Public Schools Throttled by Managed Care
The managed care of Medicine is about 15 to 20 years old. Care managers have entered hospital and consulting rooms to “monitor” the doctor-patient relationship. Utilization reviewers at the other end of an 800 number have veto power over tests, procedures, and operations. This is not news.During the same era managed “care” has invaded the public schools. Mandatory meetings, testing, retesting, report writing, and steps to avoid ensnaring school systems in expensive lawsuits have taken away teachers’ direct instruction time with students. The education of our students has been blurred into a sort of social engineering. Schools often have to provide healthcare, parental support, day care, and 2 meals a day. If that is society’s desire then it ought to be funded so. The education bean counters want to reward teachers who are expert brown nosers. The
politicians pass under-funded mandates such as “no child left behind” but those in the know call this “no child gets ahead.” It seems that little more than half of a teacher’s time is spent in direct instruction of pupils. Let the teachers be free to teach. --James
posted by James at 1:01 PM
4 Comments:
“Let the teachers be free to teach.”
Unfortunately, it isn’t that easy. There are no more teachers in the schools. What we have in the schools today are “educators.”
What’s the difference?
Teachers were well-educated people who had a knack for sharing their knowledge with children. People who could inspire children to learn. People who could deal with the disruptive element in the classroom and maintain an environment that was conducive to learning.
Educators are people who have received specialized training in “teaching” instead of a good education. They have been taught how to teach. They just have little to teach. They have limited knowledge to share with the children. And, because of the permissive attitude in schools today, they are unable to deal with the disruptive element and maintain a learning environment.
You need evidence to show that what I am saying is true? Look at the scores. Test scores show that in the first few grades, scores show a slight improvement, but in the higher grades, there is serious decline. These “educators” did graduate from high school, so they are capable of teaching the very young. As the children move to higher grades, their “educators” don’t have the necessary knowledge. They simply are not up to the job.
In order to improve education, we need to return to the old way. Do away with “Teachers” colleges. Hire graduates with real college degrees to be teachers: people who have some knowledge to share. Change the permissive attitude in schools. Children who are disruptive should either be disciplined or removed from the classroom.
Thank you for your remarks.
My main rant is this: Coming from both medical and education perspectives (the latter circa 1985 and again 20 years later in 2005), I have seen a remarkable change towards generation of numbers, reports, feedback to mid-level managers and efforts to avoid due process that seem to drain valuable time away from the teacher-student equation.
I got your point. Apparently, you missed mine. I’ll try to be more direct.
There are two types of people in every organization: those who can do and those who “shuffle paper.” In some organizations, such as government, the paper shufflers predominate. Public schools have taken this to the extreme. There is no one left in the public schools that can teach, only paper shufflers. Relieving “teachers” of the burden of filling out reports will do nothing to improve education, because they are only capable of filling out reports. They are unable to teach.
The problem is much deeper than simply having the teachers’ time taken up with paperwork. The business of schools is no longer “educating children” – it is “obtaining funds”, especially “free” funds from the federal government. Students are no longer the focal point, they are just inconveniences that have to be tolerated so the schools can get the money. The whole organization is geared to this new task. The teachers’ main function is to generate the numbers, reports, and feedback to mid-level managers so they can get grants.
Unless you make drastic changes in the fundamental process, there will never again be significant education going on in the schools. The educators must be removed along with their warped notions and replaced with real teachers and legitimate administrators. The first step in this process will be to get the federal government and its money out of the schools.
I remember teachers who inspired me to read, problem solve, etc.....I also know teachers who are dedicated to to their "profession". They, like healthcare professionals have to learn to "play the game", "see the big picture", etc.......
I understand what you're saying, James. When you lok at the history of education in the USA, you learn that it's always been a political football. We can definitely say the same for health care.
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