<p>It’s the bad/unqualified teachers that is the problem, not their salaries.</p>
<p>Mainer–could well be a state-by-state thing…I don’t see that fight to preserve the status quo as much in our neck of the woods–but check out the AFT link I posted for some thoughtful advocacy for educational reform that might surprise you. </p>
<p>Invent–agreed–but I’m not sure that’s caused by teacher’s unions–I had my share of bad/unqualified teachers in Catholic school. Trust me, teachers get no joy out of having bad colleagues.</p>
<p>For many years, things went swimmingly in our district. Enrollment was rising, programs were being added, real estate values were rising… When the real estate market works, many things are possible. It’s possible for a family to move to a different district, without sacrificing savings. When the contracts were signed, it didn’t seem unreasonable to increase pay, as the real estate tax base was increasing. </p>
<p>The real estate market’s still declining. Selectmen are refusing to consider overrides (see Newton.) People feel trapped. [How</a> much of a leg down in prices? Heres one forecast - Boston Real Estate - Boston.com](<a href=“http://www.boston.com/realestate/news/blogs/renow/2011/05/how_much_of_a_l.html]How”>http://www.boston.com/realestate/news/blogs/renow/2011/05/how_much_of_a_l.html)</p>
<p>From a service delivery point, I’d reiterate my comments from post #88. From a cost point of view, I’d be curious to know to what extent the employment base (excluding teachers with full teaching schedules) is growing in the public school system. After all, those of us who send our kids to private schools still have the privilege of paying for the ongoing debacle in the public schools.</p>
<p>This may be a question for a new thread, but somehow it felt right for this one.</p>
<p>For those of you who’ve experienced an online CTY course or something similar, to what extent can the format (recorded lectures, notes, review questions plus a live teacher available as a backup to answer thorny questions) be extended into our primary and secondary schools and universities? It seems to me there is opportunity both in terms of lecture and materials quality and certainly cost.</p>
<p>“It seems to me there is opportunity both in terms of lecture and materials quality and certainly cost.”</p>
<p>The Brookings Institute recently held an event on the topic of distance learning: [Distance</a> Learning: How It Can Transform American Education - Brookings Institution](<a href=“http://www.brookings.edu/events/2011/0418_distance_learning.aspx]Distance”>http://www.brookings.edu/events/2011/0418_distance_learning.aspx). Having listened to the podcast, I wouldn’t want it to be my children’s only option.</p>
<p>It’s fine (in my opinion) for a district to offer access to online courses to supplement their existing course offerings. A rural district can’t offer a course in AP Economics to two students, but through some reputable, non-profit online schools, the district could allow the students to take AP Economics.</p>
<p>Replacing existing teachers with the teachers selected by for-profit education companies? How is a district to know if the teachers are competent? Will our local principals be able to interview the online instructors? (in my opinion, probably not.) A contractor’s offerings are only as dependable as the contractor’s sense of ethics and moral responsibility. Some of the for-profit companies are backed by Wall Street hedge funds. (Question: is Wall Street known in our era as an institution with strong ethics and moral responsibility?) </p>
<p>The podcast is interesting. It seems public universities are offering online courses, but the elites don’t. Of the courses offered by public universities, online is most widely used in business and education.</p>
<p>Periwinkle, jumping threads here, but Liberal Arts at the Brink also makes the case that LACs (and maybe public schools) CAN learn something from for-profit education companies, because those companies are free to rigorously vet the teachers that they hire, and with no tenure system or unions to deal with, if a teacher doesn’t deliver the goods, they simply terminate him/her. (I was quite surprised by this line of reasoning, and would like to hear it reiterated from several other reputable sources before I went testing those waters, but still…) The for-profit company actually HAs control over quality control (if they choose to exercise it, as you point out), whereas public education & tenure driven LACs and universities do not.</p>
<p>PelicanDad, I recommend the podcast. </p>
<p>How do you define “quality” and “deliver the goods?” As far as I know, public school teachers are fired for cause. It is difficult, but it can be done. Our local district is not a large urban district, so the “rubber room” stories don’t apply. Some of the time, an older teacher may “take early retirement for health reasons.” If a district has an effective superintendent and principals, the quality of the teaching is monitored. I have also witnessed quite a few new teachers let go before achieving tenure. We also start from a high level, as the hiring committees can choose from many applications from experienced teachers. </p>
<p>A for-profit company will CLAIM to have quality control. How could a district verify the claims? Driving expenses down increases profit. I can’t reason my way to discovering how it might increase the quality of the teaching. </p>
<p>I can certainly reason my way to discovering why it would make sense for a for-profit company to claim that it would increase the quality of the teaching, and why it would make sense to hire out-of-office politicians to talk up the notion.</p>
<p>For common subjects like Algebra I think you quickly get to the point where only a small number of star lecturers are actually needed. So, at least for lectures, the vetting issue goes right out the window. Think of it like recorded music vs. live, film vs. stage or any other industry where star quality performances can be recorded and delivered at virtually zero incremental cost to a very wide audience. I noticed, for instance, that the lecturer for CTY’s Honors Alg II also does lectures that are part of Holt Mathematics’ online supplements for Pre-Algebra. That guy is tremendous, a model of lucidity. He deserves a bigger audience, and many teachers of his subject deserve no audience at all. </p>
<p>The role of the “live” teacher can in many cases migrate toward directly answering students’ questions after they’ve completed all the available materials.</p>
<p>This link addresses higher ed, but is worth reading.</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.informationweek.com/news/global-cio/careers/229500624[/url]”>http://www.informationweek.com/news/global-cio/careers/229500624</a></p>
<p>Krad (returning to post 88:</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I’ve worked with and mentored teachers for 20 years in a wide variety of settings, and my obser the vast majority would never have made it as long as they have without being flexible, ingenuous, and focused on what’s best for their students–if that’s what you mean by “customer.”</p>
<p>I’ve never understood how the business model applies to schools. Who are the customers exactly? (The students? The parents? The taxpayers?) Do they know what they want? What’s the product they’re after? Who chooses the raw materials? Where do the teachers fit in the model? (Are they the salespeople? The managers?) Who gets and creates the incentives, and what are they exactly? Did you send your kids to prep school because if follows this model more closely than a public school? Or because it provides a packaged delivery of the educational goods, CTY style? </p>
<p>I’m genuinely interested in seeing this model fully laid out by someone intelligent who really believes in it–what it feels like from the trenches at the moment (as I struggle with stuff like what grade to give the otherwise good student who just cut and pasted her entire exam from Wikipedia) is a barrage of jargon.</p>
<p>We had some experience with the on-line delivery of Algebra–my son used an excellent DVD series last year by a man who I thought was a spectacular teacher–he actually explained Pi to me in a way that finally–after 30 years–made sense. </p>
<p>But my kid couldn’t have been more turned off by the whole thing–he watched the videos when he absolutely had to, right there in the comfort of his living room–and I just watched him squirm with boredom. He wanted to ask a question and get on with it. Exeter’s math (which is on the opposite side of the spectrum from Krad’s proposal) has clicked beautifully, and after all these years, he’s developed a sense of what mathematics is all about. </p>
<p>At my school, math teachers who can’t teach their subject dynamically simply don’t make probation. Periwinkle is right–it’s not impossible to fire a tenured teacher. Nor is it a guarantee that a school that contracts with non-unionized teachers is going to attract the best and brightest.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>What’s the struggle? Give her an F, (unless she’s the one who authored the Wikipedia article). What reason could there be to NOT fail her?</p>
<p>@kraordrawoh, from the article you linked,
</p>
<p>Almost all of the virtues cited for online learning hold true for a motivated student sitting in a public library, an old textbook in his hands. </p>
<p>Math is one of the easiest subjects to self-study, as you can tell if you’re right. The humanities are harder. On our state NCLB tests, the math tests are much better indicators of what a student’s learned than the English tests.</p>
<p>I don’t buy that one can employ “better” teachers for a for-profit online shop. Sorry. If a teacher could get a job with health benefits, tenure, and a defined teaching load, what would be the advantage to becoming an employed-at-will peon? Hearing that the company would be willing to fire a teacher for any reason doesn’t reassure me that the best teachers will agree to work in such an environment, when they have any other choice.</p>
<p>I think there are people who did not enjoy their classroom experiences, to whom online education seems to offer a more enjoyable experience. To me, classroom discussions between motivated, intelligent students and the teacher, are essential parts of a good education. One man’s meat’s another man’s poison.</p>
<p>@CM: The essence of this thread was backlash against parents whose children have opted out of the public school system and chosen to board. The incomprehensible nature of that decision to the critics referenced supra seems to stem from their notion that the public schools are either “fine” or just need a little fine tuning. Many on this forum have concluded that not to be the case and chosen the costly route to something better. Just as we individuals who compose society benefit from a variety of competitors in other goods and services, we also benefit from the availability of varied educational competitors. The wider the variety of choices, the more closely individual student’s needs can be met. Harkness math works for some, online for some, etc. The biggest impediment to choice is the cost and the fact that parents who select private options or incur expenses while home schooling are simultaneously funding the local public school. Until such time as families are empowered (via the tax code for tax payers or vouchers for non-taxpayers) to transfer their contribution from the public schools to the educational opportunity they deem best for their child, PS systems will not face the competition necessary to transform them. Delaying that transformation damages generations of children at the expense of those who benefit from the current arrangement.</p>
<p>As I mentioned in an earlier post, one inherent flaw of public schools is that the service is received by someone other than the entity paying for the service. As a general proposition, I would argue that direct purchasing decisions send valuable signals that help suppliers adjust to the needs and expectations of the buyer. Even the Post Office and Amtrak face those signals even if they are unable to respond to them as would a private entity. What cannot be sustained won’t be. Schools now act as credential mills. That is why the public library cannot suffice. However, the day is coming when credentialing will be accomplished far more cheaply. This doesn’t mean that public schools are going to disappear any more than it means that Exeter will disappear, just that far fewer dollars will deliver much better education on average.</p>
<p>@Periwinkle: “I don’t buy that one can employ “better” teachers for a for-profit online shop. Sorry. If a teacher could get a job with health benefits, tenure, and a defined teaching load, what would be the advantage to becoming an employed-at-will peon?”</p>
<p>I’d argue that just as in the media, the lecturing portion of teaching will be subject an extreme bifurcation of compensation outcomes with rock stars being paid handsomely for top drawer work and many realizing that their real talent lies elsewhere. If you want Eric Clapton, the chap strumming his Gibson at the corner saloon isn’t necessarily going to cut it. The intensely competitive business of creating video games is another excellent example. This is the digital age after all.</p>
<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/12230472-post10.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/12230472-post10.html</a></p>
<p>Sorry to be hogging the thread a bit, but I remembered a post I made a couple of months ago that is worth repeating. Even parents who send their kids to private schools and purchase virtually everything they use from profit-seeking companies STILL cannot abide the idea that a profit should be made in the provision of educational services. This is probably a good topic for a separate thread, but thought I’d toss it out there anyway, especially with Exeter’s former head doing a for-profit startup in NYC. :)</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.avenues.org/school-head-tyler-tingley[/url]”>http://www.avenues.org/school-head-tyler-tingley</a></p>
<p>@kraordrawoh, the “lecturing portion of teaching” isn’t the expensive part. Interacting with students is the expensive part. (That’s why so many prominent universities use TAs for the teaching part of lecture courses.)</p>
<p>A “rock star” lecturer won’t be able to correct 8,000 essays in a week. The for-profit outfit might farm out the grading to India, but given the Wall Street Journal’s recent article about the state of India’s education system, parents who are paying attention might not like the results. Given the choice, I’d certainly prefer my children receive their teacher’s full attention, shared with other students in a reasonable teaching load.</p>
<p>“Schools now function as credential mills. That’s why the public library cannot suffice. However, the day is coming when credentialing will be accomplished far more cheaply.”</p>
<p>The value of a degree varies with the perceived value of the institution which grants it. A degree from Harvard is worth much more than a degree from a correspondence school. A correspondence school costs much less to run than Harvard. That doesn’t mean that the degrees are interchangeable.</p>
<p>“The value of a degree varies with the perceived value of the institution which grants it. A degree from Harvard is worth much more than a degree from a correspondence school. A correspondence school costs much less to run than Harvard. That doesn’t mean that the degrees are interchangeable.”</p>
<p>Great point. I guess I’m just saying that the choices are increasingly less binary. </p>
<p>Separately, I’m not sure that classroom teachers are necessarily the source of the inexorable rise in PS spending. Usually the bloat is in the staff portions of an organization.</p>
<p>Last, the PS have so many thorny and intractable problems that creating as many alternatives as possible seems the most reasonable way of making sure that the maximum number of children are well educated. We’re certainly taking advantage of those currently available. The more options the better.</p>
<p>@kraordrawoh,</p>
<p>Avenues! Oh why did you mention that project again? It is a sort of a riddle, isn’t it? Are you assuming that, because one hires Big Names, the resulting school will be good? Who do you think will comprise the market for such a school?</p>
<p>Periwinkle, I don’t see your point of the state of education in India where they spend pennies per student. At $12,000 per student that we spend we should be getting a world class education and we aren’t. If you compare our education with other developed countries, they are doing better cheaper.</p>