Forum on Education, an Economic Imperative? ? Elizabeth Dickerson

I guess I should clarify my thoughts about screaming at the beginning of the forum last night. So much of it was very, very good. But, I have to address the arguments with holes in them, thanks to the fact that the data presented or the statements made were just plain incorrect or misleading:

1. Rising costs of education:

We were shown a graph of the rising costs of education. Gasps from the audience were emitted. I can?t remember the exact numbers. I can?t remember the name of the policy maker who presented the data. But, the data is misleading for this one huge reason:
The graph began in the 1960?s, when special education didn?t exist.
Special Education is a legally binding mandate- to provide an education to all individuals, regardless of ability or disability.

Again, In the 1960s, there was no special education. That graph we saw last night started from the 1960s, and spiked from there. We were presented with no discussion of what the costs were that caused the spike, but rather, were presented with the concept that education is just too expensive as presented in the current model and it isn?t working.

Our country strives to provide a free and fair education for all individuals. This is something we should all be proud of.

The second point I need to refute is the assertion spoken by Governor LePage, in his opening comments to the forum, that teachers do not possess enough specialized subject knowledge and are largely generalists not capable or prepared to teach. Therefore, allow me to give you a whirlwind tour through what teacher preparation looks like, in, (sorry) general terms.

A general education degree, such as a Bachelor?s in Liberal Arts, only grants an individual the eligibility for conditional certification. At this point, yes, you are a generalist, but, commensurate with your lack of experience and knowledge, you don?t get even a conditional certificate, you are just eligible to apply for one, once you do gain the requirements for the license.

You won?t get hired on a certificate that says ?eligible for conditional certification?. (Believe me, I know.) The only reason for this level of certificate, as near as I can tell, is if a school needs a very specialized person in a specialized certificate area, and no one else exists who has that skill. A school system has the legal option to hire a teacher in that instance, but that individual would then need to complete certification within one year.

There are many people who come to teaching after another career, which is a good thing, because they have life experience. Maine does a very good job of drawing in folks from many disciplines and training them to teach. However, it?s not an easy task to become a teacher and gain the credentials you need. It?s not a shoo-in.

Most people in that situation do it like this: You build on you Bachelor?s Degree, finish it as you can, and start chipping away at certification by taking required methods and subject area classes at night, on line, or via teleconference. One can become an Ed Tech I, II, or III, depending on how many college credits of the bachelor?s are done, but being an Ed Tech does not excuse you from the 15 week student teaching requirement.

There are what is called ?Three Pathways? to certification. But all are quite involved. It?s taken me four years beyond my bachelor?s to get my technical certification in computer science in addition to my teaching certification. I now have a Bachelor?s in Music, an Associate?s in Computer Science, and all the methods classes and special education requirements for an Elementary K-8 certificate, a Computer Technology K-12 Certificate, and a Music K-12 Certificate.

In order to teach at the elementary level, a teacher has to have requisite college credits in specialized subjects including math, language arts, and science, and THEN have taken rigorous teaching methods classes in those subjects. Our new teachers are also well aware of new techniques in literacy and technology, and understand modern teaching methods to address our crisis in literacy. Our state universities are on the cutting edge of developing programs to help at risk students in low-income areas.

In order to teach at the secondary level, a teacher must have at least 24 specialized college credits in the subject area. Many of our high school teachers have attained a master?s degree, and know their subject well.

And, we all have to take this hideous battery of tests called the Praxis tests. There?s the ?pre-praxis?, which is sort of the separate the wheat from the chaff kind of thing, in the three big subjects. Then you have to take specialized exams in your subject area, as well as study how to teach in the particular grade level in which you wish to teach. Just getting through all that can take a few years. I took -I think- six of them, since I have three certifications. It took me a year and a half to get through all of it.

We also have to stay current on our certifications, which means proving a certain number of contact hours every time our license needs renewal, or having taken a certain number of classes, or gone to conferences. We all keep binders with our certificates and hours in them, and it?s kind of a small job in and of itself keeping track of it all. Lots of fields do this, and I do love it, because I love going to school as well as teaching school. SO that?s okay. But, we have to do it.

Then, at the end of all that, we get, hopefully, a job. It?s a little hard in this economy and with the mind set people seem to have concerning the value and number of teachers needed to get a job. Many of us get shuffled around, in order to just even have a job, at all. Depending on what certifications you have, it?s any port in a storm right now. I am very lucky, because I have a computer science associate?s. Suddenly, everyone wants someone who can teach computer science. I hope we don?t run out of electricity.

I teach web design and computer programming half the time. The other half of the time, I am a lunch monitor, a playground peacekeeper, and Library Ed Tech. Which means that every day, I take my twenty children, ages 5-8, to the library. And, the library is in the same room as art, music, the cafeteria, Title One, the computer lab, the rainy day gym, the theater, and the furnace. Did I miss anyone. We share it as best we can. One of the teachers is a scheduling mastermind.

At the end of the day, if one is lucky enough to get done with all that education and get a full time teaching job, without schlepping around the district telling kids to eat their apple slices one minute and teaching Java code the next, a full-time teaching salary at step zero right now is 34,000 a year. It?s a sobering thought. I used to think 34,000 was a fortune. But that?s what we start working at, after all the stuff we had to do to get here.

And those are my thoughts after the forum I went to last night on Education, an Economic Imperative for Midcoast Maine.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 4th, 2011 at 7:09 pm and is filed under Community Environment. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

Source: http://www.lizziedickerson.com/blog/?p=500

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