Teacher Misconduct

Your children are worth -- 2½ hours.
And why not? MTV, Sharon Stone and Anne Heche have given the program their stamp of approval.

May 29, 2008 - Education Week reports that South Carolina will be training 10,000 teachers and other school employees this summer in "how to spot potential problems and intervene in abusive relationships."

The 2½-hour training course will be provided by the national nonprofit group Darkness to Light, based in Charleston, S.C., which works to combat child sex abuse.

The teacher-training program, which will be done online or in regional training sessions, has two aims: to make sure that teachers maintain appropriate relationships with their students, and that school personnel can recognize signs of trouble and react responsibly if students confide in them about abuse that happens in or out of school.

Within the past year, eight teachers in South Carolina have been arrested for having sexual relations with students. The task force is also working with all 32 of the state’s colleges of education so that teacher-candidates complete the program before they get their first jobs, Mr. Bounds said.

State officials are working with the legislature to close loopholes in child-sex-abuse laws. Legislation that was advancing last week would impose tougher criminal penalties for teacher misconduct. The proposal would also change the age of consent to 18. Now, the age of consent is 16—which means a teacher could have sex with a 16-year-old student without fear of criminal prosecution.
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WE FOUND: The Stewards of Children Program is, according to their website, "a revolutionary sexual abuse prevention training program that educates adults to prevent, recognize, and react responsibly to child sexual abuse, and motivates them to courageous action. The Stewards of Children program is designed for organizations and corporations that serve children and youth."

The program is not online for evaluation. At first glance, from the materials that are available, the program appears to be geared toward reacting to and reporting of child sexual abuse. There is an online booklet (PDF) on Seven Steps to preventing, recognizing and reacting responsibly to child sexual abuse that includes this sage observation:

Even the adults we trust to protect children can’t always be trusted. Coaches, teachers, clergy, and parents are authority figures children feel they can trust. Yet, a large percentage of those who sexually abuse children are from this group. These are adults who have the opportunity to “groom” children with affection and attention, making it difficult for children to identify certain behaviors as abuse. And they know that children have been taught to “mind” them. This is why programs that focus on adult responsibility are essential.

So, how have school districts in South Carolina trained teachers in the past about the sexual abuse of children in and out of the classroom and educators' responsibility to avoid having sex with children and their professional and legal responsibility to report it when they learn of it?

We're just not certain we're thrilled with an organization that teams up with MTV for a gala to prevent child sexual abuse and exploitation or has Sharon Stone and Anne Heche featured at their fundraiser.

Talk about role models for the young.

Teacher Training

BEST READ OF THE WEEK ****

May 25, 2008 - The Cleveland Plain Dealer has a series on teacher preparation.

PUTTING TEACHERS TO THE TEST:
What does it take to make the Grade? Part 1 by By Scott Stephens and Edith Starzyk

Traditional Paths:
Why Research Matters:
Research questions quality of teacher education

Imagine that commercial airline pilots were trained in schools where almost everyone who applied was admitted.

Imagine that their instructors had not been in a cockpit for decades and rarely spoke with active pilots about new equipment or cutting-edge techniques.

And imagine that those mythical training schools operated within an accreditation system that failed to ensure quality and rarely disciplined failure.

Those are our nation's 1200 education schools that train teachers. Researchers have documented the failures. Colleges use education programs as cash cows with few standards. (TT - Very thoughtful presentation and very thoughtful responses by viewer comments.)

Quickie degrees produce unskilled teachers:
Post-grad education training includes strong CSU course -- and quickie degree mills
-Degree mills may make for better pay and do little to advance education, however, many educators aren't qualified to enter legitimate graduate programs. Aspiring elementary school teachers, special education teachers and guidance counselors score the lowest on the Graduate Record Examination that is required to apply to graduate school. High school teachers score about the national average. Hence, the diploma mills. Half the price and one-tenth of the time. (TT - The social justice issues training they focus on in one teaching program, however, seems peculiar to the socio-economic quagmire in Cleveland.)

Ohio report card:
Ohio's teacher education report card: Mostly good, except for four D's and an F
- Ohio teachers score well in Praxis II tests. A French professor at Kent State, however, took the Praxis II exam required to teach French. He found the questions appropriate, but by his calculation, a passing score equates to a grade of D-, far too low a bar, in his view.
( TT - Which begs the question, how do the other examinations fare if they were similarly evaluated?)

Non -traditional paths are examined.
"How different are 'alternative' paths to teaching?"
- Can alternative certification paths result in better teachers? The question is crucial because there is little dispute that the single-most important factor in a child's education is the quality of the teacher in his or her classroom.

The nation's 1,200 college- and university-based teacher-education programs still produce about 90 percent of the country's 3 million classroom instructors. But there is a growing uneasiness about the quality of those programs and the teachers they churn out.

The alternative route was adopted 25 years ago, but, according to a study by the National Council on Teacher Quality and the Thomas B. Fordham Institute concluded the alternatives aren't alternative enough.

Most of the programs are operated by the same colleges of education that were supposed to be bypassed, and they end up requiring about as much coursework as a traditional program, the study found. Aside from a handful, like Teach for America, they aren't selective. And they provide "woefully inadequate training and support to their candidates."

"Minority teachers are in short supply"
"In Cleveland, for instance, blacks account for less than one-third of the teaching force, but two-thirds of the students. Latinos, who make up less than 4 percent of the teaching force, make up nearly 15 percent of the student population. "
( TT - Some typical Cleveland quota thinking. The decline in "minorities" going into education is a direct result of opportunities now available in other fields, opportunities that were not available in the 1970s. However, that doesn't appear to occur to the writers.)

VALUABLE TOOL
Explore our full list of Ohio colleges and universities that train teachers, with details on their students' performance.

Ohio's university and colleges had almost 40,000 students in teacher preparation programs in 2005-06, the most recent count. That year, almost 9,000 students completed one of those programs and about 7,800 met all the qualifications to get their school's recommendation for a license.

Also - Sample test questions from teachers tests.