Teachers Are Not The Problem
(The following commentary is called “Reflections” by John Mill. John is a noted free thought advocate and broadcaster. This series airs on my American Heathen® internet radio show. Air Date 09/22/12)
When I was in public grade school, if there ever was any problem between my teachers and me, my parents – without the slightest hesitation – took the side of my teachers. I didn’t like it at the time, but, with the clarity of hindsight, I know they were right: my unionized teachers really had my education as their number one priority and this is what my parents believed. When I later became a high school substitute teacher, and later an adjunct community college professor, I learned for myself that there is simply no way a sane person would suffer the long hours and low public esteem of a teacher without an abiding love of opening and expanding student minds.
I briefly considered making education my career. But I never lost my respect for education and educators. Even when the Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) went on strike September 10.
Recent editorializing in the Washington Post and the New York Times falsely claimed the CTU want to keep the status quo in Chicago schools when just the opposite is the truth. Rather than pitting the teachers against their students, in fact the teachers, supported by a majority of informed parents, were striking for the benefit of their students and against the status quo.
You can tell this because every single issue in the CTU strike is a wedge to bring more corporate control to and extract more profit from education. Let’s look at the issues in the strike: merit pay, an expansion of charter schools, teacher and principal assessment systems that are linked to student standardized test scores, a longer school day and job security for veteran teachers – not to mention an increase in music, art, and gym programs available at public schools – and you’ll see a union marching toward better education.
Merit pay based on teacher performance is excellent in the abstract, but how is teacher performance evaluated? It is easy to see that having a great teacher in the classroom will benefit every child. But it does not follow that, if a child fails to learn, that is solely the teacher’s fault. Using student performance on standardized tests to evaluate teachers (or schools) is like using a sobriety test to evaluate your driving skills: you’re getting the drunks off the road, but you’re measuring the wrong thing!
Expansion of charter schools is one solution offered for failing schools. But in 4/5 of cases, charter schools – another name for corporate-controlled schools with selective entrance requirements – are a solution in search of a problem. If charter schools are no better than neighborhood schools, who is pushing them? Watch pro-corporate control, anti-teacher union documentaries, like Waiting for Superman (2010) and Won’t Back Down (2012) and you will see for yourself.
In spite of a long history of teachers and their unions fighting for better school funding, smaller class sizes and increased school resources and facilities, Waiting for Superman casts teachers as villains and charter schools as the saviors of education. And when the filmmakers compare U.S. schools to schools in Finland, they neglect to mention the unionized, tenure-guaranteed teachers and the cradle-to-grave social welfare system there!
This year’s documentary, Won’t Back Down, is a classic bait and switch: professing to favor parent-empowerment with “parent trigger” laws which theoretically turn control of failing schools over to parents, in fact such laws give control of schools to for-profit corporations! The “parent trigger” laws touted in Won’t Back Down are sponsored by the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), among others. You may remember ALEC as the infamous reactionary lobbying group pushing retrograde legislation on conservative members of state legislatures.
Teacher and principal assessment systems that are linked to student standardized test scores proposes a solution that doesn’t fit any problem. Even the makers of standardized tests agree. The media discussion of failing schools has been narrowed to issues of teacher quality, as if that is the only factor in student performance. As long as the media talk only about teacher quality, and measure that with student test scores, we can blame and punish teachers, cut their salaries, increase their class sizes and restrict their collective bargaining rights. As long as the media talk only about teacher quality, corporate-backed education reformers can lay on their business model of education and suck taxpayer money into corporate coffers – even while achieving palpably paltry outcomes.
Student achievement does not spring from a vacuum: there are significant environmental factors influencing performance, such as poverty, homelessness, crime and other social issues. These are beyond the teacher’s control. Standardized assessment regimes compel teachers to “teach to the test” or lose their jobs. And who do you think creates and sells these standardized tests to the schools? Huge corporate testing companies such as ACT Inc, ETS and College Board, who average $62 million profit in a single year (2007)!
The line the corporate education reformers use as a whip against the Chicago teachers and their fellow professionals across the country is, “Let us just get rid of a few bad teachers and everything will be fine.” It’s a major PR achievement making teachers look greedy and billionaires look altruistic! Sure, Chicago teachers make more money than the low-income parents whose children they teach (in fact, so do most of the corporate media journalists who covered the strike). But teachers are highly educated professionals with a serious responsibility.
Teachers deserve respect, not derision. If they are protected from being fired for reasons unconnected with job performance (tenure), that is a good thing. If they make good money, that’s another measure of respect. Teachers are not the problem. They don’t teach because they make a lot of money, they teach because they make a lot of difference.
September 22, 2012 at 11:31 pm
Great read, I’m grateful for the sources you provided. I have been inspired time and again by my teachers. I’ve had teachers that went above and beyond, and others that barely met the curriculum requirements. I don’t see a solution that covers all situations; there are just too many variables to a good education. Honestly, I think the measure of teachers could just come from parents asking their kids “So what did you learn at school today”.
September 23, 2012 at 5:25 am
I was asked that by my parents all the time. Sounds like a great measure!
September 24, 2012 at 9:23 am
The problem is that America does not truly value or support high-quality education. It all begins with the fact that modern mothers’ are too busy and stressed to get involved with their children’s education because they must now work outside of the home for the family to survive financially. It continues with politicians who say they are all about creating a favorable business environment by cutting taxes and the size of government, but fail to listen to the business community which says their number one need is an educated, skilled work force. And it’s hurting America financially because we must now either compete with China, India, and Mexico for low-skill jobs at third-world pay or with western Europe and Japan for high-skill jobs which we are not properly educated to complete for.
Despite all the propaganda and deception, how to create a high-quality school system is not difficult to figure out.
First, the best teachers come from educating and training a dedicated cadre of professionals (masters and PHDs degrees are preferred), and then paying them a salary equivalent to their worth. This is not cheap. But if you think education is expensive, try ignorance!
Second, these teachers must be matched with class of students throughout their entire 1st through 12th grade schooling. This way, each teach is intimately familiar with each student. Understands their strengths, weaknesses, needs, etc. It’s hard to have an adversarial relationship with your teacher in the 12th grade, when he/she has been a parental figure almost your entire life!
Third, a student who struggles must be given intensive one-on-one tutoring.
Fourth, the parents, school board, and administration must fully support items one through three.
That’s pretty much it.
Basic, functional school facilities are important too (i.e., busing, air conditioning, heating. lighting, etc., sufficient to eliminate distractions), but they pale in comparison to these other factors. There’s no need to spend outrageous sums of money on stadiums, technology, or window dressing. Return that money back into teacher training and salaries.
Our higher education system of colleges and universities is still the best in the world. However, never-ending cutbacks of state funding and skyrocketing tutiion is pushing this out of the reach of the middle class. This penny wise and pound foolish! I’ll save that for another day.
September 24, 2012 at 10:46 am
I completely agree with you. Those are all very excellent points. I do feel that better qualified teachers could be enticed with better pay, and the money doesn’t need to come from higher tuition. Just as you eluded to with stadiums, it seems as if much of the spending in schools is done frivolously. We spend so much money on schools for ideas or programs that end up going no where. The truths of effective education, which I believe you outlined well, have not changed, but the Government seems to think there are short-cuts with money.
September 30, 2012 at 12:23 pm
@Bobby Prentice: The sole responsibility of a child’s education falls on the mother? Dads are free to step in and help as well! Modern mothers might have a job outside the house because they WANT to be professionals, they want to put their college education (masters, PHDs, etc) to work, they want to be able to have a career in case of divorce or the death of a spouse, because being financially independent is an ADULT responsibility. Women working outside the home is NOT the problem. Men need to change diapers, check homework, meet with teachers, sign school paperwork, take off work to drive the kids to the doctor, etc. Other than breast feeding (and maybe science will correct for this someday), there is nothing that a man can’t do on the child-rearing front. Also, couples need to be honest with themselves about their ability to parent and being childless by choice, or just having one child, is also an option.