The article above was written by Joel Klein and published in USA Today on November 17, 2014. Throughout this article Joel writes about two main problems with the teaching profession today.
- Problem hiring teachers.
- Problem with seniority.
Joel Klein states in this article that school systems hire anyone with a college degree to fill their teaching positions. His solution to fix this problem is to recruit and hire the top third of college graduates. This seems a little ridiculous to me. It is very hard especially in today's world to be hired into the public school system. They simply do not and can not hire teachers based solely on their grades. The student teaching process is very strenuous. Joel fails to take into account that every teacher hired has once been a student teacher and has done so for free. As to hiring the top third of college graduates, it takes a special person to be an effective teacher, not everyone that has maintained a high GPA throughout college will become one.
Joel Klein's second issue with the profession of teaching is seniority. He states that seniority dictates the way schools operate and it is impossible to fire incompetent teachers. I would argue that teachers are able to reach their seniority status because of their effective teaching abilities. He also states that the school systems often fire the last teacher hired regardless of their teaching abilities. This is simply not the case. Why would any one in their right mind want to fire the more effective teachers simply because of the number of years they have under their belt? I sincerely hope that the issues Joel Klein writes about are not the norm of employment procedures in the school systems today.
Hello Justin! I completely agree with what you said about picking the teacher that is most effective and I agree that it is not always the teacher that has the highest GPA in school when they graduated. I know that for me personally I struggle with some of the subjects that I have taken at USA and I would not be in the top 1/3 of graduates in the country so does that mean that I should not be a teacher and just find another career? I think that Mr. Klein needs to rethink his states because I feel that the top teachet might not always be the best teacher. Good job on your post!
ReplyDelete