<p>
[quote]
If good teachers are found guilty buy association, they only have themselves to blame. And as far are respect, people do NOT deserve respect, they EARN it ... a fact that seems to remain blatantly oblivious among teachers and school officials.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Cmon man. You know this aint right. We cant just put the burden created by SOME teachers on the backs of ALL teachers. A lot of teachers are really working at thankless jobs and busting their butts constantly all the time and for other peoples kids. We ought not in any way beat up on them. And it is unfair to demand they take on the NEA and other groups too, because guess what? They arent activists by nature they are teachers. It takes a real special breed of human being to be a teacher, and I would imagine it would take a lot to cause them to go after the NEA even if they hated the organization. Theyd be more prone to keep hammering away at their jobs as best they can, unless someone tried to stop them cold.</p>
<p>Im thinking about one of my teachers, Ms. Randolph. This woman had a classroom that was just full of fools-- me being one of them. Yet she taught us every single day. I mean the woman was really there, going at her job as reliably as the rising sun. The same long-suffering and patience she showed us every single day would probably cause her to merely frown at the NEA and then go back to doing her job. She just wouldnt take up arms against the group, especially since she might see that it does some good (I just dont buy your view that these groups SOLE purpose is to promote all the stuff you are claiming. Dont you think you are exaggerating?). Id bet a lot of teachers are like Ms. Randolph. It would just be a travesty to place even a little guilt on these people just because they have some sort of an association with a teachers group.</p>
<p>Generally speaking, I think we need to just stop all this crap slinging here and be fair for just a bit. Yeah, you got some bad teachers, just like you got some bad lawyers and doctors. And I think education in America needs some serious help. But I am not prepared to just dump on teachers when we got families going to hell in a hand-basket and millions of kids slogging through pain and self-doubt as a result. You just dont usually get a whole lot of geniuses out of this sort of thing and yet teachers have to do their jobs right in the midst of it.</p>
<p>I didnt see the show you people are talking about. But from what I am reading here, it seems like this Stossel guy basically played a trick, presenting a classroom of bright, attentive kids eager to learn-- kids who are getting shafted by a bunch of lazy do nothing teachers. Having been in the school system myself, I know that is just a lie. In my schools, and I mean ALL of them, we had widespread behavior problems. This was a good while ago too, when none of us knew anything about drugs, guns, and when a girl getting pregnant in high school was the stuff of circus freak shows. So, I can hardly imagine what public school teachers are going through today. Probably in even the best schools they have to deal with a large number of spoiled, undisciplined fools.</p>
<p>"Xiggi, I don't agree that our higher education system is based on competition, not in the classic economic sense."</p>
<p>LakeWash, you don't believe that colleges in the United States compete for students? Do you know many colleges one is forced to attend based on his address? Don't you think that colleges compete to provide the best education possible? </p>
<p>If colleges did not compete, why would they spend small fortunes on all theose brochures and advertising? </p>
<p>I believe that we may not be talking about the same issue.</p>
<p>Certainly colleges compete...
they compete to have the best teachers
they compete to have the best students
they compete to have the best programs
they compete to have the best sports
they compete to have the best facilities</p>
<p>and..... the student wins from all this competition.</p>
<p>And
- they compete for federal research $$
- they compete for federal financial aid that is attached to the students</p>
<p>It looks like my question has provoked an unintended response. My question was why did the European students score higher than their American counterparts on the same test. A number of the responses seems to suggest that the question was anti-teacher. </p>
<p>Perhaps I am dense but I am not sure how you get there from the question. Perhaps I should ask a different question.</p>
<ul>
<li>What did the European schools do to enable their students to perform well on that test?</li>
</ul>
<p>A few responses culled out of the previous posts suggest:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>Lower performing students are tracked out of the college bound schools starting in 6th grade. The Euroepan school that took the test was one of the college bound schools, not a trade school.</p></li>
<li><p>European students are more focused on acheivement on tests like these because there is greater weight given to them than in the US system</p></li>
</ul>
<p>Neither of these components are anti-teacher but structural in nature. This was the direction I was hoping to take things by asking the question. Yes I am sure there are some things the teachers could do to improve outcomes but they are only part of the system.</p>
<p>An additional note on my presonal bias, I hate is "we need more resources". My sense is that we need fewer administrators and more teachers. This is a shift in resources, not more resources.</p>
<p>A few people said that some of the union teacher they know send thier students to catholic school. A few of the things that the catholic schools do that I know of are the following:</p>
<ul>
<li>Fewer administrators, more teachers</li>
<li>They can suspend and expell students</li>
<li>In comparison to the well known private schools they are quite a bit less expensive. For example, here in greater Boston, Phillips Andover is around $30,000, Xavarian Brothers High School around $9500. Though still expensive, it may be in the range where a teacher could send their children.</li>
</ul>
<p>As someone who not only attended Catholic schools (3 different ones) but have a husband who attended 2 different ones, have kids in them (3 different ones), and have 22 nieces and nephews in numerous ones, I can attest that Catholic schools rarely expell students. I must say that only a tiny percentage may ever need to be expelled, but many of us have lamented that the "chronically naughty" (the ones who parents' claim that their kids are ADHS but the kids area really just spoiled), should be kept from re-enrolling the next year.</p>