Education in Utah

Recently I have heard talk of adding more scrutiny to teaching. Proclamations of "Let's get rid of the 'bad' teachers" and "We need better assessments to determine 'good' and 'bad' teachers." among other cries have been heard this week with the legislature in session.

First of all let's go over the facts. Fact: the state of Utah spends less per student than any other state.

Fact: Utah has the highest student to teacher ratio in the nation.

Fact: Utah is in the bottom five in the nation for teacher pay.(A few years ago we were last--Huntsman got us up to bottom five)

If you take these three facts you will see where the majority of the problem lies. One of the major problems that these facts lead to is that many people who would be excellent teachers, never get into the field because it isn't financially viable for them. What this means is many of your driven to be the best candidates, never become candidates because they are driven to be the best. So automatically you lose what could be great potential teachers because many of the best and brightest go elsewhere.

This notion of 'bad' teachers is an interesting concept. I'm not sure I fully understand it. Yea I know teachers who aren't as effective, because they are new to the profession, or maybe have personalities that don't make them as 'likeable' as others. But I would say 80% of all teachers I know really care and try their best. Now granted their best may not make them 'great' yet, but they are trying. So what about the other 20%, I would say 10% are ineffective because they haven't learned how to manage a class yet, or don't understand all the nuances of teaching--they are green and need time to develop. Then there is that other 10% who aren't all that interested in improving. Yea I know they exist, but it is a small part of population. At previous schools we had a couple on staff that refused to go to meetings or support staff in anyway, were a problem for administration, teachers, and students alike. But were they 'bad' teachers? I think it depends on your definition. Certainly their disregard for working together was appalling, but they came to class prepared and were some of the best class managers around. Notice I wrote not interested in improving, that doesn't mean they were bad, they just didn't want to get better. And frankly why should they want to? Herein lies one major problem. There is absolutely no incentive to work your butt off. None--in fact if you do it will only make your own life harder--and for what reason--personal satisfaction? That wears off after a while. In other fields the hardest working know that their efforts will 'pay off'.

Let's go back to 'likeable'. This is what students and parents would probably judge as a good teacher. But is it a viable assessment? Probably not. A student who feels mistreated by a teacher, or that the teacher doesn't 'like' them will cry that the teacher is not a good teacher. They get their parents to agree and wham now you have all this 'evidence' that a teacher is bad. More than likely the teacher called the student out for some problem, student didn't like it, and cried foul to the parent, who knows that their kid is perfect--because a teenage kid would never do anything wrong, and then complains without fact finding first. They believe their teenage kid--who they don't believe in any other setting--before contacting a professional to see what really happened. All of sudden we have a 'bad' teacher who was doing the right thing.

Now I do recognize that some teachers are more 'likeable' than others. I will even go so far to say that some would be better served if they showed they cared a bit more, but none of that is really measurable, and none of that makes you a 'bad' teacher. Some of the worst teachers in my opinion are the ones who have to be friends with all the students. They allow misbehavior because they can't bring themselves to tell kids no. I would argue that if you go the extreme of the likeability scale then you are less effective than one who is less 'likeable'. But if you polled students they would rate that teacher high. And to be honest most of the less 'likeable' teachers are excellent class managers and lesson planners. But they would be deemed as 'bad' by popular opinion.

As a parent and a teacher I would say that I think it is important for my kids to face many different styles. And yes I want them to have hard teachers. What good is it if they have a false sense of doing well, when in reality they are not? Being hard on kids is the only way they will be able to face the struggles of life. Notice I said hard and not mean. That is different. I think too many times we make things easy for our kids and don't let them struggle, we want things to be easy and fun for them and are creating a false world. What we need to do is support them in trials and struggles, but we should want it to be difficult so they can grow. You should be happy when your kid says his/her teacher is hard. That means they will have to work and grow. Yet these are the things that many parents fight against with schools. "Its too hard" is a common cry. A more justified complaint would be "its too easy".

To be honest I have only had one negative confrontation with a parent in nine years of teaching. Most parents know why their kid is not doing well in class, they just don't know how to do anything about it. I was in a meeting a few months ago with a parent, student, and all of this student's teachers. The student was failing and not doing any work in any class. The parent was overwhelmed. In asking questions the student admitted he was tired a lot of the time. Why? Because he was up all night playing video games. There was the problem and solution, but it was up to the parent to take away this privilege and unfortunately that did not happen.

One of the problems that I see in society right now is everyone wants to blame everyone for problems. Republicans blame Democrats, radio hosts take a side and blame--getting more and more people involved. Message boards are filled with people blaming parents for their kids misfortunes. Students blame teachers, teachers blame students. And the blame game goes on and on. We all want to know who's fault it is, so we can blame them. Notice though, that in our effort to blame nothing gets done, nothing is fixed. We would rather cry over the spilled milk and spend all day blaming everyone than cleaning it up. Whether we created the mess or not it is there and will remain there, and does it really matter who did it? Does it make us feel better we can blame someone for it? We still have a mess to clean up no matter who did it.

Fact is we have a mess. I don't disagree that the system could be better. I know it could be better. As a parent and a teacher I see different sides of the same problem. Complaining about the problem won't fix it though. Only action will. "Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has." Margaret Mead. We can fix this mess, it won't be easy and it won't be done overnight. Opinions will have to change and we might have to get uncomfortable to do it. But it can be done.

So what can we do? First off, support your teachers and schools. Whether you agree with them or not you will work much better with them than against them. Find ways you can help out. Secondly, hold your kids accountable. As a parent I know my kids are not angels and so do you. Hold them responsible for their education. Don't do the work for them, its their assignment not yours. You may not fully understand why a particular assignment has been assigned, but I probably wouldn't understand a portion of what you do for work either. Support your schools and don't talk bad about them or the teachers. One of the reasons we are in this mess, is the public has allowed it to happen. Recognize your student may not like all his/her classes or teachers that doesn't make them bad. Hard work is good for them, you should want them to do it. Finally, it should bug all of us that our kids have the highest student to teacher ratio, the largest classes, and one of the lowest paid staffs in the United States. Is this how much we value education in Utah? Are we going to allow this to happen?

All of us can remember a teacher that inspired us to do better, that made us work hard and earn our grades. I enjoy teaching. I like making a difference. I can honestly say that I have never met a teacher who didn't care, never met one that didn't want to help out. Now certainly some are more effective than others, but all care and want to help--that's why they got into teaching. Education is important, it can change lives. We all know it, now we need to do something about it.