Education reform reality
The recent education articles (March 12-20) were informative but hardly comforting for parents of children attending 21st century schools.
No Child Left Behind managed to leave behind immeasurable data with nowhere to dump it. Massive problems face future schools and Gov. Lepage and Education Commissioner Bowen want to launch more nit-picking solutions: musical chairs with charter schools, retooled teacher evaluations, etc.
Future teacher evaluations won’t be worth the paper on which they’re printed. Shouldn’t research be in progress as to where and how teachers will be made available ten years from now? Any makeshift survey will reveal that in the last five years, education graduates have diminished significantly. And why not? Today’s college debts are higher than credit card debts. You don’t need seminal insight to figure out why high school graduates choose anything but teaching. Who wants to go into marginal poverty? And perchance they do, how long will they stay in a profession that demands consistent evidence of professional effectiveness?
Teachers cannot pick and choose their clients or patients as do lawyers and doctors nor do degrees in education include fine-print disclaimers of “This product may be returned if not completely satisfied.” Shouldn’t our colleges and universities fulfill their role in this reform? This educational overhaul can only succeed with full leadership from higher education and state efforts. My teaching evaluations of 34 years are all neatly packed away — somewhere. They are not as precious as a stack of withered thank-you cards but are more like USDA stamps of approval.
Elizabeth Jalbert Pecoraro
Fort Kent
King the killer
Don’t be fooled by Angus King’s decision to run for the Senate as an independent. King has endorsed Obama’s reelection campaign — he would caucus with the socialist from Vermont on the Democrat side.
What voters need to keep in mind is that during the King terms as governor, he did not represent all of Maine. Although King did not invent the “two Maine” policies, he poured concrete around that policy. Two Maines has made Aroostook the oldest county in the U.S. with a bleak economic future — Washington County is even more bleak economically.
King killed or at least allowed to die while in office the last serious attempt to get Aroostook and Washington counties on U.S. electrical power in 1991. We are dependent on Quebec for our lights and computers.
King killed the Boliden attempt to get a mining permit at Bald Mountain west of Ashland. Boliden is a Swedish company, mining where environmental laws are more stringent than in Maine. With the price of silver, copper and gold at all-time highs, no serious permit attempts have been made since.
King killed the sportsmen activists’ attempt to get Atlantic salmon above Grand Falls to help tourism. The activists had received agreement from New Brunswick to fund the entire fish ladder project at Grand Falls.
King’s attempting to fool you that he’s independent and will serve all of Maine. He doesn’t deserve your vote.
Theo Nykreim
Stockholm
Elizabeth Jalbert Pecoraro–Thanks for the thoughtful and insightful letter. You are entirely correct in acknowledging that we need a more proactive/less reactive master plan for our education system. What we really need is a societal paradigm shift away from one that places inordinately higher values on some professions at the cost to other professions. I am continually amazed when I see the exorbitant incomes figures for CEO’s and Wall St. traders. Do we really value these persons 100-1,000 times more than we value our teachers? And yet, we favor them with special tax breaks and allow them to steer the ship of state.
We should, as a society, realize that education of our children is one of the highest priorities in our country and necessary if we are to have fighting chance in a future that is looking increasingly challenging. Only when we allocate our resources in ways that echo our true priorities will the madness end.
Completely agree with you. There seems to be this mindset where net worth equates to net societal value and I believe that’s ridiculous. What’s worse is that you can barely talk about these things without being accused of being envious or engaging in class warfare and unfortunately, it’s very effective at derailing the conversation.
The mindset also extends to taxation. Sixty years ago paying our taxes was considered to be our patriotic duty and we equated it with all the worthy projects that it was applied to. We squashed the tyrannical oppressors with sacrifice. We put men on the moon and built a transportation system that was the envy of the world because we bought it with our share of our hard earned pay. We were building public schools at an unprecedented rate and producing students that became the most productive generation in our history.
Now, taxes are demonized. We are told that levying taxes is stealing from those that earn it, that lowering taxes is the holy grail. Another paradigm shift that must happen concurrently with our enlightenment about fiscal priorities is the understanding that is through taxation and through taxation only that we can regain our once vaunted status in the world. Our teachers and other public servants are the backbone of our society and if we starve them we are only starving ourselves.
Well stated. Thank you.
You’re right of course. We should have engineers and other professionals who have 6 1/2 hour work days and work 37 weeks a year. Then we could pay them like teachers. Oh wait, they would still have more valuable skills so we’d have to do something about that too.
Things you’ll never hear on a college campus, “I couldn’t cut it in the college of eduction, so I switched majors to engineering”.
Actually that isn’t true at all. I have heard people say they couldn’t cut education and became engineers. Then if you look at the amount of teachers who quit in the first five years of their profession (over 40%) it quickly becomes apparent that there is no career that requires a college education that is more difficult.
Talk about delusions of grandeur. The number who quit in the first 5 years is more of an indication of the quality of students in the college of education than the difficulty of the profession.
I suppose people that transfer from education to engineering because they couldn’t handle the education course work could exist, but they’re as rare as a one legged woodpecker. Eduaction is the fall back major on every college campus in America.
I believe business is the fallback major on every campus. Ask any frattie what they are majoring in it is always business. Business majors are for people with no legitimate skills. There is a reason it is the primary major for the majority of college athletes and education is the least represented of the majors.
You are absolutely right that the course work to become a teacher is not the most rigorous in college, but what does that have to do with how hard teaching is? The fact is, the hardest parts of teaching are not things that you can prepare for in a class…that is why education majors have to student teach. Classroom management and motivating students are not easy and I have seen people try to switch careers into education because of their confidence in their knowledge base burn out because they could not handle a classroom full of students. Knowing a subject really well is great…but teaching is also about passing that knowledge on, in many cases to people that aren’t that interested in receiving it.
If your opinion of the difficulty of teaching comes from the classes education majors take, you are looking in the wrong place.
You’d probably get chewed up in an 8th grade classroom.
“And perchance they do, how long will they stay in a profession that demands consistent evidence of professional effectiveness?”
Don’t almost all professions demand consistent evidence of professional effectiveness? How many employers out there are happy with an employee who shows no effectiveness?
But the point of the letter is that current evaluations and pushes for more are mostly just superficial. And, that schools aren’t businesses. So while teachers may be employees, to treat students as though they are consumers is unhelpful.
It’s quite obvious that any problems in our schools won’t be solved by simply moving children around and giving teachers more paperwork — and yet, that’s what’s being proposed.
Agreed. Schools are highly complex environments, and NOT assembly lines. We want thoughtful, energetic, and caring stewards.
So you want to go to college and get a degree in liberal arts, then get a job teaching that pays like you have a 6 year engineering degree. It’s like getting a degree in advance high school.
The better idea for our future would be to require teachers to have engineering, science, and math degree’s and then pay them the salary that the private sector would pay. The problem is the union would never go for this, they all need to get paid the same and that’s it. A worthless teacher gets tenure and your stuck with them for life. That’s a broke system.
yep spot on.
What do we need engineers for? I went to college for electro-mechanical engineering in the early eighties. At that time we were graduating four lawyers for every engineer. That was when we actually designed and made things here in USA. The job creators sent all work to banana republics and hired engineers from third world and used the lawyers to pick the pockets of working americans and defend the republican party while they deregulated everything they wanted to take advantage of including my retirement funds from working in the engineering field .
Yea, under Clinton we got NAFTA as well as some shady deals with China. Most lawyers are dems, and most democratic office holders are lawyers as well.
I happen to be an engineer as well and haven’t noticed a shortage of oppurtunities.
From your previous post Mr. Mapleton it’s pretty evident that you wouldn’t be paying one cent more for better teachers I’ve heard it before. Give us great teachers and we’ll pay more but when the rubber meets the road districts don’t hire teachers with experience and advanced degrees. They hire someone right out of college so they only have to pay the lowest step salary.
You haven’t heard it before because it’s never been done. The teachers control the system from the top down. They don’t want anything to change except there pay. They don’t want to take any responsibility for the results and no matter what they will point the finger somewhere else. They just assume you don’t know the good ones from the bad ones.
Go to any parent teacher conference, you will come out thinking about 1 in 3 should really be there.
Their pay…
Actually, teachers control nothing. School boards with no background in education hire administrators. The administrators make the hiring and firing decisions. The teachers can challenge them. That is the power the teachers have. The rest is set by school boards and administrators. I believe it is time for true education reform. 1/3 of school board seats should be reserved for the teachers in the school. These teachers would be elected by the other teachers at the school. Then we could finally start holding teachers accountable because they would finally have a real say in the running of the school.
If you think 1 in 3 teachers are any good, you have no concept of what it is to actually do the job. I bet you’d be one of the 2.
Not many “worthless” teachers get tenure. System not perfect, but not broken.
If you have a worthless teacher you have worthless administrators, worthless schoolboards, and worthless voters. That is a system that has far greater problems than a single bad teacher.
ELIZABETH,
Return control of education to the states, Kick all children out who don’t want to learn and let their parents home school them, Get rid of the NEA, and all teacher unions and them the educational system will function correctly. P.S. Most important fix: Ask GOD to come back and be part of the system.
THEO,
Anyone who supports obama is operating a broken elevator. To vote for this man once may have been a mistake, but to support another four years, well you fill in the blanks.
Amcon, those of us who look forward to President Obama’s re-election are ever thankful for your posts. No one does a better job of letting the voters know that there will be a real choice this November.
As you become the exemplar of the Republican choice, the likelihood of President Obama sweeping both districts in Maine and garnering all four Electoral College votes increases geometrically.
Keep the paranoia at full throttle. You have our profound appreciation.
AMC is a double agent for the Obama campaign. No one could be that wacky and right wing without an ulterior motive. Sometimes he carries the ruse too far though. He is going to expose himself if he is not careful. PSYOPS is tricky business.
Sometimes I think you are right. Amcon looks more like a caricature of a conservative than a real conservative.
Real conservatives are extinct, the last one being Bill Buckley. Today’s alleged conservatives are trigger-happy to go to war, all in favor of the government in the bedroom and the womb, dedicated to deficit-producing taxation policies, and apoplectic at the thought of conserving the environment. The only proper descriptor is “theocratic, warmongering, deadbeat despoilers.”
They come closest in their politics to feudal kings like Phillip II of Spain: fanatical about religion, borrowing heavily for endless wars, such as the disastrous Armada for which he deforested much of Spain, and committed to the Inquisition, which targeted Jews, Muslims and non-believers.
Hmmm. I thought the letter dealt with King, not Obama. Relevance?
I am sure you would prefer the lying Mitt (R))money, really how can you trust a lier like him?
If your GOD was so powerful, he wouldn’t need you to ask him back.
His power too is humility. Acts 4:32-35 might enlighten amcomrade!
http://bottomline.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/03/06/10591706-chevy-volt-named-european-car-of-the-year – Chevy Volt named European Car of the Year on March 5, 2012, well after word leaked out that two Volt battery packs caught fire several weeks after being crashed tested, but the battery packs weren’t drained after the crash like gas tanks are.
Who should we vote for Mr Conservative? Have you seen the GOP contenders or are you Rush Limbaugh’s child bride ? I wish we had another option as I too would like to see Obama go, but someone needs to be at the helm and they have to at least know how to breath through their nose. Enjoy your tea, but maybe you should check the ingredients.
Insane ideas. Move on, nothing to see here.
“how long will they stay in a profession that demands consistent evidence of professional effectiveness”Wow that says it all.How dare we expect our teachers to be effective in their roles as educators.How many of us would keep our jobs if we were not effective[other than goverment workers of course].
The only chink in the arguement. More valid if “evidence of perfomance over we have a modicum of control”.
no idea where you are going with that or what it has to do with my comment.
My point was that many professionals (as well as non-professionals) are required to produce evidence of performance (ever heard of the infamous “performance review”?). Your point is well taken that a teachers perfomance evaluation is often bogus and is a result of forces beyond their control.
Corrrect. there are many things that are beyond the control of even the best teachers. When the kids don’t care because their parents don’t care,that is one such thing. There are parents that believe that their little johnny or jenny is an angel and should get all 4.0’s just for showing up that is a problem for sure. I wonder how many teachers that are in fact quite good, also have no choice because the parents come in just a B*&^ing about how things are unfair. The Administration then bends to the will of the parents. s. e seen that a few times over the years.
Here’s another idea. get rid of the friggin’ laptops in schools. Everyone in this state knows that they are used more for personal fun things than actual work. Sure the kids can use power point but they can’t even put in their own lightbulb. Desk top models would be just fine. All cell phones,Ipod touches, and the like should all be turned in to the front office to be tagged and returned at the end of the day. If caught with one a student should be suspended for at least three days. Oh wait, that would Be against their civil rights or something. Even worse, the kids might be mad at their parents. We can’t have that now because it’s important for parents to be best friends with their kids.
And every other profession NEVER deals with anything beyond their control. Funny how the teachers never demand more control over these things at contract time. Funny, but not Ha Ha funny.
There is a difference between NEVER and constantly. When I was a project manager I would sometimes have delays in production. Sometimes a machine needed to fabricate a part would break down. Sometimes 1/3 of my crew would call in sick on a weekend and I would have a delay again. More often than not however things went according to schedule. Teachers are constantly dealing with things beyond their control, anyone with a little intelligence and a child of their own can tell you that. Most professions are like herding sheep. On occasion, something may go wrong. Teaching is like herding cats. Something is ALWAYS going wrong, and you have no real control over it.
Oh excellent point I think most folks work and are compensated on a performance basis .The cream rises to the top.
Thats Linsane!
How dare you require teachers to show any evidence that they are professorially effective. Don’t you realize that the ability to fog a mirror is in and of itself more than enough of a burden to the teachers and is all that is required for lifetime employment and raises. It’s NEVER for the children…unless it’s contract time.
And you wonder why 20% of our best and brightest who go on to college are unprepared even though the teachers gave them the grades to be admitted. The last thing teachers want is anyone evaluating their performance. If they were proud of what they do they’d want the world to know.
My daughter is a teacher and some of the stories she tells me would make you sick.No I won’t share don’t want her to be singled out by an out of control teachers union.
We only hear what we want to hear. And the apple obviously falls very close to the tree.
Speak for yourself and leave me out of it.Thanks.
You injected yourself in the conversation. Don’t now turn around and whine to “leave me out of it.”
My daughter is a teacher as well and she tell me the same thing.
If your daughter is a teacher and she has enough time to observe other teachers in a classroom she must not be much of a teacher. Tell her to get back in front of her students and do her job that we are paying her for.
It’s difficult to show you are proud of your work when every time you stand up to tell people the good things that are going on some braying jackass barely able to construct a complete sentence stands up and throws verbal brickbats demeaning you, your profession, your qualifications,your ability, your trustworthiness and your dedication to teaching.
But apparently it’s easy to demand more every year for producing declining results.
Test scores are improving every year. It would seem someone as concerned with education as yourself would know that.
I’m thinking the letter writer meant to say ‘constant’ instead of ‘consistent’ testing.
And now you speak for the educator. I’m shore she would thank you also.
Sure.
Elizabeth Pecoraro: good letter.
Our children are going to need all the education they can get. The reason is that they are going to have to pay our bills when we are gone and feed us until that happens. WE are _=*&^%’ed, lets vilify the teachers, unions, unemployed, women, gays, minorities, persons with disabling conditions etc.Who is left? Fat old white republican men and their trophie child brides along with a few blind sheep.
All together now: “who is the source of all our problems? The Blind Sheep…let’s blame them!”
Same old story, blame the weakest group “down the line” from you. And people keep falling for that old gambit over and over: the logcutters, the clammers, the older drivers, boys of 15 years, women without husbands, people who wash their hands too much, the pig farmers, people who protest pig farming, and don’t forget the dentists–yeah, it’s all the dentists’ fault!
We could fix our educational system in about 5 years. It’s not rocket science. But it costs money and Americans somehow have the idea that education is a wimpy, stupid thing that shouldn’t cost anything. We really don’t want to have a superior system or we’d do it. We’d rather have something to bellyache about and blame. It’s really a lot easier and more fun than doing the work to fix the system.
I agree, our schools need a complete overhaul. I do not believe that MONEY should be the be all and end all when discussing education. We spend from the first down to the third in the world PER CHILD, depending on who you’re reading. The fact is we do a terrible job. Throwing good money after bad is not the solution. We can do better. And it is not dependent on SPENDING MORE MONEY. Other country”s spend less, the children spend more time in school and they are outperforming our kids. Our society is the reason for our fall from grace. “No child left behind” was a failure. No one intentionally said, “Hey, lets screw our kids up” Learn from the failure and move on.
Schools here spend money that other countries don’t. In most other industrialized countries, sports are left to outside organizations. They have legitimate social services and not as much call for after school programs. Their teachers spend half as much time in front of the class and more time working on curriculum and collaborating with their peers. They are paid more in relation to other professions and work half as hard as American teachers. They get better results. Is it any wonder why?
Although i’m a lifelong jock, I do feel that too much emphasis is put on athletics. Once again, our society tells us to be superficial. 110 IQ that can dunk is in a better position to prosper than the guy with the 170 IQ
Work half as hard??? Do they have 3 hour days or do they only work 18 weeks per year?
The US teachers have more hours in front of the classroom than any other nation. Part of our problem is that there is no time built in for collaboration, planning, or meeting with students individually. The rest of the world acknowledges this. The rest of the world doesn’t believe that teachers should be lecturing for 7 hours a day and then be expected to go put in another 5-6 hours on average a day just to keep up with the rest of the work. I would love to see teachers here finally stand up for themselves by actually just working the contractual minimum. Then we would see how hard they actually work when everything breaks down.
Man those teachers are really talented. They squeeze 7 hours of lecture into a 6 1/2 hour day. And they aren’t even scheduled for the entire 6 1/2 hours. The long standing myth of the underpaid overworked teacher is slowly being revealed for what it is and those who have benefited from it can’t believe that the gravy train is finally over.
I tried to find out about how much of the typical American school budget went to athletics. Not one of the school budgets available on the internet had an individual itemized section that broke out the cost of competitive sports teams to taxpayers. The only reason I can think for not doing this is the total cost may be very high.
I just have to ask, Once again, we are right at the top in per child spending, How much do you think we should be spending??? Should every child have their own teacher???
It’s not about MORE money, it’s about using some common sense. Any kid shows me a cellphone during the school day while on grounds should lose it. When we were kids a call to the School office got me any emergency messages. POP culture now dictates the way teens and even preteens interact far more then it ever has. Laptops should be used when NO ONE is speaking and yet I see kids have them on all the time while in class. We need to stop coddling our children. We are setting them up for failure.
Parents sue the school when their precious little snowflake is ever held accountable for anything. Parents sue when schools restrict their eight year olds ability to have a cell phone in class.
And those parents, are part of the problem.
Yet you never see the teachers advocating for more control in the classroom at contract time. You also never see them advocating for tougher standards for students. You do see demands for more money and no accountability for teachers.
Actually teachers are constantly advocating for more control. I see it constantly. In fact, the concept of Charter Schools started out because teachers wanted control of the schools and knew that the only way to make schools truly work was to get rid of school boards. The teachers’ Union came up with the concept and was largely ignored for 30 years. Then business said they wanted a piece of the pie and NOW charter schools run for profit not for children are in vogue.
Excellent reply.
Those are not negotiable items. Both of those issues are the exclusive right of the school board, which you elected, to address.
The bulk of the money would not go for teachers salaries, although some would in order to attract consistently high quality students into teaching.
The most of the money would have to go toward expanded facilities, repair, maintenance of older buildings and construction of new buildings. Most of our city schools across the nation have been neglected in the past 30 years of budget cutting and are over crowded and in extremely poor shape, have limited facilities for libraries, science and language labs, physical education, art, music, drama. Another part of the funding would have to go to restructuring and expanding the training and certification of teachers and administrators.
We have neglected or ignored children teachers, teaching, administrators, administration, buildings and the process of education for so long that catching back up let alone improving is going to be expensive.
The only thing negleted is any sense of fiscal responsibility from the education empire. As if $50 million dollar school buildings just aren’t enough for the teachers to be able to teach in. Each new building is individually designed with all the extras. Why not since it’s only tax money.
Please show where school budgets have been cut. Most teachers contracts have automatic raises built in as long as the teacher can continue to fog a mirror every year. Per student costs have increased 55% from 2001 to 2010. Inflation during the same period was 23.6%. When will it be enough?
http://www.maine.gov/education/data/ppcosts/2010/geninfo2010.htm
Since, by your own admission, teaching doesn’t attract high quality students, the first thing we need to do is get rid of the current crop of poor teachers. The we can talk about paying more. You seem to think that just by paying the current crop of low quality teachers more that they’ll suddenly become high quality teachers.
I was under the impression we were talking about the educational system of the US. Maine ‘s educational system is actually quite good. We consistently rank in the top 10% in achievement in the US. However, if a few ignorant, uneducated old Maine men could be removed from school boards where they sit and spew nonsense about morals, money and modern kids, I believe we could improve Maine’s ranking by quite a bit.
It’s a sad state of affairs if you think our children are headed in the right direction.Morals? Modern kids?? Those are REAL issues that need to be addressed. If you think modern facilities are the final word then you are sorely mistaken. I’m fortunate to spend time with teens and young college kids. They live in a different world then we grew up in. Do you spend most of your day IMing? Literally HUNDREDS of texts messages in a single day. Or talking to your friends on XBOX? THEY DO. And it’s not just teens, this is now common of people up to thirty years old. I can’t say I have the answer but the problem is bigger then any money we can throw at it.
13,500 is the avg price per student the schools are alloted per child per year .Do the math wheres all the money going .Teachers unions, top heavy administration and a 20 yr retirement package .Imagine retiring at 43.
Retirement age for teachers in Maine is 63. Teachers salaries and benefits in Maine are 27% of school budgets.
Are you a liar or just misinformed?
It might have been less rude to ask for ltr77’s source of information.
Sorry, only slightly misinformed. Apparently they can retire at any time with 25 years of service. So for a teacher who knew what they wanted and worked for 25 years straight, they could in theory retire at age 47 or 48 with half of their salary. Compared to the military, you could retire at 38 with 50 percent of your salary. For the rest of teachers, retirement age is when they reach 25 years of service or 65. Really not that unusual.
So, now the question for you, are you a liar or just misinformed since no teacher can retire at 43 with 20 years of service as you imply?