Public School Teachers - any different than private school teachers?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I toured a public elementary school in Bethesda recently and was truly saddened by what I saw. We have 3 kids in private, and while I LOVE the school it's a realy financial hardship and so my husband and I wanted to take another look at public. In a nutshell: I came, I saw, I was horrified, and I left. In 80% of the classrooms I visited, the teacher was off in a corner assessing 1 child, while the rest of the class were left to their own devices. The teachers I did see who were actually instructing students could not have looked more checked out or uninspired. Then there were all the other aspects: portable classrooms, 125 kids on the playground with only parent supervision, a Principal who spoke as though she did not graduate from college, no science lab, poor art, music and PE, and class sized of 25-26 kids. I entered the building with an open mind and left feeling like these kids were not being given the same chance as my own kids in their private school. I know many parents can't afford private school (we barely can) and it really exposed what I consider a national problem in our education system.

Ahh, the DIBELS assessments. Yes, we have that in DCPS also. Not a good thing.

[Anonymous]

Don't blame the teachers. They hate these too frequent assessments as much as everyone else. NCLB calls for all of this testing since it everything is "data driven." I'm all for assessment driving instruction but too much assessment ruins what little time there is for instruction.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I toured a public elementary school in Bethesda recently and was truly saddened by what I saw. We have 3 kids in private, and while I LOVE the school it's a realy financial hardship and so my husband and I wanted to take another look at public. In a nutshell: I came, I saw, I was horrified, and I left. In 80% of the classrooms I visited, the teacher was off in a corner assessing 1 child, while the rest of the class were left to their own devices.

It sounds like you observed on a day when school-wide reading assessment was going on. Does Montgomery County use the DRA? THis is a time-intensive test that is administered one one one to the children. They read aloud and answer questions; their reading is measured for fluency and accuracy. An alternative assessment would be to have a paper and pencil fill in the blank or color in the bubble type of test but oral reading fluency would not be measured.

In some schools this type of testing is done by pulling the child out into the hall or another room while an assistant teacher monitors the class or provides instruction. However, schools might not have the budget to hire the assistant or substitute teacher for the week of school-0wide reading assessment. However by the end of the year children in all grade levels should be able to do their independent work pretty much on their own -- reading, journal writing, centers etc -- they've probably been doing that all year while their teacher is running different reading groups and writing workshops. So as long as the kids weren't goofing off, getting into trouble, I'm not sure why the fact that the kids weren't receiving direct instruction bothered you. Surely kids at your private school do independent work while the teacher is working with one group of students?

Were the kids in the Bethsda school you observed goofing off and getting into trouble? Or were they doing independent activities?

[Anonymous]

Okay, mea culpa . . . I’m a licensed certified teacher with a M.Ed, so I must come to this discussion with some bias. Having said this, I truly don’t understand why any person entering this profession would opt to not take the required course work to become a certified teacher or why any institution would hire teachers who have not met such basic baseline requirements. Institutions could even hire individuals to teach, but then require licensure within a reasonable period of time.

The components that set any profession a part are its common standards and practices. Teaching K-12 is an entirely different profession than teaching at the college level. College professors teach adults and they are required to publish which must be very demanding. By the same token, I have the utmost respect for elementary school teachers. First of all there is nothing elementary about the content taught in elementary schools today. Secondly, I would have no idea where to begin teaching elementary school children. They are so small, trusting and inquisitive, and very delicate. Elementary school teachers are amazing. Middle schoolers and high schoolers are also different in their psychological and physical development and rates of maturation.

Can anyone teach?? I’m not sure, right now a guy is trying to teach me how to play golf (without much success).

A hundred years ago educated people just walked into classrooms and began to teach, but that was a long time ago. Today we have a much greater understanding of child psychology and human development. My question is why would a well educated individual who has all of the content knowledge education needed to teach a particular discipline opt not to further develop the teaching skills to more effectively teach at either the elementary, middle, or high school levels?

For some seasoned professionals it might not make a significant difference, but for many individuals their delivery and professionalism would be improved and for the institutions as a whole there would be vast demonstrable improvements.

One final thought . . . and it is this, the lack of professional credentials may not be immediately apparent when parents or others visit a school. However, over time the effects of scoffing at professional standards will begin to manifest itself in disheartening and destructive ways.

For those schools out there who claim they know boys and girls so well; how can you be so sure of those statements if the vast majority of your teachers have never taken any courses in childhood development? How can you really be so sure that you know what makes kids tick??

Do it now, make changes for the better. Make your schools better than they are today. In the future require new teachers to be licensed professionals and required your existing teachers to become licensed within five years. Your schools and your students will be better off and the overall environments of your institutions will be healthier.

It will be pointless to respond by saying that my thesis is all wrong because privates are better than public schools, etc, etc. The dynamics and the demographics are entirely different in private and public schools, so it is erroneous to invalidate my thesis by saying one is better than the other.

One final . . . final thought is that without licensing requirements public schools would be much worse and with licensing provisions private schools would be much better. Professional Education School programs only take a year or two. Why would professional educators not just do it and secondly, why would a young person just coming into the profession opt for OJT when they could enter the field as a trained, certified, licensed professional?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I toured a public elementary school in Bethesda recently and was truly saddened by what I saw. We have 3 kids in private, and while I LOVE the school it's a realy financial hardship and so my husband and I wanted to take another look at public. In a nutshell: I came, I saw, I was horrified, and I left. In 80% of the classrooms I visited, the teacher was off in a corner assessing 1 child, while the rest of the class were left to their own devices.

Were the kids in the Bethsda school you observed goofing off and getting into trouble? Or were they doing independent activities?

To answer your question, the children were goofing off and chatting with one another in a disruptive and unruly manner. Had they been actively engaged in independent work I would not have been bothered. But the kids were clearly abusing the time as they knew the teacher was not paying any attention to what they were doing. The principal did not say that the day of the tour was anything out of the ordinary, and I assume if it was a special day (or week) of testing in the classes we looked at, that would have been pointed out during the 1 and 1/2 hours we were on the tour.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I toured a public elementary school in Bethesda recently and was truly saddened by what I saw. We have 3 kids in private, and while I LOVE the school it's a realy financial hardship and so my husband and I wanted to take another look at public. In a nutshell: I came, I saw, I was horrified, and I left. In 80% of the classrooms I visited, the teacher was off in a corner assessing 1 child, while the rest of the class were left to their own devices.

Were the kids in the Bethsda school you observed goofing off and getting into trouble? Or were they doing independent activities?

To answer your question, the children were goofing off and chatting with one another in a disruptive and unruly manner. Had they been actively engaged in independent work I would not have been bothered. But the kids were clearly abusing the time as they knew the teacher was not paying any attention to what they were doing. The principal did not say that the day of the tour was anything out of the ordinary, and I assume if it was a special day (or week) of testing in the classes we looked at, that would have been pointed out during the 1 and 1/2 hours we were on the tour.

Wow, I am truly amazed. My kids go to a public school in Prince George's County and I have visited plenty of times, and have not seen kids goofing off during class time. Perhaps our extra curriculuars aren't as great as yours, and sure we have a higher rate of poverty here than in Bethesda. But I guess I always assumed that there was something much better about schools in Bethesada -- that you guys got much better schools for their money in housing and property taxes..

That's just incredible to me that you visited the school and 80% of the classrooms had kids goofing off and not paying attention to their work, while the teacher was conducting testing. And the principal said nothing to you about it being testing day, sthis kind of behavior goes on apparently all the time! I'm sorry to hear that.

[Anonymous]

DIBELS testing used as progress monitoring can go on every couple of weeks, depending on the mandates from schools districts. Some schools handle this better than others. If classroom teachers are required to do these one-on-one assessments themselves without additional support, the result is other students lose out on instruction.

As a classroom teacher, I appreciate having a variety of assessment tools at my disposal, to use at my descretion to assess my students. But when a rigid, frequent testing schedule is mandated by the District, I have significantly less time to teach.

You can't fatten a pig by weighing it. Unfortunately, under our current leadership, in many DCPS schools, that's just about all we do.

[Anonymous]

PP, can you provide any insight as to why the test scores in PG County are consistently so low? We hear about it often, but no one ever seems to delve in the "why"?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I toured a public elementary school in Bethesda recently and was truly saddened by what I saw. We have 3 kids in private, and while I LOVE the school it's a realy financial hardship and so my husband and I wanted to take another look at public. In a nutshell: I came, I saw, I was horrified, and I left. In 80% of the classrooms I visited, the teacher was off in a corner assessing 1 child, while the rest of the class were left to their own devices.

Were the kids in the Bethsda school you observed goofing off and getting into trouble? Or were they doing independent activities?

To answer your question, the children were goofing off and chatting with one another in a disruptive and unruly manner. Had they been actively engaged in independent work I would not have been bothered. But the kids were clearly abusing the time as they knew the teacher was not paying any attention to what they were doing. The principal did not say that the day of the tour was anything out of the ordinary, and I assume if it was a special day (or week) of testing in the classes we looked at, that would have been pointed out during the 1 and 1/2 hours we were on the tour.

Wow, I am truly amazed. My kids go to a public school in Prince George's County and I have visited plenty of times, and have not seen kids goofing off during class time. Perhaps our extra curriculuars aren't as great as yours, and sure we have a higher rate of poverty here than in Bethesda. But I guess I always assumed that there was something much better about schools in Bethesada -- that you guys got much better schools for their money in housing and property taxes..

That's just incredible to me that you visited the school and 80% of the classrooms had kids goofing off and not paying attention to their work, while the teacher was conducting testing. And the principal said nothing to you about it being testing day, sthis kind of behavior goes on apparently all the time! I'm sorry to hear that.

[Anonymous]

Most often, the reason schools have low test scores is because of the socio-economic status of the students who attend. Also, lower income areas generate less money in property taxes which fund the public schools.

[Anonymous]

What were you ON when you wrote this? Or was this some lame attempt at writing a stream of consciousness piece?

Anonymous wrote:Okay, mea culpa . . . I’m a licensed certified teacher with a M.Ed, so I must come to this discussion with some bias. Having said this, I truly don’t understand why any person entering this profession would opt to not take the required course work to become a certified teacher or why any institution would hire teachers who have not met such basic baseline requirements. Institutions could even hire individuals to teach, but then require licensure within a reasonable period of time.

The components that set any profession a part are its common standards and practices. Teaching K-12 is an entirely different profession than teaching at the college level. College professors teach adults and they are required to publish which must be very demanding. By the same token, I have the utmost respect for elementary school teachers. First of all there is nothing elementary about the content taught in elementary schools today. Secondly, I would have no idea where to begin teaching elementary school children. They are so small, trusting and inquisitive, and very delicate. Elementary school teachers are amazing. Middle schoolers and high schoolers are also different in their psychological and physical development and rates of maturation.

Can anyone teach?? I’m not sure, right now a guy is trying to teach me how to play golf (without much success).

A hundred years ago educated people just walked into classrooms and began to teach, but that was a long time ago. Today we have a much greater understanding of child psychology and human development. My question is why would a well educated individual who has all of the content knowledge education needed to teach a particular discipline opt not to further develop the teaching skills to more effectively teach at either the elementary, middle, or high school levels?

For some seasoned professionals it might not make a significant difference, but for many individuals their delivery and professionalism would be improved and for the institutions as a whole there would be vast demonstrable improvements.

One final thought . . . and it is this, the lack of professional credentials may not be immediately apparent when parents or others visit a school. However, over time the effects of scoffing at professional standards will begin to manifest itself in disheartening and destructive ways.

For those schools out there who claim they know boys and girls so well; how can you be so sure of those statements if the vast majority of your teachers have never taken any courses in childhood development? How can you really be so sure that you know what makes kids tick??

Do it now, make changes for the better. Make your schools better than they are today. In the future require new teachers to be licensed professionals and required your existing teachers to become licensed within five years. Your schools and your students will be better off and the overall environments of your institutions will be healthier.

It will be pointless to respond by saying that my thesis is all wrong because privates are better than public schools, etc, etc. The dynamics and the demographics are entirely different in private and public schools, so it is erroneous to invalidate my thesis by saying one is better than the other.

One final . . . final thought is that without licensing requirements public schools would be much worse and with licensing provisions private schools would be much better. Professional Education School programs only take a year or two. Why would professional educators not just do it and secondly, why would a young person just coming into the profession opt for OJT when they could enter the field as a trained, certified, licensed professional?

[Anonymous]

I'm interested, how do you feel after you say something like that? Do you feel empowered and satisfied?

Do you feel like you are the defender of the faith and does it make for a good stories to tell your friends?

How long does the feeling last? Will it give you long term satisfaction?

What do you envision your future will be like?

What makes you tick?

BTW, I truly wish you well. I'm just curious as to what makes you tick.