Perhaps you’re as tired of “the education debate” as I am.
The subject, of course, is important. It matters to everyone who hopes to get a good or better job, to anyone who has kids, to employers who want workers who know what they’re doing.
But rarely is the debate about how to improve teaching. Usually, it rides political hobbyhorses–the dangers of “federal intrusion,” the role of the teachers unions, school choice programs and vouchers.
So it was refreshing to walk into a Senate office building last week and listen to people more interested in teachers than hobbyhorses.
Consider the shortage of qualified instructors to teach math and science–not surprising in a high-tech economy where mathematicians and scientists are in great demand.
“Why would you teach mathematics for $27,000 a year in San Jose when you can walk across the street to a Silicon Valley firm?” and make three times as much, asked Kati Haycock. She is director of The Education Trust and was a lead speaker at the conference, organized by the centrist Progressive Policy Institute.
Chester Finn, a former assistant secretary of education, suggested that schools could attract math teachers by paying them far more than teachers in fields where expertise is plentiful. Alternatively, Haycock said that the Silicon Valley mathematician might be encouraged to teach half-time and spend the other half of his working time in industry.
Both sensible ideas would require a more flexible education system–and taxpayers willing to pay for good math and science teachers.
Or take the problem of national standards. Using national tests to judge how well schools are doing makes perfect sense. But just say “national” and an army of politicians arises to thunder about the grave threats tests pose to “local control.” Never mind that the tests would empower local parents to go to their local school board or their principal and demand that their local schools do better.
Sen. Jeff Bingaman (D-N.M.) is for national testing. But as long as it’s mired in ideology, he’s pushing for a modest but sensible reform: Help move more qualified children into Advanced Placement courses.
AP courses, as they are known, embody what reformers extol: high standards in specific subjects, courses taught by teachers who know their field, and national exams that test competence and knowledge. “The same people who are objecting to a voluntary national math test swell with pride when their own children do well on an AP exam,” Bingaman said in an interview.
Bingaman helped get $3 million for this program last year, partly to pay for AP tests for low-income students. He says the federal government should spend more on this program, which combines the quest for social equity with the search for academic excellence.
Ah, but do we have the teachers to teach the courses? Well, no. Many teachers teach subjects they know little about.
Diane Ravitch, a specialist on education issues, said that 36 percent of public school teachers have neither a major nor a minor in their main teaching field. In social sciences, 59 percent teach what they haven’t studied. In natural sciences, it’s 40 percent. The problem is worse in schools in low-income areas.
But how do we set higher standards for teachers? Bingaman thinks one way is to end federal aid to schools of education from which fewer than 70 percent of graduates meet state licensing requirements. And teachers as well as students should be regularly tested.
But wouldn’t the teachers unions go ballistic? One reason there’s an opening for reform is that the teachers unions are worried–about, among other things, the spread of voucher programs (which won a victory when the Wisconsin Supreme Court last week validated the constitutionality of vouchers in Wisconsin).
Sandra Feldman, the president of the American Federation of Teachers, rejects teacher bashing. “Teaching in the most difficult places really is rocket science, it is brain surgery,” she said in an interview. Fair enough. But she acknowledges that the quality of teachers isn’t high enough, especially in the toughest public schools. “If you can breathe, you can teach in most of these schools,” she says.
Can’t we at least agree that we need more good teachers? That means honoring them more than we do, paying them more, especially in fields where there is a shortage. It also means looking beyond the education schools for teacher training and, yes, making it easier to fire bad teachers. Feldman’s mantra is: “We can’t support schools that we wouldn’t send our own children to.” Every teacher in the country should want to be held to that standard.
