For years we've been hearing that if the teachers got more pay and if class sizes were smaller then we'd attract better teachers who would then be more effective. This would cause test scores to climb and our children would be better prepared for their future.
Except we tried that. Teachers are making at least as much as the rest of us. Class sizes are smaller than they've been since schools got second rooms. Scores are not measurably better. The kids don't seem to be any better prepared. Graduation rates are much worse.
If you ask the teachers, higher pay and smaller classes are the solution. Again.
We. Tried. That. It didn't do what you said it would so we want to try something else. Like merit pay. Like being able to fire underperforming teachers. Like trying it without unions to see if performance improves.
We're paying for it, we should get a say in how it will be run. We no longer believe that the teachers are capable of identifying the problem or formulating a solution.
It's not just the conservatives saying it. It's not just the home schoolers saying it. It's not just the wookie-suiters saying it.
Talk about consensus building!
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Not to mention---the teachers expect to have the parents do a lot of their work for them, in the form of supervising "homework." I've never been convinced of the great value of homework---what if, forex, my kid was studying French or Spanish or another language I don't know? She could be stuck badly and there'd be devil a bit of help I could give her.
ReplyDeleteI will say that the current explosion of homework (my eight-year-old nephew has several hours' worth of the stuff a day, and I don't remember even getting any until junior high) isn't all the teachers' fault, but it does give lazy teachers an out for turning out utterly unsatisfactory pupils: "See? SEE? If you'd made him do more homework, he wouldn't have failed out!"
And yet if I teach her at home without them, they call the cops.
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