American Education

Kids are so damn smart it never ceases to amaze me. I love watching little kids break down a complex subject into one clean, succinct sentence where it would take an adult three paragraphs (and still be confusing).

Also (sorry, not trying to derail), my sons (10 & 5) & I play games in the car. The 10 year old wants to play “cool car” (get a point for every cool car you see). He would call one out and kept asking if that counted. I said “It’s in the eye-of-the-beholder, so yes.”

When my five year old called one out, his older brother argued that it didn’t count because it wasn’t cool enough. My five year old said, “No, daddy said if I think it’s cool, then it counts.” I was amazed he extracted the meaning of that phrase.

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Since you guys are talking about reading to your kids, and spending time with them when they’re little. This is a favorite quote of mine. Great advice.

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Thanks for a thoughtful reply.

I am still not sure 3 years is enough, but appreciate the perspective and it makes me think. I think part of the difference here may be the cultural differences between University environments and secondary school environments–there seem to be stark contrasts between a lot of the factors–continuity of staff/admin, etc. Perhaps trying to transfer understanding of the systems is inhibited due to these.

I didn’t have foreign language as an option until 9th grade. I think the biggest struggle with getting kids to take foreign languages is (apart from Spanish) there are very very few ways for your average American kid to USE that language outside the classroom.

EU definitely has a leg up on the rest of the world with sheer saturation of languages.

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Damn…right in the feelz.

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I think it would be a good idea, sadly, I don’t know that it’s a priority with the current budgetary constraints.

Probably more important than language, at least pre-highschool, in my opinion, would be learning about foreign culture with a slight emphasis on language rather than language being the main focus.

Aside from Spanish, you don’t need to know languages like you do in European countries. I think it would be far better to have children experience other cultures, then in high school, if one is extremely interesting, pursue the language.

Just my unvetted .02 ramblings

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My brother took German as a ninth grader in our Lutheran high school from a phenomenal teacher. He continued on in HS German, won a trip to Germany as a junior through the American Association of Teachers of German, took several college courses at Die Deustche Somerschule am Pazifik during the Summer after junior and senior year, and due to his other AP courses, started at Stanford as a sophomore. He went on to get a degree in German and a degree in Biology.

I’m pretty sure learning another language expanded his ability to learn. Don’t get me wrong, he was wicked smart to begin with, but I’m sure the rigor and routine of learning another language served him well.

My eighth grade daughter is in Spanish II, will take III as a freshman, and IV and V for college credit as a sophomore and junior. I’m thrilled with this.

The district in which I teach offers Spanish, French, ASL, and Mandarin.

It’s counter intuitive, especially if you have worked in private business. I’m not convinced I disagree with you with respect to the time to tenure, and in fact, New York has made it four years to tenure, with districts having the option of forcing a fifth year. I think portable tenure and providing an easier means of removing under performing teachers would help ameliorate this problem. As it sits now, I have heard that it costs, on average, $270,000 dollars to go through all of the steps to terminate a tenured teacher. It would be a lot easier to hold administrators accountable for granting tenure to teachers that don’t perform.

And, this may be a cop out, but how do you measure a teacher? It’s a bit circular, right?

I can guarantee you that I can go into any classroom and find something the best teacher in the world could improve on. It happens every time I get observed.

For example, in my last observation, the brand new AP suggested that I let the students read aloud rather than reading aloud myself. I pointed out to her that in a guided reading of secondary students, the point of guided reading is for the best reader in the class read aloud to model automaticity, phonemic awareness, and oral interpretation, and that research has indicated that means the teacher read while students follow a long.

She still included this suggestion in my final write up even though I pointed out the educational objective of my process.

SMH.

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It’s the removal process I am most interested/concerned about with tenure–I believe protection for teachers from budgetary schizophrenia is a great goal. Good point on holding administrators responsible, but the flip side to that is that when you make an administrator responsible you slow EVERYTHING down because they’re bureaucrats at heart. So 50/50

And yes measurement is a real problem for certain. One of the most thorny in the entire field.

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So, this is a conundrum.

When you get hired by someone, and teach the way they want you to teach, and then they leave, and you continue that method of teaching, and the new person wants to fire you without giving you the chance to learn the new way, you have a problem.

However, I’ll tell you this. I’ve always taught critical thinking, so Common Core wasn’t a big change for me. I’ve always worked up Bloom’s Taxonomy, trying to teach my kids to think for themselves.

And they fight me, every step - just want to know what the correct answer is rather than why it is correct.

Good teaching is good teaching. A teacher that cares for their kids, is engaged with their kids, and holds them accountable is a good teacher regardless of what’s going on in current teaching theory. My first year teaching, I was clueless. But, I shut the door, read to them, made sure they knew that I cared about them, and they moved three grades in reading.

Today, in my current school, it looks a little different. I’m pretty loose with my kids, but I make fun of them all the time, and, make fun of myself. The give and take, understanding the boundaries, and being creative in discussion, to me, is important.

Almost every year I have a kid that I bust on. That kid is popular, smart, and understands that I really like him or her. I’ve never had that kid’s parent call me about anything. It’s always that quiet kid that never says a word that complains.

Alright, totally off topic, sorry.

So, to go back to my point, let me ask you this. If you were in my class once in September, and I sucked, wouldn’t you know?

If you were the Principal, or an AP, wouldn’t you make it a point to get me a mentor, to have some management and assessment in place to make sure that I didn’t continue to suck.

Wouldn’t you be in my class every month?

Wouldn’t you then know by May whether I sucked or not?

So, as I see it, the issue with tenure is the granting of it.

I do realize some people get burned out and become shitty teachers over time, but wouldn’t it be easier to remediate that rather than trying to fire that teacher?

Just my thoughts, admittedly defensive.

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That sounds like coaching to success. Then once those steps are taken, if remediation isn’t possible- ya gotta do what ya gotta do.

That aside, your style of interaction sounds great. I had a few teachers like that and they are the most memorable.

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I appreciate that. I’m not a great teacher, but I’m okay, and the kids that get me, love me.

Thanks!

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I think taking the administrations power away by not allowing them to fire their employees is a difficult position for them to be in. I would never want to work in an environment where people weren’t accountable to their actions, where a administrator wouldn’t be able to do anything about the lazy/bad teacher.

I understand your thoughts related to changing admins and not having a revolving door with teachers, but the admin would be pretty terrible if his first action was to fire all the teachers currently working at the school. My experience is in the private sector, but when a new boss comes in if he/she is worth anything it isn’t hard to figure out who the good employees are.

I think there is a balance that could be achieved, but personally still think 3 years is WAY too little to give a lifetime loyalty to an employee. People change over time, and many times it makes it too difficult for the admin to do anything about teachers not performing. By no means does that mean I think teachers should be fired for no reason, just like in the private sector, there has to be justification and evaluation. I don’t see why tenure needed in that case (specific to grade schools). Do your job well (or at least don’t be terrible) and you can keep it.

I appreciate your response and perspective, giving me some to think about, specifically evaluating teachers (as you and Aragon acknowledge). It is not cut and dry.

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This topic came up in the Trump thread, but it belongs better here. The charter school movement and the Black community.

Fantastic short podcasts. Seriously, great. Black education reform and the teacher’s unions and the NAACP. Black communities are running some of the BEST schools in the country, but we’re not hearing about them.

On this edition of the Conversation at Dropout Nation, RiShawn Biddle chats with Capital Prep’s Dr. Steve Perry on the old-school civil rights group’s recent call to end the expansion of charter schools and school choice. By doing the bidding of the National Education Association and the American Federation of Teachers, which have poured $380,500 into NAACP over the past five years, it is no longer representing the interests of black families who demand high-quality education for the children they love.

I’ll tag you @Tyler23. I think it’s really a tragedy that DeVos is such a divisive figure. I REALLY wish Trump had chosen someone coming from this perspective. It would have been wonderful, and I think we would all be coming together to think about school reform for our poorest kids. It should be a bipartisan issue. It’s just a shame. We’ve taken a HUGE step backward.

Pleading ignorance

What is the draw to charters?

What prevents us from making similar changes to regular public schools?

There is no market for school choice where there are quality public schools, Chris. And there are some great public schools, and great public school teachers.

BUT some of these urban/ poor/ minority areas have been waiting around for public schools to get it together while their kids are stuck. Some of these charters are just thriving, Chris. Of course, there’s the motivated parents effect, but they also have innovative educators who are free to develop their own curriculum.

Listen to the first podcast if you get a chance. 16 minutes of wonderful. It puts a point on just how out of touch the NAACP and the unions are with some of these communities. They talk about some really wonderful and innovative black educators, one of the examples is sending all of their young men to four year colleges.

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I’m not well versed on the finite points of teaching/education (preface). Is there something stopping us from directly translating this to all public schools?

Also side question, what’s the paycheck difference like between charter and public in your experience?

You are waaaay out of my league on this topic, Puff, so I am not sure I have much to add. My only experience in education is having two boys in a very good public school district, but one that is growing way too fast for its own good. I only posted that article in the First 100 Days thread because it was in reference to one of Trump’s cabinet appointments.

My concern with DeVos is that she appears to have, by all accounts, a laser-like focus on everything but public schools; it seems to fit the starve-the-beast strategy. And being in a smaller district, I have real concerns about funding being siphoned off from my kids’ school. Of course, there are a whole host of other concerns as well (oversight/regulation, special needs students, etc.).

I am all for better schools, across the board, it whatever form, although I’d be lying if I said I wouldn’t rather just find a way to create a kick-ass public school system. I do, however, have plenty of complaints about our local schools too. But considering her very shaky start and the fact that she needed Pence’s vote to get across the finish line, I think DeVos was a really poor choice.

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Hi pfury. It’s hard to answer that question because there are so many types of school choice options. Lotteries, vouchers, charters, magnet schools… The majority of charters are operated by non-profits, but many are operated by public school districts. In CA, about 30% have collective bargaining. I’m not sure how much that differs by state. As a rule, private school teachers make LESS money, that’s true of our local parochial schools as well. Still, many teachers will choose the academic freedom, school culture of a private school.

A nice article about a family using vouchers for their special needs son. In my area, we have several private options for special needs kids, and parents can often take their per pupil spending there. They may have to shoulder much of the cost,since these schools are often expensive, unless they’re willing to go through mediation with the district. We have MANY special needs kids going to private schools, paid for with district funds, which is another topic.

Yeah. I agree, Tyler. It would have been just amazing if Trump had chosen someone who had been running some really successful charters for Black kids in the Bronx, right? Someone trusted by that community to really care about those kids.

DeVos really raised eyebrows with everybody in Special Education because she had no idea about the IDEA. Haha. See what I did there? Sigh. I’m someone who has be personally invested in special needs kids my whole adult life. I’m sad about the DeVos choice because I’ve been hopeful that we’d be coming together in a bipartisan way, and she seems to have driven a huge wedge in that for now. I don’t know if we can recover from that. Right now Dems are talking like to be pro-school choice is to “destroy education!!”

I’d love for people to listen to those podcasts and at least rethink the issue, even if they don’t care for DeVos.

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Will listen to podcast. Will add two things:

1.) The NAACP has been out of touch for a longtime sadly. They will take money from anyone in exchange for “control” over their population. Similar to Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson. I’m not really sure why this happens but I’d imagine when you get to a certain point in status and most of the people throwing around big $$$ are White it becomes hard not tell sell out your folks in exchange for influence.
Nick Cannon actually just stood up to NBC…for which I am proud of him, maybe it will become a trend.

2.) One example of a charter school thriving in East Harlem that was opened by P Diddy and is operated by someone who doesn’t care for teachers unions for the exact reasons you iterate. Diddy caught a lot of flack for this, but if you’re not pissing someone off, you’re not a threat…

https://www.google.com/amp/reason.com/blog/2016/08/30/p-diddys-charter-school-in-east-harlem-o/amp

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