LGP Education thread

[count2infinity]

Maybe this is the appropriate thread to ask this question:

Does anyone here have experience with Teach for America? I am taking a year or two off after undergrad and am seriously considering doing this. I have heard greatly differing views on this program. Is it worth it? Are there other programs I should also look into?

I have a friend that went into the teach for america program and she seems to enjoy it. she says it's a lot of work though, which is understandable. What you really need to do is ask yourself if you can see yourself teaching for the rest of your life. If the answer is anything but a definitive yes, then don't do it. my answer was, "well...i guess" and it definitely turned out to be a poor decision. I'm glad that i taught for a few years to get the experience, but would never go do it again.

[MWB]

I've heard different things about Teach for America, but don't know anyone who has personally done it. My problem with it is that it seems to have become a stopgap for some people to kill a couple years when they don't really want to be teachers. Then those positions aren't available to those who really want to teach. Also, if teachers need to be laid off, TFA teachers are safe because of their contracts. Id they're good teachers, fine. But if they are just killing time to fulfill their contract that sucks. I agree with c2i, if you want to do it, really be into it, because I think a lot of TFA teachers end up in tough schools.

[count2infinity]

I'm pretty sure TFA teachers ONLY end up at tough schools. I think that's the entire point of the program.

[Physical_Graffiti]

What do you mean by "tough schools": Tough as in "the students don't want to learn" or tough as in the amount of material that needs to be covered?

[obhave]

What do you mean by "tough schools": Tough as in "the students don't want to learn" or tough as in the amount of material that needs to be covered?

first one. Usually intercity schools that have trouble keeping teachers.

[columbia]

Exactly and doing a two year hit and run only helps the "teacher".

[MWB]

Does anyone know how much training they get before they go into the class?

[obhave]

Exactly and doing a two year hit and run only helps the "teacher".

I know I want to teach. I absolutely love being a tutor, a TA, and doing the group tutoring classes I have done at my school, and lectures I did at my high school. I'm just a nerd who wants to teach everyone how awesome chemistry is. If over those two years of doing TFA I get people in those school excited about sciences then it has been a success. If school has trouble finding teachers, I don't see a problem with filling in the spot until they can find a full time teacher.

[count2infinity]

Exactly and doing a two year hit and run only helps the "teacher".

I know I want to teach. I absolutely love being a tutor, a TA, and doing the group tutoring classes I have done at my school, and lectures I did at my high school. I'm just a nerd who wants to teach everyone how awesome chemistry is. If over those two years of doing TFA I get people in those school excited about sciences then it has been a success. If school has trouble finding teachers, I don't see a problem with filling in the spot until they can find a full time teacher.

I had the same sort of enthusiasm toward teaching at one point... good luck!

[MWB]

Exactly and doing a two year hit and run only helps the "teacher".

I know I want to teach. I absolutely love being a tutor, a TA, and doing the group tutoring classes I have done at my school, and lectures I did at my high school. I'm just a nerd who wants to teach everyone how awesome chemistry is. If over those two years of doing TFA I get people in those school excited about sciences then it has been a success. If school has trouble finding teachers, I don't see a problem with filling in the spot until they can find a full time teacher.

Seems like you're a good candidate for the program then. Good luck with it, if that's the path you choose.

[Physical_Graffiti]

I had the same sort of enthusiasm toward teaching at one point, but then I took an arrow to the knee

[count2infinity]

lol

[columbia]

I'm glad that I had a (former) professional chemist and physicist, who were 2-3 times my age, teach my respective classes in HS and leave it at that.

[Draftnik]

Article on NCLB 10th anniversary:

http://www.usnews.com/education/blogs/h ... ild-legacy" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[tifosi77]

first one. Usually intercity schools that have trouble keeping teachers.

Part of the problem with that isn't so much the voluntary departure of the teachers. In many cities, when the time comes for budget cuts the numbers of teachers is almost always reduced. It is easier to fire a teacher that has only been on the job for a few years than one that has tenure, and it is almost always the bad inner-city schools that have the newest teachers. So that means they are constantly undergoing high turnover in the numbers of educators through the doors.

[count2infinity]

i think it also has to do with the quantity of positions available, tifosi. they also have very alluring starting salaries compared to rural districts, and most just coming out of college aren't aware that cost of living is going to take up most of that money. I know that many teachers use inner city schools as spring boards to get careers elsewhere.

[Draftnik]

Here is an opinion piece about productivity that makes some points about globalization (mostly about supply chain) that aren't readily apparent to many people, including government economists and politicians. Its long and wonkish, but it makes a point about how productivity (and economic health at the macro level) in this country is overestimated:

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/magazi ... php?page=1" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

On a broader scale, we need to understand our true productivity and competitiveness in order to generate the political will to make the big changes that are needed to prosper. Politicians love to tell voters that American workers are the most productive in the world, even as, in the next minute, they play to anxieties about runaway federal spending on health care, the excess of government debt, the rise of China, and the decline of the U.S. education system. The more politicians and economists emphasize the high productivity of U.S. workers, in other words, the more they weaken their own cases for entitlement reform, tax reform, education reform, or any other action that would dramatically change our current trajectory.

Indeed, our misleadingly high productivity figures help enable a whole political culture of confusion and complacency. Only after we accept that the official figures have led us astray can we hold a true political debate about what type of economy we want to have. Do we want to keep proceeding along our current course, borrowing hundreds of billions of dollars each year to temporarily prop up consumption? Or do we want to rededicate ourselves to becoming a production economy once more, which requires cutting back on consumption and boosting investment in physical, human, and knowledge capital? What voters really need to hear is the truth. Manufacturing today is not like agriculture yesterday. A happy ending is possible, but it is not inevitable.

It relates to education because at the macro level, this country needs to figure out what our country is good (competitive domestically & from an export perspective) at on a global basis so we can funnel people into those areas. Plus we need to develop our intellectual capital so we can create new things.

There are so many areas globalization will impact and reduce Americans' standard of living (beyond manufacturing & computer programming such as radiology, accounting w/new international standards, legal review, engineering, etc) that we need to develop a war like mentality to prepare our national competitiveness for 21st century economic realities.

[count2infinity]

i think most people on here are okay with them teaching evolution in school, but i know back where i'm from (bedford county) there are many many many people that are highly opposed to it.

[MRandall25]

I'll preface this by saying I'm Roman Catholic:

I believe the theory of evolution (survival of the fittest, adaptation and all that jazz).

That doesn't automatically make me an atheist (as some people believe [not saying it's anyone here]).

I don't see why it has to be one way or the other. You can believe in a higher power and still think evolution is a legitimate theory.

/rant

That was probably completely off-topic. I'm just thinking about that because evolution was brought up in one of my Psych classes and the teacher was kinda leery about discussing it.

[count2infinity]

i don't think that people should be leery to discuss it. i'm just curious about what people think should be taught in school.

[MRandall25]

i don't think that people should be leery to discuss it. i'm just curious about what people think should be taught in school.

I'd say evolution, but only because teaching creationism now would cause such a stink, especially in high school.

[columbia]

The various creation myths from around the world are perfect for a comparative religion class.

[MWB]

The various creation myths from around the world are perfect for a comparative religion class.

[tjand72]

BUT THEY HAVE SO MANY COMMON THEMES! SOMETHING MUST HAVE HAPPENED!!!

[Draftnik]

Its a sad state of affairs that science is under attack in our country and religious conservatives are trying to impose their beliefs into public education.

The same people attack Mitt Romney because he was a ruthless capitalist with Bain Capital:

http://globalpublicsquare.blogs.cnn.com ... l-problem/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Instead, a second line of attack has been gaining traction against Romney – that of Romney as job-killer or Romney as the private equity guy, who buys companies, hollows them out and outsources jobs.

Now it is striking that this attack is coming in a Republican presidential primary. After all, what Romney did while at Bain Capital was classic capitalist “creative destruction.” He took over businesses and tried to make them more productive and efficient. To do so, he often had to shed jobs.

Republicans should be celebrating Romney’s prior work as an example of how the market functions – driving out inefficiency, generating productivity and creating a lean, mean capitalist machine.

The fact that Romney’s past has turned into a line of attack tells you that something has changed in America. Even in the Republican Party, there is a huge concern about what globalization and technological change are doing to the average, middle-class American. There is a sense that the system is not working for the median American worker.

If you look at job creation over the last 20-25 years in America, you’ll notice that we haven't been able to create any jobs in what is called the “tradable sector” of the economy - those jobs that are subject to global competition. The only jobs we’ve really created have been in industries like health care, government, and construction, which are basically local industries shielded from global competition. You can't outsource the building of a New York skyscraper to a Chinese worker.

America hasn’t been able to create jobs in any sector that’s subject to global and technological pressures. As a result, there is a huge sense of disillusionment, disappointment and pessimism among Americans.

None of the Republicans are addressing this problem centrally. They’re simply talking about cutting government spending as if that is going to solve the problem of creating new industries, opportunities and jobs. Simply cutting government strikes me as a very inadequate response to a massive challenge.

Hopefully during the general election, we’ll have a substantive national debate about how to create jobs in America.

This is relevant in an education discussion because the politicians won't focus on education to solve our economic troubles. They inevitably will come back to some jingoistic populist appeal to implement protectionist trade policies in order to "create" and protect American jobs. That will mean higher prices for goods and services in the US and it will be a transfer of wealth from workers in sectors that aren't impacted by globalization to workers that can't compete with foreign counterparts. It is the same thing as welfare.