Many of us probably know this, but this is certainly not good news... http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081125/ap_on_re_us/qualified_teachers Shawn
It's not just a math problem. With teacher pay continually falling below the pay rate of people in professions which require similar skills, why would one want to become a teacher. There are days that I hate my job, and days that I love it, but I'm not really in it for the pay. I'm in it for the experience. As long as the nation as a whole continues to undermine public education through legislation such as NCLB, and through an overall lack of support for education by the general public, schools and students will fail. When parents don't push their kids to succeed, they will most likely fail. The schools can try as they might, but without parent support, the students will fail. While I teach history, which is not really a subject that requires mastery of one topic before moving on to another, I can empathize with my math colleagues. They are forced to move at aggresive paces to meet the standards set forth by the individual states so that the kids can pass the state assessment tests. Quite frankly, and unfortunately, they really don't have the time to ensure that all students are fully understanding every concept. To top that off, states and local districts are cutting funding to education resulting in cuts to staff and other support programs. My class sizes have nearly doubled in three years due to staff cuts. Imagine that happening in a math class. How does the teacher give individualized attention to students who may be having difficulties? It's very difficult. Now imagine that due to low salaries, barely qualified people apply for the teaching job. They might have a degree in mathematics, but not have the knowledge of how to teach it. That's a problem. My school is in a very rural community. We are the 10th richest county in the commonwealth of Virginia. Billions of dollars of waterfront property are sold each year in the county. However, about half of the students in our schools are qualified for free or reduced lunch. Our problem is that our school population is not representative of the county's population. When the majority of the general population doesn't want to pay taxes to support a school that they have no connection to, budgets are cut and it is the kids who suffer. We had a teaching staff of 38. This year we lost 6 teachers. Next year they're expecting to cut 3 more. The state says we have to offer a variety of courses so that students can obtain standard and advanced diplomas, but it is increasing hard to do that when we're losing the staff to teach the courses. It's so unfortunate. If only people in the US valued education as much as their professional sports teams, we might be better off... -Matt
>> I empathize with this problem. I'd like to see more basics taught and for longer before adding in fluff subjects and electives. Teaching kids to understand math is hard. I work one on one with my 4 kids, and they spend 2 hours M-F on math. We are also a very "talk about numbers" family. They all have nice math skills, however, it takes a lot of work. I can't see any way around it other than plain and simple contact hours- inside and outside of the classroom. More math practice, more math practice, more math practice. My culinary math students (on average) don't test in at 100 level math (graduation requirement) when the sign up for the program, so a few years ago our program switched from "college math" to "culinary math" as the AAS degree requirement. Culinary math used to be an elective. I'd say the class is about a 7th/8th grade level of difficulty. We now have better retention.
Again, I don't teach math here, but from talking to other teachers, I've heard that the 8th grade math state assessment is a lot harder than the Algebra I state assessment. I can't say if that's true or not, but it wouldn't surprise me. I still have trouble remembering all of my times tables, yet I can do differential and integral calculus. I just liked using letters in math -Matt
I teach at a local college and all of our incoming students are required to take a placement test. Students who do not pass the math portion of this assessment test are required to take remedial Fundamentals of Math course. I have been teaching this particular math course for the past year. Some of my students are returning to school after spending many years in the workforce and they obviously need a refresher on basic mathematics. However I am appalled at how our young people (those who just graduated from high school) are so poorly educated. Last term I had a rather intelligent, young lady who could not even perform simple long division. This term I have a student that can’t multiply 2 X 2 without his calculator. I spend countless hours, both in the class and tutoring, trying to bring these students up to an acceptable level for math. We certainly have a disconnect in our public schools. I generally agree that, if we want to encourage young people to move into the teaching profession, there has to be an incentive. Not many professions require such high levels of college education but pay those entering the workforce such a small amount. I know a couple of young teachers who are barely making enough to cover their student loans and have money to live. Some states have loan forgiveness programs for those students who agree to work in the poorest communities, but it’s my understanding that, in Kentucky, the funds for this has been cut because of current economic conditions.
>> ProfTim- thanks for weighing in on this. It's nice to hear from you! Since I'm in the applied tech division, It's hard to judge what's going on in the arts and sciences divisions. If you take away the calculator for a "day 1 quiz", I'd guess 50% of your students would miss a long division problem with a decimal divisor. (in my classes it's around 75%)
It's sad, but math teachers are almost required to teach "calculator" rather than "math" these days. Our administrators tell us we have to do whatever possible to get the kids to pass the state tests. For the math teachers, this means teaching the kids to use the calculator to solve problems instead of doing the long way. That's not how I learned, but then again, state testing wasn't implemented when I was in school. Here's another issue. The state tests are multiple choice. Rather than working out the problem, the kids will simply put the possible choices into the problem and see which one works. Thus, they really don't need to know how to do the problem. It's sad, but part of the problem is that the kids simply aren't motivated and they're going to take the easy way out. For them, this is the easy way. Granted, I can say all of the math teachers at my school are hard working individuals who truly try to get the kids working. Unfortunately, the lowest class we are allowed to offer is Algebra I. When the kids are able to go from K-8 without learning basic skills, they definitely won't be prepared for high school. It's a mess. I have about 6 kids this year who failed every subject last year in 8th grade, yet they were pushed on to 9th grade. It makes not sense. Back when I was a student in grade school, kids who failed had to stay behind, but not anymore. It's a numbers game. Principals will push kids along to get them out of their schools and into the next school. That way that kid can continue failing their state tests, but it doesn't affect the accreditation of the old school anymore. While I understand the intent of NCLB was to create some sense of accountability, I believe it has seriously backfired. -Matt
