[xyzone]

Originally Posted by noodle

Well, art is subjective...

Well, there you go.

To be any more rigid than that about the broad definition of 'art' is a bit... black & white.

Originally Posted by Tsuwabuki

Are there bad teachers? Yes. Sadly. This is true of every industry. Do I think they are the majority, or even a significant minority? Doesn't ring true.

Depends how we define “bad”. Later in the post you say yourself that you couldn’t find a living wage. Yes, that’s the problem. But do you think they don’t find somebody who will take all those lower wage positions? They will. Not the best teachers available, and they’ll butcher their own qualifications if necessary. What is the state going to do, tell them to close down and cancel classes? I don’t know if we can talk about majority or minority, but I can’t say there are enough good teachers.

Texas IS one of the "worst systems" in the nation. I believe we are 48th. That's pretty despicable. Education took a serious hit under George W. Bush. Believe me, I know. I wish I didn't. However, this was largely because of the funding he removed after he took over from Anne Richards. He removed funding for head start programs. He cut equipment and facility funds. He cut funds for alternative certification. He cuts funds for after school programs... This was not because of the teachers. Perry hasn't done much better. In fact, he hasn't done better at all.

And all that really meant was sinking even lower from a low spot. Anne Richards was proven to be a fluke with the voters. Or maybe they were just butt hurt about Clinton.

We don't get paid well, no. But not trained well? Seriously? I don't buy it. All the teachers I know, including myself, went through far more training than my Japanese counterparts. Texas training standards are different, but not incomparable to other states. Several of my teachers had master's degrees. School librarians are required to have master's in library science. Administrators have master's in education. I plan to get a master's in philosophy.

By that I meant they settle a lot for the reprobates to fill spots, not the people who seek a living wage. I believe they used to pay new teachers ~$18,000. Something like this is ridiculous into bizarre. Who knows what they pay them now.

No. I wanted you to cite sources. I still do. I am genuinely curious. If schools are that much worse than I thought they were in the four years since I graduated from college, then now that I'm debt free, I might just have to move back (assuming I can get hired by recession hit school districts) because my country really needs me!

The only sources I can cite are newspapers and Time magazine - and the internet. Sorry.

Sounds to me like a bunch of bitter teenagers who hated their school experiences and want to blame it on the teachers and administrators. I hated school. Absolutely hated it. I was miserable. I had very few moments of genuine happiness. You know what I really hated? Being an adolescent. Hard to judge my school experiences independent of that fact.

They're people around my age or not much younger. I’m not a teenager and haven’t been for several years. Teenagers wouldn’t be having these sort of conversations with me. To be fair, most people are as complacent and dismissive about it as they come when it comes to this issue of the messed up school system, but the more perceptive people... not so much.

I love teaching. I love when I can encourage someone to learn. I love it when I can be a kid's "moment of genuine happiness" like teachers I can name were for me. Do I think they're going to look back on adolescence and think it's awesome because of me? No. Do I think that our students will notice at 14 or 15 that the changes we manage to make has made their schooling better? No. They might at twenty. I would hope by thirty.

But either way, if they notice anything or not themselves, society will if it’s done right. Or to put it another way, it will notice it if it isn’t.

You do know you could have petitioned to go to a higher rated school in your area, right?

Maybe my parents could have. I certainly couldn’t have. On top of that, there were no other schools in the vicinity here, and walking to or from school was sometimes necessary for me.

America is not the educational leader it once was, I will certainly agree with you there. In all states, not just Texas. However, I do not believe that the majority are failing TAKS (it was TAAS when I took it), although scores in lower income and border areas are indeed dipping in ways that are worrisome. But the teacher and school are only part of team of players, including the student, and the student's parents. Teachers cannot do it alone.

And don’t forget still ranked 48. Those areas are not going to get any better, either. They’ll stay the same at best.

I was in school from 1988-2001.

I was in before that. Still, I've seen how my old school is now, or at least a couple of years ago. Doesn't seem to be improving to me, they just added a better stadium.

There are good teachers lining up to work at any school that will pay them a living wage.

Well that’s back to the other main point. That’s part of why it’s broken. Upgrading fighter planes to overtake non-existent competitors is more important to the nation than this.

The fact of the matter is that the low-income school problem is self-refreshing.

It also creates a steady supply of stupid people.

The answer, I believe, which will get the states' righters up in arms, isn't charter schools (which there's nothing wrong with, I like charter schools), but a nationalised system that allocates federally collected tax money to each school equally.

I just see it as the established syndicate getting in the way as usual.

The answer is not to blame the teachers, but to support them.

I don’t blame the teachers. I never did. What I blame is the public not waking up to the problem even after several years of warnings and instead denying it, shutting their eyes and pretending like there’s no gorilla breathing down their neck. This isn’t a pet project. It can bring the country to its knees in the long run. And not going to fix itself.

And I will have to disagree about supporting the teachers, though. Blame aside, to allow some martyrs in there to take the whips while the system gets worse is not going to fix it. It’s going to delay further any real fix. I would rather something drastic happen like every single qualified teacher quitting and leaving the country; or you know, whatever. That would sure get people’s attention.

Why is that? If you say because I am teaching in Japan and not the USA

No, I said it because of the reasons above. Because to deny the problem is to promote it. You seem to acknowledge there is a problem, but your previous statements didn’t seem to quantify it or you thought I was just attacking teachers. I’m glad you acknowledge there is a problem. I think you should stay where you are and no qualified teachers should bother with public schools here. Although that’s already happening to a large extent.

You're telling me they let him stay the whole year without him at least gaining alternative certification or undergoing supervision with a certified teacher???

That’s right. My memory is fuzzy but I doubt it’s that fuzzy. He was a substitute previously, then was there for at least the whole semester, though I believe it was the whole year. I guess they figured it was that or canceling the class since there probably was no other teacher to fill in.

You had every right, and I mean every right, to complain all the way up the chain on that one.

HS kids aren’t going to know or anything about that or care, certainly not the ones there.

It should never have happened, and I apologise for it.

Why? It wasn’t your doing.

...that was my school career, not my teaching career.

My mistake.

And I'll have you know that Travis County (Austin) and Harris County (Dallas) went for Kerry and Obama. So did at least one other country (Brownsville's maybe?). I never voted Republican. I didn't have to tell you that, but I'm telling you anyway.

Well to be honest, I’m trying to quit any interest in politics. I do know Austin is a pretty nice place and the university is good. I also like San Antonio. Houston, not so much. But my point wasn’t really to dump on Texas or even Republicans. I was trying to show the evident result of being 48th nationally in education. Not that I was presuming to be politically agnostic with that statement, either.