Education Technology

Education is at the forefront of the media, political battles, legislation and everywhere you turn. There are some major issues being discussed and some are valid, some not so much. Education is a very dynamic, individualized, NOT-one-size-fits-all issue that needs real support and change. Here is my take on the big issues:

1. Teacher attacks - stop attacking teachers! We are not the cause of everything bad in the world. We are not responsible for everything about a student. We work hard, long hours. We act as surrogate parents, psychologists, social workers, mentors, and teachers. Yes we get summers off...from our main job. Most of us teach summer school or have another summer job to make ends meet. We can NOT do it all. Educating our children is a TEAM effort, that needs the community, schools, and parents involved.

2. Standardized Testing - I have no problem with giving students benchmark, standardized test occasionally. However, to say that these tests will be used to evaluate (and decide pay and firing of teachers) is ridiculous. Standardized testing is one way to assess PART of a student's learning and abilities. It can be useful to find areas that need to be addressed. But it is not the be-all-end-all of student, or teacher, assessment.

3. "Education Reform" - what a mess this is. Corporations and Politicians thinking that they know more about education than educators. There is a motivation behind much of education reform that is all about money. More standardized testing, textbooks and curriculum lead to more money for many companies. More charter schools equal more money for the companies that run them. Bad evaluation methods of teachers, tying teacher evaluations to standardized testing, and attacking teachers work to push good teachers out, and get them replaced by new, temporary, lower paid teachers. If we want true education reform, we need to have educators working on the plans, not politicians and private corporations. Read more here.

4. Literacy - this is one of the main issue that affects our students' ability to learn. We have students entering school who have never been read to, or taught anything about reading and they are way behind. Poverty and family life contribute to this issue, with many students having parents who don't/can't read or don't speak English. We need to improve the reading skills of our students so that they can read textbooks, web sites, and other educational materials and learn from them.

5. Poverty - Poverty must be addressed to help our students, and schools, succeed. I wrote more about it here.

6. Student Learning - students need to learn certain skills and concepts. They will not learn these from more testing. They will not learn these from canned curriculum. They will learn them from experienced educators doing innovative, interactive projects and lessons in the classroom. These Skills are vital for students to be successful in the future. What politicians and businesses want to do will not teach these skills to students, they will just teach them to take tests, and hate education.

What do you think about all the issues affecting public education today?



Related:

Who's responsible for failing students/schools? Everyone!

Assessing Student Learning - do it like assessing someone in their job

Musings on education reformEducational Issues in Connecticut - what a mess!

Why Teachers Like Us Support Unions

Some Common Education Myth's Debunked

Incompetent Teachers or Dysfunctional Systems? Fix the system to support the teachers.Just the Facts Please! The facts about "education reform" from NEA TodayInfographic - consequences of teaching to the test

I did not start out wanting to be a teacher. I had always wanted to be an engineer. I went to college to be an engineer and worked as an engineer for 10 years before becoming an educator. I was already an EMS Instructor. My mother was a teacher and my sister is a teacher. I had not thought about being a teacher until Winter of 2002. I was working part time and volunteering as a paramedic, as well as working full time as an engineer. I was at EMS chatting with my partner, who was a high school chemistry teacher, and talking about careers and I told him that I love teaching EMS classes and wondered about a teaching career. As we are talking, he notices an ad in the paper for the State's Alternate Route to Certification program coming up that summer. I applied, passed everything and became a high school Physics teacher and 10 years later I'm still a teacher. I've gotten two Master's Degree's in Education (Technology and Leadership), have my own educational blog, write for Tech&Learning Magazine, facilitate professional development in my district and present at educational conferences.I truly enjoy my new career.

People often ask me why I left engineering to become a teacher. They are usually pretty shocked considering the huge pay difference (I still don't make what I made as an engineer 10 years ago). I stated that I had always loved it as an EMS Instructor and as a Boy Scout Merit Badge counselor and thought that I would have something to offer my students with my experience as an engineer. I also figured that my 15 years of experience working in EMS in the city I would be teaching in would give me a good insight into the students' lives and home situations.

I have enjoyed teaching. I love helping students to learn something new, experience something new, and explore things. I love watching them work on labs and projects and seeing the light go off as they discover something. I love hearing them work through problems and projects. I love sharing things with them. I love listening to their stories, hearing about their lives and their dreams, and I love helping them with things that have nothing to do with my class. I love being a mentor to teenagers. I love sharing my love of science with them. I love showing them how smart they really are and what they can accomplish. I love hearing about their successes. I love working with them.

I love working with educators who truly care about students and want to make a difference in their lives. I love collaborating with other educators to come up with lessons, activities, and ideas for helping our students.

What I don't like about teaching is a mix of issues. I don't like the disrespect that we deal with on a daily basis from students, parents and administrators. I don't like students that don't follow the rules, cause trouble, are disrespectful, and don't do their work who face no consequences to their actions and continue to cause trouble. I don't like administrators who pick on teachers instead of helping them. I don't like endless, useless meetings. I don't like politicians and business persons thinking that they are experts in education and dictating what we do. I don't like standardized testing that is invalid and a waste of time and money. I don't like that I spend over $500 a year on supplies and resources for my classroom because the school systems and government don't adequately fund schools. I don't like that my pay is very low, considering my education and responsibilities. I don't like the current "edreform" movement that is not doing anything to help students, but rather is helping private corporations.

I don't like educators who don't care, don't enforce rules, and don't try to constantly improve what they are doing as educators. I don't like administrators who don't support their teachers.

However, everything I like completely outweighs what I don't like. I can't imagine not being a teacher. I endure the disrespect, the constant attacks on my profession, the low pay, the working at home, all because I believe that I can help students learn, grow, and succeed.



Why did you become a teacher? What do you like and dislike about the profession?







Related:

Just the Facts Please! The facts about "education reform" from NEA Today

Incompetent Teachers or Dysfunctional Systems? Fix the system to support the teachers.

The VIVA Project is a interesting project I just became aware of. It's mission statement is "The VIVA Project works to dramatically increase classroom teachers’ participation in important state and national policy decisions about public education. We open direct communication between individual teachers and public officials, giving public officials authentic insight into how public classrooms and schools work best and they make policy that works better for classrooms."

Vision
Classroom teachers from all corners of their state and our country will share their best ideas and collaborate to develop actionable policy initiatives that will directly shape decisions about public education for all American students and their teachers. Their work will result in education policy that puts classroom teaching and learning first.

The VIVA Project empowers teachers to give state and national elected officials the real story from the classroom.
By sharing their ideas with other classroom teachers, teachers find common ground, learn from different challenges and together make public education work.

• The VIVA Project gives teachers collective and connective power with other teachers
• The VIVA Project is a time saving, easy way to connect with other teachers
• The VIVA Project gives the most passionate teachers an opportunity to tap into a large network of teachers with the same interests and goals quickly

Teachers – you share your idea and see what other teachers think, you can see other teachers’ ideas and tell them what you think and you can work together to pick the best ideas for positive change, making change happen, without spending hours in meetings.

The VIVA Project is organized to spread nationally and the idea behind it is excellent: help teachers communicate and collaborate with each other and policy makers to ensure that educational policies are designed to improve teaching and learning and are focused on the students. Teachers are the education professionals and politicians and policy makers need to listen to our expertise. The VIVA Project helps make that happen.

One of the benefits of a project like this is that it allows teachers to collaborate and share their ideas on their schedule, and then push those ideas and solutions to the decision makers. Teachers don't need to spend all of their free time going to policy meetings and still not being heard.

The VIVA Project website: http://vivateachers.org/

The VIVA Project Twitter account: http://twitter.com/VIVAProject


Does anyone have any direct experience with the VIVA Project that they would like to share?

So, Connecticut is having some major issues regarding education and “education reform.” Notice I put quotes around education reform. This is because the politicians so-called reform plans have absolutely nothing to do with improving education for our students. In fact, most of their ideas and plans will only benefit them and private corporations.

One of the first issues, is in Bridgeport, the state’s largest populated city, and it’s Board of Education. The fully story can be read here: 
http://www.ctpost.com/local/article/Timeline-Bridgeport-school-board-saga-3367920.php and here
http://www.ctpost.com/local/article/What-does-the-Supreme-Court-decision-mean-3368422.php
but the short version is that the old, elected board was having issues, voted to disband, and the State came in and took over, appointing a new board. There were legal issues with this and the Supreme Court just ruled that the takeover is not valid.

It turns out the state violated the law, as the courts pointed out. It violated state law. They need to follow the law, not work around it. Isn’t that what we are trying to teach our students?
A great quote from a student sums it all up:
"I think the takeover was good. If something is not working, you need to fix it and get a handle on it before it totally gets out of control. But if anything is going to be done, it needs to be done the right way," said Kendra, 18, a student school board representative. "There are laws in place. If there is a procedure, you have to go by that."
Read more: http://www.ctpost.com/local/article/Students-mixed-on-Supreme-Court-decision-3371290.php#ixzz1nsWqsefa

Politics, not the students, were the focus of all of this. The politicians would talk about helping our students, but it was all political. The mayor was quoted as saying “Need to remove politics from education” but he brought more politics to education with this move.

Some members of the appointed board seemed like good people with good intentions, but there were some concerns mentioned in the papers and by some citizens. The new superintendent, Paul Vallas, seems to be doing a good job though.

There other issue in Connecticut is Governor Malloy’s “Education Reform” (Senate Bill 24) which is NOT good for education. It lowers standards for educators, gives too much power to the State, changes teacher certification and pay, completely changes/eliminates tenure, changes teacher evaluations to subjective and lowers pay, expands role of private corporations in education, changes funding, uses unproven and unfinished ideas, and does nothing to help our students. Districts would have to pay money to charter schools, depleting their already measly budgets, yet charter schools can still exclude students and are not held to same standards. Educators would not be required to get advanced degrees and professional development requirements would be lowered. Educators due process rights will be severely weakened, and the state and superintendents would have increased power, with less oversight and balance of power. Superintendents wouldn’t even have to be certified educators! Education funding would also be competitive, hurting many districts in need. 


The educational initiatives are unproven and unfinished and do nothing to help students learn.
Tenure and due process would be changed and eliminated for new teachers. Poor evaluations by an administrator and a teacher would get a lower salary and could even lose their certification!! Imagine if an teacher and an administrator don’t get along or have a conflict. The principal holds teachers entire careers, in their hands, with little or no recourse for teachers.



There is absolutely nothing in the bill, which is contradictory and against other statutes, that will HELP OUR STUDENTS!!! The new bill would force many excellent teachers out of teaching. And, with the new evaluation and pay system, and lack of due process, good teachers will not want to work in the struggling districts and those students will face even more issues and troubles. Who wants to work somewhere when you can lose your job, and certification, so easily?



Politicians are getting too involved in education. They are proposing ideas that will hurt education and not listening to the professionals who actually know how to help our students. Teachers care about their students. They work hard for their students and are met with resistance and attacks from everywhere. We need to support teachers, not attack them.

Rreal school improvement comes from strong collaboration with school leaders, teachers, parents and others. Reform should be a collaborative discussion and decision-making process.


Remember, the priority is OUR STUDENTS! Don’t attack or weaken teachers and education, work with teachers (the professionals) and help us, help our students!





Here is a fact sheet on the Governor’s bill:



Here are some articles about these types of issues:


Analysis of Governor's Ed Reform Bill


Can’t Blame Tenure for Failing Schools


How to Demoralize Teachers


What Teacher Tenure Is — And What It’s Not


Students Learn Better with Engaged Parents


Targeting Teachers Isn't Going To Improve Schools


Reasonable doubt on teacher evaluation




What do you think?