U.S. Is Urged to Raise Teachers’ Status

[proud2BlibKansan]

To improve its public schools, the United States should raise the status of the teaching profession by recruiting more qualified candidates, training them better and paying them more, according to a new report on comparative educational systems.

Andreas Schleicher, who oversees the international achievement test known by its acronym Pisa, says in his report that top-scoring countries like Korea, Singapore and Finland recruit only high-performing college graduates for teaching positions, support them with mentoring and other help in the classroom, and take steps to raise respect for the profession.

“Teaching in the U.S. is unfortunately no longer a high-status occupation,” Mr. Schleicher says in the report, prepared in advance of an educational conference that opens in New York on Wednesday. “Despite the characterization of some that teaching is an easy job, with short hours and summers off, the fact is that successful, dedicated teachers in the U.S. work long hours for little pay and, in many cases, insufficient support from their leadership.”

The conference, convened by the federal Department of Education, was expected to bring together education ministers and leaders of teachers’ unions from 16 countries as well as state superintendents from nine American states. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan said that he hoped educational leaders would use the conference to share strategies for raising student achievement.

“We’re all facing similar challenges,” Mr. Duncan said in an interview.

more . . . http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/16/education/16teachers.html?_r=1&partner=rss&emc=rss

[NYC_SKP]

1. Rec #5. A Good teacher is worth $400,000/year toward an increased GDP... (more)

This is one of the conclusions (among others) of a study (that has received mixed reviews) published late last year.

...The study found that during the course of a school year, a student may learn as much as three times more material from a top-performing teacher as a similar student does from a bottom-performing teacher. And that extra learning translates to the bottom line once the student leaves school.

In fact, in one year, a well-above-average teacher -- in this case, one that's in the 84th percentile of effectiveness -- may lead to as much as $400,000 in additional lifetime earnings for her class of 20 compared to an average teacher, the NBER study said.

Add all of those students and school years up, and the numbers get astronomical, so much so that replacing the bottom 5% to 8% of teachers with merely average teachers would add a net value of as much as $100 trillion to the economy -- or about seven times the annual U.S. GDP -- and move the country to near the top of international science and math rankings in the process..."

http://www.dailyfinance.com/story/better-teachers-could-add-100-trillion-to-us-economy/19834126/

The part that reads "replacing the bottom 5% to 8% of teachers" is not one that sits well with many in education, but we could change it to "retrain" or maybe fewer would need to be replaced.

I'm all for more training and support and higher pay, it seems like a no-brainer.

K/R

:patriot:

[dkf]

2. How much GDP do bad teachers destroy?

[w4rma]

5. How much GDP does underpaying teachers destroy? (nt)

[proud2BlibKansan]

6. I don't trust the people making the decisions as to my competence

This year alone:

1. A teacher was formally reprimanded for not having any Math grades entered in the online grading program. She doesn't teach Math.

2. We were promised laptops in August. We still don't have them and the computers we do have are 5 years old and barely work. We have Smart Boards but no projectors to operate them. This week we got our evaluations back. District wide, teachers were given 'Needs Improvement' ratings for 'Use of Technology'.

3. A teacher was placed on an improvement plan for not having evidence of Science instruction in his classroom. You guessed it - he doesn't teach Science.

4. The quarterly tests every student has to take were never aligned with the new curriculum. So kids are being tested over content that has yet not been taught or was taught in a different quarter. And yes, teachers are blamed for low test scores.

I absolutely do NOT trust these administrators to determine teacher competence. That is a no-brainer.

[Brickbat]

3. Shame, SHAME on the people who have made this an issue.

[Rage for Order]

4. Oh, the irony

We shouldn't use standardized tests to measure performance, but we should model our education system to be more like those countries that score highly on an international standardized test!

[proud2BlibKansan]

7. The tests aren't going away

We need to learn to use them and the results wisely.

[no_hypocrisy]

8. Fat chance . . .