| Learning from the Best: Every Student Needs Qualified, Effective Teachers |
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| Written by Zakia Royster | |||
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To have a qualified and effective teacher in a classroom can make a world of difference for a student. It could mean that we understand the material, are being prepared for college, and are learning how to think for ourselves. Having good teachers can keep students from dropping out.
The state of Pennsylvania has a definition for a “Highly Qualified” teacher that says a teacher must have a degree to teach a specific subject in a school and be certified. At my school most of my teachers are “highly qualified” but even some of the ones who may have degrees in their teaching subjects are not getting the students’ attention. That’s where the effectiveness part comes in. One example is a teacher who by college standards is very qualified to teach but has been unable to engage his classroom to learn and where many students are not getting the information. A student at another school recently told me of a “highly qualified” teacher who passed an entire Biology class with A’s and many in her classroom said they hoped Biology wasn’t on the SAT’s because they would all fail. She said not one student walked away from that class learning Biology. In order to know if teachers are effective, we as students must be allowed to evaluate our teachers, especially at the high school level. This happens in many college classrooms with professors. Why doesn’t in happen in our schools with students who are in classrooms every day? We at the Philadelphia Student Union have been engaged in a teacher quality and equity campaign for some years now and we will continue to fight this battle until all students in Philadelphia have qualified and effective teachers. We do it because it is wrong to keep students from receiving an equal education. Some schools in the Philadelphia School District have more qualified teachers and lower turnover rates than my school, and that has personally connected me to this campaign. Since I have been working on the teacher quality campaign I have learned a lot about this issue and have worked with many other students, to ensure that our ideas are included when it comes to ensuring that every student gets a high quality education. I have been working with the “Effective Teaching Campaign”* in Philadelphia where we are the student voice in a platform endorsed by over 25 different organizations from the NAACP to Asian Americans United. One aspect of the campaign that I believe would be instrumental in changing the distribution of teachers in the district is to offer “teacher incentive grants” to hard to staff schools like mine. Many teachers have told us that school climate has a big impact on the work they do. Teacher incentive grants are pots of money that the school community, including teachers could use to pay for school improvements that will keep teachers around and support new teachers. I also believe that students (and parents) should be involved in hiring our teachers and our principals. In early October, over 50 supporters of the Effective Teaching Campaign including myself went to Mayor Nutter’s office. We went because in the city of Philadelphia, the mayor has to sign off on the teacher’s contract. Once there, I had a chance to explain to him why issues like teacher distribution and evaluation are so important to us. To some of us these changes are a matter of graduation or not. Having a qualified and effective teacher could be the difference in someone dropping out of school or staying in. We hope that Mayor Nutter will not sign off if the changes needed to make a difference are not included in the contract. Time will only tell what happens when the contract is signed (as of this writing the deadline for the contract is January 15th, 2010) but the students and the city are watching. •
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