२ डिसेंबर, २०२०
"Though [Betsy] DeVos has been mostly stymied... her legacy will still be far-reaching and long-lasting. This is not a result of what she made, but of what she broke..."
"... a bipartisan federal consensus around testing and charters that extended from the George H.W. Bush administration through the end of the Obama era.... In response to Ms. DeVos’s polarizing influence, moderate Democrats including President-elect Joe Biden recommitted to teachers unions and adopted more skeptical positions on school choice that were out of the question just a few years ago.... Yet Ms. DeVos has also elevated the education policy agenda of the far right, giving voice and legitimacy to a campaign to fundamentally dismantle public education.... More than three decades ago, conventional Republicans and centrist Democrats signed on to an unwritten treaty. Conservatives agreed to mute their push for private school vouchers, their preference for religious schools and their desire to slash spending on public school systems. In return, Democrats effectively gave up the push for school integration and embraced policies that reined in teachers unions.... As Republicans continue to work to defund and privatize school systems, both Democratic governors and the incoming Biden administration can draw a sharp policy distinction, boldly defending public education in a way that resonates with voters...."
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Yeah. Because public education has been such an unqualified success. We're seeing that on the news and in the streets today.
The point of religious schools is not religion but that, owing to freedom of religion rulings, they're free to ignore bureaucratic decrees and just teach, say, good character. The religion isn't the important part. The exemption is.
Sounds like a good treaty to nuke.
a bipartisan federal consensus
The swamp.
"No Child Left Behind" (GW Bush) is an example of what the author champions. Bad Betsy tried to change the direction of Dept of Education and that was a bad thing?
Her *assault* on public education.
Weird how anyone thinks the mainstream press has a political agenda.
DeVos has been nothing short of remarkable. Particularly given the unfounded criticisms hurled at her when she took the job. Probably the best Sec. of Ed. in my lifetime, and I am old enough to remember the day Nixon resigned.
... a bipartisan federal consensus
Bipartisanship is when the Evil Party and the Stupid Party get together and do something evil and stupid.
Because of Teachers unions...our students suffer not learning about History, but the redefined History of the left. Indoctrination sucks...Give parents the choice since you are a party supposedly all about choice....unless it is something you disagree with.
Shorter NYT: if we blame everything on DeVos, we can get another10 years before the masses get wise.
The first thing public schools need to do under the new administration is to open up. That would be a good start.
The 1619 racial indoctrination that's being pushed in public schools will destroy the public schools. So if the NYT wants to blame anybody for what happens to the public schools, it should look in a mirror.
Why shouldn’t public education be dismantled? Look at the numbers. They do a terrible job of educating children.
The education industry is one of the most backward, self-interested, unaccountable and unaccomplished sectors of our society. It is an occupation in which teaching useful information is almost an afterthought. It is thoroughly politicized and filled with mediocrities who can't believe they aren't the ones overseeing the world. It is a sign of the profession's degradation that the author, and no doubt the drones of the education empire, see the demand for the slightest accountability as an "assault."
We see the fruits of "... a bipartisan federal consensus around testing and charters that extended from the George H.W. Bush administration through the end of the Obama era” in today’s colleges and universities. That’s 28 years of performance. By all means let’s get more of that.
I truly not understand why in the States educational vouchers are seen as a right-wing cause. Quebec is a rather liberal society -- and far more heavily unionized than the US (including teachers) -- yet they've had a full school voucher system for half a century, including private and blatantly religious schools. "The money follows the child."
When I was living there (1976-'91) my sons both attended an excellent boys-only Catholic school from Grade 7 to Grade 12. They beginning in Grade 8 they carried *nine* courses per year, only three of which were electives. In today's money it cost us an extra U$1000 per year, per boy. The provincial voucher covered the rest, making it possible, as small farmers, to secure a top quality education, whilst improving the public schools considerably ... because they had competition.
Perhaps it's because in Quebec the teachers' union concentrates on actually improving education, rather than as a machine to launder public money back to the Democrat party. It also might have something to do with why Canadian education consistently ranks in the world's Top 5, and US education struggles to remain in the Top 50.
Many people on the left believe the first statement is absolutely true, and the second absolutely false.
The American health care system is vastly more expensive than that of any other nation, and produces results that are often no better, and sometimes worse, than those realized in other societies.
The American education system is vastly more expensive than that of any other nation, and produces results that are often no better, and sometimes worse, than those realized in other societies.
Gobbledygook... Betsy DeVos legacy will be her impact on Universities. Whatever she did for K-12 education has been overshadowed by what Democrats Governors, Mayors, and the Teachers' Union did in response to Covid-19. School buildings are no longer an essential thing. Education at the home has become the default, and students at home can access lessons from anywhere. Inertia is the only thing making public education still appear to be a thing.
Of course they hate her and everything she did and tried to do. Just like the hate everyone who supports Trump and freedom. Fascist pigs have to fascist.
Bart Hall said...
Quebec is a rather liberal society -- and far more heavily unionized than the US
hmmm
Quebec is a rather anti federal society -- and far more heavily Catholic than the US
fify!
Quebec isn't going to like Ottawa (which, is to say Ontario) deciding local schools
Quebec isn't going to like ATHEISTS saying they can't have Catholic schools
When did the Dems reign in the influence and power of the teachers union?
Not in my lifetime.
(Shorter NYT: “See what you made us do.”)
I think she just did what any normal person would do looking at the system
This is a topic that gets me more than any. Does this argument actually need to be made to the readers of the forlorn New York Times? Do you look around and think, Hell, our education system is the greatest thing ever? We rank among the lowest reading and math scores at every level against any other industrialized country. By a long shot. Our kids graduate without the ability to read or do simple math. They are taught, not how to think, but what to think. And they are taught that anyone with other ideas must be destroyed.
The subject of history has been rewritten to a fictional history portraying the entire country as evil, while socialism- the actual killer of millions of people worldwide, gets glowing reviews as being "for the people". In geography- well, forget that. Our graduates could not find Russia on a map, let alone the state of Nebraska. Name the 50 state capitals? Hell, they cannot even spell capital. And while we're on the subject, none of them can spell, or write, or compose a coherent sentence. I love how you occasionally put down a long sentence and ask your readers to diagram it, Ann. That's a lost art. Our graduates could not diagram a five word sentence.
They know nothing. They read their phone, get their info from Facebook and CardiB. And they get their heads stuffed with far left dogma about Social Justice, global warming, toxic masculinity, and the evils of white men. Then they get degrees and are sent to their next 4 years of indoctrination- call it finishing school for socialists- at the university level.
The architect of all of this destruction is the Teachers Unions who's leaders once proudly proclaimed (not exact words) that they will be concerned with what the kids need when kids vote. The Teachers Unions are the largest donors to the Democrat Party. The Democrat Party and the Teachers Unions have worked together to destroy the Black community in America. Those kids, of all of the kids, get it the worst. And Biden is about to hand the Dept. of Education over to the Teachers Unions. It's like handing the scalpel over to Jack the Ripper, or hiring John Wayne Gacy as the new school principal. It's that evil, that backward, that astonishing in it's arrogance and ignorance.
It is a big 'FU' to every parent and school aged child in America. And the howl should be heard far and wide. There is only one way to improve your child's education. Free markets, choice, competition. Those three things are a poison to the Teachers Unions. They'll not have it. So when they are in charge, you'll not have it.
I thought we were supporting women.
"More than three decades ago, conventional Republicans and centrist Democrats signed on to an unwritten treaty. Conservatives agreed to mute their push for private school vouchers, their preference for religious schools and their desire to slash spending on public school systems. In return, Democrats effectively gave up the push for school integration and embraced policies that reined in teachers unions...."
What country is this?
Who the fuck voted for this?
Who do these people think they are?
She is absolutely my favorite and Trump’s best appointment. I’d just as soon hang most of the rest of ‘em.
Revolt against testing and charters has been brewing for some time. Do you really think a Biden who has to appease the unions and the left was going to say or do anything different if DeVos hadn't been around?
Is this a "news" story or an editorial? There are so many dubious assumptions and such polemical language that I really hope it's not something the paper serves up as "news."
@boatbuilder, I think that is strictly the fantasy of Democratic copywriters at NYT. Republicans lost some choice and voucher battles, but those have still moved forward in fits and starts, net-net. Democrats never reined in anything. But NYT misinterprets the election as a go-back-to-status-quo-ante.
Is “polarizing” the best way to describe her influence?
Sometimes fixing problems is a little polarizing, if that’s the way you choose to view it, as “us vs them”.
A better way to view it: which policies achieve the outcomes we desire based on incentives, based on the way humans actually behave in the real world? Which policies do not violate basic constitutional rights?
Start there. But no. These stories are always told from the POV that the bureaucrats did a bang-up job and absolutely did not f*ck anything up, and the teacher’s unions offer only good things too, but here comes that stupid and evil conservative to muck things up.
It’s laughable on its face.
Word choice. It says a lot.
Weird how after 8 months of public schools voluntarily abdicating their duty to children the theme is how Republicans are harming public schools. Parents who involuntarily started private hearing pods to work around the stupid reactionary union antics would beg to differ. Can we at least compare results from this weird year before progressives try to blame us for their mistakes again?
We rank among the lowest reading and math scores at every level against any other industrialized country.
According to international PISA tests, the US education system is actually one of the best in the world.
the US education system is actually one of the best in the world.
For measurable education results; its also very expensive, about 2X the per-pupil cost of, say, France.
"The point of religious schools is not religion but that, owing to freedom of religion rulings, they're free to ignore bureaucratic decrees and just teach, say, good character. The religion isn't the important part. The exemption is."
You don't know all the rulings or see all the moving parts. The government money that goes to religious schools (through vouchers and other spending) comes with conditions and to accept the money is to agree to the conditions. So you can just as well say that the point of govt spending going to religion is to tame the religion and fit it to the agenda of government — to remove the differentness and spirit of religion.
1/4 of my daughters middle school math students never show up for class. As in have never been online from the beginning. She has spoken to the parents numerous times.
PISA commentary:
"Asian Americans outscored every Asian country, and lost out only to the city of Shanghai, China’s financial capital."
White Americans students outperformed the national average in every one of the 37 historically white countries tested, except Finland (...)
Hispanic Americans beat all eight Latin American countries."
I think what this country needs is more cowbell,...I mean Randi Weingarten.
Keep em dumb, its working.
In return, Democrats effectively gave up the push for school integration and embraced policies that reined in teachers unions....
WTF?!?!!
Democrats were against busing and were against school integration. So they gave up something they didn't want anyway. How BIG of them?!?!
The ONLY thing Democrats want as far as schools go is for all students to be locked into teacher union schools and to throw as much money at same as they can. They know the teacher's union supports them and indoctrinates the kids to be good Democrats too.
Democrats want everyone ignorant and poor so that they are all easier to control.
Here’s a short list of the awesome improvements progressives have made to public education over the last 30 years or so:
1. Remove physical activity as requirement
2. Stop allowing teachers to discipline disruptive students.
3. Demand ESL students unable to do work in English be mixed into regular classes.
4. Prioritize average daily attendance (ADA) as most important metric of “success” and completely ignore grade level improvement or graduation rates in return.
5. Create illiterate children by virtue of “whole language” instruction over phonics and memorization / rote learning exercises.
6. Create mathematically illiterate children by virtue of “new math” (and other subsequent phony names) instruction and “estimated results” over times tables and memorization / rote learning exercises.
7. Train children to rat out parents who are conservative or religious or have guns in the house or don’t recycle etc
8. Present Marxism and socialism as “natural alternatives” to free enterprise and capitalism.
9. Teach racism as America’s “original sin.”
10. Withhold due process from college men accused of anything but especially when any sexual act is allegedly unwelcome.
11. Re-segregate classrooms to elevate minorities’ self esteem and suppress whiteness.
So of course we should let these people chart the course for the future!
As a proud product of a mid-century, post-war public school system in a small town, I can say without reservation that public schools aren't what they used to be. Local control is pretty much kaput; federal programs run parallel, separately-funded school systems for students with special needs; "no child left behind" and the core curriculum were co-opted by the left; every child of concerned and caring parents is soon diagnosed with his/her/their learning disability; social justice has made its incursions into some of America's formerly great school systems (see Edina MN); and yes, folks, Howard Zinn, a ridiculous crank, is teaching your children American history.
If my wife and I had children of school age, we couldn't get them out of the public schools fast enough.
I taught in gnarly gang-infested public schools for ten years and have an MBA from the UC system so I’ve been both teacher and pupil in many situations.
We live in Chicago now. The problem isn't the amount of money that is spent per student by the public schools here. The problem is what the money is spent on.
Right now, the Chicago teachers' union is trying to see if they can keep their members out of the classroom for a full academic year at full pay. Nice, huh?
Probably the best Sec. of Ed. in my lifetime, and I am old enough to remember the day Nixon resigned.
@Chris of Rights, I agree, and I was in high school the day Kennedy was assassinated.
"President-elect Joe Biden recommitted to teachers unions and adopted more skeptical positions on school choice that were out of the question just a few years ago"
Not polarizing at all.
".... Yet Ms. DeVos has also elevated the education policy agenda of the far right, giving voice and legitimacy to a campaign to fundamentally dismantle public education"
Huh? Paying more is dismantling? Offering a tiny bit of competition is dismantling?
"Conservatives agreed to mute their push for private school vouchers, their preference for religious schools and their desire to slash spending on public school systems. In return, Democrats effectively gave up the push for school integration and embraced policies that reined in teachers unions"
Reined in teachers unions? Where? Some treaty!
"As Republicans continue to work to defund and privatize school systems"
"Privatize school systems"? Where? And by the way, charters aren't private.
"both Democratic governors and the incoming Biden administration can draw a sharp policy distinction, boldly defending public education in a way that resonates with voters"
Except the voters who voted Republicans into office who favored choice.
Department of Education was created by Carter long after Nixon was gone, and in fact after much of the rot I describe had started taking hold.
And if disparate outcomes indicate racism, as current orthodoxy advises, then the graduation and literacy rates alone for black children should be sparking riots. Schools are obviously racists pits of hate, judging them by their own standards. Highly racist.
henge2243 said...
I think what this country needs is more cowbell,...I mean Randi Weingarten.
You'll be pleased to hear she's on Biden's shortlist for Education Secretary.
Conservatives agreed to mute their push for private school vouchers, their preference for religious schools and their desire to slash spending on public school systems. In return, Democrats effectively gave up the push for school integration and embraced policies that reined in teachers unions....
I see the NYT editorial standards do not preclude fantasy development in "news" stories.
Isn't it interesting left wingers use their institutional control to invent mythology instead of improve education?
I'm all for polarization.In fact, I think we need more of it. I think "liberals" and other statists should be ostracized for the coercion-addicted scum they are and sent to the South Pole.
.
1/4 of my daughters middle school math students never show up for class. As in have never been online from the beginning. She has spoken to the parents numerous times.
Our district has taken the fairly dramatic step, even amid some degree of fear of locally rising cases, of requiring that the distance learning kids who are failing have to start coming to in-person classes or withdraw entirely. The district wants the failing kids whose parents are unwilling or unable to monitor them off their books. So some slice of children in our community are going to stop being educated entirely. If the parents can't be bothered to make sure they are showing up to zoom classes they are definitely not going to take responsibility for homeschooling. I don't blame the schools for this at all. What a cluster.
Give control of the money to the parents via Educational Savings Account. The States would deposit the educational money directly into that account. The teachers would be paid directly by the parents from the account. Teachers could rent classroom space from the schools or meeting space from any other vendor. The teachers' unions would have to reconstruct themselves to provide benefits to the teachers, otherwise they'll disappear.
Hawkeyedjb said:
The education industry is one of the most backward, self-interested, unaccountable and unaccomplished sectors of our society. It is an occupation in which teaching useful information is almost an afterthought. It is thoroughly politicized and filled with mediocrities who can't believe they aren't the ones overseeing the world. It is a sign of the profession's degradation that the author, and no doubt the drones of the education empire, see the demand for the slightest accountability as an "assault."
What else needs to be said.
According to international PISA tests, the US education system is actually one of the best in the world.
There are many rankings or studies done on this. PISA is one. And it is more or less like having the academic community grade itself. That said, looking over a number of rankings for the past decade, I note that it seems as though over the last couple of years, the US has (for some reason) come back up in rankings.
I have no idea what might have happened over the last couple of years to change the downward trend prior to that. Maybe re-evaluating how results are ranked (to get a desired result). Maybe actual improvement caused by some outside force, possibly a new tack by the Dept. of Ed.
Then there are always observable results. The evidence of your senses. When you see, hear, and interact with those young people, what do you observe? What are you hearing from them. And as a generation, what do you see? I think they've been screwed. And I saw the change downward start in real life, back in the late 1980s/early 1990s when hiring people for my own business. It has not abated.
I am big believer in the right of anyone to unionize. I think unions can do a tremendous amount of good for their members. They can provide portable health insurance, run hiring halls, provide training and more. I also don't think they live up to their potential most of the time and if I ran a company where my employees wanted to unionize, I would view it as a failure on my part. Management has an obligation to make a union unnecessary.
(Yes, I agree this is sort of a rose colored view and doesn't always reflect reality)
A couple of people have mentioned that the teacher's unions don't represent a desire to improve education. That is true. They don't. Other than some lip service.
But they should not.
They are a union, financed by union dues paid by their members. Their SOLE duty, morally and legally is to represent their members interests. Their sole duty is to fight for better pay, working conditions, work rules and so on FOR THEIR MEMBERS
How would you feel if you hired a lawyer who went into court and told the jury "You know, this kind of crime is a burden on society. My client is clearly guilty and to make sure he never sins again I hope you will recommend the maximum sentence."
It's a pretty stupid statement to even suggest such a thing yet many intelligent people, including at least 2 so far in this thread, think that teachers unions should do this.
They should not. They should fight, with all legal means at their disposal including political, to get the best possible deal for their members.
It is government's fault for rolling over for the unions. Not the unions' fault for asking them to roll over.
Betsy DeVos seems to realize this.
And yes, I realize the round game that teachers unions and politicians play. Unions raise money/votes/support for politicians. Politicians give teachers pay raises and other bennies in return. Everybody wins except the taxpayer. Who keeps voting the same pols back into office and complaining about what a shame it is. You get no sympathy from me.
For example, the folks who voted for Biden. Most republicans and democrat pols are just as bad. It has little to do with parties.
John Henry
" So you can just as well say that the point of govt spending going to religion is to tame the religion and fit it to the agenda of government — to remove the differentness and spirit of religion."
Whose point? Religion-supporting conservatives? Liberals who have fought funding religious schools tooth and nail? Doesn't seem likely that's either side's goal. Unintended consequence maybe.
Making public schools the best possible obviously key to this country's future, but as the grateful product of 12 years of Catholic schooling i do wish there was a way to not see one as the opponent of the other.
This ignores the fact that 95% of K-12 funding in the US is state/local.
My guess is that NYT readers exercise a fair amount of School Choice: moving to a neighborhood with good schools, enrolling their kids in private schools, paying for educational enrichment programs and so on and so on and so on.
Their support for "public" schools is little more than a backdoor support for teachers unions, whose political war chests fund their preferred candidates.
It's all noise to drown out the signal.
I understand why teachers unions are against standardized testing. They can make teachers unions look bad.
I cannot, for the life of me, understand why any other sentient being is against testing. At least as a concept, I agree it is not always done well.
All states, counties, school boards etc have standardized curricula. After completing 9th grade US history, the student will know (insert list of things they should know such as capitals as someone mentioned). And so on for each class and course from K-12.
Absent testing, how do you know whether a student knows that?
And since it is a statewide curriculum, you need to have statewide testing. NY used to have this with Regents Exams. These go back to at least the 30s and were still in use into the 70s. By looking at test results one could see how students in Buffalo were doing relative to students in Ticonderoga. Or Northside High vs Southide. On an even more micro level, Ms Smith's 9th grade history class at notrhside vs Mr Jones class at Northside.
There can be lots of reasons for the differences but whatever the reasons are, you can't even think about how to fix them unless you know they exist.
Ahhhh..... but teachers will teach to the test you will say. Well, if the test is valid, of course they will. If the test measures what the students are supposed to have learned they will be testing to the teach which is just another, perhaps less sneering way of saying "teach to the test".
There needs to be testing. There absolutely MUST be testing.
But educators don't like them.
I taught in Southern New Hampshire University's graduate business school for almost 30 years. I was not given much specific direction on how to do it or what to teach. But I was required to give at least one exam per course. I was "encouraged" to give 2 and usually did. Ditto when I taught packaging in an engineering school. I also gave weekly written assignments and usually a research paper or the like.
I also earned a Masters in SNHU's school of education. I thought it would look good on my resume and it was tax deductible. Not a single exam, quiz, test or anything that looked like one. I also, in 12 courses, never learned the first thing about how to do testing.
The dean came down one winter to help teach a course. Very nice lady, had been head of the Ed department at Smith or one of those schools. I asked her about it. She told me that modern education theory held that testing was obsolete and undesirable. Since I was in her class and needed a good grade I did not argue the point with her.
So put me down as an absolute YES!!! for standardized testing. Properly done, of course. Which raises a whole 'nother discussion.
John Henry
This is the type of thinking you get when results are not the focus of the discussion.
I'll never forget 15 years ago I had just met a co-worker and was in the lunchroom with her. I didn't realize she was an extremist. She spouted out something about how badly schools needed more money. I genuinely asked the question, "Why do they need more money? What are they unable to do today that more money would solve?"
That was literally the extent of our dialogue at that point. There's no pre-text there, no further context.
She became beet red almost instantly. Like nothing I'd ever seen. And muttered something and stormed off.
In the 15 years since I've heard and read countless discussions about giving our schools more resources. Almost never do we have a conversation about what they are achieving with the resources they have.
American children received a better OUTCOME in education with one teacher in a multi-grade singular classroom in the late 1800s and early 1900s. And the results of other countries support that this is not about resource limitation, but about the basic application of modest resources.
This NYT article is what happens when you let people frame the discussion in terms absent of results.
I really wish that it didn't get under my skin so much when the Left calls moderate, mainstream positions "far right," but it does.
Perhaps not in Puerto Rico, Ann. Or not to the same extent.
Back in the 70s the govt decided that all private schools had to be regulated by the govt.
We have lots of Catholic schools here and they said "No". They said we don't recognize your right to regulate us. The implied thread was, do this and you will be out of office. There was precedent. In the 60s the governor got divorced, the priests got up on Sunday and said don't vote for the man or his party and they lost by a lot.
So the church had some real leverage in this. Not legal leverage, probably. But something even better.
So Catholic schools were exempted from educational supervision. They did give in on other regulations Health Dept, building inspections and so on. But up to at least the mid 90s my kid's school was regulated solely by the diocese in educational matters.
And it was a really, really, great school. The last year my son was in HS, we paid about $100/month in tuition. Plus perhaps that again in fees, books, uniforms etc.
Probably at least half the students were not Catholic.
John Henry
I live in minority majority school district, one super progressive superintendent after another over past 20 years, minority performance has not improved a tick, what’s the word for doing the same thing over and over expecting different results?
Mike of Snoqualmie said...
Give control of the money to the parents via Educational Savings Account.
Somebody else is kidding. I wonder how long before they come for the homeschoolers?
And it was a really, really, great school. The last year my son was in HS, we paid about $100/month in tuition. Plus perhaps that again in fees, books, uniforms etc.
Probably at least half the students were not Catholic.
John Henry
All the students at my Catholic high school in Chicago are now black. It's a blue collar, working class black neighborhood. Tuition is paid on time and 96% of the graduates go to college. The remaining white alumni still support it. Th last reunion I went to was about 1/3 black alums.
The commie bastards in WI City of Racine have closed all school buildings in the city. They have also prohibited ANY private schools from operating in person. The WI SUpreme Court issued an injunction on Nov 25 prohibiting the school closure order and despite that injunction the City continues to enforce its school closure order.
It seems like many parents wanted to switch to private schools to get their kids an education, but that is not going to be allowed by the bureaucrats covering for the teachers union.
John henry said..."They are a union, financed by union dues paid by their members. Their SOLE duty, morally and legally is to represent their members interests. Their sole duty is to fight for better pay, working conditions, work rules and so on FOR THEIR MEMBERS"
I've long maintained that the central problem of unions is that the law grants them monopoly rights that would be the envy of anyone's caricature of a 19th century monopolist. Once a union is formed, it loses a lot of its incentives to represent its members' interests and becomes more incentivized to increase its own interests.
Betsy DeVos did whatever she did in the face of a broken education system. The “polarization, as usual, was caused by Democrats, teachers’ unions in particular, who broke the system with greed and indoctrination.
Like Trump, DeVos was a convenient target allowing lefties to avoid reality.
Nobody wants to dismantle the public schools.
The public school system is a joke because the democrats run it. and they ran it into the ground.
It's the left that want to force everyone into one choice.
NYT = lying liars who lie.
The left want a own your kids from cradle to grave.
The right want to give people choice.
the democratic-left are anti-school choice.
"The district wants the failing kids whose parents are unwilling or unable to monitor them off their books."
If teachers aren't monitoring the kids they're supposedly teaching, why are they still collecting paychecks? You don't want to risk your life teaching kids in person? Ok- fine. If you want to be paid, you have to figure out how to do it another way. Otherwise, taxpayers need to get you off their books.
Besides, aren't private schools routinely criticized (whether it's true or not) for not wanting to take the difficult kids?
Democrats
Destroying Cities
Destroying Education
Destroying America
Blogger Edmund said...
“This ignores the fact that 95% of K-12 funding in the US is state/local.”
WTF. Your data is out of date. Huge Fed dollars go to K-12 everywhere, allegedly to equalize outcomes. The differences in per-pupil spending by district is probably 95% local and 5% state dollars. Base level is massive federal dollars on the classroom side and through social programs like free breakfast and lunch and condoms etc.
My youngest was set to start at UWM as a freshman in Sept. He withdrew and transferred to the local affiliated campus in order to possibly get in person instruction which was NOT going to be available in Milwaukee. He never enrolled in classes at the local campus either.
We continue to get a $4000 bill in the mail.
You can NOT get any live person on the phone, nor will they return messages, nor emails to get this rectified. I am certain not to spend a dollar at this institution as a result. It’s not in any way acceptable.
The teacher's union deemed themselves essential and non-essential at the same time. They want to keep getting paid but with the schools fully shut down. Don't the parents notice by now?
JFC...teachers' unions are killing our children.
I've stated many times that Trump should have spent his entire time in office hammering blacks on the virtues of school choice.
Maybe next time.
In the left's corrupt effort to make sure we are all forced to send our kids to the soy-lent green teacher's union of paid democrat woke operatives... the left will remove all school choice.
but please - do not call modern democrats -> totalitarians assholes.
What the fantasy of the goodness of the NHS is to Brits, the fantasy of public education is to Americans.
There are things that needed to be broken. Education was one of them.
Trying to fix what's been caused by multiple overlapping conflicting directives with MORE layers of regulation and directives is like trying to fix a sinking cargo ship by adding hundreds of tons of scrap metal to its holds.
My wife is most likely going to quit her job as a nurse and home school our kids.
It will have a net 0 effect on our household budget as we pay to have them actually in school now paying for private school.
We might even have 1 or 2 local friends pay to send their kids to us instead of private school.
It is hard to describe the rage in the Asian community at our public school system right now.
One thing I would advise against is getting between an Asian mother and her kids education.
Female Bears got nothing on them.
The public school teacher unions have made a big mistake.
Perhaps if Democrats would stop treating the public schools into Progressive indoctrination mills and sinecures for Democratic Party activists, the schools would receive more general support.
major policy renewal
major policy retrograde
John henry said...
They should not. They should fight, with all legal means at their disposal including political, to get the best possible deal for their members.
It is government's fault for rolling over for the unions. Not the unions' fault for asking them to roll over.
John Henry
12/2/20, 8:43 AM
Except in many places you can not be a teacher and NOT be in the union. Even if you don't join, you have to pay dues to the union. I know that is like other union "shops" and I do agree with that either.
In this case, the teacher's union is like the civil service union, two wolves and one sheep discussing what is for dinner and we the people are the sheep.
I also agree somewhat that a union coming into a place can also be an indicator of management failure. Though not always. Democrat jurisdictions do all they can to tilt the field in the direction of unions because they know that means nice fat union dues and nice fat Democrat contributions. It is yet another example if Democrats corrupting a once noble idea and feeding on its remains.
I could have gone to my local public school in Milwaukee. The (inflated, because they didn't longitudinally track who started high school) graduation rate was 38%.
You read that right. 38%.
Instead I got a voucher and attended the Catholic school (graduation rate: 95%).
public schools as currently constructed and funded should be abolished as should teachers' unions.
absent their abolition, they should be forced to compete for students' vouchers.
As pointed out above, many geographies do this and their education is better and cheaper.
Blogger Biff said...
I've long maintained that the central problem of unions is that the law grants them monopoly rights that would be the envy of anyone's caricature of a 19th century monopolist.
Originally the Sherman antitrust Act prohibited unions. It prohibited ANY grouping or conspiring in the restraint of trade. It didn't matter whether it was individuals in a union or meatpackers in a cartel.
The Clayton Act exempted unions from Sherman in 1912 but only if they didn't actually act as a union (Yeah, it was a bizarre law) It was not till the Wagner Act of 1933 that it became legal for workers to form cartels. Oops, I mean unions. That probably went too far and the Taft-Hartley Act of 1948 dialed it back a bit. Which is more or less where we are today.
Originally it was inconceivable that govt workers would be allowed to unionize and they are excluded from Taft-Hartley. But they are not prohibited from unionizing. So they do and at the federal level there is an equivalent of the National Labor Relations Act for govt employees.
Independent contractors are still prohibited from organizing. Uber drivers, if they formed a union, would be breaking the law under Sherman et al.
I have problems reconciling that some people can organize cartels eg;unions and act in restraint of trade eg;strikes, pickets etc and others eg; general motors and Ford cannot.
What is the moral principle behind that?
It is sort of like Bastiat wrote about in The Law 180 years ago, although he was writing about taxes.
John Henry
If it's the NYT, I don't trust it.
An unwritten treaty that included "reining in teacher's unions"? My Aunt Fanny. I see no evidence of that. The Democrat's promise in that regard (if one was ever made) was worth about as much as the $24 that the Dutch paid the natives for the island of Manhattan.
Blogger Todd said...
Except in many places you can not be a teacher and NOT be in the union. Even if you don't join, you have to pay dues to the union. I know that is like other union "shops" and I do agree with that either.
I assume there is a not missing in that last sentence? I also think there should be a "public school" in front of teacher. Plenty of other opportunities that don't require membership.
I have mixed feelings about union shops where one is required to join the union after being hired (as opposed to a mostly prohibited "Closed shop" where one must be a union member to be hired) It is not like it's a secret, one knows that is part of the deal when applying for the job.
Ditto, to a lesser extent, agency shops where you pay agency fees for union representation. These tend to be the same dollar amount as dues and are payment for the union representing you which they are required to do by law, even in open shops in right to work states.
I've never seen the benefit to agency shop. If I had to pay, I figure I would want to be a member. Then at least I have a voice in how the union is run. In theory anyway.
In this case, the teacher's union is like the civil service union, two wolves and one sheep discussing what is for dinner and we the people are the sheep.
Yup, which is why until relatively recently, last 50 years or so, the idea of unions for govt employees was viewed as batshit crazy even by ultraprogressives like Wilson, FDR and even LBJ (a former HS teacher)
But that is ultimately a problem of the voters who will not elect people who will stop it.
I also agree somewhat that a union coming into a place can also be an indicator of management failure. Though not always.
Yup, not always and it is an indication, not proof, of failure. And to be clear, I did not mean management battling attempts by their workers to unionize or to prevent unionization efforts by unions. I meant that management has an obligation to provide a culture of fairness (for lack of a better word) to its employees. To remove the need or desire to unionize.
And some big companies, especially larger ones, actually like unions. It mostly eliminates the HR function which can be a royal pain in the ass (I say that as an HR major and teacher).
In a union workplace everything depends on the contract. Negotiate it once every 3 years. When someone thinks they are not getting paid enough and asks for a raise? "Nope, don't even talk to me about it. You get paid what's in the contract." When they come complaining that suzy was promoted over them, you don't have to explain why, "Seniority" and so on.
It really dumbs down management.
I do think unions should be required to be re-elected/re-certified periodically. Perhaps every 5 years, perhaps every 10. Maybe even as long as 15 but I'd need some convincing. It would need to be on a fixed schedule like other elections in the US. Not on a "Hey, let's have an election" basis like the UK and other countries.
John Henry
"They are a union, financed by union dues paid by their members. Their SOLE duty, morally and legally is to represent their members interests. Their sole duty is to fight for better pay, working conditions, work rules and so on FOR THEIR MEMBERS."
Now if the media would just recognize that.
Sometimes I crack myself up.
Apparently the great economist and free market crusader, Walter Williams, passed away today. Our loss. RIP to Prof. Williams. His last column came out today. It is here: Walter Williams.
As always, when it comes to education, he would nail it.
It's difficult not to hate the left.
And yet they are human beings. And sometimes they are our sisters and brothers. But still it is difficult to not hate them as they push us closer and closer to fascism.
There must be virtues to this left-wing thinking, to being such ugly and malignant human beings. Partly I'm sure it's a dark virtue. There is a good side to killing people. Which I think in the end is what left wing thinking is pushing for and if we take the result as the meaning is what it actually means.
It provides the grist for natural selection, which is something we desperately need, as without it we would rapidly decay into stupidity and failure and go extinct. Or I would have said that before the modern era as it may be that in our current context these deaths are pointless from an evolutionary perspective.
But in general there has to be a positive function to the left wing tropes because if there wasn't one we wouldn't see it repeated over and over again throughout human history.
But it's a real struggle to pull back and try to believe this: that at some higher level things aren't that bad.
Because it feels like we are falling into a dark pit from which we will never emerge.
Blogger JAORE said...
"They are a union, financed by union dues paid by their members. Their SOLE duty, morally and legally is to represent their members interests. Their sole duty is to fight for better pay, working conditions, work rules and so on FOR THEIR MEMBERS.
Now if the media would just recognize that.
I suspec that they do realize it. What you are asking is that they publicize it. They won't, because it doesn't fir the narrative.
Perhaps a better analogy that my earlier one about the lawyer would be journalists.
Let's start demanding that journalist unions represent readers and viewers.
John Henry
"Conservatives agreed to mute their push for private school vouchers, their preference for religious schools and their desire to slash spending on public school systems. In return, Democrats effectively gave up the push for school integration and embraced policies that reined in teachers unions"
Does this exist outside of the author's imagination?
(And does anyone who works at the Times actually know how popular vouchers/charters have been with underserved minority populations who are sick of the public schools' refusal/inability to teach?
I'm not a conservative, and I want to slash public school funding, because it keeps going up in real [not just nominal] dollars, and the results keep getting worse, while we get yearly plaints that it'll all be better if we just Pay More and Support The Teachers.
Bust every public sector union like FDR wanted, just to start.)
Who cares what the DNC newsletter aka the NY Times says. Btw, every "Bi-partisan consensus" is just Cuck Republicans buying into the Democrat position. As shown by the last 4 years, the Democrats NEVER reach across the aisle to compromise with R's. Its ALWAYS the other way round.
Really? After almost a full year of "remote learning" and being able to see how and what are kids are being taught in public school? The public school system where I live should be shut down, every last teacher and the 10,000 different administrators and others working there fired and the buildings burnt down and the earth salted. There is a reason why home schooling and pod learning is exploding across the country and it sure isn't because our schools are doing a great job.
Public Education is a jobs & pension program for the Teacher's Union. There should be no public employee unions, from teachers to any other government employees. All these unions do is get in bed with politicians for mutual support, trading taxpayer money for votes, leaving the job of educating kids woefully undone.
When the NYT says "religious" schools it means for us to picture dumb, white Jesus-yellin' morons. It's the equivalent of what comes to mind when someone writes "inner city" anything.
I have no idea what might have happened over the last couple of years to change the downward trend prior to that.
I'm not sure it did change, since, for example, the nyt editorial excerpted at the first link is titled "It Just Isn’t Working’: PISA Test Scores Cast Doubt on U.S. Education Efforts" and says "...stagnant in reading and math even though the country has spent billions to close gaps with the rest of the world."
Outfits like the nyt religiously, literally, ignore the fact that race is the best predictor of school performance, so their superficial analysis is really about the students, not the schools or teaching methods.
The evidence of your senses. When you see, hear, and interact with those young people, what do you observe?
I don't personally interact with young people all that much, but in any case I'm not a fan of anecdotes as a replacement for data, and if I wanted to compare US kids to kids world-wide, or to kids of the past, I'd need to interact with a lot more people than is possible.
Then there's always the "kids nowadays are awful" syndrome:
“The children now love luxury; they have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise. etc. ” -- Socrates
"Why shouldn’t public education be dismantled? Look at the numbers. They do a terrible job of educating children."
They also self-describe as non-essential. So, why are we spending money on it?
Biden’s kids, like Trump’s kids and Obama’s kids, went to private school.
The nation owes Mrs. DeVos a debt of gratitude for bring due process and fairness to campus adjudications of sexual assault claims. I think it will be hard for the Biden crowd to undo those reforms.
I'd love to know how many of the editorial staff of the NYTs have their kids in the already and for a long time "privatized" system of schooling in this country, the one they seek to deprive poor kids of (the poor being huge fans of charters, etc.). Was it Mary Antoinette who said "Let them eat Groton, Hochkiss, Phillips-Exeter, or Choate"? No, I don't think she did, since she was not as clueless as our pampered aristocrats.
North Division. MPS:
https://www.usnews.com/education/best-high-schools/wisconsin/districts/milwaukee-school-district/north-division-charter-high-21767
34%.
Ann's taxes support this.
"assault" = Ensuring the rights of the accused in 'He said/ She said" sexual matters on campus and ensuring school choice to the neediest children.
Don't these people ever think abut what they are accusing people of?
Support teacher's unions. right. Because the unions put students first ahahahahhhaaahsdfhh arg
That is a ridiculous analysis. The teachers unions fought W's accountability and school choice agenda tooth and nail. And Republicans are do not object to integrated schools. They object to dangerous schools, schools that do not educate the attending children and leftist brainwashing being shoved down their children's throats and to people being locked into failing schools because of their zip code.
>>All the students at my Catholic high school in Chicago are now black. It's a blue collar, working class black neighborhood. Tuition is paid on time and 96% of the graduates go to college.
As I'm sure I've said before, I know exactly what school Michael K is talking about. It's about a mile from where I grew up. I walked by it many, many times in the sixties on the way to/from what was then a sumptuous (now long-gone) movie theater at 79th and Halsted (which, of course, we started going to on our own all the time by about age 13).
If anyone is keeping tabs, the school is in Auburn-Gresham, the neighborhood just south of Englewood (aka the current shooting/murder capital of Chicago) and West Englewood (my old neighborhood, maybe just a little bit better). There is a Showtime series about to go into its fourth season called "The Chi" that is centered on the one-mile stretch of 79th Street between Halsted and Ashland, though, of course, as with Shameless, any actual location filming is in a somewhat safer location on the West Side, not on the South Side that is the supposed location. 79th Street is the main east-west drag in Auburn-Gresham, a half a mile south of the boundary with the Englewoods. I couldn't help from watching a few episodes from the first season of the series, but the violence was just too sickening.
It is admirable what Michael K's alma mater is doing and that the alumni are supporting it. My sense, however, is that the school is a shadow of what it was in his day, both in terms of enrollment and academic standards. There is a heavy emphasis on sports. Not meant as a criticism; that's what they need to do to get the students and then try to teach them something. Also helps to keep the alumni on board.
My own (Jesuit) high school on the near West Side (pretty sure MK would know the one I'm referring to) was about 20 percent black when I was going there in the late 60's/early 70's (FWIW, I was getting the ten miles or so there on my own via the CTA starting at age 13). I think it's probably about the same now. In contrast to MK's school, it attracts students from all over the metropolitan area (and, at times, even as far away as Michigan). It almost failed financially in the mid 70's but was saved, in part, by going coed (and also by a Bob Hope benefit brought about by Irv Kupcinet, a name that might be familiar with those of a certain age from Chicago). I think the total attendance is probably about the same (1000-1200 or so) as when I was there. There is some debate about whether the academic standards have fallen, but they're still relatively high.
My class will hopefully have its 50th reunion some time in 2021. We view ourselves as the school's peak. Inter alia, we had the most National Merit scholars the school has ever had (and way over the current crop). Our team (of which I will just say modestly that I was a member) won the It's Academic TV quiz show for the first (and, as far as I know, only) time in the school's history. The tuition (which was $300 when I started and had gone to $1200 when I graduated) has gone through the roof. I have been making substantial contributions for probably 35 years, mostly devoted to scholarships.
I believe that the Catholic school system in Chicago, once the country's largest Catholic school system (and something like the fourth largest school system overall), continues to do good work as best as can be done in large portions of the city where the Catholic population has largely disappeared.
--gpm
I should perhaps add that, in contrast to the situation with MK's school, the area around my high school has improved substantially since I was there in terms of safety, economic activity, etc., due in large part to the expansion of the Chicago campus of the University of Illinois. Though I despair of what has been going on in the city as a whole in recent months.
--gpm
Sure, go all in with the teachers union and public schools. Not only are they unpopular with the minorities since their public schools are terrible and unresponsive, but they haven't done themselves any favors by being one of the most selfish special interest groups during the pandemic. Sounds like a winner to me.
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