Monday, August 13, 2012
MORE BALONEY FROM ARNE DUNCAN: schools and skilled workers
Is that really what U.S. educators should be concerned about? Let's do a reality check. In the first place these complaining small business owners might be able to find the talent they want if the wages they offer are competitive. Then there is a far more basic issue that becomes crystal clear as soon as we look at a particular skilled job like computer programming. This technical specialty used to be a bright spot in the employment market. There were lots of jobs. Now American programmers are being laid off. But not because they don't have needed skills or can't do the job. No, they are being pink slipped because U.S. employers now are permitted to import much cheaper help from third world places such as India.
Skilled labor is being imported from India and causing Americans to lose their jobs? Yes, believe it or not, a U.S. government program, pushed through Congress by corporate lobbyists to ease a bogus shortage of domestic programmers, is causing skilled Americans to be pink slipped. "Patriotic" businesses like Bank of America are replacing them with cheap help brought in on work permits. (Bank of America isn't completely heartless, though. They're not terminating their American talent immediately. They get to train their foreign replacements first — or lose their severance package if they refuse.)
So, while hand-wringing politicians like Arne point an accusing finger at America's schools for not training specialists, Congress has been busy enabling the firing of American specialists in favor of imported third worlders.
And let's not forget outsourcing. Previously, only back-office business processes were being outsourced to foreign lands. Now knowledge processes also are being moved offshore by "American" multinational corporations who have as much patriotism as mosquitoes have conscience. And not only has Congress been indifferent to this outsourcing, it actually has made it more profitable.
Pray tell Arne, what is the point of preparing kids for jobs that will end up in the hands of cheap imported labor or be off-shored? You've got it all wrong. U.S. schools should not be preparing kids to be knowledge workers. There are lots of bright, highly skilled people in the third world who are eager to do that work a whole lot cheaper. U.S. schools should be preparing kids to be home health aids, truck drivers, security guards, retail clerks and the like, because these sorts of jobs will soon be the only ones left for Americans.
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Friday, August 10, 2012
WE NEED 2ND RATE TEACHER PREPARATION
U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan asserts that many, if not most, of the nation's teacher preparation programs are second-rate. He says that they attract inferior students and weak faculty. Plus he charges that colleges and universities use them as "cash cows," bleeding off the revenues they generate.
But at the same time Mr. Duncan makes these charges, he praises alternative quickie routes into teaching. Of course logic demands that if teacher education lacks rigor, it should be made tougher. Yet Mr. Duncan has been doing the exact opposite. In addition to pushing quick and easy routes into teaching, he has even classifies interns as "highly qualified teachers" under No Child Left Behind. Surely this is the first time in history that rank beginners have been classified as experts. One is reminded of Orwell's 1984 where love is hate and war is peace.
If Duncan really wanted to fix teacher preparation he would declare war on weak state teacher certification requirement, denounce easy routes into teaching and publicly denounce colleges that treat teacher education as a cash cow. Then he would demand the abolition of undergraduate teacher certification programs in favor of professional graduate schools of education modeled on the training required by real professions.
Sadly, given the present benefits of being a teacher, it remains necessary to continue making entry into the occupation cheap and easy. No one in their right mind would pay higher costs only to end up underpaid, under-appreciated and scape-goated by purile politicians. This is why, at least when it comes to teacher preparation, Duncan will just keep tinkering around the edges.
For more on this go to: http://www.newfoundations.com/Clabaugh/CuttingEdge/Tinkering.html
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Monday, August 6, 2012
SCHOOL PRAYER: Politics vs Reality
Friday, August 3, 2012
PUSHING RELIGION IN PUBLIC SCHOOLS: the payoffs
Wednesday, August 1, 2012
NRC'S REPORT ON TESTING: is it trustworthy?
Phelps maintains that his own ten year long examination of over 3,000 different research projects on testing clearly reveals that the NRC's report is biased and ignores a century of research on standardized testing and accountability.
AFFIRMING DIVERSITY: are you serious?
Professor Nieto urges educators to "affirm diversity?" She tells them that "cultural, ... differences can and should be accepted, respected, and used as a basis for learning and teaching." At first blush, that sounds good. We can learn much from one another. But for the professors prescription to work, it requires every culture to be tolerant of the practices and values of every other culture. Trouble is, in the real world cultures often clash. And, more specifically, many clash with cultures like ours, that have been heavily influenced by the renaissance and humanism.
Let's imagine Professor Nieto teaching in Saudi Arabia and following her own prescription. She not only accepts and respects all religious points of view, but makes affirming their right to exist a basis for all her teaching. What do you think her fate would be? And before you decide, consider that in 2005, a Saudi teacher cautiously suggested that Jews and the New Testament could be viewed positively. He was not only fired, but sentenced to 750 lashes and sent to prison. (He was eventually pardoned, but only following intense international protests.)
Also, let's not forget that cultures sometimes define themselves, at least in part, by their rejection of, hatred of, and aggression toward other cultures? For instance, if we really want to affirm diversity how shall we incorporate a culture that practices hatred toward homosexuals. Even puts them to death? Consider the Iranian couple who were accused of having premarital sex. They were sentenced to death, buried up to their necks, then stoned to death by enthusiastic participants. Shall we affirm that sort of diversity? Or how about cultures that condone selling one's own daughter into prostitution, throwing battery acid in the face of girls who merely want to go to school, hiring amateurs to carve out the clitoris of little girls with razor blades, forbidding female's inclusion in wills, inflicting women with second rate legal standing, ad naseum? Should these differences be accepted, respected, and used as a basis for learning and teaching?
Tuesday, July 31, 2012
FEDERAL SCHOOL OFFICIAL'S MEDDLING
Those who abhor NCLB may view its death by waiver as grounds for celebration. But that is overly optimistic. While Arne Duncan and company are quietly dumping some of NCLB's more preposterous requirements well before the law's 2014 drop-dead-date, they are not backing off from their more general stance of officiously telling state and local school people what to do.
Therein lies the problem. Federal school officials are neither wise enough, nor well-informed enough to take this stance. Confined to the Olympian heights of our nation's capital, these politicians and bureaucrats are so far removed from local realities that their persistent meddling provides little but comic relief. Nevertheless, like the party apparatchiks who crafted the former Soviet Union's ridiculously optimistic Five Year Plans, they persist in imposing still more "reforms."
Most of these new impositions will disintegrate into farce in the face of day-to-day realities. But before they do they will distract and dismay thousands of competent educators. The only good this federal tinkering is really likely to accomplish is keeping state school officials too busy to develop "reforms" of their own.
Meanwhile the best government money can buy will persist in allowing, even creating, the social and economic conditions that breed school failure like garbage breeds rats.
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Friday, July 27, 2012
HOME FORECLOSURES AND SCHOOLING FAILURES
Saturday, July 21, 2012
THE CHARTER SCHOOL GRAVY TRAIN
Wednesday, July 11, 2012
NO CHILD LEFT BEHIND: solemn but never serious
No Child Left Behind seems to be quietly fading away. Since Congress cannot, or will not, reform this reform, President Obama is killing it off with waivers. Do this and that and we'll let you sidetrack NCLB.
I, for one, am not surprised. I never took NCLB seriously. The very name of the act indicates a preposterous goal. Given the resources available to schools and all the non-school factors that impact educational success, achieving this goal would require altering the whole of American society.
No Child Left Behind indeed. Such a goal is plainly preposterous. How, then, was it arrived at? The late Paul Goodman noted that Americans are solemn about schooling but seldom serious. And there isn't a better example of that than this preposterously ambitious "reform."
Imagine applying a similarly ridiculous goal to something we take seriously — let's say professional baseball. No Team Left Behind. We all know that to be successful in baseball requires a delicate balance of defensive and offensive capabilities. We also know that putting such a balance together requires resources. To get a first-rate pitcher you either need a ton of money or you have to trade a first-rate something else. Trying to get a twenty game winner by trading your utility infielder would get you laughed out of the game. Baseball is serious business.
Politicians dabbling in school reform, on the other hand, settle for merely being solemn. They hatch plans so simplistic it is embarrassing to rebut them. Let's remember some previous solemn "educational reform"goals. For example, that the United States must lead the world in science and mathematics education by the turn of the century? Well here we are twelve years after that due date and nothing of that sort has happened. Instead, the whole imperative was quietly shelved in favor of leaving not one single child behind. Why? Because no one was seriously committed to gaining this preeminence to begin with. It was just political theater.
No Child Left Behind is like that. The enormously complex tasks required to even approach this ridiculously ambitious goal were never even laid out. Worse, the prodigious resources required were not even been brought up for serious discussion.
Is this an exaggeration? Consider that NCLB requires that all teachers be "highly qualified." But actually achieving that goal required major, and expensive, changes that none of these solemn politicians were prepared to back. So, by time of the Obama administration, this solemn goal had turned into a laughable farce as thousands of teacher interns, rank beginners mind you, were placed in that category. Beginners as "highly qualified." What could be less serious?
In the fulness of time NCLB will be gathering dust with all the many other solemn, but not serious, reforms of yesteryear. But because of the disruption it has spawned, this particular bit of political theater will have so disassembled public schooling that, like Humpty Dumpty, we will never be able to put it together again.
For a more detailed consideration see www.newfoundations.com/Clabaugh/CuttingEdge/Serious.html
Tuesday, June 26, 2012
TEACHER ACCOUNTABILITY PROBLEMS
That is because teachers typically do not control all, or, in some cases, even most, of the things that influence these test scores. Teachers do not control the effort students put into learning, for instance. Sure, a skilled teacher can increase the motivation of some students and hopefully, as a result, increase their effort. But even the most skillful teacher cannot motivate every student to do his or her best — or even just try. This is especially true if one teaches in a school that serves a community torn apart by violence, unemployment, poverty, drug addiction, dysfunctional families, etc. Even the most skillful teaching cannot reach kids who are sufficiently scared, angry, impoverished, malnourished, high, drunk, neglected, or abused to care about school.
Teachers do not control the general school climate not the amount of backing they get from central administration and the building principal when it comes to maintaining the discipline necessary for learning.Teachers do not control the overall physical condition of the school nor the degree of clerical support they receive. Teachers do not control the amount of time they are required to spend on non-instructional tasks; nor do they control how fairly students with instruction disrupting problems are distributed. Teachers often do not control which teaching materials are chosen nor the fairness with which they are parceled out. Teachers typically do not control the equity of room assignments with some getting stuck in classrooms that are ovens while others are in freezers.
Most important of all, teachers cannot control the quality of parenting kids go home to. Are those parents supportive of the teacher's efforts? That is up to the parent(s.) Do they read to their kids, teach them their letters, numbers and colors when they are young? That is up to the parent? Do they even try to set a good example for their youngsters? That is up to the parent.
O.K., you say, but can't all these things be dealt with by only comparing the results achieved by teachers of the same grade in the same school? No, because no two classes are the same. But what about comparing these teachers over several years? Won't that deal with this problem? No it won't. Suppose, for example, 7th grade teacher A gets an unfair share of students with problems because 7th grade teacher B is friends with the secretary who makes up the class rosters. This favoritism could last for many years. Would it be fair to compare their student test scores? Suppose the school secretary does not like first grade teacher A, but is buddies with first grade teacher B? MIght that not determine who gets supplies and photocopying? Suppose the principal does not give teacher A what she needs because she is old and unattractive, while being overly generous with teacher B because she is the young and hot? These sorts of things can also last for years.
Wednesday, March 7, 2012
TEACHER JOB SATISFACTION: AT an all-time low
Monday, February 6, 2012
PREPARING SCHOOL KIDS FOR THE ACTUAL WORLD OF WORK: let's get real
It is very important that school kids learn to admire leaders like “Chainsaw Al” and the world of work he represents. We must create school policies that more thoroughly inculcate Mr. Dunlap’s guiding principle: “The meek shall NOT inherit the earth; and, for sure, they won’t get the mineral rights!” In that spirit we should, for instance, immediately eliminate the socialistic practice of encouraging kids to share in grade school. Kindergarten and first grade teachers, for instance, must stop urging kids to share crayons and require struggle for them instead. Having established that, mandatory coloring assignments should be made and the victors encouraged to sell crayons to those that haven't got them — provided, of course, they can pay. If not, they flunk.
We also must end all this folderol about “inclusion.” Kids in inclusive classrooms sometimes start to help and care for others; and we all know what can happen to a business when that camel get its nose under the tent. End inclusion now!
To enhance profits and boost stock prices, corporate leaders also routinely order “involuntary separation from payroll” — ideally right before employees are eligible for their pensions. This adds appreciably to corporate well-being. Are public schools adequately preparing kids for this corporate reality? No, they most emphatically are not. Otherwise there wouldn't be so much whining about corporate layoffs. Let's really get these kids ready to face the world of work. Let them progress to12th grade; then, just when they are ready to graduate, "right size” the school by imposing “involuntary severance” on a random selection of seniors. Making sure. of course, their accumulated credits are non-transferrable. This will far better prepare future employees for the real world of work.
Well-run corporations also often wet their beak in their employee’s pension funds. Lacking proper school preparation, employees react negatively. So what can schools do to help alleviate that negativity? Encourage students to start school-based savings accounts that also are available to school officials. Then, from time to time, randomly confiscate some kid's money and spent it on school renovations and, of course, luxury goods for school board members. Do this two or three times and you won’t have all this whining and kvetching every time pension funds have to be lightened to fortify the corporate bottom line.
Here's another world of work problem the schools must help end. Corporate execs find it increasingly desirable to ship American jobs abroad. But American workers whine about that. Sometimes they even vote for political candidates who pretend they're going to do something about it. What can be done to get them to be more accepting? The best practice probably would be to export the kids to, say, India, and school them there. That would surely be cheaper, But that's just not practical. So the next best thing is to fire their American teachers and import new ones from one of the emerging nations. India comes immediately to mind. We would save a ton of money and kids who see their teachers displaced by this competition will come to understand the necessity of this sort of free trade when it comes their turn to see their job shipped overseas.
In fairness, public schooling already does already meet some of the fundamental needs of corporate America. After a few years in elementary school, for instance, kids learn they have to go along to get along. That’s really solid preparation for corporate life. Twelve years of public schooling also teaches kids to live with mindless rules, red tape and managerial double talk. This is basic preparation for the world of work and must continue.
In fact, public schooling has been “ahead of the curve” in at least one aspect of world of work preparation. Business only belatedly “densified” their world — that is moving employees out of offices into a warren of public cubicles. Public schools have been even more densified since their inception. The kids have always been on top of one another and the teachers have never had any privacy. So school kids are well prepared for corporate densification. Yes, I know, Covid temporarily messed this up. But even here schools took the lead in working remotely so kids are also prepared for that world of work.
Here's another area where schools are actually ahead of the curve. Corporate bosses have only recently begun to enthusiastically lurch from one management reform fad to another. Happily, reform manias have erupted regularly in public schooling for more than a century. By the time a youngster reaches twelfth grade, he or she has already survived two or three "improvement" crazes. That’s more than enough to prepare them for corporate America.
To examine these and similar issues further, see http://www.newfoundations.com/Clabaugh/CuttingEdge/MsAmerica.html
-- GKC
Saturday, January 14, 2012
THE LITTLE RED MADHOUSE: Should Corporal Punishment Be Revived?
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