TOUGHER STANDARDS FOR POTENTIAL EDUCATORS
The State Board of Education in Illinois is poised to raise the standards for any college student wanting to have a career in teaching. It will be more difficult to get into a college teaching program and more difficult to stay in one if a student’s test scores don’t achieve the required level.
I have no problem with the raised academic standards. Let’s get only the “best and the brightest” in the teaching profession. Unfortunately, there are about a hundred other factors as important as general knowledge when it comes to determine who will make a great teacher.
I would suggest that the current teacher-bashing forces in the State of Illinois need to tone down their rhetoric before any college bound students start to question the wisdom of attempting to have a career in teaching. I hope the “best and the brightest” aren’t scared off by the fact that teacher salary, benefits and pensions are under constant attack. I hope the “best and the brightest” don’t take their talents on another career path after they hear years of propaganda about how current teachers have contributed to every ailment known to mankind, as well as the decline and fall of Western Civilization. Who would want to plan for a career in a profession that has come under such relentless attacks ?
In a recent editorial, the Chicago Tribune, otherwise known as “Teacher Bashing Central”, wrote the following.” Setting higher cut scores — weeding out applicants who shouldn’t be teachers before they graduate with teaching degrees — is a smart way to ensure that Illinois classrooms have only the best teachers. ” Yes, Tribune, that’s nice, but maybe you should have thought about how much damage you have done to the image of the teaching profession and how that might affect getting the best students to want a career in teaching. If I was a current beginning college student and had read your paper over the last few years, a career in teaching is the last profession I would choose. Would you want to be part of a profession where most of the people you are going to work with are incompetent, selfish, and,leftist radical unionized workers who only care about their own salaries and benefits at the expense of their students’ progress? I think not. I would choose a career path where the workers are valued, respected, and well compensated. I would certainly avoid any career in the public sector. I wouldn’t want to be a part of any group that has singlehandedly bankrupted the entire world and caused the destruction of middle class homeowners by requiring outrageous property taxes to support their job. Reading the Chicago Tribune would cause me to avoid any public sector job.
