<p>test test test again</p>
<p>American kids are smart and are choosing to not study engineering because engineering unemployment is high and not likely to decrease soon.</p>
<p>Oh- yeah- thats it!</p>
<p>:rolleyes:
That must be the reason why math taught in local public schools doesn't cover long division this is why my nephew who did get a BA in engineering- started at $80,000 his first job out of college</p>
<p>test test test again</p>
<p>A quick tidbit on Unions - unrelated to teachers (unions). I work for a large corporation. We have union represented workers (by the thousands). Over the years, what has soured me on Unions is their leadership's lack of perspective on right and wrong, and their ability to ruin their own image. </p>
<p>A couple of examples will illustrate what I mean. Our corporation has a substance abuse policy - as is the case with most companies. Initially, our company is very supportive. Individuals are given verbal warnings, put on programs, offered counseling, etc. There are countless examples of people who turn their life around (or at least limit their activities to outside the work place). In every situation, when it is a union represented employee, a union steward is there to represent the individual. Initially, this is expected, and this is fine. Yet, the defenses never end. </p>
<p>There are too many cases where certain individuals are known to have drug problems. (They test positive during official tests, and co-workers, who are sick of carrying their workload, sometimes validate the reality of their problems). If it continues, unpaid days off, and eventually termination. What astounds me, and others, is that the Union Stewards, and the Local President will continue to fight for these people (just because they are union represented). Even I support someone on their first offense. It is stupid that people come to work under the influence - but we all have had problems and to some degree we all deserve a second chance. But when they continue to lie (and continue to test positive after promising to abide by the policy), then there comes a point when they are eventually let go. Yet the Union folks seem to have no sense of when it is appropriate to fight for someone -v- when it is time to cut them loose. When it becomes obvious that the person is continuing to violate official policy, then the Union should back down and stop defending them. The drug user is abusing company policies, and they are angering their co-workers (who do abide by company rules and don't understand why their union is representing someone who clearly guilty). </p>
<p>This blind representation (which seems to lack any sense of reasonableness) is not limited to drugs. If someone is caught stealing (either company property, or the personal property of another employee), then once again the Union is there to back them (with no end in sight). Again, I think everyone deserves the opportunity to defend themselves, and explain/clarify their situation. But when presented with irrefutable evidence (company property, or someone employee's property found in their possession), then the Union needs to back down, and cut the person loose. Yet, they don't. The Union stewards are just people, and anyone can get caught up in the power game. Yet, they destroy the reputation of themselves, and of their union. They do themselves, and their organization a disservice. </p>
<p>I think that many decades ago, there were very legitimate reasons for union representation. I think the days of major abuses are far behind us (as a society). Yet, I am willing to allow for the existence of the union, for those cases when a manager acts improperly, and/or acts against management policies. Yet, why can't unions re-invent themselves, and get out of the defend anyone, of any offense, at all costs mode. </p>
<p>I have no idea of how much this occurs within the Teacher's Unions. Maybe with "Tenure" and with the "Dance of the Lemons" ( <a href="http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2006/09/10/BAG0CL2UJ01.DTL%5B/url%5D">http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2006/09/10/BAG0CL2UJ01.DTL</a>), the teacher's union have built into the system a permanent defense against any offenses. Therefore, they have evolved to a higher (or is it lower?) level, one no longer requiring a union-steward to represent every individual for any offense (since it is built into the contract). And they want us to continue to respect their organization? As is the case, in any situation, the test should be "is it reasonable, is if fair". Is tenure, and is the Dance of the Lemons, reasonable? Are they fair?</p>
<p>There is a tenured teacher who is still at the local elementary school near us. Maybe, years ago, before we knew her, she was a fine teacher. Yet, for the many years that we have been aware of her, she has no business being in the classroom with young students. At a minimum, she has emotional problems. (I am not a psychiatrist or psychologist, so I don't know if the problems are deeper than emotional). She verbally abuses her students on a regular basis. Picture 3rd and 4th graders being yelled at, maybe not every day, but definitely every week. If you are on campus, and the door to her class is open, you can hear it from two or three classes away. And she ridicules and shames them. (this is the type of abuse that causes emotional scars in young students). I wanted to go in and slap her - when I was on campus to help with a field trip and heard her screaming at the young kids (yet i would be the one hauled off to jail). And she is allowed to continue teaching?? Great system. </p>
<p>** footnote: Luckily, Thank God, neither of our kids had her as their teacher. I realize it is an isolated extreme situation. But I wonder, how isolated is it?</p>
<p>dggt - I also work for a large corporation that has (for many years) outsourced and off-shored much of our work (mainly IT jobs) overseas. It has sickened me to see it happen. Yet, I think that we may be seeing the lessoning of that trend. (Maybe not the end of outsourcing and offshoring, but less of it). Our corporation has brought back (in house) much of the work that had been farmed out. Though cost is a huge factor (and at times has seemed to be the only factor), we also look at quality. (MTTR, etc.). I am not high enough up the chain to make the decisions to bring the work back, so I can only guess that the officers (and those who do decide which work is outsourced and offshored) have seen too many bad numbers for too long. We wondered if and when they would see the same problems that we have seen for years. Cheaper is not always better. Anyway, we have seen much work brought back in house. I hope that the same happens for you.</p>
<p>I don't think it's isolated. My son had an abusive teacher in 4th grade (in a private school) and then one in 6th grade (in a public school). He ultimately survived and is currently thriving, but...I sure did feel like slapping the first teacher and spent a lot of time in conferences over the second. The reality is that if we need 2.9 million teachers (or whatever the number is), we aren't going to find that many with the gift and the art willing to accept the constraints of the system, which actually drains the teacher at best and prevents excellence at worst. Tenure isn't the answer, but Opie is correct when he points out that it offers protection against unfair accusations, which do occur probably more often than the fair ones. Crazy world, even crazier school system. Kids whose parents aren't somehow supplementing their education to compensate for the holes are at a clear disadvantage.</p>
<p>well said. There are some horrible teachers at my school thhat are unbudging weeds once they get tenure. The effectiveness of a class depends so much on a teacher. It's pretty bad when most bright students realize at around the age of 10 that they are smarter than most of their teachers.
Of course, there are huge undrlying problems. Teaching has become a safetynet for people who don't have any other job opportunities. Teaching is not exactly a hihgly-sought after job. I propose higher salaries for high school teachers but more selectivity in choosing teachers.
Also, educating teachers needs to be reformed. At many universities, to be a teacher, you need to take mainly teaching class with a few classes on the subject you will be teaching. It should be that you take mainly classes on the subject you will teach with a few classes about teaching.</p>
<p>The one area, more than firing poor teachers that needs to be addressed is pay for performance:</p>
<p>UF study: Teacher merit pay boosts student standardized test scores
<a href="http://news.ufl.edu/2007/01/04/teacher-merit-pay/">http://news.ufl.edu/2007/01/04/teacher-merit-pay/</a><<<<<</p>
<p>I helped found and am the Director of Special Education and Clinical Services for a charter school in NYC that serves a whole-inclusion population (48% of our students have special education services/IEPs and the other 52% benefit from the services while being in "general education").</p>
<p>We have guidance counselors from the regular public schools and from charters begging us to take kids whom they refer to as "a 1,1" (reading score: 1, math score: 1) instead of as an individual. I have had other charters ask me how to put a child in a self-contained classroom merely because the student was 1-2 years below grade level in reading. Other charters regularly now refuse to serve kids with IEPs and refer them to us.</p>
<p>Why? Because everyone is being judged by their SCORES. If everything from principals' jobs to teacher pay to charter school renewal is based on scores, who will ever want to educate the student who is behind?</p>
<p>emeraldkity4 - I am not saying that the education system is perfect, but rather that Mr. Jobs is being disingenuous about why jobs are going overseas and that getting the best education may not insure jobs. I interview job candidates for my company and am somewhat alarmed by the qualifications of some of the unemployed.</p>
<p>In that N.C. district I saw how they used ongoing monthly data (collected via Internet tools) to show what was working to teach kids algebra. They found that certain teachers could do it and others could not. They first tried professional development, but it soon regressed to, "But, my students are different." They then changed teachers and low & behold those unteachable students learned algebra. Next, with the help of others identified those teacher characteristics that were highly correlated with good outcomes, for everyone. Pay levels were then set based upon observing those characteristics, and further, a $10,000 bonus was paid to any exemplary teacher who would go into "less desirable" schools to teach. The result was a dramatic improvement in school outcomes, more URM's succeeding in AP courses than anywhere else in the country (score of 3 or better on AP = success), and a closing of the achievement gap. It can be done.</p>
<p>Re Post 231:
Clearly the quality/skill of the teacher will produce a dramatic difference. (Duh. Didn't need a study to tell me that.) But the direct pay-for-performance formula that you cite & advocate is workable when other obstacles preventing teacher performance (nonteaching variables) are removed. I don't know about the circumstances, priorities, dynamics of the NC situation. In our State, the priority in many of the public schools is NOT the academics. The school's (read, principal's) priorities are often other agendas not related to academics: teaching conflict resolution, "self-esteem," playing psychologist without a license, letting students "choose" their curriculum, multicultural education, and on and on. You may refer to other posts of mine for more examples. That is unquestionably on the elementary & middle-school level in the schools where I have <em>recently</em> worked, and sometimes that spills over into the high schools where I teach, again depending on the spaciness of that principal. The highschoolers I have most recently seen are hardly ready for AP's. <em>laughs</em> Most of them are reviewing the 4 basic math operations (3rd/4th grade stuff) and are unable to write coherent sentences, even when English is their primary language. As I explained earlier, when I interviewed for a middle school Eng. job, the principal was incredulous that I had high goals for his students. He had low expectations & was not prepared to support my efforts which, without saying so, he clearly viewed as unrealistic. To say the least, he was not enthusiastic about my goals.</p>
<p>The attitude of an effective problem solver is believed the problem can be solved. Reading through many posts here, one get the impression that the K-12 teaching is a profession that merit can’t be rewarded and incompetence can’t be removed. No wonder we are in trouble.</p>
<p>Re Post 233:</p>
<p>Did I say that? (Answer: No.) Can't hire myself over a principal's objections to my academic goals & willingness, eagerness to achieve those, now, can I?</p>
<p>(Hint: I didn't get the job, and it wasn't lack of qualification that decided that.)</p>
<p>"(Hint: I didn't get the job, and it wasn't lack of qualification that decided that.)"</p>
<p>That's been my point all along. Sometimes the person who "decides" your worth isn't worth very much themselves. That's my basic concern.</p>
<p>"That's been my point all along. Sometimes the person who "decides" your worth isn't worth very much themselves. That's my basic concern."</p>
<p>Bingo.</p>
<p>Back to post 233. Regarding difficulty/impossibility of removing incompetence: that IS the "correct impression," and much too often. That's why some of us IN the teaching profession would like to see less of a stranglehold by the unions on the dismissal of incompetents, and why we observe that non-union factors & stalemates are also an obstacle to removal.</p>
<p>In a very large State such as mine, with a hugely powerful union & hugely over-involved legislature, the lucky incompetents have a pretty secure job. THAT's why, on a case by case (State by State) basis, I believe that radical revision of the essential structure & decision-making apparatus is the only hope for meaningful reform & a return to excellence. Some States & locations may be able to "work around" their own troubled or nontroubled systems effectively, school by school. It is impossible when the power structure is not even located in or related to the schools.</p>
<p>And another hint: When in K-8 classrooms the nonacademics reign (by dictum of the school, district, & State mandates), you will find highschoolers on a 3rd/4th grade level in academics when entering highschool. I actually don't even recognize the typical public classroom as vaguely in the same category as that of my childhood. However, they really are excellent laboratories for future social workers and psychiatrists. Truly excellent.</p>
<p>Opie, I believe you're trying way too hard! While you're are focusing your examples on the local and quasi-grassroots movement, I look at the very top of the unions 'food chain." It is obvious that the "leadership" I am talking about are individuals such as Reg Weaver and his dozens of extremely well compensated cohorts at the NEA headquarters, and not about the nice Mrs. Bringmeanapple or Mrs. Doesnotgivebees who happen to be the local union reps at Happy Town High. </p>
<p>You see an union that represents all its members and protects them under an umbrella of joy and peace. I see an organization that is feudalistic and overbearing. I see an organization that is entirely out of whack with its membership --not the mention the system and "customers" it pretends cynically to serve-- and fails to represent an extremely large minority that is coerced in paying dues that are blatantly spent on supporting political forces they categorically oppose. I see an organization that is prepared to fight every attempt at diminishing their powerful grip on the educational system, and prepared to spare no expenses. I see an organization that does not hesitate to pass a Resolution --C-17 in 2000-- that condemns “extremist groups,” which the NEA simply defines as “groups or parents with a conservative religious affiliation who criticize the public schools for one reason or another.” Of course, the term must have been on some of the higher-up minds after Sec. Paige committed the cardinal sin of labeling the NEA a group of terrorists! </p>
<p>If you want concrete examples, a good start would be to follow the battle between a Washington-based foundation and the WEA --and NEA. Does it surrise you that there is an organization called Teachers-vs-union.org? </p>
<p><a href="http://www.teachers-vs-union.org/news.html%5B/url%5D">http://www.teachers-vs-union.org/news.html</a> </p>
<p>However, you might like a less biased source:
<a href="http://news.yahoo.com/s/ucjk/20070124/cm_ucjk/teachersincourt%5B/url%5D">http://news.yahoo.com/s/ucjk/20070124/cm_ucjk/teachersincourt</a></p>
<p>
[quote]
The facts are not seriously in dispute. In the state of Washington, 70,000 public school employees work under an agency shop contract. All but 3,500 of them belong to the Washington Education Association (WEA). The 3,500 non-members, by law, must pay the union a fee equal to their share of the demonstrable costs of collective bargaining. They are entitled to a rebate equal to the union's per capita outlays for other, non-chargeable, expenditures. </p>
<p>Seven years ago the free-spirited Evergreen Freedom Foundation, the National Right to Work Legal Foundation and the Washington State Public Disclosure Commission combined in suits against the union. The plaintiffs won in a trial court, where Judge Gary R. Tabor hit the WEA with a $600,000 judgment. In March of last year, the free spirits lost in the state Supreme Court. Their appeal followed to the U.S. Supreme Court.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Here's a rather comical --albeit probably more tragi-comical-- exchange at the hearings;</p>
<p>Justice Anthony Kennedy asked about the First Amendment rights of non-union teachers. West said these teachers "certainly have a First Amendment right not to be compelled to finance political, ideological and other non-germane expenditures over their objection." Their rights, he insisted, are "fully protected." Kennedy nodded agreeably. </p>
<p>West continued: "When there is the availability of a ready means for opting out of the participation in financing these causes, there is no compelled speech." </p>
<p>Kennedy stopped nodding. He seemed to be wondering how "ready" are these "ready means" in practice, but he let it go. After a few minutes, he returned with another question: "You want us to consider this case as if the First Amendment rights of non-union members were not involved?" </p>
<p>"Absolutely not," West insisted. Non-members have an "absolute right" to prevent the use of their funds for any kind of political speech "simply by sending in a letter." </p>
<p>Justice John Paul Stevens was openly skeptical: "So it's a First Amendment right that is waived by failing to make a timely objection?" It's not that a right is waived, said West, but Stevens persisted: "It's gone under your theory." </p>
<p>In the concluding minutes of oral argument, Justice Samuel Alito joined in expressing concern for the rights of teachers who have chosen not to join the union: **"Isn't it overwhelmingly likely that if you spoke to them and you said, 'Would you like to give money to the union to spend on elections,' they would say no?" </p>
<p>"I absolutely disagree with you," said West. "It's not asking them to make a contribution. It's asking them, Is it OK with you if your money is used for this purpose?" </p>
<p>Alito asked, "What's the difference between asking, 'Would you like to make a contribution," and 'Would you like to allow us to use (your) money that we possess for our purposes rather than returning it to you'?" </p>
<p>"Well," said West, "whether there is a difference or not, the point is the union is using this money for purposes that it has every reason to believe are in the interest of the vast majority of teachers." **</p>
<p>Roberts: "Surely they get to make that decision, don't they?" </p>
<p>Counsel's response appeared to be "yes and no," an answer that earlier provoked laughter in the courtroom.</p>
<p>There are those who are attempting to put together successful teacher profiles. Once identified, teachers meeting those profiles are sought out and the performance of their students are compared to those who do not have such profiles. The data are indicating that those with the profile have more successful students than those that don't. And further, that it is the presence or absence of teachers with these profiles, rather than minority status, income, home environment, etc. that predict student success. It seems that poor or minority students with teachers who share the profile of successful teachers achieve with a level on par with middle class kids.</p>
<p>See for example: <a href="http://www.cgp.upenn.edu/pdf/Sanders_Horn-Research_Findings_from_TVASS.PDF%5B/url%5D">http://www.cgp.upenn.edu/pdf/Sanders_Horn-Research_Findings_from_TVASS.PDF</a></p>
<p>And for an overview of the difficulties involved in such efforts see: <a href="http://www.cgp.upenn.edu/pdf/rand.pdf%5B/url%5D">http://www.cgp.upenn.edu/pdf/rand.pdf</a></p>
<p>"Once identified, teachers meeting those profiles are sought out and the performance of their students are compared to those who do not have such profiles. The data are indicating that those with the profile have more successful students than those that don't."</p>
<p>I'm not sure which location or century you're talking about, but in my area, "successful teachers" are NOT always sought out. That is the entire point. It's, overall, the mediocrity that gets hired & retained, as long as they're willing to go along with the mediocrity-supporting system, which I will not.</p>
<p>Yes, no doubt in schools, districts which hire based on proven competence (and, importantly, fire based on incompetence), "successful teachers" result in "successful students." Wow, what a concept. Never would have thought of that.</p>
<p>Another model that has ben successfully used is one that requires a change in practice if student achievement is not observed in monthly classroom samples. Some years ago, one district in Michigan, ranked near the bottom in student performance, was able to become one of the top three highest performers by instituting the following system (simplified presentation from memory). Objectives were set for the classroom based upon some rigorous standards. If in any month a student failed to meet 80% or more of the requirements as determined through classroom performance and tests, an intervention was immediately required for that student. If 80% of the students in a classroom failed to meet the criteria, a teacher intervention was required. The initial teacher intervention was to have a teacher who had similar kids using a similar curriculum within the district, but whose kid's were successful act as a mentor. If that did not work, new materials or programs were tried, if that did not work, a new teacher was brought in. At every meeting of the school board, pieces of paper representing each school and their interventions were placed lottery drum. Schools were randomly selected and the school and teachers had to report on their interventions and results. These were then placed in a secondary drum for selection for periodic follow-up. Since no one knew who was to present, everyone was always prepared. Over a period of a few years the entire district rose from the bottom to the top. [Farris, H., Carnine, D., Silbert, J. (1993). Learning is our business. The American School Board Journal, December, pp 31–33.]</p>