Highly Qualified Teachers Needed
| By Evelyn Foreman - Dec 6th, 2007 at 5:14 pm EST |
Equity in education in America is at risk if parents, educators, or legislators do not address the public's right to know in a realistic manner.
Dr. Harry Wong in his book The First Days of School states that teachers should post their credentials in the classroom so parents know who is working with their children. The National Board for Professional Teaching Standards states that, "Teachers should know the subjects they teach and how to teach those subjects to their students". A math teacher in grades 6-12 should be a teacher with a math major. Isn't this only reasonable?
School districts are not requiring teachers to post their credentials. Should they?
Barbers, beauticians, mechanics, doctors, social workers, psychologist, and many of the people who provide services to the public do post their credentials. Why don't the people who take care of our most precious possessions(the minds, spirits, and future of tomorrow)post their credentials? Have we anything to gain or loose by having teachers post their credentials? These are questions desperately in need of answers and action.
Accordng to the(NCLB)No Child Left Behind Law as of June 2006 every classroom was to have a "Highly Qulaified Teacher".
Until this matter is resolved equity and adequacy in educcation will remain at risk. The risk will be greatest among those who are in low income areas.
Dr. Harry Wong in his book The First Days of School states that teachers should post their credentials in the classroom so parents know who is working with their children. The National Board for Professional Teaching Standards states that, "Teachers should know the subjects they teach and how to teach those subjects to their students". A math teacher in grades 6-12 should be a teacher with a math major. Isn't this only reasonable?
School districts are not requiring teachers to post their credentials. Should they?
Barbers, beauticians, mechanics, doctors, social workers, psychologist, and many of the people who provide services to the public do post their credentials. Why don't the people who take care of our most precious possessions(the minds, spirits, and future of tomorrow)post their credentials? Have we anything to gain or loose by having teachers post their credentials? These are questions desperately in need of answers and action.
Accordng to the(NCLB)No Child Left Behind Law as of June 2006 every classroom was to have a "Highly Qulaified Teacher".
Until this matter is resolved equity and adequacy in educcation will remain at risk. The risk will be greatest among those who are in low income areas.
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If you are unsure of your teacher's credentials, just ask--that information is freely available---If you think your school should display them, run for your local school board---and if you really think this is so important, forget displaying the credentials of teachers who are qualified, maybe put a big scarlet letter on the forehead of those that are not, so we can plainly see who they are, if that makes you feel better. And while you are at it, maybe you can do something about whiny parents who think it is up to the school to do everything, instead of understanding that the quality of their children's education is up to them--A parent's job is to send their child to school ready to learn---We have more inadequate parents out there than teachers---Maybe we ought to ask for credentials before we let people parent.
In all seriousness, equity in education in MIchigan has more to do with zip code, not a framed certificate of the teacher's alma mater hung on a wall somewhere. Try restructuring the way we fund our schools, so school children in Oakland COunty aren't valued at almost twice the rate of kids out-state. Pretty discriminatory for many of the state's schoolchildren to be valued at the minimum $7,000+ funding level, and then have to compete with kids from districts like Farmington, and Bloomfield Hills where they receive 12,000 dollars or more per kid,where they are upset because they had to close a pool or can't offer Freshman ballet---Other schools are closing buildings, crowding classrooms, cutting bussing, consolidating services and dwindling their fund balances down, so they can try to keep afloat--IS that Equitable??? Qualified teachers are important, of course, but displaying credentials is not what the problem is or what the legislature should be wasting their time on. IF you want to help equity in education, then get on board with folks who are addressing it realistically---check out Link