For some reason, people don't seem to find it necessary to ask teachers what might help improve education. My guess is that it's because everyone went to school at some point in their lives that everyone thinks they know what actually works for educating kids. So the experts (teachers) get ignored as essentially a special interest group (they do have a union, you know) while the decisions gets made elsewhere using input from other people.
This isn't just my sense. According to a report based on the Met Life Survey of the American Teacher, fully 69% of teachers do not believe their voices have been adequately heard in the current debate on education. That's pretty incredible. You know that if 69% of doctors said their voices weren't being heard on the health care debate there would be an explosion of outrage. But when it's education that's in question, that's just kind of accepted.
Am I the only one who thinks that's nuts? When my seak is leaking, I call the plumber. When my computer goes haywire, I call tech support. When the education system needs reform, I think we should ask the teachers what they think. How am I in the minority on this?
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I have to agree. I am currently a second year teacher in a Title I school and although I don't have years of experience behind me, I feel that I possess valuable information from what I have already learned. I think one of the issues is that many good teachers have to spend such a significant number of hours of each day just to be effective at teaching that we don't have time to be more involved in the political process of education, even on a local level. The job constraints that don't allow us to be involved show clearly just how much reform is necessary.
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