Fireing teachers under NCLB

You cannot guarantee results.

This will just lead to dumbing down the tests, outright cheating with a wink from the teacher, and automatic passing of students.

Hell, I did not pass French 1. My teacher creatively gave me a 70. I was in a decent school. What would a teacher do if he felt sorry for a student or faced the loss of his job? Look at all of the shining examples of our education system that can barely read. What about the ones that cannot reason critically? I work in the medical field and come in contact with plenty of stupid people. NCLB will just accelerate our slide into 'third world' status.

[m5lange1]

Osborn F Enready 11-23-04 2:41PM Have to take my dad to get his flu shot here in couple mins, so I will be back to answer in entirety, including your specific questions.

Must have been a hell of a shot.....
Hope everything is OK.

[Scribbler1]

Originally posted by StoneWT, You cannot guarantee results. This will just lead to dumbing down the tests, outright cheating with a wink from the teacher, and automatic passing of students.

Rather than "will just lead to", the things you mention have already produced a stink in Philadelphia and , to the best of my knowledge, a numer of other localities. (getting this from memory of a series in a Philly paper years ago)
The argument was the kids are so stupid or such lazy slackers that they get left back and overcrowd the newly arriving class.
So the school disctrict administrations themselves passed losers by the thousands and years later, when the damage done surfaces they blame the teachers.

Yeah, it is a sad situation. Sum dem kidz be barely aybull two reed. Too much of the touchy-feely nonsense is being pushed in schools. An English teacher of mine assigned a paper without any grammar or spelling requirements. It was done that way so the kids would not feel cramped. They could express themselves, you see.

[Osborn F Enready]

If "this is all about being fair to everyone, not just the poor" I wouuld like it to stay focused on WHO we are talking about here. NOT the poor, NOR the taxpayers.

( This is correct in the sense of your topic, but not WHAT YOUR TOPIC AFFECTS indirectly, which is quite clearly the taxpayers, the poor, and all people of this nation.)

It is the teachers who are losing their jobs because they are taking on a monumentally difficult task.
THAT is who we are talking about being fair to.

(These are the same teachers who did this out of good will, I would imagine? Is it that they WANTED to work where they do, or they SACRIFICED to work where they do, it is still their choice, and along with that choice under the current system, come some RESPONSIBILITIES. I honor and respect the ideals of the teachers, but not their choice to EXPECT ME to support them when they entered into a known corrupt, and strangled system, with hopes of national enlightenment to the cause.)

I realize that "taxpayers" seem to always manage to get into this with the "but what about me?" thing, but
we are not talking about WHO is PAYING for anything here. That topic can be found on nearly every thread in this forum.

(YOU, are the one who is not talking about what the TAXPAYERS pay for, because you have trouble defending that side of the hill, being a collector of said taxes, indirectly.)

We are talking about taking professionals undertaking a nearly impossible task and firing them if they do not meet the same criteria as those in less challanging situations.

( I agree with your reasoning, but not your choice of action. You knew the requirements and the corrupt systems ways when you jumped in with both feet, and now you want to be rallied behind when the inevitable happens.)

We are talking about fairness to people in an honorable profession.

(Teaching as a whole is an honorable profession, but fairness was long ago cast aside when your leaders expected the whole nation to pay for the nations children, since that is WHAT THEY ARE, since they receive care and funding from the state, they are taught the states curriculum, and they are brought up in the states ideal frame of mind. Those that can't provide the results, are axed, and though it is not by any means fair, neither is the system.)

We are talking about a difficult educational problem that is NOT being solved by firing those trying to fix it.

( I agree, we should fire the entire system, and start fresh.)

We are talking about a job that has a decreasing number of incomming candidates and eliminating those already in the profession.

(Based on?)

We are talking about a profession where we desire to acquire good qualified people and we offer the reward of blame, poor pay, and finally termination if they take on the toughest (hardest to fill) positions.

(And the point is, as an educator, you should be able to step back and analyze HOW WRONG THIS SYSTEM IS SET UP TO ACHEIVE THE GOALS IT SETS FORTH!. To sit and expect people to keep funding the same people, for the same problems, in the same areas, under the same agenda, but with MORE MONEY EACH YEAR, is getting old for the SAME OLD RESULT.)


NOTE: Please do ont get sidtracked on who pays for it. Private/public, tax, charity, donation, mana from heaven....... Our point here is solving the problem not who is footing the bill.

(Once again, NO, YOUR POINT is not proving or debating who is footing the bill.)

Lets globalize then Osborne..

( No, I would rather die, thank you. )

1. Failing schools are evident all over the nation. Nealy ALL of them are inner city or poor rural areas. This is global. So are you suggesting that it just happens that these poor area schools have carriculum deficits that are not present in the succeeding schools all over the nation?

(Nothing at all like I was saying. Each area has its own challenges, ethnic, economic, classism, among many others. I have never seen a government agency or directive, handle anything but BLANKET policies, and this is not conducive to addressing the needs of each community. The curriculum is a major issue with me, but NOT what is responsible for the difference in results BETWEEN federally backed, locally funded schools. The person doing the bookwork, A.K.A., the U.S. government is who is responsible for not being ABLE to address local problems in curriculum, why its not being learned, and WHAT needs to be changed to revitalize the intrest in learning. There are a multitude of reasons why the discrepancy between inner-city and suburban schools, and this question is entirely to vague to answer effectively.)

2. If there is a carriculum out there that is working on these failing populations you, and your local private schools, could become VERY wealthy training and selling this information to public schools all over the country. Surely you know these people desperately WANT to improve these scores.

(Yes, but curriculum should be the choice of a PARENT, not the state. Curriculum is not the only thing to blame, only a small shard. Also, I wouldn't sell anything to a public school, since public schools are my enemy in the grounds of education. IT IS THE SYSTEM, not the curriculum that is causing the problems of failing kids. The curriculum only can be blamed for the poor aptitude kids have today toward politics, history, basic fundamentals of education, and the overall concept of WHAT AMERICA IS, HOW IT STARTED, AND WHAT IS HAPPENING TODAY.)

Even if you are one of those that believe only the lazy and apathetic work in poor schools you must know they are trying like hell to keep their jobs.

(Once again, I am not blaming the teachers, I am blaming THE SYSTEM. People are EXPECTING great results on INLFATED PROMISES that schools and the Fed use every year to help pass "operating levies, emergency levies, additional tax levies" all the while the price goes up, the results go down. HOW COULD ANYONE SUPPORT A SYSTEM THAT COSTS MORE EACH YEAR, WITH LOWER RESULTS EACH YEAR?!?)

3. This one is very important and cuts to the chase. Here are my non-localized specifics as to the problems.
1. Higher drug/alchahol addiction in target area scools among parents and students. Resulting in lack of participation, homework follow-through, parent involvment etc.

(I would agree, and this is due to poorer families being raised mainly on public money from the past, being stuck in dead-end jobs, sometimes working two or three to get by, and these people still insisted on having kids, whether accidental or on purpose, though they knew they couldn't support them. They were dumped on the system by their parents, why shouldn't they do it to theirs? The drug problem, as I have said many times, is directly the governments fault, by illegalizing their possesion and consumption, they created a black market, that is easy to make money in without the tax mans hand being involved. This lures kids away from school, and into the black market, mainly in the inner cities. This is the state being asked to make up for poor parenting, poor law-making, and overall poor concepts that have led to where we are.)

2. Higher absenteeism/truency in the poor areas.

(That is because kids are less prone to go to school when they see the bleak future beaten out for them, by the adults they are surrounded by. Poor parenting + poor enviroment + poor attitude + poor education at home = a kid who doesn't understand, nor WANT to understand the system, since it hasn't "helped anyone they have seen.")

3. Higher drop out (and anticipated drop out) rates in the students.

(Due to the above reasons I listed, and the fact that poorer famillies need to make more money, which puts more "inherited responsibility" on the elder kids to become a wage earner.)

4. Cultural distain for the education process.

(This takes no genius to figure out, when approaching the current system on its factual foundations of rob the many, to provide for the few, and often times only to provide sub-standard education to due fund availability and resource leaks in the system. Many times teachers are accused of teaching fairytale ideals, that don't apply to the real world simply because they represent this system.)

5. Enablemennt of the lazy and slothful both in families and students to shed their own responsibilites and blame the teaching staff.

(Welcome to the job, meet your new boss, and know if we have to let someone go it is going to be YOU, and not me. The government does it, why can't they?)

6. Higher crime in both the neighborhoods and in the schools themselves.

(No kidding, we are talking about poor inner city neighborhoods, right?!?)

These are but a few and can be verified with any demographics study for any city with a population of over 500,000 and in most smaller cities as well. NOT local observations.

(Who controls property value? Maybe you should look into how the city changes its values and encourages certain "income types" to avoid certain areas, and flock to others? There is a lot to be said about equal opprotunity housing, FEMA, and other agencies involved in this. This is a COMPLEX ISSUE, that often leads me to the fact that the system is POORLY DESIGNED, so how else could you expect anything but POOR RESULTS?!?)

[Osborn F Enready]

NOW... in the interest of fair debate... please specify some of the carriculum differences in your local private schools that will aleviate these global problems.
Please do not be general and say "local (whoever) can better tailor their needs to their own population". They have that leeway in the public schools too.

(In my opinion, there should be NO PUBLIC SCHOOLS, at least funded by REQUIREMENT from all people, handled by the government. This is a non-issue to me.)

Be specific.... WHAT carriculum differences?

(Curriculum differences of choice of the parent.) (Religious heavy, science heavy, math heavy, english heavy, creative writing heavy, history heavy....etc. Heavy meaning a bias toward that particular choice of curriculum as well as a CHOICE for parents to make without federal guidelines due to the current system on what can and CANNOT be taught.)

You will not just be making a good debate point, you may be opening the eyes and showing the educational system something it has been missing.

(They know my point, they just choose to ignore it since they are getting rich of the current systems shortcomings.)

[Osborn F Enready]

It wasn't the flu shot that took so long, it was Thanksgiving.

[Osborn F Enready]

For a more ACCURATE LIBERTARIAN view, since I don't claim to be or represent libertarian.....

http://www.mises.org/rothbard/newlibertywhole.asp

I am MOSTLY libertarian, but not 100%, and am a signing member of NO party.

[m5lange1]

How horribly dissapointing.
I have come to respect Osborn as a person who gives thought to his posts, so it was with some axnious anticipation I awaited a response.

Quoting:
Osborn F Enready 11-23-04 2:41PM
Have to take my dad to get his flu shot here in couple mins, so I will be back to answer in entirety, including your specific questions.

Now to anyone who has been reading my posts on this topic they know what I am saying..
That it is unfair to fire the workers at a more difficult post (in this case teachers at low income schools) when they do not show results up to par with schools dealing with less problems.

The specifics I wanted answered were also clear. There were basically 2

1. What carriculum differences are out there in any schools that could adequately deal with the problems of inner city and/or poor rural schools.

2. Would you (in this case Osborn), hold ghetto police (or any other profession where there is a more difficult task at keeping a national average of success) to the same standards as the teachers. e.g. Fire the police who work inner City Detroit if they cannot keep crime to the same rate as small town Iowa.

Instead I get the same tired old attack on taxes that you can read on half the threads of every poly/sco messagboard on the net.
That is a very valid argument, it has a place. It's place iss NOT as a dodge on a poor hiring firing policy post.

And what justification do I get?
1. That I am avoiding a discussion of taxes because it is indefensable. Yea you read that right. The guy who you cannot blast out of complaining about his taxes to the exclusion of the question at hand, the guy who promises to answer with specifics and goes on yet another big anti tax tirade is actually accusing me of running from his argument because it is irrelevant to mine.

2. I get accused of being the recipient of the tax dollar therefore am unqualified to comment. He has absolutely no idea who pays me. I have said I work in both private and public schools. He has no idea if I work for an agency or I freelance or who I work for but I guess he assumes since I do get paid for working in some public schools I am guilty of living of his dollar. I wonder if he feels the same about any private corperation that accepts government contracts.

3. He really seemed to like the "YOU" pronoun when referring to these teachers losing their jobs in closed schools. I made it clear that I am NOT a teacher, nor am I in any danger of being fired since I do not work for the school(s) in question here. I am not considered part of the staff being "blamed". Maybe he thinks it strengthens his point if he makes it appear that I am posting this as a personal protest to my own situation, or maybe he just missed that. Don't know. Don't care. But I assure you I am not in the soup over this situation as I am not employed by any specific school.

4. In an earlier post he accuses me (falsly) of taing a too "Localized" view of the situation. In response to that I said "Lets get global" then went on to talk about national conditions and demographics. Instead of see that as taking a "global" as opposed to "Local" view of things he says
"I would rather die"
Wow, That word must have hit another of his "tax" nerves or brought forth immages of a new world order. Anyway he certainly seemed to let it blur out the context of the point.

5. If you are interested, go back and read my request. I asked for specific carriculum diffrerences that would address the problems of inner city schools. I even asked directly
tp please be specific and avoid the pat answer of "local people can better decide the carriculum needs of their area."
I specified this because it is the universal cop out.
First of all it has been done and is being done in many schools (public and private) and results have not been terribly successful.
Second, in the target districts we are discussing, the parents usually do not even sign the report cards or show up for parent/teacher meetings. What kind of carricular input are these sages of the streets supposed to be suggesting?
Third, could you possibly be less specific? You may have leaned over a fence with your neighbors and talked about what "the kids ' doin at your school" but it is pretty obvious that you have no idea what specific carriculum means.
Your specifc responses to carriculum was pretty much listing a bunch of subjects and saying let the parents sort it out.
Somehow I think that even yuo do not believe that is a superior carricular solution to the poverty school population.

6. And finally... the ultimate dissappointment. Once again AVOIDING the whole other profession challange.
Could it be that Osborn sees that as indefensable??? or is that just reserved for those who will not argue taxes with him.


OK.. One last try just because I am curious to see if I can actually get Osborne to address the question.

No challanges or difficult thigs to address here... I am certainly giving up on that.... so I am going to ask a totally hypothetical question and will even settle for a yes or no.

Osborn.... assume you are the CEO of Ed-U-Matic schools. Public schools are gone. You have the contract on all California schools. In fact you have had for the past 5 years.
You have 14 schools that are failing. They are falling below the standards expected, and agreed to, by your contract with the communities you serve.

They are all in inner city schools in Sacremento, LA, SanFrancisco, San Jose... you get the idea.

You have already tried moving what you considered to be your best and brightest administrators and teachers to these schools hoping they can turn things around.

You have asked the local parents for help and input but response has been minimal to no-existant. Still the communities you contract with want you to serve their ENTIRE city or none of it.

Would you come to the conclusion that it is the fault of those you employ there and fire them all?

If yes, would you do it again, and how soon, if the situation did not improve with the new staff?

What I am trying to get through your anit-tax haze is, that it is the method of addressing the problem that sux, not who is making the bad decision.

[Scribbler1]

You had 3 identical posts there, m5, so I took the liberty of pulling 2 of them.

[m5lange1]

Thank you scribbler. I was getting "Could not complete your request" messages so I kept trying.

[Osborn F Enready]

M5, how you got what I typed to fit into the nice description of "tax protestor" is BEYOND ME.

You ask me 15 Questions in one post, and then expect a complete broken down answer that would take well over an hour just to contemplate, let alone back with links and facts to answer to my satisfaction.

And then you rushed me.... by poking at the amount of time.....so I answered rather quickly.

I do not hold all the answers, and never really claimed to, thanks.

You asked my opinion, to which I gladly replied, to which you gladly wrapped in a convenient label, with which to put me on your shelf of pre-existing stereo-types. I believe the label was "tax protestor".

Besides that, you attempt to hurt me by saying you are going to lose the respect you have for me, due to my posts answer not coinciding with your point of view, or being listed in some approved manner of addressing problems. If you would have liked people to answer in a specific format, you should have said so. I didn't avoid the problems you posed, I simply stated how it is hard to fix a system that has never been fixed, working right, or repairable. You are asking me to validate some type of "band-aid" approach to fixing the unfixable, or answering your questions to suit the desired outcome you had in mind. I apologize for not being more compliant, but it is not my nature.

I see your line of logic and reason, I agree that the teachers were wronged. I agree that the current policy of inner-city schools is not worth the paper its written on, and that it's hurting the system more than it helps. BUT, I disagree with the entire concept of public schooling with mandatory taxes of the entire populace. I would like to see them get more money, make more money, create better kids through education, but all of these to come from the existing system are impossible, unfeasible and in my opinion wrong, and unconstitutional.

NOW, to address this latest post.

M5 said: The specifics I wanted answered were also clear. There were basically 2

1. What carriculum differences are out there in any schools that could adequately deal with the problems of inner city and/or poor rural schools.

I never said curriculum was the problem with THIS ISSUE, the issue overall is the problem in that the taxpaying consumer has no choice for their childrens curriculum. They have not much choice in the entire process actually, including price of schools, where tax goes and comes from, etc. Poor schools are poor because of the system design, and that is not sidestepping the fact to say it. To use the system in place now, there is no fair way to help poor schools, other than to take money from other districts that don't truly need all their funding to maintain the average, or status quo. IS that fair? NO. Does it suck? YES. Do I see an answer within the existing system? NO.

I feel there may be some differences in curriculum though that affect poor schools more than others, that should be addressed IN THE EXISTING PUBLIC SYSTEM. For example, in a school where there is massive racial/religious/cultural/moral or whichever its notation, dominance by numbers, I feel certain topics would draw more than others based on relationship between said group and certain topics of intrest paralleling subject matter, yet more familliar by natural, local circles of discussion. Highlighting subject matter based on local natural curiousities, or cultural heroes would create more draw to the particular subject matter than sticking with the same program for each individual school. Let's face the fact that inner city kids have different challenges in life, and are often confronted with more social/peer group challenges earlier than suburban and rural communities, if for any reason the tighter, more dense living conditions. Each community, has its own challenges and bonds, that make it unique, and this is what the citizens need to partake in. Not for the point of addition and exclusion of subject matter, as much as for help from the community on gaining the intrest of the students in the existing subject matter. Do I think we should lower from a NATIONAL TEST, to a REGIONAL TEST, with different levels of intelligence required to pass? NO, not within the current system as it would only hurt the overall regional images, conceptions, and not aid the battle for EDUCATION in the least.
It would make teachers jobs easier, and would remove some of the NATURAL stress induced from the pressures causing the problem with the kids. That natural stress, is due to culture clash, peer groups, and the family breakdown you yourself talked about. Without a solid family base, the child has to be the overacheiver in the area of WANTING an education, because the child is responsible for himself at home, and school, and all in between. Should the state pay for after school programs, outreach programs, community intrest programs, to help keep the kids actually in school more often on their own, voluntarily? NO, but the communities should bond together on this, and create local charities to do the same. You say in these areas, the community is part of the problem, and that parents aren't active enough. That is because the TREND has been to let the state raise their children. That is the biggest reason I am against taxpayers footing the bill for this, as it hurts ALL sides.

2. Would you (in this case Osborn), hold ghetto police (or any other profession where there is a more difficult task at keeping a national average of success) to the same standards as the teachers. e.g. Fire the police who work inner City Detroit if they cannot keep crime to the same rate as small town Iowa.

This question is rigged. Police and Fire are paid insurance companies, forcefully collected for by the states. That is where fire protection originated, insurance. Is education literally an insurance program? NO. That is why it can't be looked at, OR COLLECTED AND RUN like an insurance company.

To answer your question, NO. I would only fire the ones that couldn't perform on an individual basis, and I would put forth a valid search for more experienced, exceptional performers to fill the slots of underpaid workers expected to do a heroic,valiant job that pays SHIT. In other words... good luck.

[Osborn F Enready]

M5 said: What I am trying to get through your anit-tax haze is, that it is the method of addressing the problem that sux, not who is making the bad decision.[i]

I say: I agreed with you on that part in the beginning, you just skimmed past it in your heat of the moment anger, I suppose? Maybe you couldn't see that I was saying sarcastically "most of their previous decisions were wrong, what makes this one any different in expectation?"

[m5lange1]

Thank you.

In spite of your anger, you much more directly addressed the question.

PS. No one has all the answers right now. If anyone did they would be implemented. My whole point has been that scapegoating adds to the problem as opposed to alleviating it. We appear to agree on at least that much.

[Osborn F Enready]

Thanks M5, I apologize for the anger that came across, it was more frustration than anger. I want to make no enemies, I like this forum and it's people as a majority.

I hope the mutual respect is still there, though we don't see eye to eye on some things.

[m5lange1]

I have not lost any respect for you Osborn. Never said I did. I just said I was dissappointed in that one post.

No biggie. You are obviously intelligent and fair-minded. I never would have complained in the first place if I did not have such high expectations from your responses.

Consider that a sincere compliment :)

m5

[Osborn F Enready]

M5, thanks. I always respect good debate and people who defend their point of view.

Glad to hear we are still on a basis of mutual respect.... 8)