A big problem with charter schools is that they threaten public schools by siphoning off the high performing kids and the well disciplined kids. They get to pick and choose which kids they want. This leaves the public schools with the behavior problems and the poor performers. And less money.
One more way to keep the poor in their place and keep an uneducated minority that’s easy to control.
Providing school choice is a way to keep the poor in their place? It seems that the bad schools the parents are trying to get away from are already doing that.
Perhaps relevant:
[Atlantic: Why Do Teachers Quit? And why do they stay?](Why Do Teachers Quit? - The Atlantic)
Popped in to read about the nominations for secretary of education. Apparently the thread stopped discussing this issue pages and pages ago. Sigh.
I originally began this threat because I was very unhappy to hear on Fox News Radio that Eva Moskowitz and Michelle Rhee were on Trump’s short list for Secretary of Education.
I have subsequently heard from many news outlets that Eva Moskowitz has withdrawn her name from consideration.
(The Observer is owned by Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law and key advisor.)
However, Michelle Rhee is still reported by many news outlets as in the running. I have no idea whether this news is reliable. However, I think Michelle Rhee would be a terrible choice for the reasons I outlined in my earlier posts (before the thread got side-tracked):
http://www.sacbee.com/news/local/article67680237.html
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/congressional-report-rhee-did-damage-control-after-sex-charges-against-fiance-kevin-johnson/article/20223
http://articles.latimes.com/2009/nov/20/nation/la-na-americorps20-2009nov20
Other candidates I have seen mentioned are Indiana Representative Luke Messer and also former Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels. I suppose these suggestions come from VP-elect Mike Pence, who is from Indiana,
Also have seen Larry Arnn:
I have also seen several blogs that mention Bill Evers (who is heading the Trump transition team for education) and Sandra Stotsky as possible candidates, but I have no idea whether there is any truth to these reports. Sandra Stotsky has been tweeting regularly about the Secretary of Education search. You can check out her twitter page if you are interested. Both Evers and Stotsky oppose Common Core, Breibart News (and so I suppose Steve Bannon) and several online petitions are out there calling for Trump to stay true to his grass roots base and appoint an anti-Common Core Secretary.
http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2016/11/18/federalist-democrat-michelle-rhee-education-secretary-terrible-choice/
http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2016/11/16/parents-urge-anti-common-core-education-secretary/
Looks to me like it is an internal knife fight at this point.
Thanks, @plotinus. Yes, Moskowitz removed her name from consideration. And Agree that Rhee is a terrible choice. Her cheating scandal was discussed by cc’ers here back when it happened. Have been watching the news (NOT Fox) and it was pointed out that the photos of the current list (including the VP and several proposed cabinet members) seems to be frighteningly identical in first name, sex and flesh tone.
I try to collect news reports from sources with a very wide variety of political biases. My (probably groundless) hope is that opposing biases cancel each other out.
I would be ok with a white male as Sec. Ed, even named Mike, as long as he cancels federal support for Common Core and takes the federal government out of education. He could be an extra-terrestrial for all I could care.
This would be much better than a token minority appointee who supports Common Core, privatization of public education, and Big Data.
My top pick is Sandra Stotsky, but that is probably not going to cut it given the political in-fighting.
Sadly, no matter who is selected, their suggestions may fall on deaf ears. I prefer NPR but even that was depressing lately
Just supposing federal support for Common Core IS cancelled, what would that mean for the Redesigned SAT and the ACT?
Interesting question, but its taking the thread off topic again. Maybe better to start a new thread.
I think I’ll wait to see who is nominated for Sec. Ed. and what he or she says about plans for Common Core before getting my hopes up.
And as an aside, glad to see that the victims of Trump U will be getting some refunds.
@roethlisburger
Thanks for this attempt at reconstructing my scattered observations in to a cogent argument. Unfortunately, you have misrepresented some important features of my position. This is probably due to the medium of forum posts itself, which is highly subject to misinterpretation.
A few clarifications.
“Highly qualified” in my definition requires not only intelligence and a solid command of the subject, but also a great ability to motivate students and explain the subject in a way they can understand. Coming from a top 30 school is neither a necessary nor a sufficient condition for being highly qualified to be a teacher. The top-30 example was meant just as a sample population in which we could reasonably expect to find a non-trivial number of highly qualified people. If there are, say, 150k people in this population, we could expect to find maybe 2k-5k people of these who have the right skill set, personality, and desire to teach (these numbers are just guesses). Of course there are also people with the right qualities coming from outside the top-30 group. But I don’t think that many of these other people are going into teaching or staying there now because these people too can find better working conditions in other professions.
Some of my opinions are based on the accounts of my father, who worked for 39 years in the NYC public school system. He was responsible for all the math and science teacher hiring in his school, which was an inner city middle school. His complained endlessly about the difficulty of finding and retaining teachers who could pass the licensing tests. He regularly hired unlicensed people on a temporary basis and then tutored them for months to try to get them to pass. He sometimes hired people whom he said at first could not even pass the classroom tests the children were supposed to take. Occasionally a person would turn up who was already licensed. These people almost always quit after a very short time. My father was also a city-wide math coordinator, so he was familiar with the math teacher hiring situation throughout New York City, which he said was mostly the same.
My father was able to raise 4 children and send them all to college (3 to Ivy League schools) on a public school teacher salary. My mother did not work for pay. This was possible in part because we lived very modestly, but mostly because the proportion between his public school teacher salary and the family expenses (mostly housing, food and college) was so much more favorable. The children had some loans to pay off after college, but nothing excessive.
Anyone think that you can raise a family of 4 kids in NYC today and send them to Ivy League schools on 1 teacher salary?
Every person who has claimed that current teacher salary levels are fine has done so by assuming TWO incomes and at most 2 children.
In the past, people expected to live on ONE income. The fact that two incomes are required shows that salaries have been halved in real terms.
Note that the ESSA approved about a year ago prohibits the federal Dept of Education from taking or encouraging any position on a particular curriculum, including Common Core. This was Congress’ way of preventing further support of Common Core, but would also have the effect of preventing federal opposition to Common Core. The issue is up to the states.
The “best and brightest” might not make the best teachers by default. I would prefer K-12 teachers that love what they do regardless of their IQ or ACT score. My oldest had a friend who was a mediocre but college bound kid who became a teacher and coach. From what I hear he is an outstanding high school history teacher. Education is a local level activity and the strength of the hiring happens there not in D.C.
The teacher shortage may not be a national issue, but it is a real thing in California. Our highly-regarded elementary district has been able to find good teachers so far, but the number of good applications we get is small. We have hired most of the good teachers on our substitute list, so getting good substitutes is difficult. Districts that are unable to pay as well as we do and secondary districts (who need teachers certified in their subjects) have more trouble hiring. There is no college loan forgiveness for teachers in California; that needs to be reinstated, at least for teachers who teach in poor districts for some number of years.
College affordability issues compared to prior generations are not unique to teachers. Bigger issue is college costs rising much faster than inflation. But that is a whole different thread.
I agree. I don’t see “teachers” as a special class than any other group that pursues a particular field. If districts or states want to do sign on bonuses in the form of loan repayment then they could certainly do so…I doubt anyone is stopping them. Some companies have instituted such incentives.
Wow, so many thoughts.
OK. So I lived in Wisconsin where they have vouchers (in Milwaukee anyway). The amount that follows the student is LESS than the cost to educate. This gives the student choice and actually helps everyone else by lessening the burden on the school district. They keeps some of the money and the headcount drops.
If we have a Federal Education Department, its only role should be as a clearing house for ideas and making recommendations to state DOE. Flowing money from taxpayers to federal governments and back to the states is inefficient and opens up everyone to the risk of graft and policy wonks from all directions on the political spectrum to inject (read force) their ideas on everyone. The States have huge differences. The policies that work for California may not work well in North Dakota or Virginia. Return those tax dollars in block grants for the next 5 years and phase out the taxes that collect them so after 5 years transition, the states can get the money directly from the taxpayers themselves. Taxpayers who have greater say in how those dollars are spent. This is apolitical.
As for teachers, there is a conundrum of higher salaries…pay too little and great teachers cannot afford to teach. Pay too much and poor teachers will gravitate to the jobs so they can make a great wage and have 2 months off and holidays. Throw in out-dated concepts like tenure and the lack of merit-based pay and you have recipe for disaster. The best and brightest, as mentioned above, are often horrible teachers. It is one thing to know things it is quite another to be able to convey that knowledge to others.
There is definitely a public interest in an educated populace. On that, nearly everyone agrees. The best expenditure of public funds in that regard, IMHO, is to subsidize education on the basics. (as defined by each state or municipality) Public schools are often bloated with courses that are not aligned with a public need. They often have bloated administrations and programs that are not aligned with their mission. They you get the duality of the teachers getting poor pay and the taxpayers getting a horrible ROI.
As for California, it has made its own bed. The taxes and cost of living are so high that otherwise qualified teachers would find better opportunities in more fiscally responsible states. California has decided that it wants to spend its tax dollars on programs that are more important to the ruling class in California than is education. But California also has one of the highest overall tax rates in the country. They are going to have to make hard choices to restore fiscal structure to the point they can afford to hire more and better teachers.
As for two incomes…I am sorry, but since WWII, most families are living on two incomes (roughly 2/3rds). Only the top wage earners in the country can reasonably afford to live on one. That is part of how economics works, though. If everyone only had 1 wage earner, the prices and wages would line up accordingly. When more and more women went to work during WWII and remained in the workforce after, it became nearly mandatory for others to follow as the increased income chasing fixed resources had an inflationary effect. Not sure how you could put that genie back in the bottle. My point is that this is in no way exclusive to teachers.
Why do you presume that to be a reasonable expectation?