Teachers strike

[Billybob]

Billybob, your post included several significant truths.

1. Education Standards declined over the last century.

2. Teachers should meet or exceed standards based on the performance of their students to earn raises.

3. All Students CANNOT learn equally.

Achieving Measurable Performance Standards that target Goals where All Students Meet Achievement Standards, Educators lowered those Standards to the Lowest Common Denominator instead of endeavoring to raise Student Achievement Levels to meet more rigid and optimal (impossible for all students to achieve) standards.

A realistic Student Achievement Measurement System must allow for lower Student Performance for students that are (in fact) unable to attain optimal goals.....sorry Mom! But, the integrity of any Student Achievement Measurement System needed to fairly measure Teacher Performance must include a valid Student Learning Ability Assessment System on which to base the progress of Student Achievement allowing variations according to each student’s attainable goals.

Some States, like NY in the past (unsure if still in effect) utilized a State Regents Examination System where Student Achievement is Measured annually for Key Subjects through the High School Years (9-12). Teacher Performance was measured by requiring a minimum specific percentage of their students to pass these exams for the subjects the taught or teachers faced review or other consequences.

However, NY schools also provided different Programs for students assessed with different learning abilities: Advanced; Academic; General; and Retarded or Special Kids Groups.

Advanced and Academic Student Groups were assessed annually by Regents Examinations with students passing these exams annually receiving a Regents Diploma (required for College Admissions) as well as a Standard Diploma (meeting requirements for Technical School Admissions, Employment or Military).

I am not even close to a professional educator. I would set myself on fire and jump off a cliff, first. However, I spent the majority of my career as a Director/Manager in the medical field. I was tasked with setting performance goals for my staff, evaluating staff performance annually, and initiating training for staff to help them to meet learning requirements. There were no socio-political games in play that required different standards for different socioeconomic, ethnic, language, sex or religious categories for employees. Note- neither do Military Training Programs. My opinion is that these counterproductive burdens that smother the Academic System are self imposed through Research and Studies initiated by professional educators themselves and then smelted into Law through in collusion with Political Action Groups. What a steaming crock of excrement!


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We have to have some type of assessments of students and teachers to protect the public's investment, but as we've seen many resist them. Testing for assessments has lead to cheating scandals here and interestingly an all out uprising in Mexico that's lasted several years now.
Education Reform Sparks Teacher Protest in Mexico
http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/003172171409500811?journalCode=pdka
Mexico’s Uprising Against Education ‘Reform’
http://progressive.org/magazine/mexico’s-uprising-against-education-‘reform’/

 

[TerryMiller]

First, understand that the money has to be split among all of the school districts and schools. There are a lot of them in Oklahoma. Also, a large portion goes to higher education, meaning OU, OSU, etc. Here are two articles. The first explains how the money is divided as of that print date (2014). The second gives some insight as to what actually happened to the money. It's there, but the original school fund budget was used for other departments that were cut. The lottery money was used to fill the balance of the school budget.

https://okpolicy.org/didnt-lottery-solve-oklahomas-education-funding-problems/
http://kfor.com/2017/03/16/officials-oklahoma-lottery-funds-used-to-replace-educational-funding/

Something else that I just remembered from my days as a school board member up in the Panhandle.

When Oklahoma was made a state, there was one section of land in every township (36 square sections) that was set aside as school land. The use of that land was to help fund education in that area. Well, someone later decided that because that section of land was not taxable, that they needed to "relocate" that school land somewhere else.

Cimarron County ended up with a lot of that land in the Boise City school district, thus Boise City was unable to collect any taxes from that land. Any "use fees" generated by that land in the way of leases or whatever then went downstate and was then distributed to ALL the state's school districts. So, Boise City had land they couldn't tax but also didn't get back the full "fees" generated by the land in their own district.

That is why it is atrocious, in my humble opinion, that the federal government owns so much land in the western states. Land that is NOT taxable to the local schools and communities.

 

[Pokinfun]

I beg to differ.........

“Crying is for babies, little girls, and men who just had their ears ripped off.”
- Winston Churchill

we can take care of those hours by having professional development or collaboration meetings in departments. it does not mean they have to learn anything.

 

[Pokinfun]

At what point do we just make college grades 13 thru 16? Yea it's gotten that bad. We might as well, that way it can be free.
/sarcasm (for those that can't tell)

for many, it is free now.

 

[Pokinfun]

Mike I am on board with your message in general (supporting alternative paths to teaching), but I want to help offer a clarification. You're talking about Alternative Certification. What's commonly utilized by districts now is Emergency Certification, which basically requires a general relationship of one's background to the subject they are teaching and approval by the school district.



They don't take any other classes or certs immediately to teach. They just get in the classroom and go to work. I think they still get two years before they have to become Alt Certified, "regular" Certified, or possibly simply get their emergency certification renewed. We have several emergency certified teachers at our school. I agree that many (not all) of the are as good or better than those with Ed degrees. Possibly because they're further on in life and more mature (mid-30s or older), or just that they aren't jaded by the system yet.

Alt Cert teachers have a high attrition rate, along with Teach For America teachers are only around for a couple of years. Emergency Certifications are an issue because those folks may not have a degree in the subject area that they are teaching. Often schools have to fill a classroom with a teacher, so they hire anyone they can for a couple of years. Those folks might be great people, but because they do not know the subjects they are teaching, or often how to talk to students and parents it causes them classroom management issues. They will stop teaching before they ever learn how to teach. It is not because they are bad folks or do not want to be teachers, it is because the current system sets them up for failure.

 

[inactive]

Those folks might be great people, but because they do not know the subjects they are teaching, or often how to talk to students and parents it causes them classroom management issues. They will stop teaching before they ever learn how to teach. It is not because they are bad folks or do not want to be teachers, it is because the current system sets them up for failure.

I'll still support alternative pathways to teaching, as many don't make the choice to be an educator until later in life when they have completed their schooling. But I generally agree with you on being cautious and that alternative certification it should be just that: an alternative for individuals on a case-by-case basis who decide to enter the profession.

The problem is when the alternative (or even emergency) becomes the primary path as we're seeing more and more of today. That does no one (those teachers, the traditionally certified teachers, the students, our communities) any favors. As you said, teaching isn't necessarily being a master of the material, but rather knowing how to teach material and convey those ideas. The best and most passionate at a subject may be awful at knowing how to relate those idea to young minds.

 

[Uncle TK]

From Post #153
When Oklahoma was made a state, there was one section of land in every township (36 square sections) that was set aside as school land. The use of that land was to help fund education in that area. Well, someone later decided that because that section of land was not taxable, that they needed to "relocate" that school land somewhere else.

Section 16 & 36 of each township was set aside for COMMON SCHOOLS (Revenue from renting land paid for Schools)
The one room school (1th to 8th grade) operated only on this money, No State Funds (Local School board was township farmers or ranchers NO PAY)
9th-12th grades was in town and if a student wanted to complete his education he or she walked to town.

 

[C_Hallbert]

Alt Cert teachers have a high attrition rate, along with Teach For America teachers are only around for a couple of years. Emergency Certifications are an issue because those folks may not have a degree in the subject area that they are teaching. Often schools have to fill a classroom with a teacher, so they hire anyone they can for a couple of years. Those folks might be great people, but because they do not know the subjects they are teaching, or often how to talk to students and parents it causes them classroom management issues. They will stop teaching before they ever learn how to teach. It is not because they are bad folks or do not want to be teachers, it is because the current system sets them up for failure.

I have a question about these professional education requirements. In the past teachers were expected to develop their own curricula, develop and assemble their own class material, and to assess their students progress through testing, observations of students development and behavior. To be effective at these tasks they needed an education that provided knowledge of the subject material, understanding of the psychological and neurological elements of the learning process, age appropriate learning abilities, recognition of behavior and psychological disorders, leadership abilities to control classroom behavior and decorum, legal aspects of teacher responsibilities, and abilities to assessed physical and behavior signs of abuse and legally required reporting protocols. There is more......but

Today’s teachers do not develop and assess curricula, teaching outlines or class material (except perhaps by Technical Education Teachers). Much of the Secondary Post Graduate Material involved in Education Degrees is related to what I call Social Engineering (sociology, affirmative action, civil rights, social justice, socio-economic ethnic differences learning abilities, teaching and change in changing society etc.

Much of the Post Graduate Curricula for Teaching should not be included in the domain of teaching and should more appropriately be included in Political Science and Philosophy; and, ergo many of our problems today with the education of our youth.

Teachers do not need much of the material required for Post Graduate Degrees to teach effectively; and teachers no longer develop their own Grade Appropriate Curricula, Teaching Outlines or Assemble their Classroom Materials. I believe that the Alternative Certification Process is an excellent approach to providing teachers that know the material they are tasked with teaching. However, the high attrition rate of this category of teachers is obviously due to their marketable skills outside of academia where compensation is inevitably much more rewarding.


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[DavidMcmillan]

No, today’s teachers have to do the job so many parents fail to do. They have to handle the mentally handicapped, physically handicapped, emotionally disturbed, irate parents, and now we think they should also be the armed security, and oh by the way, no pay raise in ten years. I would have never worked this way

 

[Glocktogo]

No, today’s teachers have to do the job so many parents fail to do. They have to handle the mentally handicapped, physically handicapped, emotionally disturbed, irate parents, and now we think they should also be the armed security, and oh by the way, no pay raise in ten years. I would have never worked this way

Completely agree here. The problem lies in the fact that we can't afford teacher salary increases. They should get about $10K in base salary increases to hire and retain the best teachers. The reason we can't afford to do that is because Oklahoma is fife with corruption, fraud, waste and abuse. We can either pay teacher salary increases, or keep funding corruption, fraud, waste and abuse. We can't afford both.

So far, I haven't seen any indication that Oklahoma would rather pay teachers a better salary than fund corruption, fraud, waste and abuse.