Why Is It So Difficult To Fire Bad Teachers? 1322
Ant writes with this depressing story about how public schools sometimes work: "This six-page Los Angeles Times article shares its investigation to find 'the process [of firing poor teachers] so arduous that many school principals don't even try (One-page version), except in the very worst cases. Jettisoning a teacher solely because he or she can't teach is rare ...'"
Public education... (Score:5, Insightful)
Is "why" a legitimate question? (Score:5, Insightful)
I think it's blatantly obvious, the NEA is exceptionally powerful and won't permit it.
Brett
Yet firing good teachers happens all the time... (Score:2, Insightful)
It's frustrating to see something like this, when we also see articles about innocent teachers being fired or prosecuted due to kids in their class sexting them. :\
One word (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Public education... (Score:3, Insightful)
It's the bueracracy we hate ... (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem is that we don't want to trust people in authority to make decisions, so we come up with a process or committee or something to ensure that one person can't make the hard decisions. But time and time again, it's shown that if no one can make hard decisions, no one will.
And while it's probably going to beat the hell out of my karma for it, I recommend The Death of Common Sense [amazon.com], by Philip K. Howard. It basically goes into examples of how our unwavering belief that a legal processes can sort through the mess impartially causes all sorts of unexpected results.
As soon as the authority to make a decision is lost, how can bad behavior be punished?
Re:Labor Economics (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:News for nerds? (Score:1, Insightful)
I'm a card carrying, gun shooting, cigarette smoking anti-liberal. I read Slashdot at least once a day, and do not feel that "Slashdot" has an agenda. Posters and contributors may, and that should be an easy thing to use your noodle to differentiate... Unless you believe everything you read.
*glare*
make em want to leave (Score:5, Insightful)
Give 'em a broom instead of a class. They'll get the point.
Re:Public education... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Labor Economics (Score:3, Insightful)
In high school, I didn't learn a damn thing from my favorite teachers. If I could have replaced that famous picture of Nguyen getting shot in the face with my Math teacher I would have done so... BUT... I still use inverse operands every chance I get. Go figure.
who defines bad? (Score:3, Insightful)
Difficult to Define a "Good" Teacher (Score:5, Insightful)
SCENARIO #2: Put that same teacher in a classroom of African-American kids from Oakland, California. The kids will do poorly because African-American culture rejects learning -- and rejects Western culture in general.
In scenario #2, the teacher would be fired as a "bad" teacher. In scenario #1, the same teacher would get a bonus for producing such accomplished students.
Is there any reasonable and objective way to determine a teacher's performance that is independent of the students in her classroom?
Re:Yet firing good teachers happens all the time.. (Score:2, Insightful)
Most important thing is to keep everyone in line. Teachers' Union ensures that every member votes for the sanctioned candidates. The politicians then make sure there's no competition for the teachers (i.e., voucers and all that are strictly verboten). You get a good teacher or someone trying to make a difference, and you've got a dangerous person on your hands. They're not part of the "system". Of course, it's not nearly so well organized. But public monopolies like the US education system do have lives of their own.
two reasons. (Score:5, Insightful)
first is tenure.
second reason is unions.
Broward County schools are filled with bad teachers. The unions keep them working.
recently a broward teacher had a delusional episode in the classroom. she had a pair of scissors and was threatening a student shouting about demons.
the union not only kept her job, but she's coming back to the classroom (albeit at a different school).
Bad teachers are a bit like molesting priests. They get moved around schools when people complain about them.
Re:Difficult to Define a "Good" Teacher (Score:2, Insightful)
SCENARIO #1: Take one teacher. Put her in a classroom of Japanese-American kids or Hungarian-American kids. They will do well because they are committed to learning.
SCENARIO #2: Put that same teacher in a classroom of African-American kids from Oakland, California. The kids will do poorly because African-American culture rejects learning -- and rejects Western culture in general.
In scenario #2, the teacher would be fired as a "bad" teacher. In scenario #1, the same teacher would get a bonus for producing such accomplished students.
Is there any reasonable and objective way to determine a teacher's performance that is independent of the students in her classroom?
It's a shame you will be modded troll for this due to perceived racism against african-americans, despite raising a very valuable point. Guess that's why you went AC, I don't blame ya.
blame the teachers, blame the unions (Score:0, Insightful)
for all the fucks, who washed down a trillion dollar on Wall Street... hey wait, those were no public school peeps, were they? How many of them were fired for ripping off tax payers around the globe, taking away their funds for public education from the ones who's daddy can't afford Ivy league treatment for his little Georgie boy? Yeah, those illiterate bad bankers, they must be members of some union, which makes it almost impossible to fire them, "except in the very worst cases". WTF are we talking about, kids?
Tenure is the key (Score:5, Insightful)
The article summary is incomplete. The title of the article is "Firing tenured teachers can be a costly and tortuous task"
Well, the problem, and the solution, are right there.
Tenure is intended for university professors mainly; it intentionally makes it harder to fire a tenured person, so they can "push the boundaries" a bit in their classes.. without the fear of being fired for petty political reasons.
The universities do not just give out tenure to every new professor, they make sure they are competent first. If the California schools have *tenured* teachers that can't teach, that is the problem RIGHT THERE. Don't give tenure to a teacher until they know they can teach. Simple as that.
This is only one side of the story. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Public education... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:News for nerds? (Score:5, Insightful)
"I think most nerds have had bad experiences with teachers in public school. Because either teachers count off for the most ridiculous things, have a personal bias against some things (and will fail you if you think otherwise), have a personal vendetta against students who (rightfully) correct them, or many other things that are wrong with our public school system."
Well, this isn't surprising. As someone who has been in high-school and also someone who grew up in a family of teachers I can safely say that this is inevitable. Nice teachers will simply be bullied untill they give in. High-school kids are highly observant of the level of authority a teacher has and once they see a weakness they can be quite merciless.
The people who are left are either split between people who have some natural authority and dickheads(the kind you read about in this article). A lot of teachers see students correcting them as an assault on their authority and they are partly right about this. Yes, the student may be right but admitting this may weaken the position the teacher has or aspires to have and thereby he has to carefully maneuvre between admitting his faults and maitaining order in the classroom(and over the students in general).
Remember that a high-school student spends around 5 years in a high-school but a teacher needs to maintain his position many times longer and that can cause the teacher to become ridgid. Personally, I see this as in inevitability though through good planning the damage can be minimized.
Because for every bad teacher that deserves (Score:1, Insightful)
Because for every bad teacher that deserves to be thrown out, there's a good teacher dedicated to such crazy concepts as teaching evolution in a science classroom, and the evangelicals aren't just going to sit there and take all those facts getting put inside their childrens' heads. So the process for removal has to be slow as possible- otherwise the highly motivated fundamentalists could push out anyone they choose whenever they want. The result is that genuinely bad teachers must be dragged through a process that can take years.
There, was that so difficult?
Because 'bad' is subjective. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Difficult to Define a "Good" Teacher (Score:2, Insightful)
Perceived racism? He could have just as easily made his point without ever bringing up race.
you know (Score:2, Insightful)
The purpose of tenure is to protect teachers from unfair termination, not to protect bad teachers. If a teacher is underperforming there is usually a process to get rid of them, even if tenured, only most administrators are too lazy to go through it. The whole system is designed precisely so a school principal can't just terminate someone because IN THEIR JUDGMENT, the teacher is doing a lousy job. Personally I'd trust the judgment of most teachers over most school administrators.
And when it comes to education, it's hard to create metrics to accurately measure success. And don't even try to argue that those idiotic standardized tests measure much. Are we going to punish a teacher because most of their students failed a standardized English test? What if more than half of their students don't SPEAK English? What if the teacher had to teach 40 kids in one classroom? There are bad teachers, but it's not always easy to measure which ones are bad, and which ones are just either lucky or unlucky.
And by the way, anyone who thinks that some all-powerful teacher's union is preventing success is just ignorant. The teacher's unions are constantly undercut and overwhelmed by legislatures and city and state governments. If the teacher's unions were so powerful, then why do teacher's make so little?
Same as any other profession (Score:4, Insightful)
I've worked as a computer programmer for over 20 years, and I have never seen or heard of any programmer being fired for incompetence, no matter the magnitude.
As far as I'm concerned, teachers deserve our support, and I think all of the bitching is just a smokescreen to support cutting education funding, and a mind-trick to turn people against unions.
Re:Simple answer (Score:3, Insightful)
Actually, I think the sad answer really is because you'd only need to replace the one you fire and its hard to find good teachers.
Probably there are also a lot of complaints from students who are actually not good and blame the teacher, so its a question of who judges the situation right?
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Supply and Demand (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:One word (Score:1, Insightful)
Comparing tenure of public school teachers with tenure of professors of universities is like comparing apples to oranges. Are you aware what it takes to obtain tenure at a well respected university today relative to public school teachers?
Re:Public education... (Score:4, Insightful)
Looks more like YOU are a product of the LA school system. The reporters usage is correct. He is talking about a rule, i.e., the rule to show up on time.
Re:Difficult to Define a "Good" Teacher (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:News for nerds? (Score:4, Insightful)
That's no accident: that entry level teacher is still motivated and idealistic, and he's willing to spend a lot of extra time. Give him a few years of teaching, and he'll lose all that.
Re:Labor Economics (Score:5, Insightful)
Some of my most difficult teachers in high school are among those that in retrospect I recognize to have done the most for me. Only a few of those would I have evaluated so highly during my schooling.
Re:Difficult to Define a "Good" Teacher (Score:2, Insightful)
Race, or at least race-driven culture has everything to do with his example, and is true.
What's a trip to me is that you will find this in the current generation of students when generations as recent as their grandparents thought education and hard work were absolutely essential.
Re:Public education... (Score:5, Insightful)
Are you ignorant? First of all, the "feel-good" curricula (wow, incorrect spelling and incorrect use of the plural, is that because all those mean liberals didn't teach you correctly?) was mainly a right-wing strawman. Secondly, NCLB is pretty much the opposite of feel-good curricula, and it hasn't really helped matters, eh?
Support the Fair Tax. http://fairtax.org/ [fairtax.org] Promote peace, kill more bad guys.
Oh, guess you ARE ignorant.
Re:Public education... (Score:3, Insightful)
So making eduction a right wing enclave would make it all better. Funny, but I didn't hear any ideas about actually improving education. Seems like if you had such a vaulted ideal of what education should look like, you'd have some suggestion for improvement. But all you do is dismiss the entire system with a massive generalization.
But then again, throwing rocks is the only thing you're good at, so I guess it would be futile to expect anything better.
Re:Difficult to Define a "Good" Teacher (Score:5, Insightful)
It's a shame you will be modded troll for this due to perceived racism against african-americans, despite raising a very valuable point. Guess that's why you went AC, I don't blame ya.
No, this is just genuine racism. There's nothing integral about being african-american that makes one reject learning.
racism, n
1: the prejudice that members of one race are intrinsically superior to members of other races
2: discriminatory or abusive behavior towards members of another race
Re:News for nerds? (Score:5, Insightful)
This would also be alleviated if there was a license required before people could become parents.
For all the back-and-forth that's going to take place in this article, the fundamental truth is that shitty parents generally lead to shitty students.
Authority shouldn't come before truth (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Difficult to Define a "Good" Teacher (Score:5, Insightful)
That's not a _racial_ issue (i.e. genetics do not really play a role here), that's a _cultural_ issue.
And Japanese are not economically that much worse off than Americans.
Re:Labor Economics (Score:5, Insightful)
Many schools already have this. The problem is, students are either too lazy to do this, or intentionally give terrible comments about teachers they dont like, regardless of that teacher's teaching ability.
The "lazy" student is used constantly by bad teachers. There are some teachers who can't teach, pure and simple. In order to boost their self esteem, they call students who simply can't learn the way they teach, lazy. Sure, there are some lazy students who won't do anything. And most teachers that can teach, the students like. The teachers who only have to explain things once because they make it crystal clear, the teachers who will spend a week going over a concept until the students grasp it, those are the teachers that students like. The type that can't teach, give pointless assignments, are strict about parts of grades that don't matter (like failing students because they picked a slightly different typeface other then Times New Roman) usually students hate.
Ex. A teacher has to constantly discipline a group of 5-7 students who disrupt class. When it comes time to do evaluations, these students all give the teacher terrible reviews. And, since it is done anonymously, there is no way to tell which students gave the evaluations, so there is no way to determine their bias against the teacher. The teacher is then fired because of those bad reviews, simply because some students didnt like the teacher disciplining them.
But usually teachers have 200 or more kids in a year, so those 5-7 would be quite insignificant.
Re:Two words... (Score:1, Insightful)
Uh... maybe... but have you considered the ramifications of not having unions? Lack of union protections could adversely affect good teachers as well as bad.
Re:News for nerds? (Score:3, Insightful)
Media using teachers as punching bags again (Score:5, Insightful)
The article kicks off describing how a group of shrill, ignorant parents took the word of an emotionally disturbed 12 year old and decided to push for someone to be fired based soley on that.
Parents like to treat teachers as their personal governesses. Like that cheerleading coach who was crucified for playboy pictures that were not a big deal until some fat dumpy girl who didn't get picked had a tantrum and made her mum charge into the headteachers office with the pictures.
Your kid isn't special. In all likelihood, your kid is a spoilt, willfully ignorant little shit who will give the teacher hell no matter how much they try (and they do try; nobody sticks at teaching who doesn't see it as a vocation as well as a job). Your little darling is so convinced they will be a millionaire professional sportsperson/musician/actor because you've always told them how 'special' they were, that they carry this overinflated sense of entitlement into the classroom along with 30 other 'special' kids.
The result basically lord of the flies with nicer clothes. And the people who take up the under paid task of controlling the little bastards are constantly subject to demands to fire them, cut their pay, and increase their work loads.
Back off assholes.
Re:Broken systems (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Difficult to Define a "Good" Teacher (Score:5, Insightful)
Replace 'African-American' with 'poor' and you've a much clearer metric.
Re:Difficult to Define a "Good" Teacher (Score:4, Insightful)
But then the undeniably good teachers are forced to teach to standardized tests. A truly good teacher would know to adapt the lesson to the class dynamic, not the other way around.
The Virginia "Standards of Learning" exams are precisely the progress-measuring standardized tests you suggest, and as best as I can tell they only serve to hold the brightest kids and the best teachers back to some standardized common denominator.
Re:Difficult to Define a "Good" Teacher (Score:4, Insightful)
No, I'm stating that however you want to spin it, the above post was blatantly racist. For every African-American student that "rejects learning," I can find an "underprivileged" white kid that does the same. Hell, even a lot of the privileged ones would rather be partying than learning anything. The "African-American culture rejects learning" argument is pure racist bullshit.
Re:Difficult to Define a "Good" Teacher (Score:5, Insightful)
Perhaps not, but it may be a matter of matching teachers to students.
Scenario one: place a teacher with a logical methodical style in a group of students who show up to play games. Scenario two: place that same teacher in group of motivated kids who show up to learn the subject.
In scenario one, the teacher gets fired. In scenario two, the teacher does quite well leading the kids from step to step and introducing exciting concepts into the classroom while making it fun.
There were other factors as well, but the above is basically what happened to me when I taught English overseas. There were teachers who were great entertainers who did very well in the first circumstance. That wasn't me. I did very well in a school with a different style, where the focus was on the language and we we're expected to play games (though I did sneak in one or two).
My getting fired was good for my career and good for the students at both schools.
Re:News for nerds? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Difficult to Define a "Good" Teacher (Score:5, Insightful)
There are of course exceptions to any generalization, but stereotypes and generalizations exist BECAUSE the observed trait is accurate sufficiently often. When you're dealing with statistical sample sizes measured in millions or tens of millions, you can draw some pretty accurate results.
Yes, correlation is not causation, but that's completely irrelevant to the discussion. If you're drawing conclusions from the results of the ENTIRE standardized testing results from one year and notice that (all other things being equal) one race scores consistently higher than another, it's perfectly valid to use those results in a discussion however unfair those results seem.
Re:Labor Economics (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Authority shouldn't come before truth (Score:4, Insightful)
"In my personal opinion the minute a teacher decides: "Correcting false information is less important than maintaining my own aura of authority," they stop being an educator and start down the road to becoming a tyrant in a teapot. "
And the minute they lose their autority is the minute their job becomes hell. Admitting that you're wrong is important but being in charge of the classroom should most certainly not be ignored as an important factor in doing your properly.
Only the very best can do both so you need to sacrifice some of your wishes to keep the system running. Sad but true.
Re:Difficult to Define a "Good" Teacher (Score:4, Insightful)
The problem is that you then force the teachers to game the system. If the metric s "do X on a standardized test" they'll teach to the test, rather than attempting to maximize learning. ANything not directly related tot he test will be dropped. Facts will be prioritized by their likelihood of being on the test. Important social ideas like group projects (which when done correctly teach cooperation and division of labor) will be dropped because you can't team up on a test. Skills like research will be dropped because you can't research on a test.
Some things are just hard to measure. Teaching skills are one of them.
Re:Difficult to Define a "Good" Teacher (Score:5, Insightful)
When my sister was in high school she had two teachers who were chronic alcoholics (not that I don't see how the job could drive one to the drink). Nothing resembling teaching was going on in these classes. When she investigated the student complaint option, she asked about the procedure. This was:
1) Fill out a form which indicates who you are, who the complaint is against, and what the complaint is. Hand in the form.
2) Form is taken directly to the teacher the complaint is against.
3) Teacher fails student listed on the form.
I can't imagine the procedure for parental complaints was much better.
Re:Public education... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:you know (Score:3, Insightful)
If a teacher is underperforming there is usually a process to get rid of them, even if tenured, only most administrators are too lazy to go through it.
First, if you think Slashdot is some right-wing website you haven't been here too long. Many of us are sensitive to this issue because if you are on a tech website you generally care about your education more. Hence you were much more likely to notice bad teaching and were affected more because you were actually INTERESTED in learning.
Second, you obviously didn't read the article. Did you see the process they had to go through? It was absolutely insane. And you could have a documented case where a teacher basically encouraged a kid to commit suicide and that still couldn't get the person fired.
It isn't about giving the principal absolute power (even though many/most were once teachers). It is about the power being too far shifted to the teachers at the expense of the students. There has to be a less arduous way to get rid of bad teachers.
As to why teachers may too little, I ask where is the money going? Because in places like Atlanta and DC we pay over 12K PER STUDENT. And teachers in Atlanta at least get paid 50-75k.
Re:Public education... (Score:2, Insightful)
Who decides what matters?
I'd say arts and music is a total waste of time, especially for those who can't draw a straight line even with a ruler and couldn't differentiate tones if his life depended on it (violin for about 4 years, very...clinical, monkey-see, monkey-do). Course I work on a computer and did CAD on a computer in college, so drawing doesn't do me much good.
History? Who cares what happened centuries ago. Some state history is almost as boring as the local PBS shows. If there are relevant lessons, turn them into catchy proverbs and quotes like Sun Tsu and Confucius.
Gym Class? If you want kids to stay fit, run laps, do stretches and warmups, and hit the weight room. Sports is a thing you get in shape FOR, not a means to get in shape.
Religion? Almost as useless as history. At least what happened in history books actually happened according to the winning side.
But you think the US Society will ever drop those first 3 as mandatory or that parochial school will drop the last in the near future?
Re:Difficult to Define a "Good" Teacher (Score:5, Insightful)
There isn't just one cause to the problem. Culture plays a role- if a culture values learning (especially if the *parents* value learning) the importance of school will be stressed to the children and they'll try harder.
Economics have a factor as well- well off people tend to be educated, and thus see value in education. Those who aren't educated tend to be poorer and don't value it for their children either. Without that stress in the home, the children don't put the effort in.
The thing is- you can fix culture. You can't fix economics- some people will always be worse off, and until we have robots and cheap renewable energy we will always need people for menial jobs. So you have to work on the factor you can, and provide opportunities to people who manage to overcome economics on their own.
Re:Obvious--Teachers' Unions (Score:3, Insightful)
The teachers unions are not even there for the teachers. They are there for the unions themselves.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Unions don't always oppose this (Score:5, Insightful)
The teachers' union in Toledo, Ohio, has spearheaded a controversial policy to purge the school district of incompetent teachers. It's called "peer review" and no school system in the country has been doing it longer than Toledo.
...
union members today overwhelmingly support it.
...
The AFT endorsed peer review in 1984.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=91327130 [npr.org] Listen to the story -- the text is a poor summary.
Re:Public education... (Score:3, Insightful)
You might take a long, hard look at your hypothesis, as the school system is essentially a liberal enclave.
I can't see how that could possibly be a bad thing.
I can, every teacher I have met has pushed me to vote one side over the other (take a guess which side). Not that there is any thing wrong with voting one side over the other, Its just that in that situation there shouldn't be any bias where definitely is one.
Re:Public education... (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually, it's not; it's an example of preferring a one plural form over another, more or less equally, acceptable one:
(from here [reference.com]).
And what's more, curricula is actually more common than curriculums, judging by the number of Google hits (~12.7 million to 2.2 million, respectively). At very worst, what he did was impose one of his pet peeves on the conversation, in a dickish way that added nothing of value and served to undermine his point.
You, on the other hand, decided to blame your own ignorance and lack of research on someone else's supposed shortcomings, and justify it with a fabricated "rule," that ignores the actual facts and history of the language. He's a schmuck; you're an ignoramus, and an arrogant one at that.
Re:Public education... (Score:5, Insightful)
You might take a long, hard look at your hypothesis, as the school system is essentially a liberal enclave.
Probably because they tried to teach you a bit about reality, which is notorious for its liberal bias.
Comment removed (Score:3, Insightful)
Those darn unions and they didn't anything for me (Score:4, Insightful)
If there is some teacher's union out there with all these magical powers that people always claim they have it obviously wasn't the one that I was part of...
Re:Difficult to Define a "Good" Teacher (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Difficult to Define a "Good" Teacher (Score:5, Insightful)
Why is teaching apparently the only profession that is not capable of being objectively judged?
Welcome to the real world.
SCENARIO #1: Take one SW developer. Put her on a project for a kick ass new feature that will get a lot of attention (but they aren't doing anything particularly difficult.)
SCENARIO #2: Put that same developer on a team fixing bugs that made it to the field and need quick resolution (a potentially more challenging job.)
I'd sure as hell rather see a great teacher unfairly fired occasionally (they'll rise to the top elsewhere) than see the person's seniority be the prime consideration. How's seniority based teaching been working out for us?
Re:Public education... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Simple answer (Score:2, Insightful)
Way to swallow the total Teachers Union bullshit.
The Teacher's Union is the reason that teacher cannot be fired. They are also the ones feeding you bullshit about the budget hurting the schools. If you think funnelling more money into that union is the way to fix California schools the you are the problem.
Re:Difficult to Define a "Good" Teacher (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes.
I'm an English language arts department chair at a very diverse school. As part of my job, I have to observe teachers in all different kinds of classes, AP to freshman remedial classes. It is easy to see which teacher is a good teacher and which isn't. To go with a nice car analogy. If a mechanic is working on a PoS or a Rolls, you can still tell if he knows what he is doing.
A good teacher cares, asks questions, engages the students with appropriate questions and pushes them to do a little better than they currently are regardless of the class. The bad teacher doesn't.
Now as to the subjective point. When did objective become synonymous with truth? My evaluations are subjective, with objective elements. Nevertheless, I have the experience to be right subjectively.
Re:Public education... (Score:5, Insightful)
>History? Who cares what happened centuries ago.
Those who ignore history are doomed to repeat it.
Also, when you grow up, you'll find your ability to engage with other intelligent people rather limited. Not everyone likes to talk about computing.
I speak from experience.
There, that was a history lesson. Now go read the post from the beginning :o)
Re:Two words - you already know what they are. (Score:3, Insightful)
How about this, find a public school without a union and see where it sits on the performance curve. Because you base your data on a private school doesn't amount to anything. Private schools have the benefit of screening out unfit students and parents. This is something public schools don't have an option of. And there is way more evidence stating a disruptive student can destroy class cohesion than there is on the performance of teachers.
When talking to a friend of mine that left teaching after three years, it wasn't the union, the district, or even the students that made him leave. It was the fact that over the years he was asked to do more than teach. For 125 students he has to be psychologist, parent, and bureaucrat. He had to prepare them for standardize tests, evaluate their emotional well-being, and prepare class material.
In my opinion, anyone that can be a teacher in this day and age I say {$Diety} bless 'em
Re:Public education... (Score:5, Insightful)
On the other hand, I and a lot of people I know discounted teaching not because we aren't interested in teaching, but because for us it's not the difference between $32K and $28K, but the difference between $110K and $40K.
I hope to retire into teaching, but I'd like to be able to more than subsist.
Re:Two words... (Score:4, Insightful)
Yes, but take a look at states without teachers' unions. Well-qualified educators tend to flock far away from these places, due to the low pay and frankly abusive working conditions.
Although there are a few genuine good souls out there who are willing to make sacrifices for the sake of educating children, we're going to have a tough time recruiting teachers until they're paid fairly and competitively. Unions help accomplish this goal.
Unionized states do have their own problems. The union tends to protect its own members a bit too strongly (tenure needs to be revised, if not abolished). Similarly, they need to start speaking out against unqualified administrators with absurdly high salaries. The theory of teaching education likely needs to be revised as well, given that the current crop of EdDs don't seem to hold onto their jobs very long.
One solution could be to loosely regulate the unions. Completely abolishing them has not proven to be a great strategy, as it turns out that abuses are indeed inherent in the system.
Re:Difficult to Define a "Good" Teacher (Score:4, Insightful)
>When did skinheads take over slashdot?
Ah come on. It's a few vocal arseholes verses the larger silent majority. Don't forget, many of the people on slashdot are just children too.
I've lived in a society with skinhead facists. Their idea of blogging would be scratching on a train window, not hanging out on slashdot.
Re:Public education... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Difficult to Define a "Good" Teacher (Score:5, Insightful)
I think you are putting the cart before the horse. How is that we hear so many stories of Asian immigrants coming to this country with nothing, or next to nothing and pulling themselves up by their bootstraps, often with less than most native-born people who linger in stagnant poverty over generations. It doesn't take money to climb the socio-economic ladder (although it surely helps a lot), it takes initiative, drive and holding education in value. If you took those well-off Asian-Americans and put them in the same situation as the perpetually poor in the U.S., the majority of them would eventually rise out of that level again.
It most assuredly is culture that a large factor in the success of some people and the continual failure of others. When everyone around you, including your church leaders and government leaders are telling you that whitey is keeping you down (like, say, our President's pastor for almost half his life), how is it surprising if you believe it and give up on life?
The biggest factor afflicting the perennially poor, of which blacks comprise and unfortunately large proportion, is the people who exploit them by pounding into their heads that they are now and can only ever be victims: and those people are also too often black themselves and mostly liberals. They are the ones keeping the poor down, by stripping them of their dignity and enslaving them in the chains of lowered expectations, and perpetual dependency. After all, if the persistent underclass were to rise out their problems, who would want to listen to the stupid class-warfare rhetoric that so many of our leaders spew like a KKK Grand Wizard?
Why is it so hard to fire bad parents? (Score:5, Insightful)
Because bad parents affect kids more than the teachers, and there are a /lot/ more bad parents out there.
Re:Public education... (Score:5, Insightful)
Not only is any direct measurement very subjective, an objective measurement (exam grades achieved by children) is skewed by so many factors it's not even funny and even brings in its own set of problems - it's more dependent on the children who happen to be in the class than the teacher to begin with, and since it is often used despite that it means that most teachers (even the good ones) are forced to teach to an exam syllabus rather than actually providing a rounded understanding of a subject.
But you have to remember that the entire reason that the exams were instituted for a very good reason. Part of a hypothetical "rounded understanding of a subject" is actually being competent in the basic skills associated with the topic. That wasn't happening in many many cases. "Rounded Understanding" isn't possible until "basic understanding" has been achieved. Even if ALL they do it end up teaching the test, that's still a hell of a lot better than teaching nothing at all and graduating students that don't have basic skills required to function. That's what was happening (and still is, in a lot of cases) and that's why, in the large, that the testing was instituted.
Brett
Re:Simple answer (Score:3, Insightful)
You are one, and only one, of the following:
1)Intimately familiar with the details of the GP's situation and with the people involved in it.
2)Talking out of your ass.
Re:Is this just USA? (Score:4, Insightful)
"""
I don't have any experience of the US high school system but it seems to have fallen apart for the majority of kids. Is this, sadly, the case?
"""
Essentially, yes.
"""
Or have teachers been singled out as a scapegoat for the failings of US society?
"""
Essentially, yes.
The 'no child left behind' thing is a tragedy. Seriously, look into it. It's nothing but obscene. But, what also happens is that students don't study or pay attention in class and of course fail or get poor grades. Then the teacher gets blamed. Which isn't exactly fair as the teacher can't exactly force someone to learn if they don't want to.
So, the effect this has is that everyone starts looking out for themselves and gets very defensive. There's no giving or taking of criticism, even if constructive, because, it all could lead to getting blamed for something that isn't the teachers fault. And so on.
Essentially, the entire situation is a gigantic cluster-fuck. One in which, at this point, isn't able to be untangled because every party involved in pointing there fingers at everyone else, completely unable to admit even the most innocent failings on there part regardless of how much proof there is that it happens.
Re:Public education... (Score:5, Insightful)
Stupid people with stupid solutions (Score:3, Insightful)
I don't deny that there are crappy teachers but at the same time if the teachers aren't supported at home by the parents then all the work by the teachers is an exercise in futility. I always find it funny when I hear people here from good family backgrounds assuming that their background is universally applicable to all students out there.
With that being said the way which kids learn needs to be examined; English should be taught right up until the end of 7th form - focusing on the fundamentals, if they want to learn about poetry, creative writing and so forth, they can take double major English. Talk to any university professor and they'll tell you about the sorry state of writing by students who come to university. Fundamentals, fundamentals, fundamentals - I look at the crap that US schools teacher - what they hell have they got to do with fundamental skills?
Kids who aren't university inclined need to be told they aren't university material and they should go to a polytechnic - learn a trade, be a bricky, sparky, plumber or some other trade. Its time that parents pulled their head out of their ass and realise that their kids aren't vessels for them to fulfil their dreams which they failed to do in their own life - if their kid is not academically inclined then they should stop wasting tax payers money by continuing their education and get them learning a trade.
Re:Easy to fire anyone in the USA (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Difficult to Define a "Good" Teacher (Score:5, Insightful)
No it's not. You pretty much need to be an Oreo and ignore "black culture" in order to get ahead.
Re:Public education... (Score:2, Insightful)
You are onto something. Administrators are often lazy and don't want to document problems. You must build a case against someone who is not up to par. You can't just fire someone for no cause. This does not mean you can't fire someone with credible cause.
However, there is a lot of political nastiness in schools. This only exacerbates the problem and diminishes the credibility of those who are trying to deal with a genuine problem.
Here we have one reason a fair, smart principal is vital in a school.
Re:Difficult to Define a "Good" Teacher (Score:5, Insightful)
The fact that Hitler did something doesn't automatically make that thing factually incorrect. Hitler has no effect on whether or not different races have different intelligence levels (from what I've read they don't, but I'm not a biologist).
You have to separate your emotion from the facts. It's intellectually dishonest to try to discredit something simply because a disliked individual/group/whatever was in favor of it. If there is no difference between the races, fine; use facts to support that. You do not need to invoke Hitler unless your goal is not to spread the truth, but instead propaganda.
Re:two reasons. (Score:4, Insightful)
I wonder if the Dr. was fired for making a poor medical decision that had a life threatening consequence.
No wait, I don't really.
Re:Simple answer (Score:5, Insightful)
If I were to ask you if an apple is past its ripest point, you would have difficulty telling if the apple I gave you was just a day past its prime. If the apple was rotten, you would just know.
The notion that you can't quantify bad teaching is somewhat of a red herring for this issue. We aren't talking about the two average teachers down the hall, we're talking about someone who is clearly bad. When I was in high school, I had a Physics teacher who didn't notice when two fellow students drew a six foot tall penis on the back wall. He spoke in half sentences, and couldn't remember how physics worked. He should have been fired. When you get into the middle of the road teachers, firing them is a whole other issue.
Re:Labor Economics (Score:1, Insightful)
Ultimately, it is the responsibility of the student to learn the material. The teacher can ask whether the kids get the material, and explain it dozens of times. The kids may say yes, but not really get it (thinking they do but don't, or knowing so and not wanting to look stupid to others), and then do poorly on the exam. At that point, where does the blame lie? It's somewhere in between, but a teacher can only go so far. The students have to come the other half of the way. The difficulty is that many don't, and that's why student evaluations are worthless.
A college teacher myself, I have a radically different view of evaluations now versus when I filled them out. Evaluations are almost based solely on grades--not all of them, mind you, but a good 80-90% of them. Those that do well give good evaluations, and those that door poorly give poor evaluations to the teacher.
I'm not perfect at my job, but I try my best and make sure I'm prepared. Some of my kids do well, and others don't. Others come to less than 50% of the classes and do very poorly (and then wonder why). The thing I've learned is that you can never, ever please everyone, at least if you want grades to be an accurate measure of performance. If you hand out A's, everyone will love you; if you don't, you'll make some of them very unhappy, regardless of how good you really are.
Check it out sometime. Visit a site like ratemyprofessor.com and see what people write. Many comments that accompany high ratings go like "An easy grade" or "Little work required." It's really quite insightful, really.
The issue is that many students believe that it's solely the responsibility of the teacher whether they do well or not, and that if they don't get something, it's not because there's any weakness in them.
Not all teachers are great, but unless they're completely negligent--unprepared, don't grade papers, etc--then they're probably at least adequate. When students expect to just show up and magically get things, there's nothing that can be done to make it better.
Without the world of grades, you'd see very different evaluations of teachers. I'd be curious to see what such a world would look like.
Re:Difficult to Define a "Good" Teacher (Score:4, Insightful)
Is there any reasonable and objective way to determine a teacher's performance that is independent of the students in her classroom?
Like it or not, by far the best thing we have available for evaluating the quality of a teacher, is another human being's judgment. I realise it's not perfect, but it only makes sense to choose the "best available" in the absence of a perfect system. Generally the existing checks and balances would prevent most cases of outright abuse.
Humans are actually generally awesome at tasks like being able to just watch a teacher for a while and say, "wow, this one is fantastic" or "hey, that one sucks piles" ... *no* known machine or "objective method" can even come remotely close. So frankly, I don't know how we got led so badly astray that we no longer follow such a simple, logical, obvious method. PC-ness run amok, maybe.
Re:Public education... (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm hoping this is a joke ?
Arts and music are for many what makes life worth it. Not having a chance at being exposed to those, at least once, in school, would be very sad for many kids who have no chance to look into it at home. I still remember art projects I did in junior high.
History is totally superfluous. Except if you want a chance to stand back and understand what is happening today, and not repeat yesterday's mistakes.
Sport is not only about being fit. It's about social skills, strategy, coordination, getting acquainted or re-aqcuainted with your body... Not eveybody wants to be a gym rat, some do actually want to have fun. Again, kids deserve a chance to try that out.
I do agree about religion... I'd like philosophy instead.
The school you want is a very dull one.
Re:It's the bueracracy we hate ... (Score:3, Insightful)
The converse is, what happens when an authority starts making bad decisions? Whether through maliciousness or ignorance, it happens. That's why we don't have kings and dictators. There certainly needs to be a process in place. How heavy handed it should be is open for debate, but eliminating all safeguards is a stupid overreaction that will only make things worse.
Re:Public education... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Public education... (Score:5, Insightful)
I can tell you from first hand experience that if you want to improve the quality of education every child recieves, the first thing you can start with is bringing the teacher to student ratio from 25-30 down to 15-20. Quite honestly, most classrooms I've been in can barely support the 30 -35 students in them. In the school I'm student teaching in, they're looking at a 40:1 or 50:1 ratio next year due to budget cuts. I can't imagine doing anything but lecturing in an environment like that. And it'll be impossible to grade more than a few things a week with 250-300 students.
The biggest issue with the school that I'm teaching in is that ratio, because it means I can't move around my classroom or arrange students in any way other than a block-style. The block-style seating arrangement means I can't circulate to assess my students as effectively. It means that I'm stuck at the front of the room talking at students. It makes it very difficult to group students for effective instruction. In short, it screws me out of a lot of strategies I could use to more effectively teach.
It also means that my students are discouraged from talking with one-another about the material, which means that they can't scaffold for each other as effectively.
Re:Media using teachers as punching bags again (Score:5, Insightful)
Back off assholes.
Give me a voucher for half the value of what the public school spends on each of my kids, which I can take to the private school of my choice, and you'll never hear from me again.
Re:Public education... (Score:5, Insightful)
One of the first things I taught my daughter about school is that her teacher is not infallible, that everything she learns at school isn't necessarily true and that doing her homework the way the teacher wants it done anyway is how she'll get good grades.
"Daddy, my teacher said that Google is not a number like you said it is." "That's okay, just tell her its a one with a million zeros after it, and if she doesn't believe you, say okay and feel good about knowing something she doesn't."
Re:Difficult to Define a "Good" Teacher (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm a teacher educator, but my background isn't in public school teaching; it's in psychometrics and quantitative psychological research. Because of this, I find my views are vastly different from the faculty around me.
When I see the discrepancy between poor-inner-city-[minority] and well-to-do-suburban-[majority], my science sense starts tingling, and I think, "I wonder if it's because of X, Y, or Z... or maybe something else. What data could I gather to establish or refute some of these connections."
In other words, I tend to think like you do.
My colleagues just scream, "Oppression!" They conduct qualitative "critical analyses," which means they gather data to back up their apriorisms (because "everyone's biased; we're just acknowledging ours and leveraging it"). In the end, the conclusion they formulated before even gathering the data is supported and the view that it is race, not socioeconomic status, becomes accepted as social science "law."
One of my graduate students showed me an article this week which compared the achievement between poor whites and poor blacks on the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test (which is a popular whipping boy of the anti-standardized test movement). Long story short: There was a whopping 3-point difference between the two groups, and both were 20 points below the national mean. (The PPVT uses an IQ-equivalent scale, so 100 is the mean, with a standard deviation of 15.)
But the researchers concluded that "the sample (N > 200) was too small to generate any meaningful conclusions." I wonder if they would have included the same caveat had they discovered a significant difference.
Re:Simple answer (Score:3, Insightful)
This is why we need school choice vouchers. Those who are motivated to rescue their kids from the system should not have to fund it when they are paying for an alternative.
We cannot fix the public school system because that requires power we will never have. We should admit that and use school choice legislation so we can have some opportunity for the few. Society is led by the few achievers, not the mass of beasts. We dump millions into trying to educate retards, so why not let those motivated to opt out and improve their childrens chances do so?
Same for any union job (Score:4, Insightful)
The same could be said for any position which is covered by a union. You wouldn't believe how hard it is to get rid of deadwood in a local city government position, and it's strictly because of the unions and contracts.
Meanwhile, those without the seniority( but rock their jobs ) are the first up for lay offs. Unions are the cause of this insanity.
Re:Simple answer (Score:5, Insightful)
Part of the problem is, what metric are you using to judge the teacher?
If you judge by student performance, you run into two problems: stupid/unmotivated kids, and "teaching the test" issues.
If you judge by observers, what method do you use to observe?
I work in higher ed - we regularly get kids coming in that I am flabbergasted that they EVER got through high school. Unfortunately, in TexAss, the "top 10%" of each high school is automatically required to be able to enter any state College.
So since we aren't a "top tier" university, we are forced to take the "top 10%" of kids from Redneckistan, Mexishithole, ElBarrio, MiniAfrica, and NewZimbabwe High Schools - you know, the kids who "graduated with a 4.0 GPA" and yet have NO writing skills, NO speaking skills, and barely can manage 3rd-grade mathematics and english equivalence. They expect everything to be handed to them on a silver platter - after all, they were socially promoted for 12 grades beforehand, their education paid for completely (and will continue to be so, even the ILLEGALS who shouldn't even be in this country might be getting tuition waivers and in-state rate soon, which is fucked up beyond belief when the kids on our military bases don't get that), the test standards constantly lowered for them, the curriculum altered, the language taught not the language they need to use in this country, and of course, the standardized tests removed because it was easier to stop testing than try to explain why there was a "racial disparity" between black/white/asian/hispanic/etc in the results every year.
You know what? We get feedback from the people we send out every year, the new teachers out there. What do they tell us?
- The parents WILL NOT help discipline the kids.
- The parents WILL NOT make sure the kids are doing the work.
- The parents will start screaming "lawsuit" if you suggest that little Tyrell, LaShawna, or Chiquita needs to go back a grade because they can't keep up with the expected standard.
- The school administrations WILL NOT back the teacher up if there is a discipline problem - let alone the drug and gang problems they are dealing with.
- The school administrations WILL NOT back up the teacher on giving a kid poor grade once the parents scream - doesn't matter if they never do a bit of work, never turn in homework, and even if they were in the bathroom doing crack during test time, the TEACHER gets blamed for the kid's performance.
I know there are "bad teachers" out there. You know what? There are EVEN SHITTIER KIDS OUT THERE.
Re:Media using teachers as punching bags again (Score:3, Insightful)
You obviously didn't read to the end of the article. The case was based on the testimony of the teaching assistant and every student in the class. Even the review panel believed he said those things. They just assumed he was joking to lighten the mood and that he didn't mean any harm.
Re:This doesn't happen just in california (Score:3, Insightful)
She had hit him on the head on more than one occasion, once even on film. it took not only suing the school but also giving the video and doing a interview with the local news before they fired her.
Firing was the wrong path - call the cops, have her arrested.
Re:Public education... (Score:1, Insightful)
Your daughter's teacher is correct. "Google" is a company, not a number. There is a number called a "googol", but it is not a one with a million zeros after it.
Maybe you should also teach your daughter than her father is not infallible, and that everything she learns from him isn't necessarily true.
Re:Difficult to Define a "Good" Teacher (Score:1, Insightful)
Could it be that poor parenting results in both poverty and unmotivated children? As opposed to poverty resulting in unmotivated children.
Re:Simple answer (Score:5, Insightful)
I know there are "bad teachers" out there. You know what? There are EVEN SHITTIER KIDS OUT THERE.
As a homeschooling parent, I'll play devil's advocate here. The law says The Children must attend school, but it can't require them to actually be good students (be it grades or, for the most part, behavior).
Since public school authority over kids has been emasculated over the years, preventing them from doing real enforcement for problem kids, the proper solution is simply to repeal compulsory education. They should still collect *some* taxes to support a system where people who want to be educated can go. Then, the schools can have a sane policy for kicking people out, since their mission will be to, you know, educate kids, as opposed to play tax-funded babysitters for shitty parents.
Yeah, yeah... an educated citizenry is a cornerstone of a healthy, productive society. How's that working out, anyway?
Re:Simple answer (Score:5, Insightful)
Almost every criteria you put forward is subjective, and the rest of what you propose (Conference, Observe, Remediate, Terminate) bears a strong resemblance to union contracts in many fields.
The problem is that management and parents never want to follow the rules that are laid out in the contract. Read the comments in this thread and you will see that many people are complaining about the fact that at some stage in a process similar to what you outline the teacher was found to be competent/compliant with the rules. People want to fire "bad teachers", but they want to fire them the second they themselves identify them, not wait until after there has been some verifiable non-subjective proof of wrongdoing or incompetence.
Any review or remediation will be called "bureaucratic obstacles" or "politics" by the people who think this is easy. See bad teacher=fire bad teacher, simple.
Never mind the teachers that would get fired because they tried to teach something that violated the parent's world view (e.g. evolution).
I'm sure every person in this thread who is in favor of abolishing tenure is well intentioned, but most of them have probably never found themselves unemployed at the age of 55 with a "bad teacher" reputation hung around their neck because the school board realized they could save tens of thousands in salary and retirement costs by firing a teacher that ran against them in the last election.
At least removing obstacles from the firing path will never lead to a world where teachers will be afraid to publicly complain about waste and corruption in the schools, right? Whistle blower laws are just another legal trick in the union's arsenal.
The teachers that are "bad" because they dared to tell a well connected parent that their precious little butterfly has no business being in an advanced class will sleep better knowing that they lost their job to save us from the scourge of easily identified bad teachers.
Re:Simple answer (Score:4, Insightful)
Yeah, yeah... an educated citizenry is a cornerstone of a healthy, productive society. How's that working out, anyway?
As far as I know, it's working out fantastically. Do you have an example of a nation without compulsory education that has a standard of living greater than ours?
Re:Simple answer (Score:4, Insightful)
Do you have an example of a nation without compulsory education that has a standard of living greater than ours?
No, but I know of several nations with better standards of living that, not un-coincidentally, have a "compulsory" education system that properly rewards excellence and punishes failure, rather than letting the kids simply slide through and come out the other end uneducated due to their own stupidity and misbehavior.
The movie Idiocracy also comes to mind for some reason...
Re:Tenure is the key (Score:3, Insightful)
Tenure is intended for university professors mainly; it intentionally makes it harder to fire a tenured person, so they can "push the boundaries" a bit in their classes.. without the fear of being fired for petty political reasons.
Tenure is for research, not for teaching*. Elementary school teachers are not there to push the boundaries of cutting edge research. If a grade 8 teacher is doing something politically unpopular, well, I'm not really sure what is wrong with that situation (even odds on overprotective parents and teachers like that guy who told the kid he wasn't even capable of killing himself), but I suspect it's not inflammatory conclusions in published research.
* This is not to say that I think that university professors shouldn't be good teachers, only that the academic world prescribes the "publish or perish" model, not the "teach undergrads well or perish" model.
Re:two reasons. (Score:4, Insightful)
Thanks to story645. I couldn't find the link.
http://www.justnews.com/news/19263827/detail.html#- [justnews.com]
The teacher said "I don't care if I get fired."
She was combative, threatening children with scissors, and clearly not fit to teach.
Oh, and the class was a special education class.
The only safe thing to do, is not allow someone in the classroom that can possible have that reaction, regardless of medication.
There already was a safety issue. She threatened students with scissors. She ransacked her own classroom.
This was a case where, clearly, she wasn't fit for the classroom. (there are no labor laws that protect people who put children in danger where they work).
That's like saying that a pedophile can be a teacher because he's in treatment for his mental illness. No Fucking Way.
And no fucking way this lady should be anywhere near kids. The simple fact that she's on medication which can result in an episode like this disqualifies her for teaching in my book.
Re:Difficult to Define a "Good" Teacher (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Difficult to Define a "Good" Teacher (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Simple answer (Score:4, Insightful)
Word of advice about Missouri: the southwestern part of the state is horrifyingly conservative. If you like more liberal, open-minded types
"Liberal" and "open-minded" are two terms that in my experience are completely contradictory. "Liberals" are people who are (at least) just as hateful and malicious towards anyone who doesn't fit their chosen groupthink, as what you probably would claim "conservatives" are like.
If you're going to be "open minded", you're willing to see the argument and the objective positive and negative points from multiple sides of any argument. Liberals, by definition, come at their argument pre-biased to the left and are therefore never "open minded."
Now, if you want to find an open minded area, you need to find someplace centrist. Given the way that both political parties have been fucking around with districts and going around trying to polarize debate whenever possible, those are becoming harder and harder to find.
But I'm guessing - based on your phrasing above - that what you really are looking is for someplace that will blindly reinforce your own groupthink, rather than challenging you to actually examine your own beliefs and ideas with, say, an open mind.
Re:Simple answer (Score:4, Insightful)
No, but I know of several nations with better standards of living that, not un-coincidentally, have a "compulsory" education system that properly rewards excellence and punishes failure, rather than letting the kids simply slide through and come out the other end uneducated due to their own stupidity and misbehavior.
Relax pal, there's a reason why I replied to the other guy, and not to you. You were arguing against the overall culture of being afraid to give bad grades to students / have them repeat a grade lest the parents file a lawsuit. I agree with you, that's insane.
The person I was replying to was arguing against compulsory education, and that simply doesn't work. Too many fucking stupid parents would love to have their kids around as slave labor all day, doing chores while the parents watch tv (I've seen that happening in Brazil where, at the time, compulsory education was law, but not always enforced). Not sending your child to school (homeschooling is fine, if standards are set and the children are tested periodically to ensure they're learning the required subjects) is denying them the opportunity to have a successful career in the future. Anyone has to agree that's child abuse.
Re:Difficult to Define a "Good" Teacher (Score:2, Insightful)
if we had the courage to admit that "black culture" and "redneck culture" were pretty much the same, which they are, we'd be a lot further ahead.
Re:Difficult to Define a "Good" Teacher (Score:5, Insightful)
I think you are putting the cart before the horse. How is that we hear so many stories of Asian immigrants coming to this country with nothing, or next to nothing and pulling themselves up by their bootstraps, often with less than most native-born people who linger in stagnant poverty over generations. If you took those well-off Asian-Americans and put them in the same situation as the perpetually poor in the U.S., the majority of them would eventually rise out of that level again.
You're missing something very obvious here. US immigration law is tortuous and acts as a giant filter selecting for only the most desirable immigrants. In order to even make it to the US from Asia, you need to be abnormally hard-working, resourceful, and industrious.
The astounding success of Asian immigrants in the US has nothing to do with Asian culture. It is entirely due to the fact that Asian immigrants in the US form a highly biased selection relative to the population of all Asians, consisting only of those people who are smart and persistent enough to make it through the immigration gauntlet. In other words, you only see the bright ones in America, because the others aren't even allowed to immigrate here.
In contrast, the majority of African Americans are descended from slaves (sad, but true), and most (80-85%) of the Hispanic population stems from illegal immigration (source [wikipedia.org]). This explains why the selection effect of immigration law is only really visible in Asians.
Re:Public education... (Score:5, Insightful)
Then what do you suggest be cut? English? Reading? Math? Science?
There's not much low-hanging fruit left in most curricula, but one suggestion would be penmanship. I still resent the hundreds of hours I spent being forced to practice a completely worthless skill in second through fourth grade. My school could have put that time to much better use.
Re:Difficult to Define a "Good" Teacher (Score:2, Insightful)
As testament to why I never usually reply to posts I agree with:
Errr, you're right! Economics is the driving force here, not race.
See, I'm shit and I seem disingenuous.
Re:Two words - you already know what they are. (Score:5, Insightful)
The only problem with competitive schools is that for competition to work, you need to have schools that lose. And that means that the students lose. The entire point of public schools is to allow kids who can't afford to compete for education to get an education that will at least get them through life.
I support private schools, but not at the expense of public schools. We need to always have that support network for everyone in our society.
-b
Re:Simple answer (Score:5, Insightful)
I'll be the first person to call out a shitty teacher or an obstructive union, but this kind of discussion cannot go ahead without factoring a huge dataset: Parents. Of course, the first person who does finds himself voted out of office pretty quickly.
It cuts both ways: Nutcase students........ (Score:1, Insightful)
I teach physics at a state university, and am a lowly untenured instructor. I know from personal experience that a few nut cases can make your life hell. There's the sweet young thing who out of the blue starts the "you really hurt my feelings when you said girls brains aren't as good as boy's brains." Just picture the shit that can come down on your head when this total delusion hits the administration. Total delusion! We have a zero tolerance policy against sexual discrimination of this sort, and it would be trivial to not renew my contract since I am in a state where it is against the law for public employees to be represented by a union. Then there is the guy who goes to your department chairman every two days because he isn't doing well in your class and he's got a 4.0 so it must be your fault (he got a B+ at the end of the term since he wasn't very good at physics--because you cannot memorize all the problems--and physics cost him his summa cum laude!). So you get marked down on your annual assessment even though the overwhelming majority of your student assessments come in well above departmental average, and you wind up getting counseled, etc., don't get a pay raise for the superior job you are doing.
For every bad teacher that has survived the elimination process at the outset of their teaching career (or gone bad later on), there are at least a half dozen who have had their lives screwed over by nutcase students along the lines outlined above.
Re:Simple answer (Score:3, Insightful)
So are "conservative" and "open-minded." In fact, "independents" are the only open-minded folks, by definition -- everybody else just copped out and picked a label. (At least, in modern terms -- the classic definition of "liberal" literally was "open-minded" (or "open to change"), while the classic definition of "conservative" was the opposite; nowadays they're both just names for classically-conservative people with opposite ideologies.)
Of course, that's more-or-less what you're trying to argue yourself. The trouble is that everybody reading your post -- including me -- gets halfway through your first sentence and blows you off for being partisan.
Re:Public education... (Score:4, Insightful)
You're exhibiting plenty of pre-bias yourself (Score:2, Insightful)
Liberals, by definition, come at their argument pre-biased to the left and are therefore never "open minded."
I love the way you write off an entire group as never being open minded in a sentence about bias.
*chuckles*
Re:Public education... (Score:2, Insightful)
I thought penmanship taught us to endure tedious and repetitious tasks, to prepare us for cramming and studying later in life, later a boring 9-5 office job, and perhaps a tedious marriage.
I also thought tasks like that was to break the child's spirit, teach them to obey authority, and used as an excuse to smack the child's hand with a ruler when he steps out of line, an early indoctrination.
Re:Two words... (Score:3, Insightful)
Unions are in place for the same reason at every workplace -- to protect employees and attempt to even out the power balance between employee and employer. There's no difference between the teachers union and the autoworkers union, really... and I'd dispute that anything you've said is true about the autoworkers' union either. I think you've been drinking the media kool-aid.
Re:Public education... (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem with raising teacher pay is that it will attract more people. Teaching is not something that everyone is good at. Just because you can get a doctorate doesn't mean you have the skill. There is a big difference. Raising teacher pay could attract worse teachers that do it for the money. People who really want to teach, such as myself, will often take a cut in pay to do so.
Yes, I agree, some people who are good teachers are willing to take a pay cut to teach. But others who would also be good teachers opt to do something else because they don't want to be paid so poorly. Your approach guarantees that the teacher population is made up of two groups: 1) people who are so committed to teaching that they don't mind the low pay (good) and 2) people that take the teaching job because it's the best they can get (bad).
I swear to god, teaching is the only profession where people seemingly earnestly make the argument that improving pay won't improve the pool of job candidates. In every other profession on the planet, people raise the pay to attract higher-quality candidates and use competition for jobs between the candidates to select the best ones from that pool of candidates.
Yes, you're right. Raising teacher pay will attract more people. Then, we do our best to hire the ones who will be best at teaching. With a larger pool of applicants than before (including the applicants who would have been there anyway at a lower pay point, but also a bunch of new applicants as well), how can you argue that we'll end up with worse teachers than if we paid them bus fare and had the smaller applicant pool? That really strains the boundaries of logic.
Re:Public education... (Score:4, Insightful)
do they honestly pay teachers that poorly in the states?
here in Soviet Canuckistan, my friend just got hired as a full time teacher, and he's set to earn $90,000 a year.
on one hand, higher pay for teachers can potentially attract a lot of bad teachers who only take the job for the 7 hour days and 2 months off each summer, but providing such a low salary will turn away a lot of good teachers. a good balance must be reached.
Education is probably the most important thing in society, and good teachers must be rewarded for their essential role in it.
Re:Difficult to Define a "Good" Teacher (Score:1, Insightful)
I work at a community college, and while everything you say is correct, I really wouldn't call a community college environment representative of the entire higher education system. The vast majority of the students we get in here--particularly our CNA and general nursing programs--are 40-something high school dropouts who only care about the fact that the field is in high demand, and they can actually get a high-paying job. I may be being too optimistic, but I'm fairly certain, in an real (read: expensive) academic environment, you will have a lot fewer people there just for the money, and many more there who are actually serious about their education.
Re:Public education... (Score:5, Insightful)
Teachers work harder than you 9 months a year. Taking 1.5 months off (it's about 2.5 months for the students, but the teachers have clean up, seminars, and set up in that time) is something that we really shouldn't begrudge them.
Re:Public education... (Score:3, Insightful)
Very difficult to teach when kids don't obey authority, esp when you are dealing with >30 of them.
Very difficult to teach when the same kid questions everything you say, because he doesn't feel like learning anything today.
Re:Simple answer (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Simple answer (Score:5, Insightful)
Now, if you want to find an open minded area, you need to find someplace centrist.
Bullshit. Just because a position is midway between two others does not mean it is openminded.
There are openminded people who call themselves liberals, and (far fewer, but they're out there; see below) openminded people who call themselves conservatives. There are people who will accuse you of not being openminded if you disagree with them. There are people who have looked at a situation from many angles and formed a very well-informed opinion based on much evidence, and who are accused of closedmindedness because they're not willing to give a second chance to old anecdotes that waeren't worth anything the first time either.
Openmindedness is a willingness to evaluate new evidence, or a willingness to consider different axioms, both of which are pretty much antithetical--by definition--to everything that conservatives stand for. It is not the willingness to humour stupid people.
Re:News for nerds? (Score:3, Insightful)
I don't doubt you weren't cheating but I'm sorry but it sounds to me like:
1) You either were unable or unwilling to explain your logic in doing the problem. Even in your head there must be intermediate steps.
2) Failed the social test. You already had this teacher off side, but that could have been his fault. If you can do it your way you should take the time to learn to do the problem as it has been taught and show your work. THAT would have proved beyond a doubt that you can do the work.
It's not just getting the answer right to math problems that matters. Part of your schooling is proving you can do it. Part of your schooling is learning to get along with others and cooperate. You haven't learnt that lesson, and taking you out of an environment where you can do (school) and keeping you at home was a great disservice to you.
Someone with your intelligence (assuming you're honest about that, which I am) should be able to manipulate the social situation so that everyone likes them, and go off and do your own extended study in your spare time just for yourself.
Re:Simple answer (Score:4, Insightful)
I think by "open-minded" the parent probably means doesn't hate everyone who isn't exactly like them. This is Missouri we're talking about and conservative doesn't mean the same thing down there as it does up in the blue states.
We're not talking about libertarians with conservative economic views, we're talking rednecks and christian fundamentalists. Compared to that lot, the most closed minded, group thinking liberals are generally a breath of fresh air.
I know that it's fashionable to hate the liberals here on Slashdot because group think here says cut taxes and screw everyone and everything else, but remember that liberal and conservative have context, and there's a pretty good chance that wherever it is you live it isn't the deep south.
Re:two reasons. (Score:3, Insightful)
"""
The teacher said "I don't care if I get fired."
"""
Quoting someone where they are not in the state of mind to make rational decisions isn't exactly valid.
"""
She was combative, threatening children with scissors, and clearly not fit to teach.
"""
At that particular point in time. Cherry picking.
"""
Oh, and the class was a special education class.
"""
Moot point. What you're doing here is called emotional appeal. That's a logical fallacy.
"""
The only safe thing to do, is not allow someone in the classroom that can possible have that reaction, regardless of medication.
"""
Then no-one would teach. Go ahead and check the headlines. You'll see a tonne of people freaking out at work and actually shooting there co-workers. Etc, etc, etc. And those people aren't mentally ill. They are normal Joe Shmo. Also, see below.
"""
There already was a safety issue. She threatened students with scissors. She ransacked her own classroom.
"""
When something went wrong. From the article THAT YOU LINKED TO: "All I can tell you is that she took medication that had an adverse reaction, and it affects all of us differently, and with her it had a bad reaction."
So, it wasn't necessarily even a mental illness. But, rather a bad reaction to medications. Which could have been for anything. Hm, now who could have a bad reaction to meds again? Oh, that's right, ANYONE!
"""
This was a case where, clearly, she wasn't fit for the classroom. (there are no labor laws that protect people who put children in danger where they work).
"""
In that instance. But, with mitigating circumstances. Cherry picking.
Btw, labour laws DO protect people in situations like this. Go ahead and look it up if you want to. But, continually saying otherwise doesn't make you right.
"""
That's like saying that a pedophile can be a teacher because he's in treatment for his mental illness. No Fucking Way.
"""
This comparison isn't remotely valid. And again, is emotional appeal. I'd recommend taking a class on logic at your local Universities Philosophy department. Because, you're really not making any sense.
"""
And no fucking way this lady should be anywhere near kids. The simple fact that she's on medication which can result in an episode like this disqualifies her for teaching in my book.
"""
Well, then your book doesn't mean much and is wholly irrational. Let's go over some stuff that can cause this sort of thing to happen:
- brain tumour
- severe psychosocial stress
- sleep deprivation
- multiple sclerosis
- Lyme Disease
- Parkinson's Disease
- hypoglycemia
- lupus
- malaria
And a whole host of other common or not so common illnesses including, the flu or the mumps. And no, I'm not joking about that.
So, are we going to prevent people from teaching with the above ailments? Because, I can't begin to tell you how asinine what you're proposing really is.
Re:Public education... (Score:1, Insightful)
The problem with raising civil engineer pay is that it will attract more people. Civil engineering is not something that everyone is good at. Just because you can get a doctorate doesn't mean you can build a bridge that won't kill people. There is a big difference. Raising engineering pay could attract worse engineers that do it for the money. People who really want to build bridges, such as myself, will often take a cut in pay to do so. When I take my first engineering job, I will go from ~$102,000/yr that I make working as an electrical engineer for General Electric to ~$28,000 if I don't do anything but build bridges. That's a huge cut when a person has three kids to feed, but it is what I love doing. Sure, I'd love to get paid more, but I also want to drive on structures built by people who LOVE building bridges.
By this logic, if we lower pay for all professions across the board, everything will get better. I think you should run for political office where this type of argument abounds, rather than teach.
Re:Difficult to Define a "Good" Teacher (Score:1, Insightful)
I'd sure as hell rather see a great teacher unfairly fired occasionally (they'll rise to the top elsewhere) than see the person's seniority be the prime consideration.
If you make it easy to fire a teacher, then you'll have one pissed off parent or another every week getting another good teacher fired just because little Johnny couldn't pass his math test & got kicked off the football squad.
Re:Simple answer (Score:4, Insightful)
Oh? I don't agree.
Ok, I should have said, "any intelligent person who actually took the time to think this through," not just "anyone."
No, I'm not insulting your intelligence yet, but I don't think you've thought this through. Here's why:
I know plenty of "stupid" people with rather successful careers doing electrical work, carpentry, plumbing, and factory labor and they make more than I do as a degreed child behavioral worker.
They're not "stupid," they're uneducated. I didn't say "uneducated parents" would want to keep their children home doing chores, I think many of them would see the benefit in their child getting the education they lack. I said "stupid parents" were those who chose to believe an education is not important to their children.
There's no reason someone with a high school diploma, or even a college degree would be unable to also pick up the skills and have a rather successful career doing electrical work, carpentry, pumbling, and factory labor. You take someone whose parents kept them from school and now unskilled jobs are their only choice. If they want a career that requires a college education, that opportunity has been taken from them by their parents, before they were old enough to make a decision by themselves.
You don't need a degree to succeed in this country, if you have work ethic and a good market for your skills
You don't? I just did a search for the types of jobs you mentioned, and every single one of them had the same requirement, as in this example [mepjobs.com]. They require a High School diploma or GED.
Sure, you could start your own business, if you're smart enough and good enough, but "Good market for your skills" is a key phrase you used there, especially in a place where you'll be competing with large amounts of immigrants who have the trade skills you mentioned, as well as outsourcing for unskilled jobs such as call centers.
No, success isn't a given with education. However, not having an education can hurt you, while having it never will.
The monkeys and the lizards. . . (Score:3, Insightful)
Get rid of the unions and open teaching to folks who would get paid on their performance. (GASP!)
Yes, Unions, the organizations responsible for you and your extended family not working in a coal mine seven days a week and dying at 35, yes, they are bad and should be gotten rid of in an expression of overt extremism.
A little perspective, please. Extremism is useless.
Paid by performance? Okay, and how does one measure performance? That question has been circled around forever and nobody has come up with a useful answer. Kids are not car parts. They are not binary bits. The question, in short, is not black and white. Some subjective imagination is required to solve the problem. --Come on, you must have heard the arguments and counter-arguments. They nearly all, on both sides, have reasonable concerns.
Extremism is never the answer, because the school system is littered with retarded people who can only see in black and white who are best treated like cogs, and it is also filled with people who know how to use their imaginations who die if they are treated like machine parts. The lizards and the monkeys need to live together and so the system needs to not be one thing or the other.
-FL
Re:Difficult to Define a "Good" Teacher (Score:4, Insightful)
You can blame the individual, but you should also blame their circumstances.
Absolutely, and yet the circumstances you speak of, which are extremely significant, are also hugely influenced by the very things created to help remediate them. The Welfare State has been a huge factor in the skyrocketing rates of out-of-wedlock births, and especially of children being raised by single mothers, which is a guarantee of significant disadvantages throughout life and a demonstrated factor leading to increased delinquency, drug-abuse, violence, and many other effects that rob these poor folks of their chance to become self-sufficient.
The very proponents who throw ever more increasing amounts of money into a broken education system while simultaneously cementing the self-serving power of the teacher unions who are a very effective roadblock to proper reform, resulting in schools in many cities that are on the level with those in the poorest third-world countries, all the while refusing to budge an inch on issues like vouchers, which are perhaps the only way possible to give many poor people a decent education, do nothing but perpetuate the cycle of despair and dependency.
Politicians who constantly invoke class-warfare rhetoric do nothing but perpetuate envy and resentment at a system that can provide the means for economic freedom to almost everyone subvert the very people they are seeking to represent by casting them as helpless victims rather than working to offer true alternatives, and encouragement to try to join the system rather than mindlessly protest it.
How does it help anyone when all these people hear is how they need the government to GIVE them everything, rather than needing the government to HELP them get things themselves? When our sitting President flat-out says his goal is to "redistribute the wealth", how does that encourage anyone to want to do anything more than sit around and wait for a handout? When the Reverend White, and his ilk, who strike me as being much closer in ideology to radical Muslims than any Christian I've ever known, literally preaches hatred for this country and the majority of its citizens, how can he expect to reap anything but anger and perhaps even violence, instead of real reform and real good?
So yes, I do blame the circumstances, but more importantly, I blame the people who have ensured that these circumstances, both economic and psychological, remain bad, and will never get better.
Re:Public education... (Score:4, Insightful)
No, it will attract bad applicants. You don't have to hire them. And the more applicants you have, the more selective you can be.
Re:Simple answer (Score:4, Insightful)
Children not only need to learn material, far more imortantly, especially in younger kids, is that they learn social interaction, group discipline, experience varied environments, work in groups, experience physical activities and sports, work in teams, compete, etc. NO home schhol environment can offer this.
By educating your children at home you are stunting their social and psychological growth.
The biggest problem with American Schools is NOT the school, curriculum, or teachers, it's the PARENTS! Americans VERY INCORRECTLY assume that thgeir kid goes to school to learn and comes how with homework and that's all they need. FALSE! EVERY KID IS HOMESCHOOLED!!! When they come home, they should be LEARNING FROM YOU, and receiving the supplemental education that YOU think they should have above and beyond their lessons in school provide.
If you child is not disciplined in school, it's 90% likely it's YOUR fault. If your child is not learning what you want them to learn, it;s YOUR fault. The school curriculum is provided free as a BASE education to prepare them for the basic needs of life and for those who rise to it, preperation for college, but it IS NOT the sum of their education.
Sure, at home you can teach them math, science, writing, etc, but I seriously doubt there is a single home school parent out there who can provide a dynamic environment for education at home, who can perform all the lab expereiments required, afford to take their child on trips to experience the world outside their books, who can bring performances and programs into the house, and who can provide the social environment to allow their child to excel to more than simple smarts in life.
My wife IS a teacher. You would expect an elementary teacher would be a NATURAL resource to home school. In her decade teaching, she has taught about 30 children that were previously home schooled, and EVERY SINGLE ONE had social problems, was far behind the rest of their class in at leasdt one if not all subjects, had serious issues with authority and direction, was virtually incapable of working in teams, and had no idea how to behave in a gym or when playing sports, and had no competitive ability without a serious psychological slant to it.
Life happens OUTSIDE of books. School is designed to get them the basic education they deserve based on the effort YOU convince them to put forward. It prepares them for life and the social interactions it requires. Sometimes getting their ass kicked is PART of that learning process. Being exposed to situations and things they don't fully understand is also part of that process. When they come home, it;s YOUR JOB to help them disceminate what they EXPERIENCED, plus what they learned, and help them form an understanding and move up the ladder of life.
WAY too many parents simply think dropping their kid off at school and picking them up is good enough, and all they need to do at home is talk about drugs, sex, drinking, condoms, and AIDS and they're done, the TV can do the rest... WRONG!
If you don't like the education (knowledge) the school provides, either supplement it at home or put them in a private school or prep school whenre they teach on higher levels, but DO NOT take the rest of learning, the LIFE learning, away from a child by isolating them at home.
Home schooling with truly dedicated parents who not only educate, but also discipline their child, continually bring them to exhibitions, theatre, museums and the like, and who involve their children in social systems and team sports are a rarity, but with lots of time and money it can be successful. But the harsh reality is very few of the 1.1 million children being legally homeschooled will receive such treatment, and many enter into lives of crime or violence(reaction to isolation and strict rule, or heavily religious environments), or become socially isolated and fail to compete in the workplace. Additionally, colleges tend to frown on home-school admissions that are not accompanied by extremel
Re:This is only one side of the story. (Score:2, Insightful)
And an even bigger problem is the parents who think they know everything, and undermine a teacher's authority before their kid ever even enters the classroom.
(You know, the kind of people who think that a googol has 1 million zeros after it, and then send their kid off to argue with their teacher about it.)
--Jeremy
Re:Simple answer (Score:3, Insightful)
Children not only need to learn material, far more imortantly, especially in younger kids, is that they learn social interaction, group discipline, experience varied environments, work in groups, experience physical activities and sports, work in teams, compete, etc. NO home schhol environment can offer this.
By educating your children at home you are stunting their social and psychological growth.
Yeah. By not subjecting them to mental abuse, physical abuse, and the roundabout torture by the sons and daughters of shithead breeders who've had 12 kids on a 40 IQ and government handouts, you're doing "immense harm" to your kids.
Oh, wait, it doesn't sound the same when I put it like that, huh.
Sure, at home you can teach them math, science, writing, etc, but I seriously doubt there is a single home school parent out there who can provide a dynamic environment for education at home, who can perform all the lab expereiments required, afford to take their child on trips to experience the world outside their books, who can bring performances and programs into the house, and who can provide the social environment to allow their child to excel to more than simple smarts in life.
Dude, fuck you. Have you even SEEN a public school lately?
Public schools do not do ANY lab experiments any more. Most of them don't even have a gas hookup at the teacher's desk in a science classroom. Hell, bring in a couple tabs of alka-seltzer to demonstrate the process of effervesence and you're likely to get dragged off under some "zero tolerance" medications policy.
Home schooling with truly dedicated parents who not only educate, but also discipline their child, continually bring them to exhibitions, theatre, museums and the like, and who involve their children in social systems and team sports are a rarity, but with lots of time and money it can be successful. But the harsh reality is very few of the 1.1 million children being legally homeschooled will receive such treatment, and many enter into lives of crime or violence(reaction to isolation and strict rule, or heavily religious environments), or become socially isolated and fail to compete in the workplace.
Again, fuck you for being a retard. Every homeschooling parent I have known has gone FAR above and beyond the "minimums" of what they need to do, and their kids have benefited greatly as a result. They've gone the extra mile to ensure their kids get to participate in clubs and sports when the kid had a genuine interest (as opposed to forcing their kids into little league or something else merely because it's summertime and school isn't providing the free day care). They've gone out of their way to see that the kids have REAL exposure to what is going on in the world around them. They take the time to make sure the kids understand not just the "basics", but everything that goes on around them - the family budget, taking care of your house and clothes and possessions, appreciating what you have rather than thinking you have to have "the newest thing" merely because someone else does. Every one of these kids was either an Eagle Scout or Girl Scout with the Gold Award. Every one of them was polite, courteous, well-spoken, smart, and more adept in critical thinking than any product of the Edjamacashun Factery that I've ever seen.
You are doing your child a great disservice by not allowing them to have at least some experience in public schools.
They have done the best possible thing they could, by NOT inflicting the horrors of the pure shithole of American public schooling upon them.
Re:Difficult to Define a "Good" Teacher (Score:4, Insightful)
LOL. I did my first couple of years at a community college. Many of my instructors actually worked during the day in the fields that they taught and brought incredibly valuable insights and experience. The students were older on average and often worked for a living, so there wasn't a lot of grab-assing and many of us were genuinely engaged.
Then I went to a university for a couple of years. Droves of kids with a sense of entitlement that rivaled the Egyptian monarchs. Massive auditoriums where people would never shut the fuck up until you put some fear into them, when they bothered to show up. Teachers who have been stuck in the ivory tower for most of their lives.
Yeah, some of my upper level courses were fantastic as the class sizes were small and the students were truly interested in the material, but my overall community college experience was overwhelmingly superior to my university experience. About the only thing that the university had over the community college was a better-than-thou attitude.