Debating Failing Schools

Michigan Capitol Confidential ^ | 3/30/2010 | Michael Van Beek

[ex-snook]

Obviously the teachers should insist that they only teach children whose parents graduated from college. Surprising how this would make them better teachers.

[Porterville]

As a teacher I can tell you the unions make my job harder because I have to carry the weight of fat old lazy bastards.

I get often get stuck with more difficult projects with my job depending on its success. This is for half the pay and twice the work time.

The fat union thugs, they do little. They have their own little private schools seperate from the rest of campus where they do whatever they want and students learn nothing.

[Eagle of Liberty]

The fault is the whole system:
- centralized planning of standards
- funnelling those standards down to ALL schools and teachers
- teachers unions which allow sub-performing teachers to remain on the payroll
- a public run institution which will never attract the best talent
- expectations based on a bar set at the average rather than a bar set for each student’s personal performance
- schools where the bottom tier students struggle and the top tier students get bored due to how the classes are taught.

[wintertime]

ping for later

[JenB]

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[DustyMoment]

Teacher’s unions are only part of the problem. The horrid Bush/Kennedy NCLB is a HUGE part of the problem today. With NCLB, local school districts lost control of their schools to the federal government, to the delight of the teacher’s unions,

[WhyisaTexasgirlinPA]

Another blogger using FR to get hits on his site...

[JenB]

Yes but I found this one vaguely interesting. Thanks for noting it for others on this thread though.

[stainlessbanner]

Thanks JenB - in related news, the FL politicians passed the teacher pay for performance bill (SB6/HB7189) early this morning....now Crist must decide to sign or veto

http://www.miamiherald.com/2010/04/09/1570452/clash-in-class-teachers-fret-over.html

[stainlessbanner]

I usu don’t give them hits....ocassionally there is something worthy, but more often I find they are parroting stuff from the MSM or other bloggers.

[JenB]

That’s an interesting one! Locally it’s not popular with teachers but I’m not thrilled with it either - there’s a little provision that lets them raise taxes, grr.

[stainlessbanner]

I'm not closely familiar with it, but I do believe there are factors that teachers cannot control that happen outside of the classroom. The factors (nutrition, family life, drug abuse, etc) have a direct impact on student performance, but teachers have little control over these.

Incentive pay is a good idea, but public school classrooms might not be the best place for it.....I don't know what the answer is.

Interesting though...the GOP shuttled the bill through to Crist here.

[WhyisaTexasgirlinPA]

I don’t click on their sites either - it just bugs me that they come here and post their opinion pieces using Jim’s bandwidth for their own gain

[stainlessbanner]

I just noticed we're all class of '01.
My general rule is I don't trust anyone with a born-on date after 2004 on FR. There are some fantastic posters that have joined in recent years, but there are a lot of blog pimps and one-hit wonders in the last 4-5 years.

[GenXteacher]

“I’m not closely familiar with it, but I do believe there are factors that teachers cannot control that happen outside of the classroom. The factors (nutrition, family life, drug abuse, etc) have a direct impact on student performance, but teachers have little control over these.

Incentive pay is a good idea, but public school classrooms might not be the best place for it”

That would be true- and one of the worst parts of being a conservative in education is that your fellow conservatives think it can be reduced to the level of paying production wages on a factory assembly line. We are not cranking out widgets at $1.50 per unit, at so many per hour. A lot of what teachers do is not completely quantifiable.

[JenB]

Heh, not the worst rule... but you can check their posting history pretty easily and figure out.

Still, even a blog pimp can make a good point now and then. One of these days blogs will be more reputable than mainstream media and I figure we’ll give them rope to hang themselves til then.

[WhyisaTexasgirlinPA]

I always look at join date too -

[WhyisaTexasgirlinPA]

I think you meant this comment to go to stainlessbanner.

[GenXteacher]

I think I did too- very sorry!