Teachers Unions - Outdated?

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Type: Discussion • Score: 9 • Views: 8,162 • Replies: 85

[+4] - Setanta - 10/07/2010That's not an answer to her question.
[+4] - farmerman - 10/07/2010Thats why the Bush era "no child..." is such a success. In Pa in the late 90's, the PSEA had a series of curricula srandards and performance standards to be potentially implemented. Ridge...
[+4] - squinney - 10/08/2010By 'teaching to the test' I'm pretty sure Boomer means spending time going over what will be on the test so that the school / teachers/ admin doesn't get knuckle rapped. Once NCLB passed, my...
[+4] - Setanta - 10/08/2010This is the same kind of argument which has been used to prop up "IQ" testing over the years. What you call "basic knowledge" is actually knowledge of the white, Protestant,...
[+4] - Setanta - 10/08/2010I suspect that the entire "No child left behind" scam was an effort to take the control of education out of local hands and to grab it for the (then conservative) government....
[+4] - Setanta - 10/08/2010[quote="Lash"] I understand that due to generations of substandard educational options for certain racial segments, there remains a cultural bias in tests - but what would be a better way...
[+4] - Cycloptichorn - 10/08/2010[quote] I don't think using your short term knowledge to pass a multiple choice test to be "demonstrating competence".[/quote] 100% correct. Standardized tests are a joke, they tell...
[+4] - Setanta - 10/08/2010What's wrong is that the standardized testing is only looking for rote learning, keyed to the dominant culture, and it is not testing the ability to learn, the ability to reason and the ability to...
[+4] - Setanta - 10/08/2010What bemuses me is the rush of conservatives to support what is essentially a big government interference in local control program, and just about the biggest unfunded initiative ever to come out...
[+3] - farmerman - 10/07/2010we elect state ed boards and they usually follow the belief systems of the prevailing party.In Pa we have an increasingly conservative ed board who, Im afraid, would no longer take the effort to...

Oscar®-winning filmmaker Davis Guggenheim (AN INCONVENIENT TRUTH) dissects
the failing American education system, and in doing so, discovers ways to fix it.

1 Reply

@H2O MAN,

we elect state ed boards and they usually follow the belief systems of the prevailing party.In Pa we have an increasingly conservative ed board who, Im afraid, would no longer take the effort to redefine the science curriculum in the nature that was done in 2000.

The teachers unions are standing up against evangelical demigogues who are trying to deny history, science, literature and now even art curricula.

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@farmerman,

They are also standing up against those who wish to bring some performance measurement and accountability to our schools.

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"Performance standards" and "accountablility" are robbing our children of an eduation. The testing involved is nothing more than a measure of short term memory.

Charter schools are not really "liberal". Many people believe that they are the first step to a national curriculum and privitization of education -- "conservative" goals.

Why do you think The Heritage Foundation likes this movie so much?

Edit: http://blog.heritage.org/2010/10/05/waiting-long-enough-for-superman/

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Some of Geoffrey Canada's thoughts on teacher unions:

Quote:

Canada said: "Our charter schools were not unionised. My contract with my teachers is fair, and is two pages. The union contract is 200 pages. You cannot manage your business when you cannot make any decision without going back to 200 pages worth of stuff.

"So that is inflexible. It kills innovation; it stops anything from changing. The only thing that we can do is what we did last year, and last year was another failure. So that to me makes no sense."

Source

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@Irishk,

I don't get it. How does the union suppress innovation?

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@boomerang,

They don't suppress all innovation. Only the parts that might make their members work harder; be accountable for what they (as individuals) achieve or don't achieve; or satisfy their customers - the parents of the children they "teach". It's a great racket.

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That's not an answer to her question.

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@georgeob1,

Thats why the Bush era "no child..." is such a success. In Pa in the late 90's, the PSEA had a series of curricula srandards and performance standards to be potentially implemented. Ridge (then gov) sidewinded all the efforts and placed into effect a silly no brained ed policy (Read-no creativity in our teachers is required, its all just rote anyway).

Despite his efforts to circumbvent and sweep aside any remaining clout of the PSEA and the AAUP (my guild), he made it a totally political policy.

Teachers unions in Pa were never against charter schools until it became better known that there was a very big leadership from guys like Santorum who wanted "boogeyman science" and "revidionits history" being taught while still maintaining completion of required subjects and attainment.

Since charter schools(in Pa anyway) are nothing more than a way to bring "free market" economics into education, lately the losers are the kids because charter schools are just another "low bid" option where, instead of providing that extra money into more teachers or equipment, the money is looked on as profit made on a lump asum contract.

TOTAL BULLSHIT. Its so easy to teach to tests. Its like computers in school, they dont enhance education (IMO), they merely provide shortcuts to specific answers ONLY.

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@Setanta,

Setanta wrote:

That's not an answer to her question.

The post just before her question provided a pretty clear answer.

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@boomerang,

boomerang wrote:

I don't get it. How does the union suppress innovation?

Considering the context in which he made the statement, I think he was suggesting that innovation is stifled when schools are forced into abiding by a rigid set of rules (which is all union contracts are), rules that can't be changed or ignored even when they produce unsatisfactory results. With his two-page contract, I think he's suggesting that his schools have the flexibility to change what they find is not working, putting into practice policies and methods that produce satisfactory, perhaps superior, results (innovation).

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@farmerman,

farmerman wrote:

TOTAL BULLSHIT. Its so easy to teach to tests. Its like computers in school, they dont enhance education (IMO), they merely provide shortcuts to specific answers ONLY.

Like you, I've had a lot of experience at education. I doubt that the system could work without tests & examinations. Despite their many imperfections, tests, ranging from pop quizes to long term comprehensive exams do accurately measure diffewrent aspects of learning, and, given the facts of human nature, the process wouldn't work - or achieve anything - without them.

Indeed no organization can operate effectively over time without some form of fairly objective evaluation and feedback.

As was noted earlier, running any organization well is hard enough. It's near impossible with a workforce influenced with a union that works tirelessly to convince the workers that management is their enemy and that they have no responsibility for the health of the organization that pays them both.

One of the AFT's highest prriorities, besides higher pay and shorter class schedules has been quick tenure for elementary school teachers. Why in the hell does the teacherr of a second grade class in a public school need tenure?

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@Irishk,

But the most rigid rules are not the ones in the union contracts. Their day is defined by what has to be covered so the kids will be ready for the next assesment test. There isn't time for "innovation".

And by his quotes it sounds like "innovation" is whatever he decides is "innovation". That bothers me.

It's like we were talking about on the other thread -- how are they defining a "good" teacher? It seems to me that it is currently defined as the teacher who gets her students to make high scores on assessment tests. In my opinion this is a "bad" teacher.

I'm not a huge union lover but I'm glad the teacher's union is fighting the waste of time that is NCLB and is helping what I consider good teachers keep their jobs.

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@boomerang,

After spending a great deal of time in classrooms for the past twenty-something years - and more concentrated in the past five years, I have to share that the problems that existed pre-NCLB were many times horrific. NCLB led to several really valuable changes in teacher methodology, focus on critical thinking and synthesizing the precepts learned to scaffold to the next academic objective. It's not perfect - nothing is - but taking the before and after picture into unbiased consideration - NCLB has improved what happens to kids from 7 to 3 M through Friday.

Teachers who are either afraid of change or having a hard time finding a streamlined way to absorb changes - or are lazy and part of the problem have settled on the drumbeat, "It's all just teaching a test." Trust me, that is very misleading to the public. There are legitimate complaints, I'm sure, as there is with everything stagnated by bureaucracy - but gains are happening. Children are learning deeper, wider and better due to NCLB.

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@Lash,

Quote:

NCLB led to several really valuable changes in teacher methodology, focus on critical thinking

I totally disagree. And so does all the research I've seen on the supposed benefit of assessment testing.

For example:

Quote:

....The pressure on school administrators, teachers and students to improve average school scores on norm referenced, short answer multiple choice tests has created a widespread tendency to ignore higher order skills (since the tests elicit facts) and to put classroom emphasis on preparing students to take tests, especially at the elementary level·and more especially in low income schools where drill has always been a more prevalent form of instruction than investigation has been, The pressures of standardized testing on curriculum have decreased instruction in science, writing, problem solving and analytical reasoning; they are felt from kindergarten, where the pressure is to teach quantifiable math and reading skills and to prepare children for an educational career of "bubble test" taking, to high school, where minimum competencies for graduation may also mark the upper limits of instruction. Sixty percent of early childhood educators recently surveyed reported that the pressure of year end standardized tests caused them to teach in ways that we harmful to their children (Ascher 1990). ...

http://www.maec.org/educate/11.html

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@Lash,

https://www.georgiastandards.org/standards/Georgia%20Performance%20Standards/Grade-Five.pdf
Not only is there a uniform goal, so that all students in that state are on the same page - and teachers have a template to use - but really cool rules for teaching diverse authors and taking kids' cultural background are de rigueur. "Communities of learners" create a child centered classroom, and force boring Teacher Lecturers to use innovation and creativity to press Vygotskian styled learning - which makes the old ways of students merely regurgitating notes on tests obselete.

My son, a community college instructor, called me this morning with a wonderful anecdote. He is part of the revolution. A student with a photographic memory wrote a large excerpt she's committed to memory from the text as an answer on a test. He recognized it as verbatim, and counted it wrong. She took him to the department head and appealed the grade. He explained that he wasn't teaching for memorization, but understanding and synthesis. His grade stood - and he patiently explained to the student why. His department head said he wished all his professors cared as much about student "learning." He's a stalwart proponent of imbuing "understanding" as described by NCLB...

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@boomerang,

boomerang wrote:

It's like we were talking about on the other thread -- how are they defining a "good" teacher? It seems to me that it is currently defined as the teacher who gets her students to make high scores on assessment tests. In my opinion this is a "bad" teacher.

Would you then consider a teacher whose students consistently get lower scores on assessment tests than other teachers around him/her as necessarily a good or better teacher that those whose students do better?

Teaching to the test is indeed a bad side effect of having tests. However, it is quite another thing to assert that witout testing, teaching will be improved. The one thing that is surely worse than the bad side effects of tests is not having tests at all. Demonstrating competence in relatively objective tests and examinations is a well proven feature of long term professions requiring quality performance, ranging from airline pilots to medical practicioners. Measurment and feedback are nercessary elements in any human activity in which real improvements are wanted.

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@boomerang,

Boomie, we can all find organizations with positive and negative agendas. As I've spent time in education classes and in schools student teaching, I've heard all opinions. However, as I've become acquainted with the actual NCLB program, and been privy to statistics and incredible success stories under the program (sometimes doing research in a class taught by an anti-NCLB professor) I see clearly that the design - if not abused - poises students for certainly more success than previous.

I base my opinion on experience formulating my lesson plans to meet NCLB guidelines - and seeing the positive difference. I'd just advise taking care when forming yours on the political writings of agenda-bound entities.

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@Lash,

The standardized tests are in addition to some really awesome options in testing allowed by NCLB. I allowed a class to prove knowledge on a section by performing raps, singing songs they wrote, creating collages and discussing with their peers the significance of each item they added. It's definitely NOT the sterilized environment that focus on standardized testing makes it seem to be. The anti-NCLB contingent is trying to characterize it unfairly - like the whole Muslims Build a Mosque on Ground Zero ploy.

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Teachers Unions - Outdated?

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