POST Local

This was written by Paul Thomas, an associate professor of education at Furman University in South Carolina. A version of this first appeared on dailykos.com.

By Paul Thomas

Just days ago, I completed my 28th year as a teacher — 18 as a high school teacher of English followed by 10 years as a professor of education.

And I am excited about the coming semesters because, as I have felt every year of my teaching life, I know I failed in some ways this past academic year and I am confident I will be better in my next opportunities to teach.

As a teacher, I am far from finished — and I never will be.

I want to make a statement to the many and powerful leaders in education reform, all of whom have either no experience or expertise, or very little, as teachers:

I don’t need standards to teach. I need students.

This was written by Stephen Whittaker, a professor of rhetoric at The University of Scranton.

By Stephen E. Whittaker

For three decades, I have taught rhetoric in a university honors program, so I see the academic cream of the crop. Many of my former students today are doctors, lawyers, educators, managers, editors and non-profit leaders, and when I see them at reunions, they strike me as articulate, humane and conscientious.

Are these high achievers so different from the majority of college students? There have been reports that college students aren’t learning anything. If these claims are true, then we have a problem that is as dire as can be imagined, and this year’s commencements should cause alarm, not jubilation.

I am not in a position to judge the validity of the research about student learning. But I do know that these kinds of indictments are not new. In fact, they always remind me of a Paul Simon lyric from the early 70s that pretty well describes the ambivalence I feel, as a college teacher, 40 years later:

When something goes wrong

I’m the first to admit it;

I’m the first to admit it

And the last one to know.

I teach my students Plato’s Phaedrus, in which the Greek philosopher argues that the goal of education is to understand students’ souls, gifts, capacities and mastery of the material, and then lead them from that point. It is in this work that Socrates cites the latest technology — writing — as something that will rot the brains of the young, making them clueless, lazy and lacking in both information and critical thinking.

Sound familiar?

This was written by Aaron Pallas, professor of sociology and education at Teachers College, Columbia University. He writes the Sociological Eye on Education blog — where this post first appeared — for The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, non-partisan education-news outlet affiliated with the Hechinger Institute on Education and the Media.

By Aaron Pallas

For 10 months, Carolyn Abbott waited for the other shoe to drop. In April 2011, Abbott, who teaches mathematics to seventh- and eighth-graders at the Anderson School, a citywide gifted-and-talented school on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, received some startling news. Her score on the Teacher Data Report, the New York City Department of Education’s effort to isolate a teacher’s contribution to her students’
(bigstock) performance on New York State’s math and English Language Arts (ELA) tests in grades four through eight, said that 32 percent of seventh-grade math teachers and 0 percent of eighth-grade math teachers scored below her.

She was, according to this report, the worst eighth-grade math teacher in New York City, where she has taught since 2007.

“I was angry, upset, offended,” she said. Abbott sought out her principal, who reassured her that she was an excellent teacher and that the Teacher Data Reports bore no relation to her performance. But, the principal confided, she was worried; although she would enthusiastically recommend Abbott for tenure, the Teacher Data Report could count against her in the tenure process. With a new district superintendent reviewing the tenure recommendation, anything could happen.

This was written by John Jackson, president of the Schott Foundation for Public Education, and Pedro Noguera, the Peter L. Agnew professor of education at New York University.

By John H. Jackson and Pedro Noguera

If it takes a village to raise a child, the same village must share accountability when many children are educationally abandoned. In New York City, the nation’s largest school system, on average student outcomes and their opportunity to learn are more determined by the neighborhood where a child lives, than his or her abilities.

A new Schott Foundation for Public Education report, “A Rotting Apple: Education Redlining in New York City,” reveals that the communities where most of the city’s poor, black and Hispanic students live suffer from New York policies and practices that give their schools the fewest resources and their students the least experienced teachers. In contrast, the best-funded schools with the highest percentage of experienced teachers are most often located in the most economically advantaged neighborhoods.

Schott’s new report documents gaps that have not only long been accepted in New York City but are also institutionalized by city and state policies.

The report finds that a black or Hispanic student is nearly four times more likely to be enrolled in one of the city’s poorest performing high schools than an Asian or white, non-Hispanic student. According to review of 2009-10 data, none of the city’s strongest schools are located in the poorest neighborhoods of Harlem, the South Bronx, and central Brooklyn. Schools with the highest scores are found in northeastern Queens, the and the Upper East Side. As a result of New York City policies, black, Latino and low-income students have very limited access to those schools.

This was written by Marion Brady, veteran teacher, administrator, curriculum designer and author.

By Marion Brady

Exxon-Mobil is airing education-reform television ads. In the one I’ve seen most often, implicit and explicit messages are simple and clear: (a) We live in a dangerous, technologically complex world. (b) Our lives, liberties, and happiness hinge on our ability to cope with that world. (c) Coping requires mastery of math. (d) On standardized math tests, America ranks 25th in the world. (e) Be ashamed and afraid. (f) Get behind corporate education reform efforts.

I’ve no confidence in the standardized tests that produced that ranking or the ranking itself. Scores on tests that can’t measure the qualities of mind and spirit upon which survival depend are useless. And oversimplifying statistics to support an ideology-driven agenda is inexcusable.

I agree, however, that America needs good mathematicians.

How many? The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics says, “Employment of mathematicians is expected to increase by 16 percent from 2010 to 2020…. There will be competition for jobs because of the small number of openings in this occupation.”

Take math teachers out of the mix, and the number of mathematicians America needs is tiny. If one kid in each high school in the country became a professional mathematician, it would glut the market.