Thursday, June 12, 2014

Here There Story UPDATED and BUMPED

[orig post 66.14 1pm]

This is the time for high school graduations.  This is what you get from the public government schools (that require 2x-3x the costs their neighboring private school charge) in Chicago.

America's future.

U/T: Second City Cop

UPDATED 6.7.14 10am:

A Cincinnati school district went on strike hours before the end of the last day of school.  Or, from the teacher's perspective, they started their 3-month summer vacation a few hours early.

Note the union leader who can't spit out fast enough: 'The children come first.'  Obviously they are aware that most people see unions, and especially teacher unions, as criminal organizations with two priorities: 1) Grab as much money for the union, then, if any crumbs remain, 2) give the crumbs to the teachers while telling the teachers how hard they worked on their behalf.  Notice, there is no mention of children in these priorities.

These people disgust me.  At every chance I have, I will support and vote for voucher solutions to put the children back at the top of the priority list.

Until then, I'm going to take a power nap.

UPDATED 6.11.14 11am:

Doug Ross points to this Ace report of a lower-level judge in California blocking tenure as a reason to retain bad teachers.  With my edits for readabilityness (I went to public school too!):

This decision puts three critical blocs of the Leftist Coalition in direct and unavoidable conflict:

A) Wealthy and Middle Class Suburban and Urban Liberals (who want to keep their own schools good),
B) Poor Minorities, and
C) the Teachers Unions.

Only two of these three can "win" here.

For years the two winners have been the Wealthier White Liberals and the Teachers Unions. Wealthier White Liberals supported the Teachers Unions incompetents, and pretended not to notice that all those incompetents were being assigned to minority schools.

Now a judge says that Poor Minorities cannot be the loser -- which means one of the other two must be the loser. Either:

A) Wealthy White Liberals take their fair share of these incompetent teachers, or
B) the Teachers Unions will have to lose them as teachers.

Back to our power nap.

UPDATED and BUMPED 6.12.14 7pm:

An excellent article at ZH by Tim Knight on the California court order against tenure: Tenacious D.  I agree with everything he says, including:

Back to the topic of school, however, I spent all twelve years of my pre-college education in public schools. For elementary schools, exactly three of the teachers were excellent, and three sucked beyond belief. To this day, I question how much better a thinker I would be if all six of those years were good ones. Subsequent years were also hit-and-miss (and let me be clear, all twelve of these years were in good, solid, middle-class schools; not the utterly crappy schools that so many millions have to attend).
My view differs somewhat from that of the AFL and NEA. I think that at any point, for any reason, a teacher (or any employee, for that matter) should be able to be dismissed without cause. Period. There's a relationship between employer and employee. The employee is there at the will of the employer. If the employer doesn't like the employees work............or voice.........or hair color........or anything else about them - bang - there's the door.
You guessed it.  Back to our power nap.

Oh ya...

Some of the comments are focusing on race. Specifically the IQ of blacks vs whites.

First, I'm white, so my opinion holds no water on this subject.  Ask anyone - I'm not qualified to discuss race.  Second, I spend ZERO time on race - thinking about it, writing about it, caring about it.

Having said that, I reject minority IQ as having anything to do with the state of public education.  Yes, supposedly there is a difference, but if this is true, the gap is small.  And remember, public education is designed with the lowest common denominator in mind.  Just look at the teachers (not incl. those rare exceptional ones).

I'd argue that environment plays the key role.  Children with absent fathers is problem #1.  Parent(s) who take ZERO interest in their children's education and never help their children set goals and work through problems is a close second.  Just the idea of a basic, loving and safe home is missing in these communities.  These are problems in the black community that are outside the role of public education, yet problems that severely impact the schools in those communities.

How to fix this?  I don't know.

What won't fix this?  Adjustments to the existing system.

How can we begin to fix this?  Vouchers.


Anonymous said...

The teachers aren't really to blame though they do share some culpability. The real problem is that administrators are paid out of proportion to teachers and the number of administrators is increasing all out of proportion to teachers. At my local school district (in a very poor rural area mind you) the district superintendent makes nearly $200,000 per year. The average salary for the teachers is $30,000. My school district is pretty representative of most, I think. There is something very, very wrong with that.

Karl said...

If it wasn't clear, my criticism was aimed at the unions. However, when pawns let themselves be paraded on behalf of the union, they too deserve criticism. Are there teachers who refuse to march? If so, why don't we hear their stories?

For too long they've argued at the fringe while retaining their hold over teachers, parents and children. I say break it, not fix it. Replace with vouchers now, or explain to me how many more generations must fall behind and why.

Anonymous said...

In Prince William Virginia they are building a $100 million high school. I know SAT scores won't improve and can imagine about a zillion better ways to spend the money. But our political critters know they can legally rob the workers via increased property taxes at their whim.

Combine this with the union thugs and teachers and you have a brew made up by the devil himself.

PJ said...

If you are supporting tax-funded (as opposed to privately-funded) vouchers, you are part of the problem. Tax-funded vouchers are just another government program, and those who use them are welfare queens, sucking at the government teat. They also destroy any independence in the private schools.

See this:

Karl said...

Yes, I support tax-payer funded vouchers. Take the same amount of $$ from property taxes, but funnel it back through the parents.

This would introduce a revolution in education. It would result in:
A) Better relationship between parent (customer) and teacher (business),
B) Accountable education with measurable results,
C) Better pay for good teachers plus job-mobility to go to the higher-paying schools, and
D) Perhaps, an eventual decrease in property taxes.

I do not support national $$ for education.

PJ: this may not be the "right" way, according to you or others. But, how about we try it and see? We've done it their way for a few decades now. Wouldn't it be fair to give the voucher-enthusiasts a chance?

Anonymous said...

"Teachers aren't really to blame ..."


After I graduated with an actual degree in a discipline other than "Education", I enrolled for a fifth year in order to obtain a "teaching certificate" thinking that one day I might be interested in "teaching." After one semester of that infantile insanity I didn't walk away, I ran away as fast as I could.

A more incompetent lot of people I had never associated with in my life, having run into more far more intelligent life in smokey bars reeking of decades worth or spilled beer soaked into the flooring, replete with a string of Harley-Davidson's out front. Aside from 85% of these budding "educators" being females, 85% of them were "education majors", meaning that they were not in college to master any particular intellectual discipline, but were somehow going to be magically competent to "teach" what they did not know. This was and is insanity in action.

Strike one.

Let's examine a couple of "fully embraced" ideas these people were endorsing at the time, now completely integrated into "public education." The first was "mainstreaming" into the regular classroom student who we used to refer to as "retarded", this idiotic, then novel concept enthusiastically welcomed by the same brilliant minds of student and faculty alike who at the same time complained that there were already "too many children in each classroom for the teacher to give them proper attention." I see. Let's toss in three or four more kids who are essentially bipedal rutabaga's into supposedly over-populated classrooms and "It's gonna be great!"

Strike two.

The next stunningly elegant argument coming down the "education" flume was this: "Should we cease to give "F's" to John and Mary when they do poorly because it might hurt their self-esteem?"

Thought I, "Um. Ugh. Gee. Those kids, well, they FAILED! Give them a damn grade reflective of their performance, you moronic dolts!Maybe the lazy little sumb asses will work a little harder next time! Maybe an "F" might get their parent attention as well!"

If that classroom had been a democracy I would ave been outvoted 29-1 on that and the previous pitches, 30-1 if the "professorette" had a vote on the matter as well.

Strike three.

Cuckoos nest. Get the hell out before the lobotomy happens.

From an academic perspective, the vast majority of "educators" and "administrators" in the public schools were and are the lowest of the low. They know "methodology" but are not intellectual masters of the subject matter. "We care" doesn't cut it when failure is a guaranteed proposition and that is the guarantee public schools offer to the public.

This time the village does need to be destroyed in order to save it.

Anonymous said...

Not too surprising, especially if you normally do not speak standard American English and do not understand the proper use of words such as Our, Are, Hour.

I do not agree with the commentary on teacher's pay as you cannot pay somebody enough to daily go to a school like this and try to teach uninterested students. The average CPS salary quoted is including pay for the number of years employed. The situation in the Chicago Schools is so bad that they cannot recruit enough teachers each year to fill all classrooms - generally short about 1000 teachers at the start of the school year and even more later when many new teachers get scared off and quit. Unsafe and mentally frustrating for the teacher. The student has to want to learn.

And it is not only CPS but the public schools in many cities and town's poorer areas also. Also keep in mind the public schools have to take in everyone - smart, dumb, uncaring about learning, mentally and emotionally disturbed - the list goes on and on. Private schools regularly reject troublesome or potentially troublesome students.

Mr. Verity said...

So no one is willing to talk about the Elephant in the room....Race.

Detroit is 50% illiterate and not because of government schools or liberalism. The average I.Q. of the black population is below the reading comprehension level need to be a citizen in the Advanced society Whites create. Same as Rhodesia, South Africa, Haiti, Atlanta, NOLA, Camden, NJ., Birmingham and Baltimore (or did you guys miss the cheating scandals there?).

Dumbed down schools are not a function of lazy White students, but of the Chrystal Methodist church of Egalitarianism we all must bow to so as to not be described as "racists". Criminal and untrainable blacks who beat, rape and assault teachers, classmates and each other. Metal detectors, searches and (in Chicago) schools with their own police departments show that the black population is completely out of control.

But let's not talk about it and maybe it will not be noticed.

john h said...

well, that certainly shut everyone up now didn't it??

Anonymous said...

Hell, I'll talk about it!

Damned right "race" is a problem! In spite of the trillions wasted on Blacks and other invaders, Negro I.Q. remains the same as it was fifty years ago - 85. That is a full one and a half standard deviation from the "norm." Add semi-moronic "educators", lefty legislators and even the deluded, so-called "conservatives", who, in spite of their rhetoric continue to see public schools replete with federal funding as the solution and you've got a cocktail mixed to kill.

Failure isn't an option here, it's a damned guarantee!