I was a high school level teacher for about ten years before shifting into tech last year.
To whatever degree we are seeing renewed attention on education due to the Covid disruption, I have trouble sharing your optimism. I feel that we have, in large part, lost the thread on the core responsibilities of public education (leading to unfocused initiatives, weakened internal processes/expectations, wasted resources, reduced teaching candidate quality/numbers, etc). It’s also hard to discuss public education in a productive manner because the circumstances, funding, student population, social problems, etc. all differ so much town-to-town, state-to-state, and so on. The job I did as a HS English teacher in a competitive, wealthy Suburban school district is almost entirely different than the work of my sister teaching Special Ed in a struggling Florida elementary school.
Even here, I hesitate to comment because the conversation is Too Big to adequately engage in this format. My short thesis: we need to do less, much better with higher expectations for everyone involved.
To whatever degree we are seeing renewed attention on education due to the Covid disruption, I have trouble sharing your optimism. I feel that we have, in large part, lost the thread on the core responsibilities of public education (leading to unfocused initiatives, weakened internal processes/expectations, wasted resources, reduced teaching candidate quality/numbers, etc). It’s also hard to discuss public education in a productive manner because the circumstances, funding, student population, social problems, etc. all differ so much town-to-town, state-to-state, and so on. The job I did as a HS English teacher in a competitive, wealthy Suburban school district is almost entirely different than the work of my sister teaching Special Ed in a struggling Florida elementary school.
Even here, I hesitate to comment because the conversation is Too Big to adequately engage in this format. My short thesis: we need to do less, much better with higher expectations for everyone involved.