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  • CREDENTIALS = GOOD TEACHER

    Filed at 7:05 pm under by dcobranchi

    Florida moms cannot possibly educate 4-year-olds as well as credentialed teachers, according to this snotty column.

    One of the House bill’s sponsors, Rep. Ralph Azra of Hialeah, has the gall to argue: “Amateur moms can be as effective as credentialed teachers.”

    A beacon of educational excellence Hialeah is not. Poor and full of immigrants, blue-collar Hialeah is precisely the kind of place that desperately needs high-quality pre-K with credentialed teachers for 4-year-olds.

    …You don’t have to be a rocket scientist from Hialeah to understand that the kids who are failing school today are disproportionately poor. Quality pre-K could have made the difference.

    There’s more to teaching a preschooler than providing three hours a day of pseudo-instruction, as the House bill proposes. It takes credentials, an understanding of what techniques work to excite children about learning and expert ways to measure outcomes to ensure kids are learning.

    Ten-to-one she holds a teaching certificate.

    6 Responses to “CREDENTIALS = GOOD TEACHER”


    Comment by
    Eric Holcombe
    March 24th, 2004
    at 10:25 pm

    Folks, it’s coming. Mandatory state education for 4 year olds, then 3, then 2. All steamrollered by the NEA. How else can they create more union dues…er. I mean union jobs?
    Unfortunately, the average two-income yuppie family is all too willing to help by accepting that “free” state daycare they have a “right” to. How else can they keep up with the Jones’ and buy more stuff for themselves?


    Comment by
    Rikki
    March 25th, 2004
    at 1:09 am

    I’m snobbish. Sorry Uncle Sam, but I don’t think anyone can take care of my kids better than I can. I know my motives for devotion to them, and it isn’t attached to a wallet.

    Plus, I think they are kinda neat. Imagine that! Yes, I even liked them when they were messy and demanding at 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, erm…forever!
    *What is this world coming to? Parents that like their children and want the best for them, taking time out of the consumer market to pay attention to things, next thing you know, they’ll be messing around in politics! Horror!

    *purely tongue in cheek 😉


    Comment by
    Daryl
    March 25th, 2004
    at 2:26 am

    It’s perhaps not clear from the section I excerpted but the moms she is referring to are those who run small daycares in their homes.


    Comment by
    Rikki
    March 25th, 2004
    at 4:40 am

    Ok, went to the trouble of having them resend my password to me so I could read the entire thing.
    It sounds to me that she’s not necessarily arguing for education as she is trying to somehow combat poverty. Not that it’s a bad thing to want, there is very much a need for improving parenting skills, but that’s a social service issue, not the department of education. If she really wanted improvement in the lives of poverty stricken 3-5 year olds, she’d be shouting for recipients of various social service programs to be provided with books and information for parents to improve themselves, thus strengthening the family unit at the foundation.


    Comment by
    Ed Hurst
    March 25th, 2004
    at 11:56 am

    Re: Poverty — It doesn’t feel too bad, living below the “Official Poverty Line” as I do. The gov’t tends to ignore me, and I rather like that.

    Re: Professional teaching creditation — Got some once. Didn’t do me any good at all, in terms of real ability. The number one issue in getting children excited about learning is the teacher’s personality and skill at presentation. That is, if the teacher is entertaining while teaching, kids will learn. All the classes I took had nothing to do with that. Indeed, they worked at forcing me to use methods of presentation that would exclude any talents I might have possessed. When I ignored that glop, I had them eating out of my hand — and they *learned*.


    Comment by
    Laura
    March 25th, 2004
    at 6:56 pm

    Thanks for the clarification, Daryl. I was wondering about the amateur moms thing.

    Poverty is a codeword for a certain intellectual level here, I think. Ed, if you have kids, I’ll bet they started kindergarten recognizing some or all letters of the alphabet, counting to ten, and knowing their own names, at the very least. There are some kids who get absolutely NOTHING at home. These are the kids these people are trying to reach.