It’s good that President Biden is focusing on updating school buildings in his infrastructure plan. But there’s another crisis his administration should address. America needs a national movement to get well-prepared teachers into our public school classrooms.
The teaching profession has been in crisis mode for years. Much of this crisis has been generated by wealthy groups and individuals, venture philanthropists, who want to see technology replace teachers. They often use the term equity, but real equity isn’t found on a computer. Children need to see diversity face-to-face in the classroom, including real teachers of color.
It’s time to restore dignity to the profession and ensure that every child has access to qualified teachers, teachers who look like they do, care about what and how they learn like children should be cared about. Who are willing to choose teaching as a long-time career. Students need to know that their teachers are committed to them for the long haul.
This should include revisiting the Every Student Succeeds Act.
The Highly Qualified Teacher requirements (which stipulated that you must hold at least a bachelor’s degree from a four-year institution, be fully certificated or licensed by the state, and demonstrate competence in each core academic subject area in which you teach) are no more.
While the HQT was problematic, states are now left to determine their own definitions of what makes a teacher. The profession is up for grabs with nonprofits and unregulated teacher training programs. Clarity needs to come from the U.S. Department of Education.
Meanwhile, in Biden’s current plan, we read:
As we make our schools safer, we also will invest in cutting-edge, energy-efficient and electrified, resilient, and innovative school buildings with technology and labs that will help our educators prepare students to be productive workers and valued students.
Education Week reports:
The plan would provide an additional $100 billion to help expand broadband access in communities nationwide. This funding would not be targeted at schools, but it would help address the lack of reliable internet that has made remote learning and homework difficult for many students. Funding to help address that concern was also including in the COVID-19 relief bill.
This goal may make sense considering the past year. Students need access to the Internet. But online charter schools and transforming public schools from within into online learning hubs is worrisome if the teacher component is missing, especially since research indicating benefits of learning by machine only is pretty much absent.
Students deserve access to qualified teachers who have credentials in the subject they teach and understand the age group with which they work. Technology is a tool for them to use.
Do Americans want teacherless classrooms? Are they willing to accept a continuous diet of online instruction for children in school?
The Biden administration has made little mention of the teacher problem. The media reports on a teacher shortage, but that shortage has always been about driving teachers out of their classrooms, replacing them with alternatives like Teach for America. Older teachers higher on the pay scale have especially been affected. Now there’s much talk about volunteers.
Study Knowledgeworks, or Digital Promise. Teachers are reduced to facilitators—technology rules. Watch states close public schools only to open more online charters.
This drive to privatize by tech isn’t partisan. One can equally find Arne Duncan working for the tech industry, selling online learning like Betsy DeVos.
While the Covid-19 problem escalated and teachers worried about safety concerns, many teachers retired early; others continued in-person, remote, hybrid, all while school districts couldn’t find substitutes.
So it’s good that President Biden is working on fixing school buildings and the other infrastructure problems in this country. It’s hard to believe that lead pipes, inadequate ventilation systems, and asbestos still raise concerns. These issues were troubling for students and teachers before Covid-19.
We also need, however, better teacher recruitment, well-designed university college of education programs, incentives to get teachers who retired early back into the classroom, along with better high school future teacher organizations, fairer wages, tighter certification rules, smaller class sizes, resources and materials, and a campaign showing how teaching can be rewarding and a vibrant profession.
The time for this is long overdue but now also seems like the right time. We have a real teacher as the first lady and one, hopefully, two, real educators at the top of the ladder. They’ve studied education and how children and youth learn by attending accredited universities. They did not come from fast-track training programs.
It’s time to create a teaching profession supported, and given the respect it deserves to become a shining example for the world to see! If Americans want real progress, they must get behind the people who will make it happen, America’s public school teachers.
States set teacher qualifications and most teacher prep programs seek approval by national organizations.
The current generation of college grads do not consider a first job as a career.
Kids live in a technology driven world, and technology is an excellent motivation as well as a tool in classrooms.
Teaching must change to meet a changing world and teachers must learn to incorporate technology.
I didn’t say they shouldn’t do that. The concern is technology replacing teachers, or having those college grads steering students how to work online.
There’s NO research that indicates students do well with tech alone. That’s the concern, and students still need REAL well-prepared teachers in their subjects at every level, especially elementary and early childhood.
Also, whenever I read about changing world argument, few seem to know what it is changing too. Students will still need to learn subject matter.
I have been teaching at a distance for this entire school year. The majority of my students are more disengaged than in past years. Class discussions are difficult and the richness of a classroom lesson is often lost. I teach Mathematics and technology is only really fit for small instances of discovery learning or largely for teaching of algorithms. Teaching of algorithms only is like teaching music through only learning how to read music or giving a test on parts of an instrument without ever getting to touch an instrument. In short, teaching mathematics through technology alone would be a travesty and of course would only be done to the poor kids because the more affluent families would seek out the learning that is going on at high priced private schools.
Well appreciated, Simon. I like that you discuss the importance of the classroom when it comes to mathematics. Thank you for taking the time to comment.
Without re-educating teachers in validity of using Discipline Based Art Education strategies for the gen-ed teaching programs, reinstating “kiddy art” as a required component, there will never be an integrated curriculum or value placed on how kids actually learn. This new dedication for standardized testing has removed entire arts programs from many states’ public schools.
Brain science is no longer a requirement, nor is art,music or dance. I found teacher ed programs on line who don’t know who Gardiner, Piaget or Eisner are. They’re all on line asking for tips and tricks to use art. Many new teachers are being hired without rudimentary classroom management skills.
Developmental readiness should be a core component of teacher education, not an afterthought learned on the job. Teachers NEED to know the reasons why kids learn as well as how.
Thank you for your continued work as an education blogger.
Thank you, Sue. It’s hard to believe how some schools, usually in poorer neighborhoods, got rid of the arts. The arts are necessary for students to thrive at every level. I appreciate your drawing our attention to this.
You nailed it, as usual. At the heart of the teacher shortage is the idea that teachers are to blame for all the problems of society. Ditching this will be a challenge much greater than fixing curriculum expectations or lead pipes. Too many people owe their political power to the demonization of teachers.
“It’s time to restore dignity to the profession…”
It would help if teachers and education administrators would treat colleagues as dignified professionals. Too often, over the years, I witnessed teachers speaking to peers as though they were paling around in high school, administrators talking down to teachers or otherwise trying to intimidate, and teacher lounges filled with lame gossip. I have a difficult time thinking of doctors and lawyers treating their professional peers, likeable or not, in a less than dignified manner while engaged in their profession.
I’m sorry you experienced that. I agree although I think it might occur in other professions too. Teachers and admins. should set an example for students.