9 Mar
2000
9 Mar
'00
7:20 a.m.
Joe wrote:
Chris,
Good explanation, you cleared identified a part of the problem but it's
not all the student's fault. An even worse problem is that the students are
taught by teachers that aren't any better educated than the students
they're teaching. We can thanks years of preferential college admissions
and hiring practices for that. Furthermore the quality of teachers as
declined steadily with the rise in power of the NEA and other teacher's
unions since most teacher's are more concerned about their income than in
teaching. Other factors such as the decision to teach in "native languages"
haven't helped either. Every part of the educational system is lowering
it's standards to accomodate the worst (insert your choice here; student,
teacher, school system, income, etc etc). And every part of the system is
failing to support the other parts. The whole educational system is in chaos.
I wonder if the US is the only country that is having these kinds of
problems in it's "educational" system?
Joe: to be fair, you also have to blame society at large here.
You get what you pay for. Society has decided that teaching is
a profession that requires one to be a college graduate, but that does
not
deserve a corresponding salary. As a result, only two kinds of people
are attracted to it: Those who could not find a job in any other
kind of occupation, and those that love teaching so much that they
can take the low pay and all the crap that society lashes at them.
So yes, some of them are pretty bad teachers. Others have the stature
of heros in my mind.
How did this state of affairs come to be? It really is the work of
everyone. We know about teacher unions. We know about the general
disdain for learning in youth today, partly induced by the media,
but also by the attitudes of parents. What is missing is the
lack of commitment of society to try to fix this. We cannot have
better teachers unless we make it economically attractive
to be one. What other profession is there with an entry salary of
about $28K, and a top salary (after 20+ years) of less than $70K ?
We cannot make teaching economically attractive and at the same
time have tax cuts, no matter how hard our local politician tries
to make us believe it. We, as voters, still show our naivete
routinely when we choose to believe a politician who tells us that:
(1) Teachers are at fault and should therefore be tested, but it is not
necessary to raise their salary by 30% or more in order to make it
comparable to that earned in other professions.
(2) Students should be tested and failed if necessary, but the
budget of the school should not be increased even if testing
and repeating grades would cause student populations to soar,
(3) We are not to blame; it is somebody else's fault.
How can we possibly believe a guy like that? Isn't it obvious
that he's using us for his own personal purposes? These guys
are the norm rather than the exception, especially at a certain
level and above. The greatest example of this bunch gathers
at Capitol Hill.
If we, as members of society, were deeply comitted to fixing the
educational system, we would have to start by regarding education
as a high value and showing it. We would bite the bullet and
fund the (expensive) required programs to
(1) bring back the status quo of the teaching profession, attracting
better
young people and improving the competency of teachers;
(2) attain smaller class size;
(3)
There is no way around it. These simple and effective solutions
are also the more costly. But they are the only ones that will work.
However, I am a pessimist on this issue. I just do not see how
society will accept the blame and get the implementations of the
really constructive solutions started. Society is not mature
enough at this point to do that. And the _big_ problem is,
with worsening education, the society of the future will be less,
not more, mature.
--
Carlos Murillo-Sanchez email: cem14(a)cornell.edu
428 Phillips Hall, Electrical Engineering Department
Cornell University, Ithaca, NY 14853