A recent study discovered something rather upsetting about our nation’s science teachers: roughly two-thirds are misinformed when it comes to climate science and change.

This revelation came from a survey conducted by Eric Plutzer of Pennsylvania State University, as well as collaborators from Wright State University and the National Center for Science Education. According to Vox:

The researchers mailed questionnaires to 1,500 science teachers, who taught disciplines ranging from biology, chemistry, physics, and earth sciences, since the study of climate change straddles fields and they weren’t sure which classes were paying the subject more attention.

The study participants included both middle school and high school teachers.

An overwhelming majority of scientists believe that climate change is being caused by humans–roughly 97 percent. It’s viewed as a consensus in the scientific community. However, about 30 percent of American science teachers teach their students that climate change is caused by natural causes, another roughly 30 percent instruct that it’s caused by a combination of human actions and natural causes. Both of these lessons are problematic, and inaccurate.

There’s some debate over why teachers are teaching climate change incorrectly–it’s no secret that in some parts of the country, teaching climate change accurately could be protested by parents and the community. While this recent study only found that only about 4 percent of teachers reported feeling pressured to teach climate science a certain way, earlier studies have put the number as high as 15 percent.

The researchers also found, quite alarmingly, that many teachers didn’t even know they were teaching anything incorrectly, as only 30 percent of the middle school teachers and 45 percent of high school teachers even knew that there is such a thing as a scientific consensus on climate change.

Many of the teachers also answered that they hadn’t received much formal education on climate change, although the good news is that two-thirds would like to learn. So, if it’s possible to provide that kind of education to our teachers, we may soon see a change to way that climate change is taught to young American students.

Anneliese Mahoney

Anneliese Mahoney is Managing Editor at Law Street and a Connecticut transplant to Washington D.C. She has a Bachelor’s degree in International Affairs from the George Washington University, and a passion for law, politics, and social issues. Contact Anneliese at amahoney@LawStreetMedia.com.

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In February 2015, Teach for America was invited to West Virginia schools for the first time. The first Teach for America educators are slated to arrive in West Virginia next August but only 15 educators will be stationed in the state, and Teach for America only plans to expand that number to 30-35 teachers in the next five years. Several county officials, teachers unions and education advocates have opposed the introduction of Teach for America, claiming that they do not need or want under-qualified teachers.

Despite this backlash, the West Virginia education system is in dire need of educators and is willing to take on Teach for America educators. West Virginia’s teacher salaries are among the lowest in the nation, and installing Teach for America recruits is considered by some to be the cost-efficient alternative to raising teacher pay. However, critics are concerned that cutting costs may also result in cutting quality in the classroom. Read on for a look at Teach for America’s current training program for new teachers and how it is implemented in new locales.

What is Teach for America?

Teach for America (TFA) founder Wendy Kopp began the project as a senior thesis at Princeton University in 1989. Low-income schools faced a debilitating teacher shortage and student outcomes had remained stagnant for several years. In 1989, Knopp launched recruitment programs at 100 universities and began funneling college graduates trained by TFA into the American school system.

Since then, TFA has expanded to 52 regions across the country and has an average of over 40,000 applicants every year. TFA provides educators in the most low-income and low-performing school districts in the country, which have difficulty attracting qualified teachers. The recruits that TFA introduces to the school system are tasked with closing the achievement gap between students from different socioeconomic and racial backgrounds. According to the TFA official website, a majority of school principals are satisfied with the commitment of TFA educators and would gladly hire from TFA again in the future. The statistics on the official website suggest that TFA teachers perform at the same level, if not higher, than their colleagues who were trained through traditional education programs. Despite these positive reports, there has been a growing backlash against TFA for not training teachers for the challenges they will meet in their classroom.

Teach for America Training

TFA usually recruits college graduates (often without education degrees) to teach in the most high-need school districts across the nation. Recruits undergo a five-to-seven week training course the summer before they begin their two year contract at a given school. According to TFA’s website, there are five components to the summer institute: teaching summer school, receiving observations and feedback, rehearsals and reflections on the classroom experience, curriculum instruction, and lesson-planning clinics. The training course is built on the assumption that recruits will learn quickly and embrace challenges. After the summer institute, a five day regional induction/orientation period introduces recruits to the town in which they will be working, connecting them with fellow educators and community members. Recruits rely heavily on mentors both within the school system and from the TFA regional network to aid them in the transition.

Concerns with the TFA Training 

TFA has come under fire over the past several years for how little material the summer institute covers. In an essay for The Washington Post, Professor Jack Schneider summed up the problematic nature of this training:

Even filling every moment of the day as they do, there simply isn’t enough time in five weeks to prepare novices for the classroom.  And to make matters more complicated, TFA corps members are often placed in schools where they are least qualified to be.

TFA subscribes to a philosophy of “learning by doing,” wherein teachers adapt to the needs of their classroom in real time. TFA cites the Mathematica Policy Research group’s 2004 report that students taught by TFA recruits topped their peers in math and matched them in reading as evidence that this strategy works. However, a 2010 review of independent research by Professors Julian Vasquez Heilig (University of Texas at Austin) and Dr. Su Jin Jez (California State University, Sacramento) revealed that students taught by TFA recruits perform at significantly lower levels than their peers taught by credentialed beginning teachers. This report found that

Teach for America recruits start at a disadvantage. After several years, they perform equal to or better than their peers, but they often leave the profession before the benefits of their experience can make an impact in the classroom. School districts must spend more money on recruiting as a result of Teach for America’s churn. In addition, the organization charges school districts an average of $2,500 for each teacher it provides, and districts spend extra money to train teachers once they arrive.

One of the largest problems with TFA recruits is that they only sign on for two-year periods. Fortunately, many TFA recruits have begun to stay longer than their two-year commitment. A 2011 study found that 60.5 percent of TFA teachers continue as public school teachers beyond their initial two-year commitment. However, remaining within the public school system is not equivalent to staying in the same teaching position. The same study found that 56.4 percent of TFA recruits leave their initial posting after two years and that after five years, only 14.8 percent of recruits continue to teach at the same low-income school to which they were originally assigned. TFA recruits may develop a love for teaching but that doesn’t mean they stay in the schools where their skills are most needed.

Teach for America in West Virginia

The TFA training program will encounter a new set of hurdles upon its implementation in West Virginia. As the program has not operated in the state before, and is only sending a minimal cadre of teachers to work there, the mentoring network for TFA recruits will be less engrained. One big concern is that it will be difficult to hold an effective regional orientation if the organizers themselves are only just adjusting to the West Virginian environment. TFA has operated in Appalachia for several years, but its activities have been confined to Kentucky–specifically to rural eastern Kentucky. TFA recruited a substantially larger set of teachers in Kentucky, bringing in 30 a year since 2011. The Kentucky program is well-established, with connections to the public school system and a set of TFA alumni who can serve as advisers for incoming TFA recruits in the region. TFA is hoping that West Virginia will parallel the Kentucky program, creating a broader Appalachian success story, but the nonprofit’s proposed efforts in West Virginia are currently so minor that it will be difficult for TFA recruits to make any sort of significant impact in the community.

Teach for America: Are there alternatives?

Teach for America is often considered the only successful program of its kind in the American educational system. Despite its inefficiencies, there is no nationally integrated program that attracts as many college graduates as TFA does. This may change in the coming months, due to a host of educational grants enacted this fall. In November, the Gates Foundation announced that it will be funneling $34 million in grants to five teacher education and preparation centers across the nation. Vicki Phillips, director of College Ready Education at the Gates Foundation, said that

We know that having an excellent teacher is critical to a student’s success, but there is still much to learn about how to best prepare teacher-candidates to be successful in the classroom. We’re excited to fund these new Teacher Preparation Transformation Centers so that together, we can better understand which practices are the most effective in preparing new teachers.

Funding these teacher preparation systems will create a new supply of credentialed teachers for K-12 education, so the most needy schools in America will have access to more qualified candidates and will not be as reliant on TFA recruits. In addition, the Harvard Graduate School of Teaching announced a brand new pilot program that will be launched next year called the Harvard Teaching Fellows, which is marketed as an alternative to TFA. The Harvard program plans to:

Engage Harvard students in the second semester of their senior year, with selected students taking a foundational course in the spring and remaining at Harvard for a summer-long training program following Commencement. In September, they will be deployed to partner school networks and districts where they will teach in a classroom, though with only a 60 percent workload. Fellows will then come back to Cambridge for a second summer of professional development for additional support before they return to classrooms. Upon a second year of teaching and program completion, fellows will continue to have support and connections to Harvard Teaching Fellows for the next few years of their careers.

After student protests against TFA in 2014, Harvard has been moving away from connecting its graduates with the organization. The Harvard Teaching Fellows program is only in its infancy, but the fact that it was designed specifically to address the shortcomings of TFA gives it a certain cachet in the education world. School districts like those in West Virginia may prefer to receive teachers from these preparation centers in the coming years rather than the handful of TFA recruits they are currently relying on. More efficient and comprehensive training for teachers could transform school districts across the country to the point that TFA may become less prevalent. In lieu of reforming TFA, the education sector may prefer to phase the program out entirely, replacing TFA recruits with teachers who graduated from these newly funded preparation centers.

Conclusion

Teach for America began twenty-five years ago with the best of intentions: connecting educated and passionate young people with students in dire need of educators and mentors. However, educators are concerned that the lack of training that these teachers receive may leave their students struggling in the classroom and the brief nature of their contract leaves school administrators scrambling to find replacements every two years. The introduction of new teacher preparation centers may solve the shortcomings of the Teach for America training process, but for now, Teach for America is the only organization sending a steady stream of teachers into the nation’s most desperate schools. Parents and educational professionals in West Virginia are only just opening their doors to Teach for America, but with that invitation, they also may be welcoming a lower caliber of teacher.

Resources 

Primary

TFA: Summer Training

TFA: Our History

TFA: On The Record

Additional

Charleston Gazette-Mail: Teach for America Still Coming to W.Va, but Impact May be Limited

Metro News West Virginia: Why WV needs Teach for America

Washington Post: Teach for America’s “Dirty Little Secret”

Washington Post: A New Look at Teach for America

Harvard Magazine: Is Teach for America Good for America?

The Gates Foundation: Gates Foundation Awards Over $34 Million in Grants to Help Improve Teacher Preparation Programs

The Harvard Crimson: To Teach A Teacher: Harvard’s Alternative to Teach for America

Education Week: TFA Teachers: How Long Do They Teach? Why Do They Leave?

Jillian Sequeira

Jillian Sequeira was a member of the College of William and Mary Class of 2016, with a double major in Government and Italian. When she’s not blogging, she’s photographing graffiti around the world and worshiping at the altar of Elon Musk and all things Tesla. Contact Jillian at Staff@LawStreetMedia.com

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Security cameras are a common facet in many places that we frequent, from office complexes to shopping malls. Closed circuit security cameras (CCTV) are mainly put in place to keep people safe, but one notable place where CCTVs are missing is our schools.

Tragedies such as the school shooting in Newtown, Connecticut in 2012 have raised alarms for increased school security and the use of technology to keep children safe. Many schools have security cameras at their entrances and, in some cases, in hallways and other high-traffic areas. In the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, and other nations, schools are beginning to experiment with the idea of placing closed-circuit security cameras in classrooms. Read on to learn the arguments about whether or not we should extend CCTV coverage to our public school classrooms.

What are the arguments for putting CCTVs in classrooms?

Those who support the addition of cameras to public school classrooms argue that they will increase school security while providing a useful tool for teacher collaboration. Many claim that the presence of the cameras alone would be enough to deter many students from committing crimes or engaging in common misbehavior while in the classroom. Cameras can also provide evidence if students are accused of a crime, saving administration from conducting lengthy and probing investigations.

Cameras could also be used by teachers as a tool to share effective learning methods and to connect with parents. Experienced, highly effective teachers could videotape segments of their lessons to be used in professional development programs and teacher training courses. Advocates have also argued that cameras could serve as deterrents to those bad teachers who do exist, particularly in special needs classrooms where students may have difficulty communicating instances of abuse to their parents. Parents would also have the ability to become in tune with what their children experience in the classroom, creating a closer marriage of a student’s education and home life and allowing parents to understand and supplement that education.

What are the arguments against CCTVs in classrooms?

Opponents are cautious about the installation of CCTVs due to the intrusion upon public school classrooms. Some administrators have indicated plans to use CCTVs to evaluate teacher performance and determine teacher effectiveness. Many professionals in American education oppose this method of teacher evaluation, as it seeks to make direct links between teacher methods and student achievement without accounting for other variables, such as socio-economic conditions and student behavior.

Additionally, using constant video surveillance of teachers as a form of evaluation would lead to a system where teacher merely imitate specific behaviors and methods they know evaluators are looking for while lacking creativity, individuality, and maverick methods that often characterize the best teachers and drive innovation. Many opponents also indicate that the presence of cameras could create a “Big Brother” atmosphere in the classroom, dampen student participation, and dissuade many students from exercising free speech.

Others worry that it infringes upon the relationships that teachers can have with their students. Teachers often have the ability to engage with their students about sensitive topics, including problems at home, difficulties in school, and the like. Teachers worry that installing CCTV cameras will make it less likely that students can confide in them, and therefore less likely that they are able to provide help or advice for those students. This worry is compounded by the fact that in most cases where cameras are installed, they are not able to turned off by the teachers themselves.

CCTVs in Classrooms in the UK

The idea of CCTVs has gained great momentum in Britain, where 85 percent of schools currently have CCTVs, and some schools, such as Stockwell Park High School in South London, have over 100 cameras inside its buildings (two in each classroom and 40 in hallways, cafeterias, and other areas).

The CCTV-based monitoring has had mixed reception in the UK. Teachers don’t really seem to like the institution of the cameras, citing concerns that they’re not in place for safety reasons, but rather to judge teachers. A teachers union conducted a study in the UK and discovered that 41 percent of teachers claimed that the cameras were used to find evidence that led to “negative views” of the staff being monitored.

There have also been cases of students in the UK being unhappy with the CCTV cameras placed in their schools. In a school in Essex, a student named Sam Goodman started a protest after discovering that cameras that were said to have been placed in his school for training purposes had actually been switched on. Goodman took many issues with the implementation of CCTV cameras, pointing out, “We’ll end up with all teachers being the same. And pupils will grow up thinking that it’s acceptable to be monitored like this.” He also was suspicious that the cameras were just supposed to be used for teacher training, claiming that the equipment seemed too extensive for such a narrow purpose. He eventually started a walk-out to protest the CCTV cameras.

There’s also a debate ongoing in the UK that the placement of CCTV cameras has gone too far. According to a British watchdog group called Big Brother Watch, more than 200 schools had installed CCTVs in restrooms and changing rooms (locker rooms). The only way that Big Brother Watch got that information was by filing a Freedom of Information Request with the government. A statement from Big Brother Watch claimed:

The full extent of school surveillance is far higher than we had expected and will come as a shock to many parents. Schools need to come clean about why they are using these cameras and what is happening to the footage. Local authorities also need to be doing far more to reign in excessive surveillance in their areas and ensuring resources are not being diverted from more effective alternatives. The Home Office’s proposed regulation of CCTV will not apply to schools and the new Commissioner will have absolutely no powers to do anything. Parents will be right to say that such a woefully weak system is not good enough.

While CCTV surveillance has become a sort of norm in the UK, many are still not happy about it. Those who are advocating for CCTV cameras in classrooms in the U.S. may be able to improve on the UK’s experiment to avoid the problems found there, while those who oppose the implementation may use the UK’s problems as reasoning for avoiding CCTV cameras in classrooms here.

Conclusion

Given the concentration of cameras in certain institutions, it’s no surprise that we’re now talking about implementing them in public school classrooms. While there are certainly benefits, such as added security and deterrence from fighting, there are also strong arguments against the practice, such as privacy concerns. Taking a cue from the UK’s book may be a smart idea, but whether or not the practice will catch on in the U.S. remains to be seen.

Resources

Primary 

Change.org: Cameras in Special Needs Classrooms

Hudson Park High School: CCTV Report

Additional

PR Web: CCTV Cameras Can Prevent Violence in the Classroom

SelfGrowth.com: Classrooms Should Have Closed-Circuit Cameras

Boss Closed Security: School Closed Circuit TV: How Does it Work and Why?

TES Connect: CCTV is Used to Spy on Teachers

Sydney Morning Herald: School Surveillance Puts Trust at Risk

LoveToKnow.com: Keep Security Cameras Out of School Classrooms

Salon: Big Brother Invades Our Classrooms

National Education Policy Center: Cameras in the Classroom: A Good Idea?

Guardian: Someone to Watch Over You

Learn By Cam: CCTV in Schools and Classrooms

USA Today: Who’s Watching the Class?

ZD Net: Should CCTV Be Allowed in Schools and Universities?

Joseph Palmisano

Joseph Palmisano is a graduate of The College of New Jersey with a degree in History and Education. He has a background in historical preservation, public education, freelance writing, and business. While currently employed as an insurance underwriter, he maintains an interest in environmental and educational reform. Contact Joseph at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

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Tenure for teachers has always been a contentious issue in public schools, but recently, students in California have taken the issue to a whole new level by suing the state over its tenure policies.

Tenure itself is a system designed to give teachers due process should they be accused of poor performance or other less than satisfactory behaviors. The system was implemented as a way of making sure teachers weren’t fired unfairly because it got too expensive to pay them; because they were too old; or a number of other political reasons. The process to remove a tenured teacher can have a number of steps, and can take a relatively long time, depending on the situation.

Proponents of tenure say it helps strengthen a teacher’s ability to act with autonomy within his or her working environment. But other people haven’t been so sure about the effectiveness of the system.

Those against tenure claim that once it is enacted, there is no way to hold a teacher accountable for being an effective educator. With tenure, they say, it is much harder to fire a teacher who isn’t doing his or her job correctly. The process can go on for years, and can cost school districts hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Some students in California tended to think the same way, and brought a lawsuit against the state, claiming the state’s tenure laws hindered their abilities to get a quality education. The case, Vergara v. California, is being heard before the Los Angeles County Superior Court. Nine students and their families raised the case through a group called Students Matter.

According to its website, the group aims to strike down three laws: permanent employment statute, dismissal statutes, and “last in, first out” layoff statutes. The group believes that by getting rid of these three laws, more ineffective teachers will be let go, regardless of how long they have worked in the schools, meaning more effective teachers can be brought in, better serving students’ needs.

One quote from the preliminary statement filed reads as follows:

“A handful of outdated laws passed by the California legislature are preventing school administrators from maintaining or improving the quality of our public educational system by denying them the flexibility to make teacher employment decisions driven by the needs of their students.”

The group claims that by having these three laws surrounding job protections for teachers, their right to a quality education is diminished. Rather than having the teachers’ best interest in mind, the students’ well-being should be the main focus of the state.

Currently in California, teachers start off with a probationary status, and must remain in good standing for two consecutive school years before they gain permanent status starting at the start of their third year teaching (permanent employment statute). Once granted this status, teachers can only be fired with “just cause” or in the case of layoffs. In order to determine “just cause” teachers are allowed to have a full hearing in front of a panel in order to determine any wrongdoing, in addition to another of other steps, in a process which can take several months, if not more (dismissal statutes). Additionally, in the case of layoffs, it has been customary for new teachers to automatically be let go first, keeping permanent teachers in place without regard for level of effectiveness in the classroom (last in, first out statute).

This lawsuit is one of the first of its kind, targeting the entire school system for something as institutional as tenure, and the Students First group recognizes this. Their website has an entire page dedicated to the idea of taking this issue through the courts rather than a lawmaking body. They claim by using litigation, politics will be less likely to affect the ruling and subsequent change to policy.

But even if the group wins, will California schools get better?

It’s hard to say what kind of impact a potential “win” for these plaintiffs would mean for the future of teachers in California.

Even if the regulations Students Matter are fighting against get struck down, there are a number of other hurdles California school districts will need to overcome in order to see improvements in the schools there. Language and socioeconomic barriers, budget problems, and poor test scores cannot solely be fixed by removing these allegedly detrimental barriers dealing with teacher permanency.

Without comprehensive education reform, more than just tackling tenure, schools in California (and other states) cannot expect to improve. While there may be some instances in which ineffective teachers cannot be fired because of institutional barriers, it’s hard to believe that the majority of the state’s problems stem from these few regulations.

Before blaming regulations aimed at protecting teachers from unjust discrimination, it may be important to look towards other pressing features which bar a student’s right to a good education. Only with this comprehensive view of an education system will real change be accomplished.

[New York Times] [Vergara v. California] [California Policy]

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Molly Hogan (@molly_hogan13)

Featured image courtesy of [Liz via Flickr]

Molly Hogan

Molly Hogan is a student at The George Washington University and formerly an intern at Law Street Media. Contact Molly at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

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The morning of January 23, 2014, I had the privilege to attend an event at the Center for American Progress. It was called, “The Changing Role of Teachers Unions: Ensuring High Quality Public Education for America’s Students.”

There were introductory remarks from CAP’s President, Neera Tanden, a keynote Presentation from Dennis Van Roekel, the President of the National Education Association, and then a panel discussion involving Mr. Van Roekel; Richard Lee Colvin, Senior Associate at Cross & Joftus; Elena Silva, Senior Associate at the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching; Paul Toner, President of the Massachusetts Teachers Association; and Tammy Wawro, President of the Iowa State Education Association. The discussion was moderated by Carmel Martin from the CAP.

The overall theme of the discussion was how the NEA is trying to transform its function from an organization that focuses on mostly collective bargaining and lobbying functions, to one that also plays a large part in policy, advocacy, and professional development. They want to provide teachers with the ability to collaborate and control the direction of their profession by advocating a new student-centered approach.

During his keynote, Dennis Van Roekel used a metaphor for the NEA’s goals that continued throughout the symposium. He described how the American education system is very good at creating “campfires,” but as any good Boy or Girl Scout can tell you, a perfect campfire just stays burning in the place where you put it; it doesn’t spread. He described how the new goal of the NEA and the American Education system should be to create brushfires–fires that spread through connections, improved training, and leadership development.

The panel dealt with a number of questions about how these new priorities would be implemented. Both of the on-the-ground state representatives, Toner and Wawro,  highlighted how teachers are on board with many policy changes, including Common Core, different types of teacher evaluations, and more leadership training, but are overwhelmed by how quickly they’re happening. They both emphasized that it’s going to take time to make it work, but everyone is optimistic. There was also a large emphasis on the partnerships that can be formed between teachers, the NEA, and other organizations, such as an organization called Teach Plus, a national non-profit that helps urban teachers.

There was some concern about how this will all work. Silva pointed out that much of what is happening right now is experimentation. But it’s very high risk experimentation, as it happens in the real world. If things go wrong in a school where something new is being tried out, it could harm the students. Schools, and the NEA, could get in a lot of trouble if any changes do fail. But it seems that the potential for failure seems better than the subsistence existence that many schools are in right now. After all, as Van Roekel pointed out, high school graduation rate is only about 75%, and it’s even lower in inner-city schools. Experimentation needs to happen, but Silva is right, it is dangerous, and schools need to be ready to make quick changes if necessary.

I found the part of the talk that dealt with the changing efforts of NEA to be interesting and informative, but I was actually even more interested in a section of the discussion that diverged a bit. One of the introductory points that Van Roekel used was the fact that we need to make sure that our teachers are qualified and ready to teach from day one. He gave the example of going to the emergency room–upon arrival, no one would think to ask if their doctor was licensed. Van Roekel wants it to be the same in the classroom–every teacher is licensed and ready to teach starting on the first day they walk into a school. There was some debate on this subject, as Silva pointed out that doctors aren’t necessarily ready to work on patients beginning the first day, but that its rather a learning process over a number of years.

This led to a fascinating conversation about recruitment. In order for our teachers to be ready to teach from the beginning and qualified, they need to be the right people for the jobs. But there are significantly less people going into the teaching profession. Van Roekel partly attributed this to the fact that in past decades, excellent women and minority students went into teaching because it was one of the only things they could do. But as opportunities widened, less people are choosing to teach.

Besides increased equality, the panel’s best guess for this phenomenon is that less people are going into the teaching profession because they are not encouraged to do so. Toner said that when he first went into teaching, he saw some of his old teachers, who asked him what he was doing. He told them he was a teacher, and they expressed disappointment, telling him he was too smart for that. I’ve had friends who’ve decided to take on teaching majors and have received similar reactions from their friends and family. The truth of the matter is that teaching is no longer respected the way it was in the past, and many intelligent young people are steered away because they are convinced that they would make more money in another field. The idiom, “those who can, do; those who can’t, teach,” is still alive and well. This of course, isn’t to say that the individuals who are entering the education field do not deserve our applause, support, and thanks. The problem is that there’s just less of them, especially as baby boomers start to retire.

Teaching is no longer being viewed as worth it, which is really sad. I attended public school almost my entire life, and many of the teachers I had were the most wonderful, intelligent, thoughtful, and engaging individuals with whom I have ever had the privilege to spend time. They absolutely shaped my life, and I feel so incredibly fortunate to have had access to a public school like that. The teaching profession does need to change, if only to ensure that such great people do continue to enter the field, and I applaud the NEA, CAP, and other organizations’ attempts to do so. Let’s hope they do turn those campfires into brushfires.

Thanks to the Center for American Progress for their great work on this event.

—

Anneliese Mahoney (@AMahoney8672) is Lead Editor at Law Street and a Connecticut transplant to Washington D.C. She has a Bachelor’s degree in International Affairs from the George Washington University, and a passion for law, politics, and social issues. Contact Anneliese at amahoney@LawStreetMedia.com.

Featured image courtesy of [Center for Teaching Vanderbilt University via Flickr]

Anneliese Mahoney

Anneliese Mahoney is Managing Editor at Law Street and a Connecticut transplant to Washington D.C. She has a Bachelor’s degree in International Affairs from the George Washington University, and a passion for law, politics, and social issues. Contact Anneliese at amahoney@LawStreetMedia.com.

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