OT: Teacher Tenure Ruled Unconstitutional in CA

[CA renter]

[quote=no_such_reality]LOL, I’ll pull this quote from the prior thread on this topic.

…

Basically your comment exemplifies why this ruling is needed.

You see, no one is actually in charge. The administration is, but only as long as the union and teahers agree.

That’s dysfunctional. Sure, some insane heavy handed administrators will make a mess in places, but just like most teachers are good, most administrators are good.

The problem is the dysfunctional relationship between the two and with union protections insures there is no accountability.

Meanwhile, LAUSD is moving a couple hundred ‘teachers’ to their own homes because having them show up to ‘teaching jail’ is too costly.

Res ipsa loquitur, it’s is broken.

And yes, I will say thank you for the years of service you have done in the schools. But honestly CAR, you come across as extremely burned out by your years of teaching.[/quote]

You’d be surprised at how little experience many administrators have. Many of them fast-track through the classroom, some working as little as 1-3 years in the classroom, because their goal all along was to get into administrative positions. Perhaps you think that these administrators should be telling teachers what to do, but most teachers would disagree with you. Not only that, but administrators tend to move around more than teachers do, and the goals and methods that each administrator brings to the school site can be confusing and contradictory. The older, tenured teachers have seen it all before, so they tend to be a bit jaded and dismissive of the new administrators and their brilliant and new ideas (most of which are neither brilliant nor new). That’s not a bad thing, it’s an asset to the school and the students. Trust me, if teachers think that something will work better than what they’re currently doing, they will jump on it; but they will not bow and scrape before the new administrators just because these admins want to pad their resumes and make a name for themselves as they attempt to climb up the political ladder.

Most teachers have 6+ years of college, and the tenured ones (especially the vocal ones) have years of experience on top of that. They don’t want people who have no or less experience or knowledge about the job to dictate what they’re supposed to do on a daily basis. Sounds pretty reasonable to me.

No, I wasn’t burned out by teaching. I got out because we wanted a SAHP with our kids. But I’ve seen too many teachers deal with all kinds of scary situations with crazy, power-hungry politicians, parents, and administrators…and I wanted none of that. I went from the corporate world to teaching because it was my life-long passion, but after seeing what I saw, I would go back to the corporate world before going back into teaching. It’s sad, but teachers get neither the credit nor the respect that they deserve because the vast majority of people out there really don’t have a clue about what teachers do for a living.

[CA renter]

[quote=svelte]How can this not be a good thing?

I see no reason teacher’s jobs should be more protected than anyone else. If you do a poor job, you should be out of there.

And as far as parents forcing an unfair firing – I’m sure it has happened, but I doubt it has happened often. During my entire education and my kid’s education, I can’t think of a single parent uprising for or against a teacher.

And normal employment law will protect teachers in those cases – just like normal employment law protects other professions.

My wife and I, we hope this ruling sticks.[/quote]

Didn’t you say that both you and your wife worked (full time?) when your kids were in school? If so, then it’s highly unlikely you would have known about the actions of these types of parents. It’s almost always the domain of the bored, neurotic SAHM who has nothing better to do than try to control every aspect of her child’s life. These women usually try to get the support of a handful of other SAHMs who tend to join her because they want to be accepted by the “queen bee” of the school. These are the women who used to live for major drama in their personal lives when they were in school themselves, and they’ve failed to mature mentally, emotionally, and socially beyond adolescence.

I’ve seen it multiple times when I was a student and also when I was a teacher. Almost every school has at least one of these women (very rarely men), and they can be a HUGE pain for the teachers and administrators who have to waste precious time and resources coddling and mollifying these high-maintenance women because they have to worry about lawsuits and publicity problems.

[livinincali]

[quote=bearishgurl]
Let me ask you something, livinincali. Are you, by chance, an “engineer” yourself? What if your employer told you that you would have job protection for life with incremental pay raises (+/-3% every 3-5 yrs) if you took a long-term post (10-20 yrs) working at a worksite which was lined with shopping carts of the homeless just outside the entrance and perhaps surrounded by garish billboards, 2 tattoo parlors and streets patrolled by the city vice squad. Would YOU take your employer up on the offer? And would YOU spend your time and money trying to get a Masters degree or Ph.D in your field whilst working in this environment, in order to “better yourself” to contribute more fully to the problems of your newly-adopted worksite??
[/quote]

First of all teachers in SDUSD get step and column which is basically a guaranteed 4% raise per year. If there’s money in the budget they’ll get some union negotiated wage increase on top of that.

As for the terrible working conditions and tatoo parlors, you have to be kidding. There’s maybe a couple schools in the entire SDUSD district that have those conditions. Maybe Wilson middle school or San Diego High fits that description but even then there’s a pretty major revitalization effort in those communities.

Exaggerate more please.

As for why I’m not a teacher or signing up for a job in those working conditions I don’t need to do that. I don’t have the patience to be a teacher and honestly I don’t think it would be the right kind of challenge to me. I think I’d be bored even if I was good at it and I don’t know that I would be good at it.

The reality is that teachers don’t come from the best and the brightest. They come from the average History or English major in college that gets out and realizes that one of the best career paths is teaching. Some have a passion for it. Some are great. Many are good but nothing special. Some are frankly terrible. Just like the typical bell curve.

As for a Masters or Ph.D tell me how a Ph.D in education increases your ability to teacher 3rd grade math. Why do a lot of teachers have Masters degrees? Because they get paid more for having one and it’s a fairly easy to do if you’re already getting your education credential. It’s maybe 1 extra year in school and some sort of relatively short dissertation. Honestly a Masters in education from National University that you did in your spare time probably isn’t helping you teach 6th graders English. It does get you a raise though.

I’ll agree that one of the biggest problem is the extremely weak leadership of the administrators. Most administrators are former teachers that really don’t have any management skills. Yeah they think they know what they’re doing but they’d run a private company into the ground in no time. It’s kind of silly that the teachers that run from the classroom because they can’t handle managing the kids are put in positions of leadership in school districts but that’s what happens. Play politics, kiss ass, and get promoted not because you’re good at what you do but because you played the game right.

The whole thing is a failure, but we must protect the status quo at all costs.

[EconProf]

Let’s step back from the minutia this thread has turned into and look at the larger issues this ruling points to. Much of the national and CA media have pointed out the shakeup this will have on public sector unions.
In essence, the court pointed out what has been obvious to the broader public for a long time: that what teachers’ unions advocate and practice hurts especially the poor and minority population, the very people liberals claim to want to help. The unions protect the adults at the expense of the children. The black and Hispanic parents who see their children trapped in failing schools have been clamoring for change. They cannot afford the private schools the rich liberals opt for, but favor vouchers, home-schooling, charter schools, lotteries to get into union-free schools–anything but their union-dominated local schools.
Now it will be interesting to witness the coming war within the democratic party. How will black and Hispanic politicians react to the rising tide of awareness among their own electorate of the harmful effects of liberalism. Some courageous democrats have already spoken up and broken from the status quo. More will be forced to in the future. This will be interesting to watch.

[joec]

[quote=CA renter]
You’d be surprised at how little experience many administrators have. Many of them fast-track through the classroom, some working as little as 1-3 years in the classroom, because their goal all along was to get into administrative positions. Perhaps you think that these administrators should be telling teachers what to do, but most teachers would disagree with you.[/quote]

And who’s fault is it that administrators have little experience and is fast-tracked through the classroom? I assume it’s other administrators and teachers as well. If they can’t manage/police themselves, obviously tax payers want to have a say how things are being done.

Since they’re (administrators I assume) are also tax payer funded, I certainly would be FOR going after them and cleaning their issues up as well and all the issues you bring up.

Administrators make a TON of money I’ve noticed in the schools and I’d certainly be for getting rid of a lot of them and curbing back their benefits/pay unless there is progress/benefits in the classrooms for the kids/teachers.

Nothing should be shielded/off the table.

In regards to playing office politics/kiss ass to become an administrator…unfortunately, that’s just a fact of life in ALL business/life/home/family you name it. This will never go away, but that doesn’t mean good administrators with other like minded good administrators can’t play the same game and do positive changes. The notion that every single administrator is underqualified and a bane to all teachers can’t be real.

The message you present just consistently comes off as a teacher who blames administrators (upper management) for the ills of the system. If teachers don’t like the situation, go and run or get promoted as an administrator yourself and try new things and fix the problem. We wouldn’t be here discussing this if there weren’t such a big problem and since schools are still tax payer funded and we pay for it, outside people should have a greater say in what to do.

Even better is if all schools just became private and I can just get 10k and pay for it. If I choose to home school, maybe get direct tax credits or something so people can vote with their dollars.

For the “poor” smucks who can’t afford to pay in the inner city/schools, I guess they would just all close and consolidate and maybe that’s what should happen anyways. Not like many of these kids even want to be there.

All that said, it just sounds like the situation you are describing is older teachers (maybe equated to older/lazy workers in a company) with tenure are just whining that some new hire (maybe a new CEO) is trying to right the ship and fix things and just trying to roadblock the issue. Since these “employees” can’t be fired currently, there is bloat everywhere and costing us more and more.

Just seems like teachers don’t want to change and learn and keep current with best methods.

[bearishgurl]

[quote=EconProf]Let’s step back from the minutia this thread has turned into and look at the larger issues this ruling points to. Much of the national and CA media have pointed out the shakeup this will have on public sector unions.
In essence, the court pointed out what has been obvious to the broader public for a long time: that what teachers’ unions advocate and practice hurts especially the poor and minority population, the very people liberals claim to want to help. The unions protect the adults at the expense of the children. The black and Hispanic parents who see their children trapped in failing schools have been clamoring for change. They cannot afford the private schools the rich liberals opt for, but favor vouchers, home-schooling, charter schools, lotteries to get into union-free schools–anything but their union-dominated local schools.
Now it will be interesting to witness the coming war within the democratic party. How will black and Hispanic politicians react to the rising tide of awareness among their own electorate of the harmful effects of liberalism. Some courageous democrats have already spoken up and broken from the status quo. More will be forced to in the future. This will be interesting to watch.[/quote]

Econprof, I didn’t read the whole ruling but does it even mention “unions” at all?

No student of any race or nationality in this country is ever “trapped” in a low-performing public school. If a particular school falls short of the NCLB standards, all enrolled students’ parents are mailed a letter detailing the procedure on how to apply for a zone transfer to a district school which doesn’t fall short of the NCLB standards. Some of these letters even give the names of better schools in the district which have room in certain grades. In SD, if the family cannot qualify for VEEP, they are welcome to furnish their own transportation to a better public school for their children, just as they would likely do if they chose a private or charter school. These types of zone transfers are very, very common and hundreds of students even ride the city buses to their new assigned schools.

What’s going to be interesting to watch is how this idiot (LA Co) judge’s “ruling” (there are dozens of them in this state, btw) is going to get summarily shot down because it doesn’t comport with state or even Federal law (duh) and then we can get down to discussing something more productive here, such as, why does Gen Y seem to be continually whining about the so-called “poor quality” of public schools for their kids which were evidently good enough for them to attend just 8-15 yrs ago.

Anyone who has never taught public school (K-12) has absolutely no idea what the job entails on a daily basis – especially in bureaucratic CA.

I can’t tell you how grateful I am to my last kid’s teachers and counselors. Every single one of them had more than 30 years experience and it showed. When push comes to shove and at the 11th hour, these very experienced counselors can talk sense into a 17 year-old who is all over the map (as most 17 yo’s are). Many of these teachers (plus several administrators) actually graduated from the same HS they are working at today (or retired from). This is the case with all of the HS’s in the SUHSD. It is all as it should be (and I’m out several boxes of See’s candy on behalf of my recent HS graduate, lol).

I personally feel that private school (K-12) is s complete waste of money in 90% of the school attendance areas in SD County and will decimate 90% of parents’ retirement plans (all but the 5%-ers). Our excellent public schools are primarily due to all the long-tenured extremely dedicated teachers we have here. A large portion are also in community leadership positions. Of the remaining 10% of attendance areas, perhaps one of the feeder schools (Elem, MS) is worth attending when the high school is not or the high school is worth attending when one or more of the feeder schools is not. If this is the case, the attendance area is still worth living in for a family with school-age kids as they can just get a zone transfer to a better school when their child is the correct age/grade level for enrollment in the subpar school. Zone transfers aren’t that difficult to obtain, especially if the parent(s) are open to their child being placed where there is room as opposed to their personal choice.

CAR is absolutely spot on about the young, crazy, bored, unemployed moms out there (Gen Y?) who believe no teacher or curricula is good enough for their little (ADHD or still not completely potty-trained?) Johnnie or Suzie. It is TRUE than many of them possess a GED or are HS dropouts themselves. I saw a little bit of this when my kids were in elem school but the school was strict with them and made them sit in the cafeteria in the mornings grading papers (rechecked by teacher), cutting out projects for the kids and assembling art supplies for the desks, etc. They could also use the office copier under instruction from the teacher. They could NOT disrupt the classroom in any way, shape or form.

One parent was a CA credentialed teacher but was not working so she was allowed to tutor primary grades in reading and eventually got a PT paying job with the district.

All was as it should have been.

I’ve been a mom of a K-12 student for decades (seems like all my life, lol) and am so grateful for my kids’ great K-12 public educations here in SD County (CVESD and SUHSD). They graduated from CSU (youngest starts in fall 2014) and have been self-supporting since college graduation. What more could a parent ask for?

[bearishgurl]

Imho, all you worker-bee parents overly concerned about your kid(s)’ public schools should MYOB under your 8-5 pm florescent lights and do what you do best so you can keep supporting your kids (this tactic worked for me just fine over the years, thank you). We need to let the public school teachers and administrators do what they do best so your kid will have all the proper reqs for HS graduation and public university entrance in CA. It’s no picnic getting 9th to 12th graders through all these hoops and our public schools do a fine job of this, especially considering that there is an average of 500 graduates per public HS per year in SD County.

[joec]

[quote=bearishgurl]Imho, all you worker-bee parents overly concerned about your kid(s)’ public schools should MYOB under your 8-5 pm florescent lights and do what you do best so you can keep supporting your kids (this tactic worked for me just fine over the years, thank you). We need to let the public school teachers and administrators do what they do best so your kid will have all the proper reqs for HS graduation and public university entrance in CA. It’s no picnic getting 9th to 12th graders through all these hoops and our public schools do a fine job of this, especially considering that there is an average of 500 graduates per public HS per year in SD County.[/quote]

I honestly doubt I’m one of the overly concerned parents you mentioned, but it sounds like no matter what happens in a school, all parents should just shut up and do nothing even if things are grossly mismanaged?

We’re not talking about a decent functioning school where the kids are doing well and all that, but the initial case seemed to be about poor teachers in bad school districts. So those parents should just MYOB and do nothing?

And yes, I’m well aware sometimes, our own kids are the problem/bully/idiot/etc…as well as those lame moms (it’s always the annoying women)…but telling everyone to MYOB when there is a problem (again, not in all schools/districts) doesn’t sound like is going to help the kids any when the teachers and the administrators in certain schools are clearly poor.

[paramount]

[quote=bearishgurl]Imho, all you worker-bee parents overly concerned about your kid(s)’ public schools should MYOB under your 8-5 pm florescent lights and do what you do best so you can keep supporting your Teachers (this tactic worked for me just fine over the years, thank you). [/quote]

[CA renter]

[quote=joec]

And who’s fault is it that administrators have little experience and is fast-tracked through the classroom? I assume it’s other administrators and teachers as well. If they can’t manage/police themselves, obviously tax payers want to have a say how things are being done.

Since they’re (administrators I assume) are also tax payer funded, I certainly would be FOR going after them and cleaning their issues up as well and all the issues you bring up.

Administrators make a TON of money I’ve noticed in the schools and I’d certainly be for getting rid of a lot of them and curbing back their benefits/pay unless there is progress/benefits in the classrooms for the kids/teachers.

Nothing should be shielded/off the table.

In regards to playing office politics/kiss ass to become an administrator…unfortunately, that’s just a fact of life in ALL business/life/home/family you name it. This will never go away, but that doesn’t mean good administrators with other like minded good administrators can’t play the same game and do positive changes. The notion that every single administrator is underqualified and a bane to all teachers can’t be real.

The message you present just consistently comes off as a teacher who blames administrators (upper management) for the ills of the system. If teachers don’t like the situation, go and run or get promoted as an administrator yourself and try new things and fix the problem. We wouldn’t be here discussing this if there weren’t such a big problem and since schools are still tax payer funded and we pay for it, outside people should have a greater say in what to do.

Even better is if all schools just became private and I can just get 10k and pay for it. If I choose to home school, maybe get direct tax credits or something so people can vote with their dollars.

For the “poor” smucks who can’t afford to pay in the inner city/schools, I guess they would just all close and consolidate and maybe that’s what should happen anyways. Not like many of these kids even want to be there.

All that said, it just sounds like the situation you are describing is older teachers (maybe equated to older/lazy workers in a company) with tenure are just whining that some new hire (maybe a new CEO) is trying to right the ship and fix things and just trying to roadblock the issue. Since these “employees” can’t be fired currently, there is bloat everywhere and costing us more and more.

Just seems like teachers don’t want to change and learn and keep current with best methods.[/quote]

Administrators get paid well because they have a lot on their plates and their jobs range from managing disciplinary issues, finances, accountability measures, compliance with a large number of rules and regulations related to different programs and student groups, site operations, personnel, public relations, etc. They deserve what they make, and I’m not blaming them for the ills of the system, either. I’m blaming the way the system is set up and the politics involved.

And you’re completely wrong about teachers not wanting to learn about superior teaching methods and materials. The problem is that many people will think an idea is “new and brilliant” when, in fact, it was tried decades ago and failed (but the “progressives” weren’t around to know about it because they were probably children themselves when these same ideas and materials were used before).

And while you would certainly like taxpayers to just hand you $10K to use at your own discretion, I’m sure most taxpayers would not want to just hand you their hard-earned money like that. Again, students have a right to an education at a public institution, they do not have a right, individually, to that money.

BTW, assuming you’ve worked in the corporate world, surely you’ve seen the “new genius” who was supposed to come in and improve everything…but then after managing to screw everything up and piss off all of the workers, they ride off into the sunset with a nicely padded bank account while all of the long-time, “lazy” workers are left with having to fix the mess that was created by this “genius.” Now picture this happening in a school setting with all of the various moving parts. It’s obvious why teachers will fight this, and they are very much within their rights to do so.

Try looking at a map of where the “good” and “bad” schools are, then see if you can connect the dots. It’s not teachers who determine which schools perform better or worse.

[CA renter]

[quote=EconProf]Let’s step back from the minutia this thread has turned into and look at the larger issues this ruling points to. Much of the national and CA media have pointed out the shakeup this will have on public sector unions.
In essence, the court pointed out what has been obvious to the broader public for a long time: that what teachers’ unions advocate and practice hurts especially the poor and minority population, the very people liberals claim to want to help. The unions protect the adults at the expense of the children. The black and Hispanic parents who see their children trapped in failing schools have been clamoring for change. They cannot afford the private schools the rich liberals opt for, but favor vouchers, home-schooling, charter schools, lotteries to get into union-free schools–anything but their union-dominated local schools.
Now it will be interesting to witness the coming war within the democratic party. How will black and Hispanic politicians react to the rising tide of awareness among their own electorate of the harmful effects of liberalism. Some courageous democrats have already spoken up and broken from the status quo. More will be forced to in the future. This will be interesting to watch.[/quote]

1. You like to make sweeping generalizations about many topics without providing ANY proof, evidence, data, statistics, studies, or logical reasoning of any sort. So, again, I will ask you: Where is your evidence that teachers’ unions negatively affect students?

2. As BG has already pointed out, these parents already have access to all of the resources you’ve noted, with the exception of vouchers (and there is NO evidence that vouchers would improve things, either).

[CA renter]

[quote=livinincali]
As for why I’m not a teacher or signing up for a job in those working conditions I don’t need to do that. I don’t have the patience to be a teacher and honestly I don’t think it would be the right kind of challenge to me. I think I’d be bored even if I was good at it and I don’t know that I would be good at it.

The reality is that teachers don’t come from the best and the brightest. They come from the average History or English major in college that gets out and realizes that one of the best career paths is teaching. Some have a passion for it. Some are great. Many are good but nothing special. Some are frankly terrible. Just like the typical bell curve.

As for a Masters or Ph.D tell me how a Ph.D in education increases your ability to teacher 3rd grade math. Why do a lot of teachers have Masters degrees? Because they get paid more for having one and it’s a fairly easy to do if you’re already getting your education credential. It’s maybe 1 extra year in school and some sort of relatively short dissertation. Honestly a Masters in education from National University that you did in your spare time probably isn’t helping you teach 6th graders English. It does get you a raise though.

I’ll agree that one of the biggest problem is the extremely weak leadership of the administrators. Most administrators are former teachers that really don’t have any management skills. Yeah they think they know what they’re doing but they’d run a private company into the ground in no time. It’s kind of silly that the teachers that run from the classroom because they can’t handle managing the kids are put in positions of leadership in school districts but that’s what happens. Play politics, kiss ass, and get promoted not because you’re good at what you do but because you played the game right.

The whole thing is a failure, but we must protect the status quo at all costs.[/quote]

There is a bell curve in every profession. Some teachers are Mensa (or even Triple Nine Society) material, and some are of average intellect. Very few are below-average because they all have college degrees, and most districts do look at college records and GPAs.

As for the Masters or PhD, some teachers have an advanced degree in their core teaching subject, especially at the secondary level. Others might have an advanced degree in education, with many of them specializing in a particular niche like curriculum and instruction (specializing in a particular subject like reading or math), special education, neuroscience/cognitive studies (especially how it relates to the learning process), technology in the classroom, administration, or school counseling (for those who want to move up and out of the classroom), etc.

What many people don’t understand is that how to teach is every bit as important as what to teach. A teacher with a Masters or PhD has studied different teaching methods and learned about the best ways to reach different types of students in different settings and situations.

[CA renter]

[quote=CA renter][quote=EconProf]Let’s step back from the minutia this thread has turned into and look at the larger issues this ruling points to. Much of the national and CA media have pointed out the shakeup this will have on public sector unions.
In essence, the court pointed out what has been obvious to the broader public for a long time: that what teachers’ unions advocate and practice hurts especially the poor and minority population, the very people liberals claim to want to help. The unions protect the adults at the expense of the children. The black and Hispanic parents who see their children trapped in failing schools have been clamoring for change. They cannot afford the private schools the rich liberals opt for, but favor vouchers, home-schooling, charter schools, lotteries to get into union-free schools–anything but their union-dominated local schools.
Now it will be interesting to witness the coming war within the democratic party. How will black and Hispanic politicians react to the rising tide of awareness among their own electorate of the harmful effects of liberalism. Some courageous democrats have already spoken up and broken from the status quo. More will be forced to in the future. This will be interesting to watch.[/quote]

1. You like to make sweeping generalizations about many topics without providing ANY proof, evidence, data, statistics, studies, or logical reasoning of any sort. So, again, I will ask you: Where is your evidence that teachers’ unions negatively affect students?

2. As BG has already pointed out, these parents already have access to all of the resources you’ve noted, with the exception of vouchers (and there is NO evidence that vouchers would improve things, either).[/quote]

Still waiting…

[joec]

I have no links or evidence and I don’t really care enough to spend the time, but I’ve read that the unions, rightly or wrongly are there or setup to mainly protect/support the unions, teachers and the administrators. It isn’t setup and isn’t there to look and see what’s best for the students.

Taking a step back, in a school structure, is there really anyone who advocates for the student and children?

Doesn’t seem like it from looking at how a school staff is setup.

[livinincali]

[quote=CA renter]
There is a bell curve in every profession. Some teachers are Mensa (or even Triple Nine Society) material, and some are of average intellect. Very few are below-average because they all have college degrees, and most districts do look at college records and GPAs.

As for the Masters or PhD, some teachers have an advanced degree in their core teaching subject, especially at the secondary level. Others might have an advanced degree in education, with many of them specializing in a particular niche like curriculum and instruction (specializing in a particular subject like reading or math), special education, neuroscience/cognitive studies (especially how it relates to the learning process), technology in the classroom, administration, or school counseling (for those who want to move up and out of the classroom), etc.

What many people don’t understand is that how to teach is every bit as important as what to teach. A teacher with a Masters or PhD has studied different teaching methods and learned about the best ways to reach different types of students in different settings and situations.[/quote]

I agree that how to teach is probably more important that what you teach. Seriously any college kid should be able to know the material that is learned in K-12 education. Can they effectively teach it is a different question?

The problem in my eyes is the public school district does a really bad job at utilizing resources. For example let’s talk about the all-star mensa teacher that does it for the love of the job. At a high school level maybe 150 kids can be exposed to that teacher per semester under the current system. Thousands of other kids are not exposed to that star performer and a couple thousand more are exposed to the bottom 10% performers.

So now we have this star teacher that is likely teaching kids that could learn the material from any average teacher getting the advantage of learning it from one of the best. How do you get that star teacher into more classrooms. Why aren’t school district adopting and using technology to make that happen. If you could accomplish that successfully, you could give the star teacher a big raise and replace a bunch of the ineffectively classroom teachers. If I could prove massive increases in student performance by going down this path it would be rejected unfortunately.

That’s the fundamental issue. Public education and especially the representing unions isn’t about how to do public education better it’s about how to protect teachers and administrator jobs.

Fortunately we are finally seeing some investment in a better way of teaching content, i.e. the Khan Adamedy’s of the world. It’s likely inevitable that eventually better teaching technologies will make it into the classroom and replace the average classroom teacher but it’s not going to happen peacefully. You’ll have lower costs aides managing the classroom, with content coming from star content providers. Those aides might get paid petty well and they’ll have to do less work (grading and lesson planing will be centralized). There will be challenges and obstacles to overcome. Some kids might do worse in a system like this but I think it’s eventually coming.

[Author]

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