Dear (Your name here):
You’ve done a lot of “motherhood and apple pie” posturing for the press on Education and Education reform lately. Some of you have asked for ideas, but before you accept the data forms on your websites, you make us give you other people’s addresses.
Sorry. Too close to McCarthyism for my taste. I know it’s just marketing. I’m not interested in your marketing. I’m interested in your policies.
Here are some suggestions:
Problem: Recruiting mid/late career change teachers. Two years as a “fast track” is too slow and often costs too much, requires the candidate move just to get the training, and move again to take a job.
Suggestion: Start a national licensure program. Offer it online so that people anywhere in the country can get the courses they need. Offer incentives to local school districts to support those people with “student teaching” opportunities so that they can get the certification BEFORE they move to the high need schools. Make sure the program actually turns out qualified teachers.
Problem: Professional Development of current teachers lags behind technology. Many tools exist which teachers know nothing about, and which cannot be taught in a 4 hour or 6 hour “professional development day” format. These skills and tools are critical to bringing the nations 7million existing teachers knowledge and skill base up to par.
Suggestion: In conjunction with the certification program above, incorporate a real technology integration program - offered at a distance and using the very tools the teachers need - as continuing education and development credits. These should be REAL courses, not the trumped up “we certify that you had seat time in professional development” but actual courses.
Problem: Highly qualified teachers need specialized knowledge in particular knowledge domains. This is especially true in math and science. Many teachers graduate from university, get the job, and never look back. Their knowledge base becomes stale. Further, it becomes impossible for teachers to transition from one field to another (math to science, for example) because the cost of going back to school to acquire the requisite transcript credits is cost prohibitive.
Suggestion: In conjunction with the above two ideas, incorporate sufficient knowledge domain content to permit experienced teachers to change their fields without having to give up their jobs in order to return to school to get — what amounts to — an additional degree.
Problem: How to implement these ideas?
Suggestion: Hold a grant competition to fund 10 university programs around the country for up to five years to develop (first year) and implement (years two thru five) real programs to provide teacher certification, continuing technology training, and specialized knowledge domain (math, science, language) education to facilitate building teachers’ skill and knowledge base. Stipulate that every program MUST offer the courses completely online, and that any grant funded program MUST charge their local in-state tuition rates for those courses no matter where the student lived.
Your turn.
April 25th, 2008 at 9:56 pm
I feel like when you graduate from a university with a teaching degree or whatever degree. You should not have to go through an intern year that can fail you. I think new teachers need to have a mentor to help them the first couple years. If their performance is not what the school expects don’t hire them pack.