Enrollment is up this year, so up in fact that colleges are struggling to keep up. USA Today reports that many state schools are seeing far more freshmen than they anticipated. Now they have to scramble to find enough dorm rooms and classrooms to house and educate them all.
From free market purists to advocates of government jobs programs, there's a great deal of disagreement across the political spectrum on what should be done to help America's poorest, but many people of various political stripes agree that an update is definitely in order for the formula the government uses to set the poverty rate.
Our series of Lessons Learned surveys have shown time and time again that new teachers don't feel they're getting the support they need to do a good job -- or to stick with teaching. Clearly we can't have good schools without good teachers, but how do we get them the backing they need?
Comments
I think teachers need to interact more with parents... As a Parent, I would like to know more of what is going on in the classroom day-to-day... Then I can give more support to the teachers... Parent of 6-year-old J T
I agree with the previous poster, JT. If teachers make contact with the parents and involve them in the daily grind of schooling, the parents are far more likely to feel a responsibility to help teachers get the resources they need and also to support the teachers directly. I can add that the complaints of teachers are not unlike those of many other public servants - firefighters who want better equipment, police who want to be free to do their job -- and all of them want better wages. One way to get communicty backing is from from block -- political clubs, neighborhood associations, PTA and so on. Union-based measures that seem designed to stop competition from other school models or to protect the jobs of incompetent teachers don't help create support.
MH
As a teacher it would be wonderful to have parents who want to be involved. Not all parents are willing to come to school.
Often the best approaches to improve involvement are bottom-up endeavors. Does anyone know of local initiatives started by teachers that have improved parental involvement. Capturing and sharing these ideas or practices could be helpful
I concur that the best schools/students appear to be the ones with parent involvement, but it's also hard to transform a model of parental involvement that was set up for two parent families with one working parent, to the current world of single parent/blended parent two-career/job families. And, I must confess, when I was a student, I dreaded having my parnets tell my teachers they needed to give more homework.
Thanks for the comments! Our research on first year teachers show that secondary (middle and high school) teachers are more likely to say that they do not get excellent or good advice from their more experienced colleagues on working and communicating with parents than new elementary teachers (a 10 point gap).
I'm curious if this is your experience as well-- do elementary school teachers do a better job of keeping parents informed? How about newer teachers overall; do they know when and how to contact you about your cihild's performance?
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Thanks,
Jon Rochkind
Research Director, Education Insights
Public Agenda
Web: www.publicagenda.org
Yes. Elementary teachers do a better job at keeping the parents of their students involved...or at least they try. I am a parent, a teacher, and just left my position as a local employee association President. I have seen it from all sides.
The cars of elementary teachers are often seen in the school parking lots long after dark. It is the nature of elementary teachers ...they are generally more nurturing.
Elementary teachers send home weekly papers to be signed, usually contact parents by phone or email, participate more in school/student/parent activities, and are expected at the drop of a hat to meet with parents. When taking field trips, parents chaperone.
Secondary teachers do not make time for parents...they expect you to come to see them on their time. They are accountable for more students, and my guess is that by the time the parents of most children have reached high school age, many parents have become cynical about public schools and teachers. Secondary school teachers generally leave the school building as soon as they can.
The only time most parents hear from the secondary teachers/schools is when their kid has done something wrong or is a star student or athlete. The average kid/late bloomer is disenfranchised by the public school and if the child is feeling left out, my guess is the parent is also feeling that the public schools have somehow left them behind.
Middle school is where the problems begin...maybe it is because it is such a difficult age, but middle school teachers and administrators are so negative, and are so quick to make rules, and assume everyone is a problem student. The classes are usually too large and there is not much middle schools have to offer students in the way of extra-curricular activities....as a matter of fact, most communities don't have much to offer that age group.
If new teachers feel that they are not getting adequate or helpful advice from their more experienced peers now, what will happen if merit pay is instituted? Again, this is only a guess, but the more experienced teachers are probably feeling the same level of frustration from their school district that the new teachers are feeling from their colleagues. That is a morale issue...and not enough is being said about morale among teachers. Sure they love their job...they wouldn't do it if they didn't. But how many of them feel they are appreciated by their fellow teachers, their administrators, or their school division. It is all about holding people accountable and accountability is all about...."your not doing a good enough job. Your training and experience as a teacher are sub-standard and don't count."
This question has many levels...it is not a quick fix.
I'm a father with three children (9th grade step-daughter, two sons 3rd & 4th grade) and I also substitute teach in the Fairfax County, Virginia school system, which is generally recognized as one of the best in the country, and I agree with that assessment.
That said, the level of communication from at the elementary school level to the middle school (7th and 8th grade in our case) and high school, dropped like a rock. In Fairfax, school system wide there is an envelope that goes home weekly with information about school events, PTA events, after school organizations( e.g. Cub Scouts, Sports leagues, Girl Scouts, etc) at all elementary schools. Given the diversity of Fairfax County some schools have their information going out in about ten different languages, so making sure that the student gets the information in the language that the parents understand is itself a large task.
At the middle school level this communication essentially ceases, it's "the student's responsiblity now", and while at one level I would like to agree with that, the reality is that today's 7th grader is a heck of lot more like a 6th grader than a high school student. Since I was in the middle school as a substitute, I would see some of the flyers that were on the bulletin board and my daugther had never mentioned anything about it, likewise with the P.A. announcementss.
The short answer to your question is yes, elementary teachers do a better job of keeping the parents informed, but this is also a systemic issue. Your children are at elementary school for 7 years (K-6) and because of this span, parents are much more likely to have multiple children in one school, and each teacher has just the 22-30 in their class, depending upon the school system.
I was on the middle school PTA and with just two years there, it was very hard to get parents involved, even the ones that had been very active at the elementary level. At this particular middle school, they had a team approach, and in her 8th grade year, the team did a fairly good job of communicating via e-mail (one per week). I know that a number of parents would like to see the weekly envelope method continued at least through middle school, because I know we felt like the only reason we even knew about any of the PTA / school events was because I was on the PTA board.
Not specifically about communication, but two areas where I would like to see Fairfax schools do a better job, is in emphasizing the fact that in math, you simply have to memorize the multiplication tables. I've seen 6th graders take 3-4 minutes to come up with the fact that 6x7 is 42, so that they can then start to work on the word problem on a test. If it takes you 3-4 minutes to come up with the first step, you don't have any time left to work on the actual problem and you will not finish the test in time. There are simply some things that need to memorized, period, and they will use it for the rest of their lives.
The second area where I'm not sure what happened is book reports, because I sure did not see many required of my daughter in her elementary and middle school years. I think most adults will agree that almost all jobs require taking in a large amount of material, and then coming up with a short summary of what's most important, e.g. a book report. It also helps develop the habit of reading, which is a good habit to have.
Regards,
Bill Huddleston
Fairfax, Virginia
BillHuddleston@verizon.net
one more time
In defense of the secondary teacher who seems not to communicate with parents as well, I think you have to consider a couple of things before you decide they aren't doing a good job. Our kindergarten teachers have no more than 20 students while our ninth grade teachers average 150 students. That adds up to a lot more parents. If the ninth grade teacher contacts 20 parents during a week, that leaves 130 that didn't get contacted. Also, while the 1st grader comes home anxious to tell his parents all about his day, the 14 year old may not get off the cell phone long enough to tell his parents anything. Our school has an advisory program. Each teacher is the adviser to 17 or 18 students. That gives the parents and students a contact person who can get more involved with the smaller group of students.
But that doesn't answer the original question about what new teachers need. They need to ask a lot of questions. They need a mentor. They need to spot the successful veteran teacher, and ask to observe their class. They need to get to know the librarian, the counselor, the custodian and the school secretary. These people can give you a lot of valuable information.