Posted on 10/15/2009 6:45:07 AM PDT by cartervt2k
The Democratic Party has battled for universal health care this year, and over the decades it has admirably led the fight against poverty — except in the one way that would have the greatest impact.
Good schools constitute a far more potent weapon against poverty than welfare, food stamps or housing subsidies. Yet, cowed by teachers’ unions, Democrats have too often resisted reform and stood by as generations of disadvantaged children have been cemented into an underclass by third-rate schools.
President Obama and his education secretary, Arne Duncan, are trying to change that — and one test for the Democrats will be whether they embrace administration reforms that teachers’ unions are already sniping at.
It’s difficult to improve failing schools when you can’t create alternatives such as charter schools and can’t remove inept or abusive teachers. In New York City, for example, unions ordinarily prevent teachers from being dismissed for incompetence — so the schools must pay failed teachers their full salaries to sit year after year doing nothing in centers called “rubber rooms.”
A devastating article in The New Yorker by Steven Brill examined how New York City tried to dismiss a fifth-grade teacher for failing to correct student work, follow the curriculum, manage the class or even fill out report cards. The teacher claimed that she was being punished for union activity, but an independent observer approved by the union confirmed the allegations and declared the teacher incompetent. The school system’s lawyer put it best: “These children were abused in stealth.”
The effort to remove the teacher is expected to cost about $400,000, and the outcome is uncertain. In New York City, with its 80,000 teachers, arbiters have removed only two for incompetence alone in the last couple of years
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Heh. People forget what most government schools are in the business of these days... and it is not education.
I stopped when he stated that the dems were cowed by the teacher unions. The truth is the teacher unions are operating in agreement w/ the dems...an illiterate population is easy to RULE.
Two things are required for the schools to improve.
1) Fathers must raise their children.
2) Parents must pay directly for their children’s education.
If he thinks single payer education is bad, wait until he gets single payer health care. It’s just takes work to educate your children yourself, performing heart bypass surgery on yourself - not so easy.
I agree.
That pretty much sums up the Democratic playbook - keep the masses uneducated and indoctrinated with pro-dem propaganda bile. Siphon tax payers money back into the unions, which provide their employees immunity from incompetence or any wrongdoing (”mmm, mmmm, mmmm”) in the workplace. Rinse, Repeat.
And if the parents challenge the administration, the administration attacks the parents, either through direct personal attacks, or by “subtle” Delphi techniques.
If there is to be government funding of education, it should be via the money following the child, whether the child goes to a private or public school. Otherwise known as vouchers. Believe it or not, the Netherlands actually does that nationwide, and was described on one of John Stossel’s segments. The biggest supporters of vouchers are intact inner city black families, however, you will not hear that from the liberal media.
It would be fascinating to conduct an experiment where the students from a wealthy, suburban school swap schools with a failing, violence plagued, inner city school, for a school year. The teachers and administrators would stay at their own schools. (Is there a reality show here, “School Swap”?)
I'd be willing to be that the behavior and test scores of the inner city kids would not improve that much and the behavior and test scores of the suburban kids would not decline much.
The main problem, IMO, is not the school buildings, teachers, books, computers, etc., but the students and their parents, and the clueless and corrupt local officials and school board members they elect. Unless parents prioritize their children's’ education and encourage and push them to work hard and do well, the best teachers and facilities will not make much difference.
An illiterate and dependant population is easy to rule.
I dont disagree with his criticisms, but the fact remains that good outcomes require motivated students. It’s naive to assume that all of the problem rests with the “system.”
AND LOST! The war on poverty is a quagmire. RETREAT!!
The idea that government education can be reformed is delusional.
I agree 100%. Apathy begets ignorance. Ignorance begets poverty and violence. That’s where the dems and their nanny state ethos come in to play. Too uneducated to find a job? Here’s a check. Here’s your healthcare. Like giving crack to an addict to feel “normal” for a little while, it only perpetuates the problem.
For example, it is totally possible to teach high school chemistry without an academic major in chemistry or even taking more than a few science classes. I personally know a student who wanted to teach high school chemistry and though she had a full academic major in chemistry and had done summer research under NSF grants, she was unable to get teaching credentials without taking some mickey mouse earth science classes. Yet if she had taken no more than these science classes she could have easily been credentialed to teach high school chemistry.
Good point! Id just leave out the illiterate part...dependents are most easily ruled. Certainly our schools breed both and I think being dependent minded is the worse.
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