These "young" teachers aren't better educated because they have higher GPAs. My undergrad GPA from Johns Hopkins was a 3.0. My grad school GPA from Glassboro State was a 3.87. I didn't get any smarter, Education classes are just very easy.

Also, what's to stop districts from firing Green Track teachers when their salaries become too expensive? Tenure exists, in part, to keep districts from firing skilled teachers who are expensive and replacing them with cheaper, inexperienced teachers.

good points...

i had a higher gpa in my major than in my education classes, but only because they were mind-numbingly dull, and a hoop through which i had to jump to get into the classroom. i remember getting a c on a project in an educational media class( a fancy way of saying"how to work the transparency machine") because the margins on my transparency were not even...no regard for what was written on the transparency, just the margins...i thought, and still think, it was funny, and decided to invest as little of my time as possible on these charades, oops, i mean classes.

I'm sorry you guys had bad experiences with your ed. college classes. Mine certainly didn't hurt my GPA, but I did find most of them intellectually stimulating and helpful.

Ed. classes are great examples getting out what you put in.

I agree with the assesment of "education"courses. Many of those classes seem to have been created to appease the accountability crowd but an opportunity was missed to truly prepare teachers. In my opinion, the ed classes should be replaced with more relevant developmental physchology and further content-pedagogy classes and teachers need waaaaay more time student-teaching. One semester is not nearly enough, especially for those of us who teach in a filed where we are certified K-12 in several discipline areas (music for me). I would like to see a graduated student-teaching system (like a lab):

1st year: observation and participation in classrooms for 100 hours

2nd year: Co-teaching a class for one half-day with an experienced and trained (to help the student) teacher

3rd year: One full day co-teaching

4th year-1st semester: One half-day solo teaching under the direct supervision of mentor teacher

4th year-2nd semester: One full day solo teaching

5th year: One full year of solo and co-teaching in a paced and sensible way until the teacher is ready to take over the class (probably no later than the 2nd semester)

Of course, this would require somewhat less college classroom time but would put the students in the classroom more which is far more valuable than learning how to run a projector. This is one change that must come from colleges and universities.

i agree with you in theory, my student teaching experience was fantastic, and i learned sooo much, but it was a bit of a hardship, as i has to quit my waitressing job to teach...the school was far away from the college, long hours, etc....i loved every minute of it, but i don't know how long i could've afforded it.

Education classes were a waste of my time and money. But my major wasn't in education. Most high school teachers don't get degrees in education; they get degrees in math or science or English or history, and then take a few education classes to get the professional credentials.

It's not the "accountability" crowd that keeps the education-class requirements in place, it's the ed schools.

At the AERA (American Educational Research Association) meeting this year, there was a big battle going on between the "quality teacher" and the "qualified (i.e., certified) teacher" contingents. Most research shows that Alternate Certification teachers, those who haven't gone through a traditional teacher education program, are just as effective in the classroom from the beginning as ed school graduates. That's even though the AC teachers generally don't take their minimal ed requirements until they're already on the job.

As well, most of the research also shows that new teachers improve during the first couple of years, but after three years there's no difference in performance that can be put down to experience. 20-year veterans are no better in the classroom, on average, than teachers who have been teaching for four or five years.

So it looks as if what's important is a couple of years of OJT.

i would agree, and thid otj training is why student teaching is so valuable..it's like teaching with a net. at least for me, and i have to say, my cooperating teacher was great, and very willing to hand over the reigns( now i realize she was probably doing a jig in the FL office:) )...willing to let me try new things, and not at all of the opinion that mistakes can't be corrected. her example. and that of some other FL teachers when i was a new teacher taught me more than any class...and my assigned mentor was a total whacko, but since everyone knew this, the other ladies in the office stepped up to the plate and helped me survive that first year.

I like musicman's tiered internship schedule, but no one could afford it. Student teaching is never a paid internship in public schools, and most people quit jobs to do it for 12 weeks or so. It's a great idea, just not cost-effective.

It's good to be creative with possibilities for training teachers. I do question the value of co-teaching at the start of the internship. Perhaps that is a point of view difference between elementary and secondary - in my student teaching at a high school, we started off "lead teaching" 1 period from the start of the year and gradually added more. That might be harder to do in the elementary with only 1 class all day.

My college had a full year student teaching requirement- talk about financial hardhip! - but honestly I think it was better preparation than just a semester would have been.

What I would say to it being "not cost effective" is that if it is included, during regular school hours and for credit, it is no different than going to class or a few classes on, say, a Tuesday morning or afternoon.

I say co-teaching because it allows the student-teacher the opportunity to teach alongside a master teacher, not simply in front of one. It's a comfort thing, to me.