Texas teachers are in trouble. They’ve been bad, very bad.
I can’t tell you why, but according to Texas State Sen. Florence Shapiro, R-Plano, who authored a bill that ties scholar success-or lack thereof-to teacher resumes, it’s time to discipline students. Shapiro’s proposed bill would pass into law a rule that teachers must be held accountable for the achievements of their students, and the professors who trained those teachers must be held accountable for the achievements of the teachers they trained.
On paper, this makes sense, as stricter standards and more accountability will lead to better teachers, which will lead to more successful students. Unfortunately, similar to why’ utopian societies don’t work, people don’t act the way they ‘ought’ to.
Some students are going to drop out; some students will graduate but underperform; some students will be so eager to learn and succeed that they will graduate and do well in spite of awful teachers.
Should bad teachers be rewarded because of their students’ success and determination to learn? And what of good professors whose students go awry?
Imagine the stress felt by Bernie Madoff’s professors at Hofstra University. It had to have been their fault, right?
Both of my parents are teachers at Texas public schools. If this bill is signed into law, my mom and dad will be held accountable for the students who walk into their classrooms, sleep through class, don’t study and eventually drop out. It’s my parents’ fault that some people don’t want to learn? Right …
I have disliked some of my professors, both in high school and college, but learned a lot from them. I disliked others because I didn’t feel they were qualified to teach.
I loved some teachers’ because learned a lot from them, and I loved several because they were an easy ‘A.’
Often, good teaching is relative: are bad teachers out there, teaching in our schools, filling students’ minds with propaganda? Sure, but maybe that’s part of what an education is all about ‘- learning to read people, playing the game to make the grade, recognizing agenda-pushers and retaining the pertinent information while pitching the excess.
Is it such a bad thing to train students in the real ways of the world? Perhaps not, but I digress.
Some students don’t want to go to college. Is that a high school teacher’s fault? No, of course not. Sure, many high school teachers can act as mentors to students who are unsure of their futures and whether college is the right choice, but the bottom line is that not everyone is going to go to college.
Similarly, no matter how well people are trained, an individual’s work ethic, capability, intelligence, ability to think fast and perform under pressure and a bevy of other variables determine how well that person will do in life. And sometimes, it comes down to luck, being in the right place at the right time and serendipity.
It is not the teacher’s fault if students fail, at least not always. Bill Gates, the richest man in the world and chairman of Microsoft, dropped out of Harvard.
Is it his professors’ fault he didn’t want to graduate and instead created a wildly successful company? Would his professors be disciplined because he dropped out or awarded for his achievements?
The rationale behind this bill is terribly flawed.
On the bright side, according to the bill, if students succeed (whatever that means), teachers and professors will continue to barely make ends meet and be underappreciated by society. I’ll tell my parents and am sure they will be thrilled.
If this bill passes, we can expect to see the competent teachers retire and the teachers-in-training change majors; they won’t put up with this.
And nowhere in the bill are parents mentioned. For all this talk of holding people accountable, Shapiro failed to mention the key agents of socialization for children and young adults
Apparently Texans are no longer responsible for their kin, while teachers are responsible for everyone else’s.
‘Accountability does not impact the parents of the children or the community leaders where the children live,’ a commenter on Chron.com said. ‘Let’s back off this accountability talk until we are ready to give the schools and teachers responsibility for all children 24/7/365. And that is not going to happen!’
Perhaps in a former life Shapiro was decapitated and occasionally functions without a brain.
Matthew Keever is a communication junior and may be reached at [email protected]
