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Enthusiasm, creativity and love...especially for the littlest students. No one goes into teaching for the money, but everyone wants to be paid more.

As a mother of 5 kids who are or were in the NYC school system, it is a lot more complicated than class size and money. Money helps, small classes help, but it is not that simple.

For advanced level high school classes, have 60 kids in AP chemistry class is fine, but if you have kids attempting to learn English as a second language, you need small clases.

Elementary school is also different. In PS 149 in Jackson Heights, Queens there may be 32 kids in a 3rd grade class, but there are push in teachers to help kids struggling with reading, teachers for gym, art & music classes. It is not just the one class room teacher any more. Many schools are suffering with budget cuts, but our school with the full classes have the funds for the after school academy and the special "cluster" teachers. Yes, it would be great to have 20 kids in every class, but a school can work with larger classes if the teacher has support. Most elementary school teachers have all sorts of "special" teachers that come in and help during the day giving the kids who need support that indiviual touch and offering the enrichment classes that are the first to be dropped when the budget is cut.

I have to say that I am very happy with the education my childrens have received in NYC public schools.

Nuala from Jackson Heights

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universities and college must recruit the best college instructors who are not only versed in the educational research,but experienced school based educators. I have taken supervisory level which were taught not only by retired principals, but also by working teachers. Many newly hired teachers, are not properly trained, I am afraid to teach.
Neera, Queens

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Mentoring by experienced teachers
Involved parents. How about evaluations of parents? Why are teachers so demonized?

And please eliminate a 5 I accidentally put in before on small class size in your survey above...my fault -- shoulda read the directions...

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Evaluating: testing students to see their improvement during the course of the year (e.g., if the 3rd graders were reading at a 1st grade level in September, where was the teacher able to get them by midyear and by end of year.) I think this is a better approach then testing for the national standards in terms of teacher evaluations.

Also, good teachers need autonomy in the classroom; they know best what they should be teaching and how facilitate it. (Principals should be reviewed too!)

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As a retired teacher I KNOW that teacher training and continued staff development and support are crucial in keeping teachers in the system. It's extremely important to keep the class size manageable so that teachers know each of their students and can help them with their individual needs. Not being able to reach students can deter many teachers from dealing with many of the frustrations they face each day. Too much importance is placed on test scores and this takes time away from educating our children!

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Schools are not corporations. You can fire employees, I cannot fire my students. How can I be evaluated on students who do not speak English, have impoverished backgrounds, who come from violent homes and so on and so on? There needs to be reform, but it needs to start at home, not with teachers. Wherever there is a great student, there is a great parent or guardian behind them. Teachers can no longer be blamed for all of society's problems. A child's first teacher is his/her parent(s).

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Hello,

I have been an educator for 8 years. while listening in; I began to consider something that people often leave out when discussing education: the students. the most talked about topic when it comes to education is the teacher. Every interaction is a 2 way street. what about the students. when do we place responsibility on the students.
Then I took it one step further and said perhaps certain teachers are better with certain students. There's too much randomness when it comes to class selection. It's very possible to use smart technology to crunch data on both teachers and students to see how each one will respond. Meaning, how will students spond to learning challenges when place with specific students. And which teachers will be best with which students.
This type of filtering is very possible. we have the technology. Look at moskowitz jacobs inc and all the data crunching they do in a wide range of areas.

robert muhlbauer.

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Support for new teachers. While Bloomberg seems to think that all teachers are either bad or great, the reality is that there are a large number of teachers in between. They are not bad, they have potential, but they won't become better without support.

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Management of the school is a critical piece of successful teaching/learning. The difference between a well run school and a lesser school is hugely important to success-- for children and teachers. That difference is not from within the classroom, or the home. It seems this management- that which is so over-reported in our business news is under explored in education news. management can go by many names: principals, school community, support, environment, success, curriculum across the grade, PTA, etc. To discuss the education of our kids without addressing management is like trying to understand a corporate merger without looking at anyone in a management role, or the management structures in place.

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We need inconspicuous cameras in all classrooms, one behind the teacher, one behind the students, running all the time. Student test scores are just secondary and derivative surrogates for the real thing: watching the actual performance of teachers, their interaction with their students, and the student response and engagement with the teacher. The tapes provide magnificent tools for not only evaluating teaching talent, but as tools to help teachers improve their performance. Is there a subjective ingredient in this kind of evaluation? You bet. But a lot of good (or bad) teaching does not translate directly in test scores --- the empathic and inspirational dimension of teaching can be appreciated and assessed only by experienced supervisors.

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Having a community where students are given support and encouragement at home as well as school. Assuring students a safe environment in and outside of school. Providing a "home" to which children feel secure they will be able to return. Guaranteeing proper amounts of sleep and nourishment. Finally, allowing dedicated teachers to teach with dignity. No other field has so many "experts" who tell them how to do their jobs, but have never ---nor would ever even consider trying to teach.

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Attending to the issues that affect schools like community violence and poverty that drive good teachers out of high-need schools!

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In a heterogeneous population, small class size is a necessity. I would also advocate giving teachers more automony to develop programs and plans that work for them. Finland would be a good model except for its homogeneous population. OUr teachers must work with diverse populations and so must have small classes to do this.

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Class size is critical. Large classes overburden teachers, making the job less attractive to capable people and leading to rapid burnout and turnover. Thus fewer people, regardless of capability, get the benefit of long experience.