Teachers rise to the top

This article describes some summer teacher-training programs that sound wonderful.  I wonder if any have been evaluated to see if the students taught by the teachers who attend these programs do better afterward? 

 

The sad reality is that the great majority of teacher training goes on at a horribly broken system of ed schools, which studies have shown add ZERO value in terms of producing teachers that can drive higher levels of student achievement.  Thus, given its huge cost in time and money, the system as a whole SUBTRACTS value to society -- how truly pathetic!

Many districts require summer courses and workshops to get their share of the nation's 3 million teachers up to speed. Teachers these days also study sea turtle habitats in Costa Rica, evolution in the Galapagos, geology in Wyoming, physics at Los Alamos, N.M., and the history of the Wright Brothers in Dayton, Ohio, among others specialties.

While public money is limited, teachers tap into hundreds of public-private partnerships that, in many cases, take them far from home for once-in-a-lifetime training experiences.

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Teachers rise to the top Updated 8/30/2006 10:01 AM ET http://www.usatoday.com/news/education/2006-08-29-teachers-cover_x.htm

By Greg Toppo, USA TODAY HUNTSVILLE, Ala. — Somewhere between curriculum committees, writing conferences and presentations to principals about computerized blackboards, Bridget Kay Call found a few hours this summer to rise up and fly. An airplane ride simulating a near-zero-gravity environment was the icing on summer's cake for the high school English, speech and theater teacher from Matewan, W. Va., one of nearly 90 state Teachers of the Year who spent a week here swapping ideas at a special workshop courtesy of Northrop Grumman and other sponsors. The experience of weightlessness left Call speechless — and able to sympathize with students who struggle to describe the world around them. "The speech teacher is speechless, and that's not quite like me," she says. Though the flight was unusual — the first just for teachers — the teachers are not. Like most educators these days, they often spend summers working to fulfill new state and federal requirements.