I wouldn't want to spoil the story for you, but the point is that one must read announcements of this type very carefully as there is generally far more hidden in them that appears on the surface. So your assurances are not entirely... reassuring.
A lot of stories and anecdotes; no statistics. Many people have the "perception" that public schools are failing but the numbers don't back that up.
And pointing to South Carolina as an example? When a region deliberately sets out to destroy its own state and local governments - including but not limited to public schools - as a matter of ideology then it should not be surprising that the end result is a damaged public environment.
= = = I dunno, teachers are paid pretty well for the months they actually work. Often near $25-30+ an hour. = = =
Let's try an experiment: pay teachers $50 million year, plus the opportunity to earn a $25 million merit bonus, and pay the executives of Wall Street banks whatever a teacher with equal years experience at the school where they attended first grade is paid.
You might start by providing some evidence about the presumed failure and "deep structural problems". As I noted in another comment below, projecting the City of Detroit Public Schools onto the entire range of public schools in the United States - most of them doing quite well academically - is not appropriate. The vast majority of US children attend locally-controlled public schools that are quite good.
But yes, money is an issue. Others have demolished the "9 months work" fallacy, so I'll offer another perspective. Our district takes each year a certain percentage of transfer students from a failed big-city district similar to Detroit. A very limited percentage of our total student body. We are generally able to get them up to somewhere near grade level if they stay through high school, but the cost is very very high in both money and resources; perhaps 5x that of our local kids. That's OK, we have the money and I think our teachers and staff enjoy the challenge (although it does affect our No Public School Left Undestroyed scores). But Detroit and its equivalents don't have that money or extra resources - in fact they have less than we do. But yeah, you're right: money and resources couldn't possibly be the problem. In Galt's Gulch.
Pay teachers less and less until their outcome improves. I like your ideas.
"And the beatings will continue until morale improves." = = =
I'm kind of confused, though, why Wall Street bankers who fail to the point of tanking the entire global economy need to be paid more and more each year to encourage them to work.
= = = Exactly. If Khan doesn't work, it will fade away. The same is not true of public schools. = = =
Thank Gaia, given that universal public education is incredibly valuable.
= = = Look, I don't even think most teachers are going to disagree with this - the public school system doesn't allow for adjustment and experimentation - it just can't. The reasons why are political, and don't really matter. = = =
You don't spend much time volunteering at your local public school, or working over a period of years with public school teachers, do you?
= = = But the system hasn't worked for about a generation and a half now, nothing is going to change from the inside.= = =
The US public school system works exceedingly well. You are taking a few failed large urban districts such as City of Detroit and City of St. Louis and projecting them onto all "public schools" (the talking point meme these days is actually 'government schools').
The fact is that the vast majority of US families live in suburbs or exurbs of large cities and/or in small cities (and some rural districts), and for the most part their public schools are doing just fine (and if you like/believe standardized tests, doing better every year). Where that isn't true there is generally a clear link to lack of money (rural districts).
However, many of those families get their news from a specific ideologically-driven source and have been told that "public schools are failing". Well, they know it can't be their public school district because they get the test reports, know the teachers, etc. BUT - it must be those people in the next district over who have failing public schools. Let's force them to privatize! Think there might be an agenda at work there somewhere?
= = = And that's something that could very well be solved by technology and by making use of an interactive medium.= = =
Possibly, although I'm somewhat less than convinced about the ability of the glowing blue screen to actually teach and educate as opposed to just mesmerize for a period of time. However, for that to be so you "just" need to get millions of hours worth of exceedingly high-quality, feedback-based course material developed and distributed for a reasonable cost. Then maintained. Tried to hire a tech writer to document your brilliant code lately? Aren't exactly coming out of the woodwork, are they?
And that includes skipping over the "high-quality" part. I've observed computer-based math instruction since 1978 and it is only in the past 2 years that I have seen anything that comes even close to being useful - in certain specific areas - for real instruction. And math is easy compared to other subjects.
New teacher with zest for the profession does a great job her first five years and gets "merit raise" after "merit raise". At the end of five years her efforts and capability are rewarded by assigning here the most behavior-disordered students in the school, those with no home life, can't read, belligerence problems, hatred of school, etc. What is going to happen to her "merit evaluation" scores (not to mention the holy standardized test scores)? Why? Who evaluates her "merit" and how?
= = = n most states, teachers unions have essentially become guilds that exist to shut out alternatives to public schools. = = =
Provide some links with percentages, please. You are essentially describing the New York City United Federal of Teachers of 1972 [1] and projecting onto the entire United States of 2012. Not even the UFT is anything like that today (although they were quite justified in many of their contract demands in the 1960s and 1970s).
sPh
[1] Source of the quote in "Sleeper": 'the world ended when a man named Albert Shanker got the bomb'
Very few K-12 districts in the United States have any concept of "tenure", and even in those that do it isn't any type of ironclad lock on a job that most imagine. Besides various for-cause dismissal reasons, those few with tenure can also be laid off for financial reasons (whole-district layoffs).
What is true is that in those few districts that have a scrap of "tenure" left teachers cannot be arbitrarily fired at the whim of administrators and school board officials. For some reason that drives the libs (that is, the gilibertarians) nuts.
Don't confuse them with facts. The United States is well on its way to destroying what is perhaps its greatest achievement: universal public schooling of at least minimal and often excellent quality [1]. We would not want to interrupt that march by providing mere truth about "government schools".
sPh
[1] Look at the list of distinguished graduates of the New York Public Schools (1820 forward) some time.
You are free to argue that standing over a person's shoulder, watching what they type, and saying "feel FREE to send that e-mail to the Senator" is just monitoring and not interfering. I suspect you'll also be free to make that argument when (1) under oath in front of a Senate Committee (2) to a jury.
Your legal knowledge appears extensive. Perhaps you could give us a briefing on the federal law that prohibits interfering in communications between any federal employee and a member of Congress.
Well, we might want to read through the "potential for buckyballs to cause cancer" papers before we charge full-speed ahead on that one. Interdisciplinary thinking and all that.
= = = = Either you are trolling or there is a huge gap between your understanding of the law and what the situation actually is. I suggest you talk to a lawyer before you test your theory in real life.= = = =
Yes, who can ever forget when Hewlett-Packard received the corporate death penalty for running a cell phone hacking scheme through a third-party contractor.
Not entirely disagreeing with you, but perhaps M1FCJ was referring to the fact that just as the US did the Soviet Union had a pool of qualified female aviators (including many with combat experience) but selected Valentina Tereshkova, who appeared to be only minimally qualified, instead. One suspects that there might have been a concern (as there was in the US) that if a qualified women was chosen she might just expect to be a full member of the team, selected for additional missions, etc).
= = = I'm guessing that they probably had a pool of potential female candidates, all of them qualified for the job, and once the vital qualifications were met they picked the one who would look best on the propaganda posters. This is supposed to be a statement of the greatness of China - it wouldn't do if their poster-woman had a gap whenever she smiled. = = =
The United States, of course, would never stoop to such tactics. (hint: next time you are at a big airshow stop by the US Air Force recruiting booth and evaluate the attractiveness of the pilots working there, both male and female. Do you really think every USAF pilot looks that good?)
If you are referring to the Radical Right talking point of the Community Reinvestment Act, which required mortgage lenders not to discriminate against qualified buyers, it was passed in 1977. That's a heck of a delayed reaction there as compared to, I dunno, the Gramm family's work in repealing Glass-Steagall in 1999.
= = = That said, the United States Postal Service isn't really in financial trouble. Their problem mostly has to do with a bad law that forces them to devote enormous amounts of cash to prefund pension plans [wikipedia.org] = = =
Something like 99.7% of USPS mail is autosorted. There are three (IIRC on the number) centers were a few dozen human-type people view (remotely, from the regional sorting center) the 0.3% that doesn't autosort. Again IIRC those people are able to sort 99% of the remaining, usually within 10 seconds. The rest go to the dead mail office.
The pictures people have in their minds of USPS "inefficiency" are the way things were done in the 1950s; the USPS started automating in a big way in the 60s and funded a lot of research in machine vision and OCR in the 60s and 70s.
Soon as that 1000x-stronger-than-spider-silk cable material is invented, the electrical charge problems are solved, and the people living under the fall path of a broken cable accept the risk we are good to go. Just a few minor engineering obstacles to be sure.
Slashdot Mirror
I wouldn't want to spoil the story for you, but the point is that one must read announcements of this type very carefully as there is generally far more hidden in them that appears on the surface. So your assurances are not entirely... reassuring.
sPh
"I did not steal the stocks or the bonds"
_Tales of the Black Widowers_, Isaac Asimov
A lot of stories and anecdotes; no statistics. Many people have the "perception" that public schools are failing but the numbers don't back that up.
And pointing to South Carolina as an example? When a region deliberately sets out to destroy its own state and local governments - including but not limited to public schools - as a matter of ideology then it should not be surprising that the end result is a damaged public environment.
sPh
Let's try an experiment: pay teachers $50 million year, plus the opportunity to earn a $25 million merit bonus, and pay the executives of Wall Street banks whatever a teacher with equal years experience at the school where they attended first grade is paid.
sPh
You might start by providing some evidence about the presumed failure and "deep structural problems". As I noted in another comment below, projecting the City of Detroit Public Schools onto the entire range of public schools in the United States - most of them doing quite well academically - is not appropriate. The vast majority of US children attend locally-controlled public schools that are quite good.
But yes, money is an issue. Others have demolished the "9 months work" fallacy, so I'll offer another perspective. Our district takes each year a certain percentage of transfer students from a failed big-city district similar to Detroit. A very limited percentage of our total student body. We are generally able to get them up to somewhere near grade level if they stay through high school, but the cost is very very high in both money and resources; perhaps 5x that of our local kids. That's OK, we have the money and I think our teachers and staff enjoy the challenge (although it does affect our No Public School Left Undestroyed scores). But Detroit and its equivalents don't have that money or extra resources - in fact they have less than we do. But yeah, you're right: money and resources couldn't possibly be the problem. In Galt's Gulch.
sPh
I'm kind of confused, though, why Wall Street bankers who fail to the point of tanking the entire global economy need to be paid more and more each year to encourage them to work.
sPh
Thank Gaia, given that universal public education is incredibly valuable.
You don't spend much time volunteering at your local public school, or working over a period of years with public school teachers, do you?
The US public school system works exceedingly well. You are taking a few failed large urban districts such as City of Detroit and City of St. Louis and projecting them onto all "public schools" (the talking point meme these days is actually 'government schools').
The fact is that the vast majority of US families live in suburbs or exurbs of large cities and/or in small cities (and some rural districts), and for the most part their public schools are doing just fine (and if you like/believe standardized tests, doing better every year). Where that isn't true there is generally a clear link to lack of money (rural districts).
However, many of those families get their news from a specific ideologically-driven source and have been told that "public schools are failing". Well, they know it can't be their public school district because they get the test reports, know the teachers, etc. BUT - it must be those people in the next district over who have failing public schools. Let's force them to privatize! Think there might be an agenda at work there somewhere?
sPh
Possibly, although I'm somewhat less than convinced about the ability of the glowing blue screen to actually teach and educate as opposed to just mesmerize for a period of time. However, for that to be so you "just" need to get millions of hours worth of exceedingly high-quality, feedback-based course material developed and distributed for a reasonable cost. Then maintained. Tried to hire a tech writer to document your brilliant code lately? Aren't exactly coming out of the woodwork, are they?
And that includes skipping over the "high-quality" part. I've observed computer-based math instruction since 1978 and it is only in the past 2 years that I have seen anything that comes even close to being useful - in certain specific areas - for real instruction. And math is easy compared to other subjects.
sPh
New teacher with zest for the profession does a great job her first five years and gets "merit raise" after "merit raise". At the end of five years her efforts and capability are rewarded by assigning here the most behavior-disordered students in the school, those with no home life, can't read, belligerence problems, hatred of school, etc. What is going to happen to her "merit evaluation" scores (not to mention the holy standardized test scores)? Why? Who evaluates her "merit" and how?
sPh
Provide some links with percentages, please. You are essentially describing the New York City United Federal of Teachers of 1972 [1] and projecting onto the entire United States of 2012. Not even the UFT is anything like that today (although they were quite justified in many of their contract demands in the 1960s and 1970s).
sPh
[1] Source of the quote in "Sleeper": 'the world ended when a man named Albert Shanker got the bomb'
Very few K-12 districts in the United States have any concept of "tenure", and even in those that do it isn't any type of ironclad lock on a job that most imagine. Besides various for-cause dismissal reasons, those few with tenure can also be laid off for financial reasons (whole-district layoffs).
What is true is that in those few districts that have a scrap of "tenure" left teachers cannot be arbitrarily fired at the whim of administrators and school board officials. For some reason that drives the libs (that is, the gilibertarians) nuts.
sPh
Don't confuse them with facts. The United States is well on its way to destroying what is perhaps its greatest achievement: universal public schooling of at least minimal and often excellent quality [1]. We would not want to interrupt that march by providing mere truth about "government schools".
sPh
[1] Look at the list of distinguished graduates of the New York Public Schools (1820 forward) some time.
You are free to argue that standing over a person's shoulder, watching what they type, and saying "feel FREE to send that e-mail to the Senator" is just monitoring and not interfering. I suspect you'll also be free to make that argument when (1) under oath in front of a Senate Committee (2) to a jury.
sPh
Your legal knowledge appears extensive. Perhaps you could give us a briefing on the federal law that prohibits interfering in communications between any federal employee and a member of Congress.
sPh
Well, we might want to read through the "potential for buckyballs to cause cancer" papers before we charge full-speed ahead on that one. Interdisciplinary thinking and all that.
sPh
Bit of human error there, eh?
sPH
Yes, who can ever forget when Hewlett-Packard received the corporate death penalty for running a cell phone hacking scheme through a third-party contractor.
sPh
Not entirely disagreeing with you, but perhaps M1FCJ was referring to the fact that just as the US did the Soviet Union had a pool of qualified female aviators (including many with combat experience) but selected Valentina Tereshkova, who appeared to be only minimally qualified, instead. One suspects that there might have been a concern (as there was in the US) that if a qualified women was chosen she might just expect to be a full member of the team, selected for additional missions, etc).
sPh
The United States, of course, would never stoop to such tactics. (hint: next time you are at a big airshow stop by the US Air Force recruiting booth and evaluate the attractiveness of the pilots working there, both male and female. Do you really think every USAF pilot looks that good?)
sPh
If you are referring to the Radical Right talking point of the Community Reinvestment Act, which required mortgage lenders not to discriminate against qualified buyers, it was passed in 1977. That's a heck of a delayed reaction there as compared to, I dunno, the Gramm family's work in repealing Glass-Steagall in 1999.
sPh
1000 Hz - you could come very close to hand-cranking it!
sPh
Excellent point.
sPh
Something like 99.7% of USPS mail is autosorted. There are three (IIRC on the number) centers were a few dozen human-type people view (remotely, from the regional sorting center) the 0.3% that doesn't autosort. Again IIRC those people are able to sort 99% of the remaining, usually within 10 seconds. The rest go to the dead mail office.
The pictures people have in their minds of USPS "inefficiency" are the way things were done in the 1950s; the USPS started automating in a big way in the 60s and funded a lot of research in machine vision and OCR in the 60s and 70s.
sPh
Bit of a chicken-and-egg problem there unfortunately.
sPh
Soon as that 1000x-stronger-than-spider-silk cable material is invented, the electrical charge problems are solved, and the people living under the fall path of a broken cable accept the risk we are good to go. Just a few minor engineering obstacles to be sure.
sPh