PoliticalChic's Review of "Waiting for Superman"

[MaggieMae]

Source?

Parochial schools usually have LARGER classes.



Geez you really haven't a fucking clue about this subject.

Oh brother, 1993-1994??? How about pulling some current information? After all, you're a teacher, right?

National Catholic Educational Association
U.S. Catholic Education Snapshot
2008-09 School Year
Catholic Schools

Total Catholic school enrollment: 2,192,531
Elementary school enrollment: 1,568,016
Secondary school enrollment: 624,515

Minority students: 643,173 29.3%
Non-Catholic: 325,835 14.9%

Total number of schools: 7,248
Elementary schools: 6,028
Secondary schools: 1,220
Co-educational: 93.6%
Single sex male: 2.6%
Single sex female: 3.8%

New schools in 2009/9: 31
New schools in last 5 years: 184
Schools with waiting lists for admission:
(29.2%) 2,114

Full-time professional staff: 157,615
Laity: 96.0%
Religious/clergy: 4.0%
Student/teacher ratio: 14:1

Average Tuition
Elementary: $3,159
Secondary: $8,182

Sometimes you are so painfully naive its pitiful

Would you expect the NATIONAL CATHOLIC EDUCATION ASSOCIATION to advertise that their classroom size is LARGER?

The first clue is

the "Student to Teacher Ratio" is calculated 2,192,531 students/157,615 full time professional staff. I hate to burst your little bubble, but all full time professional staff at school are not teachers.

I think I'll stick with my objective source, sweetie: Now run along and play

It's okay to just admit your mistakes and move on, you know. In the meantime, I suggest you Google "decline in enrollment in Catholic schools" and take your time reading the myriad articles since you now think the Catholic Education Association makes up stuff. But I really do need to run along now, so I'll let you play in THAT sandbox for awhile.

 

[MaggieMae]

Speaking of no-brainer, I think you've finally got it:

It is NOT the class size that makes a difference in successful learning enviromnoents (urban or otherwise), but instead differences between, "people in general" or, what educated individuals know as differences in culture.

Glad the light finally came on for your dim-bulb.

Except that it would have been nice if you had made that opinion ALONG WITH the chart you posted. But failing that, it appeared to this bright bulb that you simply were eager to pick (another) fight with me.

You are so petty. I pity your students, if any.

Oh stop whining.

I'll try to remember your inferiour intellect requires spoon feeding.

You're the one who won't stop chasing me around the board, you freak. Can't stand to lose, eh? Yeah, I've known your kind all my life, and I can shake you off like water. Your ego matters more than a decent discussion. Pathetic.

 

[PoliticalChic]

I’d like to say one thing on classroom behavior as a subset of cultural means.

I think that at thr risk of stereotyping yes, Asian schools by and large may exhibit day to less, uhm, activity in that the children may be more docile or obedient, however in the context of learning I don’t see this as a good thing necessarily, American classrooms are probably more voluble but this assists the creative aspect of learning while less interaction does not stir those creative or free out of the box thinking technique.

America is a place where in the cross cultures move up the mean as they engage more in this atmosphere , which I think is seen empirically as it assist in crating a more entrepreneurial and creative student there after how achieves along these lines.

I probably said this clumsily but I hope my point got across.

"...however in the context of learning I don’t see this as a good thing necessarily, American classrooms are probably more voluble but this assists the creative aspect of learning while less interaction does not stir those creative or free out of the box thinking technique."

Have you purchased any Japanese electronic products lately?


It's time to stop making excuses for what goes on in our classrooms.

 

[Samson]

It's okay to just admit your mistakes and move on, you know. In the meantime, I suggest you Google "decline in enrollment in Catholic schools" and take your time reading the myriad articles since you now think the Catholic Education Association makes up stuff. But I really do need to run along now, so I'll let you play in THAT sandbox for awhile.

I suppose I'll interpret whatever point you're sadly attempting to make to camouflage your lastest monumental error in judgement:


You're saying that since 2000, the kids have stopped going to Catholic schools, but, for some mysterious reason the teachers are all still there.

 

[Trajan]

I’d like to say one thing on classroom behavior as a subset of cultural means.

I think that at thr risk of stereotyping yes, Asian schools by and large may exhibit day to less, uhm, activity in that the children may be more docile or obedient, however in the context of learning I don’t see this as a good thing necessarily, American classrooms are probably more voluble but this assists the creative aspect of learning while less interaction does not stir those creative or free out of the box thinking technique.

America is a place where in the cross cultures move up the mean as they engage more in this atmosphere , which I think is seen empirically as it assist in crating a more entrepreneurial and creative student there after how achieves along these lines.

I probably said this clumsily but I hope my point got across.

"...however in the context of learning I don’t see this as a good thing necessarily, American classrooms are probably more voluble but this assists the creative aspect of learning while less interaction does not stir those creative or free out of the box thinking technique."

Have you purchased any Japanese electronic products lately?


It's time to stop making excuses for what goes on in our classrooms.

Oh agreed,but in the early years while we had a handle on the classrooms Asian cos were copying and building on ideas we created. to an extent that still happens today, but the edge has dissipated and this goes for 'soviet' schools as well, school systems that were less open to the activity I mentioned and didn't encourage that type of individual creative aspect unless marked for special treatment.

 

[MaggieMae]

It's okay to just admit your mistakes and move on, you know. In the meantime, I suggest you Google "decline in enrollment in Catholic schools" and take your time reading the myriad articles since you now think the Catholic Education Association makes up stuff. But I really do need to run along now, so I'll let you play in THAT sandbox for awhile.

I suppose I'll interpret whatever point you're sadly attempting to make to camouflage your lastest monumental error in judgement:


You're saying that since 2000, the kids have stopped going to Catholic schools, but, for some mysterious reason the teachers are all still there.

Another misspelling. Sorry, teach.

 

[Samson]

It's okay to just admit your mistakes and move on, you know. In the meantime, I suggest you Google "decline in enrollment in Catholic schools" and take your time reading the myriad articles since you now think the Catholic Education Association makes up stuff. But I really do need to run along now, so I'll let you play in THAT sandbox for awhile.

I suppose I'll interpret whatever point you're sadly attempting to make to camouflage your lastest monumental error in judgement:


You're saying that since 2000, the kids have stopped going to Catholic schools, but, for some mysterious reason the teachers are all still there.

Another misspelling. Sorry, teach.

That's all you got left?

You''l make a good secretary for someone after you grow up.

 

[midcan5]

Follow up to this comment.

http://www.usmessageboard.com/educa...ew-of-waiting-for-superman-2.html#post3065163


It is funny talking to teachers who teach and compare their reality with the BS the right wing posts. One math teacher had things rather nice and admitted it, he only had one non AP class and a few of his students were heading to MIT and Harvard so he was happy. He did complain about parents. Another retired recently and noted that a primary reason was no backing from parents, and constant annoyance about their little Joanie. Another mentioned Christie's cutbacks in NJ which only hurt teaching and education but not administration etc. It seems parents are the overall nuisance for teachers as they want good grades but no work. Sports come first for many children and parents, followed by electronic games and texting. Most thought teaching thankless in our society.

America gets the students it wants because that is what they ask for and support. Teaching is looked down on and dumb is considered hip and cool.


"It is almost impossible to talk about the manner in which public ignorance contributes to grave national problems without being labeled an "elitist," one of the most powerful pejoratives that can be applied to anyone aspiring to high office. Instead, our politicians repeatedly assure Americans that they are just "folks," a patronizing term that you will search for in vain in important presidential speeches before 1980. (Just imagine: "We here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain . . . and that government of the folks, by the folks, for the folks, shall not perish from the earth.") Such exaltations of ordinariness are among the distinguishing traits of anti-intellectualism in any era. " Susan Jacoby The Dumbing Of America - washingtonpost.com

 

[midcan5]

But many of us knew it was BS, only the corporate puppets of the right sing in tune to the greed song. Two things operate here and both are money, but I'll let the reader figure the distinction.

'New data shows school “reformers” are full of it'

"Poor schools underperform largely because of economic forces, not because teachers have it too easy"
"Reality, though, is finally catching up with the “reform” movement’s propaganda. With poverty and inequality intensifying, a conversation about the real problem is finally starting to happen. And the more education “reformers” try to distract from it, the more they will expose the fact that they aren’t driven by concern for kids but by the ugliest kind of greed — the kind that feigns concerns for kids in order to pad the corporate bottom line." New data shows school ?reformers? are full of it - Salon.com

"For education, technology and charter school companies and the Wall Streeters who back them, it lets them cite troubled public schools to argue that the current public education system is flawed, and to then argue that education can be improved if taxpayer money is funneled away from the public school system’s priorities (hiring teachers, training teachers, reducing class size, etc.) and into the private sector (replacing teachers with computers, replacing public schools with privately run charter schools, etc.). Likewise, for conservative politicians and activist-profiteers disproportionately bankrolled by these and other monied interests, the “reform” argument gives them a way to both talk about fixing education and to bash organized labor, all without having to mention an economic status quo that monied interests benefit from and thus do not want changed."


"The small Nordic country of Finland used to be known -- if it was known for anything at all -- as the home of Nokia, the mobile phone giant. But lately Finland has been attracting attention on global surveys of quality of life -- Newsweek ranked it number one last year -- and Finland's national education system has been receiving particular praise, because in recent years Finnish students have been turning in some of the highest test scores in the world." What Americans Keep Ignoring About Finland's School Success - Anu Partanen - The Atlantic

http://www.usmessageboard.com/educa...ew-of-waiting-for-superman-2.html#post3065163

http://www.usmessageboard.com/education/108215-education-then-and-now.html#post2073834
http://www.usmessageboard.com/education-and-history/108215-education-then-and-now-2.html#post2074607
http://www.usmessageboard.com/educa...liberals-in-the-classroom-11.html#post1749647
http://www.usmessageboard.com/education/159100-pay-teachers-more.html#post3418935

 

[Old Rocks]

Friday we are having dinner with five teachers, I will ask them what they think of this film or idea.

Our son taught math in HS in a middle to upper middle class public school. He loved his bright students, his stupid students, which were the majority, caused a career change into respect and lots more money. It is America folks, not unions, not teachers, not all America but American culture. My wife has taught math for over twenty years. The rich do not go to these schools, ever wonder why? Has nothing to do with teachers, has lots to do with teacher pay and other perks money brings. Check out cost in private schools. And if unions disappeared this would be the same, probably worse in the poor areas.

"Here's what you see in Waiting for Superman, the new documentary that celebrates the charter school movement while blaming teachers unions for much of what ails American education: working- and middle-class parents desperate to get their charming, healthy, well-behaved children into successful public charter schools.

Here's what you don't see: the four out of five charters that are no better, on average, than traditional neighborhood public schools (and are sometimes much worse); charter school teachers, like those at the Green Dot schools in Los Angeles, who are unionized and like it that way; and noncharter neighborhood public schools, like PS 83 in East Harlem and the George Hall Elementary School in Mobile, Alabama, that are nationally recognized for successfully educating poor children.

You also don't learn that in the Finnish education system, much cited in the film as the best in the world, teachers are—gasp!—unionized and granted tenure, and families benefit from a cradle-to-grave social welfare system that includes universal daycare, preschool and healthcare, all of which are proven to help children achieve better results at school." Grading 'Waiting for Superman' | The Nation

I have had two experiences with charter schools, at what I imagine are opposite ends of the spectrum, in two different states. But this really is no surprise: There is NO "AMERICAN EDUCATION SYSTEM."

Therefore, it is absurd to compare a "Finnish Education System" to an "United States Educational System."

Most Americans who have never moved, believe that their local schools reflect the nation.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

Exactly. My education, 1st grade to high school diploma, included 13, at least, schools in Washington and Oregon. The schools ranked from spectactular, a two room very rural school with a lady genius for a teacher, to abysmal, near Roseburg, Oregon. All were reflective of the community they were in. Where ignorance was admired, the schools were a pain. Where ambition and hard work and education were admired, they were a joy.

And, with the exception of Riverside, all were reflections of the parents attitudes far more than that of the teachers. Parents are the key to a childs education. Where they are supportive, the kids have a chance. As you pointed out, many of the parents that are in poverty see education as a way out for their children, and support a good teacher far more than those in comfortable circumstances.