Blaming Teachers

Download or read book Blaming Teachers written by Diana D'Amico Pawlewicz and published by Rutgers University Press. This book was released on 2020-08-14 with total page 260 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Winner of the 2021 Society of Professors of Education Outstanding Book Award Historically, Americans of all stripes have concurred that teachers were essential to the success of the public schools and nation. However, they have also concurred that public school teachers were to blame for the failures of the schools and identified professionalization as a panacea. In Blaming Teachers, Diana D'Amico Pawlewicz reveals that historical professionalization reforms subverted public school teachers’ professional legitimacy. Superficially, professionalism connotes authority, expertise, and status. Professionalization for teachers never unfolded this way; rather, it was a policy process fueled by blame where others identified teachers’ shortcomings. Policymakers, school leaders, and others understood professionalization measures for teachers as efficient ways to bolster the growing bureaucratic order of the public schools through regulation and standardization. Beginning in the mid-nineteenth century with the rise of municipal public school systems and reaching into the 1980s, Blaming Teachers traces the history of professionalization policies and the discourses of blame that sustained them.

Download or read book Bad Teacher! How Blaming Teachers Distorts the Bigger Picture written by Kevin K. Kumashiro and published by Teachers College Press. This book was released on 2015-04-25 with total page 121 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In his latest book, leading educator and author Kevin Kumashiro takes aim at the current debate on educational reform, paying particular attention to the ways that scapegoating public school teachers, teacher unions, and teacher educators masks the real, systemic problems. He convincingly demonstrates how current trends, like market-based reforms and fast-track teacher certification programs are creating overwhelming obstacles to achieving an equitable education for all children. Bad Teacher! highlights the common ways that both the public and influential leaders think about the problems and solutions for public education, and suggests ways to help us see the bigger picture and reframe the debate. Compelling, accessible, and grounded in current initiatives and debates, this book is important reading for a diverse audience of policymakers, school leaders, parents, and everyone who cares about education. Kevin K. Kumashiro is director of the Center for Anti-Oppressive Education and president-elect (2010–2012) of the National Association for Multicultural Education. He is a professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago, and the author of The Seduction of Common Sense: How the Right Has Framed the Debate on America's Schools. Praise for Bad Teacher! “This book could be a springboard for teachers . . . to become more actively involved in advocating for a paradigm shift in our concept of education.” —Grace Lee Boggs, The Boggs Center “Kumashiro is a remarkable sleuth who … shows us how the deck is stacked, how the game is played, who gains, and who loses. Join him in a clarion call to build a Movement to reclaim public education.” —Robert P. Moses, The Algebra Project “Courageous, blunt, and hopeful, Bad Teacher! offers a democratic vision for true educational change.” —Sonia Nieto, University of Massachusetts at Amherst “Anyone seeking to understand why so many of the reforms we have pursued have failed will benefit from reading this book.” —Pedro A. Noguera, New York University “Kumashiro explains why we should think differently about the prescriptions that are now taken for granted—and wrong.” —Diane Ravitch, New York University, author of The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice Are Undermining Education “Kumashiro expertly examines the many forces working against public education, and how and why these forces are at play.” —Dennis Van Roekel, President, National Education Association “Bad Teacher! is oh-so-smart and timely. . . . This book attacks head-on the ragged patchwork of ‘school reform’ that has left us without even the vocabulary to frame what’s gone wrong.” —Patricia J. Williams, Columbia Law School 2012 Must-read book about K–12 education in the U.S., Christian Science Monitor

Download or read book What Keeps Teachers Going? written by Sonia Nieto and published by Teachers College Press. This book was released on 2003-01-01 with total page 177 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book presents teaching as evolution, teaching as autobiography, teaching as love, and asks the question: What keeps teachers going in spite of everything?

Download or read book Trusting Teachers with School Success written by Kim Farris-Berg and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2013 with total page 253 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Lately, our nation's strategy for improving our schools is mostly limited to "getting tough" with teachers. Blaming teachers for poor outcomes, we spend almost all of our energy trying to control teachers' behavior and school operations. But what if all of this is exactly the opposite of what is needed? What if teachers are the answer and not the problem? What if trusting teachers, and not controlling them, is the key to school success? Examining the experiences of teachers who are already trusted to call the shots, this book answers: What would teachers do if they had the autonomy not just to make classroom decisions, but to collectively--with their colleagues--make the decisions influencing whole school success? Decisions such as school curriculum, how to allocate the school budget, and whom to hire. Teachers with decision-making authority create the schools that many of us profess to want. They individualize learning. Their students are active (not passive) learners who gain academic and life skills. The teachers create school cultures that are the same as those in high-performing organizations. They accept accountability and innovate, and make efficient use of resources. These promising results suggest: it's time to trust teachers.

Download or read book Blame Teachers written by Steven P. Jones and published by IAP. This book was released on 2015-08-01 with total page 167 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: There is a story going around about the public schools and the people who teach in them—a story about how awful our nation’s teachers are and why we should blame teachers for the poor state of our public schools. But is the story about teachers right or fair? Why do so many people point fingers at teachers and seem to resent them so much? Blame Teachers: The Emotional Reasons for Educational Reform examines why many people blame teachers for what they understand to be the poor state of our schools. Blame comes easily to many people when they read about poor student performance and how “protected” teachers are by teachers’ unions and tenure policies. And with blame comes resentment, and with resentment comes demands for all kinds of educational reform—calls for more standardized testing, merit pay, charter schools, and all the rest. And we expect teachers to like and accept all the reforms being proposed. Conceiving educational reform out of blame and resentment aimed at teachers does no good for teachers, students, or schools. Blame Teachers outlines many of the strange and unacceptable assumptions about teaching and the purposes of education contained in these educational reforms. Intended for teachers, teacher education students, policymakers and the larger public, Blame Teachers suggests much better and more productive conversations we can have with teachers—conversations much more likely to improve teaching and learning in classrooms. The book argues for conversations with teachers that don’t begin or end with blame and resentment. In this lively, personal meditation on what it means to be a teacher, Steven Jones demonstrates how an emotional, unreasoned ‘blame game’ directed at teachers by educational reformers today is undercutting the future of the nation’s children. It is doing so by threatening to deprive them of teachers as contrasted with by?the?numbers technicians. Today’s reformers neglect the philosopher Spinoza’s time honored insight, that a person in the grip of emotion is “in human bondage” and simply cannot see the truth of things. Can educators themselves, in tandem with knowledgeable members of the public, transform the reformers’ dogmatic, harmful narrative about our teachers? Jones’ thoughtful study will surely help in this much?needed effort. ~ David T. Hansen, Weinberg Professor in the Historical and Philosophical Foundations of Education, Teachers College

Download or read book Are Schools Really Like This? written by J. Gary Lilyquist and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2013-11-21 with total page 201 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: J. Gary Lilyquist synthesizes such innovative concepts as, systems thinking, mental models, effective school research, and Deming's theories of management to propose the new Balance Alignment Model, a wide-ranging approach for fostering school improvement. Three case studies demonstrate why schools are not improving and how Lilyquist's model can facilitate student learning.

Download or read book The Missing Teacher written by Lani V. Cox and published by Createspace Independent Publishing Platform. This book was released on 2015-01-16 with total page 252 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: You've probably heard of Waldorf, but most people don't know what it is. Based on Rudolf Steiner's spiritual philosophy and the idea of giving children a holistic education, it's one of the fastest growing alternative educational systems in the world. I entered the fairy tale world of Waldorf with the best intentions, completed my training, and began teaching at a fledgling school. It was not the positive and nurturing environment I'd expected, and two years later, when it became apparent I didn't fit in, I was fired. I was devastated and lost my faith. In the following years I went looking for myself, and found clues in the most unlikely places, between root beer and burgers, a shoebox and a book on tape. the missing teacher explores the personality of education, looks into one of the most controversial education systems, and is a story about the education of self.