Sunday, May 3, 2015

MN Education Updates

Hopefully an audit will explain why it still way to hard and time consuming for qualified Teachers to get a MN Teaching license, the pressure is being applied by a lawyer.

U.S. Education Secretary Duncan visited Minneapolis and North St. Paul to hear about projects underway to improve education, housing, health care and workforce development.

Parents United is pushing for donors to give and support their work.  And they do a good job of keeping us abreast of what is happening, though they tend to back the "more money" philosophy for fixing schools.

Education advocates see another fiscal cliff and ask what will Bakk do?  While others ask that Headstart be fully funded.

And I see no mention of anyone discussing promoting efficiency or effectiveness in the school system...  I left this comment at the MinnPost audit article:
Let's tweak the school systems so the Administrators can:
- terminate poor Teachers quickly so the kids will not lose learning progress
- place Teachers in positions that are the best for the kids in the district
- pay the best Teachers and those in the most challenging classrooms the most
- layoff Teachers based on recent performance when necessary

If these logical things were in place, the Teacher's license would not be as critical. If the Teacher is not performing, they are terminated. Most degreed engineers that design the things you use everyday are not licensed... They either perform well or they need to find a different career.

And if the Administrators fail to deliver good Teacher engagement and Student results, let's make it easy to replace them. I am happy to give the Public schools more money if they start putting the student's needs before the wants of the adults.
in response to this comment from Greg.
I'm Grateful for This Audit. Questions have been raised about the Board of Teaching which need to be answered,...

but they must be answered by those will objectively examine the evidence and come to fact-based conclusions.

So far the Board of Teaching has been tried in the "conservative" press based on accusations on the part of those who would prefer that just about anyone be allowed to walk into a school and take a job as a teacher,...

because that's the surest way for them to dismantle teaching as a profession,...

destroy our teacher's professional organizations,...

make sure our public schools are incapable of functioning well,...

and, thereby,..

allow them to justify reducing funding for public education (and, thereby, their own tax burden - in the manner of the Pawlenty administration),...

give themselves cover to dismantle public education in favor of a mostly-privatized system by which they hope to profit very handsomely,...

at the expense of parents,...

and in which they can gain carte blanche to teach their "conservative" ideology and the misinformation and outright lies they use to justify it,...

as if it were absolute fact (as factual evidence makes clear is already being done is many charter schools in the South).

If there are issues with the Board of Teaching, those need to be exposed and addressed,...

but I will not be surprised if it turns out that most of what has been raised is based on the ideology I've already spelled out,...

rather than any questionable actions or improper application and interpretation of state law on the part of the Board.
As Laurie and I bicker about often, more money may help hide the ineffectiveness and inefficiencies within the system.  Though I would prefer to actual improve the system for the good of the unlucky kids.

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

I am sure there are good teacher, bad teachers, and even one or two mediocre teachers. But the schools that do well, do so for a lot reasons besides quality of teaching.

--Hiram

John said...

I agree, schools that do well or poorly do so for a lot of reasons...

Including quality of teaching.

Now the question is can you think of a reason to keep bad and mediocre Teachers in the classroom, when there are so many good Teachers available? Some at a lower cost.

Anonymous said...

ncluding quality of teaching

Then let's take the teachers working at high performing schools and transfer them all to low performing schools.

Problem solved.

--Hiram

John said...

Minneapolis would like to do some of that, however they are not allowed to. That is why all the newest lowest cost teachers end up in the most challenging schools. I always find that ironic,the Teachers and their Union argue that "experienced Teachers" are the most valuable Teachers, then work hard to keep them out of the schools with the children who need the most valuable Teachers.

Still wondering if you came up with answer:

Now the question is can you think of a reason to keep bad and mediocre Teachers in the classroom, when there are so many good Teachers available? Some at a lower cost.

Anonymous said...



Minneapolis would like to do some of that, however they are not allowed to.

Why not merge the district with a better performing district? Or shift the better performing administrators to Minneapolis.

Once again, problem solved.

--Hiram

John said...

Let's start small, let's move the highest paid Mpls Teachers to the schools with the most challenging students. This could be accomplished without needing to cross district borders.

Anonymous said...

"Let's start small, let's move the highest paid Mpls Teachers to the schools with the most challenging students."

Why not, instead move the teachers with the best teaching track records to under performing Minneapolis schools?

--Hiram

John said...

According to the Union and it's Teachers, the Teacher's are all replaceable cogs in the machine, and only years/degrees make a difference.

That is why they demand the steps/lanes compensation model, and job security benefits for the experienced / educated Teachers. By their logic, the expensive ones are supposed be the best Teachers. That is why they get paid more.

Anonymous said...

the Teacher's are all replaceable cogs in the machine, and only years/degrees make a difference.

That may or may not be the case, but the argument does seem to be that schools perform poorly because they have poor teachers. Maybe they do, but it's not something that's evident to at least this casual observer.

--Hiram