Chicago Teachers Union leader Karen Lewis pushed back — and won

[alfred russel]

I don't think we need tests to discover the problems of students who don't speak English, are gone half the year, or are illiterate.

The problem with testing isn't that it doesn't give decision-makers some valid info in the aggregate, it's that multiple-choice tests don't measure what we want to measure in students: things like analytical skills, creativity, and communications sills.  It is possible to test for those things, but it is hard, so school authorities test for what is easy to test - which happens to be the ability to take these kinds of tests.  That's an ability that students won't use much in real life.

I think we want to develop the things you mention, but also the basic building blocks of reading and math. If mass standardized tests are only easy for the latter, I still think those tests have value and are an important assessment tool. They just can't be the only part of evaluating a student.

[MadImmortalMan]

Who is going to pay the salaries for these observers?

You mean, back when we actually spent money on the education system?

We spend the money. Lots of it. It just doesn't get to the classroom.

It's pretty obvious if I multiply the publicized $-per-kid numbers in NV and multiply that by the number of kids in my Mom's class that the money isn't getting there. It's enough money to fill the class with good computers, pay my mom a hundred grand salary and make sure they've got every teaching aid they could want within reason, even when you factor out what you'd expect to be siphoned out for school lunches, the electric bill and extracurricular things.

I don't know why the guys who work in the huge administrative complex with marble floors and mahogany conference rooms can't figure out the budget. I'm sure their huge public relations department and top-flight lobbying team could be swapped for an accountant or two.

[OttoVonBismarck]

We've doubled the number of teachers since 1970 and only had an 8% increase in the size of the student body, we also spend more money per capita than we used to on education and more than many other countries that get far better educational results. The issue with our education system almost certainly isn't how much we spend.

Now, I don't know what the problem with our educational system is, but I find it hard to believe given our relative spending and hiring levels since 1970 (and lack of any material improvement since then) that it is that we aren't willing to spend enough money on the system.

Teacher's unions are almost always a blight, overly protective of blatantly bad teachers and basically pushing the ideology that teachers are supposed to be compensated like doctors or lawyers if you expect any good educational results.

But people just focusing on slashing teacher pay and benefits and coming up with BS standardized tests just to fire more teachers aren't really helping either. I'm not really sure that poorly performing teachers explain our educational problems. However as a government employee myself I think the best way to handle bad government employees is for them to have a supervisor that monitors their work performance and gives them periodic reviews. Enough consecutive poor reviews and you get shown the door.

This idea that there should be a standardized test to grade across the board teacher performance just seems bizarre to me. It seems to me it should be the job of a principal to judge teacher performance (or vice principals or department heads, depending on how large a school we're talking about.) That's how we do it at the Federal level for civil servants, their supervisor reviews them and puts them on an "improvement plan" if they are having problems.

No idea how true it is, but I always hear that principals can't really fire teachers very easily and the effort involved dissuades most from even attempting it. That's not totally dissimilar to the situation at the Federal level, firing someone is "work" and most people who are in management in the government would prefer not to do any of that. But I've made it my habit to do all the laborious paperwork required to get someone moving out the door, I've seen the consequences if you just let the detritus accumulate. It's one thing when you have a bad performer here or there, but if you don't get rid of the really bad cases they also tend to be the ones who stay in one position for the rest of their careers...so over a few years your whole department can be made up 100% of dead wood.

[crazy canuck]

The thing is everyone knows who the really good teachers are in a school.   As an example, recently there was a letter to the editor in our local paper complaining about the fact that an excellent teacher with long years of service had left the public school system to teach at a private school.  As it happens he is now teaching socials to one of my boys.  My son's comment about the teacher after the first few classes - "Best teacher ever, but its going to be hard to get an A".  And my sons have had the priviledge of being taught be some very good teachers.

When my kids were in the public system there was a long list of teachers to avoid who had either burned out or who never had the ability to be a great teacher in the first place.

I dont know how to fix the problem but if I was in charge I would probably start with increasing the pay for teachers.

[derspiess]

I dont know how to fix the problem but if I was in charge I would probably start with increasing the pay for teachers.

 

[garbon]

I dont know how to fix the problem but if I was in charge I would probably start with increasing the pay for teachers.

 

Whenever I'm stumped by a problem, I throw money at it.

[crazy canuck]

Yeah, I can see why your country is going downhill so fast.

Can't attact good teachers anymore - lets cut their salaries and make their life a living hell - yep that ought to do nicely.

[CountDeMoney]

Whenever I'm stumped by a problem, I throw money at it.

Throwing money at it, or slicing money from it, you still can't fix broken kids and broken parents.

[garbon]

Whenever I'm stumped by a problem, I throw money at it.

Throwing money at it, or slicing money from it, you still can't fix broken kids and broken parents.

Disagree. I'd just give those broken people more monies.

[CountDeMoney]

Whenever I'm stumped by a problem, I throw money at it.

Throwing money at it, or slicing money from it, you still can't fix broken kids and broken parents.

Disagree. I'd just give those broken people more monies.

That's from another budget, not the DOE.

[derspiess]

Disagree. I'd just give those broken people more monies.

Especially if some of that money gets funneled to Democrat candidates.

[CountDeMoney]

Especially if some of that money gets funneled to Democrat candidates.

WHELP YOU GOT US THERE MAN

[derspiess]

Especially if some of that money gets funneled to Democrat candidates.

WHELP YOU GOT US THERE MAN

Yes!!!!

[OttoVonBismarck]

Yeah, I can see why your country is going downhill so fast.

Can't attact good teachers anymore - lets cut their salaries and make their life a living hell - yep that ought to do nicely.

But based on my research we don't spend less than other countries, we actually spend a lot more than many other countries that do much better on all the international education metrics (which can probably be debated on their merits by some.) For example Finland is usually up near the top educationally (hard to believe based on my personal internet interactions with Finns), and they actually spend less than the United States, here is an interesting WSJ piece comparing the U.S. to Finland:

What Makes Finnish Kids So Smart?
Finland's teens score extraordinarily high on an international test. American educators are trying to figure out why.

By ELLEN GAMERMAN

Helsinki, Finland

High-school students here rarely get more than a half-hour of homework a night. They have no school uniforms, no honor societies, no valedictorians, no tardy bells and no classes for the gifted. There is little standardized testing, few parents agonize over college and kids don't start school until age 7.

Yet by one international measure, Finnish teenagers are among the smartest in the world. They earned some of the top scores by 15-year-old students who were tested in 57 countries. American teens finished among the world's C students even as U.S. educators piled on more homework, standards and rules. Finnish youth, like their U.S. counterparts, also waste hours online. They dye their hair, love sarcasm and listen to rap and heavy metal. But by ninth grade they're way ahead in math, science and reading -- on track to keeping Finns among the world's most productive workers.

The Finns won attention with their performances in triennial tests sponsored by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, a group funded by 30 countries that monitors social and economic trends. In the most recent test, which focused on science, Finland's students placed first in science and near the top in math and reading, according to results released late last year. An unofficial tally of Finland's combined scores puts it in first place overall, says Andreas Schleicher, who directs the OECD's test, known as the Programme for International Student Assessment, or PISA. The U.S. placed in the middle of the pack in math and science; its reading scores were tossed because of a glitch. About 400,000 students around the world answered multiple-choice questions and essays on the test that measured critical thinking and the application of knowledge. A typical subject: Discuss the artistic value of graffiti.

The academic prowess of Finland's students has lured educators from more than 50 countries in recent years to learn the country's secret, including an official from the U.S. Department of Education. What they find is simple but not easy: well-trained teachers and responsible children. Early on, kids do a lot without adults hovering. And teachers create lessons to fit their students. "We don't have oil or other riches. Knowledge is the thing Finnish people have," says Hannele Frantsi, a school principal.

Visitors and teacher trainees can peek at how it's done from a viewing balcony perched over a classroom at the Norssi School in Jyväskylä, a city in central Finland. What they see is a relaxed, back-to-basics approach. The school, which is a model campus, has no sports teams, marching bands or prom.

Trailing 15-year-old Fanny Salo at Norssi gives a glimpse of the no-frills curriculum. Fanny is a bubbly ninth-grader who loves "Gossip Girl" books, the TV show "Desperate Housewives" and digging through the clothing racks at H&M stores with her friends.

Fanny earns straight A's, and with no gifted classes she sometimes doodles in her journal while waiting for others to catch up. She often helps lagging classmates. "It's fun to have time to relax a little in the middle of class," Fanny says. Finnish educators believe they get better overall results by concentrating on weaker students rather than by pushing gifted students ahead of everyone else. The idea is that bright students can help average ones without harming their own progress.

At lunch, Fanny and her friends leave campus to buy salmiakki, a salty licorice. They return for physics, where class starts when everyone quiets down. Teachers and students address each other by first names. About the only classroom rules are no cellphones, no iPods and no hats.

Fanny's more rebellious classmates dye their blond hair black or sport pink dreadlocks. Others wear tank tops and stilettos to look tough in the chilly climate. Tanning lotions are popular in one clique. Teens sift by style, including "fruittari," or preppies; "hoppari," or hip-hop, or the confounding "fruittari-hoppari," which fuses both. Ask an obvious question and you may hear "KVG," short for "Check it on Google, you idiot." Heavy-metal fans listen to Nightwish, a Finnish band, and teens socialize online at irc-galleria.net.

The Norssi School is run like a teaching hospital, with about 800 teacher trainees each year. Graduate students work with kids while instructors evaluate from the sidelines. Teachers must hold master's degrees, and the profession is highly competitive: More than 40 people may apply for a single job. Their salaries are similar to those of U.S. teachers, but they generally have more freedom.

Finnish teachers pick books and customize lessons as they shape students to national standards. "In most countries, education feels like a car factory. In Finland, the teachers are the entrepreneurs," says Mr. Schleicher, of the Paris-based OECD, which began the international student test in 2000.

One explanation for the Finns' success is their love of reading. Parents of newborns receive a government-paid gift pack that includes a picture book. Some libraries are attached to shopping malls, and a book bus travels to more remote neighborhoods like a Good Humor truck.

Finland shares its language with no other country, and even the most popular English-language books are translated here long after they are first published. Many children struggled to read the last Harry Potter book in English because they feared they would hear about the ending before it arrived in Finnish. Movies and TV shows have Finnish subtitles instead of dubbing. One college student says she became a fast reader as a child because she was hooked on the 1990s show "Beverly Hills, 90210."

In November, a U.S. delegation visited, hoping to learn how Scandinavian educators used technology. Officials from the Education Department, the National Education Association and the American Association of School Librarians saw Finnish teachers with chalkboards instead of whiteboards, and lessons shown on overhead projectors instead of PowerPoint. Keith Krueger was less impressed by the technology than by the good teaching he saw. "You kind of wonder how could our country get to that?" says Mr. Krueger, CEO of the Consortium for School Networking, an association of school technology officers that organized the trip.

Finnish high-school senior Elina Lamponen saw the differences firsthand. She spent a year at Colon High School in Colon, Mich., where strict rules didn't translate into tougher lessons or dedicated students, Ms. Lamponen says. She would ask students whether they did their homework. They would reply: " 'Nah. So what'd you do last night?'" she recalls. History tests were often multiple choice. The rare essay question, she says, allowed very little space in which to write. In-class projects were largely "glue this to the poster for an hour," she says. Her Finnish high school forced Ms. Lamponen, a spiky-haired 19-year-old, to repeat the year when she returned.

Lloyd Kirby, superintendent of Colon Community Schools in southern Michigan, says foreign students are told to ask for extra work if they find classes too easy. He says he is trying to make his schools more rigorous by asking parents to demand more from their children.

Despite the apparent simplicity of Finnish education, it would be tough to replicate in the U.S. With a largely homogeneous population, teachers have few students who don't speak Finnish. In the U.S., about 8% of students are learning English, according to the Education Department. There are fewer disparities in education and income levels among Finns. Finland separates students for the last three years of high school based on grades; 53% go to high school and the rest enter vocational school. (All 15-year-old students took the PISA test.) Finland has a high-school dropout rate of about 4% -- or 10% at vocational schools -- compared with roughly 25% in the U.S., according to their respective education departments.

Another difference is financial. Each school year, the U.S. spends an average of $8,700 per student, while the Finns spend $7,500. Finland's high-tax government provides roughly equal per-pupil funding, unlike the disparities between Beverly Hills public schools, for example, and schools in poorer districts. The gap between Finland's best- and worst-performing schools was the smallest of any country in the PISA testing. The U.S. ranks about average.

Finnish students have little angstata -- or teen angst -- about getting into the best university, and no worries about paying for it. College is free. There is competition for college based on academic specialties -- medical school, for instance. But even the best universities don't have the elite status of a Harvard.

Taking away the competition of getting into the "right schools" allows Finnish children to enjoy a less-pressured childhood. While many U.S. parents worry about enrolling their toddlers in academically oriented preschools, the Finns don't begin school until age 7, a year later than most U.S. first-graders.

Once school starts, the Finns are more self-reliant. While some U.S. parents fuss over accompanying their children to and from school, and arrange every play date and outing, young Finns do much more on their own. At the Ymmersta School in a nearby Helsinki suburb, some first-grade students trudge to school through a stand of evergreens in near darkness. At lunch, they pick out their own meals, which all schools give free, and carry the trays to lunch tables. There is no Internet filter in the school library. They can walk in their socks during class, but at home even the very young are expected to lace up their own skates or put on their own skis.

The Finns enjoy one of the highest standards of living in the world, but they, too, worry about falling behind in the shifting global economy. They rely on electronics and telecommunications companies, such as Finnish cellphone giant Nokia, along with forest-products and mining industries for jobs. Some educators say Finland needs to fast-track its brightest students the way the U.S. does, with gifted programs aimed at producing more go-getters. Parents also are getting pushier about special attention for their children, says Tapio Erma, principal of the suburban Olari School. "We are more and more aware of American-style parents," he says.

Mr. Erma's school is a showcase campus. Last summer, at a conference in Peru, he spoke about adopting Finnish teaching methods. During a recent afternoon in one of his school's advanced math courses, a high-school boy fell asleep at his desk. The teacher didn't disturb him, instead calling on others. While napping in class isn't condoned, Mr. Erma says, "We just have to accept the fact that they're kids and they're learning how to live."

[grumbler]

Throwing money at it, or slicing money from it, you still can't fix broken kids and broken parents.

If the problem were only broken kids with broken parents, the US would be a hell of a lot better off than it is.  Those kinds of kids are the smallest part of the problem.  The bigger part is that students are graduating and going on (generally to college) without the communications or analytical skills needed to succeed in college or life.  partly this is due to bureaucracies that don't reward teaching things not easily tested, part is due to reluctance on the part of teachers to adopt teaching methods that allow kids to analyze and communicate, and part is on the parents who don't seem to care if Johnny or Suzie is really learning anything worthwhile.

That's why I don't teach in public schools anymore.