Re: Sinfest (12/07) "Govern like it's 1933"?

peterson@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:

On Dec 16, 8:47 am, "Eric S. Harris" <eric_harris...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

peter...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:


If, on the other hand, some kids are easier to teach than others and
some have different personalities, needs and abilities, then it's a
pretty powerful message to teachers that they shouldn't take on those
tough-to-teach kids, and that whatever progress they are able to make
with those kids will simply result in a lower paycheck. So the senior
teachers will cherry-pick the honor students for themselves and to
hell with the kids who actually need a little extra attention from
someone with experience.

I'm unaware of public schools where teachers routinely get to reject
students or select students. I rather doubt it's the norm -- but then
again, I wouldn't think it would take years to fire an obviously bad
teacher. (And wouldn't it be interesting if the reverse were true, and
teachers could get selected or rejected? A story about my son's 4th
grade teacher is available upon request.)


I'd rather hear stories about your experience in the classroom. How
did you and your colleagues determine who was teaching which sections
of which courses? And how did it differ at the various schools where
you've worked?

My experience in the classroom has been limited to being a student, a substitute teacher (Hey! I was unemployed and desperate!) and a guest in a Social Studies or Politics and Government class. None of those things gave me any info or insight into such things. (But subbing at Kirby Middle School was an education. Details available upon request.)

What I've seen in over a dozen years of going into multiple schools on
a regular basis and spending entire days teaching and talking to the
faculty and administrators, is that senior teachers at most schools
have the opportunity to choose their assignments -- and whether that
means teaching AP calculus or a special course on Shakespeare while
the new teacher has the general math course or the basic freshman lit
class, or whether it means being able to make sure that certain
problem children are sent to special ed or perhaps never show up in
her classroom in the first place, they do by-God get to cherrypick
their teaching assignments.

Yet another reason to dismantle the current system.

I can name about 40 public school districts where this is the case. If
you've never run into a district like that, good for you. You should
buy some lottery tickets.

Quite likely I have, but it wasn't visible to me. I could ask my niece and her mother about their districts; they're public school employees, one of them a classroom teacher. I meant to ask the classroom teacher at the family Christmas gathering, but didn't get a good chance to.

Rewarding overall teaching excellence (or even teaching adequacy) does
not prevent teachers from providing individual attention to those
students who would benefit from it.


Right. I would suggest you read "Among Schoolchildren" for a non-
fiction account of what happens when a teacher gets hung up on
"providing individual attention" to a child who needs it. Or talk to
someone who teaches for a living.

This was at a public school and the outcome was not good, I assume. If so, yet another reason to dismantle the current system.

Look, I'm not against rewarding "overall teaching excellence" because
those teachers DO provide that attention to all their children within
any conceivable human limits. So how do you propose to measure
"overall teaching excellence"? Because that was the topic under
discussion. Do you mean how well children do in the first six weeks of
the school year, compared to how well a completely different group of
kids did in the first six weeks of the previous school year? That's
how NCLB would do it.

And it's not working out well? Not much of a surprise -- a government "solution" to a government-produced problem that makes no sense, and probably causes further problems.

Come up with a measure that doesn't involve a flock of parrots
screaming multiplication tables and I'm with you, man. What's the
plan?

Abandon as much of the failing status quo as fast as possible.
o Government assigning students to schools
o Government operation of schools
o Government funding of schooling
o Government evaluating of schools

This is a "who bells the cat?" situation -- the teachers unions have enormous clout with one of the currently dominant political parties, and can clobber candidates of the other who threaten the status quo.

To the belling question, I have no answer. Inner-city parents realizing who their enemy is would do it, or do a lot of it. So would an enormous infusion of decency in the one political party ... or courage in the other. Or something else I haven't thought of. (Suggestions welcome.)

At the moment, my money would be on the inner-city parents getting rightly (and righteously) angry. But they'd have to have a place to go, and I don't see the other half of the bi-partisan duopoly as a destination, and there isn't a likely-looking new party in the wings.

A school that was doing so well overall that a lack of individual
attention for some students was a significant concern would be able to
address it, I expect. And willing to, I betcha. (Schools that have
graduation rates below 50% and vandalism and such have more pressing
problems.)


What does "doing so well overall" mean? Do you know that schools can
hide their dropouts by handing them a slip of paper with a phone
number on it? The phone number is for a program that will help the kid
get a GED, only in some cases it's a program for adult learners and
the kid isn't even eligible for it. In others, the kid isn't in the
least motivated to call the number, but it doesn't matter. He's been
"referred" and so he's not a drop out.

Yet another failure in the current system, and another reason to dismantle it. (This is fun! Somebody else is doing all the work!)

I don't know how much we actually disagree, but you've got to talk
from a framework of reality. I repeat: The fact that you have eaten in
a restaurant does not qualify you to be a chef. The fact that you've
gone to school, or that you have kids in school, does not give you an
insight into the true inner workings. Education is extremely complex
and I have seen it done horribly and I've seen it done wonderfully and
I have very rarely seen any system of evaluation that correctly and
consistently sorts the wheat from the chaff.

Not to worry. I live in reality. (I was going to move to Theory, because so many things Work in Theory, but I wasn't able to find the place.)

Eating in a conspicuously terrible restaurant certainly qualifies you to never give it your custom again, and to recommend your friends and acquaintances avoid it, too. Even marginally-bad restaurants get that treatment -- though usually not with the same energy and enthusiasm and duration.

A conspicuously terrible public school, on the other hand, has no danger of losing many students, especially if the students are from poor families. In the case of a conspicuously terrible public school, you're not sorting wheat from chaff, but wheat from turds. That doesn't take a "system of evaluation" to accomplish -- just the ability to decline to eat manure.

One doesn't need to understand the "inner workings" of an institution to evaluate what it produces. In fact, for most purposes it's a waste of time to consider the inner workings. Food is cold, or tastes lousy, or is served on a dirty plate or set next to dirty silverware on a filthy table? You don't need to know the kitchen staff's background or the busboys' methodology -- you can tell it's not meeting your needs, and won't meet the needs of your friends and acquaintances. Or your readers', if you're a restaurant reviewer. (If money were enough to evaluate quality, wouldn't restaurant reviewers simply look at the right-hand side of the menu, and save themselves a trip to actually dine at the place?)

And keeping teacher performance and teacher compensation completely
independent certainly can't help with that.


Nobody said it did. I asked for someone to propose a workable system.
So, propose one.

Done, above. Aside for the details of how exactly to bell the cat, that is.

But, hey, all kids ARE exactly the same, right? Some students fail
because teachers have unions. The rest are on the honor roll.

Uh, that's not what I said. Nor does it follow from what I said. Nor
is it what I believe to be true. -Eric


Like I said, I don't think we're that far apart in what we'd like to
have happen. But you've got to go out to the kitchen and see how the
stew is cooked -- not just sit in the diningroom complaining about how
it ought to taste.

I agree. The biggest difference seems to be that you think the government's schools can be made to work adequately, with just the right reforms, this time. ("Honest, Papa Gepetto, this time I'll be good!") I think government operations are inherently difficult to make work well, and any time the voluntary sector can do something the government currently does, government should quit doing it.

To continue with the analogy -- complaining isn't the solution, nor what I would proposed or do. Allow freedom, and the number of lousy schools would decline, and the number of adequate and excellent schools would increase. -Eric

--
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