It's Not The Teacher's Unions....

[PoliticalChic]

If you read the thread more carefully, rather than looking for some bone to pick with me personally, you might see that the thread is actually an attempt to ameliorate the criticism of your spouse, and other teachers.

An additional flaw in your post is that you simply want to pass the blame on to the parents, who neither passed exams said to indicate that they were prepared to teach children, or accept a pay check intended for remuneration for teaching children.

No, the problem is that old fashioned lefties like you, and the other clueless, don't want to place the blame on the progressives who have ruined education.
In post #7, I afforded you a link to the 'Massachusetts Miracle'..actual evidence that Hirsch's traditional education works.

It's your politics that puts the blinders on you, and prevents you from seeing the results in one of the 'laboratories of democracy,'...

My suggestion is that you get your nose out of the socialist 'Sojourner's' and pick up some of Hirsch's books....and pass them on to the wife and her fellow teachers.

BTW, did you know that one of the first books the Bolsheviks translated into Russian was John Dewey's 'Schools of Tomorrow,' in 1918, while they were still in the process of killing seven million Russians?

What did the Bolsheviks realize that you have yet to figure out?

No one ruined education, education is a reflection of the society in which it operates. Or rather everyone ruined education because we are all members of that society.

I don't know enough about Russian education to comment, but Stalin killed his fellow Russians, not a book. And are you assuming the Bolsheviks wanted to ruin their educational system? That made no sense anyway I view it. If you want dumb people, don't educate them at all, give them playing fields and reality TV, that'll make them happy and stupid.

I'll say it again, school encompasses years and years and having a few bad teachers, just like bad mechanics, bad doctors, bad USMB posters, is par for this life we live. If you don't want to learn, don't blame it on teachers, you've had lots of time to apply yourself if you are of average intelligence. Due to work, I have been to more classes than you can shake a stick at, guess how many teachers were super?

One thing that is rather stupid in the education system is the constant attempt to change the way of teaching or method or whatever the latest buzzword is, but again that is part of American culture, we want easy solutions to more complicated problems. That you can blame on the system - but it ain't no conspiracy of ideas that made our nation's students lazy, it is our way of life and our values. And to be fair many still do quite well and many teachers are super too.

"There is no test of the good society so clear, so decisive, as its willingness to tax - to forgo private income, expenditures and the expensively cultivated superfluities of private consumption - in order to develop and sustain a strong educational system for all its citizens. The economic rewards of so doing are not in doubt. Nor the political gains. But the true reward is in the larger, deeper, better life for everyone that only education provides." John Kenneth Galbraith, 'The Good Society'

1. "No one ruined education,..."
On the face of it, this should invalidate your entire post.
Unless you were using '...depends on what the meaning of 'is' is..." kind of doubletalk.

It is ruined.

It was ruined by the progressive movement, but not by any one individual.

2. "...everyone ruined education..."
Speak for yourself; I homeschool.

3. "And are you assuming the Bolsheviks wanted to ruin their educational system?"
I am stating that the proposals of John Dewey resonated with the kind of government that Bolsheviks saw as the road to utopia. It is not education for a free market society.
a. 1918, “School’s of Tomorrow,” published in Russian.
b. 1919, “How We Think,” published in Russian.
c. 1920, “The School and Society,” published in Russian.
d. 1921, “Democracy and Education,” published in Russian. The English version, of course, became a bible at Columbia Teacher’s College.

4. "If you want dumb people, don't educate them..."
Sadly, that is the effect of progressive education. Again, I suggest you revew post #7, and the link to Hirsch's traditonal methods, which proved dispositive in the argument as to which is better.
Then, ask yourself, why the educrats have remained stuck in progressive methodology.

5. "...don't blame it on teachers..."
Clearly you are a product of the govenment school system: for the umpteenth time, this thread is predicated on the idea that it is the curriculum and progressive methodology!

6. "...guess how many teachers were super..."
While I don't support bad teachers, I neither claim we need super teachers....I can provide data for you on parochial school students' achievement, with minority student bodies, and teachers who make less than government school teachers.
Now...don't make me go to UPPER CASE! It is the progressive dominance!
This is why they fear vouchers! Parents would choose the superior (traditional) schools!

7. In some other thread, I'd be happy to debate the many ways to turn students in the right direction, with the right attitudes, but for now, government out of education is the start, and that means vouchers and choice.
As for the economy, here is the rule: you can have equality or you can have prosperity....but not both.

 

[Quantum Windbag]

No one ruined education, education is a reflection of the society in which it operates. Or rather everyone ruined education because we are all members of that society.

I have right wing friends that say the same thing. They say that if we had kept our moral values, kept prayer in school, and went to church every week the world would be a better place. Funny thing, I tell them they are wrong, just like I am telling you you are wrong.

I don't know enough about Russian education to comment, but Stalin killed his fellow Russians, not a book. And are you assuming the Bolsheviks wanted to ruin their educational system? That made no sense anyway I view it. If you want dumb people, don't educate them at all, give them playing fields and reality TV, that'll make them happy and stupid.

That might depend on what the goals of the education system is. Some states have used education to indoctrinate their citizens, something I am sure you are aware of.

I'll say it again, school encompasses years and years and having a few bad teachers, just like bad mechanics, bad doctors, bad USMB posters, is par for this life we live. If you don't want to learn, don't blame it on teachers, you've had lots of time to apply yourself if you are of average intelligence. Due to work, I have been to more classes than you can shake a stick at, guess how many teachers were super?

That is a defeatist attitude.

Bad teacher might be unavoidable, but firing them should not be impossible. If we keep getting rid of the ones that do not meet a minimum standard we will eventually not have any bad teachers in our school system, just ones that are not as good as the best.

One thing that is rather stupid in the education system is the constant attempt to change the way of teaching or method or whatever the latest buzzword is, but again that is part of American culture, we want easy solutions to more complicated problems. That you can blame on the system - but it ain't no conspiracy of ideas that made our nation's students lazy, it is our way of life and our values. And to be fair many still do quite well and many teachers are super too.

You are agreeing with those conservative Christians again.

Just saying.

"There is no test of the good society so clear, so decisive, as its willingness to tax - to forgo private income, expenditures and the expensively cultivated superfluities of private consumption - in order to develop and sustain a strong educational system for all its citizens. The economic rewards of so doing are not in doubt. Nor the political gains. But the true reward is in the larger, deeper, better life for everyone that only education provides." John Kenneth Galbraith, 'The Good Society'

I have noticed that you really like throwing quotes around. Do you do that so that you will not have to think for yourself, but still appear intelligent?

 

[chanel]

NJ ranks #2 behind MA on the NAEP and ranks #1 in HS graduation rates. We are home to the top performing schools in the country, and a few of the worst as well. The factors that contribute to a "thorough and efficient education" would be nearly impossible to debate on a message board. Politicalchic has correctly stated that curriculum and even more so, philosophy of education, has a huge impact. However, choosing what to teach (can't cover it all) and how to teach it (styles of personality matter) depends on the teacher. Teacher quality cannot simply be measured by the outcome of a single test. Teaching is an art, not a science; not unlike parenting. A person can read every book on parenting or seem to be a loving person, and still have a messed up kid. I'm a huge believer in the concept of "social intelligence" which cannot be measured like an IQ test. You just know it when you see it. Strong interpersonal skills, ethics, and maturity are as valuable as being a math or science genius.

Another factor that is rarely discussed, is the intelligence of the student. I have two kids who were raised in the same house, attended the same schools, and had many of the same teachers. One got a perfect 5 on the AP English exam and a 500 on his math SAT. The other scored a 690 on math, and can't spell for shit. Same parents; same teachers; different kids.


We can't fix the parents. We can't fix the
kids. So the logical target is the teachers. Getting rid of bad teachers is a fine idea. But we are only talking about a miniscule piece of the puzzle.

If I had to pick one factor contributing to "verbicide" it would be that very few people (kids and adults) read books any more. And how can we change THAT? I simply don't know.

 

[Samson]

If I had to pick one factor contributing to "verbicide" it would be that very few people (kids and adults) read books any more. And how can we change THAT? I simply don't know.

We all move back into log cabins, without electricty.

 

[Samson]

Ah, what a firm grip on the obvious!

Now that that has been settled, what do we do?

Accept same?

Pinpoint the reasons?

Suggest solutions....as I have in Post #7?

I kinda like the last one.

Take away teh internets?

 

[PoliticalChic]

If I had to pick one factor contributing to "verbicide" it would be that very few people (kids and adults) read books any more. And how can we change THAT? I simply don't know.

We all move back into log cabins, without electricty.

My children see their parents read constantly.
My 6th grader is reading 'Einstein,' the Isaacson book, and writing her first novel.
My 3rd grader is reading 'Thugs,' by Micah Halpern, and 'Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire,' and 'The Curse of Cuddles McGee.'

Oh, yeah, and we live in a log cabin, without electricity.

 

[Samson]

You know that I work with antique books for children, right?


So naturally I have to decide what the reading level is for each book I publish.

The 2nd or 3rd grade reading level books written in our grandfathers' day would flummox the average 5th or 6th grader, today.

As an educator one of the problems we have is that we have decided to TEACH DOWN to our children, rather than teaching UP to them.

Now imagine that you were trying to teach your baby to learn the language.

How much progress would you make if you only spoke BABY TALK to them?

ZERO, right?

Well, on a smaller scale that the problem with teaching down to kids.

Most children's books published today are PABLUM.

Worse, they are also politically correct PABLUM.

Now whose fault is that?

THE PUBLIC'S fault, folks.

They're the morons who buy this crap for their kids.

And they are ALSO the morons who get teachers fired who won't give Buffy and Biffy As when they deserve Cs.

The problem with education is that EDUCATORS don't run the industry.

Real estate agents, bankers, retired machinists and bank clerks are the people making the SCHOOL BOARD decisions that effect your kids' educations.

I mean how freaking stupid are we?

Would we put bus drivers in charge of hospitals?

Would we elect the people in charge of writing software programs from a cadre of clueless imbeciles?

Of course not.

They're not qualified to run those industries. That we can ALL see.

But still, people imagine that non-educators are wholly qualified to tell the educational community how to do their jobs.

Local control?

That's nothing but a load of "its all about common sense" horsehocky.

You seem to have overlooked the fact that we ELECT members of the School Board; they don't simply walk in off the street and begin chairing the meetings. If the public wants a retired machinist and a bank clerk to be a member of the school board, or a B-rate actor to govern their state, or a "community organizer" to lead their nation, then they are ELECTED.

But the public school is not an industry, making widgets, or writing software: Its primary function is to serve the local PUBLIC. Who better to direct the institution than the local citizens? Certainly not some over-educated, pointy head that's been sequestered from reality in his ivory tower.

 

[kwc57]

Ah, what a firm grip on the obvious!

Now that that has been settled, what do we do?

Accept same?

Pinpoint the reasons?

Suggest solutions....as I have in Post #7?

I kinda like the last one.

Take away teh internets?

 

[Samson]

Ah, what a firm grip on the obvious!

Now that that has been settled, what do we do?

Accept same?

Pinpoint the reasons?

Suggest solutions....as I have in Post #7?

I kinda like the last one.

Take away teh internets?

 

[AllieBaba]

Standardized testing and the funding tied to it are a major part of the education issue. Standardized testing leads to "teaching to the test". While it is possible to use a standardized test without letting its contents determine curriculum and instruction, frequently, what is not tested is not taught, and how the subject is tested often becomes a model for how to teach the subject. If schools score low on the standardized testing, they stand to lose a major piece of funding. If we did away with standardized testing and let each school system and teacher actually design their curriculum as they see fit, we would see education levels take a dramatic rise.

Sorry, boys....you and Techy are concentrating on exactly where the deckchairs on the Titanic should be place...

The root cause of the problem is the dominance of progressive ideology in what passes for education today.

1. The “Massachusetts miracle,” in which Bay State students’ soaring test scores broke records, was the direct consequence of the state legislature’s passage of the 1993 Education Reform Act, which established knowledge-based standards for all grades and a rigorous testing system linked to the new standards. And those standards, Massachusetts reformers have acknowledged, are Hirsch’s legacy.

2. In the new millennium, Massachusetts students have surged upward on the biennial National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP)—“the nation’s report card,” as education scholars call it. On the 2005 NAEP tests, Massachusetts ranked first in the nation in fourth- and eighth-grade reading and fourth- and eighth-grade math. It then repeated the feat in 2007. No state had ever scored first in both grades and both subjects in a single year—let alone for two consecutive test cycles. On another reliable test, the Trends in International Math and Science Studies, the state’s fourth-graders last year ranked second globally in science and third in math, while the eighth-graders tied for first in science and placed sixth in math. (States can volunteer, as Massachusetts did, to have their students compared with national averages.) The United States as a whole finished tenth.
E. D. Hirsch’s Curriculum for Democracy by Sol Stern, City Journal Autumn 2009

And, instead of education, the educrats concentrate on indocrination:

3.... the one book that the fellows had to read in full was Pedagogy of the Oppressed, by the Brazilian educator Paulo Freire.
This book has achieved near-iconic status in America’s teacher-training programs. In 2003, David Steiner and Susan Rozen published a study examining the curricula of 16 schools of education—14 of them among the top-ranked institutions in the country, according to U.S. News and World Report—and found that Pedagogy of the Oppressed was one of the most frequently assigned texts in their philosophy of education courses.

4. But rather than dealing with the education of children, Pedagogy of the Oppressed mentions none of the issues that troubled education reformers throughout the twentieth century: testing, standards, curriculum, the role of parents, how to organize schools, what subjects should be taught in various grades, how best to train teachers, the most effective way of teaching disadvantaged students. This ed-school bestseller is, instead, a utopian political tract calling for the overthrow of capitalist hegemony and the creation of classless societies.Pedagogy of the Oppressor by Sol Stern, City Journal Spring 2009


Here on USMB, we have some of the most politically astute minds in the population, yet you folks on the left refuse to open your eyes as to the deleterious effects of progressive/liberal agendas.

Thankfully, many eyes have been opened by Barak Hussein Obama, peace be on him, as far as economy and politics.

I await the same for education.

Most of the people here who refuse to acknowledge the danger of a progressive agenda were raised that way and carefully schooled that way by the very system we want them to decry. They've been told from birth that they are superior to other people, that they shouldn't be measured by the same measuring stick as lesser people, and that it's okay to lie, cheat and steal so long as you *mean well*. That is, so long as you *mean well* in regards to yourself. They've also been taught that not only are they not responsible for themselves, but they aren't responsible for anybody else, either. They are not obliged to engage in responsible behavior because the government will fix any boo boo they might get. At the same time they are taught that yes, other people are just not as valuable as they are, and it's perfectly okay to get rid of those people by whatever means necessary when they present any sort of drain. Because after all, those people don't even know what's best for them, they aren't capable of making their own decisions, and if they can't live the same life that our progressive friends enjoy, then they really aren't enjoying life at all and should go ahead and opt out; no worries.

 

[Bfgrn]

Much of the hostility towards the teacher's unions isn't based on the economy, but rather the residual anger over how poorly our children are learning.

Well, read the following, and see if you can blame the teachers....

...the blame should be on the curriuculum and educrats.

"In the past 50 years, by one reckoning, the working vocabulary of the average 14 year-old has declined from some 25,000 words to 10,000 words. This is not merely a decline in numbers of words but in the capacity to think. It also signifies that there has been a steep decline in the number of things that an adolescent needs to know and to name in order to get by in an increasingly homogenized and urbanized consumer society. This is a national tragedy virtually unnoticed in the media. It is no mere coincidence that in roughly the same half century the average person has come to recognize over 1000 corporate logos, but can now recognize fewer than 10 plants and animals native to his or her locality.

That fact says a great deal about why the decline in working vocabulary has gone unnoticed—few are paying attention. The decline is surely not consistent across the full range of language but concentrates in those areas having to do with large issues such as philosophy, religion, public policy, and nature. On the other hand, vocabulary has probably increased in areas having to do with sex, violence, recreation, and consumption. As a result we are losing the capacity to say what we really mean and ultimately to think about what we mean. We are losing the capacity for articulate intelligence about the things that matter most.

"That sucks," for example, is a common way for budding young scholars to announce their displeasure about any number of things that range across the spectrum of human experience."
Verbicide

The Dewey-Progressive non-subject matter based education.
Hang the educrats! (Can I still say that?)


Verbicide

This:

Has been replaced by this:

Equals THIS:

Rank↓ Country↓ Literacy rate ↓
1 Georgia ≈100.0
2 Cuba 99.8
2 Estonia 99.8
2 Latvia 99.8
5 Barbados 99.7 [j]
5 Slovenia 99.7 [l]
5 Belarus 99.7
5 Lithuania 99.7
5 Ukraine 99.7
5 Armenia 99.7
10 Kazakhstan 99.6
10 Tajikistan 99.6
12 Azerbaijan 99.5
12 Turkmenistan 99.5
12 Russia 99.5
16 Hungary 99.4 [j]
17 Kyrgyzstan 99.3
17 Poland 99.3 [j]
19 Tonga 99.2
21 Albania 99.0
21 Antigua and Barbuda 99.0 [q]
21 Australia 99.0 [d]
21 Austria 99.0 [d]
21 Belgium 99.0 [d]
21 Canada 99.0 [d]
21 Czech Republic 99.0 [d]
21 North Korea 99.0 [d]
21 Denmark 99.0 [d]
21 Finland 99.0 [d]
21 France 99.0 [d]
21 Germany 99.0 [d]
21 Guyana 99.0 [j]
21 Iceland 99.0 [d]
21 Ireland 99.0 [d]
21 Japan 99.0 [d]
21 South Korea 99.0 [d]
21 Luxembourg 99.0 [d]
21 Netherlands 99.0 [d]
21 New Zealand 99.0 [d]
21 Norway 99.0 [d]
21 Slovakia 99.0 [d]
21 Sweden 99.0 [d]
21 Switzerland 99.0 [d]
21 United Kingdom 99.0 [d]
21 United States 99.0 [d]

Ah, what a firm grip on the obvious!

Now that that has been settled, what do we do?

Accept same?

Pinpoint the reasons?

Suggest solutions....as I have in Post #7?

I kinda like the last one.

BUT...the solution to the 'obvious!' is not the 'obvious!' ...???

Instead, it is really the obscure that is the root cause...It is a Marxist conspiracy.

Paulo Freire, the Marxists, secretly sent out Marxist operatives in the middle of the night to break into libraries and remove the books. And once that diabolical Marxist scheme was accomplished, they were ordered to break into people's homes and remove the 'OFF' button on TV sets...

The only thing that is not clear PC; why didn't Paulo Freire, the Marxists, order his Marxist operatives to remove the FINGERS of the parents? I mean he is a Marxist.

 

[PoliticalChic]

This:

Has been replaced by this:

Equals THIS:

Rank↓ Country↓ Literacy rate ↓
1 Georgia ≈100.0
2 Cuba 99.8
2 Estonia 99.8
2 Latvia 99.8
5 Barbados 99.7 [j]
5 Slovenia 99.7 [l]
5 Belarus 99.7
5 Lithuania 99.7
5 Ukraine 99.7
5 Armenia 99.7
10 Kazakhstan 99.6
10 Tajikistan 99.6
12 Azerbaijan 99.5
12 Turkmenistan 99.5
12 Russia 99.5
16 Hungary 99.4 [j]
17 Kyrgyzstan 99.3
17 Poland 99.3 [j]
19 Tonga 99.2
21 Albania 99.0
21 Antigua and Barbuda 99.0 [q]
21 Australia 99.0 [d]
21 Austria 99.0 [d]
21 Belgium 99.0 [d]
21 Canada 99.0 [d]
21 Czech Republic 99.0 [d]
21 North Korea 99.0 [d]
21 Denmark 99.0 [d]
21 Finland 99.0 [d]
21 France 99.0 [d]
21 Germany 99.0 [d]
21 Guyana 99.0 [j]
21 Iceland 99.0 [d]
21 Ireland 99.0 [d]
21 Japan 99.0 [d]
21 South Korea 99.0 [d]
21 Luxembourg 99.0 [d]
21 Netherlands 99.0 [d]
21 New Zealand 99.0 [d]
21 Norway 99.0 [d]
21 Slovakia 99.0 [d]
21 Sweden 99.0 [d]
21 Switzerland 99.0 [d]
21 United Kingdom 99.0 [d]
21 United States 99.0 [d]

Ah, what a firm grip on the obvious!

Now that that has been settled, what do we do?

Accept same?

Pinpoint the reasons?

Suggest solutions....as I have in Post #7?

I kinda like the last one.

BUT...the solution to the 'obvious!' is not the 'obvious!' ...???

Instead, it is really the obscure that is the root cause...It is a Marxist conspiracy.

Paulo Freire, the Marxists, secretly sent out Marxist operatives in the middle of the night to break into libraries and remove the books. And once that diabolical Marxist scheme was accomplished, they were ordered to break into people's homes and remove the 'OFF' button on TV sets...

The only thing that is not clear PC; why didn't Paulo Freire, the Marxists, order his Marxist operatives to remove the FINGERS of the parents? I mean he is a Marxist.

If I get the drift of your crayon scribble, Friendless, you, as so many clueless do, minimize the threat posed...

Rather than focus on the pullulating Marxism among folks like you, let me add some of the desideratum about this paragon of the elite teaching colleges...from Pedagogy of the Oppressor by Sol Stern, City Journal Spring 2009

1. Freire isn’t interested in the Western tradition’s leading education thinkers—not Rousseau, not Piaget, not John Dewey, not Horace Mann, not Maria Montessori. He cites a rather different set of figures: Marx, Lenin, Mao, Che Guevara, and Fidel Castro, as well as the radical intellectuals Frantz Fanon, Régis Debray, Herbert Marcuse, Jean-Paul Sartre, Louis Althusser, and Georg Lukács. And no wonder, since Freire’s main idea is that the central contradiction of every society is between the “oppressors” and the “oppressed” and that revolution should resolve their conflict. The “oppressed” are, moreover, destined to develop a “pedagogy” that leads them to their own liberation.


2. Freire never intends “pedagogy” to refer to any method of classroom instruction based on analysis and research, or to any means of producing higher academic achievement for students. [H]e relies on Marx’s standard formulation that “the class struggle necessarily leads to the dictatorship of the proletariat [and] this dictatorship only constitutes the transition to the abolition of all classes and to a classless society.” In one footnote, however, Freire does mention a society that has actually realized the “permanent liberation” he seeks: it “appears to be the fundamental aspect of Mao’s Cultural Revolution.”

3. The pedagogical point of Freire’s thesis : its opposition to taxing students with any actual academic content, which Freire derides as “official knowledge” that serves to rationalize inequality within capitalist society. One of Freire’s most widely quoted metaphors dismisses teacher-directed instruction as a misguided “banking concept,” in which “the scope of action allowed to the students extends only as far as receiving, filing and storing the deposits.” Freire proposes instead that teachers partner with their coequals, the students, in a “dialogic” and “problem-solving” process until the roles of teacher and student merge into “teacher-students” and “student-teachers.”


Now, I ask you, BoringFriendlessGuy, is this what you would consider a valid education...you know, when you finally get to go to school?

Government school, of course.

 

[Bfgrn]

Ah, what a firm grip on the obvious!

Now that that has been settled, what do we do?

Accept same?

Pinpoint the reasons?

Suggest solutions....as I have in Post #7?

I kinda like the last one.

BUT...the solution to the 'obvious!' is not the 'obvious!' ...???

Instead, it is really the obscure that is the root cause...It is a Marxist conspiracy.

Paulo Freire, the Marxists, secretly sent out Marxist operatives in the middle of the night to break into libraries and remove the books. And once that diabolical Marxist scheme was accomplished, they were ordered to break into people's homes and remove the 'OFF' button on TV sets...

The only thing that is not clear PC; why didn't Paulo Freire, the Marxists, order his Marxist operatives to remove the FINGERS of the parents? I mean he is a Marxist.

If I get the drift of your crayon scribble, Friendless, you, as so many clueless do, minimize the threat posed...

Rather than focus on the pullulating Marxism among folks like you, let me add some of the desideratum about this paragon of the elite teaching colleges...from Pedagogy of the Oppressor by Sol Stern, City Journal Spring 2009

1. Freire isn’t interested in the Western tradition’s leading education thinkers—not Rousseau, not Piaget, not John Dewey, not Horace Mann, not Maria Montessori. He cites a rather different set of figures: Marx, Lenin, Mao, Che Guevara, and Fidel Castro, as well as the radical intellectuals Frantz Fanon, Régis Debray, Herbert Marcuse, Jean-Paul Sartre, Louis Althusser, and Georg Lukács. And no wonder, since Freire’s main idea is that the central contradiction of every society is between the “oppressors” and the “oppressed” and that revolution should resolve their conflict. The “oppressed” are, moreover, destined to develop a “pedagogy” that leads them to their own liberation.


2. Freire never intends “pedagogy” to refer to any method of classroom instruction based on analysis and research, or to any means of producing higher academic achievement for students. [H]e relies on Marx’s standard formulation that “the class struggle necessarily leads to the dictatorship of the proletariat [and] this dictatorship only constitutes the transition to the abolition of all classes and to a classless society.” In one footnote, however, Freire does mention a society that has actually realized the “permanent liberation” he seeks: it “appears to be the fundamental aspect of Mao’s Cultural Revolution.”

3. The pedagogical point of Freire’s thesis : its opposition to taxing students with any actual academic content, which Freire derides as “official knowledge” that serves to rationalize inequality within capitalist society. One of Freire’s most widely quoted metaphors dismisses teacher-directed instruction as a misguided “banking concept,” in which “the scope of action allowed to the students extends only as far as receiving, filing and storing the deposits.” Freire proposes instead that teachers partner with their coequals, the students, in a “dialogic” and “problem-solving” process until the roles of teacher and student merge into “teacher-students” and “student-teachers.”


Now, I ask you, BoringFriendlessGuy, is this what you would consider a valid education...you know, when you finally get to go to school?

Government school, of course.

My God PC, your self enhanced Marxist conspiracy is ripe with so much right wing fear and associated guilt, you would be a huge hit on the right wing fear radio and Fox barking circuit. What is really unfathomable is that you start the OP that teachers are not to blame, then you plow into a contorted brainwashing scheme that would require teachers to be a mindless bunch of 'Gumby' and 'Pokie' clay figures that are easily pliable. I imagine the best way to identify a 'teacher' in the general public is to see if they run for any heat source.

BTW, PC...if Chairman Mao is behind this, then the cause is not liberals.

What Mao Zedong said about liberalism

革命的集体组织中的自由主义是十分有害的。它是一种腐蚀剂，使团结涣散，关系松懈，工作消极，意见分歧。它使革命队伍失掉严密的组织和纪律，政策不能贯彻到底，党的组织和党所领导的群众发生隔离。这是一种严重的恶劣倾向。

"Liberalism is extremely harmful in a revolutionary collective. It is a corrosive which eats away unity, undermines cohesion, causes apathy and creates dissension.

It robs the revolutionary ranks of compact organization and strict discipline, prevents policies from being carried through and alienates the Party organizations from the masses which the Party leads. It is an extremely bad tendency".
Combat Liberalism

 

[AllieBaba]

Well you have pretty accurately described most of the teachers I know...

 

[Jackson]

Simply put...Unions do propose a problem when their main focus is not the children. If teachers want to be considered as professionals they have to act, work and behave as such.

Unions protect the worst in their profession.

Unions collect dues from members to give to political parties not for the enhancement of educating teachers..acting more like the AFL-CIO.

Unions bargain for the salaries of teachers instead of their performance dictating their salary.

The summer months should be paid days for further education for strategies in education, studying and making reteaching units when students do not pass fundamental skills.

Faculties have to meet making strict passing requirements. Ordering teachers to grade their own papers instead of children grading their own papers! No grading "on the curve" to look better!

Teachers have to realize that standaradized testing is testing the fundamentals. If they teach and require students to master the fundamentals, they should do well on the test. Teacher proctors should give the test and the test should not be available to teachers before testing or afterwards.

 

[PoliticalChic]

BUT...the solution to the 'obvious!' is not the 'obvious!' ...???

Instead, it is really the obscure that is the root cause...It is a Marxist conspiracy.

Paulo Freire, the Marxists, secretly sent out Marxist operatives in the middle of the night to break into libraries and remove the books. And once that diabolical Marxist scheme was accomplished, they were ordered to break into people's homes and remove the 'OFF' button on TV sets...

The only thing that is not clear PC; why didn't Paulo Freire, the Marxists, order his Marxist operatives to remove the FINGERS of the parents? I mean he is a Marxist.

If I get the drift of your crayon scribble, Friendless, you, as so many clueless do, minimize the threat posed...

Rather than focus on the pullulating Marxism among folks like you, let me add some of the desideratum about this paragon of the elite teaching colleges...from Pedagogy of the Oppressor by Sol Stern, City Journal Spring 2009

1. Freire isn’t interested in the Western tradition’s leading education thinkers—not Rousseau, not Piaget, not John Dewey, not Horace Mann, not Maria Montessori. He cites a rather different set of figures: Marx, Lenin, Mao, Che Guevara, and Fidel Castro, as well as the radical intellectuals Frantz Fanon, Régis Debray, Herbert Marcuse, Jean-Paul Sartre, Louis Althusser, and Georg Lukács. And no wonder, since Freire’s main idea is that the central contradiction of every society is between the “oppressors” and the “oppressed” and that revolution should resolve their conflict. The “oppressed” are, moreover, destined to develop a “pedagogy” that leads them to their own liberation.


2. Freire never intends “pedagogy” to refer to any method of classroom instruction based on analysis and research, or to any means of producing higher academic achievement for students. [H]e relies on Marx’s standard formulation that “the class struggle necessarily leads to the dictatorship of the proletariat [and] this dictatorship only constitutes the transition to the abolition of all classes and to a classless society.” In one footnote, however, Freire does mention a society that has actually realized the “permanent liberation” he seeks: it “appears to be the fundamental aspect of Mao’s Cultural Revolution.”

3. The pedagogical point of Freire’s thesis : its opposition to taxing students with any actual academic content, which Freire derides as “official knowledge” that serves to rationalize inequality within capitalist society. One of Freire’s most widely quoted metaphors dismisses teacher-directed instruction as a misguided “banking concept,” in which “the scope of action allowed to the students extends only as far as receiving, filing and storing the deposits.” Freire proposes instead that teachers partner with their coequals, the students, in a “dialogic” and “problem-solving” process until the roles of teacher and student merge into “teacher-students” and “student-teachers.”


Now, I ask you, BoringFriendlessGuy, is this what you would consider a valid education...you know, when you finally get to go to school?

Government school, of course.

My God PC, your self enhanced Marxist conspiracy is ripe with so much right wing fear and associated guilt, you would be a huge hit on the right wing fear radio and Fox barking circuit. What is really unfathomable is that you start the OP that teachers are not to blame, then you plow into a contorted brainwashing scheme that would require teachers to be a mindless bunch of 'Gumby' and 'Pokie' clay figures that are easily pliable. I imagine the best way to identify a 'teacher' in the general public is to see if they run for any heat source.

BTW, PC...if Chairman Mao is behind this, then the cause is not liberals.

What Mao Zedong said about liberalism

革命的集体组织中的自由主义是十分有害的。它是一种腐蚀剂，使团结涣散，关系松懈，工作消极，意见分歧。它使革命队伍失掉严密的组织和纪律，政策不能贯彻到底，党的组织和党所领导的群众发生隔离。这是一种严重的恶劣倾向。

"Liberalism is extremely harmful in a revolutionary collective. It is a corrosive which eats away unity, undermines cohesion, causes apathy and creates dissension.

It robs the revolutionary ranks of compact organization and strict discipline, prevents policies from being carried through and alienates the Party organizations from the masses which the Party leads. It is an extremely bad tendency".
Combat Liberalism

Did you say 'liberals'?

I prefer the term 'dupes.'

1. A dupe is one who is easily deceived or fooled. As far back as Washington’s Farewell Address, we find the warning against dupes: “Real patriots who may resist the intrigues of the favorite are liable to become suspected and odious, while its tools and dupes usurp the applause and confidence of the people, to surrender their interests.

2. Dupes, in this connection, are folks who have been used by the communists to believe that either the communists are just like them, and therefore deserve their protection, or have been led to believe that the communist party is no more menacing than any other American political party.

3. The progressive left, and the liberal left, while not themselves communists, share many of the same sympathies, such of redistribution of wealth, and worker’s rights, nationalizations of industry, etc, but are not quite as far left as the communists, and would not go to the same lengths as the communists to achieve their goals. This does not mean, though, that the help of these dupes is not necessary in order for the communists to achieve victory. Even at their peak, in the ‘30’s, the Communist Party of the United States never had more than 100 thousand members: so deception of the ‘dupes’ was critical.

a. The archives tell a tale of plans and schemes between the CPUSA and the Communist International in Moscow, to dupe progressives and liberals: “go to rallies,” “don’t let them know you are a communist!,” “If anyone reveals that you are a communist, claim it is red-baiting,” “yell ‘McCarthyism!”
From Dr. Paul Kangor, who wrote “DUPES: How America's Adversaries Have Manipulated Progressives for a Century”

Betcha' felt just like a mirror was held up in front of you as you read that, huh?

 

[PoliticalChic]

Simply put...Unions do propose a problem when their main focus is not the children. If teachers want to be considered as professionals they have to act, work and behave as such.

Unions protect the worst in their profession.

Unions collect dues from members to give to political parties not for the enhancement of educating teachers..acting more like the AFL-CIO.

Unions bargain for the salaries of teachers instead of their performance dictating their salary.

The summer months should be paid days for further education for strategies in education, studying and making reteaching units when students do not pass fundamental skills.

Faculties have to meet making strict passing requirements. Ordering teachers to grade their own papers instead of children grading their own papers! No grading "on the curve" to look better!

Teachers have to realize that standaradized testing is testing the fundamentals. If they teach and require students to master the fundamentals, they should do well on the test. Teacher proctors should give the test and the test should not be available to teachers before testing or afterwards.

I'm going to suggest that a clear distinction be made between teachers and teacher's unions.

Unions are simply a mechanism to better the situation of teachers. If they remain legal, don't blame them for what they do...and, in principle, the freedom of assembly allows for same.

Teachers...I don't mind what they do in their free time...they are, and should be, treated as adults.

Scenario: our children score as the top group globally, and you are truly impressed with the abilites and achievements of our (personal) children...
would we be having this debate about salary, benefits, unions?

I think not.
Relate children's scores on legitimate exams to who their teachers were. Publish this info. Let parents read same, and choose schools accordingly.

Vouchers and merit pay.

 

[chanel]

Vouchers are a quick fix for the thousands of children who risk being shot at each day. I have empathy for those families and agree that those children deserve better. But I do not believe it will do anything to improve those schools who are currently under seige. It will merely leave them with the unlucky ones and the throwaways from the charters. Vouchers create competition for the best students; not the best teachers.

And while merit pay seems like a great idea - rewarding the best and the brightest, I've yet to see an evaluation system that includes test scores, that will accomplish that. 3/4 of NJ teachers do not teach tested grades or areas. Now they will have to come up with tests for every grade level, every specialty area, and devise a computer system that will accurately tie a student's test score to the teacher. What will that cost? And how much time will the kids spend being tested? It's not practical. It hasn't been tried in a pilot program. And it will only reward the best and the brightest who are already teaching the best and the brightest in the best schools.

The evaluation system in our school is very good in my opinion. It rates the teachers on everything from the lesson itself, to parent contacts, to the organization of the room. But I teach the most handicapped kids in the building. I am certified in English, K12, and reading. If my salary is contingent upon the results of a kid reading at the 4th grade, on an 11th grade test, special ed. will no longer be for me. Nor any other person in their right mind.

 

[PoliticalChic]

Vouchers are a quick fix for the thousands of children who risk being shot at each day. I have empathy for those families and agree that those children deserve better. But I do not believe it will do anything to improve those schools who are currently under seige. It will merely leave them with the unlucky ones and the throwaways from the charters. Vouchers create competition for the best students; not the best teachers.

And while merit pay seems like a great idea - rewarding the best and the brightest, I've yet to see an evaluation system that includes test scores, that will accomplish that. 3/4 of NJ teachers do not teach tested grades or areas. Now they will have to come up with tests for every grade level, every specialty area, and devise a computer system that will accurately tie a student's test score to the teacher. What will that cost? And how much time will the kids spend being tested? It's not practical. It hasn't been tried in a pilot program. And it will only reward the best and the brightest who are already teaching the best and the brightest in the best schools.

The evaluation system in our school is very good in my opinion. It rates the teachers on everything from the lesson itself, to parent contacts, to the organization of the room. But I teach the most handicapped kids in the building. I am certified in English, K12, and reading. If my salary is contingent upon the results of a kid reading at the 4th grade, on an 11th grade test, special ed. will no longer be for me. Nor any other person in their right mind.

Chanel, I don't want to rate the teachers in the schools...in fact, I'd be perfectly fine with doing away with supervisors and in-class ratings...outside of disciplinary reasons.

No, I want to simply look at the results, i.e., testing and a program that compares the children's previous scores, and their current.

Just as you would rate your carpenter: results.

1. http://www.city-journal.org/2009/eon1214mw.html:

"Ever wonder how effective your child’s teacher is? Officials in Albany would rather you didn’t know. At least that’s the lesson one has to take from their refusal to allow data systems to match students to teachers,…

Standardized tests produce rich sources of information that researchers can use to identify effective policies and practices. The data revolution, moreover, promises to move education policy away from politics. Numbers don’t have agendas or run for reelection. Accurately collected and properly analyzed, data can reveal truths that escape our sight.

One such truth is the effectiveness of individual teachers. Data analysis is far from perfect, and no one argues that it should be used in isolation to make employment decisions. But modern techniques can help us distinguish between teachers whose students excel and teachers whose students languish or fail. There’s just one problem with the data revolution: it doesn’t work without data.

New York has deliberately refused to take that step. The state already has a sophisticated system for tracking student progress, but it doesn’t allow this statewide data set to match students to their teachers. No technical or administrative factors prevent the state from doing so. Only political obstacles stand in the way.

Once we can objectively distinguish between effective and ineffective teachers, the system of uncritically granted tenure, a single salary schedule based on experience and credentials, and school placements based on seniority become untenable. The unions don’t want information about their members’ effectiveness to be available, let alone put to practical use, and thus far they’ve successfully blocked New York State’s use of such data.

When New York City hinted that it would use its own data system to evaluate teachers based on student test scores, the state legislature passed a law banning the practice."

2. This, on the other side:

Recent statistical advances have made it possible to look at student achievement gains after adjusting for some
student and school characteristics. These approaches that measure growth using “value-added modeling” (VAM) are
fairer comparisons of teachers than judgments based on their students’ test scores at a single point in time or comparisons
of student cohorts that involve different students at two points in time. VAM methods have also contributed to stronger
analyses of school progress, program influences, and the validity of evaluation methods than were previously possible.
Nonetheless, there is broad agreement among statisticians, psychometricians, and economists that student test scores
alone are not sufficiently reliable and valid indicators of teacher effectiveness to be used in high-stakes personnel decisions,
even when the most sophisticated statistical applications such as value-added modeling are employed.
For a variety of reasons, analyses of VAM results have led researchers to doubt whether the methodology can accurately
identify more and less effective teachers. VAM estimates have proven to be unstable across statistical models, years, and
classes that teachers teach." http://epi.3cdn.net/724cd9a1eb91c40ff0_hwm6iij90.pdf


The answer is somewhere in the middle.

 

[psikeyhackr]

3. "MIT is a research university committed to world-class inquiry in math, science and technology - but you may be surprised to learn that we require more liberal arts courses than many liberal arts institutions."

That, from the M.I.T. admissions website.

I applied to MIT when I was about to graduate from high school. It was somewhat of a joke to me since I knew I could not afford it but because I had started reading SF in 4th grade I had constantly run across it mentioned in books I decided to try and get an interview. I had won a National Merit Scholarship. I got an interview. It lasted 20 minutes. But 3 minutes into the interview I knew I didn't have a chance. The man spent 20 minutes lecturing me about the kind of boys that got into the school. Sons of doctors. Sons of lawyers, etc. etc.

The laws of physics do not care about schools or cultures or history. They work the same way at every school. For $100 you can walk into a drugstore and buy a computer more powerful than the mainframe at the engineering school I did attend. Our schools and educational techniques are OBSOLETE. It is just a matter of how many people realize it how fast and how the ECONOMIC interests work to prevent change. They are part of the process of creating and maintaining a class structured society. But our so called educators can't think of something as obvious as making accounting mandatory for everyone. But that might mess with the economic class structure.

Good science fiction stories made science more interesting than most of the science and engineering instructors. If the best books are put into electronic form and loaded on the computers then who needs the 90% of crappy books. The Liberal Arts stuff is so easy it is a joke but paying just as much for it as math and engineering courses really pissed me off. Of course they won't let you take those courses at a cheaper school and transfer the credits.

The schools just are another economic scam. But what can they do about all of these cheap computers? They have to force people to buy CREDIT HOURS and CREDENTIALS.

CVS Craig Android OS 2.1 7" Tablet Deal $79 bucks with 20% off coupon

But then MIT isn't demanding or publishing the distributions of steel and concrete in the World Trade Center. Definitely glad I didn't go. The Laws of Physics don't care about ANYTHING!

The Cold Equations by Tom Godwin (SpaceWesterns.com) <-- LINK

psik