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IS PUBLIC EDUCATION FAILING? (in America)
Waiting for superman is a documentary film about the public education system in America.
The film is pretty hardcore and the main thing I want to debate about is the legitimacy and accuracy of the film.
The main topics the film discusses are,
1) high school tenure problem / bad teachers
2) teachers that have trouble teaching at a high level
3) teachers union being unwilling to reform
4) examples of schools that work, but not enough initiative to follow them.
+ Show Spoiler [blah blah] +But mainly this topic will be for discussing the state of public education in the world, but probably with a focus on America.
Also since TL's community is widely international, I'm wondering what the public education is like in other countries. "Apparently Finland is #1" >: O
My personal opinion is that public education can be more efficient and fair. In Canada / BC, things are relatively alright, but my main concern is the teachers union. I feel tenure shouldn't be automatic.
Also seniority is ass. I've had great teachers that lost their jobs because they didn't have seniority / new teacher to the school.
And I think pay should reflect how good a teacher does. A fun thing might be to pay teachers and make their salaries public like hockey players. My music teachers were insane work machines and still got paid the same as other teachers that were not bad, but not amazing.
Read Micronesia's posts!! It's pretty much the best post so far in the thread in my opinion and I wish I could have offered a post of equal quality.
http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewpost.php?post_id=10345751
+ Show Spoiler [Stanford panel discussion on education] +
Stanford discussion on the moviehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xzrjo7Fvs1A
+ Show Spoiler [help me improve this op] +Uhh this op is a bit lacking in my opinion and I will welcome any suggestion to improve / edit it. I've made some changes, and i think it's at an acceptable level, but let me know if there are things i can do
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Add the gist of the movie (arguments, evidence, conclusion) in spoilers, otherwise you might as well leave it out. Also, you aren't giving your own opinion, nor anything else that would be of relevance when trying to start a discussion. "Yo what's the state of public education?" is not very interesting a question to debate without a starting point. Narrow it down. Haven't you *sunglasses* learned that at school?
1) Introduce the topic, preferably with a catchy phrase
2) Explain why it's important
3) Give an overview of contemporary viewpoints, well-known proponents of different ideas
4) Give an example of recent controversy
5) State your own opinion, open the debate.
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First thing I noticed is about 11:27 into the video.
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/KP6d7.jpg)
"Since 1971 educational spending in the US has grown from 4300$ to more than 9000$ per student. And that's adjusted for inflation.
Since 1971 reading scores have flatlined, and math is no better."
What does this tell us? I get the impression that what the documentary wants to tell us is that public education is broken and money isn't gonna solve it.
My immediate interpretation would be that sending students to private schools and private universities will drastically increase spending while doing nothing to improve free education, and in fact probably even worsen it by having teachers and "gifted" students migrate to more exclusive institutions.
The documentary, at this point in the video, doesn't give enough information to draw any kind of conclusion from this statistic. Let's hope that there is more substance later on.
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That graph is quite consistent with the general success of our civilization. More of everything still leads to stagnation. It's a political problem, because the wrong political philosophy is applied. The plebs is ruling almost without checks.
I'm talking here about our educational and political systems throughout the whole western civilization, because it applies everywhere. It's not a U. S. exclusive problem.
Unless there is a revolution, our societies will keep growing quantitatively. This quantitative growth is backed up by irresponsible actions, antisocial behaviour. People want it like that and it will not be reformed.
Furthermore the 50+ years generation is far too immobile, lazy and unhealthy to force any reforms. The older I grow, the more I realize that we are living in their dictatorship. They have the power and they screw everything up. Like my Latin teacher who rarely appeared in the last year in school and tried to gift me with an extra year.
Last but not least, our economy mainly produces illusory non-sense. The resources being used there could easily be applied in more subtle branches.
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Education is bad because parenting is roflbad. If you have to pay for private education you will probably take more interest in your child's well being. Its not even that private school would be inherently better. Its a problem culturally.
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Is there a link to this online? I really can't be bothered to find a DVD of it.
However, if I go off the first 5 posts in the thread, what I would say is that I do think the public school system is getting fucked over by unions. The unions are bleeding the system dry while having no concerns for the education children receive.
I think that usually the best education is found in the good, reputed private institutions.
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United States24680 Posts
There are a lot of issues that can be discussed regarding public vs private education, the state of public education in the USA and other countries, etc.
Waiting for Superman does not belong in the same thread as that discussion. You could discuss the movie (I don't call it a documentary because it's such a farce to do that), you could discuss public education, but don't do both.
Waiting for Superman was a cinematic experience made with the intention of making certain groups look bad while making others look good, using extreme cherry picking, misrepresentation, etc.. Of course most if not all [i]documentaries[i/] do this to some extent, but when I finally watched this movie (because someone asked me to for my opinion) I noticed it was particularly bad about this.
There's a large number of people (at least in the USA) who serve to make a lot of money if they can twist public opinion to have a skewed vision of public education... and this is one of the results of that.
So what are you trying to discuss OP? Education, or the movie?
On July 18 2011 01:52 moltenlead wrote:
Is there a link to this online? I really can't be bothered to find a DVD of it.
However, if I go off the first 5 posts in the thread, what I would say is that I do think the public school system is getting fucked over by unions. The unions are bleeding the system dry while having no concerns for the education children receive.
I think that usually the best education is found in the good, reputed private institutions.
I only have direct access to a couple of unions (so I can't say what they do in every state in the USA) but I definitely haven't seen this.
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This documentary was the first time I had actually seen a "rubber room." The fact that only a handful of teachers out of many thousands of teachers ever loses their job shows that there isn't a whole lot of accountability in the system.
I've had a geography teacher that let us watch Maury every day, and a health teacher that smoked in class (unbelievable, right?) and people wonder why Americans suck at Geography and are unhealthy.
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United States24680 Posts
On July 18 2011 02:04 BlackJack wrote:
This documentary was the first time I had actually seen a "rubber room." The fact that only a handful of teachers out of many thousands of teachers ever loses their job shows that there isn't a whole lot of accountability in the system.
I've had a geography teacher that let us watch Maury every day, and a health teacher that smoked in class (unbelievable, right?) and people wonder why Americans suck at Geography and are unhealthy.
Actually lots of teachers lose their jobs (often applying to other schools/districts after that)... just most of them in their first few years of teaching (before they have tenure). In other industries what happens to the chances of getting fired (statistically) as you are with a company longer and longer? It's not exactly the same of course but it's not as different as you'd make it sound.
In any school I've ever worked in or attended, if a teacher was smoking in the class would be SOOOOO fucked hahahaha.... I can't speak for states where education isn't emphasized though.... lots of variety there I guess. If I showed tv shows during my class... especially maury.... I'd be just as fucked as if I smoked XD
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Actually I remembered that wrong. It wasn't Maury it was Jerry Springer, which is even more ridiculous.
and it wasn't everyday, that's a huge exaggeration. But we also got to watch tons of movies.
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On July 18 2011 02:02 micronesia wrote:There are a lot of issues that can be discussed regarding public vs private education, the state of public education in the USA and other countries, etc. Waiting for Superman does not belong in the same thread as that discussion. You could discuss the movie (I don't call it a documentary because it's such a farce to do that), you could discuss public education, but don't do both. Waiting for Superman was a cinematic experience made with the intention of making certain groups look bad while making others look good, using extreme cherry picking, misrepresentation, etc.. Of course most if not all documentaries do this to some extent, but when I finally watched this movie (because someone asked me to for my opinion) I noticed it was particularly bad about this. There's a large number of people (at least in the USA) who serve to make a lot of money if they can twist public opinion to have a skewed vision of public education... and this is one of the results of that. So what are you trying to discuss OP? Education, or the movie? Show nested quote +On July 18 2011 01:52 moltenlead wrote:
Is there a link to this online? I really can't be bothered to find a DVD of it.
However, if I go off the first 5 posts in the thread, what I would say is that I do think the public school system is getting fucked over by unions. The unions are bleeding the system dry while having no concerns for the education children receive.
I think that usually the best education is found in the good, reputed private institutions. I only have direct access to a couple of unions (so I can't say what they do in every state in the USA) but I definitely haven't seen this.
The video identifies the protection of bad teachers by tenure and the inability to reward good ones for unwillingness to differentiate between teachers at all as the main problem.
It points out that teachers can be fired, but that it is a lengthy, tedious and highly bureaucratic process, unnecessarily reducing accountability for teachers.
It goes on to illustrate that charter schools are not bound by the same rules protecting such teachers as public schools are, and showcases, convincingly, the tragedy of parents and their children applying for these charter schools' limited spaces, having to resort to lottery to decide which child will gain admission into that school.
Of course the documentary is biased in that it fails to scrutinize charter schools, as that is not part of the problem it aims to shed light on.
It's one of the most heartbreaking things affecting the state of the world that I have seen in a while.
More heartbreaking than starving children or ill ones in the 3rd world, because illness and hunger can easily be solved, while education is a more fundamental issue leading to the solution of these problems.
This documentary shows people, adults, even teachers protecting bad teachers by blindly hailing them as heroes and playing games (lottery) with their children's future for their own self interest, i.e. having a secure job without facing necessary accoutability and without having to do much for it once you acquire tenure.
It shows unions rallying people against reform under the guise of protecting teachers and education, while in effect protecting them from scrutiny and leading to the failure of differentiating between good and bad teachers, because anything getting in the way of teachers can easily be misconstrued as an attack on the future of our children.
It illustrates a fundamental problem with the mindset of a majority of people, which is much worse than purely physical problems like hunger or illness.
In this regard this documentary certainly was successful in that it was effective with me.
Do you contest the main point raised by the video, micronesia? I'd like to hear what this is based upon, because it seemed pretty undisagreeable to me.
But you're a teacher afaik, which gives you possible bias but also a different perspective as well.
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My 8th grade English teacher showed us a Twilight zone episode every other Friday. He was also an amazing teacher that really improved my speaking skills.
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10776 Posts
On July 18 2011 01:40 Sadist wrote:
Education is bad because parenting is roflbad. If you have to pay for private education you will probably take more interest in your child's well being. Its not even that private school would be inherently better. Its a problem culturally.
QFT. I always hear people complain about bad teachers, what about bad parents?
While bad teachers are part of the problem, I just cannot stand society blatantly turning a blind eye to the other part.
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United States24680 Posts
On July 18 2011 02:58 enzym wrote:Show nested quote +On July 18 2011 02:02 micronesia wrote:There are a lot of issues that can be discussed regarding public vs private education, the state of public education in the USA and other countries, etc. Waiting for Superman does not belong in the same thread as that discussion. You could discuss the movie (I don't call it a documentary because it's such a farce to do that), you could discuss public education, but don't do both. Waiting for Superman was a cinematic experience made with the intention of making certain groups look bad while making others look good, using extreme cherry picking, misrepresentation, etc.. Of course most if not all documentaries do this to some extent, but when I finally watched this movie (because someone asked me to for my opinion) I noticed it was particularly bad about this. There's a large number of people (at least in the USA) who serve to make a lot of money if they can twist public opinion to have a skewed vision of public education... and this is one of the results of that. So what are you trying to discuss OP? Education, or the movie? On July 18 2011 01:52 moltenlead wrote:
Is there a link to this online? I really can't be bothered to find a DVD of it.
However, if I go off the first 5 posts in the thread, what I would say is that I do think the public school system is getting fucked over by unions. The unions are bleeding the system dry while having no concerns for the education children receive.
I think that usually the best education is found in the good, reputed private institutions. I only have direct access to a couple of unions (so I can't say what they do in every state in the USA) but I definitely haven't seen this. The video identifies the protection of bad teachers by tenure and the inability to reward good ones for unwillingness to differentiate between teachers at all as the main problem.
Tenure, by it's very nature, creates problems. Better teachers often get no more rewarded than weaker teachers. These are both things that would be nice to fix, but aren't as easy to fix as many people would lead you to believe. The important thing is not to throw out the baby with the bath water. Most people arguing to get rid of teacher tenure don't understand what the advantages of it are and what the need for it is. They also have misconceptions about how difficult it is to fire a tenured teacher (you address this below). Rewarding better teachers sounds great but is very very difficult to do fairly. Teaching isn't like manual labour where you can easily measure productivity (often). Of course, this doesn't give teachers, schools, or students a free pass at accountability either. This is a very important topic of discussion in all US states right now.
It points out that teachers can be fired, but that it is a lengthy, tedious and highly bureaucratic process, unnecessarily reducing accountability for teachers.
I want to clarify that this is only for tenured teachers. Probationary teachers (teachers spend anywhere from 3 to 10+ teachers without tenure depending on if they make it at their first district(s) or not. Probationary teachers can (and often are) fired for any reason, at the drop of a hat. Usually districts are professional and let a teacher finish off the school year unless they are a real hindrance though, as far as I know. Tenured teachers are more difficult to fire. As a result, districts are motivated to deny tenure to teachers who aren't going to cut it. Most teachers who were very good before getting tenure don't get worse after getting tenure. Most of those god-awful teachers you hear stories about from time to time either are the result of a lazy administrator granting tenure because they didn't want to have to fire and re-hire a new person, or because that teaching job is not highly-sought and it is difficult to get even a minimally-qualified person (on paper) to apply for and accept the position.
Let me find the part in the movie where they actually show how hard it is to fire a tenured teacher... ok I found it... let me outline it
The official process in this particular location for firing a tenured teacher:
1) It has 23 steps. (so what lol)
2) There is an initial conference at the beginning of the year. (there is one of these anyway?)
3) Weekly assistance must be provided (this is supposed to happen anyway, the nature of the assistance is probably actually pretty minimal in terms of effort from the administration)
4) An observation has to occur (yes, you have to observe the teacher doing his job to judge him) it has to be a certain number of minutes (no doubt based on how long a period/block is in that school), there's a post-conference which needs to happen after the observation (this almost always happens after observations, regardless of if the teacher is being fired or not)
5) The principal must do 3 more observations (this is, according to the steps explained by the video, the most time-consuming one for the district. The principal has to actually observe the teacher several times in a given year, which normally doesn't happen. This is still not that big of a deal and kind of a motivation for principals to not give tenure to people who aren't going to cut it. Just for reference I had 8 observation this past school year and I'm not being fired lol)
Yeah, there is indeed a need for due process when firing tenured teachers according to law, and it could be streamlined I believe (not that it should just be removed in all forms), but the movie did a terrible job of backing up this claim.
It goes on to illustrate that charter schools are not bound by the same rules protecting such teachers as public schools are, and showcases, convincingly, the tragedy of parents and their children applying for these charter schools' limited spaces, having to resort to lottery to decide which child will gain admission into that school. Yeah charter schools are not bound by the same rules, and that also goes for rules regarding school accountability... but I'm not here to do the reverse-documentary on charter schools... just trying to keep everyone's interpretation reasonably backed by fact. If charter schools are inherently or practically better than public schools, then I totally get the emotion invoked by seeing kids futures (bright vs dim) determined by a random lottery... but that is not universally how it works. Charter schools in some cases are giving kids a chance in low-expectation areas which is a very good thing. They don't actually solve any of the systemic problems that cause these areas to have overall poor educational results though.
The movie made a point of glamorizing KIPP, a charter school organization. They specifically say that of their students who graduate from them, most go on to college and other successful futures. They neglect to mention their tremendous dropout rates (especially among black males which is ironic considering they [KIPP] publicize how successful they are with black males and how almost all of their black male students go on to college). When a student drops out of a charter school, he or she ends up back in the local public school. Of course in many school-evaluations this results in the charter school seeming successful and the public school seeming unsuccessful overall..... but yea there are a few places where charter schools have done good and I won't deny that. But we (USA) are getting solid feedback that charter schools as a whole are not a more (or even equally) successful way of education an entire pool of people than public schools... they usually only do a good job when they can take the kids who are motivated enough to apply and let the kids who aren't (obviously talking about parents here more than kids) remain in the 'competing' public school.
Of course the documentary is biased in that it fails to scrutinize charter schools, as that is not part of the problem it aims to shed light on.
You can claim all they are doing is trying to make sure people are aware of what's wrong with public education, but they are definitely pushing charter schools as the solution to the 'problem.' The "tragedy of parents and their children applying for these charter schools' limited spaces" you mentioned before is clearly painting charter schools as the good guys so we should be trying to fairly compare both public schools and charter schools as they both have pros and cons.
I believe there are many things public schools can learn from charter schools.
It's one of the most heartbreaking things affecting the state of the world that I have seen in a while.
More heartbreaking than starving children or ill ones in the 3rd world, because illness and hunger can easily be solved, while education is a more fundamental issue leading to the solution of these problems. I agree with you.
This documentary shows people, adults, even teachers protecting bad teachers by blindly hailing them as heroes and playing games (lottery) with their children's future for their own self interest, i.e. having a secure job without facing necessary accoutability and without having to do much for it once you acquire tenure.
What? Who is blindly hailing bad teachers as heroes? I only saw teacher's unions hailing teachers as a whole as heroes at their own rallies and the like, and I don't see anything wrong with that. The same should be done with cops and firemen even though there are scandals every so often. Definitely I agree that tenure should not be a free pass... you should still need to do your job and I've already discussed some of my thoughts on this.
It shows unions rallying people against reform under the guise of protecting teachers and education, while in effect protecting them from scrutiny and leading to the failure of differentiating between good and bad teachers, because anything getting in the way of teachers can easily be misconstrued as an attack on the future of our children. I can't speak for every union involved with education of course, but I generally don't see unions (in the movie or elsewhere) rallying against all reform under the guise of protecting teachers/education just to protect themselves. What I see is them rallying against reform that they believe will be counterproductive in helping them do their job: educate children. Of course there is going to be bias in there as there is with any big group of people, but my personal experience is that most reform is fought against by those representing teachers because the reform is proposed by groups of people who are not directly involved in the educational process and don't allow educators to have a hand in helping to create the reform.
In New York the teacher's unions backed a state proposal recently for a structured evaluation system for teachers that would use multiple measures. Teachers weren't saying "we don't need a new evaluation system, it will hurt the children think of the children", they were saying "ok let us help you come up with it so that it will really work." There was a consensus between teachers, other educators, unions, and also pretty much every relevant educational researcher (who are not in bed with the teacher's unions) and supposedly the 'administrators', but in the 11th hour the administrators changed the proposal to do exactly what everyone else was saying wouldn't work, and passed it. This is the type of reform that most teachers are afraid of... the type that is not backed by any research, and where there is no evidence that it will be successful in the context that it is being applied. It's very easy to propose stuff that is actually bad for education, then when there is resistance blame the other party of just being selfish.
But as I've said, not every specific union is always as wholesome as this, and I can't say they've never done anything in their own interest for sure. But I just hate how there is such an ignorant hate towards teachers when most teachers really are in it because they care about the kids because it's such a miserable job if you don't. I also wish that bottom 1% of teachers would stop ruining things for the rest of us!
It illustrates a fundamental problem with the mindset of a majority of people, which is much worse than purely physical problems like hunger or illness.
In this regard this documentary certainly was successful in that it was effective with me. If the documentary had used properly represented facts, I'd be okay with it making points.
Do you contest the main point raised by the video, micronesia?
Which? That public education is having difficulty making every kid have the best experience possible? Definitely. A lot of what is happening is disgusting.
That charter schools are the solution to our country's problems? No.
That most people who watched that movie actually understand what the weaknesses with US public education are right now? No.
That sweeping changes to the things that the movie pointed out were bad about public education will fix public schools? No. An informed approach to fixing the problem is exactly what we need, though.
I'd like to hear what this is based upon, because it seemed pretty undisagreeable to me.
But you're a teacher afaik, which gives you possible bias but also a different perspective as well.
Of course I have an interest in this whole issue, and most of any bias I appear to have will probably stem from the fact that I spend so much more time (through no fault of my own) hearing the arguments for why public education needs to be maintained (albiet with fixes over time) than why public education needs to be slashed or rapidly transformed.
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I would love to see schools switch to a Voucher program. This would mean that in order for my child to go to a school, I would have to approve of that school and agree to have the government pay them for my student. This would mean that schools have to actually work to get students and not just automatically dictate who their students are based on their address.
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+ Show Spoiler [micronesia WoT] +On July 18 2011 03:59 micronesia wrote:Show nested quote +On July 18 2011 02:58 enzym wrote:On July 18 2011 02:02 micronesia wrote:There are a lot of issues that can be discussed regarding public vs private education, the state of public education in the USA and other countries, etc. Waiting for Superman does not belong in the same thread as that discussion. You could discuss the movie (I don't call it a documentary because it's such a farce to do that), you could discuss public education, but don't do both. Waiting for Superman was a cinematic experience made with the intention of making certain groups look bad while making others look good, using extreme cherry picking, misrepresentation, etc.. Of course most if not all documentaries do this to some extent, but when I finally watched this movie (because someone asked me to for my opinion) I noticed it was particularly bad about this. There's a large number of people (at least in the USA) who serve to make a lot of money if they can twist public opinion to have a skewed vision of public education... and this is one of the results of that. So what are you trying to discuss OP? Education, or the movie? On July 18 2011 01:52 moltenlead wrote:
Is there a link to this online? I really can't be bothered to find a DVD of it.
However, if I go off the first 5 posts in the thread, what I would say is that I do think the public school system is getting fucked over by unions. The unions are bleeding the system dry while having no concerns for the education children receive.
I think that usually the best education is found in the good, reputed private institutions. I only have direct access to a couple of unions (so I can't say what they do in every state in the USA) but I definitely haven't seen this. The video identifies the protection of bad teachers by tenure and the inability to reward good ones for unwillingness to differentiate between teachers at all as the main problem. Tenure, by it's very nature, creates problems. Better teachers often get no more rewarded than weaker teachers. These are both things that would be nice to fix, but aren't as easy to fix as many people would lead you to believe. The important thing is not to throw out the baby with the bath water. Most people arguing to get rid of teacher tenure don't understand what the advantages of it are and what the need for it is. They also have misconceptions about how difficult it is to fire a tenured teacher (you address this below). Rewarding better teachers sounds great but is very very difficult to do fairly. Teaching isn't like manual labour where you can easily measure productivity (often). Of course, this doesn't give teachers, schools, or students a free pass at accountability either. This is a very important topic of discussion in all US states right now. Show nested quote +It points out that teachers can be fired, but that it is a lengthy, tedious and highly bureaucratic process, unnecessarily reducing accountability for teachers. I want to clarify that this is only for tenured teachers. Probationary teachers (teachers spend anywhere from 3 to 10+ teachers without tenure depending on if they make it at their first district(s) or not. Probationary teachers can (and often are) fired for any reason, at the drop of a hat. Usually districts are professional and let a teacher finish off the school year unless they are a real hindrance though, as far as I know. Tenured teachers are more difficult to fire. As a result, districts are motivated to deny tenure to teachers who aren't going to cut it. Most teachers who were very good before getting tenure don't get worse after getting tenure. Most of those god-awful teachers you hear stories about from time to time either are the result of a lazy administrator granting tenure because they didn't want to have to fire and re-hire a new person, or because that teaching job is not highly-sought and it is difficult to get even a minimally-qualified person (on paper) to apply for and accept the position. Let me find the part in the movie where they actually show how hard it is to fire a tenured teacher... ok I found it... let me outline it The official process in this particular location for firing a tenured teacher: 1) It has 23 steps. (so what lol) 2) There is an initial conference at the beginning of the year. (there is one of these anyway?) 3) Weekly assistance must be provided (this is supposed to happen anyway, the nature of the assistance is probably actually pretty minimal in terms of effort from the administration) 4) An observation has to occur (yes, you have to observe the teacher doing his job to judge him) it has to be a certain number of minutes (no doubt based on how long a period/block is in that school), there's a post-conference which needs to happen after the observation (this almost always happens after observations, regardless of if the teacher is being fired or not) 5) The principal must do 3 more observations (this is, according to the steps explained by the video, the most time-consuming one for the district. The principal has to actually observe the teacher several times in a given year, which normally doesn't happen. This is still not that big of a deal and kind of a motivation for principals to not give tenure to people who aren't going to cut it. Just for reference I had 8 observation this past school year and I'm not being fired lol) Yeah, there is indeed a need for due process when firing tenured teachers according to law, and it could be streamlined I believe (not that it should just be removed in all forms), but the movie did a terrible job of backing up this claim. Show nested quote +It goes on to illustrate that charter schools are not bound by the same rules protecting such teachers as public schools are, and showcases, convincingly, the tragedy of parents and their children applying for these charter schools' limited spaces, having to resort to lottery to decide which child will gain admission into that school. Yeah charter schools are not bound by the same rules, and that also goes for rules regarding school accountability... but I'm not here to do the reverse-documentary on charter schools... just trying to keep everyone's interpretation reasonably backed by fact. If charter schools are inherently or practically better than public schools, then I totally get the emotion invoked by seeing kids futures (bright vs dim) determined by a random lottery... but that is not universally how it works. Charter schools in some cases are giving kids a chance in low-expectation areas which is a very good thing. They don't actually solve any of the systemic problems that cause these areas to have overall poor educational results though. The movie made a point of glamorizing KIPP, a charter school organization. They specifically say that of their students who graduate from them, most go on to college and other successful futures. They neglect to mention their tremendous dropout rates (especially among black males which is ironic considering they [KIPP] publicize how successful they are with black males and how almost all of their black male students go on to college). When a student drops out of a charter school, he or she ends up back in the local public school. Of course in many school-evaluations this results in the charter school seeming successful and the public school seeming unsuccessful overall..... but yea there are a few places where charter schools have done good and I won't deny that. But we (USA) are getting solid feedback that charter schools as a whole are not a more (or even equally) successful way of education an entire pool of people than public schools... they usually only do a good job when they can take the kids who are motivated enough to apply and let the kids who aren't (obviously talking about parents here more than kids) remain in the 'competing' public school. Show nested quote +Of course the documentary is biased in that it fails to scrutinize charter schools, as that is not part of the problem it aims to shed light on. You can claim all they are doing is trying to make sure people are aware of what's wrong with public education, but they are definitely pushing charter schools as the solution to the 'problem.' The "tragedy of parents and their children applying for these charter schools' limited spaces" you mentioned before is clearly painting charter schools as the good guys so we should be trying to fairly compare both public schools and charter schools as they both have pros and cons. I believe there are many things public schools can learn from charter schools. Show nested quote +It's one of the most heartbreaking things affecting the state of the world that I have seen in a while.
More heartbreaking than starving children or ill ones in the 3rd world, because illness and hunger can easily be solved, while education is a more fundamental issue leading to the solution of these problems. I agree with you. Show nested quote +This documentary shows people, adults, even teachers protecting bad teachers by blindly hailing them as heroes and playing games (lottery) with their children's future for their own self interest, i.e. having a secure job without facing necessary accoutability and without having to do much for it once you acquire tenure. What? Who is blindly hailing bad teachers as heroes? I only saw teacher's unions hailing teachers as a whole as heroes at their own rallies and the like, and I don't see anything wrong with that. The same should be done with cops and firemen even though there are scandals every so often. Definitely I agree that tenure should not be a free pass... you should still need to do your job and I've already discussed some of my thoughts on this. Show nested quote +It shows unions rallying people against reform under the guise of protecting teachers and education, while in effect protecting them from scrutiny and leading to the failure of differentiating between good and bad teachers, because anything getting in the way of teachers can easily be misconstrued as an attack on the future of our children. I can't speak for every union involved with education of course, but I generally don't see unions (in the movie or elsewhere) rallying against all reform under the guise of protecting teachers/education just to protect themselves. What I see is them rallying against reform that they believe will be counterproductive in helping them do their job: educate children. Of course there is going to be bias in there as there is with any big group of people, but my personal experience is that most reform is fought against by those representing teachers because the reform is proposed by groups of people who are not directly involved in the educational process and don't allow educators to have a hand in helping to create the reform. In New York the teacher's unions backed a state proposal recently for a structured evaluation system for teachers that would use multiple measures. Teachers weren't saying "we don't need a new evaluation system, it will hurt the children think of the children", they were saying "ok let us help you come up with it so that it will really work." There was a consensus between teachers, other educators, unions, and also pretty much every relevant educational researcher (who are not in bed with the teacher's unions) and supposedly the 'administrators', but in the 11th hour the administrators changed the proposal to do exactly what everyone else was saying wouldn't work, and passed it. This is the type of reform that most teachers are afraid of... the type that is not backed by any research, and where there is no evidence that it will be successful in the context that it is being applied. It's very easy to propose stuff that is actually bad for education, then when there is resistance blame the other party of just being selfish. But as I've said, not every specific union is always as wholesome as this, and I can't say they've never done anything in their own interest for sure. But I just hate how there is such an ignorant hate towards teachers when most teachers really are in it because they care about the kids because it's such a miserable job if you don't. I also wish that bottom 1% of teachers would stop ruining things for the rest of us! Show nested quote +It illustrates a fundamental problem with the mindset of a majority of people, which is much worse than purely physical problems like hunger or illness.
In this regard this documentary certainly was successful in that it was effective with me. If the documentary had used properly represented facts, I'd be okay with it making points. Which? That public education is having difficulty making every kid have the best experience possible? Definitely. A lot of what is happening is disgusting. That charter schools are the solution to our country's problems? No. That most people who watched that movie actually understand what the weaknesses with US public education are right now? No. That sweeping changes to the things that the movie pointed out were bad about public education will fix public schools? No. An informed approach to fixing the problem is exactly what we need, though. Show nested quote +I'd like to hear what this is based upon, because it seemed pretty undisagreeable to me.
But you're a teacher afaik, which gives you possible bias but also a different perspective as well. Of course I have an interest in this whole issue, and most of any bias I appear to have will probably stem from the fact that I spend so much more time (through no fault of my own) hearing the arguments for why public education needs to be maintained (albiet with fixes over time) than why public education needs to be slashed or rapidly transformed.
Thanks for making such a lengthy & informational contribution to the thread.
Most of it is just information I don't want to disagree with right now, but there are some things I'd like to discuss further.
Regarding charter schools not being bound by the same system and you pointing out that they're thus also not bound to the same level of accountability.
I guess that's exactly the point of one of the example schools used in the video, that the normal level of accountability is so bad that it is no loss but a win to be more independent from it.
It obviously means that at least in the long term a better system needs to be put in place, otherwise similar problems are going to appear here just as they did in the public school system.
Charter schools are not inherently better than public schools and this isn't what the film claims. It even starts with the narrator expressing disappointment in feeling compelled to go against his own ideology, sending his kids to a private school.
But the point is that they have room to be better than public schools because bad teachers are not as strongly protected.
The video claims that some of these schools were established precisely in low performance quarters in order to make a difference and an example, and draws the conclusion that poor social/economic environment can be overcome, contrary to somewhat popular belief.
You on the other hand say the opposite, namely that charter schools "don't actually solve any of the systemic problems that cause these areas to have overall poor educational results though."
So something is amiss, although I'm not sure at all what it is.
I can't comment on the dropout rates of charter schools as I don't have enough information on that.
If what you say is true it would indeed imply that even charter schools can't solve (overcome) problems of poor areas.
You can claim all they are doing is trying to make sure people are aware of what's wrong with public education, but they are definitely pushing charter schools as the solution to the 'problem.' The "tragedy of parents and their children applying for these charter schools' limited spaces" you mentioned before is clearly painting charter schools as the good guys so we should be trying to fairly compare both public schools and charter schools as they both have pros and cons.
Of course they should be compared fairly. But while there is a chance that this video is propaganda in favour of charter schools, this is not necessarily its intention at least as far as I'm concerned.
The reason being that the point could as well be to highlight the strong resistance to reform seen in the public school sector, and thus promoting a more liberal system, which just happen to be charter schools in the United States (possibly naive of me, but w/e).
What? Who is blindly hailing bad teachers as heroes? I only saw teacher's unions hailing teachers as a whole as heroes at their own rallies and the like
Exactly. All teachers were celebrated as such, despite the apparent lack of accountability, system inherent inability/unwillingness (unions) to disincentivize bad teaching and resistance to reform, citing the unions not allowing to vote on a reform that would do exactly that: incentivize performance by providing slight pay increases to all teachers and higher increases to teachers willing to accept accountability by giving up tenure. One of the reasons stated for opposing such reform was to prevent teachers from being rallied against one another, which is utterly ridiculous in my opinion.
I can't speak for every union involved with education of course, but I generally don't see unions (in the movie or elsewhere) rallying against all reform under the guise of protecting teachers/education just to protect themselves. What I see is them rallying against reform that they believe will be counterproductive in helping them do their job: educate children.
Refer to the example above.
The video, and I, subsequently, tried to make the point that bad teachers shouldn't be helped to educate children, because that is not what they do. Yet they were included in the praise and defense by the union.
That public school teachers lack accountability and that reform towards it seems to face an immovable object protecting the jobs of any teachers (hyperbole), in form of unions.
I'm actually a fairly left wing guy, having been derogatorily called a liberal many times, but I've also been called a conservative, lol.
It would've never crossed my mind at all that unions could ever be a bad thing until I saw German coal workers protesting for the maintenance of their jobs over the preservation of the environment… and before watching this video.
That's why I'm all the more disappointed tbh.
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United States24680 Posts
On July 18 2011 05:30 enzym wrote:
Regarding charter schools not being bound by the same system and you pointing out that they're thus also not bound to the same level of accountability.
I guess that's exactly the point of one of the example schools used in the video, that the normal level of accountability is so bad that it is no loss but a win to be more independent from it.
It obviously means that at least in the long term a better system needs to be put in place, otherwise similar problems are going to appear here just as they did in the public school system.
I still don't agree with this. I want to see evidence that the teachers who perform well during the first part of their career (which has extreme accountability) perform much worse after they receive tenure (it happens very rarely). Again, I'm not saying there shouldn't be accountability for teachers after they receive tenure... I'm saying an extreme an uneducated shift in how accountability is managed and increased (keep in mind accountability isn't a just a number you can read off a scale of 100, there are many different dimensions to it) for tenured teachers is going to be far more harmful than any system we have in place right now.
Just to give you another personal example to try to show why this is (one of the few things I can bring to a discussion about this that most people on this website really can't), most of my students get a reasonably good grade in my class. Not all of them do well on the state final (many do which I'm proud of of course) but pretty much all of them pass the class. Why? Mostly it's because of things like successfully motivating students, delivering good lessons, designing good curricula, them being interested, them and their parents having high expectations, etc. However, an element of it is that I don't want my students to get low grades because then their parents will complain (even if it's not my fault at all) and, as an untenured teacher, if I get enough complaints directed at me, even if they are all unfounded, I very well might get fired (it's not a remote chance, it's a strong one). You might think "yea but most people are reasonable and you are just illustrating an extreme example" but I'm really not. Most untenured teachers are easier graders than most tenured teachers (usually this is a bad thing from an educational perspective, even though some tenured teachers are also too strict of graders and I don't agree with their pedagogy either) because they will very likely get fired if their students don't do well in a class. Again, there are always things you can do to try to help all your students to perform at a high level, but when that isn't enough (it rarely is, for getting every student to do well) an untenured teacher will grade more easily whereas a tenured teacher will grade appropriate for the performance of the student. You have a board of education member's daughter in your class (I had two at the same time once lol)? Oh god those children better do well, even if all they do in class is call your mother a whore and throw desks out the window (mine didn't quite do that at least, but many of them do have horrible attitudes because of the preferential treatment they get in school). Basically, the day you get tenure is the day you can grade fairly and appropriately. I am really looking forward to being able to plan lessons, assessments, activities, etc, and not have to second guess myself at every turn about how I shouldn't do something, not because it won't be a good learning experience for my students, but because as an untenured teacher I might get fired for political reasons. Being able to grade fairly and appropriately, without tons of outside interests strongly influencing grades (or other things, but I'm just using grades as the obvious example) is an important tool in creating a sound educational system (at least in a transitional stage... I'm not talking about the ultimate scholarly environment). If you were to propose just eliminating tenure and keeping everything else the same, those bottom 1% or 5% would in many or most cases be dealt with (not all actually), but you would be greatly reducing the capability of the other 99% or 95% to do what is actually written in their job description. When I started teaching and found out how political it all is (way more than I originally expected) I almost left the field. If it weren't for the current mechanics for tenure I would have been gone... and that would have been a big loss for my future students in my opinion (Just to be clear I don't consider myself an expert/veteran teacher; so I'm not trying to make myself out to be some kind of teacher of the year).
I'd be glad to discuss ways to improve how accountability should work for tenured teachers, if you wanted. Let me also point out that districts can usually make your life hell if you go too far off the deep end with not doing your job, and that actually deters a lot of teachers from making poor decisions.
Charter schools are not inherently better than public schools and this isn't what the film claims. It even starts with the narrator expressing disappointment in feeling compelled to go against his own ideology, sending his kids to a private school.
But the point is that they have room to be better than public schools because bad teachers are not as strongly protected. I don't see evidence that the way in which charter schools protect 'bad' teachers less makes for a better school system when everything is taken into account. Changing how 'bad' teachers are dealt with also results in many other changes in the system (think about what I wrote about my personal experience, above).
The video claims that some of these schools were established precisely in low performance quarters in order to make a difference and an example, and draws the conclusion that poor social/economic environment can be overcome, contrary to somewhat popular belief.
You on the other hand say the opposite, namely that charter schools "don't actually solve any of the systemic problems that cause these areas to have overall poor educational results though."
So something is amiss, although I'm not sure at all what it is.
They didn't overcome the social/economic environment. They overcame the hurdle that "we have to educate everyone" by educating some (in some cases they did a really good job of this though, although a lot of similar things could be implemented in public schools also). If public schools could only educate some of the kids in a city then they could seem to perform better also... not to mention the dropout thing I mentioned earlier.
I recommend you read the blueberry ice cream story if you haven't.
I can't comment on the dropout rates of charter schools as I don't have enough information on that.
If what you say is true it would indeed imply that even charter schools can't solve (overcome) problems of poor areas.
If you are not coming at this from an angle of "look how charters schools can do good that public schools can't or won't" then we can start to discuss what the actual causes of these "problems" are and how we can try to fix them. Be warned there is a ton of propaganda about charter schools because of all the special interest groups who want education privatized regardless of the capabilities of public schools because they stand to make a lot of money. Remember that next time someone is commenting how the teacher's unions blow everyone else away with campaign contributions and political activism. It seems like educators, usually painted as the bad guys now adays, are the only significant group that stands in the way of corporate interests taking over education. For every rich guy who wants to use his money to help education in America rather than make more money for himself, there are at least ten who think the opposite way.
Show nested quote +You can claim all they are doing is trying to make sure people are aware of what's wrong with public education, but they are definitely pushing charter schools as the solution to the 'problem.' The "tragedy of parents and their children applying for these charter schools' limited spaces" you mentioned before is clearly painting charter schools as the good guys so we should be trying to fairly compare both public schools and charter schools as they both have pros and cons. Of course they should be compared fairly. But while there is a chance that this video is propaganda in favour of charter schools, this is not necessarily its intention at least as far as I'm concerned. The reason being that the point could as well be to highlight the strong resistance to reform seen in the public school sector, and thus promoting a more liberal system, which just happen to be charter schools in the United States (possibly naive of me, but w/e).
If the point was not to paint charter schools as the hero then they did a very terrible job of not convincing the general public... I just don't buy it.
From the wikipedia article on the movie
Roger Ebert gave the movie 3.5 stars out of 4 and wrote, "What struck me most of all was Geoffrey Canada's confidence that a charter school run on his model can make virtually any first-grader a high school graduate who's accepted to college. A good education, therefore, is not ruled out by poverty, uneducated parents or crime- and drug-infested neighborhoods. In fact, those are the very areas where he has success."[9]
Even Roger Ebert was completely fooled into thinking the movie proved that charter schools demosntrated to be good for every child in a poor neighborhood. In addition to the dropout rates I mentioned earlier, let me point out a fair piece of criticism about this:
From the wikipedia article on the movie
"Particularly dishonest is the fact that Guggenheim never mentions the tens of millions of dollars of private money that has poured into the Harlem Children's Zone, the model and superman we are relentlessly instructed to aspire to."
— Rick Ayers, Adjunct Professor in Education at the University of San Francisco
As you agreed, fair comparisons are necessary. When you are secretly pouring tons of <uncharacteristic> extra money into the alternative school, and it supposedly outperforms the local public school, it is unexpectedly easy to convince everyone that you have a winning model for success.
Whenever my girlfriend is over I play starcraft 2 2v2 paired up with a member of TLAF-Liquid`. Of course we always crush the opposition and I have her totally convinced I'm a top foreigner. I'm being incredibly honest with her, aren't I? :p
Show nested quote +What? Who is blindly hailing bad teachers as heroes? I only saw teacher's unions hailing teachers as a whole as heroes at their own rallies and the like Exactly. All teachers were celebrated as such, despite the apparent lack of accountability, system inherent inability/unwillingness (unions) to disincentivize bad teaching and resistance to reform, citing the unions not allowing to vote on a reform that would do exactly that: incentivize performance by providing slight pay increases to all teachers and higher increases to teachers willing to accept accountability by giving up tenure. One of the reasons stated for opposing such reform was to prevent teachers from being rallied against one another, which is utterly ridiculous in my opinion.
We can discuss those specific points you made justifying your claim that teachers shouldn't be celebrated as heroes, or at least not right now, but I just don't see why you are using a teacher's rally as evidence of this. There's nothing wrong with a union leader telling teachers motivational things. Let's discuss the actual details of what you said though:
You are saying "lack of accountability" still even though I've addressed this a few times. I'd rather you didn't have lots of things I explain that you say you "don't want to disagree with right now" and then bring them up to justify your other claims.
Regarding 'disincentivizing' bad teachers, the unions are not against this. They are against some of the proposed methods of doing it. For example, eliminating tenure would not be a fair solution to this problem since it would have so many other effects, which I've discussed already somewhat.
When you say 'resistance to reform' you should specify exactly which reform they were resistant to and I'll explain exactly why they were resistant to it (they actually have a justification most of the time, albiet not always necessarily). Just generalizing teachers to hate reform is a great way to demonize them but doesn't solve any problems. Most of the reform that teachers try to resist are specifically found to be ineffective by virtually all educational researchers. It really is that extreme.
Show nested quote +I can't speak for every union involved with education of course, but I generally don't see unions (in the movie or elsewhere) rallying against all reform under the guise of protecting teachers/education just to protect themselves. What I see is them rallying against reform that they believe will be counterproductive in helping them do their job: educate children. Refer to the example above. The video, and I, subsequently, tried to make the point that bad teachers shouldn't be helped to educate children, because that is not what they do. Yet they were included in the praise and defense by the union.
That public school teachers lack accountability and that reform towards it seems to face an immovable object protecting the jobs of any teachers (hyperbole), in form of unions. I'm actually a fairly left wing guy, having been derogatorily called a liberal many times, but I've also been called a conservative, lol. It would've never crossed my mind at all that unions could ever be a bad thing until I saw German coal workers protesting for the maintenance of their jobs over the preservation of the environment… and before watching this video. That's why I'm all the more disappointed tbh.
As I said there is not an immovable object for reform. There isn't even a roadblock for reform that is contrary to all current and recent educational research, as much as teachers would like there to be one. There definitely is a lot of resistance for this backwards reform though.
As my parting words, let me ask you a very difficult question that most people can't answer, even if they think they can: How do you fairly and accurately determine which teachers are good and which are bad?
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On July 18 2011 05:30 enzym wrote:+ Show Spoiler [micronesia WoT] +On July 18 2011 03:59 micronesia wrote:Show nested quote +On July 18 2011 02:58 enzym wrote:On July 18 2011 02:02 micronesia wrote:There are a lot of issues that can be discussed regarding public vs private education, the state of public education in the USA and other countries, etc. Waiting for Superman does not belong in the same thread as that discussion. You could discuss the movie (I don't call it a documentary because it's such a farce to do that), you could discuss public education, but don't do both. Waiting for Superman was a cinematic experience made with the intention of making certain groups look bad while making others look good, using extreme cherry picking, misrepresentation, etc.. Of course most if not all documentaries do this to some extent, but when I finally watched this movie (because someone asked me to for my opinion) I noticed it was particularly bad about this. There's a large number of people (at least in the USA) who serve to make a lot of money if they can twist public opinion to have a skewed vision of public education... and this is one of the results of that. So what are you trying to discuss OP? Education, or the movie? On July 18 2011 01:52 moltenlead wrote:
Is there a link to this online? I really can't be bothered to find a DVD of it.
However, if I go off the first 5 posts in the thread, what I would say is that I do think the public school system is getting fucked over by unions. The unions are bleeding the system dry while having no concerns for the education children receive.
I think that usually the best education is found in the good, reputed private institutions. I only have direct access to a couple of unions (so I can't say what they do in every state in the USA) but I definitely haven't seen this. The video identifies the protection of bad teachers by tenure and the inability to reward good ones for unwillingness to differentiate between teachers at all as the main problem. Tenure, by it's very nature, creates problems. Better teachers often get no more rewarded than weaker teachers. These are both things that would be nice to fix, but aren't as easy to fix as many people would lead you to believe. The important thing is not to throw out the baby with the bath water. Most people arguing to get rid of teacher tenure don't understand what the advantages of it are and what the need for it is. They also have misconceptions about how difficult it is to fire a tenured teacher (you address this below). Rewarding better teachers sounds great but is very very difficult to do fairly. Teaching isn't like manual labour where you can easily measure productivity (often). Of course, this doesn't give teachers, schools, or students a free pass at accountability either. This is a very important topic of discussion in all US states right now. Show nested quote +It points out that teachers can be fired, but that it is a lengthy, tedious and highly bureaucratic process, unnecessarily reducing accountability for teachers. I want to clarify that this is only for tenured teachers. Probationary teachers (teachers spend anywhere from 3 to 10+ teachers without tenure depending on if they make it at their first district(s) or not. Probationary teachers can (and often are) fired for any reason, at the drop of a hat. Usually districts are professional and let a teacher finish off the school year unless they are a real hindrance though, as far as I know. Tenured teachers are more difficult to fire. As a result, districts are motivated to deny tenure to teachers who aren't going to cut it. Most teachers who were very good before getting tenure don't get worse after getting tenure. Most of those god-awful teachers you hear stories about from time to time either are the result of a lazy administrator granting tenure because they didn't want to have to fire and re-hire a new person, or because that teaching job is not highly-sought and it is difficult to get even a minimally-qualified person (on paper) to apply for and accept the position. Let me find the part in the movie where they actually show how hard it is to fire a tenured teacher... ok I found it... let me outline it The official process in this particular location for firing a tenured teacher: 1) It has 23 steps. (so what lol) 2) There is an initial conference at the beginning of the year. (there is one of these anyway?) 3) Weekly assistance must be provided (this is supposed to happen anyway, the nature of the assistance is probably actually pretty minimal in terms of effort from the administration) 4) An observation has to occur (yes, you have to observe the teacher doing his job to judge him) it has to be a certain number of minutes (no doubt based on how long a period/block is in that school), there's a post-conference which needs to happen after the observation (this almost always happens after observations, regardless of if the teacher is being fired or not) 5) The principal must do 3 more observations (this is, according to the steps explained by the video, the most time-consuming one for the district. The principal has to actually observe the teacher several times in a given year, which normally doesn't happen. This is still not that big of a deal and kind of a motivation for principals to not give tenure to people who aren't going to cut it. Just for reference I had 8 observation this past school year and I'm not being fired lol) Yeah, there is indeed a need for due process when firing tenured teachers according to law, and it could be streamlined I believe (not that it should just be removed in all forms), but the movie did a terrible job of backing up this claim. Show nested quote +It goes on to illustrate that charter schools are not bound by the same rules protecting such teachers as public schools are, and showcases, convincingly, the tragedy of parents and their children applying for these charter schools' limited spaces, having to resort to lottery to decide which child will gain admission into that school. Yeah charter schools are not bound by the same rules, and that also goes for rules regarding school accountability... but I'm not here to do the reverse-documentary on charter schools... just trying to keep everyone's interpretation reasonably backed by fact. If charter schools are inherently or practically better than public schools, then I totally get the emotion invoked by seeing kids futures (bright vs dim) determined by a random lottery... but that is not universally how it works. Charter schools in some cases are giving kids a chance in low-expectation areas which is a very good thing. They don't actually solve any of the systemic problems that cause these areas to have overall poor educational results though. The movie made a point of glamorizing KIPP, a charter school organization. They specifically say that of their students who graduate from them, most go on to college and other successful futures. They neglect to mention their tremendous dropout rates (especially among black males which is ironic considering they [KIPP] publicize how successful they are with black males and how almost all of their black male students go on to college). When a student drops out of a charter school, he or she ends up back in the local public school. Of course in many school-evaluations this results in the charter school seeming successful and the public school seeming unsuccessful overall..... but yea there are a few places where charter schools have done good and I won't deny that. But we (USA) are getting solid feedback that charter schools as a whole are not a more (or even equally) successful way of education an entire pool of people than public schools... they usually only do a good job when they can take the kids who are motivated enough to apply and let the kids who aren't (obviously talking about parents here more than kids) remain in the 'competing' public school. Show nested quote +Of course the documentary is biased in that it fails to scrutinize charter schools, as that is not part of the problem it aims to shed light on. You can claim all they are doing is trying to make sure people are aware of what's wrong with public education, but they are definitely pushing charter schools as the solution to the 'problem.' The "tragedy of parents and their children applying for these charter schools' limited spaces" you mentioned before is clearly painting charter schools as the good guys so we should be trying to fairly compare both public schools and charter schools as they both have pros and cons. I believe there are many things public schools can learn from charter schools. Show nested quote +It's one of the most heartbreaking things affecting the state of the world that I have seen in a while.
More heartbreaking than starving children or ill ones in the 3rd world, because illness and hunger can easily be solved, while education is a more fundamental issue leading to the solution of these problems. I agree with you. Show nested quote +This documentary shows people, adults, even teachers protecting bad teachers by blindly hailing them as heroes and playing games (lottery) with their children's future for their own self interest, i.e. having a secure job without facing necessary accoutability and without having to do much for it once you acquire tenure. What? Who is blindly hailing bad teachers as heroes? I only saw teacher's unions hailing teachers as a whole as heroes at their own rallies and the like, and I don't see anything wrong with that. The same should be done with cops and firemen even though there are scandals every so often. Definitely I agree that tenure should not be a free pass... you should still need to do your job and I've already discussed some of my thoughts on this. Show nested quote +It shows unions rallying people against reform under the guise of protecting teachers and education, while in effect protecting them from scrutiny and leading to the failure of differentiating between good and bad teachers, because anything getting in the way of teachers can easily be misconstrued as an attack on the future of our children. I can't speak for every union involved with education of course, but I generally don't see unions (in the movie or elsewhere) rallying against all reform under the guise of protecting teachers/education just to protect themselves. What I see is them rallying against reform that they believe will be counterproductive in helping them do their job: educate children. Of course there is going to be bias in there as there is with any big group of people, but my personal experience is that most reform is fought against by those representing teachers because the reform is proposed by groups of people who are not directly involved in the educational process and don't allow educators to have a hand in helping to create the reform. In New York the teacher's unions backed a state proposal recently for a structured evaluation system for teachers that would use multiple measures. Teachers weren't saying "we don't need a new evaluation system, it will hurt the children think of the children", they were saying "ok let us help you come up with it so that it will really work." There was a consensus between teachers, other educators, unions, and also pretty much every relevant educational researcher (who are not in bed with the teacher's unions) and supposedly the 'administrators', but in the 11th hour the administrators changed the proposal to do exactly what everyone else was saying wouldn't work, and passed it. This is the type of reform that most teachers are afraid of... the type that is not backed by any research, and where there is no evidence that it will be successful in the context that it is being applied. It's very easy to propose stuff that is actually bad for education, then when there is resistance blame the other party of just being selfish. But as I've said, not every specific union is always as wholesome as this, and I can't say they've never done anything in their own interest for sure. But I just hate how there is such an ignorant hate towards teachers when most teachers really are in it because they care about the kids because it's such a miserable job if you don't. I also wish that bottom 1% of teachers would stop ruining things for the rest of us! Show nested quote +It illustrates a fundamental problem with the mindset of a majority of people, which is much worse than purely physical problems like hunger or illness.
In this regard this documentary certainly was successful in that it was effective with me. If the documentary had used properly represented facts, I'd be okay with it making points. Which? That public education is having difficulty making every kid have the best experience possible? Definitely. A lot of what is happening is disgusting. That charter schools are the solution to our country's problems? No. That most people who watched that movie actually understand what the weaknesses with US public education are right now? No. That sweeping changes to the things that the movie pointed out were bad about public education will fix public schools? No. An informed approach to fixing the problem is exactly what we need, though. Show nested quote +I'd like to hear what this is based upon, because it seemed pretty undisagreeable to me.
But you're a teacher afaik, which gives you possible bias but also a different perspective as well. Of course I have an interest in this whole issue, and most of any bias I appear to have will probably stem from the fact that I spend so much more time (through no fault of my own) hearing the arguments for why public education needs to be maintained (albiet with fixes over time) than why public education needs to be slashed or rapidly transformed. Thanks for making such a lengthy & informational contribution to the thread.
+1. Thanks for the quality post.
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The biggest problem with schools today transcends the public school systems. We live in an entitlement society that promotes under achieving. If you can't find work then the government will give you unemployment checks and food stamps. The more kids you have the more money you get. I have known many people who refuse to take low paying jobs because they can make more money living off the government. If they were starving and on the verge of homelessness with no government check coming they would gladly take 2-3 of those low paying jobs to make ends meet.
My wife is a teacher. In classes now, they are supposed to structure the students work load in such a way that it allows the weaker students to succeed more easily bringing down the level of education for the average and above average students. Why? Because "experts" decided that it is detrimental to a child's psyche to receive grades much lower than the other students in the class. Never mind how detrimental this philosophy is to rest of the students.
They want to do away with special education classes and advanced coursework to promote the idea that everyone is equal. The reality though is that everyone is not equal. There have always been certain people that rise above their peer group to achieve extraordinary heights.
The onus for a child's education and what heights they can achieve needs to rest squarely on the shoulders of that child and his/her parents. This idea that everyone is equally smart and equally gifted is a cancer that will only lead to mediocrity. Provide a forum where all children are given an equal opportunity to be successful but be willing to accept the fact that not all children are going to achieve the same degrees of success.
Lastly, the teacher's unions and people in general. No one owes you anything. You don't have a right to a job. You don't have a right to food stamps. You don't have a right to welfare. You don't have a right to healthcare. You do have a right to equal opportunity, that is all. The idea that you can achieve tenure is ludicrous.
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United States24680 Posts
On July 18 2011 07:41 Joedaddy wrote:
Lastly, the teacher's unions and people in general. No one owes you anything. You don't have a right to a job. You don't have a right to food stamps. You don't have a right to welfare. You don't have a right to healthcare. You do have a right to equal opportunity, that is all. The idea that you can achieve tenure is ludicrous.
I suggest you read what I wrote (if you can find it in that huge wall of text lol) about tenure.
Also you might want to double check that you truly understand what teacher tenure is (not saying you don't, and I don't know you, but most people seem to have the wrong idea about it).
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EPT![[image loading]](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/b/b5/Waiting_for_Superman.jpg)
