If I were on the commission…
My last piece did not have concrete suggestions for how to improve education and how to make life better for teachers. So, I should go through my credentials first. This is my 25th total year in education. I have taught Social Studies and English in high schools and intermediate schools. I have taught in public and private high schools. I was also an elementary counselor for a few years. I’ve spent the last ten years as a special education teacher, support facilitator, and case manager. I haven’t done it all, but I’m close.
- No more STAAR and any other state equivalent.
As George W. Bush once said, “is our children learning?” The idea behind standardized testing is okay in theory. We want to know if we are teaching the same stuff and if our students are learning that stuff. Using a company to complete that exam is wasteful spending (to tune of well over a billion per state). Not only that, but these tests take four and five hours. This is especially cruel at the elementary level. You aren’t measuring reading skills, writing skills, or math skills. You are measuring endurance.
Most districts have instructional coaches or what we call instructional specialists. They can write local exams for the district. These tests would measure those same things but in far less time. If I can sit for a test for 30 minutes to an hour then the chances of me concentrating throughout that entire increase geometrically. What most citizens don’t get is how many days we lose to these exams. You have four different days lost to five STAAR exams. You have a mock exam for each one of those as well. That’s another four days. Then, each class has common assessments usually once a six weeks on average. There are six days right there in that particular class. Then, you get the SAT and PSAT. Seniors will take something called the TSIA. Last year we took a field test for the STAAR that lost us another couple of days. Look up and you are losing a month. That doesn’t even count the days where we specifically cover STAAR strategies.
2. Let Educators Write the Curriculum
For a brief moment let’s ignore critical race theory and issues specifically related to social studies. Focusing on Texas for a second, we have stuff we call Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS). Each course has over 20 with some as many as 30. How in the hell does anyone expect to adequately address all of those thoroughly in a school year? Remember, we are losing a month to standardized testing. We miss more class time with lockdown drills, fire drills, shooter drills, and all of the other nonsense that normally occurs.
Teachers have been trained to identify those things which we would call “power standards.” In other words, they are non-negotiables that we want every kid to know. Each course will have between 6 and 12 of those a year. Focusing on those allows each kid to demonstrate mastery and people to grow up actually knowing and understanding things. Collectively we know a lot about how people learn. We know what they need to know and what is more trivial. We’ve been trained to do this. Let us do it. You don’t call a carpenter to fix your toilet. You don’t go to a podiatrist to remove your appendix. Politicians don’t know what we do. They may have reading skills, writing skills, and math skills but they don’t understand how you effectively teach this to children. Don’t tell us what to teach. Don’t tell us how to teach it unless you happen to be an expert.
3. Pay Veteran Teachers More
This will be an unpopular opinion, but rookie teachers are fairly compensated. I mentioned this yesterday, but I get less than 15,000 more than a rookie teacher 25 years in. I have a masters degree and a special education stipend that augments my salary. The “steps” between years end up being about 600 dollars a year. When I get to year 25 in most districts I no longer get steps. In short, the difference between me today and me when I was a rookie is night and day. I knew a lot about my content but I knew very little about how to get that knowledge to the students. Furthermore, there is a ton of accumulated wisdom that has nothing to do with teaching directly, but makes me far better at my job.
If a teacher gets a masters in their teaching field I would give them an extra 5000 a year instead of just one. I would double the gap between steps. Teachers normally bail before their fifth year. I’d give bonuses at five year intervals to reward teachers for staying. In short, you want wiser and more experienced teachers. Youth and enthusiasm is great, but we need teachers to stay. They will stay if you reward them with something more than jeans days and breakfast tacos in the lounge.
I’ve been seeing all the reports about the dire shortage of teachers for the coming school year and I just have to shake my head. The RWNJs have been going to town for years about how “corrupting” teachers and school boards have been for their little darlings. Critical Race Theory? NO! NO! NO! Arrest all those insurrectionist teachers! Not to mention how there are trying they’re darndest to keep actual American History our of their heads, too, in favor of some mythical past. It is to laugh. Or cry. Take your pick.
1All good suggestions, Nick.
2And thanks for teaching special ed- it’s tough but really important.
Thanks for your follow up as promised. All three areas you addressed above make lots of sense. I rank your #3 section most important and ridiculously overdue. I’m saving this because I feel a letter to the editor coming at the appropriate time and with your permission would utilize some of your information.
3IIRC, about 15-20 years ago most districts in the Houston area upped the starting salary for new teachers. The hope was the pay would interest more people.
A friend had been teaching AP math for years. Even at retirement age and her advanced degrees, she made 65K a year.
DD tells me it took her 3 years to get truly comfortable in the classroom. Now that’s the time they start thinking about a new career path.
4All three areas are critical! I’d agree with Steve and Crone about the primacy of number 3, actually rewarding experience, and yep, that includes having tenure for teachers who prove themselves in the classroom.
5Your numbers 1 and 2 have an additional impact worth noting. Getting rid of the test-related busywork, and allowing teachers to focus on the true key skills, would open up space for both students and teachers. Students might get more time for free reading, library, art, music, and other things that nourish their intellectual growth in different ways. (Let’s hear it for less homework, especially in lower grades!) Teachers would have time to pay attention to individual kids and where they are and what they need, and to bring new ideas, and to share those with other teachers and specialists like you.
For that matter, without the test mania, kids might have some time and motivation to help each other. One of the most important things I learned in my exceptional public k-8 school was that if you are good in something, you can help someone else, and if you are struggling, a classmate can help you. A lifelong lesson – and one that I’ve tried to teach in undergraduate and graduate courses, though it’s hard sometimes to overcome their lifelong training to be competitive and isolated and their fear that working together to learn is “cheating.”
Go right ahead Steve…
As a frustrated former history teacher, I can attest to a lot of what you are saying. Growing up, we played Oregon Trail on the computer and even did it outside with half the class as villagers and half as Indians. I’ve heard tale of teachers building props for a Kennedy assassination reenactment. The most fun part about teaching history used to be getting to our favorite unit and slowing down. When I taught government I spent a long time on the bill of rights. I made sure they knew their rights. Exceptions, relevant court cases, and practical advice. They paid more attention to that than any other unit.
6Regarding Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS) standards, no list should have more than 12 items (6-8 is better). I don’t care what’s in them or if Moses brought them down from Mt Sinai, there is no subject from middle school health to quantum mechanics that has 30 important concepts.
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