Introduction
Over the years, national, state, and local governments have been looking for ways to increase the academic performance among academically vulnerable students. To boost these students’ academic performance, governments have been implementing many programs to inspire innovative school reforms to K-12 educational systems across the United States. Several studies have shown that schools employing certain practices are linked to higher academic achievement. This paper will demonstrate that teacher competency and the school’s ability to provide an emotionally supportive environment are school characteristics associated with higher student academic success.
Teacher competency
For teachers to be effective in ways that increase students’ academic achievement, teachers must have the competency needed to teach in their respective content areas. For the purposes of this paper, teacher effectiveness and competency will be discussed in terms of a teacher’s ability to improve student’s academic achievement. Teacher competency is associated with the teacher’s readiness to teach their subject. According to the National Research Council (NRC), an estimated 10-20% of math and
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They found that, relative to students in the K-8 middle school configuration, students in the traditional middle school configuration perform lower on math by roughly .12-.15 standard deviations (Jacob and Rockoff, 13). Similarly, the school system not offering foster children the emotional support necessary for these academically vulnerable children has been considered as a potential barrier to foster students’ academic success (Morton 2015, 488). Therefore, actions taken to increase the amount of emotion support students experience at schools are related to increased
Teacher tenure. What does this word mean? In many's eyes, tenure is seen as an unfair advantage to teachers and a cruel rule to students. However, according to teacherunion.com, “tenure is the practice of guaranteeing a teacher their job.” Typically, all teachers earn this privilege through quantity, and not by quality. Just a few years after starting to teach, they are granted tenure. And because of Teacher’s Union, it is almost impossible to break a teacher (i.e. a bad teacher) from this rule.
Education is a topic in which there are so many contributing factors and variables that narrowing the field of research is difficult. To begin, demographics of each individual county are essential for understanding the student population from raw data. Statistics such as population, average annual salary, per child expenditures, and financial budgets add some perspective of what counties have in terms of financial resources. Another critical consideration is the proportion of minority students. Non English speaking students and special education require a higher degree of resources and more financial commitment from educational systems. Schools with high minority populations also have lower overall parental incomes which translate into increases in free and reduced lunch and breakfast. Food insecurity, family stressors, unsafe environments, and the lack of support systems are fundamental contributors to children’s educational deficits. Other important factors to consider are the availability of parental involvement, extracurricular activities, and local, state, and federal programs and legislation. In visiting the schools, the focus was on evaluating the individual school facilities and the area in which they are located.
Introduction Teachers have become gateway keepers to providing education to students. Over the span of several years, teachers have been criticized for being unprepared, unable to adapt to different learning styles, and are increasing the number of students who aren’t learning. With this achievement gap increasing, it brings up the idea of what the education system is doing wrong and what improvements it needs to make. The education system needs to be redesigned to strengthen its curriculum, it’s connection to both practice and theory, and the idea of a powerful educator. The first aspect of this memo contains an interview with Diana Regalado De Santiago, a math teacher in the Socorro Independent School District for the past six years.
For decades now, there have been educational problems in the inner city schools in the United States. The schools inability to teach some students relates to the poor conditions in the public schools. Some of the conditions are the lack of funds that give students with the proper supplies, inexperienced teachers, inadequate resources, low testing scores and the crime-infested neighborhoods. These conditions have been an issue for centuries, but there is nothing being done about it. Yet, state and local governments focus on other priorities, including schools with better academics. It is fair to say that some schools need more attention than other does. However, when schools have no academic problems then the attention should be focused elsewhere, particularly in the inner city schools.
There are several school-level processes that may affect student outcomes either as direct effects of instructional practice or indirectly through support of students’ social-psychological needs (Rowan, B., Chiang, F.-S., Miller, R. J., 1996).
I am an African American female who attends the University of Chicago Charter School, which is located on the South side of Chicago. I am seventeen years old and I live and attend school in a predominantly Black neighborhood. I have seen plenty in my seventeen years of living. My goal is to go to college and become a teacher, so that I can return to Chicago and help the people in my community. In six years, I will be giving back to the community and helping the world become better place. I will help teach kids not to live in stereotypes and let them bring them down.
Throughout high school and during my undergraduate studies, education was never a top priority for me. Only during the past two years, in the "real world", have I realized the importance of education. I look back at those years and wish I had done more and realized all the potential I had in my hands and not wasted so much time. During my undergraduate career my social activities consumed my life. My friends were not motivated to do well in school so I followed their lead. My grades were low, and I did not even care. After I graduated in 1997 with a Psychology B.A. and lost touch with my old friends and old ways, I have realized that I should have spent more time doing some soul searching and thinking what it was that I wanted to do with my life. I liked Psychology but what I really wanted to do was work with children more closely. I had spent my junior and senior years involved in internships at Head Start and at a High School in a Program for teenaged mothers. I loved my work there. At Head Start I was a Teacher Aid for the pre-school, teaching the children to read, numbers etc. And at the High School I counseled the teenaged mothers, took care of their kids while they went to school and after the school day I tutored them with their homework. After being out of school for a while, I started to miss that. The feeling that I was teaching something those kids, the feeling that I was making a difference. I was determined to find a job in education, with my background in Psychology, how hard could it be? I found work at a residential school for runaways and abused teenaged females. It was great! I was ready to go, I was going to change the world and change those girls lives. What I didn't realize is that will alone does not make me a teacher and that I needed training, a lot of training. I made a lot of mistakes in that job. I got discouraged and decided to forget about working with children, forget teaching and do something else that paid more. So, I got a job as a Secretary, I did that for about two years. Teaching, working with children was always on my mind.
The ideas of this article intrigued me because of the information presented in the beginning paragraphs. This article elaborates upon how important the ability of being able to distinguish between positive and negative emotions is. Through the faces presented in the start of the article, I learned that affective development “generally precedes cognitive and behavioral development, as children experience emotions and react to them long before they are able to verbalize or cope. However, social and emotional competencies do not unfold automatically; rather they are strongly influenced by the child’s early learning environment” (Kramer, Caldarella, Christensen & Shatzer 2010). As an educator, I feel as though this is a pertinent piece of important information. Oftentimes students will view school as their safe-haven, and, with all the struggles that they are facing at home, emotions are let loose in the wrong ways. This social-emotional learning program reportedly help...
In summary, I believe an effective teacher has the most influence on an effective school. Because of this, I consider Cooper’s characteristics centered on effective teaching as most important. I do also believe that fostering effective teaching skills through effective professional development programs are essential to creating an effective school. Furthermore, I would not discount the roles of non-teachers in the school setting, as they contribute to a school’s overall effectiveness too.
It identified one study where disadvantaged children were divided into 2 groups. The first group was provided with preschool and specific attention during the children 's early development. The second group did not receive support before kindergarten. The first group had a 20% higher graduation rate nearly 15 years later. It also identified another study done in poorer Title I schools that focused on early childhood and on parent mentorship. They experienced lower dropout rates and had 11% more students who were at risk of dropout graduate than their peer. This work also identifies students below the poverty line are at risk for pregnancy, incarceration, or having to work to support their families. All of these reasons can lead to the student failing to complete high school. The studies and statistics from this report will be used to support the solution offered in my thesis. They will provide evidence that schools that provide students with stability at an early age can increase the graduation rate of students in poverty.
Many people on this earth grow up saying they would like to make a difference in this world. However, half of those people do not feel like putting in the work in order to do so. As an elementary education major, making a difference is one of the main goals. There are many benefits of becoming a teacher, and students benefit as well. In order to have many students successfully graduate from one grade to the next a teacher should be willing to put in as much work that is needed. Elementary school is where children are set up for the rest of their education. It is important to understand how to go into this career field, becoming a teacher has its own benefits, and the children are able to benefit from teachers.
“I wanted to become a teacher to be able to make a positive difference on the future of children. For me, it is fulfilling challenge, stimulating the next generation to become lifelong learners. I have always been grateful to my mom (who is a retired teacher) for implanting values in me. I feel I should contribute what I have learned and experienced over the years. This way I will be paying back and at the same time can fulfill my desire of enhancing the education system.”
Everyone knows that when it comes to making a difference in a child’s academic and life achievements, their teachers play a large role. A teacher’s ability to relate to their students, and teach them to achieve both socially and academically contributes to how effective they are. What does it mean to be an effective teacher? Overall there seems to be an emphasis on teacher effectiveness related to how well their students are performing on standardized testing. As teachers we know there is more to being an effective teacher then just teaching our students based on tests. This paper will identify different definitions of an effective teacher along with how to assess teachers on being effective.
What is a teacher? A teacher is someone who students rely on for further knowledge and comprehension. Often, a teacher is viewed as a role model towards their students. In many times, teachers can help guide students into a better future. Characteristics like preparation, compassion, having and showing respect to students can make a teacher more effective.
Our nation’s education system strives through the hard work and dedication of its educators. Often great teachers, principles and supporting staff are drawn to the profession because they possess the desire to empower, inspire, nurture and watch young people grow - not only academically, but also emotionally. These people are there because they want to make an impact upon our society and the lives of whom the reach. Highly effective teachers are those who have taken learning to new heights by accelerating student learning, closing achievement gaps that persisted for decades, and promoting a mindset of change. Moreover, the presence of highly effective teachers in classrooms today continues to manifest as a result of the support from strong school leaders (U.S. Department of Education, 2013).