Despite A’s at Gompers, former student talks about feeling unprepared

First I want to say that it was brave and generous of UCSD student Felipe Morfin Martinez to come forward and say that his K-12 education did not adequately prepare him in science. I'm glad he brought that issue to the attention of the public.

I noticed that Felipe blames only the director of his high school--not his teachers--for his lack of academic preparation in science. I think Felipe is allowing his good personal relationships with his teachers to interfere with his assessment of the situation.

I believe that Felipe was short-changed, but I believe the problem started in elementary school, and I believe that teachers share the blame as much as principals.

Also, I suspect that Gompers doesn't provide adequate remediation for kids who didn't learn basic concepts in elementary school.

Also, it's possible that Felipe wasn't really much interested in science. He says,

"I wanted to do science and I guess it clicked on me when I was probably in 10th grade or ninth grade where it was like, ‘my dreams aren’t going to happen because I can see it. I’m not ready for that, I’m not prepared for that.’"

Why would he give up on science in "10th grade or ninth grade"?

I know from personal experience that an effective teacher can teach kids to thoroughly understand math and science concepts. Felipe's problem isn't that his classes weren't advanced enough.  Felipe must have taken courses up to and including pre-calculus to get into UCSD. He could also have taken two more years of calculus.

The problem is that only a minority of kids deeply understand basic concepts. And often those kids learned more at home than at school.

During my years teaching in elementary school I far too frequently heard teachers claiming that the math was too hard for any teacher to understand. I once contradicted such a teacher, and then I learned to keep my mouth shut.

The problem is a lack of basic education in elementary school and a lack of remedial education in the higher grades. And you need super good teachers to make remedial education fun and fascinating. You can't just have hacks that pass out easy math worksheets...

Despite A’s at Gompers, former student talks about feeling unprepared

by Megan Wood & Brad Racino  

May 22, 2017

inewsource

inewsource published an investigation last week into the quality of education at Gompers Preparatory Academy — a nationally recognized charter school that promises “students can succeed at the university of their choice.” After the story ran, Felipe Morfin Martinez came forward to share his experience.

Morfin Martinez graduated from Gompers in 2016 and was awarded a full-ride scholarship to the University of California San Diego where he is studying communications.

He told inewsource that he realized early in his Gompers education that he wasn’t being challenged in his classes. Despite earning straight A’s, he said, he knew he wasn’t prepared to achieve his dream of pursuing a career in science. When he shared his concerns at home, he said, his parents responded: “You don’t believe in yourself, look at your grades.”

Morfin Martinez says he’s proud of his straight A’s at UCSD, “but they’re not the classes I wish I could take. They’re not organic chemistry, they’re not the chemistry series, the math series, they’re not the classes that people value.”...

Teachers get dumbed-down education and easy A's in credential programs

Maura Larkins' note:  Previous studies have noted that colleges accept into their school administrator training programs a large number of low-scorers on the GRE. The vast majority of these candidates are teachers who want to become administrators.  (Physical Education programs also accepted students with low scores.)  Clearly, high-scoring individuals are choosing professions other than education.  Perhaps if we paid more to teachers we would have candidates with more ability applying to education programs.

For Immediate Release                                         Contact: Lisa Cohen, 310-395-2544 November 12, 2014                                               lisacohencomm@gmail.com NCTQ Report Finds That Teacher Prep Coursework Is Easier Than That of Other Majors on College Campuses “Easy A’s and What’s Behind Them” Highlights Lack of Rigor in Teacher Preparation; Report Finds That 44% of Teacher Candidates Graduate With Honors While Only 30% of All Undergraduate Students Do So Washington, DC — A new report from the National Council on Teacher Quality (NCTQ) documents that education majors are significantly more likely to receive high grades and graduate with honors than students in other majors on the same campuses. The report, Easy A’s and What’s Behind Them, argues that the persistent lack of rigor in teacher education coursework is a disservice to future teachers and their students. By failing to signal the challenge and complexity of real teaching, these courses send too many graduates into the classroom woefully unprepared, thus diminishing the value of their investment in preparation.   The report can be found here. NCTQ looked at graduation data for students from more than 500 institutions—where nearly half of all new teachers are prepared—and found that education majors are almost half again as likely as all graduating students to graduate with academic honors. “Teaching is one of the most difficult and demanding jobs there is,” said Kate Walsh, president of NCTQ. “Yet for reasons that are hard to fathom, it appears to be one of the easiest majors both to get into and then to complete. Our findings are provocative and disturbing, helping to explain why most new teachers are overwhelmed when they walk into the classroom. The situation is not fair to the kids who get assigned to new teachers, nor is it right to shortchange the teachers themselves— who through no fault of their own are not sufficiently prepared.” Easy A’s is the latest installment in a series of reports by NCTQ, each focusing on a different aspect of teacher preparation. These reports supplement NCTQ’s much broader Teacher Prep Review, which rates the quality of teacher preparation programs and is published by U.S. News & World Report. Easy A’s findings:   Based on spring commencement brochures from 509 institutions, a teacher candidate is half again as likely to graduate with honors: on average, 44 percent of teacher candidates versus only 30 percent of all students in graduating classes earn academic honors. This 14 percentage point average differential between graduating teacher candidates and other graduating students (44%-30%) masks the much larger difference found at many of the institutions in the study. At about a quarter of the colleges and universities, the gap stands at a disturbing 20 percentage points, climbing as high as 40 percentage points in 14 (3 percent) of the institutions. At a minority but significant number of institutions (42 percent), teacher candidates are not much more likely than their campus peers to earn honors. At these institutions, there are few, no or even reverse differentials—proof that it is possible for grading standards in teacher preparation to align to campus norms.   (Individual findings for the 509 institutions can be retrieved from the NCTQ website, http://www.nctq.org/teacherPrep/review2014.do, and are found in Appendix A of the report.) NCTQ’s analysis did not stop with an examination of grades, but also investigated why teacher candidates at so many colleges and universities might receive such high grades in professional coursework, even as many surveys report that new teachers frequently struggle to be effective despite their high grades. Ruling out a number of explanations, the analysis ultimately focused on the kinds of assignments that the candidates must complete. NCTQ analyzed the types of course assignments for 1,161 courses, both education and non-education (including business, psychology, history, nursing, economics and biology) across 33 institutions, finding two basic types of assignments. NCTQ termed these two types of assignments “criterion-deficient” and “criterion-referenced.” The prevalence of one type of assignment over another proves to be a powerful predictor of whether a course is more or less likely to lead to high grades. (This relationship was determined using a subsample of 499 courses for which the average grade is publicly available.) Courses where it is relatively easy to earn an "A" rely primarily on criterion-deficient assignments. Such assignments tend to be generally quite broad in nature, do not require demonstration or mastery of particular knowledge or skills, and are often subjective, asking only that students express an opinion. Courses where it is harder to earn an "A" tend to base grades more on “criterion-referenced” assignments, honing in more narrowly on specific knowledge and skills. These assignments are more objective in nature, with an understanding that some strategies are more effective than others in the classroom. (Examples of the two types of assignments can be found at the conclusion of the press release, with many examples taken from teacher preparation coursework in Sections 2 and 4, and Appendix D of the report.)  “Criterion-deficient” assignments are overwhelmingly more common in education coursework than in the courses in other majors. In the average teacher preparation course, criterion-deficient assignments account on average for 71 percent of the grade, but in non-education coursework such assignments account for only 34 percent of the course grade. Based on this research, NCTQ makes a number of recommendations. Among them, teacher preparation programs need to examine teacher candidates' grades on their own campuses to align their grades with other majors, set common standards for what it takes to earn top marks, shift the balance of assignments from criterion-deficient to criterion-referenced, and award honors to only a limited percentile of top-performing candidates. About the National Council on Teacher Quality The National Council on Teacher Quality is a nonprofit, nonpartisan research and policy organization located in Washington, DC.  Founded in 2000, the National Council on Teacher Quality is committed to restructuring the teaching profession, led by our vision that every child deserves effective teachers. NCTQ is committed to lending transparency to and increasing public awareness of the four institutions having the greatest impact on teacher quality: states, teacher preparation programs, school districts and teachers unions. Funding for NCTQ's Teacher Prep Review and related reports is provided by over 50 foundations, located in 22 states. What Others are Saying About Easy A’s and What’s Behind Them Dina Rock, a 5th grade language arts and social studies teacher from Ohio who was an advisor to the project, said, “Too often new teachers don’t know what they didn’t learn until they’re on their own, facing classrooms of children. Easy A’s explains what’s behind the painfully frustrating experience of too many new teachers.” ​Celine Coggins, Executive Director of Teach Plus, whose focus is ensuring that urban children are taught by effective, experienced teachers, said, “Every year thousands of bright college students go into education, committed to working specifically with children in poverty. Then we drive them away from the profession because we didn’t train them well. Kids who desperately need these new teachers’ energy and passion are the losers. If we want to be successful at educating at-risk children, we have to teach their teachers well.” Examples of Criterion-Referenced and Criterion-Deficient Assignments The distinction between these two types of assignments is not unique to teacher preparation coursework, but we focus on examples that could have been taken from teacher preparation because of the focus of NCTQ's work.  In order to show that it is not difficult to add criteria to an assignment that is criterion-deficient to ensure that both teacher candidates and their instructors can focus more on critical content and skills, the two criterion-referenced are modifications of the criterion-deficient examples. An explanation of how the assignment has been improved to provide a better foundation for strong training is provided.   Criterion-Deficient Assignment Criterion-Referenced Assignment Indicate on the checklist that will be provided to you the techniques that the teacher whom you are observing in your field placement class uses to engage all students in discussion.  Indicate on the checklist that will be provided to you in class the techniques that the teacher whom you are observing in [your field placement class] the video we will view in class uses to engage all students in discussion.  How is this improved?: By selection of a video, the instructor can ensure that candidates view particularly significant techniques and demonstrate the skill to discern the techniques. After teaching a lesson in your field placement, analyze the results of pre- and a post-teaching quizzes and interpret how the results would inform your instructional planning if you were teaching the next day.  [After teaching a lesson in your field placement,] Analyze the results of a the pre- and post-teaching quizzes that I have provided and interpret how the results would inform your instructional planning if you were teaching the next day.  How is this improved?: By analyzing results from quizzes that the instructor has developed,  the instructor both ensures that candidates are examining results that contain important content about student misconceptions and  common errors or difficulties, and that the candidates have the skill to discern both what has not been learned and what can or should be taught next.

From the Dumb Teacher files: What is it about swimming pools that makes teachers act stupid?

Kayona Hagen-Tietz of Como Park High School in St. Paul

I had my own experience with swimming pool weirdness with Castle Park Elementary teachers in 2001.

School Slammed For Forcing Girl To Stand Half-Naked In Sub-Zero Temperatures
By: Robert Porter
Issue Hawk
March 5, 2014

A Minnesota school has come under fire for forcing a wet and half-naked student to stand outside in sub-zero temperatures. Fourteen-year-old Kayona Hagen-Tietz developed frostbite after being shepherded outside from a swimming class when the school’s fire alarm went off. A teacher at Como Park Senior High School in St. Paul told her that there was no time for her to get her clothes or towel from the locker and rushed her outside while still wet in a swimsuit. The temperature outside was -5 degrees that day and was -25 degrees with the windchill.

“When they had seen that, they should have had some kind of protocol,” said the girl’s mother, Eva. “If I had a fire and brought my children out in that condition, you know, I’m sure I would be charged in some way or another if I didn’t instantly bring them into a neighbor’s house or someplace else. The ultimate goal is to keep them safe and protect your children, and, in this instance, they did a really poor job.”

Eva declined to pursue legal action against the school, but also wants them to issue a public apology and reexamine their fire policies. The school district issued a statement saying they regularly review such policies and intend to do so again in the future, which the school’s principal declined to comment on the scandal.

Teachers arrange mock hanging; boy falls with rope around his neck

My question is: what sort of decisions do these teachers make the rest of the time (when they're not planning mock hangings)?


Class hanging has authorities seeing red
Wed Jun 3, 2009
Reuters

A student who fell with a noose around his neck during a mock class hanging that was arranged by teachers has enraged Australian authorities.

The high school student fell from a table while fellow students, under the supervision of a teacher, were photographing a staged hanging as part of an English class project.

"It beggars belief that such an incident could take place," Queensland state Education Minister Geoff Wilson told local radio on Wednesday.

"I'm a parent. The last thing I've ever wanted any of my children to do is put a rope around their neck," Wilson said.

Students and teachers rushed to the boy and cut the rope when he fell, Education Queensland Assistant Director-General Lyn McKenzie said, although local newspapers said the boy turned blue before he was freed.

The student was allowed to go home with his mother after being examined by paramedics, while authorities launched an investigation into how the incident occurred.