Republicans' deep hatred for teachers can't be denied and they're not trying
from Steven Thrasher
If you've been listening to the Republican candidates you've probably heard some nasty things about teachers. Thrasher tells us why.
Teachers’ unions are made up of groups Republicans always love to bash: government workers with lady parts.Just to be fair, the author also wrote about Democrats...
Republicans have always hated teachers’ unions for obvious reasons. They reliably support the Democratic party, even though Democrats routinely go to war against teachers as well, particularly alumni from the Obama administration.
...AND DEMOCRATS ARE NOT MUCH BETTER
Teacher evaluations at the schools that Obama, Duncan picked for their kids
from Valerie Strauss
Democrats are just quieter about it. All states have to comply with Arne Duncan's proclamations about VAM...they could lose their federal funds or get stuck having to deal with No Child Left Behind. If using test scores to evaluate teachers was such a good idea you'd think that the Secretary of Education, and his boss, would send their precious children to a school run by "reformers."
Think again...
These comments were delivered when Duncan sent his children to Arlington public schools. They are now going to attend the University of Chicago Lab School...which is full of unionized teachers and devoid of "reformer" education. When they lived in Chicago, the Obamas sent their daughters to the Lab School. They now attend Sidwell Friends.
“What did the president and the secretary seek and obtain for their own kids, where the important issue of teacher evaluation was concerned? The answers recently arrived in two e-mails:
“Arlington school district teacher, March 31, 2011: ‘We do not tie teacher evaluations to scores in the Arlington public school system.’
“Sidwell Friends faculty member, April 1, 2011:
“ ‘We don’t tie teacher pay to test scores because we don’t believe them to be a reliable indicator of teacher effectiveness.’ ”
IT'S THE "OTHER" SCHOOLS THAT ARE "FAILING"
Groundhog Day: Parents Again Rate Local Schools Higher than Schools of the Nation
from Stephen Krashen
Year after year parents rate their own children's schools high...but it's "those other public schools" that are bad.
Seventy percent of parents said they would give the public schools their oldest child attended a grade or A or B, but only 19% would give public schools in the nation an A or B.
An obvious explanation: Parents have direct information about the school their children attend, but their opinion of American education comes from the media. For decades, the media has been presenting a biased view.
WHERE DOES THE BUCK STOP?
from a teacher friend
Contrary to "reformer's" beliefs, teachers don't like to make excuses. The charge of "making excuses" gives "reformers an "out." When teachers cry "poverty" "reformers" and their legislator friends can claim "excuses" instead of actually dealing with a very real problem. As the late Gerald Bracey said,
Poverty is not an excuse. It's a condition. It's like gravity. Gravity affects everything you do on the planet. So does poverty.The school administration blames the central office...who blames the state DOE...who blames the legislature...who are only doing what their donors demand.
Teachers must speak out!
Part of the problem is that teachers are caught in the proverbial “Rock and a Hard Place’ scenario. We can’t really turn to the public because in many cases they really don’t want to hear about it, and the state and administration simply blame someone else for the current state of affairs.
One of the things I remind my coworkers who aren’t outspoken...that if we remain entirely submissive and say yes, yes, yes to everything without defending students and teachers, we are just signing up for more of the same treatment.
TEACHER SHORTAGE
Blackmon: In Georgia, 'reform' aims to destroy public schools
from Myra Blackmon
Here is a pretty good summary of what "education reform" is all about...
This is how the self-selected “education reformers” operate. Their motive is profit and personal advancement. They love the idea of schools run by private organizations, staffed with uncertified teachers, cherry-picking the easy students and leaving the most vulnerable students behind. Unproven, invalid standardized tests drive every decision.
It is disgusting. It is immoral. It is repugnant to every American ideal of community, mutual support and benefit and democratic rule. It defies the values of local control in favor of centralized, easily managed power — all the while claiming “it’s for the children.”
It’s high time we kicked them all out and made them earn an honest living — as far from our schools as we can get them.
Education Roars Back
from Bob Grundfest
If you keep telling the nation that teachers are to blame for everything bad in our society...and you continue to cut salaries and benefits...and you close schools, cut staff, and, in general, trash public schools in favor of private charters and private parochial schools...and if you publicize all of this so high school and college students see how poorly teachers, and public schools are treated...
...why would a young adult, right out of high school, choose to make education his or her career...and why would anyone think that young adults would want to go into teaching?
Given the years of blame and economic hardship that teachers have had to endure, it's no wonder that there's a shortage. And given the attitude that many national and state leaders have about teachers, it's no wonder that qualified students are looking at other fields of endeavor. The truth is that we pay a great deal of lip service to wanting a highly qualified, well-trained teaching staff at every school, but the best and brightest are not stupid; they see what's going on in education and are increasingly turned off to it. And since we don't have the best and brightest going into government, the solutions will be doubly difficult to come by.
MONEY FOR EDUCATION OUGHT TO GO TO EDUCATION
It's common for legislators to complain that so much money is spent on education, but an important question is how it is spent. We use billions of tax dollars nationally to support testing and test prep and that's money that should be going to instruction, materials, and student support.
...and what about all the money diverted from public schools to for-profit charters and voucher accepting parochial schools?
@TCBGP
TEACHERS ARE MORE THAN JUST TEST-JOCKEYS
'Teachers want to change the world'
from John Kuhn
Relationships are greater than pedagogy. If you deliver flawless instruction but haven't nurtured relationships with your students — even the challenging ones — then you might as well teach to an empty room.
DREAMS OF THE FUTURE
Neil DeGrasse Tyson quoted a young man in his book, Space Chronicles
There are lots of things I have to do to be an astronaut. But first I have to go to kindergarten -- Cyrus Corey, age four.
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Support Teachers of Conscience
The narrow pursuit of test results has sidelined education issues of enduring importance such as poverty, equity in school funding, school segregation, health and physical education, science, the arts, access to early childhood education, class size, and curriculum development. We have witnessed the erosion of teachers’ professional autonomy, a narrowing of curriculum, and classrooms saturated with “test score-raising” instructional practices that betray our understandings of child development and our commitment to educating for artistry and critical thinking. And so now we are faced with “a crisis of pedagogy”–teaching in a system that no longer resembles the democratic ideals or tolerates the critical thinking and critical decision-making that we hope to impart on the students we teach.
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Stop the Testing Insanity!
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Vermont State Board of Education: Statement and Resolution on Assessment and Accountability, Adopted August 19, 2014
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