Steve Jobs Blames Education Problems on Teacher Unions

<p>fundingfather,
your figures do not apply to charter urban schools, which is where the only teachers who actually want to make progress with their students, teach. (In my area) That is, unless they're lucky enough to work in rich suburbs, but the turnover in wealthy suburbs among educated parents is virtually nonexistent, not surprisingly.)</p>

<p>I repeat: depending on the system & the setup of the school & the teaching salaries, many teachers have little to no retirement.</p>

<p>I also am not covered medically. </p>

<p>My school year is early August to mid-July. I have, at most, a 3-week vacation. This is not merely a pay period. It is a work period. I don't deny that you've done some research on some situations you are familiar with, but they are by no means universally applicable.</p>

<p>The 180 day issue again. Most teachers I know do a full year of work in 9 months . I know. I have been in both places. Unlike industry the opportunity for advancement is not near so high. Also many states do not have teachers benifits that are as good as posted. I ask many of my former colleagues who compled about education to quit and join me. They know it is not as lucrative and that they would have much less control of the output than in industry-so they would not. I would not have been able to take the money and run in education the way I did in industry.</p>

<p>


Exactly. </p>

<p>There is more than one issue in K-12 education today. Duh. Compensating teachers correctly, valuing what they do appropriately is key. Eliminating tenure is appropriate. Let's face it - the origins of the tenure concept are in protecting faculty from fear of retribution for voicing ideas which might threaten some people. This concept is not relevant to K-12 teaching today. </p>

<p>Addressing compensation and tenure issues are necessary but not sufficient conditions to making our K-12 education what it needs to be. Addressing the issues raised by epiphany and others are also important. But we needn't hold one hostage to the other.</p>

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I ask many of my former colleagues who compled about education to quit and join me. They know it is not as lucrative and that they would have much less control of the output than in industry-so they would not.

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<p>That's the systemic problem. That's why the unions should get out of the way of teachers who have initiative and good ideas who want to form new schools. Schools ought to be easy to set up, and they ought to be funded if they serve willing students. That rewards good teachers better, and gives diverse learners more chance of finding a suitable learning environment.</p>

<p>Epiphany, for what it is worth, I believe that the biggest victims of the deficiencies of our current system are the ... teachers. I have little doubt that many issues that have a profound impact on their life are misunderstood. </p>

<p>However, it is hard to overlook the atrocious impact of the leadership of individuals such as Weaver or Weingarten. It is also hard to overlook the reports of John Stossel regarding the impossibility to fire known pedophiles in New York and the loud screams of teachers telling Stossel that "no teacher deserves to be fired." </p>

<p>No matter how we slice it, the current system does not seem to reward the army of excellent and dedicated teachers who made the deliberate choice to be a teacher. It is unfortunate that stories of theft, abuses, manipulation, absenteeism, and evidence of a dysfunctional system get more ink than stories about wonderful teachers. However, it would be unfair to deny that the negative stories are not baseless. </p>

<p>Something will have to give and some people will have to go. The unions are not interested in any of this: their fight is not about creating better schools and attracting better teachers, it is all about protecting a monopoly and their supreme grip on a system they should have NEVER be permitted to dominate. In a perfect world, there should be a place for a proactive union that represents all teachers. Unfortunately, the unions have become political machines that survive by protecting the people who should not have been in the system in the first place and pretending to care about the others. </p>

<p>We all want a system in which teachers will be compensated properly. The issue is not about working 180 days or 9 months a year. The issue should be about eliminating the need for teachers to depend on the extra vacation to make ends meet. The issue about working harder during the school year is a canard. While there are many teachers who do this religiously, others simply ignore this requirement. Again, the bad ones are protected at the expense of the better ones.</p>

<p>I agree with post 84.</p>

<p>The problem with Steve Jobs' comment, i.m.o. (I confess to not reading the whole link, just the portion posted by the OP) is that it focuses on tenure & firing when the bigger problem is the bleepin' system PERIOD. If you fired all the current teachers today & replaced them tomorrow, you would still have a broken system in my urban area, anyway. Very broken. You would still have teachers not "allowed" to focus on teaching, but to focus on Conflict Resolution, Self-Image, psychological health, family dysfunction, and to engage in conversations with individual students as to why they are not happy & why they choose to disobey & what can we do to make you Feel Better. </p>

<p>And you would still have a significant portion of parents (not all, by any means) who refuse to parent or are incapable of parenting even minimally. When there are only 5 children of such parents in a classroom, it radically affects the dynamics & the learning options. We're talkin' major psychological dysfunction here, not your average classroom management challenges. Public school regulations from the State require the schools to retain such disruptive & disease-bearing elements. And the unions (I repeat) do not confront the State & say We Want This Changed. And why don't they? Because funding for a site school is tied to attendance/enrollment, that's why. (Another illness of the broken system.)</p>

<p>Willing students. There lies the problem. Public schools must education the unwilling and those with no parental support etc. Once you let all the willing ones go to theri school of choice you have a large group left. Then what? Still blame the teachers and unions?</p>

<p>
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Willing students. There lies the problem. Public schools must education the unwilling and those with no parental support etc. Once you let all the willing ones go to theri school of choice you have a large group left. Then what? Still blame the teachers and unions?

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<p>Here we go again! It's the fault of the students!</p>

<p>Do you know any industry where the companies blame their ... customers instead of the product they deliver and stay in business? </p>

<p>The problems of our public education transcend the issue of dealing with the unwilling or inept; it fails almost everybody.</p>

<p>"...a system they should have NEVER [been] permitted to dominate."</p>

<p>I completely agree. </p>

<p>To respond to some earlier comments by other posters, in a way, chartering is a form of vouchering. However, the problem with it (in addition to the other precarious aspects I've already mentioned) is that the funding for it is not comparable to the tuition & resources in even modestly funded private schools -- let alone in high-rent publics. Therefore, one gets into the equity problem (access/opportunity).</p>

<p>The most overt vouchering in the charter system is with public homeschools that provide budgets for each family to choose their own curriculum, extracurricular classes/vendors, & supplies. Then there's real choice involved. However, the State's getting a bargain, actually. In a way you could say the families are, too, but not really. It requires one parent to teach at home, at least a part-time day, with no salary. The salaried teacher who oversees, assist, & intervenes, is paid WAY under-par no matter how you look at it -- not even comparing it with union suburban salaries. It's a tremendous amount of unpaid work for teacher & family. Also no overhead for brick-and-mortar, so the State gets a bargain in that way, too.</p>

<p>If there is a system of multiple competing providers for the varied group of students we now have, there may be fewer students who are unwilling to attend school than now. Students aren't all the same--one size doesn't fit all. Any educational program that is helping the students who enroll should have the same claim to public subsidy as the program that now compels willing and unwilling students alike to be in the same sole-choice classroom.</p>

<p>Unfortunately, kids are not widgets so the company analogy breaks down. Perhaps better to say in a company you can fire somebody who does not make the good product. You can't fire the student who has no interest and no family support. Nor can you always motivate, nor can you please parents who want a rigorous system as long as their kid earns an A. A few years teaching in a variety of classrooms would be good for more than a few parents of the education consumers. They might find it is a litle less deterministic than they think and for sure a lot more draining.</p>

<p>but tokenadult,
It's not just what the students want that would determine where they could go, in a free-for-all competitive environment. Private schools do not have to accept a particular willing or unwilling student. Usually there is some minimal testing standard necessary for admission (which many of my students would not pass), and almost always teacher recommendations from a previous school, plus a "shadow day" in-person visit, with interview, and the application itself, which a significant portion cannot fill out in complete coherent sentences. The choices available to such a non-qualifying student would remain in the Public category, while the private-qualifying student has full range of options. (Again, the equity problem.)</p>

<p>That doesn't mean I'm arguing against the basic premise of release from State control, and how. I think that government has some interest in an educated public and some role to play in provision of funds for that, but I think education belongs with educators & families, not with politicians or bureaucrats. (Even if there were no teacher unions to add to the mix.)</p>

<p>Ephiphany, a new type of private schools would be made to fit the profiles of lower students, provided they were given government vouchers.</p>

<p>"Then what? Still blame the teachers and unions?"</p>

<p>To the extent that they are responsible, yes. My wife teaches in an inner city school. She is very good at it - last year's class went from grossly under-performing in all measurable areas coming into her class and left with each student meeting or exceeding all benchmarks. In her school district this is unheard of. Her principle is thrilled with her performance and wishes that she could clone her.</p>

<p>The problem? Well, her district as a whole has the highest per student expenses in the state (>$18K/student) and yet has one of the worst performance records in the state. As a result her district is under the microscopic lens of the state which provides virtually all of the funds to run the school. In an effort to clamp down on expenses, they will be getting rid of many teachers (which should not be a major issue since the typical classroom has two teachers for 10-12 students). However, because of the union and tenure, the first to go will be teachers like my wife who don't have tenure. She will then be backfilled by either a teacher who is a known drug addict or one who continually falls asleep in class (and is also suspected of doing drugs) - because they have tenure. </p>

<p>So, yeah,the unions and the slacker teachers have a lot to do with the problem. However, I do agree with the position that a major component of the problem is the families themselves. It is very hard to get kids to perform when there is no family support for that objective. However, my wife's experience shows that it can be done.</p>

<p>True, kamikazewave. Those right now are called site charter schools. So far, the voting public has been unwilling to take it to the next step of fully funded legitimate private site schools. And the funds that the State would be willing/able to grant each family as voucher would not fund any private school of low-performing students. (Site charters are way underfunded, which is another reason they sometimes close.) I'm for dismantling the current system, actually. Many of my fellow teachers are, too; they just won't say it publicly.</p>

<p>
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A few years teaching in a variety of classrooms would be good for more than a few parents of the education consumers.

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<p>I have that, in two countries. That's why I'm especially aware of the systemic problems in the United States. </p>

<p>I will accept for the sake of discussion that there is some population of students, entering school at the youngest age of entrance, who </p>

<p>a) have NIL interest in participating in school lessons, and </p>

<p>b) NIL support from their families in being good students. </p>

<p>But that there are some students like that is not an argument for </p>

<p>1) government-operated schools to enjoy local oligopolies with sole claim to taxpayer subsidies </p>

<p>nor for </p>

<p>2) any publicly subsidized school to have a "union shop" rather than a "right to work" shop. </p>

<p>If there are teachers who can awaken the interest of students and make up for lack of family support (and I believe that there are dedicated teachers who have such admirable personal qualities), let them be able to set up their own schools with their own form of organization and compete for public subsidies with other schools. Indeed, students are not widgets, and they don't have fixed characteristics or fixed family circumstances over the course of childhood. Students and their families ought to have the power to shop to find the most interest-evoking, most supportive school environments they can find.</p>

<p>
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You can't fire the student who has no interest and no family support.

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<p>But you sure can ... give up on the student. The fact that this happens in the richest and most resourceful country on earth is what is so galling. </p>

<p>Isn't it cynical to blame the ones who happen to have fewer choices rather than addressing the systemic problems. </p>

<p>In a recent TV broadcast, they showed a school in Cleveland where kids were not known to turn in their homework. Then they showed a locked cage where ALL the books were stored. Tons of them, and brand new! Students were not allowed to take the books home, and in many cases not use them in school. </p>

<p>I assume we could call the students unwilling and unmotivated!</p>

<p>Fundingfather:I agree and I have been there. My point is that it is not just one thing but several. It seems on one end we have some teachers who want to be protected like hourly unions workers, have no risks but be paid like Wall Street execs while on the other end there are parents who want thebest and the brightest to go into teaching and to be able to get to every student and to be able to parent or to take blame for the lack of parting and to be paid minimum wage. Perhaps people need to come together and be realistic about what can be done and then do what is best for the most kids and society.</p>

<p>If you hire average teachers, what you'll get is average productivity and capacity. There's a reason why major companies spent major dollars to get the best and the brightest.</p>

<p>What Jobs is saying is similar to William Ouchi's theory regarding small businesses. The most successful school districts in North America are one's that allow autonomy and control by the principal (Ie. Seattle). Ones that need improvement (ie. LAUSD) are examples where the control is at its highest levels and getting worse (ie. Villaraigosa attempting to take partial control of the school board and full control of various schools).</p>

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Education would benefit from being able to get rid of the truly awful performers, no doubt. But rewarding the "best" teachers is rather more difficult than identifying incompetence.

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<p>This is my simple-minded proposal. Let’s creates a National Education Foundation, like National Science Foundation, with an annual budget of $ 1B. We then solicit award proposals from best K-12 teachers for a two-year award each worth $10K per year. Through peer review process pick the 40,000 top tier teachers for $10K salary-enhancement award and another 40,000 teacher for summer educational improvement award. The 20% fund remained will go to the management of foundation.</p>