‘Waiting For Superman’: If You Really Want ‘Social Justice,’ Dismantle the Teachers Unions
by John NolteAs of right now with 31 reviews posted, “Waiting for Superman” sits at a healthy and much-deserved 94% fresh on the Rotten Tomatoes’ scale with the only negative reviews coming from, not so surprisingly, the Village Voice and Salon.com, two hard-left outlets [my review is here]. But let’s stop for just a moment to appreciate those predominantly liberal critics who are out there supporting a film that most likely presents them with a reality that goes against their own personal beliefs.
Okay, moment over. How much time do we really want to spend crediting people for doing what they’re supposed to do?
—–
As far as the negative reviews go, to be honest I find the Salon.com critique so long and lacking in focus that I’m not at all sure what Andrew O’Hehir’s problem is. Melissa Anderson’s Village Voice pan, however, brings up a number of arguments I’ve heard before — mainly from teachers bitterly opposed to charter schools. It’s that old canard our friends on the left call “economic justice”:
I have a choice,” [director Davis] Guggenheim, who narrates throughout, admits, before asking an important question: What is our responsibility to other people’s children?
Maybe, for starters, demanding a stronger, securer social safety net. But macroeconomic responses to Guggenheim’s query—such as ensuring that all parents earn a living wage so that the appalling number of kids living below the poverty line in this country is reduced—go unaddressed in Waiting for Superman, which points out the vast disparity in resources for inner-city versus suburban schools only to ignore them. …
Guggenheim’s insistence on not engaging with the injustices that children of certain races and classes face outside of school makes his reiteration of the obvious—that “past all the noise and the debate, nothing will change without great teachers”—seem all the more willfully naïve.
There was no failure to launch on my part. By the time I was 19 I was working full-time and clearing a cool $150 a week, which was still next to nothing waaaay back in 1986. But I valued my independence and was eager to get started at making my own way in the world, but that meant living where I could rent for less than $200 a month – which meant living in the worst parts of the City of Milwaukee. It would be two years before I moved on up to better digs, but those are two un-romantic years of practical experience of what it’s actually like “living below the poverty line.”
From my vantage point, people like Ms. Anderson don’t give a damn about the poor. If they did they would allow the scales to fall from their eyes in order to see that reforming the public school system and putting the education of our children above the jobs’ program known as the teachers union is the real first step towards “a stronger, securer social safety net.” If you’re uneducated, you’re much more likely to be poor. How’s that for a root cause?
Geoffrey Canada
For those two lean years I was making the minimum wage, and yet somehow I still managed to put a roof over my head, food in my belly, smoke a pack of cigs a day (those were the days), and own a microwave oven and television. And this embarrassment of material wealth was true for all of my equally impoverished friends and neighbors.
Economically, we never felt poor. We had stuff. What we did feel, though, was unsafe in our own neighborhood and insecure about the future.
It’s just a fact that except for the rarest of occasions, poor people in America actually do have a lot of stuff. The problem isn’t economics, the problem is circumstance. For one thing, living in poverty is like living among Vampires. Maybe 2-3% of the population is the problem, but they’re problem enough that you better be behind barred windows and locked doors before the sun goes down.
Had anyone come around talking “economic justice,” we would’ve laughed in their face. All we wanted were those 2-3% off the streets and locked away in jail forever.
The other problem is most definitely the public school system.
If you’re poor and have kids, I promise you that the only thing you want is the education system fixed right goddamned now. Time is crucial because you know better than anyone that next year could be the year your child is forever condemned, through a system that breeds hopelessness, to a life where “living below the poverty line” is the least of your problems. Gangs, drug addiction, unwanted pregnancies, prison… Those fates are what truly haunt families living in poor neighborhoods, because they’ve seen firsthand what a bad school can do to a good child and so they live with a sick heart over the inevitable day when they will be forced to turn their child over to a school where crime, chaos, indifference and failure reign.
It is a moral abomination that a child living in the richest country in the world can be doomed –or not — depending on the one-in-ten chance a bingo ball might fall their way and give them a golden ticket into a school not turned into a Failure Factory by a wicked teachers union more concerned with political power than a child’s future.
What Guggenheim’s eye-opening documentary teaches us is that the Village Voice’s demand that we ensure “all parents earn a living wage” is putting the cart way before the horse. For decades, in support of a monstrous status quo, the Left has spread the scurrilous lie that children from disadvantaged backgrounds can’t learn. This has been their excuse for failed schools, lousy teachers, and indefensible drop-out rates for decades now. At best this line of argument is a political ploy, at worst it’s outright prejudice. What “Waiting for ‘Superman’” proves once and for all is that of course these children can learn.
All it takes are dynamic educators like Geoffrey Canada, the hero of “Superman,” freed from oppressive unions to do what’s necessary to once and for all kill the desperate lie that “poor” means “unable to learn.”
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84 Comments
Can't wait to see it, I don't think it has come to Denver yet.
The teachers union IS the problem. They're looking out for their own self interests, above the kids. Once they establish a performance based program incentivsed w/ results, things w/ start to turn around in our schools. But as long as you have sub-par teachers in the classrooms held in place by the union, it will conitnue to be garbage in, garbage out.
Christie is the lead dog on this hunt and he has the scent. Tenure must be replaced by meritocracy.
NJ is going to test their teachers on their ability to teach basics of reading and math. The results should be VERY interesting.
Unions, like career politicians, eventually become corrupt dictators who no longer represent their constituents.
If we just throw a whole bunch more money at the public schools, I am sure they will get better. Just because we have tried this for years and years doesn't mean that some day it will work. Trust me. I work for the government (and don't we all?).
If you really want to end "social justice," then dismantle socialism!
November, remember to put the trash out
WOW. This is an important statement about our childrens future. Maybe we could get this shown in all the schools like they did "Inconvient Truth" , Oh wait never mind.
Toss out the Maoist proglodytes in November and restore the republic and America's future.
Melissa Anderson used "securer" as opposed to "more secure" which is the correct form. This is typical of those who criticise the critics. As to arguments that the poor can't learn, we saw Obama destroy the DC voucher program which was a fabulous example of the disadvantaged succeeding. 100 years ago segregated Black schools had achievement levels similar to White schools. The ascendancy of Dewey and the unions marked the start of the decline of most public schools, and the devastation of minority school populations.
This isn't a simple problem and certainly the teacher's union isn't the simple solution. But one simple aspect is — why doesn't the IRS tax tenure? They are very relentless taxing every other god damn thing of value! How did they leave tenure out of the mix?
That aside, it all seemed very interesting right up until I saw Bill Gates. For all the good he may have done, there's a lot of bad that goes with it. For my money I wouldn't miss him if he went back to India and RETURNED to handing out condoms to the working girls. For decades Microsoft nor any of it's officers gave hardly a dime to any of the museums in the Seattle area. I remember going to see the donation wall at the Seattle Center and Boeing was listed first with a number so large that I couldn't count all the zeros and then there was Microsoft with….. $20,000. Piff
I'm not to interested in watching Bill Gates try to buy a kind word in the history books. He's just some johnny come lately trying to make a big splash and I believe this project would do better without his involvement.
Abolish ALL unions.
The Soviet Union is the text book example of how well unions perform over time.
BUT BUT BUT,you can't control an educated person,a person who learns to be a critical thinker who has the courage to stand up for his/her beliefs it's very hard to control a person like that,why they might even get off food stamps,can't have that!
Until laws are passed to take some power away from all Unions
everyone's hands are tied behind there back an little can be done,
Washington needs to take away some of that power that has been bought over many years.
Or stop stewing themselves in Fluoride.
Please read: http://www.fluoridealert.org/
Unfortunately, it seems that a "public" anything gets unionized, and then captures the bureaucracy it has to negotiate with, absolutely inevitably. If that's the case, then education in America can't be saved without getting government out of it completely — i.e., privatizing the schools, separating Classroom and State.
Needless to say, the forces that would oppose such an initiative are large, ferocious, and rather well heeled. They'd do their best to tear the head off any candidate for office who espouses such a measure. But if that's really what it would take, what then?
One question that is never ask is how do you decide how well a teacher is doing. This is very difficult outside of any job that is non repetitive and uses creativity. When my mother taught for 24 years the average class size was 34 with a high of 45 one bad year. My sister taught for 31 years with an average class size of 14 with a high of 22. My mother took early retirement because she got tired of being told by students "that didn't have to listen to no honky" and the school administrators saying things like " white people just have to understand" or " we need teachers who are more representative of the community". At my sisters school it was made clear to the parents that the students were there to learn and talking back to the teacher was not acceptable. Guess who was the most effective teacher.
Just watch professional sports to see how hard it is to decide if someone can do the job. Is Bret Farve a good choice for a QB. Somebody thought so.
Governor Christie is what is wrong with the Republican party. He really has no clue what the problem is but he is going to fix it. All he knows is the working class can't do their job.
Neither my sister nor my mother were union.
Dump the unions, limit welfare, and promote family values
It has taken generations to get here we are not going to fix this over night
It starts in 34 DAYS
Remember too take all your family and friends to the POLLS Nov. 2nd
No doubt the teachers union is one of the top two or three things adversly affecting education quality. The union's goal is employing as many teachers as they can for as long as they can to fatten the union coffers personal pockets and to further power their extreme liberal agenda.
What is going to take for the teachers themselves to figure this out?? They are the only ones that can shut it down. All we can do is whine about it.
In California the Teacher's Union and the Trial Lawyers are the 2 most powerful groups.
"—such as ensuring that all parents earn a living wage"
The mating call of the mush-headed economic illiterate.
You know, bad schools don't cause teenaged pregnancy. The 70% illegitimacy rate among blacks isn't about poor schooling. Poor schooling is the RESULT of the social ills. That said, I would abolish teachers' unions in a heartbeat. They DO keep poor teachers in tenured, untouchable positions doing a bad job year after year. But one reason you can't get good teachers, inspiring teachers to teach in the worst schools is that it takes a SAINT to be willing to take his/her own life in their hands to show up for work every day. And that is due to the SOCIAL ills in the black community, and it IS the black community where the worst schools exist. We all know that. It isn't racist to say it. But the BLACK community doesn't want to change anything. Most of their so-called "leaders" are just race pimps, working to keep the people down, not working to lift them out of their self-induced poverty. Unwed motherhood is one of the leading causes of poverty. Dropping out of school or otherwise squandering the opportunity for an education is another leading cause. Alcohol and drug abuse are very common factors in poverty. But the "black culture" PROMOTES these behaviors. Hip-hop music GLORIFIES these behaviors. Teachers are only ONE factor in this miasma. Where are the strong black leaders who are willing to speak the TRUTH about the ills of the "community?" When we start to address those, we can make some progress in improving the schools.
Yes Dewey even stated the purpose of schools was not education but assimilation.
Three points:…
1. The combination of government operation of schools and legislation enabling public-sector unionization created the teachers' unions. If we are dreaming, dream big, and abolish government-operated schools. In abstract, the education industry is a very unlikely candidate for government operation.
2. Melissa Anderson's contention: "…the vast disparity in resources for inner-city versus suburban schools…" (the thesis of Kozol's __Savage Inequalities__) is a LIE. Across the US, large minority-dominated urban districts get more money per pupil than suburban white districts, on average. Dilapidated buildings and obsolete textbooks are not due to insufficient taxpayer ganerosity; the bureaucrats steal taxpayer money and poor kids' life chances.
3. The system abides because decision-makers like it. Politicians will not change it. Systemic change is beyond an individual parent's power. Protection of her children is her responsibility and homeschooling does not require systemic change. In Hawaii, for example, no law requires that homeschooling instruction occur between 8 a.m. and 2:30 p.m. You can extend daycare to age 18.
On the contrary, we can see exactly what the problem is, and the problem isn't race relations per se.
The problem is that we are paying top dollar for bad education, and nothing alters this basic fact. Math scores and Reading scores have been tracked well for many years. If they dip, we may try to spend more money. If they dip and we are spending more money, we should try a different approach such as removing the cause of the expense and the mediocrity.
That cause is partially cultural, partially political, but mostly it is a problem with the teacher's unions taking more money and monopolizing bad education.
Bracing for either of those critics to call you a racist based on your vampire analogy.
I think the reason poor kids do worse than suburban kids is because of use of property taxes to fund schools. and a bunch of crappy teachers.
I worked with troubled kids (many being raised by single parents or even grandparents) for two years and I subscribe to the belief that all things being equal, such kids have a harder row to hoe than kids being raised by two parents.
And speaking as a guy with a hispanic wife (we met and married abroad, she came here legally) whose English is still a work in progress (the problem is that almost everyone around her can speak Spanish) I suspect kids whose parents speak little English don't get much help with their homework.
All that being said, I agree that the public school system is urgently in need of reform. Most of my teachers in public school were competent and a few were great, but I had a few really horrible teachers who clearly were 'teaching' just because they didn't land their dream jobs.
the article and movie both debunked the idea that the issue was funding.
Crappy teachers, ya thats close- inner city schools are FAR more unionised than sub-urban ones.
The teachers unions set up a system of failer- where they go education dies.
The root cause is poverty which leads to poor education which leads to more poverty. We could go deeper and discuss the one-parent household inner-city model that has worked so well in keeping minorities impoverished. There isn't one "fix" to these problems.
George Bush attempted to fix it through NCLB, a centralized plan to improve test scores. However, like much of what Washington does, it fails to address the root causes of problems and prevents optimal solutions. To blame teaching for low test scores is to fail to recognize different students in different schools have different levels of intelligence, parental support, and motivation.
A kid in the inner-city does not get out of the inner-city by doing well in reading or math. He does so by becoming a famous rapper or athlete. College is something he can only get to if he's good at football or basketball.
UNIONS ARE KILLING PUBLIC SCHOOLS!
Ever wonder why home schooling is growing so fast? Take a look at our government indoctrination schools. They teach our kids a bunch of clap-trap so they will accept it when they become voters. There is no God, praise homosexuals, be politically correct, global warming, embrace illegals, bigger government is the answer to everything. They don't have time for the three RRRs any more. They are too busy turning out progressive idiots that can't speak, write or form a cognizant thought. The government is their god.
Teachers Union… http://usataxpayer.org/htm/vids.asp?A=69323227
Governor Christie Nails Teachers Union… http://usataxpayer.org/htm/vids.asp?A=93445702
UNIONS ARE KILLING PUBLIC SCHOOLS!
Teachers Union… http://usataxpayer.org/htm/vids.asp?A=69323227
SEXUAL PERVERSION AND DEPRAVITY IS BEING FORCED INTO OUR PUBLIC SCHOOLS!
Parents should be very concerned about what is happening in our public schools. The depth of the depravity is too great to list here, the page below contains links to articles and videos, use them as a starting point to investigate for yourself. Google names and keywords.
House Bill HR4530 – Congress is supporting NAMBLA, GLSEN and LGBT for School Children!
IF YOU HAVE CHILDREN IN PUBLIC SCHOOL YOU WILL BE STUNNED!
HR4530 – Democrats are Pushing Sexual Perversion… http://usataxpayer.org/htm/vids.asp?A=69834762
Or… Just go back to sleep, your kids will be ok.
Full disclosure: I am a public school teacher who fought against joining the union for years. I don't believe unions are functioning in the way they were originally designed. After 5 years of teaching, I was "forced" to join the union or lose the opportunity to earn tenure. I believe I was a fairly decent science teacher – one of my students is getting a phd in physical chemistry right now, but tenure was not about my abilities as a teacher. It was about whether or not I joined up and paid my dues. I've been out of teaching, raising 3 kids since 1998 and I'll be da**ed if I join the union when I go back to a classroom. Teaching is my calling and I love working with high school kids, but I will NOT join a thug corporation that says they put kids first when in reality, kids are last on their list.
Test scores also aren't the best or only way to measure educational success. Alfie Kohn (?) has a way to teach kids to think rather than repeat by rote.
Well said.
"The teachers union IS the problem."
No, it is PART of the problem. There are numerous other factors, most notably the lack of involvement of many parents today. When I was kid, practically every parent was there for every parent-teacher conference. Sadly, that's not the case today.
In my opinion, the quality of the teacher has little impact on a student's success. I learned more from my parents and my own self-study than I did from any teacher. You can lead a horse to water but you can't make him drink. You can provide a poor student with a good teacher but you can't make him learn. What we need is a cultural revolution, not another federal government reform program.
“All parents [should] earn a living wage” – except illegal aliens who should work for slave wages, huh lefties? HYPOCRITES!
"Teachers are only ONE factor in this miasma."
Yes, and, ultimately, a very small factor. Ask one of the numerous disillusioned Teach for America participants out there. Many of these students are getting no discipline from home, refuse to participate in any classroom activity, and are functioning at levels many grades behind where they are. There is nothing a teacher, whether they be a good teacher or bad teacher, can do about these students, and these students are making up an increasingly large percentage of the student bodies of most public schools today. If you think moving these kids to a private school via the voucher program is going to help, you are mistaken. (DGinGA – when I say "you" I mean people on this site in general, not "you" specifically).
"I think the reason poor kids do worse than suburban kids is because of use of property taxes"
Generally, inner city schools spend more per student than suburban schools because of the massive amount of funding they get from the feds. It is not about money.
Here's another example; GM.
Karl Marx refers to a living wage as the bare minimum required to live on. That's called poverty.
Well,,,you know students come and go, but teachers remain and stay the same.
Extortion…….the modis operandi of thugs………."Let me make you an offer you can't refuse".
Bravo to you! The entire Democrat party can't refuse them.
Having grown up near D.C., my parents regaled me with stories of how the black high schools frequequently competed academically with and regularly bested the white high schools in D.C. That all ended in the mid 60's, when welfare checks replaced fathers in the black community. The '68 riots sealed the deal, whites fled D.C. for the suburbs and D.C. became a "chocolate city". The teacher's union quickley followed and the resy is history. Fairfax (VA) and Montgomery (MD) county schools are now among the best in the nation.
The power is up to the individual states. Virginia is a "right to work" state. Unions exist here, but don't do well because their members will work, regardless of union affiliation or not. Start lobbying your state legislature!
"Securer"? She's writing much weller now.
There was a story on the local tv news here in Chicago last spring about Chicago closing some schools and moving those kids to other schools. Of course, there were protests. The reporter interviewed two female teachers who were part of the protest. One was a "golden apple" winner and the other a long time teacher. I guess that qualified them for consideration as special. Let me just say once they opened their mouths and began to tell their "side" I was hoping and praying they weren't teaching grammar.
Just to add, the "culture" does not value education, it condemns it. The kids that do succeed academically are most often ridiculed for being "sellouts" and "uppity" by their own peers.
Granted kids growing up poor, in single parent homes, etc,etc are at a huge disadvantage. BUT HEY LET'S HELP THEM OUT! Give them a decent curriculum with people who know the subjects! Not people who (like some of my friends) got an education degree because they didn't know what else to do. Encourage people who want to share their passion for their subject TEACH! You don't need an education degree to teach. As my friends tell me it's mostly about learning how to manage groups of kids all day–not how to teach. I know plenty of people who would be great teachers but they are never going to go to the trouble of getting certified.
I never hear parents complain that their kids' teachers in college aren't certified! (I'm guessing the only ones are members of the education department).
You got a student whose going for a phd in physical chemistry? Wow, go you. Took it last year (thermodynamics and kinetics), and that's a very difficult topic.
Along with most classical economists.
Since unions can't fire tenured teachers, they send the really bad ones, the ones that actually hurt a child's ability to learn, to "rubber rooms," where they do nothing, get paid, but at least aren't damaging kids.
Years ago before women were readily accepted into the biz. world, teaching was one of only a few professions open to educated women and it was considered a honorable profession. Today dealing with my kids education(public) I find no honor and little education or inteligence. You will find the same type of union worker you'd find in any other job, with a goal of doing as little as possible till quiting time. I'm tired of pc people seperating union leadership from the rank and file, qualifing most teachers care about the kids. BULLSHIT! Most care about getting the most for the least. Our govoners need to force the unions to strike then hire scabs, non-union teachers, ask for volunteers & rebuild the school systems even if the students lose a year ,they'd be better off!
the other issue is progressives in the US are so behind the curve from EU progressives.
EU progressives have turned to voucher systems in almost every EU country. Sweden allows parents to move children if they aren't doing well. They can pick their schools and the money is tied to the child, not the Zip code.
Our progressives are over 30 years out of date. If they want to be like EU then LEARN about the EU.
And the problem with rote is exactly what? "…teach a kid to think…" That's the teacher's union cop-out. What constitutes successful 'thinking' ? How can 'thinking' be measured? As 'thinking' cannot be objectified, it can't me objectively measured hence relieving it from the awful burden of proving itself. Rote works, AND it's measurable. And get this: a WHOLE lotta folks that learned by rote turned out to be pretty good thinkers.
Until we abolish The Deptartment Of Indoctrination (OOOPPS Education) nothing will change. Our schools must MUST be turned back over to the people who know best how they want and what they want taught to their children. That includes everything from the hiring and firing of teachers to text books and everything in between.
I am not a union fan. (I think that the union brings down the teaching profession, and tenure is a joke.) That being said, I'm not sure that getting rid of the unions will fix education. I live fairly close to a city with horrible schools. I could easily commute to that city for about $10k more per year. I do not choose to do that. I work in a poor school, yes, but not an inner-city school. The union doesn't keep me from switching districts and making more money, but there are considerations aside from money that factor into my choice of school districts.
The money is not worth working in a school with metal detectors and daily violence. The money is not worth the heartache that comes with working with children who have experiences that most of us can only imagine. The money is not worth the atrocious language that inner-city kids bring into the school with them. The money simply isn't worth any of it. I love my job, but if I were forced to work in those schools, I would find another career.
Is there anything we can do for those inner city students?
You're FOR paying illegals a living wage?
A problem that could arise from that is that you'd have kids from really crappy schools gravitating to good schools, like people here will give a false address in a school district with good schools so their kid can go there. if you can't raise the quality of schools across the board, i think we're in for trouble.
First off, I don't give a rat's ass about teachers' unions but if you don't think there are alternative teaching strategies than pure rote, then you need to read more. (feel free to start here: http://www.alfiekohn.org/teaching/edweek/national... And what exactly is "a WHOLE lotta"? Half the population? More than half? I know a WHOLE lotta people who got great grades in school but voted for Bush twice so I'd say rote knowledge failed them big time in that instance.
No sillypants. Just pointing out lefty hypocrisy – very easy to do. They're always demanding illegals be allowed to work for slave wages – because they enjoy cheap slave labor and have no moral conflict about it. Simultaneously, they pretend to care deeply about a 'living wage' for everyone else. In fact, most big celebutards employ illegals for far under minimum. That's pretty much slavery kiddo. Get it?
Granting everything said about unions and tenure and their negative effect on education, I cannot help but consider the effects of divorce and fatherless households. How many adults could function successfully shuttling between two households, belonging to neither? Where is your math book? Where is your history assignment? I know it would make me nuts, not to mention the emotional baggage they schlep from a parental divorce, adjusting to Dad's girlfriends and Mom's boyfriends arriving and departing, step-siblings, and everything else we demand that our children "adjust to" in their young lives. What I'm asking is: Is anyone thinking of children first and foremost? This era pooh-poohs the idea of "staying together for the children" but I'm not sure what we have now is an improvement.
Yes, to state the obvious, if you cannot measure it, you cannot assign a value to it.
So if you have taught the kids "how to think", you'd better quantify that objectively, or we will give you $0 for that accomplishment.
Unless you taught them how to "think" that liberalism is intelligence and then you measure your success by voting results. But you can't fool all the people all the time.
Just ask any teacher why the school system is so broken and they'll come right back at you with their answer: THE PARENTS. Yes, single moms, uninvolved parents, kids who come to school without breakfast, yes, that's the reason kids graduate without being able to do simple math or write a clear paragraph in English.
Yet when the Los Angeles times did a survey of test results of children who came from the exact same poverty stricken background, the difference in test scores were directly a result of the person teaching them.
It's the teachers. It isn't the parents, it isn't the poverty, it is the teachers. Good luck getting a teacher to admit that, and good luck getting a good teacher, since our William Ayers-dominated schools of education turn out ignorant propagandists instead of teachers.
We need good teachers. We need to destroy the marxist-dominated schools of education in the country and create teaching programs that actually turn out good teachers. Then we need to examine those teachers, judge them, and fire them if they don't produce results.
do not want social justice, want equal justice and the teachers union can lick sweaty balls.
Progressivism is the DISEASE infecting our country.
Progressivism = Totalitarianism
Who controls the teachers unions – progressives
I do agree with that. It's a Triangle: student – - teacher – - parent. But here's the thing, we will have gone a long way in improving things for children by fixing the teacher situation because that is something we can control by kicking out lousy teachers and rewarding good teachers. Good teachers are with children 6 hours out of the day – they can help to instill a study ethic and love of learning in the children for 6 hours. Sure, many of the children will go to lousy homes, but we can only control lousy homes so much. We only take children away for serious abuse. If we don't want the gov't involved in parenting beyond that, then we can at least make the step at fixing at least 1 part of the triangle (teachers) which can help the other part (students) and maybe, just maybe the parents who are lousy at encouraging their children's education might get on board especially when they see results.
Yes, but for centuries kids were taught math by rote and that is how I learned to add, subtract and multiply without using a calculator and do it in my head. For the most part I still can unless the numbers are higher. Divide as well unless the numbers are really big.
I don't know if my children are doing enough rote because my 3rd grader is still struggling and counting on her fingers. Luckily the teacher is responsive and is amenable to giving my daugther extra work so she can improve.
THINKING can be taught but it depends on the subject matter. I think kids need to know BASICS first. None of this Whole Math, Whole Language crap that they have in CA (and while it seems to be somewhat gone, some aspects still remain and it drives me nuts).
Your link is not working.
I think it actually has something to do with Geoffrey Canada – he used to tell his mother he was waiting for Superman to come save him from his life, bad schools, bad neighborhood, etc.
But yes, I think this one should be at least sub-titled the REAL INCONVENIENT TRUTH.
Great post! You are correct, it's more than just the teachers, but I still think that if we can really correct the teachers, it might flow back to students and then to parents.
But we may have to accept that there will be a certain percentage that will always be lost. Perhaps that's the hardest part. We are always looking for 100% graduation rates, 100% going to college rates, etc. Perhaps we have set the bar too high. Even children/young adults are individuals. And they will make bad choices. It's kind of like tough love with an addict – you can try and help but if it doesn't work, you cut them loose. We can certainly try for high percentages, but I think we are only going to disappoint ourselves if we think every kid is school material or college material.
I agree that you will not be able to help everybody because it's not a one way street.
But I think we should try our best and then accept that a certain percentage, they will be lost. There's nothing much we can do about every single student, every single person.
That is the way I used to think when I was a moderate liberal – what if . . . what if . . . what if . . . At some point you have to just do your best and know that some will not make it. We can't fix everybody; we can only provide the best environment possible so that they have the opportunity to make it. For those that don't want to, well, tough luck.
But it can create competition so that the school will not want to lose the student (or the "customer").
I agree with cb750 – there are some things that the Europeans do right, in spite of their democratic socialism. Like why do they have lower corporate tax rates than we do . . . especially since they have all those social welfare programs. Who pays for that?
But seriously – they have lower corporate tax rates than we do and we're supposed to be the free market!?
Yes, that is the tough part. But I think those schools can be put in order if people were willing to do it. I would say that those schools should be run like a military school. Let the kids know that no nonsense will be tolerated. And if they don't want to follow the rules out they go. We have to stop wasting our time on the people that don't want to do well. It sucks everyone down.
You can call me sillypants any time you want.
But we can't have it both ways. Very few teachers want to work in inner city, failing schools. But teachers who volunteer to work in those schools are underpaid union hacks mooching off the system? The logic is circular. The truth is that there are some crappy teachers and there are some great teachers and the problem of underachieving youth is much bigger than teachers.
Yes, crappy teachers need to go. And yes, the union is not helping (and often harms) education. But should good teachers really be held accountable for a child's test scores when that child doesn't come to school, or has a drug-addicted mother and an absentee father and spends his time worrying about his next meal or hiding from mom's abusive drug-dealing boyfriend? Would you be able to concentrate on turning a mixed number into an improper fraction if you saw your mother beat up (again) last night? Inner city kids are expected to do just that, and teachers are vilified if they can't reach those kids. It's not a good situation.
The root of the problem is societal. Politics makes it worse (NCLB and RTTT are both stupid, worthless, harmful programs that attempt to quantify something that is not quantifiable – and that end up costing taxpayers even more money). Bad teachers make a terrible situation much, much worse, and good teachers make it a little bit better. Either way, the kids are suffering, and the cycle of poverty and abuse continues. Good teachers can make a difference, but ultimately it is up to the kid to overcome an awful situation. The government should provide equal opportunities for all American children. Teachers should be held accountable for things that are in their control.
I don't know. But all of the "programs" that we have in place are not helping.
As a teacher, I agree that there is WAY too much emphasis placed on the "philosophy" of education in college, and not nearly enough on content. I can pass a PRAXIS test and the state considers that enough to make me "highly qualified" to teach that subject. Common sense says that it takes more than one test to make me an expert.
I also agree that the teacher is very important. But we can't pretend that societal issues don't matter. I have a student that has already missed 8 days of school this year. I have referred his name to truancy, and when he is in my class, I can get him to work and learn. This child has not completed a single homework assignment at home this year..and whether or not he comes to school is 100% out of my control. He has missed 1/3 of the year so far, so has missed 1/3 of the instruction and 1/3 of the material. Why is his test score my "fault?" If this child continues with this pattern of absenteeism, and fails the test in April, should I lose my job? I am not giving up on him, nor will I ever give up on him. I will challenge him to grow and learn each and every time that I see him, but how is this child's score an accurate reflection of my teaching ability?
I work in a school that was once considered "failing." My first year in this school 7 teachers left after their classes "failed" the state test. All 7 of them went to neighboring (passing) districts. The following year, all 7 of them had "passing" scores in their new assignment. Did all 7 of them magically become better teachers? I don't think so. Like it or not, teachers are only part of the problem. Sometimes a big part, sometimes a small part, and sometimes they are even part of the solution…but only rarely is the teacher the "only" problem when a child isn't learning.
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