Stop and think, just for a minute, about all the factors the experts say impact our education system. No Child Left Behind, standardized tests, funding all play a role in the environment in which we teach our children, but perhaps the biggest factor isn’t what we are teaching them or where, but who is teaching them.
Teacher education should be at the forefront of any discussion about the quality of the education system in the United States. Perhaps it is time to change not only the way we teach our educators but also the way in which we reward them.
Teacher accreditation is fairly standard across the country, although there are a few notable exceptions. There are a few states, most notably Tennessee, who have revolutionized the way the hire and reward teachers. Their system, the value added assessment, has little to do with college credit hours or teaching assistant time and more to do with what an individual teacher can bring to the classroom. In short, a teacher value should be measured in terms of more than their GPA.
What would a change like this mean for our education system at large? Most likely teachers hired under this concept would be more desirable and better educators. Teachers that are more likely to go the extra mile. Teachers who see the point in teaching at an inner city school in a poor neighborhood. Teachers who can see past economic, racial and geographic barriers. Teachers who recognize that teaching children is more important than helping them become productive and socially acceptable adults.
Maybe we simply have too many laws, too many regulations. We have, perhaps, lost sight of the bigger picture. We should be educating our children about real life situations and teaching them the tools they need to navigate the world. We shouldn’t be focusing on standardized tests and federal funding. We need to start building better teachers.
