EDUCATION DISCUSSION REFLECTION

After our class discussion, I realized that we have made so many attempts over the years to reform America’s education system. The government has spent over billions of dollars, yet we have produced little to no results. I feel that the main issue that stands in the way of achieving results in education reform are teacher unions. We all agreed that unsatisfactory teachers are protected by these unions, since it is nearly impossible to fire a teacher. I can say first hand that having a bad teacher does in fact impact a child’s education or motivation in a class. Throughout my high school experience, I have had several teachers that did nothing but hand out busy work and I’ve learned nothing beneficial. These teachers are then given a good evaluation by the board of administrators because they are given a warning ahead of time of when their evaluation is to be taking place. The warning is apart of the teacher union’s contract. Moreover, some teachers just care about getting paid and this is why I believe teacher tenure should be eliminated. Maybe we can’t eliminate tenure altogether, but maybe we can give it to teachers with promising test scores and evaluations? Maybe we should install cameras into the classrooms so that teachers will fulfill their duties as a teacher all the time, instead of the day of an evaluation? Then maybe, just maybe, we can finally start seeing favorable results when reforming America’s education system.