The American Spectator

Lara| 12.21.10 @ 6:30PM

The reason teachers are incompetent is because they have "education" degrees, which are worthless. You only need a minor in a subject to teach it, but you need an "education degree" to teach in public schools. The most worthless degree around is the "education degree."

Until we force the "educators" to actually have a real education in a subject and not in an "idea" of education, we will continue to produce the worst educated people on the face of the earth.

Sean| 12.22.10 @ 9:50AM

You are right on Lara. We need to get rid of the Colleges of Education that are breeding grounds for liberal indoctrination and poor academics. Most private schools don't require "certification" to teach because those teachers receiving certification are at the bottom of the academic barrel.

To fix the problem you need to change those in charge. You also need to start hiring people that are at the top academically and not require certification from liberal indoctrination centers.

Michael L. Hauschild| 12.22.10 @ 10:54AM

Lara,
At the end of my teaching career I instructed four classes of one hundred and seventy students. Most of my students were pre-ed, destined to teach in primary education. I was the “science guy,” physical geography was considered to be a “science” class and the “easiest” to attain a passing grade for the “requirements" of a degree. Few of the future educators of your children had any ability to plot a graph (temperature vs. time), understand the concept of gas pressure (Boyle or Charles), or have any concept of density, physical states, or acceleration. To see the cartoon “light bulb” light up as these young dedicated people achieved the ability to fathom what was occurring about them on such basic concepts as the difference between climates and weather was amazing. (The most rewarding thing in the world for me so far, by the way.)
In those last years I never received a single bad student evaluation, not one. I worked for the NRA prior to receiving my teaching credentials in 2000 A.D. (heh, heh), I was on the campaign staff of numerous Republican candidates, and regularly appeared on TV as the spokesperson for the pro-gun lobby. The Ten Commandments marquee of Charlton Heston on my office wall became legendary, my office door became the repository for every vile political cartoon spawned, the cartoons actually became layered and a badge of honor.
Do not blame such abstract concepts as “Higher Education” for our problem. As with politics, too much focus is placed on process and achieving offices (tenure). Much of the cultural reissuance must be achieved in the cauldron of higher education by individuals. It can be done but my success came because I was NOT young. I implore those of you reading this of conservative persuasion to enter the teaching profession. The later in life you do this the better and more effective you will be. It is where the battles must be fought.

Tina B| 12.21.10 @ 6:55PM

Wow, Lara, I hope you don't ever need the public educators you ridicule. Chidren in private schools, or do you have children? If so don't let them know you feel that way about their teachers. It's tough enough to teach today, but without parental support or with parental disdain, many young people who enter teaching feel it's just not worth the struggle.
Earning a living being an educator is tough enough in most states, but even worse, parents with that attitude usually seem to have children who soon make the job impossible.
However, with parental support, and a lot of heart, I am still plugging away at it. By now over 3,000 children, a small city my colleague has called it, are somewhere on the planet making it a better place, just like I taught them to in my algebra classes for the past 20 years.
My degree is in Liberal Studies, with an emphasis in Mathematics and Humanities. I certified math 5th through 9th grade. I graduated with honors at age 41, and a few years later received an M.Ed in curriculum and instruction.
I've read more books on the brain than you can shake a stick at. I even understand them.
I've been around the world, published 15 yearbooks, loved a wonderful husband who is now with the Lord, raised 2 kids who are turning out great and my 5 grandkids can't wait for me to retire and homeschool them. My techno skills are awesome, or so my kids tell me.
I'm just another one of the least educated people on the face of the earth accoeding to some. I think not. Merry Christmas.

Tim| 12.21.10 @ 7:57PM

OMG. Just the piont being made. Grammar check. Not " like", it should be "as": "Just AS I taught..."
Publishing a yearbook is not like rocket research.
Kids turning out great!!! Turining out well? To retire and!!! surely to retire to homeschool them (poor unfortunates). What is accoeding??
Liberal Studies indeed.

Booger| 12.21.10 @ 11:41PM

I believe that should read "I am certified in math". Why did you capitalize "Liberal Arts", "Mathematics", and "Humanities". Why do you rely on your kids to determine the extent of your "techno" skills (I assume you mean computers and not dance music). Shouldn't you seek a more mature and professional review of your skills? If your colleague called it a "small city" then please use quotation marks. Oh the humanity!

Too Many Tims| 12.22.10 @ 9:32AM

"Chidren in private schools, or do you have children?"

Chidren? How's that grammer, excuse me, grammer?

"I'm just another one of the least educated people on the face of the earth accoeding to some."

Accoeding to me you must be Booger writing satire in disguise.

DJ| 12.21.10 @ 7:38PM

Lara, it is obvious you do not understand the process one must go through to become a entry level teacher. The "education degree" you refer to is very comprehensive. It is one part of the total certification process. You must have a degree in your subject area, at least a bachelors. You must pass certification tests in that subject. You must pass certification tests in teaching applications/techniques/ etc. You must then be certified by your state after background tests, specific amount of teaching internships etc. etc. The Masters degree one receives is just the beginning. So I'm not sure where you get your information from. You seem to imply that becoming a teacher and getting an "education" degree is akin to diploma mills and just submitting a resume. How wrong you are. Do some research. You will be very surprised at what it takes. As a history teacher in a state that is ranked near the bottom in the nation, I have to do all this. My subject matter certification of history not encompasses history but geography, psychology, sociology, anthropology, and economics to name a few. My Masters is the entry level degree in this profession. But like I said, being in a state that is ranked at the bottom in the nation (and one that throws more than enough money per student) one wonders if the focus should be on other issues such as, oh, I don't know...parents maybe, administration maybe, because you jump through more hoops than a government worker with a TS clearance just to get in the door of this profession. Teachers are the easy scapegoat for the populist mentality the media and government have toward our education system. And if you read and study history, populist rhetoric usually comes from the lack of education...which your comment exudes.

Booger| 12.21.10 @ 11:47PM

Research? Take the GRE exam used by most universities for graduate students. Education majors rank at the bottom in nearly all categories (math, language arts, logic). Their only real challengers are business majors. It would actually be worse, but many universities now allow aspiring graduate students in the education department to take the Praxis exam in lieu of the GRE. (Praxis I, yes I know there are there are Praxis II and III exams as well).

Hemorrhoy| 12.22.10 @ 8:38AM

DJ, I spent a few years in grad school studying speech pathology, which was under the umbrella of this particular university's education department. As a result, and for my sins, I was required to spent time in various education classes in addition to regular studies.

I knew that the intellectual barrel had a bottom, but had grossly mistaken its true depth. Beyond question, your peers are on average the most ill-educated of any student group, and the most grossly overpaid of employee cohorts. For the average quality you bring and average value you provide, YOU should be paying your EMPLOYERS good money to show your faces at work.

So do not presume to even bandy the word "education" here, much less accuse others of lacking it: if most teachers actually encountered it, the collision of education and anti-education would leave a ten-foot crater in the ground.

dr kill| 12.21.10 @ 7:45PM

Where to start?
1. That's realism, not ridicule.
2. It is easy to earn a living as an educator. Add the salary and bennies and divide by 180 days. Retirement? Don't even start.
3. I learned Algebra in Eighth Grade. Did you?
4. You have a B.A. in some Bobo Humanities curriculum, and a M.Ed. to allow your salary to top 100k a year.
5. Your family and personal reading preferences are not my concern.
Merry Christmas, Tina B. Enjoy your 12 paid days off for yet another holiday season.

Roger Cotton| 12.21.10 @ 8:05PM

Until professional-level standards are implemented for teachers, teaching will never become a "profession;" just a job.

Teachers must be educated, trained, and held to the highest standards. Otherwise, any chimp with a B.A. and some additional paperwork can become a Teacher.

Curly Smith| 12.21.10 @ 8:05PM

I have a silly question... if I can accurately determine the mean effectiveness of a teacher then why can't I fire any teacher that's 1 STD below the mean? Heck, why I can't I fire those that fall 2 STDs below the mean?

And now for the tough question... if we're spending $15k per year for 12 years to educate a kid then how much value added must be obtained for the investment to be worthwhile? How much must each kid earn to repay the $180k that society invested in their education given a 40-year work history and normal property tax rates? Once you've completed your assignment you'll know why the major metropolitan areas are broke.

jrs| 12.21.10 @ 9:36PM

Curly,
I think the problem is how to accurately measure success. I'd venture to guess that picking out the very best teachers (

Tina B| 12.21.10 @ 9:10PM

I will retire in a year at barely $50,000 and with what benefits? I hardly go to doctors, and I have to make do on the 192 day work schedule (not a lot of part time summer jobs during the summer for those of us that are over 55)
I too learned Alg in 8th grade, but to teach it. . . you're welcome in my classroom any day buddy. I'll pick you up 8 hours later and lets see what you say then.
And yet most of my students leave me loving the elegance and synchronicity of mathematics. No one in my educational history, except for the good Lord, ever produced that awareness in me. I do it every day in class. And I'm in a low-income, inner-city school with traditionally at risk students.
And just for hahas, I produced a quality middle school yearbook which turned out to be a $15,000 business in which I created the product, then advertised and marketed it on my own time, unless you count the 15 cents an hour I got as a "supplement."
Tim, you got me on the 'like not as', but the according typo, please, play nicely now.

Le Cracquere| 12.22.10 @ 8:50AM

Glad to hear your students actually learned something. But the hard fact remains: you could have left them just as ignorant as you found them, and you'd still be retiring for the same money, having garnered the same benefits throughout your career. Any excellence you possess as a teacher has left you no better off in your career than a subliterate union drudge the next classroom over.

So if your line of work has reaped you no respect, low pay, and bad benefits, perhaps the people you should be mad at are your innumerable peers whose meagre recompense is actually MORE than they deserve, and who are determined that intelligence and ability shall factor into it as little as possible.

Occam's Tool| 12.21.10 @ 10:17PM

I know a lot of bad parents who have no interest in their kids' education. Before I bloamed the teachers, I'd look at the parents, since they are far more likely to have a poor education.

That being said, Teachers' unions that do not support merit based pay for teachers are not doing their members any favors.

In Japan, the Teachers have much higher social prestige and pay. But the academics to become one is also harder. In essence, you get what you pay for. MDs tend to be of higher intellectual calibre than teachers, because the degree is harder to get, more demanding in study, etc. It also pays better.

Occam's Tool| 12.21.10 @ 10:18PM

Sorry, another typo: "blamed" the teachers.

Occam's Tool| 12.21.10 @ 10:25PM

I bounced over to a site on japanese teachers---they tend to hold "lower" degrees than equivalent US Teachers. But the competition to become one approaches medicine in the US---200,000 applicants for 38,000 positions. Out of 82 professions, teachers finished 18th, principals in the top 10.

Tina B| 12.22.10 @ 7:59AM

I am not a member of the teacher's union, and I don't get paid for Christmas. My meager paycheck for 28 years in the school system, 21 as a teacher, 16 with a Master's Degree, is divided into 24 bi-monthly increments and I just topped $50 K last year. In my County, we didn't receive a raise for the past 2 years, and my last 5 years earnings determine my retirement. Groovy, huh?

I am in this, not for the money, but because I realized late in my life, I have a gift from God to love middle school kids. No one does that much anymore, not their parents and most of the time they don't love themselves. God gave me a great sense of humor, and I can squelch poor behaviors and turn right around and make the children laugh as they see their own mistakes.

I finally fell in love with math in the universe from gravity to the search for string-theory or M-theory (if they can agree on what M stands for). I know Einstein's life backwards and forwards and share his educational problems and distractions with my dyslexic students. We now co-teach in Florida and half of two of my classes are students titled ESE. I also have several non-English speakers in advanced math and I am fighting to keep them on grade level or higher.
At my age I need that Christmas break so I can be off and running for the last half of the year. The students are now on the path to the State FCAT and I am pressured to get scores higher every year. Fortunately, I have respect for Jeb Bush and the FCAT because, when I arrived in Florida from Cali, I saw my little ones were not getting a challenging education. However that has changed, our kids are being challenged at every grade level. My grandkids' homework teaches me that.
So I live as a proud teacher, nothing anyone writes can change that, and invite anyone who criticizes teachers in general, and says that the poor ones are easy to find, to enter a classroom, or even try subbing for a few days. Educate yourself. Live what we do, and, like coal miners and firemen and cops, you will come to respect almost all of us. Every profession has it's losers, and sadly the loser-teachers affect some children badly for life. Just like lousy ministers, cops, and loser-parents do. So I swim against that tide.

skedaddle| 12.22.10 @ 10:00AM

Where to start? Teachers are an incredibly mixed bag and we don't do ourselves any favors by pretending they're all above average or they're all idiots. Public education is currently providing cover for terrible teachers and next to no support for excellent teachers. I would immediately abolish "education" degrees. To be a teacher, you would need a degree in your subject matter and an apprenticeship in the classroom. I'm not impressed by teachers who've spent several years reading about children in books - they never behave in real life like they do in the books. It would be an interesting experiment and I don't see how it could do anything but improve on the current situation.

Chuck| 12.22.10 @ 10:58AM

Kids are better off home schooled receiving a computerized self-paced education away from school yard thugs and drugs. Exercise and bible based religious instruction at home too including economics like thrift, home based businesses and debt free living. What a novel concept.

Diane| 12.22.10 @ 12:10PM

Include Sex Ed where emphasis is placed on monogamous relationship between a man and a woman married to one another.

Scob| 12.22.10 @ 11:01AM

When discussing this monster, called “public education” one needs to start with the fact that it is doing exactly what it was designed to do, dumb down the masses. Read John Taylor Gatto’s, The Underground History of American Education, he is a former New York Teacher of the Year recipient, his prospective and research will go a long way in untangling this mess called “public education”.

Decent people whether they are teachers or parents should flee this rotten enterprise. Why do you think the elites in Washington dare not send their kids to public schools???

Dale Cord| 12.22.10 @ 11:56AM

The educational system in America is now just what this criminally run government has envisioned it to be. So those who are in congress Democrats and Republicans can continue to fleece and violate the illiterate. They bribed our ignorant and greedy state Governors and officials, with millions of dollars in return for a foot hold on the decisions as to what and should be taught in our schools, not to mention the qualification requirements for those responsible for educating our young. We now have a generation of people who lack the ability to focus on the priorities, needed for a society to function in a moral and constructive mentality, with an attention span equivalent of that of a grasshopper .WE NOW HAVE AN EDUCATIONAL SYSTEM PREOCCUPIED WITH SEX AND SPORTS, THAT HAVE NO ROOM IN THEIR NUMB SCULLS FOR THE CONTENTS ESTABLISHED IN OUR CONSTITUTION, FOR THEIR RIGHTS AND FREEDOMS AS AMERICANS. We no longer are allowed to establish an honor system in our schools, based on what is right and wrong in the conduct of our students. Now we have replaced that system with one that teaches our children, how to put a condom on a penis the right way,and oral sex according to Bill Clinton is not really engaging in sex. Students and teachers alike have been affected by this abominable behavior and example, that they even practice these perverted acts on campus and during grade school recess. Our society has been sodomized mentally, by an Immoral and Satanic governing force of Evil.

tom7001| 12.22.10 @ 12:52PM

Michelle Rhee has fired over 1000 teachers and administrators over questionable “test scores”, and replaced them with Teach for America candidates. This program, supported by Federal Grants, can enter the classroom after five weeks of training, at entry level salary... This greatly increased her operating budget, making her look good, but at whose expense? I wonder how she would rate her own performance during her three year teaching stint, she publically admits to taping students mouths shut, and some bleeding upon removing the tape! Will this be part of her new school reform? What does she need the billion dollars for? Sounds like the self proclaimed “Michelle Rhee first campaign”! For more on her corruption charges just google “Michelle Rhee corruption”…

tom7001| 12.22.10 @ 12:54PM

Just ask mrs. Rhee about the privatizaion of Dunbar high school in dc. The former principal has been reinstated after "The friends of Bedford" who Rhee hired, have now been fired after gang rapes in the hallway, low test results, and general anarchy prevailed. A small charter school failure for Rhee! Rhee has just formed a PAC' "students first", where she can receive and donate money to politicians, and make big bucks on speaking engagements! Just google the Washington Examiner and Rhee!

Dean| 12.22.10 @ 1:44PM

A recent blog on the American Thinker describes the effect of unionization on Illinois teachers. Fourteen thousand have annual salaries at least $100,000. Six teachers earn more than the governor, whose salary is $177,000. The price goes to a phys ed teacher who earns the princely amount of $190,000! What a racket . . .

Wayne | 12.22.10 @ 1:44PM

The problem is much more severe than most people realize. When I got my Education Certification in 1973, I was one of over 80 students from Eastern Illinois University to get certified to teach Mathematics at the High School level.

I returned to Eastern 10 years later to get a Master's degree in Math (and change my career to computer science). The department chairman at Eastern asked me what they could do to get more people into the Math Education program. The number getting certified from the primary feeder of teachers in the state of Illinois went from 80+ per semester to ONE.

That's right the number of math teachers getting certified in Illinois dropped 98 percent.

So you see, we have had a severe shortage of Math (and Science) teachers for some 30 years. What have the public schools done. They have just moved History and Music teachers into Math jobs. Yep, the very same people who hated math in school now teach it.

Tina B| 12.22.10 @ 3:46PM

You are all (many of you anyway) making my unpaid Christmas break fascinating. I trust that none of you who mock teachers ever had a single public school teacher who made your life better. I went to parochial schools so I never encountered the P.S. teacher until I was a parent who couldn't afford private schools. So I enlisted myself to do what I could at the middle school my own kids attended. First as an aide, in ESE. Then as a math teacher who happenned to change my major to Liberal studies rather than secondary math so I could get out into the field quicker. I took Calc I and

Tina B| 12.22.10 @ 3:58PM

oopsie, sorry, in case anyone cares out there in the ether. and Calc II and made an A in each. I worked hard to understand the point of some of the ed classes, all the hoops in the Ed. Dept.

After 25 ('66 to '91)years spent floundering around in 7 colleges, 5 in California and 2 in Florida, I can honestly say that most of my college teachers were no great shakes, although three were standouts. I am well educated in math, I have continued my education in tech and I read voraciously about everything I can. I do resent being classified with the worst of my fellow teachers, but I wouldn't say I am mad about any of it. Not one comment made me mad. I am learning from all of you. Just like you all learned, long ago, from teachers at school. I love learning.
I love teaching.

I'll never get compensated financially, not as a public school teacher, and not in Florida. But it's cool. Life is good. God is great. Merry Christmas again, to all.

Dale Cord| 12.28.10 @ 12:33PM

2011 a year that will live in Infamy. Future school history books will read: The year the Muslims conquered the United States of America. With not so much as a whimper from its cowardly military leaders, and name calling armchair patriots. Disgraceful,Shameful there are no words to adequately describe her defeat. As the 300 Spartans strength and ingenuity conquered all of those who challenged them, so a small band of renegades conquered the greatest country the world has known. When Davids rock slued Goliath. It also foretold a warning. "The bigger they are,the harder they Fall." Our country lost its battle of survival when it became intoxicated with its deceptive mentality, that it did not need its Creator anymore, and wisdom no longer was apart of its citizens physiology to survive