President Obama has said that the nation must overhaul its education system. “It is time to give all Americans a complete and competitive education from the cradle up through a career,” Obama said. “We have accepted failure for too long – enough. America’s entire education system must once more be the envy of the world.”
Students need new and ever-changing skills. They need 21st century literacy skills. We must assess which of our current practices meets the challenges of the 21st century and turn promise into practice.
Kylene Beers, Robert E. Probst, Linda Rief and many others have written a great book Adolescent Literacy: Turning Promise into Practice. This nothing less than a call for change. Students these days need different skills than they did even ten years ago. Times change. We must change with them or we are doing our students and the future of our country a disservice. Thomas Friedman hit on this is his best-seller, The World If Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-First Century. (If you have not read this book, I highly recommend it.)
But, this concept is a double-edged sword. Schools must pass standardized assessments. This leaves little time for new and needed skills. What to do? I don’t have the answer. But, I can tell you that merit pay is not the answer.
When Obama was talking about overhauling the educational system in this country, he spoke of his support for merit-based pay for teachers. Although I think teachers do deserve more money for what they do, a good number of them also need a swift kick in the butt out the door to a new career. (Some are so lazy that they wouldn’t even make it at McDonald’s!)
I have a better idea. Give every teacher a $10,000 or more raise….and take away tenure. I am sure that I lost some of you on the last part.
I’ve seen many good teachers become so lazy over the years. I blame tenure. Teachers seem to work so hard to get their years in before tenure and then some of them become slackers (for lack of a better word). They show movies all of the time, don’t really bother to assess students, teach what they want to teach verses what they should be teaching and my all-time favorite, sit on their butts and play on their computers while the kids either teach themselves through worksheets or run amuck. Tenure protects these teachers.
If tenure was taken away, all teachers would work as hard as they could because they would not want to lose their job. What other profession does such a thing? Don’t get me wrong, I love my job security. I work hard. If they took away tenure, I would find some way to work even harder.
This is all just a thought. Personally, I am against merit pay because of the underprivileged schools. Those schools will never have a level playing field with schools where students have two parents and help their children with their homework. There are many other factors to this as well but I will leave it at that for now.
So, what will the future hold? I don’t know. In the last page of O ( The Oprah Magazine) each month is called “What I Know For Sure”. Since I can’t see into the future, I will tell you what I know for sure.
I know that standardized assessments and NCLB (how it stands right now) is not the answer. I know that giving teachers, who just happen to work in schools where all kids do well, merit pay is not the answer. I know that we are not teaching our students what they need to know for the future. I know that charter schools are not the answer. I know that all teachers, no matter where or what they teach, should be giving each and every student the best education possible. I know that all students deserve grace (providing what students need – not what they deserve, having a relationship when students even when they reject you, and having the courage to hold students accountable). I hope that Obama looks at all schools when he is considering such change for our educational system. I know that all students in all schools deserve better.
2 Comments
March 16, 2009 at 12:07 am
Jennifer–you are so right on, girl!! I know that if we keep teaching to the test, our students will eventual burn out right along with their teachers. Creativity is the key–we must teach our kids how to work as collaborative problem solvers who can work with people next door, across the state and across the world. We must face the fact that we are not turning out the best and the brightest. Our students need thinking skills, creativity, communication skills, writing abilities way beyond what they have presently, be able to work and think outside the box; we must allow them the freedom to use technology in a multitude of ways. We place so much emphasis on how they behave and how they look that we forget that inside those heads are the leaders and creators of the future! If we taught with higher expectations and created more engaging learning opportunities we might actually turn kids on to learning!!!!!
March 23, 2009 at 4:11 pm
Wow such an interesting post! It gave me a lot to think about. Sometimes when I think about quitting “the biz” I think that I would probably most like to be a teacher. So this was very informative and interesting to hear your points of view! Thanks