I remember how it was -- JR
Tuesday, January 09, 2024
How to Get Better Teachers in America’s Schools
Yes. I too think subject expertise is a better criterion for hiring teachers. Teaching certificates have always been of little use. Now that teaching cetificates mostly come from woke universities, that is even more so. I taught high school economics and geography for two years running without any teaching certificate and my students all did well in their final exams
One rather overlooked reason why subject expertise is desirable is that the person who specializes in a particular subject often does so because he/she is enthusiastic about that subject. And teacher enthusiasm tends to rub off on the students and make them more involved. So they learn nore.
Twenty years ago, when I was hiring teachers for the private K-12 school I founded, I knew better than to recruit certified teachers.
From my previous work as a college history professor, I know that the people least prepared to teach a subject are education majors. Requiring an embarrassingly low minimum of credit hours to be certified to teach a subject—just four courses in some states—education majors encounter the least substance and rigor, but the maximum of racialist theory and left-wing ideology in their program.
If my new school was going to succeed in teaching at the highest levels, then I would have to find subject-matter experts with a heart for teaching. That’s what we did—and what thousands of schools across this country do, because of the humiliating, yet expensive, reality of teacher licensure.
But don’t just take my word for it; the evidence is unequivocal: Traditional public schools have an abysmal education record. Not only are scores as low as ever on the National Assessment of Educational Progress, but internationally, our math scores remain poor and uncompetitive.
Much of the blame lies with teacher education programs and state certification mandates that bolster education schools’ enrollment and subject teachers to radical activist ideology.
Education schools are besieged by critical race theory and identity politics, stereotyping everyone as part of oppressor groups or oppressed groups. They prefer ethnic studies and historical studies that denigrate America or anything patriotic.
And while states have been offering alternative routes to teacher certification, the vast majority of teachers are educated and certified through university-based colleges of education. This ought to stop.
States should end requirements for prospective teachers to be certified, and instead empower schools to hire based on subject-matter expertise. At the same time, on the national level, we can take the Trump administration’s reform of college accreditation as a model.
In higher education, accreditation is a de facto federal system of regulating the quality of colleges. And it has a poor track record of quality assurance, a problem exacerbated by a cartel-like group of regional accreditors that split the country into regions and conspired not to encroach on each other’s territory. There was no competition, so accreditors began abusing their power, which included requiring leftist ideology in their standards.
The Trump administration changed all that. Suddenly, any college could choose any accreditor, and states began introducing market competition into accreditation.
The next administration could follow this model for teacher certification.
Congress should also rescind the federal charter of the National Education Association. It’s a teachers union that voted to promote critical race theory nationwide and advocated to keep schools closed during the pandemic.
The organization’s charter should be reviewed and revoked. In its place, Congress could shift that charter to one of the many private, parent-focused groups fighting to right the ship in K-12 education.
Meanwhile, in states that lack the political support to eliminate teacher certification altogether, states should recognize or charter additional private organizations to certify which teachers are ready to teach, outside of the broken system of college of education certification.
Introducing market competition in the validation of teachers will have untold benefits. Some certifiers may focus on patriotism, while others may focus on classical education or the ability to train students for the workforce, science careers, music careers, or a variety of life pursuits.
American teachers are almost as vital as parents in educating the next generation. Let’s stop facilitating anti-American activism and instead ensure we recognize the teachers who are best for America.
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Diversity Ideology Persists at Harvard Despite President’s Departure
Numerous and compounding reasons led to Claudine Gay’s removal as president of Harvard University. Her departure, while a necessary first step, does not solve the problems that required her departure and that continue to plague Harvard and much of higher education.
Gay was manifestly unqualified for the position, with only a fraction of the scholarly accomplishments of her predecessors at Harvard and peers at other universities. She was obviously selected as a symbol for the diversity, equity, and inclusion—or DEI—ideology that Harvard wishes to promote, not because of her merit as a scholar. Gay even used DEI as a cudgel to eliminate rivals—much more accomplished black professors, such as Roland Fryer and Ronald Sullivan—with manufactured charges that they had created hostile work environments.
But the use of DEI as a departure from academic merit and as a weapon for organizational combat is not eliminated with Gay’s departure. The DEI bureaucracy that she helped build and use for her ascent remains intact at Harvard and throughout higher education.
The growing number of plagiarism charges against Gay focused more attention on her lack of scholarly merit as Harvard’s president. Like the old Catskills joke about the food being horrible and with such small portions, academic fraud characterized the meager research output Gay had produced.
These plagiarism charges were more than sufficient reason for her removal as president, but the fact that she remains as a Harvard professor does not resolve the lowering of research standards that her misconduct represents. In addition, Harvard’s willingness to keep Gay as president until the instances of plagiarism became too numerous raises concerns about the double standards with which Harvard and other universities enforce their rules. They would have sanctioned a student immediately—and for far less.
Critical attention on Gay gained momentum after her disastrous testimony before a U.S. House committee investigating antisemitic protests on university campuses. Her unwillingness to say that chanting genocidal slogans would violate Harvard’s code of conduct while the university regularly punishes much more benign speech highlighted Gay’s own use of double standards. But Gay’s removal does not resolve this double standard nor does it mitigate the rampant Jew-hatred found at Harvard and other elite institutions.
Lastly, it should be noted that there have been no sanctions for the members of the Harvard board who hired Gay despite her obvious lack of qualifications, defended her plagiarism, threatened those investigating the matter, and embraced the DEI ideology and double standards that foment Jew-hatred on campus. They should be held accountable, too.
Progress toward resolving these issues at Harvard and elsewhere could not be done without the removal of bad actors like Gay and the board members who enabled her. But the public campaign to fire Gay has not really fixed any of Harvard’s serious problems.
Bloated DEI bureaucracies continue to promote the discriminatory ideology that people deserve different treatment depending upon the racial, ethnic, or sexual identities that place them in “oppressor” or “oppressed” categories. Standards for research integrity continue to weaken and be upheld differently depending on the preferred status of researchers and their findings. And the selective enforcement of codes of conduct that make universities more hostile to anyone deemed to be an oppressor, including Jews, white men, and believing Christians.
The same public campaign that ousted Gay now needs to turn its attention to the policies and practices that allowed her to become Harvard president and produce enough disastrous publicity to force her removal.
We need to dismantle DEI bureaucracies and uproot the ideology they promote on campus. We need to reestablish high and consistent standards for academic research. This would almost certainly require the elimination of academic departments that are characterized more by political advocacy than rigorous inquiry, such as ethnic and gender studies departments.
We also need to get universities to adopt and consistently enforce strong protections of free academic speech while also fully prosecuting violations of their codes of conduct, including physical harassment, trespassing, and the use of the heckler’s veto to drown out disfavored speakers.
Gay’s removal as the president of Harvard, following Liz Magill’s departure at the University of Pennsylvania, suggests that the tide is turning in academia. But much still needs to be done to bring these institutions back to serving their original and laudable missions.
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Yonkers HS basketball coach ousted after antisemitic incident at game says he was ‘scapegoat’
The ousted coach of a Yonkers high school girls basketball team said school officials made him a scapegoat when they fired him after some of his players allegedly yelled antisemitic slurs at a visiting team from a Jewish school.
Former Roosevelt High School coach Bryan Williams of New Rochelle told The Post he did an “excellent job with those girls” during his three-year tenure with the team.
But he was canned Sunday after last week’s game against the Leffell School, a private Jewish school in Hartsdale, which took an ugly turn when some of his players allegedly tossed antisemitic slurs at their opponents — including one who allegedly said, “I support Hamas, you f–king Jew.”
That was news to Williams, who said he did not hear anyone jawing at each other or making threats.
“I personally did not hear any of it on the court,” Williams told The Post. “I do not condone what was allegedly done … I do not condone that. I focus on my team and what we have to try to do to win and be successful.”
The coach also said he felt the Yonkers school district — which announced Sunday it had fired him and booted one of his players off the team — “treated me very unfairly.”
“They needed a scapegoat, and I was it,” he said. “They needed a fall guy.”
The Jan. 4 game ended early after the antisemitic slurs, and security guards had to escort the Leffell School players off the court after what the players described as an increasingly hostile contest.
The Yonkers kids played rough, and throughout the contest they yelled “Free Palestine” or other anti-Jewish statements, senior player Robin Bosworth wrote in an op-ed for the Lion’s Roar, Leffell’s student-run newspaper.
“I support Hamas, you f–king Jew,” a Roosevelt player snarled at a Leffell opponent, according to the New York City Public Schools Alliance.
Eventually, the Leffell players walked off during a timeout as the coaches spoke with each other, then the refs. Eventually, they canceled the game, and Roosevelt agreed to forfeit.
On Sunday, Yonkers Public Schools Interim Superintendent Dr. Luis Rodriguez and city Mayor Mike Spano issued a joint statement denouncing the hatred and apologizing for the vitriol the visiting team faced.
“Collectively, we do not and will not tolerate hate speech of any kind from our students and community,” the statement said. “The antisemitic rhetoric reportedly made against the student athletes of The Leffell School are abhorrent, inappropriate and not in line with the values we set forth for our young people.”
But Williams says the game didn’t happen like that. He said his kids played the game the proper way, which included tough defense.
“We were just playing basketball,” said Williams, who is also the CEO, founder and program director of Hoopers NY, an “elite girls national travel basketball program,” according to its website.
He also said he warned his kids to “act appropriately,” since they’d be playing against a Jewish team.
“I told them that — everyone,” he said.
When he found out that the Leffell school kids were accusing his team of being racist, he told his girls to apologize for whatever they said, immediately. But they didn’t get the chance because the game ended abruptly.
He added that he doesn’t believe Yonkers did the investigation properly, and he wished he got to finish out the season with his team. Especially because some are seniors, and he’s worked with them for several years.
“I can’t say who did what,” Williams said. “All I was focused on was my team and how we’re playing, what we need to do to be successful and win.” “We were winning by a lot, so I was shocked because, again, I don’t think my girls would do that.”
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My other blogs: Main ones below
http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM)
http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)
http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)
http://australian-politics.blogspot.com/ (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)
http://snorphty.blogspot.com/ (TONGUE-TIED)
http://jonjayray.com/blogall.html More blogs
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