From th Daily Censored
by Paul Thomas
The U.S. is floundering at the bottom of international comparisons of education, and what makes this worse is that in the grand ol’ 1950s, the U.S. was at the top—at least that is one story offered by Michelle Rhee on a recent episode of the Colbert Report.
Like the discussion of Waiting for Superman by John Legend on Bill Maher’s Real Time, the celebrity tour of Rhee, who recently lost her job as chancellor of schools in DC, raises some real problems about not only what our self-appointed educational leaders are saying about education, but also how our so-called left-wing media helps (directly and indirectly) to perpetuate misinformation about our education system—misinformation that is being promoted to mask the real issues about poverty in our culture that the political and corporate elite do not want to face.
Rhee, in her interview with Colbert, makes several sweeping claims about schools, and as is the nature of contemporary media (recognizing, of course, that Colbert is satire), she is allowed to make those claims without any evidence and without anyone raising a hand to ask, “Really?”
Let’s unpack for a second just the one claim about the U.S. being number one in education and graduation in the 1950s.
First, Rhee is following a clever playbook of the new education reform movement: Make partial claims that few people will question because they sound true. While I find the claim itself misleading, even if the claim is true, Rhee is referring to the U.S. public education system before integration and the civil rights movement impacted a public education system that had closed doors to many American citizens. In short, the education system of the 1950s was an incomplete one that shunned many people marginalized by race and poverty.
Rhee trusts that most people embrace a misguided nostalgia for the past, a nostalgia lacking evidence for such faith in a better time, but once we actually return to that Golden Era, the message then is somewhat confusing in the light of Rhee’s claims.
Let me recommend some reading: Admiral Hyman Rickover’s Swiss Schools and Ours: Why Theirs are Better (1962) and American Education, a National Failure; The problem of our schools and what we can learn from England (1963)—both built on the argument that throughout the 1950s U.S. public schools were clear failures when compared internationally (sound familiar?), and sweeping educational reform (to eradicate the leftist influence, no less) was needed to address the crisis.
Or how about Rudolf Flesch? Try reading this Time article from 1955 or Flesch’s book—Why Johnny Can’t Read—And What You Can Do About It (1955).
The full truth, of course, is that corporate and political elites have been making the same exact charges heard from Rhee, Secretary Duncan, and Bill Gates, unwarranted and without much resistance, for at least half a century. Rhee’s misinformation is nothing new, but it is finding renewed traction because these messages are being reinforced through the cult of celebrity, and that cult of celebrity is being driven by the so-called left-wing media just as easily as anywhere else—Oprah, Maher’s Real Time, The Colbert Report.
The message must be challenged, however, and it must come from the field itself—educators and scholars alike. When the usual claims and patterns are raised, we must do as much maligned educator and activist Bill Ayers has implored us to do, “Talk back, speak up, be heard.”
Now, what are the claims, and what rebuttals must we offer?:
• All cries of educational crisis are misleading. A crisis requires drastic responses quickly; our education system is a reflection of historical patterns that require patience and nuance in facing and addressing those patterns. We do not have education crises; we have lingering and systemic social failures.
• Education leadership that has no experience or expertise doesn’t deserve to be at the head of the reform table. Celebrities—Oprah, Bill Gates, John Legend, Andre Agassi—are not experts in education just because they have fame and money. Leadership and money are not the credentials needed to drive educational reform.
• Data don’t prove much of anything when the data is cherry-picked, and incomplete. As Rhee in her Colbert interview demonstrated, the new education reform celebrities have learned the power of incomplete statistics; offer just enough data to trigger popular assumptions—as long as those popular assumptions fuel the corporate agenda. When a simplistic and obvious claim about education is made, we must always assume it is false. The truth about education is nuanced and complex—and numbers can lie.
• Let’s be more like Finland? Well let’s do that, but not the partial way Secretary Duncan, Bill Gates, and Michelle Rhee have claimed. Let’s admit the genuine influence of socialism in Finland, along with their commitment to healthcare and sex education. Let’s consider that the government pays for all teachers’ graduate courses, leading to every teacher having a Master’s degree before teaching. Let’s consider that 95% of teachers in Finland are unionized. And let’s note that Finland does not use standards-driven testing to label students, teachers, and schools. And let’s consider that childhood poverty is about 4% in Finland (while the U.S. child poverty rate is 22%).
• International comparisons of test scores? What about international comparisons of childhood poverty? When we stoop to rankings, we are always risking yet more oversimplification and distortion, but when our political and corporate elites cherry-pick rankings (test scores) while avoiding the big picture (childhood poverty rankings), we are once again falling victim to factual but misleading statistics. State schools in all countries are a reflection of social realities of those countries—not data that can be used to compare the educational quality among countries.
Historically, the political Left has been a direct and indirect supporter of public education. That tradition does not mean the Left gets a free pass.
President Obama and Secretary Duncan have abandoned democratic principles and the promise of public education for a free people; they have abdicated those principles for the lure of corporate ideology.
The so-called left-wing media is following right along. I happen to like Oprah, Bill Maher,and Stephen Colbert (and the causes they promote as well as the voices they provide our culture), but, again, that doesn’t mean they are above being called on the carpet for their negligence (and the negligence of the media across the board).
And it is negligence to allow and even embrace the distortions driving the new educational reform movement being fueled by a celebrity elite who have no business representing the education agenda of a free society that claims to value academic freedom, human empowerment, and the hope of democracy not yet fulfilled.
http://dailycensored.com/2010/12/02/the-education-celebrity-tour-legend-of-the-fall-pt-ii/
Showing posts with label finland. Show all posts
Showing posts with label finland. Show all posts
Monday, February 14, 2011
Sunday, February 13, 2011
America's long standing mediocrity
From the Washington Post
By Jay Mathews
"U.S. students, who once led the world, currently rank 21st in the world in science and 25th in math," Newsweek reported in September. I hear that a lot. Politicians and business leaders often bemoan the decline of American education compared to the rest of the world. We are doomed, they say, unless we [fill in here the latest plan to save the country.]
So I was surprised to find, in the latest report by the wonderfully contrarian Brookings Institution scholar Tom Loveless, that the notion of America on the downward track is a myth. The data show that we have been mediocre all along, as far back as 1964. If anything, we have lately been showing some signs of improvement.
Loveless, senior fellow at the Brown Center on Education Policy at Brookings, says in his annual report on American Education:
"The United States never led the world. It was never number one and has never been close to number one on international math tests. Or on science tests, for that matter. It is more accurate to say that the United States has always trailed the world on math tests."
Among the comments on the latest results of the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) in December, which showed some U.S. gains, was this from Bob Wise, president of the Alliance for Excellent Education and former governor of West Virginia: "The good news is that the free-fall seems to have stopped--and it was a free-fall for a while."
Loveless says no. "There was no sharp decline--in either the short or long run," he says. "The U.S. performance on PISA has been flat to slightly up since the test's inception, and it has improved on TIMSS [the Third International Mathematics and Science Study, another major series of tests] since 1995."
This is not exactly good news, but context is important. If we have managed to be the world's most powerful country, politically, economically and militarily, for the last 47 years despite our less than impressive math and science scores, maybe that flaw is not as important as film documentaries and political party platforms claim. And if, after so many decades of being shown up by much of the rest of the developed world, we are improving, it might be time to be more supportive of what we already doing to fix our schools.
Loveless is one of the nation's leading experts on PISA and TIMSS. He has been part of the cohorts of specialists who advise those programs. In his report he says the first international test comparable to those two was the First International Math Study (FIMS) in 1964. It assessed 13-year-olds in 12 countries. The United States placed next to last, just ahead of Sweden.
We were beaten by Israel, Japan, Belgium, Finland, Germany, England, Scotland, the Netherlands, France and Australia, in that order. Other age groups were tested with similarly disappointing results for the United States.
In the latest PISA and TIMSS tests, the United States did better, scoring in the middle of the pack. On PISA, the United States was up 5 points in reading, 13 points in math and 13 points in science. If we maintain that pace, Loveless says, we will boost the U.S. gross domestic product by at least $41 trillion in the next 20 years, according to an analysis of PISA results by Stanford University economist Eric A. Hanushek.
Loveless, a former teacher, cannot resist tarnishing the shiny reputations of our most celebrated international competitors, while he is on the subject. He declares that the often-heard assumption that Finland has the best educational system in the world, with India and China coming on strong, also is a myth.
This blogger has been dumping on the strength of the Chinese and Indian school systems for a long time. Loveless agrees that they are very large, very poor countries that are so ill-equipped for international tests that they have never participated in them as countries. Shanghai scored number one on the latest PISA, but that is no indicator of how China would do.
"Shanghai's municipal website reports that 83.8 percent of high school graduates enter college," Loveless says. "The national figure is 24 percent." The American figure is about 66 percent.
Loveless is less dismissive of Finland, which has been scoring well for several years. But he says Americans who love the Finnish model of paying teachers higher salaries, decentralizing authority over educational decisions and eschewing high-stakes standardized testing should tune into the debate the Finns are having about their schools.
Finnish children were doing well on international tests before those reforms were adopted. That suggests that cultural and societal factors might be the more likely reason for their success. Many Finnish mathematicians say that the country is catering too much to PISA, which emphasizes word problems and practical applications of math, and neglecting to prepare students for college math.
Loveless says more than 200 university mathematicians in Finland petitioned the education ministry to complain of students increasingly arriving in their classrooms poorly prepared. "Knowledge of fractions and algebra were singled out as particularly weak areas," Loveless says.
Everyone has problems, even the much-admired Chinese, Indians and Finns. American schools seem to have absorbed the message that our students have the capacity to achieve more than we have asked them to do. Support for better and more focused math and science courses is increasing.
We should stop talking about some golden age of schooling that never existed, and instead look for ways to create one. But no one should expect that is going to happen quickly, or without controversy
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/class-struggle/2011/02/myth_of_declining_us_schools.html
By Jay Mathews
"U.S. students, who once led the world, currently rank 21st in the world in science and 25th in math," Newsweek reported in September. I hear that a lot. Politicians and business leaders often bemoan the decline of American education compared to the rest of the world. We are doomed, they say, unless we [fill in here the latest plan to save the country.]
So I was surprised to find, in the latest report by the wonderfully contrarian Brookings Institution scholar Tom Loveless, that the notion of America on the downward track is a myth. The data show that we have been mediocre all along, as far back as 1964. If anything, we have lately been showing some signs of improvement.
Loveless, senior fellow at the Brown Center on Education Policy at Brookings, says in his annual report on American Education:
"The United States never led the world. It was never number one and has never been close to number one on international math tests. Or on science tests, for that matter. It is more accurate to say that the United States has always trailed the world on math tests."
Among the comments on the latest results of the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) in December, which showed some U.S. gains, was this from Bob Wise, president of the Alliance for Excellent Education and former governor of West Virginia: "The good news is that the free-fall seems to have stopped--and it was a free-fall for a while."
Loveless says no. "There was no sharp decline--in either the short or long run," he says. "The U.S. performance on PISA has been flat to slightly up since the test's inception, and it has improved on TIMSS [the Third International Mathematics and Science Study, another major series of tests] since 1995."
This is not exactly good news, but context is important. If we have managed to be the world's most powerful country, politically, economically and militarily, for the last 47 years despite our less than impressive math and science scores, maybe that flaw is not as important as film documentaries and political party platforms claim. And if, after so many decades of being shown up by much of the rest of the developed world, we are improving, it might be time to be more supportive of what we already doing to fix our schools.
Loveless is one of the nation's leading experts on PISA and TIMSS. He has been part of the cohorts of specialists who advise those programs. In his report he says the first international test comparable to those two was the First International Math Study (FIMS) in 1964. It assessed 13-year-olds in 12 countries. The United States placed next to last, just ahead of Sweden.
We were beaten by Israel, Japan, Belgium, Finland, Germany, England, Scotland, the Netherlands, France and Australia, in that order. Other age groups were tested with similarly disappointing results for the United States.
In the latest PISA and TIMSS tests, the United States did better, scoring in the middle of the pack. On PISA, the United States was up 5 points in reading, 13 points in math and 13 points in science. If we maintain that pace, Loveless says, we will boost the U.S. gross domestic product by at least $41 trillion in the next 20 years, according to an analysis of PISA results by Stanford University economist Eric A. Hanushek.
Loveless, a former teacher, cannot resist tarnishing the shiny reputations of our most celebrated international competitors, while he is on the subject. He declares that the often-heard assumption that Finland has the best educational system in the world, with India and China coming on strong, also is a myth.
This blogger has been dumping on the strength of the Chinese and Indian school systems for a long time. Loveless agrees that they are very large, very poor countries that are so ill-equipped for international tests that they have never participated in them as countries. Shanghai scored number one on the latest PISA, but that is no indicator of how China would do.
"Shanghai's municipal website reports that 83.8 percent of high school graduates enter college," Loveless says. "The national figure is 24 percent." The American figure is about 66 percent.
Loveless is less dismissive of Finland, which has been scoring well for several years. But he says Americans who love the Finnish model of paying teachers higher salaries, decentralizing authority over educational decisions and eschewing high-stakes standardized testing should tune into the debate the Finns are having about their schools.
Finnish children were doing well on international tests before those reforms were adopted. That suggests that cultural and societal factors might be the more likely reason for their success. Many Finnish mathematicians say that the country is catering too much to PISA, which emphasizes word problems and practical applications of math, and neglecting to prepare students for college math.
Loveless says more than 200 university mathematicians in Finland petitioned the education ministry to complain of students increasingly arriving in their classrooms poorly prepared. "Knowledge of fractions and algebra were singled out as particularly weak areas," Loveless says.
Everyone has problems, even the much-admired Chinese, Indians and Finns. American schools seem to have absorbed the message that our students have the capacity to achieve more than we have asked them to do. Support for better and more focused math and science courses is increasing.
We should stop talking about some golden age of schooling that never existed, and instead look for ways to create one. But no one should expect that is going to happen quickly, or without controversy
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/class-struggle/2011/02/myth_of_declining_us_schools.html
Thursday, February 10, 2011
It's poverty
The guest article by Robert Neid in the Times Union about the country falling behind other industrialized nations in education was pretty accurate in many regards. He was right we are falling behind and we should be alarmed. Furthermore I agree with him that we are costing ourselves both economical and socially by doing so. However he failed to mention the number one factor for the reason we currently find ourselves in the hole we are and that’s poverty.
Twenty-one percent of our children live in poverty. Another fifth aren’t that much above it and poverty is the number one measurable statistic which determines how well a student does in school, not teachers as Mr. Neid seems to imply. Simply put, children in poverty do not do as well as those who are not.
He went on to quote several impressive statistics about where our nation and our children find themselves when compared to our industrialized counterparts but once again he doesn’t mention that when we factor out poverty and just use the scores of children not living in it our scores rise tremendously. He also doesn’t mention that places like Finland, long considered a model of education excellence have very few children that live in poverty (one half of one percent) and have made education a national priority not an afterthought as we have done.
I get it that Mr. Neid wants our children and our nation to do better. I just think in order for us to improve we need to address our children and nations real issues.
Chris Guerrieri
School Teacher
Twenty-one percent of our children live in poverty. Another fifth aren’t that much above it and poverty is the number one measurable statistic which determines how well a student does in school, not teachers as Mr. Neid seems to imply. Simply put, children in poverty do not do as well as those who are not.
He went on to quote several impressive statistics about where our nation and our children find themselves when compared to our industrialized counterparts but once again he doesn’t mention that when we factor out poverty and just use the scores of children not living in it our scores rise tremendously. He also doesn’t mention that places like Finland, long considered a model of education excellence have very few children that live in poverty (one half of one percent) and have made education a national priority not an afterthought as we have done.
I get it that Mr. Neid wants our children and our nation to do better. I just think in order for us to improve we need to address our children and nations real issues.
Chris Guerrieri
School Teacher
Sunday, January 2, 2011
Four Reasons Finland’s Schools are Better Than Ours
By Anne Bibby
America's latest school report card jump-started yet another wave of panic that our students will never be able to compete on the world stage.The Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development’s release of its annual Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) study, an international comparison of educational performance, placed U.S. kids in the incredibly average group.
But aside from the fear that our children won’t one day earn enough to prop up our Social Security/Medicare entitlements, the report wasn’t quite a death knell for the public school system.
America’s kids didn’t flunk. Where countries like England, France and Sweden are mired in mediocrity with no signs of improvement, the U.S. posted modest gains.
What’s most interesting about the PISA report, and important for the public school reformers here to focus on, is Finland.
Finland As A Model
Once again, Finnish students topped the PISA report card, but what makes this information worth scrutinizing is that 25 years ago Finland’s school system sat in the same predicament that public schools in the U.S. find themselves now. The Finns scored below average in math and science and had alarming achievement gaps between urban and affluent schools versus poor and rural schools.
So what did the Finns do?
They began scrutinizing the education policies and practices of more successful countries, took what worked, ignored that which went against the grain and built an educational system where today there is virtually no academic difference among socio-economic groups. Children in Finland can attend school anywhere in the country and be assured of the same quality of education.
The Exact Opposite
Not surprising to me, as a former teacher, is that Finland reformed its schools and rose to the top by doing almost the exact opposite of what reformers like Secretary of State Arne Duncan and Bill Gates would have Americans believe is the only cure for our ailing schools.
Despite the differences in our countries' make-ups, (America is far more diverse and has a child poverty rate that is four times higher than Finland) they have much to teach us.
What Did Finland Do?
First, no child in Finland ever takes a standardized test. The only test a Finnish student takes is the one that determines if he/she will go on to university. In addition, standardized tests are not used to measure teaching ability or to compare schools. Parents, teachers and students assess progress and effectiveness of schools. Any comparison assessment relies on sample-based learning tests, which are low-stakes because the data is simply used in research to determine what works and what doesn’t. The Finns believe that education is a process, not a game to be won or lost.
Second, Finland put time and money into elevating the teaching profession. Parents and politicians regard teachers in the same manner they do doctors. In fact, the Finns trust schools more than any other institution except the police.
Teachers come into the profession with advanced degrees and they work with autonomy. Teachers are key players in determining curriculum and assessment, which might explain why the teaching profession attracts the best and brightest. After all, who wants to go into a profession where it is assumed you graduated in the bottom half of your class and couldn’t get into any other discipline at university?
Third, administrators from principals to school superintendents are all former teachers. No one is allowed to oversee the education of Finnish children in any role who hasn’t the educational training and experience. There are no exceptions. The idea that a business person or politician, who never taught, understands the learning process or should be in charge of reform would puzzle a Finn.
Fourth, Finland does not promote the idea of educating its young as a competition. Schools work in tandem and cooperation is the rule rather than the freakish exception. Interestingly, Shanghai – whose students bested Finland in math and science this year – also shuns the competitive model of school reform. In Shanghai, low performing schools are paired with and mentored by high performing ones with the emphasis on sharing techniques that work. Closing schools and firing teachers is simply not a choice.
What Could Americans Do?
How can American education reform benefit from Finland’s success?
First by admitting that what amounts to reform here isn’t "best practices" in the most academically successful countries in the world. When Finland began its reform, it took some cues from the United States but ignored those things that were fads or had no compelling long term data to support their effectiveness.
Perhaps it’s time that those who wish to make a difference in educating American children admitted that what we are doing is the same things over and over in slightly different packaging, and it isn’t working. What Do You Think?
What does education reform look like in your community? Has anything in the last decade made an impact for the good? What suggestions would you make?
From Care2.com: http://www.care2.com/causes/education/blog/four-reasons-finland-s-schools-are-better-than-ours/
America's latest school report card jump-started yet another wave of panic that our students will never be able to compete on the world stage.The Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development’s release of its annual Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) study, an international comparison of educational performance, placed U.S. kids in the incredibly average group.
But aside from the fear that our children won’t one day earn enough to prop up our Social Security/Medicare entitlements, the report wasn’t quite a death knell for the public school system.
America’s kids didn’t flunk. Where countries like England, France and Sweden are mired in mediocrity with no signs of improvement, the U.S. posted modest gains.
What’s most interesting about the PISA report, and important for the public school reformers here to focus on, is Finland.
Finland As A Model
Once again, Finnish students topped the PISA report card, but what makes this information worth scrutinizing is that 25 years ago Finland’s school system sat in the same predicament that public schools in the U.S. find themselves now. The Finns scored below average in math and science and had alarming achievement gaps between urban and affluent schools versus poor and rural schools.
So what did the Finns do?
They began scrutinizing the education policies and practices of more successful countries, took what worked, ignored that which went against the grain and built an educational system where today there is virtually no academic difference among socio-economic groups. Children in Finland can attend school anywhere in the country and be assured of the same quality of education.
The Exact Opposite
Not surprising to me, as a former teacher, is that Finland reformed its schools and rose to the top by doing almost the exact opposite of what reformers like Secretary of State Arne Duncan and Bill Gates would have Americans believe is the only cure for our ailing schools.
Despite the differences in our countries' make-ups, (America is far more diverse and has a child poverty rate that is four times higher than Finland) they have much to teach us.
What Did Finland Do?
First, no child in Finland ever takes a standardized test. The only test a Finnish student takes is the one that determines if he/she will go on to university. In addition, standardized tests are not used to measure teaching ability or to compare schools. Parents, teachers and students assess progress and effectiveness of schools. Any comparison assessment relies on sample-based learning tests, which are low-stakes because the data is simply used in research to determine what works and what doesn’t. The Finns believe that education is a process, not a game to be won or lost.
Second, Finland put time and money into elevating the teaching profession. Parents and politicians regard teachers in the same manner they do doctors. In fact, the Finns trust schools more than any other institution except the police.
Teachers come into the profession with advanced degrees and they work with autonomy. Teachers are key players in determining curriculum and assessment, which might explain why the teaching profession attracts the best and brightest. After all, who wants to go into a profession where it is assumed you graduated in the bottom half of your class and couldn’t get into any other discipline at university?
Third, administrators from principals to school superintendents are all former teachers. No one is allowed to oversee the education of Finnish children in any role who hasn’t the educational training and experience. There are no exceptions. The idea that a business person or politician, who never taught, understands the learning process or should be in charge of reform would puzzle a Finn.
Fourth, Finland does not promote the idea of educating its young as a competition. Schools work in tandem and cooperation is the rule rather than the freakish exception. Interestingly, Shanghai – whose students bested Finland in math and science this year – also shuns the competitive model of school reform. In Shanghai, low performing schools are paired with and mentored by high performing ones with the emphasis on sharing techniques that work. Closing schools and firing teachers is simply not a choice.
What Could Americans Do?
How can American education reform benefit from Finland’s success?
First by admitting that what amounts to reform here isn’t "best practices" in the most academically successful countries in the world. When Finland began its reform, it took some cues from the United States but ignored those things that were fads or had no compelling long term data to support their effectiveness.
Perhaps it’s time that those who wish to make a difference in educating American children admitted that what we are doing is the same things over and over in slightly different packaging, and it isn’t working. What Do You Think?
What does education reform look like in your community? Has anything in the last decade made an impact for the good? What suggestions would you make?
From Care2.com: http://www.care2.com/causes/education/blog/four-reasons-finland-s-schools-are-better-than-ours/
Saturday, January 1, 2011
The Education Narrative
There is an education narrative being rammed down the people’s throats by the powers-that-be. Prominent citizens like Michael Bloomberg, Bill Gates, Michelle Rhee, Jeb Bush and their proxies are telling it. Like most snake oil salesmen they weave a smooth tale using cherry picked facts and figures and enticing sound bites blurbs and promises to get their way message across and in doing so have made teachers and their unions the boogey men of the story. Watch out parents, they shout, teachers and their dirty unions are robbing your children of a proper education and destroying America to boot
The truth however is a bit different. They are using these self serving stats and figures to try and convince, make that to try and scare Joe and Judy public into believing their story. If we could just get rid of five percent of the bad teachers we could have dramatic improvements but we can’t because the teachers unions sole reason for being is to protect bad teachers.
They whisper seductively into the publics ears, we want to give vouchers to all parents so they can have school choice but the teachers unions are against them too, that means teachers and their dirty unions are against parents having parents have the abi;ity to make decisons for their children's future and the money to help out too. We want to reward the top teachers with merit pay, it’s unbelievable that the unions are against more money for their best members but they are. Our education ranking in the world has also steadily dropped over the last quarter century, it must be because we have bad teachers. Why can’t we be more like Finland? On and on they go. Well friends not since a snake convinced a naive young girl to take a bite of an apple has their been such a masterful con job been perpetrated.
Until the recent recession you couldn’t give a teaching job away as there were always openings. Does anybody remember how they were advertising in Canada and India to find teachers, does anybody remember the push to get people from the business world to enter the classroom? I do. Of course we want our best and our brightest in the classroom but you know what else we want, we want the willing to be there too. Are there teachers that should be replaced, yes of course there are just like there are people in every profession that would serve them best by not being in them. Where is the call to get rid of the worse five percent of police officers firemen and doctors?
Unions however are not protecting bad teachers they are just making sure that all teachers get due process and in my home town that only kicks in after teachers have proved themselves for three years. That’s right at any time during a teachers first three years at the end of one they can be let go. But say we did somehow identify and get rid of the worse five percent, not the five percent the admin doesn’t like because they more often than the worse are the ones targeted for removal, they are the ones who suffer the consequences of speaking up or being innovative, who would we replace them with? Teaching is no longer a career for so many as less than half of all first year teachers make it to year five and the reasons they give for leaving the profession are rarely, the children or the money.
Another stat the ant-teacher mongers like to throw out is that education draws just under a quarter of our top graduates, which I guess means they are saying that the most of our kids are being taught by someone other than a teacher with a high college grade point average. First I am not sure if straight G.P.A. should be a factor but why is this a bad thing? Are 23 percent of the nations top grads entering law enforcement, or medicine or business or any other field? I don’t think so and if the stat is right that means over a fifth or our supposed best and brightest are choosing education over the thousands and thousands of other careers out there. But instead of celebrating that, it’s used as an indictment against the entire teachering profession. Teachers can’t win at the top, not enough of the best grads enter education and they can’t win at the bottom because the unions are protecting bad teachers.
Then the weavers of the story compare America’s education system to industrialized countries like Finland that have zoomed past us in the international education rankings. This to must be the teachers and their union’s fault they scream because they are protecting all those bad teachers and resisting reforms. They don’t tell you that if we factor out kids that live in poverty our ranking zooms all the way to second or about the countries they are comparing us to. Finland may have the best education system in the world and does draw the vast amount of its staff from the top third of college graduates but the ed deformers fail to mention that teachers in Finland are paid substantially more than their American counterparts, there classes are very small, they play a role in policy and curriculum and are one of the most highly unionized groups around. They fail to mention that Finland as a country decided to make a huge commitment to education where here we have decided to blame the teachers for the problems. Comparing teachers in both countries is not like comparing apples and oranges it’s like comparing apples to a five-course meal, with America being the apple.
What about vouchers the ed deformers ask? How can people who really care about children and education be against them after all they give parents the choice to do what they feel is best for their children. Sounds pretty seductive right, especially in Florida where they are promising parents five thousand five hundred dollars in education accounts. The problem is charter schools and their private school counter parts despite the fact that they can pick and choose who they allow in or keep and who don’t have to play by the same rules as their public school counter parts (having to have certifyed teachers, take standardized tests etc.) but haven’t been found to do any better. In fact study after study has said the vast majority do the same or worse. Furthermore the proposed universal voucher system in Florida will really be a welfare for the well off program costing the state 1.7 billion dollars as the five hundred thousand kids already in private school will now get this free money.
Then what about the consequences of siphoning much needed money and resources away from already cash starved public schools, where most of the children already attending them will still be attending them because the money in the education acounts won't cover the cost for most private schools. Now the children who remain in the public schools and their teachers will have even fewer resources. Furthermore we don’t get to pick our police, our fire department, our military. our meat inspectors and so many other things but for some reason the powers-that-be will have you believe it is better to abandon public schools. Isn’t a better answer to improve our public schools rather than dismantle them?
You want proof unions are against education reform those spinning the anti-teacher narrative ask. Well look at merit pay, how can they be against merit pay for the nations best teachers. The thing with merit pay is like school choice it sounds very enticing but like school choice often becomes no choice merit pay can be very misleading. The one-year I received merit pay I knew there were a dozen teachers better than me that didn’t. The one-year I didn’t receive merit pay I knew there were a dozen teachers worse than me that did. So often it comes down to whom the principal likes or whatever perception he or she has but worse than that it there is no relationship between those who receive merit pay and their children doing better. That’s right friends studies show kids whose teachers don’t receive merit pay do just as well as kids with teachers that do. Extra money is great but you know what would be better? Counselors and social workers to get to the root of the problems some of our children have and to provide wrap around services. So often why kids act up at school has nothing to do with schools. Legitimate after school and summer school programs, and busses, at my school we don't have after school detention and one of the reasons I was given was because there was no way for the kids to get home.
The anti-teacher narrative has more holes in it than a colander and the arguements seem self serving desighned to fill the pockets of some of thse making them but despite this somehow it is gaining traction and teachers have gone from valued members of society to borderline pariahs holding the country back. Teachers who I remind you, the vast majority of work many hundreds of un paid extra hours, donate their time and resources to other peoples children as often theirs wait in extended day or in front of the television why they take home papers to grade or lesson plans to write. Teachers who give so much and frankly throughout time have received so little have become the bad guys of the narrative while the policy makers, politicians, Joe and Judy public who want a caviar education system on a spam budget, absentee parents and children raised without a sense of respect or a willingness to work get a pass.
Furthermore it’s even worse than all that. Do you know where Mayor Bloomberg and Jeb Bush and many of those selling the anti teacher story sent their children? They sent them to private schools, which tout teachers experience and smaller class sizes as selling points, two things the ed deformers have recently been minimizing, a first year teacher can be as good (and cheaper) than a tenth year teacher and class size doesn't matter if the teacher is good enough, they say.
Jeb Bushes family and Bill Gates have made millions and stand to make millions more on the education reforms they are selling (standardized tests and virtual, computer based, schools). Also do you know how many of the people selling the teachers union bad, teachers substandard story have never been teachers or actually in classrooms? Of Florida Governor Rick Scott’s education team only one is a teacher and he works at a virtual school. Of the leaders mentioned in the opening only Michelle Rhee was a teacher and she came up through Teach for America which some have renamed Teach for a while because of the staggeringly high amount of participants who serve their two years and then leave. This is who is writing the education narrative, those that have had nothing to do with teaching and those that would seek to profit off of it.
Teachers are not against reform. Teachers unions are not in the business to protect bad teachers and there is not an epidemic of bad teachers destroying America. Get the story straight.
The truth however is a bit different. They are using these self serving stats and figures to try and convince, make that to try and scare Joe and Judy public into believing their story. If we could just get rid of five percent of the bad teachers we could have dramatic improvements but we can’t because the teachers unions sole reason for being is to protect bad teachers.
They whisper seductively into the publics ears, we want to give vouchers to all parents so they can have school choice but the teachers unions are against them too, that means teachers and their dirty unions are against parents having parents have the abi;ity to make decisons for their children's future and the money to help out too. We want to reward the top teachers with merit pay, it’s unbelievable that the unions are against more money for their best members but they are. Our education ranking in the world has also steadily dropped over the last quarter century, it must be because we have bad teachers. Why can’t we be more like Finland? On and on they go. Well friends not since a snake convinced a naive young girl to take a bite of an apple has their been such a masterful con job been perpetrated.
Until the recent recession you couldn’t give a teaching job away as there were always openings. Does anybody remember how they were advertising in Canada and India to find teachers, does anybody remember the push to get people from the business world to enter the classroom? I do. Of course we want our best and our brightest in the classroom but you know what else we want, we want the willing to be there too. Are there teachers that should be replaced, yes of course there are just like there are people in every profession that would serve them best by not being in them. Where is the call to get rid of the worse five percent of police officers firemen and doctors?
Unions however are not protecting bad teachers they are just making sure that all teachers get due process and in my home town that only kicks in after teachers have proved themselves for three years. That’s right at any time during a teachers first three years at the end of one they can be let go. But say we did somehow identify and get rid of the worse five percent, not the five percent the admin doesn’t like because they more often than the worse are the ones targeted for removal, they are the ones who suffer the consequences of speaking up or being innovative, who would we replace them with? Teaching is no longer a career for so many as less than half of all first year teachers make it to year five and the reasons they give for leaving the profession are rarely, the children or the money.
Another stat the ant-teacher mongers like to throw out is that education draws just under a quarter of our top graduates, which I guess means they are saying that the most of our kids are being taught by someone other than a teacher with a high college grade point average. First I am not sure if straight G.P.A. should be a factor but why is this a bad thing? Are 23 percent of the nations top grads entering law enforcement, or medicine or business or any other field? I don’t think so and if the stat is right that means over a fifth or our supposed best and brightest are choosing education over the thousands and thousands of other careers out there. But instead of celebrating that, it’s used as an indictment against the entire teachering profession. Teachers can’t win at the top, not enough of the best grads enter education and they can’t win at the bottom because the unions are protecting bad teachers.
Then the weavers of the story compare America’s education system to industrialized countries like Finland that have zoomed past us in the international education rankings. This to must be the teachers and their union’s fault they scream because they are protecting all those bad teachers and resisting reforms. They don’t tell you that if we factor out kids that live in poverty our ranking zooms all the way to second or about the countries they are comparing us to. Finland may have the best education system in the world and does draw the vast amount of its staff from the top third of college graduates but the ed deformers fail to mention that teachers in Finland are paid substantially more than their American counterparts, there classes are very small, they play a role in policy and curriculum and are one of the most highly unionized groups around. They fail to mention that Finland as a country decided to make a huge commitment to education where here we have decided to blame the teachers for the problems. Comparing teachers in both countries is not like comparing apples and oranges it’s like comparing apples to a five-course meal, with America being the apple.
What about vouchers the ed deformers ask? How can people who really care about children and education be against them after all they give parents the choice to do what they feel is best for their children. Sounds pretty seductive right, especially in Florida where they are promising parents five thousand five hundred dollars in education accounts. The problem is charter schools and their private school counter parts despite the fact that they can pick and choose who they allow in or keep and who don’t have to play by the same rules as their public school counter parts (having to have certifyed teachers, take standardized tests etc.) but haven’t been found to do any better. In fact study after study has said the vast majority do the same or worse. Furthermore the proposed universal voucher system in Florida will really be a welfare for the well off program costing the state 1.7 billion dollars as the five hundred thousand kids already in private school will now get this free money.
Then what about the consequences of siphoning much needed money and resources away from already cash starved public schools, where most of the children already attending them will still be attending them because the money in the education acounts won't cover the cost for most private schools. Now the children who remain in the public schools and their teachers will have even fewer resources. Furthermore we don’t get to pick our police, our fire department, our military. our meat inspectors and so many other things but for some reason the powers-that-be will have you believe it is better to abandon public schools. Isn’t a better answer to improve our public schools rather than dismantle them?
You want proof unions are against education reform those spinning the anti-teacher narrative ask. Well look at merit pay, how can they be against merit pay for the nations best teachers. The thing with merit pay is like school choice it sounds very enticing but like school choice often becomes no choice merit pay can be very misleading. The one-year I received merit pay I knew there were a dozen teachers better than me that didn’t. The one-year I didn’t receive merit pay I knew there were a dozen teachers worse than me that did. So often it comes down to whom the principal likes or whatever perception he or she has but worse than that it there is no relationship between those who receive merit pay and their children doing better. That’s right friends studies show kids whose teachers don’t receive merit pay do just as well as kids with teachers that do. Extra money is great but you know what would be better? Counselors and social workers to get to the root of the problems some of our children have and to provide wrap around services. So often why kids act up at school has nothing to do with schools. Legitimate after school and summer school programs, and busses, at my school we don't have after school detention and one of the reasons I was given was because there was no way for the kids to get home.
The anti-teacher narrative has more holes in it than a colander and the arguements seem self serving desighned to fill the pockets of some of thse making them but despite this somehow it is gaining traction and teachers have gone from valued members of society to borderline pariahs holding the country back. Teachers who I remind you, the vast majority of work many hundreds of un paid extra hours, donate their time and resources to other peoples children as often theirs wait in extended day or in front of the television why they take home papers to grade or lesson plans to write. Teachers who give so much and frankly throughout time have received so little have become the bad guys of the narrative while the policy makers, politicians, Joe and Judy public who want a caviar education system on a spam budget, absentee parents and children raised without a sense of respect or a willingness to work get a pass.
Furthermore it’s even worse than all that. Do you know where Mayor Bloomberg and Jeb Bush and many of those selling the anti teacher story sent their children? They sent them to private schools, which tout teachers experience and smaller class sizes as selling points, two things the ed deformers have recently been minimizing, a first year teacher can be as good (and cheaper) than a tenth year teacher and class size doesn't matter if the teacher is good enough, they say.
Jeb Bushes family and Bill Gates have made millions and stand to make millions more on the education reforms they are selling (standardized tests and virtual, computer based, schools). Also do you know how many of the people selling the teachers union bad, teachers substandard story have never been teachers or actually in classrooms? Of Florida Governor Rick Scott’s education team only one is a teacher and he works at a virtual school. Of the leaders mentioned in the opening only Michelle Rhee was a teacher and she came up through Teach for America which some have renamed Teach for a while because of the staggeringly high amount of participants who serve their two years and then leave. This is who is writing the education narrative, those that have had nothing to do with teaching and those that would seek to profit off of it.
Teachers are not against reform. Teachers unions are not in the business to protect bad teachers and there is not an epidemic of bad teachers destroying America. Get the story straight.
To Fix Education: Fire Human Teachers, Hire Holograms
By Adam Bessie
50 years later, our generation’s Sputnik moment is back,” President Obama declared at a recent speech at Forsyth Technical Community College in Winston-Salem, North Carolina; this time, however, we aren’t just losing to the formidable U.S.S.R., but now are being beaten senseless by wimpy little nations like Finland, for cripes sake.
Friggin’ Finland.
Thankfully, in Shanghai we have a far more scary-looking foe than Finland, one actually worthy of replacing the Red Scare. Fifty years after Sputnik, we still have a healthy fear of a communist takeover of our country, which has been fed not only by Glen Beck’s chalkboard conspiracy theories, but also by the reality that China owns most of our debt, a fact feverishly exploited by both liberals and conservatives to grab votes in the midterm election. Now, in outperforming us in the PISA (Programme for International Student Assessment), these communist children have given us a “wake-up call,” as Obama concludes, demonstrating that we are “in danger of falling behind,” and waking up to a Red Dawn.
Our imploded economy, and the subsequent Red Scare, has led to a sudden, well-publicized “crisis in education,” one which – of course! – has nothing to do with the imploded economy, and everything to do with poor performing teachers, and inefficient, poorly run schools, a refrain popularized by the documentary Waiting for Superman, promoted by billionaires Bill Gates and Oprah, and one that has made a star of former Washington D.C. superintendent Michelle Rhee. Fixing the “educational crisis” is also the policy that underlies Obama’s Race to the Top, a policy that places faith in the free-market – yes, the same free-market that imploded the economy – to fix education, and to make sure that we beat those dastardly commies in the classroom, and thus, the global economy. That, and of course, we can regain our honor by besting those bothersome, socialist Finns, who outperformed us, and don’t even believe in competition in education!
An important cause of our “educational crisis”, Secretary of Education Arne Duncan points out in a speech before American Enterprise Institute, a powerful neo-conservative think-tank, is inefficiency. In “Bang for the Buck in Schooling,” Duncan pushed superintendents to look to their inner CEOs for ways to cut all that fiscal waste, and to “make tough decisions that will pay off long term, including rethinking teacher compensation and class size and integrating technology into school systems.”
Here is a modest proposal for America, one that will help our educational system become far more efficient, one that will help us get considerably more “bang for our buck” out of public education by integrating technology and thus dramatically reducing wasteful overhead: holograms.
Yes, to win the Race to the Top, we should fire human teachers, and hire holograms.
Think this is mere science fiction?
In Japan today (who also beat us on the PISA), Hatsune Miku is the first holographic star, playing to sold-out audiences. The product of cutting edge software, Miku appears on stage as a real person, and is, according to Huffington Post “incredibly realistic,” and has been drawing a massive following. While the initial cost of the software may be pricey, unlike a human star, Miku won’t require travel expenses, five-star lodging, specialty water from the Amazon, the Betty Ford Clinic, beefy security guards, a greedy agent, nor, well, anything other than a steady power supply and a competent programmer. What’s more, Miku can play live at simultaneous locations around the world, rather than a single location, and won’t say or doing anything embarrassing – that is, unless programmed to!
Unlike Miku, teachers are human beings, and humans – even non-stars – are exceptionally expensive: each individual expects fair compensation in trade for their specialized labor, including a wage commensurate with cost of living, health care, and retirement when they have completed decades of public service. What’s more, humans can only be in one place at a time, and can only provide effective attention to a limited number of students at a single time. Thus, to run an entire educational system, one which serves nearly 80 million children and adults we need to hire millions of human teachers, which requires billions of our hard-earned tax dollars, all for an enterprise that that doesn’t appear to produce any clear profits. Unfortunately, these human teachers don’t seem to appreciate how expensive they are, and often stand in the way of efforts to lower costs, and make education more cost-effective – imagine just how much money we can save through simple math, by increasing class sizes to 40 and 50 students, rather than the paltry national average of half this.
Worst of all, human teachers have conflicting ideas of how education should work, and all too often, they say and do things in the classroom that do not prepare students for standardized tests, nor their careers. For example, many human teachers don’t believe constant standardized testing to be an effective way to capture the learning process, and some even believe these tests harm substantive learning. These wayward teachers use class time to explore unquantifiable wastes of time such as imagination, creativity, and empathy, none of which can be accurately assessed in metrics, nor converted into reliable data points, nor analyzed into standard deviations, and bar graphs. These teachers don’t seem to appreciate Public School Operating System designer Bill Gates declaration that “If you want something to be excellent, it can’t go unmeasured.”
Unlike Miku, unlike the latest edition of Windows, human teachers don’t always do what they are commanded to do!
Hal could solve all the inefficiencies inherent in public, human education. Rather than hire millions of fallible, inefficient humans, hire a single holographic teacher, Hal, to perform in all classrooms across America at the same time. Just as industry thrived from automating manufacturing processes, so will education under Hal, who can simulate effective education, sans all the pesky human costs and problems. Hal won’t require a living wage, health care, nor will he form unions, nor will he ever – ever – deviate from the lesson that his programmers in Washington, DC, have designed.
Hal will provide a frictionless, perfectly efficient transfer of information to students’ minds, at a fraction of the current cost.
Think this is too big a leap for the public? That they won’t accept a human-less educational experience? That they still want actual, breathing humans in the classroom with their children?
Hal wouldn’t be that big of step beyond what many college students already experience, as they “attend” their lecture class with 1400 other students via Webcast, and take many classes online with a teacher they never meet, all from the comfort of their dorm room. Further, programs like Accuplacer – used by many universities already – can automatically grade student writing, at a fraction of the cost of even low-paid, coffee addicted, grumpy graduate teaching assistants.
What does it matter if the teacher exists or not, in the first place? If we accept Automatic Teller Machines to dispense cash, why won’t we accept Automatic Teaching Machines to dispense information?
We are already on the path to Hal, who may be here sooner than we think. Holograms aren’t far from the home, according to virtual reality visionary Jaron Lanier, author of You Are Not a Gadget, who sees a future in which mass broadcasting will be transformed into “telegigging,” where a performer could be “telepresent” via holographic projections. He predicts that within five years, holographic technology may be in our homes. And given how much money can be made in the emerging educational market – especially when we downsize millions of obsolete human teachers – there will be a new breed of educational entrepreneurs that will be highly motivated to move holograms from the home, to the classroom.
Bill Gates and his team can serve as the primary programmers for Hal: they have the technical infrastructure, and have already invested half a billion dollars in quantifying the qualities of an effective instructor. With these metrics, Gates will be able to produce an algorithm to program Hal, one that could inform exactly what material to cover, at what pace, and how, precisely, to respond to all types of students in all situations. Future versions of Hal will include realistic simulations of sympathy, if the student is stuck amidst a messy divorce, or dealing with the death of a parent. Hal can extend a holographic arm of sympathy for an ailing student, without fear of any sort of real, human touching that might result in a lawsuit – and again, at a fraction of the cost.
And all of this new technology will finally make education profitable, pumping billions into our economy, rather than just taking from it.
Humans will still play a vital role in supporting Hal: we will need technical support if the projector has problems, which can easily be outsourced to Microsoft branch offices in more cost efficient countries, like India. To update content, the ruling political party can select a panel of CEOs from Fortune 500 corporations to manage the Central Bank of Knowledge (based on Google servers), that will hold all the information that students need to know in order to stay competitive in the global marketplace. The Central Bank will download into Hal’s mainframe at any time, and from there, directly into students’ minds.
The only inefficiency left in the Public School Operating System will be the human students themselves, who have the unfortunate tendency to act irrationally, much like their human teacher counterparts. These human students may have a crush on the girl across the room, or want to socialize with a friend, they may feel sad for some inexplicable reason, or more generally, have emotions that deviate from Hal’s educational algorithm, and thus, combating Shanghai in the global war for jobs.
This is an easy bug to fix, though. Simply replace the students with holograms.
http://dailycensored.com/2010/12/29/to-fix-education-fire-human-teachers-hire-holograms/
50 years later, our generation’s Sputnik moment is back,” President Obama declared at a recent speech at Forsyth Technical Community College in Winston-Salem, North Carolina; this time, however, we aren’t just losing to the formidable U.S.S.R., but now are being beaten senseless by wimpy little nations like Finland, for cripes sake.
Friggin’ Finland.
Thankfully, in Shanghai we have a far more scary-looking foe than Finland, one actually worthy of replacing the Red Scare. Fifty years after Sputnik, we still have a healthy fear of a communist takeover of our country, which has been fed not only by Glen Beck’s chalkboard conspiracy theories, but also by the reality that China owns most of our debt, a fact feverishly exploited by both liberals and conservatives to grab votes in the midterm election. Now, in outperforming us in the PISA (Programme for International Student Assessment), these communist children have given us a “wake-up call,” as Obama concludes, demonstrating that we are “in danger of falling behind,” and waking up to a Red Dawn.
Our imploded economy, and the subsequent Red Scare, has led to a sudden, well-publicized “crisis in education,” one which – of course! – has nothing to do with the imploded economy, and everything to do with poor performing teachers, and inefficient, poorly run schools, a refrain popularized by the documentary Waiting for Superman, promoted by billionaires Bill Gates and Oprah, and one that has made a star of former Washington D.C. superintendent Michelle Rhee. Fixing the “educational crisis” is also the policy that underlies Obama’s Race to the Top, a policy that places faith in the free-market – yes, the same free-market that imploded the economy – to fix education, and to make sure that we beat those dastardly commies in the classroom, and thus, the global economy. That, and of course, we can regain our honor by besting those bothersome, socialist Finns, who outperformed us, and don’t even believe in competition in education!
An important cause of our “educational crisis”, Secretary of Education Arne Duncan points out in a speech before American Enterprise Institute, a powerful neo-conservative think-tank, is inefficiency. In “Bang for the Buck in Schooling,” Duncan pushed superintendents to look to their inner CEOs for ways to cut all that fiscal waste, and to “make tough decisions that will pay off long term, including rethinking teacher compensation and class size and integrating technology into school systems.”
Here is a modest proposal for America, one that will help our educational system become far more efficient, one that will help us get considerably more “bang for our buck” out of public education by integrating technology and thus dramatically reducing wasteful overhead: holograms.
Yes, to win the Race to the Top, we should fire human teachers, and hire holograms.
Think this is mere science fiction?
In Japan today (who also beat us on the PISA), Hatsune Miku is the first holographic star, playing to sold-out audiences. The product of cutting edge software, Miku appears on stage as a real person, and is, according to Huffington Post “incredibly realistic,” and has been drawing a massive following. While the initial cost of the software may be pricey, unlike a human star, Miku won’t require travel expenses, five-star lodging, specialty water from the Amazon, the Betty Ford Clinic, beefy security guards, a greedy agent, nor, well, anything other than a steady power supply and a competent programmer. What’s more, Miku can play live at simultaneous locations around the world, rather than a single location, and won’t say or doing anything embarrassing – that is, unless programmed to!
Unlike Miku, teachers are human beings, and humans – even non-stars – are exceptionally expensive: each individual expects fair compensation in trade for their specialized labor, including a wage commensurate with cost of living, health care, and retirement when they have completed decades of public service. What’s more, humans can only be in one place at a time, and can only provide effective attention to a limited number of students at a single time. Thus, to run an entire educational system, one which serves nearly 80 million children and adults we need to hire millions of human teachers, which requires billions of our hard-earned tax dollars, all for an enterprise that that doesn’t appear to produce any clear profits. Unfortunately, these human teachers don’t seem to appreciate how expensive they are, and often stand in the way of efforts to lower costs, and make education more cost-effective – imagine just how much money we can save through simple math, by increasing class sizes to 40 and 50 students, rather than the paltry national average of half this.
Worst of all, human teachers have conflicting ideas of how education should work, and all too often, they say and do things in the classroom that do not prepare students for standardized tests, nor their careers. For example, many human teachers don’t believe constant standardized testing to be an effective way to capture the learning process, and some even believe these tests harm substantive learning. These wayward teachers use class time to explore unquantifiable wastes of time such as imagination, creativity, and empathy, none of which can be accurately assessed in metrics, nor converted into reliable data points, nor analyzed into standard deviations, and bar graphs. These teachers don’t seem to appreciate Public School Operating System designer Bill Gates declaration that “If you want something to be excellent, it can’t go unmeasured.”
Unlike Miku, unlike the latest edition of Windows, human teachers don’t always do what they are commanded to do!
Hal could solve all the inefficiencies inherent in public, human education. Rather than hire millions of fallible, inefficient humans, hire a single holographic teacher, Hal, to perform in all classrooms across America at the same time. Just as industry thrived from automating manufacturing processes, so will education under Hal, who can simulate effective education, sans all the pesky human costs and problems. Hal won’t require a living wage, health care, nor will he form unions, nor will he ever – ever – deviate from the lesson that his programmers in Washington, DC, have designed.
Hal will provide a frictionless, perfectly efficient transfer of information to students’ minds, at a fraction of the current cost.
Think this is too big a leap for the public? That they won’t accept a human-less educational experience? That they still want actual, breathing humans in the classroom with their children?
Hal wouldn’t be that big of step beyond what many college students already experience, as they “attend” their lecture class with 1400 other students via Webcast, and take many classes online with a teacher they never meet, all from the comfort of their dorm room. Further, programs like Accuplacer – used by many universities already – can automatically grade student writing, at a fraction of the cost of even low-paid, coffee addicted, grumpy graduate teaching assistants.
What does it matter if the teacher exists or not, in the first place? If we accept Automatic Teller Machines to dispense cash, why won’t we accept Automatic Teaching Machines to dispense information?
We are already on the path to Hal, who may be here sooner than we think. Holograms aren’t far from the home, according to virtual reality visionary Jaron Lanier, author of You Are Not a Gadget, who sees a future in which mass broadcasting will be transformed into “telegigging,” where a performer could be “telepresent” via holographic projections. He predicts that within five years, holographic technology may be in our homes. And given how much money can be made in the emerging educational market – especially when we downsize millions of obsolete human teachers – there will be a new breed of educational entrepreneurs that will be highly motivated to move holograms from the home, to the classroom.
Bill Gates and his team can serve as the primary programmers for Hal: they have the technical infrastructure, and have already invested half a billion dollars in quantifying the qualities of an effective instructor. With these metrics, Gates will be able to produce an algorithm to program Hal, one that could inform exactly what material to cover, at what pace, and how, precisely, to respond to all types of students in all situations. Future versions of Hal will include realistic simulations of sympathy, if the student is stuck amidst a messy divorce, or dealing with the death of a parent. Hal can extend a holographic arm of sympathy for an ailing student, without fear of any sort of real, human touching that might result in a lawsuit – and again, at a fraction of the cost.
And all of this new technology will finally make education profitable, pumping billions into our economy, rather than just taking from it.
Humans will still play a vital role in supporting Hal: we will need technical support if the projector has problems, which can easily be outsourced to Microsoft branch offices in more cost efficient countries, like India. To update content, the ruling political party can select a panel of CEOs from Fortune 500 corporations to manage the Central Bank of Knowledge (based on Google servers), that will hold all the information that students need to know in order to stay competitive in the global marketplace. The Central Bank will download into Hal’s mainframe at any time, and from there, directly into students’ minds.
The only inefficiency left in the Public School Operating System will be the human students themselves, who have the unfortunate tendency to act irrationally, much like their human teacher counterparts. These human students may have a crush on the girl across the room, or want to socialize with a friend, they may feel sad for some inexplicable reason, or more generally, have emotions that deviate from Hal’s educational algorithm, and thus, combating Shanghai in the global war for jobs.
This is an easy bug to fix, though. Simply replace the students with holograms.
http://dailycensored.com/2010/12/29/to-fix-education-fire-human-teachers-hire-holograms/
Wednesday, December 29, 2010
The Education Narrative (rough draft)
There is an education narrative being rammed down the people’s throats by the powers-that-be. Prominent citizens like Michael Bloomberg, Bill Gates, Michelle Rhee, Jeb Bush and their proxies are telling it. Like most snake oil salesman they weave a smooth tale using cherry picked facts and figures and enticing sound bites and blurbs to get their way and in doing so have made teachers and their unions the boogey men of the story. Watch out parents they shout as they like wise make enticing promises.
The truth however is they are using cherry picked stats and figures to try and convince, make that to try and scare Joe and Judy public into believing the narrative that their children are getting a substandard education and that the future of America is at stake and that it is all teachers fault. If we could just get rid of five percent of the bad teachers we could have dramatic improvements but the teachers unions are trying to protect bad teachers. We want to give vouchers to all parents so they can have school choice but the teachers unions are against them. We want to reward the top teachers with merit pay, how can the unions be against more money for thier best members but they are. Our education ranking in the world has steadily dropped over the last quarter century it must be because we have bad teachers. Why can’t we be more like Finland? On and on they go. Well friends not since a snake convinced a naive young girl to take a bite of an apple has their been such a masterful con job been perpetrated.
Until the recent recession you couldn’t give a teaching job away as there were always openings. Does anybody remember how they were advertising in Canada and India to find teachers, does anybody remember the push to get people from the business world to enter the classroom? I do. Of course we want our best and our brightest in the classroom but you know what else we want, we want the willing to be there to. Are there teachers that should be replaced, yes of course there are just like there are people in every profession that would serve it best by not being in it. Unions however are not protecting bad teachers they are just making sure that teachers get due process and in my home town that only kicks in after they have proved themselves for three years. That’s right at any time during a teachers first three years at the end of one they can be let go. But say we did somehow identify and get rid of the worse five percent, not the five percent the admin doesn’t like because they more often than the worse suffer the consequences of speaking up or being innovative who would we replace them with?
Another stat the ant-teacher mongers like to throw out is that education draws just under a quarter of our top graduates that means the most of our kids are being taught by someone other than a teacher with a high grade point average. First I am not sure if straight G.P.A. should be a factor but why is this a bad thing. Are 23 percent of the nations top grads entering law enforcement, or medicine or business or any other field? I don’t think so and if the stat is right that means over a fifth or our supposed best and brightest are choosing education over the thousands and thousands of other careers out there. But instead of celebrating that it’s used as an indictment against teachers. Teachers can’t win at the top, not enough of the best grads enter education and they can’t win at the bottom, the unions are protecting bad teachers.
Then they compare us to industrialized countries like Finland that have zoomed past us in the international industrial rankings. This to must e the teachers and their unions fault they scream protecting all those bad teachers and resisting reforms. They don’t tell you that if we factor out kids that live in poverty our ranking zooms all the way to second and about the countries they are comparing us to. It’s true that Finland draws the vast amount of its staff from the top third of college graduates but the ed deformers fail to mention that teachers in Finland are paid substantially more than their American counterparts, there classes are very small, they play a role in policy and curriculum and are one of the most highly unionized groups around. Comparing teachers in both countries is not like comparing apples and oranges it’s like comparing apples to a five-course meal, with America being the apple.
What about vouchers? How can people who really care about children and education be against them after all they give parents the choice to do what they feel is best for their children. Sounds pretty seductive right especially in Florida where they are promising parent five thousand five hundred dollars. The problem is charter schools and their private school counter parts despite the fact that they can pick and choose who they allow in and don’t have to play by the same rules as their public school counter parts haven’t been found to do any better, in fact for the most part they are found to do the same or worse. Furthermore the universal voucher system will amount to welfare for the well off program as it siphons much needed money away from already cash starved public schools. We don’t get to pick our police, our fire department, our military our meat inspectors and so many other things but for some reason the powers-that-be will have you believe it is better to abandon public schools.
You want proof unions are against education reform those spinning the anti-teacher narrative ask. Well look at merit pay, how can they be against merit pay for the nations best teachers. The thing with merit pay is like school choice it sounds very enticing but like school choice often becomes no choice merit pay can be very misleading. The one-year I received merit pay I knew there were a dozen teachers better than me that didn’t. The one-year I didn’t receive merit pay I knew there were a dozen teachers worse than me that did. So often it comes down to whom the principal likes or whatever perception he has but worse than that it there is no relationship between those who receive merit pay and their children doing better.
The anti-teacher narrative has more holes in it than a colander but somehow it is gaining traction and teachers have gone from valued members of society to borderline pariahs holding the country back. Teachers who I remind you the vast majority work many untold and un paid extra hours, who donate their time and resources to other peoples children as often theirs wait in extended day or in front of the television why they take home papers to grade or work on lesson plans. Teachers who give so much and frankly throughout time have received so little have become the bad guys of the narrative while the policy makers, politicians absentee parents and children raised without a sense of respect or a willingness to work get a pass.
Furthermore it’s worse. Do you know where Mayor Bloomberg and Jeb Bush and many of those selling the anti teacher story sent their children? They sent them to private schools, which tout teachers experience and smaller class sizes as selling points, two things the ed deformers have recently been minimizing. Jeb Bushes family and Bill Gates have made millions and stand to make millions more on the education reforms they are selling (standardized tests and virtual, computer based, schools). Also do you know how many of the people selling the teachers union bad, teachers substandard story have been teachers and actually been in classrooms? Well of Florida Governor Rick Scott’s education team only one is a teacher and he works at a virtual school. Of the leaders mentioned in the opening only Michelle Rhee was a teacher and she came up through Teach for America which some have renamed Teach for a while because of the staggeringly high amount of participants who serve their two years and then leave. This is who is writing the education narrative, those that have had nothing to do with teaching and those that would seek to profit off of it.
The truth however is they are using cherry picked stats and figures to try and convince, make that to try and scare Joe and Judy public into believing the narrative that their children are getting a substandard education and that the future of America is at stake and that it is all teachers fault. If we could just get rid of five percent of the bad teachers we could have dramatic improvements but the teachers unions are trying to protect bad teachers. We want to give vouchers to all parents so they can have school choice but the teachers unions are against them. We want to reward the top teachers with merit pay, how can the unions be against more money for thier best members but they are. Our education ranking in the world has steadily dropped over the last quarter century it must be because we have bad teachers. Why can’t we be more like Finland? On and on they go. Well friends not since a snake convinced a naive young girl to take a bite of an apple has their been such a masterful con job been perpetrated.
Until the recent recession you couldn’t give a teaching job away as there were always openings. Does anybody remember how they were advertising in Canada and India to find teachers, does anybody remember the push to get people from the business world to enter the classroom? I do. Of course we want our best and our brightest in the classroom but you know what else we want, we want the willing to be there to. Are there teachers that should be replaced, yes of course there are just like there are people in every profession that would serve it best by not being in it. Unions however are not protecting bad teachers they are just making sure that teachers get due process and in my home town that only kicks in after they have proved themselves for three years. That’s right at any time during a teachers first three years at the end of one they can be let go. But say we did somehow identify and get rid of the worse five percent, not the five percent the admin doesn’t like because they more often than the worse suffer the consequences of speaking up or being innovative who would we replace them with?
Another stat the ant-teacher mongers like to throw out is that education draws just under a quarter of our top graduates that means the most of our kids are being taught by someone other than a teacher with a high grade point average. First I am not sure if straight G.P.A. should be a factor but why is this a bad thing. Are 23 percent of the nations top grads entering law enforcement, or medicine or business or any other field? I don’t think so and if the stat is right that means over a fifth or our supposed best and brightest are choosing education over the thousands and thousands of other careers out there. But instead of celebrating that it’s used as an indictment against teachers. Teachers can’t win at the top, not enough of the best grads enter education and they can’t win at the bottom, the unions are protecting bad teachers.
Then they compare us to industrialized countries like Finland that have zoomed past us in the international industrial rankings. This to must e the teachers and their unions fault they scream protecting all those bad teachers and resisting reforms. They don’t tell you that if we factor out kids that live in poverty our ranking zooms all the way to second and about the countries they are comparing us to. It’s true that Finland draws the vast amount of its staff from the top third of college graduates but the ed deformers fail to mention that teachers in Finland are paid substantially more than their American counterparts, there classes are very small, they play a role in policy and curriculum and are one of the most highly unionized groups around. Comparing teachers in both countries is not like comparing apples and oranges it’s like comparing apples to a five-course meal, with America being the apple.
What about vouchers? How can people who really care about children and education be against them after all they give parents the choice to do what they feel is best for their children. Sounds pretty seductive right especially in Florida where they are promising parent five thousand five hundred dollars. The problem is charter schools and their private school counter parts despite the fact that they can pick and choose who they allow in and don’t have to play by the same rules as their public school counter parts haven’t been found to do any better, in fact for the most part they are found to do the same or worse. Furthermore the universal voucher system will amount to welfare for the well off program as it siphons much needed money away from already cash starved public schools. We don’t get to pick our police, our fire department, our military our meat inspectors and so many other things but for some reason the powers-that-be will have you believe it is better to abandon public schools.
You want proof unions are against education reform those spinning the anti-teacher narrative ask. Well look at merit pay, how can they be against merit pay for the nations best teachers. The thing with merit pay is like school choice it sounds very enticing but like school choice often becomes no choice merit pay can be very misleading. The one-year I received merit pay I knew there were a dozen teachers better than me that didn’t. The one-year I didn’t receive merit pay I knew there were a dozen teachers worse than me that did. So often it comes down to whom the principal likes or whatever perception he has but worse than that it there is no relationship between those who receive merit pay and their children doing better.
The anti-teacher narrative has more holes in it than a colander but somehow it is gaining traction and teachers have gone from valued members of society to borderline pariahs holding the country back. Teachers who I remind you the vast majority work many untold and un paid extra hours, who donate their time and resources to other peoples children as often theirs wait in extended day or in front of the television why they take home papers to grade or work on lesson plans. Teachers who give so much and frankly throughout time have received so little have become the bad guys of the narrative while the policy makers, politicians absentee parents and children raised without a sense of respect or a willingness to work get a pass.
Furthermore it’s worse. Do you know where Mayor Bloomberg and Jeb Bush and many of those selling the anti teacher story sent their children? They sent them to private schools, which tout teachers experience and smaller class sizes as selling points, two things the ed deformers have recently been minimizing. Jeb Bushes family and Bill Gates have made millions and stand to make millions more on the education reforms they are selling (standardized tests and virtual, computer based, schools). Also do you know how many of the people selling the teachers union bad, teachers substandard story have been teachers and actually been in classrooms? Well of Florida Governor Rick Scott’s education team only one is a teacher and he works at a virtual school. Of the leaders mentioned in the opening only Michelle Rhee was a teacher and she came up through Teach for America which some have renamed Teach for a while because of the staggeringly high amount of participants who serve their two years and then leave. This is who is writing the education narrative, those that have had nothing to do with teaching and those that would seek to profit off of it.
Editorial Bias
I know editorials are little more than opinions but when presented in respected forums like newspapers they often take on more meaning than that and many people believe what is written to be fact. Take for example the Times Union writing about how only 23 percent of America’s top graduates go into education as if that is a bad thing. Can any other profession boast about so many top graduates joining it. Are 23 percent of the nations top grads entering law enforcement, or medicine or business or any other field? I don’t think so and if the stat is right that means over a fifth or our supposed best and brightest are choosing education over the thousands and thousands of other careers out there. But instead of celebrating that it’s used as an indictment against teachers. Here is a stat the Times Union didn’t mention, less than half of all first year teachers whether they are the best the nation has to offer or not do not make it to year five preferring to find employment in other fields. Rarely are the reasons, the children or the money, given for their decision to leave.
Then the Times Union further muddies the water by comparing American teachers to the teachers in Finland, which draws the vast amount of its staff from the top third of college graduates. They fail to mention that teachers in Finland are paid substantially more than their American counterparts, there classes are very small, they play a role in policy and curriculum and are one of the most highly unionized groups around. Comparing teachers in both countries is not like comparing apples and oranges it’s like comparing apples to a five-course meal, with America being the apple.
There are many issues in education and teacher quality is one of them, as we should always strive to put our best and brightest in our classrooms. However if we were to list the issues with education, poverty, standardized tests, one size fits all curriculum, a lack of discipline, unfunded mandates, etc. teacher quality however would be way down the list, not at the forefront as the Times Union and others would have the public believe.
Chris Guerrieri
School Teacher
Then the Times Union further muddies the water by comparing American teachers to the teachers in Finland, which draws the vast amount of its staff from the top third of college graduates. They fail to mention that teachers in Finland are paid substantially more than their American counterparts, there classes are very small, they play a role in policy and curriculum and are one of the most highly unionized groups around. Comparing teachers in both countries is not like comparing apples and oranges it’s like comparing apples to a five-course meal, with America being the apple.
There are many issues in education and teacher quality is one of them, as we should always strive to put our best and brightest in our classrooms. However if we were to list the issues with education, poverty, standardized tests, one size fits all curriculum, a lack of discipline, unfunded mandates, etc. teacher quality however would be way down the list, not at the forefront as the Times Union and others would have the public believe.
Chris Guerrieri
School Teacher
Caviar tastes on a spam budget, why we will never be like Finland
Finland is often pointed to as having the idea education system. -cpg
By Paul Sahlberg
IF AMERICANS harbored any doubts about their eroded global edge, the recent release of the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development’s fourth international comparison of educational performance should rattle the nation from its “We’re No. 1’’ complacency. The latest Program for International Student Assessment study revealed that, although the United States made some modest gains, it is lagging behind many other developed nations in the ability of its 15-year-olds. The country isn’t flunking: like France, England, and Sweden, learning here has stagnated at below-average levels. That “gentleman’s C’’ should be a call to change course.
As recently as 25 years ago, Finnish students were below the international average in mathematics and science. There also were large learning differences between schools, with urban or affluent students typically outperforming their rural or low-income peers. Today, as the most recent PISA study proves, Finland is one of the few nations that have accomplished both a high quality of learning and equity in learning at the same time. The best school systems are the most equitable — students do well regardless of their socio-economic background. Finally, Finland should interest US educators because Finns have employed very distinct ideas and policies in reforming education, many the exact opposite of what’s being tried in the United States.
Finland has a different approach to student testing and how test data can or should not be used. Finnish children never take a standardized test. Nor are there standardized tests used to compare teachers or schools to each other. Teachers, students, and parents are all involved in assessing and also deciding how well schools, teachers, or students do what they are supposed to do. Politicians and administrators are informed about how well the education system works by using sample-based learning tests which place no pressure on schools, and by research targeted to understand better how schools work. Parents and politicians think that teachers who work closely together with parents are the best judges of how well their children are learning in schools.
Another difference is that Finland has created an inspiring and respectful environment in which teachers work. All teachers are required to have higher academic degrees that guarantee both high-level pedagogical skills and subject knowledge. Parents and authorities regard teachers with the same confidence they do medical doctors. Indeed, Finns trust public schools more than any other public institution, except the police. The fact that teachers in Finland work as autonomous professionals and play a key role in curriculum planning and assessing student learning attracts some of the most able and talented young Finns into teaching careers
Educational leadership is also different in Finland. School principals, district education leaders, and superintendents are, without exception, former teachers. Leadership is therefore built on a strong sense of professional skills and community.
The secret of Finnish educational success is that in the 20th century Finns studied and emulated such advanced nations as Sweden, Germany, and the United States. Finns adopted some education policies from elsewhere but also avoided mistakes made by these leading education performers.
What could the United States learn from the Finns? First, reconsider those policies that advocate choice and competition as the key drivers of educational improvement. None of the best-performing education systems relies primarily on them. Indeed, the Finnish experience shows that consistent focus on equity and cooperation — not choice and competition — can lead to an education system where all children learn well. Paying teachers based on students’ test scores or converting public schools into private ones (through charters or other means) are ideas that have no place in the Finnish repertoire for educational improvement.
Second, provide teachers with government-paid university education and more professional support in their work, and make teaching a respected profession. As long as teachers are not trusted in their work and are not respected as professionals, young talent in the United States is unlikely to seek teaching as a lifelong career.
Finally, with the fourth PISA study again showing that the US education system is lagging those in many other countries, Americans should admit that there is much to learn from these systems. Relying on one’s past reputation is probably not the best approach for transforming an educational system to meet tomorrow’s needs and challenges. With America’s “can do’’ mentality and superior knowledge base in educational improvement, you could shift course before it’s too late.
Pasi Sahlberg is director general of the Center for International Mobility and Cooperation at Finland’s Ministry of Education and Culture and is a former Washington-based World Bank education specialis
Taken from the Boston Globe: http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2010/12/27/learning_from_finland/?page=1
By Paul Sahlberg
IF AMERICANS harbored any doubts about their eroded global edge, the recent release of the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development’s fourth international comparison of educational performance should rattle the nation from its “We’re No. 1’’ complacency. The latest Program for International Student Assessment study revealed that, although the United States made some modest gains, it is lagging behind many other developed nations in the ability of its 15-year-olds. The country isn’t flunking: like France, England, and Sweden, learning here has stagnated at below-average levels. That “gentleman’s C’’ should be a call to change course.
As recently as 25 years ago, Finnish students were below the international average in mathematics and science. There also were large learning differences between schools, with urban or affluent students typically outperforming their rural or low-income peers. Today, as the most recent PISA study proves, Finland is one of the few nations that have accomplished both a high quality of learning and equity in learning at the same time. The best school systems are the most equitable — students do well regardless of their socio-economic background. Finally, Finland should interest US educators because Finns have employed very distinct ideas and policies in reforming education, many the exact opposite of what’s being tried in the United States.
Finland has a different approach to student testing and how test data can or should not be used. Finnish children never take a standardized test. Nor are there standardized tests used to compare teachers or schools to each other. Teachers, students, and parents are all involved in assessing and also deciding how well schools, teachers, or students do what they are supposed to do. Politicians and administrators are informed about how well the education system works by using sample-based learning tests which place no pressure on schools, and by research targeted to understand better how schools work. Parents and politicians think that teachers who work closely together with parents are the best judges of how well their children are learning in schools.
Another difference is that Finland has created an inspiring and respectful environment in which teachers work. All teachers are required to have higher academic degrees that guarantee both high-level pedagogical skills and subject knowledge. Parents and authorities regard teachers with the same confidence they do medical doctors. Indeed, Finns trust public schools more than any other public institution, except the police. The fact that teachers in Finland work as autonomous professionals and play a key role in curriculum planning and assessing student learning attracts some of the most able and talented young Finns into teaching careers
Educational leadership is also different in Finland. School principals, district education leaders, and superintendents are, without exception, former teachers. Leadership is therefore built on a strong sense of professional skills and community.
The secret of Finnish educational success is that in the 20th century Finns studied and emulated such advanced nations as Sweden, Germany, and the United States. Finns adopted some education policies from elsewhere but also avoided mistakes made by these leading education performers.
What could the United States learn from the Finns? First, reconsider those policies that advocate choice and competition as the key drivers of educational improvement. None of the best-performing education systems relies primarily on them. Indeed, the Finnish experience shows that consistent focus on equity and cooperation — not choice and competition — can lead to an education system where all children learn well. Paying teachers based on students’ test scores or converting public schools into private ones (through charters or other means) are ideas that have no place in the Finnish repertoire for educational improvement.
Second, provide teachers with government-paid university education and more professional support in their work, and make teaching a respected profession. As long as teachers are not trusted in their work and are not respected as professionals, young talent in the United States is unlikely to seek teaching as a lifelong career.
Finally, with the fourth PISA study again showing that the US education system is lagging those in many other countries, Americans should admit that there is much to learn from these systems. Relying on one’s past reputation is probably not the best approach for transforming an educational system to meet tomorrow’s needs and challenges. With America’s “can do’’ mentality and superior knowledge base in educational improvement, you could shift course before it’s too late.
Pasi Sahlberg is director general of the Center for International Mobility and Cooperation at Finland’s Ministry of Education and Culture and is a former Washington-based World Bank education specialis
Taken from the Boston Globe: http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2010/12/27/learning_from_finland/?page=1
Monday, December 27, 2010
Imagine what could be
By teacherken, blogger for the daily Kos
Imagine that 25 years ago that nation's schools were below international averages in math and sciences
Imagine that nation had large differences between schools with affluent students versus those with poorer students
Imagine that nation now has almost no difference in performance between schools with affluent students and those with poorer students
Imagine in that nation teachers are so respected that the best students compete to become teachers, not just for two years, but for a career
Imagine that that nation's schools are now internationally respected
Imagine that our nation might actually be able to learn from what that nation has done
Stop imagining. I'm talking about Finland, as you can read in a piece in today's Boston Globe, by Pasi Sahlberg, titled Learning from Finland and subtitled How one of the world’s top educational performers turned around.
Sahlberg is now director general of the Center for International Mobility and Cooperation at Finland’s Ministry of Education and Culture. Previously he served as a Washington-based World Bank education specialist. Having lived in the US, he is well-aware of the problems of the US educational system. He is also knowledgeable about international comparisons of schools, for example, the recent PISA (The Program for International Student Assessment) by OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development), in which yet again Finland was the top ranked nation (ignore the results from Shanghai, which are (a) not typical of China, and (b) where students spend several hours daily in intensive test preparation AFTER a full day of school). Finland was also highly ranked in a international study by McKinsey and Company.
Finland used to have serious problems in school performance, as Sahlberg acknowledges.
Today, as the most recent PISA study proves, Finland is one of the few nations that have accomplished both a high quality of learning and equity in learning at the same time. The best school systems are the most equitable — students do well regardless of their socio-economic background. Finally, Finland should interest US educators because Finns have employed very distinct ideas and policies in reforming education, many the exact opposite of what’s being tried in the United States.
The Finns examined what other countries were doing, and as Sahlberg also writes
The secret of Finnish educational success is that in the 20th century Finns studied and emulated such advanced nations as Sweden, Germany, and the United States. Finns adopted some education policies from elsewhere but also avoided mistakes made by these leading education performers.
We'll talk about the mistakes Finland is avoiding shortly.
First, some argue that Finland is nowhere near as diverse as the US. Sahlberg acknowledges that is true, but also points out that it is becoming increasingly diverse in recent years, with the implication that the additional diversity is not affecting the performance of its schools. Further, as many have pointed out Finland has a far lower level of childhood poverty than does the US, well under 5%b as compared to ours at more than 20%. Yet in Finland differences between schools with substantial numbers of poor children - primarily in rural areas - now perform as well as those with more affluent students in the urban areas. Sahlberg refers to the results of the most recent PISA, where
The best school systems are the most equitable — students do well regardless of their socio-economic background.
There are some real differences in the approach that Finland took to achieve the results which now rank it so highly. For example,
Finnish children never take a standardized test. Nor are there standardized tests used to compare teachers or schools to each other. Teachers, students, and parents are all involved in assessing and also deciding how well schools, teachers, or students do what they are supposed to do.
How do politicians and administrators determine how well schools are doing? They turn to
sample-based learning tests which place no pressure on schools, and by research targeted to understand better how schools work.
There is also a culture where parents think teachers who work closely with them "are the best judges of how well their children are learning in schools."
And teachers are respected.
Finland has created an inspiring and respectful environment in which teachers work. All teachers are required to have higher academic degrees that guarantee both high-level pedagogical skills and subject knowledge. Parents and authorities regard teachers with the same confidence they do medical doctors. Indeed, Finns trust public schools more than any other public institution, except the police. The fact that teachers in Finland work as autonomous professionals and play a key role in curriculum planning and assessing student learning attracts some of the most able and talented young Finns into teaching careers.
Stop there for a moment and consider how different our approach is here. We have a well-established pattern of denigrating public schools and teachers. We have notable voices - Bill Gates, for example - arguing that teachers getting advanced degrees is a waste of time and resources. We have a concerted effort to delegitimize public schools, with moves for vouchers, charter schools run by for profit organizations, hedge funds seeing how turning to charters can lead to profits for their investors, etc. Yet Finns trust public schools more than any other public institution, except the police. Of course, we also don't trust the police in the US, which may indicate some real cultural differences that do not work to our advantage.
There is another important difference from what we have been seeing, because in Finland
School principals, district education leaders, and superintendents are, without exception, former teachers. Leadership is therefore built on a strong sense of professional skills and community.
Here we have the newly announced initiative of the George W. Bush institute to train 50,000 people with no prior educational work experience as principals running school, we have the effort5s of Eli Broad and others to take business executives and train them as superintendents running district. At a more basic level, we have a variety of programs, of which Teach for America is the most notable, giving young people 5 weeks of intensive training and then placing them in classrooms, with a commitment that is not required to be longer than 2 years. I might add to what Sahlberg writes that in Finland it takes about 2 years of training under decreasing levels of supervision and increasing assumption of responsibility before one is fully responsible for her own classroom.
Sahlberg offers some suggestion for what the US could learn from the Finns. He argues strongly against using choice and competition as drivers for educational improvement, noting
None of the best-performing education systems relies primarily on them. Indeed, the Finnish experience shows that consistent focus on equity and cooperation — not choice and competition — can lead to an education system where all children learn well. Paying teachers based on students’ test scores or converting public schools into private ones (through charters or other means) are ideas that have no place in the Finnish repertoire for educational improvement.
He also notes that Finland provides teacher candidates with a government-paid university education - remember that most teacher candidates in this nation have to pay for their own education which can leave them with substantial debt before they begin to earn incomes. Finland provides more support when they move into their classrooms and treats teaching as a respected profession. As he notes,
As long as teachers are not trusted in their work and are not respected as professionals, young talent in the United States is unlikely to seek teaching as a lifelong career.
Please, note carefully the words teaching as a lifelong career. Two years as a means of enhancing one's resume for other purposes is not the same thing, and does not benefit either the students being taught or the nation as a whole, despite news coverage to the contrary.
Sahlberg is blunt - he tells us that "Americans should admit that there is much to learn" from the educational systems of nations like Finland behind whom the US now lags. He thinks it is possible, closing with these words:
With America’s "can do’’ mentality and superior knowledge base in educational improvement, you could shift course before it’s too late.
Let me add one other difference between Finland and the US that Sahlberg does not address. The teaching force in Finland is 100% unionized. Unionization is not in and of itself an obstacle to excellence in education. We should remind those who seek to use things like America lagging in comparisons like PISA not to use unions as an excuse, especially when states with unionized teaching and general work forces tend to outperform schools in right to work states.
The role of unions is different, to be sure. The culture is different, and not just in the respect given unions in Finland, including teachers unions.
Not only does Finland not have the high degree of childhood poverty we have in the US, they also have a far more substantial social safety net, starting with income security for families and medical care for all, two things sorely lacking in this nation.
Thus while I strongly advise we listen to what Salhberg has to offer us about how we can reform our schools, we should also bear in mind that we will not fix all the problems of learning until we are also willing to address the continuing inequities in this nation. Fixing the schools will be insufficient. I note that at a conference earlier this year Richard Rothstein of the Economic Policy Institute said that we would be better served taking the money that we could spend reducing the principal/teacher ratio to a reasonable level where you could evaluate teachers, and get much more bang for the buck by taking that money and building a health clinic in schools such as those in inner cities. Rothstein was addressing just one part of the impact that economic inequity has upon students that schools as they are currently constructed cannot address.
Still, I think we can learn from Finland, probably more so than we can from a China or a Korea, both of which are struggling to to change the direction of their schooling away from the test centric places they have been, ironically at the same time that we are going in the wrong direction.
I began by asking you to imagine a nation with excellent schools.
Now I make the same suggestion as does Sahlberg, that we seriously attempt to learn from what Finland has achieved in the past 25 years.
Imagine what we might be able to do with our schools.
Taken from the dail Kos: http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2010/12/27/931791/-Imagine-a-nation-with-excellent-schools
Imagine that 25 years ago that nation's schools were below international averages in math and sciences
Imagine that nation had large differences between schools with affluent students versus those with poorer students
Imagine that nation now has almost no difference in performance between schools with affluent students and those with poorer students
Imagine in that nation teachers are so respected that the best students compete to become teachers, not just for two years, but for a career
Imagine that that nation's schools are now internationally respected
Imagine that our nation might actually be able to learn from what that nation has done
Stop imagining. I'm talking about Finland, as you can read in a piece in today's Boston Globe, by Pasi Sahlberg, titled Learning from Finland and subtitled How one of the world’s top educational performers turned around.
Sahlberg is now director general of the Center for International Mobility and Cooperation at Finland’s Ministry of Education and Culture. Previously he served as a Washington-based World Bank education specialist. Having lived in the US, he is well-aware of the problems of the US educational system. He is also knowledgeable about international comparisons of schools, for example, the recent PISA (The Program for International Student Assessment) by OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development), in which yet again Finland was the top ranked nation (ignore the results from Shanghai, which are (a) not typical of China, and (b) where students spend several hours daily in intensive test preparation AFTER a full day of school). Finland was also highly ranked in a international study by McKinsey and Company.
Finland used to have serious problems in school performance, as Sahlberg acknowledges.
Today, as the most recent PISA study proves, Finland is one of the few nations that have accomplished both a high quality of learning and equity in learning at the same time. The best school systems are the most equitable — students do well regardless of their socio-economic background. Finally, Finland should interest US educators because Finns have employed very distinct ideas and policies in reforming education, many the exact opposite of what’s being tried in the United States.
The Finns examined what other countries were doing, and as Sahlberg also writes
The secret of Finnish educational success is that in the 20th century Finns studied and emulated such advanced nations as Sweden, Germany, and the United States. Finns adopted some education policies from elsewhere but also avoided mistakes made by these leading education performers.
We'll talk about the mistakes Finland is avoiding shortly.
First, some argue that Finland is nowhere near as diverse as the US. Sahlberg acknowledges that is true, but also points out that it is becoming increasingly diverse in recent years, with the implication that the additional diversity is not affecting the performance of its schools. Further, as many have pointed out Finland has a far lower level of childhood poverty than does the US, well under 5%b as compared to ours at more than 20%. Yet in Finland differences between schools with substantial numbers of poor children - primarily in rural areas - now perform as well as those with more affluent students in the urban areas. Sahlberg refers to the results of the most recent PISA, where
The best school systems are the most equitable — students do well regardless of their socio-economic background.
There are some real differences in the approach that Finland took to achieve the results which now rank it so highly. For example,
Finnish children never take a standardized test. Nor are there standardized tests used to compare teachers or schools to each other. Teachers, students, and parents are all involved in assessing and also deciding how well schools, teachers, or students do what they are supposed to do.
How do politicians and administrators determine how well schools are doing? They turn to
sample-based learning tests which place no pressure on schools, and by research targeted to understand better how schools work.
There is also a culture where parents think teachers who work closely with them "are the best judges of how well their children are learning in schools."
And teachers are respected.
Finland has created an inspiring and respectful environment in which teachers work. All teachers are required to have higher academic degrees that guarantee both high-level pedagogical skills and subject knowledge. Parents and authorities regard teachers with the same confidence they do medical doctors. Indeed, Finns trust public schools more than any other public institution, except the police. The fact that teachers in Finland work as autonomous professionals and play a key role in curriculum planning and assessing student learning attracts some of the most able and talented young Finns into teaching careers.
Stop there for a moment and consider how different our approach is here. We have a well-established pattern of denigrating public schools and teachers. We have notable voices - Bill Gates, for example - arguing that teachers getting advanced degrees is a waste of time and resources. We have a concerted effort to delegitimize public schools, with moves for vouchers, charter schools run by for profit organizations, hedge funds seeing how turning to charters can lead to profits for their investors, etc. Yet Finns trust public schools more than any other public institution, except the police. Of course, we also don't trust the police in the US, which may indicate some real cultural differences that do not work to our advantage.
There is another important difference from what we have been seeing, because in Finland
School principals, district education leaders, and superintendents are, without exception, former teachers. Leadership is therefore built on a strong sense of professional skills and community.
Here we have the newly announced initiative of the George W. Bush institute to train 50,000 people with no prior educational work experience as principals running school, we have the effort5s of Eli Broad and others to take business executives and train them as superintendents running district. At a more basic level, we have a variety of programs, of which Teach for America is the most notable, giving young people 5 weeks of intensive training and then placing them in classrooms, with a commitment that is not required to be longer than 2 years. I might add to what Sahlberg writes that in Finland it takes about 2 years of training under decreasing levels of supervision and increasing assumption of responsibility before one is fully responsible for her own classroom.
Sahlberg offers some suggestion for what the US could learn from the Finns. He argues strongly against using choice and competition as drivers for educational improvement, noting
None of the best-performing education systems relies primarily on them. Indeed, the Finnish experience shows that consistent focus on equity and cooperation — not choice and competition — can lead to an education system where all children learn well. Paying teachers based on students’ test scores or converting public schools into private ones (through charters or other means) are ideas that have no place in the Finnish repertoire for educational improvement.
He also notes that Finland provides teacher candidates with a government-paid university education - remember that most teacher candidates in this nation have to pay for their own education which can leave them with substantial debt before they begin to earn incomes. Finland provides more support when they move into their classrooms and treats teaching as a respected profession. As he notes,
As long as teachers are not trusted in their work and are not respected as professionals, young talent in the United States is unlikely to seek teaching as a lifelong career.
Please, note carefully the words teaching as a lifelong career. Two years as a means of enhancing one's resume for other purposes is not the same thing, and does not benefit either the students being taught or the nation as a whole, despite news coverage to the contrary.
Sahlberg is blunt - he tells us that "Americans should admit that there is much to learn" from the educational systems of nations like Finland behind whom the US now lags. He thinks it is possible, closing with these words:
With America’s "can do’’ mentality and superior knowledge base in educational improvement, you could shift course before it’s too late.
Let me add one other difference between Finland and the US that Sahlberg does not address. The teaching force in Finland is 100% unionized. Unionization is not in and of itself an obstacle to excellence in education. We should remind those who seek to use things like America lagging in comparisons like PISA not to use unions as an excuse, especially when states with unionized teaching and general work forces tend to outperform schools in right to work states.
The role of unions is different, to be sure. The culture is different, and not just in the respect given unions in Finland, including teachers unions.
Not only does Finland not have the high degree of childhood poverty we have in the US, they also have a far more substantial social safety net, starting with income security for families and medical care for all, two things sorely lacking in this nation.
Thus while I strongly advise we listen to what Salhberg has to offer us about how we can reform our schools, we should also bear in mind that we will not fix all the problems of learning until we are also willing to address the continuing inequities in this nation. Fixing the schools will be insufficient. I note that at a conference earlier this year Richard Rothstein of the Economic Policy Institute said that we would be better served taking the money that we could spend reducing the principal/teacher ratio to a reasonable level where you could evaluate teachers, and get much more bang for the buck by taking that money and building a health clinic in schools such as those in inner cities. Rothstein was addressing just one part of the impact that economic inequity has upon students that schools as they are currently constructed cannot address.
Still, I think we can learn from Finland, probably more so than we can from a China or a Korea, both of which are struggling to to change the direction of their schooling away from the test centric places they have been, ironically at the same time that we are going in the wrong direction.
I began by asking you to imagine a nation with excellent schools.
Now I make the same suggestion as does Sahlberg, that we seriously attempt to learn from what Finland has achieved in the past 25 years.
Imagine what we might be able to do with our schools.
Taken from the dail Kos: http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2010/12/27/931791/-Imagine-a-nation-with-excellent-schools
Saturday, November 13, 2010
Education blame game: Teachers made scapegoats for our society's failings
BY SANDY POOLE KEITER
I'm the wife of a 20-year veteran middle school teacher. I've sent three sons through the public school system, and I have a question: What's a "failing teacher"?
I assume a teacher is failing when his students don't do well on standardized tests. Nobody wants children to fail tests, of course. We all want our kids to know how to read and write and do math and go to college and be productive. But when an increasing number of children get to middle school not knowing how to read and half of our teenagers are dropping out of high school, something is very wrong.
But what -- or who -- has failed?
Are you a failing teacher when your class has more than 30 students, many of whom, for a variety of reasons, have trouble concentrating? What about those classrooms where many of the kids' parents are working two jobs and don't have time to oversee homework? How about when you're known for your strong classroom management skills so your principal gives you a disproportionate number of kids with learning or behavioral problems who require most of your attention? What if you have students whose parents can't read to them in English? Are you a failing teacher when your students can't pass a test that wasn't designed for them?
These are situations my husband faces every day in Portland. I've watched him struggle as his classes have grown larger and support from a cash-strapped district has diminished. I've heard his frustration when his students from troubled and financially struggling families act out in class. I've tried to be supportive as his workday has lengthened and he's brought his worries home. And I've been disheartened to see his chosen profession be disrespected.
NBC News recently reported that the best school system in the world is in Finland. I watched the story, and here's what I got out of it: There are 5 million people in the entire country of Finland, and everybody comes from essentially the same socioeconomic background and ethnicity. Health care is free, and so is education. There are two to three teachers in every classroom, and the classes are small.
Wow!
I bet it's easier to be a teacher in a class of 15 students who have enough to eat and whose parents aren't worrying about how to pay for their medical care. I bet it's a snap when you have another teacher to help you work with each child individually each day. I bet it feels good to work at a profession that's well regarded and financially supported. But we're not in Finland. And when the so-called "failing schools" of Portland are almost all in the poorer areas of town, what does that tell us?
So before you call my hardworking, dedicated, brilliant husband a "failing teacher" because too many of his students and their families are struggling, think again. It just might be our society that's failing. And the person who chooses to teach kids in poor areas might really deserve the so-called "merit pay" we keep arguing about.
Only we should call it "hazard pay" instead.
Sandy Poole Keiter is a Southwest Portland writer.
Taken from Oregon Live: http://www.oregonlive.com/opinion/index.ssf/2010/11/education_blame_game_teachers.html
I'm the wife of a 20-year veteran middle school teacher. I've sent three sons through the public school system, and I have a question: What's a "failing teacher"?
I assume a teacher is failing when his students don't do well on standardized tests. Nobody wants children to fail tests, of course. We all want our kids to know how to read and write and do math and go to college and be productive. But when an increasing number of children get to middle school not knowing how to read and half of our teenagers are dropping out of high school, something is very wrong.
But what -- or who -- has failed?
Are you a failing teacher when your class has more than 30 students, many of whom, for a variety of reasons, have trouble concentrating? What about those classrooms where many of the kids' parents are working two jobs and don't have time to oversee homework? How about when you're known for your strong classroom management skills so your principal gives you a disproportionate number of kids with learning or behavioral problems who require most of your attention? What if you have students whose parents can't read to them in English? Are you a failing teacher when your students can't pass a test that wasn't designed for them?
These are situations my husband faces every day in Portland. I've watched him struggle as his classes have grown larger and support from a cash-strapped district has diminished. I've heard his frustration when his students from troubled and financially struggling families act out in class. I've tried to be supportive as his workday has lengthened and he's brought his worries home. And I've been disheartened to see his chosen profession be disrespected.
NBC News recently reported that the best school system in the world is in Finland. I watched the story, and here's what I got out of it: There are 5 million people in the entire country of Finland, and everybody comes from essentially the same socioeconomic background and ethnicity. Health care is free, and so is education. There are two to three teachers in every classroom, and the classes are small.
Wow!
I bet it's easier to be a teacher in a class of 15 students who have enough to eat and whose parents aren't worrying about how to pay for their medical care. I bet it's a snap when you have another teacher to help you work with each child individually each day. I bet it feels good to work at a profession that's well regarded and financially supported. But we're not in Finland. And when the so-called "failing schools" of Portland are almost all in the poorer areas of town, what does that tell us?
So before you call my hardworking, dedicated, brilliant husband a "failing teacher" because too many of his students and their families are struggling, think again. It just might be our society that's failing. And the person who chooses to teach kids in poor areas might really deserve the so-called "merit pay" we keep arguing about.
Only we should call it "hazard pay" instead.
Sandy Poole Keiter is a Southwest Portland writer.
Taken from Oregon Live: http://www.oregonlive.com/opinion/index.ssf/2010/11/education_blame_game_teachers.html
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