# Highly qualified!



## DJRooster (Nov 4, 2002)

Common sense finally prevailed and the veteran elementary teachers of North Dakota are grandfathered in as being highly qualified. My sister has a student teacher who has yet to set foot in her own classrrom but the student teacher is highly qualified because she took some test but after 30 years of sucessful teaching experience in North Dakota my sister was not highly qualified. That my friends is bureacracy at it's finest. That is No Child Left Behind. Hell, North Dakota has believed in No Child Left Behind since the beginning of the one room school house. Instead of bureacrats in Washington telling North Dakota how to run their schools we should be telling Washington how to run their schools. Duh!! Common sense finally prevailed!


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## Aythya (Oct 23, 2004)

I have to agree with you on this one. While I think that there may be room for improvement in teacher qualifications for new teachers it is bogus to make it retroactive.

There is always room for improvement in the field of education. I think if you asked veteran teachers, at least those who are really dedicated, they would agree. And there are probably many who would embrace additional requirements if it was handled in a logical, objective manner. And it didn't immediately mean they weren't qualified or had to expend hundreds of their own dollars to get qualified.

What this law did was basically saw to teachers in all states, "You agreed to the ground rules and followed them but now we are going to change them."

If we are to have national standards for teachers then should we not have national standards for other professions? Probably not a bad idea on the whole but to make it retroactive is ridiculous.


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## Remmi_&amp;_I (Dec 2, 2003)

The whole system is flawed. I have a friend that teaches History and he doesn't even have a history minor. He is a phys. ed major, but the school needed someone to fill that class so he has it :eyeroll:

He basically reads the book to them and gives them worksheets. He honestly thinks he is a good history teacher because "it's all the same."

Now, if he continues to teach it for 5 years, I would say he was ok because he has been actively teaching himself for all this time. But in 1-2 years...........nope!


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## Aythya (Oct 23, 2004)

Remmi,

I don't agree with the scenario you describe. That person was not qualified from the beginning to teach history. The sad reality is that many schools, especially small ones, have trouble getting teachers, period. When they get in a crunch they take measures to fill in. I don't know the specifics of the school situation you describe but for many small schools it is nearly impossible to attract qualified teachers.

My point is this. If you were qualified to teach a subject before NCLB by the standards set by the state, and you continue to fulfill the requirements (continuing ed, etc.) then you are still qualified. To make new standards retroactive as was attempted here does nothing for education.


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## Ron Gilmore (Jan 7, 2003)

Ever have to deal with the aftermath of a tenured teacher who on paper is qualified, but is not making that effort in the class room any more?

Have 250 kids in that grade 28 of which under this teacher. Year end results where that her class was at the bottom on all subject matters. The students going into her class where average or above average except for 3 students.

That is what is broken, and NKLB bill can and fix this issue. The school board was forced to give her a raise ionstead of firinging her. Some times the obvious gets glossed over by the rhetoric. This is one of the biggest fixes that NKLB gives to all of us!


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## Aythya (Oct 23, 2004)

Ron,

The school board was forced to give her a raise! Explain that one please.

Nobody said it was ever easy to terminate a tenured faculty member. In many cases I would guess the school board just doesn't want to take it on. I also would guess that the proper administrators have not done the needed work to document the poor performance of a sub-par teacher in many cases. And, if school administrators routinely promote, give raises, grant tenure, etc. to teachers they see as not meeting the grade, so to speak, they are partly at fault.

But, I think the problem also lies in the dilemma facing many schools, be they inner city or small towns in ND. It is hard to attract the best and brightest into the teaching profession these days and extremely difficult to attract them to areas with extreme challenges. What do you do as a school administrator when you have teaching vacancies and you can't get people to apply? How do you keep teachers at your school? In some cases teachers are retained even when they aren't good because the alternative might be nobody to teach that particular subject. Or, you assign classes to someone who has a minor in a subject vs. a major because that is all you have available. Resources are stretched too thin in many schools.

Establishing criteria like those in NCLB might help if they were uniformly included in college curricula across the country. And, if they were developed in coordination with the recognized authorities in education in this country there could be some long term benefits to quality education. But to make them retroactive to all the existing teachers in the country makes no sense. I can't see how that would have any impact on the problem you describe.

A lousy teacher could certainly get qualified under these provisions and then what? That is no guarantee of excellence in the classroom. And if that lousy teacher has tenure and continues to do a lousy job it still comes back to taking the appropriate action, certified or not.

I think the problem you are describing will continue under the NCLB provisions even if rigorous new criteria are put in place. You will probably disagree.


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## Ron Gilmore (Jan 7, 2003)

It can happen under the NCLB but that single teacher can affect the financial status for the entire school. Once that kind of attention gets drawn, tenure and other status quo issues will go away.

Why can a teacher as R&I described do a better job in an off subject than one who is specialized in that field? The answer many times is accountability. I gather you have not dealt with a situation as I described outside of ND. Most teachers new out of the box have the enthusiasm to do a good job. When that tide of enthusiasm changes and the teachers become complacent that is when the issues start, and tenure is is place. See when a new teacher is hired and that teacher is a bad teacher they can simply move them down the road. When a average or above average teacher slips and goes bad under current systems the problem can drag on for 6 or 7 years, affecting each years students negavitely. One needs to look at this from one simple premise!

THIS WILL BENIFIT THE KIDS! Teachers and school boards should not be the number one priority in education direction! The kids should.


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## DJRooster (Nov 4, 2002)

Ron, Ron, Ron, firing a teacher because they are "lazy" as you describe is a totally different issue than what we are talking about. This is the classic response whenever discussion about teachers comes up. What about that one teacher that should be "fired" but never gets "fired." These "lazy' ones, or ones that have "been there to long" then get thrown in with all the teachers that are not "lazy" and have not "been there to long" and pretty soon the assumption is that none of them should be paid because of that one "lazy" one. The fact of the matter being that the administration and school board are not doing their job which involves supervision of the teacher and they blame it on the "teachers union" as to why they can't do their job when the reality of the situation is that they are the ones who are incompetent but again it is the "teachers" fault. This has been the argument that I have heard over and over again as to logic as to why teachers should not be paid a certain salary because there are those as you use the term "lazy" teachers out there. It is what I call "North Dakota Logic" and the very reason why everyone including teachers are leaving the state. Quite, frankly I see you as being anti "teacher" and see you as being a part of the problem and not the solution to the problem. Your response did not surprise because it is a classic response. There is that "one" so punish the rest!! For your information there is no "tenure" in North Dakota but we do have laws that say you cannot fire a teacher because you "don't like them."


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