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As teacher resignation letters increasingly go public -- and viral -- new research indicates teachers are not leaving solely due to low pay and retirement, but also because of what they see as a broken education system.
In a trio of studies, Michigan State University education expert Alyssa Hadley Dunn and colleagues examined the relatively new phenomenon of teachers posting their resignation letters online. Their findings, which come as many teachers are signing next year's contacts, suggest educators at all grade and experience levels are frustrated and disheartened by a nationwide focus on standardized tests, scripted curriculum and punitive teacher-evaluation systems.
Teacher turnover costs more than $2.2 billion in the U.S. each year and has been shown to decrease student achievement in the form of reading and math test scores.
"The reasons teachers are leaving the profession has little to do with the reasons most frequently touted by education reformers, such as pay or student behavior," said Dunn, assistant professor of teacher education. "Rather, teachers are leaving largely because oppressive policies and practices are affecting their working conditions and beliefs about themselves and education."
The study quoted a teacher in Boston: "I did not feel I was leaving my job. I felt then and feel now that my job left me."
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 07 2017, @02:49PM (4 children)
Education research is the first place the NHST idea took root, and education is probably the most f-ed up government run program. Just sayin.
(Score: 2, Flamebait) by Runaway1956 on Friday April 07 2017, @03:07PM (3 children)
The whole education thing needs to be taken out of the hands of federal and state governments, and given back to local governments. There are few if any local governments that can fek it up as badly as the feds - and there are a lot of local governments that can do a much better job if the feds keep their dick skinners off of education.
Talk to any old timer who started school before kindergarden, head start, preschool, school lunches, etc ad nauseum.
I, for one, stayed at home, and played with neighbor kids, until I was five. Went to the local elementary, took a little test, passed it, and was welcomed into first grade. The first six years of schooling were ALL ABOUT that famous 3 R's. In junior high, we started to branch out into other things, and in high school, there were a lot of other choices, but the 3 R's were at the heart of schooling.
I really don't understand any of this nonsense they teach today. The really crazy thing is, the education system isn't even competent to teach the basics, but they presume to be competent to teach culture, life philosophy, race relations, gay rights, and a whole bunch of other nonsense.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 07 2017, @03:52PM
The whole education thing needs to be taken out of the hands of federal and state governments, and given back to local governments.
2/3 correct.
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Friday April 07 2017, @09:43PM
Oh yes they can. In fact, probably fek it up even more than the feds, because that means that the system is completely controlled by a locally elected school board. That local school board generally receives approximately zero attention unless there's a problem. And the simplest demonstration of this is that you probably don't even know who's on your local school board (unless you're a school board member yourself), much less their views on important issues of education. And if you are like most Americans, you probably didn't even vote in the last local election, which included the local school board.
Also, local elections, because of the relatively small number of votes involved, are more susceptible to takeover by stupid people. For example, if a majority of the people in your town went to the same megachurch, that megachurch could easily come up with enough votes just from its members to completely take over a local school board. This isn't an idle issue: The famous intelligent design kerfuffle in Dover PA [wikipedia.org] was all the result of a religiously-motivated group of local school board members.
You can also easily end up with school board members with an odd axe to grind. For example, in my hometown, a guy got elected to the school board, and his first order of business was to try to fire a highly respected history teacher because he didn't like the fact that the teacher in question was teaching an elective course focused on the Civil Rights and Anti-Vietnam movements, and this school board member thought that was turning the kids into Communists or something. Had the local teachers' union not stopped him, he would have succeeding in ending a teacher's career because that teacher had failed to keep his students ignorant.
And adding to the mess, what's your plan for dealing with incredibly poor rural school districts? You can find these kinds of districts all over the country, and there's basically no reasonable school tax rate that would allow the local school system to even keep the heat on in the building, much less provide a quality education.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Saturday April 08 2017, @12:53AM
> I really don't understand any of this nonsense they teach today.
Turns out you need to know more stuff to get a job these days.
> competent to teach culture, life philosophy, race relations, gay rights
... and to keep that job.
The robot's already doing the one where you only need to quietly bolt two things together, and even the "sir, yes sir" crowd has to visit foreign areas without turning the locals against them...