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The Improvement of the City Elementary School Teacher in Service
The Improvement of the City Elementary School Teacher in Service Author:Charles Russell Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III THE FUNDAMENTALS OF IMPROVEMENT THE SOURCES OF IMPROVEMENT There are two ways in which the teaching body may be improved. The first of these is... more » by the elimination from that body of those teachers who are below the average of the teachers in the school system. This elimination may come in a variety of ways, either before teachers enter the system, after they have been in it for many years, or at any time during their service. Thus, when more or better preparation than has been the previous rule is required, the quality of the teaching body as a whole is increased by just as much as the new teachers of the system are better prepared for or have had more valuable experience in teaching than the teachers whom they replace. A supervisor therefore suggests that improvement may come by requiring of inexperienced candidates that they shall have attained a given per cent of excellence in their Normal School Course, thereby providing for a maximum of security against failure. (New Britain, Conn., 1916, p. 16.) Teachers may also be eliminated who have served for many years in the school system. When these teachers are eliminated from the teaching body the quality of that body as a whole is improved by just as much as the difference between the quality of those discarded and the quality of those teachers who replace them. Superintendent Downes writes, A local teachers' retirement plan has been in 'operation since 1908. A total of forty teachers have been retired to date, either on the ground of age and service or because of physical disability. . . . That the operation of such a plan has resulted in improved teaching there can be no doubt. (Harrisburg, Pa., 1919, p. 26.) Another plan is that in effect in many eastern cities which provides that teachers entering t...« less