- Tell them that their job expectations are five times what they used to be.
- Emphasize that budget priorities mean they won't be getting any more money.
- Tell them they aren't getting the job done and that you have created a program to make up for their shortcomings.
- Advocate getting rid of some of the listeners' jobs.
- All of the above.
Ding ding ding! Number 5, "All of the above."
Smiling Mike Rounds should have taken this quiz before coming to the New Teacher Academy. The state Department of Education flunked my quiz on last year's Academy, and now the good governor has flunked this year's. My neighbor Elisa Sand reports in tonight's MDL ["Rounds Provides Encouragement to Teachers," Madison Daily Leader, print only, 2007.07.17, pp. 1-2] that the good governor came to this year's round of New Teacher Academy on the Dakota State University campus last week and said all of the above:
- Sand reports [p. 1]: "Today's teaching environment is much different [from] years past. Teachers are expected not only to teach but also to be social workers [workload doubled] and to know the challenges of working with students with disabilities [tripled], he said. // Teachers are also burdened with embracing technology [quadrupled] and incorporating its use into the classroom" [quintupled! and yes, I'll argue that's a separate issue from the quadrupler].
- On state budget priorities, Sand quotes the governor [p. 2]: "I truly do care (about education), but we have an obligation to pay for everything else out there."
- On their effectiveness in small schools, Sand reports [p.2]: "When asked his thoughts on the benefits of smaller school districts, Rounds said teachers get to know the students on a one-to-one basis, and education at the primary level is top-notch. // But, when kids get into high school, achievement scores start to decline because students are less likely to have access to the more challenging courses. // To combat that, Rounds said, the state has established the virtual high school to provide access to those more challenging courses."
- Continuing the drumbeat against small schools, Rounds suggests further cuts. Sand reports [p. 2]: "Rounds said another option for small districts that are close to one another is to share resources. // 'Why can't districts that are in close proximity share teachers?' he asked. //Traditionally, teacher salaries account for a bigger percentage of the budget at smaller schools." [So obviously, we need to fire some people and keep consolidating.]
School Districts have been good stewards of taxpayer's money, providing top dollar education with leftover tax dollars doled out in the final hour of each legislative session. If K-12 Education received only what Higher Education receives each year in increases, imagine what our Districts could provide to our kids in educational opportunities. Governor Rounds' policy on underfunding K-12 is nothing but Janklowism continued. Compare the growth of the number of State Employees to the reduction of staff in school districts across our state. The money trail leads to Pierre. We need to demand fairness. If you step in something warm, soft and stinky, no matter how it is described, it is still a bunch of crap.
ReplyDeleteI don't think I would make such a broad statement at anonymous about school districts being good stewards. Some are great I'm sure, but just because they get the short end of the stick so often doesn't mean they can't make as many stupid decisions as the people in Pierre do. I have always regarded the increases in higher education to be completely unjustified. There has to be a middle ground where teachers get paid fairly but we aren't paying for new facility's construction every year.
ReplyDeleteJust maybe part of the problem is that we the people have decided to let our social problems be dumped on the schools, where they should not be. The schools are supposed to educate, not be social workers, psychologists, nurses, sports coaches, etc.
ReplyDeleteYes, it's nice to turn out a well-rounded individual and to try and fix all the social issues in our mixed up world. But it really isn't the responsibility of the public school system to do all these. It's the job of parents. And maybe if we expected more of parents, more would be done by parents.
If I know my kid can get a good breakfast at school, why should I bother to fix him one? If I know that the school will try to solve all his social issues, why should I try to fix my own life and thereby his? If I want my kids to get sports education and know that the school provides it for free and at no time cost to me, why should I try to provide those opportunities for him through community activities?
And on a slightly differnet note, now we have schools providing free foot baths for Muslims and time off for them to pray, but heaven forbid if we mention Christmas instead of holiday during that season!
Good morning, Anon! I agree with you that we are shifting too many expectations from parents to teachers. Parents need to take more responsibility (we're trying!), but society needs to support parents in that effort. If our economy requires both parents to work just to pay the mortgage and health insurance premiums, then parents will have less time to take on the traditional responsibilities. Lots of things tie together.
ReplyDeleteAnd what's this Muslim foot bath stuff? Sounds pretty wild... I need a source on that one! Please submit a link so we can check the facts.
http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070605/SCHOOLS/706050368/1003/METRO
ReplyDeleteThere is a link about the Muslim foot baths. This is in a college but I believe a taxpayer supported state college.
I know I've heard about it in public schools too, but didn't find any link.
Gotta get to work and leave this fun!
Hooray for sources! Thanks, Anon!
ReplyDeleteInteresting to note that complaints weren't coming from students at the school but from conservative bloggers who needed something to grumble about. Those darn bloggers, always sticking their nose in other people's business... tee hee! ;-)
If a taxpayer funded public education entity can fund Muslim foot baths, how can they not justify having Christian symbols too? I know this is off track and the last post I'm making on this subject. Separation of church and state, so often spouted by libs, should be just that for all religions, including Muslims.
ReplyDeleteOff track, yes, Anon, but this lib is with you in principle. Separation of church and state applies to all churches, not just Christianity.
ReplyDeleteOf course, maybe church is all the teachers at the New Teacher Academy have to fall back on for inspiration. Last summer Governor Rounds told us to pray for rain; maybe he could have told the teachers to pray for better pay and working conditions.
Well, I think that a better way to criticize state government is to make original statements from facts than to take broad statements out of context. I fully understand that our governor is responsible for what he says, but any honest person should not publish out of context statements and portray them as fact. I have a lot of respect for you as a teacher, and as a great one, so I hear, but do you honestly think things like a virtual high school and encouraging students to take challenging courses are bad ideas?
ReplyDeleteHold on, Anon. The virtual high school is a spectacular idea. It may be the only option that the folks in Polo, Pollock, Wood, and elsewhere will have left to get their kids an education without sending them on a long drive every day or moving from their hometowns for good. And it does broaden opportunities for kids at every high school, large and small. I am also all about challenging kids to take the toughest courses they can find and making their required courses as challenging as possible -- there's a lot to learn, not much time to learn it, and a billion kids around the world studying harder than ours to win the high-paying jobs of the global economy.
ReplyDeleteMy point here is not that the things Governor Rounds talked about are in themselves bad. Remember, I'm not the kind of ideologue who says, "Governor Rounds did it, so it must be bad." My point here is that in the context in which the governor was speaking, the specific comments reported by MDL's Elisa Sand seemed in many ways to contradict the purpose of the event, which is to boost morale of new teachers, make them feel supported, and encourage them to stay in the profession.
You are right, Anon: context is very important. And in this case, Governor Rounds's specific comments, factually reported by MDL's Ms. Sand, appear not to have fit the context of the event. It is possible that MDL set out to do a hatchet job on the governor and totally misreported his speech to the New Teacher Academy... though before I buy that, I'd need to see some substantial evidence of other liberal bias from our man Hunter. Show me MDL got the story wrong (for instance, you could send me a complete transcript of the governor's address), and I'll be the first to holler about the error. Until then, given the published information, I see another New Teacher Academy that still isn't meeting its goals to make more new teachers stick with it.
What will really be interesting will be the hard-core longitudinal studies the Department of Education will surely do five, ten, twenty, and thirty years out to see if New Teacher Academy attendees really do stick with the profession longer than their non-attending counterparts -- and of course, the study will watch out for confounding variables, like the fact that teachers who have the motivation to take time out of their busy summer schedules for such a program might already have the motivation to stay in teaching for the long haul.
I have to agree with anon about your critisizm of the governors statements. They sound spoken out of ingrained bitterness towards government's attitude towards public education. What Rounds said sounded good, but possibly inappropriate for newly minted teachers. You met it with more venom than it warranted.
ReplyDeleteTeacher salaries might go up quicker if SD started a voucher system and weaned education off of the State's bureaucratic and monopolistic teat!
I also cringe at the whole concept in the statement "no child left behind" I don't mean the program I mean the sentiment. Why not leave them behind when they don't try, when they can't be bothered to care? This is the sentiment that has allowed schools to become social workers and kept others students from achieving what they might otherwise.
Hah! Your last post appeared after I hit post on mine. you disabused me of my misunderstanding in it. I agree with you that in the specific context it wasn't a good speech. Has this only been the 2nd time they have done this then?
ReplyDelete"More venom than it warranted?" really, Phaedrus? Boy, and I thought I was going easy on the governor....
ReplyDeleteNo Child Left Behind? Remember, Governor Rounds loves the program and the sentiment.
And vouchers? For what? What good are vouchers in a state where only a handful of towns have private schools? What good are vouchers to kids in Lemmon or Philip or Wessington Springs? What comparative advantage is there over the current open enrollment system? It's an open question whether vouchers make some sense in urban settings where there are lots of choices available, but Phaedrus and a lot of conservative commentators make the mistake of parroting the lines of national education reformers who think only in terms of big-city schools. New York City solutions (and I'm not convinced vouchers are solutions even there) don't fit South Dakota schools. That's true of vouchers, No Child Left Behind, and all the other foolishness big-city folks dream up and think they can then apply universally, from midtown Manhattan to Midland, SD.
Yup, Phaedrus, just the second go-round for the New Teacher Academy. And as my sleepy but ever-sharp wife just said, "All it is is the governor's way to divert attention from teacher salaries." All feel-good rhetoric (and a pretty poor job of that), no real benefits (though I'm willing to be corrected by that big longitudinal study... someday).
ReplyDeleteHow could vouchers help rural students...
ReplyDeleteHome schooling combined with distance education.
Rather than being forcibly shipped to the nearest town where there is a consolidated school, it would be nice to hand money directly to the parents and have them work together with other parents locally and yet other parents wherever there is a high-speed cable line, to find the talent and ingenuity to give their kids as wide and deep an education as any school board could ever fumble together.
I wasn't thinking from too urban a perspective. You were thinking of private schools created as a business model or as a religious imperative. Grounded in a physical building and susceptible to the same financial difficulties that made the public school have to close. Especially when a classroom can be spread across the entire country there are solutions that weren't feasible even 5 years ago. Face to face is better, but given the alternatives. I think there are a lot of possibilities.
Vouchers for distance ed and home schooling? As I suggested above, that may be the only option short of the long drive to another district for the communities whose schools Rounds and the legislature are forcing to close. Those communities already have the high-speed Internet capacity in the school buildings that Janklow ordered wired ten years ago and which now may sit idle (all that tech for nothing -- somebody had better make something out of that investment!).
ReplyDeleteI'm fine with home schooling supplemented with online ed for advanced courses for which we can't find knowledgeable teachers locally. But even home schooling requires a serious commitment of time and skill, and in South Dakota, state with the highest percentage of two-income families, and especially in these smaller communities, which certainly aren't enjoying anything like the economic expansion taking place in Sioux Falls, how many parents will have the resources to make good home schooling happen? The state yanking its aid from these small communities comes perilously close to an abdication of its constitutional obligation to provide a free and uniform system of public schools. If, as Phaedrus says, face-to-face education is better, then leaving soem communities stuck with inferior distance ed creates a two-tiered, discriminatory education system.