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The Forum > Article Comments > Good teachers, excellent teachers > Comments

Good teachers, excellent teachers : Comments

By Lawrence Ingvarson, published 19/2/2008

Recognising and rewarding good teachers will require a rigorous national certification system.

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The Victorian Institute of Teaching has a certification system for regstered teachers that is criticised because

1. it duplicates the assessment process that trainee teachers undergo during their university teacher training course

2. it's demands are so rigorous that emergency or casual relief teachers can not comply with the certification system.

3. cynics query the value of the $60 annual registration fee - it just keeps the police check current

4. many teachers complete additional university courses through part time study during their careers but the professional teaching researchers at ACER negate the value of additional training that doesn't lead to a research paper submitted to HERDSA.

Nothing improves performance more than recognition for a job well done and the stability to be able to plan for the future.

Sales organisations like Harvey Norman get better results out of paying salesmen commission and fostering competition between their staff but teaching is one profession where collegiality is far more productive because you want teachers to nurture learning in their students and provide a supportive classroom environment. You can't expect people to back stab their colleagues then nurture your child.
Posted by billie, Tuesday, 19 February 2008 9:11:48 AM
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$4 Billion dollars is quite an outlay, so who is going to test that this money is not going to be wasted?

While it is true that most professions do have a certificate system and career path, (and even an apprentice carpenter can rise to the level of a master builder), it is also true that most businesses run with a performance pay system.

Performance pay based on improved results is the best system of stimulating innovation and development. Systems of pay that include performance pay will be the systems that students will likely have when they leave school and enter into industry, so it is ironic that about the only people who do not have performance pay are the teachers in the schools.

I think teachers are rejecting performance pay so much, because they will be forced to improve boy's marks in schools. Boy's marks have been allowed to decline over a number of decades, but improving boy's marks is not within the politics of so many of the feminists in the education system.

Instead, they want more money, even if student marks are declining.
Posted by HRS, Tuesday, 19 February 2008 9:42:36 AM
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a poorly written, unfleshed and self-serving document. i'm not sure who will pay the $4 billion, but it seems acer is hoping to receive a slab of it.

i'm all for raising the standards of teaching. but i don't have any faith that teacher assessment schemes aren't, and won't always be, artificial and substantially useless. the author claims that this can be done in a "reliable, valid and fair" manner. the author provides no arguments and no references: i'll believe it when i see it.

what's missing are not testing procedures. what's missing, from education at all levels, is a culture of learning. acer seems to ignore this, and instead wishes to formalise a culture of game-playing.
Posted by bushbasher, Tuesday, 19 February 2008 12:55:17 PM
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The Victorian Institute of Teaching system that you refer to is not the same as the certification system that Lawrence Ingvarson refers to. The VIT system provides the means for a provisionally registered first year teacher to achieve full registration. I have concerns about how demanding the process is and I can tell you it was not envisaged to be such bureaucratic busywork by those who pushed for the establishment of the VIT.

However, the registration fee for the VIT is less than that paid for registration by other professions, and teachers, unlike most other professions in Victoria, get to elect members to the council that oversees their registration system, though, as is usual with teachers, more prefer to whinge than even cast their votes. The VIT is a fantastic opportunity for teachers to have a say on ter own professional standards.

I know many are cynical about the VIT, but I put that down to teachers’ lack of understanding of what a profession is because I am unaware of the same sort of complaints from doctors, nurses, dentists, lawyers, etc, all of whom have registration systems.

There is a more in-depth discussion of the VIT at:
http://pub39.bravenet.com/forum/3280197123/show/642356

The idea that the best classroom teachers should be paid more than administrators is illogical because the best classroom teacher influences only the classes that he or she teaches, whereas a good subject co-ordinator, level co-ordinator or timetabler can influence the educational program across the school. As the Hampton Park Secondary College timetabler until the end of 2004, I organised that school with a maximum teaching load of just under 18 hours a week, and average regular class load of 15 hours 45 minutes and the capacity for decent time allowances (deductions from teaching loads for leadership responsibilities). I was also able to evenly balance classes between the two weeks of the timetable cycle. All of this – and a good deal more - contributed to the learning of every class in the school, but it would not be recognised under the proposed certification program.
Posted by Chris C, Tuesday, 19 February 2008 3:11:44 PM
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Isn't a school administrator a teacher Chris C? And shouldn't school administrators be good teachers? The kinds of decisions Chris talks about are best made by people with strong professional knowledge and skills - good teachers. And of course good teachers can be identified through an appropriate assessment scheme. How else would you do it? Ask your mates? Ask the principal? Don't bother everyone knows?

It's time for teachers to start acting like other professionals and accept a certification scheme with appropriate rewards attached.
Posted by Perpetua, Wednesday, 20 February 2008 2:50:58 PM
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Perpetua I think teachers can quite rightly argue that they have a certification scheme currently that is at least as rigorous as those that govern

- professional engineers
- dentists
- doctors
- accountants

and far more certification than computer programmers, administrators, salesmen, farmers, journalists, business men or politicians.

The days of the bigotted, ignorant, lazy chalkie are long dead - but not so his critics.
Posted by billie, Wednesday, 20 February 2008 3:28:43 PM
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Perpetua,

A school administrator is a teacher, but the debate has been presented as one of rewarding teachers who stay in the classroom. It is often said that if teachers want to earn extra money they have to leave the classroom and take on administrative and leadership positions. This is true. My point is that it is perfectly logical to pay more to those who take on administrative and leadership positions because the effect of their administration and leadership will be felt across the school, not just in a single classroom.

I do not believe in reducing education to tests, but I will use tests as an example because doing so will simplify my point. Imagine a really good teacher who can achieve a five per cent improvement in the tests results of 25 students in, say five classes. Compare that with a really good subject co-ordinator whose leadership can produce a one per cent improvement in tests results across the whole school. In the first case, 125 students are five per cent better off. In the second case, maybe 800 students are better off, even though it is by only one per cent each.

In essence, I am pointing to the complexity of education where the results of one teacher are affected by the work of other teachers, including those in leadership positions in the school.

An outstanding classroom teacher may end up being a poor subject coordinator and an average classroom teacher may end up being a very good level coordinator. The jobs require different skills. Being an outstanding classroom teacher does not make a greater contribution to education overall than being an outstanding leader.
Posted by Chris C, Wednesday, 20 February 2008 7:12:57 PM
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