patrick.net

Ravitch's most recent book: "The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice Are Undermining Education"

Isn't it interesting that if one is a republican, and doesn't like that unions often back democrats, that SOME republicans will conveniently spout made up bs anti-union bullcrap.

I would be the first to advocate for certain reforms of unions. It's tricky business though. The big one is altering the degree to which "bad" teachers are overly protected, while maintaining protections for teachers who for example have a legitimate conflict with a "bad" administrator. But over all, the idea that all of the challenges in public education can be solved by eliminating unions and then paying teachers less, is laughably transparent. Are you really that gullible? Or is it that the end justifies the means ? (and do you really understand the end that you are advocating?)

Here's another one for you.

"The high Cost of Low Teacher Salaries"
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/01/opinion/01eggers.html?_r=1&emc=eta1

"Imagine a novice teacher, thrown into an urban school, told to teach five classes a day, with up to 40 students each."

I like that, up to 40 students each. Try up to 50.

klarek says

marcus, if you’re insinuating that unions aren’t harming our public schools, you couldn’t be more wrong. They square teachers and administrative staff against the interests of our kids and the taxpaying public. They marginalize young teachers who have to accept substandard salaries because of their tenured, seniority-based system which promotes the interests of shitty teachers and redundant administrative staff. The sheer amount of waste in terms of dollars is one thing, but being unable to fire non-performing teachers is an absolute disgrace.

Marcus is just protecting his own union hiney. He feels very defensive about unions in general being a member himself.

marcus says

Is it just me, or is it annoying when people who truly know zero or even less than zero (yes that’s possible - it’s called lies), talk as if they are actually knowledgeable about a subject?

No, it's not just you. I've been saying this lately on other threads around here. It's quite astounding how people who know so little about a topic feel that they are "experts" in that very topic simply because they saw or heard something about it on a news program or read it on the Internet somewhere.

I firmly believe that the dismantling of public education has been planned since at least Reagan:

RayAmerica says

Ronald Reagan said at the end of his 2nd. term his biggest regret was not closing down the Department of Education.

The reason why conservatives want vouchers and charter schools is to deprive those poor disadvantaged (black, hispanic, etc.) children of any kind of real education while providing their white privileged children a good education. This maintains the status quo where privileged people maintain all of the power and wealth in the country. It creates a Plutocratic Oligarchy by keeping an underclass uneducated and therefore easily manipulated through propaganda and lies. It allows the conservatives to keep lying to their disadvantaged poor white constituents in order to keep their votes because these people are too uneducated to see through the lies.

Public education, done well and equitably, has the chance of educating an entire society where everyone has a basic knowledge of how society functions and how government should function. This is a dangerous idea to conservatives because if all people in this country had a basic knowledge of how things are supposed to work, the conservatives and their privileged elite would no longer be in power.

The reality of this country is that conservatives elites talk about an alleged meritocracy while actively working against anyone not of their class so that only they and theirs can continue to rule in wealth and power over the rude masses of uneducated cretins.

I won't get too deeply into the blatant racism and bigotry contained in this thread because conservatives get all upset when you point out their obvious racism and bigotry claiming that they are simply misunderstood and that liberals are engaging in character assassination. Someone else did a great job of explaining how generations of oppresion has kept black people down in our society in this thread. I'm not going to repeat it. I doubt that conservatives would dare to acknowledge the truth of those statements. Truth isn't a conservative value. Maintaining power and wealth in the hands of an elite few is the only conservative value.

Destroying public education is the best way to eliminate any chance that the under-classes will ever displace the conservative elite. Public eduction is enemy #1 for a conservative elitist.

George Carlin would agree with out about public education being the enemy of conservative elitists:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?source=patrick.net&v=rsL6mKxtOlQ#watch-headline

simchaland says

The reason why conservatives want vouchers and charter schools is to deprive those poor disadvantaged (black, hispanic, etc.) children of any kind of real education while providing their white privileged children a good education.

Wrong again. It's getting to be a habit for you. What this conservative wants (I can' speak for all the others like you seem to able to) is for the free market to enter into education. Why? So that ALL education is improved via competition. Why you would bring race into the equation is beyond me. It has absolutely nothing to do with it. If anything, competition will help up the standards for the public schools, something they for the most part do not fear under the current system.

Yes, and "competition" has done wonders with health care and our economy. Wrong! There is no such thing as a completely free market. That "free market" that magically fixes things exists only in Conservative Fantasyland. Keep barkin', Sparky...

I can cite thousands of examples showing that the market fails in providing certain services, but you'd deny the actual facts and the truth, so I'm not going to even bother. Proof, facts, and the truth mean nothing to conservatives. They demonstrate this so elegantly when they demand proof from liberals while never bothering to deliver any proof on their side that is based in actual facts. It's so pitifully transparent.

And I expected denials and howling from conservatives as I casually mention their blatant racism and bigotry. It's nothing new.

What improves education is involved parents and stable home life. Money helps up to a point, but it can't take it all the way. All privatizing education does is add a profit motive that incentivizes behaviors that cripple education standards and end results. The only way that private education ends up with better results than public education is when they can be selective about what students they teach.

Standardized testing does not produce better results. It produces teaching practices where teachers teach to the test. "Competition" isn't really competition when one school MUST take all comers regardless of ability and special needs and the other school can choose who to admit.

The biggest indicator for education level in children is the education level of their parents. Economic stability of the family also plays a major role. The biggest indicator of how much economic stability and prosperity a family has is the economic stability and prosperity of the previous family.

When you start from nothing it takes a pretty long time to go anywhere. That's why minorities are typically at the bottom in education and economic status. It's not because they want to be there and it's not because they don't want others in their social group to remain there. It's because social mobility is largely a myth. Social safety nets and affirmative action act to mitigate some of these issues.

And that's why conservatives want to eliminate every public social program under the sun and privatize it all. Once everyone was allowed to play and guarenteed a spot freedom stopped being fun.

simchaland says

I can cite thousands of examples showing that the market fails in providing certain services

I'm sure you meant that to be an exaggeration, so why not cite the top ten examples in which the free market fails in "providing certain services?"

omgbacon says

Once everyone was allowed to play and guarenteed a spot freedom stopped being fun.

Interesting way of putting it.

RayAmerica says

simchaland says

I can cite thousands of examples showing that the market fails in providing certain services

I’m sure you meant that to be an exaggeration, so why not cite the top ten examples in which the free market fails in “providing certain services?”

I know you won't ever reciprocate because you never cite any examples based in fact about anything ever. I'm not doing your work for you Rayray...

Show yours first, then I'll you show mine. I'm sure you know that's how it works.

NYC Teachers Counter 'Waiting For Superman' With Film Of Their Own

What did "Waiting For 'Superman'" get wrong?

A grassroots group of parents and teachers pokes big holes in last year's blockbuster documentary about America's schools -- insisting that real reform will require more than brand-conscious initiatives such as increased testing standards and access to charter schools.

The result is a new documentary, wryly titled "The Inconvenient Truth Behind Waiting For Superman."

http://www.waitingforsupermantruth.org/

also, heres the latest news from the poster child of education privatization:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/05/24/michelle-rhee-ohio-teachers-bill_n_866252.html

simchaland says

I can cite thousands of examples showing that the market fails in providing certain services,

also also, only one article, but bad news for your point:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/08/24/germany-economic-recovery-recession-lessons_n_692534.html

"High taxes, heavy regulation, powerful unions and a big welfare state are turnoffs for pretty much any true blue (and especially red) American, but they are also the four cornerstones that have led Germany to its strongest quarter in 20 years."

state says

How will privately run schools make better use of money than public schools?

Ray won't answer, so let me tell you what he and his overlords think (or rather feel - it's all about the emotion with these people).

Ray figures that the first thing that they will do is kill unions and cut teachers pay, because as expensive as college is these days, we all know that the talented people who go in to teaching have trust funds and don't need to paid as well as any other professions.

(or maybe he will tell you as Chris has said in the past - if teachers stop paying that $50/month to the union, then they can be paid many hundreds per month more. It's hard to explain - but it has to do with the wasteful ways that $50 is spent (hint - a little bit goes to politics)

The savings they get from cutting teacher pay, can go to paying principals 3 or 400K, and to high salaries for other administrators. Anyone who has ever been around schools, knows that if the administrators are paid enough, attracting the highly motivated talent, that everything else will fall in to line. The teachers, that is the ones that that actually children interact with all day are irrelevant.

Ya, you know, it's those greedy high level union guys. The extra few thousand that that one guy at the top of the unions gets. We all know that the union can't see what's best for the students in a many Billion dollar school district, because that one guy is too fixated on that gravy train he gets for being president.

state says

How will privately run schools make better use of money than public schools?

Free market competition. If one is guaranteed income regardless of outcome there is no incentive to provide better or cheaper service. On the other hand if you know you'll be broke if you do not provide a better service than your competition you sure will strive to do better.

Public sector unions are very lazy and complacent groups just slowly bleeding away at the system and the taxpayers. They long ago outlived their usefulness, and if not for parasitic symbiosis with politicians to whom they donate for kickbacks in return they would have been long gone by now.

ChrisLA says

Free market competition

But there is only one public school system. So with your no union comes privatization, and with that comes a situation where the poor are screwed much more than they are now.

At least now, if you're poor, you can get an apartment in a good school district and your kids have a fighting chance. Once things are totally privatized, we know what will happen. Fact is they won't be totally privatized, there will still be public schools, but they will be just for special ed, and kids that don't want to be in school.

ChrisLA says

Public sector unions are very lazy and complacent groups just slowly bleeding away at the system and the taxpayers

This is a lie, maybe if you repeat it can become true ?

Poor will simply get cheaper and better education Marcus, thats what free market competition leads to.

I've gone to a public school and poor have terrible education chances there. Schools simply hold back the smart students until the slow students catch up, most of which have no desire to do so. I've seen students in 12th grade that couldn't add numbers together.

In free market competition if your product isn't good people won't buy it, with public education system there is no way for the poor to opt out for a better option making them stuck in a system that is right now completely failing everyone.

marcus says

This is a lie, maybe if you repeat it can become true ?

It's not a lie it's an observation.

ChrisLA says

Poor will simply get cheaper and better education Marcus, thats what free market competition leads to.

Only, not so much...

For-Profit Colleges Spend Much Less On Educating Students Than Public Universities

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/05/26/for-profit-colleges-spend_n_867175.html

"For-profit colleges devote less than a third of what public universities spend on educating students, even though the for-profit institutions charge nearly twice as much as their public counterparts for tuition, according to new data released Thursday."

"Students attending bachelor's degree programs at for-profit schools are also much less likely to graduate than students who attend public universities"

"Some of the most striking statistics in Thursday's report dealt with the amount of money institutions spent on teaching students. On average, for-profit schools spent $2,659 per student on instructional costs during the 2008-09 school year, compared with $9,418 per student at public universities and $15,289 per student at private non-profit colleges."

"Although for-profit schools enroll about 10 percent of the nation's college population, 45 percent of students who defaulted on their loans attended such institutions."

"One in five students graduate from for-profit bachelor's degree programs within six years, compared to more than half of students at public universities."

Seems to me a good option to consider is reform the current system rather than reinventing it based on fact-free political theories where the students are treated like a profit-making resource.

kentm says

Some of the most striking statistics in Thursday’s report dealt with the amount of money institutions spent on teaching students. On average, for-profit schools spent $2,659 per student on instructional costs during the 2008-09 school year, compared with $9,418 per student at public universities and $15,289 per student at private non-profit colleges.

It's quite impressive that private enterprise can spend so much less and accomplish same or better, and this is while there isn't much competition out there yet.

We'll see those prices and costs drop pretty fast if there will be more and more competition. And it certainly needs to happen. I've seen some college graduates out there from public universities that have no change in hell in private sector.

you shouldn't compare apples to oranges.

compared with $9,418 per student at public universities
Most of these expenditures are for instructional staff salaries and benefits. Last time I talked to someone at UC, he was saving nothing for retirement as his pension would rain down money when he retired. Now, my understanding is that there are fewer tenure track positions available as existing faculty 'got theirs' and are barring the gates (no money for newer faculty). I still think we have an education bubble to work through. That said, I'm not about to jump on the for profit bandwagon.

kentm, How about fewer posts from the Huffington Post. My eyes start to glaze over whenever I see HP (or Fox News for that matter).

state says

ChrisLA says

It’s quite impressive that private enterprise can spend so much less and accomplish same or better, and this is while there isn’t much competition out there yet.
We’ll see those prices and costs drop pretty fast if there will be more and more competition. And it certainly needs to happen. I’ve seen some college graduates out there from public universities that have no change in hell in private sector.

Chris LA here seriously thinks university of phoenix online and DeVry provide the same quality of education as U of Michigan or U of Virginia

We recently interviewed someone who "graduated" from University of Phoenix for their Bachelor's and Argosy University for her Masters in Counseling Psychology. Sorry, but we were less than impressed.

If this is the Republican vision of the future for "competitive/free market" higher education, and we allow them to implement it, we are doomed as a country. We will forever be the cheap service economy labor force that the Conservative Corporate Elites want to exploit.

If the Republicans get their way, it's likely we'll see "universities" like these in the near future:

Costco University (CU)
Sam's University (SU)
University of the Dollar Store (UDS)
Walmart University (WU)

Bargain basement prices and specials will be offered for "quality" education provided online and at convenient retail locations.

Our subservience to the Conservative Corporate Elite will be complete. We will be ripe for exploitation by the Foreign Corporate Elite too.

thunderlips11 says

Simcha, I believe that the Walton Family Foundation’s biggest grants are to Children’s Educational Opportunity Foundation America, a project of Children First America, which seeks to get rid of public schools and replace them with charter schools.

That makes sense. They want completely brain dead workers who don't understand what rights they are supposed to have. Brain dead workers can be paid minimum wage and won't ever complain about not having benefits. Walmart actively busts unions and uses illegal tactics to bully employees who attempt to organize.

Walmart instructs employees to go to the state and apply for Medicaid instead of providing health care for their employees. Also they'll help you get food stamps and WIC if you're a woman and you get pregnant.

Walmart instructs and encourages employees to use the public social safety net while working for minimum wage. Then the jerks complain about having to pay for these programs calling these programs "socialist." They have vast sums of money to hire lobbyists to rally to destroy the social safety net.

Yeah, Walton Family is one of those Conservative Corporate Elitist families who are working to enslave Americans through destroying wages, benefits, and education. But this is only one example.

The Conservative Corporate Elite have had a free ride since at least 1980. It's easy to aggregate all the wealth of a country when you control all of the levers of power. They have amassed such a great hoarde of wealth that it will be difficult, if not impossible, to unseat them from their positions of privelege that they use to destroy our country for their benefit.

simchaland says

Costco University (CU)
Sam’s University (SU)
University of the Dollar Store (UDS)
Walmart University (WU)

You forgot this important institution:

http://www.glennbeck.com/becku/

simchaland says

If this is the Republican vision of the future for “competitive/free market” higher education, and we allow them to implement it, we are doomed as a country. We will forever be the cheap service economy labor force that the Conservative Corporate Elites want to exploit.

One university does not make a trend. When Henry Ford started making cars you could only get one type and in one color and screw you if you wanted it better.

Competition works when there are a lot of universities out there competing amongst each other, I still do not see that competition yet. All I'm seeing so far is a few universities out there costing a lot less than taxpayer subsidized crap we have all around the state.

For whatever the reason internet is filled with bunch of 20somethings that have not lived a life and think they know the liberal answer to everything because they can write a post on the internet. Competition requires competitors, otherwise it might as well be called monopoly.

education loans are high because government is intent on subsidizing the education bubble. It's same as housing bubble, waiting to pop.

ch_tah says

As a parent I see schools as some dinosaur union complacent system where no one gives a damn about anything because there is no reason to care. You people don’t have to out-compete, to out-perform or out-educate. And there is this entitlement mentality of “I’ll sit on my ass for a few years with tenure and taxpayers owe me for a lifetime.”

It really is time for unions to go and education to be changed into a voucher based system so that schools start competing for students.

Please tell me you went to private school; otherwise, you are proof public schools failed at least one time. Your comments are truly uninformed and based purely on what Fox News and AM radio tell you to believe.

It's SOOO true. An example: I'm at a house party in San Jose and meet a cutie. We start talking and she tells me she's a teacher. I get her to blather on and actually brag about "surfing the web" instead of teaching the horrible kids, reporting the principle to "her union" when he tries to get her to do her job and "winning" different role, same pay, arrangements etc., except that she's now a "counselor" and just goes around pulling her favorite kids out of class for counseling - shooting the $hit and surfing the web in her office.

Complete trash... Yacked about "can't be fired" etc...

just_passing_through says

brag about “surfing the web” instead of teaching the horrible kids

Right. That sounds like a lot of teachers I know.

just_passing_through says

Complete trash… Yacked about “can’t be fired”

Why just teachers ? Police and fireman have a union too. OBviously they are all lazy and incompetent too, right ?

Listening to the stupidity and arrogance of many of our right wing dim bulbs gets so fricking tiring.

Yeah yeah, I'm a teacher, a schill for the unions. So don't listen to me.
That's like saying you're an American, so you can't have a legitimate opinion about American foreign policy (which might be true in your case - as I saw your sad attempts to confuse what it is we mean when we talk about Palestine).

ChrisLA says

education loans are high because government is intent on subsidizing the education bubble

Like Tot, you seem to confuse cause and effect a lot. I think it's administrative bloat among other reasons.

Maybe what you mean is that you think government could influence the bloat and the price increases by denying loans to students who need them.

I don't think so. That would be just one more nail in the coffin of the American Dream of upward mobility.

marcus says

just_passing_through says

brag about “surfing the web” instead of teaching the horrible kids

Right. That sounds like a lot of teachers I know.

just_passing_through says

Complete trash… Yacked about “can’t be fired”

Why just teachers ? Police and fireman have a union too. OBviously they are all lazy and incompetent too, right ?

Listening to the stupidity and arrogance of many of our right wing dim bulbs gets so fricking tiring.

Yeah yeah, I’m a teacher, a schill for the unions. So don’t listen to me.
That’s like saying you’re an American, so you can’t have a legitimate opinion about American foreign policy (which might be true in your case - as I saw your sad attempts to confuse what it is we mean when we talk about Palestine).

Marcus, that is just the most recent example and not a single data point - I've known other loser teachers. I really don't know you, haven't paid any attention to your comments and so have no comments about your situation.

I've had some young teachers (cousins) in my family that got into that sort of work, found out how hard it is (mostly they say due to lack of support from the parents these days) and changed careers.

That's a hellava lot better than being a frigin entitled parasite like the young lady I met at the party was.

Most that I've dated got into teaching because whatever prior career they'd trained for they decided was 'too hard' or whatever. They assumed teaching would be 'easy' and they wouldn't have to 'work too hard' and would get 'summers off to travel'. One traveled so much she ended up filing for bankruptcy from the debt she'd accumulated.

My career had some realities I had to face too (and still does) but I didn't need a Union. Things like idiots in the lab spreading toxics around multiple companies I worked for going out of business etc. Each time I hit the street it lit a fire under my rear to retrain and work that much harder to get a better job. I was poor for so many years relative to hi-tech workers around here. I slept on the floor of a studio for 4 years on a carpet that smelled of wet dog, ate what I could afford and so on to stay out of debt. Each time I got another job it was better. I earned where I'm at now which I jokingly refer to as "lower middle class" for the peninsula.

It was interesting hearing a bus driver tell me how he'd only been on the job for a few years and yet was making 2.5x my salary (at the time) and planned to go on disability soon like all of his buddies. He said driving buses makes their butt hurt and about 75% were on disability.

Public Unions are a joke. Nobody is forcing kids to breathe toxic coal mine dust these days. Too many of the workers gamed the system for too long and those of you working now won't be able to game it much longer - the game is up.

Those teachers who are passionate about their jobs (I know of one, but then I don't really hang out with teachers) have my respect, I know it's tough and thankless - like so many other jobs. Maybe you are one of them I don't know.

Also, I think you misunderstood my point about Palestine but so be it...

Thanks for the polite response. Clearly I was wrong about you, and you have my respect for what you have accomplished. My issue was with the generalization, based on what honestly sounds fictional (the teacher bragging about not doing right by the children).

It's true there are some unique aspects to teaching. When I went into teaching it was after taking some fairly big entrepreneurial risks in my earlier careers. There were three primary things attracting me to it.

1) One was the social aspect of interacting with people instead of a computers (although there is quite a yin and yan to this). As people to interact with go, children can be quite enjoyable or very difficult if they have major issues they are working out.

2) Yes, the job security. I like the job security with this type of job, and feel that it is a trade off for knowing you'll never be making great money.

3) The idea of doing something that has non monetary rewards beyond just excelling at what you are doing. That is rewarding. But if your work impacts peoples lives (which can be stressful in a kind of deep way), then I think it helps make difficult work more tolerable.

As for summers off, many teachers teach summer school. And most people have no idea the amount of grading and planning that is done during the school year on nights and weekends. Teachers would burn out without the good vacation time they get. You would have to do the job to understand. If you ever worked really hard in college or grad school, then you know the feeling of going on break at the holidays or at summer. It's the same for teachers, the break is needed, because the pace is much different than most jobs.

If schools were competitive in ways you suggest, I believe there would be problems you haven't considered. Especially ones addressing the needs of the poor and unmotivated children, who have parents who don't understand or appreciate the difference that education can make or who don't appreciate their children's potential.

But also, the blame placed on unions, and even the impact that unions have on education is greatly exaggerated. Bad teachers are pressured, and this is increasingly true because of the media focus on this.

If there weren't unions, then there would be less security with teaching. Obviously an average to slightly above average teacher who has worked their way to the top of the pay scale, might be replaced by new teachers for half the pay when budgets are tight (or even in interest of higher returns for stock holders), if it weren't for unions.

I know, I know, that's how it is in other fields. True. But if you are an engineer, you can bust ass and get your pay up to 150K or substantially higher in management. So if you want to take the job security away from teaching, and you still want good talented young people to devote themselves to teaching, please be willing to pay them more, to compensate for the fact that they might find themselves on the street when they are 57.

I think the truth is it isn't that teachers go in to it thinking it will be easy, it's pundits out there, including many on this site that think it's easy and have no respect for the actual job of teaching.

ChrisLA says:
"For whatever the reason internet is filled with bunch of 20somethings that have not lived a life and think they know the liberal answer to everything because they can write a post on the internet. Competition requires competitors, otherwise it might as well be called monopoly."

Wow, you really should do better with your insults and insinuations. There are other conservatives on this board who do it much better than you.

My actual age is 41. IRL I get mistaken for mid to early 30's all the time. I haven't been mistaken for a twentysomething since I was in my mid-thirties. I guess working with 18-25 year olds keeps me young. Lol!

Last time I checked, and I help people to get into colleges all the time as part of my work with 18-25 year olds, there is fierce competition in higher education. I finished my latest master's degree almost 6 years ago. The choices are so vast that it is difficult to choose. Public institutions compete with private institutions. Public institutions compete with each other as private institutions compete amongst themselves. In point of fact you can argue that costs have increased as choices have multiplied and private institutions gain market share. The facts show this. Is there a true cause and effect here? I think that's an interesting question to pursue as you make the assumption that somehow by eliminating public funding for all levels of education, privatizing all levels of education, and allowing comptition in the marketplace to pick the winners and the losers, you get lower costs and better quality. Right now the data doesn't support your hypthesis.

marcus says

If schools were competitive in ways you suggest

That was someone else not me. I just think "Public" Unions are a bad idea in general. In particular within bankrupt nations/states. Also, I think a lot of the problem is not necessarily the lower level public employees. There are fat cats in Unions too and the 'already retired' who are living large at your expense as well was that of tax payers.

I hear you about "finding yourself on the street" and no I'm not a engineer by degree. I'm a lowly biologist - picked up several SW Dev languages AFTER the dot-com bust. I'm now a bioinformatics scientist. My title is that of a 3rd level PhD yet I've only a BS. I don't know anyone in my shoes. Given what I've seen in biotechnology and my age I expect my career to end at age 45 - or maybe sooner given an unexpected layoff.

Maybe I'll buy a subway sandwich shop for my next career if I can save up enough dough. :)

As an aside, I'd like to nominate UTI for having the most unfortunate acronym for a university. Lol! :-)

UTI

I hope they subsidize cranberry juice.