March 16th Ed Week

"Teachers Seek Ways to Gauge Rigor of Texts" This was amazing, a bunch of teachers sitting around trying to figure out at what grade level it might be appropriate to let students read The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. One teacher opined that it would be alright for 8th graders and another that it wouldn't be appropriate before college. What a joke, when you consider the education level of the readers in Mark Twain's time. I think that the education field is has more than its share of "over educated under common sensed" professionals. If we are doing such a poor job of teaching that Huck Finn can't be read and understood by students till they are in college--our educational system is a lot worse off than I realized.

"Teacher Preparation: Build on What Works" I like the idea of "free teaching training".I think it is outrageous what we have to pay (go into debt)--so we can have the privilege of working in an underpaid under appreciated profession. I think it interesting that people expect that there is going to be an abundance of highly qualified teachers that want to live and work in our inner city schools. Unless one feels a true calling to work in that environment--it's probably not going to happen and if it does it's not going to last. If I were a young teacher with  small children the last thing I'm going to want to do is move them into a gang infested, drive by, crack cocaine using, housing project kind of a neighborhood. Unfortunate for the kids that live there, yes but reality--yes. So that means the only way children living in those neighborhoods can get a better education taught by better teachers is to bus them to the suburbs and teach them there. Will the kids like spending a couple of hours on a bus away from their familiar neighborhoods--probably not. So what's it going to take to put highly qualified teachers into urban schools--money. Tuition remission, extra pay(combat pay) for teaching in difficult and dangerous environments, relocation help and money when the tour of duty(no more than 4 years) is over.