Turning Around Troubled Schools

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90% of what Obama has done thus far is way far better than what Bush has done by a long shot. Anything Obama does will never be good enough for the haters out there. Get a life!!!

Obama follower of AL 10:04PM June 08, 2009

Thank goodness the last poster "used to teach", and no longer has the benefit of abusing the children and community. If you like the way teaching is done in the Middle East, then by all means...YOU ARE FREE TO GO! How dare you categorize us parents and place blame on the very hands that fed you while you were employed. You ought to be ashamed, and I hope you are! The problem with Education in California now exists due to Standards that were set by an overacheiving narcissistic group of Napoleons, who care not about the psyche's of the children or the families that live there. Rather than use public education as a tool at which to teach children, they have used it as a way to seek control over the population. It is evident in the two hours worth of homework issued per day, covering subject matter that is set far above what is psychologically feasible for a child to know for his/her age. Teachers do not go into detail on the material in class, leading the parents to "have to" tutor their child after coming home from his/her own job, only to find that the worksheets sent home, are not explanatory of the concept at hand. We have adopted subject matter from around the globe, for which no one book can hold. The teachers have books, and ideas on what they need to cover and teach. Parents have to search the internet in hopes we can get more information or recall the concept to teach the child. Meanwhile, the teacher gets paid and holds the credentials. We get to work our day jobs, come home to tutor our children, and consider it lucky if we get to sit down for a family meal together!

Mom of CA 8:42PM June 08, 2009

Kurt Anderson in a earlier comment indicated that it's the kids and the lack of motivation. I agree with that, but I'm going to go step further. IT'S THE PARENTS. Our social and cultural platforms that we raise our kids on is broken. FIRST, Divorce rates and broken families abound. Raising a child in that environment is already a huge problem. Almost every single child I know from a divorced family has some sort of psychological impairment. Secondly, just turn on your television and you'll see what is raising your children. It's Tila Tequila and her breasts and bi-curious ways, it's rap/hip-hop videos with drugees, gangsters, and prostitutes, and it's "Family Shows" that have sexual content and cool teenagers in Beverly Hills that are more concerned with their Louis Vuiton Bag and Mercedes S Class than they are with their studies. Thirdly, it's the material goods of the American lifestyle kids are into now, not Shakespeare and Mathematical Concepts. Cool cell phones, awesome basketball shoes, and rad cars are what they think about during school. Not studying.
I am going to go further than my friend Kurt and say that Parents and Society here are the problem. Why do Middle Eastern Countries and third world countries in the Balkans able provide a much higher standard of education than the US? Because children their are taught the importance of education and the respect they must show their teachers. IT COMES FROM THE PARENTS AND SOCIETY!!! A teacher is not a babysitter, even though most parents in the US see them that way. They are there just to teach and provide information. What the kids choose to do with that is completely up to them... Can the teachers be strict in schools and assess punishments and consequences? Yes, they can. But when I used to be a teacher, I remember as soon as a punishment for failed behavior was issued, the parents would come to shcool and argue with the teacher and principal. So what does that show the kids, that it is ok to mess around because my mommy or daddy has got my back. I don't need to really do anything in school now but make paper airplanes and pass notes.
Parents can't do this alone, but they are the ones who need to start this. Take away that video game system and cell phone from your kid if they're not bringing in the grades and have behavioral issues. Don't let them watch everything they want on tv (especially MTV). And set parameters. If they don't increase their grades, don't give them the freedom they enjoy. And if they do well, AWARD THEM. These are things that parents must do. Teachers do not have the ability to control, behaviorally, 45 students in a classroom. They are trying to teach an agenda and cannot if they constantly have to work on behavioral issues.
Don't hate on teachers. Parents, stay together in your relationships and DO SOME PARENTING!

Think4Yurself of CA 12:03PM June 07, 2009

I must be missing something...this guy was in charge of Chicago schools and they are still some of the worst schools in the country. Now we expect him to save the American education system. As a former teacher this system needs some new ideas. Arne is not it. There are other districts with a lot better results and ideas. This guy had students going to more affluent areas to try and enroll in school. Is he really the right guy for the job? Or just one the guys who can make Obama's basketball team conplete?

Are you Kidding of IL 9:39PM June 05, 2009

The is categorically untrue. First of all, I know your type. You got into teaching because either A. One or both of your parents are teachers, or B. You thought it would be great to have summers off. Teachers like you are the ones that got canned from the turn-around schools in Chicago. You're not in it to teach, you're in it to collect a check. That's the problem with our education system today, there are too many slackers who thought teaching would be an easy way to get a pention and long summer vacations. Teachiing is one of the most important jobs there is, and is just sad to see the quality of teacher in America deteriorate along with values such as work ethic, loyalty, honesty and integrity. We all can only hope that President Obama gets the support he needs to bring our counrty back on par (at the very least) with the rest of the industrialized wolrd, that we have so steadily been falling behind for the last 20 years.

Ryan Applegate (Realistastic) of FL 5:53AM June 04, 2009

Is this the same guy that axed school choice in DC? The teachers unions own him as much as the UAW owns Obama. What we will see from Duncan is more power and control to the teachers union. And the result, like with GM, will be painfully obvious to all. I'll send my kids to private schools, provided the teachers unions don't outlaw them.

Jerry Horton of NY 10:13AM May 31, 2009

A school is only as good as the kids in it. Motivation can't be given to kids they have to come to class with it. Teachers have to be prepared and enthusiastic to propel those kids forward but it is the kids and by extension their parents who must provide the necessary motivation and self discipline to learn.
I have been teaching for 15 years in all sorts of different places looking for an environment that is conducive to learning. My time in inner city schools was the most frustrating and depressing of my career. The kids thought school was a place to play and do as they pleased. The administrators were a bunch of little Napoleons who themselves were fleeing the classrooms for the relative safety of office jobs where they could dictate terms to the teaching staff. Administrators and politicians blame the teachers for everything that goes wrong. The kids are only held accountable for their actions when serious crimes are committed, if then.
I have since found teaching paradise in the most unusual of places. I now teach in a juvenile justice facility working with 12-18 year olds who are level 6 and 8 felons. I get more done with these kids in one day than I could get done in a week in a public school, and these kids are considered the worst of safety risks. Why can I get all this done? Because they are under constant surveilance with cameras in the classrooms and one or two guards in every room. If a kid becomes disruptive he is removed from the class, given something to work on in his cell, and other tangible consequences are administered. We rarely have any discipline problems because the kids know there are consequences for their actions, and they can't lie their way out of it because everything they do is being recorded.
A bit Orwellian to be sure, but we can't go to Wal-mart, go to a mall, or even go for a drive anymore without being under the constant surveilance of someones camera. Why aren't our classrooms all videoed as well? Discipline problems are the root of our problems in the schools. The kids are not stupid. They will try to get away with whatever they can and if there are no moral or ethical standards enforced in their homes, how do you think they will act in their schools?
Another game changer would be a return to small neighborhood schools where everyone knows everyone else and the kids are close to home. Problem kids rely on anonymity to carry out their malfeasance. In schools of thousands of kids they slip through the cracks of any discipline regime and laugh at the inneffectiveness of the administrators. They then feel empowered to act as they please in the classrooms. Chaos reigns. The kids feel further empowered by threatening to sue a school or a teacher if they don't get their way.
Lets place the blame where it belongs. It's the kids, not all of them, but the ones causing the problems. Deal effectively and forcefully with the ones causing the problems and the rest of them will notice.

Kurt Anderson of FL 9:09AM May 31, 2009

I am not an expert. I have spent the last ten years working for a charter school in Laredo Texas as a principal and a teacher and in the process have a few thoughts about education reform.
1. Smaller is better. If I had a majic wond and could change only one thing in our nations school systems it would be to downsize school size to smaller more personal schools. Schools should be run like restraunts where government regulatons focus on healh issues and leave the menu up to the consumer. NOTE: Generally the larger the food service distribution, ie cafeteria, the less applealing the food. I would suggest no school larger than 300 students.
2. Focus on academics and arts. Move athletic competion and sponsorship out of the school system completely and into community based organizations such as the boy and girls clubs, scouting, YMCA's etc that can get more to participate and not wory about no pass no play rules etc.
3. Minimize the 'teacher certifcation' mentality. As noted above the 'education industry' is self serving, a kind of "no teacher left behind" nentality. There are many highly qualified, (uncertified) caring, individulas in every community that can help solve the problems and feed their families in the process. We do need jobs. The education system has the potential for puting many bright people to work in their own communities, in work that will both challange and reward them. We do not need to mandate too many teacher skills, the kids will do that once they are in the classrooms. Certification has done little or nothing to minumize teacher turnover and burnout.
4. Individualize learning. The internet is here and coupled with a childs natural curiosity and wonder and student directed learning, with mature adult interaction to guide their efforts, students will exceed any and all standardized epectations. 'Force feeding' our children destroys their natural desire to learn and creates "learning disorders" that then become the focus of the current system and aformentioned short term mentality.

Joe Lambert of TX 3:13AM May 31, 2009

There are no simple answers, and everyone who has commented here is right ON! As a 25-year veteran of the school wars on both sides of the country, as both teacher and administrator, and as a self-proclaimed "change agent," I can only say that the kinds of changes this article predicts will not last, any more than the changes I made or thousands of other educators have made in their careers. The factory system that our schools have become is designed to snap back into place like an overstretched rubber band, to protect the status quo, to protect the bureaucracy, to protect the system.
Thus, education really isn't about kids anymore. It's about teachers and unions and standardized tests and textbook companies, it's about fingerpointing and blaming, and it's definitely about the politics of the bureaucracy-in-charge and school boards and state boards and federal mandates. So, as everyone here is saying, as I am, too: "What does any of this have to do with educating kids?" Here's the critical question for schools in the new millennium: ARE KIDS PRODUCTS OR ARE THEY PEOPLE?
Oh, PEOPLE, we say, without a moment's thought. Then we'd better look a little deeper for a school solution, because our current "factory" philosophy of school is bent on "manufacturing" kids with factoids, "skills," labels and classifications--all of them on a fast conveyor belt to the shrink-wrap machine as widgets to plug into the greater social machine. I am exaggerating a little, but not much, and our current love affair with "standardized testing" is surely the arch-example of my point.
In an age when the Information Revolution has pulled us from our industrial moorings into a flood of ideas, opinions, arguments, and "marketing"; in an age when the Green Revolution is creating a new economy to grow up over the detritus of the old; in an age when the Global Revolution is shrinking the world and transforming our concept of "nation"--we MUST have more to offer our kids than an outdated, traditional, and bureaucratic school system that is prey to petty politics, self-serving agendas, statistics, and monumental absurdity.
While I applaud the Obama administration for putting education near the top of its agenda, I want their concept of "reinvention" to be much more radical and much more thoughtful, and much more child-centered in its approach. Whether school boards, nonprofits, or mayors run the system, it is still "the system," impervious to our efforts, deaf to our pleas for "real change." I want federal money to be a REWARD for states that equalize funding (only half do now), flatten the hierarchies and decimate the bureaucracies, and put more highly educated people into daily contact with KIDS--all of that in smaller, more personalized environments where teaming, collaboration, and creative/critical thinking are paramount. This is not only possible but inevitable if enough of us take up the call. Patricia Kokinos www.ChangeTheSchools.com

Patricia Kokinos of CA 5:33PM May 30, 2009

There are no simple solutions to solving the problems of disfunctional schools. Bureaucratic shifts with sweeping solutions don't work. The Chicago Public School System has a huge bureaucracy working in a downtown office removed from children, but making demands of principals, teachers, parents, and students. The demands shift with the group that is there, but most of the leadership changes with corresponding new directions set every 3 to 5 years. It is dizzying. Good ideas and proven programs are rarely institutionalized. Textbook companies are better at institutionalizing programs than the bureaucracies are.
Among the things that are needed to improve education are: a change in the tax base from local real estate taxes to some other form of taxation that equalizes what schools receive; higher standards for entry level teachers (possibly requiring a BA degree in a subject other than teaching prior to learning the pedagogy of teaching that subject); principal training that includes budgeting, scheduling, discipline, curriculum, and leadership skills; parenting programs in every school; a curriculum that gets students to think not just memorize and that isn't driven by paper and pencil tests alone; schoolwide daily instruction in responsible behavior; teachers who listen to children and do not yell at them; respect for teachers and principals given by parents and children and vice versa; and special services for students who have special needs. This is a brief beginning. AUSL does a great job at some of these things. Others are outside of its control.
The press would do us all a service by not trying to simplify what is needed in education into their beloved sound bites. It too quickly turns into blaming one group. Education is the responsibility of our nation and everyone in it. We can all do our share.

Tammy Steele of IL 5:17PM May 29, 2009