Improving Education

I had a UNISERV Unit board meeting tonight. (I am still on even though I am retired.) Stan (Uniserv director) was talking about legislation for teacher improvement and I saw red.

"No Child Left Behind" is a failure. Bush's educational program is a failure. It is not because of the teachers. The teachers are well prepared and (for the most part) ready, willing and able to teach. They have been certified by the state as qualified.

People continually try to "blame the problems of education on poor teachers." All through the 38 years of my professional career I took classes and read books and professional literature to improve my abilities as a teacher. Every teacher i know did this. In addition they spent countless hours outside the contract day grading papers, devising ways to meet the needs of every child in their classroom.

Several years ago I attended a meeting sponsored by the "Business Roundtable" which announced that they were going to improve education and the way they were going to do it was to require students to take tests and if they did not pass the tests the schools would be penalized. Essentially they were signalling their intent to do what "No Child Left Behind" is doing and it is a FAILURE! It causes teachers and student to spend time preparing to pass tests and not do things which will help them improve as learners.

Now if they really want to improve things in the school they will mandate that parents learn how to raise children. How to read to them daily. How to support them in their school work. How to provide a loving, structured, home for them that will give them stability and foundation they need. They will put their children's needs before their own and will see to it that they spend quality time together as a family no matter what the make up of that family is. That they will see to it that, no matter what, the children will not see a divided parential unit. They will decide how to raise their children and present a united front.

If parents do these (and other things of a similar nature) education will improve. If schools are not treated as a baby sitting service and teachers are constantly undermined by constant repition of the "What are we going to do about poor teachers" mantra and by administrators who do not support the teachers but hide out in meetings bad-mouthing their teachers then education will improve.

In addition if parents will expose their children to quality literature and movies and monitor their TV watching. They will know their friends and their computer/internet habits and consistantly provide them with good examples.

If parents are not willing to do the basic things necessary to raise their children they should not be parents. Unfortunately there is no way to mandate who can be parents.

But lets put the blame where it belongs. Not on trained professional teachers. Stop blaming the problems of Education on teachers. Put the blame where it belongs... poor parenting, administrators who are unwilling to stand up for their teachers and demand that they be given the respect they deserve. Work to have a society that values something other than money, drugs, alcohol, all the myriad of problems we have. Problems that can be solved - if we are willing.

Thanks for listening. Stay warm - be happy!