[net-gold] Bad Teachers.. We as Teachers are Taking the Blame and Why. We Know Who Makes Decisions
- From: "David P. Dillard" <jwne@xxxxxxxxxx>
- To: Net-Gold <Net-Gold@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>, Temple University Net-Gold Archive <net-gold@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>, Temple Gold Discussion Group <TEMPLE-GOLD@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>, Net-Gold <net-gold@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>, Sean Grigsby <myarchives1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>, Educator Gold <Educator-Gold@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>, Educator Gold <Educator-Gold@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>, K12AdminLIFE <K12AdminLIFE@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>, Net-Platinum <net-platinum@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>, NetGold <netgold@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>, "Net-Gold @ Nabble" <ml-node+3172864-337556105@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>, K-12ADMINLIFE <K12ADMIN@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>, MediaMentor <mediamentor@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>, Digital Divide Diversity MLS <mls-digitaldivide@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>, net-gold@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Tue, 6 Jul 2010 23:36:57 -0400 (EDT)
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Date: Tue, 06 Jul 2010 20:05:18 -0400
From: bbracey@xxxxxxx
To: bbracey@xxxxxxx, mls-digitaldivide-owner@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx,
wwwedu@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, net-gold@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx,
K12AdminLIFE@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, mls-digitaldivide@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx,
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Subject: Bad Teachers.. We as Teachers are taking the blame and why. We know
who makes decisions
It is not that we as teachers don't know that we are oten victims of the
political winds. We are also sometimes victims of personalities and pundits who
have little or no real information or understanding of the teaching profession.
The Dept. of Education should really allow people to read this report and the
reporters and others talking about bad teachers should have to respond. I think
it is time for us to write individual letters en masse , to the people in our
local School Boards, States, and in the Congress. Teachers are not the people
who make the plans, we are often
usually responding to the pressures of the job and decisions made elsewhere.
Tell your story. I am going to create a Facebook website to explore these ideas
and ask you to post your stories and ideas. Enough is enough. Now we are losing
jobs as well, with little resistance in the teaching profession. Why is that?
Bonnie Bracey Sutton
bbracey at aol com
We have stories to tell and to share. Let's do it. I will post the information
for Facebook soon.
Teachers make a difference.
The success of any plan for improving educational outcomes depends on the
teachers who carry it out and thus on the abilities of those attracted to the
field and their preparation. Yet there are many questions about how teachers
are being prepared and how they ought to be prepared. Yet, teacher preparation
is often treated as an afterthought in discussions of improving the public
education system.
Preparing Teachers addresses the issue of teacher preparation with specific
attention to reading, mathematics, and science. The book evaluates the
characteristics of the candidates who enter teacher preparation programs, the
sorts of instruction and experiences teacher candidates receive in preparation
programs, and the extent that the required instruction and experiences are
consistent with converging scientific evidence. Preparing Teachers also
identifies a need for a data collection model to provide valid and reliable
information about the content knowledge, pedagogical competence, and
effectiveness of graduates from the various kinds of teacher preparation
programs.
Federal and state policy makers need reliable, outcomes-based information to
make sound decisions, and teacher educators need to know how best to contribute
to the development of effective teachers. Clearer understanding of the content
and character of effective teacher preparation is critical to improving it and
to ensuring that the same critiques and questions are not being repeated 10
years from now.
BETTER DATA ON TEACHER PREPARATION COULD AID EFFORTS TO IMPROVE EDUCATION
WASHINGTON -- A new report from the National Research Council on teacher
education programs in the United States recommends that the U.S. Department of
Education develop a national education data network to integrate existing
information on teacher preparation, drive the collection of new data, and
provide needed information to researchers and policymakers working toward
better approaches to preparing K-12 teachers. The current paucity of data and
well-targeted research severely limits the capacity of policymakers and the
education community to draw conclusions about which approaches are effective
and how to design better ones, said the committee that wrote the report.
"Teacher preparation should not be treated as an afterthought in discussions
about improving the public education system," said committee chair Ellen
Condliffe Lagemann, professor and senior scholar at the Levy Economics
Institute at Bard College. "Sometimes, however, in high-stakes policy debates,
discussions are muddled because information is so limited. Better data
collection and more research would provide a firmer foundation for policy and
practice in the future."
More than 200,000 students complete teacher preparation programs in the U.S.
every year. Between 70 percent and 80 percent are enrolled in "traditional"
bachelor's or master's degree programs housed in colleges and universities.
The rest enter through one of about 130 "alternative" routes, such as Teach for
America or Teaching Fellows, which seek to recruit and train teachers without
traditional degrees or certification. Which pathway produces better qualified
teachers has been the subject of often-vigorous debate within the education
community, but the distinction between traditional and alternative pathways is
neither clear-cut nor particularly useful, the report says. There is broad
overlap in content and practice between these categories, and there is as much
variation within each category as there is between them. A program that is
considered traditional in one state might be categorized as alternative in
another, the report notes.
Moreover, there is currently little definitive evidence that particular
approaches to teacher preparation yield educators whose students are more
successful than others, the report says; existing studies have generally been
insensitive to the details of teacher preparation that are most likely to
result in differences in quality. Research is badly needed on specific factors
that may ultimately affect student learning, such as programs' particular
components or selectivity, or whether coursework is completed before or after a
person begins classroom teaching.
The report does conclude that both strong content knowledge and familiarity
with how students learn a particular subject are important for reading, math,
and science teachers. The committee found that many, perhaps most, math
teachers lack the level of preparation in mathematics and teaching that the
professional community deems adequate to teach mathematics. Also, unacceptably
high numbers of teachers of middle- and high-school mathematics courses are
teaching outside the field for which they were trained.
In order for policymakers and teacher educators to have a stronger empirical
basis for decisions about teacher preparation, more research is needed to
explore and establish links between teacher preparation and learning -- both
teachers' learning and student learning. Such research would be easier to
conduct if researchers had access to measures of student outcomes that provide
richer information than what can be gleaned from standardized achievement
scores alone, the report adds. While scores are readily available and easy to
use, they provide incomplete measures both of students' learning and the
effects of teachers.
To aid research, the report recommends that the U.S. Department of Education
take the lead in encouraging new data collection efforts and coordinating
existing ones, with the goal of developing a national education data network
that incorporates comprehensive data on teacher education. This data network
would include the use of common definitions across states for terms such as
"out of field" teachers, a set of national indicators on teacher education, and
a longitudinal, nationally representative study of teachers' career pathways.
The study was sponsored by the U.S. Department of Education at the request of
Congress, with additional support provided by the Ewing Marion Kauffman
Foundation, the Spencer Foundation, and the Carnegie Corporation of New York.
The National Academy of Sciences, National Academy of Engineering, Institute of
Medicine, and National Research Council make up the National Academies. They
are private, nonprofit institutions that provide science, technology, and
health policy advice under a congressional charter. The Research Council is
the principal operating agency of the National Academy of Sciences and the
National Academy of Engineering. A committee roster follows.
Copies of PREPARING TEACHERS: BUILDING EVIDENCE FOR SOUND POLICY are available
from the National Academies Press; tel. 202-334-3313 or 1-800-624-6242 or on
the Internet at
HTTP://WWW.NAP.EDU.
Reporters may obtain a copy from the Office of News and Public Information
(contacts listed above).
# # #
This news release and report are available at:
<HTTP://NATIONAL-ACADEMIES.ORG>
NATIONAL RESEARCH COUNCIL
Division of Behavioral and Social Sciences and Education
Center for Education
COMMITTEE ON TEACHER PREPARATION PROGRAMS IN THE UNITED STATES
Read Full Report
Date: April 29, 2010
Contacts: Sara Frueh, Media Relations Officer
Alison Burnette, Media Relations Assistant
Office of News and Public Information
202-334-2138; e-mail <news@xxxxxxx>
<http://books.nap.edu/catalog.phprecord_id=12882&utm_medium=
etmail&utm_source=National+Academies+Press&utm_campaign=
NAP+mail+new+07.06.10&utm_content=web&utm_term&sms_ss=facebook>
Bonnie Bracey Sutton
Outreach GLEF.org
http://www.digitaldivide.net/profile/bbracey
My communities
http://www.digitaldivide.net/community/summitforchildren
http://www.digitaldivide.net/community/gendergap
CyberEd Resources : ICT's and Education (owner)
Games and Education (owner)
Science without Frontiers STEM Initiatives K-12 (owner)
http://www.digitaldivide.net/blog/bbracey
Portal Work
http://edreform.net/
Technology Applications for learning in the portal
applications.edreform.net
Technology Applications for Learning
The Technology Applications for
Learning Network is a catalog of technology
applications for learning.
http://www.digitaldivide.net/community/STEM
.
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