1. The study which is being cited here regarding TFA teachers compared them with other novice teachers without a full ed school preparation. It tells us nothing about TFA teachers vs. properly prepared teachers. If one compares unprepared [TFA] teachers from more academically rigorous institutions with unprepared [non-TFA] teachers from less academically rigorous institutions, it is hardly surprising that the the TFA teachers are marginally better. But that comparison is like announcing the tallest building in Topeka, Kansas — it is tall only because the real competition in major urban centers has been eliminated from the comparison. How do TFA teachers compare to properly prepared teachers?
I make this point because I began teaching via the TFA route before there was a TFA route — an ABD toward a doctorate in political science, but without any education preparation. I learned how to be a good teacher not just because of the hard work of a workaholic personality and a strong mastery of the subject material, but just as importantly, because of the good luck of having an excellent mentor in my Assistant Principal and being in a functional school where real learning could go on. I could easily see why many, if not most, teachers coming to the job similarly unprepared in pedagogy never acquired those essential skills.
2. The fact that ed schools often do a poor job of preparing teachers is not a proof that one can do without a PROPER preparation to teach; as a matter of logic, it demonstrates only that this ed school, like a number of others, does not do the job it says it is doing. Using Ockham’s razor, the first hypothesis that one should test is whether there are good ed schools which do a good job of preparing teachers, in which case the obvious solution would be to reform or close ed schools that are not doing their job and to model more after those that are successful — not to send yet more unprepared teachers into schools [invariably high poverty schools] where they have to learn how to teach under the most difficult conditions, with the students paying the consequences.

Every one of us is a consumer for this product we call education. I chose a school that had an outstanding rating in both English and education. Why would you tolerate and invest in a substandard program? I understand that there are poor professors out there, but it’s our responsibility to get the very best since we’re paying for it.

“I am particularly interested in how you can say that getting the piece of paper that is a master’s diploma is so worthwhile when passing a standardized test is not.”

Interesting question! Is the value of your students limited to the Regents only? Is the standardized exam the only way to ascertain true content knowledge? Of course not! State exams do not measure how hardworking a student is, nor does it factor in multiple levels of intelligence. For example, the NYS ELA standards require students to articulate ideas verbally (oral reports, speeches, class discussions, seminars, etc.). The ELA Regents does not test for this. It merely asks students to write four essays and answer multiple-choice questions. Is this all that education boils down to? Of course not! (No college accepts students based on SAT’s only). By that token, standardized tests for graduate students simply measure one small facet of education. The Masters’ candidate has presumably interacted with an array of professors who have graded a with a wide variety of criteria (e.g. value of research, oral presentations, thesis, participation, exams, essays, etc.). In other words, the degree (from a quality institution) is a testimony of the whole student rather than a slice of that student’s capabilities in the form of a high-stakes test. We even graduate with “honors,”
“magna cum laude,” “summa cum laude,” “dean’s list,” etc.

Your last comment on your associates who feel that acquiring an advanced degree was limited in its usefulness in the classroom is also interesting. My work in research helps many teachers teach the process to their own students. You can’t teach what you don’t know. You can’t prepare kids to increase their value in the marketplace if your own erudition is limited in content and scope.

With respect to making it mandatory? No I wouldn’t do that. Even at those numbers, teacher salaries aren’t high enough to demand three degrees. They’re not really high enough to demand two degrees. As to whether the doctorates would make for better teachers? Only if teachers were given enough freedom and flexibility to make use of the research skills being developed while involved in those advanced programs. I don’t believe current doctorate programs are suitable for the job. There would have to be changes.

But yes, people who truly love education as a career probably wouldn’t mind pursuing education themselves to further their own knowledge and skill set and expose themselves to others of that same ilk. The problem again, is salary. The lower the salary, the less reasonable it is to expect advanced degrees. And my solution isn’t to eliminate the advanced degrees as a salary deflating measure but rather to find ways to increase teacher salaries. On that front I toe the party line of the union. Where the union and I disagree is that all teachers should be paid equally based on years of service. I firmly believe that something along the lines of 80% of a teacher’s salary should be based strictly on that and degrees, etc. and the remaining monies should be moved around year to year to pay those teachers working under hard to find licenses. Pay math, science, etc. teachers an extra $20K a year until those skillsets are not in short supply and move those monies around license by license annually as other shortages develop. It’s called supply and demand. In combination with my doctorate idea, teachers would be paid sufficiently in the areas that are most difficult to staff but over time, those extra monies can be redeployed as needed. This country uses monetary means to affect policy all the time. How is it any different that giving tax breaks for hybrid car purchases? How long would NYC have a math teacher shortage if math teachers were making $130,000 a year on maximum? I bet the shortage would end within 5 years as prospective engineers, accountants, business majors, etc. shifted gears to take advantage. Then you’d create a shortage of say english teachers and adjust accordingly.

we agree. What should done, and what the DoE does, not the same thing, we know that.

They really don’t care how high the standards are set, they know they will get major league exceptions to get whoever they want in.

Jonathan

So I know there are some who got quality instruction, and I’m glad, Persam, you “had quality instruction in education” yourself. As I’m sure you will be the first to say, this does not mean that everyone does. Again, it’s the quality of training and thinking that matters, and we can’t settle for the poor quality (on average) of ed schools of today.

I am curious about your statement that “there is no empirical data beyond standardized testing”. I am guessing we agree that the existing tests in NYC/NYS fall short. What would you suggest as better? Are credit attainment or college acceptance any better, in your opinion? If not, is there anything that would serve as a measure of doing right by students? (I am particularly interested in how you can say that getting the piece of paper that is a master’s diploma is so worthwhile when passing a standardized test is not.)

Finally, Paul, I am intrigued by your last post. Do you think doctorates would really help teachers teach better? I ask because I have heard quite the opposite from those who have completed them; even those who did well and enjoyed their experience said it was more interesting in the insight they gained into the field from a research perspective than beneficial to their teaching practice. (On this point, I have no real data; I’m curious.)

You’re still assuming that the DoE cares whether or not they have quality teachers. I’ve come to believe that’s not the way it is.

Good teachers? Great. Our programs are paying off. Too bad we can’t afford to give them cost of living, but we can’t count on keeping this budget surplus.

Bad teachers? Great. They stink and we don’t have to pay them. Let’s open some charters without all that union nonsense.

I agree with every word Paul wrote, and I think it’s remarkable that after 22 years of watching the wonks come up with one way, then another, and then another, they’ve never figured out that it’s possible there are various ways to communicate.

This is the same mentality that declared five-paragraph-compositions were the be-all and end-all of writing, and that Moses carried them down the mountain along with the Ten Commandments.

And they got paid way more than we ever will to come up with those pronouncements they discard each and every year. Of course, if they didn’t do that, how could they justify keeping those jobs?

If the requirements are set too high, the number of applicants will be too low, and the DoE and State Ed will use that shortfall as a window to let all sorts of genuinely unqualified people in. I think the trick is to set the requirements high enough to retain some quality (one of those qualities is persistence) but not so high as to remove too many applicants from the pool.

Jonathan

Some of us simply proceeding from a false assumption. That assumption being that we can get better teachers by scraping the bottom of the barrel academically simply because there will be more warm bodies to choose from. And at the same time, we provide ourselves during said experiment, with an excuse not to raise teacher salaries. I proceed from a different assumption. Teaching is already not the most challenging profession to enter. It already requires less training than many other professions (not to do well but to do it period). For decades, the powers that be have forgotten one simple reality, that the steady supply of potential teachers, namely women in the workforce, has dried up because women now have a wealth of other options. Women didn’t need to be paid as much because their jobs were secondary to their husbands’ and if they were single, that situation was temporary anyway. Attitudes in the private sector interestingly enough get criticized more but are actually ahead of the curve when compared to the reality of teaching. We routinely wouldn’t question the need for advanced training and a superior resume for doctors, lawyers, and the like because those are “real professions” for men. This is, in fact, the underlying attitude behind the scenes that has weakened public K-12 education in recent decades. So we’ll increase class size, tolerate people teaching subjects they’re not qualified for, or at best underqualified for. We’ll search for teachers around the globe rather than hire Americans to teach Americans. We’ll even pay lip service to the kids and feign more demands on them rather than less while requiring less of our teachers by taking the power to decide how best to teach out of their hands. Imagine lawyers like Klein ordered to defend their clients in a one size all fits mentality. Maybe there’s a best way to be a cashier at Target. And maybe there’s a best way to pump gas at Sunoco. Or perhaps there’s a best way to put new siding on a house. But there is no best way to educate all kids in all subjects at all times in their life, in any possible combination of students making up a class. And that ability is as much art as science, and requires far more training to do well than even our most experienced teachers with 2 and even 3 degrees have. We need to expect more, pay more, and require more of our teachers. The argument should be why don’t our teachers have doctorates.

I think you have missed my point. My point in saying “Children are not widgets” highlights that there is no empirical data beyond standardized testing. If data is to be used in deciding instructional quality, where will this data come from? From the new crop of administrators who are managers rather than educators, who may not even have had sufficient experience to be tenured in their own license areas?
The argument for and against merit pay revolves around the same desire for data.

The fact that you had poor professors does not mean that we all had the same level of poor instruction that you had. I had quality instruction in education and content.

we could also talk about improving the overall quality of the masters programs. I am not talking about content area masters, but those in education.

Certainly math_teacher’s resentment at having some of his time wasted is understandable. I remember when I was working on my masters, I found all of the math classes useful, but only about half of the ed classes (although, I thought my Ed Psych was a complete waste, but in retrospect has been helpful).

I am glad the requirement for the extra courses in human relations have been dropped. Most people I spoke with thought that these were busy work courses.

But when ken and math_teacher want principals to hire people from good colleges, and that’s it, there is a problem. Who is going to judge what a good college is? And how would we keep anyone teaching for more than three years?