Applying the 'Free Market' to Education

[Tom]

Re: Applying the 'Free Market' to Education

Lurker and Aaron, tie teacher pay directly to student achievement and you'll see some improvement. New York is coming around to holding teachers more responsible, as they should be, from what I've been reading. (Yes, Aaron, sometimes I think I may be a sucker. But then I remember shadowing a lawyer when I was considering that track. Ugh.)

[Chomsky]

Re: Applying the 'Free Market' to Education

"Those who can, do. Those who can't, teach. Those who can't teach, consult."
Ouch :eek:

Those who can, do. Those who can't, teach. Those who can't teach, teach gym.

-- Woody Allen

[Ghent12]

Re: Applying the 'Free Market' to Education

I am writing in response to GHENT12's comment about noble-minded teachers wasting their time in search of bringing about any change through their efforts. I teach jr. high social studies/lang arts to mostly immigrant or children of immigrants. ALL are low income, and many with terrible home lives.

So long as this country pays teachers the low salaries most states dole out, we will have the terrible school performance that we see all across the country. I am no dummy, although my professional title often leads people to assume so. I won't bore you with my background, but in the most modest terms let me say that my skills and education would have enough cachet, with hard work and the right training and mentoring, for me to be found as a peer to those readers of certain income brackets. With this perspective, I find myself appalled at the low quality of teachers I work with. Appalled. This is the direct result of the shit we get for pay.

I am very good at my job, and I get paid the same as people who are indifferent, totally ignorant, angry and/or just plain incompetent. That I still love my job is not a martyr complex, but simply that when you're good at something, you enjoy it. What I hate most about my job has nothing to do with the kids, unless the kids are upset and acting out because they just came from a class run by a teacher who bored/berated/insulted/intimidated/ignored them. The shittiest part of this job is the shitty teachers.

A true professional's salary will get more of you intelligent, competitive, motivated and intellectually curious iTulip readers to leave your high-paying, soul sucking jobs to work in tough places like my school, which will in turn make me work harder, thereby helping students be successful. Pay a salary close to even the low end of what other professions merely start at (accountants, lawyers, doctors), link those salaries to performance instead of experience and education, and you will see a change in the performance of schools across this country. You will also begin to see a better country. A school full of teachers with the curious intellect of Mr. Janszen and other whizzes of finance can, with the right training and mentoring, truly make a difference.

And no, teaching is not simply making worksheets, especially where I teach. I just got done teaching my 180 8th graders Locke's theory of the state of nature, social contract, etc. Try to nuance those concepts given the background of the student population and when half of them are officially ELL (English Language Learner). In classes of 35-40. 89% passed the assessment by the way. Spend 6 figures annually on one excellent teacher, or spend 6 figures annually jailing/supporting/feeding/hospitalizing a large portion of my 180 kids.

So back to Ghent12's comment - The naivete of teachers isn't that they think they can change the world, but that they will be taken seriously trying to.

I appreciate your input on this subject!

You raise a very good point, and one of the best things I can think of to do would be to demand performance and professionalism from teachers and compensate them accordingly. Unfortunately, this is a perpetually untenable position. You simply cannot demand enough aggregate performance from teachers at present, mostly due to the teacher's unions. Yet those unions always work towards raising salary, pension, and member count.

Just look towards the wake that Michelle Rhee is leaving in her path, and all the resistance she has met. I wouldn't say she is doing the best job, but certainly she is pointing her area of responsibility in the right direction. It would be impossible to do half of what she has done in most other cities because you couldn't find the political backing for it.

The simple fact is that children don't vote, yet their education is directly and heavily impacted by politics. Parents and teachers do vote, but with their own best interests in mind, not necessarily those of the children. This means that the interests of the children are almost never at the top of anyone's political agenda. It's all one big political bureaucratic circlejerk.

[Tom]

Re: Applying the 'Free Market' to Education

Ghent12
I agree with the union issue on the priority issue. No training for improving classroom management (I had to figure it out myself) from neither admin nor union, and often the laziest teachers are the most active union reps. The union is necessary for basic due process protections, but when it's drawing from a pool of ninconpoops to begin with, its priorities mimic theirs.

I'm also in a right to work state so the union, while it does have some power, is most definitely not an equal player to the districts and state. I like what Rhee is doing overall, and she'd have a whole lot more easier time with our weak unions. But that doesn't guarantee she'd get the high salary-based performance structure she's fighting for in D.C here. I'm most certain our penny pinching legislature, even in good times, would put up its own fight.

[c1ue]

Re: Applying the 'Free Market' to Education

The Peoples' Republic of China seems to be doing just fine economically accommodating language diversity and cultural diversity.

Steve, I am afraid this is a completely wrong statement. Just look at Xinjiang (Uighur) and Tibet (Tibetan) to see how accommodating China is regarding language and cultural diversity.

As for English - it is taught because it is seen as important for doing business with America. As my direct personal experience both in China and Japan shows (both nations where English is a large business and a high focus), the teaching of a language is not the same as fluency in it. Both nations also already have extremely high fluency levels in their standard language.

Where the language is a 2nd one, that is more understandable.

English being the first language in the US, I do have to say that it is important that everyone in school here learn to speak and read it, if for no other reason than to help avoid the ghettoization which language reinforces when cultural isolation already exists.

On the subject of teacher prestige - a funny story:

I mentioned this before, but in Japan teaching Japanese is an extremely low status occupation. As a result, 95%+ of the teachers of Japanese for gaijin (foreigners) much less sankokujin(foreigners from China, Korea, or the Phillipines) are women.

Japanese is an interesting language because it is extremely formal in dialect - there are distinctly different modes of speaking between superior/inferior, man/woman, parent/child, etc. as well as 'high' and 'low' versions of the 'common' dialect.

A simplistic example: the simple pronoun "I": Watashi, Watakushi, Ore, Boku. The former 2 are more formal versions, the latter are male oriented lower class versions. No doubt there are more.

As a result, most non-sankokujin foreigners who speak Japanese talk like women. And all Japanese who hear these men speaking are inwardly either wincing or grinning.

[don]

Re: Applying the 'Free Market' to Education

I went through the public school system and came out respecting teachers, as I was taught at home, and thinking they did a good job. When my kids went through school they seemed to be doing about the same.

Then I met teachers as a grownup.

I got roped into seeing a couple of teachers who needed work on their homes- I was an electrical contractor that did mostly medical work and light industrial. The male teachers made it clear they were a Time-Life book away from knowing anything my guys, or any other tradesmen, knew. Needless to say, we took our cue and left.

For a couple of years we did modular classroom power distribution for a local school district. I would not have thought that grade school teachers could have the air of superiority of a Dean of Men at Yale but I was wrong. Their disdain for skilled manual labor was never subtle. A couple of my guys thought it might be fun to wire a teacher's desk or two but I said no.

When my wife and I moved in these digs we met our neighbors and have enjoyed their company ever since. Across the street is a single gal who would turn her back on my wife and myself when we initially waved and said hello. Okay, that's cool. You want you privacy, so be it. After a couple of years she came to my door. She said that her gas dryer was being changed to a new electric one. Could I come over and take care of that for free? I told her I was long retired from that business. Her response was truly memorable: Going into a chanting whine she repeated: "But I'm a Teacher...But I'm A Teacher...But I'm a Teacher."

Well, that's a rant- thanks for the opportunity. I know, intellectually, there are lots of wonderful teachers out there, many of whom respect even non-teachers in the work force. For that I'm grateful.

[Starving Steve]

Re: Applying the 'Free Market' to Education

The education curriculum in America, at all levels, kinder-thru-college education, has to be based upon two principles: 1.) TO LEARN BY DOING; and 2.)TO LEARN FOR THE REAL WORLD JOB MARKET.

Teaching-to-tests, teaching to meet national standards, skill-drills, back-to-basics, English-only, nationalism, standardized answers: A,B,C, or D; timed-testing, SAT tests, total silence in the classroom, learning thru bookwork... all of it has to be changed. And the grip of the religious-right on public education has to be broken in America..... Otherwise, why fund public education?

[Ghent12]

Re: Applying the 'Free Market' to Education

The education curriculum in America, at all levels, kinder-thru-college education, has to be based upon two principles: 1.) TO LEARN BY DOING; and 2.)TO LEARN FOR THE REAL WORLD JOB MARKET.

Teaching-to-tests, teaching to meet national standards, skill-drills, back-to-basics, English-only, nationalism, standardized answers: A,B,C, or D; timed-testing, SAT tests, total silence in the classroom, learning thru bookwork... all of it has to be changed. And the grip of the religious-right on public education has to be broken in America..... Otherwise, why fund public education?

Your connection between dots is very tenuous, as is typical of what I've come to expect from your posts.

While I agree that there is a great deal of value in teaching from a more vocational standpoint, basic skills are basic skills. There is certainly value in standardized tests with standardized answers. Do you think that the derivative of a given function will be different twenty years from now? Will the fundamental rules of grammar change significantly in twenty years? Are the laws of elementary physics likely to be revolutionized by elementary schoolers?

Let me ask a more specific question:
Exactly what should children be learning by doing? Should there be a car garage or a wood shop or a farm attached to every school?

[Starving Steve]

Re: Applying the 'Free Market' to Education

I learned more about basic climatology by setting-up my own climate station at UC Berkeley in my spare time (at Smyth Hall in the Berkeley Hills) than by memorizing the laws of physics on temperature or by memorizing the output from various climate models.

How high off the ground do I measure temperature? Does the climate station need a roof, and if so, what kind of roof? Where do I put the rain guage? How close do I put the temperature station to buildings, and what if a tree covers the thermometre box? What about ventilation in the shelter? What do the measurements show? How do the measurements taken differ from the measurements compiled in San Francisco and in Berkeley? What about issues of cold air drainage off of the hills? What does mean monthly temperature really mean? What weather conditions would bring about what deviations from the mean temperature or mean rainfall? Was the climate changing? What is climate? What is the basic climate in the SF Bay Area? What is the geography of climate in the world? How do I graph the data to make it interesting and meaningful to the kids around me? Who do I compile the information for? What is the use of the information What natural vegetation is nearby the station? What adaptations have those plants made ( thru evolution ) for the climate? How do plants survive the summer drought? What is fog drip? Where does fog drip occur? What plants make rain thru fog drip, and how do they make rain? How much summer rainfall occurs? What weather brings rainfall in summer in the Berkeley Hills? Does it freeze in winter in Berkeley? Why freezing nearby but not at my temperature station? How far, geographically, can I extrapolate my measurements around the temperature station? Why is snow so rare around the climate station, yet so downright common at the summit of the Berkeley Hills? Does hail count as snowfall? How much rainfall qualifies as a trace in the weather records? What do I record each day for the weather record? What is the elevation of the station? What if I move the station; i.e, what changes? What are El Nino conditions and La Nina conditions? Then, what are the basic equations to know that have to do with the physics involved in temperature and climate measurements?

LEARN BY DOING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Throw the standardized timed-testers out of the public schools, and let kids learn by doing. Build upon the knowledge (sp?) a student has, and let the student ask the teacher how to do things. Let the student discover the questions and the issues, slowly in simple projects.

Why not begin physics classes with wiring-up a house or an automobile? Let the issues fall-out from there, one-by-one: what is voltage? What is a ground? What is potential? What is a relay? Where is the best ground in a car and why? What if two 110 voltages are wired together in a house? What are the safety issues in a house? What if lightening hits the house? What if lightening hits a car? How is energy wasted and where? What are conductors and non-conductors; what is a semi-conductor? How does an electric tooth-brush work? What metals conduct electricity best and why? Do people/living things conduct electricity? etc.

[Serge_Tomiko]

Re: Applying the 'Free Market' to Education

I agree. Teachers' salaries are a disgrace.

However, currently this nation seems hell bent on steering a path toward private affluence and public squalor so I'm not hopeful for an improvement.

That said, in Massachusetts there is not a clear correlation between per pupil spending and outcome: outcome seems much more closely tied to the home environment of the students. Do you think that simply raising teachers' pay would have a significant effect on raising performance of the kids who are unfortunate to not come from a supportive home environment.

This is true for day students.

We cannot implement a eugenics program to prevent unqualified parents from having children, but we can certainly have public boarding schools. There have been a few experiments, particularly with troubled black youth, and the results have been very promising.

Children need structure, but only the bare essentials to survive. Removing children from dysfunctional homes perhaps at around age 12 and moving them to a public boarding school would provide them with a much better life and would likely save a lot of money in terms of food stamps, etc.

By the way, I say this as someone who grew up in a rather dysfunctional household myself. I turned out reasonably well, but I'm sure I would have done much better in a boarding school environment.

[Jam]

Re: Applying the 'Free Market' to Education

Why not begin physics classes with wiring-up a house or an automobile?

I just imagined a bunch of sixth-graders trying to wire a house.

[Serge_Tomiko]

Re: Applying the 'Free Market' to Education

The Peoples' Republic of China seems to be doing just fine economically accommodating language diversity and cultural diversity.

I watch CCTV Ch.9 ( China Central TV Channel 9 in English ), and the impression that I get is that China encourages language diversity, the rule of law, and democracy. China welcomes the world, and China is moving onto the global stage and assuming a leadership role in the world.

Isn't it ironic how America now wants to isolate itself and erect tarrif barriers to trade, build walls along its borders, and erode the rule of law? .... American nationalism, "Buy American", and English-only mean the absolute death of America, not a better future for America.

Han imperialism is well known. Ethnic minorities in China are heavily suppressed and are slowly being eradicated through forced resettlement of Han into their native lands. Their languages are also oppressed.

You obviously know nothing of internal Chinese policies.

[Starving Steve]

Re: Applying the 'Free Market' to Education

I can forgive many sins of the Govn't of China after seeing how far China has come from the terrible days of the Cultural Revolution under Mao Tse Tung. China now is the hope of the world. China's population is prospering; the standard of living in China is approaching that of the West, and China has become a free country.

[cjppjc]

Re: Applying the 'Free Market' to Education

China's population is prospering; the standard of living in China is approaching that of the West, and China has become a free country.

A slight exaggeration Steve?

[Slimprofits]

Re: Applying the 'Free Market' to Education

Steve seriously....

http://cpj.org/reports/2008/12/cpjs-...nd-in-jail.php

China continued to be world's worst jailer of journalists, a dishonor it has held for 10 consecutive years.