Professional Development Principles and Practices:

I was impressed with the thoughtful presentation of principles for professional development that would involve the teacher as a full participant in his own growth. There is no "one size fits all" to any situation in education, and teachers should have input for their own specific classroom needs.

Reading the five streams of reform was somewhat overwhelming.  It seems that the old journalist adage: "KISS" (Keep it Simple, Stupid) could be applied to the chaos of reform occurring at every level.  I realize I may be speaking blasphemy, but adopting numerous untested teaching philosophies isn't practical, sensible, nor does it serve any purpose except to confound teachers, students and administrators.
 
 

Reforms in subject matter and student population:

Having spent five years at the University of Louisville during the initiation of the Kentucky Reform Act, I would like to make several comments. Basically vague and meaningless standards were put into place, allowing for virtually any classroom activity to fit into a wide assortment of categories. Most teachers were so overwhelmed with the workload that when lesson plans for standards were required, little thought and effort went into the preparation, resulting in plans that looked good on paper, but in fact, had few practical classroom applications. My team (I, being the new guy on the block) would meet after hours, and churn out the paperwork.

Secondly, the university refused to teach methods, which in turn, left teachers who were turned out under that philosophy, with no practical ways to actually teach children how to read, write, or work math problems. Within my regular ed. classrooms, approximately 1/3 or the students could read at a 2^nd grade level, at best.

Why we, as students in the university, were not taught methods is an astonishing oversight.  After all, most of us (CTER students and professors) were taught to read, write, and do math through rote, memorization, and recall. I clearly remember my years as an elementary pupil.  In my classroom, only 2 children of 35 in the lower socioeconomic school I attended (including a divergent population of African Americans, 1^st generation immigrants, and poverty level students) could not read well, add or subtract as well as the rest of the class. What I encountered upon the start of my career as a teacher, was approximately one-third of all middle school age children, as said, who could not pass a 2^nd grade test.

Without methods, we will, in my opinion, continue to have enormous failings in the school system, resulting in more behavior problems due to an overriding sense of failure, more dropouts, and more of a societal burden. Rote lessons from an early age give students confidence when learned. No, they may not be the most FUN, or actually "engage" the students as well as creative facilitation, but they give students the key to learning.

I continually encounter students who have not been given the key, which greatly saddens me. So many of these students are labeled LD, when in fact, they may well be victims of a poor education. When students are taught basic skills, they can then develop creativity and use"higher order thinking". (But then again, I do not consider ART to be ART, without the artist first having the command of the brush, colors, and canvas.) We are not giving these students the tools with which to survive the school environment.

I agree that these reforms are incompatible with textbook-bound curricula. First of all, newer textbooks are on the whole, poorly written. Packaged curricula can be found in many classrooms, but few teachers I know of have had the actual training to implement the packages. My experience in the regular ed. classroom was to seek out old textbooks from bins in hidden closets and basements in order to find anything that would actually show students how to work problems, or follow a logical sequence in learning tasks.
 
 

Student assessment:

Standardized test scores have always indicated the probability of success or failure for the majority of students in the school system. These scores should not be the ONLY gauges for students, as there are many bright students who do not test well. However, the alternatives for standardized testing in the states of Kentucky and Rhode Island have been dismal. In Kentucky alone, over 3 billion tax dollars were given to a company who organized an "authentic" assessment. Needless to say, the creators of the test became very wealthy. Monetary incentives were given to teachers whose children showed progress each year. Schools with transient or lower income populations were, on the other hand, severely penalized for not increasing scores. Pressure was to teach to the test, and all too often, teachers and administrators were caught supplying answers to students during testing in order to increase their scores. Entire areas of the "authentic" assessment were eventually removed from this non-normed test, further wasting taxpayer dollars and frustrating students, teachers, and administrators alike. The political football field was bloody from an ongoing war between constructivists and educational psychologists.

On a related note, the "authentic" test for high school seniors now in place in Indiana and Kentucky is supposedly based on general knowledge. The test is severely flawed, and large numbers of students are failing. Without a high school degree, even McDonald's won't hire. This seems to be a great disservice to these young people. High school students have been tested in each class, each week, each day, for four years, and now are expected to take SATs, AND have passed a general knowledge test. I have to wonder for what purpose this test has been created. Yes, we have problems with students not being able to read/write/add, etc…but the problem seems to lie in having forgotten to teach them to perform these tasks in the elementary years. (Again, the creators of this most recent test have become millionaires at the expense of the taxpayers.)

I may be somewhat ignorant of many of these reforms, but as a former public school teacher in regular ed. and special ed., I am appalled at what I see as standards. You are not going to be able to "engage" students in books when they cannot read or write, nor are you going to be able to keep behaviors at a minimum when students are meeting failure on a daily basis.
 
 

Reforms in the professionalization of teaching:

In Kentucky we have a limited time to finish a Master's Degree. If this is not completed, we lose our certification. Having looked at the courses in the Master's Program at the University of Louisville, University of Kentucky, and Indiana University, I had taken most of them (or similar courses) as an undergraduate. Graduates were in my lower level classes, having to provide one more paper per semester than undergraduates in order for the classes to be considered graduate level.

The monetary burden of a higher degree, doing virtually the same classes, was going to run between $8,500 and $15,000. I was to pay for this myself as a fourth year teacher, and find the time, with a trend for shorter summers, in which to do this. I considered myself a professional already, and was insulted by the university offerings and the enforced state requirements. Therefore, I chose another field, which was of greater interest to me, and would actually FURTHER my education.

When teachers are asked to become mentors to other teachers, take on more responsibilities, and exert more leadership, there is little time for one to become MORE professional. I find this area very frustrating and ignorant of what a teacher actually encounters in the profession.
 
 

The Policy Dilemma, Alternatives to Traditions Models, Focus of Responsibility for Professional Development:

I agree that teachers should facilitate learning, however, if a teacher does NOT have a strong "knowledge base" and only "broad principles" to translate into a "day-to-day practice", an overseer/manager can supply classroom needs.

Yes, teachers should have an opportunity to learn, but as anyone in the teaching profession can see, there is no time allotted for this. Schools are becoming year-round (as was my school) and the old notion of doing a Master's in the summer is no longer valid. I am NOT less busy during the summer than I am in the winter, nor are the majority of teachers. Teachers are on burnout from work overload, and courses that demand full time efforts in the summer are simply not feasible. Small wonder that teachers are leaving the profession in droves.