Korean Job Discussion Forums

Keepongoing · Joined: 13 Feb 2003 Location: Korea

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060113/ap_on_re_us/houston_teacher_pay

I am not from the Houston area, but I wondder about this bonus. If a teacher is from a good school district with well amnnerred students it would seem that they will be getting the bonuses, as opposed to teachers who struggle with more bilingual students, or areas where there are less motivated students.

I am not sure I like this push to "teach for the test" seems like we are going more in the direction of Korea??

I know there is a problem. I am familiar with California and they had passed a proposition where after 1 year all non-native speakers had to be mainstreamed into the regualr school system. (How many people learn English so well that they can compete with native speakers after a year?)

This places extreme stress on both the student and the teacher.

I will say though that someone is not doing their job. When I did my graduate degree I tutored a freshman who had written an essay. I read
the essay and asked her to circle all the verbs as she had them all in the base form. She pushed the paper back to me and told me that she did not know verbs. I asked her where she was born and she told me "in the USA". Amazing. Here she is in University. I attended a CSU which is easy to get into but has a very high drop out rate the first year. Basically the Uni's have a lot of remedial courses. In fact they have rememdial courses for remedial courses. That is a big weakness of the University, but they will not graduate anyone until they have passed a Writing Skills Tests. I tutored a Chinese lady who had failed it 4 times and could not graduate till she passed it.

Anyway, I am rambling. I believe the US school system is in a terrible state, but I disagree with much of what the government is doing. I have spoken to many teachers from different States and they all seem to be saying the same thing about the governments imposed program. I am not sure this Houston plan will be that uplifting to a lot of teachers.

So my questions is:

What do you think about the Houston plan?

What do you think about the school system in your country/State?

How to solve the mess in the US???

one side note: I do not think it is immigrants as we have always had them and have not always had such a bad system.

krats1976 · Joined: 14 May 2003

Paji eh Wong · Joined: 03 Jun 2003

Ya-ta Boy · Joined: 16 Jan 2003 Location: Established in 1994

I've been thinking lately about going home this year, but you've just reminded me of the #1

Mr. Literal · Joined: 03 Jul 2003 Location: Third rock from the Sun.

The_Hanged_Man · Joined: 10 Jul 2005

I teach in Texas (although not in Houston) right now, and have mixed feelings about this. On the one hand the testing and now these new incentive schemes are forcing a lot of mediocre teachers to actually teach content. There was a time not so long ago when a teacher could just close the door to their classroom and pretty much anything the did in there would fly.

Of course the flip side of this that good teachers are now straightjacketed by the new standards, and there is enormous pressure to teach the test. Last year at my school the administration unvieled a new 'curriculum'. It was just a copy of last year's standardized state test!

I understand the desire to standardize the curriculum, but what is really happening is a McDonalds-ization of education. More and more teachers are being forced to teach prepackaged lessons that are geared towards the middle 50% of the class (The so called 'bubble-kids' who are in danger of not passing the state test). The top performing kids end up not being pushed to excel, and the bottom kids often end up marginalized.

Personally, I plan to be working at an international school this time next year. Teaching in the States isn't what it used to be, and I'm itching to go back overseas again.

khyber · Joined: 16 Jan 2003 Location: Compunction Junction

Mr. Literal · Joined: 03 Jul 2003 Location: Third rock from the Sun.

OiGirl · Joined: 23 Jan 2003 Location: Hoke-y-gun

It's part of No Child Left Behind -- many states have teacher bonuses based on students' high-stakes testing scores.

The Man known as The Man · Posted: Sat Jan 14, 2006 11:35 am Post subject:

It's a good theory, but I'm skeptical-the provincial Liberals in Ontario are in the process of dumbing down the Math curriculum-have to do that to get the graduation rate higher.