The State of Education -- Unions, Teachers & The System

After being told on multiple occasions that I should inform myself regarding the state of American education, I watched a documentary.

Waiting For Superman



(Full Feature Available On Youtube)

After having watched this piece, I have to say I'm a bit disgusted. Education in my country of Canada is skewed and we have many issues. However the monstrosity that has become public schools in the US is really heartbreaking.

Not only is the system operated terribly from the government's stand point, (considering some of the worst scores are in DC) but also because of teacher Unions and their so called 'tenure' clauses.

'Tenure' prevents school officials and management from firing poor teachers. Studies show clearly that good teachers = good students. How could the teacher's union justify things like the "Dance Of Lemons" that districts go through?

Tenure should be given after many years of teaching, and after having been evaluated as being a good teacher. Just because you've become a teacher, does not mean you are a good one.

How can they justify a system that is from the 1950's as a means of educating our children?

I can't cover all the things within the doc, needless to say it was extremely informative and showed me a whole new face of the education industry and how it can work, provided we do it correctly.

~Tenth

Education in America is horrible, and we will reap what we sow in the very near future.

It disgust me the things that are Brought up in debate between Romney and Obama,

THE one and only issue that has the power to save America and its problems IS education, and nothing else.

If we had an educated electorate, we wouldn't put up with the politicians BS.

We would know that the DEBT needs to be dealt with before our Adventurism abroad.

IT is a complex dire situation, in my opinion the single defining problem in America, yet no one is talking about it at a level that has the power to do something.

Hey Tenth,

Tenure varies from state to state, even district to district. The district I teach in grants tenure after 5 consecutive years of teaching at a certain "level" (determined by multiple administrative evaluations). Guess what tenure means in my county.....my job is safe as long as a position is available. First in, last out, that kind of thing.

But that's it. Tenure isn't a magic cloak of invincibility. Every teacher still gets evaluated multiple times throughout the school year (just this year, I've had three formal evals from the state of NC, and two from my principal; this is normal) and we have to show growth in our evaluations AND in our students' work.

At any time, I can be fired for cause. This can be many things, but poor job performance is a definite firing cause. I can appeal the decision, but unless the school board reversed it the firing would hold.

Now that was only the case in North Carolina; I obviously can't speak for other states.

With regards to teachers' unions....I belong to the NC union. Why? They do manage to get legislation passed that benefits the teachers, such as our recent itsy-bitsy pay raise (we've been without a raise, even cost of living increase, for six years). They also lobby to reduce class size, end social promotion, etc. So in that sense, they do a lot of good.

I get flyers in the mail from the union all the time, telling me what candidate they recommend. Well, I'm quite capable of thinking for myself so those flyers get tossed in the trash.

So why belong to the union? My main reason is insurance. If something happens and I'm accused of some type of atrocity, the union will represent me in court and pay my defense. Teachers do get sued fairly often for lots of things, which is why its recommended we have the insurance.

So what do I think about the quality of education in the US? Its sinking. The big question, though...is why? Is it really the fault of the teachers? After all, the No Child Left Behind law mandates that our teacher's have either a master's degree in their field or pass a test to give them the equivalent...that's Highly Qualified. So we have teachers with graduate degrees, why aren't our kids learning?

If you go to the average school in a middle-class or higher neighborhood, that school will be successful. Its the schools that serve the low-income and no-income families that are struggling. Why?

I can't remember the article, I'll try to find it and link it. But a baby born in a professional household (where mom and dad have professional jobs) is exposed to so many more life experiences, vocabulary, etc. Low-income families can't compete with that, and their children have less experiences and a much poorer vocabulary. This definitely impacts learning; learning occurs when we process new information and connect it to something we already knew. So you can see the disadvantage the underprivileged face..

Now, in my classroom, most of my students are considered poor. I also have three students who cannot speak English. I have to teach to the lowest common denominator....and that's low. So expectations get lowered, blah blah blah.

I'll stop now, although I could go on forever. Just know the problem is a lot more complex than teachers and teacher unions.

reply to post by smyleegrl


It certainly is a complex problem.

Teachers are a huge part of it, and much like Cops they have this blue line, maybe chalk line where they can't admit the fault maybe with their fellow teachers on some level.

Personally I think unions have no place in public sector jobs, cops, teachers, etc.

Unions make sense in a free market where if the demands of a union shop are too high there are other alternatives in the market to go to.

When the cops or teachers strike, who are the public to turn to.

Im not saying privatization is the answer either.

The problem is complex and part of it is Americans seem not to care about the education their children get, the MSM is too busy filling their heads with none sense problems that really don't matter.

The price of one drone would give how many children a new laptop or tablet? yet heaven forbid a candidate suggest reduced military spending...

People will scream get the NFL refs back on the job, yet stay silent as an entire cities teachers are striking.

We are well and truly screwed as a society.

reply to post by benrl


I agree, there are teachers who should never have qualified to teach. Same as every profession.

But I disagree about the unions. Without our union putting pressure on the state government, we'd have increased class sizes, lower budgets, frozen pay, etc. Those things are bad for teachers but they are also bad for the students.

The problem with holding only teachers accountable for what students learn....its just like holding doctors accountable for their patients health. For example, I can have a conference with a parent where I explain that the only way their child will improve grades is if she reads every night. I can recommend books, demonstrate how to help her read, etc....but if the parent chooses not to do it, then that child won't make as much progress as she could. Just like a doctor telling someone to quit smoking or to lose weight; if the patient doesn't heed the advice, then should the doctor be the one with the blame?

I'm not trying to downplay your concerns, they are absolutely legitimate. I just think people should be careful about placing all the blame on teachers.

Originally posted by smyleegrl
reply to post by benrl

 

I agree, there are teachers who should never have qualified to teach. Same as every profession.

But I disagree about the unions. Without our union putting pressure on the state government, we'd have increased class sizes, lower budgets, frozen pay, etc. Those things are bad for teachers but they are also bad for the students.

The problem with holding only teachers accountable for what students learn....its just like holding doctors accountable for their patients health. For example, I can have a conference with a parent where I explain that the only way their child will improve grades is if she reads every night. I can recommend books, demonstrate how to help her read, etc....but if the parent chooses not to do it, then that child won't make as much progress as she could. Just like a doctor telling someone to quit smoking or to lose weight; if the patient doesn't heed the advice, then should the doctor be the one with the blame?

I'm not trying to downplay your concerns, they are absolutely legitimate. I just think people should be careful about placing all the blame on teachers.

Well I can only say my experience with public education was dismal at best, Ive had my fair share of horrible teachers. AS i am sure many who have gone through public education can attest to, but again its a very complex problem.

One that requires accountability on all sides, from teachers, to parents, to the law makers cutting the budgets in the first place.

There is no replacement for a parent that cares for the child's education, but their are so many external circumstances that effect that, that it simply can not be fixed easily.

The problem is education reform isn't even on the agenda, which comes down to the heart of the matter, Americans do not care about their child's education.

At-least not enough to make it an issue on the national level.

Until we are willing to do that, there is no chance any problem will ever get solved, Perhaps teachers (since parents seem unwilling to) Should go national with this problem, strike on the national stage for education reform since no one seems willing to listen.

honestly its my view we are all in the starting phases of a dying republic, and sever problems sometimes require radical solutions.

ETA.

I must say, I don't even have a horse in this race, I have no children. Yet this problem scares me more than any other problem our nation faces.

Its also very telling that this thread has 1 flag and only 3 people talking about it, where the thread about an actresses tummy problem has more...

reply to post by smyleegrl


I understand where unions provide a benefit trust me I do. But I do think they hold back the system from making the appropriate reforms possible.

In this case, discussion the Doc I posted, KIPP schools have managed to close the education gap between poor and rich students. Even surpassing it.

Now the kid's who have done this do not have a different home circumstance. What changed was the learning environment they've been placed it.

Better environment = better students. It seems that schools who aren't controlled by the district or don't have that close ties with unions our out performing those who do.

There must be a correlation.

~Tenth

Originally posted by tothetenthpower
reply to post by smyleegrl

 

I understand where unions provide a benefit trust me I do. But I do think they hold back the system from making the appropriate reforms possible.

In this case, discussion the Doc I posted, KIPP schools have managed to close the education gap between poor and rich students. Even surpassing it.

Now the kid's who have done this do not have a different home circumstance. What changed was the learning environment they've been placed it.

Better environment = better students. It seems that schools who aren't controlled by the district or don't have that close ties with unions our out performing those who do.

There must be a correlation.

~Tenth

Ive worked both management and worker side of a union shop, theres no question in my mind Unions keep people employed who have no business being there.

There are pros to the worker and protections that come from a union, no question about that, the problem is the end product can suffer, in any work place or environment.

Laws should be in place that protect the worker, in CA where I was management the employee rights laws where such that the Union was redundant.

I always wondered if perhaps an Academy type system of education would work in the US for public school, send your kid to school for 5 days, they come home on the week end.

But that would never happen, far to many cries of encroaching on parents territory and such.

Complete and total education reform needs to happen in some manner.

reply to post by benrl


Actually according to that doc there are some schools like SEED that are border-public schools.

Kids live at the campus it's the same as a collega basically.

I like Quebec's system in some ways. They have 2 years of pre university called CEJEP where they go live on a campus and get used to that sort of life style before being turned over to universities.

~Tenth

Here's a brief rant if anybody cares.

My thoughts are that public education in America is BIG BUSINESS. Moreover, schools have become baby-sitters and state indoctrination centers, which is always very important. Big government must establish bureaucrat controlled, authoritarian institutions if it wants to get away with war, slavery, murder, genocide obliterating our rights, amassing total control/centralizing force, and all those good things it does for us.

Public school is a 20th century relic. If the internet were invented 200 years ago, there would be no such thing as public school. It's just about money & control now, not education. Education is secondary to the more nefarious goings on. This is why we will not or cannot move beyond it, sadly. Too many young individuals whose creativity must be crushed and stamped into carbon copies for the benefit of the State.

We shouldn't dare have a society where young minds think for themselves; we mustn't have young minds running wild. We're much better of if we smash individualism while it's young. We're much better off feeding young minds powerful psychotropic pharmaceuticals while giving them a twelve year sentence of mind control as to twist them into meek servants of authority. Stay in school, kids.

reply to post by METACOMET


I understand your point, but I will be honest. It's thoughts like these that are so disheartening.

I'm not sure what the public thinks we teachers are doing during the summer, or why we get graduate degrees...but I will let you in on a secret. We spend our summers and time during the rest of the year attending training and professional development programs based on the latest research in learning. I'll admit, some of these programs are more useful than others. But my point is that we as educators are constantly seeking ways to improve our profession. It's just that with the current state of things, the deck is stacked against us.

So we work in a fairly thankless job where not only do we get little recognition, we usually are vilified and our capabilities questioned. We get blamed for every failure, yet never praised for the ones who succeed. We spend years caring so deeply for our students that eventually we burn out. We have one of the highest medicated professions due to the stress.

Sorry, this wasn't directed at anyone in particular. I'm just venting. You all have made some wonderful points that I do agree with.

The biggest problem in education is that the number of administrators continues to climb,...and climb, and climb... it's getting absolutely crazy. The administration is where the high salaries are, the administration is where most of the problems are and the administration is where they put the "lousy teachers" who should have been done away with along ago.

The district I work in has an administrator for every 10 teachers. Can you believe that??? Years ago, there would be 50-60 teachers in a school and ONE principal, ONE superintendent and two secretaries. They ran the schools and they ran them pretty well. Today, There's a superintendent, three assistant superintendents, a technology director, 9 or 10 directors of this or that, assistants for each one, secretaries for each one, THEN you get to the individual buildings. In the buildings, there's a principal, two or three assistant principals, several guidance counselors, four or five other paper pushers, about half a dozen secretaries and still..... still, about 50-60 teachers. It's absolutely ridiculous!

And what do all these paper pushers do? Well, they give more forms for the teachers to fill out, more things to "try" in their classes, more observations and interruptions, more meetings to go to... they've divided up the work of one administrator and now have 20 or 25 doing what that ONE used to do and the teachers are now doing what two teachers used to do since the number of students have increased so much.

Now, granted, there are many teachers who are just outright lousy. But they don't get rid of them, heck, they just make them administrators.

Something I heard 20 years ago that still rings true today. If you have a teacher that's a lousy teacher, you make him a coach. If he's a lousy coach, you make him atheletic director. If he's a lousy atheletic director, you make him a principal, if he's a lousy principal, you make him superintendant. If he's a lousy superintendent, you send him to work at the state department. It's as true today as it was back then and it's still just as disgusting.

90% of teachers are good teachers. They've been trained to do what they do. They've had at least 4 years of education, most have much, much more. Instead of putting them in a classroom and letting them do what they're trained to do, they put them in a classroom and have them interrupted every 10 minutes and pile a ton of paperwork on them that takes up more time than exists in a week and then expect them to do all the teaching they are supposed to do. It's dang near impossible... but of course if it doesn't get done or something goes wrong, well, it's all the teacher's fault. ....

No child left behind is the biggest slap in the face of teachers that has ever existed. All the various state education reforms are slaps in the faces of teachers. Instead of addressing the various issues in our world today, everything is blamed on the teachers and the teachers have no power to do anything because their hands are completely tied. There's absolutely nothing the teachers can do to solve the problem because they are tied up so tightly, they can barely breathe, let alone fix any problems that exist. But, they get all the blame for it, even though they have absolutely nothing to do with most of the problems out there.

I'm honestly surprised that anyone goes into teaching anymore. Anytime there's a student that expresses an interest, I try my best to guide them toward something else. I don't want my kids to have to go through this with all the corruption and all the micromanaging going on. If I hadn't experienced what I KNOW it CAN be, I'd leave it in a heartbeat. I know we can get it back where it needs to be, but not until we do away with at least 75% of the administration jobs and put our focus back on the classrooms with the students and the teachers.

There are too many parents who shouldn't be parents. There are too many administrators who shouldn't be administrators. There are some teachers who shouldn't be teachers and I'll admit that, but the biggest problems are outside the teacher's hands.

Originally posted by METACOMET
Here's a brief rant if anybody cares.

My thoughts are that public education in America is BIG BUSINESS. Moreover, schools have become baby-sitters and state indoctrination centers, which is always very important. Big government must establish bureaucrat controlled, authoritarian institutions if it wants to get away with war, slavery, murder, genocide obliterating our rights, amassing total control/centralizing force, and all those good things it does for us.

Public school is a 20th century relic. If the internet were invented 200 years ago, there would be no such thing as public school. It's just about money & control now, not education. Education is secondary to the more nefarious goings on. This is why we will not or cannot move beyond it, sadly. Too many young individuals whose creativity must be crushed and stamped into carbon copies for the benefit of the State.

We shouldn't dare have a society where young minds think for themselves; we mustn't have young minds running wild. We're much better of if we smash individualism while it's young. We're much better off feeding young minds powerful psychotropic pharmaceuticals while giving them a twelve year sentence of mind control as to twist them into meek servants of authority. Stay in school, kids.

edit on 24-10-2012 by METACOMET because: (no reason given)

When we let "young minds think for themselves", (like we've been doing for the past 20 years) we end up with skyrocketing teenage pregnancy rates, skyrocketing dropouts and skyrocketing numbers of welfare recipients.

You don't take your car our on the interstate and drive it as fast as it can possibly go as often as you possibly can and never check the oil, never check the tires, never change the spark plugs, never do any maintenance of any kind. You keep it serviced and insured. You do that for a reason. You send your kids to school for a reason. If you just let "their minds run wild" you're going to end up with wild animals not capable of functioning in society.

Now, if that's what you're shooting for, then fine, do away with schools, but if it isn't, you may want to rethink your position.

Originally posted by tothetenthpower
reply to post by benrl

 

Actually according to that doc there are some schools like SEED that are border-public schools.

Kids live at the campus it's the same as a collega basically.

I like Quebec's system in some ways. They have 2 years of pre university called CEJEP where they go live on a campus and get used to that sort of life style before being turned over to universities.

~Tenth

The difference is, the students in those schools have parents who send them to those schools. That means the parents are involved in the lives of their children. That means the parents want what's best for their children and go after it. That means the parents put more importance on their children than they do on themselves. That's not the case in most families out there. Whether it's inner city or rural, the parents are often not involved in their children's life at all.

The kids in this district have tomorrow and Friday off so the teacher can suffer through two days of meetings and PD that pretty much has no bearing on them at all (they have to do all the paperwork that the central office people should have been doing but haven't). The secretary has fielded phone calls all day today of parents screaming at her because the kids don't have school tomorrow. Now this has been on the school calendar since July, but, since it's tomorrow, certain parents are just now bothering to realize it. They're screaming about babysitters and child care and this and that...of course most of them don't work anyway, don't know why they would have to worry about child care, but that's another rant for another time.

Teachers and schools can only work with what they are given, unfortunately, what they are given is often times much below standard. It's not the fault of the teachers and the schools, it's society that's so darn screwed up, there's not a lot of hope for fixing it.

.....then, all the "good students" or even those with a sliver of hope go off to the charter schools or the private schools leaving the public schools with the least common denominator that exists yet they're supposed to fix all the problems, spit polish what they're given and turn out the best and the brightest as a result.

It just doesn't work that way

(just want to add I'm pretty darn grumpy since we had a mandatory faculty meeting the evening before we'd be meeting for two days anyway... what the heck are they thinking???)

I have many obervations and opinions about public education...

1. I remember when I was in school, back then kids actually learned stuff and they didn't act up as much. I mean if you got into trouble, you were sent to the office and you got spanked with a paddle. I sure did get that paddle quite a bit >_< but the stuff I did was normal childish things like talk during class or not turn in an assignment on time. Pretty much when they really started to drug kids up for these made up disorders like ADD and ADHD, and when they outlawed discipline, that is when I started hearing about public schooling problems, school shooting and all the other crap that came with it.

2. because of that above, I feel teachers have lost hope in our kids. So now they are looking to bank off being a teacher rather than teach and inform the minds of our future, scary future it seems too..

Thoughts?

Originally posted by PurpleChiten
You send your kids to school for a reason. If you just let "their minds run wild" you're going to end up with wild animals not capable of functioning in society.

Are you admitting that the motivation for public schooling is to institute social control?

Perhaps you also have a twisted sense of what constitutes a society. Our system is just a mob held together by institutionalized gang violence. If this is society, it is a bad one.

It really shouldn't be a mystery why children cannot thrive in such a system. It's not because children are "wild animals" otherwise, as you claim. It is because the system is twisted, not them. It is simply human nature to rebel against institutions that attempt to stifle variety and implement social control. That's why authoritarians feel the need to crush such behavior. They require control and obedience.

And now that the legislators and do gooders have futilely inflicted so many systems upon society, may they finally end where they should have begun: May they reject all systems. And try liberty. -Frederic Bastiat

Not social control, but social order. They need to learn how to exist in society, not how to destroy it.

It's not about control...but a tiny bit of "obedience" could be a good thing in many cases. ...since some of them have absolutely ZERO of it. All things in moderation.

The system is a bit twisted in many ways, not so much in others. However, the biggest problem with education is often the parents of the students. They no longer put their children first, they no longer want the best for their children, they no longer know how to parent.

That's not saying "all parents" at all, but there is an increasing number. If in the minority that it's in, those few destroy all the others student's chances of succeeding in life because they take away the chance for the students who do care, they take away the chance for the parents who want the best for their children, they take away any degree of success in the classroom with their constant disruptions, their endless misbehavior and the complaining that never ends.

That group wants one thing and one thing only. They want to be finished with school so they can start their long welfare career. I say let them. Any student that wants to "drop out" at whatever age, with parental consent, let them. No penalty, no hunting them down, just let them drop out. Now, at the same time, revamp the welfare system so it makes sense instead of letting just anyone draw it just because they don't want to work. If the parents that let their kids drop out want to support them for the rest of their lives, fine. Of course that won't happen. When they realize they can't get through life without a basic education and they can't be supported by the government tax dollar, they'll eventually want to go back to school. They can. But this time, they have to pay for it. They can be assigned a "job" to raise money to pay their tuition. If they didn't take advantage the first time when it was free, let them actually earn it.


....keep in mind that I'm being "extremist" in what I post and that's due to the extremism that is put forth every day by people trying to blame the schools instead of putting the blame where it belongs.

When you are given people who don't want to be there and not given the basics of what you need, chances are, you're not going to produce a very good product.
In factories, do you have more supervisors than workers? In business, do you have more bosses than employees? No, you don't. Why is it ok in education but nowhere else in the world?

I'm not as "grouchy" as I was yesterday and want to add in some things.

I've taught at the University, in private schools and in public schools. All of them have their pros and cons, all of them have their individual challenges. There is an underlying factor in all of them though. Motivation. It doesn't matter where you are, when it is, what the area is like, what the inherent ability level is, if there is motivation, then there will be success. Sometimes small successes, sometimes large ones. It really is dependent on motivation.

If the students come to you already motivated, it's a much easier road to travel. If they don't, you have to find a way to provide that motivation. It's much easier at the University because they're actually paying for it and aren't "spoon fed". If they fail, they fail. They can either repeat the course or drop out. In private schools, if they are failing, the parents will crack down and give them that "motivation" from home. In the public schools, they don't have either of those means for every single student. Many parents do expect their children to do well, they do work with them at home, they do answer the phone when the school calls and their children are first and formost on their priority list. It's actually the majority of parents, at least in this area.

But.... in public schools, there are more parents who don't care than there are in private schools. That's one of the reasons those kids are in the private schools to begin with. Their parents wanted their kids in an environment where the other students also wanted to learn. They are more involved, they are more supportive and they want their kids to have the absolute best possible chance for success. Yes, they are also in public schools but you also have the other side of the coin. You have kids who don't want to be there, their parents don't care if they're there as long as they're not at home, they get no support at home, they have no motivation to do well at school, to learn the things they'll need as adults, to succeed by had work. They plan to either live off the system, marry somebody rich or be a professional athlete. They have no concept of what it means to work hard and succeed because they don't know anyone in their family who has ever done it.

Today, in public schools, the teachers are so much more than just teachers. They are "performers" putting on a show to get the attention of the students, they are "facilitators" working through every aspect of life with the kids just to get them ready to calculate fractions, they are "shaman" guiding them through the question of "what is life", they are the proxy parent ensuring the kids have eaten, have someone to listen, give advice to keep them out of trouble, hold them accountable, all the things that the parents don't do at home along with supplementing what the good parents do at home. They are nurses fixing the boo boos, they are doctors, treating the illness of ignorance. The teachers have to be a little bit of everything to every student at all times. When the parent doesn't pull his/her weight, it puts a huge burden on the teacher and all the students suffer because of that one parent who doesn't do what they're supposed to do. That one parent can cause turmoil for every other student in the class, for the teacher and unmeasurable turmoil for their own child.

Every parent needs to be held accountable, every parent needs to be involved, every parent needs to be a parent. You have 100 kids and 99 of them have great parents, the one that doesn't causes problems for the other 99. Of course in today's world it's more like 75 that have good parents and 25 that don't, but you see the point.

A chain is only as strong as its weakest link and the parents who don't take part in their children's lives are about as weak as a link can get. Add in a helicopter parent with a high maintenance child and it really goes haywire!

When you have a child, that child becomes the center of your life, your reason for living. Too many people don't think that way and it's hurting everyone.

Children should be taught how to survive in this world, like what it will be like when bills come in the mail, and what its like to hold a job. I believe after 7th or 8th grade the average child should have aenough basic education and should then begin to be taught real world knowledge, I didnt begin to trul learn until i graduated from college, then I self taught myself about the true reality of the world we live in.

Originally posted by benrlWhen the cops or teachers strike, who are the public to turn to.

Im not saying privatization is the answer either.

Security guards are more professional and far less likely to react wth force than what passes for police nowadays.
Teachers just plain don't. Compare what a an 8th grader of 1890 had to know and compare it to the high school graduates of today.