Can Michelle Rhee Save Public Education?

KT
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Ever since her name came up during the campaign I have wondered this about Michelle Rhee….What has she accomplished? I don’t mean that in a pejorative way, I am just being realistic. I understand some what her philosophy but so far I haven’t seen any reports that her efforts have somehow had some radical return on investment. From reading the article it would seem that she has been on the job less than 2 years so I suppose it is quite likely too early to judge her efforts competently and fairly but I am just wondering how she got to be this “oracle” of Education without having anyway to judge yet if her approach actually works. I hope it will, I think it might, but somehow I feel like they are jumping the gun by promoting her as the answer to all that ails not only Washington DC but also all other inner city school environments. Am I missing something here? Has there been some great improvement in testing or student retention in the little over a year that she has been in charge? Please correct me if I am wrong here.

KT here–

SG: What has she accomplished? As with so much in education, it’s far too soon to tell. (I speak as a victim of “new math” when I was a kid.) We are watching this experiment in real time and in a very desperate situation. Amanda makes that point, I think, very well in her story.

Ok now I am really confused because I just read the article about how Rhee says (probably in most “drama” tic fashion that she almost voted for McCain. I don’t see a good reason why other than Obama maybe not blowing up the tenure system of teachers? Is her whole shtick that everything would turn around if we just take tenure away from teachers? Please somebody tell me that she believes in more than just that.

KT
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I know I run the risk of having an analogy drawn between Rhee and Obama but seriously why is everybody so focused on her then? What if she is a dramatic failure in DC? I am just wondering how she got to be the “Joe the Plumber” for education during the debate and on the campaign trail

She is younger than me, so I distrust her on principle. The same goes for Jindal. Showoffs!
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Seriously though, the answer is to be found in the culture and the homes not in the schools. There are not ever going to be enough “wonder teachers” out there that can inspire kids whose parents don’t care.
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In parts of southern California, there are these afternoon academies that Asian kids go to 5 days a week, and half days on Saturdays. The Valedictorian of my high school was a girl who was a Vietnamese boat refuge in 1975 who spoke no English at 6. 12 years later she is the top student in a very large high school. Her teachers weren’t that spectacular.

The Daily Howler has been looking into the rise of Rhee for sometime now. Including some of the claims she has been making as well as how they are being covered by the media.
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http://www.dailyhowler.com/

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Hmmm. Reading this hagiographic piece, I am wondering if some reporters a couple of years from now will be referring to Rhee’s tenure as a “train wreck.” What’s required here is
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“1. Devising a good plan.
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2. Making sure you have all the stakeholders on board.
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3. Making sure you explain it to the American people and bring them along.”*

and it doesn’t appear that Rhee has done any of this. Of course, summarily firing people based on obscure standards without fair process is always popular among Republicans and their enablers, so I think Rhee will get more than a fair chance to prove her approach. Somerby is skeptical, I note. Thanks for that link, gunny.
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*SOURCE: Hillary Clinton as told to Karen Tumulty.

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Oh, hey. Didn’t George W. Bush pull a big scam on the mainstream press with his wondrous Texas education program? Showed all the fabulous improvement in test scores, but some skeptical reporter looked into it and discovered that low-scoring students were expelled and it turns out that his state’s education program was a big failure?

From the Somerby link:
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OUR QUESTIONS:

1. Are you troubled by the fact that the scores were never produced?
2. Did the Post ever ask the Baltimore schools to produce the scores?

Jay’s answers were helpful, though they leave some matters hanging. Here’s what he told us:

JAY’S ANSWERS:

1. Nope, because I have researched test scores at that period in other parts of the country, and nobody has them, particularly on a per teacher basis. This was way before the NCLB era. Her story is very close to what I have heard from other Teach for America teachers of that era whose work has since proved, in the NCLB era. that their scores were probably what they said they were.
2. We did, and discovered what I said above. Rhee herself said she never saw any scores in writing. It was all informal chit-chat stuff, with the central office people the only ones who had lists, it seems.
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I say, hmmmm. Count me as more skeptical than, say, Ripley.

Here’s an “undercovered story of the day” for ya Karen.
McClatchy Washington Bureau | 11/24/2008 | Vast U.S. Embassy in Baghdad: A monument to what?
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“My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings, Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair! Nothing beside remains. Round the decay Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare The lone and level sands stretch far away.”
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But who will be occupying the new U.S. Embassy complex in 10 years? Will there be new tenants? Will there be buckets out to collect rainwater dripping through the roof, as there were the other day at the Palace? Will grass and bushes ever be planted or will it be left to the wind: a center of Western presence in Iraq or a monument to the still inexplicable decision to come here and assert what some thought to be limitless power.

Baghdad is a place of many questions, but none so trenchant as those put to me by an Iraqi journalist: Why are you here? You overthrew a tyrannical government but then you demolished the security structure, so you had to stay. Was it oil? Did you hope to take charge of the region? What did you have in mind? And what are your plans?

There’s no ready answer to these questions except the last. U.S. plans are now clear: according to the status of forces agreement just approved by the Iraqi cabinet, U.S. forces will be completely gone in three years.
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James-I’m not very impressed by the firing, the answering of 95,000 emails and the dismissive and mocking attitudes that seem to make up the bulk of the article.

gysgt
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Thanks so much for that link. So basically everybody is sold on Rhee because of her own rhetoric. That pretty much figures. I don’t wish failure on anyone and I really do hope she does big things in DC but I can tell you right now that if she really thinks it ALL comes down to teachers not teaching or losing their tenure she is going to be in for a rude awakening and the people of DC are in for a big dissappointment. Remember the movie “Lean on Me” about how Joe Clark changed his school? He kept pounding the teachers and pounding the teachers but eventually by the end of the movie he found that he had to have outreach into the kids home lives as well and he found that he already had some pretty good teachers on staff. A lot of times people forget that the movie was based on the real Joe Clark who really did make some big changes happen at his school. No one thing changed the fate of his school. It was everything. He threw out the drug dealers and miscreants. He kicked out what he thought were bad teachers and brought in new ones. He reached out to the parents. And he instilled pride in the students who were left.
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Michelle Rhee reminds me oddly of George Bush. I know its not that fresh on people’s minds right now but George Bush was hailed as a big time education reformer in Texas because he turned it around and made students test scores soar. Sounds just like Rhee’s rhetoric. Come to find out though Bush had cooked the books and kids who were likely to score poorly were either shipped off or had their scores thrown out. Now hopefully this isn’t the case with Rhee but it seems from the Howler piece that it could definitely be the case and nobody seems to care.

Nor I, gunny, nor I.

What trifecta said:
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Seriously though, the answer is to be found in the culture and the homes not in the schools. There are not ever going to be enough “wonder teachers” out there that can inspire kids whose parents don’t care.
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In parts of southern California, there are these afternoon academies that Asian kids go to 5 days a week, and half days on Saturdays. The Valedictorian of my high school was a girl who was a Vietnamese boat refuge in 1975 who spoke no English at 6. 12 years later she is the top student in a very large high school. Her teachers weren’t that spectacular.
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I expect Dee to weigh in shortly, and I hope she does. There was a wonderful dialogue in the thread that KT linked between Dee, Suzie, sgw, jay and others on the issue of the ability of exceptional teachers and school systems to overcome negatives from the home environment. Dee was convinced, based on recent research, that sufficient funding and hiring of exceptional teachers can overcome deficits. Pretty much everyone else agreed that more resources properly applied help, but can’t overcome those deficits. And, as trifecta said: “There are not ever going to be enough “wonder teachers” out there that can inspire kids whose parents don’t care.”
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So much of this is driven by culture. I frankly think we may see enormous cultural benefits that show up in improved school performance from having an overtly smart and decent first family serving as a national role model. Kathleen Parker seems sold:
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Again, setting aside specific policies, Obama’s example could have society-altering effects, especially in the African American community. By his example, he telegraphs the following messages: Being smart is good; education is good; being a good father is essential. Being an egghead is cool.
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BTW, Thanksgiving dinner was great. Great food and conversation, plenty of good turkey gravy.

James in LA
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obviously we think alike because I hadn’t seen your post on Bush before I hit submit

This is WAY OT but I think everyone should read it
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This smells to high heavens if you ask me and questions need to be asked. We need to know who is Aafia Siddiqui and did we detain and torture her and her kids?

Ok I have some followups from the Howler article. Why didnt Jay ask for names of the people who were involved in the “informal chit chat”? Why would the people at her school EVER let her get away if she had such a dramatic effect? Why if she had such great results why didn’t the state of Maryland try to pick her brain about how she went about it. Think about this for a second ladies and gentlemen. She pulled of a mini Joe Clark all on her own as a lowly teacher and with no authority over anybody else. If anybody believes that she took kids from the 13th percentile to the 90th percentile in a matter of three years or less then you should realize that to do that would be to pull off a miracle with no exxageration of the word. Why didnt she win every teaching award known to man? Why weren’t there books written about her and movies filmed about her? I am calling bullsh!t on at least that part of her bio.

A worker died after being trampled and a woman miscarried when hundreds of shoppers smashed through the doors of a Long Island Wal-Mart Friday morning, witnesses said.
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The unidentified worker, employed as an overnight stock clerk, tried to hold back the unruly crowds just after the Valley Stream store opened at 5 a.m.
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Merry Christmas. Shop, shop, shop.

trifecta
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Ill bet thats the first of many tragic reports about black friday. A lot more people than usual will be shopping this year because they won’t be able to afford the regular prices but because the stores won’t be carrying any more products its going to be or already has been ugly. Thats beside the tensions people already have about losing their job or trying to find a new one as well as keeping their house or being able to pay the rent.

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See, I have this vision to save the mainstream media. The first thing I’m gonna do is fire all incompetent reporters and editors. Karen and Joe Klein can stay, but out goes Stengel, Jay Carney. Massimo, Ripley, Sullivan and the rest. Out goes Bill Keller too, and the whole NYT political section. (I’ll take Peter Baker’s case under advisement.) Washington Post? Gone! Except Dana Priest, of course. Editors, Ombudsman, political section? Sorry, you are non-performing. Out the door you go.
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Seniority will be abolished. Reporters will prove their worth every single day, or they will join the unemployment line. Politico gets shut down altogether. There is nothing worth saving there. Now. let me start on television reporting. I *may* keep Campbell Brown. Anderson Cooper. All those political analysts at CNN? Gone. Brian Williams – out. Charlie – non-performing, out. Couric, gone.
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At AP, all Fournierists will pack their bags forthwith. We will keep all reporters at AFP, but they will remain on probation. Reuters, we will retain as well.
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Of course, the LAT Washington bureau will remain. full-staffed.
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What do you think? Do I have a plan?

James in LA
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Turns out Politico actually admitted their error on climate change. I won’t say that Politico is the best site for news but they do put some good product out every now and then. And I will say that when its not Jonathan Martin writing the story, they get it right more than they get it wrong.

Here’s my problem with NCLB, from the get-go (besides the unfundedness of it all): its very name begs the question about the children who were left behind in the 90s, 80s, 70s, etc. and who are now the parents and grandparents of “at-risk children”. When people say academic success starts in the home, consider how many adults are barely literate. (43% are at basic or below basic levels, according to the 2003 National Assessment of Adult Literacy.) I used to tutor a woman who had a high school diploma from the 1970s but was reading at the fourth grade level. Waiting lists for adult English classes are up to three years long in regions with many immigrants. Although NCLB includes language to encourage parent involvement, it really can’t do anything to improve adult literacy, and adult programs have to argue for public funds and compete with other community needs for private funding.

Rhee’s new action plan for DC schools addressing issue with Parent Academies” in partnership with community organizations which would cover “everything from adult literacy to parenting skills. That suggests a “big picture” view and collaborative approach that I think Obama would find very appealing. That assumes it works, of course, and it will take time to see big results.

Don’t worry, sg. I have a plan to rebuild the whole media. I call it the Rhee Plan. I’m going to replace all the deadwood at Time Mag and Politico with superstars. I’ll recruit them from other professions. Maybe I’ll hire superstar Michelle Rhee for the education desk. Maybe Bill Clinton will be the political news editor. Madeline Albright will write about foreign policy. Mathematicians out of MIT will write about election polling, of course. Kareem Abdul Jabbar will do sports reporting. Nobel Prize winner Krugman is the obvious choice for the business desk.
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Jonathan Martin will head up the unemployment line. Putting out a “good product every now and then” is not an acceptable standard for my Rhee Plan. Sorry.
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KT, this would be a great topic of many posts. The two negative comments I would make about the article are 1) there are blanket statements with no sourcing, and 2) Rhee seems to be focused on one root cause and one solution, teachers. Rhee’s passionate faith mirrors passionate faith in the free market; true but extremely simplistic.

1. “The biggest problem with U.S. public schools is ineffective teaching, according to decades of research.” Please document this research. Are teachers the source of 90% of the problems or the leading reason among 15 major problem sources? For example, is student motivation a problem? Are suburban students more motivated that urban students?
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2. “Now, without proof that cities can revolutionize their worst schools, there is always a fine excuse.” Has the proof been supplied? I don’t see any proof in the article.
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3. “Teachers got tenure rights in the early 20th century to protect them against meddling politicians and school-board members who treated their jobs as patronage pawns. But the rationale is plainly antiquated. Today dozens of federal and state laws protect teachers (and other people) from arbitrary firing.” Have meddling politicians, school-board members, and parents left the scene? There aren’t many exceptions to employment-at-will IANAL); which of the exceptions would protect teachers from arbitrary firings?
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4. “The child with the effective teacher, the kind who ranks among the top 15% of all teachers, will be scoring well above grade level on standardized tests by the time she is 11.” And now for the snark: If Rhee’s plan is to make all teachers in the top 15% … Garrison Keiler makes it sound more humorous.

I sincerely hope the Rhee plan is successful in improving the education of DC’s inner city. But things like dismantlking the school board, summarily firing teachers and administrators, sitting children in a U, parent academies,/a> and attempting to recruit “superstars” from other professions aren’t exactly new ideas.
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What we don’t need is premature hagiographies unskeptically extolling the virtues of untested plans of untested people by reporters who apparently have no background in the subject. As deggjr points out, does Time Mag completely eschew any skepticism or requirement for hard evidence before running with something like this?
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I sincerely hope the Rhee plan is successful in improving the education of DC’s inner city. But things like dismantlking the school board, summarily firing teachers and administrators, sitting children in a U, parent academies,/a> and attempting to recruit “superstars” from other professions aren’t exactly new ideas.
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What we don’t need is premature hagiographies unskeptically extolling the virtues of untested plans of untested people by reporters who apparently have no background in the subject. As deggjr points out, does Time Mag completely eschew any skepticism or requirement for hard evidence before running with something like this?

I don’t think Michelle is saying the teachers are the entire problem. That’s what the media knows will sell (awkward sentence). But, teachers are a part of the problem and tenure is at its root. I think the Barack comparison is right on. No, we don’t know if she can do it, but she definitely cares and is committed. She also seems about as qualified as one could ask for. If not Michelle, what?

jose
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What qualifies her?

wvng
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I took a look back at the thread from the other day, and realized that I left out something important. Yes, I do think the most important element in whether a kid gets a good education is the kid’s parents’ commitment to both the kid getting one, and the value it carries.
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You can’t undo that just by spending more money. (Tons of studies were done in the 60s and 70s on that.) You can’t undo that be adding administrative oversight, which is stultifying for good teachers and doesn’t do bad teachers any good. You can’t undo that by introducing a charter school model, voucher system model, any other model that increases choice. However, you CAN introduce a charter school model, as long as you spend the money so that every kid can a seat in one who has parents who want the kid there. NYCs competitive high schools work something like this, and they seem to work out very well.
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BUT. This could be taken or read as blaming parents for their kids’ lack of commitment to education. That’s not anywhere near the whole story,and “blame” is the wrong word. The decision to invest in education depends on your return on it. If there are significant barriers to your benefiting from it, then the investment isn’t worth nearly as much. That’s the microeconomic way of looking at it. But there’s also an emotional level. It takes quite a bit of git up and go to pursue something in the face of adversity, and do so when your peer group views the exercise as pointless, in the face of the extant barriers. Moreover, it is difficult to look at the multiyear horizon that you have to have in order to do that math homework if you don’t see a better future there. Great parents, great teachers can overcome this in difficult environments. But it is a whole lot easier in Wellesley than it is in Roxbury, or in Appalachia FTM, for this to happen.
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There was just an intersting article in the New Yorker about sexual attitudes among teenaged girls in red states vs blue states. While it was not nearly so simple as this, really what it came down to was that in blue states, teenaged girls see the damage to their careers and lives that would accompany a teenaged pregnancy, while in red states, they do not have the same time horizon. One researcher was quoted as saying that in the upper middle plus income range in the blue states risking pregnancy is seen as a stupid thing to do, in the same class as smoking or not wearing a seat belt. It’s a way to not end up like your parents, without the lifestyle you’ve grown up with. In the red states, well, getting pregnant in your teens is often doing just what your mother did.
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Getting a kid to adopt a longer time horizon is the hard part, especially if his parents have a short one.

jayack
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I thought the thread was dead and had no clue about all the stuff that was posted after I stopped checking back. I am really just waiting for Dee to weigh in now because I have lots of questions about where she got her “data” from

Now I understand better where Dee was coming from in that previous conversation, though I still don’t agree with a lot of what she said. I’m guessing that Dee is a Rheephile.
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If I had to sum up everything I learned as a historian in two sentences: Very few things in history and life have one cause. Also, very few things in history and life have one solution.
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To get less technical, I will quote wvng and say that there’s no magic pony. Very little in life is black and white. So when, according to the article, Rhee blames the lack of achievement by students in inner-city schools pretty much solely on teachers, that worries me. Yes, there are sucky teachers in schools. I taught alongside some of them. I agree that it should be easier to fire them. But teachers alone can’t solve the problem, in my view, as I said the other day.
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A few extra thoughts:
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First, teaching is like any other skill. You can get better through practice and study of that skill, but some people are just naturally more talented than others. Yes, you can attract more talented teachers through pay incentives. But does Rhee really think there are enough genius-level teachers who are ALSO willing work incredibly long hours (as would seem to be necessary, given her requirements for teachers) to staff EVERY classroom in EVERY school in EVERY city? Even at a high pay?
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Second, I will second (!) what several others have said. Rhee is going all-in on her plan. But where is the data to back up the miraculous results that she thinks will occur?
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Third, she taught for three years. Three. The same number I taught for, also in an inner-city school. Obviously, I feel like I know enough to run off at the mouth about the topic on the Swampland website. But I also have many family members in education, and you won’t find me anytime soon claiming that I personally know how to fix all public schools. It’s hard to build a grassroots movement when you only got a glimpse of what those grassroots look like–and moreover, she seems to be more into top-down management than bottom-up leadership.
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Does she have any mechanism actually to help improve the skills of teachers she finds lacking, or is it simply “meet my somewhat unclear requirements, or you’re fired”? Wouldn’t it be somewhat less expensive in the long-run to train at least some “substandard” existing teachers to meet her standards, rather than firing all of them?
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One last thing: The snide tone of much of what Rhee said was really troubling to me. The parts that particularly grated: “They bicker over small improvements such as class size and curriculum, like diplomats touring a refugee camp and talking about the need for nicer curtains.” And: “In the hallway, she muttered about teachers who spend too much time cutting out elaborate bulletin-board decorations…”
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Here’s my point: these things matter. Maybe not as much as getting rid of obviously incompetent teachers, but they do make a difference. I taught a class of twelve one semester, and another of 32. I’ll give you one guess as to which group of students got the most attention to their individual needs and difficulties. As far as those bulletin boards, my mom is a second-grade teacher whose results (which are actually provable! imagine that!) are pretty much those that Rhee wants. Mom has taken kids reading at a 1.0 level and gotten them to 3.0 by the end of the school year. And yes, she spends a lot of her own time after and before school working on bulletin boards, along with homework, lesson planning, parent contacts, etc.
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You know why? My mom has found that when kids–particularly young kids–have a cheerful, neat, and creative (apparently a deadly word for Rhee) environment around them in the classroom, they tend to be more orderly and excited about school. At the beginning of each year, Mom laminates cuts out a big, bright cardboard cupcake with a candle on it for each student, and puts their name and birthday on it. Silly? Maybe. But it tells each student that she cares about them as individuals, and they love it. It gives them a sense of investment in the class and in their teacher. It means something. It takes time, though–time that Rhee might say is a waste.
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So here’s what I would say: Rhee is right that too many crappy teachers stay for way too long in some of our schools. But I think she, as someone earlier said, needs to get more of those involved on board. She can do that by looking at what problems other than bad teachers lead to low student achivement, and working on those problems too. Her current tone and singular mission isn’t the way to do it.
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Black-and-white answers to problems shaded in gray won’t solve those problems. And aren’t we tired of black-and-white solutions (a la Bush and NCLB) that don’t actually work?

What I want to know at this point is why Rhee hasn’t been taken apart by the MSM where as the Daily Howler has provided more than sufficient evidence that the lady may well be the biggest fraud since Dick Cheney’s VP search. I back tracked to two more Howler source articles and found more debunking of Rhee’s claims here and here. The second one ends with the Howler pointing out that Rhee got a big pay raise to go and run a non profit on education instead of teach. Seriously when are people going to make this woman answer questions about what seems to be a totally bogus resume?

What a brilliant piece of work!

Legitimate insights about the problems inner city education faces are facilely dismissed by the facile Ms. Ripley as “bickering.” “The left” wants to “throw money” at the education system; presumably when the brilliant Ms. Rhee wants to raise the salaries of educators and spend “millions of dollars” from “fundraisers,” it isn’t “throwing money” but what, “lobbing” it? “Tossing” it? “Handing” it? Some other word that my public school vocabulary doesn’t know? And do I need to point out that Ms. Rhee would have more credibility if she wasn’t quoted talking like a Coke-addled teenager? “Like, whatever”?

I’m going to go out on a limb here right now and say either the reasoning-challenged Ms. Ripley was educated at a bad public school, or she is an excellent argument against the superiority of private ones. Either way, even she should take one look at the brilliant Ms. Rhee and see her for what she is: Joe Clark in drag. A female, Asian Jaime Escalante. Coach Carter without the basketball. The list of these “saviors” goes on and on, and I’m quite sure the dull-witted Ms. Ripley will have forgotten Ms. Rhee in a few years when the next one comes along, and she has to write another garbage article about the person charged with saving education.

One does wonder what would happen if educational attainment were considered to be as important as maintaining Wall Street bonus levels.
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I’ve seen some of the schools money is being “thrown at.” More could be thrown.

I would suggest that the article is not particularly helpful for understanding what, if anything, Rhee has achieved. This is not to say that Rhee has achieved absolutely nothing, but the article focuses on process rather than facts, while some of the few facts in the piece are alarming.
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I think it’s worth making a division between short-term fixes (the man on horseback approach) and systemic reform. The article suggests, to me, that Rhee is trying to make short-term reform substitute for the long-term transformation that the school system in DC clearly requires – which might be why the Mayor is so enthused. Short-term reform sounds good, costs less, and generally produces quick results for the next election. Do I sound cynical, sure, but there’s a reason why most politicians lack a long-term sense of reform. Does Rhee have any real idea of what is required in the long-term? Not according to this article – and I am not so sure that three years in the classroom is much of a basis for understanding the complex mess that is education, either in her territory, or in a wider sphere.
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If you want to make a real difference to education, you need to find money, fix the teacher procurement system, fix the damaged/failing infrastructure, reduce class sizes and have some clear, generally applicable system of accountability (yes, there is more to it, but these are some of the big issues). If Rhee is doing these things, we ought to know about it – but if her vision stops at “find good teachers”, then I suspect she will achieve good enough results in the short-term, and then educational gravity will kick in and drag the whole reform project back to where it began, slowly, sadly, and inevitably. I hope this won’t be the case – but the article makes it sound as if “Man on Horseback” syndrome is prevalent, and that’s not a good place to be.

The biggest problem with U.S. public schools is ineffective teaching, according to decades of research.

well, I read this, and realized that this whole article was pure anti-teachers union BS.

The biggest problem with US public schools is the quality of the students entering those schools. Give an “average” teacher a classroom full of highly motivated, well-disciplined students and s/he’ll turn out a classroom of scholars. Give that same teacher a classroom full of unmotivated, undisciplined students and s/he’ll turnout out failures.

This is typical of ‘reformist’ BS that we see all the time — extraordinary teachers/social workers/addiction counselors work wonders with their charges, and suddenly whatever it is that they do becomes the basis of a “program”. But it isn’t what these “extraordinary” people DO that makes the difference, its who they are — and their aren’t that many “extraordinary” individuals around to begin with, let alone enough of them who would be willing to work for a teachers salary. (And lets not forget that these extraordinary people tend to ‘color outside the lines’ — rules are ignored, etc., because “the rules” were written for “average” people….)

Are there bad teachers — sure, and this is especially true when it comes to urban school districts where the challenge/potential for reward ratio is ridiculous. But if this Rhee person thinks she can improve the quality of education in Washington DC by destroying the teachers union, she’s a charlatan of the first degree — and those who promote her fraud should be ashamed of themselves.

And their

My Michelle Rhee diary
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“The biggest problem with US public schools is the quality of the students entering those schools”.

What exactly does this mean, pluk? Are you suggesting that somehow US students are inherently dumber than students elsewhere? Are they disadvantaged economically? I don’t find the article convincing, let alone “superb”, but I also don’t see it as anti-union per se. It reports on Rhee, who has problems with the unions,but I don’t see why you feel it endorses anti-union viewpoint. Could you clarify these points?

Ok, I read the whole article and it didn’t really have as much to do with Rhee as it did with author’s previously arrived upon opinions. Teachers are as much the problem with learning as the UAW is to the problem with the US auto industry which is to say just a part, sometimes big, mostly not so much. I still think Rhee is more on the right track than wrong track and I wish more folks would try as hard. I also think the teachers union is a problem. I live in California where the state is run by the teachers and prison guards unions so I might have a bit of bias right now. I know most of the other commenters here are pro-union and so am I but sometimes even unions can be wrong. This whole thread seems to be turning in to one of those my country/union right or wrong kind of deals.

Recognizing the many problems plaguing our public school systems is the first step towards correcting them, but our politicians usually demand that those problems be ranked in order of biggest to smallest, or most to least destructive.
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This is exceedingly difficult to do, primarily because there is no control to determine which “fixes” yield the greatest improvement.
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However, studies that were originally designed to investigate the nature versus nurture conundrum offer some insight into how much the environment matters when it comes to learning. These studies are studies on twins.
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Twins studies have shown that when it comes to IQ and learning, a poor environment does way more damage than a good environment can do good. Identical twins who grew up in home environments where education was not emphasized had drastically reduced IQ compared to their twins who grew up in homes that nurtured learning. Also, once the environment quality reached a certain level, IQ tended to be more associated with genetics than environment. This intuitively makes sense: not everyone can understand quantum physics and field theory no matter how well they are taught.
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Consequently, the discussion about teacher quality, education environment, and school funding should be grounded in the idea that any environment that significantly hinders the learning experience will do more harm than a diametrically opposed “good” environment can repair.
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We may be better served attempting to reach that optimum level which trades funding efficiency with maximizing student potential, and I’m not sure that Rhee has reached that level. It seems to me that she is going overboard. The amount of funding that she requires might be difficult to reach in every impoverished school district without “Robin Hood” like education policies that are incredibly unpopular.

jose
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Can you explain why you think Rhee is on the right track? Mind you I think if you actually read through the posts on this thread most people myself included arent blindly pro union but moreso we just realize that unions arent inherently evil and union busting and tenure busting will not solve all of the ills of public education. But still I just want to know what it is about Rhee’s approach that makes you feel good about it.

well, I read this, and realized that this whole article was pure anti-teachers union BS.
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Yeah, that’s where I stopped reading and started skimming. It’s really past due for magazines to link to material supporting these claims when they post the web versions of these stories. They’ve presumably already done the research, right? Unsupported, blanket assertions like this just look, well, kinda dumb, on the web.
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It was good to see TIME post the full transcipts of their various presidential candidate interviews (KT with Obama on his world tour, MS and Carney with McCain, JK with Obama, post election etc.)
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There are no space limitations anymore. The marginal cost of providing links should be trivial.

I still think Rhee is more on the right track than wrong track and I wish more folks would try as hard.
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You mean things like saying you have to find good teachers, and trust them, and also say that those stupid bulletin boards have got to go?
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She seems to be really settled on having it both ways–judge by performance, while dictating presciptions. The particularly sneering tone cannot possible be helpful in building effective staff-members. Since a basic principle here should be that different teaching methods work for different teachers–that, for example, it would be as ineffective to require someone like me to focus on brightly colored turkey-hand pictures, as it may be effective for someone with a different personality.
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People make comparisons to Japan and Korea, which are very test prep driven. I’ve never heard a word about teachers being judged (by the government, anyway) on test performance. The beneficiaries, in those countries, of high test scores are the students who get them. If you’re serious about improving test scores (and maybe kids learning more, depending on how highly correlated that is), reward the kids who succeed rather than punish the teachers for their kids’ failure.
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As lukasiak says, this is just about busting the union. All these “reform plans” always seem to be about busting the union..
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Also, I just don’t get people who complain about wasting money in urban systems and are then chauffeured around in an SUV. A profile of NYC’s Transportation Commissioner included the nugget that she bikes to work.

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Unions have no mechanism to determine whether a member is competent or incompetent. That isn’t a union’s role at all. Determining competence is management’s job. Union’s job is collective bargaining for fair wages and to provide representation in adverse job actions.
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It isn’t the union’s role to help fire “incompetent” teachers or anyone else. There should be avenues agreed to in the contract between union and management to get rid of “incompetent” workers. That would usually include steps like warnings and specific chances to improve the performance. Those steps are used every day by competent management. The union’s role is protect the worker against arbitrary adverse job actions.
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To the extent that administrators whine about unions “protecting incompetent teachers” they are usually too lazy or otherwise unwilling to do the work to dismiss workers who don’t measure up.
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I have to say that on its face it patently ridiculous to put a woman in charge of a whole school system who has never even managed a class for more than 3 years and has never managed a school. She has been focused on one thing in her career and thats proving her theory that her way works. Which to me should worry a lot of people with kids in D.C. What happens when/if her way doesn’t work? Its not like someone else will be able to come in and clean up her mess because she is firing so many people who actually probably are not the problem and those people won’t be coming back. So just like NCLB she is setting D.C. on a path where even if she gets fired they are going to HAVE to hire new teachers, competent or not, to make up for all the ones she has fired. The real question of course is how much of a follow up will the MSM folks do if she in fact does fail or will they just move on to the next hot story.

Well said James.
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That reminds me of the post where Megan the elf said the UAW is to blame for the Big Three producing shoddy cars.

jayack, same thing about unions apply. It is Design & Engineering, a management or technical function, that determines whether a car is shoddy or not. American car companies are notorious for their calcified design & engineering. Witness: I read a long time ago that in GM, the Design Department was a completely separate entity from the Engineering Department, and the two departments virtually NEVER communicated. The story related how the Design Department would design a car, then “throw it over the wall” to the Engineering Department, and engineering would have to figure out how to make the thing work, regardless. This was astounding to me. Design and engineering are part of the same production process. That tells you a lot about the problem with the American automobile industry.
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The unions have nothing to do with that. The auto workers build ‘em to specifications. That’s about it.
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Which to me should worry a lot of people with kids in D.C.
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sg, apparently Rhee is all the rage among DC elite journalism, whose kids largely don’t go to these schools. So they are free to gush and write hagiographies about this media darling, but when and if this woman’s radical, untested theories prove disastrous to the DC school system, the journos will sidle away, taking no responsibility for their part in promoting it. They have nothing to lose, and the ones left holding the bag will be the low income kids and their families.
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To uncritically promote Rhee and her theories, without a shred of evidence of her resume or effectiveness, is irresponsible journalism in the extreme. That’s Time Mag for you. Hagiographies are their stock-in-trade: Rudy Guiliani “America’s Mayor” Ann Coulter “Ms. Right” to name a couple.

James LA
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The thing that gets me is if you ask people what she is doing that is so good most of them won’t be able to answer the question. I know people made fun of Obama saying he didn’t have a record and that some of his supporters didn’t know his policy stances and that had some ring of truth to it. But the difference to me is that people who really followed Obama could in fact give you his record so far in the Senate and they could tell you what his polices are on different issues. Even the people who support Rhee and follow her “closely” can’t tell you what she is doing that will change anything in the D.C. schools other than getting rid of bad teachers and bringing in good ones. Hell somehow ill bet that if you asked any superintendent of any school system in America 100 out of 100 would say they are doing the exact same thing. This kind of thing is scary to me and my biggest fear is for the kids who won’t be getting any better of an education while Rhee is getting all of this undeserved attention.

Yes, James, that was my point. The workers didn’t turn the Mustang into a piece of junk. The managers and designers did.
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You can’t even blame QC on the workers. It’s management’s job to design systems that enforce quality. The Japanese automakers demonstrated methods that work fine here. The Swedes have other methods.
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The only American car I’ve owned was a 72 Cadillac in the mid 80s. That was a well built car. A fellow grad student from Australia called it the “Yank Tank.” Since then, when I’ve owned a car (I don’t now), it’s been a Honda. I useta drive a lot of rentals, and they just all pretty much sucked. There was one, a little mini-station wagon style that was okay. Chrysler I think.

Rhee’s nonprofit, New Teacher Project, claims they have trained and place 37,000 new teachers in urban schools. That’s great! How are these teachers doing, I wonder? Has anyone done an evaluation, or followed up to see if all these new teachers are superior to other teachers? Better teaching methods? Better retention? Have they made a greater impact on the student’s they teach? If so, great! Maybe she is on to something! But shouldn’t someone, like a journo doing a big splashy piece on her, uh, try to find out? After all, it goes to her major, perhaps only, qualification for the job. Someone should ask.
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Rhee proposes salaries of up to $130,000 for “superstar” teachers (if they give up tenure). That’s great! All good teachers should earn more money. Hell, I’d give up tenure for those kind of wages, myself. Tenure is a job benefit that somewhat compensates *very* low wages for educational attainment in exchange for job security. So, yeah, don’t give tenure to $130,000 a year elementary school teachers. I wonder if that level of wage is sustainable in a public school system, though.

Huh. I owned and drove a 1965 Mustang for 27 years. Man, I loved that car.
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You are right, QC is another management function. To the extent today’s American cars are pieces of junk, that’s another management failure. There is too much inbreeding at the highest management levels of American car companies. I don’t get how any of them are actually qualified, other than they know someone or are part of a family.

Ok, what’s the opposite of preaching to the choir? I seem to have stumbled upon it.

jose,
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That’s hardly an argument. Do you have one?

I’ve come to the party very late. Sorry I missed Suzie’s thread. I’ve read through it, but not thoroughly. Ditto this thread. 2 points:
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When Howard Dean was Governor of Vermont he so despised NCLB that he seriously threatened to forgo federal dollars in order not to tie the schools to what he considered an unworkable plan. I’ve read recently that he’s under consideration for Secretary of Education. He would, for sure, at least bring more flexibility to its implementation.
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I didn’t notice, in the last thread, that anyone mentioned how little time our students spend in school compared to other countries. When I was teaching I thought this disparity affected us most by making it necessary to spend so much time reviewing after vacation. This reduced even more the time for novel teaching.
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James,
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The real problem is one of measurement. Any incentive program is fraught with peril because it is very hard to devise an incentive system that correlates very closely with the business goals involved.
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There’s the classic case of testers who were paid bonuses for the number of bugs they found, developers for rate of bugs fixed. There was an obvious incentive problem there….
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What do you reward teachers for? Rhee’s proposal seems to be that you give more money to teachers with students who score in the top quintile. But wouldn’t the score delta be a better measure? Seems so. She points to her own success in getting big deltas. That screws the next teacher in line. In fact, it seems the best method might be to give a teacher a class at, say 1st grade and follow them through their full elementary career. But there’s a reason for grade specialization.
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Of course, teachers are gonna try to cherry pick the kids. There are also similarities to the bug find and repair example. I mean, why teach to the test if you can teach the actual test?

kathy
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You know one thing that never occured to me while I was growing up was the time when kids get out of school everyday. I was blessed to have teachers for parents so basically they got off when I and my siblings got out of school. But as an adult I have been wondering whose bright idea was it to make it so the school day ends a full 2 hours or more before most people get out of work. To me that makes no sense at all. Mind you I am not saying there necessarily should be a full 2 more hours of school work but I keep hearing about how we don’t have PE in schools any more and the negative effect it is having on kids health. I also know that because schools are still on mostly traditional schedules that there hasn’t been an adjustment to deal with the computer age by adding time to the school day where each kid gets familiar with how to use a computer and the internet. I am not saying its the right idea but I seriously think somebody should consider extending school hours to 5pm. What say you?

jay
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There was a time in Memphis where the teachers were rated on a merit system but there was a wide ranging criteria. For one you had to have your class monitored by an administrator several times. Another thing was you had to take continuing education classes. Another thing was of course test scores. Now I don’t remember how it all translated into more or less pay for my mom but I do remember that she was ok with it but also had reservations about it. For one in general the administrator doing the evaluation was usually someone the teacher knew there fore there was a chance that if their relationship wasn’t a good one it would be reflected in the evaluation. For two my mom knew of a few teachers who actually prepped their kids for evaluation day by teaching the same lesson over and over so by the time the evaluation happened, which of course was supposed to be unannounced, the students knew their roles and performed them well. Thirdly there was the practice of teaching the test and plenty of teachers did that. Funny enough the one thing that my mom thought was the most fair was requiring teachers to keep going back to school throughout their career. For one thing it kept them sharp and opened them up to new ideas. For two it had the potential of allowing them to get higher degrees (my mom got her masters) that would help them to perhaps get a job at a college or do something else in education than teaching and because it was paid for it was a good selling point to retain good teachers. Eventually Memphis did away with the system for one reason or another but I think optimally you would want the same kind of multi pronged criteria to judge teachers on. Perhaps with the only caveat being that the people doing the evaluating should be monitored for conflicts of interests. Merit pay is a very good idea in my opinion but as with all things having to do with determining what somebody gets paid or doesn’t get paid, its the process that is going to be the major obstacle

What is delta, jayack?
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I’m not knowledgeable about the field of education, at all. So my opinion about what works and what doesn’t work is pretty much worthless. I hope Ms. Rhee’s plan works and that DC’s public school kids become high achievers and the teachers earn good salaries and the schools are clean and well-run, and they all get ponies.
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I am dubious any of that will happen, mainly because I see no evidence that this person is any more than a media darling who knows how to scam the decision-makers and the media. Maybe someone can point to evidence that those kind of heavy-handed/magical theories work. Somerby couldn’t find evidence, and the man is an expert in public school issues. So I’ll take his credibility over Ripley’s any day.
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My main issue, apart from correcting the misinformation many people have about unions and what their role is in the labor-management partnership, is the abysmal journalism typified by this hagiography. It should have been in People Magazine and not foisted upon the public as a serious news article. It contains no information that is useful or relevant.
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Did Ripley try to substantiate Rhee’s claims of magically transforming education as we know it? No, she just repeats that claim without evidence. Then she launches into a fact-free diatribe against teachers and teacher’s unions, without a shred of background or understanding about the subject. She repeats myths, untruths, and scurrilous claims as though they were fact. This is the worst kind of journalism, full of outright lies and misconceptions, and Ripley’s agenda is stunningly obvious. The piece is completely without value for a serious reader, despite KT’s characterization as “superb.”
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For those who missed gunny’s and sg’s links to Somerby:
Daily Howler: A reader can’t find Rhee in the Journal–but she tells an inspiring tale
Daily Howler: The local press seems to be taking a pass on DC’s new school poobah
The Daily Howler

jayack and pluk, I think you are both over-reacting to the article. It does present disagreement between Rhee and the union, in particular on the tenure system, but it is not arguing that unions are bad per se, or even that the union is to solely blame for an admittedly bad situation. I am skeptical that Rhee has the right approach for the long-term, but her short-term approach is a reasonable start, although not implemented in the most helpful manner. The key question is whether she can go beyond the “hire the best teachers” plan, and really create a large-scale systemic reform. Part of that package would have to be a re-negotiation of the union contract, and that’s going to demand a serious debate about how the union operates and what it should be doing. Don’t get me wrong – I am not anti-union, but I think there is room for improvement in a lot of areas, and how the union operates is one of them.

Jay,
I wasn’t putting forth an argument. I simply meant that it appears the choir here have made their decision that teachers rule and any opposition should be put down. There does seem to be an abundance of ex-teachers on this thread though so maybe I should go now.

jose
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So basically you are saying you are not going to back up your previous statements because you can’t defend them? Funny thing is I have yet to see a “teachers rule” post yet. I swear some people use the silliest strawmen to get out of admitting they are full of it. If you have a point to make it shouldn’t matter how many people disagree with you. Unless maybe you really don’t have a point to make.

Here’s why Rhea (and everyone else who tries) will fail to find a magic bullet to “fix’ public schools: it’s the principal of the thing. (Sorry)
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This tragically underutilized book (what it shows royally pisses-off The Masters of the Universe) proves that nearly all organizational success is determined by front line managers and that there are a limited number of people with the innate talents (mostly recognizing the talent fits of others and utilizing them appropriately) to fill all of the front line manager positions in every organization. In education, that means that school success is determined mostly by the school principal and there will never be enough good principals to make all schools highly functional schools.
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If you think about it, there have been a number of “So-and-so (hot-shot educator) turns around failed inner-city school” stories. Same teachers, students, parents and tools. The right principal can make the difference in any particular school but you will never “fix” the entire system because it’s not usually a system problem. That’s the sad truth of it.

Sgwhite – I think having kids in school until the end of the work day is not a bad idea, though I still think the better solution is to extend the number of days students have contact with the material. Lots of school systems have after-school programs with some non-subject matter enrichment, as well as study-hall opportunities with tutors, etc. Having the “regular” full-time teachers teaching until 5:00 is a no-go. After school they still have to correct all the homework from that day and prepare for the next day’s classes, and many are eating up the evening hours doing that as it is. If they had no late afternoon hours they’d have very little time, and burn-out and fatigue leads to taking short-cuts and cutting out innovation.

James LA -

I think Jay was saying that rather than rewarding absolute test scores that a better measurement of teacher effectiveness would be the change, or improvement, in test scores for students. The problem with this is that you can see a dramatic improvement in the first year of effective teaching with a given student, and inevitably less improvement thereafter. No matter which way you choose to measure teacher effectiveness based on scores, the selection of students that a teacher has makes a significant difference.

By “delta” I mean “change.” If a teacher gets a kid who starts the year in the 30th percentile and ends the year in the 70th, isn’t that more successful than a teacher who maintains a kid at the 70rh?
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But if you use that measure, then the teacher who maintains the 70th has no upside.
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basil–
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No, I don’t think this is an overreaction. If her plan were to renegotiate the union contract, she’d be talking about that, not sniffing and sneering at the incompetence and laziness that surrounds her.
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Where she and the teachers’ union disagree most is on her ability to measure the quality of teachers. Like about half the states, Washington is now tracking whether students’ test scores improve over time under a given teacher. Rhee wants to use that data to decide who gets paid more–and, in combination with classroom evaluation, who keeps the job. But many teachers do not trust her to do this fairly, and the union bristles at the idea of giving up tenure, the exceptional job security that teachers enjoy.
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I don’t see any other way to interpret that paragraph, frankly.
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jose–
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As I said, this isn’t an argument. It’s a classic wingnut pose though–derisively characterize the other position, assert bias, and then refuse to make a substantive point. Throw out a contentless bumper sticker phrase and walk away. You know, like “Drill baby drill.”
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These are difficult issues. You won’t fix them by refusing to engage in the realities of the situation.

kathy
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If you extend the hours of a school day then teachers will also have longer planning periods. I realize that school teachers generally have to take work home with them what with scoring tests and doing lesson plans but I would think that if some time is set aside for that while the kids are out at PE or in a computer class then they should be just fine. And while I know a lot of schools have after care, a lot of them charge for it. And even then there do not always have a good amount of structure in after care. What I would rather have than school almost year around is longer breaks during the school year and then shorter summer breaks. That way kids are still able to have a break and people can still have a summer vacation but at the same time there is never a long amount of time when the child is away from a school environment. Again this would help working class people out too because as it stands most working class people who have kids under say 14-15 years old have to find somewhere to send their kids during the summer and most of those summer camps cost money.

there=they man I need preview

shepherdwong-
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Well, it’s clearly the case that some nations’ school systems do better than others in teaching kids to memorize facts. Again, I think this is tied not to pedagogy but direct rewards to kids who are able to do this, rather hectoring at teachers.
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It’s also clear that some school systems in the US are better than others at getting high scores on complex exams that require analysis, like high school AP exams.
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And, if you’ve ever talked to anybody in the kinds of programs Rhee participated in, you’d know that these are very challenging environments, with parents who are frequently uninvolved with their kids’ education and kids who, at best, don’t see the point of learning. Worse, many of them are largely correct in this assessment.
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Where she and the teachers’ union disagree most is on her ability to measure the quality of teachers. Like about half the states, Washington is now tracking whether students’ test scores improve over time under a given teacher. Rhee wants to use that data to decide who gets paid more–and, in combination with classroom evaluation, who keeps the job. But many teachers do not trust her to do this fairly, and the union bristles at the idea of giving up tenure, the exceptional job security that teachers enjoy.
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Jay, the passage you cite sounds like a case of mutual mistrust, rather than simply endorsing Rhee’s views, or bashing unions, and might even be read as suggesting that Rhee has not earned trust from the union. I just don’t see why you have these very black and white views on the piece overall. My problem with it, and with the Rhee story as a whole, is the glaring lack of facts on either side. Short of these, how can we make any informed judgment about the situation in DC or in education as a whole?
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I don’t think Rhee has chosen a particularly productive approach in her personal encounters (assuming that the reports are accurate and not in themselves a form of payback in advance), but that doesn’t mean that she is necessarily wrong in what she wants to do with the system. I’ve certainly seen plenty of bad teaching, both in schools and at the university level, and I think tenure is part of the problem, since it often gives bad teachers a free pass. I don’t think tenure should be abolished tout court, but it should be granted more stringently, linked to conditions related to teaching and performance, and should be easier to review in the case of negligence or misconduct. It’s true that we’ve only discussed the issue of teaching in high schools so far, but there is a long-term problem with the quality of undergraduate education which is at least as severe. There is a good case for reviewing how tenure is granted at both levels, and rethinking, in the case of universities, whether research is being over-valued at the expense of teaching.

I think it would be useful to evaluate teachers by their own scores on standardized tests. Standardized tests are objective. If teachers don’t know their material, they certainly can’t teach it to someone else and shouldn’t be teaching.
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Doing the math on Rhee’s 95,000 emails, if she spent two minutes on each email, she is spent 8-2/3 hours a day, 365 days a year, on email.
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Who would invest in, or can even name, a CEO who manages a company the size the Washington DC schools the way Rhee is managing?

Deggjr
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That email story is bullsh!t. Thats why I say Rhee seems to be the Sarah Palin of education. She just tells lies for no good reason. I think most people would have been impressed if she said she answered 10,000 emails. But when you go to almost 100,000 emails people are going to know you are lying. And the rest of her back story seems similarly factually challenged. Again I hope she totally improves education in D.C. but when you start lying about little sh!t to me thats a bad sign

might even be read as suggesting that Rhee has not earned trust from the union. I just don’t see why you have these very black and white views on the piece overall.
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My criticism of the piece is, I think, the same as yours–that it offers up unsupported assertions about the reasons for the “failure” of the American education system*.
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My criticism of Rhee, which is based solely on this piece which may well have portrayed her, her views, and her progress inaccurately. So if the reporter got it wrong, and I am dissing a caricature, my apologies, ms Rhee. (You can chime in. We all know you’re lurking.)
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My problem with it, and with the Rhee story as a whole, is the glaring lack of facts on either side. Short of these, how can we make any informed judgment about the situation in DC or in education as a whole?
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Here we agree. There are very broad, unsupported claims in the article.
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*Another complicating issue is that the American system tries to inject meritocracy into the equation at the college rather than the elementary or high school level. If you’re good enough, you can be president. In principle, yes, but in practice, not so much.

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Ah, delta, change, right. Thanks.
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Well, as I said I don’t know much about school and teaching issues at a system level. Here’s what I know about the labor-management partnership, though. If you have a few workers, teachers, auto workers, whatever, that don’t perform up to standard, that’s pretty much the norm. Give them a chance to improve, and if they don’t/can’t, ship them out. Fine. But when you have an entire system, e.g., a company, a school system, an auto industry, that is a complete failure, you should be looking to management failures. That’s management’s job, to manage the system for success. It’s stupid to blame all of the teachers, all of the auto workers, whatever. You have a diversity of talent in a field, good bad, and indifferent. That’s ANY workplace. If the entire workplace, school system, industry, is failing, it is a failure of management, not workers.
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I’m not optimistic about a school chancellor who blames an entire school system failure on teachers. It just isn’t plausible. Tenure isn’t the problem. Perhaps it is management’s failure to extend tenure to incompetent teachers. I don’t know. Who, after all, grants tenure? Hmmm? But most teachers are competent. You can have all the anecdotes you can muster up and give examples of horrific teachers who have tenure, but that’s pretty much bullsh!t on an aggregate level.
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Now, how about those 37,000 teachers that Rhee’s nonprofit trained and placed. Are they better teachers? How’s retention there? How are their students doing? Are they doing better than other kids, or not?
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That’s something that should be verifiable, by an honest, hardworking journalist who does a cover story on a wonder kid like this. It wasn’t done. See my Rhee Plan above for details on my plan to improve journalism @ Friday, November 28, 2008 at 12:05 pm.
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[...] a self-described “data person”.  In the conversation several references were made to a story on the new superintendent of schools in Washington, D.C, Michelle Rhee.  More comments follow in that thread.  Good food for thought and maybe some ideas [...]

I haven’t read either the article or Suzie’s thread – although I’ve been following Rhee’s career with the Daily Howler – so I’m sorry if I repeat things said earlier. I read a long in-depth article some time ago on Finland’s educational system, which is probably the best and most unconventional in the world. Unfortunately I can’t find the article, but I did find two other interesting articles on Finnish schools.
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Here’s an excerpt from one summary:
“EDUCATION IN FINLAND

Pre-school begins at age 6

Comprehensive school: age 7 to 16

Upper secondary school or vocational school: 16 to 19

Pupils in Finland, age 7 to 14, spend fewest hours in school

Higher education places for 65% young people

Second-highest public spending on higher education. (Source: OECD).”
http://www.icponline.org/content/view/157/51/
And here’s a NY Times piece: http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9D03E3DE1238F93AA35757C0A9629C8B63
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Per pupil spending is low – about $5,000 dollars a year – and class sizes are large. But the teachers all have master’s degrees. In many ways, it’s the polar opposite of what Rhee suggests. Less structure, more flexibility, more creativity. Students are not divided on the basis of ability, and perhaps most interestingly, they don’t score well at age 7. As a late reader myself, I can see the merits in this system. Learning is a lot easier when it’s fun. And you may be great at something when you’re 15 in spite of being pretty mediocre when you were 8. Or vice versa, which is okay. We progress differently in different areas. Basically, if Finnish schools are Google than American schools are GM.

Ah. James, the problem is that management in education is at best diffuse, and at worst chaotic.
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It’s all local, is why. Locally funded. School boards locally elected. Some equalization funds from the state, but the rich school districts are the good ones. And, as pluk points out, that’s where the motivated students are. So all the talk about super teachers lifting students from nowhere is a kind of, as someone said earlier, Joe Clark mythology. Kids are not gonna memorize the quadratic formula, or even learn to write grammatically, if there is not something in it for them. It may be the negative incentive of getting yelled at, or a parent who promises money for grades, or being able to participate in the dinner conversation. But there has to be something in it for them.
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The only reason this one is worth discussing is this district is local–DC, which is a small place. But it’s not funded by the local tax base, so anything can be done. Especially since we now know that if an issue is pressing enough 750 billion dollars is the budget line.
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Now systemic failure part one is that the education system in a place like DC is a place for patronage. Administrators are multiplied beyond need. No show administrators are put into place. Initiatives are hatched for the election campaign, but never implemented. It’s sorta a soviet system. Within this system there are the people who actually interact with kids. (I keep thinking of Bulgakov’s Master and Margarita as i write this.) The education part of that interaction doesn’t really matter to management.
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Here rests the argument for Rhee. She is an outsider. She is supposedly not corrupted by the featherbedded administrative graft that undermines the system’s performance. She can act without the impediments that come from rising within the system.
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This isn’t a bad argument, in principle. But in fact, as you know, being a change agent in a scelortic organization is a doomed proposition. She can’t fix this by getting, gee whiz, you betcha better teachers, because even if she does (and she can’t because the reason they’re bad is systemic, not personnel driven) they will soon be assimilated.
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the fact that she is ragging on the teachers indicates she is not really willing to engage in reform of the real problem. To really fix this, she has to fire the people who hired her, as a first step.
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Fat chance.

Here’s a fascinating excerpt from the NY Times article: So long as schools stick to the core national curriculum, which lays out goals and subject areas, they are free to teach the way they want. They can choose their textbooks or ditch them altogether, teach indoors or outdoors, cluster children in small or large groups.

Ok, It seems to me that Rhee’s qualifications are out there and I find they qualify her for her job. Apparently I am alone in that opinion. It also seems to be the position here is that Michelle is blaming everything on the teachers. That is not the case. I followed the entire series on Rhee on PBS and she is trying very hard to make it work. Some here have argued the problem is with the family/home and of course it is. Michelle knows that as well. Yet this argument has been made against her as well.

James post above is a case for Michelle (at least this part), “If you have a few workers, teachers, auto workers, whatever, that don’t perform up to standard, that’s pretty much the norm. Give them a chance to improve, and if they don’t/can’t, ship them out. Fine.” Only in practice it doesn’t work. The teacher is told they have to improve over a period of time, they get appeals and the process drags out. If it looks like it wasn’t just a slap on the wrist and the school goes through all the motions to actually fire them, the teacher shapes up for a few months, gets good marks and is back on the job. I’ve been on both sides (shop steward and management)and in civil service or any government job the only folks who get fired are people who steal or punch somebody. Teachers get this and tenure too. I say give the girl a chance. That’s what we’re doing with Barack, who also supports Rhee.

Some here have argued the problem is with the family/home and of course it is.
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Yes, it’s obviously part of the problem. But I’m really skeptical that American parents are worse than most other parents in industrialized nations. When I travel I never say, “Wow, those Belgian people really know how to parent!” There is a different attitude towards science education in most Asian cultures – which is reflected by the success of Asian-American students – but I’ve seen no evidence of a similar phenomenon in Western European countries.

jayack,
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I don’t disagree with you at all. I was specifically referring to the DC public school system in my post about failures of management. You are right, school systems are local. Some are excellent. Some not. Even in a behemoth like LAUSD, widely regarded a one big fat failure of a school system, *most* teachers are good teachers. There is a perversity in the system in that the best teachers, the “star” teachers, end up in the best schools with the best students, the most motivated students and the most involved families. Most of the time, these are the richer districts. Probably works that way in DC schools as well. I understand that in DC NW, the schools are pretty good.
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I don’t think it takes away from my observation that if you are talking about a system failure, and the DC public school system appears to be a system failure, you aren’t getting anywhere by blaming all the teachers. You talk about patronage and a sclerotic system, and Rhee’s system appears to be a prime example. I’m just sayin’ they should be looking at failures at the top if they want true and effective reform, not at the bottom.
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The journalist in this case, Ripley, chooses to internalize and uncritically repeat all the standard rightwing anti-union demagoguery and I was just pointing out what a lousy “journalist” she is. The bit about how Democrats “throw” money at problems, but Rhee, instead of “throwing money” at problems, is going to recruit teachers from out of the field and pay them $130,000 a year, is about as dopey as you can get, methinks. Apparently, that’s not “throwing money” at problems.
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jose,
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see, I see what has been *written* about her qualifications, but none of it has been verified. There is no evidence that she accomplished what she claimed to have accomplished. Where do you get your information which you deem qualifying, or are you taking the piece at face value? Some of us like to see evidence and facts, not assertions masquerading as fact. See the difference.
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Sure, fine, give her a chance. I hope she succeeds.
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In my experience, a manager whose initial acts are berating and humiliating one’s allies, firing people left and right without cause, and acting like a media hound who revels in hagiographies in which she boasts about herself and badmouths virtually everyone she works with, is not going to end up with very many people on her side. And she needs those allies to be successful. That’s just the way it works.

I was greatly disappointed but not surprised at the response of many of the commenter about Michele Rhee. Hopefully, the comparisons to of this woman to Sarah Palin or Joe the plumber is a consequence of a few individuals attempting to come up with comically clever one liners. I would hate to think this was a response one would have after thoughtful consideration of the facts. What is clear is that few have any real information about this education philosophy which is not anti-teacher but rather pro-student. Moreover, while Rhee is a student of this approach she is by no means the creator. Perhaps some of my fellow commenter could take the time to do some research into the results produced by Teach For America Programs.
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As I noted the other day, my real fear, in light of this political victory, is that those on the left would be come just as predictable and recalcitrant as those we just defeated on the right and this thread is a perfect example of what I fear most. Teach for America is not about busting unions, and regardless of individual voting preferences, which b y the way in this country was no one else’s business, they are not stealth fighters for the right. The founders of this movement, as well as most who participate in the program can hardly be labeled right wingers, yet they believe that union constraints prevent student centered reforms. And make no mistake about it when you object out of hand what’s being done in DC or support the predictable cry that increased funding can make up for a lack of parent involvement like we have been doing for the last twenty years — we are continuing to do the same thing we have always done and we will continue to get the same results we have always gotten.
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What Rhee has started in DC is simply take the philosophy to an entire failed school system — while it seems simple for someone to act as if her philosophy is just blame the teachers it is not — what she is saying is the the framework of our education system is based on the needs of teachers and administrators rather than the needs of students and real reform can only take place when the focus is on students. So if what students need is the most experience teachers in the worst schools than we must rid ourselves of a seniority system that allows the most experience teacher to choose to go to the best schools. If what students need is a longer work day then we must rid ourselves of union rules that dictate teachers hours. If what students need is longer school term then we must rid ourselves of union rules that prevent lengthening the school term. If what students needs are teachers who know the subject matter and are at the top of their field then we must find a way to attract them. If we have teachers who are ineffective we must not continue to foist them on students. so we negotiate with teachers and we say if you are willing to give up these union rules that prevent us from giving students what they need we will give you an extraordinary starting salary. We will pay good teachers what they deserve so that teaching is no longer the job of last resort but the job that the best and brightest aspire to. If that is what those on the left are willing to dismiss out of hand simply because it goes against standard dogma then so be it. but get off your high horse and s top acting superior around real Palin supporter because they are not the only ones who can adhere to a know nothing sentiment. You are no better than the right if you reject ideas before you’ve had a chance to understand them.

jose says
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“Ok, It seems to me that Rhee’s qualifications are out there and I find they qualify her for her job.”
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And what qualifications are you referring to? By the way, and I hate to keep having to point this out especially since I support Obama, Obama supported Jeremiah Wright to, until he didnt.
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You see most of us while we think she won’t succeed because of her single minded focus on just getting “better” teachers, we all hope she has success. But she doesn’t have any history to fall back on, and so far nothing she has done has borne any fruit yet. So the point of most of my posts as well as those of others is why is anybody promoting this woman as some kind of savior when you yourself just admitted that she doesn’t have any results to point to yet? And therein lies the danger because if everyone starts jumping on the “lets do what Rhee did” bandwagon and starts firing people left and right what will they do if her approach turns out to be an abject failure? They won’t get those people back and any teachers union will be forever adversarial.
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But back to my original question, what qualifications are you referring to??

That’s what we’re doing with Barack, who also supports Rhee.
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You don’t see Obama badmouthing everyone around, publicly embarrassing and humiliating people who will be working for him. He doesn’t even act that way towards Republicans. He is careful to give credit where it’s due (even when it isn’t), and to refrain from criticizing people with whom he is depending upon to be allies. That’s the difference in class, and that’s the difference in being successful, or not. Rhee apparently hasn’t learned that lesson as yet.
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Dee
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Michelle Rhee is in fact Sarah Palin for education based on her inflated rhetoric and resume. If you dispute this then provide some insight into why she lied about being praised by media outlets that never praised her and has used as her back story her history of raising kids test scores to a ridiculous level that both can’t be verified and defy any form of logic. Ill be waiting for your response that directly addresses these concerns

What I am disputing is the idea that you should attribute an education philosphy to one person who may or may notbe flawed and then because of that indivudal person negate the work that many thousands of people are involved in. Rhee is one alumni of Teach for America attempting to institute a philophy that is a d eparture of the standard education dogma but she is neither alone not the most prominent. If the leaks are to be believed the next Secretary of Education may very will be Joel Klein:
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Urban education in the U.S. is broken and it is failing kids who really need the opportunities most. It is going to take the will of the people to change this. It will take the will of impact players like Teach For America corps members – young leaders that embody the rare human qualities of extraordinary talent and the will to take no excuses – to take up this mission and make our nation a better nation.

- Joel Klein
New York City Schools Chancellor

Currently, more than 360 Teach For America alumni serve as successful school leaders in 36 states, the District of Columbia, and multiple international territories. By 2010, we aim to have 800 Teach For America alumni leading their own schools and districts. They will be joined by thousands of alumni who continue to teach, coach, and serve in schools across the country. Together, these alumni will dramatically impact the academic success of millions of students.

Perhaps some of my fellow commenter could take the time to do some research into the results produced by Teach For America Programs.
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Dee, could you link to some research on Teach for America? I’ve read Bob Somerby’s reporting on Teach for America and Rhee, and it really doesn’t look impressive. She seems very well-intentioned, and she’s obviously no Sarah Palin, but that doesn’t mean her programs are working.
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From what I’ve read, it seems that Rhee’s prescriptions for education are instinctively appealing: more accountability and intensity. But our instincts are often wrong.

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I see this as another Sarah Palin phenomenum as well. DC media gets all giddy and lionizes an apparent media darling whose resume they don’t verify, they just run with all of the frankly unbelievable and indeed improbable and unlikely claims to fame. Despite warnings from knowledgeable people, some proceed to attack the people who say “Whoa! What do we really know about this person? These claims seem to be overblown. Let’s seem some evidence.”
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Then finally someone starts looking into the resume and it turns out the person is a huckster. Us people who had reasonable questions about the person’s resume, who were attacked for having doubts, are never acknowledged to have been correct, and an apology and mea culpa is never forthcoming.
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Rinse. Repeat.

Here is some national data although its 4 years old. Much of what I have access to is proprietary so I will look for what public data I can find on the methods. And please stop calling them Rhee’s method because she is simply one of th0usands of alumni of the program.
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/www.mathematica-mpr.com/Publications/PDFs/teach.pdf

By the way in the little time I have taken to look up information on Teach for America I found this article about their shady accounting practices. And I also found this peer reviewed article totally debunking Teach for America’sclaims about being more effective than other certified teachers or even similarly trained uncertified teachers for that matter.
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an excerpt
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The data we have collected also inform us that there is no difference between the performance of new teachers from Teach for America and that of all other under-certified teachers. On all tests, and in both years, the certified teachers out-performed the under-certified novice teachers from Teach for America. Our results contradict claims made by TFA advocates that the enthusiasm and subject-matter knowledge, as well as a general education in a prestigious university, prepare these recruits to teach adequately in America’s classrooms. The TFA teachers are no better able to teach than any other under-prepared teacher.

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And if that isn’t good enough for you here is a compilation of five studies including three peer reviewed articles that also find that Teach for America is for all intents and purposes just a lot of hype. Their teachers in all three peer reviewed studies are ranked lower than certified teachers and about the same as other similarly underqualifed teachers.
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Might be time to read something other than Teach for America’s press clippings
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If this came off as harsh I apologize, but evidently these people have sold themselves as some kind of heros when in fact if you do a little digging you find that what they really are is liars.

Dee,
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Your entire first paragraph is a big strawman. Please point out where anyone one this thread was “negating” an entire education philosophy. Apparently you haven’t read any of this thread, which go to the objections that people have made to this Time story, or to the unwise managerial methods thus far employed by Rhee as Chancellor.
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A more recent study:
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http://www.urban.org/publications/901157.html

I beg to differ — your very attack demonstrate what I am saying. What you have chosen to call her unwise managerial methods is the philosophy. There is no special curriculum or new-fangled teaching methods — there is only getting rid of the current frame and exchanging it for a student centered one.
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How many times have we on the left derided the right for using personal attacks to blur what is really politically important? Aren’t we doing the same thing here whether it is is intentional or not? What I see happening is that there appears to be a piling on against Rhee and as a result her work has become suspect. While her work is not only hers and by conflating the two you are destroying both in the public mind without giving the philosophy itself a fair hearing. So tell me what did I miss?

Brendan Nyhan had a blog post up about the mathematica findings that is pretty useful. It also references the peer reviewed article that I quoted from

Dee, Thanks for the links. I just finished briefly looking at the first study. The results really don’t seem impressive. Bob Somerby summarizes it here: http://www.dailyhowler.com/dh071408.shtml
A statistically significant improvement from the 14th to 17th percentile in math – equivalent to 0.15 standard deviations – doesn’t seem to match Kopp’s sales pitch. I think that’s the key issue here. Education is too important to be treated like any other product. She’s pushing an education program, not a new car. It’s not an appropriate subject for exaggeration.

Poor management skills is the new education philosophy? Well, that’s a stretch, Dee, but I reserve the right to question its effectiveness and I don’t regard it as an “attack” to do so.
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However, your link to the Mathematica study was interesting. There was a difference, I see, in the Mathematica study, which measured very modest improvement in math scores (about a one-month difference) and no difference in reading scores. Which is fine, because the point was to recruit teachers for poor and underperforming school districts.
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A former teacher of the year in NC has his doubts about TFA

And maybe this is the reason that TFA is backing Joel Klein and he is returning the favor

Dee, how did you get from criticism of Rhee to criticism of TFA? Why do you think no one but you knows anything about TFA?
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Rhee and TFA are two different things. As you and I know, TFA recruits high performers from prestigious schools and is extremely selective. TFA teachers have great mastery of their subject material and as a rule, have great energy and are highly motivated. Rhee participated in TFA. So what?
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The DC (and other urban) schools are a mess. Sub-standard (and unionized) teachers are part of the problem, even a big part. Eliminating union teachers alone will not create the desired results. The article was introduced as a ‘superb story’. It sounds like Rhee’s solutions are limited to belittling and firing the current teachers and administrators as part of her ‘scorched earth’ policies. She also has worked on improving facilities.
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Rhee comes across in the article as a crummy manager who will inevitably fail. I admire the Marine Corps, but not every Quantico graduate will make a great general.

And it’ equally possible that opponents are trashing TFA because it represents a change from the status quo. Interesting how when that quo belongs to the left we wont even consider that we are doing to the change agents the same things that the right has done to any ideas emanating from the left. Will this DC experiment work I don’t know for sure no one can. but I know the more of the same wont get it done we’ve already wasted a two generations of children with this insanity. But rather than discuss the possible merits of any of the changes and what might be the impact pro or con we are simply throwing it all out by saying these people have no credibility and who is it that saying they have no credibility — yeah right tell me they don’t have a vested interest.
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SG I don’;t mean to single you out because you know we are usually kindred spirits but I’ve got to sat that last post impuning Klein’s motive is kind Rovian don’t you think.

Interesting perspective on TFA from Bil Johnsona former professor at Brown and evidently a current professor at Yale. This part specifically resonated with me because of all of the “cult like” rhetoric I am finding on the net. Notice the comment at the bottom that seems like it was typed out by a robot. Funny thing is the comment is full of generalities and very few specifics.
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#7) For those who survive TFA and then join their ranks as recruiters or “Executive Directors” or whatever, their allegiance to the organization is cult-like. It is not a Learning Organization whose goal is to better the schools. Like some evangelical sect, their goal is to recruit more members, receive more recognition (usually from right-wing “do away with public schools” types), and continue to sing their own praises as saviors of some sort (“If we weren’t there, who would be?” Which begs the deeper questions about “How can we actually fix the system instead of putting our TFA finger in the dyke?”).

Well, I see what these studies are indicating is that certified teachers are more effective than novice teachers, and that TFA novices are at least as effective, if not slightly more so, than other novice teachers. None of that is surprising, but it’s good to have hard data to demonstrate that. I’d like to see data on retention of TFA teachers, and it doesn’t seem to be available as yet.
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The effectiveness of TFA novice teachers is kind of beside the point. The objection that many of us on this thread were voicing was that Rhee’s resume and claims about *herself* and *what she has accomplished* cannot be verified.
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And I noted that humiliating people who work for you while promoting oneself in the press, and seemingly firing everyone in sight without apparent cause is a poor way to gain allies for the work ahead, and a sign of very poor management skills.
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I also had some substantial criticism of the actual reporter who produced such a poor excuse for a piece.

Dee
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I don’t take offense. But Karl Rove uses lies and inuendo. I just linked to a website where TFA folks openly talk about backing Joel Klein because they are worried if the lady who wrote the study showing they weren’t all that effective gets the Secretary of Education job they might be up sh!t creek. How do you explain that?

James in LA
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The most consistent criticisms of TFA online are about the fact that TFA folks leave usually after 2 years instead of the normal 3 years that other similarly underqualified teachers have to stay. Retention is the biggest gripe the educators have because by in large they believe TFAs press clippings about their effectiveness

Perhaps I have spent too much time in the trenches here in DC not to recognize the work of the usual players — those same players by the way that were not supporting Obama back in the day. Of course Rhee is the worst thing to hit DC public schools. After all the mayor got rid of the school board and that took out a serious path to political; power for far too many. Personally I find her tactics refreshingly honest. DC is a town that takes deference to a new art form and what you call unwise management I call not wasting another generation of children kissing the feet of those who claim to always have done it a certain way and determined to maintain their own petty little powerdomes regardless of the number of black children it hurts. I find it hard to believe that no one questions the stories coming from the other side. Honestly, what would you have those being shown the door say? And forgive me when I laugh at you showing me media analysis – because that’s kind of an oxymoron.

And it’ equally possible that opponents are trashing TFA because it represents a change from the status quo.
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Dee, Or maybe it’s because the results are unimpressive. I just linked to articles praising Finnish schools, which are more of a departure from the status quo than TFA. Although there is empirical data that suggests they are effective.
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SG, thanks for the links. Interesting. I have a lot of respect for the individuals who join TFA – teaching isn’t easy, and these people have a lot of other lucrative options – but I have to agree about the cult-like thing. I’m sure it’s just a small minority of the people involved in TFA, but it’s a real phenomenon. The rhetoric does not match the results.

I messed up on the linking for this one the first time. Its the link to the 3 peer reviewed studies saying TFA doesn’t compare to certified teachers and have no better effect than other similarly underqualified teachers
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http://www.ncate.org/documents/research/TFAResearchsummary.pdf

Dee,
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The petulance in your last post is disappointing.
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Perhaps I’m b eing petualant but at least my motives are clear. I question why do many of you are willing tho trash this experiment saying the results are unimpressive. I have only one question — impressive compared to what? We are talking about bkids who are failing under the status quo. We are talking about test scores that are gettinmg worse not stayng the same. All I am saying is that we seem pretty quick to attack Rhee personally, and dismiss her work as bad management when the management changes she is instituting is based on a philosophy of student centered administration which is the foundation of TFA. You can’t trash one without indirectly trashing the other. And while the jury is still out on its effectiveness we know that the status quo has failed. Why are we so willing to condemn this. I would have been heartened much more by a conversation that focused on looking at results and demanding more monitoring of the program. Why aren’t we discussing the merits of some of the measures that Rhee has put into place like higher teacher pay? Why aren’t we having that rich discussion. Quite frankly, to me the responses I am hearing sound a lot like the response I get when I debate my colleagues on the right. My point is the right doesn’t have a monopoly on dogma and I reject dogma no matter where it comes from.

sg,
yeah, that’s what I was wondering — how likely is it that these top recruits are going to stay in these very tough schools. Training and certification of teachers is expensive, and experience counts, and that’s why it is absolutely essential to have a stable workforce of experienced teachers. In order for teachers to stay in the profession, there needs to be incentives — a measure of job security, support from the administration, respect for the profession, a living wage.
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Anecdotal evidence of exceptional teachers is heart-warming, of course, but it doesn’t tell you much in the aggregate.

Wow! I had no idea people were still posting about this!
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Quick point about an earlier, less heated topic: longer school days. Just FYI: At least in my school system, we were officially paid from 7 a.m. till 2:15 p.m. Of course, I (along with many others) was actually there from roundabout 6:15 a.m. till about 5 p.m. most days, and took home more work at nights and on weekends. Indeed, even if I somehow had the time to finish all planning and grading during my planning period, I still couldn’t go home at my official end of the day because we often had required meetings or student help sessions.
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My point is that if school hours get extended, there should be a substantial pay raise for teachers, and probably one that better reflects the hours they actually work. I’m just not sure that schools are willing to invest that money. In fact, my mom (visiting for Turkey Day) tells me her school system is adding half an hour to the school day and freezing their pay for the next year. No raise, more time teaching.
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More likely than extra hours and a raise? Extra hours and no raise…and more paperwork. Always with the paperwork.

Dee
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Here is the problem. You believe something. We don’t believe it. So you are drawing in all kinds of crazy analogies and trying to make us afraid to tell you we think you are wrong. Nothing we have said on this thread is pulled out of thin air. But instead of engaging us in what we HAVE said like when I asked you to defend Michelle Rhee lying about her credentials you refuse to. What YOU are doing is actually more like what right wingers do which is instead of engaging in a factually based debate, you acuse us of personally attacking Rhee or having some kind of bias against change. But the facts are the facts and the statistics are the statistics. This reminds me of the argument I and James had with KT the other day. Instead of engaging in the debate she just clung to the belief that she was right and we were wrong even when presented with evidence to he contrary. Now I am going to be straight up about it Dee. The peer reviewed studies say TFA doesn’t do the things THEY say they do. That tells me they are full of sh!t. You won’t find a bigger advocate of changing the status quo when it comes to education than me especially since I saw the bullsh!t both my parents had to go through just to try to educate their students. But if somebody says they are running a 4 minute mile when they are really running a 5 minute mile I will give them props for running the 5 minute mile because I can’t do it, but I will also call them out for lying about being able to run a 4 minute mile. It is what it is.

No one is “trashing this experiment” Dee. No one is “condemning” whatever “experiment” you are talking about. Where do you *get* that? In the first place, most of us put forth substantive questions and critiques about the TIME piece and about Ms Rhee, which is not “trashing.” People have every right to question her credentials and to criticize the piece. Secondly, questioning someones credentials which have been publicly posted on a person’s own website and detailed in several articles about her is not a “personal attack.” You have that completely wrong. I am baffled at your reaction to a perfectly interesting and reasonable discussion thread.
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Suzie
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That was me talking about the longer days and yes I would of course advocate higher pay as the trade off. But I would also move back the start of any school day to 8 am at the earliest so that people can drop their kids off on the way to work instead of having to put them on a bus or take them to school then come back home to get ready for work. Oh and the reason extending the school day wouldnt affect you being able to finish your paper work would be because the extra time would be devoted to PE and computer skills training. Basically you could have people trained to teach the computer class to come in at different intervals during the day and during the time your class goes to the computer lab you get another planning period. The same with PE. So we have a healthier more computer savy group of kids. Similarly as they go on up through high school the extra periods could be used for a practical science class and or a pracitical business class. Just throwing out ideas

Optimally, that sounds great, sgwhite. Basically, it would be paying teachers for the work they already put in after “official” school hours, and giving students additional enrichment/exercise.
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Also, I know it’s tough for parents who want their older kids to babysit their younger siblings after school when there are no other affordable day care options, but older kids should go to school later, rather than earlier, than their younger siblings. Older kids’ natural sleep rhythms get them to bed later and up later than younger kids. I didn’t let my students sleep or put their heads down in class, but it was a constant fight. It also didn’t help that many of them were working at fast food joints after school till midnight or later. It wasn’t until about 9 a.m. that most seemed fully alert and receptive.

Oh and Dee
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We did discuss merit pay earlier. You might want to read through the thread before you decide what we have and havent discussed on this issue

Okay, one other thing: I loathed the prevalence of cell phones in my classroom. The year before I started, the school system began allowing students to carry them, as long as they were turned off during the school day. That way, students could contact parents (and vice versa) about rides home or other issues. I also think there was some parental and student push for them in case of emergencies or school violence, where communication with family or officials might be necessary.
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You can guess where this is going. I tended to use the student restrooms, since they were closer to my room than the faculty ones, and I had limited time between classes. It seemed like every time I went there, one or more girls were on their phones in the stalls. Officially, we were supposed to take those phones away, but God help you if you tried. Students who were otherwise amiable and easygoing bristled and refused to give up their phones, willing to be suspended instead. Cell phones rang repeatedly in my class. I usually gave kids one warning, and told them I would take the phones next time. Again, though, this caused much greater animosity than pretty much anything else I ever did, including sending people to the administrators! I was pretty good at spotting kids trying to text surreptitiously, but that was also a problem.
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My favorite story, from another teacher, concerns one kid whose phone rang during class, and whose phone was taken. Guess who was calling? His mother. Guess what she did when the phone was taken away? Complained to the assistant principal because she wanted to talk to her son during the school day.

Suzie
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My mom always lamented the changing attitudes of the parents. Back in the day if a teacher were to confiscate something from a student the parent would not only back the teacher, they would also admonish the child. Now adays some parents would be mad if you confiscated a weapon from their kid. Everybody’s kid is an angel now and if something goes wrong its because the teacher “doesn’t like them”. Its really a wonder that anybody WANTS to be a teacher now adays. I coached one season of high school football and just that interaction with high school aged kids made me want to pull my hair out.

Okay let me try this again because perhaps something is being lost in translation. The education dilemma:
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In every survey done of public opinion regardless of what organization sponsors the research the top two responses for what is needed to improve student performance is #1 lack of parental involvement and #2 lack of quality teachers. Those in government who don’t want to increase funding point to parental involvement as a reason that throwing money at the problem wont matter and those who want to bust the unions point to Quality teachers as the panacea. TFA set out to prove if you treated education like every other high powered profession the best and the brightest would come into the system. Once that happened they would spawn innovation and high performance. So TFA experimented by putting highly educated ivy league graduates in low performing schools and what do you know we had some improvements or at least some people think we have but regardless we know that the status quo is failing so how much worse could TFA be doing?
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Now we fast forward to DC — Rhee an alumni of TFA says we are going to conduct an experiment by putting in place the foundation of the philosphy of making education like other high powered industries. We are going to pay the teachers 132K, we are going to get rid of seniority preferences, tenure, union dictums and we are going to focus everything on students needs. If this experiment is successful we will have silenced forever those who say money doesn’t matter. We will have proved that high quality teachers make a difference and can overcome disadvantages of parental inadequacies and community mores. Will it work we don’t know yet we have encouraging signs from other smaller experiements but the jury is stil out. As a policy person I know if it is successaful the experiment will be replicated. The fear is understandable. However, if we on the left can not have this conversatin with the unions about putting children first then who will have it the right? I dont mind be attacked here because no one has answered my basic question — why are we having a discussion about the tenets of the program. Why do you demand that I defend Rhee — I don’t know her, but I know DC schools and I know this is the first time that students have ahd anything posoitive to say about their schools in a very long time. I know that the teachers who are trashing the program tend to be teachers who have opted out of the program. I know that the comparisons of results are in and of itself problematic beause as a result of NCLB requirements many of those results are skewed before even being compared to TFA?
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You can dismiss this all you like but the bottom line is that things have only gotten worse for kids in low performing schools and I don’t hear anything here that denies that. Why aren’t we throwing spaghetti on the wall and seeing what works? Why aren’t we trying everyhthing? I’ve asked the question again and again and yet all I hear is that supposedly I am attacking you because you keep saying I am wrong. When in fact what I have said is that you sound like those on the right because there is no real discussion of the merits taking place. I don’t care if someone lied on their resume. Hell I dont know too many people who haven’t doesn’t mean they can’t do their job. But of course the whole thing is irrelevant because I want to know why we aren’t having a discussion abnout teachers pay or longer hours? Why is measurement such a dirty word? Why is teaching the only profession that doesn’t have to prove its effetiveness every day?
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I would say I give up but that will be a lie. I can sense that my role is going to be the gadfly. I fear that now that we have the power that instead of encouraging dissent we are going to be a mirror image of the folks we just got rid of.
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James says how is questioning someone’s credentials a personal attack? The answer is when you call that person the Sarah Palin of Education or compare her to Joe the plumber.
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You say the chief criticism of TFA is that their recruits only stay two years compared to other underqualified recruits. WEll the TFA contract is only for two years so I suppose that’s the reason why. .

Dee
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Sarah Palin lied about her qualifications and background
Joe the Plumber lied about his background and job title
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A very strong case can be made that Michelle Rhee lied about her qualifications and background
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So how is Michelle Rhee different from Sarah Palin or for that matter Joe the Plumber?
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YOU are the one that came on the thread talking up TFA. Funny but I didnt even see a comment about TFA until you said something about it. So maybe just maybe its YOU that have jumped off the deep end. Again we discussed merit pay earlier in the thread. The conclusion was we were all for it but implementing it could be a problem. It would seem that we agree with you on this principle but while not defending Michelle Rhee because you don’t know her, you are defending Michelle Rhee and her intention to circumvent the union to implement her merit pay program which we all think is both wrong and stupid. WE are confining most of our criticism to Michelle Rhee. YOU are trying to make it seem like by questioning her credentials and motivation we are tearing down TFA. Hell I didn’t give too sh!ts about TFA until you mentioned them but come to find out they sound like an amway for young teachers. But thats really besides the point. You ask what is the risk of implementing Michelle Rhees plan and the risk obviously is that it doesn’t work. Mind you at various times myself, James in LA, and Jay have all said we hope it DOES work. But we all think she is only focused on teachers and that is wrong headed in our opinion. But YOU think that any criticism of her approach is us saying its better to do nothing and thats patently false and ridiculous. Again it comes of almost exactly like the right wingers who accuse people of not being patriotic if they criticize the war. I and others on this thread have life experience that tells us that just firing teachers that don’t meet Michelle Rhee’s version of exceptional will not solve all of any school districts problems. And the biggest worry is that so many people are jumping on her bandwagon with out ANY proven results so far and in fact all of the actual peer reviewed information says her approach doesn’t necessarily make that much of a difference. Who exactly on this thread do you think is objecting to paying teachers more? Who exactly on this thread do you think is objecting to getting rid of bad teachers and promoting good ones? Who exactly on this thread do you think is against education reform? Michelle Rhee nor TFA doesnt have the patent on school reform AND from what has happened so far Michelle Rhee’s programs aren’t exactly a smashing success. Thats a fact, not an opinion and it is what it is. You can’t have it both ways by defending Michelle Rhee on the one and and then not wanting to defend the lies she has told about her background on the other. Exactly why in hell do you think she got that job? And if she got that job on false pretenses shouldn’t that worry EVERYBODY? Its kinda like that Holiday Inn express commercial. You wouldn’t want some guy whose only qualification was sleeping in a holiday inn express to do surgery on you would you? Then similarly would you want a person whose only qualifications were that they only taught three years at an elementary school being the one handling policy for all the schools in your child’s district?
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P.S. I know you think this is some radical new idea she has come up with but you know what has happened every time a new superintendent came into power the school district in Memphis where my Uncle is now an assistant superintendent? They start firing everybody. Four or five years later they either get voted out of office or they move on to a different school system with little to no change having been effected.

oh and one final thing as far as the contract. Un credentialed teachers are generally given three year contracts. The reason its a three year contract is to give them a chance to teach while they work on getting their teaching credentials. After the three years if they don’t have their credentials they are let go. If they have gotten them by then most of the time they get hired on a more permanent basis. But TFA has their own contracts and they are for two years. But the hope is that they actually teach for more than the two years because who in the hell would hire a teacher when they knew they would only be there for two years? Its generally not seen as good for the school financially nor for the students emotionally to have teachers leave every two years. But unlike the uncredentialed teachers with the 3 year contract who by in large go on to having careers in teaching, a sizeable percentage of TFA teachers leave after two years never to teach again. And thats why it is an issue.

Dee-
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I cannot read through the whole thread right now. But your first reply seems to have nothing much to do with what people have been saying.
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By 2010, we aim to have 800 Teach For America alumni leading their own schools and districts. They will be joined by thousands of alumni who continue to teach, coach, and serve in schools across the country. Together, these alumni will dramatically impact the academic success of millions of students.
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“800″ “millions”
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This does not sound like these would be good people to learn mathematics from. The TFA stuff I’ve seen here in NYC is just an alternative recruitment mechanism, AFAICT.
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I’ll read through the rest of the thread tomorrow.

This is the first I’ve heard very much about Teaching for America. Now having read a little more about it, it is kind of like the Peace Corps. Ex-Peace Corps also have a degree of clannishness as they go forward after their experience. I think it’s great that people take a couple of years out of their life to teach in inner city schools or overseas. That is to be applauded and admired, and our country, as well as the volunteer, benefit from the experience greatly.
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Many Peace Corps subsequently go into foreign service after their experience, as TFA grads go into teaching. I’m not criticizing that at all, I think it’s great. And I have nothing but admiration for public school teachers who have one of the most important jobs in our nation, and one of the most difficult. I happen to think that most public school teachers are competent, that some who aren’t would benefit from mentoring and training, and the rare, truly incompetent teacher should leave the field. I have seen no evidence to convince me that there are these hordes of incompetent teachers in the field and that there should be mass firings of all of these mythical incompetents and that would fix the broken education system in the country. The idea is preposterous, in my opinion.
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I’m definitely not one who thinks that teachers are the main problem with our (in SOME places) failing public school system. I think it is unfair and a big mistake to blame teachers. That is like blaming ambassadors for our bad foreign policy. That is like blaming the soldiers and marines for the abysmal failure of the Iraq War. It’s always the workers that get blamed, which is easy to do, instead of looking at actual policy and the decision-makers who should have gotten this right. THEY blame the underlings in order to escape responsibility and accountability.
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All of that said, being appointed Chancellor of a big school district is a big job. It doesn’t require experience teaching so much as dealing with political systems and powerful organizations and overseeing policy. I just think that this woman appears to be in over her head, not having learned how to handle people and how to deal with the politics and powerful people with whom you will need to partner to be successful. You don’t go firing everyone in sight and publicly trashing them while promoting oneself. That is a disastrous approach that is sure to alienate the people that you need to be on board. No one can do a job like that as the lone ranger. It reminds me of all those appointments by George W. Bush of loyal fundies who were in appointed to positions way over their heads, like US Attorney Rachel Paulose or Michael Brown.
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Two comments.
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1) The problem here is in the headline, repeated in the story, and reinforced by Dee and jose.
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Q: Can Mr/s X save the public school system?
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A: No. The idea that a single person’s force of personality and new ideas can save even one relatively small city’s public school system is ridiculous. The idea that there is one super hero who can sweep through, separate the sheep from the goats, bring in a new set of sheep, and then wave his or her hands, is just silly. But that is what the argument amounts to, and what the defense amounts to.
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2) Nothing will get fixed in school systems until people analyze what services they actually want from their school systems, and then figure out how to deliver those services.
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The State (speaking broadly) wants a loyal citizenry, indoctrinated in the national mythos that is reasonably literate, numerate, socialized and thus prepared to serve as laborers in an industrial society.*
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Parents want, as I said in a previous thread, a combination of education, certification of strong performance (high grades), exposure to extra-curricular activities (especially sports) and day care. These desires are in rising order of importance.**
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Teachers want a combination of decent pay, decent job security, reasonable hours and the opportunity to enrich kids’ lives. These are falling order of importance.***
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Government administrators recognizing that the mandatory school attendance creates a gathering point for children, schools serve as a distribution point for public health, education and other services. Vaccinations, fire prevention training, and reproductive instruction services are among these.
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Local government wants to use the physical plant. School facilities serve as polling places, dispenser of library services, entertainment centers and other community functions. They also want to keep potentially disruptive adolescents busy.
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Now this multifaceted community indoctrination, training and day care center is administered and spoken of as if its sole goal were the provision of education services. This is broken. The reason teachers are overworked and underpaid is they are expected, as part of their “teaching” jobs to contribute time to community service well outside their educational responsibilities, ranging from kiddie day care to preparing to entertain the community under Friday Night Lights.
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You’re never gonna fix the education mission if you don’t separate it off from the other parts of what falls under “school” in this country right now. If you want day care, then hire day care staff. If you want a football program, hire a football coach, and stop screwing up the history instruction program. You want nighttime basketball or Friday night sock hops, hire social directors to manage them. And the attendant administrative infrastructure should be distinct from that of the educational mission. Once you do that, then you can focus on the teaching. Until you do, you’re just spinning your wheels.
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*The State should be concerned about the rise in home schooling. It handled the incorporation of Catholic schools in this program pretty well, permitting the religious indoctrination as long as the State indoctrination was in the program. Home schooling is not so easily handled.
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** In a previous thread, I noted that someone (Lester Thurow, if that makes any difference to anybody) once told me that in his experience dealing with his rich suburban system that parents fell into three categories (education 20%, Get junior into Harvard 40%, Day care 40%). The extracurricular stuff is spread across the latter 2. One of the biggest problems you have to work through is that so few people actually care about education, actually care whether junior has memorized the quadratic formula or can do a thoughtful analysis of Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. Nor does junior.
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***Before the teachers start screaming, I know plenty of people who got into teaching in order to enrich kids’ lives, but bailed because of the other three issues. It may be that those who remain in the system are willing to sacrifice the other three considerations for the last, but, that’s one of the problems isn’t it? Isn’t that one area of agreement here? That the profession shouldn’t require sacrifice?
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****Earlier this week, Hilzoy advocated universal provision of school breakfasts, because good nutrition was so important to education. Hilzoy’s right. This is a great idea, but not for educational. It’s a great way to address a public health concern for younger children. The “education” thing is a cover for a public health service.

Boy do I miss preview. The fourth footnote belongs to the Government services bit. That “educational” should say “educational purposes” in that footnote.

You can dismiss this all you like but the bottom line is that things have only gotten worse for kids in low performing schools and I don’t hear anything here that denies that. Why aren’t we throwing spaghetti on the wall and seeing what works? Why aren’t we trying everyhthing? I’ve asked the question again and again and yet all I hear is that supposedly I am attacking you because you keep saying I am wrong.
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Dee, I agree with all that. But if we try something, and it doesn’t work, then blindly continuing on with the same strategy is not a good idea. And to answer your question about how exactly the TFA results are unimpressive, they are unimpressive in comparison to the status quo. That’s the problem. You outlined the logic for TFA – recruit the most intelligent and committed young people to struggling schools – which is certainly plausible. But the results are unimpressive, which either suggests that young people who graduated from elite universities with little background in education are pretty much equivalent as teachers to young people who have more of a background in education and graduated from “ordinary” universities, or that the teacher is a relatively unimportant part of the problem. I actually think the latter (i.e. a fundamental problem in how education is structured, not the whole “American parents are among the worst in industrialized democracies” theory) is more likely, but I’m open to empirical evidence that suggests otherwise.
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Fortunately the American school system isn’t alone in the world. We can look at what’s working in other countries, and move forward from there. Japan, Korea and Finland probably have the best school systems in the world. Which is great, because it shows that there are many different paths to success. Japanese and Finnish students are taught completely differently. We can reasonably hypothesize that a medium amount of structure is a bad thing, and that structure is most effective in education where it’s found in large or small quantities. Intuitively, that makes sense. Then maybe we should think about what would work best in America. Perhaps it would vary regionally. Pilot programs could be started – like TFA, essentially. And then we could look at the data and rework our hypothesis.
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Basically, I’m saying that education should be treated like a science not a business. Profit is a clear indication of success in business, and there’s no equivalent to that in education. Science provides a better framework. Also, we need to be clear about our goals: we want students to stay in school and we want them to be well-educated when they finish at age 18. Honestly, their success at age 11 is only important to the extent that it predicts success in those two objectives. Finnish kids don’t score well in reading when they’re 7. Who cares? I’m not saying that we should encourage 7 year-olds to become bad readers, but I am suggesting that we need to be clear about our goals.

Also, we need to be clear about our goals: we want students to stay in school and we want them to be well-educated when they finish at age 18
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And I am saying that I don’t think these are our real goals. I’m saying that our goals for our school systems have become muddled up with other, non-educational issues that have to be addressed separately.

Why aren’t we throwing spaghetti on the wall and seeing what works? Why aren’t we trying everyhthing?
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At the scale of a district or two this makes sense, of course. But deciding to revamp of all of DC in the vague hope that it might work doesn’t seem entirely responsible to me.

I think that jayack is right when he says that homeschooling is an increasingly important issue in education. I will set aside his more theoretical (though fascinating) points to make a few pragmatic ones of my own.
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I just met a neighbor the other day who homeschools her kids. Her husband had just come back from a mission trip, so I assume religious reasons may be part of their withdrawal from public schools. She told me about how hard she herself has to study to make sure she’s ahead of her kids, especially the kid in high school. I gingerly asked what she would do about some highly specialized topics, such as the equivalent to AP Chem. She said that homeschooling families pool their students together and have a qualified teacher come to teach a “class” of homeschoolers. From what she said, the homeschooling community where I live is very organized and united.
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I admire her commitment to her kids’ education and willingness to work hard in its pursuit. But I have qualms. First, not all homeschooling parents are as diligent as she. My mom is currently teaching a formerly homeschooled second grader who does not know her own last name. Let me repeat–not that she doesn’t know how to SPELL it (which she doesn’t), but that she doesn’t KNOW it. She basically got no education whatsoever at home.
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Also, during my time at Colonial Williamsburg as a historical interpreter, we ran into quite a few homeschooled kids. Generally, they were good kids, and often quite interested in history, maybe more so than the average kid. But quite a few of them were…well…socially awkward, shall we say. I couldn’t help but wince as I visualized what would happen to them when and if they joined public schools, or when they had to work extensively with non-homeschooled kids or adults who weren’t their parents.
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At the same time, though, I am generally a fan of letting our freak flags fly. Maybe it’s okay that these kids are sometimes a bit different, and I’m being judgmental. I’m torn. I was curious about what the rest of you thought.

jayackroyd, I agree. I was talking about what our goals should be. In addition to other non-educational issues, it seems that too many people see the education system as a vehicle for proving their philosophies (i.e. everything should be run like a corporation Mitt Romney is preparing to sell for a quick profit). If that works, great. I’m not automatically opposed to that approach. But it may not work.

rose: Japan, Korea and Finland probably have the best school systems in the world. Which is great, because it shows that there are many different paths to success. Japanese and Finnish students are taught completely differently. We can reasonably hypothesize that a medium amount of structure is a bad thing, and that structure is most effective in education where it’s found in large or small quantities. I
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I would suggest that these countries have high performing school systems for three central reasons – their societies value learning/knowledge, value learned people, and show great respect for teachers. The differences in their educational systems might well be due more to cultural differences than there being any “right way” to educate.
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Within the broad expanse of American culture, certain subgroups that derive from cultures with values similar to those described above tend to do well.
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I would propose that the best way to improve our educational system’s outcomes generally is to elevate the stature of learned people in our society. Perhaps something like the Suharto model of reducing the rate of population growth could be applied to changing attitudes about learning here:
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If there was an architect of Suharto’s social development policies – one that resulted in a dramatic drop in what had been a galloping rate of population growth in the world’s largest Muslim country – it was Dr. Haryono.
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He brought about that drop not through coercion. There was no forced sterilization, as there’d been in 1975-1977 during then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi’s “emergency” rule in India, when the Constitution was suspended and the only daughter of Jawaharlal Nehru – India’s first prime minister and co-founder, along with Mahatma Gandhi — assumed dictatorial powers that far exceeded anything that Suharto ever exercised. There were no penalties imposed on families with more than one or two children, as had been done for quite a while in nearby China.
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Suharto and Haryono created a model of social development by tapping into a simple, central understanding: people want families that they can economically support; parents want only as many children that they can afford to educate properly; and men and women, particularly in traditional societies, seek insurance in their old age through producing children whose own longevity can be assured.
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The Suharto-Haryono model meant focusing on education and employment for women because, as Suharto always liked to say, women – particularly in male-dominated countries of the 135 nations of the Third World – were the wisdom keepers, the purveyors of family values. Haryono would add that he always found that women managed family finances far more diligently than their men folk.
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The model worked. While elsewhere in the Third World the population growth rates were exceeding 3 or 4 percent annually – in India, at one point, some 18 million people were being added each year, the size of Australia – Indonesia was able to bring down its growth rate to just a shade over 1.5 percent in 1975 from 4 percent in 1965, when Suharto seized power in a military coup.
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Implementing that model meant vigorously advocating birth control measures such as use of condoms by men, and pills and intra-uterus loops by women. I remember covering large rallies at which Haryono would rouse audiences through songs and poems, extolling the value of small families. Meanwhile, his associates would course through the crowds, distributing literature, condoms, and birth-control pills.
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Indeed, a documentary I made for American public television on Haryono was titled, aptly I think, as “Doctor of Happiness.” Haryono would frequently request Suharto attend meetings with mullahs in order to persuade them to use the power of the pulpit to preach the importance of small families in nation building.
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Repeating what I said way up top at #13, I frankly think we may see enormous cultural benefits that show up in improved school performance from having an overtly smart and decent first family serving as a national role model. Kathleen Parker seems sold:
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Obama’s example could have society-altering effects, especially in the African American community. By his example, he telegraphs the following messages: Being smart is good; education is good; being a good father is essential. Being an egghead is cool.

Suzi
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Let me share a particularly funny (now) story about home schooling. So I walked into a common area at a place where I used to work and it there were maybe 10 of my co workers there. We had a VERY loose working situation so it was not uncommon for us to talk about any and everything and most of the time people were free to express their opinions in very sharp terms. The rule basically was as long as you weren’t personally attacking someone you could say whatever you wanted to say. So I came in on the tail end of a discussion about home schooling. Now my experience has been somewhat like yours where many times the kids might be well educated until they get to high school at least where the parents tend to not have enough skills to teach stuff like AP Chemistry or AP English, but socially the ones I encountered were ALL misfits. They just didn’t know how to act around groups of other kids. The only ones who looked comfortable at all were the ones who had siblings but even they were tenative and had low self confidence when they were surrounded by other kids their age. So because I have always been pretty out spoken and always up for a good debate I didn’t wait to find out what sparked the conversation in the first place and just started railing against home schooling. I mean I was calling the kids socially stunted and calling the parents all kinds of dumb azzes for depriving their kids of the natural socializing they would get in school etc etc. And even though people quited down and just started looking at me I just kept going on and on about how ridiculous I thought the notion of home schooling was. Finally after I stopped ever so pleased with the argument I had just made one of my co workers said to another “See I told you that you and your wife shouldn’t be home schooling your kids”. I felt about an inch tall because the co worker who was doing home schooling was a pretty good guy and we got along really well at least up till that point plus I had met his kids several times. Needless to say I learned a lesson that day about knowing my audience before I start voicing my opinion so forcefully.

Well, I’m not in favor of “throwing spaghetti against the wall to see what works.” I think that is profoundly irresponsible and a disservice to the children. That’s been done for years. Charter schools. Contracted schools “run like a business.” Firing everyone in sight, getting rid of unions, and bringing in low-wage, non-credentialed people to work. “Parent academies.” Some of these experiments may work on an anecdotal level, but as a large scale reform, these approaches haven’t been successful.
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I’m in favor of tripling the teachers salaries, though. Pay good teachers $137,000 per annum to teach in the worst schools. Take a substantial pay cut to transfer to a “good” school. Do that for an entire cohort and let’s see how that goes. Let’s see how the students do, over the long term.
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We will see if that is sustainable, though. To increase teacher salaries to what they deserve, you are going to have to agree to raise property taxes or what other services paid for by property taxes are going to be cut. Police? Fire? Roads? Sewage, water? Indigent health care? Because if you want to go this route, you have to decide how to fund it, because fundraising and corporate gifts are not sustainable over the long run. But yeah, let’s try that.

sgwhite,
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Ouch. Just–ouch.

Jay, I pretty much agree with everything you said except that I don’t think Rhee is going to save the educational system. I think she’s just trying to get DC past the enormous hole they have there. Where I seem to get in trouble in everybody here is that I think it’s time for tenure to go. The UAW knew it was time for change with difficult choices and now it’s the teachers union to join the cause.

I also agree the preview is sorely missed.

Suzie, I think homeschooling is terrible when it’s essentially used for brainwashing. But with some of these kids, I wonder what kind of education they would be getting at the radical right-wing Christian schools they would probably attend if they were not homeschooled. If your parents are determined to make you close-minded and ignorant, they will probably succeed.
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But in other cases it definitely works. So… it has a mixed record of success, like regular schools! And it will probably rise in popularity for the foreseeable future. I really can’t see any reason why it wouldn’t. Universities are very open to homeschooled applicants, and they often have solid academic records.
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I would suggest that these countries have high performing school systems for three central reasons – their societies value learning/knowledge, value learned people, and show great respect for teachers. The differences in their educational systems might well be due more to cultural differences than there being any “right way” to educate.
wvng, that’s certainly possible. I’d love to see more research on this. Why not try to replicate the Finnish system in a school, and see what happens? My guess – and it’s just a guess – is that the educational system does play a big role. Children are naturally curious, they naturally want to learn stuff like the quadratic formula. That drive to use our tremendous intelligence – and the fact we have opposable thumbs! – is why our species dominates the planet. If children had to be forced into using their brains, we’d still be in caves. The Finnish system is based on the idea that if they start kids in school late – and it’s not that they are with their parents before they start school, since most of them are in daycare – they will develop a love of learning through play. So the theory is based on utilizing our natural instincts. Also, the emphasis on not separating kids at a young age really makes sense.
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Anyway, I could be totally wrong. But I’m very skeptical about cultural explanations being the dominant factor. For example, cultural differences are the obvious explanation for girls’ superior academic performance. But I was recently talking to a young teacher who was shocked to see how differently boys and girls were taught in the same classrom, and was convinced that the difference in teaching methods was at the root of the problem. I also just don’t see American parents as the core problem – they seem no worse than parents in other Western European countries. We won’t be able to find any conclusive answers without a lot of research though. I think that’s the area where we can all agree.
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SG, that’s hilarious! I guess social faux pas are not found exclusively among homeschooled kids… Actually I don’t know any homeschooled kids who ARE social misfits. But I’ve never met anyone who was homeschooled for religious reasons, which might explain the difference in perceptions.
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And now I should sign off and start working on my own education…

sgwhite,
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My most vivid memory of a homeschooler at Colonial Williamsburg was one kid who idolized Thomas Jefferson. So much so that he dressed like Thomas Jefferson, spoke like Thomas Jefferson, and did his best to live like Thomas Jefferson. He was extremely polite and good-natured, as well as very well-informed about TJ (I don’t know about his other subjects), but I had only one thought throughout much of our conversation: If he EVER joins a public school, this kids gonna get stuffed in a locker. I just looked at him and saw a potential lifetime of pain and ridicule. Hope I was wrong.

Sorry: “kid’s,” not “kids.” Arrgggh! Preview!

So much so that he dressed like Thomas Jefferson, spoke like Thomas Jefferson, and did his best to live like Thomas Jefferson.
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Well… that’s amazing. I wonder if some of these kids are on the autistic spectrum. A lot of autistic children are homeschooled, for obvious reasons. And if you started your kid in school or daycare, and then decided to homeschool because it didn’t work out, there could be a confusion of cause and effect with socially awkward homeschooled kids.
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If I met that kid, my first thought would be Asperger’s.

Good point, Rose. Now that you mention it, it does remind me a bit of “The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time” by Mark Haddon. Interesting.

That was a great book. I have autism in my family, so I’m pretty aware of the symptoms (and maybe the book isn’t as fascinating to people who have no connection to autism). There’s an interesting debate going on in the autistic education community about whether autistic kids should be forced into socializing with “ordinary” children, or whether they should embrace their differences and learn with other children on the spectrum. And of course it’s complicated by the extremes of I.Q. among people on the spectrum. I don’t know where homeschooling fits in in that debate.

rose83
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The truth is just like Suzie pointed out above I think that as home schooling has become more main stream, parents who home school have formed coalitions so that while they might be teaching their kids at home they still can get them together for other kids that are being homeschooled for some social time. When I made that statement it was about 7 years ago and around that time I think I was pretty much right about most homeschooled kids but now I think the parents have come a LONG way in terms of realizing the need for them to be around other kids even if it isn’t in an organized school setting. I think thats another way the internet has revolutionized the way people live their lives because from what I understand a lot of the networking of home schooling parents happens online. As for the faux paus yeah my foot was planted firmly in my mouth on that one. And the worst part was i didn’t really know what to say to the guy because it was obvious I wasn’t just joking around and how do you apologize to someone for basically saying they are ruining their kids lives and at the same time saying their kids are weirdos? Never again thats for sure

That’s another good point, sgwhite. My experiences with homeschooled kids mainly derive from the time before 2003. I suspect a lot has changed since then, particularly because of the internet.
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Rose, I found the book fascinating as well as illuminatory about autism. But then again, I’m a huge book nerd, so I can’t speak for the general community who isn’t dealing with autism!

If he EVER joins a public school, this kids gonna get stuffed in a locker.
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The flip side of home schooling is this doesn’t happen to the kid, as socially inept as he may be. And does happen to other kids in public school.
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The only home-schooled kids I’ve known were there because the parents thought the public school was not up to snuff. These were bright kids, of bright parents who were both east coast elite undergrad and profession degrees. Mom stayed home and schooled the kids. Most precocious kids I’ve ever seen. Reading 5 or 6 grades beyond their age level.
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What they did wrt social development is put them into scouts and the local drama and music groups and other stuff like that. Other than the irritations that most precocious kids, they seemed well adjusted. Atheist parents, which IMO always helps. They sent them to the public high school, not feeling equipped for AP everything. Some of them (there are five or six) are in college now, studying esoteric stuff at Ivy institutions.
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But i do think the general success of homeschooling over the public school in attaining basic literacy and math skills is a serious indictment of the public school system in the US that fail to attain these minimal goals. It’s just unthinkable that you could have a kid for seven years, 180 days a year, and not find a way to teach him or her how to read, write reasonably grammatically and do basic algebra.
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That baseline goal cannot be a baseline goal of the American educational establishment. It’s too easy to attain. The absence of pure remedial programs in just literacy and numeracy somewhere around fifth grade means people aren’t serious about educational goals, but have a bunch of other goals that are considered more important. There’s nothing sillier than sending a kid who can’t read to social studies classes.
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In case anybody missed it. Jake Tapper posted this. http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch

“Likely not encouraging Rhee is Obama’s pick to head up his transition efforts on education: Stanford education professor Linda Darling-Hammond, whom many in the education reform community eye warily, as too closely allied with teachers unions.
Members of the pro-reform group Democrats for Education Reform see Darling-Hamilton as someone who thinks more funding is the answer and say “Darling-Hammond’s approach is dangerous. Without genuine reform, money pumped into a district like Newark is wasted.”The liberal American Prospect suggests that Obama’s naming Darling-Hammond, “a teacher quality expert who opposes merit pay and is more critical than supportive of NCLB, signals that Obama wishes to avoid a fight with the unions. He’ll spend his political capital on energy and health care instead.”

My brother, who works in educational development internationally, suggested that the 2007 McKinsey Report “How the World’s Best Performing School Systems Come Out on Top” is a great place to find answers about what works. He noted that one thing all the great systems (Finland, South Korea, Sweden, etc) have in common is an early focus on literacy, with remedial resources from the very beginning to make sure every kid can read.
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jay said: “There’s nothing sillier than sending a kid who can’t read to social studies classes.” Or high school science classes like my wife teaches.

jayack,
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but doesn’t your good example reflect the value of very small class sizes. One would expect, with a highly educated teacher (the mother) having a very limited class size (5 or 6), that the children would excel. That’s kind of the point of the class size debate.
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Members of the pro-reform group Democrats for Education Reform see Darling-Hamilton as someone who thinks more funding is the answer and say “Darling-Hammond’s approach is dangerous. Without genuine reform, money pumped into a district like Newark is wasted.”
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Isn’t Rhee advocating more funding? Pumping more money into the district via corporate fundraising?
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What kinds of reforms are Democrats for Education Reform advocating, Jose?
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He noted that one thing all the great systems (Finland, South Korea, Sweden, etc) have in common is an early focus on literacy, with remedial resources from the very beginning to make sure every kid can read.

wv, isn’t that what Head Start was supposed to do?

meh, excuse my formatting.

jose says
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In case anybody missed it. Jake Tapper posted this. http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch

“Likely not encouraging Rhee is Obama’s pick to head up his transition efforts on education: Stanford education professor Linda Darling-Hammond, whom many in the education reform community eye warily, as too closely allied with teachers unions.
Members of the pro-reform group Democrats for Education Reform see Darling-Hamilton as someone who thinks more funding is the answer and say “Darling-Hammond’s approach is dangerous. Without genuine reform, money pumped into a district like Newark is wasted.”The liberal American Prospect suggests that Obama’s naming Darling-Hammond, “a teacher quality expert who opposes merit pay and is more critical than supportive of NCLB, signals that Obama wishes to avoid a fight with the unions. He’ll spend his political capital on energy and health care instead.”
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jose I didn’t know that Darling-Hamilton had been named to the transition team but I did point out last night that TFA opposes her because she put out a peer reviewed study that showed that TFA has been lying about their effectiveness and that in point of fact TFA teachers are no more effective than similarly underqualifed teachers and are markedly LESS effective than actual credentialed teachers. You can find her study here.
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http://www.ncate.org/documents/EdNews/StanfordTeacherCertificationReport.pdf

james: “wv, isn’t that what Head Start was supposed to do?” Sort of, but not pre-school, in-school. My county had several “school’s of choice” (failed under NCLB) that received significant resources to work on the literacy issues. Major focus on literacy grades 1-3. I’ve heard mixed reports, some quite good, some “feh.” My wife will be getting the first graduates of that program in her high school science classes a couple of years; so we’ll see then. But I was very happy to hear about the program, because there are far too many functionally illiterate kids in our system..

James–
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If someone told me of a first grade program where the a class of twenty kids were in school for five or six hours, all but 1-2 hours of it in unstructured play in rooms full of interesting stuff, and that 1-2 hours was spent in short segments of learning how to read in groups of 2-4 at a time, I’d think that a worthy experiment.
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I’ve said already, it does not seem to me that putting 7 year old kids into a 5×4 row of desks, with their primary activity sitting still and being quiet is a realistic or efficient model for “education.” It’s a model for developing certain social skills that are important for a laborer in an industrial country.
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The 20 at a time model works fine for some things, like memorization drills, mulitplication, addition. But that it is used for everything is, to me, an indication of non-seriousness in regard to the “education” goal.

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wv, can you clarify “not pre-school, in-school.” Are you saying that children should be starting school at an earlier age?

James. I believe DC has the third highest funding per student in the country. She is not looking for more money.

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jayack,
dunno but that’s exactly how I went to school. and I came out educated.

Jay- the 20 at a time works in affluent and private schools quite well. Although I do like your example as well.

James, that style of education was originally intended to train children for regimented factory labor. There’s an amazing quotation from a Secretary of Education in the early 20th century saying just that, but I couldn’t find it quickly on Google. Obviously many people come out prepared for more than assembly line work, but not enough. And since there are virtually no jobs on assembly lines, it seems like an ineffective educational approach. Children need to develop creative intelligence, because that’s what they need to get a good job.
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wvng, it’s interesting that Finland is able to combine a greater focus on literacy with teaching kids to learn when they’re slightly older. It may not be a coincidence.

jose,
I had understand that she was planning on corporate sponsors to implement her $130,000 per year plan. I apologize if I misstated that.

Sorry, that should be “read” not “learn.” I miss preview!

james: “wv, can you clarify “not pre-school, in-school.” Are you saying that children should be starting school at an earlier age?” No, just differentiating between formal k-12 and things that happen before that. The number one thing that should happen before that, IMHO, is that parents should start reading to their kids on the way home from the hospital after being born, and never stop. Our new prez talks about that – turn off the TeeVee, read to your kids. If that happened in all of our homes I think a lot of societal ills would be diminished.

The Department of Education, which has the Secretary of Education, was established in 1979 by Jimmy Carter. You may be thinking of Durkheim, who articulated goals of education from the structural functionalism approach.
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United States Secretary of Education – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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From Wikipedia: Durkheim argued that education has many functions:

1. To reinforce social solidarity
* History: Learning about individuals who have done good things for the many makes an individual feel insignificant.
* Pledging allegiance: Makes individuals feel part of a group and therefore less likely to break rules.
2. To maintain social roles
* School is a society in miniature. It has a similar hierarchy, rules, expectations to the “outside world”. It trains young people to fulfill roles.
3. To maintain division of labour.
* School sorts students into skill groups, encouraging students to take up employment in fields best suited to their abilities.
Émile Durkheim – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

I would have to disagree with blanket assessments of “best school systems” in the world. One of the least explored stories in this domain has been the dissatisfaction that many Japanese have expressed over the last couple of decades with their school system. Complaints include: over-regimentation, lack of initiative among students, lack of creativity, bullying etc. It’s very dangerous to take league tables of best school systems at face value, and assume that they should be used as models without a lot more inquiry into how the systems function and are perceived in their home countries.

basil, good point.

yeah, basil, when I referred to Japanese systems approaches I tried to be careful to say does well at memorization and on standardized tests, which may or may not be a good proxy for “education.”
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James, I was reminded, thinking about this, of how I transferred into a new second grade in the middle of a school year. The first thing the teacher did was sit me down, and have me read aloud to her. She said “You’re a Bluebird.” She’d divided the class into three learning to read sections. So I exaggerated. I don’t recall what we were doing when the cardinals were reading, but I’m sure it wasn’t any fun. But I was indeed referring to the industrial organization guy Rose is talking when I say the idea was to get kids adapted to the factory floor.
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jose, not in my experience. In my experience those expensive private schools used much lower pupil teacher ratios, and featured a great deal of individual attention to pupils. This is second hand, but I’ve known a fair number of people who went or taught at such schools.

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jayack,
see my link to Durkheim and his structural functionalism wrt mainstreaming children into the functional social structure. I’m not in total agreement with that theory of sociology at all.
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Rote memorization and some of the teaching methods that are disdained these days actually serve the physiological process of brain development in the young, connecting neurons increasing numbers of brain cells and all that. I’ll get links for that if you want, but I’m pretty sure you have studied the subject enough to already be aware of that.
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I wasn’t a Bluebird but yeah, I recall, from days of yore, three reading level groups in the classroom.

I hadn’t read the Durkheim thing before. I have the economist’s “Oh that’s not science” thing about sociology, just like the physicists have it (with a great deal more justification) about economics. But the idea that public education serves to indoctrinate youth is pretty obvious.
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I still love the reaction I get when I point out that we compel 8 year olds to recite a loyalty oath, every day of the school year. When we do it, it’s okay…
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I’m good with rote memorization when it makes sense. There’s no other way to learn multiplication tables, and I find all the current “motivational” stuff that is intended to convey an abstract concept beyond a ten year old’s ken to be ridiculous. I helped a neighbor’s kid with this one time, and was just appalled at what they were putting her through. Not even set theory (like in the new math of the sixties), just stupid mechanical exercises that wouldn’t have taught her anything.
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There are things that you need to memorize. But there are many, many things you don’t. It happens that I was made to memorize the state capitals. It happens I still remember them. Mrs. J had to memorize some poem of Longfellow’s she still can recite. I happened to memorize the sign-on message (yes, o best beloved, once teevee went off the, yes best beloved, air) for the local CBS affiliate (owned by Gannet, by the way.) My siblings and I can all recite the properties on a Monopoly board, in order, and tell you the unimproved rents, and the rents with hotels. This is not important.
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You may be right that the act of random memorization is itself valuable. But I’m with Rose. One of the things that I hate about the US educational system is that it makes learning stuff unpleasant. They have to run frickin’ teevee commercials telling kids that reading books is fun. Librarians have to worry about buying books for “reluctant readers.” WTF is up with that?
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jayackryd said
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“And, if you’ve ever talked to anybody in the kinds of programs Rhee participated in, you’d know that these are very challenging environments, with parents who are frequently uninvolved with their kids’ education and kids who, at best, don’t see the point of learning. Worse, many of them are largely correct in this assessment.”
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I know the DC (and Baltimore) schools systems pretty well and I couldn’t agree more. But that tells me, if it affects entire districts it’s bigger than teachers or parents. I’d also bet that you have well performing schools even within otherwise underperforming programs.
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As an analogy, let’s liken inner city and other underperforming school systems to American auto manufacturers vs. foreign makers operating on US soil (high performing suburban schools). The American companies struggle with all kinds of cultural, financial and functional disadvantages but you won’t fix them by tweaking an employee here or customer involvement there. You have to change the entire culture and that is driven from the expectations of everyone involved. Management hates to admit it but that’s a management outcome that is mostly determined at the front-lines where products and services are delivered.
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The data don’t lie. Based upon millions of surveys of thousands of organizations here are the first six things (there are six more) Buckingham and Coffman discovered which led to unit and then organizational success:
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1. I know what is expected of me at work
2. I have the materials and equipment I need to do my work right.
3. At work,, I have the opportunity to do what I do best every day.
4. In the last seven days, I have received recognition or praise for doing good work.
5. My supervisor, or someone at work, seems to care about me at work.
6. There is someone who cares about my development.
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It’s easy to see how these values would apply to teachers in the school and how’s Rhee’s approach would probably fail to address them. She would do better by attempting to inculcate school principals with them and focus on the talent and performance at that level. The problem is, that requires management to respond to the feedback from below and management in the US rarely even accepts that premise. And we’re back to the auto-maker analogy.

I talked to my uncle and he basically said that the best way to effect change when it comes to teachers is not to start firing and hiring them. Instead its to install strong proven principals in under performing schools and then give them wide latitude to transfer not fire teachers they don’t feel are up to snuff and recruit in new experienced teachers from around the district by giving the principals the ability to offer sweetners whether they be financial or the ability to get teach some classes of their choice. He totally disagreed with Rhee’s approach because for one there will be too much turnover of teachers who will be replaced with temp teachers from TFA or another organization which means the door will be a revolving one because those temp teachers aren’t likely to stay. Also the people making the decisions about the teachers in Rhee’s district seems to be people who aren’t at the school everyday who would be better able to assess the job those teachers are doing. There also doesn’t seem to be ANY focus on the principal in her model which greatly disturbs him. Mind you my uncle worked his way up from teacher/coach to asst principal to principal to going to the board of education to asst superintendent so he has been on all levels and he isn’t partial to any particular ideology about how to better schools in general. But what he said made sense and kind of dove tails with what sheperdwong said when you think of the principals being analagous to managers when it comes to schools. Now I am not saying he is the final word on it but I am just saying that as a veteran educator with over 30 years in he thinks while she may have the best of intentions she is going about it all wrong.

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Well, about memorization. You are correct, there is no other way learn multiplication tables. Aside from that, a good memory is essential to good academics — that should be obvious, even aside from the fact that a child with a good memory is also a good test taker. Having to memorize, say, the Gettysberg Address in grade school not only increases the understanding of its meaning, but also is a method of training the brain biologically by increasing the neural pathways, both in number and efficiency. I wouldn’t say that having to memorize all the properties on a Monopoly board is particularly useful, but knowing the capitals of all the states can come in handy at times. But memorizing even trivial stuff is actually good for brain development.
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Reading to the child from birth, and encouraging early reading, exposing a child to different languages, stimulating them with art and music, all of these forms of brain stimulation are valuable in childhood physiological brain development. And all these activities, research shows, predict a better student than children who haven’t had that kind of stimulation.
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sg,
apparently she is firing principals left and right as well. I think in the Ripley hagiography, there was one school that had five principals during her short tenure. I’m too lazy to go back to find it. Nevertheless, that’s not change one can believe in.
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Thank your uncle for his valuable insights, if you will.

Sq and James- Let’s look at the facts. DC has some of the worst performing school in the country. Some of the administrators have gone to jail for corruption. Things in DC school system have gone terribly bad. Somebody has to be held accountable and things must change dramatically. I put it to you. Who? What? It’s like I’m hearing that nobody has done anything wrong and why would anybody want to change this great system. Or is it just that change is fine as long as we don’t ever touch the teachers or administrators. If it isn’t a problem with some teachers and some administrators, where is it?

jose
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Seriously what in the hell are you talking about? You keep accusing us of saying stuff that none of us have said and then you refuse to answer questions about the stuff YOU have said. You can fight all the strawmen you want but I am not about to fight them with you. When you are ready to cut the bullsh!t and engage in an honest debate of the issues let me know.

“If it isn’t a problem with some teachers and some administrators, where is it?”

If it involves more than three people, it’s cultural.

My last comment on this. I’d said a couple of things earlier, that it’s silly to send a kid who can’t read to a social studies class, and that any effective system has to focus on kids being rewarded for their effort, not teachers or administrators punished for failure.
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I’d said that many kids in urban schools don’t see any benefit to working on their education, mostly because it is hard to see any. Sending illiterates to social studies classes proves to them (and to me) that all this talk of “education” is malarkey. There is some other social goal being served here (warehousing comes to mind), but a system that does this is not focused on education. The schools, and their lives, offer no indication that a high school diploma is going to make any material change. At home, often with a single parent working at a low-wage job with no chance of advancement, it is difficult to see opportunity beyond a low-wage job with no chance of advancement. This is bolstered by the winners of tournament professions like athletics, entertainment and dealing in illegal drugs, who are often the most visible neighborhood successes.
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The flip side of this is what has been described as well motivated students. For them, the benefits of education are constantly reinforced in their well-to-do suburbs. The parents are where they are in part because of their educational attainment. If the kids want to continue living their current lifestyle, they are told they have to do what their parents did. So they have a working example of the benefits of taking a longer view. They are also given proximate goals, and rewards on the way to suburban nirvana. They’re told to study hard in 7th grade english in order to get in the honors class in HS, and then to do well there to get into the AP section, and to do well there to get into the elite university. Early on, they are working in school to please their parents, but the ultimate motivation that holds is self-interest, accurately assessed.
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In Japan or Korea, again, the system is organized around the student’s self-interest. Master the art of memorization, drill, drill, drill and you can get access to the elite track in adult society by passing critical tests of those skills. It happens that those are the same skills tested on international surveys….
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The source of failure of urban schools is the kids accurate perception they are wasting their time, and are being coerced into doing so. This is not a good way to motivate kids. Sure, parents involvement can fix this. Superteachers can help some kids. But the system design is not primarily to educate. It’s to house and socialize. This is evident, for example, in the lack of aggressive, early, remedial programs in basic literacy and numeracy.
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Are teachers to blame for this? Certainly not. They are being asked to do something impossible at relatively low (nobody seems to take into account all that vacation time) wages. Are administrators? I suppose that depends on what you mean by “administrator.” The society decided to tolerate a system where children move in a ladder of “grades” without terribly much attention to attaining basic skills. Somebody designed and administers that overall system design, I suppose.
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This isn’t a result of not enough testing or not enough merit pay. It’s a result of a system that is not designed correctly, at very basic levels, in these schools. This may be an artifact of absence of real opportunity in the society as a whole–that for some groups of people a high school degree, even a real one, doesn’t in fact do you much good. But you can change all the teachers, bust the union, replace all the administrators, fire half the support staff, double teacher salaries, (most laughably) hire young ivy league grads, but it won’t make any difference as long as the system is incorrectly designed.

I was absolutely floored about Rhee’s comment on creativity. I know that reading is important, but how about using creative ways to teach our students. I work in a system that pushes rigor and relevance, based on Bloom’s taxonomy-and guess what?????? Creativity and exploration, judging and evaluation is in the tops of the taxonomy. Maybe she should work with teachers, let them know her expectations, and give them a chance to meet them! Blaming teachers is not the answer….
We can coach and push ‘higher order thinking skills’ but teaching students to think and answer in a ‘higher order thinking’ manner cannot be taught in a 7.5 hour day-not with all the other things you have to do.
And yes, bulletin boards are REQUIRED-they are to be educational and informative-yet, she makes her snide comments about that as well. Educational aides no longer work on bulletin boards-they work one on one with students. Many of us stay hours after school to complete the work that has to be done. Don’t get me wrong-I absolutely love my job! I am excited about teaching, look forward to seeing my students and do the best that I can do-I just couldn’t imagine working for someone who wouldn’t work with me or support me in anyway, and that is the impression Rhee gives off. I am gratefully bless for my school system-as a teacher and a parent!

I came late to this discussion, but I still wanted to comment.

I started teaching as a TFA teacher, and I loved it. I changed my career plans (law school, of course), got a masters in education, and taught for 12 years. I am currently a staff developer because I have two young kids, and I don’t want to bring home the vast quantities of work I used to do as a classroom teacher. (I am planning to go back to the classroom when my kids are both in school.) I am in NYC and have seen Joel Klein’s programs firsthand. All in all, I have a lot of personal experience with the issues discussed, and I wanted to add my opinion — for what it’s worth.

First, about TFA and Michelle Rhee’s background… I have to say that Linda Darling-Hammond isn’t necessarily an unbiased source when it comes to TFA. She has hated the program since it started and has worked as hard as she can to discredit it with whatever facts and figures she can come up with. On the other hand, I would definitely agree about the “cult-like” mentality of TFA, especially its emphasis on test scores. I have worked with many TFA teachers over the years, both as a colleague and as a staff developer, and my experience has been mixed. Some TFA teachers flounder, some are absolutely brilliant, and most are pretty good. I would say that by and large, TFA teachers are known as hard workers and as people who catch on quickly to what needs to be done. The advantage of the program is that it can select for people who are persistent, work hard, and know their material. The disadvantage is that many of these people leave after two years — just when they are starting to learn the craft of teaching. Part of this problem is due to the program’s short term nature, and part of it is due to the flaws of the school system — in one school where I taught, TFA teachers were staying, but when the administration changed (for the worse), there was a mass exodus. Overall, I think TFA is a positive influence in education, but it’s not going to turn around the educational system.

About the “business” approach to education.. Whoever said that we need a scientific approach to education, rather than a business approach to education was right on target. What troubles me about TFA, about Joel Klein, and about Michelle Rhee is this unrelenting emphasis on test scores — because they are easily measurable. As a teacher, I just don’t buy that scores are a good measure of overall performance. I have seen kids who are doing pretty well in school bomb multiple choice tests, and I have seen kids who can barely read get a “passing” score on the same tests. There is a wide variety in the quality of standardized tests as well. In NY, grades 3, 5, and 7 take a mostly multiple choice test in language arts, while grades 4, 6, and 8 take a test that includes both short written responses and essays. The longer test is a more accurate measure of overall achievement, but more time-consuming and expensive to score, so it isn’t given to every grade.

Even when the test is fairly good, there are many other influences on test scores than just the teacher. For instance, one year I had one class early each day and the other at the end of the afternoon. The morning class did much better on their tests because they were more focused and accomplished more work than the other class. Another year, the other teachers on my team were all first year teachers. They were great people, but they were learning the ropes and discipline suffered — even in my class. My kids’ scores didn’t go up the way they usually do. The following year, I shared my class with one other teacher. We were both experienced, very structured, and really challenged the kids. Unsurprisingly, their test scores went up. Even more important, because we were really TEACHING, the kids learned a lot of content and thinking skills. They wrote essays about stem cell research, they created models of objects from ancient Egypt, they wrote and acted out a dramatic version of a novel we had read together, they wrote mysteries, they discussed books in book clubs, and on, and on… Perhaps a teacher focusing more on test preparation could have gotten them better test scores, but I think the academic rigor would have suffered.

In NYC under Joel Klein (who so admires Michelle Rhee), I have seen some positive changes. There is more and better staff development, at least as long as the funding is still available. There is more of a standardized curriculum; in the past, people were more likely to teach whatever they felt like, and now, people work together towards common curriculum goals. However, there are significant negatives too. There is a massive, massive, massive amount of teaching to the test. I know part of this is because of NCLB, but part of it is also because some schools are starting to receive bonus payments based on test scores. The situation has gotten to the point that real instruction is crowded out for most of the year (until about March) when most of the tests are finished. The schools get caught in a downward spiral — the kids aren’t doing well, so the teachers do test prep instead of real teaching; the kids get further behind, so the following year’s teachers must also do test prep instead of real teaching, and so on. There is also massive overkill on paperwork and documentation. Teachers are required to put together assessment binders with data for each student. Obviously it’s important to assess kids regularly, but in the schools where I work, these binders go way beyond what’s necessary for teachers to know their students — in fact, they spend so much time providing required data that it interferes with their lesson planning. To me, this is a much more significant waste of time than creating an attractive classroom environment (with educational bulletin boards).

Certainly, there are inadequate teachers in DC, but they aren’t the entire problem. My husband is from England, and he taught there in an inner-city school for 6 years (mid to late 90s). The government was instituting a new teacher improvement program called Offstead, and they were focusing on the inner-city schools. There was a lot of pressure put on the teachers, many reforms — some positive and some negative, and performance did improve. Then the government started looking at teachers in more privileged areas. What they found was that the inner-city teachers were actually providing MORE value-added per student than many of the teachers in the more privileged areas. It’s just that the inner-city kids faced such significant issues that their scores weren’t reaching the same level.

There’s a lot of research out there about the deficit that at-risk kids have even by the time they enter kindergarten. I’m thinking of two studies in particular. One was by Shirley Brice (sp?) Heath in the 60s or 70s, showing that there was a huge differential in the amount of language that pre-schoolers are exposed to in “at-risk” homes and “professional homes.” By the time kids enter school, the gap in language experience is already huge. I don’t remember the author of the other study, but basically, the researchers supplied “at-risk” homes with some of the toys, games, and books that would typically be found in a “professional” home (shape sorters, puzzles, Good Night Moon, etc..) and they had grandma-types from the community visit the home and show the mom and kid how to play with the objects together. They followed the kids, and they had graduation rates, etc. that were equivalent to kids from middle class homes. What these studies say to me is not that the schools should get a free pass because “these kids can’t be educated,” but that we need to look more at early childhood education and not just keep blaming the teachers over and over.

Overall, I have to say I’m skeptical about Michelle Rhee. I’m glad that she wants kids in DC to get a good education, and she’s right that it’s a crime that it’s not happening. But it’s all too easy to bash the teachers and not look at the big picture. And I don’t think anyone can turn the system around without looking at the big picture.

I’m no specialist in Education, nor am I a teacher. I am just a new sinle resident of DC with a 14 year old teen. My son attends McKinley Tech. I can only tell you what I see. I see an incredibly responsive Chancellor. I see her attempting to solve problems that have been allowed to fester in this city for decades. I see principles with a geniunie interest in creating a challenging atmosphere that will provide the opportunity for children to achieve their best. What else do I see… more parents than enough that show very little interest in the institutions in which their children learn in. I see an disconnect between the teachers, administration and parents that is vital to the success of any school. I also see people who have their children in private school telling those of us struggling with children in the public school system…what we “should” do to fix the problem. I see a plethora of people who have no real vested interest in the success of the Washington DC public school system going on and on regarding quantitative evidence that “it’s not working”. We are a society that wants to see immediate changes. Well DC didn’t become one of the worst school systems in one year and it won’t become one of the best in one year either. If more people would just show up in the public schools. If more teachers would let down their guards and give each new group of parents a clean slate to work with… if our society would get behind someone with innovative and unconventional ideas on how to move a school system out of the red… if, if, if. I support Chancellor Rhee. I believe she had my son’s best interest at heart. I belive she cares more about the children than she cares about all the nay-sayers and pessimist. Experts are coming out of the woodwork…where were all of you before she entered office?