How to help public school teachers love their profession again | TheHill

How to help public school teachers love their profession again | TheHill

How to help public school teachers love their profession again

The 2018 election was marked in many corners as the “Year of the Teacher.” Record numbers of educators ran for—and some were elected to—local, state and national office.

Teachers also stormed statehouses from Arizona to West Virginia to demand better pay in what was known as the “Red for Ed” movement.

Why were so many teachers motivated to leave the classroom and get political on a scale never before seen?

According to EdChoice’s recent Schooling in America survey, a large proportion of public school educators around the country would not recommend their profession—specifically, teaching in public schools—to other colleagues or friends. 

We polled 777 current public school teachers and asked whether they were favorable to the profession based on a Net Promoter Score (NPS) question. The results were stunning: Nearly three-fourths of teachers in our survey would not promote or recommend teaching in public schools based on the NPS rubric.

In fact, only 26 percent clearly would be “promoters,” with 32 percent considered “passives” and 42 percent considered as “detractors” of the profession. In previous surveys, we have reported significantly higher percentages of promoters among active-duty military servicemembers and state legislators. Furthermore, teachers with 10 or more years of experience were more likely to be detractors than teachers with three or fewer years under their belt. Based on results, professional morale appears to go down the longer someone teaches.

Teachers are our most important educational resource. They shoulder the brunt of expectations and mandates placed on them by federal, state and local governments; by superintendents, school boards and principals; and, perhaps most frustratingly, by parents. Balancing these different forces—from testing requirements to government standards, from principals to parents—places a tremendous challenge for teachers, competing for time and attention when we would much rather they be focused on students’ needs.

This clearly has led to some trust issues for teachers with some of the groups imposing these policies, rules, and expectations. In our survey, majorities of teachers say they trust their students (52 percent) and principals (57 percent) most, but less than half say they trust their teachers’ union leadership (46 percent), superintendent (41 percent), or CONTINUE READING: How to help public school teachers love their profession again | TheHill

How Sputnik Launched Ed-Tech: The National Defense Education Act of 1958

How Sputnik Launched Ed-Tech: The National Defense Education Act of 1958

How Sputnik Launched Ed-Tech: The National Defense Education Act of 1958

On October 4, 1957 news brokethat the Soviet Union had successfully launched the first man-made satellite into space. Sputnik prompted a national panic, not simply over a looming Cold War – the possibility of Soviet spying or bombing, for example – but about the purported failures of the US education system.

“The schools never recovered from Sputnik, ” education researcher Gerald Bracey contends.

According to historian Robert Divine, President Eisenhower was “not impressed by the Soviet Fear. … He believed that American science and American education were much sounder than critics charged, and, above all, he was confident that the United States held a commanding lead over the Soviet Union in striking power.” But the President couldn’t compromise the military intelligence that reassured him that the US was ahead of the USSR in science and in education. And he failed to reassure the public or politicians or journalists that that was the case either.

So something had to be done.

One year later, in 1958, Eisenhower signed into law the National Defense Education Act, a cornerstone of his administration’s response to Sputnik. The law helped reshape education in the US with a massive influx of federal dollars. And it served to give education technology in particular not only funding and legitimacy but its ideological mission: a corrective to progressive education in the name of national security and science.

“When education becomes completely enmeshed in the petty, surface details of a student’s everyday life, it loses the opportunity of equipping him with the intellectual powers that lie beneath the surface. By frittering time away upon the ‘felt needs’ of adolescents, the school runs the risk of leaving its students helpless in the presence of the real ‘real life’ needs that will come later and that will put to test all the resources of a mature and disciplined intelligence.” - Arthur Bestor. Educational Wastelands

Progressive education was already under attack in the 1950s, with accusations from scholars and scientists that it was contributing to a growing anti-intellectualism in the US. It was, according to one admiral, making us “soft.” Progressive education, according to its critics, had become an excuse to not teach a huge swath of CONTINUE READING: How Sputnik Launched Ed-Tech: The National Defense Education Act of 1958  

HAPPY NEW YEAR MAY IT BE A VERY RED YEAR SOLIDARITY FOREVER #REDFORED #UTLAStrong #StrikeReady #March4Ed #WeAreLA

HAPPY NEW YEAR

MAY IT BE A VERY RED YEAR SOLIDARITY FOREVER

Michelle Malkin: Schools should beware of technology companies bearing gifts | Commentary | Dallas News

Schools should beware of technology companies bearing gifts  | Commentary | Dallas News

Schools should beware of technology companies bearing gifts

When it comes to Silicon Valley Santas bearing gifts for our children, I am a big Scrooge. Every responsible parent should be, too.

In 2016, Apple CEO Tim Cook showered a rural Idaho school district with 500 iPads and Apple TVs for every classroom, along with free training as part of a 29-state, $100-million personalized digital-technology program. He visited the Idaho schools recently with Ivanka Trump, who praised the "laboratories of innovation" for using Apple products "to transform the learning environment and personalize students' educational experiences based on their unique needs and strengths."

With all due respect, this is what I call Edutech Shiny Toy Syndrome. And it is out of control. Kids don't need screens for individualized educational experiences. They are already on those stultifying, addictive, isolating screens far too much. 

Why give captive schoolchildren more tech crack inside the classroom? And what is this "personalized learning" mumbo jumbo? That's what human beings — you know, parents and teachers — are for at home and at school.

Besides, after three years, what is the proof that all of Apple's and Google's and Microsoft's infiltration of the classroom is producing academic improvement and results? There is none. The Silicon Valley companies don't want to talk about academic achievement. Neither do all of the salivating administrators and edutech cheerleaders happily taking shiny-toy bribes.

That Idaho superintendent so enamored of Apple's goodies even admitted: "We're not trying to boost a test score here, we are trying to change a narrative for students."

I'll control my own kids' "narratives" and their personal data, thank you very much.

Parents across the political spectrum understand "personalized learning" is CONTINUE READING: Schools should beware of technology companies bearing gifts  | Commentary | Dallas News