Blog Post 14

Blog Post 14

Teaching Can Be a Profession By Joel Klein is a news article in the USA Today paper showing his brutal honest opinion of how teaching could be changed with a magic wand.  Klein ran New York City's public schools for almost a decade. The three problems associated with changing education that are listed in the article are Pick from the best, Seniority distraction, and Radical change.

Pick from the best in Klein's opinion is to start with better academics for teachers.  Klein is concerned about reading instruction taught to teachers. In Pick from the best Klein  also explains how advantageous it is to have the top graduates become teachers instead of other professions like doctors or lawyers. In Pick for the best, Klein lastly shows his distaste of how teachers are viewed as interchangeable personnel.

My opinion on the different components of Pick for the best vary.  I do think better instruction can help all teachers and future teachers.  I don't believe that you have to be in the top third of the graduate class to become a great teacher. I do agree that teachers should not be view an replaceable personnel.

Secondly is the argument of Seniority distraction. Klein explains, Seniority distraction is the problem in the way a school is run  due to job security and seniority. Bad teachers, Klein concludes cannot be removed, simply they are just put into less desirable schools.  Klein thinks that course work is one way to eliminate the problem of bad teachers.  In my opinion , Klein is correct that job security and seniority have held back our educational progress.  I do agree with Klein in that continuing education for all educators is a great way to overcome the bad teachers who stay due to seniority.  In my opinion, continuing education can only benefit both the teacher and their students.

Thirdly, Klein  refers to Shanker when  he calls his last point Radical Change.
Shanker proposed for the teachers to have their own personalized board of police.    I do think he is correct.  Like most professions, they have their own professional boards that the professional has to answer to. A few examples are the Board of Pharmacy, The Board of Nursing, and the State Board of Law.  I do believe, however that if you want to hold teachers to such high standards of professionalism, then in my opinion you need to treat them and pay them like a professional.

I do believe Klein is very clear on what needs to be fixed in our education machine that is broken in this country.  I was disappointed with the lack  of a time line or a formidable  plan to fix these serious grievances.  Maybe this is the start of fixing the problem, that is acknowledge that these elements, along with some others exist.  Until Americans make education a major priority, I believe the changes Klein wishes for will not happen soon.