Steven Brill: "Class Warfare"
http://thedianerehmshow.org/shows/2011-08-16/steven-brill-class-warfare
American students rank 15th in the world in reading literacy, 25th in math and 17th in science. Frustrated parents in urban areas have turned to charter schools led by young, idealistic teachers. Education reformers have found an ally in President Obama, whose “Race to the Top” program rewards states that measure teacher quality and tie salaries to student test scores. But the program has met resistance from teachers’ unions, who form the backbone of the Democratic Party. Veteran journalist Steven Brill, who investigated New York's infamous "Rubber Rooms," reports on the education reform movement and the great struggle it has set off within the Democratic Party.
Guests
Steven Brill
journalist and author of "After: How America Confronted the September 12 Era," and "The Teamsters"
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Read an Excerpt
Excerpted from "Class Warfare" by Steven Bill. Copyright 2011 by Steven Brill. All rights reserved. Excerpted here by kind permission of Simon & Schuster:
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Teachers are human beings with finite amounts of energy. EVERYONE should be required to act as one for a solid month to appreciate how hard a job it is. State the obvious, please: PARENTS have PRIMARY responsibilty for their children: teachers cannot be expected to succeed with children whose parents are not involved. Discuss the parents who don't help their children with homework, help them get organized for their school day, nor teach their kids some discipline.
Also, tell your audience that charter schools use uncertified and untrained people as 'teachers', which offers no advantage to the students. Why pay to go school and get certification if you can be a 'teacher' without it? They are designed to break unions which were formed to guarantee a decent wage for trained, certified teachers. It is about money and being cheap when it comes to children.
Anyone who tries to tell us that charters and vouchers are not designed by their promoters as a back door path to appropriating public education dollars for private, profit, and religious schools either has not been paying attention to the wealth of information to the contrary already out there — or thinks we haven't been.
Here is just the latest story to come off the newsfeed —
Bad Choice : Ohio Official Drops Creationism Crusade – And Takes Up School Vouchers
To me, comparing Charter Schools to Public Schools seems like comparing apples to oranges. Both are fruits, but each is unique.
I graduated high school in 1955. In addition to the standard academic curriculum of -- English, Math, U.S. History, World History, Science, Art, Music, Health, etc., also offered were Men's and Women's Athletic Departments which included a full schedule of interscholastic events.
Do Charter School students regularly participate in interscholastic athletic events from Volley Ball to Football? Do Charter School Music Departments have a suitable number of students and the facilities for Band, Orchestra, and Choral concerts?
What are the typical "limitations" of Charter Schools? I'm guessing these schools do not provide all that the public schools are offering, which makes a huge difference in funding.
Personally, I oppose public funding of private schools. I believe these schools siphon off both many outstanding students and funds that could help public schools cope with their many problems.
My wife was a teacher for 26 years. Though she was very dedicated and worked long hours, she felt growing concern over changes in public attitudes about children, discipline, teachers and general goals in life for them all. And Mr. Brill is right -- compensation for teaching falls far below a comparable job in industry. If she were starting out looking for a career today, she would NOT be thinking of the teaching field. Yet two of our grandchildren are doing just that. Thank goodness that the young have ideals and hope.
To me, comparing Charter Schools to Public Schools seems like comparing apples to oranges. Both are fruits, but each is unique.
I graduated high school in 1955. In addition to the standard academic curriculum of -- English, Math, U.S. History, World History, Science, Art, Music, Health, etc., also offered were Men's and Women's Athletic Departments which included a full schedule of interscholastic events.
Do Charter School students regularly participate in interscholastic athletic events from Volley Ball to Football? Do Charter School Music Departments have a suitable number of students and the facilities for Band, Orchestra, and Choral concerts?
What are the typical "limitations" of Charter Schools? I'm guessing these schools do not provide all that the public schools are offering, which makes a huge difference in funding.
Personally, I oppose public funding of private schools. I believe these schools siphon off both many outstanding students and funds that could help public schools cope with their many problems.
My wife was a teacher for 26 years. Though she was very dedicated and worked long hours, she felt growing concern over changes in public attitudes about children, discipline, teachers and general goals in life for them all. And Mr. Brill is right -- compensation for teaching falls far below a comparable job in industry. If she were starting out looking for a career today, she would NOT be thinking of the teaching field. Yet two of our grandchildren are doing just that. Thank goodness that the young have ideals and hope.
Newly retired teacher"
I hope you were not an English teacher.
Christine,
I also listened to Mr. Brill and found his arguments for funding charter schools lacking in substance and biased against public education. I wonder if Mr. Brill has spent even one day in front of a public school class of 30 plus 11-year-olds.
As a former special education of and ESOL teacher for 12 years and parent of a child with special needs who now works part-time in an elementary school library, the best part of my day is working with the children at my local school.
I totally agree with you Christine that most teachers make a profound difference in children's lives, and their unions and organizations are there to support them. Instead of criticizing teachers Mr. Brill and our policy-makers should give teachers the respect, and salary they deserve. Maybe we can attract even more great teachers then.
This was a disappointing conversation. The data the author used was badly skewed and lacked creditable comparisons. He said in this interview that he compared the best charter schools to the worst public schools.
Key points of conversation where left out.
Charter schools do not take in kids with special needs.
Charter schools can kick kids out for any reason.
The burn out rate in charter schools is very high.
Many charter schools are not working.
The most important factor is the parents that put their kids in a charter schools hold education in high regards and are highly involved.
FYI. I live in Texas and they have broken the teacher unions here and Texas is now rated at the bottom in the US and Gov. Perry just hit Texas schools with $4,000,000,000 in cuts. Yep union arte the problems.
Diane I love your show but this was a weak interview and I would have loved to see you push back on these points.
Get rid of teachers' unions
Fire underperforming teachers
Get education back to the basics
a good start
,
Steven Brill made several statements about the "success" of Teach to America (TFA). Although I applaud the sentiment behind the program, by any standard beside feel good rhetoric, it has been a failure as far as academic outcomes for the students.
In a study by Ildiko Laczko-Kerr of the Arizona Department of Education that was reported in the Education Policy Analysis Archives he found that "... 1) that students of TFA teachers did not perform significantly different from students of other under-certified teachers, and 2) that students of certified teachers out-performed students of teachers who were under-certified." This was true for measures in reading, math and language arts.
As public policy, use of uncertified teachers do our students a disservice and interfere with maximizing our investment in education.
Brill doesn't make his case: the data shows that:
*School systems with union representation aren't any worse than those without unions (and, in fact, not only do the regions where little union safeguards exits tend to have worse educational outcomes, but the best school systems in the world rely on unionized teachers).
*according to the National Center for Performance Incentives research on merit-based pay shows that the treatment group did not get better results than those in the control group. THus any merit-pay plans should reward teachers for school-wide gains, as well as for individual gains, providing incentives to share good teaching ideas.
*As noted below, charter schools in general don't outperform regular public schools and even those that are exceptional tend to result in burn-out and can't be taken to scale.
Instead we need to look at what DOES work and recognize that there are no easy fixes. Systemized change is a long-term process. Teachers deserve our support. Brill's approach instead undermines the teachers we rely on to educate our children.
(1) Treat teachers like professionals, establishing a clear career path.
(2) Provide effective professional development, mentoring and greater autonomy in the classroom while encouraging cross pollination of ideas and practices.
(3) Strengthen their unions and improve working conditions.
(4) Honor their successes, promote collaboration and encouragement to hone their skills on an ongoing basis.
(5) Provide significant time for reflection, planning, and invention.
(6) Trust and rely on the judgement of teachers, using testing for diagnostic purposes to enhance learning rather than punitively.
These are the first steps needed to retain top teachers and improve teaching quality. This approach is more likely to be effective than threats
Without improving teaching as a profession, how will you find replacements for all those teachers you'd like fired? Attracting, much less retaining, top teachers, means providing them the support, work environment, and respect they deserve.
The current punitive atmosphere disrupts communities, dumbing down our schools so that we are not producing a generation of students who are more knowledgable, and better prepared for the responsibilities of citizenship. Building high levels of trust makes academic improvement three times as likely than in schools with low levels of trust among educators and students. While a fearful environment results in thinking about how to be safe rather than how to be effective.
Teacher training has to be elevated and that admission standards have to be raised, as in countries which outperform the U.S. Of course, those countries don't have the level of poverty that we do. Our middle class children are already succeesing educationally, but we look to the schools to make up for the deficits inherent in poverty.
Put together a leadership plan. District officials need to promote collaboration in a rigorous learning community, instilling high levels of trust internally and within the community as well as a strategic plan that values and supports both teachers and students. The district must provide ongoing leadership development for principals and expect accountability, requiring principals to focus on professional development for staff, providing extra support to new and underperforming teachers while developing appropriate assessments using multiple types of data (preferrably including peer review) for teachers to meet to receive tenure. Offer mentoring. Assess principals on collaboration among teachers and how well best practices are spread within their school. Reconsider credentials: raises and promotions should not be linked to advanced degrees that don't improve student learning. Establish benchmarks, and appropriate use of data for instructional purposes.
Work to cap class size. Ensure that skilled one-on-one tutoring is available for reading in early elementary education, as well as phonics for young readers. Require life-skills classes in middle school.