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Obama Wants $1 Billion For "Master Teachers Corps"
theodp writes "The White House has unveiled a proposal to create a national elite teachers corps to reward the nation's best educators in science, technology, engineering and math. In the first year, as many as 2,500 teachers in those subjects would get $20,000 stipends on top of their base salaries in exchange for a multiyear commitment to the STEM Master Teacher Corps. The Obama administration plans to expand the corps to 10,000 nationwide over the next four years, with the ultimate goal that the elite group of teachers will pass their knowledge and skills on to their colleagues to help bolster the quality of teaching nationwide."
Obama has been looking for ways to release money into the economy as stimulus. I would much rather see it given to teachers than spent making and expending explosives where brown people live.
If video games influenced behavior the Pac Man generation would be eating pills and running away from their problems.
almost every "smart" kid at school is that way mostly due to parents making sure he does his work and understands everything
It's so much fun spending other peoples money, isn't it?
We are 15 TRILLION dollars in debt yet they keep spending like drunken leftists. Why worry, they can print all the money they want.
And these teachers go on to brainwash the young to be good little socialists such that they vote for more and more big government spending.
We are truly in deep shit if we do not trow these tyrants out of power in November.
Vote Romney for president and conservative in all other offices on your ballot.
Wake up drones!
Yes, the whole program could fund another four days of the US presence in Iraq
Hey, dumbass. Are you aware that fully half of the deficit is due to the Bush-era tax cuts? You know, those ones that were put in place when Republicans claimed that deficits didn't matter? The ones that turned a budget surplus into a deficit? Yeah, those. The endless money we spend on foreign wars accounts for another 1/4 of the deficit. Spending stimulates the economy, not austerity.
Forgive me for asking, but wtf are HOTS AND OBE? As far as I know, one is a passing crush, and the other is a British knightly order. I fail to see how either has any relevance to education, apart from someone having hots for their teacher who was knighted by the Queen...
Please. As a conservative, methinks you're talking out your ass. We have no problem with public school teachers. What we have a problem with is unions that continue to protect teachers that are poor performers or don't adapt to new teaching techniques, which is exactly the reason why we're in the sad state we are, these days. The point is that as teachers reach tenure, some, not all, can become complacent, and just use their job for a paycheck, while others go out of their way to create interesting, stimulating lesson plans. Who gets rewarded more? In most cases, the complacent one, as they've achieved tenure, they get greater raises and it's nigh on impossible to fire them. As a realist, I think this program is a step in the right direction, incentivizing good, young teachers to excel and actually TEACH their students, rather than just read out of a book. ON the other hand, nothing the federal government ever does ONLY costs a billion dollars.
I can think of many things which would improve the quality of public schools without raising taxes:
1. Tort reform. Serious, hardcore tort reform at the state level which takes an axe to all of the areas where frivolous lawsuits can be brought would eliminate the argument for any policy that is grounded in the fear of what some idiot might sue over.
2. End zero tolerance under pain of imprisonment for anyone who punishes a student for acting in self-defense.
3. Remove any student who is constantly disrupting class. If they become a problem (and don't have a documented mental handicap), simply expel them and kick them out onto the street.
4. Establish a general policy of erring on the side of pacing the class to the speed of the top 50% of the class, not the bottom 50%. If the bottom cannot keep up, offer them tutoring; if they fail objectively, fail them for the year.
If there was any indication that Romney and his cronies were not "tyrants" who would exhibit the same degree of fiscal insanity as the current crop of politicians, I might consider voting for them.
The Geroge W. Bush era clearly demonstrated that we have two parties of big government in Washington DC. There is no longer genuine political opposition on a policy level. The two parties are just fighting over who gets to play Santa for the next few years.
Vote for Gary Johnson, Jill Stein or whomever. The only wasted vote is one cast for Democrats or Republicans.
So they oppose Higher Order Thinking Skills (HOTS) and Outcome-Based Education (OBE). The real issue for the Texas Republican Party is that these programs might lead children to question their parent's religion or politics. Personally, I think it's a sign of weakness to fear questions.
Fanatically anti-fanatical
The washington post article may not be telling the whole story, but the reasoning and explanations are right in the document. If the texas government was opposed to it because they thought it teaches poorly or has something wrong in the curriculum I could sympathize, the republican party's actual platform documentation specifically states the issue with the programs is "Challenging the students fixed beliefs and undermining parental authority". Quite simply, they oppose the idea of teaching kids to think for themselves instead of blindly following what their parents or other authority figures tell them.
Parents don't have to 'make their kids work,' they have to encourage their kids to work, and teach them the value of an education. I believe that what the poster was trying to say is that if parents don't encourage education, the student won't succeed. That rule stands --regardless of ability--. There's research there - go to ERIC, and search the words 'parental involvement correlation with student achievement'. That's a basic, basic fact about education. Teachers are only glorified babysitters if parents don't teach the kids to value education.
"There is discussion". Now there is a loaded phrase. You could also say, "There is discussion that the bleeding Virgin Mary statue is a harbinger of End Times" but that doesn't mean it should be taken seriously.
That's the new way the Right is attacking anything science-based: "There is discussion" or "There is a controversy in the field...". Yeah, except the controversy is mainly on the pages of NewsMax just above the story about how eating soy products will make you gay.
If you actually look at the "critical thinking" curricula that this whole "controversy" is about, it's pretty reasonable: "Test hypotheses" is basically what it comes down to, but that's just a bridge to far for the belly-scratchers who call themselves "conservatives" these days.
It's a good thing that I took the time out to ask a teacher about this "Critical Thinking" curricula that is driving the Right crazy, or I might have thought this was some sort of post-modern education-theory drivel and moved on. It's not. It's basic, Isaac Newton-stuff. Problem is, that if you get a kid testing hypotheses and thinking about what he's told, he might end up wondering how God put all those phony dinosaur fossils in the Earth just to fool us into thinking that we revolve around the Sun instead of the other way around. Or something.
You are welcome on my lawn.
In terms of strengths, he quite openly admits that the salary supplement (which was less than the GBP equivalent of $20,000 when he joined - closer to around $8,000 equivalent) was a very attactive consideration, given that he was graduating with a fair old pile of debt. None of the other career options he was considering would have made it possible for him to move away from the parents and live independently in London quite so quickly. He's also noted that he (and others like him) actually know his subject (maths) to the extent that they can actually field questions from students that go away from the narrow syllabus. He was horrified by how many of his older colleagues were dependant on being allowed to stick to a very narrow syllabus.
This is one of the keys - a teacher should know the subject he/she is teaching. Having a teacher who fears/dodges off-syllabus questions is probably quite demotivating for the student. When I was in high school (some decades ago), our maths teacher died suddenly two years before we were due to graduate, and there was "difficulty" finding a replacement. The solution was that two postgrad engineering students did it as part-time jobs. They were great, not just being closer in age to us than the older teachers, but they both knew more than enough maths, were very keen on the subject, and imparted all sorts of unifying insights that weren't on the syllabus then. We had a "real" maths teacher again for the final year of high school, but he made the subject dull again.
On the other side of the coin, a lot of his intake to the graduate scheme dropped out relatively quickly - within the first year in many cases. The scheme was highly focussed on underperforming schools - which largely tend to be those which have the most severe discipline problems. It's no secret that many classes in those schools are more about crowd control than education. As my friend is the oldest of 6 siblings, he came to this with a natural advantage. By contrast, those who had gotten onto the scheme on the basis of academic ability often simply couldn't cope with the levels of misbehaviour, abuse and violence that are endemic in our less impressive schools and dropped out.
The second key is the parents, since it is they who will impart the love of learning (or not) at an early age, and provide encouragement (or not) by the way they value their kids' achievements at school. This key is largely missing in the more deprived areas, and consequent problems involving discipline and rejection of authority can be contagious when large numbers of the kids are dismissive of education. It's a bit of a chicken-and-egg problem, unless one adopts some kind of dispersal of the kids among other schools whose pupils are more attuned to learning (this is also not without drawbacks, and bussing has a poor reputation in the US).
The other problem revolved around the reactions of other teachers - and particularly the teaching unions - to the scheme members. This is a profession where pay and career advancement had long been (and is still largely expected to be) determined by length of service, rather than performance or potential. Having a bunch of "bright young things" on additional pay and a fast track to Department-head and other management positions went down in most staff-rooms like a cup of cold sick. At the same time, the unions (membership of which is not mandatory, but is widespread) did everything they legally could to make life unpleasant for them. If you find yourself on a "Fast Track" scheme like this, you need to be prepared to be a bit of a staff room pariah.
Teachers' unions in the US - good luck with that. Your image of "two teachers one cup" is probably accurate enough as an estimate of their reaction.
Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. - Voltaire
Our Founding Fathers never envisioned a Federal role in public education. Public education is and should be managed on a local/regional level. These attempts to overreach Federal powers need to be stopped.
Ron Paul 2012 - (even if I have to write him in)
So they will not be paid to teach as much as they will be paid to lead meetings... just what we need in the education system is less teaching and more meetings -not-
It really all depends on what you need from the "education" system, doesn't it?
Teachers’ Unions 101: ‘A’ Is for ‘Agitation’
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
One billion to give 2500 teachers a $20K stipend. So it costs $400K per teacher to provide that $20K raise?!!!!
Quite simply, they oppose the idea of teaching kids to think for themselves instead of blindly following what their parents or other authority figures tell them.
So we should teach children to challenge authority. How wonderful! I look forward to another generation of children who believe every one of their arguments actually means something. Just make sure to teach kids to challenge all authority. Starting with yours.
Many schools have a policy of expulsion for any student involve in any altercation, regardless of the reason. Better put, if, as a student, I was attacked and subdued my attacker, I would be automatically expelled.
I was involved in several fights in school, mostly defending friends. I never used any more force than required to terminate the situation and never instigated. If these policies had been in place when I was in school (not that long ago, the late 1990s), I would have been expelled immediately. Blind application of policies is pretty much always bad, particularly when they have strong consequence.
Just another ignorant American.
The only people who don't understand that the document is expressing opposition to fake methodologies that focus on making the students feel good and are ineffective at teaching, are those who evidently went to a school teaching these methodologies.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
I need to be convinced that free markets produce the right incentives. Here in the UK, successive governments have tried to introduce an element of competition to the school system, but instead of seeing 'competition', we see these things:
Poor, government funded schools being starved of funds on ideological grounds, where in fact, they are the schools that need the most resources put into them to turn them around.
Rich private schools creaming off the best students and teachers, concentrating privilege in the best schools, and creating a Dead Sea effect in the worst schools
Governments introducing 'competition' through gimmicks like league tables; and schools gaming the shit out of the league tables. They choose exam boards who produce the easiest tests to pass and do the softest marking. It had lead to a FLOURISHING free market in educational services (including expensive seminars by the for-profit exam boards, giving teachers advice and hints on how to game their system). That free market has created some incredibly bad incentives.
However, I don't expect you to appreciate the limitations of the free market in improving education. You seem to be a card carrying libertarian and a naiive, ideologically blinkered idealist every bit as bad as the "socialists" you hate. You libertarians, on the sum of it, are actually pretty stupid, because like all extremists, you think the truth comes exclusively from your simplistic, naive and frankly stupid ideology. You are every bit as bad as the leftists.
Teaching is becoming a nasty job. The pay is low, and constantly under political threat. Socially teaching is looked down upon ("those who can't, teach", and "they get the summer off", "they are ruining our kids"). Teachers are under all kinds of pressures: "Teach to the test, even at the expense of your own curriculum!", "Handle larger numbers of kids at a time!", etc. Not to mention the sick urge to over-evaluate and fire teachers, sometimes on crazy-town metrics (http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/05/nyregion/in-brooklyn-hard-working-teachers-sabotaged-when-student-test-scores-slip.html?pagewanted=all).
Becoming a teacher means embracing low pay, constant criticism, an ever increasing workload, and a political environment aching for more ways to fire you. Ask yourself this: Would you leave your job to teach? As a college student, would you risk making a career of teaching? Would a potential $20k annual bonus in exchange for a multiyear commitment to more work change your mind?
...that one of the most reliably-Democratic demographics is teachers?
http://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/summary.php?id=D000000064
http://www.followthemoney.org/database/top10000.phtml?topl=1&topnum=10000
NATIONAL EDUCATION ASSOCIATION
- #1 Contributors to state-level campaigns, political parties, and ballot measure committees in 2007 and 2008
- donated 2:1 to Democrats over Republicans in state races.
- donated 25:1 Dems:Repubs in national races since 1990 (the charted dates, but it's been a mainstay of DNC contributors for much, much longer)
-Styopa
I don't know about your parenting style if you are a parent, but if I tell my son to do something and he asks why, that is encouraged and a reason is given, things are explained. I don't subject to the "because I said so" mentality of parenting. Sometimes you let them do stupid things to learn and see the consequences. If a parent can't give a good reason for why something can or can't be done, perhaps that isn't a rule that needs to be enforced. Now there are time and places where asking questions isn't a good idea, but those are not as common. IMO if you explain to a child the reasoning behind something, he will make better decisions when no-one is around to tell him not to do something, and while I have his best interests at heart, sometime in his life he will find an authority figure that does not, maybe a crappy boss trying to take advantage of him, maybe a teacher is actually teaching incorrect facts, maybe I'm actually wrong about something. If my son can present me a solid case for why a rule I have is unneeded or wrong I will look over what he gives discuss with him any errors in his logic and possibly adjust the rule. He's allowed to "question" whether I am right all he wants, and if he finds a reason I am not right, then things are adjusted fairly.
Obama has been catering to public unions his entire term and this is just another example of it. His solutions to high unemployment over the years has been to expand the public sector. Besides the political deception that he is "creating jobs", that translates to higher taxes for the rest of us which we can ill afford.
I live in New York state and the reason we have the highest state taxes is public unions. They hold too much influence in state government and there are too many lawmakers sympathetic to the public unions. Fifteen years ago there were 10 private sector jobs paying for every 1 public sector job, now it is 4 to 1 which has been pushing up taxes. This worsening ratio continues because 1)businesses are leaving the state taking jobs with them and 2) the state keeps expanding the public sector at the expense of the taxpayer. State pensions is another driving force behind high taxes (state employees don't even pay income tax on their PENSIONS). Many state citizens are leaving and soon I will join the exodus. In the last twenty years, only one new business has set up shop in New York state. One!
There are too many parallels between NYS and Obama's public sector policies. Obama has proven that he is hostile to the private sector by broadening regulations, and the reason businesses are reluctant to hire is because they have had to employ resources just to ensure compliance with the new regulations! Four more years of Obama and businesses will be leaving the country. Obama just doesn't get it and he never will.
The solution is not to throw $$$ at the problem. The solution is to get the parents involved in their childrens' education.
Eternity: will that be smoking, or non-smoking? I Corinthians 6:9-10
But gee. .what's another billion or two down the sinkhole that is edukation in the US? More money is thrown at and wasted upon schools, teachers and ....gasp... yes the children and what is there to show for it? NOTHING. 60 years of NOTHING. Class sizes are up to 50% smaller, many in the low teens. Effect? ZERO. Electronic teaching 'aides', internet, laptops, tablets... Effect? ZERO. Teacher salaries and benefits into six figures? Effect? Richer teachers.
Test scores are flatline and have been since the 1960s. But yeah, just keep tossing money at it because there is clearly a 'problem'. If I had the dough I would open a school with a curriculum and teaching practices based upon that used in the 1920s to 1940s. Shocking how the grups can actually do simple math in their heads, write a coherent sentence, are well read and even know quite a bit of world history.
If you look at the debt breakdown by the CBO, you can see that almost all of it came from the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, and Bush's tax cuts.
I'd rather have children that ask, "why?" as opposed to just asking "how high" when someone commands them to jump.
There are a lot of things out there pretending to be authorities, when in reality, they are at best propaganda machines, at worst scam artists. Giving kids a sophisticated bullshit detector is crucial if they are to succeed in today's world.
This applies to so many facets of life.
I had a similar incident, but I was hit first while sitting down and was going to be hit again when I punched him as hard as I could with 1 uppercut. My attacker ended up unconscious with a broken jaw and the fight ended with that. Unfortunately my school had a zero tolerance policy and any party who threw punches the school would file 5 degree assault charges on behalf of the party on the receiving end as well as being suspended for 5 days. I ended up missing 7 days of school, 5 for suspension, 1 for having to go to court to clear my name, and a 1 to go to court for the proper prosecution of my attacker. At the time I was 17 and my attacker was 18 so I filed my own charges as legally this was an adult attacking a minor which made it worse for him. For me the worst part was the letter of "apology" I got from the fucker while he was rotting in the county jail for 3 moths where he basically tried to state that is wasn't his fucking fault for deciding to pick a fight with me and that is wasn't his fault for hitting me first. After reading that I wanted to go beat the piss out of him but this time not relent once he was subdued. Apparently this individual has been a problem for society ever since as every couple of years I get a letter requesting I provide a deposition or something like that as a former victim.
Time to offend someone
(Yes I am focusing on Monotheistic religions here)
1 We have radical religious folks who choose to disbelieve science.
2 We have religious folk who can deal with science and religion, they take the bible more in terms of stories to teach a lesson and less about it being fact
3 We have religious folk who believe in a higher being but can attest that they could be wrong.
4 We have the people who are agnostic.
5 We have atheist who do not believe in a higher being but attest that they could be wrong.
6 We have atheist who choose not to believe in a higher being. (But respect religious people)
7 We have radical atheist who choose not to believe in a higher being, and seem to make a point to discredit all beliefs based on lack of evidence.
Now group 1 and group 7 are often the most vocal. Their fighting tends to urge people with closer numbers to radicalize too.
Both tend to give very week arguments.
Group 1. the Bible Thumpers who whole argument is based on a book that has been compiled from thousands of years of vocal tradition, then translated multiple times. Then use circular logic to explain its accuracy. Aka. This book proves God exists and is correct because God will keep it that way.
Group 7. The Angry Atheists discredit a supernatural entity based on lack of natural evidence. There cannot be a God who created the universe and its rules, because by following the rules of the universe it doesn't show an entity the breaks the rules.
Now there are a lot more religious people then atheists. The more they try to discredit religion, the more protective religious people are going to get, so they will more likely side with the extreme.
If you let the more moderate groups use science to disprove something, then you give more credit to the idea. So for example the Catholic church (Bla Bla Sex abuse Scandal , jokes about alter-boys... ), actually uses science to discredit a lot of proposed Miracles that happens all the time, now the Catholic church motives for this are varied, mainly because they don't want people faking Miracles so they can get attention and distract from the churches teachings. The Catholic Church is actually a rather moderate religious entity (The left wing, things it is too right wing, the Right wing thinks it is to leftist) but if they show with science and debunk something, it isn't viewed as an attempt to abolish faith or an attempt to ignore science. Thus you keep the moderates well in the moderate span.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
And all that is fine, for an adequately sophisticated parent.
Unfortunately, we also have a great deal of parents who aren't terribly articulate.
These are decent people who lead good lives, but in terms of raw intellect, or being able to explain rules in a way that children will appreciate, well, they fall short.
These people lead decent lives because they live by a vast cultural heritage, with thousands of unspoken mores and customs, that allowed the creation of the nation we have today, and enabled them to succeed to the extent that they do.
Their children need to learn these same lessons, and be imbued with the same general cultural practices and mores, until they are independant and mature enough to reflect on them.
That is why "Because I said so" needs to remain a valid option, and why parents (and teachers) need to be able to impose discipline on children.
No, the results of effective parental authority will not always be perfect. They will not measure up against some imaginary flawless standard method of child-rearing (that exists nowhere). Mistakes will be made. Feelings will be hurt. A minority with especially depraved parents will come out worse for the matter.
On the balance, though, society benefits from parental authority, and using 'because I said so' as a necessary method.
The rules of society are not built for those with 80+ percentile knowledge and verbal skills. They're built for everyone.
Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms should be the name of a store, not a government agency.
Please. As a conservative, methinks you're talking out your ass. We have no problem with public school teachers. What we have a problem with is unions that continue to protect teachers that are poor performers or don't adapt to new teaching techniques, which is exactly the reason why we're in the sad state we are, these days.
As a conservative also, I notice that there hasn't been a single proposal from the Republican party on how to hold teachers accountable, or how to fix the problem. We know that privatization hasn't produced the promised outcomes, so what now?
... incentivizing good, young teachers to excel and actually TEACH their students, rather than just read out of a book. ON the other hand, nothing the federal government ever does ONLY costs a billion dollars.
Smart, competent people are in demand. You incentivize those people to become teachers by paying them what they'd make elsewhere, plus a little more. A conservative would see good pay as a required first step for fixing the system. Republicans do not. From their perspective, government employees should be paid as little as possible, so that they'll go out and find real jobs in the private sector and shrink government even further. The well-being of the country takes a backseat to realizing some bizarre fantasy that a country can be strong without decent education as its cornerstone.
So as conservative, I like this Obama plan. It's not much, but it's something, which is more than we've seen in my lifetime on the education front.
if I tell my son to do something and he asks why, that is encouraged and a reason is given, things are explained. I don't subject to the "because I said so" mentality of parenting. Sometimes you let them do stupid things to learn and see the consequences. If a parent can't give a good reason for why something can or can't be done, perhaps that isn't a rule that needs to be enforced.
I really try to do this to, but it is so hard.
Me: Get in the car. ........
Child: Why?
M: Because we have to go to school?
C: Why?
M: Because you need to learn things and play with other kids, and Daddy has to go to work?
C: Why?
M: Well, social development is important and I have to make money so we have a house and food to eat?
C: Why?
M: Why what?
C: Why we need food to eat?
M: If we don't eat we will die.
C: Why?
And this doesn't end. He will keep going until I either say, "I don't know" or "Just because. That's the way it is." I hate saying it, but I don't know how to break the cycle. I'm trying out other options such as, "I don't know, why do you think we will die if we don't eat?"
Ceci n'est pas un sig.