Why don’t we follow lead of countries well in front of us?

The debate IS about improving teacher quality. Until we stop overpaying teachers, hold them accountable and remove bulletproof job protections, there won’t be any progress.

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The source of the problem with public K-12 schools is unions. Union rules won’t allow a great teacher to be paid more than a terrible teacher. It dampens the desire to be your best. On the other hand, a terrible teacher has no reason to work hard and improve his/her skills because he/she cannot be fired for poor job performance. Unions are all about maintaining job security for their members. Our children need to be represented by some powerful organization that will stand up to the Teacher’s unions. Our democrat politicians are in the pockets of the unions so who’s welfare are the politicians more concerned about? .

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Union guy and bc. You guys obviously are clueless about the real problems in public education today. I guess, listening to Neal Boortz, you might believe those talking points you hear about teacher quality and unions. A teacher’s union, by the way, in Georgia is illegal, so it must be another issue here. And no, PAGE is not a union!
Ridding systems of bad teachers will not move the needle enough to notice. Until the average people in our culture value education, we will continue to have mediocre results.
By the way, just a few questions. If two students have, generally, the same teachers throughout high school, how is it that one can have a 4.0 and go to UGA while the other can’t even make it into Tech School? Could it be…… the parents?
And can we fire the parents when they have not done their job? How about the preachers when teenagers decide to break the law or get pregnant at 15?
Talk to me when you have taught for 20 years.

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Nope, I’m actually a democrat who voted for Obama and against most of our GOP representatives currently in office. I think good teachers should make a pile of cash and encouraged to continue doing what they do. But even they should be held accountable and if they get lazy or indifferent, should be removed just like the rest of the

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And Randy, before you, cat lady, Mary Elizabeth and others start attacking me for being a conservative idiot, consider that those baseless attacks may be pushing people in the direction you least want. An argument should have two parts. A claim without a warrant is useless.

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Bc has hit on the biggest deincentive faved by great teachers…being that there is almost zero financial rewar and recognition for their hard work and great performance. As long as the mediocre and even the bad teachers get paid the same as the great ones, we will continue to see the great ones either quit, or see their drive and performance gradually decline.

Its just how human nature works. If kids knew, no matter how hard they workd and how well they did on tests, that they would get the same C grade as the bum next to them, how many would continue to work hard? Very very few and we would end up with complete mediocrity.

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@Bc: Word of warning…too often the policies set in place to rid education of mediocre teachers are like large fishing nets cast into ocean. Sure…the nets catch their intended victims but they also snag a lot of innocent victims as well.

And before you vote yes for Amendment 1, you might want to visit one of the MANY rural systems in GA. Bloated isn’t exactly a word you can use to describe systems who have furloughed teachers for 10 days or cut back their school calendars. While the charter amendment may help metro Atlanta, it has the potential to destroy the rural districts.

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Good point guest-
We have become so politically correct that the child’s socioeconomic background has become a determinant in their success or failure. I disagree. There have always been students from these backgrounds. From my observation, those from previous generations I believe, thought along the lines of a foreign kid and not the latter. We have used their background to not hold them accountable, thus perpetuating a poverty mindset in them. This was not allowed many years ago, and people from inner cities were able to go on and lead very successful lives. We live in an age of coddling- it shows up as kids who feel they have a say in whether they like to do certain work or not- so teach me the way I want to learn or I will complain to. This crap has gotten so out of hand it is laughable- and parents do not like the truth about their child’s performance. Today- it is the teacher’s fault. Many years ago- it was the student’s fault and that was who was addressed and the problem was solved. Foreign students do not shirk accountability, while our kids would rather text and facebook than do what is required to get ahead, i.e. invoke the discipline and tenacity needed to tackle and accomplish goals- they think this is too hard.

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Trace a wayward, undisciplined child’s history and you’ll likely find his/her parents were uneducated and who were born in similar circumstances. Better teachers and stern opinions won’t change this tragic cycle. A system that supports this behavior is at fault and should be overhauled to reward healthy family planning and punish promiscuity.

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I apologize- they were NOT students of the differentiated learning, individualized learning plan generation.

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@Jack- uneducated parents are not knew- their value or lack of it regarding education is the overwhelming factor

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While teacher preparation and accountability is important, the one piece we seem to ignore or foolishly believe is irrelevant is teacher support.

Find a copy of “Why Great Teachers Quit” and read it.

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Schools are failing because the underlying society is failing. The great do what you want to do experiment of the sixites has brought forth a societal disaster on a scale historically unimaginable. Now, public education simply reinforces the underlying problems of the culture and vice versa. It is a chain link problem that can’t be resolved with a quick fix from the left or the right.
Parents who are children themselves, broken homes, undisciplined kids, collapse of societal consensus, lack of value of education, a mindset of dependency and victimhood, despair, violence, abuse are all accelerating to levels unimaginable just a few decades ago. We are witnessing nothing less than the voluntary train wreck of our society.
For increasing numbers of parents and taxpayers, the public education system is no longer a wise or cost effective choice. It’s not the right alternative for their children and is increasingly a waste of their money.
Entitled teachers protected by webs of bureaucracy, administrators more interested in protecting the status quo than in educating children, leadership of school boards fighting race wars and for personal advantage all combine to make the public education landscape pretty bleak. However, schools are the consequence, not the underlying cause.

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by the way, it’s not all gloom and doom…we’ve been bashing public education for years – specifically thinking of Sputnik….read this:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/49217472/ns/technology_and_science-space/?ocid=msnhp

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“A growing number of countries are surpassing the United States in student performance and are spending less per student than the United States.”

See what happens when you don’t let students say “F–k you b-tch! I’m not doing sh-t!” and then central office mandates the child gets a FIFTY instead of a zero?

You think a child can do that in Shanghai and have no consequences?

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@Maureen: But how often do we hear anything about teacher support?

Rarely….and even then it is just lip-service.

Teachers in my building serve so many additional roles outside of classroom teachers. We are now the guidance counselor for 25-30 students (thanks to the DOE’s Teachers-as-Advisors program). We are IEP/504 paperwork managers, grant writers and program coordinators, unpaid coaches and club sponsors, technology trainers, social workers,…and the list goes on.

Yet….the one thing we are held accountable for….classroom instruction…is the very first thing to take a backseat to all other “initiatives.”

I’m just really, really tired of the being told I’m not quite “up to par” to teachers in other countries by folks who are completely clueless about what my day-to-day job requires.

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“You think a child can do that in Shanghai and have no consequences?”

You think a child can do that in Shanghai and the first thought they would have is “We have to improve the TEACHER???”

This isn’t rocket science folks…

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The problem as I see it is we have not looked at this issue objectively on both sides. The truth is our top 20 percent do as well as any place in the world within the margin of error. The countries that are so called doing better, put students on a different tracks ie vocational education. Most studies I see are comparing USA that is putting everyone on a 4 year college prep verse rational counties that have only 20 to 30 percent tested on college prep work via the track.

Our country today is now sending about 33 percent of students to a 4 year college, which over the last 30 years is way up. The bell curve on IQ tells us this the max at best we could send to college is 30 percent.The reason we are having such a big problem with the other 70 percent is they would be better served on a different track.

Finally, in the last 20 years the amount of students taking the SAT has increased by 60 percent in our country. And that is when we saw scores declining. Our biggest problem is we spend tons of money pounding square pegs into round holes and then we blame teachers. Obviously we can improve the system, but until we track and teach students via the proper aptitude we will not fix the problem.

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This is why Kittredge in dekalb is so successful. My kids went there. We live in Dunwoody. I spoke to many parents that were willing to do whatever it took so that their kids could be in a school with higher socioeconomic families. What I found even more interesting was that the county created Wadsworth in the southern part of the county, but has not had the number of applicants like Kittredge. Whether it is perception or not, many parents believe Kittredge is better and want their kids in that environment.

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@Beverly Fraud . . .You think a child can do that in Shanghai and the first thought they would have is “We have to improve the TEACHER???”

Well put. Early in my career, I got punched in the nose by a 15 year old and got called on the carpet for it. I told him he had 2 choices: turn around and be quiet or get out of my class. He chose to attack me instead, and the principal held me responsible. I wanted to put the kid behind bars, but the principal just chewed me out and put the kid in somebody else’s class. And the public wonders why we struggle to acheive their lofty goals. Education is the only field I can think of where people who have no training or experience think they can do a better job than the professionals. I wouldn’t tell my doctor how to do his job, but there are plenty of people out there who want to tell me how to do mine.

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@Dc “Bc has hit on the biggest deincentive faved by great teachers…being that there is almost zero financial rewar and recognition for their hard work and great performance. ”

Hmm. Having worked in education for YEARS, across states and districts, in urban and rural, and high and low SES schools – I have to say I have RARELY heard teachers discuss this as the “biggest disincentive” they encounter. Disinterested parents, unaddressed discipline issues, lack of support for learners who struggle or exceed, poor preparation by schools of education, lack of necessary materials, lack of time, tons of meaningless data collection and paperwork, unrealistic accountability measures, too much testing of students, and a hostile public perception all come much farther up the list.

Do we complain about our less ‘gifted” colleagues? Yes, but more in terms of the damage they do the students than the fact they get paid the same as we do. Do we complain about the pay? Yes, but more in terms of it being low across the board, not using comparisons across teachers.

Teachers generally don’t THINK in terms of “competition” and “competitive salary”. That is a business approach, and teachers don’t THINK in business terms. I find folks who make such assertions really do not know teachers. The teaching culture is NOT based on a business model and you can’t judge it in the same way. The BEST teachers think cooperatively, and work to uplift ALL students, not just their own.

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“In the end, the choice system and its market incentives will not improve average student performance, but it will, over time, work to make good schools better and bad schools worse. Is that what we want?”
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In the end, the school choice movement is about more than schools. It is about the type of society in which we wish to live. When we have a society in which “good schools get better” and “bad schools
get worse,” we no longer have an egalitarian nation, but a hierarchial one. The words “school choice” are bumper sticker appealing in their overall connotations, but one must see the forces, and the power, behind this “choice” movement to understand that this movement is more about power, money, and controlling dominance by the same forces that would have America become more hierarchial in its vision (and in its destiny) in order to serve the financial interests of the wealthy elite. That is what an over-emphasis on profit can do to corrupt vision. Profit must stay out of education, as much as humanly possible. Education must remain about developing both skills and enlightenment.

I urge readers to read the below movie review, in full, of the just released film, “Won’t Back Down,” (which was first shared on this blog by another poster – “thank you”), in order to understand those forces, of which I speak, and how they are, imo, through propaganda tactics – such as this film – trying to gather “school choice” advocates for their votes. (Notice that the timing of the release of this movie coincides with November’s election. That, imo, is not coincidental.) Their methods are the same type of “divide and conquer” propaganda tactics that were effective in the last century of dividing poor whites and blacks when both should have been allies for the common purpose of fighting those political forces that were keeping them both from upward mobility and from rising into the middle class and beyond. In my opinion, the tactics of the unseen political powers that are driving the “school choice” movement – through their wealth, influence, and propaganda – are using the same type of demagoguery, now, against traditional public education and public school teachers that was used against black people a century ago to malign them. The political and propaganda “trick” was (and is) to get most people to believe the negatives as stereotypes so that the underclasses would be divided in voting and, therefore, some would, unknowingly, vote against their own best interests (the poor whites). That was the way that power and wealth used to control the destinies of both blacks and poor whites. I urge readers to read the movie review, below, in full. Here is an excerpt from it:

“. . .—’Be the change you want to see!’ Jamie crows to a throng of cheering parents—but democracy is the enemy. Getting rid of representative government and calling in a private entity to handle things, in our current Opposite Day political moment, represents a glorious triumph of people power. The ‘parent trigger’ invites parents to use their vote to give up their vote—that is, to be enormously powerful for one short moment of direct democracy, which they will use to dispose, in the long run, with the ‘public’ part of public school, and thus with any actual power over their children’s education.”

http://dissentmagazine.org/online.php?id=631
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To repeat: Education must be about enlightenment (and skills), not profit. That is precisely why Jefferson supported public education – so that the many would be “enlightened” to see into the stealthy machinations of the wealthy elite, who might use the masses for their own self-interests.

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I love teaching. I hate what it is becoming… You stated my thoughts exactly! Thanks for that! In my years of teaching, I never complained about ineffective teachers making the same or more than me. My concern was what that teacher did to the students. By the way, I saw few of these in my years of teaching. Two principals documented and fired (yes, fired) teachers in the middle of the year. Firing is done by effective administrators, who are willing do what is best for students.

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Part of the problem is CHOICE. And I am not talking about school choice. I am talking about curricular choice, particularly in high school. Too many high schools now emphasize college preparatory courses over vocational courses because one is deemed “unsuccessful” if one does not receive a college education. Therefore, public education has created and is creating students who are not prepared for the rigors of college (just look at the Governor’s Office on Student Achievement) nor do they have the technical skills to enter the work force (simply look at the jobs that are currently available in Georgia). The number of my former students that I see in my small community who tell me that they have either flunked out of college or quit is astounding. And since they lack any marketable technical skills, many are relegated to minimum wage jobs. I fear that until the leaders of this State realize this, a lot more money will be spent with little results.

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Well stated, RANDY GLOVER. I, too, would like many on here to comment after 20 or my 34 years of teaching. What a change in those 34 years. Seems as if everyone has an opinion; nothing is wrong about people having their opinion. Society, in general, does not value education; it values “material” things where it does not want to work for it, only receive it. I have just shown part of the problem; now, part of the solution: QUIT TRYING TO EDUCATE THE MASSES. Mass education will no longer work.

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What many lose sight of is the fact that we educators should focus only on what occurs between 8 and 3 PM every day. It is illogical to focus on the role (or lack there of) of parents. All students can learn at a level higher than they presently do, and all teachers can teach at a level higher than they presently do. If you don’t believe that then find a new career.

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To everyone on this blog, read “American Revolution 2.0″ by GSV Advisors. It’s FREE, and with good data on the crisis in public education.

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“What many lose sight of is the fact that we educators should focus only on what occurs between 8 and 3 PM every day. ”

It’s hard to focus when you are being PHYSICALLY ASSAULTED from 8 to 3 is it not?

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Beverly Fraud writes “It’s hard to focus when you are being PHYSICALLY ASSAULTED from 8 to 3 is it not?”
If you are physcially assaulted, Bev, call the police. Save your emergency room records and take pictures of all your injuries and sue the school.
I find it hard to believe that any intelligent American would stay at a job and be physically assaulted on the level that Beverly complains about.
If you’re in such danger, Bev, why don’t you leave the school system you are in and either transfer to another school, move, get another job and so on.

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Beverly, hyperbole will not advance any argument you pretend to make. I doubt you are assaulted every day.

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Oh…and I should note, than was 12 hours at work. I am not counting the work I took home.

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It’s not about improvement. It is the idea that teachers need a financial incentive to do a better job. A teacher that says “I’ll teach better if you pay me more” needs to find a different job. Administrators requiring more and more for less pay is also a problem

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@Coach… “are you saying that you do not have the ability to become better?”

Sorry, I was not clear. I strive to improve everyday…I try new approaches and innovations when I can, but I am at the point where I really cannot “give” more of myself. If I did not have so much other stuff to keep up with, I could devote more time to “improving” my teaching – though I know a heck of a lot about HOW to teach well. Too bad I constantly have to struggle to find time to implement those better practices due to other obligations that keep being heaped upon me and my co-teachers.

You could pay me twice what I am making, but I doubt it would change my teaching practices. It is not a matter of money. I am already running myself ragged just to keep up… or perhaps, just to keep from falling too far behind. I would lay out a long list of all the “requirements” hitting us this year, but then I would be accused of whining. Instead, I will just state that is hard to “improve” or to implement “improvements” when you are so exhausted you cannot see straight. A overly stressed, burned out teaching force is not particularly effective, no matter how skilled they may be. That is true of ANY job or career.
.

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@ I love teaching your point is well made and understood.

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But you can bet they don’t happen in Finland or China without some consequences….

Not rocket science folks

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Those of us old enough to remember the Cold War may also recall that the Communists were seeking to destroy the US from within. That is why some of the biggest supporters of the civil rights movement were communists. Yes, even the puppetmasters behind MLK were communists – which is one of the reasons MLK got on the FBIs radar (what is in those sealed FBI files anyway?)

Once you understand that, you can understand why the politically correct demand equal outcomes for black students, even though they lag behind white students on every IQ test devised as well as every academic/aptitude measure such as SAT, ACT, graduation test, etc, etc, etc.

IQ begets culture. Simply put, there just aren’t any Mensa members living in Section 8 housing, robbing liquor stores, and filling up our prisons. Guess who is disproportionally represented there…

Back in the 50’s, when the US was a 90% white nation, we led the world. Back then, teachers didn’t have mail order Phd’s and in many cases, didn’t have college degrees.

Bottom line, you can’t replace a Western Civilization culture with a third world population and expect to maintain a high standard of living. Tell you what, take a sample of schools with 90%+ white population and compare to Finland. I would wager the results would be very close. Now, take a sample of schools with 90%+ black/hispanic population and do the same comparison.

When we compare the US to other nations, it is obvious who is dragging us down – it’s just that the politically correct cannot admit it.

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“On Sept. 25, 1998, Rep. Bob Schaffer placed in the Congressional Record an 18-page letter that has become famous as Marc Tucker’s “Dear Hillary” letter. It lays out the master plan of the Clinton Administration to take over the entire U.S. educational system so that it can serve national economic planning of the workforce.”

11 November 1992
Hillary Clinton
The Governor’s Mansion
1800 Canter Street
Little Rock, AR 72206

Dear Hillary:

I still cannot believe you won. But utter delight that you did pervades all the circles in which I move. I met last Wednesday in David Rockefeller’s office with him, John Sculley, Dave Barram and David Haselkorn. It was a great celebration. Both John and David R. were more expansive than I have ever seen them — literally radiating happiness. My own view and theirs is that this country has seized its last chance. I am fond of quoting Winston Churchill to the effect that “America always does the right thing — after it has exhausted all the alternatives.” This election, more than anything else in my experience, proves his point.

The subject we were discussing was what you and Bill should do now about education, training and labor market policy. Following that meeting, I chaired another in Washington on the same topic. Those present at the second meeting included Tim Barnicle, Dave Barram, Mike Cohen, David Hornbeck, Hilary Pennington, Andy Plattner, Lauren Resnick, Betsy Brown Ruzzi, Bob Schwartz, Mike Smith and Bill Spring. Shirley Malcom, Ray Marshall and Susan McGuire were also invited. Though these three were not able to be present at last week’s meeting, they have all contributed by telephone to the ideas that follow. Ira Magaziner was also invited to this meeting.

Our purpose in these meetings was to propose concrete actions that the Clinton administration could take — between now and the inauguration, in the first 100 days and beyond. The result, from where I sit, was really exciting. We took a very large leap forward in terms of how to advance the agenda on which you and we have all been working — a practical plan for putting all the major components of the system in place within four years, by the time Bill has to run again.

I take personal responsibility for what follows. Though I believe everyone involved in the planning effort is in broad agreement, they may not all agree on the details. You should also be aware that, although the plan comes from a group closely associated with the National Center on Education and the Economy, there was no practical way to poll our whole Board on this plan in the time available. It represents, then, not a proposal from our Center, but the best thinking of the group I have named.

We think the great opportunity you have is to remold the entire American system for human resources development, almost all of the current components of which were put in place before World War II. The danger is that each of the ideas that Bill advanced in the campaign in the area of education and training could be translated individually in the ordinary course of governing into a legislative proposal and enacted as a program. This is the plan of least resistance. But it will lead to these programs being grafted onto the present system, not to a new system, and the opportunity will have been lost. If this sense of time and place is correct, it is essential that the administration’s efforts be guided by a consistent vision of what it wants to accomplish in the field of human resource development, with respect both to choice of key officials and the program.

What follows comes in three places:

First, a vision of the kind of national — not federal — human resources development system the nation could have. This is interwoven with a new approach to governing that should inform that vision. What is essential is that we create a seamless web of opportunities, to develop one’s skills that literally extends from cradle to grave and is the same system for everyone — young and old, poor and rich, worker and full-time student. It needs to be a system driven by client needs (not agency regulations or the needs of the organization providing the services), guided by clear standards that define the stages of the system for the people who progress through it, and regulated on the basis of outcomes that providers produce for their clients, not inputs into the system.

Second, a proposed legislative agenda you can use to implement this vision. We propose four high priority packages that will enable you to move quickly on the campaign promises:

[Page: E1820]
The first would use your proposal for an apprenticeship system as the keystone of a strategy for putting a whole new postsecondary training system in place. That system would incorporate your proposal for reforming postsecondary education finance. It contains what we think is a powerful idea for rolling out and scaling up the whole new human resources system nationwide over the next four years, using the (renamed) apprenticeship ideas as the entering wedge.
The second would combine initiatives on dislocated workers, a rebuilt employment service and a new system of labor market boards to offer the Clinton administration’s employment security program, built on the best practices anywhere in the world. This is the backbone of a system for assuring adult workers in our society that they need never again watch with dismay as their jobs disappear and their chances of ever getting a good job again go with them.
The third would concentrate on the overwhelming problems of our inner cities, combining elements of the first and second packages into a special program to greatly raise the work-related skills of the people trapped in the core of our great cities.
The fourth would enable you to take advantage of legislation on which Congress has already been working to advance the elementary and secondary reform agenda.
The other major proposal we offer has to do with government organization for the human resources agenda. While we share your reservations about the hazards involved in bringing reorganization proposals to the Congress, we believe that the one we have come up with minimizes those drawbacks while creating an opportunity for the new administration to move like lightning to implement its human resources development proposals. We hope you can consider the merits of this idea quickly, because, if you decide to go with it or something like it, it will greatly affect the nature of the offers you make to prospective cabinet members.

The Vision

We take the proposals Bill put before the country in the campaign to be utterly consistent with the ideas advanced in America’s Choice, the school restructuring agenda first stated in A Nation Prepared, and later incorporated in the work of the National Alliance for Restructuring Education, and the elaboration of this view that Ray and I tried to capture in our book, Thinking for a Living. Taken together, we think these ideas constitute a consistent vision for a new human resources development system for the United States. I have tried to capture the essence of that vision below.

An Economic Strategy Based on Skill Development
The economy’s strength is derived from a whole population as skilled as any in the world, working in workplaces organized to take maximum advantage of the skills those people have to offer.
A seamless system of unending skill development that begins in the home with the very young and continues through school, postsecondary education and the workplace.

The Schools
Clear national standards of performance in general education (the knowledge and skills that everyone is expected to hold in common) are set to the level of the best achieving nations in the world for students of 16, and public schools are expected to bring all but the most severely handicapped up to that standard. Students get a certificate when they meet this standard, allowing them to go on to the next stage of their education. Though the standards are set to international benchmarks, they are distinctly American, reflecting our needs and values.
We have a national system of education in which curriculum, pedagogy, examinations, and teacher education and licensure systems are all linked to the national standards, but which provides for substantial variance among states, districts, and schools on these matters. This new system of linked standards, curriculum, and pedagogy will abandon the American tracking system, combining high academic standards with the ability to apply what one knows to real world problems and qualifying all students for a lifetime of learning in the postsecondary system and at work.
We have a system that rewards students who meet the national standards with further education and good jobs, providing them a strong incentive to work hard in school.
Our public school systems are reorganized to free up school professionals to make the key decisions about how to use all the available resources to bring students up to the standards. Most of the federal, state, district and union rules and regulations that now restrict school professionals’ ability to make these decisions are swept away, though strong measures are in place to make sure that vulnerable populations get the help they need. School professionals are paid at a level comparable to that of other professionals, but they are expected to put in a full year, to spend whatever time it takes to do the job and to be fully accountable for the results of their work. The federal, state and local governments provide the time, staff development resources, technology and other support needed for them to do the job. Nothing less than a wholly restructured school system can possibly bring all of our students up to the standards only a few have been expected to meet up to now.
There is a real — aggressive — program of public choice in our schools, rather than the flaccid version that is widespread now.
All students are guaranteed that they will have a fair shot at reaching the standards: that is, that whether they make it or not depends on the effort they are willing to make, and nothing else. School delivery standards are in place to make sure this happens. These standards have the same status in the system as the new student performance standards, assuring that the quality of instruction is high everywhere, but they are fashioned so as not to constitute a new bureaucratic nightmare.”
Read the rest:
http://www.eagleforum.org/educate/marc_tucker/

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Not all public schools are failing; my district schools are doing a great job and parents are happy and moving in as fast as they can. There are many similar districts throughout Georgia. What we share is a higher socio-economic demographic and strong community values. What the failing schools share is a lower, often urban, socio-economic demographic. I do not think poverty alone is determinative; poor families who value education have successful students. It is the combination of poverty and poor values that creates a failing school. And I agree with catlady; you could swap the faculties of the best school and the worst and the outcome would not be significant. I also agree that the same teacher often teaches the valedictorian and the student who fails to graduate. What is the determining factor? It is the student and what he brings (aptitude, work ethic, and family values) that detemines the difference between success and failure. This is so obvious; why do we keep looking for other answers? Improving teacher quality will not touch these problems.

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The first response to today’s topic summarizes the vast ignorance of too many people when it comes to talk about improving our schools. The truth is, there is an abundance of things to be learned from other countries regarding education, even from China.

I do not put China’s model up as an example, though. The one city, Shanghai, has good test scores, but this is an isolated result for the country. As a whole, the nation did not participate in PISA and therefore it makes no sense to generalize Shanghai’s results as if they were from the entire nation. China has begun to invest heavily in education for all, but is far from reaching that goal.

Most notable about learning from other countries is exactly what is pointed out in the essay by Tucker. Our politicians are pushing policies that have absolutely no foundation in research and are completely ineffective at improving student outcomes. They are blind to any evidence that is contrary to their point of view. This is why the politicians in Georgia are continuing to ram the charter school amendment down our throats.

If we truly paid attention to evidence that shows true growth in student outcomes, we would see completely different proposals from our politicians. We would see more support for teachers and less vitriolic rhetoric. We would see politicians willing to sit down with teachers to get to the root causes of poor achievement. We would see politicians admit that poverty has a profound impact upon students’ success. We would see better standards for admission to teacher education programs. We would see SUPPORT for teachers.

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OOPS!
“The hidden hand that guides” is in the wrong place. Should read:

Marc Tucker’s letter:
“Dear Hillary:

I still cannot believe you won. But utter delight that you did pervades all the circles in which I move. I met last Wednesday in David Rockefeller’s office with him, John Sculley, Dave Barram and David Haselkorn. It was a great celebration. Both John and David R. (Rockefeller)
were more expansive than I have ever seen them — literally radiating happiness….The subject we were discussing was what you and Bill should do now about education, training and labor market policy…..Our purpose in these meetings was to propose concrete actions that the Clinton administration could take — between now and the inauguration, in the first 100 days and beyond. The result, from where I sit, was really exciting. We took a very large leap forward in terms of how to advance the agenda on which you and we have all been working — a practical plan for putting all the major components of the system in place within four years, by the time Bill has to run again…… It represents, then, not a proposal from our Center, but the best thinking of the group I have named…We think the great opportunity you have is to remold the entire American system for human resources development, almost all of the current components of which were put in place before World War II. …”

The hidden hand that guides education:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=upH_Iei7_A4
Especially note 3:00

Listen to full interview:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m2xcwFpSW0k

Further research:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reece_Committee
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carnegie_Endowment_for_International_Peace
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_Foundation
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rockefeller_Foundation

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in a lot of non european countries, harsh punishments (ie spanking, and worse) are not unusual. since
“the world” does that, can we stop whining about it here?

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John Ellison — I doubt the problem is with unions. In the South we have no unions and we have the worst teachers.

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irony alert:

P&J/GM/host of others calling anyone a fraud

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what the willfully ignorant refuse to understand – they’ve been told, they just refuse to hear it – is the extremely intense pressure admin puts on us to keep our mouths shut when we are assualted.

not if, when. teach in certain school districts, and it will occur sooner or later.

admin will strongly imply you did something to provoke the issue, and treat you like an abused spouse who had it coming. then they will make it abundantly clear reporting this issue will go on your record – in a negative fashion. if you continue to push, they’ll warn you of impending disipline action – against you.

why? simple. PR and career building.
-every likely, Jr has done this before.
-every report makes it look like the prinicpal can’t control the school
-police coming to the school make parents angry
-angry parents complain upward
-red meat freaks like Fran & co. take this and run with it-always out of context
-you yourself are accused of being unable to control your classroom

-and God forbid Jr. plays football.

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The answer to why we don’t follow the lead of countries that smack us is really, really, really simple. Helping current teachers get better and producing better new teachers costs money. It’s hard work, takes a lot of resources, and it takes time.(Yes, there are those who do absolutely magic work – like those who help build the recently reported-on AP. But even they are woefully understaffed and an exception rather than a rule.)

Charters, on the other hand, simply take funding from already financially devastated regular public schools – even though we know by now with absolute certainty that charters do no better with the kids they take from the publics. But it SOUNDS good to the gullible, and it costs those who want to continue to devastate public education – whose actual goal seems to be a two-class society of the haves and the have-nots- not one red cent.

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I have rarely seen a blog with so many accurate comments. If only people like bc and other nonteachers would take the time to sub a few days in Title I schools and interact with teachers, students and administrators, they would become more sympathetic, if not downright agreeable, with teachers. The fact is that our public education system WAS a lot like other developed nations back in the 50s and 60s. The most important part was the family culture, which emphasized personal responsibility, a work ethic, respect for adults, and offered the promise of a life better than that of the parents. Schools were well-funded by taxes, PTAs had terrific involvement, and administrators supported teachers in every way. We also had technical high schools for kids inclined to go into skilled labor jobs. Kids who could not abide by the rules were quickly shown the door, and frivolous lawsuits by irresponsible parents (whose kids were nuts off the same tree) were quickly dismissed by sensible judges. (The rich in Europe and other nations sent their kids to private schools, more out of a sense of maintaining their hierarchical position (as evidenced by modern “critical theory”) just like our wealthy elite did and continue to do, but this minority did not affect mainstream life of the “99%”. However SOMETHING happened in the generation since that one would have thought impossible in the U.S. Somehow personal responsibility was abdicated by many, and it was not socially or legally punished. The parents abdicated involvement in their children’s lives. Children became gradually less respectful, stopped doing homework, and were less industrious (to use a Charles Murray term). Even more amazing than the appearance of a huge new underclass was the failure of authorities, such as judges, politicians, and senior school officials, to continue to uphold standards of behavior, to support teachers, and to fund schools properly. This has NOT happened in most other developed nations. The earlier blogger who commented that disrespect would not be allowed in Shanghai was exactly right; nor would it be allowed in Helsinki, Berlin, Tokyo, or at our private schools. So what makes it OK in our public schools?

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@ Lee
So if blacks are dragging education down, in the United States, then what’s Georgia’s excuse? Blacks make up 31% and whites account for 63%. In the United States blacks make up 13% while whites lead with 78% of the population.

So what are you saying again? I’m confused.

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“If you are assaulted daily from 8 to 3 in the manner you describe — then WHY are you still there?”

Again, describe for us the EXACT number of times it IS acceptable for a teacher to be physically assaulted; once a week? a month?

“If you are assaulted daily from 8 to 3 in the manner you describe — then WHY are you still there?”

Yet another example of the “blame the teacher” mindset (or if you’re a teacher, Stockholm Syndrome) The question is NOT “Why would someone stay?” the question is “Why do public schools allow this to happen?”

Asking why a teacher would stay shows ZERO concern for students. The teacher can leave true; but what about the students that REMAIN?

Who speaks for them? Clearly in this instance, you do not.

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The teacher is not the determining factor in student success; the student and his family are. It is that simple and that complicated.

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To em, I read and understand your point. We need more vocational and trade tracks instead of one track, the colllege track.
But…there is an important element here in GA and that is the LACK of unions.
Up in PA, they have unions with a steady, reasonable, intelligent trade track. One starts as an apprentice and through work and experience becomes a journeyman, a craftsman, a master craftsman and so on. When one needs work perforned on a car or home one can call the union and know for sure they are getting qualified, experienced, licensed workers with real know-how.
The situation in the South is very different. With no unions we have people advertising in the phone book yellow pages, on the internet and so on. We have no idea how good or how qualified these people are. I hired a “professional” landscaper. What I got was a couple of illegal Mexicans dropped off on my doorstep with NO equipment and who didn’t speak English. The truth was THEY worked for a professional landscaper but they certainly weren’t professional landscapers. They were simply illegal immigrants who couldn’t speak English and had NO formal training. do you think I trusted them to klandscape my yard?
Heck no.
I called the “professional landscaper” and had them pick up their illegal immigrants — but i still haven’t landscaped my yard. Where do I find qualified people that i can trust and hold accountable?
In PA I could call the union to complain about a less than quality job. In GA these so-called professionals are fly by night. They are simply a name ina phone book or a page on a web site — there’s no where to go to actually find them and hold them accountable.
This is what happens when you don’t allow unions in a State.
You get what you vote for.
If you want quality tradesmen and women, allow unions.

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Beverly Fraud, you obviously avoid the question:. If your “assaults” and “bullying” and “abuse” is so bad, then why are you still there?
The answer you refuse to address is obvious.
A. The “bullying” and “abuse” you “endure” is not as dramatic as you say it is.
B. You cannot get a job outside of teaching taht pays as much or has such good benefits.
You HAVE A CHOICE, Beverly.
So either leave the “horrible” situation you are in or….leave and go somewhere else.
ONLY A FOOL with a real eduation and real skills would continue to stay in a horrible job and be abused daily from 8 to 3.
And only someone with a WHOLE LOTTA time on her hands would continue to blog and blog and blog about her “abuse” from 8 t 3.
You undermine your own agenda, Beverly.
You have a choice to leave your horrible circumstances yet you don’t.
Instead you choose to endure and vomit your “problems” all over every Get Schooled blog until others are sick of hearing it.
You are not moving anyone to your side.
Instead you are pushing us away.
I used to enjoy your posts, Beverly.
Now I just think you have way too much time on your hands.
We got your point, Beverly.
Please don’t overdo it.

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For those who doubt my statistics, yes, the USA was a 90% white nation in the 50’s. The actual numbers:

150.7 million total population
134.9 million white population
15.7 million nonwhite population.

http://www.census.gov/prod/www/abs/decennial/1950cenpopv2.html

And yes, there are racial differences in IQ. For those who counter with “but I know plenty of smart black people and a lot of dumb white people”. Sure you do. It’s called a statistical normal distribution.

One of the best primers on race and IQ below:

http://www.news-medical.net/news/2005/04/26/9530.aspx

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Apparently the Broad Foundation, according to the article in today’s paper, has not heard that the reason some of our kids don’t do well is because of “poor teacher quality”. They have a predictive model that posits that for every 1% rise in free lunch, it knocks 5 points off the average SAT score. That is, that student achievement directly tracks with parental income, and, by inference, parental education.

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Pride and Joy

I actually agree with you. It depends on the school system at-large as to whether or not the schools are being funded well. While those systems are spending money you see as comparable, I think we have to ask an important questions. And by the way, I think that teachers have been paid very well in the last 15 years in the state of Georgia. I have not worked in either of those systems to add.

1. Do you really think the private education makes the difference or the students and the expectations of those students’ parents? I doubt you would attend a private school if your child lived in the first metro area school system I worked. It had small sizes, small ratios, great fine arts and athletics. Teachers were paid extremely well. Parents rarely looked elsewhere.

2. Did I goof? Or have you suggested the exception. Teachers have been the target of much debate since the economy has struggled. When I began over a decade ago, my college friends treated me like I was joining the peace corp or something. Now, my increasingly furloughed salary Is on trial.

3. I agree again about your system administrators and greed. I made the point that administrators are bad.

While the charter amendment looks good to us all, I think you would be in the same boat you a re in today if it passes, looking for a better fit fir yiour children. Unfortunately we cannot all pick up and move like we could years ago to good school systems.

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Y’all do realize that Tucker’s group, the National Center for Education and the Economy, produced America’s Choice. The curriculum that simply made Dekalb’s problems worse.

I have actually read Surpassing Shanghai which I did not think much of apart from the view of getting at every aspect of the system of education. I guess if we are going to socially engineer we should go after everything that functions decently know to stop the transmission of knowledge for anyone. It also continues the duplicity surrounding the nature of what PISA assesses.

I know how Americas Choice worked and it was geared to weaker students with nothing for stronger students. I just finished reading a Willard Daggett 2008 presentation to the Jewish Healthcare Organization High School Summit. I know he has been doing CCSSI implementation training for both the state DOE and Cobb County. Anyway, Daggett’s presentation is that these reforms target the bottom 50% of students and make it applicable to all.

So, however, we look at it our most capable US students are being doomed to intellectual starvation with these reforms. They have Axemaker Minds and Axemaker Minds must not be nourished in 21st Century America. So all that rhetoric about CCSSI making a state or country competitive was just utter nonsense.

The minds most capable of creating genuine innovation or the next generation of technology will be too busy being manipulated on whether they have Positive School Behavior and are participating in a Culture of Caring. Remembering daily that under the unappreciated actual definition of Career Ready they must show teachers each day they remember their obligations to others and to promote the common good. And woe on them if they have a different definition of the common good or inquire precisely where in the Constitution that new obligation is lurking.

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@ Lee. You have been issuing this challenge for some time now, and no-one has ever bothered to try to answer it. It seems to me that you make some unwarranted assumptions about those neighborhoods and schools, and ignore some relevant factors, in reaching your conclusion..

Schools and neighborhoods that go from a 90%, or a majority, white population to a 90%, or majority, black population were already unstable for such a change to occur. These neighborhoods were not diverse and the people living in them clearly did not seek diversity. As is well-known, the reasons for such a change in racial percentages are economic and/or due to pre-conceived racial stereotypes ON THE PART OF THE WHITE DWELLERS. Those black people who move in are not going to be middle-class black people, for such people already have their own black or racially mixed, diverse neighborhoods that they live in.

So, because of the nature of the situation itself, black people from a lower socio-economic level are going to move into the neighborhood. It is their socio-economic class that causes the decreases you note– NOT their race.

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LOL @Prof and @Bootney, y’all are too funny.

Always amazes me that people will readily accept CERTAIN differences between the races. For example, an anthropologist can examine skeletal remains and ascertain the race of the person. Certain diseases are genetic based and exclusive to one group – the most widely known is sickle cell anemia. Much has been written about fast twitch vs. slow twitch muscle mass and how blacks have more fast twitch cells and whites more slow twitch cells.

But yet, the moment one mentions differences in a certain organ that determines how we process information, the politically correct crazies get even battier.

Strange folks, the politically correct. Sorta interesting though, if you like watching Guppies eat their own offspring.

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@ Maureen

I am lothe to censor anybody, ever. but unless Lee can produce links to back up his genuinely racist
points of view, any change we can limit his ability to comment on THIS SPECIFIC TOPIC?

outside of JB Stoner, I can’t think of anyone who would welcome this in their living room.

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before I forget…

anyone who has ever seen a single episode of LIzard Lick, Honey Boo Boo, or any so called reality TV program and even attempt to claim white people (or any other for that matter) are genetically superior to other races simply due to pigment ….

are too stupid to bother commenting on any further

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“Why don’t we follow lead of countries well in front of us?”

We might, if there was any proof that there are countries who do a better job with the same student population that we have.

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“@ Lee. Curious then that we have a black President with a Law degree from Harvard.”

The correct description would be “a mulatto President” who, by the way, hasn’t released his college transcripts to the public. Affirmative action, perhaps?

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“anyone who has ever seen a single episode of LIzard Lick, Honey Boo Boo, or any so called reality TV program and even attempt to claim white people (or any other for that matter) are genetically superior to other races simply due to pigment ….”

That’s it? The best you can come up with is to refer to a couple of TV shows?

Besides. I’ve never said that one race is “genetically superior”. I’ve merely pointed out the differences in the way we process information. Since we’re discussing scholastic ability and comparing this country with it’s high black/hispanic population with other homogenous caucasion and asian countries, who seem to have surpassed the US academically, then yes, we should discuss race.

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There are huge chasms in the lack of concern for education among the white middle, lower middle class and lower class whites is huge down here in the South, over what it is up in the North and the Midwest.

Maybe it is because you have Union’s up North and in the Midwest, that have empowered the blue collar worker to a place that they can have a living wage. That Unions allow people to live beyond the minimum wage. That school systems offer a minimum of two tracks to graduation; a college prep and vo-tech. A place where you have small one or two high school big school districts where everyone knows each other. Where neither the white or black mafia rules the board and administration.

I am so greatful that I grew up in a first generation immigrant family up North. Where I was given the same opportunity has the rich kids in my Public School districts because I was smart. My mother who was born 10 months after her mother made it through Ellis Island, dropped out of high school in 11th grade. My father only made it to College on a Football Scholarship, which he soon lost due to grades. My father worked two jobs one, running his own struggling business by day. The second a unionized NY Bell job repairing their line trucks at night.

Luckily, we were not given this ridiculous homework, nor had teachers in the 1960’s or 1970’s who expected your parents were to help you with your homework. My dropout mother could not help me with my homework. Although, I learned how to read the newspaper by 3 ( I am what is classified as a spontanous reader, neither of my children could do it to my consternation). My mother read simple books to us 4 children while my father worked his second job. I don’t recall having any homework until at least 5th or 6th grade. Simply, put my mother could not have helped us with our homework. English is not her first language. She did not speak it until 5 or 6 years old. I truely do not know to this day if she really reads proficiently, since when she sits with the newspaper she “reads” it from back to front. I know she can’t spell, because when we would ask her to spell something she couldn’t. Then I would get so frustrated in school when I would ask my teacher’s how to spell something. During the school year, I saw my father a total of about 15 minutes a day, while we ate dinner between his two jobs. Unless, I got up at 11:30 and watched basketball games with him, while mother was asleep.

In high school my mother thought it was perfectly acceptably to allow my sister who is 13 months younger than me ( who barely scored an 800 on the SAT) to copy my John Denver Report, I got an A on for Music Class. I tried to tell my mother it was not acceptable. The teacher only gave my sister a B, and mother couldn’t figure out why I told her it was cheating. But she was too stupid to understand, then the next year while I was a College she got out my report and let my brother copy it again. He got a C, she couldn’t understand why. I told her she was helping them cheat, but she didn’t understand how. When I bring up her plagerism to this day, she just doesn’t understand it. I said to her how would you think that the same music teacher would not notice that three kids with the same last name all turned in a report on John Denver for Music Class. Luckily, my youngest sister is smart like me and did her own report, without my stupid mother.

I am lucky that I went to school up North in a Unionized state with Union teacher who were paid a fair wage with good benefits. A small school district, that could pick or choose the teachers with the best creditials that they wanted. A district where the community much of which were farmers, or blue collar, right along with the professionals, realized that education was the way for everyone to attain a better life. It was the was to have a better community with a low crime crate. I only know 3 people out of the 360+ in my high school class who did not graduate. The school district lists currently less than 5% free or reduced lunch. I know this is higher, because 30 years ago, I worked in the grocery store and saw who had food stamps.

The facts are there is a point that taxes need to be raised, to properly fund education, infrastuction, healthcare and public safety. Yes, these things can be done cheaper and better in the public sector, in the private sector you have to pay some one profit, and where does that come from. We need Unions in Georgia. We also need a change of mindset in the South that Education for Everyone is important.

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Mountain Man…I love it! I always said we need to do an experiment. Let’s take the entire faculty of the top SAT achieving school in the state and the faculty of the lowest SAT achieving school in the state and flip flop the faculty. Let’s watch those test score go through the roof!!!

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Or you could turn it around – bus the entire student body from Walton High School down to an APS school – you would see the grade point average for those teachers in APS soar! Sorry folks, it ain’t about the teachers – it is and always has been about the students and their parents.

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@ Lee and Truth in Moderation. The U.S. Census, which requires respondents to self-identify their race/ethnicity, does not include “mulatto” or any other mixed racial combination in its definitions of races and ethnicity. President Obama evidently self-identifies as “black” (Census: a person whose origins are in sub-Sahara Africa) rather than “white” (Census: a person whose origins are in Europe).

“Mulatto” is a rather offensive term, derived from “mule” or hybrid of two species, a horse and a donkey. And I recall reading that Obama’s mother has been shown to have a black ancestor if one goes back a few generations.

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@ Truth in Moderation. Considering all of the migrations of ancient peoples, I agree that “there is no race but the human race.” Or, to put it another way, everyone’s DNA shows ancestors of all the races.

The reason I stressed “self-identification” is that, quite literally, the Census and all schools/organizations can only use peoples’ self-identifications in determining race/ethnicity. And that goes for you, me, and Lee. There’s no objective way of determining this.

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