Posted on 02/14/2004 7:18:36 AM PST by George Frm Br00klyn Park
WBAL AM-RADIO Baltimore
Ron Smith's "Something to Say" Commentary
School Budgets, Teaching and Teachers
Friday, February 13, 2004
“I could see the fury in their eyes,” said Baltimore Teacher’s Union President Marietta English upon her arrival at the polling place where city school teachers voted “no” to accepting a pay cut to reduce the budget deficit faced by the reeling school system.
It’s clear that teachers feel they shouldn’t have to suffer for the financial ineptitude of their bosses. One can sympathize with their emotions; especially since many of them regularly dip into their own pockets to pay for classroom supplies the school system doesn’t deliver.
But the problem remains, a $58 million cumulative deficit, and something has to be done about it. There doesn’t seem to be a way to avoid hundreds more layoffs and other belt-tightening. It is a crisis, simple as that.
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While on the subject of teaching and teachers, it is good to remember that public school teachers are the real front line in our continuing war against ignorance, illiteracy, social inequality and cultural despair. How are these front line troops being trained? What are they themselves being taught in their college classes?
These are questions that journalist Rita Kramer sought to answer more than a decade ago when she embarked on an extensive tour of the Ed School World, visiting 15 campuses across the country, talking to students, faculty and administrators, attending classes and then visiting the elementary and high schools where the trainees had their first teaching experiences.
What resulted was a most instructive book, "Ed School Follies : The Miseducation of America's Teachers." It’s a must read still for anyone who would like to understand what’s happened to the teaching profession in this country. There are still many skilled and inspiring teachers, make no doubt about that. But the system is stacked against them.
Furthermore, the inane No Child Left Behind Act that the Bush Administration has pushed down the throats of the states is the bastard child of the modern educational theories so devastatingly detailed in Ms. Kramer’s book. It, as you probably know by now, mandates that in a decade, all American school children meet the same educational standards in key subjects at certain ages. That this is an impossible goal doesn’t matter. It makes sure that massive fraud will ensue on the part of educators who will have to lie and cheat in order to satisfy Uncle Sam.
Educational reform is much needed, but the proliferation of mush-minded teaching theories makes it all but impossible. As Ms. Kramer put it so well:
“No amount of restructuring or empowerment, no amount of money spent on salaries or programs, will make much difference until we place knowledge itself at the center of educational enterprise.” Currently, she adds, “Knowledge – real knowledge in the form of facts, not ‘thinking skills’ or feelings of self-worth – is about the least concern of the professional education industry.”
“Knowledge – real knowledge in the form of facts, not ‘thinking skills’ or feelings of self-worth – is about the least concern of the professional education industry.”All, The above is stone cold knowledgable FACT!! And MANDATED, by LAW, yearly increases in education funding is LARGELY to blame for budgetary problems in many if not all school systems. Peace and love, George.
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From your article:
There are still many skilled and inspiring teachers, make no doubt about that. But the system is stacked against them.
George, with all due respect, people who continue to put all blame on public school teachers are just as much a part of the problem.
I'm not saying there aren't bad teachers out there, and in some areas the unions certainly bear their share of the blame. BUT!
Teachers end up following policies sent down by the federal government, or by elected school boards, or by administrators hired by those elected school boards. And then there are there court cases filed by parents who don't think their baby should have failed for plagiarizing a paper or been suspended for not following the school rules.
You also have the court cases that say the schools are responsible for "educating" children who are profoundly handicapped and would have either been in residential facilities or never left home in the past. There are also those students with "behavior disorders" who have to be tolerated because a behavior disorder is a disability.
Going back to the school boards, many school board members have never been in a classroom, but they think they know everything about how one should be run. (I did too, for that matter, before I actually started teaching...I found out I was wrong about some things.)
Many of the administrators weren't real good in the classroom. Some were downright bad, but now they are the ones who tell the teachers working for them how to teach.
In many states, it's illegal for teachers to go on strike, and when they do so, most parents feel the teachers are being selfish. Some parents don't worry about their children learning anything, they just want that taxpayer-funded babysitting service functional so that the smaller children aren't home alone and the larger ones aren't "on the street".
Yes, there are bad teachers out there. Yes, the unions have some blame. No, the teachers aren't solely to blame, and they can't fix the system alone.
They do make a nice scapegoat, though.
Since we homeschool, I haven't paid much attention to school issues. But I am curious about this one.
When I was in school, you could count on first graders knowing the alphabet, second graders adding simple sums, third graders reading "real" books (no See Spot Run for us),and so on down the line. If you didn't learn, you didn't pass.
Now, if the No Child Left Behind standard is conjugating Amo by second grade, I can see why there would be problems. But its my understanding that this act states kids must learn to read, write, and understand mathematical concepts.
Why is this impossible to achieve?
It's very possible to achieve with a majority of kids. The mandate is to do this with "all" kids (ie, concentrate on getting the lowest-performing children of crackheads meeting standards). It's called egalitarianism, the desire for everybody (except the elites, of course) to be "equal". But of course, there are some percentage who are not interested, so the game turns into dumbing down the education of the smarter kids so as to minimise the disparity that way.
It shouldn't be.
In some school systems, it's not done now for various reasons. The two major ones I know of are that principals don't want failures and don't allow teachers to retain students, and some students with specific learning disabilities such as dyslexia aren't capable of mastering all the skills. There are also the teachers who've bought into the latest pop psychology and are afraid they will ruin the self-esteem of the students if they fail them.
Why don't principals want failures? There are several reasons for that. A very important reason in some districts is that if a higher proportion of minority students fail, the school system will be accused of being racist and there may be lawsuits.
Another reason is that if students fail instead of going on through the system, for a time at least there will be more students in that school, more teachers will be needed, and there may not be enough classrooms or funds to handle all the students.
No matter what the reason, the students who don't learn the skills they need to succeed are the ones who suffer in the long run.
Yeah, and you ought to see their parents.
There have actually been studies showing that when students dress better, they behave better and learn more - but in many areas, parents don't want their children wearing uniforms, or even following a strict dress code.
"No child left behind" is an attempt to raise the bar for all students. We'll see if it works or not.
You can count on the systems at the bottom (and the parents of the students at the bottom) to squawk the loudest, even though they are the ones who need help the most.
I part ways with you on the dangers of unions such as the NEA. I place a majority of the blame on them, for a ruined public school system. As well as on ignorant parents who are looking for nothing more than babysitting services.
I am one of those people who doesn't support uniforms. I know it is good for some students and in some districts, but over all, as a general rule I do not like them.
My school district is getting allot of pressure from a small group of parents who do want them.
I homeschool, so that was my solution to the problem. Uniforms, co operative education ,and a liberal school board ,was enough for me to explore my options.
I do think if the parents and tax payers want uniforms, they should have them. I obviously would have some issues about the tax money I spend on public education and my returns, but I support the idea of public education in theory.
I wish it were much better though.
No one is getting their money's worth, but the NEA and the Departent if ED, IMO.
I in no way support the NEA. Most of the teachers I know who belong to the NEA and its affiliates do so not because they agree with the NEA, but because membership is one of the few ways to obtain liability insurance, and they are afraid of being sued by a parent one day.
In my state, the only way I've found of obtaining professional liability insurance is through a teacher's organization - fortunately, we have an alternative to the NEA, although the NEA's insurance is regarded as being superior to the alternative. I refuse to donate my money to the NEA, but since I teach lab sciences I don't feel I can afford to be without insurance.
I am one of those people who doesn't support uniforms. I know it is good for some students and in some districts, but over all, as a general rule I do not like them.
As a parent I'd prefer to buy uniforms, and as a teacher I think the dress code might be easier to enforce with uniforms, but the parents in our district don't want them, and high school aged students are going to find ways to bend and skirt the rules if at all possible in any case. I do get tired of boys with waistbands around their thighs and girls with tummies hanging out and skirts split to their crotches however.
I wish it were much better though.
Me too. Right now my biggest beef is students who've been socially promoted to the high school level and are still reading at primary grade level. It's very frustrating for all of us when the students just don't have the skills to do high school level work.
I have read numerous times about insurance that teachers can pick up from other sources than the NEA. I don't have a link or name right now though.
Do you know why this idea, of getting insurance through other sources hasn't taken off yet?
What can we do to get the word to teachers who want out of the NEA, that there are alternatives to the NEA?
I believe that is an important step to cleaning the system up,protecting good teachers and breaking the strong hold of the NEA.
I really don't. I was told in one of my education classes that coverage was available through homeowners insurance, but I couldn't find it in my state. My next alternative was a professional organization which provided insurance and which was not a union and not affiliated with the NEA, and that's the option I chose.
Some teachers, especially those in "high risk" subject areas, do choose to belong to the NEA affiliate because the insurance is regarded as superior.
The problem is that it can only be accomplished by devoting a disproportionate amount of resources to the bottom 20% (who need a lot of individualized attention to make the minimum standards) at the cost of the above-average students (who can be expected to figure things out well enough to make the minimum standards without much assistance)
There are three main philosophies on resource allocation:
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