Letter to the Editor

Letter to the Editor

SPED200

By: Tori Altermatt & Stefanie Pearson

Should Minnesota Teachers be Tenured?

            Much controversy has been stirred up about whether or not teachers should be tenured. There are many benefits to the teacher tenure, but I believe the negative aspects out weight the benefits. The tenure contract does not take into consideration the quality of the teachers. This allows teachers to become complacent and less motivated to improve their teaching style. We need to think about the students first. Are they receiving the best education possible, and are the teachers who are responsible for these students highly qualified?

Unfortunately in many schools, this is not the case. There are a great amount of schools that will get rid of their new teachers, even if their great, simply because they are not tenured. This negatively impacts recent teacher college graduates. Schools are not as willing to hire newer teachers, who many times, have great fresh ideas and could benefit these students greatly. In many cases, new teachers will be hired and right before they are tenured they will get laid off. I have witnessed this personally. One of my friends would be getting his tenure contract next year, but they recently sent him a notification saying his contract will not be renewed next year. This is because he was one of the two teachers to be hired last into the system and he currently does not have his tenure. The school didn’t take into consideration how well his students are progressing and how effective his teaching is. The only aspect that was looked at was whether or not he was tenured. Now tell me, how does this benefit the students?

Teachers should be kept because they are great teachers. One bad teacher can put a child behind for the rest of their schooling, but on the other hand a great teacher can send a student above and beyond what is expected of them. Statistics say that a bad teacher will teach about 50% of the required material and a good teacher will teach about 150% of the curriculum. Good teachers are able to go above and beyond what is asked of them, taking initiatives to give the students the best future possible. The impact loosing these teachers is huge on these students’ lives. The tenure contract is in no way encouraging the school systems to keep their really great teachers.

Good teachers should be rewarded not punished by getting fired simply because they are not tenured. We need to reward teachers whose students are making progress and show improvements in teaching each year. Instead of giving them a tenure year contract we need to think about a system that rewards teachers like giving them raises if they are making visible improvements. I also feel we need to better prepare our future teachers so these students do not continue to fall behind. Teachers should be observed and critiqued intensely throughout their whole career. For example, teachers in Finland receive a great amount of experience and feedback throughout their training. They also require high standards in regards to getting accepting into the teaching program. Citizens in Finland find it to be a privilege to become a teacher. In the United States it seems that the bar isn’t set very high for future teachers. Finland must be doing something right since they rank amongst the highest nationally on the PISA tests. So, I think instead of continuing to do the same things in our education systems we need to look at what’s working in other countries in regards to preparing teachers since we are continually falling behind and we need to take another look at how the teacher tenure is impacting the students.

Group Eight Presentation

They started of  talking about the importance of classroom management.Ways you can help manage the class is to use posters to display rules clearly. A positive learning environment is very important to the students learning, time management is a big part of that. The group shared a website with us called daily cafe, this website includes different ideas for setting up a class room, and classroom ideas to avoid problems like, everyone shares supplies. The teacher's role in the learning environment is another thing that is important to being an effective teacher. It is important that the children know that you care about them.  They showed us an activity that helps you evaluate what kind of learning style your students may be by classifying them under colors. She interviewed a teacher and that gave her lots of advice for becoming a new teacher. She gave her some do's and don't of first year teaching. Parental/ guardian involvement allows the child to connect school and home. Children want to please their parents, there is a higher graduation rate with children who's parents are involved in their schooling. Barriers to consider with parent/ teacher involvement are: economic, cultural, and language. Kathy added in to this that you should never ask the child to be the translator between you and the teacher. An idea for teachers to better communicate with the parents is to make a website and update it frequently. The last part of their presentation is misbehavior intervention, effective types of intervention is awareness, dignity, consistency and communication.

For School Children, Where is the Water?

http://www.cnn.com/2011/HEALTH/04/18/water.school.children/index.html?iref=allsearch

This article is about the issues of children not having enough accessibility to water at school. They are finding that water fountain do not to the trick of hydrating the students through out the day. A few problems with drinking fountains is that it is easy to spread germs, the tap water may not be healthy and that there are usually only a few within the school. Many students complain that they do not want to get up in the middle of lunch to go to a drinking fountain and then wait in line for a drink. I feel as if schools should provide water bottles for the children.  Students safety and their health is very important. If a student is suffering from hydration that can cause problems with learning. They have been trying to come up with ways to make water more accessible in schools in a way that schools can afford.

The 3 main ways teachers are prepared differently (Finland vs. United States)

1. The first was teachers are prepared differently is that in Finland you are required to attend other teachers lessons. You are to attend the lesson then critique it and share your thoughts with that teacher after words. Also they watch for helpful ideas, strategies for learning that are effective for the students and what techniques work and what don't work. The feedback process for Finland's teachers is very important they feel that feedback is an essential part of becoming a affective teacher.

2. Less is more. The students get much more freedom to work at their own pace. They do not give much homework and the deadlines for work are very generous. The students are trusted to do their work and they also know the quality of work that is expected of them. The teachers also do less "talk time" and more student work time. In the U.S teachers spend about 85% of the class talking while in Finland the teachers only do about 60%. Students are better prepared before they even get to college and decide they want to be teachers. Here in American I feel as if High School was just a time for football games and hanging out with friends, not a preparation time for your future.

3.Finally the last way that teachers are prepared differently would be that the program is not easy to get into. Most people in the U.S can get into a teaching program with no problem. In Finland they realize that not everyone is cut out to be a teacher. Teaching is not an easy job and not a job for the average Joe off the street. They have higher standards to get into the program and expect you to work up to the standards while in the program. Also most teachers in Finland have a masters degree. Which means more preparation time and more education.

The Global Achievement Gap Chapter 5

When in a workshop at the beginning of the chapter, Tony talks about how when teachers sit together and watch  a recording of another teachers lesson, the grading results are very different. All the teachers watched the same lesson and the lesson was graded from an A to a F. I thought it was interesting when he talks about why this happened. It happens because teachers have different standards of what a good lesson is,  everyone is on a different page. All teachers need to find a way to agree on what it takes to be a good teacher.


Another point of Tony's that I found interesting is when he is talking with a man who had a business degree and went back to school for teaching. He said that Educators struggle with questions that other professions have to deal with daily. We struggle to find answers to our questions when the answer might be right in front of us.


When this man said that he was officially certified by a masters program yet he did not feel prepared to be in the class room I felt upset. This surprised me because you would that that all the schooling he had gone through and his masters program that he wouldn't have this problem. It is confusing to me that professors don't know how to better educate their students, weren't the teachers once students? You would think that "teachers" would be able to teach people how to be teachers. They can use their past experience from teaching to help others understand what it takes. 


I can imagine how frustrated he must have felt never getting any feed back from the principal or while doing his student teaching. Feedback is important for any job. The principal should have the ability to evaluate him effectively.  There should be more than just a check sheet full of areas to mark satisfactory or needs improvement.  Everyone will always have an area they need improvement in, so the fact the principal gave him no further instruction or advice on how to be a better teacher is frustrating. When he is interviewing a retired CEO of a company who went back to school to get his teaching certificate. He said that you should study teaching like you would business or law, and study cases. 


I was shocked to read that "more than three out of five report that schools of education do not  prepare their graduates to cope with the realities of today's classrooms." I just do not understand why a school would not find that an important thing to teach their future teachers. Sometimes the problems with education seam so simple, for example: teach your teachers about current issues. I know they are not all simply solved, but this one seams like common sense. 

Group Six: Chapter 9

Group six presented on Financial issues within the school. They had a great presentation with an interview from Anoka-Hennepin and they showed 3 videos. They started by talking about how schools are funded and where most of the money comes from that schools receive. Most of this money comes from state revenue. There are many issues in funding, one being that we are expected to spend more money than we are going to take in next year. Of course this is a huge problem because whenever you are taking in more money than you are spending there will be trouble. The biggest issue about funding inequality is that each school district has different needs, and many times these needs are not met.  Next the group discussed the pros and cons of having mayoral control vs. Local school board. There are many different benefits of having mayoral control but they explained how this can cause major issues in districts that are spread over a few different cities. They ended talking about the different choices of schools. There are public schools, private, charter, Kipp and homeschooling. It is important to be a proactive parent. Finding the right school for your child is very important. People often overlook their other options and just go with the local public school but this is not always the right choice for your child.

Waiting on Superman Response.

This movie gave many shocking facts about education. It saddens me to know that there are so many horrible schools and horrible teachers out there. Children deserve an equal and quality education.  These children in the inner city schools CAN learn and they want to learn but because of how bad their school is they do not have that chance. The only way they can get a better education is if they make in into a private or charter school. The education offered at such schools should be available to everyone. Like we talked about in class, I have realized that i have taken my education for granted. i had a decent school but never took advantage of its opportunites. I was in the middle part of the system. I never needed extra help but I was not advancing in any subjects. I could have been but I didn't want to and no one told me that I could. It broke my heart to see these children being rejected from schools that could change their life's. For many getting in these better schools is the only chance they have for a better life.

Good education starts with with good teachers and principals. Many schools do not have quality staff. The tenured rule is just stupid to me. If the teacher is not performing to the standards set by the schools districts they should be helped or let go. Children are our future and they deserve the best education.