K-5 teacher overload: Too many trained, not enough jobs

Quote from DJPlayer : I think a better question is how exactly do you judge their effectiveness. Oddly enough their enthusiasm and dedication to assisting additional time usually trumps most other areas. Of course their teaching style is another.. but that's so difficult to properly judge in the union's black and white world. Also.. I've seen crappy crappy preK - 5th grade teachers. I've argued with a good number of them. Typically I've had better response and results from the younger ones. If anyone is curious about teachers lending additional help after school, in my area it's $30/hr for the child's actual teacher to do it. The money is considered a "donation" which is tax deductible???? Keep in mind my state pays for education through real estate taxes.. but somehow I doubt this money cushions the taxes of it's township.

Two things about that statement:
1) Please realize your experience doesn't match everyone else's (or perhaps even most others)

2) Is something wrong with that? When your lawyer does extra work outside the office, does he not bill you for them? If someone is working beyond their contract, don't they deserve to be compensated?

Quote from TRNT : Ok, once more: 1. Require a more rigorous teacher education program/curriculum. 2. Make the standardized exams required for teacher certification more rigorous and require a higher score. Why is that so difficult to understand? Where did I mention the gov to determine qualities of a "good" teacher?

Oh, they're rigorous already. 4 years of college study is rigorous. I think you really mean is improve the quality of teacher preparation. We have a rigorous process now and have for decades via BA programs. Yet, despite that rigor, our students are under performing and falling behind.

The problems include faulty instructional methods these ed school graduates are trained in; a shift toward social experimentation in the classroom - read distorting the inequality and disparate interests between boys and girls to engineer preferred outcomes; curriculums that emphasize how bad America is rather than teaching how America came to be which is enhanced by the explosion of grievance industry-produced area and gender studies programs in higher education; and in urban areas black illegitimacy.

Raising standardized test scores to gain certification does nothing improve educational outcomes and teacher performance when the tests score the wrong things which are poor instructional methods taught in college ed schools.

Dammit, you can become a teacher without being a subject matter expert. Introducing higher test score requirements will not resolve this basic problem.

Quote from bonkman : isn't the point of a union to protect good teachers who've done nothing wrong from being fired because the administration can hire 2-4 new teachers without any experience in place of them?

Isn't that what I said...

Quote from jonsmith74 : Oh, they're rigorous already. 4 years of college study is rigorous. I think you really mean is improve the quality of teacher preparation. We have a rigorous process now and have for decades via BA programs. Yet, despite that rigor, our students are under performing and falling behind. The problems include faulty instructional methods these ed school graduates are trained in; a shift toward social experimentation in the classroom - read distorting the inequality and disparate interests between boys and girls to engineer preferred outcomes; curriculums that emphasize how bad America is rather than teaching how America came to be which is enhanced by the explosion of grievance industry-produced area and gender studies programs in higher education; and in urban areas black illegitimacy. Raising standardized test scores to gain certification does nothing improve educational outcomes and teacher performance when the tests score the wrong things which are poor instructional methods taught in college ed schools. Dammit, you can become a teacher without being a subject matter expert. Introducing higher test score requirements will not resolve this basic problem.

I accept "better teacher preparation" in lieu of "more rigorous teacher preparation" notwithstanding the fact that a rigorous program could be made even *more* rigorous.

Quote from jonsmith74 : Oh, they're rigorous already. 4 years of college study is rigorous.

Not like it was 20 years ago. in a lot of places, if a college professor has a certain number of students failing/dropping, they are brought in for review. they need to keep the success numbers up.

we joke about the current copy/paste, multiple choice college grads being produced. how many college grads have you met that leave you shaking your head wondering "how?". then you find out they are a teacher.....