et98 said:
I became a teacher here in Texas after 17 years in the corporate world. I had to take a test over the subject matter I teach (history) along with a test over teaching skills (absolutely laughable & a waste of money), but I did not have to take a basic reading, writing, & math test.
You need a college degree to be a teacher, so a basic education test would be redundant and a waste of tax dollars. Nothing but bloated bureaucracy & a cash grab. As a conservative, you should support the idea of nixing a basic reading, writing, & math test for teachers...just as Texas apparently already has.
The article referred to it as an "unneccessary barrier." I can't imagine it being a barrier at all, but it's definitely unneccessary.
The PPR is essentially a test to see if you know the answer that admin wants you to choose. Yes, it is garbage.
As far as this specific situation goes, I don't know. I don't know what the test in question actually looks like, which teachers have to take it, and when. Without a little more context it's hard to say.
In regards to education in general (as opposed to just responding to your post above), yeah, it's in a rough spot.
Democrats are not going to push to fix a lot of problems, because you would essentially be painted as a bad guy targeting children. A lot of changes that need to happen to fix both the school system and the overall classroom environment are going to have some visible repercussions.
- More kids will be expelled or suspended (at least in the short-term).
- Fewer kids will graduate.
- More kids will be held back a grade.
- Minority, Special Ed, and lower income kids WILL be a large percent of these kids.
That is going to scare away politicians from supporting any changes. They don't want to be the person "kicking kids out of school" even if that kid has become a financial, social, and educational liability to the school and the other kids in it.
On the other end of the aisle, the Republicans are more determined to just blow education up, so they won't do anything useful either. It actually kind of amuses me. Teachers are to Republicans as Cops are to Democrats. They don't like the system and in general are less represented in the field, so their solution is to cut funding and assume that will just solve the problem. Instead, what you're going to get is a public service with poor quality workers in it because they have no public support and nowhere near the funding to do everything they are expected to do.
To quote the NYC cop thread also on the front page...
"That whole defund the police, ACAB stuff has consequences and unfortunately the law-abiding citizens suffer right alongside the idiots."
