Chicago Teacher's Strike
http://thedianerehmshow.org/shows/2012-09-12/chicago-teachers-strike
Chicago teachers on strike: How the union’s fight over merit pay and job security highlights a broader national struggle.
Guests
Diane Ravitch
author and professor at New York University
Rick Hess
resident scholar and director of education policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute
Andy Rotherham
co-founder of Bellwether Education, author of the weekly “School of Thought” column for TIME and blogger at Eduwonk.com
Adrian Fenty
former mayor of Washington, DC
Nancy Youssef
Middle East bureau chief, McClatchy Newspapers
Comments
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you are exactly right truesob. As a result, I think we should just fire all public employees. We don't need policemen, librarians, firemen, teachers, air traffic controllers, government lawyers, government scientists, none of that. If you think things are bad now, wait until things go as you suggest. All we really need are low paid military personnel to do everything. They could all have guns and make sure that all Americans go to work in the morning either to the farm or to Apple. Plus the low paid soldiers could do all government jobs and what they could not, we could send overseas.
IndieLady7 wrote:
" there is another school of thought that the public school system was actually started by The Rockerfellers and John Dewey based on communist thought. In this, kids are removed from their homes for education, are segregrated by age, and are admonished to learn based on obedience, to not take things at face value, and to not question. This is to prepare them for being "slaves" to the industrial work force. Have you heard of that?"
Nope, that's a new one on me.
I am a Chicago Teacher's Union Member(social worker), who moved out of the area this summer. There are many other facets to this problem that the media is not aware of. The poverty and crime and PTSD are very real in the city. With 85% of our children coming from gang-waring neighborhoods and many of them now a second or even third generation of poverty/substance use/ crumbled family systems. It is not fair to the teachers to hold them solely accountable for the poor growth of their classrooms. There is also a lack of resources in the neighborhoods and CPS typically does not get textbooks to the classrooms until the end of October. Compare that to a hand picked Board of Education comprised of the some of the most wealthy individuals in the city. I don't believe they sincerely know or care about what goes on in these schools and neighborhoods. Emmanual among them, does not send his children to CPS schools. CPS has lengthened the school day, but provided no additonal materials or curriculums. Teachers were asked to develop it themselves during the spring semester. NO additional money or resources...just do it! Arts and music have been cut. Parents are lured to Charter schools with the promise they will be better. They are not and I know from experience that they do not follow IDEA or special education law. This fight is really about abolishing public education. It has been clear to us in chicago that Duncan and Emmanual want to privatize the schools, then when the children don't achieve, they have someone else to blame. They will just change the vendor with a lot of media attention and go on. Meanwhile the kids and parents still lose. The CTU is fighting for a better system and to protect public education as we know it which is a founding principal of our country.
I think anyone on your show today who is making more than an average teacher's salary--remember, teachers at the grade school level may spend more waking time with your child/children than you do--should rethink your teacher bashing. They help your children with life skills: reading, math, etc. Not all students will score well on tests. Are standardized test scores the way you evaluate what your child is learning? Not only are tests subjective, so, too are evaluations. You want the US to be competitive? Instill love of learning in your children. Make that a priority. That's your responsibility, too!
One of the commentators asked for an example of a system that provides salary increases for longevity alone. The US military provides longevity pay increases every two years of satisfactory service. If it's good enough for our military, why isn't it good enough for our teachers?
One of the commentators asked for an example of a system that provides salary increases for longevity alone. The US military provides longevity pay increases every two years of satisfactory service. If it's good enough for our military, why isn't it good enough for our teachers?
Adrian Fenty neglects to mention the big demographic change in socio-economic levels that helped move test scores up in DC. Please stop using teachers as the scapegoat. Experienced, effective teachers are not fighting to go teach in inner city schools mostly because of all the other factors that have a greater effect on student performance. Lets stop politicizing the issue and demonizing teachers and unions.
Focusing on teacher's unions as a way to improve schools seems to me not a good enough solution and one that may actually be dangerous to quality of our schools. We who have managed and negotiated with unions feel that if there is "a problem" with the union means that management does not know how to manage well.
As someone who is closely involved with the PTA and my elementary school children's experience in school I have an extreme respect for ALL the teachers at school. They are key in creating improvements in education and are often stymied by political issues.
As someone who has taught math to middle school children I also understand that test scores do not necessarily reflect the quality of teaching. Children come from different family and educational backgrounds, as well as inherently different capabilities. For one child a low test score may be a huge improvement, while for another a good test score may not be good enough work for their capabilities.
And finally, I feel that the assault on all the public unions are assaults on the ability of normal people to have a say in public life and legislation, which are often overwhelmingly weighed toward well funded lobbies. An example, the inability of changing the lunch company in the LA area and providing healthier food for children.
So, because of all this I feel we have not figured out what needs to be done with our schools so we can be proud of them and so that we as a society have high respect for our teachers once again.
I was a teacher at a very poor school district for over 25 years. I have seen the resources for helping children dwindle away over the years. Schools have taken away resource services of all kinds. Students are NEVER held back when they need to be and are passed on to the next grades. Then teachers have children that can't read because they haven't gotten the help they needed in the previous grade. Teachers are not miracle workers, extra help is often needed, for example if the child wasn't "developmentally" ready to learn to read and need more time and help.
Also, many of the schools get ESL students who can't speak English because they have come from other countries.
What is happening is the powers that be want to ruin public education. Teachers do the tuff work , they are highly educated and should be compensated for it.
In addition, schools keep adding administrators with large salaries while firing assistants and teachers.
I'm so tired of teachers being attacked. Class sizes of over 25 to 1 is not an environment that will help kids in poorer school districts.
(1) True, some unions have become overly-bureaucratic , but they are only part of the problem...remember, public schools in more affluent areas, where the quality of education is high & students perform well have unions too so unions cannot fully be the problem (except where they are scapegoated in low-income areas). (2) "Charters Schools" are not the entire answer...they have saturated & over-serve low-income areas. Conservative politicians want to tout the "benefits" of private charter schools, but if they are so great, why don' have them (in the equal numbers) in THEIR districts or in high-performing areas? In many areas, charter schools show only slightly or equally-performing outcomes in testing and performance so THEY cannot fully be the answer.
(3) Teachers are not fully the problem...I was a long-term sub for years, and when you have a class full of undisciplined kids, who come from broken homes, have no respect for authority, where every parent think their child is "special," and when 1 or 2 parents even show up for parent-teacher conferences, you see what the problem is. PARENTS ARE THE PROBLEM!
http://beyond-the-political-spectrum.blogspot.com/
ecgberht wrote: "Nope, that's a new one on me."
I encourage you to research it. There are a number of videos on YouTube discussing this.
As I mentioned earlier, this is a reason why I will homeschool. I feel that I can do a better job than the public schools without the distractions and the bureaucracy.
Performance evaluations, merit pay and "pay for performance," as usually implemented, were thoroughly discredited during the Quality revolution of the 1980s (See Alfie Kohn's "Punished by Rewards" and Coen and Jenkins' "Abolishing Performance Appraisals"). A basic understanding of basic systems theory would tell you that you can't hold teachers solely accountable for standardized test performance, even if testing were a valid metric for success. Student performance is a result of the entire system that contributes to student education. So the teachers are right about that...they should not be held solely accountable, and probably evaluations are being done poorly (since it can be shown that they CAN'T be done well).
On the other hand, some system needs to be put in place that gets rid of tenure and seniority as the sole basis for employment and raises. Strategies that include lowering class sizes, providing homework help for students whose parents can't or won't help, doing more community and parental outreach for supporting students outside the schools' walls, and--yes--improving teacher effectiveness should all be on the table, and teachers' unions should be leading the way.
Poor kids may be held to the same standards as others, but you can't expect students who don't come to school fed, who don't have a safe route home or to school, whose parents don't care about homework or can't help if they do care, to do as well as students who DO have all those advantages. Your guest who claims that poverty is a copout for teachers is ignoring some very real factors that are highly influential in student success. So, while you hold poor students to the same standards, you can't expect the same level of success without addressing those factors that arise from their poverty.
Please, please, tests cannot be a measure of accountability. The success of a student lies not just in a teacher but in partnership with families, students, administrators, and teachers.
If teachers are being held accountable, everyone else has to be as well - parents, principals, administrators, and students.
Charter schools are not the problem
No doubt, this is a complex issue. However, people need to keep in mind that achievement tests for students measure just that -- the achievement of students. These tests are not designed to measure teacher performance. Using them as such a measure is like measuring the weight of a pound of sugar with a tape measure. Teachers should be evaluated, but student test scores are not the way to go because they do not present an "objective" measure of teacher performance.
I have worked in a low achieving urban school in NJ where tests were manipulated illegally by the admin. to raise scores. I have taught in a private international school where test scores were used to a bare minimum, but children excelled because parents pushed them to become successful earners in society. Most recently, I have taught at a school that is focusing increasingly (albeit with honest scoring) on tests. They now have a pre-test to prepare for the End of Grade tests and are considering a pre-test for the pre-test. As mentioned on the show, this does not reflect on foreign languages and other subjects not under the umbrella of math and reading. It is an incomplete assessment that does not measure the spectrum of what is taught, causes undue stress for students who are low achievers and takes unreasonable hours of learning time from the mere 180 days of school per year between the actual testing and all of the practice bubbling leading up to the testing.
Why are there no longitudinal studies on the success of students coming from given types of programs? THat would tell us a lot more and direct more responsibility to the admin. than the teachers under the control of admin.
VKF:
"So, because of all this I feel we have not figured out what needs to be done with our schools so we can be proud of them and so that we as a society have high respect for our teachers once again."
They have in New Orleans.
It is EASY to find the really bad teachers.
If five college-educated people, who have children of their own, will remotely watch teachers at work in the classroom, four out of five of those observors will EASILY pick out the worst 10% or 15% of the teachers.
Combine that kind of simple observation with standardized test scores, and you have the system you need.
I do not know of any school district that grants tenure to everyone automatically. If districts grant tenure to unqualified teachers, it isn't the falt of teachers or their unions, but the adminstrators and the the process. Most teachers cringe when they see unqualified individuals given tenure. In most districts, tenure does not mean a job for life. If a teachers is not performing--they can still be fired. Administration just has to follow the process spelled out in the collective bargaining agreements.
Why we don't use Finland as our education model makes no sense. They are the best in the world. The standards required to become a teacher in the first place are extremely rigorous. Standardized testing is rarely done. Yet, what they do works.
Having been educated only at my beloved Catholic Schools, my son's public school education came as a shock to me. The teachers work SO hard and my son --adopted with numerous special needs-- and his classmates all require so very much attention and professional skill. Our wealthy school district is sending our child to a school that costs over $60,000 a year. The school is in the inner city, and nearly all the other children come from very poor homes. For some reason, with poverty, Special Ed needs skyrocket. And Special Ed is very, very expensive.
Though Fenty has a point of view, he comes across as arrogant and petulant. His talking down to Diane Ravitch was disrespectful and is probably an example one one of the reasons of why he is no longer mayor of DC.
Neither party in this issue is in the right here.
Standardized testing is NOT a good way to objectively evaluate teachers. An effective teacher has a plan based on the subject they are teaching and adjusts that plan based on the student's ability and learning style. They also adapt to varying class sizes also based on the group of students they have, some will learn well through standard lecture, some though handouts, some through seeing, and some through doing...
A combination of classroom evaluation by their supervisor, student evaluation, and testing tailored to the individual student would be a good place to start.
I do think that Unions are useful and do protect and help teachers...that being said, protecting even the bad teachers seems counter productive to the students' best interest. Seniority and carte blanche raises are not an effective way to ensure the best education for the next generations.
In the end a lot of this is coming down to money NOT what is best for the students. Each side needs to take a step back, truly examine their motives, look at the issue from each others' perspective, and find the best route to engage the students. Has anyone...from either side...bothered to ask them?
How does a grade 1 teacher with 24 kids (too many) be accountable to someone who's never done her job. We have managers and politicians pretending they know what is required to teach kids. They don't. If that grade 1 teacher has years of experience and is a master teacher, she knows. If you want to improve education (in primary) you need roundtables of real master teachers who have the knowledge to actually make real and permanent improvements. But the politicians and managers don't want real improvements. They want something quick and dirty like standardized test scores. Diane, just get a gaggle of master primary teachers together and ask them what's needed to handle 22 6-yr.-olds. And ask THEM what's the difference between 18 kids in that class and 22. There's a large difference!!!
Thanks for the program, Diane, you guys are the best.
Having paid the extortionist property tax rates that are required to pay two or three times what anything thing is worth in NE Illinois, that is before I wised up and realized that it was money poured in the toilet, I propose importing a poltician with a spine to deal with these vultures.
Scott Walker of WI had great success reining in the public unions and especially the teacher's unions. Maybe Illinois could pay a fair rate to have him come to IL and show how it is done.
The other (better) remedy would to be do what Indiana did, and enshrine a 1% property tax cap in the Indiana constitution. Of course, this would be an instant 1 1/2 to 2% property tax decrease to Illinois taxpayers in a 50 mile radius of Chicago.
At a 1% property tax maximum, there is only so much money available for these crooks to fight over - who cares what they want, whatever money is in that pool is what is avaiable and that's it.
Standard test scores are not the proper way to evaluate students? The education system is failing? So all these teachers, who are expecting top dollar for their services because they are experts at critical thinking, and problem solving have not figured out a better way? Link their paycheck to it and it will be solved in no time.
brahleks wrote:
"In most districts, tenure does not mean a job for life. If a teachers is not performing--they can still be fired. Administration just has to follow the process spelled out in the collective bargaining agreements."
Quite correct. And it takes YEARS.
The desire to "control education in a business model" is a strong theme here. Hence the drive to a simplistic solution and nice sound bite. Unfortunately, teaching children is much more complex than making and selling a widget. The decision to attack the only people holding the system together, makes it clear they are willing to blow up the system to score points. But do they offer anything sophisticated enough to replace the present system and actually improve the childrens' education? No, they just think if they "get control of the teachers" it will be fixed (do a detect an underlying desire to get control of those women?) Anyway, they are still depending on the lone classroom teacher to fix the problem- so this is no change in the system at all, it just adds further issues that detract from the real job in the classroom. How typical, to bring down the quality of the education, in order to provide the manager with something to measure. (I see this all the time in healthcare.)
"ecgberht" advocates a 'market-based' approach to education. But a 'market-based' approach is based on PROFIT. Schools are not designed to generate profit; they are designed to educate kids--our next generation of citizens. Education is a community benefit and it should be a community investment, funded and controlled by the community, not by some millionaire CEO and shareholders.
I've seen the state cut our schools to the bone and seen teachers forced to spend half the year doing "test prep" and administering tests. Meanwhile, the enrichment classes and electives that kept the kids engaged are being eliminated so we can focus on the things that some gov't official or some wealthy foundation owner determine to be best for our kids.
If we really want to "reform" schools, we should be listening to the experts (teachers!), not vilifying them. I've worked in schools, as has my husband, and many of our friends are teachers. I've had two kids go through the public schools (one who started in Early On at 5 months old and got special ed services through graduation). I've seen some teachers who are better than others, but most of them were at least adequate. I've never seen a work place that has 100% super stars, so I'm not sure why that expectation exists for public school teachers. (I've seen only a few administrators who are actually great at their job)
And I can't understand the guy on this show who said "class size doesn't matter". Class size = work load. Does anyone really believe that the size of your work load doesn't affect your ability to do a good job??? Classes of 40+ kids are unmanageable (in middle and high school, that translates to about 200 kids---200 essays to read, 200 assignments to chase down, 200 kids' parents to meet w/).
These "reformers" want to kill the union and turn public schools over to for-profit companies. That's their agenda.
Hello Diane,
Please leave my name off the air if you read my comment and question.
I think this issue is deep and messy--but I do know that the issue of inadequate teachers remaining in the classroom is not solved by many of the reforms up for debate. The evaluation of teachers is always done by people who tow the line--whoever’s line it may be. The evaluators are not always experts in the field, objective, or independent but they are given more and more power by these reforms.
Thanks,
HC
We could also do away with all this theater - reduce property tax drastically, let the schools spend what's in that pool without being able to levy more money, and let the chips fall where they may.
The parents that care will have thousands more to spend on their child's education as they choose. The ones that don't will get what they are getting now, only it won't cost as much for a bad result.
I did this very thing, except that I moved to accomplish it. My money was not wasted on the corrupt relationship between the teacher's unions and Illinois democrats, but effectively spent on my children.
$10,000 savings per year in property tax buys a lot of private education away from the untrained rabble.
The theater we are seeing now (and for decades) is that somehow it will all be better if you throw more money at the public schools.
What, I am supposed to believe that paying a Chicago teacher another $20k is going to get a better result? Entirely laughable.
The bottom line is the same as it has always been in most cases: an involved parent that has been engaged the child's entire life and has been able to transmit to the child what is necessary to succeed, will produce a child that can be educated.
Right now, urban and suburban taxpayers are paying far too much for bloated salaries and benefits, as well as wasting vast amounts of money trying to do at school what cannot be be done - raise the child correctly at home.