Prestige and respect, not only salary, are seen as crucial elements in the quest for a truly professional teacher workforce
Its hard work and most people have unrealistic expectations of today's students and parents. And our own society sees us as mildly noble or just not ambitious enough to get into a real (read paying) field.
In Finland, the country whose education practices we've come to admire even more than the Japanese system that "W" and his cronies so often falsely and purposefully mislead us to believe were the apples to apples, the perfect example for the absolute need for NCLB. Lets not forget that NCLB was normed on fabricated test data from one or more districts in the Houston, Texas area that admitted to fixing the numbers. A thinly veiled attempt at crippling the public education system in lieu of a more privatized thereby inherently more exclusive system. I have joked sardonically about "W's" dream of a Walmart National Elementary School District for kids whose parents couldn't afford to pad their vouchers and send their children to the "nicer schools." The schools whose teachers weren't Chinese Factory Workers on assignment by the Beijing Government, under contract with Walmart Stores. International.
One of the most troubling things that the 2010 National Teacher of the Year, Sarah Brown Wessling, hears about her profession can be summed up in a single observation: the idea that she and other top-performing colleagues are "just" teachers.
The word "just" serves as a reminder of a subtle mindset among some in the United States that a career in K-12 teaching, while considered noble, is nevertheless somehow seen as beneath the capacity of talented young men and women.
"People go into teaching because they are committed to young people, because they are incredible communicators or experts in their field," says Wessling, a high school English teacher in Johnston, Iowa. "But many people in our country see teaching as though it were something one chose as a fall back career. A type of government job with mediocre pay but good benefits. plug in for 20+ years then retire. WRONG! COULDN'T BE MORE SO. EMPLOYEES WITH THAT MIND SET USUALLY WASH OUT IN 3-4 YEARS. OR THEY FAST TRACK THEMSELVES OUT OF THE SCHOOL SITE AND INTO THE DISTRICT OFFICE ADMINISTRATION. THEY AREN'T GOING TO THROW AWAY THE 50-60 THOUSAND DOLLARS IT TOOK TO FIND OUT THEY HATE WORKING WITH KIDS AND PARENTS. IT IS NOT A AVOCATION FOR THE WEAK OF HEART OR LACKING IN PASSION FOR THE ENDEAVOR.
In Finland, the country whose education practices we've come to admire even more than the Japanese system that "W" and his cronies so often falsely and purposefully mislead us to believe were the apples to apples, the perfect example for the absolute need for NCLB. Lets not forget that NCLB was normed on fabricated test data from one or more districts in the Houston, Texas area that admitted to fixing the numbers. A thinly veiled attempt at crippling the public education system in lieu of a more privatized thereby inherently more exclusive system. I have joked sardonically about "W's" dream of a Walmart National Elementary School District for kids whose parents couldn't afford to pad their vouchers and send their children to the "nicer schools." The schools whose teachers weren't Chinese Factory Workers on assignment by the Beijing Government, under contract with Walmart Stores. International.
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