Teaching

Arne Duncan let me down.

I want him to save the world, and he hasn't done it yet. I listened to him before he was installed as Secretary of Education. It was just a bunch or rhetoric and I understood that's all he could do at the time as he wasn't in the position yet. I was mildly hopeful that he would... well... try.

Now, I heard him again after he's been in the job for 6 months. He's an 8th of the way into his term, and it's still the same rhetoric I heard from him before. He says he's making progress, but then cites the things he did before he was in the office. He cites stimulus monies, which were not of his doing and he couldn't make it happen again if he wanted to. Everything he cited was garbage. He was in charge of Chicago's schools for a while. He continued to talk about this experience as if it was still applicable. I could now, at this point, care less about what he did back then. The scale of one city and one nation are so vastly different that I was really sick of him trying to make comparisons between the two. There is no experience that would prepare him for this position, and I want to know what he's done in this position, not referencing what he did in the past. I could take the job and give the same garbage about what I did before I was in the job. I haven't been this mad at my computer in a while. We just have to "try hard" and "try hard" and "try hard" and, finally, "try hard"... It's the old "try hard" magic. It doesn't work with kids, and it won't work with me. Instead of "trying hard," let's "try better." (A discussion of the inefficiencies in our system will be saved for another day.)

I haven't studied all of his appointments, but this appointment stinks of cronyism. President Obama has been friends with this guy for over a decade, a friendship solidified not based on skills running educational institutions but on skills displayed on the basketball court. I really hope he put more effort into choosing him than it appears.

I guess I'm being a little hard on him... He does have a bunch of good ideas. I just want him to do something. He skirted questions about funding all of his ideas, though. I'm disappointed that Diane Ream let him get away with that.

One of the best things that Ron Paul ever said is that we should get rid of a number of federal departments, among them the department of education. I think that's a pretty good idea. The federal government should keep me safe from invasions. They should not have any jurisdiction over or around my school except for guaranteeing equity of access.

Any who...

There are few that agree that teachers shouldn't be paid more... But also that the money would probably be spent better elsewhere. I agree with both points because both can be reasonably argued in most contexts. Arne said that "We can't pay [our good teachers] enough." I have a couple of figures in mind.

But teaching is tougher than it looks. I went up to a parent after school one day who had arranged to meet me. I went up to her and said "hi." She refused to say anything to me. She just stared off and ignored me until her daughter came over and we went into the conference room. And it turned out to be a big waste of my time. It turned out that this parent said to me that she believes her child and she didn't believe me. I do not hold students accountable for who their parents are. I go so far as to try to not even reference a student's siblings as they could read into such statements. We often joke that children are held back by their parent's ineptitude... But it often seems that students will use their parent's attitude and shortcomings to justify their own. I guess I do the same thing from time to time, but it's frustrating from my end.

If I quit teaching at some point, this will be why. I'm not saying I will. I'm not thinking about it now. But I do from time to time. I'm not sure if they're brief moments of sanity or insanity.

I think the best way to make policies and regulations is to create incentives for people to do the right thing. When the government allows banks to leverage 30x, that's a bad incentive. When principals want you to take care of everything yourself and leave them alone, they create perverse incentives. We increase teacher's salaries simply for not getting fired, instead of doing a good job. We have head teachers not because of their leadership skills, but because of their seniority in the department. "Good" teachers simply never send students to the office and don't rock the boat even if it's sinking.

Humbug.

And let me say something about collegiate educations classes: THEY SUCK!!! What's really remarkable about this is that just about everyone agrees. There is not a single teacher in America that thinks that our problems in the classroom could be solved by more collegiate education coursework. At least, I've never met one. I'd love to see a study on this. Maybe I should do it myself!

Oh, and another way we pay teachers more: when they get a master's in education. It'd be like paying a CEO of a bank more for getting a degree in blowing bubbles. I can sign "M.Ed." after my name if I'd like, but I don't. I'm embarrassed at how easy it was to get. (There was a LOT of work I had to do, but it was all just busy work, and thus, easy.) I'm puzzled when people say that they bettered their teaching careers by getting their master's degree in education. Anyone who has been through such a program and honestly sees some benefit from it other than a pay increase that will take more than their careers to make up the difference should not spend time around children.

Or maybe it's because I went to IUP for my grad work. Yeah, that must be it. Those state schools. Good thing that no teachers come from those state schools, right? Huh???

I think that we should be rewarded for the courses we take in our field of study. Let's assume, for the sake of argument, that I'm a competent math teacher. If I got a degree in English, I could also be a competent English teacher. I already have the classroom management techniques, all I would need is the content area knowledge. I would happily hand my class over to an English teacher who got a math degree. Unfortunately, many teachers don't have degrees in their field of study. Many graduating math teachers now have math education degrees, not math degrees. What does this mean? Students who are preparing to be math teachers are taking more education classes (not effective) and less math courses (bad also).

But the crisis at my school is not content knowledge, it is classroom management. You can go down any hall in my school and see kids with their iPods in, ignoring the directions their teachers are giving. You'll see honors classes that give out enough bonus points to change grades by more than a letter. You'll see remedial teachers bargain away any leverage they have over their students to maintain some sense of order, with any possible learning lost being the cost. And you'll see it all around the country. There's nothing especially special about my school in this regard. Every school has their good teachers and their bad.

And they can't reward the good teachers. Rewards are cash... I pay about 10% of what I take home in student loans. If I'm doing a good job, an appropriate reward would change that.

And they can't fire the bad teachers. If you fire a teacher in south central Florida, the position may have to be filled by a permanent sub, especially if it's in a critical needs area like math, science, English. We had an English position open for most of the year. If anyone who was qualified wanted it, they could have had it. Instead, a permanent substitute was in this class. I'm sure they tried their best... but if I had to teach a college level German literature class, I wouldn't do very well. Not one bit.

Well, this rant must end. It's 1 am and I want to go to early church tomorrow at 8.



Arne Duncan interview

Peace

Dave

P.S. I heart Michelle Rhee