Special Education Today Newsletter 3(10)
If you missed any posts for the week just passed, don't fret—here's a list of them
Hello, dear readers, wherever you are. I hope that your troubles are few. Here we are, already at issue 10 of this third year. It’s sorta the same-old-same-old, at least with regard to the organization. If you’ve read 100 or more of these newsletters, you’ll know that you’re going to find notes about the health of Special Education Today, links to the posts for the past week, some ramblings, and maybe a little other content, too. So, please keep reading.
Status update
SET grew by a few more subscribers this past week. Good news…though the total is still hovering below 600. Welcome to new subscribers, especially to those who recently joined the ranks for the paying readers!
Nearly 50 (almost 9%) of these subscribers are people who are contributing to make SET available to all of us. Special thanks to those peeps. I greatly appreciate you spending just a bit over $1 a week on SET. In addition to helping subsidize the broader readership, those contributions are going to facilitate some new features in the coming weeks and months.
The past week’s ToC
I think of SET as a wide-ranging source for learning about about the education of children with disabilities and their lives with their families. I think this past week reflects SET’s eclectic nature. (Write to me if you would like to see SET cover different “beats” than those one regularly sees…or skip some beats? Just reply to this newsletter and I’ll get your message.)
Special Education Today Newsletter 3(9): Are you ready for more of the same old same old?
The big splash for a study of neonatal care: Why shouldn't we celebrate a study promoting healthy eating during pregnancy?
Aphorisms, sayings, & such #5: Are blinding insights how science advances?
NIFDI talk video: Who needs a spoon when she can just watch this?
S. A. Kirk, 1904-1996: What about the giants of the past?
ASAT newsletter was posted: Don't you want to read the newsletter for September 2023?
Behavior analysis news on a fixed interval: Who is Fred, anyway?
If any readers are interested in finding these and other posts, please point a browser at https://www.SpecialEducationToday.com and review the offerings. The first page will show relatively recent posts, but there should be a button at the bottom that permits one to see “more” (or something like that). In addition, it is possible to search for posts; just use the little “looking glass” at the top.
Of course, please be advised that not all of the posts are available to the general public. Some are reserved for readers with paid subscriptions.
Commentary
In an earlier newsletter—2(46) for 22 May 2023—I solicited readers’ opinions about what types of posts they would like to see (or not see) on SET. Most readers were “okay” with me providing commentaries in the newsletters. [Turn on raving-lunatic mode]Ha ha! I have license![Turn off raving-lunatic mode]
I’d like to mention teachers’ compensation. It’s an appropriate time to reflect on investing in the faculty who teach at schools (and I think this applies to teachers in many places, not just the US). Teachers have been hammered in the public eye of late, they are being asked to do more, and their pay continues to lag comparably prepared peers. Is it any wonder that there are severe shortages in qualified teachers?
To start, just recall the level of esteem the general public holds for teachers. You know: “those who can, do. Those who can’t….”
It’s unlikely that someone who monitored the news for a week would not encounter multiple stories denigrating education and teachers. Even holding aside the political challenges to sex-ed curricula and popular reading materials, there’s plenty of bashing happening. If one randomly selected 100 stories about teachers from news sources, what percentage would you expect to present teaching and education in a positive light? What percentage with a negative tinge? There are a lot of stories doubting teachers’ preparation for teaching reading, for example. And then there are the exposés about disappointing test scores. How would comparable attacks affect the holders of others positions—say, jurists or physicians?
In August of 2022, Sylvia Allegretto of the Economic Policy Institute reported about trends in teacher wages and compensation:
Over the last 18 years, EPI has closely tracked trends in teacher pay. Over these nearly two decades, a picture of increasingly alarming trends has emerged. Simply put, teachers are paid less (in weekly wages and total compensation) than their nonteacher college-educated counterparts, and the situation has worsened considerably over time
Nan Bahr and Jo-Anne Ferreira (they’re on the faculty of Southern Cross University, Australia) discussed how pay was only one of multiple reasons people don’t want to be teachers. They argued that competencies that drive teacher preparation are often disconnected from the “real world” of teaching, that obsessive focus on standardized testing creates problems, and on and on.
This brief catalog only represents the proverbial scratch on the surface. I encourage readers to dig deeply into public perception of teaching, factors affecting teachers’ work, and (of course) teacher pay. There’s a lot to know here.
I hope that virtually every reader knows that teaching is hard work. And, hard work while being bashed for it and having more piled on top of one’s duties is…well…harder. And when one realizes what the level of pay is, it’s just damn near untenable.
I have no magic solution about how to raise the revenue so teachers are compensated fairly. And I hold no illusion that the needed funds are insubstantial. It’s going to cost, but teachers deserve it.
Lest you think I might have forgotten, here are the usual recommendations: (a) Wear your seatbelts (and make sure your children’s seats are affixed properly). (b) Get the up-coming fall vaccinations as appropriate. (c) Maintain safe practices (social distance, washed hands, masks) and protect your family and friends. And (d) please, teach your children well.
JohnL
SET Editor guy
Charlottesville