Maureen Downey's recent opinion piece on
"It's time to elevate teaching as a career" is in itself a case study on what is wrong with today's school system. There are so many problems with this failed ecosystem it is hard to figure out where to start. But start we must.
Perhaps it is best to recognized that "education" is an industry. An industry with lots of moving parts: colleges; graduate programs; online PhDs; consultants; politicians; bureaucrats; silver-bullet programs; wrap-around-services; and worst of all, textbook publishers. The origins of this industry may well have been teaching and learning, the cultivation of knowledge and skill in the youth of America, but that is long gone having been reduced to little more than a marketing tool. If there is any learning going on in our schools it comes with minimal retention and at enormous monetary and societal costs.
Then there is the Goebbels-like drumbeat of the "teaching profession." But what is a "profession" and what are "professionals?" Since relativism is educators' lifeblood let's take that approach and define by comparison. Law is a profession and to practice lawyers must have a law degree and pass the bar exam. Admission to law school requires a bachelors degree and a decent score on the LSATs. Medical professionals spend four years in med school after their bachelor degree and passing the MCATs and then spend several years in residency at which point they can apply to the state for a license which requires a test. Professional Engineers* obtain their education, often considered quite rigorous, sit for a test, work under the supervision of licensed engineers for several years before they sit for the PE exam after which, should they pass, they will obtain their license. This is what "professional" looks like.
This is not what teaching looks like. Teaching requires a four year degree, weak on subject matter, like mathematics, to afford time for pedagogical training. So that sixth grade math teacher may know less math than the engineers' daughter** sitting in class. Is there a qualifying exam to teach? Well, sort of. It is called
the GACE, and while teachers have to take the exam there are many with long standing in front of a "smart board" who've tried and failed, often multiple times. And teaching does not require an advanced degree or supervised, practical experience to get a license and in fact many classroom "teachers" are not licensed. How "professional" is that?
Sooner or later the conversation turns to money. It always does. And someone
always trots out the old "someone in industry with an equivalent degree and the same years of experience would be making over $100K and I only get $69K." Wow. And that gal in the real world would be working 47 weeks a year (15 days PTO, 10 holidays--maybe) and she wouldn't get annual raises for merely hanging on another 4 quarters. Multi-week, even monthlong breaks are
de rigueur in the edu-industry. Defined benefit retirement, AKA "pension?" You gotta be kidding. Then there are the Edu-industry STEP raises that are completely detached from performance with failing performers getting the same bump as those who struggle and improve. But industry-gal would actually have to produce. And industry-gal has no tenure, and in Georgia as in many other states she can be terminated without cause and without notice. The real kicker is that industry-gal may actually be a licensed Professional Engineer and while this may garner a higher salary it also makes her an easy target come layoff time.
But teachers and their representatives will argue that we should pay better so we get better teachers. OK. Let's run with that. When will these teachers show up? What do we do with the, kindly put, less capable teachers we now have on payroll and on the cheap? And this is the essence of the education Mexican Standoff. We'd prefer that you give us better teachers and
then we'll pay more. You'd prefer we pay more, now and to all, and then we'll see about jacking up competence in the classroom.
Is there a way to break the impasse? Technically, yes but practically probably not. Several fairly straightforward, inexpensive steps could be taken.
Focus. If you claim the high ground, the devotion to our future thru the noble profession of "teaching," then teach. Stop with the all the other ancillary, smoke-screen activities often used to obscure that fact that learning was abandoned long ago.
Eliminate tenure. All the arguments in support of tenure are unfounded in reality but the harm, the fostering, the harboring of incompetence is real and destructive.
Reject relativism in all its manifestations. Doing "better" isn't the same as "doing well." It isn't even doing "good enough." Only in education will an organization get more money or an employee a raise simply because they suck less, or worse yet they managed to suck pretty much the same for another year.
Increase the rigor and preparedness of incoming teachers. Eliminate watered-down, hyphenated education degrees making education programs require graduate studies or at the very least a double-major. Improve the rigor of the GACE and make it an absolute minimal requirement. No exceptions.
And finally we must address the elephant in the room: corporate interests. No school in Georgia should buy another text book or any other teaching or training material from any textbook company or conglomerate. Hard stop. All these materials should come from programs in our public universities where tenure-track and tenured professors contribute their enormous knowledge and pedagogical talents to the greater good.
Give us a better system with better teachers. Put learning back into education. Then our public schools might be worth what we're already paying.
* Unlike law and medicine, Georgia's Secretary of State has long failed in enforcing laws around licensing of Professional Engineers allowing many companies and employees to use the title "Software Engineer" when in fact there is no such thing under Georgia law.
** Engineers' kids are always forced to "do math."
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