Honored teachers discuss problems, solutions in education
By Joey Berlin
Originally published 01:11 p.m., June 20, 2008
Updated 01:11 p.m., June 20, 2008
On issues prevalent today in the U.S. educational system, and what needs to be done to improve it, there was plenty of agreement among this year’s five inductees in the National Teachers Hall of Fame.
A roundtable discussion during Thursday’s induction activities showed general consensus on the questions asked of the hall of fame’s class of 2008. They showed tempered but unmistakable disdain for No Child Left Behind legislation in its current form. They’re wary of a transition from determining teachers’ salaries by years of experience to determining them through a system that evaluates them by student performance. And they think ineffective and overbearing administrators are a big reason why so many young teachers get burned out on their work.
“I think the administration of each particular school plays a critical role in keeping new teachers,” said David Lazerson, a pre-Kindergarten special education and music teacher from Hollywood, Fla., in response to one of the questions. “And I’ve seen, as you mentioned, teachers you want to recommend different jobs to — I’d like to do the same for administrators.”
That remark got laughs from the crowd at the Jones Center for Educational Excellence and from Lazerson’s fellow inductees: Ronald Blanchard, a middle-school Earth science teacher from Lake Molo, La.; Kathleen Faye Engle, a middle-school physical education teacher in Newcastle, Wyo.; Penny Ferguson, a high school English teacher from Maryville, Tenn.; and Suzanne Ransleben, a high school English teacher from Corpus Christi, Texas.
Moderator Keith Geiger’s questions drew elaborate, thoughtful responses from the new hall of famers, who will be inducted tonight at 7:30 p.m. at Albert Taylor Hall on the Emporia State University campus. Geiger evoked a host of less-than-positive thoughts about testing standards when he asked the educators what they would say about No Child Left Behind if they had the chance to sit down with the nation’s new secretary of education next January, following the presidential election.
“Who could argue with the idea of not leaving any child behind, on an idealistic level?” Ferguson said. “But I would tell the secretary man that we need to be a bit more realistic about how we go about it. ... The teachers feel like it’s taking a lot of the creativity and individuality out of teaching. People are teaching to the test. There’s teacher anxiety, there’s student anxiety, and some teachers truly are just teaching to the test.
“Don’t set us up for failure. If you’re going to ask us to do big things to help bring every child to that level, then give us the money and the resources that we need to do that.”
Ransleben added that when the government dictates what teachers have to do, and proper student outcomes, “it tends to become a one-size-fits-all kind of solution to the problem. And we teach human beings.”
Blanchard said he would take what his fellow inductees said and take a video presentation along with him to show the secretary, “so they could see that this is not working and work out what is not effective about No Child Left Behind, and let’s move on to those things that do work. But that individual would have to see these children as real people, and not just as numbers and statistics.”
Discussion on the issue of so-called “merit pay,” versus salaries determined by education and experience, showed the teachers largely in support of the current system, or at least apprehensive about tying salaries to student achievement. Ransleben and others showed support for the national board certification program.
“It’s a very rigorous professional development that helps teachers, after you’ve been in the classroom three or four years, to start analyzing the impact you have on your students, and reflect on how you can make that better,” she said. “Someone asked me one time, can everybody obtain national board certification? Well, I don’t think so.”
Engle said she had mixed emotions on the issue of accountability.
“I really think when you’re talking about teacher advancement programs or merit pay, that you have to be really careful about ... all the stakeholders. Where are you gonna start with their credibility, or how do you measure their credibility when you’re asking them to do different things in the classroom?”
Lazerson thought pay and salary needed to be within established guidelines and was hesitant about a performance-based system. He said he wanted to avoid creating animosity in the workplace with salaries that were based on performance.
“I for one am very happy with the fact that it’s based on some real cut-and-dry, how many years you’ve taught, and what your degrees are, and things like the national board,” he said.
Echoing Lazerson’s joking comment on the issue of administrators and young teachers, Ransleben said administrators needed to stop using new teachers “as bait,” as when they overload them with students and throw them into the fire. She said administrators needed to take a more nurturing approach.
“Administrators tend to hover over new teachers and stomp the life out of them if they’re not doing it well,” she said. “It all needs to be about encouragement when they are new.”
When Geiger asked the teachers, at the end of the session, if they had any questions for their fellow inductees that weren’t on their question sheet, the only question came from Engle: “How did I get to be with all of you?”
After jokingly answering her with, “We flipped a coin,” Geiger echoed Engle’s awe over the teachers who will be enshrined tonight. Earlier in the discussion, he had called them the most diverse group, in all facets of diversity, that the hall of fame has inducted in years.
“This whole group is amazing,” he said. “And there were people who were not selected for this group who were amazing, which makes the five of you even more amazing.”
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