The Democrats are blocking the way to make education great

[Mr Norm Sauer, a retired attorney who lives in Nevada City, is a member of The Union Editorial Board and  a contributor to these pages.  This submitted piece also appears in the 8feb17 issue of the newspaper (here) and has garnered its expected vituperation from the usual suspects.]

Norm Sauer

A topsy-turvy upheaval characterized the start of Donald Trump’s presidency. Everything is in flux not seen since 1932 when Franklin D. Roosevelt defeated and distanced himself from Herbert Hoover. Mainstream Democrats and even Republicans are either infuriated or vexed over the outsider Trump.

Giving President Trump his due, his inaugural speech recognized ‘the forgotten man,’ and reminded us that “… a nation exists to serve its citizens … When you open your heart to patriotism, there is no room for prejudice …”

The media collusion with the Clinton campaign was endemic in the WikiLeaks email disclosures. The complicity destroyed any idea that establishment journalists are disinterested and principled. The press has turned from eight years of obsequiousness to frenzied hostility toward the White House: Senate filibusters are no longer subversive, but vital, and if Trump follows Obama’s example of presidential fiats, he will be considered seditious.

Meanwhile, Democrats remain concerned that Obama’s legacy has destroyed the party. How can they continue to advocate identity politics but capture the irredeemable deplorables that cost them the Rust Belt states? Civil war exists between the party leaders, but it seems lessons have not been learned, nor are Democrats getting the message.

Take, for example, the hearing vetting Betsy DeVos, Trump’s nominee for Secretary of Education.

DeVos, a billionaire from Michigan, has endeavored as a dedicated philanthropist for 30 years to fulfill the goal that all parents, and primarily low-income parents, have the opportunity to choose the best educational setting for their children so that all children have the opportunity to fulfill their God-given potential. She is a natural champion for the voucher-based policies Trump has promoted to help poor families afford to send their children to private schools.

My watching her being vetted in the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee was instructive of political divide. While each Republican senator focused on the best interests of America’s children, the Democrat senators expressed no such concern.

In an effort to appease teachers union bosses, the Democrats were tripping all over themselves to smear DeVos, each attack more bizarre than the next. An example is Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), who questioned whether DeVos had ever run a bank: “Do you have any direct experience running a bank? Have you ever managed or overseen a trillion-dollar loan program?”

DeVos politely answered no, and pointed out that neither of President Obama’s Education Secretaries, Arne Duncan and John King, had ever run massive banks either.

Now, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) promises for himself and all Senate Democrats not to vote for DeVos based on an over-the-top claim that she would “single-handedly decimate our public education system if she were confirmed.”

In discussing the state of public education in America, U. S. News & World Report offered a bleak and candid assessment: “In urban school districts across the country,” an education reporter wrote in 2015, “student performance is flat, poor, and minority students are experiencing staggering inequalities, and the picture is especially troubling for black students.”

Is this the status quo Schumer and the Democrats want to protect? Why do they stand in front of the doors of failing schools to keep minority and other children in? Sadly, Democrats know where their bread is buttered, and as long as teachers’ union bosses keep doling out cash to Democrats, they will continue to treat America’s students as second-class citizens.

President Trump and DeVos represent a new way of thinking. It is time to stop playing politics with our nation’s children, especially minorities and those of low income.

Consider that many sectors in our economy are moving away from old business models and trending toward more personalization, service, and flexibility. People who pick up an iPhone, summon an Uber, or order concert tickets online don’t understand why they can’t choose from a menu of school options. As technology has become ubiquitous, we have been trained to expect more choices and more options.

This trend toward individualism and choices has collided with the traditional district public education system and the powerful teachers unions that fund the Democrat Party. The education choice movement should consider vouchers, tax credits, education savings accounts, home schooling, charter schools, and private schools.

We should all work together for reform that does something big and bold to help our nation’s greatest treasure — the next generation. Let us all work together to make an American education great again.

Comments

[Paul Emery]

Russ I believe education is the responsibility of our culture not the government How is it in your mind that the federal government has the power to make all those changes you are proposing ? As a conservative I thought you were for less federal involvement in education

[Don Bessee]

'our culture'? What culture are you talking about there PE, druid, lefty, Nevada city, what? ;-)

[Bill Tozer]

culture? Like remove the White Privileged authors like Steinbeck, Twain, Hemingway, and Shakespeare and replace it with Timmy Has Two Mommies and The Day Uncle Harry Became Aunt Suzanne?

[Paul Emery]

OK then it seems like all of you believe that it's the governments job to educate am I getting that right ? I thought you guys were for less government involvement in our lives and now you are assigning the responsibility of education to government

My credo as a green libertarian is that we have as much government as we deserve

[Bill Tozer]

Let's look at Norm's article. It's about failing schools, specifically failing schools with failing students in failing areas. We don't live in crime infested areas, so comparing Beverly Hills High and Palto Alo High and even our local schools to inner city schools or "average" public education school systems is a red herring. Think beyond our playground nestled on the western slope of The Sierra..

The bottomline is the schools are failing our children from sea to shining sea. Dropout rates, high school grads unprepared for college bonehead math and writing.....the list of bad juju is long. The promised fixes always say the same thing year after year, i. e., "Give us more money!". We pay more and get less for 45 straight years. It ain't working, the system is broke. We are dooming too many youth to a eek out a meager existence. Participation trophies just don't cut it.

Before you all go off on youth on drugs, bad parenting, burned out teachers, poor nutrition and other factors to explain why our schools have been steadily underperforming for decades, let's ask ourselves one simple question. That question is "Why not try something different?"
It won't help every single student, but what is wrong with school choice? What is wrong with competition for our dollars and for our children's education?

You keep doing what you are doing and you will keep getting what you are getting. The Left has had a monopoly on public schools via the powerful teacher union lobbies for decades. A virtual lock on public education. Why not think outside the box? Cannot be any worse than the status quo. Let the Right take a crack at it and we will take all the blame. If there is poop in the box, you turn it over.

[Don Bessee]

Still the ccc on my 944 PE. ;-)

[Bill Tozer]

Bring back more shop classes. College is not for everyone, nor will it ever be.

Another thing. The solution to runaway tuition at our public colleges and universities is not cheaper interest on college loans. It is not making more loans available and easier to get. The solution is to make college more affordable and control the escalating costs that have spiraled out of control.

[Robert Cross]

Here is the bottom line for all of it:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/trump-administration-leaks_us_589a45f1e4b04061313a1fbb?ncid=inblnkushpmg00000009

[Don Bessee]

Real men don't read hufpo. ;-)

[Bill Tozer]

I never have opened a Cross link. Might get some airborne virus. That is a job for Dr. Rebane to labor with. He has the patience of Job.

[MikeL]

Re R Cross....
Let me see if I have this correct... Obama is an idiot, has mental disorders, randomaly calls military advisors at 3AM to ask questions about what shade of blue to paint the White House press room and is mentally unstable.
It is so refreshing to see articles that throw out that ol' confirmation bias problem.

[Bill Tozer]

https://www.facebook.com/PatriotPost/photos/a.82108390913.80726.51560645913/10154438797660914/?type=3&theater

[Account Deleted]

Don't bother opening that link from Mr Cross. It has nothing to do with the topic at hand. Just more nit picking and name calling re our president.
The left has only 2 concerns about our nation's educational system.
The first is maintaining the largely unionized governmental monopoly on education. And making sure the main curriculum is slanted towards left-leaning points of view.
That is why the Dems and the useful idiots on the left are so up in arms over DeVos. To answer Mr Emery - it is quite simple - it is the power to undo the many edicts and rules of the prior dept of eds. Whether or not that will happen has yet to be seen. I would like to simply abolish the dept of education as it seems to have no positive effect on our nations ability to educate.

[Bill Tozer]

1) The outcry (Devoys is going to murder our children!) is more about the teachers unions than the students or teachers. Nothing puts the fear of God in the Union bosses terrified hearts like school choice. Nothing gets the teachers riled up as the topic of grading them on student performance. Accountability is the deal breaker and well as breaking up the monopoly.

2). The Feds don't teach. The only place in our constitution that the federal government is responsible for teaching kids (interpreted in court cases) is on the Rez for the savages. Yes, you need not wonder. They run it like the Feds run just about everything.
http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2015/11/06/native-american-students-left-behind

More if you are in to it, but off topic. Or is it? There are more Native Americans than there are Transgenders.
http://www.edweek.org/ew/projects/2013/native-american-education/running-in-place.html

http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/failing-americas-most-forgotten-children

[Paul Emery]

Re Don-my 9:55

Show me where in the Constitution states it's the federal governments responsibility to Manage schools

[Bill Tozer]

Sweet. Like they send their kids to public school, lol.

http://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/2017/02/08/celebrities-weigh-in-on-betsy-devos-confirmation-this-is-murdering-our-school-system.html

[ScenesFromTheApocalypse]

Gotta love the education mafia.

http://wgntv.com/2017/02/07/all-cps-students-sent-home-with-letter-accusing-gov-rauner-of-cheating-kids/

[Todd Juvinall]

The left and their union lackeys are apoplectic on the DeVoss confirmation. Watching them foam at the mouth makes me giddy. The swamp is being drained and perhaps the feds can get out of the education business and put the money into protecting Americ from the liberals.

[Paul Emery]

Todd just a reminder :

It was Bush and the Republican Congress that gave us No Child left behind in 2001 If that's any indication as to what the Republicans might do we're in big trouble

[George Rebane]

PaulE 1019pm - Paul, your logic remains a delightful artifact to behold in these pages. Humor goes a long way and we all need a laugh in these tense times; don't change a thing.

[Paul Emery]

George was that a response to my 8:52? No Child Left Behind was Republican all the way with a Repup House, Senate and Presidency. It's a respectable question to ask if that's what we have to look forward to this time around.

[Todd Juvinall]

Paul Emery I never supported NCLB so your attempt a equivalency falls on my deaf ears to you.

[Bill Tozer]

Nevermind it was the Lion of the Senate Drunk Teddy that got Bush's ear to pass No Child Left Behind. It is still in operation, albeit they change the name of it every so often. Federal dollars going to our precious children and assorted misfits. I once attended a briefing on No Child Left Behind after its first name change. Costed the local schools nothing, except maybe the cost to light and heat a room.

I liked Drunk Teddy. Grabbing those waitress at restaurants and being so drunk he would fall over on top of them was good times. Oh, he wasn't copping too many feels and most of the time he was too sideways to get it up. My favorite Teddy story was when he was running for Prez. A news crew walked right up to his front door and rang the doorbell. Mrs. Teddy opened the door and stood there stark ass naked holding a martini glass in her hand. No, she did not have her make up on.

Oh, yeah....Loopy, never change. I know, we both voted for Carter. :)

[Paul Emery]

Bill it was a Republican President and Congress that passed NCLB. It;s hilarious that you try to blame it on Teddy. Were the Republicans that impetant? Is this what we have to look forward to?

[Todd Juvinall]

BuillT is right. Teddy was the democrats hero for it. Sorry PaulE you are simply wrong.

[Bill Tozer]

Oh, , Paul, Paul, Paul. Yep, No Child Left Behind passed the House 385-45. In the Senate Drunk Teddy co-authored it. Blame to go around. What gave a good program a bad name was the bill's mandate to hold teachers accountable for student performance. That was the dagger in the heart of it.

https://ballotpedia.org/No_Child_Left_Behind_Act

Oh yeah. When the bill was signed in the Congress in Jan, 2002, the Senate had 50 R's, 48 D's, 1 Indie and 1 wacko Indepence Party (Minn). Basically 50/50. The House was about 222-210 R, with one guy dying or something as it became 223 later in the year.

https://ballotpedia.org/No_Child_Left_Behind_Act

Paul, are you always this ignorant, or is today your special day. Oh, I will always blame Drunk Teddy, the Kion of the Senate. Noticed Bobby Byrd has Teddy's back and Teddy had the Grand Wizard's back as well at the time.

[Bill Tozer]

Opps, double posted link. Ah hell, just look up the 107th Congress.

[Todd Juvinall]

Paul Emery equals fake news.

[Bill Tozer]

Only 8 Senators voted against NCLB. They must have left Loopy behind. :)

[Todd Juvinall]

I think the two libertarians in the Senate voted for it too. The non-aligned liars that caucused with the demoncrats.

[Bill Tozer]

Glad to see Bush Derangement Sydrome still lies beneath the surface waiting to lurch at the opportunity. Whoever said "the only constant in life is change" did not meet our Brother Paul. Come to think of it, Will Rogers never met Brother Paul either.

https://www.facebook.com/PawsInTheCityDallas/photos/a.408444389459.199725.45659049459/10155358276729460/?type=3&theater

[Paul Emery]

Todd, Bill Thanks for verifyint No Child Left Behind wa a Republican bill. It is a matter of concern that we may see more legislation like this from the Republican majority.

[Bill Tozer]

You are welcome Paul. Heaven forbid we hold teachers and schools accountable for student performance. Obliviously , It's not about the students. It's all about keeping the status quo, which Joe Sixpack finds rather unpalatable. .

Well, since we cannot fire bad apples or reward good teachers and are stuck dumping tons of money into the Titanic, might was well try getting the kids the hell out of the bloated broken system. Some things you just can't salvage. School choice will murder our children!

Paul, what do you care. You only care about growing pot, playing music in hole in the wall restaurants, and hating on the R's. Fuck our kids, right?

[Gregory]

"I think the two libertarians in the Senate voted for it too."
Todd 1006

Todd, are you dropping peyote again today? Please turn off your computer and go to the window to watch the raindrops fall.

Yes, NCLB was a bipartisan love fest.

No, charter schools for all who want them will not make education great again but it will fragment teacher's union funding of Democrats for as far as the eye can see. Whether or not that is a good thing is in the eye of the beholder.

Let's look at our own charter schools in Nevada County... only Ghiddotti is worth a damn and that's largely due to their cherry picking students and teachers (hollowing out the district's comprehensive high school in the process) and leveraging the instructional staff from Sierra College who are more qualified in the subjects being taught than the average secondary teacher, where a real Master's degree is rare.

School of the Arts, Yuba River, Forrest Charter, not to mention the Grass Valley Charter and it's companion SAEL are all at the bottom of the barrel when it comes to providing adequate mathematics instruction. Yuba River Charter is particularly distinguished by being at the absolute bottom of their 100 Similar Schools list, an 'honor' it only earned after the only other Waldorf charter on the list went belly up. For this, it has been rewarded by taxpayers it's own campus to be built to suit complete with effective anthroposophic iconography to reinforce the magical effects of a Steiner education (but remember, it's legally not a religion so public monies can be used for it).

The big problem with k-12 education (besides that teachers are largely from the bottom of their classes) is the belief at the top, like the colleges of education, in the efficacy of discovery or inquiry methods that are unsupported by experience. This is the core of the problem with the Common Core team, the problem with the New New Math of the 1990's. The true believers in the failed Romantic notions of whole language and whole math remain at the top, and rust never sleeps.

[a note to the reader, one school name above is intentionally misspelled for the benefit of Mr. Pink who just loves to find typos in words he knows how to spel]

[Todd Juvinall]

Oh that's right Gregory, those two are Indies. Not libertarians. And since I don't drink or do drugs I must say your humor is a hoot.

[Gregory]

"What gave a good program a bad name"
Tozer 947

No Child Left Behind was horribly flawed in concept and in name. Sorry, but some children will always be left behind; some because they just can't learn, some because their parents never learned, some because they just don't care.

Some get lousy teachers and it is generally understood that two or three incompetent teachers in a row in their formative years probably sets them behind so far that they may never catch up.

Teachers rightfully object to judging their work by the aggregate of their student's test scores (even when there were good tests, before the current Common Core abominations). This is counter intuitive to many of the citizens carrying torches and pitchforks into the town squares, but how well a classroom does on a test has even more do to with the preparation of the kids by all the teachers that came before them, not to mention the competence of the administrations who assign teachers and children to their assigned classrooms. There are methods that have been developed to tease a particular teacher's performance out of a history of a few years' of testing (google "value added modeling" for additional reading), but teachers don't trust advanced statistics to determine their pay or employment status (especially the ones who still can't fathom the arithmetic of fractions), and unions like the current system of using seniority, which plays to their own raison d'être.

Education in the US has been broken far longer than the system for delivering health care and getting it paid for. There is no panacea, there is no quick fix. Not only will eggs need to be broken but the undead hens and roosters will need to be systematically hunted down and fricasseed.

A century ago, a Harvard President described his college of education as a kitten that needed drowning. Unfortunately, that kitten (and the kitten at Columbia's School of Education) has had yearly litters of growing sizes since then, who were met by growing education budgets from coast to coast, willingly paid by parents and other taxpayers who expected competent educations for all students.

How's that working for everyone?

[Bill Tozer]

Oh Gregory, I was being kind to NCLB considering it's intentions. That's all that matters. Well, NCLB did throw more money to the schools for handicap toilets and drinking fountains. :)

One Independence Party Senator. From Minnesota. Maybe the ghost of Hubert Horacio Humphrey mixed in with some McGovern, the Grange Hall and Jesse "The Body" Ventura. Not Independent, but Independence Party. There was already an Indie in the Senate. Do you think it could have been Colonel Sanders? Do ya Wally?

Bottomline with public education. You walk twenty miles in the woods, you got to walk twenty miles out.

[Bonnie McGuire]

Charter schools evolved for a reason. One of our daughters is a teacher who decided to home school because she had active children who would have been bored in public school. I was amazed at the discipline and all they accomplished. At first people poked fun that those poor children would miss out until I mentioned their mother was a teacher. Another nice thing was that they were always smiling, compared to kids in public school. Understandably, it wasn't long before many who were against charter schools were sending their kids to them because the kids were bored and couldn't get anything done. The charter school rule is personal discipline, do your studies, or get out. That's what I've learned from those involved who want to learn.
Years ago I remembered a young woman from South America working as a checker in a local store who had attended Sierra College. What she said was shocking. She said that grammar school kids in her former country were farther ahead educationally.

[Bill Tozer]

Miss Bonnie. My sister (my 7th most favorite feminist author) went down to the Capital steps and protested for homeschooling. Small band of women. Underground types. Gov. George Deukmejian had a bill on his desk to outlaw homeschooling, all ready to sign and then he stepped out and actually talked with those respectful, yet quite firm and articulate moms. Don't know what happened next, but George walked back inside and tore up the bill. And the rest is history. Don't know why the call themselves feminists. They are just kinda take no BS from the Gov kind of gals. Never want to stand in the way of mother hen feathering her youngins.

Rules were different but my sis had the entire public school year curriculum done and aced and mastered by both kids by November each year. Got the involved in PAG and bunches of stuff, in Sierra College for a class or two @ 16. My sis was on a mission and very pragmatic. Schools would not pay for $300 in textbooks she ordered. Rather adversarial to homeschool types. She cut a deal. Seems the daughter was watching PBS about a story contest. Took it upon herself to write and send in a story. It won the 1st prize in Reading Rainbow National Contest and next thing you know they were driven around in a limo at Universal Studios, on the set of PBS, given an Apple Boat Anchor Buck Rogers looking new computer. My sis told the school district that they can keep the property tax money, use her homeschooled daughter's name in promoting the school district, and she would tell the media that the golden child was a second grade student at so and so elementary. Now, if you could be so kind to order these books for me now. Oh, sis got anything she needed after that, no problem. My other sis homeschooled 5. 4 were juniors at Cal @ 18 years of age.

But, some charter schools are worse than public schools....by far. However, not all kids are cut out for the huge high school social/football/gangsta wannabe culture. It's a mixed bag out there nowadays, Miss Bonnie. Not like it was went they first popped up here and there in yuppie town and near communes.

[Russ]

Bonnie@01:13 When we moved from Nebraska after five years, our children were so far ahead of the students in Nevada Union Schools it was a real problem, they had already done the work and were bored, it was a real challenge. We worked with the high school for our oldest daughter to attend some Sierra College courses rather than plow old ground in high school. The discipline in Nebraska was extraordinary, our K-8 school principal was a retired Marine Colonel.

[Paul Emery]

Calm down Bill. (10:51) I sense an episode coming on with bad language and all that. I seem to be able to make you do that. Foam is starting to dribble out of your mouth. I recommend a time out and some fresh air. Perhaps stay away from this blog till you calm down.

For the record I am a strong supporter of Charter schools and was one of the early proponents and organizers of the Yuba Charter School.

[Norm Sauer]

Dear bloggers:
I am encouraged by the extent of the participation on George's blog with respect to school choice, etc. There are many ways to handle giving parents choices of schools, etc. for their children and a few were mentioned in my article and in your comments.
Until the last two months school choice was supported by both Dems and Reps. For me, the focus must be our children and giving parents educational choices, including private/parochial schools.
My disdain is for Senate Democrats who seemed not to care about our children's education and betterment, and consequently the betterment of our country. Their conduct was staggering me when I watched them on CSPAN. Consider the two-faced Cory Booker:
www.nationalreview.com/node/444738/print.

[Gregory]

Paul... did you ever attend a college? Do you think you have the ability to judge whether even an elementary school even is doing their job for kids who expect to be able to use calculus as a freshman at Chico state?

Yuba River Charter isn't.

[Gregory]

Charter schools didn't "evolve"... they were created to get around the monopoly of our mainstream public schools that, because they were outright monopolies, had a tendency to not be responsive if particular students, parents or even teachers were unhappy.

A continuing problem is that if you aren't a standard public school, or (at least in California) a chartered public school, your funding comes only from parents who have to leave the tax monies that had been prised from the taxpayer base for the education of their children. Personally, I didn't put my kid in our local St.Sensible for religion, I did it because Hennessey Elementary School was literally incompetent in the teaching of mathematics, language and science, and the worst of those incompetents are still teaching in the same building as the Grass Valley Charter School using the same fatally flawed pedagogies they learned in the schools of education that are still teaching the same Educational Religion they've been peddling for years. Somehow, Mt.St.Mary's Academy was able to teach their religion (not mine), math, language and science when the Grass Valley School District could not distinguish between educational shit from educational shinola, and that remains the case. I would have preferred an affordable secular organization that believed in curriculum centered instruction, but those do not exist in this county, even now.

The money spent by the state on the education for a child should follow the child to whatever school the child's parents (or legal guardian) chooses.

[Bill Tozer]

Paul: I foaming Big time, future generation hater. NCLM was a small, but very scary band aide on a big problem, The schools screamed and hollered and the Chicago teachers went on strike. The strike never was about money really. It was about grading schools and classrooms. And Yuba River Charter is a step backwards. But, your heart was in the right spot.

https://www.facebook.com/RowdyConservatives/photos/a.217983685002343.55586.217926015008110/1023364641130906/?type=3&theater

Yes, I done forgot. The jest of all your posts is to attack, not discuss. Anything with a Trumpster or R on it must be bad. Except Flyboy McCain and his girlfriend Lyndsey. Playing politics with children's dreams is shameful. You are a bad dog.
.

[Gregory]

Semi-serious question... what are our local comprehensive, continuation and charter high schools doing to prepare students to enter the competitive world of pot trimming?

[Paul Emery]

Gregory

Why don't you ask the parents of Yuba Charter Students what they think of the education their children receive. It's possible you wouldn't respect their opinion If so do you propose a State of Federal standard to make an evaluation rather than their parents and family? Sounds like big government intrusion to me. I can arrange for you to meet a couple of Yuba Charter school parents if you would like to get direct information.

[Paul Emery]

Also Gregory most Yuba Charter graduates (K-8) breeze through high school and do fine in whatever direction they plan to go in after that. There are people I can connect you with if you'd like to know more.

[Walt]

Good Lord. Paul wants to make hay about Bush and No child left behind. BFD.
Nixon gave us the EPA..OH JOY!!.. It started out "well intended",, then when LIBS got control of it,,, well I rest my case.

[Paul Emery]

Walt

I just have legitimate concerns about the Repubs being in charge of education based on their previous record which included NCLB, supported by the Bush Administration. I'm hoping they can do better this time around because that was a disaster.

[Gregory]

Paul, establish that as an arguable fact. More than Paul Emery's heartfelt testimony.

I poured over the STAR test results and that charter did very poorly despite taking children from college educated parents (thanks to cherry picking, that was most of them, if I recall correctly they're the highest socioeconomic status family mix in Nevada County) and educating them in the subjects that got mom and dad to the colleges they went to.

Well educated parents often do a decent job filling in the gaps left by incompetent schools, and it takes a spectacularly inadequate curriculum, teaching and administration to get on the bottom of a 100 Similar Schools list.

[Don Bessee]

Ah, a relapse of Bush Derangement Syndrome eh PE @ 445? In case you missed it President Trump is not a Bush R! ;-)

[Gregory]

Paul, the state of California, after the meltdown of school achievement caused by the whole language and whole math debacles of the '90's, did put in a system. The STAR data I was citing was a result and we were one the few states that had actually done this before NCLB required it. Parents and politicians wanted information about what schools were failing, and STAR delivered. It also killed off math programs like MathLand and CPM that were the vanguard of constructivist Whole Math because people like me and my cohorts in groups like Mathematically Correct kept people's feet to the fire.

I still remember Jon Byerrum (that's Holly Hermansen's current husband), Super of the GVSD, at the board meeting after my son's cohort's STAR result was published in the light of day on the State website, there for all the world to see... half of all kids that class were in the BOTTOM quartile in math and language. Jon's reaction? I quote as accurately as I can after 20 years... "Mathland has some holes we'll have to patch". Like any true believer, he kept the failed programs several years longer.

[Excuse the repetition from the past, but Whole Math was poured into California by Phil Daro, who had no math degree or a career in teaching it, and it's failure was rewarded by being the initial chairman of the Common Core math standards drafting, hired by someone spending Gates Foundation money in 2008 when Common Core started up]

[Paul Emery]

Gregory

Once again if you'd like direct information from parents I will be glad to set you up. If you are truly concerned you should take my offer otherwise I assume you'll be satisfied with government collected data. There are certain types of "education" that don't quantify on test scores .

[Walt]

Paul I have seen plenty of those "LIB approved" text books. No wonder kids don't know anything. Just to add insult to injury, Common core rears it's ugly head. Another LIB "hot idea". 8+8 in twelve easy steps. Whoever dreamed that up when on LSD, should be dragged out and shot in the street. OH Ya.. Lets make life even harder on the kids.

[fish]

There are certain types of "education" that don't quantify on test scores .

Like the proper selection of words used in a sentence.

[Gregory]

Paul, 503, been there, done that. And the data spigot was turned off with haste when the Common Core was adopted in Sacramento despite the new "standards" not even being finished.

St.Sensibles across the world, including Mt.St. Mary's Academy, manage to teach a great deal besides math and language while still doing a fantastic job teaching what needs to be understood to progress in math, science etc etc academic careers if they so choose. The only college successes heard of in my prior YRCS investigations were cites of kids choosing medicine and computer science, two paths that *don't* require much math.

And it wouldn't matter much of a few more came to light. Most people want schools that help their children to succeed, not ones where some kids manage to succeed despite the school.

[Gregory]

fish 508

The Stanford Achievement Test series that St. Mary's used for years at the beginning of every year (my son took one entering the 2nd grade when we bailed out of Hennessey) does a great job assessing such things as a students facility with vocabulary and sentence structure. And it was the SAT9 chosen in Sacramento that was that first STAR test that gave Byerrum the bad news. As California created its own standards, the actual SAT9 was modified to better align with our curriculum standards, created by professors from Stanford and Berkeley to replace the nonstandards drafted by the likes of Phil Daro in 1992.

[Don Bessee]

Now there you go Gregory, confusing poor ol' PE with pesky facts, now we will see PE put words in mouths and ask silly questions. If PE is feeling really pressed he will now change the subject. ;-)

[Paul Emery]

Well noted Fish

[Paul Emery]

I am not trying to prove anything Bessee just making a recommendation to Gregory about how he can further his education about Charter Schools by actually talking with the parents of the children.

[Paul Emery]

I usually abandon a conversation when it's hopeless so unless Gregory actually would peruse talking to parents and students from the school there is no point in continuing. I perused this conversation to express my support of Charter Schools and the parents that choose to send their children to them. I would think that position would be supported by the so called "Conservatives" that reside here.

[Gregory]

I have talked to Yuba River parents, Paul. Why do you think their (and your) glowing testimony is any more valid than, say, testimony of the members of an evangelical church who like to dance, as if in a trance, holding rattlesnakes as to the efficacy of their beliefs?

I worked for years with an early Waldorf devotee whose son lost a year of education when the teacher just couldn't deliver; my memory is that it was a painful flameout. He transferred to one of the formerly great Nevada City public schools and last I heard he was thriving in college.

At one point I even dated a lovely Canadian woman (almost my age) who was a Steiner College student (Fair Oaks, down the hill) and got an insider view most don't... she took the "worlds smallest political quiz" at my suggestion and finally figure out why she didn't quite fit in. She found she was a left-libertarian (in US terms, a solid liberal Democrat in the Tim Russert/Daniel Patrick Moynihan mold with a Canuck slant), while the Steiner staff and incoming true believers were all hard left progressive pod people. Rather than take the long program she initially wanted, she changed to a shorter program that was more of a basic certification for Steiner schools.

Magical thinking has its shortcomings, and Steiner was, in academic terms, a raving lunatic. In my opinion.

[Gregory]

Punchy, you always run away when your attempts to score any points fail; your 600 is classic "sour grapes".

Beyond "parents are happy with it" you have nothing to add.

[Bill Tozer]

Beyond "parents are happy with it" you have nothing to add.

That is because that is all he knows on the subject. Can't get blood out of a turnip.

Suppose the litmus test is if the kids (or some of them) are prepared to jump into college and keep up with skills they have learned. And we have not even discussed the proverbial elephant in the room, regular ole standard public education in "regular" schools.

Easy major is Business Administration. Don't need to know math or English comp. Dime a dozen.

[Gregory]

Toes, there are a number of routes to a college degree that don't include much math or decent written language skills. I know one fine musician who is a popular (and more than competent) music teacher, and his SAT M+V was only around 900... (think 90IQ as far as the SAT knowledge is concerned, that's how the SAT is normed). You wouldn't want your kid's English teacher to have a 90IQ but by some surveys, 900 to 950 is about the average of K-12 certificated staff... meaning half scored even lower.

I'll repeat one of my pipe dreams: I want all schools to report the average SAT M+V of their certificated staff, assuming they are large enough to not be violating their privacy... that would not be appropriate for a one room schoolhouse. That policy would let parents and other stakeholders know the district standards for that school, and means an idiot administrator would feel forced to hire teachers smarter than they are and accept their pushback from stupid ideas pushed down from the central orifice.

Teachers already on staff who can't get their scores reported can have some grace period before their pay raises get frozen to give them time to retake the test.

Easy... but the NEA and CTA would scream bloody murder. All teachers are already special. You don't need to know their SAT averages. These aren't the dolts you're looking for. Move along.

[Paul Emery]

Gregory

You "want all schools to report the average SAT M+V of their certificated staff" Are you in favor of imposing some kind of penalty on schools that don't have the right numbers? Who would enforce that penalty.

[Account Deleted]

"Who would enforce that penalty."
Uh - the parents, if they had a choice of what schools to send their kids to. Vouchers are the best way to handle the situation. Not perfect, but it would be the best. It's quite easy to figure out what the govt schools spend per student. Hand it over to the parents and let them decide which schools to give the vouchers to. Parents that home school would be the financial losers but they are now anyway and it doesn't stop them.

[Gregory]

Paul, there would be no right numbers, just an informed public who can use that to decide which schools they want their kids to attend. Much easier than testing all kids every year, don't you think? It's a test that virtually all prospective college students take so virtually all teachers already have a score when they first walk into a classroom.

Every district would be free to hire teachers with any score, as long as they met legal requirements... they just have to make the average M+V public knowledge. What problem do you have with that?

[Gregory]

Scott, it would also get every real estate agent and homeowner pressuring schools to get with the program... would you buy a house whose local school(s) had an effective room temperature SAT IQ?

The lowest SAT score possible (an effective zero) is 400 out of a possible 1600. Converting to a percentile, that 900 is the equivalent of a 42% score....eeeesh.

[Paul Emery]

Gregory

what evidence do you have that show teachers with higher SAT's are better teachers?

[George Rebane]

PaulE 933pm - Because you can't teach what you don't know.

[Bill Tozer]

You can't transmit what you don't have.

[Paul Emery]

But teaching skills are a special skill and aptitude in itself that may not show up on test scores.

[Gregory]

Paul, why do you think they wouldn't be?

Currently, the only exam all teachers in California must pass (the last time I looked) was the CBEST... and a seventh grader at grade level could pass it.
Even so, there were multiple lawsuits to overturn the requirement.

OK, they can legally teach... and they have at least one four year college degree. Just tell me some measure of what they learned in K-12 before they profess to have the knowledge to teach K-12. And, if they were late bloomers, they can take it again to measure their progress in basic skills after high school, while they were earning that BA/MA/Ed.D.

Now, the chance this could pass political muster anywhere in the US probably approaches zero, but if parental choice and liberal private charter school rules mean non-religious non-government schools for the working low to upper middle classes became viable, it would be a hell of a marketing tool and public schools faced with real competition could find themselves at a real disadvantage.

A school starting from zero has little credibility... but what if they could document that no teacher or administrator scored below the average entering freshman in the UC system... would that be worth something? They know what your child must know!

Now, that might be too much a burden for elementary school teachers... make it the average for freshmen in the CSU system, which produces the largest number of teachers in California.

[Don Bessee]

So what test metric captures that 'special skill' PE, careful before you answer and remember the programs that take people without a teaching degree and puts them in the class room? The military does just fine with technical training using people who are first tested, then trained in the specialty with a high test standard and only then trained to be an instructor. ;-)

[Gregory]

Yes, Paul, 10:39, that's what teachers who did poorly in high school and college tell themselves. Special talents. Magical, even. Can only be detected by other magical teachers. Unique snowflakes.

Every teacher with an inferiority complex will share a story of some PhD who couldn't teach high school. These probably exist, somewhere. I never saw one as a student or a parent or in my short stint as a teacher.

[George Rebane]

Last time I looked, the ONLY government sponsored educational programs that are an unqualified success are those conducted by our armed forces. There we effectively teach and learn some of the most complex stuff that humans can pass on. And there teachers learn how to teach, and students learn how to learn. I started my teaching career in the military teaching complex weapons systems operations and tactics, and then teaching high school math courses to soldiers earning their HS diplomas after hours.

I've relayed my experiences here with the teachers' unions after being invited to teach some advanced stuff at Santa Monica High School. (I even took the CBEST test which is a joke as described above.). But even with extensive military and university level teaching experience, the union decided to dis-invite me because they were afraid what I would discover about the competency of my colleagues at SMHS.

Bottom line, there is no special magic to becoming an effective teacher - yes, like in all fields there are outstanding exceptions, but in the aggregate anyone who has a command of the material to be taught can very quickly learn how to effectively present the material and measure how well their students have absorbed it.

The trouble with barrel bottom teachers is that they don't know their stuff, even before we get to screwed up curricula and PC teaching methods.

[Gregory]

Here's what the Center for Public Education has to say about effective teachers:

The Key Characteristics
When looking for a qualified teacher, look for a combination of these characteristics:
High SAT or other college entrance scores
A degree from a selective, rigorous college
High scores on the Praxis, or other licensing exam
More than four years of experience
Strong subject-matter knowledge

There is a paragraph that directly answers Paul, with citations:

Unlike the other three indicators of subject-matter knowledge, teachers with higher test scores are more effective at both the elementary and high school levels. At the elementary level in North Carolina, students who were taught by teachers who scored higher on the math section of the state’s licensure exam made more academic gains in math than students taught by teachers who scored lower (Clotfelder et al. 2007a).The same was true for reading. Even at the elementary level, teachers in New York City who scored higher on the SAT math section were more effective than teachers who scored lower (Boyd et al. 2007).

This is a site sponsored by the National School Boards Assn. Interesting page.
http://www.centerforpubliceducation.org/Main-Menu/Staffingstudents/How-good-are-your-teachers-Trying-to-define-teacher-quality/Does-highly-qualified-mean-highly-effective.GMEditor.html

Now, the be all and end all is not to force all kids on a college track, but I think our democratic Republic demands that all kids walking in the door of a publicly funded school as fresh faced Kindergärtners should have a path that leads, if they so desire and were able to do the work, to a top school in a rigorous math-based subject. Not as the be all and end all... but any kid starting school, and their parents, should not be shut out of that life because their schools were not capable of keeping their charges generally at grade level using, for example, the California Content Standards in math and language that were superceded by Common Core, which aren't bad per se but are a grade level behind.

[ScenesFromTheApocalypse]

George @ 10:30

"in the aggregate anyone who has a command of the material to be taught can very quickly learn how to effectively present the material and measure how well their students have absorbed it."

Aside from research, is there any good reason for the existence of a degree in education then? It sounds like teaching is a skill best learned from a few short courses plus OJT.

[George Rebane]

Scenes 1211pm - Yes, there is a benefit from learning how to teach, but to devote an extended university curriculum to develop that skill is more than a bit of overkill. One can become an effective classroom teacher by taking a properly structured one semester course (that includes practicum). The finer points will develop later through experience and ancillary subjects if one seeks to teach students in, say, the +/- two sigma regions.

[ScenesFromTheApocalypse]

12:21PM.

So you can make the argument that universities should offer a teaching certificate received as a result of that semester, and that that should be sufficient for most teaching jobs. I can see exceptions (Special Ed teachers perhaps? specialized training for K-3 teachers?).

Well, I'm sold. What is DeVos' email address?

[Gregory]

Scenes, UCLA started as a "Normal School", which trained high school graduates to be primary school teachers. I gather Normal Schools generally awarded a Bachelor in Education in one or two years.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Normal_school

My late first wife Teri (BS Math, Mudd, MSEE LMU) when she was trying to get a 2nd career started teaching high school math was informed by the then chair of NUHS' department that when he started teaching math, besides a BA/BS Math, it took about one semester to get a credential... mostly classroom management and student teaching, which is the one of the few skills a BS/MS in a real subject doesn't cover.

Colleges of Education tend to focus on pedagogy... how they think students should be taught... and it's pretty universally agreed in those places that kids should work in groups to discover the stuff for themselves, with the teacher as "a guide on the side" rather than "a sage on the stage"... and those phrases have been around for decades.

What the Ed school pedagogists forget is that anyone with a solid BA/BS in a solid subject has about 17 years of observing good teaching methods and bad teaching methods, and many semesters of barrel bottom academics telling them which ones are good or bad is likely to make them desire to do something other than teaching. Seccondary teachers with subject matter degrees really only need a quick course in the basics of teacher survival and then released into the wild to come up to speed with the help of their colleagues.

[Bill Tozer]

Quotes:

Alpha Jackass: “[V]oucher programs will lead to more suicides. Betsy DeVos’s policies will kill children. That is not an exaggeration in any sense. … Strong public schools are the bedrock of a thriving, autonomous middle class. No wonder zealot billionaires want to get rid of them!” —Vanity Fair’s Richard Lawson

And last… “The focus of our education system is the transfer of tax dollars between politicians and unions. Educating children is its waste product.” —Frank Fleming

[Bill Tozer]

School daze:

https://www.facebook.com/RowdyConservatives/photos/a.217983685002343.55586.217926015008110/1024190074381696/?type=3&theater

[George Rebane]

Scenes 1238pm - "I can see exceptions (Special Ed teachers perhaps? specialized training for K-3 teachers?)." = GeorgeR 1221pm "The finer points will develop later through experience and ancillary subjects if one seeks to teach students in, say, the +/- two sigma regions." ;-)

[Gregory]

It should be noted that the discovery and inquiry methods driving Common Core are outgrowths of Special Education methods. In particular, CPM, the wretchedly misnamed "College Preparatory Math" that was the inspiration for the reform group Mathematically Correct that helped drive the late lamented California Content Standards, was specifically started to develop a remedial math program that could prepare the mathematically challenged for college work.

That didn't work out but many average students faced with CPM in middle or high school were prepared to need remediation in the non-selective colleges they began attending.

CPM is also used by Ghiddotti and a number of other local schools. An acquaintance of mine who tutors math locally says it's driving her business, and that of other local tutors, to the moon. Maybe Mr. Pink should check what's in his kid's backpack.

[Robert Cross]

A great education as Betsy see it.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/james-schlarmann/betsy-devos-orders-immediate-flattening-of-all-school-globes_b_14639376.html

[Gregory]

I'm going to guess that "Robert Cross" is willfully blind enough to not notice that was labeled as a satirical piece. In small print to confuse the small minded.

[Account Deleted]

No Greg - he's just that stupid.
Of course, he'll come back soon claiming he knew all along it was just a joke.
Right.

[Robert Cross]

This is like fish in a barrel…you will bite on anything. anyway it's alternate facts. not satire... you know like Kellyanne Conway likes to pass on. Either way Besty DeVos is that stupid. The fact that you support the most controversial cabinet nominee in history who bought her way into position she literally has no clue about is astonishing. You ideology blinds you. Talk about stupid.

[Gregory]

RC 926

No, Scott is more likely right, you really are that stupid.

DeVos was never my pick for Ed Secy because she's paid homage to progressive ed school lunacies in the past, but she may be the one of the more effective available candidates to piss off teacher's unions by increasing the power parents have to choose the education for their children.

In other words, DeVos may be the most qualified candidate to break the current modus operandi of the Dept. of Ed. Look at the bright side... the Feds don't actually teach any kids and never did.

[ScenesFromTheApocalypse]

Speaking of school.

https://i.reddituploads.com/70134d89c49c4ffdbc7880d6f6cdf0a1?fit=max&h=1536&w=1536&s=93c5945bbeb2f6c8dc671e5d609e3c75