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Old March 16th, 2008 #85
Alex Linder
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[Out of 2,000 comments, the SF liberal chooses these "three different views"]

READERS' PLATFORM
Who needs teachers? Who needs credentials?

Andrew S. Ross

Last week was not a good one for the state's public school teachers. Not only are up to 10,000 of them facing pink slips, thanks to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's budget proposals, but their entire raison d'etre has been called into question during the raging debate over homeschooling. The recent state appeals court ruling that would impose stricter credentialing requirements on homeschooling was denounced by Schwarzenegger, not to mention newspaper editorials and opinion pieces.

Given its parlous condition, "who needs public education anyway?" was a common sentiment expressed by Chronicle readers on SFGate. Many seemed to believe that qualifications to teach were about as tough to obtain as the ability to flip burgers. As one Bay Area teacher remarked on SFGate, everything she has gone through seems to have produced, at the end of the day, just one thing: "People on message boards insult all of your efforts."

Below, edited for space, are three differing views, drawn from the more than 2,000 homeschool comments on SFGate.

- Andrew S. Ross, Chronicle Interactive Editor

Doing something right

Lack of respect for teaching as a profession seems to be a phenomenon unique to the United States (and the Middle East). My goal is to help students develop the ability to acquire knowledge, filter out the garbage, and draw their own conclusions about the meaning of the information.

My school's (Academic Performance Index) is in the high 700s. We are also identified as low income on the Federal Register. We must be doing something right.

Sure, homeschooled kids have a better adult-to-student ratio, and homeschooling parents have the power to discipline a misbehaving or underperforming student in ways that a teacher does not. If teachers had those luxuries, their students would perform at or above the same level.

If the system would allow us to fail those students without being punished for it, we would. We are also threatened with lawsuits. If too many students fail, (No Child Left Behind) punishes us. If students are passed and don't deserve it, we are punished.

Perhaps if we were allowed to make the professional decisions we were hired to make without having to answer to a bunch of bureaucrats and selfish parents, we could do what you say we don't. A better approach is to examine what public schools are doing right and emulate that, and figure out what's wrong that can be fixed.

- John Middleton, 42, San Diego

Putting our money where our mouth is

I teach middle school, and I have a bachelor of arts degree, a master of arts degree, and am (working) on my doctorate. I have gone through two credentialing processes to become a certified teacher.

California teachers have the toughest licensing requirements in the nation. The reason our schools have declined in quality over the last 25 years is the decline in revenue from local property taxes (directly related to the passage of Proposition 13 in 1978). Localities contribute almost 50 percent of the education budget for districts and schools, according to the U.S. Department of Education.

If we, as a society, put our money where our mouth is - teacher salaries are pitiful - we would have better schools. We're not willing to pay for it, though.

- Bryan Johnson, 30, Los Angeles

Rights - and obligations

Why is it such a burden to the homeschooling parent to become state accredited? If their knowledge and teaching abilities are superior to the average public school teacher, as many seem to believe, then what's the big deal - it should be a piece of cake, right? Any state has the right to control the education system to make sure that every child is given the chance at a quality education (emphasis on the word "chance").

If it can be shown that a parent meets the minimum standards the state has put forth for teaching, then more power to that parent. If homeschooler parents don't have to be credentialed, why should public school teachers have to get credentials? If parents want the "right" (too many people think we have the right to do many things which are simply privileges) to homeschool their children, then they ought to be vetted.

They ought to be able to prove themselves. Sometimes we've got to do things we don't like or agree with to get what we want.

- Jason Andre, 28, Portage, Mich. ("recently of Vacaville")

E-mail Andrew S. Ross at [email protected].

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/articl.../IN04VI14C.DTL


[Three views straight from the NEA. The bottom line is public schooling is a bad idea. It's also tyranny. HSers are forced to pay to subsidize views they hate, while the tyrants try to prevent them from outing out of the system at their own cost! Then the jew-controlled media back the teachers unions because they're part of the same government-education-media complex.]