In a recent op-ed piece for the Huffington Post, Secretary of Education Arne Duncan discusses his views on how to improve the teaching profession by sharing conversations he’s had with educators across the country. He captures a sentiment common among educators: they “love teaching though they wouldn’t mind a little more respect for their challenging work and a little less blame for America’s educational shortcomings.”
The op-ed was written in conjunction with the Department’s announcement of a new initiative, “Strengthening and Elevating the Teaching Profession” (I blogged about it here). He reminds us that regardless of the measures taken to strengthen and elevate the teaching profession, teacher’s must be listened to, or the attempts at reform are “doomed.”
He summarizes some of the common themes teachers participating in the RESPECT Project concurred on: the lack of preparation for the classroom, lack of mentoring and support, and high-stakes testing and the results of which provide the bulk of most measures of teacher effectiveness. Compensation is not generally an issue for teachers, but Duncan argues that teachers are severely undercompensated compared to other professions.
The thing he has found most teachers to be enthusiastic about are “career pathways,” which have differentiated roles that do not require excellent teachers to leave the classroom, but compensate them for their excellence. However, what the teachers in the RESPECT Project have continually lamented is the lack of time—time for collaboration, lesson planning, professional learning, and for working with small groups of students. “Unfortunately,” Duncan observes, “we shoehorn schooling into a too-short school day and year.”
Duncan ends with a call to make teaching not just one of America’s most important professions, but also one of the most valued. “America’s teachers are hungry for comprehensive reform to their profession and they are ready to lead the change. Indeed, they are the only ones who can.”
To read the full article, please visit http://www.huffingtonpost.com/arne-duncan/ask-the-teachers_b_1490642.html
