Follow AAE on:
Subscribe to RSS Feed:
| Congressional Hearing: Exploring Efforts to Strengthen the Teaching Profession |
| posted by: Ruthie | February 27, 2014, 09:15 PM |
|
In the past twenty years, the average teaching career has shrunk from fifteen years to a shocking one year. This unprecedented attrition is largely due to the lack of support for first year teachers. The panel recommended several key methods of increasing teacher empowerment and overall years of service. One method of improvement relates to teacher preparation programs and the infrastructure of support for first year teachers. Dr. Marcy Singer-Gabella, professor of education at Vanderbilt University said preparation is a part of a larger system of schooling, which faces the challenges of bi-modal distribution of teachers, an inexperienced teacher workforce, and system churn- too much reliance on temporary teachers. In order to address these challenges, Dr. Singer-Gabella recommended the federal government incentivize partnerships among schools and with teachers in various stages of their teaching careers. The experts continued to reiterate the need to convey the importance of teaching and the critical impact it makes to both students of education and the community – showing how it spans the community and how it takes collaboration. Witnesses emphasized the need to create a climate of support and adequate teacher preparation, essentially explaining, “Ill-prepared teachers are taxed everyday.” While each expert witness highlighted the importance of data regarding teacher preparation, the prevailing issue wasn’t the dearth of federal collection of data but the use of the data once it is collected. Almost all panelists emphasized the need to focus and streamline federal data collection, without disrupting teachers’ daily tasks. Another method of improving teacher success was differentiating professional development and salary, based on subject and length of teaching career. What’s the key to retaining and empowering great teachers? Comment below.
email to friend
Print
comment
Permalink
Comments (1)
 |
Sign up for AAE Emails
Blogroll
- American Board (ABCTE)
- Edspresso (CER)
- Eduwonk
- Flypaper (Fordham)
- Intercepts (Mike Antonucci)
- Jay Greene
- Joanne Jacobs
- Joe Williams (Democrats for Education Reform)
- National Alliance for Public Charter Schools
- Politics K-12 (EdWeek)
- Road to Teaching
- Teacher Beat (EdWeek)
- InformED (AIR)
- This Week in Education
