Why a Public School Teacher Likes Vouchers

Posted by Ol' Pancake

I ran across this article a couple of years ago and just now found it again. It's an interesting argument for vouchers and more flexibility in our public school systems. This fifth-grade teacher asks:

"Are happy, productive, educated, rational children a source of joy for you? They are for me; that is why I became a schoolteacher. But, my experience in the public schools has awakened in me a profound frustration — and deep sorrow — at how the needs of children are, in policy and on principle, last on the agenda of many politicized school boards and distant state educational bureaucracies."

This teacher-author chose to remain anonymous, for reasons that any teacher coming to TTN can probably appreciate. But what especially struck me was his vision of how

"...for every family that would place their child into a voucher school a
seat would open up in the suffocating, packed public schools. Fewer children in my classroom would mean that I would have more time to spend with each student."

Those of us in the Clark County School District can certainly appreciate that possibility....

The Friedman Foundation published this article in their magazine, School Choice Advocate.

Royalties or Kickbacks?

Posted by Ol' Pancake

"The National Education Association, now with 2.8 million members, collected nearly $49.6 million in royalties in 2004 on the sale of annuities, life insurance and other financial instruments it endorsed, according to disclosure data NEA filed with the Department of Labor. It’s now a familiar pattern: Teachers unions refer their members to union-approved products, and in return they get a cut of the revenues."

Article on National Legal and Policy Center website

Why School Boards Nearly Always Suck

Posted by Ol' Pancake

Ryan Boots, over at Edspresso.com, posted a remarkable article a couple of weeks ago. Going into the history of how school boards came to be, it documents how they were designed from the beginning to override the educational values of the parents and communities that they supposedly were to represent.

"... it really is quite inappropriate to talk about the local school board as a mechanism for local, democratic governance of schools. Their creators intended nothing of the kind, and their very makeup frustrates attempts to make schools more responsive to their communities. Worst of all, school boards by their very nature frustrate the creators' original vision of non-political control of schools."

The whole article, and a follow-up posted later, are well worth every would-be education reformer's attention.

Forever Young

Posted by Ol' Pancake

How do the best educators stay fresh after decades in the trenches? A few award-winning teachers share their secrets.

By Steven Drummond
Teachermagazine.org

"Will you be our teacher?"

It was an odd question for me to hear. I was a student teacher in 1992, and I’d only just walked into this classroom as part of my daylong observation of high school educators. But after watching the grizzled American history teacher for an hour, I saw why the girl had asked me.

He’d been on the job for about 35 years, and, as he told me later, he’d passed up a buyout offer because he was at the top of the union scale, and didn’t want to give up his paycheck. The man was apparently having a rough year, though—they’d finally replaced the old textbook he’d been relying on for years.

the rest of the article

Influence: Factors Shaping Education Policy

Posted by Flatnose

Bill Gates, Congress, and NAEP Top Study of Influence

From Education Week:

The Editorial Projects in Education Research Center’s new study, Influence: A Study of the Factors Shaping Education Policy, has identified Bill Gates as the most influential person in education policy over the past decade. The study, based on a two-stage survey of education experts from across the country, also identified the United States Congress as the most influential organization in education policy. The National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) was found to be both the most influential research study, and information source of the past decade. Read the full report to find out who else made the list of “Influentials.”

Influence: A Study of the Factors Shaping Education Policy

Doubletalk

Posted by Flatnose

School leaders, at the district level and the school level, talk about increasing standards and improving learning, but do many things and create numerous programs that undermine any efforts to truly achieve these things.

By Yippee
One of the biggest problems in our public schools today, based upon my 23 years of employment experiences in three public high schools in two public school districts, is what I will refer to as "doubletalk".

School leaders, at the district level and the school level, talk about increasing standards and improving learning but do many things and create numerous programs that undermine any efforts to truly achieve these things.

Perhaps what is called for is impossible to achieve. For instance, can we really increase standards and reduce or eliminate dropouts at the same time? Perhaps this is all what we might call "politics". Administrators need to appear to be doing, or at least trying to do, what the public wants. However, simple or rapid solutions to the underlying problems don't exist. Having said that, and made that conciliatory admission, I must also say that this is no excuse for outright lying and deception.

Here is an actual example of what I am talking about. I taught a one-year course required for graduation to high school seniors; students knew it was a requirement for graduation. My course was easy to pass if students simply (1) came to class and paid attention and asked questions when that was appropriate and took minimal notes, (2) did assignments in a conscientious way so that some learning could occur from doing them, and (3) reviewed what was covered that would be on tests and quizzes. I wrote this simple "Formula For Success" on a classroom chalkboard. I also always outlined the topic of the pending test on the classroom chalkboards and literally included, in the outline, the basic information that would be correct answers on the test or quiz.

Still, some students would fail the course. The many reasons for such failures might be the subject of another writing.

The school district I recently retired from has an "Innovative Education" program. Here is what happens. The last one, two or three weeks of the semester, students who were failing my class would be transferred to an "Innovative Education" program where they would somehow earn the credit for my class in as little as one 'session' by doing a few worksheets and/or taking a test. They would graduate 'on time' along with the other students who actually earned the credit in my semester-long class.

I tried, personally, to require students to learn the subject I taught. I explained and re-explained, to students, that I would require a minimum amount of achievement (indicated by completed assignments and scores on tests and quizzes) for a passing grade. I was made to look the fool when the authorities of the school gave the students who would not follow my simple "formula for success" and, therefore, did not fulfill my minimum requirements, a "back door" to the credit and diploma. As this continued to occur, year after year, students became aware of it and could literally smirk at my requirements, knowing the school and the district would literally 'pull the rug out from under me' and my rules and requirements.

One of the things I do not miss about teaching was the feeling that my own district, school and administrators undercut my personal efforts to truly increase standards and require learning.

School district fraud on the Nevada public

Posted by Flatnose

One of the big reasons some of us got together & started TeacherTalk Nevada was because of all the double talk that saturates Nevada's school system. It always grates, but, worse than that, it's more often than we like to think an actual cover for outright fraud. Personally, I think school district bigwigs in those cases really ought to go to jail.

Yippee -- one of our founding gang members -- recently sent in a perfect example of one such ongoing major fraud on the Nevada public. It's a first-person account that starts out with his general reflections, but then gets into what really, when you stop to think about it, is a heartbreaking situation -- for both teachers and kids:

DOUBLETALK

By Yippee

One of the biggest problems in our public schools today, based upon my 23 years of employment experiences in three public high schools in two public school districts, is what I will refer to as 'doubletalk'.

School leaders, at the district level and the school level, talk about increasing standards and improving learning but do many things and create numerous programs that undermine any efforts to truly achieve these things.
read the rest of Doubletalk