Barry,
Almost positive Rendell stepped aside. But more importantly, I don't know that they got it for cheap. I think this is a terrible business to be in. Maybe at 60 million, the (declining) revenues they get can support the debt.

ah, I didn't know he was out now. regardless Norcross has his hand in a few different bowls so I'm not really pleased with the sale. the initial rumors were that they were getting it at a discounted rate, essentially because of who they are. I don't know if that's still true.

jerseyhoya wrote:Democratic Mayors Challenge Teachers Unions in Urban Political Shift

Get um

Good.

It would be hard to overstate how much of an obstacle teachers' unions are to true education reform, how clearly and blatantly they've put the interests of their worst members over those of children. Even Weingarten admits it in that article--and she was the worst when she was here.

I give the Democratic mayors all the credit in the world for putting real education gains over their short-term political benefit. I'm terrified that Bloomberg will be replaced in 2014 by some Democratic machine hack who will give away the store. The hopefuls are already lining up to slurp the UFT.

You'd be surprised by how many good teachers feel the same way. The good ones would gain by merit pay and other reforms.

Barry Jive wrote:Rendell is involved too. I hate this. They got it for cheap.

I disagree. It didn't exactly turn out to be a great investment for the current owners. It's a big gamble for the new owners. The papers could very easily go belly up within a couple years.

Why not just set up a way for bad teachers to be reviewed and fired? Trashing the unions would end their bargaining rights, which any teacher in TN will tell you is needed. Talk to teachers in the south who worked before the unions down there. And merit pay programs don't work. Don't believe me, do some research on it. And they certainly don't work the way they were set up in TN. Teachers at bad schools look better than they are and teachers at good schools look worse. To wit, my old school district regularly scores best or next to best in the state, but they scored very badly on the tests when using the new system. Meanwhile, teachers in bad schools scored comparatively well. It was used as a way to knock down salaries in areas where the teachers make more.

I agree the tenure process is a sham, but don't throw out the baby with the bathwater. Do you really think conservative states wouldn't use it as a way to gut teacher's salaries? Fix the problem, don't kill bargaining rights, imo.

Monkeyboy wrote:Why not just set up a way for bad teachers to be reviewed and fired? Trashing the unions would end their bargaining rights, which any teacher in TN will tell you is needed. Talk to teachers in the south who worked before the unions down there. And merit pay programs don't work. Don't believe me, do some research on it. And they certainly don't work the way they were set up in TN. Teachers at bad schools look better than they are and teachers at good schools look worse. To wit, my old school district regularly scores best or next to best in the state, but they scored very badly on the tests when using the new system. Meanwhile, teachers in bad schools scored comparatively well. It was used as a way to knock down salaries in areas where the teachers make more.

I agree the tenure process is a sham, but don't throw out the baby with the bathwater. Do you really think conservative states wouldn't use it as a way to gut teacher's salaries? Fix the problem, don't kill bargaining rights, imo.

I'm not saying to dismantle teachers unions; I'm for workers having protection against arbitrary punishment and dismissal. And I understand the problems in determining "merit." But the unions so clearly approach the public school system from the perspective that it's designed to serve the interests of the adults who teach in it rather than the children who are supposed to learn from it. They use the difficulties involved in measuring as something close to an all purpose excuse to resist accountability. They point to contract provisions as reasons not to engage in professional development opportunities. At their very worst--and we've seen a lot of this in NYC recently--they make it difficult to keep predators and abusers out of the classroom; like the Catholic Church, they push to have offenders reassigned and then obscure their records.

The public education system in the country has so much wrong with it. From the perspective of someone who now works within it, by and large I see much more willingness to acknowledge the problems and try new solutions on the part of policymakers, business leaders, philanthropists and parents and students themselves than on the part of the union. That even Randi Weingarten now acknowledges as much is very telling to me.

well, I certainly agree with finding ways to fix those listed problems. I believe, however, that most teachers would support those things and finding ways to get solutions. Yeh, in any work environment, people resist change. Try to change any entrenched system and you'll get the same thing. But there have also been a lot of cities where teachers have voted to try new things like merit pay and the results just aren't there. So why do something that doesn't work? Gains are small and short-lived. I would prefer trying other ways, such as recruiting better teachers. As for PDs, I'm not aware of any school district that doesn't require some PD hours each year. The problem is the PDs are usually worthless, so people don't even want to try things, especially since 2 years later you'll be told to try something else. My district in TN had us rewite the curriculum standards every district PD in the two years I was there. We did it 3 times and lost countless hours that would have been better spent improving instruction.

I'm probably alone, but I think the problem is mostly cultural. Look at the nations that succeed and they are nations where education is pushed by society and is seen as imperative. Our education system is constantly attacked and the kids aren't buying into it and neither are their parents. Absolutely the teachers can do more, but I see it as a problem stretched across society, with every group doing their part to muck it up.

Also, I think there's good evidence that some people can teach and some cannot. It doesn't change much with interventions. So that's why I think we need to do a better job getting the right people. There are a lot of well-meaning teachers out there who bust their asses and don't get the results.

But I do agree that some unions are out of hand and need to be reigned in when it comes to tenure and some other issues.

MB, where I'm pretty sure we agree is on the need for dramatic change in the culture of teaching. I'm sure you've seen the statistics about what kinds of college students go into education in countries like Singapore and Finland as opposed to the good old US of A. The profession seems to be more of a true profession in those places; teachers are respected, and that respect manifests in many different ways. The best and the brightest go into that field.

I'd like to see teachers paid much more, receive more intensive support at the outset of their careers, and then be evaluated by different stakeholders including peers, administrators, parents and students. The screening process now, such as it is, pushes about half of them out within the first 3-5 years. But I don't think it's the "worst teachers" who leave, just those who either decide it's not worth the blood, sweat and tears... many of whom probably come to that conclusion realizing that their talents would allow them to make more money with less effort in other fields. Those left are either the most committed, or else the ones who figure it'll get easier and it's worth it to have summers off and the union protections.

Let the good ones make six figures by the time they've been doing it for a decade; let the bad ones find something else to do with their lives. The problem I suppose is that if you started pushing out "the bad ones" too quickly, you simply wouldn't have enough teachers.

Ya know what else doesn't work, monkeyboy? Leaving things well enough alone as you and the unions want to do. Merit pay can work, there's not enough evidence in as of yet nor has "the best system" been devised yet. But when we all agree that merit pay is the only path forward (and make no mistake, you're not going to get to free ride off the better teachers at your school forever, I mean that metaphorically since you're no longer a relevant stakeholder as you've left to teach rich kids in Switzerland), then all that's left to do is to figure out the best way to determine merit.

But what we know, what we KNOW, is that the current way by the unions has been tried and has failed. Unions need to get out of the fucking way.

The thing about merit pay is that it assumes that the people in the classroom could do a better job if they were properly motivated. But I doubt that's really true. And I suspect that having an advanced degree in "education" doesn't really makes much difference either. (Is there data on this?)

I do however think merit based system that applied to an entire school might have a chance.

Then there's dumb stuff--our local school district has spent a lot of money on ipads and smart boards. Is there evidence that these things really improve outcomes? What happens when the district doesn't really spend money on software, but instead relies on free apps? Apparently though they keep the kids quiet.

Great read there, jerz, and I couldn't agree with dajafi more on this. Kids should be the #1 priority, not entrenched teachers' careers. It's amazing how teachers are treated like rock stars in countries like south Korea. They literally have their own tv shows. Politicizing this and making it a partisan issue means the kids are ultimately the losers

TenuredVulture wrote:The thing about merit pay is that it assumes that the people in the classroom could do a better job if they were properly motivated. But I doubt that's really true. And I suspect that having an advanced degree in "education" doesn't really makes much difference either. (Is there data on this?)

What you're saying, Paul, is that the people who are in place right now might not be motivated by money, correct? I don't necessarily disagree with that. I mean, if love of money was a big characteristic, they'd not be teaching. But if we elevated teacher salary across the board, we might attract better teachers. But I'm not going to be in favor of that with the same roster of teachers, we need to ruthlessly weed out the bad ones.

Opposition claims historic sweep in Myanmar elections. Article makes it pretty clear that there's a long, long way to go there but still neat.

I'm in the process of writing my term paper, so if anyone can point me in the direction of a succinct summary of the PPACA or of the Supreme Court challenge and possible ramifications of it being struck down I would love you forever.

That's like 100 different things. What is your paper about and what do you need specifically?

Its about health care and state and local governments. I can't really write that without making a good chunk of the paper about the ACA though so I'm going to tie it back in by laying out the consequences for state governments if it is struck down.

The Nightman Cometh wrote:I'm in the process of writing my term paper, so if anyone can point me in the direction of a succinct summary of the PPACA or of the Supreme Court challenge and possible ramifications of it being struck down I would love you forever.

Wikipedia is a good place to start. Don't stop there though.

dajafi wrote:A quantum theory of Mitt Romney

(teehee)

The famous “Schrödinger’s candidate” scenario. For as long as Mitt Romney remains in this box, he is both a moderate and a conservative.





A Feynman diagram of an encounter between a Romney and an anti-Romney. The resulting collision annihilates both, leaving behind a single electron and a $20 bill.

The Nightman Cometh wrote:Its about health care and state and local governments. I can't really write that without making a good chunk of the paper about the ACA though so I'm going to tie it back in by laying out the consequences for state governments if it is struck down.

I haven't read anything that stands out in my mind in being a particularly good summary on a state regulations/finances/whatever. Wikipedia has links to sources. A google search of ACA impact on state government appears to return a number of promising results.