And here are some Links that Laurie proposed after telling us that she urges her children to not become Teachers. The irony is that we are visiting colleges for child #2 ... And Elementary Ed is one of the paths she is looking into.
The Deconstruction of the K-12 Teacher
When kids can get their lessons from the Internet, what's left for classroom instructors to do?
"Your comment seems the most rational so far, so I will hop in here:Thoughts?
1) Currently the Ed MN lobby has ensured that the highest paid Teachers do not work in the schools who need them most. Hopefully this can be changed, yet the Liberals keep demanding that the Teacher wants be placed above the student needs.
http://www.minnpost.com/learning-curve/2014/03/mps-data-teachers-raise-resource-equity-questions
2) I agree that parents and students just want the best Teachers in their schools. Yet Ed MN and their Liberal supporters are fighting hard to ensure that Teacher Performance is not measured and/or used in staffing, lay off or compensation decisions.
Politicians who want to put the students first are working to stream line Teacher licensing in MN and ensure it is EASY for great Teachers from other states to come and work here. Ed MN etal of course are fighting this because it puts downward pressure on wages, etc. Personally I think the poor families would like to have more equally capable Teachers in their schools, even if it meant those Teachers were paid a bit less.
3) Recently I heard of a poor elementary Black child who threatened to slit the throat of another student for verbally challenging them. The Parents asked what would be done about the incident. The Principal said that nothing would happen since the bully was Black and the district was working to curb detention, suspension, expulsion statistics for minorities.
Let me repeat, almost all parents want their child in a safe learning environment. The idea that children are not being equally punished based on behavior is not going to get us there.
4) I am adding one. This is the worst causation statement in the history of Liberal scape goating. "Educational “success” has historically been defined and predicted most accurately by the socioeconomic status of the parents. " While this is true, it is terribly misleading since it implies that if we gave these Parents more money their children would do better, which is not necessarily the case.
The reality is that the causes for the Parents being POOR, lead to their children not being academically successful. Some key causes would include the parents are likely to be academically challenged, have poor communication skills, single parent household, believe in entitlement vs work, poor parenting skills, had more children than they can afford, possible substance abuse issue, confront main stream American culture, etc. All of these negatively impact the kids, and many of these can not be fixed through money or schools/Teachers. However there are many improvements that can occur in a our schools to help more of the kids more often." G2A
33 comments:
Must I say it again? So long as we allow the educrats to blame parents, poverty, and penury for their failures, they are never going to change. People respond to incentives, and here are the incentives currently at work.
--Teachers get paid the same whether the kids learn or not. Some teachers aren't doing it for the pay so do better anyway. Some teachers ARE doing it ONLY for the pay. They're the problem.
--The districts can promise the moon and get their levy passed, or more money from the legislature, with no accountability for results, so why worry about results?
--The parents are told they MUST send their kids to the failing school, can't afford another option, so they have no incentive to make the choice never offered them.
-- The kids are going to fail in this failing school anyway, most likely, so why tell the kid to do his homework. Why care at all?
Which is easier, to fix poverty as the school demands, or to fix the schools as the first step of fixing poverty might demand?
Jerry,
You are preaching to the choir for the most part, though we disagree about how to fix it.
Especially when I was told of the "we can not punish that child because they are Black" experience.
MN Discipline Gap
Star Trib Mpls Schools Discipline
WP Discipline Gap
Star Trib Suspension Down, Disruption Up
Star Trib Counterpoint
Though I agree that suspending / expelling students is counter productive, we can not keep the disruptive kids in the standard classroom if we want to turn "failing schools" into "succeeding schools".
Disrupting the education of the 70% for the good of the 30% dooms the 70%...
Jerry, You keep saying that class sizes can be larger if the Teacher is good and discipline is maintained. In our current world of be gentle with the kids, keep them in the classroom and unsupportive / law suit happy parents, how exactly do you envision this happening?
What would you do with the child threatening to slit another elementary child's throat?
How I miss the Yardstick and willow switch days
Remember... "Spare the Rod and Spoil the Child".
"...how exactly do you envision this [discipline] happening?"
Well, there are a couple of "pat" answers, but with a common thread. The first is the universal voucher idea. Besides creating more effective schools (by competition for results) with a more-challenging curriculum, we set higher expectations and get more participation from parents to reduce the discipline problems. The second is the idea that, if we "suspend" your kid from school, it means we do not accept your voucher and you (the parent) must find a school that will put up with him, and that may COST you more than the voucher!
The second "pat" answer is "just like we did it in Mississippi." Kids were divided up by ability level, so the bright kids were challenged and the behinder kids likewise. There wasn't /time/ for mischief. There were high expectations for learning and for behavior.
The common elements are: A curriculum tailored to keep the brightest kids fully engaged, while leaving no child behind. A teaching process that encourages that individual progress, and an effective discipline (maybe made to sit in a corner or something and not participate?) approach, preferably tailored to the individual kid or circumstance. Involvement of the parents when extraordinary discipline problems arise.
Kids are wild things. They'll shout and run around and poke at each other and a certain amount of it just naturally occurs; it may even be "healthy." But if the learning is engaging, that sort of "discipline problem" becomes unnecessary. Physical threats then become an exception that can be handled with serious consequences.
All of the below have one key common thread that is not working for these kids. They all rely on having at least one capable, responsible and caring parent.
"Involvement of the parents when extraordinary discipline problems arise."
"If we "suspend" your kid from school, it means we do not accept your voucher and you (the parent) must find a school that will put up with him, and that may COST you more than the voucher!"
Part of the idea of suspensions was to make the Parents deal with the consequences of their child's severe misbehavior. Unfortunately the Parents with troubled Students are often the cause of the Student's problem. Some school personnel were hesitant to suspend a kid because their home life was just that bad.
"Physical threats then become an exception that can be handled with serious consequences."
So tell me about these "severe consequences".
Assuming they involve the Parents, how are you going to deal with kids with only incapable, irresponsible and uncaring parents. Because, yes there are a lot of them out there.
By the way, I don't think these dead beat or worse parents set out to be one. They simple were too irresponsible, dumb or needy to wait to have kids. (or to not have them) And they just have no interest or capability to be a responsible and caring parent.
Being a good Parent is HARD, and I am think most of these folks have a hard enough time taking care of themselves.
I disagree both as to the nature and the magnitude of the problem. You have absolutely no idea of how many of these students would cease being a discipline problem if they were being engaged in learning (granted, it has to start in Kindergarten or shortly thereafter) by a capable teacher, good curriculum, best practices and high expectations. All of that is entirely under the control of the school system.
What discipline or other problems remain should involve far fewer kids AND their parents, but again, you have absolutely no idea how many parents, when presented with the option for their kid to do better in school, or even to get social services that would help the kid (and parent) at home, would choose to continue to forgo the opportunity to be more responsible. I do not believe there are nearly as many as you do. You see overwhelming evidence every time there is an Opportunity Scholarship lottery.
I think you should checkout the mobility stats for the high poverty schools.
These parents can't even commit to one school for many reasons.
Agreed that's a problem, but if the State had "establish[ed] a uniform system of public schools" (which they haven't), it would be less of a problem. And I don't think you can claim parents are irresponsible for being forced to move. It may easily be the result of bad choices in their past, but again, we ought to be trying to save the kids, at least, by giving them a good education. In short, NO EXCUSES for the schools, until they can prove they're doing all they can. You can't solve a problem until you isolate it, and you start by fixing those things you KNOW are not right.
Please prove in some rational way that this has not happened.
"establish[ed] a uniform system of public schools"
In my view the following is a very rational result.
uniform schools + severely different student demographics = severely different results
If the average mobility is ~10%, I can't imagine what it is in the schools with mostly low income students. MP Homeless
Now I am a fan of giving people multiple chances, but please remember that past behavior often indicates future behavior and capability. What do you see in our system that would help these dependent people to "see the light".
"It may easily be the result of bad choices in their past"
An interesting piece that is somewhat related. 68% on welfare
"Please prove in some rational way that this [uniformity] has not happened."
Easy. In some public schools, 80% of kids are "proficient" in reading. In others, 80% are NOT. The State Constitution doesn't say, "unless it's hard."
Very interesting reference on the North Side. I'll need to study that some more.
What do you see in our system that would help these dependent people to "see the light".
You've just made a splendid argument for changing the system. The current system relieves people of the responsibility for their decisions and then doesn't offer them choices they could responsibly make. The incentives and objectives in our welfare and education system are backwards.
No where does this say "equal outcomes"... It clearly says "uniform system of public schools".
By the way, I am still curious how you plan to hold the deadbeat and/or incapable parents accountable?
I still like my proposal to have the schools grade the Parents and have that tied to there taxes, benefits and/ot parental rights.
If your child doesn't have their homework done, if you do not show up for conferences, if your child comes to school dirty/unfed, if your child continually makes trouble, etc, you lose money and if it continues you lose the child.
No where does this say "equal outcomes"... It clearly says "uniform system of public schools".
A system is not uniform when the outputs from that system are wildly inconsistent. It's like producing Army uniforms in which some have sleeves and buttons and collars and have the right color, while others do not.
By the way, I am still curious how you plan to hold the deadbeat and/or incapable parents accountable?
Easy. I don't have any, once they are offered real choices, given the means and ability to make those responsible choices.
I still like my proposal to have the schools grade the Parents and have that tied to there taxes, benefits and/ot parental rights.
Oh, great. So now EVERY failure of the schools can be officially blamed on the parents. One MORE thing that a failing school can fail at doing, while casting the blame on the innocent victims of their incompetence.
"I don't have any, once they are offered real choices, given the means and ability to make those responsible choices."
Fairy dust will fall from the sky and these deadbeat and incapable parents will become responsible, capable and disciplined.
That is quite the dream. It sounds like when Liberals say that if we give people welfare, they will use it to get trained and work harder to escape welfare.
"uniform system of public schools".
I think you may want to brush up on the definition of uniform schools.
What you are looking for is "uniform outputs" or "equal outcomes".
To get equal outputs with significantaly different inputs, one needs very non-uniform processes / schools.
Using your uniform example.
Assume that 2 factories are uniform. Similar processes, people, equipment, etc.
Now one receives high quality clean fabric of the correct size, and one receives low quality dirty fabric of incorrect sizes. The output of the 2 factories will vary if the uniform factory was optimized for reasonably good inputs.
Of course the alternative would be to create a uniform factory that had processes, people, equipment, etc sized for the poor quality inputs. However that would mean the spending too much on the factory with high quality inputs.
So if you want equal outcomes with widely varying inputs while being most effective with our limited resources, we need very non-uniform schools.
Wayzata, Orono, etc schools have easy inputs so they don't need high cost processes, people, equipment, etc.
North Mpls and East RDale have really challenging inputs, so they do need high cost processes, people, equipment, etc.
"North Mpls and East RDale have really challenging inputs, so they do need high cost processes, people, equipment, etc."
Accepting your examples at face value, you are still describing radically NON-uniform schools. Because these schools are spending much more money to ACHIEVE equal results, and failing miserably. Why do we give them more money, if not to produce equal results? Back to the Army uniforms example: If one factory gets good raw material and produces good product, and the other factory gets poor raw material, do we excuse them for producing poor product, even though we pay them significantly more per uniform to compensate? Isn't the reason we pay more that BOTH factories must produce satisfactory--i.e. "uniform"-- products? Why not simply drop the poor-performing factory from the contract, for non-performance?
The purpose of "a uniform system of public schools" is to produce a uniformly beneficial result. If all the schools had to do was keep the kiddies there for 180 days per year and collect the check, I doubt the State would or should be satisfied that their obligations had been met. I'm still waiting for somebody (the NAACP, maybe) to sue the Minneapolis or St. Paul schools for violating the constitution.
"That is quite the dream. It sounds like when Liberals say that if we give people welfare, they will use it to get trained and work harder to escape welfare. "
You have no more evidence of your proposition-- that poor people can NOT be responsible-- than you do that my proposition of believing that most people would be responsible given the chance is unfounded.
Fortunately, I do have logic on my side, by simply looking at the incentives. What incentive does a parent have to choose a better school for their kid if they lack the resources-- time and money and an open "slot"-- to make that choice? Why do so many-- sometimes 100:1-- apply for the opportunity when it is offered, if not that they WANT to be responsible? What incentive does a school have to change their instructional, discipline and curricular practices to create better results? What incentive, or even ABILITY, does a parent have to insist on homework being done when the schools have already failed to teach the kid to read?
Let's go back to NO EXCUSES schooling, until we can see that the schools have "tried everything." Fix that problem, and a good part of that alleged "poor parents" problem will go away. Look at how it is already working. Oh, and you can clean up welfare the same way, by making it /possible/ for people to take responsibility, and making that easier than not doing so. People react to the incentives available.
Your article points out "...about 47 percent had a high school diploma or GED." This tells me that our public schools are failing to educate the public. 53% is not an acceptable "reject rate" for any service, especially one so costly. It also tells me that the way to END poverty is to make the public schools serve their purpose of preparing all citizens to be productive members of the society.
It also says, "Eighty-one percent said they wanted to go to school." This tells me that the vast majority of welfare recipients WANT to be responsible but the choices are being denied them rather than encouraged by "the system." Sure, the taxpayers would have to support these folks while they got their training, but how much better for all of us once they did (and became employed)?
"Eighty-one percent said they wanted to go to school."
A family that lived near me when their kids were young "wanted their kids to do well in school", that did not mean that they were willing to do anything to ensure it happened.
My point being that most people want good things, unfortunately many people don't have the self control, discipline and drive to make it happen.
I still think you will have better luck with Pixie's and Fairy dust.
Rachel and I are just starting to disagree about something similar over at MP Fixing Ourselves
I think I am with Rachel. You and I are going to continue to disagree so long as you take such a dismal view of your fellow human beings. I see them all as having great potential, crushed by the huge "helpful" hand of government handouts. They don't take responsibility because government has already taken it from them. Government takes responsibility for educating the kids, and in most cases sees parents as interferences to be ignored except as a convenient scapegoat. Government offers food and shelter and health care, but expects nothing from you that would allow you the human dignity of earning your own way. Government will even look after your fatherless child, or two or three, even though we haven't had a legitimate one of those in 2000 years.
People can only take responsibility if it is given to them; can only make choices offered to them; can only learn from mistakes that cost them; can only succeed if it is expected of them. Our school "system" is not the doorway out of poverty it was intended to be. In too many cases it is a high brick wall, locking people inside. Why don't people know better and act more responsibly? They were never taught how.
Against my better judgment, I went and looked at your MP cite. After reading through the whole thread--Yewww :-<= I want to yell.
No, you idiots! You don't get people out of poverty by GIVING them more money! You get people out of poverty by helping them EARN more money! How? By EDUCATING them! They're called schools; we spend a bloody fortune on them, and they aren't working. FIX them. It's not like we don't know how, it's just that the white liberal defenders of the status quo (or "defenders of the coloreds") keep standing in the way.
I find these statements ironic.
"I see them all as having great potential, crushed by the huge "helpful" hand of government handouts. They don't take responsibility because government has already taken it from them."
"People can only take responsibility if it is given to them; can only make choices offered to them; can only learn from mistakes that cost them; can only succeed if it is expected of them."
The only person here that I see making the government responsible for the problems of these poor families is you. The government only provides programs and cash. What those families do or don't do is up to them.
In MN, people are free to attend their local school, attend charters, attend online charters, open enroll, move to a new district or apply for scholarships to private schools.
There is no excuse that they can not find a school that fits their desires. Except for the excuses you create for them.
"What those families do or don't do is up to them."
Really? Are they free to take a high-paying job for which their education did not prepare them? Are they free to take ANY job without losing their welfare benefits? Are they free to send their kids to school anywhere they want? Are they free to live anywhere they want? Have they been given any incentive whatsoever to assume responsibility for themselves and their children? Have any expectations been placed upon them that would make them "do or don't do" anything whatsoever?
"There is no excuse that they can not find a school that fits their desires."
Okay, let us test that proposition. Let us go offer 100 Opportunity Scholarships to kids in the Minneapolis school district, that would fully fund their attendance, including transportation, to any school that "fit their desires." Do you believe that you would get 100 or less applicants, or would you more likely get 5000? In places where this has been done, there are sometimes as many as 100 applicants for EACH of the openings, meaning that there are 99 people who can NOT find a school that meets their desires. I'm frankly amazed you would even say so, in the face of the evidence to the contrary.
You seem to be arguing that society needs to hold a special carrot in front of these folks, because the one that drove Rachel and my Etiopian friend to work, self sacrifice, learn, succed, etc isn't good enough for all these other people.
The reality is that the water is there for all of us, if they choose to drink or not, is not something we can make them do. They are ultimately responsible.
Now how to get them to learn these...
Life's Greatest Lessons - Urban
"You seem to be arguing that society needs to hold a special carrot in front of these folks…"
Not quite. I am arguing that society needs to allow these folks to actually GET the carrot. They all want it, naturally, and they're willing to work to get it, but even donkeys are smart enough to recognize an orange-painted stick that they can never reach.
And your pointing out those few people who are exceptions to the rule only point out the need to change the rule so that more people can succeed. Your exemplars, you must admit, succeeded in SPITE of the government system, and not because of it.
I will grant you that those with drive can climb out of poverty, but what do you do with those who have been made hopelessly dependent by years of captivity in a failing system?
We will have to agree to disagree.
That's too bad, because it is going to take a lot of people pushing on this monstrosity of a school system to bring about desirable change. They sure aren't going to do it themselves.
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