Some comments from MP Never Trumpers
Personally I think the selfish folks are those who choose to enable bad behaviors rather than confront them. Imagine a helicopter Parent who spoils and rescues their child often for their own personal happiness, pride, etc. Instead of taking the time and effort to help their child to learn and become an independent adult.
"Wanting to provide a safety net and wanting to live in a safety net are very different things. Again, you're assuming that liberals and democratic voters share your dystopic and selfish motivations. I don't vote for school levies because I have kids in school, I don't even have kids. I don't vote for safety nets because I think people want to live in safety nets, or because I want to live in one myself, I vote for safety nets because we live in a reality where people fall through a variety of cracks and need assistance. I don't want to live in Somalia, I don't want to live in a country where people starve and freeze to death or suffer an die because they don't have health care.So who is selfish:
You can champion a society where people starve and freeze and die without health care if you want, but don't expect us to be impressed with your morality or "values"." Paul
"My goal is for the USA to eliminate the educational achievement gap and generational poverty problems. Maybe that is selfish since it would make the USA a much better and stronger country for my children and someday grand children.
The challenge of course is that to do so, many people who are lacking knowledge, have self limiting beliefs, lack self discipline, make bad decisions, etc will need to learn, change and improve which is not easy.
Think of a good Teacher who is facing a child who is struggling to be successful in class. Should the Teacher who truly cares for the student let them continue the behaviors that are causing them to struggle and just give them passing grade?
Or should the Teacher pressure / motivate the Child to learn, change and improve in order to earn that passing grade?
If the child fails to change and improve, thus failing to learn the material adequately... Should the caring Teacher just pass the student anyway? " G2A
- the person who just gives the dysfunctional person the grade, money, service, etc that allows them to continue their unsuccessful life?
- the person who knows they can learn, change and improve, and pushes them hard to do so?
Personally I think the selfish folks are those who choose to enable bad behaviors rather than confront them. Imagine a helicopter Parent who spoils and rescues their child often for their own personal happiness, pride, etc. Instead of taking the time and effort to help their child to learn and become an independent adult.
36 comments:
Not on topic, but Merry Christmas, everyone! <:-)>
I find your views on teachers interesting, you usually somewhat attack them for being lazy, unmotivated, incompetent etc, but occasionally defend them.
If we are serious about closing the achievement gap it will take a lot more super teachers (which we might find a little bit more with higher pay) but I am quite sure the money would be better spent hiring more regular teachers.
I try to be a super teacher, but fall a little bit short. I would need to put in 1-2 more hours planning each day as I spend the entire day teaching small groups of students with a 10 minute lunch and no prep during my official work day. I do my prep from 6:45- 7:30 am, which is not enough to teach curriculum from first grade to 5th grade level. If I wasn't trying to get home ahead of the worst rush hour traffic I would stay after school for another hour and be better prepared each day. I do make paper work at home in the evenings.
I think if you would ask teachers how many overtime hours they work each week and how much of their own money they spend buying books and materials for their classroom you find find them the most unselfish workers around, and that goes for the regular teachers, too. That goes for pretty much all teachers I have known.
Interesting, Laurie, because even after re-reading, I did not get your interpretation. To me, the question was about why the teachers are not trying to alter behaviors that get in the way of learning. That can ONLY be done during school hours when the child is there and, in my opinion, is NOT the job of the teacher except in the most "following through on expectations set by the school" way, and of course "modelling" the values of hard work, etc. that we want all kids to have. After that, yes, "super teachers" will have a better time actually teaching the kids than some naif straight out of ed school.
Out of curiousity, then, how much time does correcting these behavior problems take out of your instructional time, do you think? And were it not for those things, could you handle a larger class? Also, what do you mean 1st through 5th? Is this the old country school model?
Laurie,
I attack unions, tenure, pay/job security based on seniority, etc.
I think 96% of teachers are good. Some are paid too much for the reasons noted above.
Forgot the second half of that statement.
Some are paid too little for the reasons noted above...
"Who Is Selfish?"
"all those schools / teachers who were passing kids through the classes/grades because it was easier than pushing them to change. improve and learn."
you guys don't understand the difficulty of teaching in a challenging school where maybe 25% of the students pass the MCA. As a special ed teacher I work with students in grades K-5 (currently don't have any K or 1 students.) In reading all my students have first or second grade level skills. In math my students have skills from first to 5th grade level.
The general ed teachers face the same challenge, teaching my students, and others with way below grade level skills that are not in special education. It is not a matter of pushing them more. Besides managing behavior, the challenge is teaching grade level skills to the best students who need a lot of support to meet them, while simultaneously attempting to differentiate for kids who need to be taught lower level skills. Like teaching subtraction to kids when that are suppose to be learning long division.
about unselfish teachers- we did Christmas gifts this morning and as a person who didn't want anything I still received a few gifts- educational games for my classroom.
I can imagine the challenge. The question is why are the kids passed to the next class / grade if they are not proficient?
Research shows that it is more detrimental to hold kids back than to move them forward even though they are not proficient at grade level standards. The 3rd option to offer them sufficient support to become proficient is currently mostly unavailable.
Now for the million dollar question... Why is it unavailable?
- Schools not given enough funding?
- Union / Bureaucratic system is wasting too much money?
- Parents fight have their kids spend more time in school?
- Parents don't help their children?
- Other?
"you guys don't understand the difficulty of teaching in a challenging school where maybe 25% of the students pass the MCA."
Laurie, you are correct, and that is why we very much depend on you to explain it to us. At the very least you can tell us if we might be right in our speculations. John has raised a few of them, and I know you have already said that your school receives substantially less per pupil than the nearby "regular" public schools. That's just wrong, and probably contributes greatly to one of my concerns, that teachers are not treated, evaluated and paid as professionals (because of the union). Sort of a snowball effect, there. If that is right, it seems there is an "easy" fix-- equalized funding and merit pay. Done properly, that would also increase the incentive for and quantity of "super teachers," I suspect. And studies have repeatedly shown that the largest single factor in educational achievement.
My speculation, however, is more fundamental. My question has to do with how much behavior-- both of the lack-of-discipline sort and the bad-learning-habits kind-- hold back learning? And the second question is whether, had these kids been well-behaved and with a super teacher before they came to you, how many more of them could you bring to grade level?
I know you teach special ed, and as such your kids are "special," but I am sure these factors apply across the board? I am thinking vouchers would not be necessary if the public schools had an effective discipline/behavioral learning program and effective merit pay?
It seems what you guys are missing is schools higher the best teachers they can find, pay them as well as they can, and teachers perform as well as they can in their jobs. It is not a matter of insufficient caring.
There is probably room for improvement on the margins of these things - like could teachers put in 5% more time and effort, probably most could, though in my school I think many teachers feel that are low pay should go up if the school is expecting more time and effort. With the low pay and low status of teaching I think attracting large numbers of super teachers to the career is difficult / unlikely. Enrollment in education majors is way down.
I think pretty much all of my students would be at a much higher level with really strong early intervention programs in Kindergarten and first grade. By the time I get them in 2nd, 3rd 4th or 5th grades they are very far behind. Then again many of my students do require much more time and practice to learn.
Thanks for asking and taking my knowledge and experience in education seriously and not being your usual total know it alls :) You guys do have some insights into education that influence my thinking a little bit. Right now I have to go do family stuff as both my son and sister leave tomorrow.
Thanks for the response, Laurie, and by all means do your family stuff. My family won't be here until next weekend so here I am rattling around with only my own thoughts as company. Pretty thin gruel sometimes. :-)
But I had to react because you said some important things, like "not a matter of insufficient caring." I don't think any of us have said that it was. My constant comment has been "good people in a bad system produce bad results," and I believe that is what we are seeing. Teachers SHOULD be recruited, OJT trained, evaluated, paid and respected as the professionals they are.
Now, working only 10 months of the year you would need to put in 48 hours/week to earn your annual salary, but a lot of professionals do that-- they aren't hourly employees (and shouldn't be union, IMHO)-- but they SHOULD be able to earn a higher (starting and) annual wage if their merit (and advancement to or towards "super teacher") warrants it. Better pay would draw better candidates and while most professionals don't work just for the money, it IS one form of "recognition," which is equally important. BTW, a recent MN study concluded that "more teacher pay" was correlated with better student performance. I assume that would be even higher if teacher pay reflected teacher merit.
And I keep debating John when I presume that these "early intervention programs" that you say are missing would go a long ways towards correcting the kinds of demographic handicaps he says are "70%" of the problem. If those, plus the kind of "more time and practice" things you mention are the reason inner city schools cost more (twice state average), then I'm all for it! I only ask that whatever is being done now, which is NOT working, be eliminated to pay for this new results-oriented paradigm. For example, one of the supposedly successful programs cited in the study was, I believe, the "Reading Is Fundamental" program, which insists that all kids read at grade level by 3rd grade and spends more or less whatever it takes to make that happen. It makes all kinds of good sense as an objective, but I don't know how well it actually works.
I am surprised that you did not respond to my "behavior" question, however. Is it not the problem I think it is? Do the students have a receptive attitude and reasonable self-control, concentration, etc? We hear that city schools can be a dangerous "zoo." Are we misinformed? I know even in our suburban schools the bright kids and the slow kids can be problematic. The bright kids have idle time because they "got it" before the rest did, while the slow kids are lost and have idle time because they don't care anymore. It's why I keep saying CAI would solve a lot of discipline problems.
One other thing. You said they "hire the best they can, pay as best they can" and then say ed school enrollment is down. Seems that higher teacher pay would draw more into the ed schools, graduate better candidates, and then pay them more because results would be better. Win-win, it seems to me, but we MUST get to the "teach as best they can" part working to be able to afford it. Throwing money at the teachers isn't going to get us anything except better paid teachers, with the union spending increased dues demanding more still.
And I still have a problem with your "hire the best they can." Years ago, the State of Louisiana decided that "good teachers" were very important (so very right they were) and so required all ed school graduates to pass a test (general plus subject matter-- math questions for math teachers, etc.) to get a certificate to teach. Something like 85% of them failed the test! Sure, it's possible that some of these folks are so good at actually connecting with students and drawing them to knowledge that they don't need to have much knowledge themselves, but ideally don't we want BOTH? Seems to me our whole ed system needs an overhaul towards a "management [and pay] by objectives" approach.
as for behavior - I think a high percentage of students in most classroom could do better at sitting quietly, listening carefully to instruction, following directions immediately, staying quietly on task with their work, interacting with peers respectfully etc. Some classrooms just deviate from these expectations to a much higher degree than others. When I write IEP's (individual education plans) nearly all of my students get some sort of behavior goal, which I often label self management.
The students in the lowest performing schools I think have much greater deficiencies in these skills. I think schools where students are the most disruptive need more staff focused on behavior intervention or maybe if the students were doing more small group work misbehavior would be less of an issue.
At my school 100% of the students qualify as low income as determined by free and reduced lunch and 95% qualify as English language learners. Even though we have 3 title one teachers and 6 ELL teachers, it doesn't meet the needs of all students to get the small group instruction they need, although we do offer a lot. As I have said previously what we most need is more weeks in our school year.
Jerry,
To help your perspective, here is Laurie's school. (I think)
Banadiir Academy
Imagine a school with the following:
ELL: 94.9%
Free Lunch: 100%
Homeless: 3.7%
Special Ed: 4.2%
And nothing against Laurie, but most charters have low special ed numbers because the status quo Public schools spend so much more per spec ed student and have so many more capabilities / specialists. (ie remember Mpls is 25% special needs)
But just imaging a student body where 95% of the kids do not speak English when the arrive...
Laurie,
So how many staff there are bi-lingual in the English / Somali language...
Do they all speak a common language? Somali Languages
Apparently Mpls schools get to deal with students speaking ~90 different languages...
Robbinsdale was dealing with about 55 languages when I last heard.
today I am feeling like my school could do better with the money we have, or perhaps just a little bit more $, if we engaged in a program like this:
success for all
success for all goes to the white house
Laurie, You are offering a real education about education. Please don't stop.
-From your description of the behavior problems, it sounds as if you face "poor learning habits" (mild ADD, maybe?) rather than the "disruptive" behavior we hear about in the news. In other words, the student keeps himself from learning but not others around him. Is that correct? We know for a fact that some schools are actually dangerous and that certainly hurts everybody's educational progress, but it sounds like in your school, at least, discipline is manageable and being managed?
--Obviously a strong discipline policy is fundamental, and I think it goes beyond just "small group" teaching. You also mention small groups as being helpful at your school and because of all the SE, that's understandable. Question: assuming some basic level of discipline, do you think that CAI would work for your kids, solving both the "stay on task-type" discipline problems and the small group [1 on 1] requirements? At least in some classes?
-- "what we most need is more weeks in the school year." Am I correct in assuming that you mean it is just one of the things that would help, along with libraries and books and more teachers' aides and better pay to attract better teachers [as good as you]? Would this be in preference to a longer school day or a combination of the two?
I wholeheartedly endorse your idea of "a little more $" to implement SFA. Evaluations of that program indicate that a few more staff are needed to do the tutoring and parent coordination and pre-K part of the program, and that more experienced teachers (more $) do better with it. I'm sure if you received per-pupil what the other schools get, you could easily implement this program and more. Agree? Question: What's stopping you (i.e. your school) from adopting this program?
(BTW, I notice one of the bigger success areas for SFA is with ESL students).
Just some comparison reminders.
Mpls: Success: Varies Greatly by Area/School
Funding/Student: $22,000
English Learners: 27% (100+ languages)
Special Education: 25%
Free & Red Lunch: 85%
Homeless: 10%
Banadiir Academy: Success: Low
Funding / Student: $12,000?
English Learners: 94.9%
Special Ed: 4.2%
Free & Red Lunch: 100%
Homeless: 3.7%
Wayzata: Success High District Wide
Funding/Student: $15,000
English Learners: 0%
Special Education: 8%
Free & Red Lunch: 10%
Homeless: 0%
I think I know what you are getting at, but take just these two lines:
"Mpls: Success: Varies Greatly by Area/School
Funding/Student: $22,000"
Obviously, money is not the answer (and never was), but rather HOW the money is spent. Schools fail not because they are forced to fail, but because they aren't forced to succeed.
You keep trying to prove that certain demographics present the schools with challenges. I grant that. Meeting those challenges can be done with more money. That is obvious and the SFA program structure confirms that this must be so. But so long as we allow schools to blame "insufficient funds" or "irresponsible parents" they have absolutely no incentive to get better at what they do. They won't even adopt easy and common sense reforms like SFA that might offer the kids something better. It's like the educrats are just being selfish.
We had a levy referendum in this district some time ago, to "maintain educational excellence." When finally passed, the teachers got a whopping raise-- well over 10% as I recall-- and a few more bucks went into athletics.
"they have absolutely no incentive to get better at what they do" What happened to your assume good intent mantra?
When you are evaluating a school system, it's cost and it's success rate... I think you should consider all the key factors, not just the ones that support your pre-conceived belief system.
You may find this interesting... Apparently Minneapolis schools have tried Success for All
"Most of the 3rd- and 5th-graders at West Central Academy scored below their grade level on reading tests last year, despite the school's use of an intensive reading program, Success For All. The program was developed at Johns Hopkins University specifically for urban schools with lots of kids who need extra help. Susan Schuff, who oversees the program, says West Central fits that description."
Is this your district?
I don't worry too much about labels. I tend to advocate policies that I believe are in my interest, and in the interest of people like me. I think it is fair to apply the label "selfish" to that attitude, but what of it? I tend to believe people who disagree with me advocate policies in their self interest, and so they could be labelled "selfish" as well, making the selfish charge pretty much of a wash.
--Hiram
"'they have absolutely no incentive to get better at what they do.' What happened to your assume good intent mantra?"
Absolutely intact, along with "good people in a bad system produce bad results." Teachers have, what shall we call it, professional pride and a desire to help the kids--the best of intentions-- but that isn't enough, no more than a poor single mother's intentions for her child. The school SYSTEM and the unions have no incentives, because they get paid the same or more whether kids learn or not, and don't have to look at the kids they are failing every day. And, I suppose, nobody wants to try something new. No incentive to succeed AND no punishment for failure, so the status quo reigns.
"When you are evaluating a school system, it's cost and it's success rate... I think you should consider all the key factors, ..."
I think that is a great way of stating the problem. My concern is that the current system seems to want to set the cost and simply accept the success rate that follows, when what they should be doing is setting a success rate goal and then managing to the minimum cost, however high, to achieve it, considering "all the factors."
And I'm sorry, but that "statistic" at West Central tells me very little. How FAR below grade level? How did the lower grades do? (5th grade is a tough place to start something that supposedly succeeds by 3rd.) How well were these kids doing before SFA? How long have they been in the program? How well has West Central implemented it? How did the "control group" that did not have SFA fare? Do parents and teachers like and support the program? Were the necessary extra monies put in to make the program successful?
SFA isn't a panacea, but a step in the right direction, of recognizing that some kids struggle more than others and putting in the extra, individualized effort to help them succeed in school. The longer and more pervasive such programs become, the better they will ALL become, because the status quo will no longer be acceptable. It would be delightful if we did NOT have to have vouchers to make that happen, but from what I see it is still likely the quickest.
Vouchers have the great advantage of disrupting the selfish motivations of the established education bureaucracy and monopoly.
Hiram,
My point exactly. And yet often Liberals insist that Conservatives are selfish, whereas they are selfless.
Jerry,
You seem to think money is the all powerful motivator for everyone. The reality is that most of the people in the Union and the Education system are internally motivated to help children learn. They sure did not enter that field for the big bucks. Their biggest flaw is their obsessive desire to pay and protect employees based on degrees and years served. By doing so they unintentionally subject the children to less effective Teachers and pay them too much.
My only point was that the Minneapolis schools have tried dozens of techniques and programs over the years. This was to refute your "they try nothing new" claim.
On the other hand, vouchers have the great disadvantage of playing to the selfish motivations of the questionable business people who want to make money and not help the kids who need it most... :-)
"...the selfish motivations of the questionable business people..."
According to the Republican establishment and its Tea Party faithful, there is no such thing.
Joel
Actually as Capitalists we count on it.
- We Investors want a good return
- Businesses want investors
- Mgrs and employees want a good income
- Consumers want good products at good prices
Due to the 13 year education timeline, the lack of Parental knowledge on this topic, the voucher not matching the kid's needs, some schools being able to turn down some students (ie cherry pick), etc. Vouchers create some sizable risks and problems.
For comparison:
Most people change cell phones every 2 years so they know how to decide what they want and if they are getting good features, good costs, good reliability, etc. And we learn about exploding phones immediately.
Now imagine you barely graduated High School and are a 22 year old Parent(s) with your first child... How in the world would you determine what is a good school and what is a sham? As we know, most charters are struggling to do as well or better than the traditional publics even though they have fewer challenges.
"You seem to think money is the all powerful motivator for everyone." No, I really don't, but even the most dedicated professional uses money as a means of "keeping score" of how well they do their jobs. If teachers were evaluated and paid as professionals, most of them would get paid better, and research has shown that leads to better results, so it must matter at least at the edges. And if money were /all/ that mattered, we would have the best schools in the world.
"My only point was that the Minneapolis schools have tried dozens of techniques and programs over the years. This was to refute your "they try nothing new" claim."
Someplace I have the research on all of these "fads" that have been tried. I can tell you that most of them have shown positive results, but none of them have been tried with the enthusiasm, support, resources, scope and duration to "prove" their value to defenders of the status quo, if that is even possible.
"... Vouchers create some sizable risks and problems." And the status quo creates no risks (to the system) and HUGE problems. What is the reason for denying those parents who WANT something better than the public school the means to choose it? Are you really going to insist that these people not only NOT be allowed a choice but that they are completely incapable of making one?
"As we know, most charters are struggling to do as well or better than the traditional publics even though they have fewer challenges."
Laurie, care to jump on this one? Having half the money other schools have and twice the percentage of demographically disadvantaged kids does not strike me as "fewer challenges."
A huge problem with the selfish selfless dichotomy is that assumes that we have correctly identified our interests. In the recent presidential campaign, one of the candidates advocated an "America First" foreign policy. That's a phrase we haven't heard in recent decades because of it's association with isolationism of the 1930's which was followed by the worst war in human history. If we go back in time to 1938 or so, we could see how the arguments we are so familiar now played out then. Why should Europe depend on us for security? Shouldn't they have been allowed work out their own problems? Weren't we in fact being selfless in allowing them to do that? Neville Chamberlain famously described Czechoslovakia as a far away country about which he knew nothing. Wasn't his Britain first policy really for the benefit of Czechoslovakia, freeing them to work out their problems with their far more successful German neighbors?
--Hiram
Good try Jerry... But that Mpls Special Needs number is a budget blower.
Mpls: Success: Varies Greatly by Area/School
Funding/Student: $22,000
English Learners: 27% (100+ languages)
Special Education: 25%
Free & Red Lunch: 85%
Homeless: 10%
Banadiir Academy: Success: Low
Funding / Student: $12,000?
English Learners: 94.9%
Special Ed: 4.2%
Free & Red Lunch: 100%
Homeless: 3.7%
Clarification. The original numbers I gave were for some high schools, here is the Mpls district wide info. (since we are using the $22,000 district wide cost)
Mpls District Wide: Success: Varies Greatly by Area/School
Funding/Student: $22,000
English Learners: 25% (100+ languages)
Special Education: 17%
Free & Red Lunch: 63%
Homeless: 5.9%
The "demographically challenged," by your standard, are measured by the FRPL number, and Banadir is slightly worse off on that score, plus being WAY higher in ESL students. Now, all of the SP. Ed. students get IEPs so they succeed to the best of their ability and the high cost that goes into that may or may not be offset by Banadir's other disadvantages. WE DON'T KNOW and we cannot know until the non-SE students also have an IEP that we can price out. SFA is one way to do that.
I have no objection to spending what is necessary, or paying teachers what is necessary, but the objective MUST be to deliver education in a results-oriented and cost-effective manner. I've often heard schools say they are "educating children to their full potential." Baloney. They are /collectively/ and selfishly taking money and then not delivering the goods. I grant that most teachers want to do better, but something obviously prevents them from doing it.
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