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Journal neocon's Journal: Thought for the day 25

Journal by neocon

Thought for the day:

``In the perfect world, the schools would be held to the same standard of excellence that our military is, and the teachers unions would have to hold a bake sale when they want to buy a Senator.''

Discuss.

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Thought for the day

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  • In a perfect world, management (Board of Ed employees, principals, etc.) would not be allowed to be in teacher's unions, and the union could actually speak to the desires of line level employees.

    Oh, and those teachers who didn't want to be union members wouldn't be forced to pay 'negotiation fees' that are approximately 95% of the fees for membership in the union.

    • Indeed. That the teachers' unions so often act against the interests of the students is tragic. That they usually act against the interests of the teachers as well is sad in a more ironic way...

      • I completely agree. Both of my parents are teachers, and the three of us think the only more destructive union is the prison guards'.
        • I completely agree. Both of my parents are teachers, and the three of us think the only more destructive union is the prison guards'.

          In CA at least, it hasn't been destructive - except of the state budget, of course. Getting huge pay hikes from Davis, then donating a cut back to Davis' campaign fund, seemed like a very nice scam FWIH...

          • In CA at least, it hasn't been destructive - except of the state budget, of course. Getting huge pay hikes from Davis, then donating a cut back to Davis' campaign fund....

            That's been going on here since well before Davis. The prison guards have been rewarding and punnishing incumbents for their behavior since at least the mid-70s. It happens at the Federal level, too, and in almost every state.

            The U.S. prison population has quadrupled since 1980 [usdoj.gov].

      • If the employers (governments) didn't provide monopoly power and coercion to the unions, they couldn't fuck over the teachers. Read and talk to teachers. Many of them are just as pissed off at the NEA as you are. Problem is, what can they do? Angie used to teach. $29/paycheck to pay for 'negotiation fees' or $32/paycheck to be a member. No, she's not forced to 'join' the union, but what do they care when they got 96% of the money?

        • Completely agreed. And that's not even to get into more subtle ways in which the unions screw their members. Here in NYC, for example, the unions have pushed through a system of seniority whereby only education in teaching is allowed relevance.

          This means, of course, that a candidate with a full degree in education who has never touched a keyboard is considered a more suitable teacher of an AP course in computer programming than (and will be given preference for that position over) a candidate with a t

          • Not sure about NY, but in MD, if you have a degree in something (economics, computer science, chemistry, etc) you can get a temporary cert. Unfortunately, only shithole school systems have openings for these types of teachers. And the cert only stays active if you are taking night and summer classes to get a 'proper' teaching degree.

            • Yah, there is a similar provision in New York, accepted as a part of a compromise by the Union after they tried to kill it. Unfortunately, such applicants have no seniority, so they are consistently assigned away from any job which any full union member wants, and usually end up teaching subjects other than the ones they have expertise in.

              Sounds like the same hijinks go on where you are.

              So indeed, sigh...

  • That's not a bad bit of rhetoric. It is a little dicey to compare public education to an all-volunteer force, though, as any kid skipping school will agree. :) But like a lot of really effective rhetoric, this quip fails to confront the question at the root of the problem it addresses:

    What is the "standard of excellence" used to evaluate schools?

    Any engineer will agree that before we can devise an efficient solution, it is crucial to understand the result we wish to achieve.

    There's a surprising amount of

    • I'd say there is a baseline, minimal standard which we can define, certainly:

      • A third grader had better be able to read a paragraph or two of simply phrased text, in common vocabulary, and answer questions whose answers are to be found therein.
      • A third grader had better be able to add, subtract, and multiply integers of arbitrary length, and divide integers of arbitrary length to produce an integral result and remainder.
      • A third grader had better be able to demonstrate basic civic knowledge,
      • Well, it's a start for sure. And I agree that it's probably something that would generate wide agreement. It's been a while since I've been around third graders, but it seems pretty reasonable.

        But I'm sure you realize that what you propose is only the dusting of snow on top of the iceberg. :) The standard must eventualy cover all subjects of importance at each grade milestone on which a school will be judged.

        Also, what percentage of third graders must meet this standard for a school to be a "success"? How
        • My main concern would be that the bar will be lowered to accomodate the "special-needs kids". If the bar is set low enough, then meeting the standards would be easy and every school a success story -- but we end up putting out under educated adults in to the work-force. This hurts the nation economically (millions of low-wage workers).

          About 1/4th of my take-home goes to educating my kids. That is a healthy chunk of my money. I do that because (A) I can afford it (I dont need an expensive car or new toy
          • "I believe the school system here needs to be ripped apart and put back together to run more efficently, cheaply and yeild better results."

            Fair enough. I'm just pointing out that it's a simple thing to want that, and to say that, and to vote for that... but it's not nearly so simple to do that and actually get a better result out of it.

            I heard a very instructive little quip once: "Anyone can build a bridge that will stand up, but it takes an engineer to build a bridge that will just barely stand up."

            A

            • What specifically is it that is wrong with the performance of public schools in your area?

              California ranks 49th in the country for student performance -- thank god for Mississippi.

              Here's one point of view [stanford.edu] -- one which I agree with the possible solution, I disagree with their placing of blame. They blame Prop 13 for preventing schools from getting adequate funding. While this may "sort" of be true -- it's more accurate to say that prop 13 is preventing out-of-control spending.

              Here's another point of [heartland.org]

              • Indeed.

                New York State is similarly [bcnys.org] spending more per pupil than ever before (and more per pupil than any other state), while seeing the worst results in the history of the state -- and some of the worst results in the nation.

                There's another good point on the spending question -- Catholic schools, even in poor neighbourhoods, spend less than half [heartland.org] as much per pupil (about a third as much here in New York, by the way), and perform substantially better [publicpurpose.com] (50-100% better, actually) by all available metrics.

              • Hmm. That's not so good, eh?

                But based on what I see where I live, in Oregon, I would guess that Prop 13 probably does bear a large measure of the blame... more due to indirect funding issues than dollars spent, though.

                In Oregon, we passed a measure based upon, and similar to, Prop 13. What happened here was that (in addition to somewhat reducing school budgets) it shifted the funding burden for schools from local communities towards the state. Where the money went, so went control. Local control of school

                • So... what's your standard of excellence?

                  Do I hear the beginning of a sophistic socratic dialog? I am wary of going down a path in which the use of some relativistic claptrap attempts to nullify any arguement *I* may provide. Not that you may be trying to stear the discussion in that direction...

                  I'll stand by the materials I cited where the problems are listed -- and solutions suggested which don't involve throwing more money at the schools.

                  History shows these schools have performed better with less f

                  • "To ask me MY standard of excellence isn't germane to the subject of CA ranking 49th/50th in student performance."

                    True. I only asked that because I realized that I got off my own point, and was trying to haul the conversation back around to the meaning of the phrase "standards of excellence." (Which I think is so slippery that it leaves the whole bit of rhetoric pretty useless for anything but demagoguery. But that's just me.)

                    Talk about goals if you like, or not. I'm not trying to debate you, exactly. I'

                    • I'm more interested in the opportunity to discuss the underlying goals of public education...

                      I'm not suggesting I'm an authority on the goals of public education, either.

                      The one thing that appears obvious (at least to me) as that public education should provide a minimal level of education at a cost comparable to yield. Let me step aside for a moment...

                      Cost is key here. The public should *not* be required to pay more for a standard of education which is below that achieved in private schools. If the

                    • "Stepping back... I think you want to bring the topic around to "standards" and what those should be. Again, I don't claim to be an authority on "goals" or standards and any such discussion would probably degrade down to baseless opinion."

                      It is certainly opinion, but it is far from baseless. Theoretically at least, the US is goverend by and for the people. Public education is a public endeavor, therefore the collective opinion of the citizenry is the only true way to define the guiding principles upon whi

                    • What other core values are there for public education, that we can use to construct performance measures?

                      I repeat:

                      The only "goal" I can suggest is that public education needs to produce students who perform below or at levels achieved by private schools with a cost per student proportional to the performance (spend less than private schools and we should expect to see lower performances from students).

                      Comparing cost to performance from private schools is a good place to start. Wouldn't you agree that p

                    • Yeah, I got that. Efficiency is good. I agree.

                      But again, efficiency is a ratio. You can improve efficiency by cutting cost (which is easily measured) or by improving performance (which is not). In order to measure performance objectively, we have to determine what constitues good performance. (The definition of performance matters, otherwise this whole debate is just hot air.)

                      (Of course, if relative efficiency is all you are interested in, then just cut costs of public education to near nothing, and your

                    • But as I recall, genuine socratic dialogs are quite a valuable tool for improving understanding.

                      In so much as they involve pointing out the subjective nature of language and abstract concepts. Don't get me wrong, I hold Plato in high regards. Russell also, for that matter. I've just seen the method misused too often.

                      We have some performance measures already, of course, but I have found that in most cases the results are not clear-cut. There are many possible measures of performance, and many schools d

                    • "It's comments like these which suggest to me that your not serious about this discussion. This would do nothing but artificially raise the cost of private schools..."

                      Oh, I'm serious... but not about that suggestion. ;)

                      Of course it would be a completelty daft thing to do. God forbid that anyone actually do that! I was just floating it as an example of why the measurement of dollar-efficiency is subject to budgetary manipulation. I had one example based on cutting budgets, and I thought it necessary to sh

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