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Why Is It So Difficult To Fire Bad Teachers?
Ant writes with this depressing story about how public schools sometimes work: "This six-page Los Angeles Times article shares its investigation to find 'the process [of firing poor teachers] so arduous that many school principals don't even try (One-page version), except in the very worst cases. Jettisoning a teacher solely because he or she can't teach is rare ...'"
"The erroneous assumption is to the effort that the aim of public education is to fill the young of the species with knowledge and awaken their intelligence .... Nothing could be further from the truth."
Not sure where that quote is from, but it's good and I had it lying around.
Do away with our corrupt tax code. Support the Fair Tax
I think it's blatantly obvious, the NEA is exceptionally powerful and won't permit it.
Brett
It's frustrating to see something like this, when we also see articles about innocent teachers being fired or prosecuted due to kids in their class sexting them. :\
Tenure. This doesn't solely apply to public schools either, it's become a problem in higher education as well. All too often there is a professor that has been around for longer than some of his students have been alive, isn't doing his job as he should, but yet the university isn't able (or willing) to do much, due to the hassle of getting rid of a tenured professor.
... but somehow we keep creating.
The problem is that we don't want to trust people in authority to make decisions, so we come up with a process or committee or something to ensure that one person can't make the hard decisions. But time and time again, it's shown that if no one can make hard decisions, no one will.
And while it's probably going to beat the hell out of my karma for it, I recommend The Death of Common Sense, by Philip K. Howard. It basically goes into examples of how our unwavering belief that a legal processes can sort through the mess impartially causes all sorts of unexpected results.
As soon as the authority to make a decision is lost, how can bad behavior be punished?
How about Students, give students an anonymous evaluation form to put their feelings of teachers on them, then when the time comes to get rid of unnecessary teachers, its easier to get rid of the ones where the students can't learn in. Because, most students can easily identify teachers they don't like and can't learn from, and face it, even if you have a PhD in mathematics, yet your algebra students are totally confused, you aren't doing your job as a teacher and should be let go.
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
I'm a card carrying, gun shooting, cigarette smoking anti-liberal. I read Slashdot at least once a day, and do not feel that "Slashdot" has an agenda. Posters and contributors may, and that should be an easy thing to use your noodle to differentiate... Unless you believe everything you read.
*glare*
Give 'em a broom instead of a class. They'll get the point.
In high school, I didn't learn a damn thing from my favorite teachers. If I could have replaced that famous picture of Nguyen getting shot in the face with my Math teacher I would have done so... BUT... I still use inverse operands every chance I get. Go figure.
all of the union, lobbying issues notwithstanding, who exactly defines bad and how exactly do you measure results? no child left behind was an attempt at quantifying the teachers task and failed miserably. teachers taught to the test and teachers were considered good if they got more kids to pass the test than their peers. this was at the expense of educating the kids. do you leave it up to the children and parents to define who is good and who is bad? take the math teacher who makes you do math problems like a a drill instructor makes recruits do pushups. is he good or bad? when you're in high school you dread the busy work, as do your parents who are forced to do your homework for you. but when you're a freshman in an engineering program, you may look back and realize that education truly is what's left when you've forgotten everything you learned.
SCENARIO #2: Put that same teacher in a classroom of African-American kids from Oakland, California. The kids will do poorly because African-American culture rejects learning -- and rejects Western culture in general.
In scenario #2, the teacher would be fired as a "bad" teacher. In scenario #1, the same teacher would get a bonus for producing such accomplished students.
Is there any reasonable and objective way to determine a teacher's performance that is independent of the students in her classroom?
Most important thing is to keep everyone in line. Teachers' Union ensures that every member votes for the sanctioned candidates. The politicians then make sure there's no competition for the teachers (i.e., voucers and all that are strictly verboten). You get a good teacher or someone trying to make a difference, and you've got a dangerous person on your hands. They're not part of the "system". Of course, it's not nearly so well organized. But public monopolies like the US education system do have lives of their own.
first is tenure.
second reason is unions.
Broward County schools are filled with bad teachers. The unions keep them working.
recently a broward teacher had a delusional episode in the classroom. she had a pair of scissors and was threatening a student shouting about demons.
the union not only kept her job, but she's coming back to the classroom (albeit at a different school).
Bad teachers are a bit like molesting priests. They get moved around schools when people complain about them.
They're using their grammar skills there.
for all the fucks, who washed down a trillion dollar on Wall Street... hey wait, those were no public school peeps, were they? How many of them were fired for ripping off tax payers around the globe, taking away their funds for public education from the ones who's daddy can't afford Ivy league treatment for his little Georgie boy? Yeah, those illiterate bad bankers, they must be members of some union, which makes it almost impossible to fire them, "except in the very worst cases". WTF are we talking about, kids?
The article summary is incomplete. The title of the article is "Firing tenured teachers can be a costly and tortuous task"
Well, the problem, and the solution, are right there.
Tenure is intended for university professors mainly; it intentionally makes it harder to fire a tenured person, so they can "push the boundaries" a bit in their classes.. without the fear of being fired for petty political reasons.
The universities do not just give out tenure to every new professor, they make sure they are competent first. If the California schools have *tenured* teachers that can't teach, that is the problem RIGHT THERE. Don't give tenure to a teacher until they know they can teach. Simple as that.
Part of the problem is unions. Another part is the massive bureaucracy. But many times, it's to protect the good teachers from vindictive parents.
"I think most nerds have had bad experiences with teachers in public school. Because either teachers count off for the most ridiculous things, have a personal bias against some things (and will fail you if you think otherwise), have a personal vendetta against students who (rightfully) correct them, or many other things that are wrong with our public school system."
Well, this isn't surprising. As someone who has been in high-school and also someone who grew up in a family of teachers I can safely say that this is inevitable. Nice teachers will simply be bullied untill they give in. High-school kids are highly observant of the level of authority a teacher has and once they see a weakness they can be quite merciless.
The people who are left are either split between people who have some natural authority and dickheads(the kind you read about in this article). A lot of teachers see students correcting them as an assault on their authority and they are partly right about this. Yes, the student may be right but admitting this may weaken the position the teacher has or aspires to have and thereby he has to carefully maneuvre between admitting his faults and maitaining order in the classroom(and over the students in general).
Remember that a high-school student spends around 5 years in a high-school but a teacher needs to maintain his position many times longer and that can cause the teacher to become ridgid. Personally, I see this as in inevitability though through good planning the damage can be minimized.
Knowledge is power. Knowledge shared is power lost.
Because for every bad teacher that deserves to be thrown out, there's a good teacher dedicated to such crazy concepts as teaching evolution in a science classroom, and the evangelicals aren't just going to sit there and take all those facts getting put inside their childrens' heads. So the process for removal has to be slow as possible- otherwise the highly motivated fundamentalists could push out anyone they choose whenever they want. The result is that genuinely bad teachers must be dragged through a process that can take years.
There, was that so difficult?
Wanna fire that "bad" teacher for teaching evolution? Great, make it easier to do so. I agree there are bad teachers, but the fact that you don't like them doesn't necessarily mean they are indeed bad teachers.
Slashdot, where armchair scientists get shouted down and armchair theologians get modded up.
As a product of the public school system who is quite happy with the education he received, let me try and add some balance to the usual slashdot anti-teacher, anti-union, right-wing libertarian groupthink.
The purpose of tenure is to protect teachers from unfair termination, not to protect bad teachers. If a teacher is underperforming there is usually a process to get rid of them, even if tenured, only most administrators are too lazy to go through it. The whole system is designed precisely so a school principal can't just terminate someone because IN THEIR JUDGMENT, the teacher is doing a lousy job. Personally I'd trust the judgment of most teachers over most school administrators.
And when it comes to education, it's hard to create metrics to accurately measure success. And don't even try to argue that those idiotic standardized tests measure much. Are we going to punish a teacher because most of their students failed a standardized English test? What if more than half of their students don't SPEAK English? What if the teacher had to teach 40 kids in one classroom? There are bad teachers, but it's not always easy to measure which ones are bad, and which ones are just either lucky or unlucky.
And by the way, anyone who thinks that some all-powerful teacher's union is preventing success is just ignorant. The teacher's unions are constantly undercut and overwhelmed by legislatures and city and state governments. If the teacher's unions were so powerful, then why do teacher's make so little?
I've worked as a computer programmer for over 20 years, and I have never seen or heard of any programmer being fired for incompetence, no matter the magnitude.
As far as I'm concerned, teachers deserve our support, and I think all of the bitching is just a smokescreen to support cutting education funding, and a mind-trick to turn people against unions.
"Not an actor, but he plays one on TV."
Actually, I think the sad answer really is because you'd only need to replace the one you fire and its hard to find good teachers.
Probably there are also a lot of complaints from students who are actually not good and blame the teacher, so its a question of who judges the situation right?
Incredibly low? TFA quoted the median salary for a teacher in their mid 30s as $74,000 a year. I'm sure many people would be happy to trade their "incredibly low" salary for that incredibly low salary.
That's no accident: that entry level teacher is still motivated and idealistic, and he's willing to spend a lot of extra time. Give him a few years of teaching, and he'll lose all that.
The problem with this is that students are generally not in a good position to evaluate their educational needs. Many middle and high school students prefer to not be challenged and to do as little work as possible. A likely outcome of a student rating system is that teachers who offer easy classes that require little work will be seen as the highest quality educators.
Some of my most difficult teachers in high school are among those that in retrospect I recognize to have done the most for me. Only a few of those would I have evaluated so highly during my schooling.
This would also be alleviated if there was a license required before people could become parents.
For all the back-and-forth that's going to take place in this article, the fundamental truth is that shitty parents generally lead to shitty students.
Waltz, nymph, for quick jigs vex Bud.
In my personal opinion the minute a teacher decides: "Correcting false information is less important than maintaining my own aura of authority," they stop being an educator and start down the road to becoming a tyrant in a teapot. Personally I would argue the reason high school students are so merciless is because by the time they encounter even one nice teacher they've been exposed to far too many of the "dickheads" and don't know how to interact with someone who is genuinely trying to teach them.
Many schools already have this. The problem is, students are either too lazy to do this, or intentionally give terrible comments about teachers they dont like, regardless of that teacher's teaching ability.
The "lazy" student is used constantly by bad teachers. There are some teachers who can't teach, pure and simple. In order to boost their self esteem, they call students who simply can't learn the way they teach, lazy. Sure, there are some lazy students who won't do anything. And most teachers that can teach, the students like. The teachers who only have to explain things once because they make it crystal clear, the teachers who will spend a week going over a concept until the students grasp it, those are the teachers that students like. The type that can't teach, give pointless assignments, are strict about parts of grades that don't matter (like failing students because they picked a slightly different typeface other then Times New Roman) usually students hate.
Ex. A teacher has to constantly discipline a group of 5-7 students who disrupt class. When it comes time to do evaluations, these students all give the teacher terrible reviews. And, since it is done anonymously, there is no way to tell which students gave the evaluations, so there is no way to determine their bias against the teacher. The teacher is then fired because of those bad reviews, simply because some students didnt like the teacher disciplining them.
But usually teachers have 200 or more kids in a year, so those 5-7 would be quite insignificant.
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
Uh... maybe... but have you considered the ramifications of not having unions? Lack of union protections could adversely affect good teachers as well as bad.
...And so abolish tenure. Give all teachers equal chance to get laid off or fired when the next year rolls around. Mr. Grump who everyone hates but can't fire because he has been in the district 40 years, shouldn't be immune to being laid off/fired.
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
The article kicks off describing how a group of shrill, ignorant parents took the word of an emotionally disturbed 12 year old and decided to push for someone to be fired based soley on that.
Parents like to treat teachers as their personal governesses. Like that cheerleading coach who was crucified for playboy pictures that were not a big deal until some fat dumpy girl who didn't get picked had a tantrum and made her mum charge into the headteachers office with the pictures.
Your kid isn't special. In all likelihood, your kid is a spoilt, willfully ignorant little shit who will give the teacher hell no matter how much they try (and they do try; nobody sticks at teaching who doesn't see it as a vocation as well as a job). Your little darling is so convinced they will be a millionaire professional sportsperson/musician/actor because you've always told them how 'special' they were, that they carry this overinflated sense of entitlement into the classroom along with 30 other 'special' kids.
The result basically lord of the flies with nicer clothes. And the people who take up the under paid task of controlling the little bastards are constantly subject to demands to fire them, cut their pay, and increase their work loads.
Back off assholes.
If we can put a man on the moon, why can't we shoot people for Apollo-related non-sequiturs?
You make an excellent point- item 1 touches on what is probably the biggest problem in public education: Schools are not producing productive citizens. Upon graduation from High School, anyone should be able to go out and get a job that will support him. If someone wants to enter a more complex field (and perhaps make more money), then that person should take advanced training. Right now the economy and the school system are both geared against this kind of vocational education.
How about increase teachers, decrease classroom size. And teach parenting courses in school?!?! Heaven forbid our children know how to raise children properly when they have them. It's mystifying how this isn't taught in school already. They have the first part taught "sex education" but they left out the next 18 or so years after the sex part.
I've found that a good teacher can make students like them. Make students respect them. Who treats them as adults and not 5 year olds. A good teacher adapts course material to the class's demographics, if you have a required history class where most of the class isn't going to be historians, don't hammer in obscure dates of obscure events, doing that isn't learning. Focus on improving the student, not forcing them to memorize useless trivia.
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
The teachers unions are not even there for the teachers. They are there for the unions themselves.
Go green: turn off your refrigerator.
Tenure and Unions
I work in a private school as an IT director, and we don't have either of those things. If you are a stellar teacher, are rewarded with more compensation, and better kit for your classroom.
If you are a, "do-just-enough-to-get-by", type of teacher, you don't get more/better stuff for your classroom (motivated teachers will make better use of the materials), and if you are bad enough, your contract won't be renewed next year.
I've been with this school about 8 years, and I can see the steady improvement in the staff. The strong ones stay, the weak ones go elsewhere.
We are a private school - typically districts send us students, and we have some private pay students. We need to have the best staff possible, or else districts and parents will send their kids somewhere else. Competition does make us better.
That's the way public schools need to be.
-ted
The teachers' union in Toledo, Ohio, has spearheaded a controversial policy to purge the school district of incompetent teachers. It's called "peer review" and no school system in the country has been doing it longer than Toledo.
...
union members today overwhelmingly support it.
...
The AFT endorsed peer review in 1984.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=91327130 Listen to the story -- the text is a poor summary.
I don't debate that there are many good teachers out there but (as a relatively recent product of the UK education system) I think you present a somewhat rose-tinted view. There were some superb teachers that I came across throughout my education, and there were some terrible ones too.
Maybe as a pupil rather than a colleague the impact of the few 'dictators' sits more strongly in the memory - not to mention the fact that they are much more likely to treat you, a fellow teacher, as an equal. Nonetheless, they were there, as were some who were so lacking in understanding of their subject that they had no hope of teaching it. They didn't make up a vast contingent by any means, but there were enough of them to add to the general unpleasantness of schooling - the school system itself and the social problems of being a teenager effectively took care of the rest.
I'd imagine the American system is much the same, and it's simply that nobody mentions the legions of perfectly good teachers out there when the extremes are the first who spring to mind. Add the misery caused for many people (especially those in the Slashdot demographic) by the administrative and social aspects that the teachers have no control over and all you're going to hear about is how terrible it all is.
I taught high school and the only thing the Teacher's Union did for me was make my paycheck smaller by taking money out of it.
If there is some teacher's union out there with all these magical powers that people always claim they have it obviously wasn't the one that I was part of...
http://www.popularculturegaming.com -- my blog about the culture of videogame players
Way to swallow the total Teachers Union bullshit.
The Teacher's Union is the reason that teacher cannot be fired. They are also the ones feeding you bullshit about the budget hurting the schools. If you think funnelling more money into that union is the way to fix California schools the you are the problem.
Yes, but take a look at states without teachers' unions. Well-qualified educators tend to flock far away from these places, due to the low pay and frankly abusive working conditions.
Although there are a few genuine good souls out there who are willing to make sacrifices for the sake of educating children, we're going to have a tough time recruiting teachers until they're paid fairly and competitively. Unions help accomplish this goal.
Unionized states do have their own problems. The union tends to protect its own members a bit too strongly (tenure needs to be revised, if not abolished). Similarly, they need to start speaking out against unqualified administrators with absurdly high salaries. The theory of teaching education likely needs to be revised as well, given that the current crop of EdDs don't seem to hold onto their jobs very long.
One solution could be to loosely regulate the unions. Completely abolishing them has not proven to be a great strategy, as it turns out that abuses are indeed inherent in the system.
-- If you try to fail and succeed, which have you done? - Uli's moose
Because bad parents affect kids more than the teachers, and there are a /lot/ more bad parents out there.
Hail Eris, full of mischief...
E pluribus sanguinem
You are one, and only one, of the following:
1)Intimately familiar with the details of the GP's situation and with the people involved in it.
2)Talking out of your ass.
"""
I don't have any experience of the US high school system but it seems to have fallen apart for the majority of kids. Is this, sadly, the case?
"""
Essentially, yes.
"""
Or have teachers been singled out as a scapegoat for the failings of US society?
"""
Essentially, yes.
The 'no child left behind' thing is a tragedy. Seriously, look into it. It's nothing but obscene. But, what also happens is that students don't study or pay attention in class and of course fail or get poor grades. Then the teacher gets blamed. Which isn't exactly fair as the teacher can't exactly force someone to learn if they don't want to.
So, the effect this has is that everyone starts looking out for themselves and gets very defensive. There's no giving or taking of criticism, even if constructive, because, it all could lead to getting blamed for something that isn't the teachers fault. And so on.
Essentially, the entire situation is a gigantic cluster-fuck. One in which, at this point, isn't able to be untangled because every party involved in pointing there fingers at everyone else, completely unable to admit even the most innocent failings on there part regardless of how much proof there is that it happens.
I don't deny that there are crappy teachers but at the same time if the teachers aren't supported at home by the parents then all the work by the teachers is an exercise in futility. I always find it funny when I hear people here from good family backgrounds assuming that their background is universally applicable to all students out there.
With that being said the way which kids learn needs to be examined; English should be taught right up until the end of 7th form - focusing on the fundamentals, if they want to learn about poetry, creative writing and so forth, they can take double major English. Talk to any university professor and they'll tell you about the sorry state of writing by students who come to university. Fundamentals, fundamentals, fundamentals - I look at the crap that US schools teacher - what they hell have they got to do with fundamental skills?
Kids who aren't university inclined need to be told they aren't university material and they should go to a polytechnic - learn a trade, be a bricky, sparky, plumber or some other trade. Its time that parents pulled their head out of their ass and realise that their kids aren't vessels for them to fulfil their dreams which they failed to do in their own life - if their kid is not academically inclined then they should stop wasting tax payers money by continuing their education and get them learning a trade.
What I love about /. People publicly admitting to illegal behavior and encouraging others to copy their behavior. I am sure the officers let go from the military with dishonorable discharges would agree no harm was done, their lives went on fine as if you had not done anything. ;-)
If I were to ask you if an apple is past its ripest point, you would have difficulty telling if the apple I gave you was just a day past its prime. If the apple was rotten, you would just know.
The notion that you can't quantify bad teaching is somewhat of a red herring for this issue. We aren't talking about the two average teachers down the hall, we're talking about someone who is clearly bad. When I was in high school, I had a Physics teacher who didn't notice when two fellow students drew a six foot tall penis on the back wall. He spoke in half sentences, and couldn't remember how physics worked. He should have been fired. When you get into the middle of the road teachers, firing them is a whole other issue.
An important change for education.
Ultimately, it is the responsibility of the student to learn the material. The teacher can ask whether the kids get the material, and explain it dozens of times. The kids may say yes, but not really get it (thinking they do but don't, or knowing so and not wanting to look stupid to others), and then do poorly on the exam. At that point, where does the blame lie? It's somewhere in between, but a teacher can only go so far. The students have to come the other half of the way. The difficulty is that many don't, and that's why student evaluations are worthless.
A college teacher myself, I have a radically different view of evaluations now versus when I filled them out. Evaluations are almost based solely on grades--not all of them, mind you, but a good 80-90% of them. Those that do well give good evaluations, and those that door poorly give poor evaluations to the teacher.
I'm not perfect at my job, but I try my best and make sure I'm prepared. Some of my kids do well, and others don't. Others come to less than 50% of the classes and do very poorly (and then wonder why). The thing I've learned is that you can never, ever please everyone, at least if you want grades to be an accurate measure of performance. If you hand out A's, everyone will love you; if you don't, you'll make some of them very unhappy, regardless of how good you really are.
Check it out sometime. Visit a site like ratemyprofessor.com and see what people write. Many comments that accompany high ratings go like "An easy grade" or "Little work required." It's really quite insightful, really.
The issue is that many students believe that it's solely the responsibility of the teacher whether they do well or not, and that if they don't get something, it's not because there's any weakness in them.
Not all teachers are great, but unless they're completely negligent--unprepared, don't grade papers, etc--then they're probably at least adequate. When students expect to just show up and magically get things, there's nothing that can be done to make it better.
Without the world of grades, you'd see very different evaluations of teachers. I'd be curious to see what such a world would look like.
This is why we need school choice vouchers. Those who are motivated to rescue their kids from the system should not have to fund it when they are paying for an alternative.
We cannot fix the public school system because that requires power we will never have. We should admit that and use school choice legislation so we can have some opportunity for the few. Society is led by the few achievers, not the mass of beasts. We dump millions into trying to educate retards, so why not let those motivated to opt out and improve their childrens chances do so?
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
The same could be said for any position which is covered by a union. You wouldn't believe how hard it is to get rid of deadwood in a local city government position, and it's strictly because of the unions and contracts.
Meanwhile, those without the seniority( but rock their jobs ) are the first up for lay offs. Unions are the cause of this insanity.
Mod me down with all of your hatred and your journey towards the dark side will be complete!
Part of the problem is, what metric are you using to judge the teacher?
If you judge by student performance, you run into two problems: stupid/unmotivated kids, and "teaching the test" issues.
If you judge by observers, what method do you use to observe?
I work in higher ed - we regularly get kids coming in that I am flabbergasted that they EVER got through high school. Unfortunately, in TexAss, the "top 10%" of each high school is automatically required to be able to enter any state College.
So since we aren't a "top tier" university, we are forced to take the "top 10%" of kids from Redneckistan, Mexishithole, ElBarrio, MiniAfrica, and NewZimbabwe High Schools - you know, the kids who "graduated with a 4.0 GPA" and yet have NO writing skills, NO speaking skills, and barely can manage 3rd-grade mathematics and english equivalence. They expect everything to be handed to them on a silver platter - after all, they were socially promoted for 12 grades beforehand, their education paid for completely (and will continue to be so, even the ILLEGALS who shouldn't even be in this country might be getting tuition waivers and in-state rate soon, which is fucked up beyond belief when the kids on our military bases don't get that), the test standards constantly lowered for them, the curriculum altered, the language taught not the language they need to use in this country, and of course, the standardized tests removed because it was easier to stop testing than try to explain why there was a "racial disparity" between black/white/asian/hispanic/etc in the results every year.
You know what? We get feedback from the people we send out every year, the new teachers out there. What do they tell us?
- The parents WILL NOT help discipline the kids.
- The parents WILL NOT make sure the kids are doing the work.
- The parents will start screaming "lawsuit" if you suggest that little Tyrell, LaShawna, or Chiquita needs to go back a grade because they can't keep up with the expected standard.
- The school administrations WILL NOT back the teacher up if there is a discipline problem - let alone the drug and gang problems they are dealing with.
- The school administrations WILL NOT back up the teacher on giving a kid poor grade once the parents scream - doesn't matter if they never do a bit of work, never turn in homework, and even if they were in the bathroom doing crack during test time, the TEACHER gets blamed for the kid's performance.
I know there are "bad teachers" out there. You know what? There are EVEN SHITTIER KIDS OUT THERE.
She had hit him on the head on more than one occasion, once even on film. it took not only suing the school but also giving the video and doing a interview with the local news before they fired her.
Firing was the wrong path - call the cops, have her arrested.
I know there are "bad teachers" out there. You know what? There are EVEN SHITTIER KIDS OUT THERE.
As a homeschooling parent, I'll play devil's advocate here. The law says The Children must attend school, but it can't require them to actually be good students (be it grades or, for the most part, behavior).
Since public school authority over kids has been emasculated over the years, preventing them from doing real enforcement for problem kids, the proper solution is simply to repeal compulsory education. They should still collect *some* taxes to support a system where people who want to be educated can go. Then, the schools can have a sane policy for kicking people out, since their mission will be to, you know, educate kids, as opposed to play tax-funded babysitters for shitty parents.
Yeah, yeah... an educated citizenry is a cornerstone of a healthy, productive society. How's that working out, anyway?
Method of processing duck feet
Almost every criteria you put forward is subjective, and the rest of what you propose (Conference, Observe, Remediate, Terminate) bears a strong resemblance to union contracts in many fields.
The problem is that management and parents never want to follow the rules that are laid out in the contract. Read the comments in this thread and you will see that many people are complaining about the fact that at some stage in a process similar to what you outline the teacher was found to be competent/compliant with the rules. People want to fire "bad teachers", but they want to fire them the second they themselves identify them, not wait until after there has been some verifiable non-subjective proof of wrongdoing or incompetence.
Any review or remediation will be called "bureaucratic obstacles" or "politics" by the people who think this is easy. See bad teacher=fire bad teacher, simple.
Never mind the teachers that would get fired because they tried to teach something that violated the parent's world view (e.g. evolution).
I'm sure every person in this thread who is in favor of abolishing tenure is well intentioned, but most of them have probably never found themselves unemployed at the age of 55 with a "bad teacher" reputation hung around their neck because the school board realized they could save tens of thousands in salary and retirement costs by firing a teacher that ran against them in the last election.
At least removing obstacles from the firing path will never lead to a world where teachers will be afraid to publicly complain about waste and corruption in the schools, right? Whistle blower laws are just another legal trick in the union's arsenal.
The teachers that are "bad" because they dared to tell a well connected parent that their precious little butterfly has no business being in an advanced class will sleep better knowing that they lost their job to save us from the scourge of easily identified bad teachers.
Insert pithy comment here.
Yeah, yeah... an educated citizenry is a cornerstone of a healthy, productive society. How's that working out, anyway?
As far as I know, it's working out fantastically. Do you have an example of a nation without compulsory education that has a standard of living greater than ours?
Warning: Opinions known to be heavily biased.
Do you have an example of a nation without compulsory education that has a standard of living greater than ours?
No, but I know of several nations with better standards of living that, not un-coincidentally, have a "compulsory" education system that properly rewards excellence and punishes failure, rather than letting the kids simply slide through and come out the other end uneducated due to their own stupidity and misbehavior.
The movie Idiocracy also comes to mind for some reason...
Word of advice about Missouri: the southwestern part of the state is horrifyingly conservative. If you like more liberal, open-minded types
"Liberal" and "open-minded" are two terms that in my experience are completely contradictory. "Liberals" are people who are (at least) just as hateful and malicious towards anyone who doesn't fit their chosen groupthink, as what you probably would claim "conservatives" are like.
If you're going to be "open minded", you're willing to see the argument and the objective positive and negative points from multiple sides of any argument. Liberals, by definition, come at their argument pre-biased to the left and are therefore never "open minded."
Now, if you want to find an open minded area, you need to find someplace centrist. Given the way that both political parties have been fucking around with districts and going around trying to polarize debate whenever possible, those are becoming harder and harder to find.
But I'm guessing - based on your phrasing above - that what you really are looking is for someplace that will blindly reinforce your own groupthink, rather than challenging you to actually examine your own beliefs and ideas with, say, an open mind.
No, but I know of several nations with better standards of living that, not un-coincidentally, have a "compulsory" education system that properly rewards excellence and punishes failure, rather than letting the kids simply slide through and come out the other end uneducated due to their own stupidity and misbehavior.
Relax pal, there's a reason why I replied to the other guy, and not to you. You were arguing against the overall culture of being afraid to give bad grades to students / have them repeat a grade lest the parents file a lawsuit. I agree with you, that's insane.
The person I was replying to was arguing against compulsory education, and that simply doesn't work. Too many fucking stupid parents would love to have their kids around as slave labor all day, doing chores while the parents watch tv (I've seen that happening in Brazil where, at the time, compulsory education was law, but not always enforced). Not sending your child to school (homeschooling is fine, if standards are set and the children are tested periodically to ensure they're learning the required subjects) is denying them the opportunity to have a successful career in the future. Anyone has to agree that's child abuse.
Warning: Opinions known to be heavily biased.
Mod parent up. I've said it a million times. Once parents (a huge voting block) figure out that no politican will ever blame that voting block for anything their children do, instead casting the blame on video games, metal, rap, drugs and teachers, there's no turning back.
I'll be the first person to call out a shitty teacher or an obstructive union, but this kind of discussion cannot go ahead without factoring a huge dataset: Parents. Of course, the first person who does finds himself voted out of office pretty quickly.
Linux, you magnificent bastard, I read the fucking manual!
I teach physics at a state university, and am a lowly untenured instructor. I know from personal experience that a few nut cases can make your life hell. There's the sweet young thing who out of the blue starts the "you really hurt my feelings when you said girls brains aren't as good as boy's brains." Just picture the shit that can come down on your head when this total delusion hits the administration. Total delusion! We have a zero tolerance policy against sexual discrimination of this sort, and it would be trivial to not renew my contract since I am in a state where it is against the law for public employees to be represented by a union. Then there is the guy who goes to your department chairman every two days because he isn't doing well in your class and he's got a 4.0 so it must be your fault (he got a B+ at the end of the term since he wasn't very good at physics--because you cannot memorize all the problems--and physics cost him his summa cum laude!). So you get marked down on your annual assessment even though the overwhelming majority of your student assessments come in well above departmental average, and you wind up getting counseled, etc., don't get a pay raise for the superior job you are doing.
For every bad teacher that has survived the elimination process at the outset of their teaching career (or gone bad later on), there are at least a half dozen who have had their lives screwed over by nutcase students along the lines outlined above.
So are "conservative" and "open-minded." In fact, "independents" are the only open-minded folks, by definition -- everybody else just copped out and picked a label. (At least, in modern terms -- the classic definition of "liberal" literally was "open-minded" (or "open to change"), while the classic definition of "conservative" was the opposite; nowadays they're both just names for classically-conservative people with opposite ideologies.)
Of course, that's more-or-less what you're trying to argue yourself. The trouble is that everybody reading your post -- including me -- gets halfway through your first sentence and blows you off for being partisan.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
Liberals, by definition, come at their argument pre-biased to the left and are therefore never "open minded."
I love the way you write off an entire group as never being open minded in a sentence about bias.
*chuckles*
My pics.
Unions are in place for the same reason at every workplace -- to protect employees and attempt to even out the power balance between employee and employer. There's no difference between the teachers union and the autoworkers union, really... and I'd dispute that anything you've said is true about the autoworkers' union either. I think you've been drinking the media kool-aid.
As a libertarian I ask you to please reconsider school vouchers as a bad idea. School vouchers will give government officials an hook into private schools. Once people are used to receiving money from the gvment they find it hard to stop, and little by little they start requesting more and more requirements from private schools in order be "voucher" worthy, until private and public schools are the same.
Now, if you want to find an open minded area, you need to find someplace centrist.
Bullshit. Just because a position is midway between two others does not mean it is openminded.
There are openminded people who call themselves liberals, and (far fewer, but they're out there; see below) openminded people who call themselves conservatives. There are people who will accuse you of not being openminded if you disagree with them. There are people who have looked at a situation from many angles and formed a very well-informed opinion based on much evidence, and who are accused of closedmindedness because they're not willing to give a second chance to old anecdotes that waeren't worth anything the first time either.
Openmindedness is a willingness to evaluate new evidence, or a willingness to consider different axioms, both of which are pretty much antithetical--by definition--to everything that conservatives stand for. It is not the willingness to humour stupid people.
"The biggest problem with communication is the illusion that it has taken place."
I don't doubt you weren't cheating but I'm sorry but it sounds to me like:
1) You either were unable or unwilling to explain your logic in doing the problem. Even in your head there must be intermediate steps.
2) Failed the social test. You already had this teacher off side, but that could have been his fault. If you can do it your way you should take the time to learn to do the problem as it has been taught and show your work. THAT would have proved beyond a doubt that you can do the work.
It's not just getting the answer right to math problems that matters. Part of your schooling is proving you can do it. Part of your schooling is learning to get along with others and cooperate. You haven't learnt that lesson, and taking you out of an environment where you can do (school) and keeping you at home was a great disservice to you.
Someone with your intelligence (assuming you're honest about that, which I am) should be able to manipulate the social situation so that everyone likes them, and go off and do your own extended study in your spare time just for yourself.
These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
I think by "open-minded" the parent probably means doesn't hate everyone who isn't exactly like them. This is Missouri we're talking about and conservative doesn't mean the same thing down there as it does up in the blue states.
We're not talking about libertarians with conservative economic views, we're talking rednecks and christian fundamentalists. Compared to that lot, the most closed minded, group thinking liberals are generally a breath of fresh air.
I know that it's fashionable to hate the liberals here on Slashdot because group think here says cut taxes and screw everyone and everything else, but remember that liberal and conservative have context, and there's a pretty good chance that wherever it is you live it isn't the deep south.
Oh? I don't agree.
Ok, I should have said, "any intelligent person who actually took the time to think this through," not just "anyone."
No, I'm not insulting your intelligence yet, but I don't think you've thought this through. Here's why:
I know plenty of "stupid" people with rather successful careers doing electrical work, carpentry, plumbing, and factory labor and they make more than I do as a degreed child behavioral worker.
They're not "stupid," they're uneducated. I didn't say "uneducated parents" would want to keep their children home doing chores, I think many of them would see the benefit in their child getting the education they lack. I said "stupid parents" were those who chose to believe an education is not important to their children.
There's no reason someone with a high school diploma, or even a college degree would be unable to also pick up the skills and have a rather successful career doing electrical work, carpentry, pumbling, and factory labor. You take someone whose parents kept them from school and now unskilled jobs are their only choice. If they want a career that requires a college education, that opportunity has been taken from them by their parents, before they were old enough to make a decision by themselves.
You don't need a degree to succeed in this country, if you have work ethic and a good market for your skills
You don't? I just did a search for the types of jobs you mentioned, and every single one of them had the same requirement, as in this example. They require a High School diploma or GED.
Sure, you could start your own business, if you're smart enough and good enough, but "Good market for your skills" is a key phrase you used there, especially in a place where you'll be competing with large amounts of immigrants who have the trade skills you mentioned, as well as outsourcing for unskilled jobs such as call centers.
No, success isn't a given with education. However, not having an education can hurt you, while having it never will.
Warning: Opinions known to be heavily biased.
Get rid of the unions and open teaching to folks who would get paid on their performance. (GASP!)
Yes, Unions, the organizations responsible for you and your extended family not working in a coal mine seven days a week and dying at 35, yes, they are bad and should be gotten rid of in an expression of overt extremism.
A little perspective, please. Extremism is useless.
Paid by performance? Okay, and how does one measure performance? That question has been circled around forever and nobody has come up with a useful answer. Kids are not car parts. They are not binary bits. The question, in short, is not black and white. Some subjective imagination is required to solve the problem. --Come on, you must have heard the arguments and counter-arguments. They nearly all, on both sides, have reasonable concerns.
Extremism is never the answer, because the school system is littered with retarded people who can only see in black and white who are best treated like cogs, and it is also filled with people who know how to use their imaginations who die if they are treated like machine parts. The lizards and the monkeys need to live together and so the system needs to not be one thing or the other.
-FL
Children not only need to learn material, far more imortantly, especially in younger kids, is that they learn social interaction, group discipline, experience varied environments, work in groups, experience physical activities and sports, work in teams, compete, etc. NO home schhol environment can offer this.
By educating your children at home you are stunting their social and psychological growth.
The biggest problem with American Schools is NOT the school, curriculum, or teachers, it's the PARENTS! Americans VERY INCORRECTLY assume that thgeir kid goes to school to learn and comes how with homework and that's all they need. FALSE! EVERY KID IS HOMESCHOOLED!!! When they come home, they should be LEARNING FROM YOU, and receiving the supplemental education that YOU think they should have above and beyond their lessons in school provide.
If you child is not disciplined in school, it's 90% likely it's YOUR fault. If your child is not learning what you want them to learn, it;s YOUR fault. The school curriculum is provided free as a BASE education to prepare them for the basic needs of life and for those who rise to it, preperation for college, but it IS NOT the sum of their education.
Sure, at home you can teach them math, science, writing, etc, but I seriously doubt there is a single home school parent out there who can provide a dynamic environment for education at home, who can perform all the lab expereiments required, afford to take their child on trips to experience the world outside their books, who can bring performances and programs into the house, and who can provide the social environment to allow their child to excel to more than simple smarts in life.
My wife IS a teacher. You would expect an elementary teacher would be a NATURAL resource to home school. In her decade teaching, she has taught about 30 children that were previously home schooled, and EVERY SINGLE ONE had social problems, was far behind the rest of their class in at leasdt one if not all subjects, had serious issues with authority and direction, was virtually incapable of working in teams, and had no idea how to behave in a gym or when playing sports, and had no competitive ability without a serious psychological slant to it.
Life happens OUTSIDE of books. School is designed to get them the basic education they deserve based on the effort YOU convince them to put forward. It prepares them for life and the social interactions it requires. Sometimes getting their ass kicked is PART of that learning process. Being exposed to situations and things they don't fully understand is also part of that process. When they come home, it;s YOUR JOB to help them disceminate what they EXPERIENCED, plus what they learned, and help them form an understanding and move up the ladder of life.
WAY too many parents simply think dropping their kid off at school and picking them up is good enough, and all they need to do at home is talk about drugs, sex, drinking, condoms, and AIDS and they're done, the TV can do the rest... WRONG!
If you don't like the education (knowledge) the school provides, either supplement it at home or put them in a private school or prep school whenre they teach on higher levels, but DO NOT take the rest of learning, the LIFE learning, away from a child by isolating them at home.
Home schooling with truly dedicated parents who not only educate, but also discipline their child, continually bring them to exhibitions, theatre, museums and the like, and who involve their children in social systems and team sports are a rarity, but with lots of time and money it can be successful. But the harsh reality is very few of the 1.1 million children being legally homeschooled will receive such treatment, and many enter into lives of crime or violence(reaction to isolation and strict rule, or heavily religious environments), or become socially isolated and fail to compete in the workplace. Additionally, colleges tend to frown on home-school admissions that are not accompanied by extremel
There is no contest in life for which the unprepared have the advantage.
Children not only need to learn material, far more imortantly, especially in younger kids, is that they learn social interaction, group discipline, experience varied environments, work in groups, experience physical activities and sports, work in teams, compete, etc. NO home schhol environment can offer this.
By educating your children at home you are stunting their social and psychological growth.
Yeah. By not subjecting them to mental abuse, physical abuse, and the roundabout torture by the sons and daughters of shithead breeders who've had 12 kids on a 40 IQ and government handouts, you're doing "immense harm" to your kids.
Oh, wait, it doesn't sound the same when I put it like that, huh.
Sure, at home you can teach them math, science, writing, etc, but I seriously doubt there is a single home school parent out there who can provide a dynamic environment for education at home, who can perform all the lab expereiments required, afford to take their child on trips to experience the world outside their books, who can bring performances and programs into the house, and who can provide the social environment to allow their child to excel to more than simple smarts in life.
Dude, fuck you. Have you even SEEN a public school lately?
Public schools do not do ANY lab experiments any more. Most of them don't even have a gas hookup at the teacher's desk in a science classroom. Hell, bring in a couple tabs of alka-seltzer to demonstrate the process of effervesence and you're likely to get dragged off under some "zero tolerance" medications policy.
Home schooling with truly dedicated parents who not only educate, but also discipline their child, continually bring them to exhibitions, theatre, museums and the like, and who involve their children in social systems and team sports are a rarity, but with lots of time and money it can be successful. But the harsh reality is very few of the 1.1 million children being legally homeschooled will receive such treatment, and many enter into lives of crime or violence(reaction to isolation and strict rule, or heavily religious environments), or become socially isolated and fail to compete in the workplace.
Again, fuck you for being a retard. Every homeschooling parent I have known has gone FAR above and beyond the "minimums" of what they need to do, and their kids have benefited greatly as a result. They've gone the extra mile to ensure their kids get to participate in clubs and sports when the kid had a genuine interest (as opposed to forcing their kids into little league or something else merely because it's summertime and school isn't providing the free day care). They've gone out of their way to see that the kids have REAL exposure to what is going on in the world around them. They take the time to make sure the kids understand not just the "basics", but everything that goes on around them - the family budget, taking care of your house and clothes and possessions, appreciating what you have rather than thinking you have to have "the newest thing" merely because someone else does. Every one of these kids was either an Eagle Scout or Girl Scout with the Gold Award. Every one of them was polite, courteous, well-spoken, smart, and more adept in critical thinking than any product of the Edjamacashun Factery that I've ever seen.
You are doing your child a great disservice by not allowing them to have at least some experience in public schools.
They have done the best possible thing they could, by NOT inflicting the horrors of the pure shithole of American public schooling upon them.