The key is good teachers, not class size, and I think this goes a long way toward proving it. At least you may not throw "smaller classes" in my face everytime we post about education.
If you are stating that as your belief, then I have no problem with it. If you are stating it as the result of serious empirical research, then you are wrong. That particular piece, as serious and as well written as it was, is only one data point. You would need to get down into a great deal more, very boring, research to argue your point conclusively. I don't see you going there.
On the Stuyvesant issue, it's not the hand of the Union; rather the inertia of bureaucracy as far as I'm concerned. You have a bureaucracized approach to union rules embedded within the most bureaucracized public school administration in the country. That's the tale being told.
He writes it as an anti union fable; his data fit an anti-bureaucracy fable.
That's the short of my conclusion. I planned to offer the nitty and the gritty on it later on. Perhaps.
What you need to teach is a College Degree in what you are teaching. With a "How to teach," one or two semester class, thrown in. The rest is OJT, IMO. The "Teacher's Certificate" is malarky. Just "make work" classes that feed a lot of Education PHDs at the College level.
Definitely on the same page with you there. Good to agree about something. But a slightly different take. There are definitely teaching skills that need to be learned. Just not, ironically, taught well in education departments. |
