Where are the voices of teachers in DeKalb mess? Here is one and he’s not holding back.
A DeKalb teacher sent me this piece, noting that none of the blog commentaries on the crisis in DeKalb have come from teachers.
I suspect teachers all over the country will agree with his comments about the lack of respect for the profession. (At his request, I am not using his name because of his concerns for his job.)
This teacher is responding to a recent DeKalb commentary on the blog by Oglethorpe University President Lawrence Schall, but his essay speaks to the conditions facing teachers in many places:
I’ve seen so many commentaries over the weeks about the plight of the DeKalb School Systems – from interim superintendents to possible ex-board members to concerned politicians. The blaring omission of a teacher voice rings louder about our current state of affairs. I’ve shrugged all of them off and kept-calm-and-carried-on as has been the trickle-down mantra for years in DeKalb County.
Then, l read I read Lawrence M. Schall’s “wolf-in-sheep’s-clothing” commentary.
His manifesto of conservatism and privatizing the public school arena is, I think, a huge portion of what’s wrong with education today – it comes under the guise of common-sense solutions from informed think-tanks, but it’s really just the Trojan Horse that will finally do away with public education in this country. And, as I’ve said before, democracy in America won’t be far behind.
It’s a simple fact – public education is not and should never be seen as a business.
To suggest it is or could be run like one is itself the problem with education.
The agenda that Schall suggests is double-speak for fixing a broken educational system by doing away with it in piecemeal. “Creating paths for the recognition and reward of effective teachers” is pay for performance – pitting teacher against teacher to receive pay based on student performance is ludicrous and quickly becoming a reality.
I know virtually no teachers who think this would ever turn out well. If you think there was cheating on the high-stakes tests before (which includes the suggested model StudentsFirst organization by Ms. Rhee), wait until you tie a paycheck to some ridiculous exam written by a for-profit organization.
As far as “empower[ing] parents with real choice by providing them with easily accessible and understandable data and through equitable funding of effective charter school” – this is truly one of the biggest farces within school systems today.
If I can break down what I’m reading: we’re talking about vouchers for private schools that can produce the results that the businesses are telling the parents that students need. If a student in my class misses a question on a high-stakes assessment that asks the child to find the mistake in a sentence that’s missing the Oxford comma (an example one of the many hotly debated usage rules upon which we English teachers can’t even agree that test-writers love to target), then that student hasn’t met the standard for “Conventions” and must be remediated.
Or withdrawn and taken to a school where the child will suddenly master the elusive comma – a school that works. Frankly, there are some usage rules I have to look up every time I come across the issue, or I simply revise the sentence to fix what I don’t know.
That’s what I learned as a student before we traded learning for testing – to think critically and creatively. To use my strengths in my favor. These skills have fallen by the wayside in an era of manipulated numbers telling us what’s going on instead of visiting schools to see for ourselves.
Instead of working with teachers to help the students, parents have been empowered to believe that they know education better than the educator. And why wouldn’t they think that? It’s obvious that everyone thinks they can do a better job than teachers. Organizations like Teach for America are churning them out as people leave unfulfilling careers to enter the classroom and find purpose.
All you need to be a good teacher, apparently, is a dedicated heart – the thing that’s missing from those of us who went into education from the get-go.
The-Teachers-As-a-Second-Career-Crew will save education from the current teachers who just aren’t cutting it. Check out any news story that has anything to do with education and you’ll find the teacher featured at the center of the problem.
Even Schall suggests that the teachers are more to blame than the governance when he points out “performance of the school board, and more importantly, the school district have been abysmal for far too long.”
Dr. Schall, I’m a part of that district and you’re absolutely right – it’s broken, broken, broken. But, with all due respect to you sir, it’s not because of teachers not doing their jobs. It’s because the powers-that-be have not been focusing on student success and teacher protection – they’ve been running this district like a business complete with golden parachutes, missing monies and top-heavy management.
They, like so many in education, have forgotten that it’s about the students. And I don’t mean in a “Victory in every classroom” political slogans or the “We do it for the children” false-selfless statement that six-figure administrators make. I mean the hard-fought and sometimes ugly battles that it takes when it really is about the students.
All the teachers I know accept that and are willing to fight for their students. Otherwise, we wouldn’t do what we do.
Here’s where I agree with you – we have to “spend tax dollars more efficiently by promoting better governance structures.” Those structures must involve the teachers and their protection along with students. If you want me to do right by your kids, ask for my input on their education. Protect me when I do speak out.
Don’t cut my pay or the number of days I have with your kids while adding more tests and then act shocked when the learning seems to have stalled – of course it has. The students were so busy pre-testing to show management that they didn’t know something that the teacher ran out of time to teach them something.
But it made for cool charts for the “data chats” and “war rooms.”
Instead of villainizing teacher unions, encourage them. Work with them. Teachers will be a lot more likely to fight for your kids if they know somebody’s got their back. As it stands, I can’t even sign my name to this commentary without possibly losing my job.
Now, I don’t have my own blog to fall back on or a doctoral degree in education, but even I can see that our system is patently wrong.
And I’m trying to do something about it. What I am doing is working from the inside to make things better. It’s a little more thankless than sitting on a higher perch and pointing out the mistakes that others are making, but those kinds of gigs are hard to get.
Still, in spite of my broken district, just like Dr. Schall’s two adult children, I’m also teaching at a public school that works. And it’s not because of the tests; it’s in spite of them.
Schall and I can agree on one more thing – we are focusing on the symptoms rather than the problem. The more we treat education like a business, the further away from ever fixing it we get. I’ve heard it said a million different ways (as have most of us actually in the classroom), but I’m not building the latest piece of technology or working on an assembly line of the latest mode of transportation – I’m teaching your child.
I want him or her to have imagination and creativity enough to make the future better for all of us. The more roadblocks and assessments of arbitrary questions put forth in the spirit of measuring my worth as an educator, the less likely your child is of actually being successful.
Because I have looked at them as only data and stamped the “product” with a big red label as defective.
Because my days are spent producing worthless charts and graphs for my “data notebook” so that my countless supervisors can justify their own jobs by showing that I’m not doing mine right yet.
Because there are so many corporate people whose job it is to tell what I’m doing wrong according to their business model that even I sometimes forget that teaching is my life, not just my job, and I didn’t go into it for the money.
The education system in our country is broken and we’re breaking it further with all of our uninspired solutions.
I guess if that’s our goal, then we’re “racing to the top” right on schedule.
–From Maureen Downey, for the AJC Get Schooled blog
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294 comments Add your comment
Dr. John Trotter
March 10th, 2013
4:38 pm
Ella, We protect and empower classroom educators…one member at a time. We don’t claim to do anything else, and we are darn good at what we do. We don’t offer spelling bee contests for students, tote bags for new teachers, or waste our time lobbying at the Capitol for lower class sizes. We take care of the individual teachers…one member at a time.
Ella, I don’t know how these educrats and politicians can fathom that mistreating teachers will not have detrimental impact on the students. They are operating upon a terrible theoretical basis. But, I just think that they don’t care. It’s like my friend from the Invisible Serfs Collar blog said earlier, the “for profit” part of public education is in the Central Office salaries. Why should any superintendent make three to four times as much money as the Governor? Something has gone awry.
Astropig
March 10th, 2013
4:40 pm
@WillieJo-
Yours is the best comment (by far) on this thread. It’s so good that I will repeat it here:
The writer shares a few code words like “profit” and slams business and parents in general but has no effective prescription for fixing anything but to leave him alone and give him more money.
This taxpayer is done with giving education more money until it’s accountable and responsive to the taxpayers and the parents. There is a sea change brewing among taxpayers who are going to see change in how their money is spent.
Of course we should treat teachers with respect. However, don’t you ever get confused about who is most vested in what is good for my child. I AM. NOT YOU. I respect your professionalism and your skill but I am not going to abdicate my responsibility and my rights to you. If you are an inadequate teacher you should be prepared to hear about it. I have sat through my last arrogant, condescending parent teacher meeting trying to be polite to a would be professional that I would not hire on a bet”
If you are an educrat or educrat wannabe-This person’s very succinct comments are EXACTLY the way a LOT of we parents feel. We’ll win in the end because we are right.
Dr. John Trotter
March 10th, 2013
4:41 pm
@ “living outside”: I wasn’t expected a response from Mr. or Dr. Schall. No, I never even thought of that. What could he say? He was just plain wrong.
d
March 10th, 2013
4:41 pm
I am confused by a statement made earlier – teachers need to band together – but in the same breath – NEA is the problem. Wait a minute – NEA has 3.2 MILLION educators – that’s about 1 out of every 100 Americans. Next let’s hear the rants about the union bosses – like the math TEACHER from Arizona? Or how about the cafeteria-worker who put herself through college to become an elementary school teacher in Utah. Bosses? Come on.
I had a student complain that he was absent the day before a test (which was announced). I told him not to worry, the material we covered the previous day wasn’t on the test at all, he would be fine. Fifteen minutes later, he turned in his test. Once it was graded, I called home to advise the parent of the situation and the retake policy. The student never followed through, and 3 weeks later I was asked by the mother to allow a retake at that point. I declined. Hopefully, even if this student doesn’t pass my class by the end of the semester, he will have learned at least one very valuable life’s lesson.
In this particular situation, did the school fail? This is the case more often than not in my 8 years experience in the classroom. Students seem to not have good critical thinking skills. Is this the schools’ fault? Well, how much critical thinking goes into EOCT or CRCT? What are we basing the value of a school or an educator on? Oh yeah, EOCT and CRCT. Who is really failing our students now?
dougmo2
March 10th, 2013
4:42 pm
@ Ella @ 4:27
The answer to your question is nothing. Dr. Trotter tried (and failed) to stack the Clayton County BOE with his MACE lackys, Noressee Haynes, in hopes it would gain him some sort of political clout. He failed. The only reason Dr. Trotter writes in these blogs is to remain relevant. He, once again, is failing.
Dr. John Trotter
March 10th, 2013
4:43 pm
Typo: expecting, not expected. Sorry.
d
March 10th, 2013
4:46 pm
NEA has Republican members – yes, believe it or not – a whole Republican caucus. Here’s the problem with the current Republican Party and why they don’t get a lot of endorsements from NEA – too many Republicans are allied with ALEC which seems to have a goal of destroying public education. It’s hard to endorse someone who believes the complete opposite of what you believe. How many Democrats are getting NRA endorsements?
Bernie
March 10th, 2013
4:49 pm
ShooShee @ 3:46 pm – Being that I am an outsider of educational system and reading this memo. outside of the minor grammatical errors (mine are many), the structual outline is a bit complicated to follow. This memo does give me pause and wonder about the ability of MR.THURMOND to grasp this language and the clear understanding of its terms, that is surely unique to the education profession or at least to this School system. Surely Mr.Thurmond’s Desk, Office, and inboxes are filled with such memos,reports,letters,statisical data, state and federal documents, letters from a number first graders and high schoolers. God knows what else, is laying around about the many issues he has yet to read, review,understand,comprehend,evaluate as well as act upon. His actions surely must be based on the correct response and approval, plan,implementation, and judgement .
Being that Mr.Thurmond lacks 100% the Educational background and as well as the Job experience in such a system. One can only LAUGH and feel pity, when one thinks of the MINE FIELD, Mr. Thurmond has voluntarily injected himself into as the Interm Superintendent, when reviewing this one document. I am quite sure there is a backlog of thousands of more documents like this and more that needs to be acted upon and acted upon correctly in order to efficently take care of the Day to Day operations of the School System.
A reasonable person, would say it would take more than “CS”-Common Sense as MR.Thurmond has said so elequently last week about all that was required of a successful Dekalb County School Superintendent. I would disagree with that simple assessment as being unwise and navie when considering the one document above. Surely he has a thousand and one questions for a demand of explanation and interpretation of terms from each document that comes before him.
Mr.Thurmond may be a good Lawyer and a eloquent speaking politician, surely even he would be challenged by the language of these like minded documents. Maybe, I am the Dummy here?
( I can hear the howls of laughter) one thing for sure, I am not alone! you can count on that one!
With all of that being said. Throw in the complicated issues of the School Board, Legal teams, and now the intervention by Governor Deal. It makes ONE wonder, if The Taxpayors of Dekalb County are really getting their bang for the Buck, that is being spent on the EXORBITANT Salary Package that is being given to one who is so unqualified and so inexperienced. I think that is a Fair question to ask and raise, even Now!
However, My Gut feeling says to me, Ladies and Gentlemen, “Houston, We Have a Problem!”
Ella
March 10th, 2013
4:49 pm
Dr. Trotter, I guess I need to be a member MACE as I definitely do believe in empowering teachers to do their job.
I would agree that this is a major problem as a teacher of 34 years. I am less and less empowered to teach. I believe way too much money is spent on the county level and not enough in the classroom. However, having taught in DeKalb and leaving I do believe the problem is significantly worse in DeKalb regarding money getting to the classroom to empower the teachers.
However, we did disagree on the constitutionality of removing the school board members of DeKalb. I see the education of students as a state responsibility which was given to school boards, but not without supervision from the state. When the school board does not do what is best for the students I do nto think it is unconstitutional to remove them. We can agree to disagree and not dislike each other over it. I do respect your opinion.
Patrick Edmondson
March 10th, 2013
4:49 pm
Thank you for publishing this letter. The teacher speaks for all caring teachers. Education is NOT a business. The MBA ‘educators’ have hindered education with their ignorance of all but economic management. Students are never raw materials to be manufactured into something, especially in a regulated lock step. People are too unique and different. The “Conservative” movement’s aim is to conserve all the learning institutions for their ilk, while the under-educated peasants will again be glad to be given any drudge work. This is not speculation. They proudly trumpet these aims couched in MBA-speak.
paulo977
March 10th, 2013
4:53 pm
Joseph.. “Much of DeKalb County, and Georgia is overly concerned with test scores. Let’s concentrate on learning”
_________________________________________________
I am afraid this is not what all the posts have concentrated on recently They have mainly torn the Schoo Board members apart for very little to do with what has happened to LEARNING in the classrooms !! The teacher’s letter says it all ………
“That’s what I learned as a student before we traded learning for testing – to think critically and creatively.”
But , then again this is GEORGIA …so now Deal will call the shots !!
Anonymous in DeKalb
March 10th, 2013
4:57 pm
@d:
Who you kidding? The National Education Association and its Georgia unit, the Georgia Association of Educators (GAE), have endorsed EVERY Democrat presidential candidate since … the 1970s!
Even the Teamsters Union isn’t that partisan.
frustrated teacher in a low-performing dekalb school
March 10th, 2013
4:57 pm
all the back and forth discussion is fine, but ultimately i agree with everything the anonymous teacher said. and his/her fear of retalliation is all too real. no one is speaking or working for the teachers. what i would’t give to not have to spend 3+ hours a week in “common planning” which amounts to very little. then i have to scrounge to find the time to grade papers and plan lessons that i hope will help my students. too much time and money is spent on job justification and not in meeting student and teacher needs.
d
March 10th, 2013
5:01 pm
@Anon – yes, I know. I’m not denying that. What I said – and very clearly – is show me a candidate who isn’t out to destroy public education, and I’ll show you an endorsement. Unfortunately, the Republicans haven’t done that yet.
Dr. John Trotter
March 10th, 2013
5:02 pm
“dougmo2″: Every political season, I try to get out of politics. But, I keep getting sucked back in! This past election, I limited myself to helping only three candidates…one sheriff candidate, one incumbent state representative, and one challenger to a school board chairman in South Georgia. My candidates all won amazingly by the same number…54% to 46%.
In Clayton, it is true that at one time, I looked on the school board and saw that of the nine school board members, I had had a part in recruiting six (6) and running their campaigns (black and white, by the way). Of these six, none included Norreese Haynes. (He was on a later school board.) Not all “nutted up,” but most did. I had quit even talking to them, and I, by the way, was the first person or institution to publicly call for their resignations — before the AJC, the Clayton News/Daily, the Chamber of Commerce, or CCEA.
I have helped many candidates (Commissioners, Commission Chairmen, Judges, States Legislators, Congressmen, et al.) run for office through the years. I won’t call names, and I know that many are now relieved. Ha! The school board races were usually the easiest to help someone win.
Now, let’s get to the other school board on which Mr. Haynes served. The Chairperson, Ericka Davis, and the two men who served as the Vice Chairpersons, Rod Johnson and Eddie White, boldly (and boastfully?) stated on the school system’s web site that they were GAE/NEA members. There was one of two other GAE/NEA members on that school board. So, so much for MACE stacking this board. This board, by the way, is the board in which the members either stepped down rather shamefully or were illegally removed by the Governor. (The law used to remove them was later declared unconstitutional.)
Thanks, Dourmo2, for your interest.
whatever
March 10th, 2013
5:02 pm
I am 50. When we were in school (here in Georgia), we didn’t even know when we were testing. With the exception of the SAT, we would walk into school and they would tell us to take out a pencil and a scrap piece of paper. It was like a pleasant surprise, a couple of days without homework. Now these kids are acutely aware of testing, benchmarks, etc. The testing is ridiculous. CRCT should be given in May and if a child flunks, that is a matter for the upcoming school year. Hold them back. They obviously didn’t learn anything. There is nothing to be said for testing, testing testing but not learning.
Dr. John Trotter
March 10th, 2013
5:04 pm
Ella, We would welcome you with open arms.
@ Anonymous: MACE does not endorse any candidates…national, state, or local. We don’t presume to tell teachers how to vote. Plus, we couldn’t even agree at the MACE Office on candidates! Ha!
Dr. John Trotter
March 10th, 2013
5:09 pm
Ella, you are right. We don’t have to agree on everything. I believe in unity in diversity, not uniformity of opinions. We have disagreements even within our families, right? But, I think that we can all agree that teachers ought not to be treated like common criminals in a prison. The way that these angry and abusive administrators bark at teachers, you would think that the teachers were criminals serving time in the school building.
South Georgia Retired Educator
March 10th, 2013
5:09 pm
South Georgia agrees with this teacher. Starting at the state leadership level, teachers are disrepected and ignored. The Guv and his minions want to give away tax money to every big corporation and increase tax credits for private schools through the SSOs. But there’s no consideration for funding public schools adequately, and as far as Atlanta is concerned, systems can go belly up and teachers can spend their own money for classroom supplies. The big boys under the dome fail to see the ultimate investment for economic growth is in public education, not tax credits for bigwigs.
Anonymous in DeKalb
March 10th, 2013
5:09 pm
@d: So maybe you need to accept that public education can include … whatever learning institutions the public freely chooses to place their confidence in.
Ella
March 10th, 2013
5:14 pm
Thanks Dr. Trotter I will definitely look into it.
I look at things a little differently from many teachers. I am always a student advocate first and then I am a teacher/community advocate.
One of these days I will retire. I feel the time is getting closer after a year from y______.
Dr. John Trotter
March 10th, 2013
5:17 pm
I certainly understand, Ella.
d
March 10th, 2013
5:25 pm
@anon – I fail to see how that rebuttal has anything to do with our conversation. If a parent wants to put his or her child in a private, parochial, or home school, he or she has that choice already. I’ve even stated on this blog in the past that I wouldn’t object to a person receiving a rebate on his or her property taxes for the schools to pay for that.
WhiteWolf of the Bones
March 10th, 2013
5:30 pm
The dumbing down of education in this country has been deliberate, systematic, and will continue. The best that any teacher can do is to reach those students that want to learn, and will learn, no matter what else is going on. Those parents who truly care are the ones whose children behave, and do the work. Many of the other parents are products of the dumbing down system, and they don’t have the ability to know the difference in good systems and bad. I applaud the teachers who continue to teach to the best of their ability, despite the roadblocks placed by administration.
Know A Little Something
March 10th, 2013
5:46 pm
Where are the “like” and “share” icons?
Attentive Parent/Invisible Serfs Collar
March 10th, 2013
6:25 pm
Whitewolf-the horror stories I am hearing by private email from teachers are tragic. The able and stellar teachers are the ones under the most pressure to move away from the transmission of knowledge. And frequently being threatened with dismissal by admins who either were poor teachers themselves or were barely teachers at all before moving into admin.
For those of you who looked at the post I put up earlier about forcing UK teachers to engage in the behavior. Michael Barber is who hired away Kathy Cox to go to DC. Interesting. That’s how he originally came on my radar.
TC
March 10th, 2013
6:33 pm
I laugh at the comments about the evil big corporations taking over education. They already receive millions in consulting and management contracts yearly. If corporations can runs schools better for the same or lower price, let them have it.
dekalbite@Ella
March 10th, 2013
6:36 pm
“I believe DeKalb County is lacking the right data collection systems in order to collect data by subject and different standards. I think that was one of the problems SACs indentified. Due to lack of the appropriate data collection system electronically this has causes the teachers in DeKalb a great deal more work which is an administrative issue that hurts the teachers.”
That was the data system Ramona Tyson and Tony Hunter recommended when Ms. Tyson was in charge of MIS and Mr. Hunter was her second in command.
The problems with DeKalb’s system stem from:
1. No input from teachers
2. A data programming group that could not program DeKalb’s system to mesh with the new data system
3. Little to no access for students so that the data could be captured
4. Central Office personnel with scant educational experience who do not know what data is meaningful and which is not meaningful when tracking and improving academic progress
The system purchased for $11,00,000 is named eSis (yes – that’s the same system that had teachers in tears) and SchoolNet. SchoolNet just went up for renewal and more millions (that BTW DeKalb does not even have) got spent on it.
eSis – $4,000,000+
When Ms. Tyson and Mr. Hunter presented these data systems, they promised the Board:
From the BOE meeting 1-7-08:
Quick Summary / Abstract
Presented by: Ms. Ramona Tyson, Associate Superintendent, Management Information Systems
It is recommended that the Board of Education award RFP 8-11 Student Information System (SIS) to Administrative Assistants Ltd. (AAL) as the lowest responsible, responsive bid. Year 1 through Year 5 costs are as follows:
Year 1: $1,047,050.00
Year 2: $1,257,110.00
Year 3: $ 619,964.00
Year 4: $ 564,350.00
Year 5: $ 574,305.00
Total: $4,062,779.00
Goal #1-To narrow the achievement gap & improve the graduation rate
Goal #2-To increase rigor and academic achievement in Reading\Language Arts, Mathematics, Science and Social Studies in PreK-12
Goal #4-To ensure fiscal responsibility in order to maintain safe and healthy learning environments
SchoolNet $$7,000,000+
Quick Summary / Abstract
Presented by: Ms. Ramona Tyson, Chief Information Officer
This application was approved by the Board of Education on December 20, 2007 and the approval (RFP 8-12) included a five-year payment schedule with required annual BOE approval. Future payments are as follows:
December 20, 2007 $1,600,000.00 completed
July 1, 2008 $1,600,000.00 current request
July 1, 2009 $1,600,000.00 future
July 1, 2010 $1,058,383.00 future
July 1, 2011 $ 927,350.00 future
July 1, 2012 $ 464,003.00 future
TOTAL $7,249,736.00
Goal #1-To narrow the achievement gap & improve the graduation rate
Goal #2-To increase rigor and academic achievement in Reading\Language Arts, Mathematics, Science and Social Studies in PreK-12
Goal #3-To ensure quality personnel in all positions
Goal #4-To ensure fiscal responsibility in order to maintain safe and healthy learning environments
Absolutely NO accountability when millions of tax dollars are spent on systems and programs that do not work for teachers and students. When the management at the top that is setting all of the policies, procedures, and practices for the district and in addition telling teachers what, when and how to teach the content, then the managers need to be held accountable for improving student achievement or for the lack thereof.
I love teaching. I hate what it is becoming...
March 10th, 2013
6:42 pm
@Anonymous How can you support denying them that choice?
My comment had absolutely nothing to do with school choice. It had to do with the possible reasons a teacher might stay in a troublesome teaching situation for the sake of the students rather than bailing on them. Why do you insist upon focusing upon the issue of school choice when my reply had nothing to do with such? Do YOU have an agenda?
OldGrunt
March 10th, 2013
6:57 pm
‘The Teacher’ makes some excellent points, but when we look at the decline of imparting KNOWLEDGE TO STUDENTS, the decline has been on-going since the early 70’s. That is nearly TWO GENERATIONS! We spend more per pupil in the USA than most other countries, yet the USA’s students have continued to decline when compared to their foreign contemporaries, with many being from third world countries.
When my kids were in public schools, there was a rule that there would be NO DISPARAGING REMARKS MADE AGAINST ANY TEACHER AT ANY TIME — this grew out of having a large number of teachers from both my and my wife’s family. I now have grandkids in college. My kids saw it necessary to home school and later send my grandkids to private schools. They were fortunate, and my kids had to sacrifice to cause that to happen. Folks, things have changed within the teaching profession — and not for the better. True! WE HAVE SOME OUTSTANDING TEACHERS, but we also have some who — like some boards of education — SHOULD NOT BE IN THE PROFESSION! Too many know the principles of teaching, but do not have a clue with respect to the subject matter they are teaching. Indeed, our high school drop out rate in this Country is ATROCIOUS — but why? What steps have been taken to remove — PERMANENTLY — those who cannot, and do have have the self determination and motivation, TO TEACH? What innovations in subject delivery have been made to grasp and hold the student’s attention?
Will have to say that during the time my kids were in elementary and high school, teachers/educators were held in much higher esteem than they are today. Will have to state the obvious of those who have worked both in the public and private sector that RESPECT has to be earned. In Korea today, teachers are one of the most respected elements in that society. BUT, their kids are in school earlier in the day, and later in the evening than our kids. Further, their kids are in the classroom more days during the calendar years. One would think that given the amount of resources that have gone into our Schools of Education, modified or new models of teaching in the 21st Century would have evolved. But such has not happened.
True enough, teachers cannot be blamed for all of the education ills of the USA, but neither are teachers and educators blameless. Sadly, we only have to look at the final results!
I love teaching. I hate what it is becoming...
March 10th, 2013
6:58 pm
@WilieJo I have sat through my last arrogant, condescending parent teacher meeting trying to be polite to a would be professional that I would not hire on a bet.
I sympathize. Your experience is not unlike that of a teacher who must sit through a conference with the occasional arrogant, condescending parent who refuses to listen to advice, who insists that all the problems their child is having are due to the teacher, who is angry that the teacher does not gush over how absolutely unique, special and precious their child is above all others, and who complains that their child “never had any problems in school before” when previous report cards and teachers’ notes all indicate an ongoing issue. It is hard to remain polite in the face of that as well.
I guess we just need to keep reminding ourselves that generally, both parties do have what is best for the child at heart, and that, as adults, we should be able to find common ground if both parties remain polite and respectful and agree to listen to each other.
Jack ®
March 10th, 2013
6:58 pm
I read the teacher’s comments but not the posts; didn’t need to. The teacher should be the chairperson of the DeKalb board of education. She’s exactly correct when saying the top-heavy administration needs thinning out and that teachers need protection when speaking out.
takefive
March 10th, 2013
7:06 pm
The person who compared public education to Amtrak and the USPS is making a very poor analogy. Those two institutions have been affected by changes in technology. There are many ways to travel across the country other than by train and, obviously, email has displaced snail mail as the main form of written communication. In addition, certain companies have been allowed to cherry pick the profitable portion of the USPS, sending packages, further impacting cash flow. There is no substitute, however, for educating the masses other than public schools. It is clear that there is a faction which would like to see public education moved to the prison managment model where private companies siphon off tax dollars. Privatization is like crack cocaine for governments. It sounds so good and financially prudent at first, but after the government has given up control and resources of some responsibility, the private companies have the government hooked.
paulo977
March 10th, 2013
7:44 pm
takefive “There is no substitute, however, for educating the masses other than public schools. It is clear that there is a faction which would like to see public education moved to the prison managment model where private companies siphon off tax dollars”
__________________________________________________________________
Have you been to classrooms recently ? We’re almost there!!!!
SWGA Parent
March 10th, 2013
7:57 pm
Teaching is teaching…but the day to day running of a school district has to be treated like a business with checks and balances on what and who is spending the taxpayers money. A school districts finances damn well better be treated no different than any private company when millions of dollars are at stake. The last thing that any teacher in GA needs to do is to join the NEA, which is nothing more than a front for the democratic party.
Private Citizen
March 10th, 2013
8:04 pm
Thank you ShooShoo for posting this alarming bit of incoherence.
I fail to see how people can blame students, parents, and teachers, when this is what is coming from management.
RAMZAD
March 10th, 2013
8:09 pm
Education is a business. It has balance sheets and income statements and cash flow statements just like the QT. It has a mission to educate children. It has a strategy about how that should be done, and it has customers with all kinds of dreams and aspirations.
QT sells gas. School districts educate children. We are not trying to turn a monetary profit, but we expect the people coming out to compete with the rest of the world. That is a serious business, and to the extent that is not happening, we can not afford to cuddle that system- we have to set it on fire to get the ground to build something else up.
Private Citizen
March 10th, 2013
8:22 pm
SWGA Parent, the democratic party you refer to no longer exists. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gXL998q7skI#t=14m40s
Maggie
March 10th, 2013
8:24 pm
Amen,amen,amen. I’m a retired high school teacher (with a Ph.D. in my content area), and this gets to the heart of the problem better than anything else I’ve read. Politicians and others, including some educators (those at the top and not in the classroom) are dismantling public schools in America. And I’m afraid that they’re working on the colleges and universities now. Enough said. Amen to this person who isn’t signing his/her name. Keep writing.
Private Citizen
March 10th, 2013
8:26 pm
RAMZAD, Respectfully, you are entirely mistaken. Education and QT are two different castes, the difference being governance versus profit. These are two different concepts. You are incorrect to combine them, and you may note this combining leads to all sort of trouble where the business caste exploits the resources of the governance caste.
BehindEnemyLines
March 10th, 2013
8:28 pm
Blah blah blah. More hot air from another parasite trying to make sure he can keep feeding at the trough.
Private Citizen
March 10th, 2013
8:31 pm
RAMZAD, You are correct that both castes utilise collecting monies, paying expenses, accounting, balance sheets and such, but to say business equals government is incorrect in basic structure. Sugar is not salt. Water is not sand. In their pure and proper form, they serve two difference functions. That the aim of business is profit will tell you beforehand what will be the outcome when giving over government caste to business, however this will not be to the benefit of governing. It is also significant that is the caste structure, governance is the higher caste and has greater responsibility, which compounds the subversion you advocate.
Ed Johnson
March 10th, 2013
8:34 pm
“This teacher is responding to a recent DeKalb commentary on the blog by Oglethorpe University President Lawrence Schall” –Maureen Downey
Awesome response! Thank you, teacher. Thank you, Maureen.
Now, …
“We Need Schools… Not Factories” (22:32) [*1]
A TEDTalk by Sugata Mitra
Be sure to listen carefully starting at around the 13:55 minute point, when Mitra moves to intimate (1) encouragement allows learning to happen, (2) testing and performance thinking from The Machine Age [*2] prevent learning from happening, and (3) learning can emerge from self-organizing learning environments (SOLE).
Interestingly, SOLE is very much the essence of the acclaimed…
“Teaching with the World Peace Game” (20:28) [*3]
A TEDtalk by Public School Teacher John Hunter
It is encouraging to see Hunter’s and Mitra’s learning wisdom at play. Let’s hope theirs will catch on, especially within public school systems that limit themselves to being no better than “urban” — as Atlanta Public Schools does, for example – and that run every aspect of what they do as a dated, Machine Age business.
———————————
[*1] http://www.huffingtonpost.com/sugata-mitra/2013-ted-prize_b_2767598.html
[*2] http://preview.tinyurl.com/bzb8q3q
[*3] http://www.ted.com/talks/john_hunter_on_the_world_peace_game.html
SWGA Parent
March 10th, 2013
8:34 pm
Oh yes the democratic party does exist. I watched a few minutes of the youtube video..and when he started quoting MoveOn.com i had to turn it off.
Teachers educate students…School Superintends have to run the day to day operation of all aspects of a school system. A good system needs at least a 10-15% fund balance on hand at all times to pay for unbudgeted items such as increases in the cost of teachers health insurance, legal fees above and beyond budgeted amounts, and ever increasing costs of property and liability insurance. The better a system operates in the black the less chance there is for teacher furlough days and reduction in the ability to supply teachers with books and supplies.
Private Citizen
March 10th, 2013
8:36 pm
Behind Enemy Lines, I look forward to day you go to seek medical services and find you have an uncaring doctor who can not answer your questions are your discomfort is increasing and views you as a distracting burden they sure don’t need, for there are much easier and less demanding patients, ask any doctor. What goes around comes around and your lack of support for educators may yield you in a care facility where someone else really doesn’t care to read the labels on the bottles and has not been especially trained to do so during their formative years. When that day comes, recall your characterisation as unconnected, not-profiting, not “player,” teacher in the classroom as how you say, “a pig at a trough?” Well and good, well and good.
Private Citizen
March 10th, 2013
8:40 pm
SWGA parent, you would make a good guardian of structure and accounting, keeping the house is order. The political thing I mean is that many say the two parties have converged into corporatism. The rest of is a front-end for appearances and to give the illusion of democracy or choice. Some say there is need for a third party, but obviously there is a stasis or stagnation at present, literally no movement in any direction. Maybe the parties will re-awaken with their former merit or whatever it is that they each stood for.
Private Citizen
March 10th, 2013
8:42 pm
ever increasing costs of property and liability insurance.
Should not governments be self-insured?
Lee
March 10th, 2013
9:07 pm
“It’s a simple fact – public education is not and should never be seen as a business. To suggest it is or could be run like one is itself the problem with education.”
Education may not be a business, but there are business aspects such as budgets, payroll, procurement, logistics, financing, human resources, accounting, accounts payable, information technology…… Hmm, wait a minute, that sounds EXACTLY like a business.
But wait, the mission of a school is to provide the service of academic instruction to the student. Hmmm, a service provider. Again, that also sounds like a business.
And at the end of the day, the way the taxpaying public knows we have received value for our money is the product (educated graduate) the school produces. But yet, how many times have we read on this blog about students being passed from grade to grade who cannot do the work, students who are in high school that are performing at an elementary grade level, students who cannot pass a simplistic measure such as the CRCT, “Honor” graduates who have to take remedial classes in college, and high school graduates who are barely functional illiterates?
There is a reason parents are wanting vouchers, and charter schools. There is a reason the number of private schools within 25 miles of my home have increased exponentially. Bottom line, there are a lot of parents unhappy with the product/service that the traditional public schools are providing.
As to what went wrong. Public schools began their downward spiral when the politically correct transformed them into one, huge social experiment.
Dave
March 10th, 2013
9:12 pm
This teacher should submit this response to “Rethinking Schools.” Sadly, in regards to this teacher’s commentary, I just don’t see how voices like this teacher’s can permeate the “run it like a business” mentality that is so firmly entrenched in the American psyche so that it becomes common sense. We are witnessing the writing of the school privatization metanarrative that will prove dangerous and disastrous for country’s children and ultimately for our country’s well-being. And lest we not forget that school privatization movements are really only taking hold in large, urban school systems populated predominantly with children of color. This is racialized; it is political; and it really is only about funneling public monies into private hands. And it’s all done in the absolute more insidious way under the most benevolent of pretenses–it’s for the children!
Truth in Moderation
March 10th, 2013
9:12 pm
“Here’s the dirty little secret that nobody wants to confront: every child isn’t special. In fact, some are quite ordinary. And some, sadly, are broken beyond repair before they ever set foot in a classroom – and no amount of intervention or heroics will ever save them. oooohhhhh…that’s uncomfortable, isn’t it? But it’s true. We just don’t have the guts to acknowledge the truth and deal with it effectively. Maybe little Skippy isn’t cut out for college. Maybe he’d be a phenomenal WELDER.”
AVERAGE SALARY OF AN UNDERWATER WELDER:
“The highest-paid 10 percent averaged $45.50 an hour or $94,630 a year.”
ht tp://work.chron.com/underwater-welder-pay-scale-4133.html