “What is the status of professional development in math and science instruction here?” “What do you need?” “How can I help?”
If you want your voice to be heard, call your child’s principal, your school board representative, your local school superintendent. Call and write your representatives in state government. Contact the local chapters of the professional teachers’ organizations whose members teach your children subjects such as arithmetic, biology, and algebra. Ask them: “What is being done here to attract more teachers into mathematics and science teaching?” “How many teachers here are teaching out-of-field?” “What are mathematics and science teachers paid here and why?” “What is the status of professional development in math and science instruction here?” “What do you need?” “How can I help?”
High-quality teaching in mathematics and science cannot be bought on the cheap. But it comes back—ten-, twenty-, a hundredfold—to the nation, the community, and especially to our own children, in the form of a better prepared workforce, a more productive economy, and a more creative people.
The time to find out what you can do and to whom you should speak is now. Go to the meetings; get involved. Only when those who sit in the seat of power understand the public’s priorities can they act in the citizens’ interest. And only you can declare that interest. … In a democracy, the people create real change, not commissions.
As the Chinese proverb says, the time to plant the tree is now—before it’s too late.
Thursday, June 28, 2007
A call to action
In September 2000, National Commission on Mathematics and Science Teaching for the 21st Century (The Glenn Commission) issued a rally cry to the American people. They particularly summoned parents to take responsibility for the math and science education of their children. So for all you parents looking for another good reason to get involved in this significant debate, you need look no further .....
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2 comments:
I wholeheartedly agree with you concerning the urgency of this problem. However, I take away from you post the notion that the solution to this problem is to hire quality teachers in subjects like math. I sincerely doubt this will solve the problem however.
I am a professional scientist specializing in mathematical modeling. Mid-life I decided that I could either write another 20 or so papers or impart what I know and love to the next generation. *Everybody* told me this was a mistake, but I felt it was a noble challenge. I had taught math in grad school (I have an MS in math from Virginia Tech), but I was not so naive to think I would be successful in an inner-city environment. After job-shopping, I finally chose Thomas Jefferson Independent Day school, which on the surface seemed very impressive. The school had a good number of people with advanced degrees in their field, and like you, I thought this was a very promising sign.
My first day, I was told that roughly 2/3 of my incoming 6th grade class does not know their multiplication tables!! I went to a public school in a blue-collared town, and I sure as hell knew my times tables like I knew my name by 6th grade. I was shocked. I quiz them. Sure enough, about 60% of the class doesn't know their times table up to 10 times 10. Then, I find out what the school does: it trains the students so they do well on the PSATs. If they can jump through this hoop and then be trained to be National Merit Scholars, mommy and daddy have a "free-ride" on college tuition. Since National Merit students are chosen locally, and this school was in Missouri, they had a leg up on 80% of the schools to start with.
What is wrong with this picture? For one thing, lack of teacher authority. If you think that paying a person well, and then not treating them as a competent professional is going to work, you're going to end up with a lot of wasted money and a bunch of disillusioned folks that had good intentions. In the good schools, which is where you'll most likely attract well-trained teachers, the parents and the kids run the school, not the administrators and especially not the teachers. A student who doesn't get the grade he/she wants or thinks they deserve, can either through a combination of whining, threatening, or parental influence, get their way. I have had parents call and say the most proposperous things like,"Do you know how much I am paying to have Johnny go here?" (as if price has anything to do with the grade I should give them) or "Annie has always been a B+ student" (guess I didn't see the label she came with), when in fact, Annie was at best a C student, but had been given inflated grades because her former teachers didn't dare give her low marks.
As I see it, two things have to happen *along* with hiring good teachers at a decent wage:
1) Administrators and teachers need to be given the authority, not just the pay, of a professional. They need to be able to do the right thing without having to worry about their job security.
2) We need to go to an educational system similar to Germany and China, where we eliminate the kids who don't want to go the academic route by about 5th or 6th grade. Don't want to learn? Find it very boring? OK, perhaps it's not your thing, but we can train you to manage a restaurant, or compare computers, etc. Rather then let the poor disruptive students drag down the whole class, find out where they do belong and can be useful.
It's good to see more and more people finally becoming upset about this issue. I totally agree with your notion that education needs to be *made* a part of the political agenda by every American citizen.
Matt B.
You've made many good points. I think, for the most part, we're on the same page.
However, I don't think the only solution is to hire quality teachers. That's a one prong approach that just won't be nearly enough. We're in much too deep and we've fallen much too far for that to have a noticeable effect.
I was quoting the Glenn Commission in this post and if I recall, I was struck by how we've been needing to address this problem for a long, long time. It's like we've been stuck on pause for lo so many years.
I am encouraged by the report of the National Math Panel though. By their own estimates, we're looking at at least a decade before we see measurable change, but it's a start.
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