Recently the Washington State political action group “Education Voters” sponsored a meeting to include supporting legislation that would allow charter schools in our state. We believe that all children should be reading by 3rd grade and all children should have the skills they need to enter and do well in college. But, and this is a big "but" the next set of questions will determine whether or not the things we "believe" will make schools work are, in fact, the things that WILL make them work.
First, what are the most important factors in a child's success in school and how do we create an environment in which those factors are amplified and maintained? What skills and knowledge will a student (and a teacher)need to succeed in a 21st century world. What are we doing to create schools that can efficiently teach those skills WHILE anticipating the needs of the next generation of students.
Research shows that the single most important controllable factor in the success of the student is the quality of the teacher. Our research has proven it and experience has verified it. Yet, a teacher candidate is supposed to take on the entire debt of their college education and all subsequent major educational expenses for a position that will pay half what his college colleagues will make in medicine or the law, both comparative fields. There are two remedies for this situation, one is to lower the cost of education so that a teacher’s educational debt is reduced, or we must pay teachers on par with the debt they incur and provide entry into full time employment immediately after graduation, ie: paid internships.
First, what are the most important factors in a child's success in school and how do we create an environment in which those factors are amplified and maintained? What skills and knowledge will a student (and a teacher)need to succeed in a 21st century world. What are we doing to create schools that can efficiently teach those skills WHILE anticipating the needs of the next generation of students.
Research shows that the single most important controllable factor in the success of the student is the quality of the teacher. Our research has proven it and experience has verified it. Yet, a teacher candidate is supposed to take on the entire debt of their college education and all subsequent major educational expenses for a position that will pay half what his college colleagues will make in medicine or the law, both comparative fields. There are two remedies for this situation, one is to lower the cost of education so that a teacher’s educational debt is reduced, or we must pay teachers on par with the debt they incur and provide entry into full time employment immediately after graduation, ie: paid internships.
Good teachers get to be good teachers by experience, yet we ask debt ridden graduates to begin their careers with only a college quarter's worth of student-teaching experience. We all seem to “pay our dues” by being a substitute for a couple of years. Substitute teachers get no benefits and generally make do on sixteen thousand dollars a year or less. No paid residency for us. All this is occurring at a time when the price of an adequate Bachelors degree is rising in the double digits every year or so. Science and math teachers are especially drawn to the private sector since the pay is so much better and the debt for their education can be substantially higher. Frankly merit pay isn't going to be enough to draw good people into the field. The costs incurred in educating educators must be addressed on the front end through grants, scholarships and a period of paid internship of at least a year.
When the cost of a BA is over 100,000 dollars and it can take two to four years for a new teacher to become full time employed in their own classroom, a cost benefit analysis doesn’t look good to the candidate. After teaching two years in our state a teacher is required to take on a course in professional development which can cost up to $5000 and many extra hours of work, while teaching full time, in order to be classed as “highly qualified” even if they have recently received a Masters degree in teaching or education. Money is needed to help new teachers pay for their education and professional development just to keep the best qualified teachers in the field for more than five years.
Many charter schools are very good. However, there have been notable system wide failures of charter schools.Texas
We are living in a nearly miraculous time of change. The growth of knowledge has exploded and the discreet skill sets that are needed to navigate in the business world are changing so fast that the role of schools as teachers of reading, writing and arithmetic will fall woefully short of what is needed. We can't teach every subject (or software) a student may need to succeed fast enough. We are going to have to train self winding life long learners who can respond agilely, think critically, work collaboratively and adapt to changing environments. Schools and teachers are not prepared to train children in those important soft skills. Interpersonal and collaborative skills, listening, speaking and critical thinking have only recently become priorities in an academic culture that has stressed competition and individual accomplishment over collaboration and innovation. While learning in the private sector has taken giant leaps into the collaborative models of working groups, elementary schools, even charter schools, driven by high stakes testing, are teaching as if students lived in the world of 30 years ago. In order to remedy this, we must question every assumption we have about schools from what to teach and when, right down to the brick and mortar.
Many charter schools are very good. However, there have been notable system wide failures of charter schools.
We are living in a nearly miraculous time of change. The growth of knowledge has exploded and the discreet skill sets that are needed to navigate in the business world are changing so fast that the role of schools as teachers of reading, writing and arithmetic will fall woefully short of what is needed. We can't teach every subject (or software) a student may need to succeed fast enough. We are going to have to train self winding life long learners who can respond agilely, think critically, work collaboratively and adapt to changing environments. Schools and teachers are not prepared to train children in those important soft skills. Interpersonal and collaborative skills, listening, speaking and critical thinking have only recently become priorities in an academic culture that has stressed competition and individual accomplishment over collaboration and innovation. While learning in the private sector has taken giant leaps into the collaborative models of working groups, elementary schools, even charter schools, driven by high stakes testing, are teaching as if students lived in the world of 30 years ago. In order to remedy this, we must question every assumption we have about schools from what to teach and when, right down to the brick and mortar.
What teachers learn has to be looked at as well. Schools, especially elementary schools become insular and fail to take into account what is happening in the rest of the community. Often innovations in business and technology never come into the minds of educators until a student is in secondary school. One example is that our technology is all based in base 2 mathematics, yet we don't teach base 2 until the middle grades (if at all) and we don't give it enough time for the students to really learn to use it. How do we teach good listening skills, good collaboration skills and integrate those with critical thinking and interpersonal skills that will serve our students in the data driven innovation hungry world we live in today? Should we still be teaching in an environment that separates children by age or should we group children developmentally? What about the brick and mortar school? Is going to school becoming obsolete? Virtual schools and homeschooling is rising, but what other options are out there that haven't been tried yet?
The other thing teachers need is support. They need the support of parents and administrators who understand that just because the way they learned is familiar and therefore comfortable it may not be the best thing for their children. It is a brave new world out there and the greatest obstacles to educational innovation are the cultural biases of parents and the community. Public schools need better public relations. Amazing things are happening in the field of education, research that is challenging all of the "common sense" assumptions of the past 150 years. Change is scary, especially to a generation that has spent 12 to 16 years learning in an outdated system. If innovations are going to be accepted by the tax paying public, the state and the school districts are going to have to do a much better job marketing them. Even when schools work, the public perception is that they don't, and this misapprehension has caused very good alternative public schools to be converted back to the old model.
Yes, charter schools are part of that conversation of scary changes, but if teacher support and training isn't firmly in the center of the table, we will simply be trading one outdated system for another.
The other thing teachers need is support. They need the support of parents and administrators who understand that just because the way they learned is familiar and therefore comfortable it may not be the best thing for their children. It is a brave new world out there and the greatest obstacles to educational innovation are the cultural biases of parents and the community. Public schools need better public relations. Amazing things are happening in the field of education, research that is challenging all of the "common sense" assumptions of the past 150 years. Change is scary, especially to a generation that has spent 12 to 16 years learning in an outdated system. If innovations are going to be accepted by the tax paying public, the state and the school districts are going to have to do a much better job marketing them. Even when schools work, the public perception is that they don't, and this misapprehension has caused very good alternative public schools to be converted back to the old model.
Yes, charter schools are part of that conversation of scary changes, but if teacher support and training isn't firmly in the center of the table, we will simply be trading one outdated system for another.
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