Customer Reviews

Who's Teaching Your Children?: Why the Teacher Crisis Is Worse Than You Think and What Can Be Done About It

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The malaise of education seems pretty obvious to many people and the first half of their short book provides a summary of that common harangue in clear, solid, soundbite-proof language. The authors identify what they call a Trilemma Dysfuntion in schools that has a crippling effect on reform strategies. First, since there are "not enough academically academically able students...being drawn to teaching," the pool of talent and ambition has diminished. Second, "teacher preparation programs need substantial improvement," since their certification and renewal procedures have historically been much less than rigorous. Third, "the professional life of teachers is on the whole unacceptable," that is, professional development and growth opportunities remain stagnant. These three dysfunctions feed into and maintain a malformed culture in schools. What is worse, teachers have operated for so long under this cultural dysfuntion that they regulate themselves with their own myopic, bureaucratic chains (cf. Foucault's Panopticon).

What really made this book a wonderful reading and learning experience for me, though, remains in their providing hope, that is, a plan. Since teacher improvement lies at the heart of any educational reform strategy, the authors declare that empowering teachers to do their job well must be the premise and promise of the profession. Their blueprint for school reform contains the Millennium School, an attempt to revive the profession of teaching, re-organize the roles of educational personnel, and improve educational leadership. The bedrock principles that comprise the Millennium School consist of four tenets: first, "multi-tiered career paths for teachers," next, "teaching in teams instead of in isolation," then, "performance-based accountability," and finally, "ongoing professional development for all teachers and principals" (p. 185).

I suppose that I am a little jealous of the authors. They have written the book that I have always wanted to write. This is my way of giving it very high praise because it resonated with me in a profound manner. If I were to criticize it, it would be that for all its fine writing, eloquent arguments, and scholarly support, the authors do not provide a Millennium School model at the High School level (my arena), only at the Elementary School level. (Wait. Maybe there is still time to consider writing that book after all. Better go now--)

Everyone's talking about the need for great teachers in every classroom. Almost nobody is encouraging their own smart, well-educated, creative son or daughter to consider teaching as a CAREER. This book explains the disconnect and what we need to do about it. How to make teaching an attractive career for well-educated young people who can write, who enjoy mathematics, who like being with children -- that is the key issue that no one else is talking about. This book gets real. - a former classroom teacher

Troen and Boles give a grim outlook for the state of public education in the United States, but they offer hope and some real solutions for improving education. They believe strongly in professionalizing teachers and they should be listened to. I highly recommend this book!

With all the current policy impacting the field of teaching - it is time to have this book resurface again. If there was a crisis 10 years ago, what we have now is a mega-crisis.

With all the talk about "Leaving No Child Behind," it's refreshing to read a book that explains clearly and credibly how the entire teaching profession has been left behind. While the state of teaching in the United States is truly disheartening, Ms. Troen and Ms. Boles give us hope that it can, in fact, be resurrected. One can only hope that enough people heed their sage advice.

I loved the first half of this book, but I do take issue with the criticism of standardized tests. While it is true that my temperature will not go down by repeatedly taking my temperature, I can become smarter by studying for an exam. What I like about standardized tests (and I know I am in the minority) is that I feel they are so much fairer than many of the tests administered in schools. I have two children -- one pre-MCAS and one post-MCAS. In the pre-MCAS days teachers existed who never taught certain things that they should have taught. Neither of my children were adequately taught fractions. I took responsibility for that myself. Also, an 8th grade English teacher that my son was able to avoid NEVER had the students do any writing, despite the fact that the class was called honors English in a town where 20 students routinely make it into Ivy League schools. When teachers "close the door" they teach what they know NOT what is in the curriculum. Then when the students can't do it, they call the students dumb. I actually feel that a lot of what politicians are requiring are good ideas. I strongly believe in teacher testing and student testing. However, I DO know that these methods don't succeed because of the resistance of schools to these ideas. A friend of mine was a parent on a teacher hiring committee. The teacher that she would have wanted for her child was not selected since the applicant looked too good and would make the other teachers look bad. Schools overwhelmingly oppose MTEL and want to hire someone who failed it several times before passing it rather than selecting someone who did quite well on it the first time around.

I had to feel at the end that the so-called Millennial School was just more of the same and would not produce results. However, one bright note might in fact be the economy. Those jobs that women escaped to in the 1980's might not be around any more. It is amusing that all of a sudden people feel that teachers earn too much money compared to the private sector. This might really be all that is needed to turn teaching around. My son just got hired as a teacher for $45000 per year which at the moment is a very good deal.....

Do you have children in school? For anyone interested in education - whether they're a parent, teacher, policymaker, legislator - this book explains why education reforms fail. It's an inside look into the classroom, the culture of teaching, the reasons why teachers are so poorly prepared for the realities of classroom life, about the culture of schools, and mainly why there's a critical shortage of over 2 million teachers. Do you believe that classroom instruction is getting worse? Do you think that teachers of today are less capable than the teachers of 20 years aago? Do you think your children are getting teachers who are not as smart as the teachers you had when you were in school? Well, you're right, and this book tells you why. It's the truth, and yet it's so well written, it reads like fiction. The authors reveal the history behind how classroom teaching got to be the way it is, and then they tell you how it could all be better. How teaching could be a respected profession, like medicine or law, and what it would take. They describe the "perfect" school, and how to construct it. We spend, as a society, billions of dollars on schools and terribly much of it is wasted. This book tells us how we could make our money better spent, and how we could get the teachers our children deserve.