Further evidence, if any were needed, that public education in the country has often devolved into a jobs program for incompetents and has nothing to do with education:
Efforts to introduce standardized testing and the monitoring of performance metrics for teachers in New York have been opposed by the teachers unions ever since they were first introduced decades ago. It’s an ongoing battle which has been mirrored across the nation. Still, some measures have been put in place which were intended to at least ascertain basic levels of proficiency for people seeking teaching positions. One of these is known as the Academic Skills Literacy Test (ASLT). It’s basically a reading comprehension test administered to those who would eventually be giving similar tests to students.
Sounds almost like a no-brainer, doesn’t it? You might think so, but this month it looks like the Empire State will be scrapping the examination because not enough people were passing it and the failure rates were deemed to be too heavily skewed along racial lines. (Associated Press)
New York education officials are poised to scrap a test designed to measure the reading and writing skills of people trying to become teachers, in part because an outsized percentage of black and Hispanic candidates were failing it.
The state Board of Regents on Monday is expected Monday to adopt a task force’s recommendation of eliminating the literacy exam, known as the Academic Literacy Skills Test.
Backers of the test say eliminating it could put weak teachers in classrooms. Critics of the examination said it is redundant and a poor predictor of who will succeed as a teacher.
This is not something which just cropped up. A group representing many of these aspiring teachers brought lawsuits in 2015 claiming that both the ASLT and a second exam focusing on liberal arts and sciences were somehow racist in nature. The group was seeking more than $300 million in damages but a federal court eventually dismissed the case. Despite the fact that the courts gave the testing program a thumbs up, it seems that the testing regimen will be scrapped anyway.
Go here to read the rest. I got my undergraduate degree in the teaching of social studies. Without exerting myself I was at the top of every education course I took. Four decades ago it was well known that the poorest students gravitated towards teaching. Apparently the situation has gotten worse. Public education in this country is very often a bad joke. Parents and students have very little reason to join in the laughter.
A hundred years ago, a person could teach in high school without a collage degree. Elementary teachers often did not have a high school diploma. The schools have only grudgingly allowed higher qualifications because of cost. But it is teachers who have fought there application of rigorous standards, because only the academically less gifted who are drawn to the field because of the limited opportunity of advancement. Higher salaries are given for higher degrees, but because of the lack of rigor, these have been small.
I love her explanation of working the full 52 weeks v. 39 weeks as to her pay differences than her contemporaries. Those extra 13 weeks, about $52 k at almost $4,000 per week, is interesting.
The highest paid teacher in her district earns $150,000 a school year. (?)
How can a teacher get by with those wages? Union up Chicago! $150 k….. Isn’t that way below poverty level.
After all, it’s the Chicago way baby.
That woman is not representative of teachers.
it may be true that some weak students become teachers, but there are an amazing number of gifted people of become teachers for very admirable reasons.
…and then spend the next several years fighting to be allowed to TEACH, not do paperwork and not indoctrinate.