Wednesday, July 29, 2009

Raising Standards for our Teachers

During our last class, we discussed supply and demand, and the value the businesses and consumers place on that free-market theory. Education is a business in itself and should that not uphold the same thought of supply and demand? Are our students getting left behind though? Before we can truly look at the education we are receiving, we need to look to those who are giving us an education.

Is it possible to raise our standards for teachers and still have enough teachers for the incoming students? The creation of new standards for teachers is one sign of progress. These standards make sure teachers will know the subjects they teach and how to teach them to children. These values include those of the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards (NBPTS or National Board), which has developed challenging examinations to document and make out accomplished teaching among veteran teachers, and related values of the Interstate New Teacher Assessment and Support Consortium (INTASC), a group of more than 30 states that has lined together to make more tough licensing values and tests for beginning teachers. The national accrediting body for teacher education, NCATE (the National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education), has included standards into its outline for evaluating teacher education programs. This means that accredited programs must now show that they set up teachers with understanding of the content areas they teach and with an perceptive of learning, teaching, curriculum, assessment, and the uses of technology, among other things.

What can we do to ensue that our students are going to be achieving the best education they can achieve? We need to work on achieving a more constant look at education and not by a state-to-state problem. When one state struggles, our whole country will struggle. In Wisconsin or Minnesota, a future high school teacher must have done a bachelor's degree that includes a major in the subject area to be taught, also assignments covering learning theory, development of a youth, teaching methods, curriculum design, teaching strategies, uses of technology, behavior and motivation, human relations, and the education of students with special needs. The potential teacher must also complete at least 18 weeks of student teaching under a cooperating teacher who meets minimum standards. In Minnesota, this must include work in a setting with special needs students. On the other side, in Louisiana, a possible high school teacher could be licensed without even a minor in the field she was going to teach. The state would not require her to have studied the curriculum, classroom organization, uses of technology, or the needs of special students, and the teacher could receive a license with only six weeks of student teaching.

These are issues that we need to investigate in concerns to our own country. In my third and fourth blog, I will further investigate the issues of education in the U.S. and discuss more in-depth issues surrounding our financial backing from our government.

1 comment:

  1. Can you tie this is more to the topics we've discussed in class and the textbook?

    Work on bringing in the material from the text on narratives and media (as they are related to education) and find some articles relating more directly to global education (how Americans learn about the world).

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