Denial’s Role in Opposing Teaching Credential Reforms
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36 responses to “Denial’s Role in Opposing Teaching Credential Reforms”
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I call BS on the teachers unions and their pawns. Some basic traing and some hands on experience and most people have no trouble teaching. The problem is many students don’t want to learn.
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‘specially Catholic priests.
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totally true and not a problem for those than can afford a tutor…. right?
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Not necessarily but a tutor usually indicates a parents strong interest in results. Amazing how many people say black people can’t learn from someone who is white in school but they sure seem to learn from white basketball and football coaches
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Do you think if a poor person was given a tutor voucher and they used it for their kid that, that would indicate a “strong interest” also?
and learning… any more or less than they’d learn from white coaches and black teachers?
stereotyping is part of the problem with some of this stuff.
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Has Virginia thought about recruiting “minor-attracted people”, as ODU likes to call them? These are people known to really like helping kids….seems like a great fit…… giving people a second chance is, after all, advocated by the left all the time.
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Priests?
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You have anti-catholic fetish, Nancy. It would probably be best if you kept it to yourself.
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My experience with career switchers tells me that if one chooses to make this jump it is because teaching is a calling. They are service oriented people.
In today’s public school environment, who in their right mind would want to make such a leap?
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Catch-22 fits. They’re too crazy to teach children, if they are willing to ditch another career.
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I do not detect the degree of opposition on the part of the teacher that you seem to. Just because someone has knowledge of a subject matter does not mean that person is able to teach it to a group of middle or high schoolers. Career switchers should be encouraged to teach, without having to go to college and take all the courses required of education majors, but just throwing them into a classroom is doing no one any favors. They should have at least a year of teacher teaching or close mentoring. I think that is what the Norfolk teacher was referring to. Also, this teacher was an elementary school teacher and content, which is what career switchers have to offer, is not as important in those grades. Elementary school teaching is a lot different from middle and high school teaching.
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DeSantis is enlisting 1st Responders and pressing them into service.
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Career switchers have to earn a living, Dick. You do the program a disservice by assuming that they are “just thrown into a classroom”. Read about the program at https://www.doe.virginia.gov/teaching/educator_preparation/career_switcher/index.shtml You will change your mind.
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Obviously, I did not read your piece carefully enough. I thought VDOE was expanding the options, when the piece was about the Career Switcher Program, which has been in place for some time. It is just that it is getting more emphasis and attention now that there are so many vacancies.
After reviewing the program, I agree that the career switcher is not ” just thrown into the classroom”. In fact, the program looks well designed to prepare someone. I don’t understand the objection of the Norfolk teacher. It would seem that the Career Switcher is as well prepare as a newly graduated would-be teacher with an education degree.
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Thank you. There is a lot of clutter around teacher shortages this year especially. This is not one of those.
On a related subject, since there are no statistics, it is impossible to write objectively about the adverse effects of the teacher shortage from a different direction.
Back in the days of relatively stable teacher supply/demand, some school divisions with an excess of applicants – Virginia Beach was one of those years ago, so was Fairfax County – asked poor performing teachers to leave at an unpublished but not insignificant rate. I hope that still happens, but it is reasonable to doubt it.
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Interesting program and the DOE criteria seem fair and comprehensive. I noticed in the requirements they need to have a Bachelors degree, and you noted they will be continuing their education while they teach.
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When you find the solution, Captain, write it up nice and neat like and send copies to the UN since teacher shotages are worldwide. There’s a Nobel in this for you.
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If I may point it out without offending, this is one of the solutions, Nancy. Not my idea. I was here to praise it and correct the record from some of the opposition voiced. Perhaps a Pulitzer, but no Nobel this year.
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AARP has 38 million members many with varied lifetime experience. A fertile recruiting source.
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28 million of whom cannot tie their shoes! But, when the GOP kills SocSec and Medicare those extra 10 million will be all to anxious to teach.
“Eh? What? Well, back in my day, you had to crank a telephone…”
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What teaching credential relates to shoe tying? Sherlock says he’s a flat tax advocate whatever that means. Surely it preserves SS and Medicare.
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Career switchers often end up in schools that have a high teacher turnover rate or teacher vacancies. All new teachers need support. When you have two new teachers or career switchers in a building of 50 teachers with three or more year of experience, it is a different kind of support than 15 new teachers or career switchers in a building with only 30 teachers with three or more years of experience and 20 in their second year. High poverty schools have constant turnover, pay less, and have more vacancies.
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Schools are not going to hire career-switchers to teach important classes like those that will be SOL-tested unless they are really in desperate straights and if they do, then the career-switcher will be the “go to” sacrificial lamb when SOLs go south.
My bet is that career-switchers have a tough row to hoe in schools with large numbers of economically disadvantaged kids.
Anyone who thinks a new teacher starts off being the equal of teachers who have been doing that work for 10-20 years is living in la la land.
The idea that we can solve the teacher shortage with a bunch of career -switcher hires does not really/fully understand the value of veteran teachers.
As Kathleen says – you can sure enough stuff them in a classroom but all that does is fill a slot – doesn’t necessarily result in kids learning.
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Sherlock cannot hear you.
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well he can… but…
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“Shove them a classroom” is an invalid assumption from which you make an invalid conclusion. Read about the program at https://www.doe.virginia.gov/teaching/educator_preparation/career_switcher/index.shtml and get back to us.
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Of course, a career switcher is not equal to a teacher with 10-20 years experience. But neither is a 21-year old who has just graduated from college. Since there are not enough recent college graduates to fill all those vacancies, then Career Switchers are a viable (partial) solution. In fact, if I were a principal, I might prefer a career switcher over a recent college graduate. (It would depend on the individuals, of course.)
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I do not discount their value but how would a career-switcher compare to a para – for example?
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Not all teaching jobs are the same. For instance, a teacher that specializes in tutoring learning disabled or kids with reading deficits and the such is not the same as a teacher that teaches history or a para-teacher.
To the extent, that teachers with significant skills can be prioritized by filling positions that require less skills , I think
it’s not a bad thing but I can see where someone who has put their heart and soul into becoming a top-notch teacher, might resent a starting teacher of much lower skills getting the same pay.Similarly, teachers who teach in low-income schools with a high number of economically disadvantaged OUGHT to get paid MORE if they are competent and effective IMO.
Paying all teachers the same no matter their skills will encourage the better ones to not take the harder jobs. There is no benefit to doing so and the work is harder and more fraught with blame and scapegoating.
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Not all teachers are paid the same. Here is Henrico’s pay scale: https://henricoschools.us/2022-23-teacher-salary-scale/
One of the factors used to move from step to step is numbers of years in teaching.
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And several available annual allowances of which experienced teachers take advantage, as I pointed out to Larry above. In most cases they are not paid enough, but there are major pay differentials for the most credentialed and experienced teachers.
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Unlike JAB, you’re CLEARLY not on his “MO Money” concerns… 😉
re: pay differentials – Can you
show me a school pay scale that works the way you say – i.e. that there are supplemental pay scales over and above the basic for the “most credentialed and experienced” ?The only one I see for most schools is one in which it applies to all teachers but gives credit for years and education but NOT special work – like teaching learning disabled, or English as a second language, etc?
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I worded that badly. But the fact that there is ONE pay scale for ALL teachers that is based on seniority and education level and not job specifics – means that all teachers are treated as being skilled to do any teaching task and that’s simply not the case.
And that’s especially so when teaching kids that are of color, English as a second language or economically disadvantaged, learning disabled, physically disabled, etc.
Which is illustrated when we look at the teacher shortages and were they are the biggest – i.e. in schools with high numbers of economically disadvantaged kids – that ARE harder to teach which is evidenced by their chronically lower scores on SOLs.
So an obvious question is – if the largest shortfall in teaching positions is in these lower tier schools , is that where the career switchers are destined to go?
Is that a recipe for success?
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Where, exactly, did you get the “same pay” assumption? Did you dream it last night?
Did you find it in the same dream as “Paying all teachers the same no matter their skills will encourage the better ones to not take the harder jobs.”
Show me a school division pay scale where these two teachers are paid the same:
– a first year teacher; and
– “someone who has put their heart and soul into becoming a top-notch teacher” – lets say a teacher with a masters degree (instructional), a National Board for Teaching Standards Certification a certificate (say as a reading specialist or a special education specialist) and 20 years experience.Make sure and calculate base pay, time in service step pay, a masters degree (instructional) allowance and the special certificate allowance (reading specialist) for the “heart and soul” teacher.
And add in the expense reimbursement for the special education certificate schooling costs.
And get back to us. We’ll wait. .
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So for Henrico – for example – in the low-income schools where they have more teacher shortages than other schools, do they pay a premium to teach in those schools with larger numbers of economically disadvantaged?
Do they pay a bonus for harder-to-fill teacher slots?
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When we say there is a teacher shortage – are we recognizing the training and education that teachers have acquired in order to perform their jobs ? Or do we think, as some have opined here, that teachers are glorified baby-sitters and a “teacher shortage” is a pretty easy fix – because it’s more a manpower shortage than a skilled workforce shortage?
Don’t misunderstand.
We have other shortages in other careers also. Like Doctors. But it’s pretty clear the distinctions made on additional manpower – i.e. Physician’s Assistants and Nurse Practitioners where the work and the limitations are delineated. Neither of them “replace” or “add to” physicians but they can do SOME of the work while letting doctors do what only doctors are specifically trained to do and the assistants and practitoners are not.
It’s similar wit “career switchers”. You can become a fully qualified “teacher” by merely switching careers.
It’s a real and legitimate profession and teachers could no more “switch” to other careers like military or law enforcement without more training.
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