Post #14

In Joel Klein's column, Teaching our children can be a profession, he discusses problems that need to be fixed in education today. Those problems include:

1. Pick from the best
2. Seniority distraction
3. Radical change

The first problem has to do with thinking that all teachers are the same. Some think that teachers are interchangeable. Just because a teacher has more years of experience, does not mean they are better than newer teachers. It is a mistake that is made often;  the longer you teach, the better teacher you are. That is not true. You have to stay updated and be open to change to remain a good teacher and push yourself to become a better teacher.

Seniority is a problem because teachers get locked in a school after they have been there for a certain
amount of time, even if they are not doing their job to the best of their ability. If there is a newer teacher that can do the job better, they cannot take the job of a teacher who has been there longer than them. This is a problem because some teachers know they are not going anywhere unless they do something illegal, so they quit trying. They quit trying new things and they are not open to change.

Mr. Klein thinks that teachers "should be subjected to merit-based career ladder and be promoted based on specialty exams."  If this change was made, I feel like teachers would be more interested in trying to be the best that they can be instead of settling for being an average teacher. Not that money is what teachers are in their profession for, but this would be a great incentive for them to try harder and make sure that our students are getting the best education possible.