Attention Opticians: Please stop blaming organizations for our failings.

[Wes]

As an aside, even if you are correct, which I highly doubt, the basic NOCE was stupid-easy long before 2009, and it's for the reasons I stated earlier.

[Wes]

What's your point with all of this, Ted? As an "educator", I would assume that you would have been for the Formal Education position, which has so obviously been mine for years. What are you really about?

[tmorse]

We may not be that far apart, as we both are assailing the basic ABO and NCLE exams.
As an opticianry educator, I impugn only the current ABO executive’s exam policy that perpetuates the ABO basic exam as opticianry’s credential, and makes use of it as a cash cow.
To progress as a profession, I firmly believe that the higher-standard ABO-AC and NCLE-AC must be made the minimum ABO standard for an ‘optician’ qualification, even in the licensed US States. I happen to have a particularly high regard for this ABO and NCLE ‘Advanced Certificate” standard, and have said so in many of my posts.

[Wes]

I wouldn't say I assail the exams as much as I feel they are not a good determinant of what the field should be, but they are "truly representative of the people who'll be taking the test." As the Advanced exams have a 5%-10% pass rate with the small percentage of opticians and cl fitters who are brave enough to try them, if they stood as the standard for everyone, they would have a much lower pass rate, probably in the range of .5%-1%. As I've explained, this would not be acceptable to any accrediting agency. The problem is not with the exam, Ted. It's with the quality of the optician the US is producing.

Here's what I see:
Wannabe opticians take the basic exams and fail, and think they're too hard.
Good opticians take the exams and think they're too easy. These same opticians blame the exam provider for the exam, and assume its the certifying body's fault. These good opticians think this because they know nothing of how the test is deemed standard, valid and reliable. The fact that you are still debating this with me indicates that you do not either.

The ABO is not to blame, nor are they the answer.

Until the US can create a quality standard level of practice, we will not have a quality standard optician. The test reflects us, not the certifying body. The ABO has no regulatory authority. The states do. We have a Federal system of government, and each state decides what is best. Many of these states have decided that the NOCE and CLRE are what they feel is best. Some have decided that yesterday's burger flipper is best. That brings the average level of practice down, dontcha think? I disagree with them on all counts, but who am I? New Jersey, with a requirement of 30 formal ed hours is ahead of the pack.

Licensing in each state is the answer. Mandatory formal ed, with a gradual increase, culminating in the end of apprenticeship is the answer. When that happens, the national certification exams will naturally become more rigorous, because they will "truly representative of the people who'll be taking the test."

[Wes]

I want to make this clear to all who read this. I am making these posts to try to educate you, the more intelligent opticians, who are unaware of how tests are created and validated, so that you can understand where the problems lie. They lie with us. They lie with the state leaderships, or lack thereof. They lie with our weakness, and our apathy, and our ignorance. If enough of you know and understand the process, you can effect the change we need.
I do not make these statements as an advocate of any organization. I make them as an advocate of what opticianry can and should be. You can heed these words and demand more from yourself and your leadership. You can become the leadership. You can demand more from your suppliers and employers, or you can fade away into irrelevance. You can choose ignorance and apathy or knowledge and wisdom. Read my signature line and think about it.

[Craig]

You ask for opinions, then arbitrarily (offensive term deleted) on those providing the same. All the while making baseless claims, insinuations and wild guesses about ones ability to hold their opinion from a wildly detached vantage point of what you think you know about them, their reasons, or anything at all about their actual life experience.

Good luck with your meetings. Continue to count me out.







Fezz - time for another pint.

I do remember you being invited? Why would they want to exclude such a positive force of logic and kindness?

[Craig]

My wife and I tell our kids it is their responsibility to get good grades, not the school or the teacher. I am a professional and the lack of professionalism in our industry is the reason we are coming off our best year ever while continuing to grow. We charge more than anybody else and i am not a nice guy; so we must be doing something right.

We use the rest of the industry to tell folks why we charge more and deliver what we promise! People like us because we treat them as professionals and they treat us the same way- or they are asked to leave the store.

If you seek, you become! I just hired a guy from a warehouse optical and he will excel under our wings and soar like an eagle; he is a professional trapped in a nonprofessional environment and he made the best of it to excel anyway.

I hired him on the spot and gave him a raise to show him how much we value his skill set.

[CNG]

Professionalism is not dictated by the location that you work at. If you look a little closer at "warehouse Opticals"you will notice that some of those places pay very well their employees and their employees actually enjoy working there something that I never understood. I for one enjoy self employment but miss my paycheck and the fact that I could forget about my job when im off, now this is 24/7. As far as credentialing, it is our fault, not the organizations. Even though I have an ABO, NCLE was a member for almost two decades of the national assoiation, I never once understood really how this organizations elect their leaders. My amount of dollars for membership is limited so Im very careful who I choose and the way I see it, only my state organization can take my money.

We can argue all day long but the system is broken because the term optician is not nationally valued, the opticians are uneducated not so much in optics as we tend to believe but are rather immature professionally. The only way is to require either a prerequisite associates degree in any discipline prior to entering opticianry apprenticeship or the shorter degree that Tmorse suggest and another pathway is the actual associates degree in Optics.

Licensing in every state will never happen in US. We fought independently as we seek turf now a bigger threat has arrived that only can be fought by grouping opticians, optometrists, chains and ophthalmologist. We passed national legislation once and its time to do it again, it has nothing to do we scope of practice but it has to do with health dollars spend in optics.

CNG

[wmcdonald]

Professionalism is not dictated by the location that you work at. If you look a little closer at "warehouse Opticals"you will notice that some of those places pay very well their employees and their employees actually enjoy working there something that I never understood. I for one enjoy self employment but miss my paycheck and the fact that I could forget about my job when im off, now this is 24/7. As far as credentialing, it is our fault, not the organizations. Even though I have an ABO, NCLE was a member for almost two decades of the national assoiation, I never once understood really how this organizations elect their leaders. My amount of dollars for membership is limited so Im very careful who I choose and the way I see it, only my state organization can take my money.

We can argue all day long but the system is broken because the term optician is not nationally valued, the opticians are uneducated not so much in optics as we tend to believe but are rather immature professionally. The only way is to require either a prerequisite associates degree in any discipline prior to entering opticianry apprenticeship or the shorter degree that Tmorse suggest and another pathway is the actual associates degree in Optics.

Licensing in every state will never happen in US. We fought independently as we seek turf now a bigger threat has arrived that only can be fought by grouping opticians, optometrists, chains and ophthalmologist. We passed national legislation once and its time to do it again, it has nothing to do we scope of practice but it has to do with health dollars spend in optics.

CNG

The general Optician knows very litte about optics, unfortunately. This is the fault of the the silly "apprenticeship" system. It is, in fact, not a true apprenticeship at all, but cheap labor. We are failing the future Opticians again by not requiring some level of basic knowledge acrss all jurisdictions. You can clearly see a declie n knowledge, skills and ability in the declining pass rates of the overly simplistic NOCE, and in many of Dr. Ferguson's posts regarding the state exams pass rates that cover basic knowledge. You are correct that we need some standard education.

Now, some well-intentioned person will now comment that my assertion is not correct. They were trained by the world's greatest Optician, and that may be true. There are excellent folks trained via apprenticeship, but largely it has been a failure. Opticians trained in that manner have no idea what they do not know because they were never exposed to anything other than what their trainer provided them. As example is several folks in Texas, who were ABO-Master Opticinas, and felt real good about their level of knowledge. They submitted themselves to the NAIT Optician Science program and quickly understood how little they actually knew. Moost passed the courses, BUT trust me, they were not real sure at the end if they had made it or not.

Some take these things as a personal affront, and that is not what is intended. You are no worse or better than anyone, and you did not control your training program, only followed the path prescribed for you. But in many cases the path was not well-defined. We must now consider the future of the field, and how to improve it for those who come after us. It is not about us.........too late for that. It is about shaping a better future. We must defire the knowledge, skills and abilities Opticians need, and it must be done by those who have a broad understanding of the entire field. We can accomplish great things if we start of the path soon. If not, I fear it will be too late.

[wmcdonald]

One additional comment. Some who come from strong licensed states have no real clue about others beyond their borders. While there are a few solid, well-prepared Opticians out there in unlicensed states, the vast majority followed the path prescribed for them. Remember the stiff requirement in those states to call yourself an Optician is a pulse.

[sharpstick777]

Wes,
The problem with the ABO's philosophy of providing a dumber and dumber test over time to match the market skill level cannot be understated for its over all impact on the industry. First, psychologically they are sending the message that Opticians now need to know less than they once did, and that is OK. As a standards based test by lowering the testing requirements they are effectively lowering the standards for the entire industry. Although we think the test should be based on standards, the ABO's impact is so large the exam actually SETS the standard.

2nd is that many people (yea, me included) only studied enough to pass the test. A harder test would mean some people (not all) would take it more seriously, study and prepare more. We would simply leave the testing cycle better educated.

There was a time about 50 years ago where the Bar Exam was not impossibly difficult (remember the movie "Catch me if You Can" where Frank just took the Bar and passed? its a true story) and many attorneys apprenticed as clerks and paralegals, took the test and were lawyers. As the TEST increased in difficulty, more future attorneys studied formally to meet the requirements. The difficulty of the test actually created a market for education. Now 99.9% of lawyers have JD degree, and spend another $20K after school for Bar exam test prep courses. The increase in just the test difficulty changed the entire market.

The same holds true for optical, as the test gets easier it diminishes the need for education, formal or not.

[sharpstick777]

The general Optician knows very litte about optics, unfortunately. This is the fault of the the silly "apprenticeship" system. It is, in fact, not a true apprenticeship at all, but cheap labor.

Warren,
You are correct in that the Apprenticeship system of the past was a failure. But not a miserable one, just a misplaced one. Although I believe strongly that formal college education is the future of Opticianry, I also believe that a good and solid Apprenticeship is the only way to get to that point. We can't just focus on educating future Opticians if there is no Optician able to teach them.

The only way to raise the bar and educate future opticians is to educate the current ones as well.

Although you see Apprenticeship competing with formal education, I do not, I see it complimenting it. Although it was a failure and excuse for cheap labor, I still see the possibility that a better Apprenticeship program could be developed to address those issues and form a foundation that support and help formal education prosper.

(disclaimer: I am currently an educator at a College level Opticianry program that focuses on Apprentice education, so I have some bias)

[drk]

We are...not requiring some level of basic knowledge acrss all jurisdictions... You are correct that we need some standard education.

Die Politik ist die Kunst des Möglichen.

[Wes]

Wes,
The problem with the ABO's philosophy of providing a dumber and dumber test over time to match the market skill level cannot be understated for its over all impact on the industry. First, psychologically they are sending the message that Opticians now need to know less than they once did, and that is OK. As a standards based test by lowering the testing requirements they are effectively lowering the standards for the entire industry. Although we think the test should be based on standards, the ABO's impact is so large the exam actually SETS the standard.

2nd is that many people (yea, me included) only studied enough to pass the test. A harder test would mean some people (not all) would take it more seriously, study and prepare more. We would simply leave the testing cycle better educated.

There was a time about 50 years ago where the Bar Exam was not impossibly difficult (remember the movie "Catch me if You Can" where Frank just took the Bar and passed? its a true story) and many attorneys apprenticed as clerks and paralegals, took the test and were lawyers. As the TEST increased in difficulty, more future attorneys studied formally to meet the requirements. The difficulty of the test actually created a market for education. Now 99.9% of lawyers have JD degree, and spend another $20K after school for Bar exam test prep courses. The increase in just the test difficulty changed the entire market.

The same holds true for optical, as the test gets easier it diminishes the need for education, formal or not.

This is another chicken/egg story, and nearly everyone has it wrong. It's not the ABO's philosophy to dumb down the exam. They do not set the standard for the exam. It's been opticians' philosophy to dumb themselves down. The standard is set by the sample group from the profession. If too many fail, the test's validity is called into question. Then the test must be dumbed down to match the population of opticians who have dumbed themselves down.

The ABO is not, and has never, set the standard for opticianry with the NOCE or the CLRE. They are a reflection of the field of opticians. If you don't like what you see in the mirror, do you blame the mirror? It seems that opticians do. If you want change, we have to change US, not the mirror.

Please re-read my posts and the links to testing and testing procedures. Not one person yet has posted anything in this thread indicating that they understand how this works. Many have posted saying how they think it ought to work. I know Warren knows, and I suspect DRK knows. The entire point of this thread is to TELL YOU HOW IT WORKS, NOT ASK HOW YOU THINK IT SHOULD WORK.
Until at least a small percentage of influential opticians can understand this, we will continue spinning our wheels, pointing the finger in the wrong direction (at the mirror).

[wmcdonald]

Warren,
You are correct in that the Apprenticeship system of the past was a failure. But not a miserable one, just a misplaced one. Although I believe strongly that formal college education is the future of Opticianry, I also believe that a good and solid Apprenticeship is the only way to get to that point. We can't just focus on educating future Opticians if there is no Optician able to teach them.

The only way to raise the bar and educate future opticians is to educate the current ones as well.

Although you see Apprenticeship competing with formal education, I do not, I see it complimenting it. Although it was a failure and excuse for cheap labor, I still see the possibility that a better Apprenticeship program could be developed to address those issues and form a foundation that support and help formal education prosper.

(disclaimer: I am currently an educator at a College level Opticianry program that focuses on Apprentice education, so I have some bias)

It is not about us any longer. We must focus on the future of the field. I am not certain, but since there is only one school in Washington, I assume you teach for Seattle Central, and I wish you the best in maintaining your program. I wrote several letters to the legislature there when your funding was removed. Please send my best to the director, were classmates.

Now to apprenticeship, I am not certain where you gained your information, but study after study (not opinion) indicates little training actually goes into our "apprenticeships". It is cheap labor, unfortunately. Most of the folks already in the field do not want, and will not undertake any additional education. We must seek to strengthen standards for those who seek to enter the field after some predetermied date.In the EARLY 2000s, OAA passed a resolution to seek to make the Associate Degree the entry poing by the year 2005 if memory serves me correctly. Like many things in OAA, new leaders come every year and often do not carry forth these agendas, but t hat is another story all together. To start, we must increase the verocity of the ABO/NCLE. We also must require all future Opticians to gain some solid education in some form (and that shoild be determied by folks ineducation, not folks who have never entered a post-secondary classroom). Of course there must be a hands-on component in our process of educating those futurre practitioners.......no one said it should go away, but the very name apprenticeship impies more trades-like fields, not a professionally oriented field of study. Now, if folks here wish to be tradesmen, then so be it, but most of the time I see things discussed here, many of these high school graduates (in most cases) loudly tout their professional abilities and their "profession". You cannot have it both ways.......at least not much longer.

I really don't know why I continue this debate. I seem to be drawn to it, and know in my heart I am making little headway. But I keep trying. I have won some over, and hope you will all at least think about my hypothesis before you just depend on your own experiences. Opticianry can be so much more than it is if we can only can agree on a common direction.