Just saw this last night in SF courtesy of the Commonwealth Club. Highly recommended.
You're shown that getting results is straightforward: get rid of poor teachers and reward good ones. One stat that was particularly interesting, from a Stanford researcher whose name I forget, was that replacing the worst 6-10% of teachers would put us on the same proficiency level as Finland.
Unfortunately, the system makes that very difficult. Many teachers are granted tenure, making them impossible to fire, and educators' compensation isn't designed to allow for performance incentives. Contracts demanded by unions are partially to blame.
Also, our education system was built for previous generations' economies. Professionals, scientists, technical workers, factory workers, and laborers were needed in different proportions than they are today. Now we have more highly skilled jobs without enough highly educated Americans to fill them. SV and schools in Redwood City and Woodside are mentioned specifically.
It examines the costs of poor education, like the staggering number of dropouts who end up in prison. Their incarceration cost could put them through private school with money left over for college.
Saying the film demonizes Weingarten is exaggerating. She doesn't look great, but there are clearly a lot of factors at work.
Waiting for Superman makes clear that the way forward is good teachers.
The problems are dual, and nobody likes the solutions.
On the one hand, yes, you have unions, which theoretically are sticking up for the workers but in practice spend a large % of their time and resources sticking up for the lousy workers who deserve to be fired anyways.
On the other hand, you have about half of the country devoted to relentlessly slashing education budgets in the name of "less government". In a small-l labor dominated industry, that effectively means smaller paychecks and/or more work for the same pay. So good teachers who are frustrated by the union shenanigans don't have a lot of other alternatives - who else is gonna stick up for them?
Real solutions would be a combination of big pay incentives for star teachers (not that I'd necessarily be a star, but why on earth would I teach at those rates when I can be an engineer?), coupled with a much looser structure on tenure, more dynamic general situation, etc. That would be the kind of incentive to empower the good teachers and disempower the bad ones. But you can't just blame the unions without addressing the other side of the coin.
"One stat that was particularly interesting, from a Stanford researcher whose name I forget, was that replacing the worst 6-10% of teachers would put us on the same proficiency level as Finland."
Us = "the teachers" or "the US school system"? If the latter, are we allowed to import the Finnish parents?
Bad teachers hang on for reasons other than union contracts. The private schools and the charters typically don't pay as well. Maybe it isn't so easy to replace a French/chemistry/history teacher, or maybe you have to do so in the last three weeks before school starts. If you get a stinker then, perhaps in a private school you can fix this after a year, but then you'll have shot a dozen or more kids' introduction to French or chemistry.
I was stunned because [An Inconvenient Truth] was so
powerful that my wife told me we couldn’t burn incandescent
bulbs anymore. She didn’t become a zealot; she just
realized that [climate change] was serious and we have to
do something.
Well, that's something, I guess. Not going to make much of a difference, though. As David Mackay says in Sustainable Energy - without the hot air, "If everybody only does a little, the impact will only be a little."
Articles about education too often end with platitudes about how we need real debate to make changes occur. I'd argue we need action... preferably from the private sector.
Judging by the lack of comments on this article so far, not many people here follow this issue. The DC public schools are a microcosm of the whole ed reform movement, and an example of how difficult it can be to navigate the politics of reforming a corrupt system.
Rhee has done a lot to improve the efficiency of the district (in terms of getting books and supplies where needed, and using school resources wisely), but at the end of the day, her approach to reform (command and control vs. consensus building) is what will likely end her tenure early.
Right now, the mayor who backed her (Fenty) is in a tight race with a candidate who is exploiting people's distrust in a government that, for better or worse, acts based on what it believes is right for the people, not what the people believe is right for them.
Or, in the tl;dr edition:
When working within the confines of politics, you can get short bursts of successful but temporary reform, or you can be safe politically while accomplishing very little. There's gotta be another way.
Could you explain how action from the private sector might help to reform the public education system. Unless you're referring to vouchers I'm not sure I understand the connection you're trying to make.
Also, I'm not sure its accurate to claim that Rhee might lose her position if Fenty isn't re-elected. His opponent seems to be on the same side of education reform as him and most of his claims to "anti government" policies are more in the realm of police and tax reform (at least as I understand it; I don't live in DC)
"Most astonishing to Rhee was how easily the contract was finally approved. “The entire time the union was fighting us, they said, ‘Our members are never gonna accept this’—then it passed by an 80 to 20 percent vote!” she exclaims."
Hah, never assume that the interests of the teachers and their union representatives (or any other set of elected officials) always coincide. Specifically, proposals to decrease the number of workers but raise their pay (and/or give large amounts of money to those layed off) often bring workers and unions into conflict.
I think that's just Rhee being dumb. You're in a negotiation. Of course they're going to say they can't accept this, until they do. Union staff almost never bargain contracts anyway. Typically it's done by a bargaining committee consisting of members, some of whom are elected officers but mostly just volunteers.
Lookit, if teachers unions were the main culprit, then education outcomes in right-to-work states (the South, mostly) would be significantly higher than states where teachers unions exist. This is not the case. The problem is one of attitudes (both familial and institutional) and one of teaching talent (the students who enroll in Schools of Education are below the median for GPA and SAT scores for universities that offer education degrees).
Attitudes are hard to explain; Friday Night Lights (the book) examines but doesn't explain. The quality of teaching stock is explainable, but no one likes the explanation - the opening of the workforce to women has taken a lot of high-quality women out of the classroom and into the previously male-dominated workforce. All those great women doctors, lawyers, managers, engineers, architects, and so on would have been teachers 50 years ago.
I don't have a good answer, but Waiting for Superman's demonization of Randi Weingarten and the unions is a terribly small portion of the problem. Boogeymen are easy to hate; it's harder to point the finger at ourselves.
Why would you believe that right to work states would not have teachers unions? It's true that a right to work state will probably not have unions the workers don't want, but that isn't the same thing.
I'm not inclined to brush aside the union issue as you do, but you do make a good point about the increased competition from other professions.
Perhaps less-skilled entrants to the profession are more vocally supportive of a union than those who are confident in their individual ability to excel. Even in right-to-work states, that would create selective social pressure which would make entry to the profession less attractive to those with a competitive mindset. An old friend of mine who tried teaching elementary (in CA) for 3-4 years before leaving in frustration said she was willing to tolerate the pay and pecking order that was in place, but it was the attitudes of the older teachers which she really struggled with.
Even in right-to-work states, public sector jobs (like teachers) may practically require union membership, and the conditions of work are largely dictated by union negotiating/political influence.
[+] [-] teye|15 years ago|reply
You're shown that getting results is straightforward: get rid of poor teachers and reward good ones. One stat that was particularly interesting, from a Stanford researcher whose name I forget, was that replacing the worst 6-10% of teachers would put us on the same proficiency level as Finland.
Unfortunately, the system makes that very difficult. Many teachers are granted tenure, making them impossible to fire, and educators' compensation isn't designed to allow for performance incentives. Contracts demanded by unions are partially to blame.
Also, our education system was built for previous generations' economies. Professionals, scientists, technical workers, factory workers, and laborers were needed in different proportions than they are today. Now we have more highly skilled jobs without enough highly educated Americans to fill them. SV and schools in Redwood City and Woodside are mentioned specifically.
It examines the costs of poor education, like the staggering number of dropouts who end up in prison. Their incarceration cost could put them through private school with money left over for college.
Saying the film demonizes Weingarten is exaggerating. She doesn't look great, but there are clearly a lot of factors at work.
Waiting for Superman makes clear that the way forward is good teachers.
[+] [-] jbooth|15 years ago|reply
On the one hand, yes, you have unions, which theoretically are sticking up for the workers but in practice spend a large % of their time and resources sticking up for the lousy workers who deserve to be fired anyways.
On the other hand, you have about half of the country devoted to relentlessly slashing education budgets in the name of "less government". In a small-l labor dominated industry, that effectively means smaller paychecks and/or more work for the same pay. So good teachers who are frustrated by the union shenanigans don't have a lot of other alternatives - who else is gonna stick up for them?
Real solutions would be a combination of big pay incentives for star teachers (not that I'd necessarily be a star, but why on earth would I teach at those rates when I can be an engineer?), coupled with a much looser structure on tenure, more dynamic general situation, etc. That would be the kind of incentive to empower the good teachers and disempower the bad ones. But you can't just blame the unions without addressing the other side of the coin.
[+] [-] julius_geezer|15 years ago|reply
Us = "the teachers" or "the US school system"? If the latter, are we allowed to import the Finnish parents?
Bad teachers hang on for reasons other than union contracts. The private schools and the charters typically don't pay as well. Maybe it isn't so easy to replace a French/chemistry/history teacher, or maybe you have to do so in the last three weeks before school starts. If you get a stinker then, perhaps in a private school you can fix this after a year, but then you'll have shot a dozen or more kids' introduction to French or chemistry.
[+] [-] enjo|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Estragon|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] untamedmedley|15 years ago|reply
Judging by the lack of comments on this article so far, not many people here follow this issue. The DC public schools are a microcosm of the whole ed reform movement, and an example of how difficult it can be to navigate the politics of reforming a corrupt system.
Rhee has done a lot to improve the efficiency of the district (in terms of getting books and supplies where needed, and using school resources wisely), but at the end of the day, her approach to reform (command and control vs. consensus building) is what will likely end her tenure early.
Right now, the mayor who backed her (Fenty) is in a tight race with a candidate who is exploiting people's distrust in a government that, for better or worse, acts based on what it believes is right for the people, not what the people believe is right for them.
Or, in the tl;dr edition:
When working within the confines of politics, you can get short bursts of successful but temporary reform, or you can be safe politically while accomplishing very little. There's gotta be another way.
[+] [-] DanielN|15 years ago|reply
Also, I'm not sure its accurate to claim that Rhee might lose her position if Fenty isn't re-elected. His opponent seems to be on the same side of education reform as him and most of his claims to "anti government" policies are more in the realm of police and tax reform (at least as I understand it; I don't live in DC)
[+] [-] boredguy8|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Symmetry|15 years ago|reply
Hah, never assume that the interests of the teachers and their union representatives (or any other set of elected officials) always coincide. Specifically, proposals to decrease the number of workers but raise their pay (and/or give large amounts of money to those layed off) often bring workers and unions into conflict.
[+] [-] ahi|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sachinag|15 years ago|reply
Lookit, if teachers unions were the main culprit, then education outcomes in right-to-work states (the South, mostly) would be significantly higher than states where teachers unions exist. This is not the case. The problem is one of attitudes (both familial and institutional) and one of teaching talent (the students who enroll in Schools of Education are below the median for GPA and SAT scores for universities that offer education degrees).
Attitudes are hard to explain; Friday Night Lights (the book) examines but doesn't explain. The quality of teaching stock is explainable, but no one likes the explanation - the opening of the workforce to women has taken a lot of high-quality women out of the classroom and into the previously male-dominated workforce. All those great women doctors, lawyers, managers, engineers, architects, and so on would have been teachers 50 years ago.
I don't have a good answer, but Waiting for Superman's demonization of Randi Weingarten and the unions is a terribly small portion of the problem. Boogeymen are easy to hate; it's harder to point the finger at ourselves.
[+] [-] yummyfajitas|15 years ago|reply
http://www.myaea.org/
http://www.arizonaea.org/
http://www.aeaonline.org/
Why would you believe that right to work states would not have teachers unions? It's true that a right to work state will probably not have unions the workers don't want, but that isn't the same thing.
[1] I'm not cherry picking, just working down this list: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right-to-work_law#U.S._states_w...
[+] [-] anigbrowl|15 years ago|reply
Perhaps less-skilled entrants to the profession are more vocally supportive of a union than those who are confident in their individual ability to excel. Even in right-to-work states, that would create selective social pressure which would make entry to the profession less attractive to those with a competitive mindset. An old friend of mine who tried teaching elementary (in CA) for 3-4 years before leaving in frustration said she was willing to tolerate the pay and pecking order that was in place, but it was the attitudes of the older teachers which she really struggled with.
[+] [-] gojomo|15 years ago|reply