I received the following question from reader Kevin Magee, which is very important. We know that about half of all teachers leave teaching in their first five years; charter schools often have even higher turnover. If public schools had the same ability to discipline students as charter schools, there would be no demand for charter schools. On the other hand, charter schools are free to suspend students again and again until they leave or even expel them. If public schools did that, it would be illegal. What would happen to those students? What should happen to them? What would need to change in public schools to establish an atmosphere in which students were fully engaged? What should be done about students who are disruptive? What is our advice to Kevin (and me)?
Diane,
I have enjoyed reading your blog, articles, and books for years. I have learned so much.
What concerns me is that I never hear the discussion of why the conditions of teaching are so bad, beyond the unfair assessment of teachers through standardized tests. Why is there such a high turnover of teachers?
I had to retire from teaching at a Title One School because the behavior of the students prohibited me from teaching math and science. Not a word on this huge phenom in our Title 1 Schools. Keep the bad behavior in the classroom to manipulate the dropout rate, etc.
The leaders in education ignore this “white elephant”. Without a teacher’s assistant in many classes, it is impossible to actually teach. This is the ultimate, ugly endgame of povery: Not Education, but rather Classroom Management.
Why don’t leaders help create the conditions necessary for learning?
Diane Ravitch's blog 
there’s lots of research showing that smaller classes lead to more student engagement and far fewer disciplinary problems. Students feel like they matter to their teachers and the system as a whole so they are less likely to act out to get the attention they need.
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Leone, exactly! It comes down to a child’s basic emotional needs being met. Children will seek out getting those needs met any way they can, whether negative or positive. I often found the more “difficult” children met with kindness and understanding became less “difficult”. This takes a lot more effort on a daily basis to establish than doling out punishments. One of the best purchases I made as a new teacher in the 80’s was a book called, “How to talk so kids can Learn (at home and in school)” by Adele Faber and Elaine Mazlish…
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The real national Standards research, paid for by Pew, and conducted by Harvard in the nineties was called The Eight Principles of Learning. The second principle was REWARDS FOR PERFORMANCE.
These ‘standards , the thesis by Lauren Resnick, and the national research that proved them for Harvard, have DISAPPEARED… BUT in the 12 districts studied around the country, and in the classrooms of the most successful teachers (I was the NYC cohort) rewards were the way to go.
The first principle, should you be wondering, was CLEAR EXPECTATIONS, which meant that the practitioner let the parents and children know what was expected, what LEARNING LOOKED LIKE all year, not merely on some standardized test in vented my Pearson.
Of course you got it right.
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Meanwhile, my class size average in 8th and 9th grade social studies classes in Utah is 33….with between 1/5 and 1/3 of those students with special needs per class…
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“What would need to change in public schools to establish an atmosphere in which students were fully engaged?” It might not be only the public schools that have to change. There has to be a concerted effort to improve the family structure and the home environment of that family structure. That will help significantly, in my opinion.
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Easy answer:
Use the cooperative teacher-team-parent-community management/curriculum approach to running schools and turn principals and district administrators into office managers and not decision makers over teachers.
Elected school boards would only be watchdogs to make sure the teacher-parent teams were doing their job and administrators were doing what the coop-teachers and parent teams were telling them.
State legislatures, the courts and DC would butt out and stop running things from the top down.
It would be illegal for billionaire oligarchs in the private sector to do anything other than donate money to public schools with no strings attached on how that money would be spent. How the money would be used would be totally up to the teacher-parent coop teams in each school.
Elected officials, the courts and education administrators would only watch to make sure no laws were being broken. Everything would be transparent.
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Amen!
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To answer his question, classroom disruptions are usually a result of ineffective teaching strategies, especially in the area of student questioning. Leaders don’t often know this and select professional development aimed instead at classroom management, which is not always effective. So classroom management training often centers on techniques needed to maintain order when the disorder is created by ineffective instruction.
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Simply not true and ignores behavior, parental involvement, and disabilities. Nice try blaming teachers.
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Mr. Walkup, have you taught in an inner-city, Title I school? I have. And I was great at classroom management. And it came at the expense of real learning. Some of the psychological-behavioral issues students come to school with are simply outside the scope of the classroom. Engaging lessons aren’t going to mollify students with oppositional defiance. There is an ocean of difference between theory and practice here. Well meaning, talented, competent teachers who have taught in these environments know the real limitations. That’s not cynicism. It’s reality.
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I teach upper level math and science. Most or nearly all of the classroom disruptions I deal with are because kids have been pushed into the classes when they are not really ready — or despite the fact that they really do not want to be there. The latter is easier to deal with than the former — when you try teaching trigonometry to kids who don’t remember their basic algebra, some kids will disrupt, to cover their own inadequacies. You could teach those kids separately, but teaching kids with wildly varying background knowledge in a class that has a high need for background knowledge is tough, and no less so for “effective teachers with effective teaching strategies”. Inadequate background, in fact, is almost always the problem with math….especially at the higher levels. Not a problem a teacher can fix in any way, at least not without a curriculum change….but then, where would you put the kids who ARE ready for trigonometry, and need it for college ?
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How long were you in a Title One school, where, what class sizes, how many preps, how many ESL and SPED, what subject, what were the test scores?
Where do you work now, do you run a charter school or get paid by a special interest group that touts “reform” tactics, how much is your salary?
Answer the questions candidly. Then I might respect your ideas.
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As soon as you answer my question I’ll respond. Have you taught in a Title I school? I have.
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I agree and disagree with you on this. I know students that are fully engaged create less disciplinary problems in the classroom. I think diversifying instruction helpful. Also, teachers can often work on “behavior plans” to mollify this type of disruptive student. It is also helpful when the teacher has the support of the parent or support staff as well. These approaches work well with the “garden variety” itchy kid syndrome.
However,conduct disorder students are a “horse of different color.” They cannot be bribed or threatened, and they sometimes hurt other children without remorse. These students require counseling, working with the families and intensive monitoring. Sometimes the parents live in fear of these students. Usually we have managed them within the wall of the elementary school environment. What I have noticed is that they often wind up in a more restrictive environment in middle school. No amount of wonderful teaching is going to change these students who, luckily are few and far between. They have psychological problems that need to be addressed.
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I agree. Some kids need a lot of support, help, etc. HOWEVER, the environment of testing, testing, testing when they see no relevance to their worlds is quite simply … ABSURD.
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The poster has reason to question teacher effectiveness. We all do but perhaps we don’t have the pecuniary interest that he has-“cognitive rigor solution”. Yep, that’s what it’s called.
Some free publicity, John:
“The Standards Company LLC
No doubt about it, the education world is becoming more complex with an ever-increasing number of mandates, each driving large shifts in educational practice.
Such changes leave many teachers wondering how they can align their curriculum and instruction to a new slew of standards and assessments that demand increased accountability for student performance.
Cognitive Rigor, the interplay between Bloom’s Taxonomy and Depth of Knowledge, offers a powerful solution.
Since 2007, The Standards Company has been instrumental in developing this rigor-driven approach to meeting the demands of new college/career-preparedness standards, such as the Common Core State Standards.
The Cognitive Rigor Solution
In 2011, the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium adopted Cognitive Rigor as its framework for selecting items for the Next Generation Assessments. Numerous state departments of education followed suit, incorporating Cognitive Rigor into their own professional development services.
Today, we are leading the way to a new rigor-driven approach to curriculum and instruction that allows teachers to use their own professional decision-making skills to deliver a rich, engaging curriculum to their students.
After all, isn’t that why teachers became teachers in the first place?”
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Thanks for the low down Duane. Just another edu-faker trying to peddle their own snake oil solution.
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If parents disciplined their children there would be no dilemma as to whether the public school should be able to discipline them (yes!) And there probably would be no need for the existence of charter schools. Discipline is at the heart of the entire public school crisis. What is at the heart of the lack of discipline? That is the question.
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You might find the answer to “What is at the heart of the lack of discipline?” in this recent National Geographic Magazine piece—for the most part, it is the brutal cycle of poverty but there is a solution mentioned in the piece and the reform movement is clearly not interested in that solution—-all the reformer evidence points to profits not education.
http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2015/01/baby-brains/bhattacharjee-text
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Some children have extreme behavioral issues and do not respond to parental discipline. Disabilities such as ASD, ADHD, depression, bipolar, etc can affect behavior. As can home issues like parental health, alcoholism, job loss, abuse. I do agree far too many parents try to be friends or over indulge such that no one ever sets limits or teaches social skills and tolerance. But that is very prevalent in wealthy schools as well.
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The way many (most?) parents discipline their children is a large part of the problem. Many people forget that discipline means to teach and instead equate it solely with punishment. Punitive and/or arbitrary “discipline” makes kids anxious and/or rebellious. So then they get punished more and ’round and ’round she goes. Those who punish the least usually have the best behaved kids because the kids know that it’s not about whatever consequence they’re going to get for misbehaving (if they get caught), bur rather about being the kind of people they themselves can be proud of.
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Over 30 years ( or more) of research has shown, without a doubt, that building positive relationships and reinforcing positive behavior gives a much better return than reacting negatively. Students who have only experienced negative reactions to their inappropriate behavior learn that they can control the adults around them when everything else in their life is out of their control. Teachers don’t think they have the time to invest in positive behavior management techniques, so they invest in negative techniques that rarely give longterm results. Students growing up in poverty learn to use misbehavior to get their own needs met. The problems in classrooms today are caused by a CCSS led curriculum and standardized testing that is not meeting the needs of teachers or students. That is why these students rebel by stopping teachers from teaching. Until teachers are allowed to take back their instruction and curriculum, students will continue to teach us that they will not be a part of this education reform movement that has left them out of the equation. We are dealing with a new generation of students who are not willing to participate if their needs are not being met. This is especially true of students who are growing up in poverty. These students need more than CCSS and more rigor. Traditional punitive discipline practices only really work on kids who don’t have behavior problems. Kids just really want to know that you believe in them, only then will they give you their best.
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Kevin poses a number of interesting questions. Certainly the Charter School movement is motivated by any number of issues and no two public schools are the same. The best way to motivate students is and has always been the quality and relationships that develop between a student and a teacher…a parents’ support of education, the teacher and the student plays a huge role and the role the community itself plays in focusing on education makes a substantial difference. Public schools can, even if more limited, discipline students…but any number of those students are bored, or don’t have the skills to stay focused, or simply haven’t been engaged in a way that makes school a priority. There are enough studies to show that there is both an art and a science to figuring out how to motivate and engage students and as long as Charters can pick and chose, public and private will not be equal…the money people behind the Charter movement never intended them to be equal and those who seek to limit government and disenfranchise certain citizens will continue to push for privatization of schools, healthcare and anything else they can think of. The simple answer to Kevin’s questions is to provide the most support possible for teachers, encourage parental involvement when and wherever possible and push community leaders to be more involved and focused on local education. A serious national movement on making education issue number one, with the money needed to make it happen, would be an essential piece of turning this around.
Robert Kesten
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What if every public school had a realistic remedial program for kids who struggle? And what if they could also request waivers for certain disciplinarian actions. Dropout rates, while an easily measured metric should not be one that forces districts to make poor decisions that hurt the majority of its students. Public schools need flexibility. Flexibility to handle the unique needs of each public school.
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Where I taught we had a very vigilant NAACP. My district got into trouble with OCR because the suspension rates for African American students was higher than those for white students. My district implemented an in school suspension system using technology to allow students access to instruction without having to report it to OCR., and yet the student was still removed from the environment. Behavior of offenders improved because they disliked the isolation.
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We also instituted a series of steps at an inner city district junior senior high school that dramatically improved behavior, improved learning and was strongly supported by faculty, families and students. It included a number of changes; in-school suspension, peer counseling, staff development on ways to combine classroom work with community service (which some formerly disruptive students did well in), restorative justice, meeting with families in community facilities where they felt comfortable. Things weren’t perfect but they were a lot better.
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The answer you seek is so simple…they perfected a process that ensured that a teacher was deprived of all the protections concerning printing of evidence. As the union looked the other way, the grievance process was subverted, and nothing a teacher could say or do in defense mattered, not even those like myself that were famous educators .
http://www.opednews.com/author/author40790.html
NO teacher could fight the lawlessness that was endemic in 15,880 districts in 50 states. here is a Montana teacher testifying
http://www.youtube.com/all_comments?v=nfNxj-O1DiI
This lack of accountability for administrators characterized the nineties, when over a hundred thousand veteran, experienced educators were sent packing by this process
http://www.speakingasateacher.com/SPEAKING_AS_A_TEACHER/No_Constitutional_Rights-_A_hidden_scandal_of_National_Proportion.html
Now, teachers who have no standing, no records of achievement are left in shifting sands,a t the mercy of top-down management who are often failed people with little humanity or respect for the law, let alone for the dedicated professional in that practice.
The confusion was caused intentionally when the billionaires club discovered that they owned the media and the most effective propaganda machine in human history, television! THUS, THEY could control the conversation… because there were almost sixteen thousand districts in fifty states, and the right hand did no know what the left was doing!
It is THAT simple!
Moreover, the psychology of education is as COMPLEX as that of medicine or law, and the citizens need Help to grasp what works and does not. Ducnan, Rhee and Gates were the wrong ones to provide that help.
NO where are the stories of the war on teachers that we experienced, so teachers like yourself wonder how this could be?
I don’t wonder, I know how this happened,
http://www.opednews.com/articles/BAMBOOZLE-THEM-where-tea-by-Susan-Lee-Schwartz-110524-511.html
or why NYC is going into receivership.
https://vimeo.com/4199476
It is a vast and planned conspiracy to end not merely public schools, but a democracy,
http://www.aft.org/pdfs/americaneducator/winter2009/hirsch.pdf
“Dumbing Us Down” warned John Taylor Gatto, has been accomplished, and now “Weapons Of Mass Intsruction,” (his latest book) will answer your question, too.
…because as ISIS knows… get them as children.
From The NY Times this week:
“The United Nations wrote in a report last month that “ISIS prioritizes children as a vehicle for ENSURING LONG-TERM LOYALTY,ADHERENCE TO THEIR IDEOLOGY and a cadre of devoted fighters that will see violence as a way of life.”
“The United Nations has released a catalog of horrors inflicted on children by the Islamic State. In Raqqa, Syria, the militants’ de facto capital, the group has gathered children for screenings of execution videos. It has forced children to participate in public stonings. And in many of the group’s grisly execution videos, children are seen among the audience. (Usaid said that his parents did not allow him to attend the public executions in his town, typically held after Friday Prayer.)
“In the areas it controls in Iraq and Syria, the Islamic State has established centers for the military and religious training of children, in anIN AN EFFORT TO INDOCTRINATE THEM AND BUILD A GENERATION OF WARRIORS”
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It’s the truth, but few understand or care teachers have few or no protections.
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Of course. What I am reading here is a direct result of the conspiracy to end learning so the schools would fail. If you have read my essays ago Oped,http://www.opednews.com/author/author40790.html
which I think you have, Susan, then you know I was there in 1998 when the practice of teaching was assaulted and the experienced ,veteran theaters who knew exactly “what learning looked like” were eliminated so the destructors could do exactly what you are seeing today… ensure that there is no support for learning —and then blame the teacher when the school fails.
We read here about the last step — end the public schools and bring in the charters, with no accountability to real education.
Compassion? No, $$$$$ for the corporate entities that have monetarized the schools
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I don’t just know it. I lived it and had my career mostly ruined. I am still picking up the pieces six years later. I am back in education but only as a part-time, classified employee. I am lucky I even have that. I can’t ever retire thanks to a school district’s misconduct.
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I’ll tell you what I see on the front lines as impediments to the discipline of students.
(1) Administrators need to keep their stats good. A low number of expulsions, discipline problems or dropouts make the school look good. Therefore, principals make their own resume look mighty good by “keeping them in school” rather than out.
(2) Student deans (the ones tasked with “discipline”) do not want to be bothered with problems they believe the teacher should handle within the four walls of the classroom. As a result, there are no consequences to bad student behavior, whether it is dangerous, immature, or abusive. Low numbers of disciplinary referrals on file make the school look better.
(3) Students also know that if the school looks bad, nothing will happen to them. The teachers will get blamed for anything wrong.
This is a short answer, made without much thought or proofreading, but this is how I see it in my public school.
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This is what I see where I teach as well. Students do like boundaries to be enforced, parents like to know that their kids are in a well-run classroom with few disruptive students, but some administrators encourage teachers to look the other way by not upholding the teacher’s discipline policies. It’s a huge problem that makes it more difficult for teachers to teach and students to learn. Thankfully my tenure status makes it easier for me to stand up for my students’ rights to learn.
Whenever a particular student sees me as overly strict, that student often comes to see me as a caring adult by the next school year, and will tell their friends that they learned a lot in my class.
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I taught in 1963 and in 1998. I can tell you that what you describe is the way it was an the administration was there to SUPPORT THE TEACHER, which is what the real national standards considered a prime essential PRINCIPLE OF LEARNING. I was the cohort in NYC http://www.opednews.com/author/author40790.html
for the Pew research which has DISAPPEARED, replaced by BUSH’s all children left behind standards.
Of course what you and every teacher knows is essential is th management of the schools and it population ,w ith the support services and programs that ensure that the teacher has a “quiet, safe, healthy environment” so that learning is enabled.
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Smaller class sizes, parenting workshops, classroom management training, extra support and accolades for teachers who teach more difficult groups to manage, more teachers of color and more teachers who grew up in the communities where they teach multicultural trainings, broader curricular options and non-college prep career pathways for high school students after age 15 or 16.
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Sounds like you know of which you speak. It’s a shame our current crop of Ed-Deformers are so clueless. Their agenda is the opposite of each of your suggestions.
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Yes. Smaller class sizes. Student-teacher rapport, connections, understanding. Eye contact. Caring. Developmentally appropriate expectations. Safety. Love. All these things can’t be quantified, yet, in a human sense, they are much more necessary to human functioning than a bunch of curricular objectives, checklists, and hoops.
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I see that most of the comments focus on parents, administrators, etc. There has been a tremendous PR campaign to vilify teachers, public schools, and “good behavior” in the media. Perhaps it is time to “fight fire with fire”…..There needs to be a very powerful media campaign, supported throughout the profession also, to show that teachers really are pretty darn good, most kids want to learn, and focus on the positive. It CAN be done! Where is the NEA? They have the resources to begin and support a PR campaign that could make a huge difference in public schools. Not just feel-good stories either, but some reality and forceful commentary. Improvement won’t happen overnight, but it certainly could help. Also, get rid of the legal restraints and allow appropriate but respectful discipline. Expulsion is not the answer. Word spreads among students and parents when they know that teachers, administrators will NOT be intimidated.
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“Where is the NEA?”
Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha,!! Whoa that’s a goodun!
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See ON COMMON GROUND by Dufour, et. al. for a primer on a coordinated response to these complicated issues that resist simple, one-size-fits all solutions.
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In response to this important question, I have often thought two teachers in each classroom with low numbers , possibly 15 or less could work . The school must have a strong discipline program and all teachers follow the plan. I see in working in some schools. Parents must also be involved. The extra money could support this plan instead of using the funds for testing and Charter Schools.
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“. . . and all teachers follow the plan.”
Spoken like an administrator.
Screw any plan that demands “follow the plan”.
But you’re spot on with the class size and another adult in the room.
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Administration supporting teachers, school policies clear and enforced, smaller classes, identifying disabilities early with treatment and in school support, remove consistently disruptive students from classroom for counseling or isolated learning.
I do think far too many students interfere with the learning of others. The parents are often enablers or have thrown up their hands.
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Having taught for many years in a psychiatric hospital setting, I saw up close the major mental health crisis in our country closely tied to growing and debilitating poverty that no one is talking about. Our students’ behaviors are normal and predictable given the traumas many of our kids have gone through, and those behaviors absolutely do get in the way of learning. That kid screaming at a peer & fighting in class is going through something. That other child who is openly defying authority is doing so for a reason, even if the child cannot verbalize why. All behavior is a form of communication and our students are literally shouting out their needs. But instead we double down on the very worse thing we could do: bad test-prep curriculum and stricter, more punitive discipline.
In the short term, I do think smaller classes, more mental health services, aides or co-teachers in difficult classrooms coupled with truly student-centered, relevant curriculum would help. But until we address the causes behind these mental health issues: ie PTSD from witnessing violence, the instabilty from food and housing insecurities, the repercussions of mass incarceration & brutal policing on families & communities-we cannot and will not fix these problems. Teachers alone certainly cannot be expected to deal with difficult behaviors alone. It’s simply not an issue of “classroom management”-our kids are in crisis. If a whole team of professionals like I worked with at the hospital including psychiatrists, nurses, social workers, psychologists, mental health counselors can’t get rid of many troubled behaviors, why do we expect teachers to do so when that child returns to school the day after discharge?
(I’d also add that while the deeper the poverty a child is in, the more likely they are to experience debilitating traumas, our often inhumane, hyper-individualistic, competitive society is hurting all kids. Cutthroat capitalism is damaging human relationships causing depression, anxiety, behavior issues across the socio-economic spectrum.)
I think “choice” has simply exacerbated many existing problems by concentrating kids w/the toughest behaviors-kids who need the most support/intervention-in schools with the least resources experiencing the most inhumane technocratic “reforms.” Charters “pushing out” of kids with high needs is absolutely devasting to too many young people. I’ve worked with these kids, heard their stories. This has to stop. Edreform is doing great, permanent damage to our children.
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I agree Katie. Your answer is, by far, the most realistic I’ve seen yet. As an administrator I am the first line of defense for the children you are talking about. I have spent an enormous amount of time and energy trying to be a buffer for these children and their teachers. But the bottom line for now is that these students are in our schools and they are interfering with the learning of other students. More standards and more rigor are just Fool’s Gold for those who refuse to deal with the real problems of poverty that are causing these problems in schools. It makes me so angry when I hear of the school to prison pipeline. The pipeline starts long before these children enter school.
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Sadly, you can often predict with some degree of accuracy who is at risk for getting in trouble with the police later in life. The game changer is that you don’t always see who will destroy opportunities due to drug addiction, at least not in elementary school.
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There are so many excellent answers here! District superintendents and administrators would be wise to read many of the comments above and put together a program based on an integrated approach.
However…Oh my goodness!
With all due respect, Dr. Walkup, I am a K teacher in an inner city school. “Classroom disruptions are usually the result of infeffective teaching strategies”? Based on my experience, I could not disagree more. For one example, last year I had a student who dove off tables, ran full speed out of the classroom and through the halls yelling, hit other students, scratched and hit teachers and crawled around our “carpet” area (where we meet for group instruction), rolling and bumping aggressively into the other students, who sat “criss-cross applesauce” eagerly and most patiently waiting to learn.
Justin (not his real name) had every reason to be raging. He had been assigned to 4 different foster homes since he was born – and was born addicted. And at the home in which he resided when I had him, his guardian threatened to throw him out anytime there was a conflict.
It is irresponsible for school districts not to have a support system in place for children like this – a system that does not take 5,6,7 months before implementation. Justin did not belong in a general ed classroom in his condition – not fair to him or to my other 25 students. The answer from administration, social workers, etc. was “Be sure you are documenting these incidents…what incentive program do you have in place? (I have one that works well for most, but did not work for Justin)…can the teacher aide stay with him?…You need to keep a close eye on him so he doesn’t hurt others.” Thie vice principal ended up keeping him in her office often, but what good does that do the student? He needs to get well.
Justin’s behavior changed dramatically when he was moved from the home he had been in to another where it was obvious to me, the new foster mom really cared about him.
The wonderful ending of THIS story is that Justin was adopted by that loving woman who took him in last January. In November I received a picture of Justin’s new family with the judge in family court who made it official.
I have had other “Justin’s” through the years – usually one a year. And it only takes one or two in my (or any other) classroom to upset the whole operation. Neither I nor my students can focus on the fun, creative, brain-based acitivities and lessons that I teach when another student is on top of a table in my classroom, yelling.
I believe many of our classroom problems could be assuaged if every school district had a system in place to treat the one or two “disrupters” who steal teaching and learning time and cause great stress in the classroom environment. These children need to be in an environment separate from the gen ed classroom, where they receive academic lessons integrated with behavioral and mental healthcare – until they are healthier and can begin to control their impulses and inappropriate behaviors. I will say it again: in most cases, children behave this way for a reason and it is heart-breaking because it is surely not their fault. However, if parents are not able to raise their children to be self-controlled, responsible and behaviorally healthy – it is best for everyone that “the system” step in and do the right thing – provide the behavioral and mental health care that will help the child to become a happy, healthy, functioning member of society.
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Dr. W. has product to sell!
See my post above (or is that below?)
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As a school counselor, I see things from a different perspective. We are seeing an increasing number of students with very serious mental disorders. This makes it hard for classroom teachers, it doesn’t matter how great your lesson plan is if you have a student with a panic attack in your class you will lose order.
I am lucky to work for a district that values counselors and they allow us to utilize a guidance plan that includes meeting with every student individually. This can make a huge difference for a high school student! We set goals together and find ways to meet them. But, we still are bombarded with extra paperwork that prevents us from really monitoring their progress. We try to intervene when we see them slipping, but with over 350 students on a case load it is difficult. We are not the “guidance counselors” I remember from my school days! We are highly trained in helping students cope with all types of issues and exploring future careers, but our training is used for things like scheduling, standardized testing, & counting credits. Someone has to do it.
I think that school counselors are an important piece of the puzzle if used correctly.
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I am addressing the portion of the question of “What needs to change” from a Language Arts high school perspective:
Use technology to project great works of art and places and spaces from around the world.
Visual images have never been so easy to duplicate and blending aesthetics with text helps motivate students to see beyond black and white words on a page. Students should also learn Photoshop and other visual design programs as part of a Language Arts curriculum.
Shrink class sizes for regular students even more so than for advanced students as discipline problems are more pronounced in regular classes as many students who are labelled “regular” simply have more trouble with self-restraint and focus.
Bring back P.E. requirements as all students need physical exercise for mental acuity.
Return number of classes in high school per day to five, with six at the absolute most. Students are currently shredded by seven classes, especially when they have to memorize more isolated facts than ever before. Scheduling seven and even eight class periods a day (to squeeze more money from the teaching staff) is ethically wrong and robs students of deep focus.
Reduce homework. Many students do not have the after school environments necessary for the focus required for constant, ongoing homework, and drop behind through no fault of their own.
Find a way to block use of personal electronics beyond the classroom agenda as using social media while in classrooms is a huge distraction. It also tends to empower students with the ability to find “instant” answers.
Get rid of the punitive Teacher Evaluation Models such as Marzano and Danielson that force teachers to teach test prep. Test prep usually involves grouping students in clusters where they are given worksheets to “find the right answers.” This kind of learning is often so decontextualized that it is not engaging or inspiring. Students can go through an entire day in groups and have little or no solitude or independent thinking. Grouping for these purposes also creates bully scenarios where one student often does all the work (often Googling the answers and not even reading the article or text) while others copy and spend the class time texting or disengaged in one way or another. Instead students should be seated in individual desks for at least part of the time and encouraged to think independently. They should also be introduced to great works of poetry and literature as a springboard to understanding life’s ongoing questions that are never easily resolved with a “right” answer on a bubble sheet.
Teach all three basic learning styles: visual, linear-sequential, and kinesthetic as every student is unique. Students tend to thrive when their special learning styles and abilities are emphasized. At the same time, blend the arts and sciences in all subjects as much as possible.
Honor both individuality AND teamwork and make sure neither prevails over the other.
Create quiet spaces and the opportunity for solitude on a daily basis. Many students have no solitude at home or at school and are incapable of sitting still or sustaining a thought.
Stop using data to “profile” students. Once a student develops low-esteem it is almost impossible to restore it. At the same time, students who are told they are “gifted” often feel superior to others.
Bring in guest speakers on a regular basis from all professions to offer a glimpse of real-world jobs.
Involve parents and the community at large as much as possible, even if it is to simply participate in a school-produced talent show.
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Much smaller class sizes for all levels. More support staff–teaching assistants, social workers, psychologists, speech pathologists, health care professionals. More enrichments–art, music, dance, drama, creative writing, design available to all students. Daily physical education classes. More intervention specialists. All the money that is going to harmful testing with the technology to support it and to charter school profits should be spent instead on more teachers and human support of all kinds for students.
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You summed this up perfectly.
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Well, looks like idiots, not the cream, has risen to the top…THINK: $$$$$.
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Federal statistics show that millions of youngsters a year are suspended:
Click to access crdc-discipline-snapshot.pdf
African Americans are over-represented in these suspensions.
Both district and charter public schools are able to suspend and expel students. Some studies find that some charters have a higher rate of suspensions.
There are many reasons families select schools. It isn’t just about discipline – it’s also about the program available, how welcome families feel, location of the school, etc.
Very sorry the leadership and faculty at the school where Mr. Magee taught were not able to work out an environment in which he could teach. Again, many reasons for misbehavior, outlined in earlier comments. No single reasons.
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The so-called end of tracking kids into classes based on their reading ability in public schools here in NYC has resulted in re-tracking where charters now get the kids that were in the top classes. For decades parents of the higher performing kids felt they were privileged to be in the “one” class. Once they found their kids mixed with lower performing and behavior problem kids at the very time charters became common they had another option. Thus we see an updated version of tracking. Reality – neither system is fair to all kids. Reality – there will never be funding to provide the kind of school system that works for all. The cow is out of the barn.
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Mr. Scott, would you include the elite NYC magnet schools that screen out students via their test scores as part of the unfair system?
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For many, it seems that there IS a recognition that classroom management, discipline, parental attitudes, attendance, respect, and many other areas of the affective domain cannot be quantified, accounted for, tested and put into a comparative data base. So, it is ignored.
This is the stuff that makes up the “unseen curriculum” and the demands on the teacher in a classroom. This can’t be factored in on an online or bubble test. So, it is ignored. Consequently, this is dealt with by replacing teachers periodically for “failing” to get achievement to grow, and ignoring the factors outside of the teachers’ control that impact learning.
Many resign, retire, or give up early on because the focus isn’t on children. Instead, the focus is on some amorphous “perfection” that won’t provide anything substantial for most students. And, at the same time, there is a movement to undermine higher education, even though that is where those with great PARCC scores should ostensibly wind up.
I don’t know where, how, when ANY of this conglomeration of misguided game playing will wind up. But, it is not for the benefit of the many … it may benefit the few. Unfortunately, many will crash and burn thanks to this absurd “experiment”.
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The behavior problems/disruptions are an across-the-board phenomenon. I have taught at an “academic” public high school and a parochial high school. Both of these institutions have (or had) the reputation of being a cut above, yet the classroom behavior worsens with each passing year. I have been teaching for seventeen years and have constantly updated my strategies to meet the needs of students. Dealing with disruptive, rude and checked-out kids last year almost caused me to quit. Classroom disruptions may be caused in part by ineffective teaching strategies, but I believe the greater problem is the over-stimulation of these kids thanks to non-stop internet access, and parents’ refusal to set boundaries with their offspring. Many of these young people do not understand the concept of having to work to achieve a desired result or apply themselves in order to succeed. They expect to be entertained in the classroom, and when things aren’t as much “fun” as they expect them to be, they become disruptive. Last time I checked, I had a teaching credential, not a membership in the Screen Actors’ Guild or Ringling Brothers Circus. It s infuriating.
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If the answer is better teaching strategies and/or questioning techniques, then Most Private schools would have similar problems with discipline. As someone who has actually taught in both environments during my 42 years of teaching, I can say the problems related to lack of student discipline are much too complex to solve with another professional development presentation from an “expert” who may have spent a couple years teaching in a school where discipline is an issue. I am NOT saying that professional development will not assist in solving this issue, but it must be done by professional educators who have experienced success over an extended period of time working in a classroom environment with similar issues. Unfortunately, the real solutions are very complex and will need a new paradigm shift in thinking and more importantly a need for much greater resources aimed at improving conditions in the schools, the Community, and most importantly the conditions in many homes. This effort will need Leaders at ALL levels with vision, courage, and perseverance because these Leaders will experience frustration, failures, and numerous attacks from some of the wealthiest and/or politically powerful people on our planet. Remember, those in positions of power and wealth will not give up this power and wealth and they will use their power and wealth to destroy all who threaten to change their authority. Let us look for critical thinkers who are creative and can find a solution that works for ALL of our children and thereby improves the long term future of our Democracy and the futures of our children and grandchildren so they may live in a better world.
I know there are more Theodore Roosevelt/Abraham Lincoln type individuals out there somewhere, we just need to find and support them when we find them.
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I agree with Katie Osgood’s comments. A thirty-six year career (14 at the middle school level) in an urban school system gave me lots of first hand experience with kids who were disruptive. I think with the punitive testing regime, inexperienced administrators (young, with not enough life experience, not yet parents, not classroom teachers for long, if at all) and rising poverty and its resultant trauma, teachers are at the flashpoint in their classrooms all day. Fewer and fewer resources and support services and larger class sizes fan those flames. Here’s an alternate scenario:
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Click on this link. It’s worth the time. Thanks for sharing Christine.
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It’s not the classrooms or the students that are typically the problem. It’s administrators who have ironclad job security who can and do treat teachers like dirt. Teachers are extremely hamstrung in doing their jobs for fear of being fired and blackmailed from the field.
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It should say blackballed in that post.
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The answer is that we have a shortage of leaders. Most legislators know nothing about public education, except that some of them are graduates of it. Beyond that. they answer to whoever funds their campaigns for re-election.
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As an educator of low SES minority students it is my responsibility to teach them. As much as I would like parents to be involved, it is not something that can be forced. My school-level administrators are extremely supportive and if I have a student that prevents educating from happening in the classroom they deal with it swiftly and thoroughly. I started this year with extremely small classroom size – 12-15 students per class. Excellent for management and one-on-one instruction. Unfortunately, the district-level administration decided to switch to a block schedule for English and Math only after the first marking period. Now my small, manageable, teachable classes are 25 students strong (some where moved to a “floater” teacher who teaches all grade levels). Management is much more time consuming and difficult to control. One-on-one instruction is impossible and my students are frustrated. I believe the solution for low SES minority students is small class sizes and teachers who realize it is a process that takes many years to turn around a failing district. The problem to getting those small class sizes is finding teachers who are willing to invest the time (YEARS) in those districts. I could go to a “better” district to teach but I’m not needed there. I’m needed where I am.
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Hi Kevin! I am pre-K/kindergarten teacher in a teacher in a Title 1 school, and I have been struggling with the same questions. I even wrote a blog post about this very topic yesterday, weirdly enough. I completely agree that we need to seriously talk about behavior and give teachers more support but that “no excuses” policies abandon the children who need the most help. Here’s my post, if anyone is interested: http://minnesotamaven.wordpress.com/2014/12/27/socialization-in-the-school-house/
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First, all students should receive a quality education in an environment conducive to mastery learning. Second. some students thrive in alternative high schools such as one in Great Neck that was organized 40 years ago. Third, some students thrive in an evening high school with personalized attention and day school faculty working part time. Fourth, some students need a great deal of social emotional support to adjust to day school. Fifth, all students thrive when their creativity and interests are engaged. Sixth, pervasive testing of 2 skills with exams set by uncaring psychometric specialists are killing USA public schools and driving up drop out rates.
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I have found that creating and maintaining relationships really helps in classroom management. Probably my biggest concern, however, is the enormous number of students with special needs in my classes. I sometimes have as many as a dozen students with IEPs in each class. Most of those students are not behavior problems, but I always have a couple in each class that, frankly, take more time to work with than I have when I have 35 students in a class. I really need more support for those kids. I DO NOT blame the special education teachers–they are stretched way too thin. We need more support personnel to help these kids–both in and out of class. All we get is more and more kids put in our classes. Teachers aren’t being hired because there is no money. We are told to “differentiate,” but not told how or given any support to do so. How do I differentiate for 35 kids, 12 of whom need specialized instruction?
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Excellent comments from all of you!
Another simple solution would be to actually check what types of students are in a particular class. I don’t know how many years I’ve had a section of 22-23 boys with 7-8 girls. Other classrooms aren’t this skewed – needless to say, the male hormones do sometimes cause the boys to want to one-up each other… I haven’t had “bad” behavior, but it certainly takes longer to get work done… I’m thankful that my guys aren’t mean spirited fellas, and when I really need them to be on their best behavior (I.e. when my husband was really sick & I was worried about him, & when I had to be gone for my father’s funeral), these guys were wonderful! This same type of problem exists when major known troublemakers are all in the same class – how does this happen? It would be so simple for administrators to check class lists and make changes before the school year even begins. All this requires is a little bit of time & compassion for both the students & the teachers!
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All of your responses were outstanding! I find myself going back and rereading them again. If you talk to older retired teachers, many of them say that when the paddle was removed from the school there was no fear anymore. Looking back over my entire career (I started in the fall of 1985), I have found that many students (not all) are much, much harder to teach. Many teachers that I have taught with over the years have attributed it to instant gratification due to video games, then the Internet, and now texting and the cell phone. I have especially noticed over my 30 year career that students just do not have the attention spans they once had. There are times I have repeated something in my classroom 4 or 5 times, and very few of my students even comprehended that I said it (in a quiet classroom). It is real reassuring that our livelihoods will be dependent on test scores of many kids who tune out regularly.
Discipline problems and lack of administrative support, I believe, are why teachers have left the classroom in the past. Now, we have all of this constant test prep and teacher evaluation systems added to an already unbearably stressful job. My husband and I have both dedicated our lifetimes to education, but we would never allow our two children to enter this suffering profession. I’ve said it many times, but I worry about the younger teachers. I don’t know how they will survive the extreme stress and constant turmoil along with low pay and the decline of their health. The evil ones have stolen our profession.
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Sad Teacher,
I witnessed the same decline from 1975 – 2005. Before 1983, the majority of my students—75% or more—-earned C’s or better and most of the homework was turned in on time. By the time I retired in 2005, that number was down dramatically and less than 5% of my students turned in the homework on a regular basis. The failure rate ran between 30 – 50% with probably a dozen As spread among 175 students in five classes. Grades were based on work done and not on test results. No one learns from tests.
Over the years, to compensate for short attention spans and leaky memories, I arrived at least an hour or more early everyday to write directions for the assignments on the board and there was one spot where I wrote the schedule for the day and reminders for homework due that week that I read every day right after I took role. With a yardstick in hand, I tapped the board where this information was written and read it loudly—every day. Then I’d ask students at random what was due and when all before the lesson of the day was started.
I required students to write the directions on the board on the assignment and graded off if the directions were not there.
But every time I collected an assignment, there would always be students who would accuse me of not telling them anything about the work or when it was due—with the weekly information still on the board that had been there for days as they told me this.
In addition, there were students who wouldn’t know what the class was doing after I read the directions, had the students copy them down and asked if there were any questions. It was not uncommon that a half hour later, I’d notice a student or two asking their neighbors what the heck we were doing.
Complains about writing the directions down were an epidemic that never stopped. They wanted me to copy the directions on a copy machine and hand them out. I refused.
Then there were the gang members who did nothing but fill sheet after sheet with gang graffiti—maybe their gang’s leader had assigned that as an assignment related to gang work. Most of those who belonged to gangs never brought books, seldom brought paper or even pens or pencils to class. The street gang culture I knew looked down on students who actually studied and learned.
To avoid the gang culture, my classroom was often a haven for geeks who preferred playing chess, working on assignments and eating lunch away from the popular anti-learning crowd that required the school to have a squad car from the local police on campus at lunch every day where the gangs could see the two officer.
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Lloyd, I want you to know how much I enjoy reading your writings. When we look over a span of years like that, we definitely see that things have gone way downhill. Many students (not all) just do not want to put the hours into their work anymore. It is hard for teachers because we directly absorb all of the stress. There are times I wake up at 3 AM with my mind racing, and I cannot get back to sleep. It is so sad that the profession of teaching is no longer respected by the legislators who now control everything. We have given education the very best years of our lives. Thanks again, Lloyd! Keep writing!!!
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I know all about losing sleep. I lost a lot of sleep especially after 1983 when the war on public education was informally declared by Ronald Reagan after the release of the flawed and fraud of A Nation at Risk. Teachers were under constant attack by administration and politicians. If students misbehaved, teachers were blamed and we were accused of having no control. If students failed our classes because they didn’t study or do the work, teachers were blamed because we didn’t motivate the students.
And the legislatures and administration kept coming up with more demands and adding more responsibility to our already busy workload.
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Ah Lloyd. I could not teach today. Leaky memories.
I would like to say, that for one brief and shining moment I was part of an experiment in the public schools of NYC that worked. Our teachers collaborated, and ensured that we were all on the same page as to the WORK that was expected.
From 1990 until 1998, I was the 7th grade teacher at a NYC middle school that interviewed and selected the students who would attend each year. That did not mean we picked only the top students, although we did look for youngsters who could read our science and humanities texts. We helped kids who struggled to catch up to par for the grade, but as the real National Standards explained, effort-based education depended on clear expectations, and this means that students and their parents who applied to the school, understood the WORK ETHIC that was expected.
There were no cell phones in the nineties. I do not know what I would do today to compete with the distractions, but in that place, kids worked hard, and knew that failure to do the work, meant lack of practice, and this effected their memory and their performance.
Thinking skills were practiced. My colleague coined the phrase ‘wideawakeness’ and we all made it clear that just sitting in a class would not ensure a big grade, that repetition and review was crucial to remembering and thus homework offered that practice.
Application of learning was something else, and it was rewarded. Performance assessment was CLEAR to parents and kids.
yes, the school was on the east side of Manhattan, and 50% of our kids came from homes where parents grasped what was expected (otherwise why would they apply for a seat in the classes.) But the other 50% came from the entire city, and kids of all flavors came to learn… and the kids and the parents FROM DAY ONE…were shown what LEARANING LOOKS LIKE…what genuine achievement looked like.
Our school became the top middle school in the city.
Yes… I had 13 year old kids who needed reminders of the expectations, but PARENTS were involved from day one… THAT IS THE FACTOR THAT CHANGED EVERYTHING.
I can recall only a few real problem children each year, and the staff support services helped as best they could to assist the teacher to reach these kids, but never before had I taught in a place where all 8 principles of learning were in play. Perhaps, that is why, when Pew and Harvard were looking for the 12th district in the research to be conducted by the LRDC, they picked this school and my seventh grade practice as the cohort.
My heart goes out to the teachers who write here, who demonstrate that learning is disabled from the get-go, on so many levels.
Sigh!
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Susan, I sure enjoy your writings too. Lloyd and you are so intelligent and informative. Yes, I am so sad to report that many high schools allow students to have their cell phones out in class and allow them to be on their phones during class while the teacher lectures. I have told my daughter that she is never to have her phone on or out during the school day ever – let alone during a teacher’s lesson. She told me that she only looks at her cell during lunch and after school. It is all sad what teachers are forced to go through these days. Thanks again, Susan, for all of your wonderful writings.
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Lloyd,
I wish my child could have someone with your teaching style as a teacher. In my district, I have been told more than once by people in administrative positions that we are moving towards not have homework count toward the grade. They are actually going to tell teachers the only thing that will count toward the class grade is that the student has “mastered” the “standard”.
The example they gave showed a student failing the lab portion of a science class but acing the exams. Many parents agreed that it was not fair that this hypothetical student got a low grade (do to the lab portions, homework and class participation). I wonder how someone can master a science class such as chemistry without learning and demonstrating proper lab techniques. Maybe it’s a money saving measure ?
I worry that most students need to do homework in order to truly master a subject and if it is optional, most won’t do it. I think these students will have a hard time once they reach a class that they cannot easily ace. I also wonder if the students who do show mastery easily, will not have the depth of understanding.
I hope I am wrong and my reaction is just a resistance to change.
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The dumbing down of America has been on track for decades and there are too many parents concerned for their child’s self esteem until the child reaches 18 and has to earn a living—until then those parents, who are very loud and combative, are more concerned with the child feeling good than learning something.
Then when the child doesn’t do well in the job market, the parents and the child blames the teachers they pressured into dumbing down learning.
I actually had one honest parent of the more than 6,000 students I taught come back to me after her son graduated from high school and she admitted she had made a mistake to transfer her son out of my 9th grade college prep English class to a teacher who only gave A’s and B’s and even let his students grade their own assignments, so her son would feel good and boost his (false) sense of self-esteem.
But by the that one parent woke up, it was too late for her son.
Of course, this isn’t the only reason that the schools are dumbing down teaching and learning. A Nation at Risk and the testing culture have created an education environment that inflates grades to make schools look good while ignoring the fact that children are not doing the work and studying.
Children are not that stupid but they are ignorant. If children sense they can play their parents off against the system so they can have more fun and less work, they will manipulate everyone—-and they do!
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Lloyd, are you saying you had only 1 honest parent out of the more than 6,000 students you taught? Not sure what you are saying so I wanted to clarify.
For what it’s worth, I began teaching in fall, 1970, working with the 50 middle school students that the Minneapolis (district) schools most wanted out of the regular schools. They all had criminal reports, many had been found guilty of assault and some assault with a deadly weapon. 49 of the 50 came from very low income, multi troubled families. But the faculty were able to reach the vast majority.
In about 14 years of working with inner city youngsters, I found 90-95 % of the families were very eager and supportive of the teachers.
Joe
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No. She was the only one who stopped by several years later and deliberately told me she was wrong and should have left her son in my class. She said this only after he was in college and struggling because no one had challenged him. She was worried he was going to give up and drop out of college.
In comparison, there were several combative parents every year who wanted to boost their child’s self esteem over learning. These parents blamed me for their child’s failing grade even when the child was doing no work and had a, for instance, doing less than 25% of the work. The way I weighted my grades, it was possible to pass my class on classwork alone but to earn a higher grade, that required the homework. It was also possible to earn an A without taking the final exam. There were alternative assignments called extra credit and these voluntary assignments that were designed to actually help students learn usually equaled 30% of the total grade.
It was not uncommon to have a student earn an A+ with a 130%+ average because that one student out of 175 did everything and even took the final exam when they were excused from it just to see what they could earn on it.
We can’t compare your experience in teaching with mine. We worked in two different states with different student populations. I don’t recall having that many supportive parents when it came to children who were not cooperating. They were difficult to reach and almost impossible to gain support from.
There were also the C, B, and A students who were consistency earning those grades. Although I didn’t see many of their parents, it can be assumed that they were supportive.
Parent conference night average 15 – 25 parents—mostly from students doing the work and passing—when the average number of students a teacher worked with was 175 – 200 with fail rates usually running in the 30% to 50% range with constant pressure from administration to get the success rate up to a C or higher. Some teachers cracked under that pressure and stopped failing students all together. Others lowered the passing rate to 50% or 40% or even as low as 30%.
One teacher started preaching that we should give every student a handicap and excuse half of the assignments when computing grades. He said it was only fair. Only his daughter-in-law, who also taught at the same high school–followed his advice.
If we really want children to learn, those children msut do be engaged, cooperate, do the reading and the work. Just because they refuse to do the homework, that doesn’t mean we should stop giving it.
Who are the parents—the child?
Who are teachers—the child?
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Thanks for clarifying.
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You are welcome. I think we can learn something from our experiences as teachers. Every state, district, school and classroom is not standard in anyway and because of that standardization will fail miserably and cause a lot of damage to Americans public schools, children, parents and teachers.
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due not do
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reading for context/content usually corrects for due/do, blue/blew, too/to/two, their/there/they’re etc.
And while fingers race across the key board in a rush to get things done and move on, those fingers create typos.
:o)
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Excellent post, Lloyd. I, too, have noticed a significant decline in taking responsibility for one’s learning. Learning requires effort on the part of the learner. There was a time when personal responsibility in our classrooms was a strong presence. Unfortunately, we are living in a culture where the buck stops nowhere. Except maybe in the hands of the 1%.
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I started teaching in 1975, and I can testify that personal responsibility existed before the age of “A Nation at Risk”, NCLB, RTTT, and the Common Core Standards that exist because of the lies and fraud that followed all four.
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I’m concerned by some of the comments about students and homework. As a teacher, I’ve always taken the approach that I have to teach the students I have rather than the students I want. I also believe that it is critical to match instruction styles to the students – meaning that I consider both what they need and what they are willing to do. When it becomes clear that many or most of your students will not (for some reason) do their homework, sticking to your guns by continuing to use homework as a significant instruction and evaluation tool doesn’t benefit anyone. Yes, the homework may be the best tool, but only if students actually do it. Sometimes it’s necessary to use a less effective approach if it means reaching more students. And, to be honest, I generally find that once I’ve engaged the students in this way, it becomes easier to transition them back to what I wanted them to do in the first place because I’ve earned their trust. It just takes a little time.
I think it’s also dangerous to equate failure to complete homework with laziness. To me it’s an indication that the students see more value in other things which I take to mean that I’ve failed to make my lesson/homework meaningful. (Not all students place value in a GPA, after all.). Having taught in high poverty areas, I also know that many home environments are simply not conducive to doing homework (maybe there aren’t any supplies, maybe the students had to care for siblings or sick parents, maybe they don’t have a quiet place to work…). Sometimes it is pure laziness, but automatically blaming the student is unfair.
As for homework being necessary to leaning, I will share my own experience. I am a heavily auditory learner. Explain something to me and I can generally both recall and apply it. Because of that I was a horrible student. I never did my homework because, frankly, it was a waste of time for me. Activities like writing something down or practicing 50 times didn’t appreciably improve my understanding or retention, but did REALLY frustrate me. Yet despite not doing my homework, I always did well on tests. Speaking to the comment about labs, I also did well on most in class applications – as long as someone else was responsible for writing down the results.
Now with that said, I realize that my preference for auditory learning is not very common. I’ve also mellowed with age and recognize that a little extra practice is usually helpful or at least usually doesn’t hurt. My point is that not all students need the same things to learn, so we shouldn’t be so quick to punish the non-conformers. It may be that they just need something else
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I disagree.
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I made several claims in there, with which one do you disagree? Or is it that you disagree with the overall perspective? I guess the question ultimately boils down to your views on the role of education. I’ve taught with colleagues at both the k-12 and post secondary levels who legitimately believed they as teachers had the responsibility to ‘prepare students for the harsh realities of life’ – which generally ended up looking like the ‘no excuses’ approach popular in some circles. In that context, establishing authority and bending the students to it makes sense. I’ve had others who take the more apologistic stance – acknowledging that some students have been unfortunately dealt a bad hand, but rationalizing that there is only so much that can be done for them. Generally this involves a lot of ‘expectation calibration’, a reasonable amount of personal attention, and some ‘individualizing’ of the curriculum. And, I’ve had colleagues in the ‘criticalist’ camp who believe that education is less about the specific curriculum and more about helping students develop the tools they need to recognize and overcome oppression (a la Freire) so that they can ultimately have fulfilling lives. These folks tend to emphasize critical analysis and reflection, and give students a fair amount of (structured) freedom to explore and apply the curriculum in a way closely connected to the students’ individual needs and goals. Obviously I fall into the latter group, and i personally believe that blaming students for not meeting our expectations is tantamount to blaming the victim for being victimized. With that said, I also recognize that some students can manipulate the system to take advantage of this if you let them. I also recognize that there are some students you simply won’t be able to reach within the limits of the semester/year that you have with them. I still think that it’s our moral obligation to never stop trying. Again, that’s my opinion. There are other views that are just as valid – perhaps even more so.
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I’m not going to get into a debate—that can take hours. I don’t have time right now. However, if you want to discover what kind of a teacher I was and find what I would probably say that way, that’s easy. Let me invite you into my classroom.
http://crazynormal.com/
In 1994-95, I kept a daily journal that focused on my classroom and my students. Everyday when I got home, the first thing I did was write an entry for that journal.
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Just ordered a copy!
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Dear Lloyd, I have only been writing her for 3 months, and reading everything each day. Within a very short time I knew who you were, heard the voice of authenticity, and knew the talent, education and expertise that you must have brought to your classroom. The authentic, experienced professional knows when an equals in the room. I am not comparing myself to you as an equal, but as an authentic professional who knows the truth.
Anyone who challenges such a person to a debate, is only interested in touting an opinion, and enhancing his own esteem. Debating with such people is futile, as such folks are of the same opinion yet; nothing changes their view… we see them in Congress and on TV, endless talking heads with nothing new to ad to the real conversation.
You are wise not to debate. Better things to do!
Happy New Year, Lloyd! My life is enhanced by knowing you, even if it is in cyberspace.
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Thank you.
I’m well aware of the debater who is only interested in hearing his own voice and resorts to endless logical fallacies in their arguments—they almost always also see themselves as the judge, jury and executioner while ignoring the fact that there is an audience out there watching and many in the audience actually think for themselves and make up their own minds. Not everyone in the United States is a ditto head listening to Rush Limbaugh who has even called his fans ditto heads and that he will do the thinking for them.
I think that Bill Gates, the Koch brothers, the Walton family, Eli Broad, the Hedge Fund billionaires, Como, etc. all think the same way as the arguer who relies on logical fallacies instead of facts.
When I engage in a debate with anyone in a public forum, I’m thinking of the audience and do my best to present facts that will inform so they may make an informed decision. I think a written debate on a forum like this one is much better than an on-the-spot oral debate on camera.
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Hey Lloyd,
I take long road-trips to Florida, because I kayak and must carry the craft with me, and so I listen to audio tapes. I get them from the library ,and I took, for one trip, Al Franken’s “Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them.” Written before Glenn beck and the current mendacious pundits took to the air, he nails the mendacity. It is really sometimes to hear, as he took time off and used Harvard to research everything he says here. His lice annoys me, after a while, but the story that unfolds is the one that continues today, as everyone with an opinion and the backing of the billionaires, gets to alter reality, at least when they speak. The liars I hear on tv as I travel reveal the truth about our nation.
I am also, reading “Truth,” by Senator Franken, also written long ago.
What strikes me today, as we have this conversation about the huge egos who puff themselves up by joining serious discussions, is what I read about climate change, in the winter edition of Sierra News,” (which offers the most recent published articles, in The NewYork Times, Nature and other serious venues, and gives us the truth about climate change. I would link it here, but I cannot find a link).
There is no controversy about what has happened, or what it portends, not among the professionals who know the truth and the science.
The current ‘controversy’ is engineered by talking heads and politicians bought and paid for by the same death merchants and robber barons who are destroying the public education system. What is also clear, is there is a vast conspiracy which has as its goal —-income inequality– and these barons are ending the middle class; ending education for the middle class is the top order of the day.
We know who is doing the deed, and how they use the media to attain it.
Do not miss this Moyers piece on the New Gilded age:
http://billmoyers.com/2014/12/19/web-extra-new-robber-barons/
Facts are facts and truth is truth, and the world is not flat, and at 1 degree of change, Greenland’s ice is disappearing, and a piece of ice 3 miles taller than the Empire State building and 13 the size of Manhattan, broke away. Fact.
The truth according to the scientists, is that 2 degrees is an arbitrary number, because the great tundra is melting and as it does, it passes its methane into the already warming air. 3 degrees is pure disaster, and means food insecurity for the world, and a future that looks dire!
All this as we argue here about the public schools! The facts– what is occurring — , the observable reality is clear.
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We seem to have moved a bit away from Kevin’s original post. To bring it back to that, without ignoring some of the other streams that have been added, we should perhaps pock up on this business of truth. Without too much hair-splitting, there are some truths that are fairly objective, that people of common sense can verify and agree on. So I am, in my bare feet, either five feet nine inches in height, give or take half an inch, or I am not. It’s rather black-and-white.
When we move away from the objective things that we and others can directly observe, including measure, for ourselves, we begin to enter gray areas. There are reported facts, that might or might not be true. We tend, in such cases, to overly rely on the consensus in the mainstream media or on the alleged consensus of “experts”.
But the first kind of consensus may vary tremendously, depending on the country we live in — as seen most clearly for two countries at war or in warlike opposition. Most wars are started with justifications based on “facts” that later turn out to have been manufactured or distorted to serve a prior agenda,. And the consensus, even about what should be objective and verifiable events, may also vary within a country.
As for “experts”– we might, with quite a bit of justification, have some respect for the consensus of scientists, seeing that the sciences are, in theory, fields where there is no authority and all things are subject to challenge. Of course, in practice, this is often not the case. But when we move from the natural sciences to such a field as education, then anyone who has taught awhile in the schools in this country should have realized that the consensus of the “experts” appears to be very far removed from the reality one encounters in the schools.
So when we enter the arena of the social sciences, we see that the “truth”, as it is conventionally portrayed, becomes a rather nebulous entity, being as much opinion as it is objective reality — indeed, too often, much more of the former.
Nevertheless, one of the things that has always amazed me is how far the “truth” about the schools, as portrayed by the media and accepted by the establishment elite in this country (be they to the “social” left or to the “right” politically) — how far this tends to be from the reality as observed by those who work in the schools and pay the situations there true attention — rather than dismissing much of what they see with a cynical shrug or wave of the hand.
Kevin brought up one aspect — just one, but nevertheless an important one — of that reality as teachers and students experience firsthand in the schools. So he lifted the covers just a bit on what is usually hidden away under verbiage or denial.
One might perhaps understand how our distant foreign wars, such as the ones in Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq and elsewhere, begin and go on with such devastation, primarily for the people of the region but also for our troops. Too often, there is little realization, within the country, of the background history or the current reality in those distant killing fields. This disconnect is apparent, for those who by chance or intent are more informed, in what our leaders say, what the media reports and what the general public believes.
It is somewhat harder to understand how the news (or even olds) of what goes on in a typical public school, in a borough right across the East river from the current headquarters of the New York City Department of Education in Manhattan, never seems to reach the upper floors of those headquarters — let alone the offices of the New York Times, which has reporters spread all over the globe, but none, apparently, reporting on what average teachers might have to say about the state of the schools in that august newspaper’s own home city. This has been the situation since I first started teaching here, 27 years ago.
But I think that both the foreign wars and the state of the schools (which are now besieged, from the zeal and clout of the misguided “reformists”, much as war-zones might be) are in large part a result of the systematic filtering or distortion of the truth at every level in the established hierarchies. The authorized viewpoints and policies, along with the associated directives and orders, are passed down these hierarchies, and, for the most part, the minions obey, or give the semblance of obedience. The “bad news” — the basic human intelligence that might serve to correct or modify the viewpoints or policies, never gets to bubble up, being filtered out at each level.
Until robust feedback mechanisms are established that ensure a bidirectional flow of information, there is little hope of altering the reality that prevails in the schools for the better. I do not mean by this the current nonsensical “data-driven” agenda, but rather a genuine, ongoing conversation, with reward and punishment set aside and basic respect put in its place. This will not, of course, happen by itself. Forums such as these are a start.
As we can now more clearly see, there are potent forces that have created what is, that prevent what is from being realistically communicated and and that also are intent on creating new situations that are claimed to be an improvement on what was, but rarely are.
But going into that that would take me away from what should perhaps be the main topic here in this current discussion, which Kevin clearly touched on and which, in more general terms, has been alluded to in the comments.
That subject is no less than the truth — — and the portrayal (or betrayal) of the truth.
And yes, there are objective truths, even in human affairs, that people of sound heart and mind can directly observe and agree on.
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I perused quickly, you wonderful, erudite response.
I am pressed for time, so I do not have a chance to continue this conversation, but I must say that it is touching the minds of people like you which is the greatest pleasure derived from this site..
In a world where the static and noise that emerge from people’s mouths, finding a place where clarity of though prevails, and erudition is the norm, is a great joy.
I admit, that at OEN, where I write and receive the daily newsletter (as a member) there are brilliant conversations about the most important issues of the day, but no one talks about education. How sad, that the publisher feels that ‘schools’ are a topic that he doesn’t feel as connected to as to the other, more important ones.
Sigh….but he is beginning to pay attention now that I post Diane’s blogs.
Thank you again for your insight and clarity, humble teacher… you have nothing to be humble about.
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Everything is a theory until overwhelming facts prove what is probably the truth. But talking heads like Limbaugh and Beck call theories facts.
What should have been clearly identified as a theory or opinion, is now being called the truth with little or no facts to support it and it seems too many people not accept opinions as truth without facts.
Isn’t it true that the sky is green and not blue?
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My entire circle of friends from high school through adulthood through teaching was/is filled with people who I thought I knew … but when I discovered Glenn Beck one afternoon and made the mistake of saying I thought he was a clown, buffoon, liar, and a disgrace, I then found myself with those people keeping me at an arm’s length. I was shocked. I only said what I did because I couldn’t believe the baloney he was spewing out of his mouth. I didn’t know who he was. I just could see that he was smirking and laughing all the way to the bank. He has since been denounced by some, but many still see “truth” in his words.
I grew up in the Bible belt. I have always gone to church until recently. But, honestly, the closed-mindedness and strange supposedly “literal” interpretation of the Bible that some people embrace makes me run to the hillside and let out a scream (figuratively). And, these people want to run the schools. We have this to deal with in addition to the PARCC, Peason, CC mess. Our “governor” claims to be a literal believer of the Bible … and “rules” this way. But, one of his phrases is, “Get on the bus or I will run over you.” That is a truly Christian perspective. He is pro charter, by the way. His kids attend private school.
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Did you know that Glenn Beck is a Mormon and he tithes to his church? Forbes magazine estimated Beck’s net worth at $90 million and that would be after the Mormon Church took out its 10% of Beck’s gross earnings.
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Yes, I did know those things about him. However, it doesn’t change the fact that he is a fabricator, a snake oil salesman, a clown, a charlatan or a prevaracator with a chalkboard and a three-corner hat. I learned a lot about him AFTER I learned that he wouldn’t know the truth if it spat on him. I just shake my head. I don’t know how anyone can look at him and not see through him. He is like a giant child.
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I think Abraham Lincoln explained it all with: “You can fool all the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time.”
There are always going to be some ignorant fools and a few of those fools will defend their ignorant views to the death.
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Deb, I’m Jewish, and our kids attended urban public schools, k-12. There are a variety of supporters of the charter approach, as there are a variety of supporters of Head Start – including both liberals and conservatives.
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Okay. I am non-denominational believer, a centrist, a realist, a person that puts community esp in the schools above self. My kids went to public k-12 schools, too.
Your point?
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My point had to do with the attempt to tie charters to conservatives. Other than posting her, what are you doing to help improve public schools? Same question for Lloyd and anyone else who cares to answer.
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What am I doing to improve the public schools? I taught for thirty years in the public schools and retired in 2005, so this question does not apply to me. I put in my time—the 60 to 100 hour weeks.
A better question: What should be done to improve the public schools?
1. Equal finding for all public schools in the United States from a more reliable source of public funding.
2. A National early childhood education program that is kept in the public schools and not turned over to for-profit or non-profit corporations and companies—model this program and what the French have been doing for more than thirty years. Results in France = poverty rate of 15% in 1970 now less than 7%.
3. Model all teacher training on urban residency teacher training where teachers earn their teaching credential in a five year university program and the last year is as an full time intern for an entire school year in a master teachers classroom.
4. After a new teacher has their own classroom, the teacher training program follows up for at least one year with support.
5. All schools are run by teachers as they are in Finland.
Note: In 1975-76, I earned my teaching credential in a fifth year of college several years after earning my BA in journalism and working in the private sector in a corporate middle management position, and during that fifth year of college I took classes and interned full time in a paid position with a 5th grade master teacher in her classroom for one full school year.
Then in 1978-79, after substitute teaching in six or seven public school districts every day for two full school years, I was hired by a principal who let the teachers run the school. He organized the teachers in co-op teams and then he stepped back and supported the decisions for those teams 100%—-very similar to the original Charter school concept.
That lasted from 1978 -1982 for four years. It was the best way to run a school. And that is what Ralph Pagan had been hired to do to turn around a middle school with the worst reputation in the San Gabriel Valley. Pagan succeeded in spite of pressure from district administration to lead from the top down that he refused to do.
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What are you doing other then posting on the internet to help make any of those things happen?
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Are you suggesting that at almost 70, I should go back to school and work with students again? I don’t have any idea what you are implying, and I don’t think Diane would appreciate it if I voiced what I’m thinking right now about your insulting question.
I’ve served my country enough, and I refuse to serve it again. I worked for 45 years to earn the right to stay home and do what I want until I drop dead.
I was born into a family that lived in poverty with parents who both dropped out of HS at 14 and never graduated. If it wasn’t for my dad joining a labor union and then working in construction for about half of his life, we would never have left poverty.
Out of HS, I joined the Marines and fought in Vietnam coming home with a bad case of PTSD. And because I have a service related disability linked to combat in Vietnam, the VA is my medical provider.
I was fifteen when I started my first job working nights and weekends washing dishes while going to school days M – F. I have never collected one unemployment check in my life and never was on food stamps.
Out of the Marines and with help from the GI Bill, I was the first and only member of my immediate family to go to college and then spent the last 30 years as a public school teacher in schools with a childhood poverty rate of 70% or more with only an 8% white student population. In total, starting at age 15, I worked for 45 years of my life in a job.
How dare you insinuate that I haven’t done enough be challenging me with that question.
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I am not suggesting anything other than asking what you are doing. I was asking what besides posting you are doing to help make some things happen. My experience is that if you want to accomplish things in schools, communities and legislatures, you have to do more than write about it.
It’s a free country – which you have fought for (as I recall in the Marines) and I by alternative service with youngsters who were pushed out of traditional schools and in making cases, thought just 12-14 years old, were guilty of assault with deadly weapons. And I’ve been involved in civil rights marches and activities since the mid 1960’s.
I will note that name calling and verbal bullying here has discouraged some thoughtful people from posting different views here. Too bad.
You’ve communicated clearly what you currently are doing. Thank you.
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I will leave the street protests up to others. I do not do well in crowds and, thanks to the PTSD, avoid them. I’ll stick to the writing.
I liked the idea I saw in another one of your comments to another person in this thread about judging schools based on, in part, by teacher retention—during the first five years.
If that were implemented, Eva Moskowitz’s Charter chain would soon be swept out with the rest of the garbage along with Teach for America and we might see more full time, year long internships, because the retention rate of urban residency teachers at the 4 – 5 year mark is 84% – 86%.
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Lloyd, I’ll stand by my comment. One of the ways to judge schools is their ability to retain students and faculty. Not the only way, but one.
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I think it is a good suggestion to add that to the list of methods to judge schools—by student and teacher retention.
Test scores should be no more than 10% of the evaluation, and those scores should only come from the students who were with a teacher/school for most of the school year. For instance, students that have ten or more school days of absences in the current academic year or ten or more school days of absences in the previous academic year would not be counted in the evaluation.
Multiple observations by different stake holders should count the most—by administrators, parents, students, and fellow teachers—and each cohort evaluation equal to the others.
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I second Lloyd’s suggestion (and Nathans’) that teacher and student retention should be a measure of a school’s (or school system’s) success. As for student testing, teacher evaluations, etc., while there may be a legitimate role for these, in the current crazed atmosphere, the best advice I could give would be: COOL IT!
We need to lower the temperature or pressure or whatever other metaphor is fit in the schools.
This does not mean laxity. To each season, there is an appropriate response.
In the current season in the schools, in the current atmosphere, with “Race to the Top” being perhaps the figurative motif that spurs much of what’s been happening, mostly punitive and destructive, in the public schools, leading to the forced or defeated exits of so many good teachers — in this environment, what is needed is a slowing of the pace and a relaxation of the unproductive pressures.
Teaching, learning, creativity — these cannot truly proceed in an environment that is at core hostile to all of these, focused only on appearances and criteria on which the schools, teachers and students are going to be judged and punished.
Lloyd made some good suggestions about evaluations, which, if implemented, might serve to improve the situation in the schools. But one also needs to lower the stakes. Imagine if parents and children were being constantly evaluated and punished for not meeting arbitrary and constantly changing criteria devised by folk such as Ms. Danielsson (“highly effective” to “ineffective” parenting) and the Gates Foundation (with Common Core Learning Standards for children assessed by periodic exams)? Would we want to live in such a country? Would family life still be bearable and enjoyable? Would children learn anything worthwhile? Would parents be able to teach them anything of value?
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When I woke up early this morning, I changed my mind about tests being part of a teacher’s evaluation
Tests should NOT be part of evaluating teachers. Tests should be created by teachers who then use the results to evaluate their teaching and what the students are learning and then adjust as needed. That’s what I did when I was teaching. In fact, when I was correcting an assignment, the results would often alert me that I had to reteach something in a different way and I often did.
Teachers can’t do that when they are teaching to a script and being kept to a tight lock step schedule and I think it was Bill Gates who wants to install video cameras in classrooms as another way to make sure teachers stick to the script written by someone who has taught little or not at all.
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Lloyd, I just don’t get it? Why are you engaging with this blowhard?
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I think it is important to continue to have dialogs open between teachers who support traditional public schools (with reservations, as most have who have worked in them for decades) and those who support charter schools (again, with reservations, if they are honest dealers).
One should point out, however, that the forces arrayed in favor of charters currently greatly outgun those in favor of traditional public schools, with the federal government (Duncan and Obama), the state governments (including even nominally Democratic governors such as our Andrew Cuomo here in NY state, and many state legislators, especially Republicans) and city governments (such as our former mayor Bloomberg of NY cIty) bearing down forcefully in support of charters, with all the means at their disposal, and of course the hedge funds and other big financial interests doing the same, with much of the media also employed in a campaign to malign not only the traditional public schools, but also the teachers who work in them. The teaching profession, already beleaguered, has been thrown into a crisis, and those who have always been against organized labor have been using the charter movement to break what little is left of this in this country, part of a well-financed campaign with a clear agenda. It is with this background in mind that some of us come to forums like this.
In all fairness, one should also point out that Joe Nathan does not seem to be the typical ignorant newbie who has caustic opinions about teachers and the public schools. I do not know his financial ties to the charter movement — he did offer a sketch — but he seems to have been involved in the charter movement for a very long time. As Lloyd has pointed out, one needs to distinguish between charters and charters. The hijacking of the movement away from its original intent by the big money crowd is what most of us who participate in these discussions on Diane’s blog are against.
While Joe seems to agree with Lloyd and others that teachers (and perhaps also parents) should be in charge at schools, rather than what now obtains in both traditional public schools and most charters, he is unwilling to hold charters to the same standards or criteria that have been used to vilify the poorer-performing traditional public schools and the teachers who work in them.
As Diane Ravitch has repeatedly pointed out, this “poor performance” is highly correlated with socio-economic factors such as poverty, rather than with the quality of the teachers in the schools. Of course, over time, many good teachers choose to exit such schools (although many others choose to stay) but this could be remedied by providing support and respect rather than the proposed (and put into effect) punitive systems being now put in place.
One could go on….
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Thanks for commenting, aht
Actually, I’d like to hold all schools to a broader array of expectations, and see many more opportunities for educators to create new options either within traditional districts or outside of them. I’d like to see much more decision – making at the local school level, so long as there is monitoring about how $ are spent and what’s happening with students.
We’ve worked with a variety of groups including teacher unions to help make that happen in a number of traditional districts.
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“the poorer-performing traditional public schools and the teachers who work in them”
How do you judge schools as poorer-performing?
Did you know that when the PISA test scores are broken down into six socioeconomic levels, the poorer students in the US outperform almost every OECD nation for the three lowest socioeconomic levels, and when we compare simliar ratios of children living in poverty, our students rank 1st in every comparison at the same ratio/level with other countries—-even Finland?
For instance, “Poor ranking on international test misleading about U.S. student performance, Stanford researcher finds”
“There is an achievement gap between more and less disadvantaged students in every country; surprisingly, that gap is smaller in the United States than in similar post-industrial countries, and not much larger than in the very highest scoring countries. Achievement of U.S. disadvantaged students has been rising rapidly over time, while achievement of disadvantaged students in countries to which the United States is frequently unfavorably compared – Canada, Finland and Korea, for example – has been falling rapidly.”
http://news.stanford.edu/news/2013/january/test-scores-ranking-011513.html
My question is, why are the corporate reformers ignoring THESE facts and sticking to the overall average for the comparisons they make?
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You make good points, Lloyd, and more people should know about the data. I did say “poorer performing” rather than “poor performing” and I meant relative to the other schools in this country, not elsewhere, as judged by “performance standards” that are highly flawed but are being used to justify the closure of such schools throughout this country. .
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I think the data that the fake corporate reformers used is flawed and that if an effort was made to provide more support to teachers in those schools, that would lead to better results than firing the teachers and taking over or closing those public schools.
I’ve often said that if we swapped teachers from a school rated as failing that had a high childhood poverty rate with a school in an fluent white community rated high performing, the scores would stay with the schools after the teacher swap. I wonder if anyone has done this experiment.
In fact, Bill Gates should have funded an experiment like this instead of the hundreds of millions of dollars he wasted in his smaller HS experiment that failed.
I think most if not all poor performing schools are due to more with poverty and it has little or nothing to do with the quality of teachers.
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I was on unpaid family leave (for parents in California) for six years from the NY City school system. During that time, whenever I could return to NY City, in order to try to pay my rent and expenses here, I subbed day-to-day as a sub teacher (and for one term, right at the end, as a sub para-professional) in a number of schools in Brooklyn, where I live. So I got to see a great many teachers and students, especially following my assigned student for the day from classroom to classroom as a para.. Even when I was subbing as a teacher, I was often the second teacher in the classroom.
What I saw and heard confirms everything you say, Lloyd, in your post. I perhaps was able to avoid the “most troubled” schools. But from what I saw, if you exchanged teachers between the “better” schools and the “worse” ones, there might not have been much of a difference in the outcome, except perhaps a temporary negative effect from the dislocation and need for readjustment. I should also note that I encountered no “incompetent” teachers. There were a few (whom I still remember and can count on the fingers of one hand, out of the scores whose classrooms I was in) who seemed disinterested in their students and/or what they were teaching. Sadly, some of these were on track to become administrators.
Unfortunately, the conformation or refutation, via observation and experiment, of valid or false hypotheses, the use of feedback from those directly affected to modify and correct directives, policies, viewpoints — all of these are absent from to many of the schools, which function as factories run by hacks following orders from above. Hopefully, there are many exceptions to such a scenario, but I did not have the good fortune to have worked in such a school or system.
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I am all for conversation with people who are just beginning to grasp that what they have been told and sold is not what enables learning; but after enough words are put forth, and after the reasons and rationals are explained by the people at this space – real experienced practioners who have earned the respect of everyone– IF then a voice challenges these people to PROVE that they have the experience to offer insight, then that person will be of the same opinion yet, in the end.
It appears, and I could be wrong, that Nathan’s ties to the charter ‘narrative’ are too deep to be open to reason, and as Thomas Paine famously said, “to argue with a person who has renounced the use of reason is like administering medic to the dead”.
I came here only a short time ago, too.
Yes, I had, by that timefollowed and corresponded personally with Diane, as with Anthony Cody and Leonie Haimison, and even Randi Weingarten for over a decade, and been recognized at OEN as a trusted voice, by the publisher and the members who write there.
But, still, I signed up for the feed,READ EVERYTHING THAT DIANE wrote and followed the conversations for several weeks BEFORE I let my own voice ring true.
Moreover, I sent anyone and everyone at this teacher’s room to my author’s page
http://www.opednews.com/author/author40790.html
and to the old site that I put up IN 2004 when the assault on my integrity and career began.
My old site, in case you missed it, and want a glimpse of who is writing this:
http://www.speakingasateacher.com/SPEAKING_AS_A_TEACHER/Welcome.html
In this way, Deb read my essay “Bamboozle Them” , heard my the voice of the teacher, and recommended that everyone read it. Whoever did this, knows my voice, and what it is that I add to this conversation about what can we do next?
http://www.opednews.com/articles/BAMBOOZLE-THEM-where-tea-by-Susan-Lee-Schwartz-110524-511.html
I am the voice of a teacher, like many here.
Lloyd and I are just two of the voices of teachers who tell the truth, as defined by Bloom as “OBSERVABLE REALITY”.
Show us the evidence for an argument, and we will look for its value, its weight and its VERACITY.
If a new voice offers an “opinion” couched as THE truth to experienced, dedicated teacher -practitioners like us (am I the ONLY one who applies that appellation to teaching) then expect an argument.
BUT, go farther that that… and “Challenge” the voice of teacher-practitioners like us… and challenge us to prove that we know what we are saying, then it is apparent that YOU do not grasp to whom you are speaking….or, you are simply disrespectful and are only interested in having your ‘opinion’ reign as truth.
Either way, this is not your venue.
When I came here, there was a well-intentioned geezer (HU) who immediately began to challenge me to prove what I said about best practice. I ignored him, for the most part, until he told me that the reason — ACCORDING TO HIM– that I would not answer his question about what I did in my classroom, was because I was like “all the other teachers in his teachers room.” That was personal.
I envisioned him sitting alone at his computer, lonely for the conversations that accompanied his now vanished career. I made it clear to him, nicely, that this was not the same kin dog ‘teacher’s room’ as one finds in a school, or which he once knew, where most of the teachers were tired of this blowhard, who loved his own voice, and needed to dominate the conversation… even by negative means.
I was kind when I explained how such conversations were a waste of my time, and in the end, with the support of other voices here, he came to realize what I meant and he apologized… and dissappeared.
As for this “Nathan”. I don’t have time to read all his take-aways from the national conversations, beyond what he has presented so far.
Moreover, when I read the long responses from Lloyd and others, explaining what Nathan could learn, MIGHT realize IF she simply went to Diane’s search field and looked back at what she has presented and our conversations dealing with this information, I perceives a certain disrespect for who Lloyd is, then I knew who Nathan is,…
…. and although I could be wrong, and he might actually “get it” –the reality of the assault on public education, and the corruption that accompanied it in the largest district in the nation, NYC
https://vimeo.com/4199476
and the second largest — LAUSD! All this, easily discovered on the search field at this site, and on the internet!
http://www.perdaily.com/2014/02/lausds-treacherous-road-from-reed-to-vergara–its-never-been-about-students-just-money.html
it seems that he is too ignorant of what has gone before.
MOREOVER:
All of us here, concede that there are a few charter schools that are closer to what Al Shanker envisioned; (of course, Nathan must know this wonderful teacher advocate’s vision). Charters could work, but the movement has been co-opted by the privateers.
All of us HERE, have seen the statistics — the real ones– and have read the conclusions of the brilliant educators who Diane presents for our perusal; even a newbie like me knows that the charter school movement is in the hands of people who do not care WHAT LEARNING LOOKS LIKE, even if they had a notion of it.
They are not about teaching or learning, but about monetarizing education, making it into an industry that lines the pockets of profiteers and corporate entities; (how much of Pearson stock does Rupert Murdoch OWN… this man who owns the media and pushes the Duncan & Rhee narrative– giving us HIS version of education news!
Yes, it is all about money, and the funding in 15,880 districts are impossible to follow, the issues too complex — especially when the states, under this rant for austerity and the destruction of the budget process, cut funding to education first. Long before the police or firemen bit the dust, the removal of the veteran teachers, trimmed the budget, and the classes got larger, more unmanageable. Support service were cut, and when the schools failed — as they would when more and more public money went to support the charters housed in the building ( instead of the public entity which took in ALL kids) — they said, “hey we should get public money?”
Yeah! With our voices gone, they used the media they owned to push charters. The results, published here in previous weeks are the observable reality — the evidence… and all of us who watch CSI say: “show me the evidence… the facts!”
We here are seeking solutions, but collectively we cannot be conned about what works, because like John Taylor Gatto, we taught “back when” WE professionals used our talent and judgement to recognize the needs of EACH emergent mind, and created the methods to reach them with the material we understood would enable learning.
I just typed the transcription of Gatto’s interview on Rob Kall’s radio show. I found it hard to listen to him speak ‘extempore’ as I checked the transcript to be sure it captured his words….but I listened to him describe the way it was back when!
Early on, this man who wrote “Dumbing Us Down,” and “weapons of Mass Instruction” spoke earnestly about how we teachers, back then, looked for “the genius’ in every child, that quality that addressed the potential of every child. He spoke of how we facilitated learning…and I thought of all the letters I get from former students who are artists or writers, telling me that I was the one who did it for them… enabled them to see who they were and what they could do.
Top-down bullies have replaced the bottom-up practitioners in many professions, but in charter schools, the LAST to shape how kids learn is often that of the teachers, who have no ground to stand on. The revolving door of teachers demonstrate the truth about who is calling the shots, and the destruction of our profession is chronicled there.
To conclude, if someone is prepared to listen and pay attention to FACTS…. and comes here to this unique room (which offers — the TRUTH/observable reality– as we all put our heads together and knock our brains out, in order to to find solutions) then I say: “WELCOME!”
BUT don’t waste our collective time arguing what we know does not work, once we explain it, and IF you challenge us to prove what we have accomplished… something that a glance at Lloyd’s site, for example is clear — then YOUR behavior addresses WHO YOU are! Ignorance is no excuse here…. or at my own site, “Speaking As A Teacher 2” which will be up soon.
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Because the “blowhards” sometimes step in their own poop, and give me a lot of good ideas for posts, and I just got one from this “blowhard”.
That post will be up later this morning. The best way to know when you beat a “blowhard” about the head is when the “blowhard” suddenly switches topics in midstream with a question that takes off in another direction.
LOL
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Fascinating about how some people complain here of the dis-respect they feel educators encounter but are very willing to do their own name-calling.
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Sometimes the name fits and should be used. I was just quoting someone else. Did you notice the quote marks?
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Yes I noticed the quotes.
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You did your duty by your country, Lloyd, and you’re still doing it.
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I think that the pen is more powerful than the sword and protests in the streets. Protests take place in a few hours to soon be forgotten, but when you write something and make it public, it’s always there for someone to discover, read and hopefully think about.
Don’t get me wrong: there is a role for real life in the street, in their face protests but the pen is still the better weapon to wage war.
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I think that the fact that Lloyd, Susan and others, having done their decades in the public schools, still have the energy and inclination to write books and articles and/or to participate in forums such as these, offering credible suggestions to improve the schools, should be more than enough on their part. Hats off to them.
Partnering with business interests to create and promote unaccountable and yet publicly funded enterprises which are questionable at best may not be everybody’s idea of how to spend their richly deserved retirement years.
By the way, I believe the voucher proposals had some merit, provided the schools that took the vouchers from the tax-paying parents were also held accountable in the same way that traditional public schools are.
One could reasonably argue abut whether the constraints placed on the traditional public schools are reasonable. I think they are unreasonable — from the testing madness to the craziness of the imposed curricula to the extreme lack of time to the overcrowding to the constraints on basic discipline to the obsession with teacher evaluation to the endless imposition of “new” teaching methods.
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“Truth” is a complex subject. Happy New year.
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Truth is whatever anyone wants it to be. Many seem to follow the herd while some are lone wolves who think for themselves and weigh the facts against the claims—as many facts as possible.
For thousands of years the earth was flat and then it wasn’t.
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Yes, I agree that a variety of facts and experience should be used. Here for example, is a column I wrote that was published last Sunday by the ST. Paul (Minnesota) Pioneer Press. It describes collaboration by district and charter educators that produce real progress for students:
http://www.twincities.com/columnists/ci_27209553/joe-nathan-early-encouraging-results-dual-credit-partnership
For some this kind of collaboration is a good thing. For some who post here, district/charter collaboration will help destroy public education.
We’ll see what kind of conversation there is in the coming year.
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Not meaning to jump in here where I am not wanted. But, it seems to me, Joe, that anyone can and will provide anecdotal evidence of things working or not working. The broader issues are: 1) forcing/mandating collaboration, 2) going into change without consulting the proper people for input, 3) going all in to uproot a given situation (pulling the rug from beneath the lives of students, teachers, communiities, and 4) being resistant to change (not allowing people to alter RttT without jumping through hoops and withholding federal monies). I could go on, but I won’t take your time.
Just know that, given the proper resources and oversight, much can be accomplished in various configurations. While you seem to want to broadbrush professional reaction to the charter industry and privatization that uses public tax monies to add to the wealth of the “clever,” as if these people aren’t aware of situations that work. Please acknowledge all those collaborations or takeovers that DON’T work.
It is interesting that when one wishes to push their “truth” it is difficult for that person to look outside the myopic view. We can no more assume that your situation can or should be replicated than we can assume that ALL charters fail.
Most that I have read on here seem to think that there is a huge problem with using public monies to make corporations and individuals wealthy while villifying teachers as greedy because they are unionized and feel they deserve a middle class income that is high enough that they can save a little, send their own kids to college, and support their own style of classroom.
Everyone has a right to express an opinion, but it isn’t beneficial to anyone to try to entrap someone with an anecdotal success story.
Let everyone decide, not Arne Duncan.
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Deb, I’ll be glad to trade research with you. Many of us have a lot of skepticism of research because so much of it seems flawed. But if you want to discuss research, I’d be glad to that.
You and I agree that teachers deserve a middle or better income. We have 5 people who have worked in urban public schools in our family, including both my wife and myself, please all three of our children.
Yes, I agree that many people on here don’t like the idea of corporations making money (except if its a corporation that publishes their book, or produces a product or service they like)
Here are two pieces of research that might interest you
* charters enroll a higher percentage of low income students than do district public schools
* charters enroll a higher percentage of students representing communities of color
I’m interested in who you think are “the proper people” to be consulted. And what does “consultation” mean to you?
Finally, in terms of replication – actually there are a variety of places around the country where district and charter educators are working together. Here’s more info if you are interested:
http://www.crpe.org/research/district-charter-collaboration
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If you will note, I didn’t say that your anectodal situation wasn’t real or couldn’t replicated. I don’t know if it is a public/private partnership or not. I simply don’t think that the models I have seen in Ohio where private owners siphon dollars away from tax payers and where private advocates are on the State School Board and in cahoots with the Governor.
If any collaboration can be achieved without putting money in the hands of private real estate crooks, then all these kinds of ideas can be utilized to maximize learning for children, given the proper amount of time.
However, the insertion of Common Core into present curricula, giving swim or sink mandates, expecting the same regardless of poverty, hunger, illiterate parents, homelessness, Add to that the expense and less than reliable results of the PARCC testing idiocy as well as the developmentally inappropriate expectations for K-4 students, and we have a recipe for disaster.
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Original Charter schools were not corporate and were not meant to profit anyone in anyway. The original concept for Charter schools came from two public school teachers who belonged to a teachers’ union and taught in the public schools.
The teachers in those original Charter schools were union members and their Charter school was part of a democratically run public school district. The only difference was that the Charter teachers were allowed to run their individual school independent of district and site administration. If one of the original Charter schools had a principal, that principle was an office manager who supported the decisions of the teachers who ran the school. That principal did not tell teachers what to do. The teachers told that principal what to do.
From what I’ve read, the few Charters that the Stanford study found that outperformed the local regular public schools were mostly made up of that original Charter concept that followed the theory of the founders of the original Charter school movement.
Corporations hijacked the Charter school name and ditched the concept. For instance, in Eva Moskowitz’s Success Academy Charter schools in New York, do the teachers run the schools and decide how to use the public’s tax money? The answer is NO.
Moskowitz is the boss with total authority just like Bill Gates was the boss of Microsoft when he was still the CEO. Success Academy does not model the original charter school concept. It models corporations like Microsoft.
The AFT should sue Eva Moskowitz for using the term Charter School in the title for her chain because by definition the original Charter school was run by the teachers who taught in that school. It was the teachers who decided how to use the funds—not a CEO like Eva Moskowitz who pays herself more than $500k annually and also spends hundreds of thousands annually in misleading propaganda to steal more students from the public schools.
If your Charter school is run by 100% of the teachers who teach there, and they decide how to use the money with no connection to Hedge Funds, Wall Street, corporate Charter chains, then that school is, by definition of the original concept, a real charter school based on the original concept—-that pretty much runs schools the way they do in Finland.
It would be nice to know how many original Charter schools that follow the original concept there are out there compared to, for instance, the 1,600 charter school chain ruled over by the Waltons.
The way I see it, we have the public schools, private schools that get no money from public funds (for instance, the private school where Bill Gates went to school and where he sends his children), parochial and other religious schools, original Charter schools that still are part of democratically run public school districts and the corporate Charters that make a profit even if they call themsevles a non-profit.
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Lloyd, I’m not sure who you are referring to. The charter concept that was embodied in Minnesota’s law had several principles including
* NO admissions test
* at least one group other than a local board being allowed to approve and monitor a school
* waiver from most state regulations in exchange for a waiver of most but not all state regulations except those pertaining to healthy and safety.
Some refer to individual schools in Philly or NYC as charters – but in fact they were simply new options created within the district. That was nothing new.
What was new was giving educators and community members a chance to create new options that did not have to obtain the approval of a local board.
Kenneth Clark, an African American psychologist whose “doll test” had been used by the Supreme Court in the Brown v. Board of Education case, called for Alternative Public School Systems operating outside the control of local districts as early as 1976.
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I’m not talking about legislation. The concept came first and the legislation came later and anyone who knows about how the legislative process works knows that lobbyists and/or special interests are going to meddle with it looking for a way to profit off it.
I’m talking about the original concept of Charter schools that it seems you know nothing about.
Minnesota wrote the first charter school law in the United States in 1991 but that is not where the Charter school concept cane frin—the original concept first appeared in 1974, almost a decade before the flawed and fraud of A Nation at Risk and seventeen years before Minnesota wrote the first charter school law. How close does that law match the original Charter school concept?
“Then came the 1980s: The Nation At Risk report
and all the media attention and the Carnegie Forum
report that followed. Suddenly everyone was talking
‘restructuring’. So Ray dusted off his paper and in
early 1988 got it published by the Northeast Regional
Lab. He sent it around widely; even to then-President
George H.W. Bush. Then he waited. And waited.
“One Sunday in July Budde’s wife Priscilla put down
the newspaper and said: “Hey, Ray, you’ve made the
New York Times!” And she showed him the column
reporting the American Federation of Teachers’ support
for the idea of teachers setting up autonomous
schools. AFT President Al Shanker had in fact floated
the proposal in a talk at the National Press Club in the
spring of that year. He said Ray Budde had the best
name for these schools: “charter schools.”
Click to access Ray-Budde-Origins-Of-Chartering.pdf
The key phrase is “teachers setting up autonomous schools”—not turning schools over to the Walton clam, a Turkish national, Eva Moskowitz, etc.
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Lloyd, a group of us created a new public school option in St. Paul 1971, several years before Ray Budde wrote about “charters”
Also, Budde’s original book did not discuss the idea of an entire school. By the way the phrase you quoted is adapted from a book I wrote. Glad you are reading “Education Evolving…some of whose leaders helped write the first charter law.
Shanker used the word “charter” is NY Times weekly paid ad but he got it from Budde and Budde got it some some alternative school educators….like yours truly.
I do understand your strong opposition to companies making money. You repeatedly state this. Does this mean you will no longer be selling books you write (and congrats on the awards you’ve won).
There seems to be significant opposition from you and othrs to companies making money from schools…but of course for decades companies have been selling products and services to schools.
I’d differentiate between companies selling good products, and bad products. I wouldn’t say it’s evil/wrong or whatever for companies to make money from public education.
How far does your opposition to companies making money extent?
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I have no problem with the private sector making money—after all, for instance, I shop at Costco, Trader Joes, Target, Whole Foods, farmers markets, eat out, and watch films in movie theaters, but I do have problems with the private sector using the claim that school choice will lead to better results in education, and then they close down public school—often against the protests of parents and students who want to keep those public schools—so there is no choice while corporations profit off the taxes that once funded public schools.
As for your cheap shot about me making money off the royalties from my books being the same as a private sector Charter school profiting off public funds—individual readers buy my books like they buy food in a restaurant or a ticket to see a film in a theater. When someone buys my books on Amazon or another vendor, they do not buy my books with taxes meant to support public schools.
According to several Stanford students more than 70% of the Charter schools are worse or the same as the public schools they replaced.
In fact, most of what teachers earn goes into the private sector when teachers pay their rent or mortgage, fill their car with gasoline, pay their phone bill, the utility bills, buys food,clothing etc. Even the average $2 billion teachers spend annually out of their pay checks to buy supplies for their classrooms profits the private sector. Most of the money that goes to the public schools eventually makes its way to the private sector.
It goes like this: taxes collected > pays public schools > public schools pay for electricity and upkeep, books and salaries > most of that money recycles into the private sector when the money that was paid to the teachers and staff and for supplies and books is spent.
The new formula works like this: Taxes collected > pays private sector Charter school management who pays more to CEO and investors > then pays less to teachers who then spend less in the private sector because of the third party that is now sucking money out of the education system to fatten fortunes.
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Lloyd, I write books too, and I write columns for for-profit newspapers. I judge profit companies based on how they operate. I don’t reject or approve of all of them – I look at how they operate.
You and some others seem to reject the idea that a for-profit company can do a good job running a school. I’d apply the same criteria I assume you (and I) applied to companies that publish our books. Is the company ethnical? Does it follow laws? What are the quality of what it produces?
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For a professional writer, Joe, you seem to be unable to read. The objection aren’t to the profit itself. The objections are to taking tax money away from a PUBLIC service and funding a private wealth real estate sham at the expense of tax payers. This is regardless of whether they are “successful” or not. If you wish to support private schools, fine. Just don’t take (and pocket) millions of tax payer dollars. It is a misuse of public funds. You shouldn’t keep trying to divert the essence of the objections to make yourself seem righteous and successful. Deal with the monies in an absolute sense.
Most people who are in education are givers, not takers. ( But, I can’t “prove” that, forgive me.)
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So now apparently we enter the time when personal insults start. Yes, I understand you and Lloyd don’t like seeing public funds going to people who will make lots of money from real estate transactions and in some cases, taking enormous salaries.
Have you checked out the enormous profits of the bond-houses that sell bonds for traditional districts? Some of those are what I am other regard as outrageous. Does that bother you? If not, why not?
Actually, I hope that Lloyd and you will read more from Education Evolving. Because that organization and ours are promoting the idea that teachers should be given the opportunity to be in charge – including having the majority on the board that runs the school. This is in fact already happening…we’d like to see more of it.
That way it would be educators deciding how to spent the money. This is one of the seven successes described in this year end newspaper column:
http://hometownsource.com/2014/12/16/joe-nathan-column-7-successes-of-minnesota-education-in-2014/
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Joe, that wasn’t meant as a personal insult. It was simply to point out that your “read” on what has been posted seems to be a circular almost tunnel vision approach that seemingly ignores what the objections ARE. Of course, you can read. However, you have an agenda that is quite different.
If you have a successful model that does not take tax dollars and give them some CEO who doesn’t return that money to the students, appreciate the teachers with good salaries and benefits, then you have a point.
If you advocate a school that partakes of all the limitations and demands that the Common Core and PARCC and the state rules expect, then you have a point.
If you advocate a school that has no ability to turn away students with special educational needs, truancy problems, behavior issues, and that takes all students, then you have a point.
If you advocate a school that respects teachers input, uses tried and true strategies, and shows compassion to students, not perpetuating some regimented military type school environment, then you have a point.
If you have no vested interest in making a big profit for provideing a servide, then you have a point.
Otherwise, you don’t.
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Deb, no, I have no vested interest.
We receive grants and contracts from traditional districts, state and federal government, along with some foundations. And some of the foundations that give us $ know we don’t agree with everything they do. Case in point – I do not support vouchers. Some of the foundations that have given us $ do support vouchers.
Now, what do you think about the idea of teachers being in charge of public schools…setting salary and working conditions, determining the curriculum, selecting the business manager and other key decisions about how dollars are spent?
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I personally favor IGE (Individually Guided Educatoin) schools. Head teacher. Students working on their developmental levels.
I have different views on early education, primary education through grade 6 (or whenever the student reaches the ability to function independently, research, master basic math, etc.
Once the child has reached a level of success to guide his own future educational advancement, then the school picture is different, to me.
When I got my masters, I was told in my orals that I should never admit that in an interview, or I’d never have been hired.
I don’t have specific views on teacher guided schools in a larger setting. There are many steps to follow and there are means of obtaining rights to do certain things. I don’t think it is as easy as saying “we’ll do our best” and “go away” to the governing bodies.
I have zero respect for the current Ohio legislature or Ohio State School Board They aren’t working for students. They are working for cronies and following ALEC legislative suggestions.
Our school went through a couple of years where the principal was out for surgery. We functioned just fine without her. And, the stress of her condescension made for a much better work environment.
Of course, there are many things about the way the public schools are run administratively that I don’t. But, I will have to say that we had 2/5 of the 5 teachers who tended to go in one direction and the other 3/5 who didn’t agree with them. However, Mr. Big Mouth wouldn’t shut up. He hijacked every collaboration and wouldn’t stop until he wore us down. So, we had to try to get administrative support against him, which he turned to his own favor by buttering up the principal. Thank heaven she was shoved into retirement.
Point being … you might have a working situation. Hurrah for you. Not everyone can or does. And, we are stuck with a lot of people who advocate for the overthrow of publicly funded, unionized teachers with a pension in order to create schools that are going to funnel the money into the pockets of a greedy person or corporation without any knowledge of education or any plan to actually help children learn.
Many charter schools want to avoid the tests and the oversight. Many don’t have to follow the public rules. But, they want public money to do their own thing. If they want to run the show, then let them pay for it privately. Don’t take tax dollars to play a different game, to claim success when not forced into the absurd tech driven, data driven track that public schools are being forced to use.
It is all about the money. Public school teachers, generally, don’t want this change. A few do, but they will learn when a few years have passed that it will change yet again and they will have failed to improve education.
Focus on the inner city kids, the class sizes, stop the comparing and ranking and those who are complaining will stop. However, it is impossible to compare the two if the charters are saying “we are doing better” and the public schools are saying “But we have to play the CC and testing game and you don’t”.
No one is really going to complain if some do-gooder private citizen wants to completely fund a charter school outside of the public funding realm. That isn’t the problem. The problem is in trying to make claims about unequal delivery systems with unequal evaluation systems with unequal demands (VAM) and with unequal student diversity and behavior and poverty situations. Every time this discussion gets down to the fighting words it is because people want to redefine what is and isn’t really going on. We have to deal with reality … what we can and can’t do… what we can and cannot stand up against…what we can and can’t do.
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Agreed we need to deal with realities – and complexities.
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Joe,
I know nothing about your organization or the charters you have created, but I find it jaw-dropping when you defend charter frauds and scams and for-profit boondoggles. You find fault with public schools for any infractions, but you can’t bring yourself to admit that lack of supervision, lack of accountability, and lack of transparency has enabled massive fraud in the charter sector. I don’t know of any public school principals or superintendents who have pocketed millions of dollars of school funds. Do you?
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Diane – As I’ve said numerous times, I’m infuriated with mis-use of public dollars, whether via district or charter.
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Diane, you’ve written above that there “would be no demand” for charters if district schools were free to discipline as charters. As I noted earlier, thousands of youngsters are being suspended or expelled from public schools – mostly from district schools.
We ought to be learning from wonderful district & charter educators who’ve found ways to work with youngsters from challenging backgrounds. This column, published in the St. Paul paper, praised several district as well as charters that have found more effective ways to work with such youngsters.
http://www.twincities.com/columnists/ci_27209553/joe-nathan-early-encouraging-results-dual-credit-partnership
I’m deeply frustrated by financial abuses I see in charters – and questionably there are some. I wonder why you have not spoken out about abuses in Hempstead, NY, recently covered by Newsday, or abuses in the NY City district, by the NY Times.
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As I noted earlier, thousands of youngsters are being suspended or expelled from public schools – mostly from district schools.
Thousands of youngsters is an insignificant fraction of almost 50 million public school students.
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My mistake, Lloyd. This National Center or Educational Statistics says there are millions suspended.
http://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d10/tables/dt10_169.asp
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Thanks for the data, Joe Nathan. On looking at the tables, which are for 2006, I found, for the whole U.S., about 3.3 million students suspended and about 100,000 students (0.1 million) expelled.
Suspensions, as we know, can mean many things. In the past, suspensions in NY City public high schools could mean, at the severest, exclusion from the school premises for up to 4 days. Currently, they very rarely do. It’s usually a day or two in a room in the school, supervised by a teacher and others, to which work is sent by the subject teachers.
So the more relevant number is the expulsions (which, by the way, usually only mean transfer out of one public school and placement in another public school, and that only after hearings at the district level).
Bearing this in mind, If we take the 0.1 million figure for expulsions for 2006 and divide it by Lloyd Lofthouse’s approximate figure of 50 million students attending public schools, we get 0.1/50 = 0.2/100 = 0.2% as the rate of expulsions (meaning, as I said, mostly transfers) for the public schools in 2006. One could sharpen this number by getting the accurate number of students attending public schools in 2006.
One also does not know if charters were included in the statistics, since they are, after all, still under the public school umbrella, with the funding but without many of the requirements and constraints that traditional public schools are burdened with.
At any rate, one needs to know — what are the corresponding expulsion rates for charters?
Bear in mind that an expulsion from a charter school usually means an exit from at least that charter system — and so an entry back into the traditional public school system.
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Recognizing that suspensions mean different things in many places – there is an active campaign by a variety of communities of color (and the US Dept of Education Office of Civil Rights) to reduce the # of students who are suspended, especially those sent out of school.
We’ve had a good discussion here about how different educators and schools are trying to do this. Among other things that have been mentioned are peer mediation, in school suspension, restorative justice, increasing # of project based activities, increasing # of high school students earning college credit, and other approaches. I think these are wise strategies and great examples of how educators can learn from eachother.
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So, once again, we have the top down decisions by non-educators on what we do in the public schools with children who repeatedly disrupt the learning environment.
I’m sure this will lead to even more erosion in the ability of the public schools to teach children who want to learn.
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Or it might mean that some educators and community membere who have ideas about promoting more learning and fewer suspensions & explulsions will have opportunities to share those ideas. And more students might succeed.
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Diane has mentioned in some of her posts that Charters often have higher expulsion rates than public schools.
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I think it is true, as Diane has perhaps specifically reported, that the expulsion rate for charters is higher.
Joe Nathan gave us the link to data for expulsions and suspensions in the public schools for2006. Whether charters were included in the data was not clear. In any case, charters were fewer in 2006 than currently and so might not have affected the data appreciably. So we can probably take the data to be, to a good approximation, that for traditional public schools only.
As I had calculated from that data, the expulsion rate for the public schools, overall, came to 0.1/50 = 0.2/100 = 0.2%.
I think I may have written the last number, the percentage, incorrectly earlier.
The numbers in the first ratio are in millions of students, as obtained from Joe’s link (for the numerator, 0.1 million students suspended in 2006) and from your (Lloyd’s) rounded number (for the denominator, approximately 50 million students in the public schools currently and so perhaps roughly the same number in 2006).
Even if the denominator was lower in 2006 by, say, 10%, than it is now, that still gives us an expulsion rate, in 2006, of about 0.2%.
0.2% seems to be a low rate of expulsions. That’s two expelled students out of every thousand, in a year, in 2006. As I had mentioned, “expulsion” from a traditional public school does not usually mean expulsion from the public school system. Usually, the student is just transferred to another school in the district. So, with that in view, the expulsion rate from the public school systems may be, for all practical purposes, zero.
I had wanted to know the corresponding figure for charters. I suspect that it is significantly higher. Perhaps Diane Ravitch has the data and could provide it.
One should also bear in mind that admission to a typical charter school is not as easy as admission to a typical local traditional public school.
Lloyd had made a good point earlier about not equating “suspensions” with “suspended students”, as some students keep getting suspended. With expulsions, we can perhaps identify “expulsions” with “expelled students” — but again with the provisos I mentioned earlier.
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For a clearer picture of the suspension and expulsion issue we need much more detailed information than just one big number.
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Some people have suggested that the 3 million figure (from 2006) refers to multiple suspensions of individuals, rather than 3 million students.
Footnote 1 points out that the chart refers to the number of students who were suspended. “A student is counted only once, even if suspended more than once during the same school year.”
Yes, for some of us, the fact that 3 million youngsters were suspended is a problem. It also would be good to have more recent figures.
Here’s a link to a policy paper that describes some communities that are taking throughout approaches to helping more students succeed, in part by reducing suspensions.
Click to access official_sns_research-policy_brief.pdf
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So, about 6% of total students being suspended for acting like jerks in a classroom bothers you, and you want to pass legislation that takes away a teacher/school’s right to suspend repeat offenders and students who disrupt the learning environment.
That 6% is pretty close to the 5% that Mr. D said earned 95% of the referrals for disrupting the learning environment of a classroom. I do not think 6% of the total number of students is a high rate of suspension.
But what about the fact that 94% of the students didn’t get suspended?
Your reasoning is the same as the judge in the Vergara trial who ruled that 97% to 99% of the teachers in California didn’t deserve due process job protection due to a guesstimate—not a fact— from a witness in the trial that 1% – 3% of teachers were incompetent in California. There are about 1,500 more schools in California than 3% of the teachers who were alleged to be incompetent.
Does it bother you that there were 33,561 motor vehicle deaths in the US in 2013 and that 2,362,000 people were injured? Why not pass a law taking away the right of drivers to drive?
Does it bother you that there are more than 12 million alcoholics in the U.S.? Wait, the U.S. already tried to legislate that away with the 18th Amendment to the Constitution. It was called Prohibition.
Does it bother you that the most dangerous time of the year to be driving is between Thanksgiving and New Year’s Day? Maybe we should pass laws that makes the celebrating during the holidays illegal.
According to National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), between 2001 and 2005, 36 fatalities occurred per day on average in the United States as a result of crashes involving an alcohol-impaired driver.
Does it bother you that according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, an estimated 5.8% of teens age 16 and 17, and 15.1% of 18 to 20 year olds reported driving under the influence of alcohol in 2010?
Does it bother you that 7.5 million students miss a month of school each year? Maybe we could pass a law that send the teachers of these children to jail for a month to punish teachers for what students did.
http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/education/story/2012-05-17/study-chronic-school-absenteeism/55030638/1
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No, I didn’t urge legislation to stop this – but I praised efforts of educators and community members to reduce suspensions – this paper suggests a number of reasons suspensions are happening and describes what some communities are doing to reduce suspensions and increase student success.
Click to access official_sns_research-policy_brief.pdf
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Thank you again, Joe Nathan for helping me revise my post to counter your thinking that too many students are being suspended from the public schools. That percent, by the way is 6.1% of all students meaning that almost 94% of students are never suspended from school. In fact, if we were to compare the 3.7 million k – 12 classroom teachers in the public schools, they would outnumber the 3.3 million students who were suspended nationally in 2006—less than one student per teacher. To be exact. 0.89% of one student per teacher annually.
I woke up this morning and put that post through revisions, and did you know that the Charter schools suspend and kick out students at much higher ratios that the public schools? Do you think that the corporate Charters should be included in this criticism of the pubic schools that suspend lower ratios of disruptive and rule breaking students?
And did you know that the average class size in the U.S. public schools in 2007–08 was 20.0 pupils for public elementary schools and 23.4 pupils for public secondary schools.
http://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=28
Using that national average, that means for middle and high school teachers who might teach five – six classes a day, they are working with 124 – 140 students daily but only 0.89% of one student is suspended per teacher annually. What is the ratio when we compare 180 hours in one class per year for 125 – 140 students to that one 0.89% of a student per teacher that is suspended annually so the teacher can work with rest of her students without disruption to the learning environment?
The answer is 22,500 – 25,300 student hours in one average sized class where students are engaged in learning instead of being distracted by the 0.89% of one student who was suspended on average annually.
Suspensions & Expulsions in US Public Schools
What does that 3.3 million really mean
#EdBlogNet
I think it is a good idea to critically engage in discussion to offer possible problem solving solutions on how teachers might deal with that 0.89% average of one student annually, but there should not be any laws or restrictions on the public schools out of Washington DC, state capitals and from district school boards that would cripple the ability of public schools to keep the learning environment engaged and working. The possible solutions should be offered to teachers and schools as a choice, and then left up to them to try those solutions or not.
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Thank you for this. You just handed me a new post for my Blog. :o)
Reformers love big numbers, and big numbers tossed out like that look so impressive, but I almost always dig deeper to understand what they really mean.
After all, what about the ratio per school—-there are about 100,000 public schools in the United States?
Here’s what I figured out for the entire U.S. in 2006.
For 3.3 million suspensions:
There are about 49 million children in the k – 12 public schools and that 3.3 million suspensions represents 6.7% of the total. That means more than 93% of the children did not earn a suspension.
If we average that 3.3 million out, it means each school suspended on average 33 students during an entire school year of 180 days, but I expect the ratio is higher for schools with high levels of childhood poverty.
If we take that per school average of 33, that means on average every 5.5 days, one student was suspended from every school in the United States—but was it always a different student or were there repeats as I strongly suspect based on my 30 years of experience as a public school teacher.
When I say repeat, this means the same student was often suspended more than once and some of those chronic repeats eventually led to an expulsion hearing.
For instance, at the HS where I taught with a 70%+ childhood poverty rate and 92% of the students being non-white, the teacher who ran the in-house suspension system—a separate classroom where there were worksheets (the students weren’t allowed to just sit and visit. If they didn’t work, they would end up back the next day for the same period suspended again)—anyway, he said that about 5% of the students at the high school earned 95% of the average 20,000 annual referrals. That high school had a student population of about 2,600. Five percent equals 130 students who earned 95% of the 20,000 referrals written by teachers each year. That works out to 146 referrals for each one of those 130 students, and yes, we had students who earned referrals from more than one of their teachers on a daily basis. Some students would earn six referrals a day—one from each class.
That total 3.3 million was not 3.3 million different children. It would be nice to know how many students were suspended more than once.
What about the 112k who were expelled that year?
If we average that 112k, it becomes about 1 student per school for an entire school year.
How is that excessive and how does it compare to the other OECD nations?
Since the corporate reformers are so quick to compare the average PISA test o showcase how horrible the public schools are in the United States, why not be willing to break those numbers down so we can measure apples to apples? But we know why the fake reformers will never do that, because it would make their claim’s meaninglessness and make them look stupid and reveal that frauds that they are.
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Fortunately there are many people around the country who think reducing the number of suspensions is a high priority.
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I disagree, and I think bluntly that those people are ignorant, meddling fools. If they really wanted to reduce suspensions, then the solution is a national early childhood education program modeled on what France did more than 30 years ago to eventually reduce poverty in that country from 15% to less about 6% today.
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There you are, Lloyd, parents and community activities with whom you disagree about the value of reducing suspensions are “fools.”
One of the reasons we have options in this country is that some parents do not like being regarded by some educators as “fools”
Fortunately some educator as well as parents and community members agree this is a priority.
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Are you sure millions of parents are behind this move to restrict the ability to deal with disrupting behavior in public school classrooms and not another fake front organization funded by someone like Bill Gates or another fake reformer oligarch pretending to represent the so-called silent majority invented by Reagan that never existed?
It’s so easy to claim that parents all across America are concerned about suspensions—based, as usual, on misleading propaganda promoted by the fake reformers. Much harder to prove that is a factual claim.
Why didn’t you reply to my detailed analysis of suspensions and expulsions and what they really mean instead of focusing on my use of the world ‘fool’?
An ‘ignorant fool’ is someone who will take that 3.3 million number and protest without much thought or effort to find out what that 3.3 million number really means. Instead of accusing public schools of suspending too many students, why not find out the causes of those suspensions—-I think if they actually looked for the cause, the answer would lead them to children living in poverty. Passing legislation to restrict school suspensions will not solve the problem.
Abraham Lincoln talks about those fools too: “You can fool all the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time.”
If you fool someone, then they are a fool, an ignorant fool.
I think a lot of fools are being fooled by that 3.3 million number from 2006 being tossed around to influence and brainwash ignorant people who don’t know how to research or are too lazy to discover what that number actually means and the reason for that number.
I think you should start by becoming more educated about the causes behind these suspensions and then you will not be so easily fooled.
If you want to step into my classroom and discvoer why I suspended students to the in-house suspension center at the HS where I taught, click the next link and start out by scrolling down the page and reading what’s there.
http://crazynormal.com/
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Lloyd, like you I was a classroom teacher. Like you I looked for and found other teachers to learn from. But I didn’t call people who disagreed with me fools.
I never claimed there were millions of people asking for reducing suspensions. I did say that there are parent and community groups as well as the Office of Civil Rights urging a reduction in the number of suspensions. One if the Minnesota Minority Education Partnership, directed by a first in his family college graduate who recently as chair of the Mn House Education Policy Advisory Committee. He and MMEP are helping districts develop alternatives to send students out or school. Here’s a link to some of their work:
http://mmep.org/policy-in-brief/
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I mentioned the fools in this post too—that just went active on one of my Blogs. I have to thank you for introducing me to this topic the corporate reformers are milking to fool and mislead—as usual—as many ignorant people as possible.
And here’s my Tweet for this post:
Suspensions and Expulsions in the US Public School
What does that 3.3 million really mean?
#EdBlogNet
http://wp.me/pLJTE-SP via @lflwriter
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So called :corporate reformers” include many classroom teachers, parents and community members who recognize real problems and are working together to help solve them.
The “corporate reform” rhetoric appears to be useful to some but to many working day to day with kids, it fails to reflect what they are doing and why they are doing it.
Minnesota Minority Education Partnership is a great example of local people of color, some district educators, some community members and parents, who have helped illustrate problems and are working together to make real improvements for young people.
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John Goodlad was a wonderful educator/researcher who constantly pointed out the enormous positive impact that public schools could have. He worked hard to help make schools and classrooms encouraging, challenging, stimulating places. He had with great respect for educators.
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My response:
Suspensions & Expulsions in US Public Schools
What does that 3.3 million really mean
#EdBlogNet
Why not engage in a critical thinking, problem solving discussion here or on my blog and stop referring me to media like this obituary? And stop changing the subject and stick to one topic.
Let’s start with one of your suggested methods/solutions to dealing with students who are repeat offenders disrupting the teaching/learning environment. Think about offering one comment with one solution in 250 words or less. That’s a place to start.
Why did you ignore the fact that I mentioned about corporate Charters suspending and kicking out higher ratios of students than public schools?
Why are you ignoring the fact that for every full-time teacher in 2006 in a k-12 classroom that only 0.89% of a one student was suspended annually in the public schools?
Why are you ignoring one of the facts in my post that mentioned single family parents and what happens to children in the single parent family?
“Children raised in single-parent homes are more likely to have emotional and behavioral problems; be physically abused; smoke, drink, and use drugs; be aggressive; engage in violent, delinquent, and criminal behavior; have poor school performance; and drop out of high school.”
Why are you ignoring the facts that children who grow up in poverty also have the same challenges that children who live in single parent families do—please read previous paragraph again?
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I am not ignoring any of it. Neither am I ignoring the fact that you refer to people with whom you disagree as “fools.”
There are lots of groups of schools around the country that you and others who post here don’t criticize – Coalition of Essential Schools, Core Knowledge, Montessori, etc.etc. These people share ideas and learn from each other – and the organizations that coordinate among them make money (I know that repels some folks)
“Corporate charters” is a way of dismissing a lot of great work by individual and groups of teachers – like you were.
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Uh, “making money” is not repellant to any of us, I don’t believe. However, taking money away from public schools to funnel it into the pockets of the owners or administrators fo charter school is repellant. If that public money is used to pay teachers, buy tools for learning, pay utilities, and pay for the building in the same way it is spent for public schools, that is fine. But, to take that money and allow some people to profit and run without consequence, whether good or bad learning outcomes occur, is a misuse/abuse of tax monies.
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Deb, what’s striking in the last few days is that no one has criticized NY City public schools for losing hundreds of computers. No one.
No one has criticized the Minnesota consortium of school districts for accepting bar credit instead of payments that were owed. No one has criticized cost over-runs of hundreds of thousands of dollars, or employees taking home bags of up to $20K in cash. No one.
Virtually no one has criticized the Hempstead public schools for the kind of corruption often cited here for charter public schools…overpayments to administrators.
No one has commented on the enormous profits that bond houses make from selling bonds – something that I hope to encourage greater scrutiny of in the coming year.
So when people say they want more dollars going to classrooms and teacher salaries, I agree.
The criticism of charter misbehavior is constant – and I completely agree that there is too much and it is disgusting.
Why do you think there is silence on the district officials misbehavior described above?
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Joe Nathan,
I see that you are here and active so the odds favor the fact that you saw my last comment to you where I challenged you to actually engage in a meaningful, critical thinking, problem solving conversation here or on my Blog and you didn’t reply.
Why?
And you ask why others call you “blockhead” and “fool”, and I think why they call you those names is because it’s obvious that you often avoid the issues in this discussion. Instead of engaging, you often change topics and seldom or ever directly respond to points made by those who engaged with you.
You remind me of TE. You remind me of a corporate reformer following an approved script. Never engage when a teacher or parent makes a valid point. Instead, change the topic by asking another question that leads away from the valid point the teacher or parent made.
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Lloyd – Many, many district public school parents praised and thank me for my work, Lloyd – there was not just one who came in to say thanks.
And I never called people with whom I disagreed names. But like my wonderful father in law, you fought for the country, you fought for free speech. You get to use it too.
The group of people is growing who recognize that schools can have a wonderful, positive effect, regardless of poverty.
Poverty is a huge problem. I doubt that posting on the internet will do much to reduce it. Working day to day with families, students, and yes, some people who work in corporation and legislators may help. That’s how, for example we helped increase hourly pay, passed the “Dream Act”, expanded medical care and did a variety of other things to help more people move out of poverty.
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Of course posting on the Internet will not do much to reduce poverty, but that is where ideas and information start when there are conversations with all stakeholders or as many who are willing to be active in the discussion leading up to the planning stage and then real world actions that follow. The BATS are communicating on line and then turning that interaction into real world protests like the one that’s taking place outside of Cuomo’s mansion, and on the Internet, the BATS are planning their next big get together in the real world.
In fact, you are totally wrong that posting comments or Blog posts doesn’t achieve anything. For instance, the Internet was credited with spreading what’s known as the Arab Spring, and Al Qaeda, the Taliban and ISIS use the Internet to spread ideas that results in more recruits to their horrible cause.
That caused me to question your motives and I wonder why you keep saying that it is a waste of time to interact on the Internet like here on Diane’s Blog, Twitter, Facebook, Networks, etc.
Do you want to discourage people from taking advantage of this powerful information spreading technology?
I think it would be a safe bet that the corporate reformers would celebrate if you convinced us to stop our online chats that spread information.
A 2012 report from the Pew Research Center’s Global Attitudes Project, “Social Networking Popular Across Globe: Arab Publics Most Likely to Express Political Views Online,” looks at the distinct online dynamics of nations in the region: “In Egypt and Tunisia, two nations at the heart of the Arab Spring, more than 6 in 10 social networkers share their views about politics online. In contrast, across 20 of the nations surveyed, a median of only 34% post their political opinions. Similarly, in Egypt, Tunisia, Lebanon and Jordan, more than 7 in – 10 share views on community issues, compared with a cross-national median of just 46%.”
You might want to consider educating yourself by watching the video on how ideas spread and then become physical actions. It is a fact that ideas, thinking, discussion, debate and communication takes place first before actions in the real world and the Internet is the greatest innovation in history for spreading ideas and bringing people together.
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If it is such a waste of time, then why is he here spending hours typing and arguing?
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Having helped spread some ideas that became law, I agree that the internet can be helpful.
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Then—because the “Internet can be helpful”—let’s discuss what can be done here on Dian’s Blog and focus on those at-risk children who grow up in poverty and/or single parent homes.
I’ll start.
I think a national mandatory early childhood education program starting as early at age two for these at-risk children would be a great place to start—-modeled after what France has done successfully for more than thirty years.
Note: The French solution did not include corporate Charters as a choice or vouchers.
Or do we continue as we have, by shoveling all the responsibility on the public school teachers to create miracles with these same at-risk children without proper funding or support while ignoring the failures of so many Charters with the same kids and those Charters that dump these kids back to the public schools after suspending them at higher rates that the public schools?
Note, I’m not talking about all the Charters—just the 70+ percent identified by Stanford as worse or the same as the public schools they are compared to. The same Stanford study did say that about 23% were better than the public schools they were compared to so some Charters seem to work. Why can’t we identity those Charter and have a list for all three columns.
The list would be: Failures – The Same – Better
From what I’ve seen of the Stanford study, the shorted list would be in the Better column but each of those schools must be working with the exact same student population the local public schools work with. No cherry picking students and sending the tough ones back to the public schools.
The formula goes like this:
The Internet discussion leads to consensus and that lead to plans and goals that leads to action out in the real world. Not everyone who takes part in the Internet discussion needs to also go on to carry out the actions in the real world. Some people prefer to communicate. Others prefer to march.
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Now that is a start at enabling LEARNING.
The emergent brain from birth to 2 years is the most plastic of its life, and all research shows how input builds the neural connections. So many kids stuck in poverty will never ‘catch-up’ if they never hear or see the kind of things that the human brain needs to build its data base of prior knowledge.
But, uh, where will the funding come from when they are cutting funding for k-12 schools, and pre-k funding is precarious.
Of course, Pearson can create some test that babies can prepare for.
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So perhaps we should take the children from their parents at birth before any damage is done and put them in mandatory early education intervention? Seems educators are having a difficult time finding parameters define what is actually “education” and what is parenting or, for that matter, what is healthcare. This synthesis of education and healthcare seemingly in response to the crisis of parenting and poverty is, in fact, a gradual usurping of the raising of children from parents to the state. The very state that contributed to the crisis by incentivizing unwed parenting and creating a system of dependence. Hmmm.
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Scary and very good point. This is such a tough issue. How do you stop young, single teens from having babies? I suggest churches and other centers of faith must get involved – and take a lead.
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I agree having faith in something larger then ones self contributes to a sense of purpose and hope that is absent in so many young people today. Seeking purpose, hope and truth is an intrinsically human endeavor and so many today are not having their souls fed. In fact, many are mocked for even saying the word “soul”.
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It is true that people need purpose, hope and meaning in their lives. It is also true that the basic human virtues and positive qualities, recognized by all human cultures: — wisdom of mind and heart; courage; empathy, compassion and love; equity and justice; honesty and integrity; conscientiousness and diligence — that these seem, throughout the world, but especially so in some places, instead of being nurtured and admired, seem to be increasingly neglected and devalued.
Although few might openly speak out against these things, a great cynicism prevails, and there is an “each one for him/herself, with the devil take the hindmost” attitude that seems to have gained ground and acceptance.
Instead of “character”, we speak now of “personality”. Instead of attempting to help children build character, we focus on other, more superficial things.
Children pick up on these things, which are not only prevalent in society but are also sold or promoted through the media, including the entertainment media, which seems to feed also on the depiction of violence, in particular, and of human conflict and of individual survival and advancement at all costs, with little attention given to the quieter, gentler aspects of our humanity or to duties and responsibilities other than to oneself, if that. This is a selling of a culture of mindless materialism and relentless competition.
Meanwhile, we have also the broken families and communities and all the pathologies that accompany these things.
To go into the causes of these things, which did not come into existence overnight, would take me into controversy and would not be fruitful at this point.
We, like all living things, and perhaps all things to some degree, exist in both the physical realm and the mental and spiritual ones. It is the neglect of the spiritual aspects, largely because they come in the way of the service of Mammon, that lies at the root of many of the problems that plague our societies and so also our schools.
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Therein lies the difficulty. Perhaps, rather than having people fight over which religion is the correct one, we should realize that different people of different faiths have rules of getting along within their faith. Maybe those should be taken into consideration. It is not the place of government to force one religion on everyone.
I watched an OmniMax movie in Cincinnati, OH, this past Tuesday. It was called “Jerusalem” and showed the perspectives of 3 different teen girls as they dwell in different quadrants of Jerusalem insofar as their religious beliefs and ceremonies, etc. There are similarities in each.
There are so many interpretations of each religion. When fundamentalism becomes extreme, violence also is an outcropping of that system. It can and does happen in every religion.
The reason the United States government was drawn up as it was and the reason that we have freedom of religion is NOT to expedite any extremist fundamentalist views. That is why in many cases there seems to be no religion in schools. I had to come to grips with that when I first began teaching. Coming from a background isolated from religions other than Christianity, I had to realize that there were Jewish kids in the school and Jehovah’s Witness kids in the school. I didn’t stop to think, in a very small village in WV, that these kids might not celebrate the same holidays or any holidays or that some students might not want to say the pledge. I learned quickly that even in a small, rural county, there were religious differences.
But we always taught character education. I don’t know of schools that don’t. To me, character is universal. It is represented in all religions and among those with no religion whatsoever. We have to continue to build that in students.
But, funding religious endeavors within a school system opens the doors to allowing all kinds of religious dogma through the doors. In Ohio, there is an initiative
http://www.cleveland.com/metro/index.ssf/2014/12/ohio_department_of_education_added_the_religious_requirement_to_gov_kasichs_student_mentoring_program.html
taking place to require religious, not just allow religious groups to participate in programs for student mentoring. The Ohio Dept of Ed added the requirement to Kasich’s program. He feels it is good to connect students with all facets of the community.
I am not sure where he really weighs in on this, since he wants to be the darling of the religious right but also wants to run for President in 2016. However, he knows how to finesse any issue to make himself seem to appeal to the most people.
The money can’t be spent to promote a religious viewpoint per se but they must be allowed input. I am not sure where we are headed with this in 2015. However, these State Board Members focus on far right Christian beliefs as being the correct ones for EVERYONE to follow. I understand that because far right fundamentalists believe no other ways of looking at religion are viable.
We will see how this turns out. But, I doubt that any input will be allowed from anyone other than Christian or Jewish groups. I can just imagine the outcry if Muslim, Hindi, Buddhist, or Wikkan groups wanted to partner with the other community groups. I don’t see that happening.
Again, I feel we need to address character from a non-denominational stance in order to seek peace. I know that Christian Fundamentalists do not think that is possible and that they live in a world of prophetic interpretations about the times in which we live.
That is why this is so very complicated. Religion needs to be left to the family. Even in families, there is not agreement as to what the correct beliefs might be. How do you extend this beyond the interpretations that might be presented in schools, even as to character?
I, for one, certainly don’t wish to teach students about the 2nd amendment. Too many people tie that to religious rights and, to me, this advocates vigilante violence. I am not interested in that, myself. I don’t see the schools as having the right to advocate that, but others might disagree. This is the tip of the iceberg. We’ll never get to the point where we stop bullying, etc. if we allow the absolutists to inject their demands into schools. Tax money should not fund this.
I apologize in advance for possibly going in a tangential direction, but others brought up spirituality. It’s complicated.
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I believe you have hit upon a very obvious, but ignored fact. Faith is integral to the human experience. It cannot be argued that our nation was founded on Judeo Christain heritage. Faith was not missing from my public education ecperience, in fact, Christain values were an integral part of the experience.
We have become a much more heterogenic culture and increasing sensitivity to these various belief systems has increasingly led to the expulsion of faith from the education experience. Simultaneously we have argued for the need for citizens to spend more
and more time in this faith free zone.
I support the notion of the no establishment clause. The protection of the right to worship was so important to our founders understanding of human nature that they made provisions for it in the Constitution whilst there was no mention of education at all.
We have turned things upside down with “education” becoming tantamount and faith being pushed further and further into a little box to be experienced only on Sunday morning.
The caveat is the education experts understand that a faith system is fundamental to any culture. If the Judeo Christain culture is not the basis for our culture it will be replaced by something else.
This progressive attack on our culture is evident to many who have chosen to abstain from the public education experience.
The attack on public education has other goals than simply ensuring our citizens enjoy a superior education and the department of education is the vehicle by which this culture shift will be ushered in.
Call me paranoid as I have come to expect, but these debates will be fruitless as a foregone progressive shaping of society marchs onward.
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Since we don’t live in a theocracy, we can’t expect schools that are an arm if the government to be teaching religion. The shared values and resultant character are not impossible to convey. Students can worship with families in their own way and make their own choices.
While many would wish that the “unchurched” would be reached via schools, this is not the job of government. I suppose that is why many choose to reach their children away from public school atmosphere. However, once the child is on his own, personal choices will be made. You can’t force a belief system on anyone. That is what occurs when the foot is in the door.
I attended many different denominations. I know that some Christian denominations don’t accept other Christian denominations as valid. So there is no way to have a meeting of the minds in school settings.
Build character and understanding through getting along and letting others lead their own lives and make personal belief choices. But some want to force their specific religion on everyone.
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The belief that one can separate one’s faith system from one’s education is a fallacy developed and perpetuated by the state. True we do not live in a theocracy and I am happy for it. I do, however, believe there is a very deliberate attack on faith going on in the public schools and a central federalized education has expedited that. So have naive comments from individuals that infer that citizens should keep their faith in Church on Sunday morning or made comments such as “we do not live in a theocracy” while at the same time advocating for a longer school day, longer school year and earlier intervention with suggestions of mandating public education as early as two years old. Anyone who believes otherwise is delusional.
Public education has done more to usher in this culture change than it has in increasing literacy. Teachers have become the new pastors and citizens are a captive audience in a top down decidedly non representative education experiences.
I know we would like to believe we are far too evolved and educated to entertain ideas of spirit or soul, but in fact, I see no one here denying them they simple deny certain belief systems and replace them with a more socially acceptable form.
We are a nation founded on Judeo Christain heritage, that is undeniable. Anyone over the age of 50 had that heritage woven into their public education. If you are happy with the new kumbaya synthesis of common values into a new state approved faith continue to push for the federalization of education, but do not try and convince me this is “tolerance” and do not tell me faith is not a part of education.
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Well I am over 50. I know of what I speak. It is not my job to force nin Christians into my belief system. Nor is it yours. It is disrespectful to the. And it us impossible to force faith. One can only live his/her life as an example to others.
Read up on the religious faiths of our founding fathers. You may be in for a few surprises.
There is no way that teachers should force feed religious doctrine to students. I went to fundamentalist Baptist churches as a child, but I have gone to many other churches throughout life for years at a time. Most churches feel that they have the correct interpretation, but they all differ. The fundamentalist churches won’t even transfer your membership to another Christian church. The people in my family who are of that nature could not care less about anyone who doesn’t agree with them.
I have gone to Catholic, Assembly of God, Church of Christ, Methodist, American Baptist, Nazarene, United Church of Christ, Lutheran, Community Churches, Evangelical, Southern Baptist, American Baptist and Presbyterian churches. Only those that narrowly define Christianity want to push its teachings on schools. Only they consider other Christians to be invalid. This has no place in schools.
Our schools say the pledge. We don’t force Jehovah’s Witnesses of others to say it. We don’t leave “under God” out of the Pledge. Kids know teachers from the community and where they go to church. We allow a church to have Bible School in our building in summer. We collect food for the area church food nbanks at Thanksgiving and Christmas. We have weekly food bags sent home to the needy. We have Christmas songs in the music prograns. But we let the churches do the birth of Jesus and the Easter services. We have had fundraisers for several students and a teacher who ultimately died of cancer who were from our school or others in the district. We had a student led vigil at the football stadium when we’d had multiple victims of gunshot wounds and car wrecks within a short time. There were enough people to hold hands around the track. No one ever stops individuals from praying. We participate in prayer around the pole.
If those things are not giving kids the signs of religious participation as part of our lives, there is little else to say to prove that it can be integral without being taught. No one has to participate or knows who does or does not.
The community is small suburban-rural. It isn’t a highly diverse community. Mostly Catholic and Protestant.
However, I have had parents write comments on a math paper that had a problem add up to “666” that their kid couldn’t write the mark if the beast or that there is no greenhouse effect or climate change or anything that they didn’t embrace at their church. I’ve been asked by kids as to my beliefs about guns. I don’t and wouldn’t use them. They are shocked. The Jesus I believe in wouldn’t use guns or hatred or selfishness as a way of life. He wouldn’t be a Pharisee. I could give thousands of examples, but I won’t, because you already said you won’t listen or be changed. To me, that is precisely why church should not be in school. Neither your beliefs nor mine should supplant the parents’ teachings. It is not our business to pull kids away from anyone. But we should live lives of acceptance and be examples of live and kindness even if we disagree with their families’ beliefs.
In closing, I read of one district, in a state in the west that tried to demand that students claim they were born again Christians in order to graduate! I find that to be preposterous to expect students to affirm something that may not be true in their hearts in order to graduate. Of course, this was not allowed to go forth.
Good day.
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Lloyd, I do not want to force my faith on anyone either. I do want to preserve the right to practice it fully. Federalized education is education without representation, as is federalized healthcare. These are not benign areas of life as I am sure you are quite aware. There is no end to what one could identify as “education” it could include (and does include) areas such as physical, emotional and spiritual health, values etc. The growth of the “education” agenda is a door into controlling other aspects of life. Simply put education is best left to the states. I realize more enlightened folks such as yourself don’t believe that citizens are capable of self government so you are more than happy to see intrusions into all aspects of private life in the guise of “education” your presence here is a reaction to the fact that your chosen profession has now fallen victim to same totalitarian “benevolence” you would love to mandate for the rest of us.
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You said, “I realize more enlightened folks such as yourself don’t believe that citizens are capable of self government so you are more than happy to see intrusions into all aspects of private life in the guise of ‘education’ your presence here is a reaction to the fact that your chosen profession has now fallen victim to same totalitarian ‘benevolence’ you would love to mandate for the rest of us.”
I have no idea what you are talking about. There is no such think as self-government through citizens in the U.S. or any country. I think that is a libertarian theory that has never been proven to work in any country in history. Libertarianism, like Communism, will never work because human nature will make sure it fails just like pure capitalism without checks and balanced through government will fail and has failed in the past.
The United States was never created by the Founders to be self-governed by the country’s citizens under a Libertarian political model.
Libertarianism is a theory that has never had a chance in any country to prove if it would work, and I suspect there is a good reason for that—-which may be found in jails and prisons across the country.
In fact, the U.S. today is not what the Founders created but the country still is not self-governed under the libertarian ideal that I think you are talking about.
The Founders created a Republic where only white men—as long as they were not Jewish—who owned property could vote, the president was elected by the electoral college and not the popular vote and the Senate was appointed by state governors or legislators and not the people. The U.S. has a political system where voters elect representatives at the state and federal level who then pass legislation that is used to govern the nation and it has always been this way. That is not self-government by citizens.
Today, things have chanced since the 18th century—adult women and men of all colors may vote for both Houses of Congress and state legislatures and governors, but they still don’t select the President. The Electoral College still selects the President or we would have never had G. W. Bush in the White House. Gore would have been elected President instead.
I have no idea where you came up with the allegation that I support totalitarianism for everyone in the U.S. I support democratically run public schools in almost 14,000 school districts in 50 states, Washington DC and all US territories through elected school boards.
The public schools in the United States are as close as anyone is going to get to democracy at the local level where the voters and elected school board members are in charge instead of a one person CEO like Eva Moskowitz, who pays herself more than $500K annually to run 36 corporate Charter schools in New York City. Eva is a dictator and she runs her schools as if they are in a totalitarian country. The same may be said of the 1,600 Charter school Walton chain and other Corporate Charter chains where voters and parents have no voice.
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I too , have no idea what she is talking about, but I know from whence she comes.. from a place where truth has been compromised and ignorance prevails so that her understanding of what ou say, and what is true, is filtered though la-la land.
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Susan, you and Lloyd make a great team. I think he’d likely do better as a solo performer though 😉
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From janinelarent’s earlier comments to me in this thread I suspect her thinking comes from conservative talking heads on TV, radio, newspapers or books.
The United States started out as a Constitutional Republic and the Constitution was the law that protected the rights of the people. The job of all three branches of govenrment was to support that Constitution, and the amendment process was a way to revise the Constitution as time passed.
The oath of office of the U.S. President supports that fact:
“I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my Ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.”
In addition, I offer as more evidence the oath of office of the Congress:
“The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the Members of the several State Legislatures, and all executive and judicial Officers, both of the United States and of the several States, shall be bound by Oath or Affirmation, to support this Constitution; but no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States.”
— U.S. Constitution, Article VI, clause 3
http://history.house.gov/Institution/Origins-Development/Oath-of-Office/
And here is the text of the oaths of office for U.S. Supreme Court Justices:
“I, _________, do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter. So help me God.”
http://www.supremecourt.gov/about/oath/textoftheoathsofoffice2009.aspx
The United States is a Constitution Republic/Democracy and the Constitution is the supreme rule of law in this country.
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Lloyd, “Started out as a Constitutional Republic”? When did it become something else?
Sorry Lloyd, I know you “educated” folk consider yourselves too culturally refined to consider the opinions of anyone else worthy of consideration so you transparently marginalize them by trying to discredit their opinion as the substance of “talking heads”.
I was born over 50 years ago Lloyd, you know, in the old days when they actually taught students to read. They also taught
civics and rhetorical skills.
Your responses seem to me you “correct
me” while actually agreeing with me. Either way the bottom line is despite all the seemingly civically knowledgeable educators
somehow the past 50 years had ushered in
the complete federalization of education
and it wasn’t all done by the “far right”.
So I guess that supports the answer to question “what is the purpose of education?”
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Answer your own question. You have alleged that “educated” folk consider themselves too culturally refined to consider the opinions of anyone else”
It takes one to know one, and I haven’t alleged that you are an arrogant fool who looks down on others as inferior—have I?
Before you answer “what is the purpose of education?”, I suggest you read this piece in The Atlantic?
Why Doesn’t the Constitution Guarantee the Right to Education?
“Each of the countries ahead of the U.S. (on Pearson’s PISA test) has a fundamental commitment in common, one that the America doesn’t: a constitutional, or statutory, guarantee of the right to education.”
http://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2013/10/why-doesnt-the-constitution-guarantee-the-right-to-education/280583/
In fact, the Constitution—the day the framers signed the new document after months of careful if contentious deliberation—says nothing about public education. Not a word. But most states, in fact, include education among several rights guaranteed in their constitutions making public education a state and local concern.
Too many Americans, and their elected leaders, labor under the belief that there is no problem the federal government cannot “solve.” In reality, the problem of public education only worsens the more federal bureaucrats interfere. If Americans revere the Constitution as much as we’d like to think, we must put a stop to this usurpation of state and local accountability—and soon.
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Don’t think I really understand the point of this thread. Most readers left a long time ago. Think I’ll join them.
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That’s the document that my humanities teammate and I studied with our students,.and be, but Sometimes, I think I am living in an alternate reality… our Supreme Court redefined people, and the legislators in our Congress have decided to sue the president and york tirelessly to to undo the healthcare law which was passed and is popular with WE the people… (Until real universal health care some a long and the insurance companies are thrown out of the business of healthcare.)
sigh!
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Veto is necessary!
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Yeah! Right!
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I have no idea what you mean.
I am flattered to be in the same sentence with this brilliant man.
He is, in fact, a force onto himself, and does not need me or anyone else.
Do you not grasp that what you are reading is a ‘conversation’ about observable reality?
Many of the writers here see the observable reality.
There are no ‘teams’ here. I only came here to write a few months ago.
If Lloyd and I see the same things in front of our eyes, that hardly makes us a “team” but we are certainly on the same page.
I am not sure what page you are on, Janine?
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One thing we are not Lloyd is a democracy. As you have pointed out, even our presidential election is not decided by a democratic vote. Instead it is decided by an electoral college in December following the general election. And I am thankful for the electoral college though I have had heard many democratic purists call for it’s demise because that is how smaller suburban and rural communities ensure their voice is heard. As anyone with even a minimum amount of civics would know (that would rule out most of today’s public school educated students)the major cities, which primarily vote liberal, would over run the election and nullify the vote of any opposing voice. In fact, I would prefer that more states have a split electoral college instead of just Maine and Nebraska.
We are a representative republic which means as citizens we are entitled through a democratic voting process to vote for and elect our representatives. The two party system (and our founders had much to say about parties) has effectively eradicated self government and most elections are a sham today anyway. Even still, the department of public education yields incredible power and yet not one of the bureaucrats spewing laws and regulations is elected through any democratic process.
Your words have essentially stated “suck it up the republic is dead”. What exactly would you call this form of government? It is not too complicated, you really only get three choices, pure democracy, which allows majority to make rule without any regard to law, oligarchy, (the most common form of government and the one I believe we are now living under) in which a ruling class controls virtually every aspect of society and republic, (which by Benjamin Franklin’s admission is what our founders intended) which to find a balance between the wishes of majority and the rights of the individual balanced by law (the Constitution).
Clearly neither you nor I are members of the ruling class and when we compromise constitutional limits in order to achieve some perceived benevolent outcome we put the very republic at risk. Washington D.C. has dispensed of any pretense of following any constitutional limits. With multiple czars, departments and bureaucrats which are essentially non elected extensions of the legislative and executive branches creating and executing laws without any repercussions in the voting box and they have done so at great expense and debt which additionally, threatens the state of the republic.
“The people” have no idea what kind of government they have. So long as they are well fed and entertained on borrowed excess they seem not to care. There are no free lunches. If you ran your own household the way we run the government you would have been homeless long ago. We are in effect homeless and the time will come to pay for what we have purchased. I don’t enjoy labels, but if you are so inclined, I prefer “Constitutional moderate”.
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The U.S. government is not a direct democracy, but that doesn’t mean it’s not a democracy. It can be described loosely as a “democracy,” or more specifically as a “representative democracy,” or alternatively (and also accurately) as a “representative republic,” and as a bunch of other things, too. Terms like “democracy” and “republican” have different meanings depending on the context and on what features you want to emphasize or distinguish. There is no single, authoritative, back-of-the-flashcard way to describe our government.
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The U.S. started out as a Constitutional Republic. We still have the Constitution even if the U.S. Supreme Court and Congress isn’t doing their job to uphold that Constitution when it comes to Arne Duncan and Bill Gates and their unconstitutional meddling in public education.
Just after the completion and signing of the Constitution, in reply to a woman’s inquiry as to the type of government the Founders had created, Benjamin Franklin said, “A Republic, if you can keep it.”
We can’t expect the oligarchs to support the Constitution so it will be up to the rest of us to defend it if we can get our act together.
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To be clear, I was responding to Janine’s comment, not yours. I don’t disagree with anything you’ve written on this subject.
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I don’t even think my comment was meant for you. I think it was for Janine. Sorry if I put it in the wrong place in this thread.
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What is a democracy?
If we look at what historians say is the first democracy, we look at Athens where only men could vote and Athens had a huge slave population. Male slaves could not vote. Women could not vote, and the children were also the property of the men, Yet, history considers Athens a democracy.
Has there ever been a country ruled directly by the people without a legislature and/or president of some kind?
What do you propose, a people’s democracy without legislatures, governors or a president and the people vote daily on issues?
The U.S. has the third largest population in the world after China and India. Imagine what it would be like if the U.S. were ruled totally by the people with no elected government.
Have you ever read what many of the Founding Fathers thought about Democracy?
The U.S. was actually called a Republic by its own people until Wilson was President and then somehow the term changed to Democracy.
Just after the completion and signing of the Constitution, in reply to a woman’s inquiry as to the type of government the Founders had created, Benjamin Franklin said, “A Republic, if you can keep it.”
A Republic is representative government ruled by law (the United States Constitution). A Democracy is government ruled by the majority (mob rule). A Republic recognizes the unalienable rights of individuals while Democracies are only concerned with group wants or needs for the good of the public, or in other words social justice.
Lawmaking is a slow, deliberate process in our Constitutional Republic requiring approval from the three branches of government, the Legislative, Executive, and Judicial branches for checks and balance. Lawmaking in Democracy occurs rapidly requiring approval from the majority by polls and/or voter referendums, which in turn is mob rule 50% plus 1 vote takes away anything from the minority. Here is one example; if 51% of the people don’t pay taxes they can vote a tax increase on the 49% that do, which is mob rule.
The U.S. started as a Constitutional Republic—-not a people’s democracy. That doesn’t mean I want to return to the era of women and children as the property of men and when the U.S. had slave states.
I think all adult men and women should have a right to vote for their representatives, and then we trust those reps to do their job and if they don’t we vote them out in the next election.
There is no perfect system of government and there never has been. I prefer a Constitutional Republic instead of the mob rule of a libertarian style democracy. If the Koch brothers get their way, that is where the United States is headed: a liberation democracy of the people. If that happens and I’m still alive, I think I’d move to another country that’s a Constitutional Republic where adult men and women are allowed to vote for their legislature and leaders. Maybe Finland. Finland is called a Social Democracy.
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I think it rather clear what I prefer, but if you could not comprehend that from my post I prefer what our founders derived: a repesentative republic. I’m not quite certain what you are referring to as a “libertarian democracy”, but it seems quite clear from many of the comments that many of the posters here think they live in a pure democracy. What they are living under is a ruling elite. Best wishes in the fight. Hope you can figure out who your opponent is.
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The U.S. is not a a “representative republic”. The US. is a Constitutional Republic/Democracy. It doesn’t matter what you call the U.S.—democracy or republic—-because the key is that one word in front: Constitutional.
The Constitution is the law of the land and every city, country state and federal law may be measured by the Constitution to see if that law is legal.
State Constitutions, as long as they don’t step on the U.S. Constitution, also are the rule of law in each state.
For instance:
District Court panel: School funding inadequate under Kansas Constitution
http://www.kansas.com/news/local/education/article5169564.html
The state high court first ruled that Ohio’s school funding model is unconstitutional in 1997 in DeRolph v. State. The court ruled that Ohio’s reliance on local tax dollars leaves too much to the chance of where someone is born and raised. Property-rich districts could provide an education that property-poor districts could not afford. The court said the inequality plays out worst in urban and rural schools.
http://stateimpact.npr.org/ohio/tag/k-12-school-funding/
In Washington State, the state Supreme Court ruled unanimously that the state was underfunding education.
http://www.thenewstribune.com/2014/09/11/3373866_court-finds-legislature-in-contempt.html?rh=1
In Texas, the state Supreme Court has ruled that the school funding system was constitutional
http://www.tshaonline.org/day-by-day/31361
Florida Court Rules Voucher Program Unconstitutional
http://www.nea.org/home/17938.htm
In North Carolina, a judge ruled that the state voucher program was unconstitutional
http://www.citizen-times.com/story/news/local/2014/08/21/judge-rules-state-voucher-program-unconstitutional/14384081/
Louisiana Supreme Court rules voucher funding violated the state Constitution
http://www.nola.com/education/index.ssf/2013/05/breaking_louisiana_supreme_cou.html
In Oklahoma, the state Supreme Court rules that a law repealing Common Core was constitutional.
Did I miss any states where the courts have ruled educational issues constitutional or unconstitutional?
The U.S. is guided first by the U.S. Constitutions and then the State Constitutions and the representatives the people vote into office take oaths to uphold those Constitutions.
The U.S. is a Constitutional Republic/Democracy.
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Lloyd, Gotta love semantics. The Constitution is the law that supports our republic. Way to go intentionally mincing words.
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Lloyd, The Constitution is the law that supports our republic. We are a republic. Benjamin Franklin very clearly stated this. The laws are created by an elected legislature that represent us. They are executed by the president who has also sworn allegience to the Constitution. The judiciary who are appointed for life are determine the Constitutionality of law. The “democratic” part is simply electing representatives (previously the senate was appointed by the house) Of course I am referring to national government. There is a similar structure on the state level and various structures on the local level. I do not have a degree in constitutional law and I don’t think I need one to participate in self government. Stop the spin of semantics. It does no good for the average citizen’s enpowerment to be made to feel foolish. You have said nothing different than I did except to rephrase it in flowery terms that impress your audience, but do nothing to edify.
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If you believe that what he said was semantics, intending to make you look foolish, then you don’t get it.
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Get what Susan? I think we were discussing the structure of our government which of course was discussed in reponse to a previous comment that had significantly more relevance to the subject of the reasons of how we came to this place where teachers, parents and students have zero input into education standards (curriculum). The convoluted debate that ensued simply restated the same thing over and over again with Lloyd revered for his brilliance and you becoming his cheerleader and apparent watchdog.
Good luck drumming up support for your cause. If you treat every citizen who stumbles upon this blog the same way you will succeed only in alienating. The problems of public education, most importantly, the federalization of education is not an issue reserved to retired teachers. Public education is an investment we all have made and it is, indeed in crisis.
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I am sorry that this is your take-away.
I have never met Lloyd, and I followed the conversation by perusing the emails.
I am have more to do then sit and re-act to the attacks of people who have no idea who I am or what I have accomplished since they tried to silence my voice at the very moment in my career when my practice had been noticed.
The lawlessness that I experienced has been told in letters (in my files) to scores of journalists, editors, legislators, and …well, it is not hidden!
Except from the public, because my story makes THE PROCESS crystal clear!
http://www.speakingasateacher.com/SPEAKING_AS_A_TEACHER/No_Constitutional_Rights-_A_hidden_scandal_of_National_Proportion.html
The behavior and the intentions are undeniable, — what they did to end the tenure of a teacher-practitioner who by any and all rubrics, –including the Harvard thesis for the National Standards and the scores of her students on any and all tests— the extent of the brazen behavior of top-down managers with no accountability… must BE KNOWN!
Lloyd ,and I are on the same page as you, my dear when it comes to knowing what is missing because we did it.
But, although you see us as somehow ‘connected’ he and I come from very different places. Out commonality besides 7 decades of experience watching the show, is that we know what LEARNING looks like, because we did it very well, anywhere and everywhere we practiced. I saw it all in the 12 years I subbed, and the 15 years in which I planned and implemented everything… and put glass in the windows and cardboard over the holes in the wall.
I have gone to his blogs, read him here when he writes, but we have not exchanged emails and I have never spoken to him. If I found the same comments egregious or incorrect, it was on my own, perhaps for similar reasons!!!!
Your passion is admirable and necessary. You are obviously aware that public eduction is under attack.
What confuses me is the words” FEDERALIZATION OF PUBLIC EDUCATION”
It is such judgements and opinions spoken with such assurance that it rings of truth, when actually the opposite may be is the case at the moment. You are talking in this room to us. So was Raj, and John and Wetmiller… what do you expect?
Right now, if the posts by Diane (which I keep in a file) dealing with the destruction in 15,880 districts, and the legislative actions by states is the EVIDENCE, what it shows is there is NO FEDERAL AUTHORITY TO STOP THE MAYHEM.
In fact, in the Constitution (the one that I read with my kids) there was a preamble that made it clear that the document was created to support the people, and ensure that the “COMMON GOOD’ was the practice of the new government. Isn’t shared knowledge in the common good of democracy.
Click to access hirsch.pdf
Yes, I know about State’s rights where many things are regulated, and that the state has the provenience over schools. How else do you explain Louisiana, Florida and Georgia?
The oligarchs (who are the real villains) are taking advantage of the mayhem created by almost sixteen thousand districts. Hey, people I meet cannot figure out what is happening in their own district, let alone NYC. ILove 45 minutes out of NYC, and the people I meet do not know the threat to the NYC public system as Mr Cuomo would just lovet o take it into receivership! I know it, because Diane makes sure we know the shenanigans, but where else is it?
This blog traces the money that pours into the states where charters replace public schools… a system that went down because instead of creating smaller classrooms, and supporting the teachers and the kids, the states starved the system. (wow– all those s’s)
With the removal of the practitioners the patient died.
They counted on this.
Now Mr. Koch, and Mr Broad and Mr Gates can re-werite what our future citizens USE to learn, and THUS they CONTROL the conversations in the classrooms. Gosh.. Sounds like 1939 in Germany.
Lloyd and I would never be allowed to teach using the materials we created, which enriched the minds of emergent learners and gave them practice, not just in speaking, reading and writing, but in THINKING…. analyzing, comparing what they know to be true to the propaganda that passes as news today.
Imagine me using “Animal Farm” to demonstrate to 13 year old minds, that revolutions even for good purposes, can be useless in the face of power to control information… that contract in the barn , their constitution, had been rewritten, and future generations of citizens did not know ti happened.
Imagine, THAT as CORE CURRICULA
Janine, Of course your voice is valuable, but I have struggled for 16 years to tell the story in a way that opens the door to the travesty of justice that was perpetrated in order to remove the voice of the teacher….YOUR voice, my dear.
I am no mere ‘retired’ teacher. I am no mere ‘teacher’. I am a pedagog of great experience who has already been the object of scorn. You are not the first, but you should not be in that company.
If I enter a conversation, it is because it either does not being in this teacher’s room (in my opinion, but none-the-less) a fair one.
Argument is one thing. Go to OEN… look at the threads where argument is the meat.
But there, and here, truth and facts dominate. Opinions are welcome, but certainly there has to be some understanding of your AUDIENCE.
I am a playwright by nature. I write many things, but I love writing plays, because there can be no narrative (unless you a re Thornton Wilder.)
The audience watches the behavior, and if the words betray personality and intentions, then the writer has the attention of the audience.
Your words are such words. What you said to me says it all.
MY voice is important, Janine, and so is yours.
But I have worked for 16 years to tell this tale where characters who should never have walked into a classroom were the ones who prevailed.
Finally, if this chaos is not resolved by educators.
If no leader arises to explain what learning entails, and how supporting the teacher IS THE STANDARD in the real research, then the federal government will try to step in so that Ohio and NY, Wisconsin and Florida offer the kids who will not be kids for long, a real road to opportunity. THAT, my dear, could happen, but for now its the plutocrats who are monetarizing the ‘ed industry,’ and in the end, THEY will control what the schools ‘teach.”
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The Constitution—the law of the land—was not created by any individual state legislature and it cannot be altered by even an act of the U.S. Congress.
Adding an amendment to the Constitution takes a lot more than an act of Congress.
“The Constitution provides that an amendment may be proposed either by the Congress with a two-thirds majority vote in both the House of Representatives and the Senate or by a constitutional convention called for by two-thirds of the State legislatures. None of the 27 amendments to the Constitution have been proposed by constitutional convention. … A proposed amendment becomes part of the Constitution as soon as it is ratified by three-fourths of the States (38 of 50 States).”
http://www.archives.gov/federal-register/constitution/
Evidence of how difficult it is to add an amendment to the U.S., Constitutions is the Equal Rights Amendment.
“After women’s right to vote was guaranteed by the 19th Amendment in 1920— It took activists and reformers nearly 100 years to win that right, and the campaign was not easy—she proposed the ERA as the next step in confirming “equal justice under law” for all citizens. The ERA was introduced into every Congress between 1923 and 1972, when it was passed and sent to the states for ratification.”
The ERA still hasn’t been ratified by the states.
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You demanded, “Stop the spin of semantics.”
Why do you want to censor my voice and control what I say?
I will express myself anyway I want, and if anyone limits what I want to say, that person will be me.
You said, “It does no good for the average citizen’s empowerment to be made to feel foolish.”
I am not responsible for you feeling foolish. You are responsible for how you feel.
Please define the average citizen. Do you see yourself as an average citizen? What is average, you?
I can’t imagine how you can exclude college educated Americans from being average when 31.66% (76 million) of all adults age 25 and over have earned a BA degree, 11.57% (27.8 million) have earned a Master’s and/or Doctorate and/or professional degree—that is almost 104 million Americans who it seems you think are not average citizens.
What about those Americans who have a high school degree but who didn’t go to college? almost 21.2 million, and many of these citizens have some college or an Associate degree from a two-year community college—that number is 13.9 million.
What about the citizens who never finished high school? 16.8 million
It’s obvious that the United States is a country where the majority of its adult citizens over the age of 25 are college educated leaving only 24.1 million who don’t even have some college.
Why are you so angry at the majority of people like me who went to college and earned a degree? It is evident from the facts that the average American has some college or has earned a college degree.
But, I was born into a family that lived in poverty. My mother and father dropped out of high school at the age of 14 to survive and never earned even a GED. My brother died illiterate at age 64, and he also spent 15 years of his life in prison. My sister graduated from high school and went no further. My father, mother and sister are all avid readers as I am.
I was the first member of my immediate family who went to college and earned a degree—but only after serving several years in the Marines and fighting in Vietnam. I left high school hating school and that feeling had nothing to do with the teachers or the public schools.
I joined the Marines right after I barely graduating from High School in 1965. My GPA was 0.9. I first went to a 2-year community college and because of my HS GPA, I was on probation for two years.
After fighting in Vietnam and getting out of the Marines, I changed my mind about the value of an education and went to college on the GI Bill and worked part time jobs to pay my way through college. My first two years in college were extremely difficult because I had never studied or done homework before. I must have done just enough class work to scrape by with a lot of D- grades in HS.
My father was an alcoholic, a gambler and a chain smoker so that may be the reason I was born with severe dyslexia and my mother was told when I was age seven that I would never learn to read or write. She used a wire coat hanger to beat literacy into that seven year old boy because she didn’t want me to turn out like my older illiterate brother who was already serving his first stint in prison at the age of 19.
At this point, I think you are an angry Troll out looking to make trouble for someone else by attacking them—and I have the freedom to think that way without you telling me I don’t have that right. What anyone else thinks about you or me is their business. You are only one person just like I am one person. Both of us do not speak for the so-called average American if there is such a thing.
How can the democratically run public schools be failing when so many Americans have gone to college compared with the few who haven’t any college?
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Ah, Lloyd.
It is freezing out there, today but your words are hot. You took her words and led a merry chase with the accusations.
Dyslexic? Impossible.
FYI:I listened to the Daily Show, and the guest had written a book called “Wiser.”
It appears that people ‘harden their beliefs’ when confronted with evidence that they are mistaken.
You can’t win with low-esteem people who see everything as a personal attack. They feel stupid, and need to shift the blame ,, which is a shame, since it is obvious that she is a smart lady.
I answered her attack on me, explaining that I did not know you, but only know what you write.
Now, I know more about you, and I am so proud and happy to be able to chat with you, here.
Others read what we write here. Did you see that post
Someone is reading what we write here.
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I did see that post and I think I have a new post to write that came out of that conversation with the “smart lady”.
The title would be something like: “Is there an Average American and if so what does that person look like”
How can the public schools be failing when most adults in this country have some college or an AA/AS degree and more than 40% have a BA or better?
About 90% of Americans age 25 or older have an academic HS degree compared to the OECD average of 75%. More than half have some college and more than 40% have a BA or better. I’d be willing to bet that most people have no idea that in Japan, for isntance (and this holds true for almsot all OECD countries) only about 70% of the population has an academic HS degree and the rest have a vocational HS degree because most countries have two HS tracks while the US only has one and that is academic focused on college readiness.
The reform movement is a con and it is so obvious it is a con because the reformers never talk about improving education. They only talk about reforming it from a public system into a corporate Charter system that focuses only on college readiness, and most if not all of those private-sector Charters will reform education and achieve this goal by getting rid of the most difficult to teach, at-risk kids at an early age by denying them the opportunity of an education. Special Ed as we know it will vanish if the reformers have their way.
Improving public education would be easy by just focusing on improving teacher training—-imagine the quality of new teachers if they all went through a full-time. full-year internship in a master teacher’s classroom like they do in most of the highest scoring PISA countries—- in addition to launching a national early childhood education program that is kept in the public schools and totally transparent like they did in France and some of the other highest scoring PISA countries. Those two programs would improve public education but the corporate reformers are not interested in improving education. They are going to reform it totally into a private-sector, for profit anyway-you-look-at-it system that ranks and yanks teachers and students based on bean counter metrics called standardized tests.
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You said: ” They only talk about reforming it from a public system into a corporate Charter system that focuses only on college readiness, and most will achieve this goal by getting rid of the most difficult to teach, at-risk kids at an early age by denying them the opportunity of an education.
Lloyd, authentic conversations need to be about learning, “not teaching”
What does it take for the emergent mind of a human child to learn.?
Gosh, I want to hear conversations that outline this, because at the top of the list is CLEAR EXPECTATIONS, followed by REWARDS FOR ACHIEVEMENT… and all of this falls into the hands of the classroom teacher, who can neither set the expectation that are needed, (that is set by topdown management) or to motivate her students, and provide real rewards for applying knowledge, because that too, is mandated from above.
For learning to occur, the teacher must know the content cold, but today, no teacher could choose the content (as you did in those wonderful lessons you described in another post.)
The curricula and the materials that must be used is mandated from on high.
“Best practice” is a subject THEY harp on, and claim to evaluate, but in truth THEY make it impossible for kids to learn, and then…. they blame the teacher.
Learning will improve When the educators themselves, once more, set the agendas AND choose the curricula , and the parents grasp the kind of support the school administration, they, and their kid sMUST give the classroom practitioner so that learning is facilitated.
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In most cases, learning requires cooperation from both parents and students. When the child knows the parent is serious, children will learn even from poor teaching.
For instance, my step daughter: when she was six, I told her that it was her responsibility to learn from teachers no matter how poor or great the teaching.
And if she earned a grade on any assignment that was less than an A, her mother was on her way to see the teacher the same day. My wife and I never blamed teachers for anything. Learning was the child’s responsibility, and the child knew this.
That sent a strong message to the daughter, and Lauryann graduated from high school with straight A’s from 3rd grade to 12th. She graduated with honors from HS with a 4.65 GPA and ended up at Stanford where she graduated last June.
But what about Lauryann’s mother, my wife, who grew up hungry and in poverty in China with less than a fifth-grade education, because when Mao launched his Cultural Revolution in 1966 and closed the schools, my wife was nine. When that happened and the schools were closed, all the children poured into the streets in a sanctioned Cultural Revolution where it was okay to bully everyone you could turn into a target—even high ranking members of the Communist Party could be pulled down by these teenagers and many were. After that, most of what my wife learned was to memorize Mao’s “Little Red Book” full of quotations.
You can read all about it in my wife’s first memoir, “Red Azalea”, that was a New York Times Notable Book of the Year in 1992 and won the Carl Sandburg Award. It’s still in print and selling more than twenty years alter.
The next memoir, seven books later, was “The Cooked Seed” and it picks up where the first memoir left off after she arrived in the U.S. on a student VISA to attend college—she arrived with a 5th grade Chinese education speaking no English and eventually earned an MFA in film a few years later.
Imagine that, a young woman who grew up in poverty speaking only Chinese and with a fifth grade education when she arrive din the United States ends up being a world class author in the English language with her books selling more than a million copies in just English that have also been translated into more than thirty languages.
I know why most Asian children do so well in school. It’s their obsessive mothers grandmothers, aunts, etc. I’ve witnessed it from more than one Chinese mother.
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Ever more fascinating information. Your wife story is so interesting..seven books later?
Wow. That period in China was a very trying one for children.
I have alway wanted to write a memoir, and in fact have many pages written, but lack the courage (not to mention the time) to compete, edit and publish them. They will be for my grandchildren.
When I taught 2nd grade in Oradel New Jersey, to a small class, and when I taught seventh grade in NYC, parents always communicated when their children were having difficulty, and I always called them, too.
Teaching must be a collaboration. I had lunch last week with one of my former and grADE STUDENTS, now 32 years old. She did not recall, but I did, the visit by her parents when she came home very upset with me.
Apparetnly, she took vey seriously a gentle comment that I made about her trip to the pencil sharpener while I was talking,. We straightened it out, and the child who loved me so much that any criticism was taken deeply to heart, learned that I cared for her too…. which I still do… she introduces me as her “mentor”.
What salary incentive can top that as a reason to teach?
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It’s rare for teachers to find out years later their influence on students. I’ve had a few, and they always feel good.
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Lloyd, did you accuse me of rambling?
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Love Finland,
http://blip.tv/hdnet-news-and-documentaries/dan-rather-reports-finnish-first-6518828
bit it is solo cold, and dark too long.
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I haven’t been to Finland. Maybe Canada would take us.
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Lloyd, Your hyperbole does nothing to address the actual question. I am well over 50 myself and have not found it difficult to engage sincerely with individuals of many different faiths or ethnicity. I do prefer to socialize with individuals that I have more in common with and I believe history has proven societies lacking a common culture do not last very long.
I do not impose myself on anyone. I think public education is too big, too expensive, is centrally controlled, anti constitutional and frankly not doing a very good job at “educating”.
I would not be surprised at all at what our founders believed; children of the enlightenment, they surely brought the religious reservations of that period to bear in drafting the Constitution.
I am not here to debate the merits of individual faith systems. I would simply like to limit public “education” to it’s proper place, which, according to this blog has no parameters whatsoever.
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What are you rambling about.
You said, “I think public education is too big, too expensive, is centrally controlled, anti constitutional and frankly not doing a very good job at ‘educating’.”
First, if we get the federal govenrment out of public education, then we return the democratically run school districts back to their local communities where citizens who vote make most of the decisions through their elected representatives on school board—at the community level and not from a corporate office or boardroom.
To make that happen, NCLB, RTTT and Common Core must be repealed and the federal DOE eliminated.
There are almost 14,000 different public school districts in the United States, and most of these districts are operated by democratically elected school boards—That—without NCLB, RTTT and Common Core—-would NOT be centrally controlled and anti constitutional as you allege.
What is replacing them: corporate Charter schools that are IN-FACT centrally controlled by a CEO and not democratically elected school boards. In New York the Success Academy Charters are centrally controlled by Eva Moskowitz who pays herself more than $500,000 annually. Superintendents in public school districts cannot arbitrarily decide how much to pay themselves. Democrtacilaly elected school boards make that decision through the democratic process as the U.S. Founders designed it to work.
You also allege that the public schools are not doing a good job. But the evidence suggests otherwise. Most of the corporate charters are performing worse or the same as the public schools and when Stanford broke down the international PISA scores by six socioeconomic levels, we discovered that the U.S. is doing better teaching children who live in poverty than any of the OECD countries—in fact, any country in the world.
The Stanford report also found:
“There is an achievement gap between more and less disadvantaged students in every country; surprisingly, that gap is smaller in the United States than in similar post-industrial countries, and not much larger than in the very highest scoring countries.
“Achievement of U.S. disadvantaged students has been rising rapidly over time, while achievement of disadvantaged students in countries to which the United States is frequently unfavorably compared – Canada, Finland and Korea, for example – has been falling rapidly.
“U.S. PISA scores are depressed partly because of a sampling flaw resulting in a disproportionate number of students from high-poverty schools among the test-takers. About 40 percent of the PISA sample in the United States was drawn from schools where half or more of the students are eligible for the free lunch program, though only 32 percent of students nationwide attend such schools.”
For instance, the HS graduation rate in the U.S. for citizens age 24 – 65 is 90%. That average for all OECD nations is 75%. The U.S,. also has the 4th highest college graduation rate in the world. In fact, the U.S,. had almsot three college graduates for every job that requires a college degree.
When we compare literacy levels between the five-major English speaking countries—as similar as we can get in a cultural comparison where we are comparing apples to apples—-the US has the second highest literacy level and the US has achieved this in spite of having the highest ratio of children living in poverty among all OECD nations that includes the five major English speaking countries.
1st place goes to the UK
2nd place is the US
Canada, New Zealand and Australia rank lower than the US by a wide margin.
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Lloyd, I think we have found some common ground. I would love to see the repeal of all of each of the legislations you mentioned as well and fight vigorously at the local level to do so (without much success I might add as the “reformers” are increasingly emboldened) I simply prefer to fight the heart of the hydra which, of course, is the department of education (thank you Jimmy Carter). Educating the public as to the genesis of the monster that is CCSS is far too complicated. Choosing to focus on the source is easier to comprehend. Best wishes in your repeal efforts 😉
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Repealing NCLB, RTTT, and Common Core and getting rid of the federal DOE will have to be a group effort to stand a chance at success.
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LOVE YOUR RESPONSE. I am sure you know that we are enter a period where the rantings of the far right have gained traction in the media, and we read, as I did in The nY Times, the belief of a substantial portion of our population that this country was created as a CHRISTIAN country, and that THIS was the desire of the founding fathers.
What moe can I say about their grasp of history, the reasons the Pilgrims came here, and their toleration of other faiths.
“To argue with person who has renounced the use of reason is like administering medicine to the dead.” Thomas Paine
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Susan, LOVE THE ALL CAPS. Really adds emphasis to your words though, I must confess, I do prefer my sarcasm a bit more subtle. “The far right” sure seems to have alot in common with the far left these days dontcha think? It must be comforting being so certain who your enemy is. BTE quoting Common Sense doesn’t actually mean one has any.
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I hate using caps, but there is no way to italicize or use boldface, highlight, or underline.
Thus, when a comment runs longitudinally forever, it helps to put some emphasis on key words for those who peruse quickly.
Personally, I am fed up with the lies… look at this
Lying about education is easy. So is lying about the complex subject of economics when most people do not know that democracy is a political system and capitalism an economic one. Economics is really difficult, and like climate science there are lots of theories among experts. Education pundits only need a microphone.
There is real science about learning, real research.
In the field of education there is real research too, based on applying cognitive science, but pundits quote ‘studies’ as if they mean something.
I remember, when I moved to Rockland county, that a ‘study’ in California, based on pseudo-theory touted ‘open classrooms.’
Suddenly, classrooms were set up in a new school, where there were no walls.
Pandemonium ensued.Well, it worked in Osh-kosh California, so why not here.
Third level research, like the Pew research that I was part of, involves large number of subjects, and it had to work everywhere, not just in Timbuktu (which is a real place, fyi)to be considered as valid. Imagine medicine based on mere studies.
I’m tired, Janine… tired of knowing what I know about what they did to teachers, and see the truth NOWHERE…not sen here. I know how important the unions are for teachers, and I know the truth, that the unions (contrary to the lies in the media) did nothing to protect tenure…. the opposite is the reality.
I know how Diane feels about anything critical of the unions, but only the truth about their COMPLICTY in the removal of the veteran teachers will lead to change.
I know Randi, personally. It was she who finally rescued me from the mess caused when the Manhattan Rep failed to represent me and allowed that Superintendent to issue a letter saying I was “guilty of corporal punishment” BASED ON ALLEGATIONS by a single child that I called her names.. Guilty in the United States when I had never been charged, had a hearing OR (HERE COMES THE CAPS) had a single meeting in the six months after they removed me from the school I helped to make famous.
The union is the LAW, and I could barely find a lawyer to represent me…. most of them had conflict of interests with the UFT or the DOE. It took a parent, an attorney, who was outraged that I was removed just before the citywide reading tests — a man whose children had passed through my classes, and who knew what I did and who I was.
He got me an expensive education attorney who read the riot act to everyone, about the law that covers ‘corporal punishment, and told the DOE, the mendatious superintendent, and the principal of my school that they had better send me back and not say another thing or I would move forward with a 4 million dollar lawsuit.
Sooooo……
They sent me back — to a closet and published that letter to the entire school and neighborhood, and I became a pariah. The scorn for the law came about with a TOTAL lack of ACCOUNTABILITY in NYC schools, by administration, for decades!
.When my husband called Randi Weingarten… that day, a few months later, when I was once more sent back to the rubber room, she knew she had better help me… which she did…into ‘arbitration’ and into retirement.
What took me out? What traumatized a dedicated professional like me, so that I would stop fighting back?
The principal, this woman who knew me for years and took my work around the country to show how teachers in HER district met the rubric in the research— this bully had a teacher in the school downstairs ‘write’ that I had threatened to kill her. From child abuser, to attempted murderer even as I was the NYS Educator Of Excellence.,and in Who’s Who Among America’s teachers, and was offered a book deal at Stenhouse.
Imagine what they could say about teachers who were not famous as I was!!!!
Six months later, before the actual arbitration, as the Superintendent left NYC (to ruin San Diego’s public schools,) she put out real charges this time… for incompetence.
Randi know how the UFT failed the thousands of veteran teachers in NYC. Their removal was crucial to the failure of the schools so charters could come in. She knew I had the facts and the proof.
I am dangerous, Janine, because I refuse to stop telling the truth in CAPS AND SMALL FONT.
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or is there?
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Absolutely. I try to be rational and reasonable. But, I see, all the time, examples of reinvented history, coming from the likes of Glenn Beck and friends, etc. I ignore them. I try to find out the truth. But some would have you think that a bunch of lying progressives got together and redirected out thinking.
I just know that my interpretation of history began in 5th grade from my own personal observations of what the European settlers did to the Native Americans and then what they did to the black people from Africa. I thought, “something is wrong with this picture”. That was too bizarre for me to accept. I was 11. I lived in a 15,000 person town in WV with a really good education system. No one pounded the ideas into my head. I just found the textbooks to give us a really grusome picture of our ancestors.
And, the extent of the religious basics of our reasons for existing here, we saw that people left England to avoid a state forced religion. And, many were criminals trying to start over. We have the Puritans and the Salem Witch Trials, which some would like to reenact, it seems.
Never did I have a Bible banned from my schools, but I witnessed Alice Moore and her book burnings. So, it seems that the changes that people iniated then in the 50s and 60s were to ban and reinvent what had been taught before. But, it is kind of simplistic to try to make absolute proclamations about what all people’s experiences might have been. I do believe it was different in different states and even within different communities within those states. Also, many of the schools and communities, in the name of religion and righteousness and self-control, were guilty of harming students and families for not complying with their brand of religion. I don’t want to go back to that.
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TH fallacious and sarcastic opening sentence of your remark does not reflect in any way what I said, or what might work. What might work, is “day care” like they have in Finland, where the babies (i.e. future citizens) of working mothers are given stimulating environments and caring attendants instead of being parked for 8 hours. Perhaps, courses in high school about the needs of the brain at its earliest stages, including nutrition during its growth in the womb, and available on-line or neighborhood centers for new mothers to learn what early interactions and stimulation can do for the child.
It is just too late in grade 4, to expect a child to read for meaning, when language centers have been deprived since birth. Period.
Sarcasm only delays real progress.
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I think it was C.S. Lewis who said (paraphrased) “we all want progress, but if progress finds us going down a wrong turn, he who turns back soonest is the most progressive.”
Children without parents don’t do well. Stop incentiving irresponsible parenting. The state is a poor substitute for a mother and father and these “mandatory” programs don’t just get imposed on poor parents they get imposed on the whole of society.
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Mandatory programs?
How about community services for working mothers.
What about adding really effective courses and help, in a variety of neighborhood and community venues that explain how early literacy effects children.
Explaining what won’t work is not helpful.
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Without suggesting that the state take over parenting, one should point out that certain libertarians typically blame attempts by a state to attend to the needs of workers and also of the poor, the aged or otherwise handicapped segments of the population for problems that are primarily caused by other forces, such as industrialization, urbanization and the other accompaniments of regional or globalizing capitalism — or the attempts of “socialist” countries to match the industrial production of capitalist ones.
While I am against the excesses of compulsory education, one should bear in mind that it is fine for those more affluent, and/or in two-parent households with a supportive community to consider home schooling as an option. For most parents who have to race to work each day and often come home exhausted, with their children at times rarely being able to see their parents during daylight hours, this is not a feasible option.
The fault here lies not with the state, but with the survival pressures to which workers are often subjected. Just to pay the rent or mortgage, both parents have to work, too often. Then there are other expenses, and many, even in our “affluent society”, live hand-to-mouth, even though they may be frugal and steer clear, by choice or necessity, of the aggressive marketing that leads to the “rampant consumerism” that powers the other side of the economies of the “highly productive” industrial societies.
It is also not the state, by any means, without again endorsing “statist” excesses or mindsets, that brainwashes kids from early infancy on via the media — until recently, mainly via the TV sets that substitute for parents and community for too many “latchkey” children, isolated in the cities and separated from their ancestral rural communities.
Labor follows capital, be it from the village to the factory or other job in the city, or across borders and even across the oceans.
This country has benefited immensely from immigrants, and continues to do so. Indeed, many urban schools survive because of this influx, and from the work habits and hunger for learning of many of the the immigrants. These traits are particularly noticeable, but not confined to, immigrants from East, South East and South Asia, as well as from the former Socialist states of Eastern Europe, for a number of varying reasons.
However, although national spelling bee competitions (which might be of doubtful value) as well as Intel (formerly Westinghouse) scholarships are often won by recent immigrants, this is only the “brighter” side of the full story. Most immigrant children, as well as their parents, have to deal with the task of mastering a foreign language — a formidable task once one has passed the early teens. Such children, whose parents’ and even elder siblings’ grasp of English may be weak or non-existent, would benefit greatly from the availability of early childhood programs — which should not, of course, be compulsory.
The same is true for children whose parents might have been here since almost the time the Mayflower landed — or millennia earlier, and of those whose ancestors came to these shores of their own free will or as captives of various kinds, but whose ancestors remained isolated in communities, as much or more perforce as by choice, that developed or maintained their own distinctive and often rich cultures, but were, for a number of reasons, denied access to the mainstream one, including even the standard Englishes that prevail on the North American continent and which are increasingly essential for survival and advancement in our economy society.
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Wise words. i wish more people had a grasp of the underlying issues.
We classroom practitioners of authentic pedagogy are kindred spirits, because we understand the way things work, the way the emergent mind works and the behaviors that succeed in the larger community.
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We can add to “where will the funding come from” after the corporate Charters and their CEOs take out profits and high salaries—for instance, Eva Moskowitz (32 corporate Charter schools) and her $500K+ annual salary that she pays herself, more than twice what the Canceller of NY City schools is paid for managing schools with 1,000,0000+ students?
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Yeah, the devil is in the details… and few devils are quire a large as Eva.
Still, the truths that there is no way to make up for the deficit in the brain when the emergent learner is deprived of language stimulation.
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The January 2014 National Geographic Magazine ran a piece that supports what you just said.
The First Year
A baby’s brain needs love to develop. What happens in the first year is profound.
http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2015/01/baby-brains/bhattacharjee-text
This one magazine piece that somehow slipped past the corporate reformer propaganda watchdogs proves being a doubt that Bill Gates and his Common Core agenda to use VAM to rank and fire teachers in addition to closing public schools and turning OUR children over to corporate Charters that suspend and kick out the children that need the most help is all wrong, a fraud, and a traitorous Benedict Arnold crime.
There is nothing that the corporate reforms are doing to deal with this challenge. In fact, their agenda makes it worse, much worse.
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I have that issue on my desk, and it joins a box of brain research, including the work of Gardiner on intelligenceS. I assume that all pedagogues study the brain, as all future doctors study the physical landscape of our bodies, and that like physicians they keep current on research….. but perhaps I am naive. I do get Science news, too, so I did see the study about 3 year olds that Mr. Nathan referred to, as well as a great many other books and articles that document early childhood education. My first license was in primary grade education so I also experienced how prepared my young students were when they entered public school.
For 4 years, when my sons were 3 and 4, I participated in a community nursery, where parents were ‘schooled’ in learning theory for that age. I was so fortunate.
My second license was in the arts, and the third in English, and practiced these disciplines in elementary and middle school.
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I started to read information on how the brain/memory works back in the 1980s to help me understand how children learn and then plan my lessons accordingly.
Every lesson I designed was created to appeal to every learning modality even touch when possible. I focused on a visual element, and auditory elements, etc. Some children learn better individually and others in groups so I attempted to provide both of these elements.
For every short story, play or book we read, I looked for a audio tape and a video and over time collected all three: the print, audio and video versions.
For instance, Of Mice and Men or Romeo and Juliet.
Students would read from their book while the audio would be playing at the same time so they could hear the words there eyes were looking at, and after we finished a short story, novel or play, then we watched the video.
Touch might work for board work. When I called on volunteers to earn extra credit by working on the board to provide examples for the entire class, the students who volunteered were usually good at writing their work on the board—touch and visual.
For essays, students wrote the rough drafts individuals and then revised in co-op groups before writing a final draft based on feedback from almost every student in the class.
My students didn’t do a lot of Q&A worksheets. The wrote essays and projects to present to the class. The essays went through rough, revise, edit, final draft—-step by step. Co-Op groups worked on projects to teach the rest of the students about elements of poetry, etc and then they presented to the class. These groups were allowed to create worksheets but they were also allowed top create posters and videos but the videos were extra credit. A few amazing videos were created by some very talented students. I talk about all or most of this in my “Crazy is Normal” memoir.
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Projects and other student work with a wider audience make a lot of sense. Good ways to engage students and get them actively involved.
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It worked too.
I had no idea how well these methods were working until one day one of the VPs held a meeting with the HS English department and she put up this chart showing the improvements students made in their writing. Every HS English teacher in the district had a column bar on that chart showing pre-and-post results of the essay writing test given at the beginning and end of the previous school year.
Of course, none of the teachers’ names were there—just some sort of ID number. But there was this one bar that was maybe ten times higher than every other bar on the chart and the VP identified the teacher for that one, and it was me.
But district administration wasn’t interested in what I did with my students to achieve such growth in their writing skills, because they were too busy forcing teachers to start using the Whole Language Approach to teaching English that every teacher in the department was against. Every decision was always top down and when teachers resisted administration almsot always dug in and pushed what they wanted over the protests of the teachers.
Reminds me of the Bill Gates supported and funded Common Core Crap being forced on the public schools.
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Breath-taking teacher planning!
If I weren’t already in awe of your work, such a series of lessons would convince me that our children lost so much when you left. One wonders if such lessons were passed on , and made part of the curriculum, what kind of critical thinkers might the schools have produced.
I often thing what our school might have become, if iI and become a mentor of the novice practitioners that came along, on a reduced schedule of classes, perhaps teaching a Socratic Seminar or a unit. I am still storing and kayak, hike and take photos.
You and I, and so many of the veteran teachers who were forced out could have mentored the next generation of teachers with a CORE of lessons that MOTIVATED children to THINK.
SIGH!
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Successful veteran teachers could very well offer new teachers a smorgasbord of teaching methods that the new teachers could pick and choose from and then eventually develop more powerful teaching tools to add to that smorgasbord for the next generation of teachers.
If we could just get rid of the Bill Gate model of top down control; rank and fire teachers then close school to replace them with mostly inferior top down run corporate Charters, imagine how high Americans democratically run public schools could fly with teachers supporting each other when it comes to training and curriculum development—-like unionized public school teachers do in Finland.
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Exactly. You and I are on the same page, which is why Janine thought we were a team.
…but what a team we would have made.
For one brief shiny moment, I was part of a team. My humanities teammate was a brilliant young man of 26, and I was the oldest teacher in the school, at 52. We put together a THINKING curriculum …hard work, but lots of fun and very interesting.
50% of our students were high achievers from across the city, and everyone we admitted wanted to be there, all were motivated to learn. Yes, it was a NYC public middle school, the magnet experiment… and it worked. We knew every kid; we collaborated on everything; we all knew what learning looked like, and were educated, talent and on top of our content knowledge.
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Working with high achievers is an incredible experience, but along with that comes a lot more to correct because they do everything—but few if any behavior problems.
However, with the at-risk kids, about half the work doesn’t get done and a lot of the teacher’s time is spent dealing with behavior problems and contacting parents.
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In 1989 I was the AIDP, (attendance, improvement dropout prevention) at a Bronx Jr Hs S. I was responsible for teaching 12, 13 and 14 year old truant youngsters. The idea was that they would come to school, because they enjoyed my classes, and then, would stay for the rest of the classes. Before that I taught in A bronx elementary second grade, where most of my students had been held over… from second grade.
I know I was lucky when the ESMS magnet school job came along. It gave me a chance, at the end of my teaching career of four decades, to actually put into practice my BEST practice.
I have seen it all, and in truth, from second grade to 8th grade I was successful, and my employment folder offered evidence of that…. until the assault, at which time they totally emptied it of everything from 1963 to the moment that I was to be documented as incompetent…. not even the prestigious NYSEC award remained.
Hey, Lloyd… they went after me.
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Lloyd – Growing research supports age 3-grade 3 programs for students from low income families http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/06/110609141556.htm Perhaps you could share that with others and encourage state legislators to support such programs.
There are coordinated efforts here in Mn to support more strong early childhood programs for students from low income families.
What criteria would you use to identify the most effective district & charter public schools?
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I suggest that you don’t change the subject with a question like this: “What criteria would you use to identify the most effective district & charter public schools?” This is what you do that causes others to allege you are a blockhead and fool. Why do you invite such ridicule by constantly attempting to change the topic away from what the corporate reformers don’t want anyone talking about?
The focus is to stick to one issue and that is a national early childhood education program modeled on what France has been doing for more than 30 years—a program that helped reduce poverty in France from 15% to almost 6%..
Do you know what Obama plans to ask Congress in 2015? I can assure you that the answer has to do with a national early childhood education program and $75 billion to fund it—unless Obama quietly dropped that idea.
Why did Obama start with Race To the Top and the Bill Gates funded Common Core VAM agenda to rank and fire teachers in addition to closing public schools and turning our children over to corporate controlled Charters to teach, for instance, the Walton family and its 1,600 charter schools?
Why didn’t President Obama start with his proposal for a national early childhood education program first?
You might take note that all of my questions have to do with the issue at hand.
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I responded on two issues because you discussed two issues – early childhood and learning from the most effective public schools.
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No, you changed the focus away from a national early childhood education program. That one issue is primary to the solution to reduce the number of at-risk children and deal with poverty.
The chart in this post reveals where we need to focus our attention and efforts and that focus has nothign to do with No Child Left Behind, Race to the Top, and Bill Gates Common Core agenda to rank and fire teachers using VAM while closing public schools and turn OUR children over to cooperate Charters that suspend and kick out students in higher ratios than the national public schools do.
Suspensions & Expulsions in US Public Schools
What does that 3.3 million really mean
#EdBlogNet
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Diane, How can I “uncheck” the box that asks if you want to be notified of a response to this particular blog post? I still want to get your blog!
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Fortunately, most blog posts don’t go on and on as this one has. ; )
My suggestion is just click “delete” when you see “Kevin’s question” in the subject line.
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To unsubscribe, open the E-mail with a reply to this post and scroll down to the bottom of the message – you should see this message:” Want less email? Unsubscribe from all follow-up comments or modify your Subscription Options.” Click on the blue unsubscribe from all follow-up comments and then click on the confirm unsubscribe
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Thanks for this!
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I Love how simply you identify the crux of the matter. I listen to your voice, as all of us who know THE TRUTH, as defined as the observable reality.
You said it exactly… that focus has nothing to do with No Child Left Behind, Race to the Top, and Bill Gates Common Core agenda to rank and fire teachers using VAM while closing public schools and turn OUR children over to cooperate Charters that suspend and kick out students in higher ratios than the national public schools do”
This is what I know to be true. All of those things ADD COMPLEXITY TO AN ALREADY COMPLEX SUBJECT:, “how do we enable learning (the subject of the real standards research which I talk about endlessly here).
All AUTHENTIC teachers talk about learning and how to facilitate it, but the profiteers talk about that alphabet soup of magic elixirs they invented which leave millions of children behind. (the standards jargon made use of the word authentic and genuine continually!)
I hear many voices here, many describing what is ongoing in the swamps where their schools are sinking, and many who saw the destruction up close when it began in the nineties.
I hear those who offer solutions based on what they think and even some who offer their opinions based on evidence and reason.
But I also hear the voices of people who are genuinely interested in solving the problem, but have been so misled for so long by so many who claim to ‘know’ which elixir will work but offer no evidence. I wrote this years ago, when I read the Willingham essay in The American Educator.
http://www.opednews.com/articles/Magic-Elixir-No-Evidence-by-Susan-Lee-Schwartz-130312-433.html
Yes, he was selling something too, a way to judge whether the product was snake-oil or valid curricula, based on real evidence. Willingham said “show me the evidence, folks,”
One thing is for sure, the evidence shows that in many scenarios, the missing ingredient is the MOTIVATION for the kids. Show me a successful teacher, and I will show you one who puts motivation at the sop of the lesson plan,— just like we ancients did in the sixties. As John Gatto said on Rob Kall’s radio interview, the kids knew I offered them something valuable, something the needed, and I seldom had discipline problems for long.”
Lloyd, the 2nd principle of learning, those crucial things that are ALWAYS THERE in all professional practices of pedagogy (i.e.classrooms) is REWARDS FOR PERFORMANCE….for doing the work required. (the principles were all about effort -based education… doing work and developing habits of mind that lease to achievement.
Click to access polv3_3.pdf
YUP! REWARDS was a STANDARD which appears in all successful classrooms, and it is not, simply a high grade on a test– which is a reward for memorization. REWARDS are crucial says Harvard and the LRDC, for genuine, authentic performance of the skill….applying all that stuff you are learning. Rewards motivate!
Is it any wonder that the new core curricula with its constant testing is crap to the kiddies, who don’t want to go to school, let alone learn ‘stuff’ what offers nothing but grades?
But what do I know.
I only:
*went to school in the forties and fifties,
*taught primary grades in the sixties,
*raised kids who attended school in the seventies and eighties, during which time I was teaching as a sub, and
*returned to full-time middle school in the nineties.
In 2000, where top-down management was emptying of its veteran teacher- practitioners** they tried to evict me as incompetent after some of the most lawless tactics failed:
http://www.speakingasateacher.com/SPEAKING_AS_A_TEACHER/No_Constitutional_Rights-_A_hidden_scandal_of_National_Proportion.html
YUP, in the irony in the plot of my story, the script that THEY wrote for me– they said I was incompetent IN THE VERY YEAR that I received the NYSEC “Educator of Excellence” award (NYS Council of English Teachers). I had been, you see, ONE OF ONLY SIX (among the TENS of thousands studied by the LRDC for the standards research) whose practice met ALL the principles in a UNIQUE way….
… but this principal of the school, who had carried MY work around the country (when she was the point man for the research in our district) this former Director of Curricula in the tony District 2 , this woman who knew me so well and who recommended me for all manner of awards, now (as the principal of our tiny middle school) documented my incompetence, on a daily basis — as I ‘taught’ in a closet, with no curricula, and no materials. She had given my entire classroom library to other teachers and destroyed the 8 years of material which I had gathered for my practice and for the Harvard research. I had no guidelines, and only a list of kids… doomed to fail.
YUP, now I was no good.
Quote she (when I asked ‘how I could have been the cat’s meow yesterday, and now was gutter trash’)?
“That was then, and this is now.”
Snappy response from this Ph’d bully who made sure that I was NO LONGER the seventh grade teacher who put that school on the map, and tenth in NY STATE on the new ELA writing test.
Now, do you see what’s up, folks, and the fallacy of all this blarney about evaluation.
** it is time that the appellation ‘teacher-practitioner” be applied. We practice a difficult disciple, and the classroom is the practice. Remind people that teachers are not mere trained employees but pedagogues.
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Thia particular thread may have been going on too long, but it’s good that you told more of your tale in the last comment, Susan. It seems the past history of accomplishment of a teacher is irrelevant. I strongly suspect that your principal wanted to get rid of you for reasons that had very little to do with your competence as a teacher. So she may have purposely created impossible circumstances in which it was not possible for your (proven) potential to be realized and, on top of that, set about using all the means a principal is handed to make you look bad in her observations and more. This was not the first time such a thing has happened to a teacher, and nor, sadly, was it the last. No matter. You’ve survived to make us aware of some of the shenanigans that go on in the schools, which seem to have became much worse as a result of the misdirected nature and coercive, punitive methods of the “reform” and privatization movements of the last decade and earlier.
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Ya think the principal had ulterior motives?
Hee, hee.
NYC schools were emptied because the uFT allowed principals to charge not only incompetence, but anything they wished. I attached my link to the process many times at this blog. It is exactly what occurred. So, any failed human being in the job could do anything , and there was no accountability.
FIrst, they allege real crimes. Pi Lian Tu, who , for 15 years, successfully taught immigrant Chinese students to speak, read and write English , was charged with all manner of insubordination, and theft. Claiming she used the money collected for purchase of Weekly Reader, even though parents had told her not to return the small amount of money but to use it for classroom cleaning supplies, that she usually purchased with her own money.
I went to her hearing with my husband, and we were shocked when her NYSUT lawyer never allowed any testimony, even her own to contradict the outrageous claims of the principal.
My troubles began when a child said I cursed at her, and VOILA, I was taken from my room, which was dismantled, and six months later, give a letter saying I “had been found guilty of corporal punishment” based on verbal abuse…something that my attorney (for his 25k) pointed out was NOT LEGAL, when I filed a 4 million dollar lawsuit to get me out of the rubber room.
When astonished by the ‘guilty ‘ letter, which had never been preceded by any charges or hearing, and was the first time I had heard why I had been removed form my classroom, the UFT lack, this Manhattan Bureau Rep, told ME to sit down.
Yes. I was returned to the school, to that closet, where this new principal who had known me for years, had as her only job before moving on to become Superintendnet of a Brooklyn District, to break my tenure.
Can you spell LAWLESS?
The UNION let it happen in NYC and in LA and across the nation.
Teachers cannot afford to sue, the courts are tied to the people who run the schools, and to the unions…
And nowhere on this blog, or in the media is the lawless emptying of the schools —the first assault that made it possible for the schools to fail, been featured, discussed or even Revealed, despite all the evidence online by those people whose names and sites I have published here more than once.
The problem on this blog, is there is nowhere the things we say — our commentary is cached, like it is at my author’s page at OEN. I do not wish to publish, yet again, all the links to the fabulous sites, of those teachers who have revealed the assault on the teachers which was the beginning of the end.
It was a coordinated assault across 15,880 districts and the same lawlessness in NYC occurred in Montana, and over 20 years, one hundred thousand tenured, veteran teachers bit the dust … TRAUMATIZED, never to work again, their reputations shredded.
http://www.youtube.com/all_comments?v=nfNxj-O1DiI
Yeah, My voice is back, but who is listening. Lorna, whose testimony is above, wrote a book, but who will read it? What major media will tell the real story of how dedicated Americans were subjected to lawlessness that no ethnic minority would tolerate
Now, the young teachers who write her, tell how they are treated, powerless and lacking the stellar reputations and experience of those who went down first. as the unions stood by and did nothing. In 3 years, the ‘probational’ period over a novice finds that her service is not up to par, and she is lacking…Goodbye.
it is what it is.
I speak truth, for all the good it does.
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Sadly, our teacher’s union here in NY City, and probably most other unions throughout this country and perhaps many others, have become an “union of collaboration”. Unless you happen to have friends high up in the union hierarchy, you’re not going to get any real support from the union hacks if you find yourself unfairly rated or charged. Nor do the union leaders and their servitors seem to have the overall good of the teachers and students in mind. The lower level union jobs, such as chapter leaders in the schools, are seen as one of the sideways escapes from the classroom, just as the administrative positions, such as assistant principal, etc., are seen as escapes upward. The classroom, which should be the desired place of learning and teaching on which all the rest are centered, is seen by both administrators and union office holders as a place to get away from. So those who remain in the classrooms are viewed as idiots who need to be kept in their place. Anyone of us who steps out, by speaking or acting in ways that perturb the racket, is quickly put back in place, sometimes rather brutally. This is the sad reality.
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Exactly. My site union “rep” would benefit if I was removed. In our little magnet school, I taught art and English in a combined curriculum called COMMUNICATION ARTS. She transferred so she could teach art in this school around the corner from her apartment.
but, oops… I was already teaching art to the entire seventh grade and with the art electives that I taught, she could not have a full-time art position. The principal who disliked her intensely, put her OUT OF LICENSE in the pays ed department ( gym classes!)
I will not describe the unethical, immoral and illegal acts she committed, as the UFT rep, but when my room was emptied SHE GOT ALL MY ART MATERIALS, purchased with my own money, and became THE art teacher… until she went to work full-time for the UFT! Perfect job for this character who lacked character.
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“Sad” is NOT the adjective that comes to mind.
Destructive, corrupt and despicable defines the betrayal.
WE need the unions. I am NOT anti-union. I am for the strengthening of the unions by electing new people, who will represent the teacher, but until the truth is told, nothing will change, and the novice practitioner, will after 3 years be sent out the door!
I have THE contract that I signed, or rather the book that defines it, on my desk. The union was the upholder of the law, of THE constitutional right to see evidence and be heard.
Without the complicity of the unions, teachers like myself, experienced, dedicated, talented and successful practitioners could not have been thrashed and removed.
PERIOD!
http://www.perdaily.com/2014/07/former-ctc-attorney-kathleen-carroll-lays-out-unholy-alliance-between-union-and-public-education-pri.html
The six year ordeal that fabulous teacher David Pakter underwent in NYC, should never have occurred. The media never covered it… they only cover stories of ‘bad teachers’ .
http://ednotesonline.blogspot.com/search?q=david+pakter
What no one knows, is the epilogue to his trial. Yes he sued, and he won. It stripped him of half a million dollars, and the last years of his youthful vigor, and his sons took him out of the city and restored him to his artistry. Teachers should not have to sue
http://ednotesonline.blogspot.com/search?q=david+pakter
Karen Horwitz in Chicago sued and lost, and her book “White Chalk Crime’ outlines the agony and the facts of what occurs when the law has no power to protect Americas WHO JUST HAPPEN TO BE TEACHERS.
Walter Porr, that hero fireman, whose second career was teaching, lost ,too, and disappeared. His court appearance, after six years in the rubber rooms of NYC, never made the news
Dania Hall, In Long island went to court, too and is still in court. She cannot talk about what is ongoing, but I know how they used her talent, and in 3 years threw her out.
http://www.parentadvocates.org/nicecontent/dsp_printable.cfm?articleID=7128
http://www.newyorklawjournal.com/id=1202556493583/Dania-Hall-Plaintiff-v-North-Bellmore-School-District-and-North-Bellmore-Board-of-Education-Defendant-08CV1999?slreturn=20140615131831
I had a horrendous time even finding an attorney, as Dania did. They had ‘conflicts of interest” with the DOE or THE UNION. Teachers should not have to sue to end lawlessness in the workplace!
Lorna Stremcha sued and won. She lost her life savings, and eventually worked with Montana Senator to create a law that protects teachers in the workplace, but as her book demonstrates, without the law at your back your are fodder for the morally compromised principals who too often run a school.
http://dtoe.org/2014/12/19/video-of-educators-speaking-up-about-workplace-bullying-at-nycdoe-pep/
Francesco Portellos is ,at this moment, fighting to stay in his profession, although relegated to the position of a substitute. His story shows how far the lawless NYC administration will go to harass a teacher.
http://protectportelos.org/does-workplace-bullying-continues-my-33-hrs-behind-bars/
The failure of the schools hinged on the removal of the professionals.
It affected the parents ,too
http://www.endteacherabuse.info/Combier.html
This was no accident. It was planned and implemented… a process and a media spin that removed the voice of the practitioner so public education would collapse and it could be privatized. The bonus of the collapse was not merely the profits for corporations, but the creation of an ignorant population who would be unable to separate propaganda form truth, or know what history actually taught us about the creation of our Constitution
The protections of that document do not exist for teachers without the unions.
I link to this often. I wrote I in 2004. It is now 16 years since I had to fight for my contractual rights in NYC.
http://www.speakingasateacher.com/SPEAKING_AS_A_TEACHER/No_Constitutional_Rights-_A_hidden_scandal_of_National_Proportion.html
During that time, with the teachers GONE , this happened. If you missed it, see it.
https://vimeo.com/4199476
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The only problem is the corporate reform movement.
Everything: NCLB, RTTT, CCSS, charter school take overs, vouchers—-all stem from A Nation at Risk and that study was based on misleading claims that the Sandia Report revealed seven years later.
Therefore, the entire reform movement is based on lies and misleading information therefore the entire reform movement is illegal and should not exist.
We should not be comparing public schools in the U.S. with other nations through the PISA test or comparing public schools to corporate Charter and vouchers in any state because they shouldn’t exist—-the entire reform movement is based on lies, misleading information and fraud.
I wouldn’t blink an eye if tomorrow the U.S. Supreme court ruled that every Charter school that isn’t part of a public school district is unconstitutional and that ruling would include all vouchers—with an order to shut their doors and go out of business in ninety days..
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You knock me out.
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Here’s the post I talked about earlier today.
Suspensions and Expulsions in the US Public Schools
What does that 3.3 million really mean?
#EdBlogNet
http://wp.me/pLJTE-SP via @lflwriter
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Thank you for the link… stunning blog.
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Why bother with people who hear only one voice in their head… their own.
Randi Weingarten on facebook, gave this report. Perhaps Mr nathan can argue with it:
Troubling news stories about the financial workings of charter schools had been leaking slowly into the media stream for some years.
A story that appeared at Forbes in late 2013 foretold a lot of what would emerge in 2014. That post “Charter School Gravy Train Runs Express to Fat City” brought to light for the first time in a mainstream source the financial rewards that were being mined from charter schools. As author Addison Wiggin explained, a mixture of tax incentives, government programs and Wall Street investors eager to make money were coming together to deliver a charter school bonanza – especially if the charter operation could “escape scrutiny” behind the veil of being privately held or if the charter operation could mix its business in “with other ventures that have nothing to do with education.”
As 2014 began, more stories about charter schools scandals continued to drip out from local press outlets – a chain of charter schools teaching creationism, a charter school closing abruptly for mysterious reasons, a charter high school operating as a for-profit “basketball factory,” recruiting players from around the world while delivering a sub-par education.
Here and there, stories emerged: a charter school trying to open up inside the walls of a gated community while a closed one continued to get more than $2 million in taxpayer funds. Stories about charter operators being found guilty of embezzling thousands of taxpayer dollars turned into other stories about operators stealing even more thousands of dollars, which turned into even more stories about operators stealing over a million dollars.
While some charter schools schemed to steer huge percentages of their money away from instruction toward management salaries and property leases (to firms connected to the charter owners, of course), others worked the system to make sure fewer students with special needs were in their classrooms.
Then the steady drip-drip from local news sources turned into a fire hose in May when a blockbuster report released by Integrity in Education and the Center for Popular Democracy revealed, “Fraudulent charter operators in 15 states are responsible for losing, misusing, or wasting over $100 million in taxpayer money.”
The report, “Charter School Vulnerabilities to Waste, Fraud And Abuse,” combed through news stories, criminal records and other documents to find hundreds of cases of charter school operators embezzling funds, using tax dollars to illegally support other, non-educational businesses, taking public dollars for services they didn’t provide, inflating their enrollment numbers to boost revenues, and putting children in potential danger by forgoing safety regulations or withholding services.
The report made charter school scandals a nationwide story and received in-depth coverage at Salon, “Bill Moyers and Company,” the Washington Post and the Nation.
A Summer of Scams
Charter schools scandals continued to break throughout the summer.
In Ohio, report after report continued to reveal how popular charter school chains like White Hat Management had sky-high dropout rates while they poured public money into advertising campaigns and executive pay.
In Pennsylvania, a report found exorbitant costs associated with charter school operations and lavish CEO salaries and bonuses for charter school operators despite vastly underperforming the state’s traditional public schools. Another report revealed how Pennsylvania charters had gamed the system for special education funding, resulting in annual profits of $200 million to the schools.
In Michigan, a series by the Detroit Free Press found charter schools with “wasteful spending and double-dipping. Board members, school founders and employees steering lucrative deals to themselves or insiders. Schools allowed to operate for years despite poor academic records.”
In Florida, an investigation by the Orlando Sun Sentinel found, “Unchecked charter-school operators are exploiting South Florida’s public school system, collecting taxpayer dollars for schools that quickly shut down.”
Another Florida local news outlet investigating charter school operations found millions of taxpayer dollars misdirected from classrooms and students to management companies. The report pointed to charter school chain Charter Schools USA that uses tax-exempt bonds to build schools that it then rents to UCSA-affiliated schools. Then the CUSA schools are saddled with rent payments back to CUSA and its management company at rates considerably higher than those charged to other non-CUSA schools in the area.
Still more news stories came out about charter schools related to the largest bricks-and-mortar charter-school chain in the United States run by the secretive Turkish cleric Fethullah Gülen, who lives in exile from Turkey in rural Pennsylvania. The Chicago Sun-Times reported that Chicago-area Concept Schools, part of the Gulen charter chain, were subjects of an ongoing federal investigation. The enquiry is about nearly $1 million that has been paid to contractors all with ties to the Gülen network.
Articles from the Washington Post found District of Columbia charter school operators evading rules to pocket millions in taxpayer dollars and charter schools pumping public money into for-profit management companies.
A report in the Arizona Republic found board members and administrators from more than a dozen charter schools “profiting from their affiliations by doing business with schools they oversee.”
The rash of summer charter scandal stories resonated in news outlets across the country.
Then to cap off the summer of charter scandals, the Progressive reported an upsurge in FBI raids on charter schools all over the country. “From Pittsburgh to Baton Rouge, from Hartford to Cincinnati to Albuquerque, FBI agents have been busting into schools, carting off documents, and making arrests leading to high-profile indictments.”
Reporter Ruth Conniff found charter schools allegations range from “taking money that was meant for the classroom,” to spending taxpayer dollars on “luxuries such as fine-dining and retreats at exclusive resorts and spas,” to engaging in “bribes and kickbacks.
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Susan, why bother examining scandals taking place in district schools? Why other examining the bond sales profiteering?
For some there are problems in both district and charter. We also celebrate great district & charter educators.
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You are wasting your time, and out time!
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Worth reading, and eye-opening! Thanks, Susan!
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Yes, let’s look at the quality of the corporate Charters through the Stanford studies and all the FBI investigations of fraud in addition to the crooks that have already been caught, tried and found guilty in the courts.
What we have left is about 24% of the Charters doing a good job. Who are they? Let’s identify them and provide the evidence based in facts that supports the claim of quality without cherry picking and manipulating data.
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Lloyd Apparently you are willing to judge the quality of schools on the basis of test scores and comparisons with imaginary students (which is what CREDO does in their frequently cited “studies.”
I think we should be using lots of factors to determine the effectiveness of schools, not just test scores. That’s why I celebrate a lot of schools where faculty are working with youngsters with whom traditional schools have not succeeded. Their test scores are not great and their 4 year hs graduation rates are not terrific – but they are helping many youngsters gain skills, and enter some form of education after high school.
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Don’t assume how I want to judge corporate charter schools. Without transparency, all we have are the results of the Stanford CREDO studies that were funded by the Bill Gates Foundation. Considering that these studies did not come up with the results that Bill Gates was probably expecting and wanted, I think we can trust them more than not.
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One difference between us is that you are willing to judge schools on test scores. I’m not. Another difference is that you are ok comparing ‘district” and charter students – even though the “district” students don’t even represent real students. CREDO admits they are “composite”.
I think comparing district and charter test scores makes as much sense as comparing rental and leased gas mileage.
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That is all there is.
There’s the CREDO studies out of Stanford and then there is the fraud—what else is there? As long as the corporate Charters are allowed to be opaque with their records and spending hidden there is little else to judge them with.
Correct me if I’m wrong but you don’t want to use test scores to judge the Charter schools, but based on your reasoning, how can anyone claim that the public schools are failing when the entire corporate reform movement is based on the test scores of public schools.
Once we strip away those tests—and that includes the average PISA test ranking—then we have to use other measurements like literacy rates, and high school and college graduation rates.
If we base our judgement on literacy and graduation rates, the US is doing very well indeed because the US beats the average OECD HS high school graduation rate by 15% and college graduation rates by a few percent. In fact, the US, has the 4th highest college graduation rate in the world—so many graduates that we have almost three college graduates fore very job that requires a college education. That sounds like success times three.
When we compare the five major English speaking countries, the US literacy rate is in second place and third place is almost 10 to15 % lower.
Or do we compare childhood poverty rates: The US wins again. It has the highest childhood poverty rate among OECD countries but half of our states do not have any early childhood education programs to help those children break out of the vicious cycle of poverty.
Are you advocating that we use test scores to judge the public schools but don’t use them to judge the Charters—just use what the Charter owners and mangers claim without any transparency to see if those claims are correct.
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Lots of ways to judge schools:
Safety, percentage of students and faculty who return, attendance of students, attendance of faculty, number continuing their education after high school, number continuing their education who have to take remedial courses; number of students feeling they can set goals and are confident they know how to achieve most of their goals, test scores, value added, 4 and 6 year graduation rates, surveys of faculty, families and students, percentage of students involved in some form of community service.
That’s a partial list. I’ve worked in schools that used all the methods described above, and we’re actively working to help more schools use a variety of methods.
What’s the evidence that some schools are not doing as well as they could? Too many schools that are not doing especially well on a number of the indicators above, plus evidence from district & charter public schools that are serving high % of students from low income families, where low income students are doing about as well as students from more middle income levels.
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There’s CREDO and there’s fraud? that’s it?
No, I’m not suggesting the public use test scores as the only way to judge either district or charter. I just provided a list of ways to judge schools.
Another is the percentage of students who take some form of dual (high school/college credit courses, given the enormous value of such courses, esp for students from low income families.
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Thanks for this, Lloyd.
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Lloyd, the CREDO studies are funded mainly by the pro-charter Walton Foundation.
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Thanks. I think the Waltons are even worse than Bill Gates being the primary funder of the CREDO studies.
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Lloyd, I have been trying to follow this blog regarding answering Kevin’s question and am amazed at the passion with which the subject has been debated. I have also been overwhelmed trying to follow threads to how we came to this place where a multitude of educated citizens are arguing with each other and not one coming up with any real solutions. I am no expert, but as a parent who had 29 consecutive years with a child in the public schools until I began homeschooling four years ago. I have witnessed a federalization of our public schools that to my understanding seems to have been happening incrementally almost since the founding. I have tried to understand who the culprits are; is it poverty, the Democrats, the Republicans, corporations? Was it Reagan’s “A Nation at Risk”, Clinton’s “Goals 2000” (read Marc Tucker’s “Dear Hillary” letter) Was it Bush’s , “No Child Left Behind or Obama’s “Race to the Top”? I have read with various levels of interest column after column on Diane Ravitch’s blog. I am convinced of the sincerity with which veteran teachers have fought for their craft and their students. And I have been boggled over the innumerable methodologies and pedagogies that have been discussed as superior. I have been left with the understanding that all of these styles have merit and that not all students learn the same, not all teachers teach the same and that is the beauty of freedom of expression in education. I have learned that the purpose of an education is to liberate. Liberate the mind and the soul in search for truth and beauty that is a uniquely human endeavor. I have also become convinced that education as we dinosaurs have previously known it is endangered if not extinct. I am also convinced that this is not a partisan issue. Without question all of the above factors have incrementally been used as weapons in the war on educational freedom. How can we fight such a behemoth? do we pick it apart piece by piece? Do we squabble and try to impose our will upon each other while the federalization of education and as others have mentioned, now healthcare, contine to gain momentum? Yes, all of the previously mentioned factors have contributed to this attack on public education, but the hinge pin of them all was Carter’s establishment of the Department of Education. Every subsequent attack on public education has originated from this monstrous bureaucracy . An ingenious engine which runs on our tax dollars yet is presided over by unelected officials who create law and legislate without any form of accountability or citizen representation. We can debate and squabble over details for the next one hundred years and yet we will remain impotent to impose change unless we are willing and brave enough to discard this monolithic representation of the merging of state and corporations. We must stop believing a thing too complicated. The most beautiful solutions are usually quite simple.
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Are we really squabbling, Janine, or are we engaging with supporters of the fake corporate education reform movement who are attempting to sabotage and discredit the resistance that is supporting the public schools?
You mentioned that you home taught your students. I had a student in 9th grade who was home taught from K through 8 by his parents, but then he demanded that he get to go to high school and be with children his own age. I suspect it was his teenage hormones, and he wanted to meet girls his own age. He was a great student and person.
His parents were very religious and concerned that his four years in a (terrible) public high school—-since that’s what the reformers want parents to think—-would destroy his future. His parents even met with the 9th grade counselor and expressed their concerns. The counselor offered to place him with the toughest teachers in every subject, and he was put in my 9th grade English class where I recruited him into my one period of journalism a day. He stayed in that journalism class for four years.
As a senior, he was the editor-and-chief of the high school’s internationally award winning newspaper, and he interned with the local regional, corporate newspaper the same year. Out of high school, he joined the Navy where he became involved in some sort of Navy publication. In the Navy, he met a woman in Brazil when his ship stopped there and they eventually got married.
Out of the Navy, he went to work for CBS and the last time I had an e-mail from him, he was a CBS news anchor near Palm Springs.
I wonder how his life would have turned out if he had been home taught to 12th grade.
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Congratulations on the success of this student. Perhaps the home teaching prepared him to do well in high school.
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His handwriting was horrible but he was a model student and fit right in with the journalism staff and none of them had been home taught and they were all model students who almost all went to college.
One thing I didn’t reveal was that the home taught student never went to college. He went in the Navy out of HS and then went to work for CBS out of the Navy. When he interned as a HS senior for the local, regional corporate newspaper, he must have impressed someone who knew someone at CBS.
He told me years later that he went in the Navy to escape his fundamentalist Christian parents as soon as possible, who were driving him crazy with their rigid beliefs. Even then, years later, his relationships with his parents was strained.
He was also one of the 8% of white students at the HS. Most of the journalism students came from the 8% of Asians at that HS.
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Since this young man is not here to testify I suppose one could state that your comments are biased.
The cream always floats to the top, but the majority of public schooled don’t have this expetience. I actually began homeschooling my children in middle school. The opposite of this young man and must say, I often receive compliments on my childen’s work ethic and behavior. Both are are accomplished not only in academics (taking personal responsibility for their education), but they also are accomplished athletically, musically and most importantly have a strong sense of ethics. I suppose surviving the concrete classroom would build character, but not every child survives.
To be quite honest issues of character and values, not academics led me to choose homeschooling as well as many of the concerns you, yourself, have voiced on this blog. It is very patriotic of you to be willing to sink with the Titantic, but do you have to take our children with you.
Incidentally, my mention of homeschooling was a small part of what I stated. Interesting you should hone in on that. Continue to argue without result, but all the effort will simply fade into history and is nothing more then bloviating. If real action isn’t taken you and all of public education will fade away with it.
As long as the Department of Education is at the helm everything You, I or anyone else says is simple chatter.
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The very fact that you were motivated and willing to home teach your child or children indicates you were an involved parent. I think that being involved with your child’s education was what made the difference—-not so much the home schooling concept.
If all parents were part of the education process, that would make a HUGE difference but sad to say many are not part of their child’s education. Too many parents send the children to school and never attend parent conferences. Media studies revealed that the average parent spends less than 5 minutes a week talking to their children and that time is actually shrinking from the last study—especially after the child reaches school age, and 40% of children in the U.S. are latch-key kids who come home to an empty house because the parent or parents are working and come home too tired to interact with their children.
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The ads for the local e-education k-12 generally focus on the fact that it is “free” and that all supplies and books are “free” and they always show involved parents, sometime tearfully thankful that their child has soared with online learning.
Key to this online learning is parental participation. The human factor needs to be there supporting the child, pushing the child, showing that learning is essential to becoming a fully functioning adult some day.
As Lloyd said, the child whose parent is involved and has a positive interaction with the child, the curricula, the teachers or the computer is going to be much more successful than the child left to figure it all out on his/her own.
Much of what is missing is the actively involved parent when public, private online, or charter schools fail.
A lot of the ads I see show moms who are thrilled that their child is no longer being “ignored” or that he/she is now “happy”. This may well be true for some students. There are those students who would demand 100% of a teacher’s time. They want/need attention and will do anything to get out of writing down an answer. This starts in Kindergarten. These are the students who get further and further behind for whatever reason.
But, nothing is a guaranteed solution for all students in all places from all levels of income. Nothing. That is why the use of PARCC to make determinations is ill-conceived. That is why the implementation of CC can’t be used to devise a test that meets only ONE way of interpreting its substance. Therein lies the problem, IMO.
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“Won’t Back Down”, a propaganda film produced by corporate education reformers, never shows the mother supporting her daughter’s teachers. The few scenes in the mother and child’s home shows the child sitting on the couch watching TV and not reading or learning.
I’m sure that the producer and director missed the truth that they were revealing. The character played by Maggie Gyllenhaal was not a parent who supported teachers. Instead, she preferred protesting over supporting her daughter’s teachers and was irresponsible for not creating a learning environment in her home where the child should have been reading and doing homework instead of sitting for hours watching TV.
The Maggie Gyllenhall parent wanted to teachers to be totally responsible for her child’ education so she could be free to do something else in her off hours.
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Is it possible that there is truth to what both of you are saying? Corporate reformers have no place in education, that is obvious, just as an elementary principal would not have the expertise to step intot he position of CEO and run a large financial concern. (Actually my principal probably could – she is superwoman 🙂 But when done right and fairly, charter schools have a role in the education landscape, no? When they are part of the solutiion, but not at the expense of public schools? And certainly not in place of public schools!
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What’s interesting about the fake reform movement?
It’s all based all on lies and fraud and it started with “A Nation at Risk” in 1983 that was proven wrong in 1990 with the Sandia report of “A Nation at Risk”.
Then there are the alleged claims that use the average PISA rankings to make a case against the public schools but that is also misleading and full of lies that were revealed by the Stanford socioeconomic break down and comparisons of the PISA eventually leading to Dr. Margaret Raymond of Stanford saying recently that corporate Charters (that milk school funds for profits) don’t work when it comes teaching children.
Once we admit that the entire corporate driven Bill Gates funded public education reform movement is based on misleading claims and lies, then that makes the entire discussion that defends reform irrelevant.
Then there is the misleading claims and lies about Teach For America.
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Lloyd, I presume you believe that this young man’s success was all due to his great luck in having you for his teacher? Perhaps the luck you had in getting this engaged young man was due to the firm foundation he had before he reached you. I suspect this young man was on the way to success long before he entered your class and I suspect he would have realized that success even if he had chosen to continue homeschooling.
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I never thought it was just me as his teacher. He was a good student when he arrived and he had supportive parents heavily involved in his life.
I was one of his 24+ teachers during his four years in HS, and because of his concerned parents, the 9th grade counselor made sure to place their son with the most demeaning teachers. The only difference I made was recruiting him into journalism and introducing him to anther life path. He did the rest.
The formula is simple for a student to succeed.
Parents and students cooperating with teachers leads to student success.
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Some of the most successful students do well because of great teachers and schools regardless of parents. That’s one of the wonderful things about great schools and great educators.
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You are referring to students who are exceptions and not the rule or the average or norm.
I worked with a few of those exceptions with an emphasis on few. The student who had lousy parents but was the exception was mature and motivated enough to learn without the parent being a part of the eduction equation. Those students are few and far between.
In this issue, the few exceptions are not the solution and not part of this issue. The best solution to reach the most children is an intervention through a national early childhood education program that is operated inside the public schools with strict transparency and enforcement.
Once again, France is a good model to study for a program like this.
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I think it’s time to consciously call for a halt to the “great teacher” and “great school” nonsense. Should we next also demand “great parents”, “great babysitters”, “great ministers”, “great softball and soccer coaches”, great siblings, aunts, uncles, grandparents, etc.”? The terms “great teachers” and “great schools”, while seemingly innocuous terms of exclamatory praise, have been used far too much in ways that vilify ordinary, competent teachers and schools.
It is difficult to counter this. Which parent, given a choice between an allegedly “great teacher” and an otherwise competent (and sincere one) might not be inclined to choose the former for his/her child? It’s the same with “great schools”. Which parent would not wish to send hiis/her children to one of those, rather than the neighborhood one which few might praise as “great”, but which still does the job of giving children a solid formal education of quality?
Did I have great teachers as child? I can recall one or two (whom I might not have appreciated so much at the time), whose teaching remained with me in ways that I can consciously recall.
But I am certain that there were many others who did their job and more, but who may not have made the conscious impact those teachers did. It is mainly because of the former that I am able to read and write in this foreign colonial language, do arithmetic and much more.
I should also credit my own efforts, those of my mother who, when I was small, made sure I did my homework, until,at about age 8-9, she realized that she no longer had to, the availability of clear, readable textbooks, and, I am sure, efforts by whoever developed the school board’s curriculum and implemented it, sans histrionics, hoopla, punitive policies or exclamation points.
So enough already with the “greats” — especially as regards “great teachers”. I myself can, with full humility and yet complete truth, say that have been, over the past thirty seven years, at times a “great teacher” and at times far from one. Without either belittling or excusing my own abilities and efforts or lack of these, I would say that circumstances, including pure luck, played a large part in my success or failure as a teacher.
The most important factor, by the way, far more than myself in any case, were the students I had. Did they have good work habits? Did they, at least for my high school and college students, have the required background knowledge, having met basic prerequisites and being properly programmed?
As regards “great schools”, I am sure these exist, as do “great teachers”. But how many “greats” can reproduce and how long can “greatness” be sustained. How many children, the world over, have access to such “greats”? And yet, children come from distant corners of the globe to our shores and many of them excel in our schools, despite the tremendous handicaps, especially when entering at high school level, of having to learn a new language and gaining enough proficiency in to comprehend language-intensive material at the high school level. Are they “great” students? I think they are hard-working, sincere students who have had a bit of luck as well. It’s the same with teachers and schools.
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Terrific teachers and schools help many students accomplish far more than they think possible.
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“Terrific” might be the right word. Before you know it, that terror can turn to horror.
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Having great or even good parents is markedly more conducive to a child’s success than having a great teacher. Of course, it is best to have both.
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What? Not flat? You’ve got to be kidding. 😉
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There is still a Flat Earth Society—-in fact, there may be more than one.
http://www.theflatearthsociety.org/cms/
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@ Joe Nathan:
” * charters enroll a higher percentage of low income students than do district public schools
* charters enroll a higher percentage of students representing communities of color”
Lies, damn lies and statistics.
Of course this little statistic is true but you are comparing apples and kumquats. The chain charters: KIPP, Rocketship, Charters USA etc., set up shop in poor neighborhoods full of children of color. No charters in Old Greenwich, Connecticut, but plenty in Hartford (“Dr.” Steve Perry). No charters in Wellesley, Massachusetts, but lots in Roxbury (John King). All of the district public schools taken together are not low income, nor are they mostly students of color. Thus, it is logical that, percentage-wise, charters enroll more of this demographic. It is actually what they are set up to do.
And please don’t respond with your other favorite stat of how many mom-and-pop wonderful charter schools full of innovation there are in the world. There many be many of them, counting each as an individual unit, but the vast number of charter school seats are in the charter chains. It’s like comparing a neighborhood ceramic studio with Walmart.
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So the fact that charters enroll a higher percentage of low income students than district schools is a lie, except that it’s not.
What are you doing to help low income students, Christine? Are you a teacher? An administrator? Other than calling me a liar, and then retracting it, what are you doing. I’m interested.
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“What are you doing to help low income students, Christine? Are you a teacher? An administrator? Other than calling me a liar, and then retracting it, what are you doing. I’m interested.”
Given that I never called you a liar, there is no need for me to retract. What I said was that you used statistics to draw a false comparison between charters and district schools – “comparing apples and kumquats”.
As to me, I spent 36 years teaching middle and high school students in the same turbulent, urban, mostly-poor, mostly-kids-of-color school system that I live in and graduated from and which my three kids also attended and graduated from. My husband, too, spent 32 years teaching the same levels in the same system. The majority of my students were English language learners, many of them native Spanish speakers.
Satisfied?
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Yes, it’s clear that there are a lot of people posting here who used to teach. My question is what you are doing now.
As for drawing comparisons between district & charter…as noted above, I’m strongly opposed to using test scores to compare all district and all charters – since both district & charter vary widely.
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What I am doing now is calling out folks who draw false comparisons between charter and district schools about enrollment demographics, Joe.
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We agree that we ought to be looking at schools serving similar demographics.
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One other thing – there are groups of district schools that also share philosophies, but vary from place to place. Examples include Montessori or Core Knowledge, or Coalition of Essential Schools, and on and on.
Some people dismiss this collaboration of schools like KIPP or Core Knowledge or Essential as “chain.” Having visited more than 100, I see both similarities and differences among them, as I’ve seen similarities and difference among Montessori, Core Knowledge or Coalition of Essential Schools.
Sharing ideas and strategies, as well as some differences does not make schools bad or good. Depends on the ideas and how well there carried out.
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Trying to respond to the Lloyd/Joe etc posts. Anyway, it seems to me that there is a refusal to look at the same set of criteria here. Schools,public or charter, receiving public funds should not be allowed to siphon off money for individual gain (not talking salaries here in the range of teacher salaries). 6-7 figure salaries made by anyone who is not having a direct educational impact on the students should be illegal. I don’t know at all about the list of public school money thieves that were listed by Joe. If those are accurate, they should be dealt with and the money returned to the district or tax base, etc. In Ohio, monies are perpetually used to fatten the bank accounts of charter school owners and real estate managers, and somehow it is overlooked as being legal or at least it is permissible. It makes the blood curdle. Public schools are held to a higher accounting on, I think the number is 158 counts, than are charter schools. I am sure each state has examples of success stories and horror stories. The discussion needs to be on the reality of the focus of what the objections are, not on the defense of anecdotal success stories.
And, I also would like to add that it seems to me that the reason that it seems that Lloyd is focusing on the score cards of the publicand charter schools is because the public schools are deemed successful based on those scores and the scores are used to close them down, while charter schools are given a “pass” in this area in many cases.
We can’t have it both ways. I believe that most of us think that the tests are invalid, bogus, misused, even heinous. Since we in public schools are FORCED to be judged by this criteria, how else can the discussion continue if this admission isn’t made.
People can SAY that their public or charter schools are wonderful and judge them by any criteria they choose. Public schools already know if they have a great program. However, Arne has said that we have been fooling ourselves and that, because we don’t necessarily buy into the CC model of teaching, we are inadequate and even harmful.
So, I don’t know what point there is to saying that you don’t rate schools based on the test results. No one I’ve talked to WANTS to … but RttT is the master of our fates. Public schools would like to have the option of doing things without the testing. Of course, the computers that districts receive grants to obtain, etc. are often dependent on the $$$$ from RttT. It is kind of like we are being held hostage by RttT.
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Deb – Both district & charter public schools are forced to use standardized tests. In some states, some district & charter educators are working together to broaden the range of assessments that are being used.
This builds on the district charter collaboration of some years ago in which the NCAA tried to tell every high school in the country which courses in english, math, science & social studies were acceptable for college preparation (they decided for example, that courses on current issues were not acceptable.). Anyway, district & charter educators, and activists across the political spectrum, worked together successfully to get the NCAA to back off.
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Sad Teacher– seems you and I have been teaching about the same amount of time– since 1983. I was born and raised in and have lived and taught in New England all my nearly 54 years. I went to pubic school up until I was 18 (with the exception of kindergarten– NH didn’t require public kindergartens until a few years ago) and went to Brandeis. I never, ever, heard of “paddling” in any of the 4 different public schools I attended in grades 1-12. Never. Spanked at home? Yes. In school? No way.
What I have seen is that our economy has changed in such a way that both parents, caretakers or whatever (I was raised most by my great-grandparents) have to have employment outside the home. They are not able to spend time with their kids; so when they do, oftentimes they want to be their kids’ “friend.” Thus, there is no discipline, there are no no boundaries. “NO” is rarely heard. This of course carries over into the classroom.
While most parents (at least 80%) are nice when I call them about issues with their student in the classroom (usually academic, sometimes behavioral), they are ineffectual. The call rarely changes anything. How could it, if behavior or performance has been acceptable for the past 16 years?
I was fortunate in that I had a caring adult with me when I grew up in the ’60s. I learned to cook, do laundry, make things, sew, take responsibility, speak and act correctly, etc., etc. (Ironically, I was looked down on for not having a “traditional family,” but that’s a whole ‘nother story.) Most of my students do not have this. The ones that do tend to be from families with 10-12 kids (many times more) who belong to a church that demands total conformity and devalues formal education, esp. beyond high school.
So anyway, that’s what I’ve observed.
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I feel Kevin answered his own question. His comment about not enough teacher’s assistants in the classroom was a key comment in my opinion. The fact, that reformers and politicians have misdirected our interest in class size with all of their test-driven reforms and data-driven evaluations, is simply solved when the class size is reduced to a standard that allows for a quality of teacher-to-pupil ratio inspiring quality learning and maximizing management and engagement. The other issue is not to equalize the term discipline with punishment. Discipline is instilled and learned and punishment follows the failure of learning discipline. Redefining these terms are a necessity.
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Administrative support is critical but little will improve unless something changes elsewhere. This all starts long before children come to school. Parents, grandparents, “caregivers” have got to start at day one. I speak of my little ones who live in homes where there is no structure, no love, rampant conflict, and profanity in place of conversations, It is heartbreaking.
Students then come to school and are met with structure and rules. They are socially and academically deprived. They shut down or pick up furniture and throw it. The adults in the home often take offence when their children are facing some type of consequence. They feel their children are being picked on.
I really have lost all hope for our future. I try one child at a time but there are just too many on the other side.
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Democratic, just schools that care about emotional and psychological health could dramatically change the teaching and learning landscape. Of course, that’s not possible in the US of A.
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Where there is a union contract that has provisions to enforce classroom and school discipline and security, union power can slowly build teacher power at the classroom level. But this is only possible when the union’s people at a school are willing to enforce their contract and relentlessly follow through on it. In Chicago, we have had major contract provisions (even after weakening under corporate reform) to enforce classroom discipline and school security — two different realities. But, as Karen has been repeating at our union meetings for three years, “document” is the key word. The child who is constantly disrupting a class of 25, 30, or 35 (sometimes more) students needs to be excluded from the class and provided with special attention. We can enforce that in Chicago, but it requires focus and an admission that some children are really sabotaging the school and classroom to control the environment — in the inner city, often on behalf of their drug gangs. Chaos is necessary for their work to win.
Having served as a school delegate in Chicago, as “coordinator of security and safety” at one of the city’s roughest high schools (Bowen during the murderous years in the late 1990s), and as “director of security and safety” for the Chicago Teachers Union 92001 – 2004) I speak from massive experience and could share dozens of anecdotes, large and small — heartwarming and tragic. Yes — tragic.
During the years we were dealing with those issues here, one of the most amazing things to me was the large number of people abstracted from our realities who had all the answers and who had no f_______ idea what it was like when a child got up and said “You don’t fun this M_______! We do…” And it was true. From what I’ve heard leading the CORE delegate leadership contract training the past four years, that’s gotten worse in recent years, since everyone “knows” that the problems are never criminal children’s behaviors, but “bad teachers.”
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You’re lucky that you can remove disruptive students for individualized help. In Utah, we’re not even allowed to do that. I have to keep three VERY disruptive students in my AP class. I am told that disruptive behaviors are not a reason to remove a student from AP, because the AP people want everyone to have access to AP courses. SO, 20 other students (this is a small class for me) have to suffer through the disruptions and we can’t ever get done what we need to because of the behaviors.
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That is a shame, “Threatened Out West.” My local high school does not even offer AP classes – not a single one. In my son’s freshman year of college, the professors constantly referred to the AP curriculum. Even with his honor’s diploma and high GPA, he found himself immediately behind. He had to work many, many hours overtime to catch up with the students who had the privilege of AP classes. My son always constantly talked about how he wished he had graduated from a high school which offered AP. He would have taken full advantage of that luxury. What a shame!
Since an AP class is extremely rigorous, is it possible that these three hoodlums would flunk out of your class – so you could get them removed? I can’t believe they make you suffer with severe discipline problems at your very high level of instruction. What a shame!
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Sad Teacher– Not sure which discipline had the profs referring to AP curriculum, but I teach HS English (have been since 1983), and I don’t really see the value of the AP Lang & Comp or Lit & Comp– esp. Lit & Comp. I feel as though my former Honors students got more out of a straight Am Lit or Brit Lit course.
To what disciplines and AP courses are you referring?
Thanks,
Penny
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Penny, I agree! AP has been monetized and marketed so that people believe it’s all that. When you consider carefully, it’s just the ultimate metric – one high stakes test which decrees who is intelligent and successful.
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If the agenda is to privatize all public schools, then every problem public schools now face will be universal including overcrowding. However, some Wall Street type might want to start specialized charters so that parents who are not happy with their current charter school can find yet another alternative. However, charters won’t be able to expel so quickly because they can no longer “dump” on the public schools unless they are “specialized” which is code for cherry picking the cherries. Don’t expect Eva for instance to have students who don’t fit her mold. So those charters with bigger fat cats behind them will be exempt from the same rules and regs that will guide other charters.
It would be nice however if public schools had some of the same leverage as charter schools when it came to discipline and parent responsibilities as well as class size. Right now in NYS charters school teachers are exempt from VAM, but I doubt that would be the case once all schools are charters (with the exception of an Eva school).
With charters comes a lack of due process. So expect to see even higher turnover rates because no one wants to pay the salary of an experienced teacher if it interferes with profits.
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I agree that there is little admin. support and whenever a budget crunch the first to go are the room aides. Also, kids need more exercise.!!! They’ve taken so much recess time away-even older kids need to move. More. We got a puppy a few years ago and I read a training manual-the first page said “A tired puppy is a well-behaved puppy.” Ditto kids and adults. Start the day with some exercise. When the class gets noisy-take an exercise break. Really- instead of trying to deal with one or a few discipline issues-send them to the gym rather than in-school suspension. Wouldn’t work though. Too much out of class time.
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Becky – Your point is excellent and a great reminder.You are so right! In my k class we do LOTS of excercise and lots of stretching. It is amazing how 5-10 minutes of good stretching (like downward dog kind of stretching:) can calm 27 5-6 year olds! And they are completely attentive during our stretches, listening for every direction, which are rather complicated – like “walk your hands towards you toes and now hang like a ragdoll. Now slowly pull up…”
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Kindergarteninterlude, your our 27 student class sounds like a welcoming, nirvanic environment for learning. Your name says it all.
I have used direction following exercises with some of my most difficult classes and intrestingly the students respond to that insertion of structure. I’m going to redouble my efforts after reading your post.
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The turnover rate in charters is higher because they pay roughly 40% less, and people keep seeking higher paying job in public schools. When they get them, they move on.
So many leave the teaching profession in the first five years because we simply don’t prepare them mentally and emotionally for much of what they will have to deal with. The greater the difference between a young teachers expectations going in, and the reality they may face, the more emotion they’ll generate.
The expectations of teachers have always been high, but keep going up, often unrealistically so, in part because those promoting privatization want something to badmouth teachers about. Increasing expectations means more opportunities to not live up to them, and feel ashamed of one’s performance.
Shame leads to anxiety, dread and worry about going to work, which is why so many get needlessly stressed out, and leave. This could be prevented if we prepared teachers better.
I taught for health education for 33 years, and was also trained and certified in Rational Emotive Behavioral Therapy (REBT) and Education (REBE). I created a “Mental and Emotional Tool Kit for Life” for my students. I found that teaching the “tools” to them helped me be less stressed, and more effective, especially with the most troubled and troublesome kids. In fact, I volunteer to work with such kids now.
I have a website for teachers called Teacher ESP – Effectiveness and Stress Prevention
http://www.teacheresp.com
All ten of the “tools” can be found at:
http://www.itsjustanevent.com
Most school discipline doesn’t accomplish what it is intended to. That’s because it’s largely punitive, and focuses solely on behavior. In many cases, it actually makes the problems it’s trying to solve worse. Any teacher who’s been in school for a while will see this and know it to be true. Those with authoritarian mindset sometimes struggle to see how ineffective it is, and often press for more of the same, even in the face of obvious evidence that it’s not working.
The further into discipline we get, the more positive (constructive, helpful) it should become. Behavior is just the tip of the iceberg. There is so much that goes on beneath the surface with children and teens that most teachers don’t have a clue about, let alone about how to help such troubled and troublesome kids. That’s where the “tool kit” could be very helpful.
My volunteer work started with 25 of the toughest kids at my wife’s old high school. I ran psychoeducationa groups for those kids that they named “Tool Time”. They were very successful.
http://www.itsjustanevent.com/ToolTimeApproach.html
Inside every troubled and troublesome kid is someone who just wants the same life they see others around them having, but doesn’t know how to get it. They need people to show them how instead of just punishing them more often, harder and longer.
It’s been said that inside every person are two dogs fighting, one good, one bad. The one that wins is the one you feed the most. Too often we feed the wrong dog in schools by taking a largely punitive approach to discipline.
Kids need to be in the right mental (cognitive, attitudinal) and emotional place to be ready, willing and able to learn, and be taught. Too many simply aren’t there when they come to school, or because of what happens to them along the way. We do little if anything in any formal way to help them better manage what goes on inside their own heads, and they and we pay for not doing so.
That’s why I advocate for teaching the ten “tools” in the “Mental and Emotional Tool Kit” to all students, starting early in age appropriate ways, and continuing the whole time they are in school.
The fact that charters can get rid of kids more easily is a scam. They typically get to keep the funds for that student for the year, and send him/her back to their public school.
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I hope teachers take your advice to heart. Punitive discipline creates more problems than it solves. When I switched to “instructional” discipline, through a concrete demerit system, the positive results were startling. When I tell students (and parents) at the start of the year that my demerit system is intended to teach proper classroom decorum – not to punish and threaten, it is received with relief and appreciation.
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Can you explain your concrete demerit system? Thanks.
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I developed the demerit system with the approval of my principal; it is in the second year of implementation. I teach 8th graders in a diverse small city school district in upstate NY. Here’s how it works:
Demerits are awarded for incidents involving misbehavior; demerit values are generally proportionate to the offense. Late to class = 2 dm; profanity = 5 dm;
cell phone use = 5 dm; cutting class = 10 dm; etc. (Feel free to set your own values)
Demerits are never issued without fair warning unless it is absolutely unavoidable. I issue warnings in the form of behavioral corrections far more frequently than actual demerits. Most kids seem deathly afraid of this very concrete consequence and the majority will do anything to avoid even a 2 demerit late penalty. I never use demerits to bully or threaten, instead I reinforce the idea of using the system to teach what I call classroom decorum, a phrase they seem to respect.
The first and only tangible consequence that results is a two day, out of school suspension when a student reaches 50 demerits. There is no in between. No lunch detentions, no after school detentions, no in school suspensions, no Saturday school. All penalties which carry little weight for students in my school. Fifty demerits and they are gone for two days. Before this can happen, at about the 25/30 demerit mark, I will call home to discuss the problem(s) and also require the student to conference with our principal about correcting the behavioral issues which includes a fully documented record of infractions. My system requires no formal written referral until the 50 demerit point. the good news is that since I first implemented in September of 2013, I have not had one student come close to reaching 50 demerits. Not one referral written. I introduce the program to parents at Meet the Teacher night in September and they are 100% supportive because they understand that it is instructional not punitive.
Here’s why it works:
Its fair, its subjective, it stops the ridiculous practice of punishing kids every time they behave impulsively which is their nature, and it provides something most discipline programs do not: a very concrete limit to bad behavior but plenty of opportunity to self correct before its too late. It works for the same reason that I don’t drive recklessly on my local roads, 12 points of safety violations and I will lose my license.
Thanks for asking. It works for me.
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That should be, “its objective” (not subjective) and it is also a respectful way to treat imperfect young people while still maintaining very traditional and appropriate behavioral standards.
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I agree that smaller classes help and also that the misbehaving kids are trying to communicate, in their way, with us.
I think too, that some students have always misbehaved. My husband tells me stories about his vocational HS in the 50’s. And in the 70″s, I remember when the boys would wrestle with each other when teachers switched classes. Sometimes the students would push each other into the class lockers and then bang on the locker. And that was a religious school! I was a student then, so I’m not sure how the teachers resolved this.
There’s nothing wrong with taking a step away from teaching. The heart of a teacher doesn’t change though. I’ve stepped away from teaching, then returned to a more structured setting, which is better for me. I don’t know you, but I’ll guess that, in some way, you’ll be teaching again.
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Many thanks to those that have written on this thread.
This posting and the comments are another example of why I visit this blog.
😎
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1) Defund the poorest schools
2) Increase class sizes to bursting
3) Create developmentally inappropriate standards and activities
4) Create impossibly difficult and confusing tests
5) Over stress teachers by threatening their careers
6) Overemphasize the importance of test scores to the exclusion of all else
7) Narrow the curriculum to ever narrower versions of math and ELA
8) Replace the joy and excitement of learning with rigor and grit
9) Replace field trips and birthday parties with more rigor and grit
10) Try to force the wonderful diversity and endless potential of our youngest and most curious learners through the smallest academic keyhole we could possibly construct.
Never mind.
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“Why don’t leaders help create the conditions necessary for learning?”
Screw the “leaders”. The vast majority were 4th rate teachers to begin with.
Look to yourself and what is going on in the classroom.
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TAGO. yes.
My philosophy, which works very well for me throughout the day, is to keep the lesson moving, stay positive, try to address behaviors with individuals, stick to the consistency that the school has (if they have one—PBIS is a pretty good school-wide approach), and model the love of learning. Most of the time, we don’t have time for poor behavior because we are busy learning music!
Now, in the inner city when I was the only white person in the room with 6th-8th graders, I struggled a little more. But there, I had a rule never to call security (unless there was a physical threat—-some teachers used security to handle behavior issues; I did not); and every day I regrouped and tried something new the next day. Once in a while, I would garner support from my African American male colleague (we would switch groups), and if a particular something needed to be addressed in a way I knew they would never listen to me, I had him address it and together we were a team.
I would answer this guy’s question by saying that some of his point might just be “oh the kids these days” type mindset. When have kids ever behaved beautifully at school across the board? I don’t think such a time existed, really. So the notion that this is anything new could create a tangent that leads to answers sort of like Gates . . .that surely there is a way, one and true. . .be careful what you wish for or we might have behavior management mandated too.
Students do have more cognitive dissonance, I think, now than ever before with poverty rates so high, divorce so high, etc. . . but that just means the psychology of our population is changing. . .and as with dealing with poverty, that is a separate issue from discipline. Anyone knows that if you get into a power struggle with a child who has experienced turbulence in the home to the extent that it is considered trauma and if an oppositional defiant stance has resulted, you will lose the struggle. You have to find other ways to reach them. I also think we have abused medication for students in more ways than there are to count—–and so what Duane says is so true. . .look to yourself and what is going on in your classroom.
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Kevin has raised a vital issue that is unmentionable in most “educational” circles, not to speak of the political ones. To try to give him advice on this would be presumptuous of me, even after having spent most of the past 37 years teaching for a living.
I did this, initially, in the universities (where this was not, at least at the time, in the 1970’s and 80’s) an issue. Later, I began teaching in the public high schools in NY City, where I worked both as a teacher and a teacher’s assistant (paraprofessional). My work also included subbing for many years when I was on family leave. I thus got to see many schools and classrooms, including many in which student misbehavior was a problem, often through no fault of the teacher’s.
It should suffice to say, for now, that this is something that should have been part of the public discussion for decades past, but hasn’t.
This is yet one more indicator of how the realities extant in the schools, both positive and negative, have been ignored, while absurd agendas based on completely flawed and repeatedly disproved assumptions have created havoc in the schools, driving out sincere, qualified teachers.
Along with high-stakes testing, the over-emphasis on “correct” one-size-fits-all teaching methods, and now the teacher “evaluations” based primarily on these two dreadful things, the pathologies in our social milieu (and their effect on teaching and learning) are the primary drivers of dysfunction and chaos in our schools.
You can attribute (or at least associate) most of these pathologies to (or with) poverty, with some degree of validity. But you could also link some of these social disorders to affluence and the values, habits and mindsets promoted by commerce (as with the cell-phone epidemic).
Be that as it may, the pathologies exist and were often the primary reason for the “failing school” syndrome, before the other three — testing, methodology (esp. Danielson’s) and the teacher and school “evaluations”, gained undue prominence and began to add to the woes of sincere teachers and students.
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The single greatest determining factor in the classroom is the teacher. State certification assessments at the secondary level test a teacher’s content knowledge with a minor emphasis on feedback. Most who teach high school did not go to school to become teachers. We are second career professionals. With that said, we have great content knowledge starting out; however, most enter the field with little to no experience in the delivery of that content knowledge.
Providing meaningful professional development on classroom management, like Randy Sprick’s Safe and Civil School series CHAMPs, would benefit a new teacher to ease some of the management issues by establishing routines for entering the class, getting to work, turning in materials, transitions, and dismissal. Teachers also need professional development in the delivery of their content using the standards as a natural learning progression. So much of our time has been spent over the past three years unpacking these new standards, but little time has been spent demonstrating how to plan with those standards in mind to increase student’s conceptual mastery.
As a literacy coach in an all minority South Florida high school, I am overwhelmed each year with the number of incoming Freshman reading at a 3rd-5th grade level. We didn’t create the reading deficit, but we sure are held accountable for ensuring that child’s success at the end of their four year tenure. Now add to that a new teacher, lets say former pre-med student who has left corporate America to teach Biology, who has to teach 150 incoming Freshman the concepts of genetics, cellular construction and division, and classification. Upwards of 50% of the students entering the classroom read 6 years behind their peers, yet the textbook is written at grade level. The last thing that child wants to do is read a text book with concepts he doesn’t care about nor can he read without great difficulty. If a teacher has received no training on reading strategies, or delivery of instruction, the chances that the teacher or the student will be successful dramatically drops.
Educators will always be held accountable for moving the students in our charge. There is no way to hold a parent accountable other than to ensure that they are getting their child to school. Rather than punishing teachers for not moving students, let’s provide them the training that is crucially needed. Unfortunately, since these new standards have been out, I have yet to attend a training whereby the presenter had a clear grasp of the learning progression present in the standards and knew how to articulate that into the planning piece so sorely missing. If principals are still asking teachers the three same questions: What are you doing to teach a standard? What are you doing to assess a standard? What are you doing to remediate if mastery of the standard is not met?, then it is clear that they haven’t a clue as to how to teach with these new standards in mind. They simple cannot and should not be taught in isolation. The question that should be asked is much simpler: How are you using the standards to help students master your subject’s concepts?
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I’m my 35 years teacher, I would have to say that the greatest determining factor in a classroom is the students. The teacher’s ability to adjust instruction and assessment to suit them is where the teacher comes in, but it’s the group of, say, 22 students who are the determining factor in how the teacher plans, instrcts, assesses, etc.
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Why don’t leaders help create the conditions necessary for learning?
Leaders in education are not concerned about improving conditions for learning. Leaders have other priorities. Maybe it’s the influence of capitalism; maybe it’s our lack of knowledge about children or the consequences of institutionalizing each other? We can’t pin down why education leadership is corrupt but we can decide to stand in the way. They will try to claim they’re concerned about children however there is proof otherwise, we as voters and parents need to take on these leaders. Be the leaders.
Why is there such a high turnover of teachers?
Teacher education is failing young student teachers. When the training they spent years acquiring fails them in the classroom, they leave. States are simply turning the profession into a set of skills that the state deems necessary to keep schools bound to outdated practices. Who is holding the state and DoE accountable for the education system? The primary consumers of education aren’t given any room to critique the services. The teachers aren’t respected enough to give the freedom. We see how the current education has worked for our youth, cultures and society. We could have accountability for the conflicts of interests that have affected our public education.
I think we do ourselves a disservice to use the term “classroom management”. This implies much about the systemic approach to learning. Children are not processes to be managed. It’s imperative that teachers know their students, more so than the subject matter they are hired to teach. This is not part of teacher training and it’s why many teachers feel overwhelmed when they do get work. Being mostly young, childless women doesn’t help them in their new role.
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The problem isn’t being addressed; it’s just getting worse.
I teach at a rural community college. Students who have failed my class by mid-semester (excessive absences, no work turned in) have a “right” to stay in the class “because they’ve purchased a seat in the classroom.” This is a remedial writing class, 15 students. Their presence is disruptive. I can ask them to leave if they don’t have the work, but then I have to be “fair” and also tell the single mother of 3, who has missed no classes at all and so far turned in all her work, that she, too, must leave if she doesnt’ have the work, even if she came to class after being up all night with a sick child.
A student stood up in class and told me that he has a right to do anything he wants in class “because I’m paying for this.” Not only was he never disciplined, but two semesters later, when he told a teacher “go fuck yourself” (and he didn’t use a euphemism, so why should i?) because she asked him, politely, after class so as not to embarrass him, not to come in late, he was rewarded by being moved to another class. So was the student who screamed at me repeatedly, first in class and then in a dean’s office, interspersing his accusations with slander. No apology, either to me or the other students whose education he disrupted. I was just told to prove that his behavior was a problem to the other students.
Sometimes I think all I’m doing is babysitting emotional seventh-graders, not teaching a college class.
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Jane, no teacher should have to tolerate a student swearing at her or him. Sounds like a serious problem with your administrator.
Very sorry you are having to deal with this.
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Changes necessary, the short list: 1. Equitable funding for public schools 2. Eradicate childhood poverty and its attendant ills 3. Improve support systems in schools- social workers, psychologists, mentors, career counselors 4. Teach behavior management in education programs- continuous mentorship available in schools 5. Sustained professional development in schools 6. Minimum 10 year teaching requirement prior to admin. degree to assure at least some degree of professional wisdom in leadership positions 7. Clear pathways and support towards college and careers for all students 8. Parental supports 9. Equal and open access to all school programs for all students 10. Anger management, pro social skill training, mediation programs available for students 11. Careful data management to note trends in discipline and incorporate interventions 12. Attention to scheduling- use schedule to maximize student success, heterogeneous groupings, no wasted periods, etc. 13. Academics first in decision making 14. Create a school which makes all students see themselves as productive participants 15. Use of transformative discipline practices- see the research 16. Later start times in middle schools and high schools so students can have sufficient sleep 17. Teaming- teachers work together to help students
The list could go on. The question is not easily answered but rather demands systemic reform!
Sincerely, Ellen Nutters
Sent from my iPad
>
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Susan Nunnes answers Keinin’s question and her answer holds the key.
For 16 years I have been writing about the first assault on public education, where utter lawlessness took out the top veteran teachers in America,… and no one saw it happening in the sixteen thousand districts in 50 states.
Iput this up on my site in 2004, and have posted it there and at OEN for years.
It is the answer Susan. here is how they do it… and the media is silent. Teachers do not have the resources to sue, although some do, losing years of their lives and their lives savings, and often losing, at the end.
http://www.speakingasateacher.com/SPEAKING_AS_A_TEACHER/No_Constitutional_Rights-_A_hidden_scandal_of_National_Proportion.html
Lenny Isenberg, who started per daily to described the utter destruction in LA, and is now suing the union for its malfeasance that allowed this, once said to me, “Everyone knows it. Only the public is in the dark.”
http://www.perdaily.com/2014/07/former-ctc-attorney-kathleen-carroll-lays-out-unholy-alliance-between-union-and-public-education-pri.html
How could it be in the dark when Karen Horwitz documented the horrendous stories of teachers at her site
http://endteacherabuse.org
How many of you have gone there????
She wrote “White Chalk Crime” which has all the data on the outright lawlessness that emptied the schools in Chicago.http://www.whitechalkcrime.com
or Betsy Combier, a journalist created several sites
http://nycrubberroomreporter.blogspot.com/2009/03/gotcha-squad-and-new-york-city-rubber.html
http://parentadvocates.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=article&articleID=7534
http://nationalpublicvoice.blogspot.com/2012/04/betsy-combier-nyc-department-of.html
She documented the destruction in NYC that led to this
https://vimeo.com/4199476
Lorna Stremcha in Montana testified to the lawlessness in Montana,
http://www.youtube.com/all_comments?v=nfNxj-O1DiI
She has now has written a book (in novel form) to tell how the principal of her school set her up to be assaulted, the tale is true!.
And what they did to the fabulous teacher David Pakter
http://ednotesonline.blogspot.com/search?q=david+pakter
in NYC shows the disregard for humanity that the top-down management in our country has for the profession, and for the people who dedicated their lives to teaching.
Right now, they are pursuing Francesco Portelos, not content at depriving him of his career
http://rubberroom3020-a.blogspot.com/2013/08/dear-arbitrator-wittenberg-doe-evidence.html
http://www.endteacherabuse.org/Portelos.html
http://protectportelos.org/does-workplace-bullying-continues-my-33-hrs-behind-bars/
But nowhere in the media is the trauma and the pain that Susan touches on, reported.
The top NYC teachers are gone, and the few who must work to live, are forced to sub and treated like slaves.
How did this happen?
Dan Rather, whom I knew (once-upon-a-time) gave me the answer when I described what was happening to me, back at the beginning when they had removed me from the most famous practice in NYC and thrown me into a closet which was the rubber room in District 2:
“That’s unbelievable ,Susan,'” he said.
Yeah. Who would believe it?
Exactly. Who would believe the truth, that principals are not only NOT supporting learning, they are actually looking for ways to send the teachers out the door, after a few years of service.
WHY?
Paul Krugman, In The NY Times, knows why.
The Congress, in the hands of the billionaires boys club, starved the states, and the first thing to go was education. They removed the practitioners and their salaries, and the schools failed. No surprise there. Now, young novice teachers get to practice of a few years, and then, as parents I meet across the nation as I travel, they ‘document their incompetence.
LOOK AT THE NY TIMES TODAY: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/30/nyregion/cuomo-in-reversal-vetoes-bill-that-would-have-protected-teachers-from-low-ratings.html?emc=edit_tnt_20141230&nlid=50637717&tntemail0=y&_r=0
The conspiracy is ending our careers, and dumbing down this country.
It is the end of democracy which depends on shared knowledge. Period
Click to access hirsch.pdf
and this
Leaders of the public education system should exemplify the highest ethical standard and should hold themselves accountable to the public they serve.
http://www.icope.org/#!news-views-2/c8vd
yeah!
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Beautiful article, Susan! I love reading your writings. It is a “dumbing down of America”…there is no doubt about that. As older teachers are mistreated, the younger teachers, I’ve noticed, just look on and say very little about what the older, extremely accomplished, teachers are going through. Many of the younger teachers actually believe that this misfortune will not happen to them because they are “excellent” teachers. Actually, the younger teachers are witnessing a “de-professionalization” of their professions, and they do not even realize it. The younger teachers should be alarmed, and many are not alarmed at all.
What the younger teachers do not understand is that they will turn into “bad teachers” overnight, feeling pressure to retire. Everyone will turn 40 years old, sooner or later. Age discrimination is alive and well. Many districts do not want to pay for a master’s degree (master’s plus) teacher with precious experience anymore. Thanks again for your beautiful writings. You should write for a newspaper.
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Everything you say is right on the nose. “De-professionalization is exactly right.
If they turn us into ‘civil servants’ they can ‘manage’ us like a business.
They would never do this to doctors because the patients would die, although they are monetarizing health care by the insurance muddle they created.
As for the young teachers lack of sympathy, they will feel differently when they discover the truth that you and I reveal… that suddenly, the principal will ‘document’ their incompetence, and instead of training or help, they will be sen out the door… with no pension, no benefits, and no recommendations… so there will be no new job… career over.
They should go to the NAPTA site and read the stories.
http://endteacherabuse.org/
and everyone at this site should see the Grassroots film “AN INCONVENIENT TRUTH WAITING FOR SUPERMAN”
https://vimeo.com/4199476
Thanks for the compliment.
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I serve as a charter school principal in Minnesota, and charter’s in MN are public schools who follow the same rules and regulations as traditional public schools. I find it very disheartening that there are many negative and incorrect views on charter schools. I do think that our state has a very strong charter school law that other states should consider. School choice is not bad thing!
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I hear you, Josh. I wish people could be a bit less extremist and a bit more open to seeing the good in both approaches to education. .
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Sounds good.
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WOW! Obviously this is a hot topic. And there is so much good stuff here! However, Janine, you nailed the problem with your first response to the 2 fighting boys. It is the federalization of the educational system. Thank you for such a clear, rational and peaceful response. Thank you for not pointing fingers and for answering without sarcasm or name-calling. Your approach provides fertile ground for finding solutions. The fighting boys lost me a few days ago! They should definately go into politics – in DC.
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You want an active dialogue and yet you can people who disagree with you “fools?”
My father in law was an active Marine who served on Iwo Jima and other places in the South Pacific. We were of different religions and disagreed on many things – but he never called people with whom he disagreed “fools”
Why do you decline to criticize district school scandals like those you constantly criticize in charters?
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Why do you keep bringing up the fact repeatedly that someone called you names and you never get back on topic—-do you even know what the original topic was?
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Thank you for letting us know that your father-in-law was a Marine who served on Iwo Jima. If he’s alive, tell him Simper Fi from another Marine who served in Vietnam.
I had three uncles who fought in World War II.
Two were in the Navy and one in the Army.
One uncle was on an aircraft carrier that was sunk. He survived.
Another uncle was in submarines and involved in the development of radar during WWII. He went in at age 17 and served for 35 years before he retired as a Lieutenant Commander.
The third uncle served in India and Southeast Asia fighting the Japanese. He was in charge of munition trains running bombs and supplies to the front lines. He survived after being trapped behind enemy lines for a few days.
Now that we have shared the military history of our families, let’s get back to the education topic if you remember what it was.
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Someone should tell Kevin that no, nobody can answer his question, before he wastes a half hour reading whatever the heck Lloyd and Joe arguing about on this page.
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TAGO!
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So true, FLERP! (What a funny name 🙂 But I do think, other than the wacky argument going on, that many folks have very thoughtful and useful wisdom on this issue.
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Deb, Lloyd and others who are figuring out the tactics and machinations that we see afoot.
I read your wonderful and interesting commentary, but as you know, I tie it all together and look at the missing conversation, the one that I learned when I was actually in the national Research out of Harvard, run by the LRDC (univ. of Pittsburgh) which is:
WHAT DOES LEARNING LOOK LIKE, AND WHAT GENUINELY ENABLES LEARNING TO OCCUR: “THE PRINCIPLES OF LEARNING.”
The other missing conversation on a national level is the one that addresses the war on teachers which was THE FIRST ASSAULT, but the crucial one that took out the professional voice of the authentic practitioner, so they could substitute that of the top-down business and corporate ‘persons’ that took over the schools EVERYWHERE, IN 15,880 districts in 50 states.
I am the voice of the teacher they tried to silence, and I am saying that we need to shine a light on that FIRST ASSAULT, because while the second wave (the assault of the charters) is occurring now, it the human story that is missing, the sheer trauma of what was done to dedicated professionals in order to remove their salaries and their voices.
It is out there as the sites of Karen, Lenny, Betsy, Norm, Rene, Lorna, Lois, Anthony and Leonie, not to mention the blog NYC Teachers, but even as NYC goes into receivership, that critter at the top, Cuomo, gets the bully pulpit and the media to put forth his agenda and utter lies.
Read what I said on Duane’s post about Washington State’s corrupt legislature.
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I would like to make a longish, but perhaps helpful or liberating, comment, reacting to Susan Schwarz.
Firstly, I ‘d like to thank her for her kind remarks about my note regarding coverups of truth in both wartime and in the education industry (one aspect of this being seen in Kevin’s question regarding the silence on the issue of disruptive behavior in the classroom and its effect on teaching and learning).
Secondly, I’d like to thank her for bringing us back towards the issue of learning, as raised in Kevin’s question and in a broader sense — and for drawing attention to the assault on professionalism in the teaching field, and its phases.
Without going into the latter, as I’m sure there are people on this blog who are far more qualified, I would just like to make, instead, a small — should I say humble 😉 — point about the latter — learning.
We humans, along with mammals, birds and other beings, are instinctive learners. We are also instinctive teachers. Just as genetic information is transmitted by biological reproduction, so also is cultural information transmitted by teaching and learning. This is rarely a passive transmission, as the knowledge is transformed by the interaction, and each generation shapes the culture in turn. The teacher often learns as much from the student as the student does from the teacher, although the content that is learned may be different.
I happen to believe that too much has been made of “teaching” and of “learning” by those who profess to be experts in Education with a capital “E”.
Teaching and learning are both enjoyable, though at times demanding, activities, if teachers and learners are left to interact quietly, as they have done through the millennia and the eons.
This is no different, perhaps, in essence, than the pleasure-pain one gets out of reproduction — and I do not just mean sex, although in our case that is a vital part, but out of the whole process, including courtship, child-bearing and birthing and then child rearing, for those (unlike me) who have been fortunate enough to have experienced this — although I know they may not share my outlook on it. 😉
The last thing one needs, in teaching and learning, again in my humble opinion, are a host of analysts, onlookers, directors and supervisors. Imagine what that would do to sex and all that comes before and after!
One may want to distinguish between formal and informal learning. Without going into that in depth here, one should note that these are complementary in nature. Also, it is informal learning, including the acquisition of the first language and basic ethics or morality, that forms the foundation on which all formal learning usually rests.
Formal learning is associated with the disciplines — be these hatha yoga or carpentry or mathematics. And each of these disciplines has evolved means for its transmission, almost as a living thing might do. The disciplines are not the works of the gods or nature, although these might be in the background, but those of men and women. And each has its methods and its specialized language, be this of speech or not. And of course, they interact, arising out of one another, sharing of themselves and merging, much as biological beings do.
It is unfortunate that, like all human creations, learning and teaching, especially of the formal kinds, have been seized on by the economic forces that power the feeding chains of our mass-societies, so that students and teachers are seen as part of the factory or industrial processes that feed the behemoth.
I have no strong issues with traditional classroom and lecture-hall teaching, by the way, as it had been practiced for quite a while now, being a traditional teacher (at least in the classroom or lecture hall, when I was in front of 34 students or 250), who has long been angered by the sustained assaults on these modes of teaching, these kinds of assaults having started long before the ones referred to and capitalized by Susan. Unfortunately, the assaults have only intensified over the years, and the traditional teacher is in danger of becoming extinct, at least in much of this country. Nor do I have issues with other modes of teaching and learning.
What I do have issues with is the captivities imposed on both students and teachers. These were bad enough in prior regimes of formal factory-education. The slavery has only intensified over the years. This threatens to rob the acts or processes of teaching and learning of whatever joy, humanity, essence and meaning they might still have managed to retain.
Enough for this post!
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Still being, unfortunately, a teacher ;-), I noted that in the first sentence in the last paragraph, I wrote an “is” where I should have written an “are”.
I tried to correct that, right after hitting “post”, but of course that didn’t work.
My apologies for this and other errors, be they of English (still a foreign language) or logic or whatever, and for the length of the comment, which is, of course the kind of “lecture” I could never get away with in our current systems of education. My own classroom speech rarely exceeds, nowadays, the length of this paragraph.
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Please. With recognition that this is a blog primarily of teachers and with the understanding that posts cannot be edited, much would be accomplished by dispensing with the three paragraph apologies or correcting by others of minor grammatical errors. In a time when the English language is being assaulted by a plethora of ESL learners anyway, if the content understood, no apologies needed.
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I love your thoughtful responses. So much of what you say is true.
I want to make one thing clear. In those 2 years when I was the NYC cohort for the research for National Standards (for enabling Learning), I was exposed to the ‘jargon’ the LRDC used to talk about learning, in order to inform our teaching practice.
Over and over the words that described the teacher’s role were: “enabling” and “facilitating.”
This is because the project itself, to establish a rubric, a set of criteria for LEARNING, was the goal. What works? What must be present in a classroom for kids to learn — FOR learning to occur?
Thus, with lots of money form Pew, and with the thesis The 8 Principles of Learning’ by Lauren Resnick — a thesis that revolved around effort-based learning, the Ph’d tools’ staff from the LRDC (Univ of Pittsburgh) went into tens of thousands of classrooms, REAL THIRD LEVEL RESEARCH …no the kind of ‘study’ which observes a few hundred cases an makes a prediciton.
These professionals were trained to recognize learning, knew what it LOOKED LIKE, and could not be fooled (as parents often are) by fancy bulletin boards, technology or other classroom distractions that have no impact on real acquisition of complex skills.
At the end, they found IN ALL CASES of the most successful learning environment, THERE WERE 4 four things present… Thus, four of the principles of learning rested on the practice of the teacher and FOUR WERE FORU THE PRINCIPAL
http://www.newvisions.org/page/-/Prelaunch%20files/PDFs/NV%20Publications/challengestandards.pdf
Now this will blow you away: four of the principles of learning, THINGS THAT MUST BE PRESENT FOR KIDS TO REALLY LEARN COMPLEX SKILLS— are enabled and facilitated only when the ADMINISTRATION (i.e. the principal and chancellor) put them into practice. All four SUPPORT LEARNING BECAUSE THEY SUPPORT THE PRACTICE OF THE TEACHER. The principal must ensure that:
1- there is an organizational plan the provides for movement and instruction. Luchrooms, gyms, stairwells, playgrounds all need schedules and maintenance and coordination of this is the principal’s job.
2– there is a safe, quiet, healthy plant. ( unlike the one where I taught in the Bronx, where openings in the wall allowed vermin to enter the classroom, and plaster fell from the ceiling each day, and glass was missing in 3 windowpanes, and…. the kids ran rampant through the halls, and…)
3- there are Materials and Technology that is up to date and relevant. (well, in that room, I did not even have books, let alone a tv or a computer… even the blackboard was impossible to write upon.)
4- there are competent Practitioners and Support Staff— all the people from behavioral professionals and nurses to janitors who help the teacher enable all kids to learn. Hiring competent teachers for each discipline and ensuring that on-going training is provided.
Principals have a tough job. I don to envy them My niece is the principal in Sn Francisco of a k to 8 school, and I know what she did to manage a successful k-6 school in a latino section. She works herself to the limit, but never does she trim the budget by removing the most experienced teachers, nor does he consider ‘documenting incompetence’ as the purpose of her classroom visits.
So what were the 4 must have ingredients in the classroom f, the principles for teachers, you ask? What made the kids put in the necessary EFFORT to learn complicated skills and complex information?
1- NUMBER ONE was CLEAR EXPECTATIONS! Would you believe it” Something that simple? When the kids AND the parents know exactly what is expected, they can work to achieve it. I don’t know how other teachers did it. I decided to write weekly letters to the parents and the students, discussing in a friendly, down-to-earth manner, what the goals were, what we were doing.
Also, from day one, we created together the rubric, –the criteria for “what kind of work received a top grade”, “what kind of work got a barely passing grade” and what work failed!
Then, EACH week, I made it clear who was meeting the criteria and what needed to be done. I remember one ‘skills sheet” that I returned in the folder, with the student’s weekly “Reader’s Letter to me. “What….(name of student)… can do as a writer” was at the top of the sheet in the tight side pocket of the folder,–something I borrowed from Nancy Atwell.
Here, I made a comment to the parent:
” ‘Their’, ‘there’ and ‘they’re’ are not interchangeable, and in fact, were something I taught in grade 3, and was reviewed in every grade after that. Now in grade 7, if Johnny continues to hand in the only weekly homework assignment with no effort to edit his work for errors that I have identified more than once, then, in the absence of tests, I will have to lower his grade.”
Parent conferences and calls were made… when I had 75 students it was easy…when i had 140 it became impossible!
FYI: films of the kids reactions when I returned their reader’s letter folders each week, led the researchers to determine how I met the next principle.
Number 2- Rewards for Performance. I cannot go into, here, all the ways in which (how) I rewarded the kids for genuine work, for getting the thought down and getting it ready for a reader, but simply put… the worked hard, were wide-awake in my class, and loved to be there… “The Schwartz is with us,” one boy used to say, as he plunked himself down in his seat, and took out his note book (all my kids knew they had to take notes, and that this ‘work’ reinforced memory… REMEMBER THIS WAS RESEARCH ON EFFORT BASED LEARNING.
Click to access polv3_3.pdf
Now, ask yourself “HOW COME THE ONLY STANDARDS RESEARCH I HEAR is about EVALUATING TEACHERS?
Where is the results of the Pew funded Harvard-LRDC collaboration conducted in 1 districts nationally?
If anyone is interested, I have the end-product …the huge books created for each discipline.
My work is included, in the one on Language arts, of course.
Do you enjoy Irony? Want a perfect example of what is happening in America to professionals like me?
When I was in the storeroom which was the Rubber Room in NYC District 2, , charged with incompetence, those volumes were stored on the shelves awaiting distribution.
The got me, as they got one hundred thousand of our veteran teachers, but in my case, my excellence was indisputable by all criteria, aND nothing stopped them because they are LAWLESS.
http://nycrubberroomreporter.blogspot.com/2009/03/gotcha-squad-and-new-york-city-rubber.html
And that humble teacher, is why humble teachers lose.
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Many thanks for this, Susan. After sending off my own little “treatise” on learning ;-), I realized I should have included the words “some of” at the beginning of the phrase “those who profess experts in Education”.
I do have some issues with the overemphasis on “facilitation” in the way lessons were observed and evaluated in the NY city schools over the last decade. As you know, the concept is a happy one, and I and most sincere teachers would have no argument with it were it not imposed on teachers, with anything that deviates from this ideal being condemned.
There is also a place for old-fashioned instruction. This could be from watching a video, reading content material — for those who can do this at a subject-and-grade-appropriate level or from listening to the teacher explain, taking notes, etc. answering and asking questions, as in traditional classrooms. The students have to know the basics and become somewhat familiar with them before they can proceed. The problem in practice, as we see in the schools, arises, as usual, from taking what might well be a good idea, and making it into a rule or diktat.
Putting aside that minor point, I think your remarks about the work you did, both in the classroom and as part of the research, as well as what occurred to you subsequently, tragic and yet typical as the last thing is, deserves a wider airing then on this long thread, that many might perhaps understandably be deleting or blocking. It would be good if you could re-post your posted comment again when the opportunity arises, in this or other blog, so it gets a wider audience.
Thanks again, Sandra! We are kindred spirits, those who have been in the classrooms and often taught for many years, accomplished much under what, in retrospect, seems difficult if not impossible circumstances and yet been duly punished — to often, for things beyond our control, for speaking up when we thought it necessary — or even, as can happen, for our own diligence and perseverance.
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Here are encouraging responses from two Minneapolis/St. Paul districts to views of families and faculty. They felt that providing more progressive options would allow some students to succeed. So teachers have been empowered to create “within district” options for families:
http://www.startribune.com/local/south/287427841.html
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that is 12 DISTRICTS NATIONALLY
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Recognizing and acknowledging that this is not on the topic of Kevin’s question, I thought many of you, interested in leadership and expanding opportunity, might be interested in this example of leadership. The University of Kentucky president has lowered his salary by $90,000 so that the salaries of the lowest paid people at the University can be increased. I think that’s great leadership and modeling.
http://money.cnn.com/2014/08/06/news/economy/university-president-salary-gift/
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Interesting and it would seem that the University of Kentucky president should be admired for this act, but ….
There are about 4,600 degree-granting institutions (colleges and universities in the US.)
I can’t help but ask how many college presidents have done the same thing and is the University of Kentucky president already wealthy so taking such a cut doesn’t impact his/her lifestyle?
It’s very easily for a millionaires or billionaires to make such a dramatic gestures.
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Agreed there are many wealthy people, and that this man is receiving a substantial salary. I’m a fan of modeling – whether it’s a college president, a parent or an educator. I think modeling is an important part of teaching.
Here are more details about the University of Kentucky president’s actions from an MSNBC report.
“Because Burse is serving in an interim position, he did not have a previous recent salary with the educational establishment. His contract includes an annual income of $259,744, according to a release from the university. The Kentucky State University Board of Regents originally offered him yearly earnings of $349,869 before Burse requested a change to provide additional funds to the two dozen workers.”
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Now if Burse had donated that money toward an early childhood education program and publicized how important this is for young children who grow up in poverty and/or single family homes. Imagine how powerful that would have been.
Burse could also mention how damaging Bill Gates rank, fire teachers and close public schools Common Core agenda is to these same children and suggest that the $5 – $7 billion Gates is spending to destroy public education would serve a better purpose if it had all gone to implement a national early childhood education program not linked to cooperate profits and/or high salaries like the half-million dollars Eva Moskowtiz pays herself.
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Lloyd, Deb, Laura and others….
May I direct you and the others who follow me here to my first SPEAKING AS A TEACHER site, where USING PHOTOS OF MY GRANDKIDS READING.
in order to introduce myself, I posted a page “About Me as a TEACHER of literacy” —
http://www.speakingasateacher.com/SPEAKING_AS_A_TEACHER/_ABOUT_ME__A_TEACHER_OF_LITERACY.html
Some of the prints are missing from that page, but there are enough to tell the tale. The boy, my first grandchild is now 16 ( and currently in a private academy in New Jersey) , was reading second grade books when he was 3. Yes, he has a gift, (none of the others read so early, or could decipher a college text at 7) …. BUT, ALL of them used language with great ease, and all of them love to read as older children and teens.
May I draw your attention go that photo where William ( who resembled Harry Potter at that age) is holding yellow construction paper where he wrote down the “instructions” for the use of the smoke tablets in his trains… HE WAS 4, had NEVER BEEN TAUGHT TO SPELL THE WORLD ‘ENOUGH.’
I asked him when he wrote it, how he knew that this was the spelling for the word “enough.
His answer “ isn’t that the way it is spelled, Nana?”
Yes, billyboy, it is , but YOU must have encountered it many times when you were READING AT 2, 3, AND 4 YEARS OF AGE if you were to assume that these phonemes spelled that word.
How do children who lack such a childhood compete?
AND even if genes play a great part in his gifts, what happens to the Williams who never sees a printed page, or hears varied and literate language until he is in school?
Hmm, I guess the spelling in the core curricula and the VAM fixes that…
Visiting Angel Magic… a fairy waves a wand and — vam…voom… he can read and understand the 4th grade literacy passages with ease.
Vam the solution to everything, even unclogs stuffed drains.
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It might be possible that the prints that are missing aren’t really missing. They may be too big of a file to load quickly.
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Rre: missing prints.
You may be right, BUT, they were fine for years, when Apple hosted this site on iWeb at me.com, and disappeared when I took over host in it at another server. I cannot alter anything there or add to it, which is why I plan to write SPEAKING AS A TEACHER, here at WordPress… if only I can get out from under the work and house renovations.
I am lucky to get a few minutes to respond on this site.
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If you use Adobe Elements, you can load your photos into their photo editing program and restore them as a smaller file that will load faster. I do it all the time. Once you get the hang of it, it’s easy. If the photos that do not appear are not jpg’s, you can convert them to a jpg’s in Adobe Elements.
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Dearest Lloyd, why not go to my Oped author’s page, and leave me a message with you remain, so we do not have to talk here about everything…and I could show you some small images of my photographs which have won major competitions since I retired and learned digital darkroom. I
I do not use Elements, I use Photoshop, and onOne software, where (FYI) their image resize program could reside an image as late as a bus, or as tiny as a fingernail , with no loss of pixels.
I am a photographer who can do things with photos that you cannot imagine are possible. But, sir, thanks for the advice… the problem is that I cannot touch that site, or put up anything new… its a long story and has to do with Apple penchant for taking away all the easy things that were once possible with a click.
Sigh.
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