Comments on: I enter this fray. http://legion.matinic.us/2008/10/16/i-enter-this-fray/ An amalgamated journal Wed, 21 Dec 2011 20:29:25 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 By: natalia http://legion.matinic.us/2008/10/16/i-enter-this-fray/comment-page-1/#comment-688 natalia Sat, 18 Oct 2008 04:19:32 +0000 http://legion.matinic.us/?p=506#comment-688 My biggest problem with the throw-money-at-schools approach is that improved resources, while certainly important, don't always make teachers better--I worked in a school last year where all the second-grade classrooms and several of the older ones received SmartBoards, which can be a fun and easy way to teach certain lessons but will do absolutely nothing to make a bad teacher a good one (and I seriously, seriously question the wisdom of giving SmartBoards to second-grade teachers in a school where the bathrooms never had soap and paper was at a premium; priorities much?). The textbooks were mostly shiny and new but the math system used was appallingly ineffective. While paying teachers better might attract more people to teaching, it might not necessarily attract the best ones; private school teachers, on average, make less than public school teachers, but often opt for private school over public school because of things like being guaranteed fewer behavioral problems in the classroom, or having more control over their curricula (this especially applies in the age of NCLB tests; the school I worked in gave fourth graders a daily class period called "Test Prep"). The Equity Project, and this is not mentioned in the Crimson editorial, is also planning to stick teachers with 30 kids each; will the benefits of good teachers outweigh the pitfalls of large class size? We'll see. Ultimately though, I think regardless of funding, as long as kids are getting sent to a class called Test Prep, as long as kids falling behind grade level in reading are being given tutoring that focuses exclusively on phonics with no emphasis at all on comprehension, as long as the discipline system in public schools (which in my limited experience I would say honestly frequently crosses into emotional abuse, and in general is done out of desperation for control instead of out of any sense of what might be best for the kid; if you call a seven-year-old a bad kid, he well could internalize that and it is unlikely to lead to improved behavior in the future), all the money in the world won't fix the educational crisis. Real structural change is needed in how public schools approach the goals of education and the needs of their students. Anything else--and I say this as someone who wants to be a teacher herself--is just a band-aid. My biggest problem with the throw-money-at-schools approach is that improved resources, while certainly important, don’t always make teachers better–I worked in a school last year where all the second-grade classrooms and several of the older ones received SmartBoards, which can be a fun and easy way to teach certain lessons but will do absolutely nothing to make a bad teacher a good one (and I seriously, seriously question the wisdom of giving SmartBoards to second-grade teachers in a school where the bathrooms never had soap and paper was at a premium; priorities much?). The textbooks were mostly shiny and new but the math system used was appallingly ineffective. While paying teachers better might attract more people to teaching, it might not necessarily attract the best ones; private school teachers, on average, make less than public school teachers, but often opt for private school over public school because of things like being guaranteed fewer behavioral problems in the classroom, or having more control over their curricula (this especially applies in the age of NCLB tests; the school I worked in gave fourth graders a daily class period called “Test Prep”). The Equity Project, and this is not mentioned in the Crimson editorial, is also planning to stick teachers with 30 kids each; will the benefits of good teachers outweigh the pitfalls of large class size? We’ll see.

Ultimately though, I think regardless of funding, as long as kids are getting sent to a class called Test Prep, as long as kids falling behind grade level in reading are being given tutoring that focuses exclusively on phonics with no emphasis at all on comprehension, as long as the discipline system in public schools (which in my limited experience I would say honestly frequently crosses into emotional abuse, and in general is done out of desperation for control instead of out of any sense of what might be best for the kid; if you call a seven-year-old a bad kid, he well could internalize that and it is unlikely to lead to improved behavior in the future), all the money in the world won’t fix the educational crisis. Real structural change is needed in how public schools approach the goals of education and the needs of their students. Anything else–and I say this as someone who wants to be a teacher herself–is just a band-aid.

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