patrick.net

foxmannumber1 says

theoakman says

I have no formal training in education and have only been teaching for 3 years

What is the racial breakdown of your students?

If you teach any significant amount of blacks and whites, which group do you think possesses more natural intelligence?

85% white
10 % asian
5 % indian

I'm not going to sit here and comment on specific groups for the same reason that person said in the comment section of that article, but I'd be lying to myself if I tried to convince myself that they don't live up to their stereotypes.

Thank you for your honesty.

Union bosses collect their millions in dues every year while screwing the education system and our childrens IQ drops more and more with lower standards every year.

Patrick - you hit a home run with this topic - BRAVO!

Unfortunately, NO ONE has ever been able to effect any real changes when it comes to teacher union reform.

theoakman says

The reality is, most teachers I know slave to death for a lackluster salary. Anyone who disagrees, I would beg you to try the job for a year and see how long you last.

I agree with this and much of what you say.

I also do well with my AP classes. But when I have remedial or lower track Math classes I'm never satisfied with the job I do (I'm not saying that I'm simply not satisfied with the test results - I'm literally not satisfied with my performance with these groups).

This is why I dissagree with the following.

theoakman says

That crap ain't teaching. All these methodoligies and new ideas are a complete waste of time and developed and pushed by people who have no basis to even claim they work.

In my opinion, when teaching less motivated students, you have to find ways to engage and teach to styles of learning that are different than mine and yours. The best teachers do work real cooperative learning into their plans, and they put more on the students shoulders. In your physics classes that's far easier than it is with unmotivated students who haven't developed their reasoning skills yet.

Also by the way, the very worst of the very worst teachers and the very most lazy teachers I know would agree that "That crap ain't teaching. All these methodologies and new ideas are a complete waste of time and developed and pushed by people who have no basis to even claim they work. " Just saying.

MY point isn't anything like saying that you are in that category. I'm sure you are an excellent science teacher. I'm just saying that such generalizations are just flat out wrong.

This company has some good products if you are interested in exploring cooperative learning. http://www.kaganonline.com/index.php But possibly not for any of the classes you teach.

theoakman says

The union is designed to protect the incompetent and senior members of the establishment.

AGain a stupid generalization (although I would agree that it is a little to skewed this way). Beleive me, I know of one or two of those senior teachers you are talking about, and I butt heads with them on occasion. But the union actually protects you and I should we want to stay with teaching. Maybe you don't see yourself doing this as a career. But if you did, you would appreciate that you can't be easily replace by a cheaper less experienced teacher.

(Note: In many districts it takes a very long time to move up the pay scale too)

I know from previous conversations that you are a conservative who is anti union and especially resents the contributions to democrats. Sure there are a few teachers who are anti union, but I have yet to meet a democrat teacher who is strongly against everything the teacher's union does, or who even questions that they serve our interests at least for the most part.

At the same time we are all disappointed with the union at times. For example I would like to see the union be more supportive of pension reform, and this is one of the ways that I believe they are too skewed towards the interests of the most senior members.

As usual (?) I have a different perspective on some things that are wrong with the US schools system, and as usual (?) I think the problem is a STRUCTURAL one that everyone is just completely overlooking because they just have never heard of how the rest of the world educate their children:

The main problem is that kids only have ONE teacher in each grade.

What brainiac came up with this idea? In Europe you have different teachers for each subject in each grade, although in grades 1-2 there may often be just a few teachers per classroom. The number of different teachers will increase with grade level and as more subjects are introduced.

This avoids the problem that one (rare) bad teacher completely wrecks a school-year for a certain classroom, and exposes the children to a diverse style of teaching and learning. It also serves as a cross-check between teachers because a certain classroom doing well with some teachers and not so well with others will become visible.

Am I making sense?

PS: I'm not all that certain that unions are so much to fault. I think parents are more of a problem than the teachers, although I have met a teacher or two that was very scatter-brained.

justme says

PS: I'm not all that certain that unions are so much to fault. I think parents are more of a problem than the teachers, although I have met a teacher or two that was very scatter-brained.

Teachers and unions are different. The union, is 3 or 4 people who are following orders from the union hierarchy pretending to represent the opinions and interest of its hundreds of members at the local level. Teachers come in all shapes and sizes with all types of different opinions and beliefs. The union marches to the beat of a drum and that beat hasn't changed since its inception.

marcus says

Beleive me, I know of one or two of those senior teachers you are talking about, and I butt heads with them on occasion. But the union actually protects you and I should we want to stay with teaching. Maybe you don't see yourself doing this as a career.

Totally wrong, the union got me laid off. They got 40 others in my district laid off. They were in support of layoffs because they wanted their 1.5% raise. They didn't even offer to send a rep with me or anyone else during the meeting when they were handing us our pink slips. Why did it happen? Well, I was the last one hired, so I'm the first one to go based on seniority rules. Then, a colleague of mine abruptly retired so that I could keep my job. Maybe your local runs a little different, but here in NJ, it seems to be the norm. I've met too many teachers who get laid off while the union does absolutely nothing to even try to stop it.

As far as them replacing me with someone younger years down the road. Doubtful. I can teach Math, Chemistry, & Physics. I saved the district 40k to 60k last year because they split me over 2 subjects so they didn't have to hire a new person. Sure, I'll bet some bonehead in the administration would try to do it regardless, but if that ever happens, I wouldn't want to be working for them anyway.

As far as styles of teaching go, I never said there is a right way and wrong way. What I take issue with is those that push methodologies seem to insist that their way is always the right way. Teaching is not a science, its an art, and no one should ever expect one teacher to be like the next. There's no formula to success we can point to. Teachers need to play off their personal strengths. And I do plenty of cooperative learning activities for the lower level science courses I've taught. It's inherently built into laboratory exercises. My biggest issue is that somehow a negative stigma within the profession developed towards anyone that dares lecture and teach on the white board. I'm 31 and I have people calling me old fashioned in my ways because I don't have them playing Bingo or doing "webquests", "podcast lessons".

marcus says

But when I have remedial or lower track Math classes I'm never satisfied with the job I do (I'm not saying that I'm simply not satisfied with the test results - I'm literally not satisfied with my performance with these groups).

What is the racial breakdown of your students?

If you teach any significant amount of blacks and whites, which group do you think possesses more natural intelligence?

As a teacher I hope you will allow me to make a few observations:

I haven't had a raise since March 2007, not even a cost of living increase.

I have a master's degree, work 12 hours a day, buy many of my own supplies and make $61,000/year. I'm not whining. I choose to teach. Just telling you the facts.

The Los Angeles Unified School District (where I work) has the best performing schools and the worst in the county. The schools in the upper income areas do very well. One is the national academic decathlon champ year after year. The schools in the poor and/or immigrant areas do very poorly. Same teachers, same unions, same curriculum. What's the difference?

Unions (public or private) are required to defend their memberships. Like lawyers are entrusted to defend their clients. It's their duty.

Please think back to your public school days...from grades 1-12 you probably had about 50 teachers. How many of them were truly bad? I would guess a few, at most. So maybe 5%. Those teachers were also members of unions. Most tried hard and did a good job, union or no. From my observations, that's about the same today. There are a few knuckleheads, but most work their ass off and try their best under hard conditions.

I've worked in private industry and about 5% of employees are lame as well.

I know this thread isn't really an attack on teachers, but rather their unions. Nonetheless, I believe that without unions, being a teacher would really be impossible. I believe that most of the bad press is being generated by privateers anxious to show everyone the system is broken so that they can start to sell the voucher concept to the public. They're upset that education is in public hands where they can't make any money. They want prisons, police, military and schools privatized so they can get rich off taxpayer contracts. If we continue to denigrate public education we will have vouchers, a bunch of rich CEOs and horribly undeserved children (you think it's bad now, just wait until corporate America starts squeezing profits and cutting corners with your kids). They'll have a pre-school to prison pipeline. A non-stop money machine.

I also think we're seeing a blame game orchestrated by the wealthy interests. AIG alone was bailed out with 182 billion in taxpayer money. That's more than every state deficit combined three times over. Yes, unions suck, but education cannot be left to the private sector AND teachers need protection. Some crappy teachers will linger, but it may be a necessary evil - just like when an occasionally guilty person gets off in court. It's better than convicting the innocent.

Lastly, Waiting for Superman, glorifies Michelle Rhee. Google her and you will find that during her tenure at DC Schools there was a huge cheating scandal in which test scores were changed in an effort to show that her system was superior. It isn't. Charter schools have done no better than public schools (and charters get to pick their students). Once again, it comes down to motivated students, involved parents and dedicated teachers. All three must be present to maximize a student's chances of success.

This is a complicated issue with huge consequences. It requires careful consideration, not knee jerk vitriol.

Seniority system is the croniest design. Everything geared toward low standards, not good education.

foxmannumber1 says

marcus says

But when I have remedial or lower track Math classes I'm never satisfied with the job I do (I'm not saying that I'm simply not satisfied with the test results - I'm literally not satisfied with my performance with these groups).

Would you agree that black people are dumb and antisocial?

*sigh*

FortWayne says

Seniority system is the croniest design. Everything geared toward low standards, not good education.

Freedom 1789-2012

Works fine at airlines...

Patrick
do your kids attend the public schools in Menlo Park?
Just asking.

marquismark says

FortWayne says

Seniority system is the croniest design. Everything geared toward low standards, not good education.

Freedom 1789-2012

Works fine at airlines...

Schools don't compete with each other the same, nor publicly funded

FortWayne says

Schools don't compete with each other the same, nor publicly funded

Point was that seniority system does not breed inferior pilots or teachers. It's simply an accepted method for doing things in a fair, orderly way.

@marquismark

Excellent comment.

marquismark says

It's simply an accepted method for doing things in a fair, orderly way.

the results speak for themselves.

If the union system works, we dont have a educational gap or spending problem and a high number of kids are graduation with excellent results. so why are we looking for foreigner workers ?

marquismark says

If we continue to denigrate public education we will have vouchers, a bunch of rich CEOs and horribly undeserved children (you think it's bad now, just wait until corporate America starts squeezing profits and cutting corners with your kids). They'll have a pre-school to prison pipeline. A non-stop money machine.

What you are referring to are non-profits. They have no CEOs, shareholders, dividends or such. And whats wrong with cutting corners as that is common practice in real personal and business life.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaizen

Kaizen, Japanese for "improvement", or "change for the better" refers to philosophy or practices that focus upon continuous improvement of processes in manufacturing, engineering, and business management. It has been applied in healthcare, psychotherapy, life-coaching, government, banking, and other industries.

bdrasin says

foxmannumber1 says

marcus says

But when I have remedial or lower track Math classes I'm never satisfied with the job I do (I'm not saying that I'm simply not satisfied with the test results - I'm literally not satisfied with my performance with these groups).

Would you agree that black people are dumb and antisocial?

*sigh*

It was a serious question with no malintent. I would like to know a teacher's opinion on racial intelligence as they are usually exposed to many different races in a learning environment.

thomaswong.1986 says

If the union system works, we dont have a educational gap or spending problem and a high number of kids are graduation with excellent results. so why are we looking for foreigner workers ?

Well, it doesn't seem to have worked in your case, I'll give you that. In addition to not following the gist of my argument, I think your logic is highly faulty. You're concluding that because many kids are behind it must be the fault of the unions. That's a real leap and only marginally, at best, supportable. Again, 95% percent of teachers are fine. Union or no.

I was educated in public schools (and universities) with union teachers and I think I'm able to function and produce well. By your logic, that would mean that unions DO work.

Or am I a lone miracle?

I agree that the process for getting rid of clearly incompetent teachers needs to be streamlined. I can tell you that none of my fellow teachers support leaving the few bad ones in classes. But, to simply blame unions for all of America's educational woes is reactionary and ridiculous...in my publicly educated experience.

marquismark says

FortWayne says

Schools don't compete with each other the same, nor publicly funded

Point was that seniority system does not breed inferior pilots or teachers. It's simply an accepted method for doing things in a fair, orderly way.

Well yes, it's a bad combination in the education industrial complex.

FortWayne says

Point was that seniority system does not breed inferior pilots or teachers. It's simply an accepted method for doing things in a fair, orderly way.

Well yes, it's a bad combination in the education industrial complex.

Do you think just saying that makes your point compelling? Why don't you support your assertion with some facts, a comparison or something, anything. We're trying to have a discussion and all you have injected is unsupported statements.

marquismark says

FortWayne says

Schools don't compete with each other the same, nor publicly funded

Point was that seniority system does not breed inferior pilots or teachers. It's simply an accepted method for doing things in a fair, orderly way.

Orderly yes...fair...far from it. The best teachers should be kept in the event of layoffs, not the longest tenured.

Holy cow, it's not just me, there's a trend going on to make it easier to remove bad teachers. This is from the front of today's NY Times website, near the top:

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/18/nyregion/nearly-half-of-new-york-city-teachers-are-denied-tenure-in-2012.html

"Many New York City Teachers Denied Tenure in Policy Shift"

Goes both ways. I WAS in a professional union, my brother was not, but he works in an industry that has fear of unions. In fear of being unionized his company had moved his salary up 15k in the four years my salary has been frozen. He gets bonuses, gifts, all kinds of neat little kickbacks you'll never find in a union shop. BUT, they work him hard.

Ruki says

How can liberals support these teacher's unions?

It's because the unions support Democrat political candidate with lavish campaign fund contributions.

If you really want to fix public education, stop tenuring parents.

The qualifications are absurdly low. Ego, excess alcohol, incompetent condom use -- they should be barriers to the gig. Instead, they are often the base criteria.

Don't feed the kids properly? Burn them with cigarettes? Beat them as if you're in a bar fight? You can do all three and not permanently lose this job. And if you spoil them rotten, no one will ever interfere. You'll be the parent who gets an untenured, demanding teacher fired for not giving your pampered brat an easy A.

Reform unions. Don't eliminate them. Teachers are already at the mercy of incompetent parents. Principals with no backbone will kowtow to the parents and destroy good teachers.

I'm sad to see Patrick falling for this simplistic view of public education.

Oh no. I just read the Patrick comment about parents' voting on teacher pay.

Dumbest thing I have ever read here. Parents are the biggest problem with schools. They are not, and never will be, the solution.

Patrick I know some NYC teachers. I attended Bronx high school of science with one who left to become an ironworker. He was denied tenure and he was a good teacher. Principles are now denying tenure purely because it's the flavor of the week. Good teachers are being denied because they need the stats. The entire system is incredibly broken. And it is not the unions who are at fault.

It's pretty disappointing to see the comments on this thread, starting with Patrick's. I'm usually a big fan.

Public education and its success/failure is much more complicated than just blaming/praising unions. It starts with the school board.

I have served the last 6 years on the local school board. I am not an educator; hardly. I'm a technology entrepreneur in the Bay Area with an MBA who previously spent time in corporate America.

Yes, there are things that suck about teachers' unions. The fact that it is difficult to fire teachers is hard to understand. Also, unions tend to eat their young. We offered our union the choice of furlough days or larger class sizes during the budget shortfalls. They chose larger class sizes, even though they knew it would hurt kids and we would have to fire the younger, untenured teachers, all to protect their STRS retirement packages. We dug our heels in and forced them to take furlough days.

The problem though with a movie like "Waiting for Superman" is it examines unions under a microscope, but doesn't even mention the ineptitude of many school boards and administrators. In my opinion, a good/bad school board and the administrators they hire can make/break a school district.

Many school boards have retired teachers, or worse, PTA moms-types who have never managed anyone, don't have P and L experience, are temperamental (or worse, lunatics), and have poor judgment. They hire incompetent Superintendents that are just wasting time, trying to spike their salaries for retirement benefits, and are wasting taxpayer dollars. I've even heard about school board members that burst into church songs in the middle of school board meetings and the superintendent joins them in chorus.

School boards wield enormous power. They control budgets that can be hundred of millions, if not a billion, dollars. They hire/fire the people to carry out their vision. They either back, or stab in the back, any administrator that is willing to go to the mat to fire incompetent teachers. (And yes...you can fire teachers. We just fired one this week.)

School districts have to abide by the terms of their contracts with unions, but many administrators don't evaluate their teachers and principals every year, and don't keep up with the paperwork.

This leads to the problems you see in the movie.

Unions can have good or bad leadership. The best run airline is Southwest. They have unions and happy employees. Why are they good? Their management, which is smart, does smart things like hedging fuel prices and standardizing airplanes to save money on maintenance.

There are good and bad school districts. All have unions. The best school districts have excellent management and school boards. The bad ones have poor management and school boards. Nearly without exception. Want to know why many countries do better than us? They dont have local school boards, but well paid, competent administrators, that make decisions.

I challenge all of you to look deeper. Yes, unions are an obstacle, but managerial incompetence, in my experience, is a much bigger problem.

Ruki says

Bluetooth says

Public education and its success/failure is much more complicated than just blaming/praising unions. It starts with the school board.

Uh...no. Because schools w/o the damn unions do better. Even the ones that don't do as well as they should still do better when the unions are not involved.

Give HRHMedia access to patrick.net...and he'll masturbate with it.

So, basically every private school, which doesn't have unions, is better than every public school, which does have unions? Seriously? How much do you really understand about education beyond the usual talking points on unions?

I can point to about 6 public high schools in my area alone that run circles around the private schools in the area.

Teachers' unions demand tenure for pretty much every teacher that can breathe, and are implacably opposed to differentiating teacher quality. This imposes two enormous harms on the public:

1. Bad teachers are not allowed to be fired for being bad teachers, ever.
2. Good teachers are not allowed to be paid better for good teaching, ever.

What do you think the role of a labor union should be? Traditionally, its job has been to be an advocate for its members, to protect their rights, and to fight for the best working conditions possible. So do you think unions should take on a different role now, instead becoming the arbiter of who is or isn't good enough to deserve his/her job?

I hear this meme all the time now that "bad" teachers should be fired (or paid less) and that "good" teachers should be paid more. I'm curious what your criteria are for deciding who is a "good" teacher and who is a "bad" teacher, and who gets to make this judgment.

The only criteria I have heard mentioned is test scores. The obvious problem with this, and I have heard many good teachers complain about it, is that students are simply being drilled on the test material, and aren't really getting an education. They are just being trained to provide the correct response in a very limited situation, like monkeys at a circus. Do we really want to raise a generation of people who are only adept at regurgitating a few specific facts, but have no independent thinking/reasoning skills?

Perhaps even worse is that such a system is patently unfair to teachers. I did some teaching when I was younger, and WITHOUT FAIL, children in higher socio-economic areas do better academically than children in lower socio-economic areas. You tend to do poorly on tests when you didn't eat breakfast because your mom was out buying crack. Hiring/firing teachers by test scores alone amounts to punishing those who work in inner-city schools and rewarding those who work in affluent suburbs. Yes, we all saw "Stand and Deliver", but the fact is that judging a teacher in the ghetto against a teacher in the rich neighborhood with the same test scores is like testing 2 people's driving skills by racing a Hyundai against a Lamborghini.

So yes, it's very easy to criticize teachers and the teacher's union, and everybody seems to be doing it these days, but I want to know what YOUR plan is. Who decides who gets fired? Who decides how much money they make? What is it based on? How would you keep politics out of the decision process? Should we do away with tenure? What happens when the school principal makes a pass at the attractive English teacher, is spurned, and then fires her? No tenure = you can fire anyone whenever you feel like it, whether you have a good reason or not. THAT'S WHY TENURE EXISTS. Right now, with all the teacher bashing that's going on, I shudder to think what would happen to teachers if they didn't have a union to protect their jobs.

Ruki says

Bluetooth says

Public education and its success/failure is much more complicated than just blaming/praising unions. It starts with the school board.

Uh...no. Because schools w/o the damn unions do better. Even the ones that don't do as well as they should still do better when the unions are not involved.

Give HRHMedia access to patrick.net...and he'll masturbate with it.

Correlation does not equal causation.

Private schools usually have fresher paint on the walls than public schools. Therefore, paint causes academic excellence?

Molly K says

I'm sad to see Patrick falling for this simplistic view of public education.

Hey, do you know how much time, effort, and money was spent by neoliberal think tanks like the Heritage Foundation, the Manhattan Institute, and the Cato Institute, to come up with and disseminate this anti-teacher, anti-union view of public education? It was anything but simple.

futuresmc says

Hey, do you know how much time, effort, and money was spent by neoliberal think tanks like the Heritage Foundation, the Manhattan Institute, and the Cato Institute, to come up with and disseminate this anti-teacher, anti-union view of public education? It was anything but simple.

True, so simple isn't the right word. But it is true that usually Patrick isn't the kind of simpleton that falls for propaganda so easily, without doing any homework what so ever. At least I don't think so.

In the future that many republicans want, government funded education will be history. One of the first steps is changing the system so that working for a private school is as good or better deal for teachers than working for a public school. If being a public school teacher is way harder, and yet pays less, with no job security, public education will be easy to kill.

Destroying teachers unions is the key step to destroying public education as we know it.

marcus says

If being a public school teacher is way harder, and yet pays less, with no job security, public education will be easy to kill.

As it stands now, being a public school teacher is way harder than teaching in a private school, but it usually pays better, and there is some job security, but not nearly what people think.

The system is changing in many places, but not in an entirely good way to where teachers are evaluated more on test score improvement than ever before. Teachers aren't trusted as they once were.

(this next quote is from way earlier in thread)

marcus says

I have posted this many times before.

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2010/nov/11/myth-charter-schools/?pagination=false

Read Diane Ravitch if you want a balanced view. She worked for GWB and was at one time an advocate for the charterization of schools. But she's very smart and eventually turned 180 degrees.

The annual Gallup poll about education shows that Americans are overwhelmingly dissatisfied with the quality of the nation’s schools, but 77 percent of public school parents award their own child’s public school a grade of A or B, the highest level of approval since the question was first asked in 1985.

THat quote is from the above link, an artivcle Patrick should read if he's open to criticism of "waiting for superman."

Does anyone have any idea how many REALLY good public schools there are ?

How can perception of public education in general be based on the worst performing inner city schools which are an extremely small fraction of all public schools?

Schools and teachers are by and large all always trying to do better, regardless of pressure from politicians and right wing think tanks.

woppa says

Ruki... you're a fucking idiot. I can't even waste my time.

I opened another browser to see what he said, and my last post was in part a response, but I have him on ignore. He's a troll and takes pride in being a troll.