As a final post at the tail end of my guest blogging gig I would like to share this video I put together from a discussion yesterday between Dick Morris and Dennis Miller. Most of it is focused on America’s Failed Education System but I think there is direct relevance to what’s going on here in Canada. It seems that barely a week goes by when we don’t hear of one provincial teachers’ union or another doing something that is clearly not in the best interest of the students. In the interview, Morris pulls no punches in his disdain for American teachers’ unions and provides example after example why.
Related: New Jersey Governor Chris Christie proposes forfeiting raises and losing tenure for the worst unionized teachers. My opinion: A good start but in the REAL world NO ONE should have tenure.
A big thanks to Kate for the opportunity I was given and much thanks to all of you, the regular participants here at SDA. The conversations were most enlightening and I learned a lot. A pretty good way to start 2011, I think!
A long time ago, in a previous life, I was a teacher.
The Union didn’t give a crap about educational outcomes, they just decided how much of our dues should be spent sending qualified Reps to Cuba on friendship tours.
The tours, of course, we always in the Jan – Mar time period.
My oldest two daughters are in (or are shortly going into the teaching profession) along with my son-in-law so I have been getting a pretty good view of what’s going on there. These kids are being forced to take 6 month contracts for their first 5 years because the system is so stuffed with retired teachers (who have extremely lucrative pensions) on contract. These teachers work supply so they don’t need to do any prep work and can read novels or what ever while “babysitting” the students while the regular teacher takes one of their MONTHLY “sick days”.
They are being forced to push students through the system whether they are passing or not. My daughter had one high school kid who did nothing all year, got 29% on his tests (didn’t do ANY assignments) and at the end of the year was put into a special program for a week given the same test they’d seen before (and was told it would be the same test), got 45% and was given a pass to the next grade. The student could barely read and write and couldn’t multiply two numbers. This student was in Grade 10.
This isn’t an education system, it’s a teacher protection plan. Teachers should be given annual tests and performance reviews with an expectation that 5%/year will not pass and will get terminated. This job has become so cushy that the lines to get in are very long with extremely qualified candidates who actually want to teach. Get rid of the 25% of the deadwood in the system and put the rest of the teachers on notice and we’ll see dramatic improvements in our education system. Also, a failure should be a failure. Stop pushing kids through the system beyond their capabilities. We aren’t doing them any favours and they hit the streets without any practical skills and become a drain on the system.
maps – exactly right. The unions are disastrous in any area of the economy – teaching, health care, government bureaucracy, automotive, transportation.
Unions are now, themselves, corporations. They feed off the workers; they are parasitic corporations because they produce no goods or services. What they do is set up a tiered level of workers, with the unionized workers defined as the elite. The unions feed off the actual institution (education, health care, industry) to suck more and more money out.
Their workers focus on this money not on their jobs which become irrelevant – wages double that of the private sector, benefits and pensions unavailable to the private sector. The costs of servicing this elite sector of workers drives private companies overseas – and in the public unions, drives taxes up to unsustainable levels. And these elite workers – a prime proportion of their income is not taxed: medical, dental benefits, ‘sick days’, equipment – phones, computers, cars….
Teaching? The unions can’t have accountability because their parasistic strength is derived from having more and more members. So, they can’t have firings for incompetence – or for any reason. They can’t have reduction in pay for incompetence because that lowers their dues!
Result? Uneducated ‘graduates’.
If one wishes to get rid of teacher’s unions, one must also get rid of school boards; the reason for teacher’s unions in the first place.
Teachers Unions and Environmental NGOs run the show in Ontario.
Simple solution for the pathetic state of affairs: legislation that exempts those who home-school or send their kids to private schools from paying public education taxes.
maps, exactly. My son-in-law would confirm much of what you say.
Robert, you and the others did and do a great job. The team effort was great.
ET says “Result? Uneducated ‘graduates'”. My sister-in-law, who teaches in a college in Ontario would agree that many students do not know how to write and she is pressured to fudge the marks.
pleasure all mine…your guidance/contributions were edifying…
I agree with much of what Maps Onburt says. However, teaching is NOT an easy job these days. The kids and their parents are treated as clients, and complaints from either one will usually get the teacher hauled on the carpet, with the expectation that the teacher will appease. How’s that for respecting one’s integrity and professionalism? And it’s usually the most subversive and unpleasant parents and students who complain, especially if they belong to a protected group. Ironic, though: schools are so politically correct and lefty, they teach the kids all about their rights, which they then aggressively assert. (One teacher I know actually told the horribly behaved kids in his class that they had more rights than adults. When I spoke to him later and pointed out that this is not actually true, though kids sometimes need special protection because of their vulnerability, he conceded. Duh!) In one class, when I pointed out that I had rights too, the kids were stunned. “You do?” Teachers’ authority is under the gun all the time now: try teaching (like parenting) without it. That’s one of the very unpleasant things that the “rights” industry has brought to our schools. And another thing mentioned, the kids are, academically, let off the hook all the time. Some ministries have even banned weekend homework! Teachers are often doing their job with their hands tied behind their backs and a gag over their mouths!
I like the idea of more teacher accountability, but remember, the administrators in the uber political school boards will be doing the evaluations: one only gets these very well paid (principals start at about $115 000/yr), powerful jobs if one toes the politically correct party line. I know of exemplary teachers, who actually teach and discipline, and have, after questioning the out-of-touch edicts of administration, nearly failed their performance assessment: I hate to think of giving these tin pot dictators any more power than they already misuse.
Curriculums are out of control: way too much material to cover and often not at the developmental level of the kids. The paperwork is ludicrous: one teacher can use a few small forests in a year! Teachers are really overburdened with a huge workload. Believe me. Teaching has always been a challenging career for the professional teacher, but the environment used to be sane: it’s now more like a gulag. Teachers are treated like sheep and are expected to march in lockstep to whatever out of tune idiocy is coming down from on high—the ministries and the boards. Interference in one’s class used to be relatively small and reasonable. Now, teachers are knocked over by a tsunami of ministry and board “initiatives”: there are always more coming down. Does it occur to the overlords—or more likely, ladies (feminism has had a deleterious effect on our schools)—that piling more on, while not removing earlier burdens, can’t go on indefinitely. A lot of teachers feel like the camel: just one more straw and that’s’ it.
Now, does the union do anything about these very real difficulties for teachers? No. Conflicts of interest: first of all, the unions, all left, all the time, love all the PC cr*p in the schools that empowers the worst student troublemakers. Secondly, most union types will be back in the system at some point—they’re voted into their union jobs—and most eventually, or sooner, want to get into administration. So, even though the union gets complaints galore about lousy administrators, who break rule after rule and make teachers lives a misery, the union hacks stand by: the very administrator they call to account may be the one interviewing them for a job down the line. A good word for the system, besides “gulag”, is constipated. In a system, where there are so many sinecures to be protected, there seems to be no way to get an honest assessment of real problems, let alone real solutions. Yes, it’s a mess.
Regarding teachers and their unions…
Three words: Conflict of Interest.
I’m quite heavily involved in public education because I have two daughters in the system. My oldest’s situation is well documented. I got assistance from Roy Green and John Gormley when I was in conflict with the school board regarding my eldest daughter’s education. In a nutshell, I forced the issue to ensure that my daughter was not passed via social promotion into high school.
Today, my daughter has finished her grade 9 mid terms and she is doing fine academically. When she was in grade 8 (the first time) she had only completed 60% of the work, but I was told without question, that failing my daughter would literally ruin her academic life because of self-esteem issues. Fortunately, I had a brother that failed a grade and he turned-out fine; so I had that experience to draw upon.
For anyone in the same situation know this… My daughter has told me in her own words that a) failing grade 8 was the best thing that could have happened to her; b) that she had more and better friends the second time around; and c) that school was much better when you are not constantly struggling with material you don’t understand, and you are not being constantly harassed by teachers and parents about work you are not caught-up on and don’t understand.
Do not trust these people! They will line-up like soldiers and quote the same statistics, one after another, like they’re reading the same cue card. The ironic thing is, most of these “educators” cannot themselves do calculus, nor statistics, else they wouldn’t be teaching middle school.
BTW, the ‘educating’ seems to continue to deteriorate as you enter high school.JMO
“At the end of the school year, instead of asking students ‘how old they are’ we should be asking them ‘what do you know'”.~ George W Bush
One last point(for now).
There is discussion in BC about rewarding successful teachers. Like good soldiers the unionized teachers line-up to call-in talk shows like ‘Adler On Line’ to argue the case that such a pay scale cannot be done, because it’s not possible to evaluate a teachers performance. So lets get this straight, TEACHERS ARE INCAPABLE OF EXECUTING FAIR EVALUATIONS???????????????????????
The irony of this situation is so thick, I have a hard time wading through the BS. If you cannot conduct accurate evaluations, then WTF are you teaching for?
The problem with our education system is that we turn our 6 year olds over to progressives.
LOOKOUT
I feel ya.
IMO teachers and educators should NOT be running the school system, they are not managers! Teachers should be teaching! IMO teachers and educators should NOT have influence on the curriculum, they are not the customers! Teachers should be teaching what they’re told to teach!
Get teachers out of managing and running the school system; they are the labor, their role can be easily defined, and they should be treated as such. THIS… along with the tax incentive to educate your kids at home would go a long way to fixing the issues we have in Public Schools.
We have the same “deathsprial” in our Public Education and for what appears to be the same reasons. However, our all knowing, head up their ass media is not engaged with such trivial subjects.
And for a real laugh, check this out at the Mope and Wail.
The article begins….
“You get a performance review of your skills and attitude at work.
Now, what if your kid’s school sent home a report card grading your skills as a parent?
That’s the proposal a Florida State representative, Kelli Stargel, is hoping to convince her fellow lawmakers to adopt. According to The Ledger, the Parent Involvement and Accountability in Public Schools bill would see parents of kids from pre-K to Grade 3 assigned a “satisfactory, needs improvement, or unsatisfactory” in these areas:
-Parental response to requests for conferences or communication.
-The student’s completion of homework and preparation for tests.
-The student’s physical preparation for school that has an effect on mental preparation.
-The frequency of the student’s absence and tardiness”
The sad thing about this is Stargel is supposedly a Republican. Maybe if the State would realize that they have been stripping away the rights of parents over the decades to the point where parents have no authority over their kids whatsoever. The State is just a quick phone call away.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/the-hot-button/will-schools-start-grading-your-parenting/article1883068/
Jamie MacMaster
[………Teachers Unions and Environmental NGOs run the show in Ontario……..]
Oh yeah!
The teachers unions went balistic about the Harris regime’s “standardized testing”….fully aware that this was a means to evaluate teachers.
Result the wealthy teachers union literally bought McSquinty’s election and government and now Ontario narches to the Teachers union drum.
They are not Public Schools; they are Government Schools.
Indiana, holding kids back has been one huge issue between me and administration—for decades! I altogether agree with you: repeating a grade is OFTEN the way to go.
The party line is, “It never helps.” Bullsh1t! I’ve counselled countless parents and given them the vocabulary to force administration to allow their child to repeat a grade. As your daughter confirms—and it doesn’t take a space scientist—not always being behind and confused is great for one’s self-esteem. From my experience, most administrators leave their brains behind when they’re “promoted”. It’s a travesty.
I’ve seen countless children blossom when repeating a grade: the light finally goes on and they “get it”. It’s so exciting to be part of that process, and yet, despite PROOF to the contrary, the boards’ orthodoxy on this issue—and just about every other one of importance—is simply WRONG. The word “frustration” hardly contains what I feel about the educational system. (But, I LOVE actually TEACHING! Try doing that these days. It’s very difficult.)
My wife is a high school teacher in Alberta. She is, for the most part, not being sabotaged by unions. She is being sabotaged by:
– A clueless provincial government that puts the damndest things into the curriculum. Example: While teaching a unit on the Renaissance, she was REQUIRED BY THE CURRICULUM to draw inferences between the Renaissance and aboriginal people in Canada. Seriously, WTF?
– Nepotism. Too many friends of friends and relatives are hired in smaller school divisions based on their connections rather than their competency. These incompetents regularly get in the way of teachers on the front line.
– People in authority who have limited — if any — experience in a classroom. Too many of the directives my wife has to fulfill every day are the result of administrators who have no idea of what is involved in managing a classroom and who like to pile on all kinds of “airey fairy” crap that has no relevance in real life, and that just plain doesn’t work. Stuff that’s obvious to anyone who has actually taught a class in the last decade.
– Stupid @#$%ing moron parents. Look, it’s great that your daughter is in dance, but being able to tuck her ankles behind her ears will not lead to any significant career opportunities (at least, not ones you want her following). Being able to read, write, and do math will. The same goes for you hockey parents. Bottom line: Some sports is good, but spending all the time running your kids all over the province for sports while not spending any time on academics is the reason your kids are failing in my wife’s class. And now she’s supposed to be penalized in terms of pay and employment for being unlucky enough to have the kids of sports head parents in her classroom?
– Mainstreaming. Yes, it’s nice that the slow kids get to socialize with the not-so-slow kids. It’s not so nice that the entire class gets dragged down to the level of the lowest common denominator and held back as well. Let’s put the retards in their own room with their own teacher like we used to. The retards will get the special instruction they need and come out further ahead, and the other students will actually get the education they were supposed to and come out ahead as well. The parents of the retards might have some hurt feelings, but, oh well.
Blaming everything on unions is just lazy and shows a lack of familiarity with the system. This is not to say the ATA is useful — they’re not and my wife can’t stand them — but they’re certainly not the only villains here.
My 2 cents.
“what if your kid’s school sent home a report card grading your skills as a parent?”
If a child is consistently late, is absent from class often, comes to school without lunch, etc. etc. etc. then the parent(s) should be dealt with one on one by the principal.
The last thing anyone needs is another layer of administrative crap to deal with which is exactly what parent report cards would amount to.
Indiana, I disagree with “just teach what you’re told”. Believe me, the bureaucrats get it wrong all the time.
I’m not bragging, but after nearly four decades in the classroom—my lab—I really do know a thing or two about how kids learn and what they need to learn. The bureaucrats are screwing up both of those variables altogether. IF I were the Minister of Education, I’d shake the whole thing up from top to bottom and bottom to top.
I was educated in the “good old days” when we actually learned how to think and write. I love to pass on what I know to my students. These days I, and teachers like me, have to fight to do that. It’s ludicrous!
To my mind, tenure is for Professors. Public School teachers are mechanics.
I remember a news item about a Tranna area school board headquarters. Mississauga or thereabouts with a huge ornate fountain in front of the building. Opulence throughout.
and the whining from that board about cost cutting measures. I dont think it was the teachers per se at the forefront but then again, no doubt a huge chunk of the school board administration comes from those ranks.
I also recollect an article in Macleans or something about how difficult it is to flunk university.
what a heck of a school cystem we have eh?
Don’t just stop with teachers union – all unions must go. Unions have outlived their useful life span and turned into the opposite of what they were created for.
Canadian unions exploit the Charter but in reality there is no basis in the Charter for unionization – freedom of association and freedom to make a living would actually guarantee the employers against the unions if some judge with integrity applied the Charter the way it was written.
Only hijacking of the Charter guaranteed freedom of association is what makes unions ‘legal’ in Canada. That has to stop before all jobs went to China/India.
“Blaming everything on unions is just lazy and shows a lack of familiarity with the system.”
I don’t think people here want to just blame unions for this mess. There is enough blame to go around. I think people just see the teachers union as the major obstacle in the path to change. Once they are brought into line all the other improvements will be much easier to implement.
husband o T
“The same goes for you hockey parents.”
I respectfully disagree with your assessment.
It’s been my observation that elite athletes (like my 11yr old) are often some of the best performers in academics and life(I can only speak to girls sports). It’s my observation that these kids who work hard and have lofty goals in sports, often live their lives this way in total; hence the saying “you play like you practice”. Now I can’t speak to the kids in lower tiers that are there for ‘fun’, and those kids that miss practices, and have low commitment; but I suspect that this attitude towards sports extends to other facets of life, including education. This is why ‘fun’ seems to be such a priority for teachers. How often have we heard that ‘students aren’t engaged’ and ‘learning should be fun’? I call BS! Winning is FUN! Good grades is FUN!
I will say, beyond doubt, that the parents of minor league athletes are absolutely the best parents I’ve come across, and invest the most time with their kids relatively speaking. For example, my daughter must pitch 70+ balls daily for the next 6 months, and someone must be catcher. This is a huge time investment on my part, but I wouldn’t trade it for my families weight in gold.
Like I said, the girls on my daughter’s basketball and softball teams are the most well rounded, intelligent and articulate students that I come across. Furthermore, these ‘elite’ athletes are often involved in multiple sports/activities compared to other kids with extra time on their hands. I volunteer regularly at my kid’s school, and I can almost always identify the kids that are competitive athletes by their behavior and confidence. This is why I’ve said repeatedly, especially to teachers, that my daughter’s softball coach pushes my daughter harder and further than any teacher ever could, or has tried. THAT…IMO is BS! I truly empathize with the kids whose parents do not put their kids in team sports and don’t push their kids to excel; because they will likely never see their true potential simply being in school.
You learn many things in sports including teamwork, taking direction, how to win, how to lose, hard work and mental toughness. Sports (for my kids) is part of their education.
What a great discussion. Lookout, in particular, you have nailed it.
I come from a “dynasty” of teachers. My dad, aunt and uncle were teachers in the early 40’s, when teachers sometimes still didn’t get their pay (about $600 a year) and were housed in local homes, or in teacherages that were sometimes just converted graineries. Max Braithwaite’s “Why Shoot the Teacher” was a humorous (but quite accurate take) on teaching conditions of the time. The “union” arose out of those times. I believe they were necessary then, just as I believe the early unions were important for the working man in any field.
Like any bureaucracy, there is that line between doing good and doing bad. Eventually, such groups seem to oppress not only society in general, but their own members. As they expand their membership, they also expand their mandate and they begin to control huge tracts of resources and money. The members are sometimes hostage to the goals of the union and the union has ways of disciplining members that don’t toe the line. During my career, I found myself paying for jaunts to India to spread the good word of teaching. I found my federation proposing (and passing) resolutions urging the government to do all sorts of things (like reject nuclear power) with which I did not agree. This went way beyond anything I wanted my union to do, but it’s surprising how one branch of an organization can dominate the discourse. And within that branch, how a loud and vocal group can have their way. When most teachers simply wanted to do their jobs, others saw their organization as a vehicle for political activism. Not all their resolutions passed (typical leftist cant) but enough of them did.
The previous is simply to say, that I believe unions were and are an important force for right treatment of workers, but they seem to evolve (like any organization)in a monster that devours its young and the young of anyone else in the vicinity.
I retired early from teaching because I was persuaded that the legions of young looking for a job should have their chance. Also, I was tired, had health problems, and I was financially okay. Thirty years is a long time to spend in a classroom. I have not done one day of substitute teaching but some of my retired colleagues do. Boards have a policy of trying to get younger subs first, but if there aren’t enough, or if someone with a particular expertise is not available, they will ask a retired teacher who is willing. Occasionally, teachers arrange for their own subs and as long as they pick from an approved list, they can. They tend to prefer an experienced teacher as a sub. Perhaps a better system would be for the outgoing teachers to mentor aspiring teachers–to provide a smoother transition. Teachers do go through an internship period but I think it would be better to have a year of some sort of job-sharing.
During my career, I did see some (not many) colleagues who could have been deemed incompetent–or they had stopped making any effort to do the job (sending kids to the library day after day). And yes, it was difficult to get rid of those teachers. The preferred method was to get them on some sort of extended sick leave. By the way, in Saskatchewan, once a teacher exhausts their accumulated sick leave, their disability is paid from teacher funds–an extra levy is taken from all working teachers to cover this. You might argue this all comes from taxes anyway, but such “ailing” teachers don’t put an extra burden on the system.
Most of the teachers I worked with wanted sincerely to do a decent but were stymied (as I was) by some of the junk they learned in University (the theory du jour) and by the demands that came from all directions which had more to do with social engineering than education. An aspiring teacher should, as well as solid grounding in their subject matter, be taught classroom management skills, assertiveness, public speaking and even drama and acting skills. Along with discipline methods, a teacher needs to know his administration will back him–and that is not always the case.
I often found myself in the no-man’s land of knowing what I needed in order to do a good job, but finding my efforts neutralized and even discouraged by admin who were responding to imperatives other than good education. For example, you had to maintain a high graduation rate–especially in those protected groups someone else mentioned. I remember telling my vice-principal, that if admin exerted as much effort into helping me be a good teacher, as they expended coaching me in better ways to lie to students and parents about their achievement, everyone would be better off. Anyone out there ever heard of the “adaptive dimension” one of the pillars of education in Saskatchewan mandated from the halls of the Ministry of Education? Basically, it meant that if a student couldn’t succeed, you were free–in fact required–to adapt the course to meet the student’s ability. It was a fancy term for “lowering the bar”. It might even be a good idea in some cases, but it simply gave carte blanche to every lazy excuse for not requiring students to work at anything. And the other interesting thing was, you couldn’t identify the students who were completing the adapted course from those who did the full deal. Literally, there were students who might complete 4 units of a 10 unit course and be given full credit based on what they did.
So while we would like to target the bad teachers out there–and there are some–I think it’s a lot more complex an issue than many would like to believe. If we’re going to rate teachers, then I think we should rate the administrators, the parents and the politicians too–because they all contribute to the problems in education. Today, a teacher is not allowed to discipline a student, not allowed to give a student a failing mark, cannot refuse to admit a psychopath to the classroom. Judges sentence young offenders, including violent ones, to “school”. I would challenge anyone out there to do a decent job–at least a decent job as identified by all the teacher bashers–under those conditions. And yet, very often, teachers do.
You can tell wonderful stories of the past all day long, it does not diminish in any way how horrible today’s teachers have become.
‘We don’t teach grammar, you can do it at home if you want’ wins the prize for ineptness in my books. That’s what I was told when my son was in grade 6.
Science lessons re-using reaction of soda with vinegar week after week.
Reading a book for 3 months, 1 page a day in grade 6, about three black miscreants throwing rocks at people’s windows and discussing stabbing a neighbour because she spoke up against that. Is that English class or ‘how to get in jail 101’?
Assigning homework for creating a wanted poster for any criminal, but refusing to mark a wanted poster for OBL. How’s that?
Your teachers are horrible monsters and you are just too ashamed to admit that. We did not have such horrifying issues in the communist dictatorship of USSR – the teachers were just as oppressed as the rest of us. Your teachers are WILLING communists destroying Canada from within. Shame on you for being so blind and lazy to allow that. You should have tore Trudoe to small pieces instead of giving his name to a mountain.
Robert, you did a great job filling in.
“Indiana, I disagree with “just teach what you’re told”. Believe me, the bureaucrats get it wrong all the time.”
Lookout
I think you misunderstand me. I’m saying that the market should decide what is taught in the Public School system; and, teachers should NOT be in management and bureaucratic positions dictating what the curriculum should be in the first place. Management and curriculum should be left to a third party that is NOT in the education field.JMO
rita
We all here understand the difficulties you and lookout point out; but, like every other public unionized industry (ie police), the employees continue to do a shitty job (because of the aforementioned restrictions) yet stay in the industry and collect a paycheck, and strike every year for more. So although empathize a bit, the fact that teachers (and others) continue to teach, knowing their doing a crap job (regardless of the reason) places the blame square on the shoulders of the teachers. You own it!
In industries with credibility (engineering for example) we have ethics. That means that we take individual responsibility for our product regardless of who we work for. Teachers do not have ethics, they do not take an oath that they are held to legally; therefore, you see the results.
The bottom line is, for teachers, that the paycheck is paramount, and teaching is second, or third, or whatever. In private industry, and industries with ethics, the product is paramount. Without quality products, you have no customers, and you have no paycheck. That is the difference: accountability!
To the teachers out there:
NOBODY is stopping you from doing a good job! You CHOOSE to work in the public system, you CHOOSE to be part of a public union, and you CHOOSE to not teach your customers to preserve your place on the totem.
Public school teachers ARE the problem! Anything else is deflection.
“Today, a teacher is not allowed to discipline a student, not allowed to give a student a failing mark, cannot refuse to admit a psychopath to the classroom. Judges sentence young offenders, including violent ones, to “school”.
All those liberal concepts seemed to have unintended consequences. I may be wrong but I was under the impression that the teachers union was 100% behind the various levels of government that introduced these stupid social engineering programs. But at least they got smaller class sizes and all day kindergarten for their troubles.
> I respectfully disagree with your
> assessment.
My wife has kids failing or hovering around a passing grade. Why? They aren’t studying for tests. They aren’t completing and handing in assignments. Why is that? Because they’re on the road every bloody evening for hockey/dance and all day on weekends. The kids are so worn out from the practices, the games/competitions, and the incredible amount of travel required in a rural area, they’ve got nothing left for school.
Kudos to those parents who have high performing kids in school who are also heavily into sports. That sort of thing is not common in my wife’s classroom.
Kids need sports to develop good health and good character, but they should not participate in sports to the exclusion of all else.
lookout, how do we change things for the better?
I’ve tried my kid’s school and I instantly run up against the entrenched bureaucracy.
There are so many things wrong with the school system today, and yet it seems like an impossible task to change them.
> Public school teachers ARE
> the problem! Anything else
> is deflection.
So the kid in my wife’s junior high class who is operating at a grade four level (if that) is all the fault of my wife, and not the parents who continually insist he be passed into the next grade despite not having done the work or passed the tests or having put in any sort of effort?
The kid should NOT be in junior high, but his parents have taught him that he can be passed along despite doing nothing, so nothing is what he does.
But, it’s all my wife’s fault. Gotcha.
I have a colleague who has been threatened with dismissal because he refuses to pass a student who, by January, had missed two months of school.
I was forced by admin to accept 4 months worth of assignments at the end of a semester. The student had done nothing all course, was over the attendance policy, but the parents raised hell.
It turns out the work was mostly done by his mother.
Admin’s response? Mark it anyway and pass him.
By the way, we are not unionized. Is it still their fault?
But I guess I should quit, lest I be accused of just being in it for the money.
Things are different. When I was in high school ‘new’ math came in. My teacher on day one stated that he did not get it so we were going to muddle through together. He admitted he did not know. Now they tell you things they think they know or what others tell them. We were held responsible. We had a text, it was there.
Robert I only have one complaint. There is no way Kate can keep up to your pace. Enjoyed it and learned more about BC. Well done.
“Why is that? Because they’re on the road every bloody evening for hockey/dance and all day on weekends.”
Says you! That is pure projection, baseless in fact.
“Kids need sports to develop good health and good character, but they should not participate in sports to the exclusion of all else.” – agreed!
In general…
Lets get one thing straight here: grades and what you’ve actually learned can be mutually exclusive. If your boss tells you that you can’t ‘fail’ a student, that doesn’t mean that they didn’t ‘fail’! It simply means you/(the school) have mislead the student, the parents, and yourselves. Just like I said (to applause) regarding US unemployment numbers, it matters not how you cook the numbers, a few ticks on the percentage has absolutely no bearing on how many people actually have jobs. The same can be said for education. No matter how many B’s and A’s you give, or D’s and F’s you don’t give, it has absolutely no bearing on what the students have learned! THIS… is the message that the public educators are too obtuse to absorb. We’re asking you to teach our kids, not cook the books to give the impression that you’re teaching our kids. If the kids don’t ‘learn’, then you are not teaching! You are just bloviating and accounting. Not teaching! Now understand that I’m giving the benefit of the doubt by using the word “obtuse”, because the cynical side of me thinks that teachers understand 100% that their customers are demanding better teaching, NOT better grades!
So you can cry me a river about how you ‘can’t fail students’ and you ‘can’t do this or that’; but nothing, and I mean nothing, is stopping you from teaching these kids.
“But, it’s all my wife’s fault. Gotcha.”
Is she collecting a check, while at the same time not effectively teaching the curriculum for her grade?
Would not the honest thing to do be to not teach in a system that doesn’t allow said teacher to do their jobs with integrity? Why would someone take-on a job knowing ahead of time that they will not be successful? Is that honest?
“But I guess I should quit, lest I be accused of just being in it for the money.”
Or being dishonest! What is your integrity worth?
Dennis Miller is top of my list in talk radio and comedy. Thanks for the audio clip, very interesting and yes, Canada is in the same pickle with teacher unions.
Robert you did great guest blogging, enjoyed it very much.
“But I guess I should quit, lest I be accused of just being in it for the money.”
Hmmm… should I issue these drawings even though they have not been thoroughly checked, because my employer has put a limit on hours allocated to this job? Should I worry about the poor sap that walks under my structure; after all, it’s not my fault right? Even though I knowingly didn’t do my job properly?
Hell yeah I should quit!
> Says you! That is pure projection,
> baseless in fact.
That’s what the kids tell my wife when she asks them why they flopped an exam or didn’t turn in homework. “We got home at 2am from a game in ______ and I only got 3 hours sleep!” or “I couldn’t do homework last week because we’re getting ready for that dance competition.”
Funny you should mention “cooking the books” as my wife recently ignited a real firestorm in her school by having the grading made more reflective of actual performance (e.g. giving a zero to assignments not turned in or tests that were not written). The parent who was most upset over the change was the parent who could run her little darling to hockey all day long, but not ask him to, y’know, do schoolwork.
Saying all teachers are horrible based on a few bad examples is like saying that all Tea Partiers are right-wing extremists based on the odd nut who shows up at their events.
Indiana, you’re operating from an assumption that infects many administrators and education professors. That assumption is that every student is an empty vessel just yearning to be filled. The sad reality is that very few students today want to actively participate in their own education. Most won’t study for tests, are chronically late or absent, and many are abusive and belligerent to the adults around them.
I am constantly asked by students and parents what is the minimum required to pass a course.
Don’t confuse your high academic children and your high standards as a parent with being anywhere near the norm in this country.
This fall I was hauled in front of admin because I told a student if she was not here to work she was wasting her time.
The parents were outraged that I would try to motivate a student.
You are right. I can teach them if I want to. Whether they want to learn is a whole ‘nother ball game.
> Why would someone take-on a job knowing
> ahead of time that they will not be
> successful? Is that honest?
First, yes, we do need the $$$. Premier Stelmach sending all my work across the border into Sask sure didn’t help out the family situation. Second, it’s easier to change the system from within than without. Third, you take your successes where you get them, like supplying the kids with info on climategate and totally sabotaging another teacher’s efforts to teach the crap “global warming” portion of Alberta’s science curriculum. (THAT was a thing of beauty.)
Indiana, it’s more like you design a perfectly good bridge, but the contractor rarely shows up, tells you off, dawdles, makes excuses, and by the end you have a really nice tower.
Then the boss says, “Good tower!”
You throw a hissy fit and the client says, “A tower will be good enough.”
I suppose you could quit, but both the boss and the client are happy, and the company down the road operates the same way.
Just so I’m clear, I work in the so-called fixed education system.
No Union
20% less salary
No tenure; 1 year contracts only
Yearly evaluation
Arbitrary dismissal
And we face the EXACT same problems that the unionized provincial system endures.
Why?
Because like it or not, that is exactly what the majority of the clients want.
Chris, parents I know with kids in private schools would disagree with your conclusions 100%. In your world, are they allowed to hold those opinions?
Thanks Robert!
Robert, of course they are allowed any opinion, but I think you’ll concede that the type of client in a private school is vastly different than the public system.
I guess it’s like the health care debate. Some Canadians want private care because they claim the public system doesn’t work. Yet when asked, the majority of Canadians support, or at least use, the public system.
Yet somehow we manage not to put all the blame for the health care system onto the backs of doctors and nurses, who, after all are simply providing a service as mandated by their employer.
“So while we would like to target the bad teachers out there–and there are some–I think it’s a lot more complex an issue than many would like to believe. If we’re going to rate teachers, then I think we should rate the administrators, the parents and the politicians too–because they all contribute to the problems in education.”
Rita, that’s a good observation. But since “the clients” can’t easily rate all those people, therefore we need to run it like a business. That means a perpetual referendum on the product. That means choice. That means more competition. That means vouchers.
In other words, us clients only know what we want and need by experiment through trial and error; that means comparitive shopping. Just like in the commercial world. So let’s open it up. Ditto in Health.