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Administrators, teachers, parents and academics debate how to make teachers better

Friday, February 14, 2003

By Eleanor Chute and Carmen J. Lee, Post-Gazette Education Writers

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	The town meeting panel fields a question at McConomy Auditorium. From left are Dr. Alan Lesgold, Dr. Carolyn Dumaresq, Celeste Taylor and Jane Elizabeth. (Photos by Lake Fong, Post-Gazette) Related stories: A Question of Quality

A capacity crowd of about 400 turned out last night for a town meeting on teacher quality, debating what's needed to improve quality and who is responsible for the problems that exist.

Inadequate state funding was a major culprit for Jean Dexheimer, school board president for the financially strapped Wilkinsburg School District.

"In public education, you get what you pay for," she said. "If you want better public education for all children, I hope you're not one of the people who call me in the middle of the night about property taxes. Call Harrisburg."

But Jay Schaffer, a tour director for Scholastica Travel in Greensburg, said that based on his experience from 13 years of overseeing school trips involving more than 8,000 students and 800 teachers, "70 percent of teachers aren't worth day-care wages" and are being protected by unions.

	Jane Elizabeth The number one complaint received at the Post-Gazette from parents is poor teacher quality. People are afraid to make teacher quality a public issue. Parental compaints about teacher quality do get heard.

"Great teachers don't need unions. Poor teachers need unions," he said. "Unions can't be part of the solution because they are the problem."

The town meeting -- called "Do Teachers Make the Grade?" -- was hosted by the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and presented by Duquesne Light Co. at the McConomy Auditorium at Carnegie Mellon University. The meeting was conducted as a follow-up to a recent five-part Post-Gazette series titled "A Question of Quality."

The town meeting was moderated by Madelyn Ross, Post-Gazette managing editor. The panelists were Jane Elizabeth, Post-Gazette education editor; Celeste Taylor, Allegheny County field director for Good Schools Pennsylvania, a grass-roots advocacy group; Carolyn Dumaresq, executive director of the Pennsylvania State Education Association; and Alan Lesgold, professor and dean of the University of Pittsburgh School of Education.

Dumaresq said that teacher quality is perhaps the most important issue in education. She said the union has encouraged the state to set higher standards for teachers, encouraged school districts to provide working conditions that can create and retain quality teachers and called for a ban on teachers teaching out of field. But she noted the union doesn't do the hiring.

Dumaresq and officials with the Pennsylvania Federation of Teachers, the state's other teacher union, disputed Schaffer's comments.

	Dr. Carolyn Dumaresq The six qualities that make a good teacher. Teachers unions and teacher competency.

Albert Fondy, president of the Pennsylvania and Pittsburgh federations, called them "nonsense."

In fact, day-care workers need to be better paid, well-qualified individuals who help prepare children for school, contended John Tarka, executive director of Pennsylvania Federation.

"Early childhood education should be well-supported at all levels of government, by districts and the state," Tarka said.

Lesgold said he thinks a recent report by the Harrisburg-based Education Policy and Leadership Center had it "just right" when it said that a quality teacher has a grasp of the subject matter, knows techniques to relay that knowledge to students, has good verbal skills and has successful experiences in refining those skills.

As to whether those are the skills measured, Lesgold said, "Sometimes today the answer is 'no.' "

	Dr. Alan Lesgold The four core qualities of a good teacher. Teachers need coaches. The questions parents should ask their school districts.

He said, for example, that a teacher can teach eighth-grade algebra by earning an elementary teaching certificate and passing a high school math test without any check on whether the person can teach the material.

"We can and must do better than this," he said.

He said if higher standards were required for teachers, college preparation programs also would have to meet higher standards.

Taylor praised a teacher who had helped her "see something in me I couldn't see in myself," as well as teachers who had helped her brother and children in Pittsburgh Public Schools.

"This is what we want to give to all children," she said. "It should not just be about luck."

Larry Ehrlich, president of the East Allegheny School District teacher union, won a round of applause when he said that education in Pennsylvania is "controlled by boards that are untrained and uncompensated."

	Celeste Taylor We need more communication between teachers and parents. We must have the political courage to change the way we fund schools.

Taylor said parents and other concerned residents need to lobby state officials to spend more money on public schools.

"If there's no political will, if there's no political courage, we'll be having this same conversation 10 years from now," she said, "and it's got to stop."

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