Almost No Teachers In District's Low-Performing Schools Considered 'Ineffective'

If we made teaching more attractive, and paid them more, trained them more, cut class sizes, reduced the class time load, etc., could we then fire the worst teachers?

 

You would have a bigger pool of teachers to select from, rather than having to beg them to stay in the poor districts. Right now, you fire a bad teacher, you have to replace them with someone willing to work there.

 

I'm curious about this ... I have never heard charter schools being criticized for having less-trained members of their faculty. Perhaps they're differently trained ... is that what you're getting at?

Children attending a public school ride in vehicles made by for-profit organizations. On these vehicles, the tires, the brakes, the safety belts (unless we're talking buses) are made by for-profits. The books those children use are published by for-profits. The food they eat is grown and processed by for-profits. The clothes they wear, the medicine they take, the doctors they visit (typically) ... for-profit. I could go on, but you get the point.

Why is it the reflexive position of so many that if we know that a given charter school is for-profit then we know a fortiori that it's at odds with those children's (and perhaps society's) well-being?

 

The raison d'etre for a public school district is to educate the students. Directly or indirectly, the public school district is ultimately responsible to voters/citizens.

The raison d'etre of a private school company is to generate profits for its owner/investors. Directly or indirectly, the private school district is responsible to the owner/investors.


Different organizations may of course be more or less effective in achieving these objectives, but they are what they are.

A public school district operating at 100% effectiveness educates students. A private school district operating at 100% effectiveness turns a (maximum) profit.

 

For the record:

It is possible -- and in many schools located in poor districts and handicapped by a paucity of funding/equipment -- likely that some of the more effective teachers have a majority of students who underachieve based on the district's standards.

It is a relevant factor too often ignored, as shown by some of the comments in this thread.

 

Why do you -- not just you, of course -- assume that a private, for-profit school district can't educate the same students exactly as well at a lower cost (and therefore be rewarded, in profit, for its efficiency)? Perhaps it can't, but why is that assumed?

Why do you assume that a contract can't be written to hold the for-profit's feet to the fire (re: performance, etc.)? If you assume such, why do you assume that contracts entered into by public school districts aren't just as wasteful or ineffective?

More to my original question, though: If for a representative (not cherry-picked) group of students, for-profit school X can get them to a given level of education for, say, $100,000 a student and public school Y can get them to that level for the same amount, why is it assumed that the students (and/or society) is worse off if X has figured how to profit in the bargain?

 

Sure. The argument with your approach to education all along has been that most of your suggestions have involved getting rid of teachers and making the profession less attractive. Those things alone will only make things worse.

 

Totally agree here.

A few years ago I was looking hard to get out of the business. A high school near me in a pretty good district was looking for someone to teach TV Production and History of Motion Pictures. I have worked in TV for more than 20 years and I was a film major. (On top of that, my dad was a high school teacher for 40 years and one of the classes he taught was History of Motion Pictures, so I know a lot of the curriculum he covered.) In short, I figured I was just about the perfect candidate for the job.

Then I discovered that I would be taking a 50% pay cut.

 

Fuckin' 1%er...

 

These are all fair questions. However, the evidence so far appears to show that while there are individual schools that are doing a better job, on the whole these schools, by existing measurements, aren't helping kids any more than traditional schools are, and in many cases students are achieving less there.

Part of the problem comes in your ifs. The big one is that, by and large, the contracts for for-profit charter schools AREN'T written to hold anyone's feet to the fire. To me, that reflects the political enthusiasm that a for-profit charter (preferably union-free) is automatically better, and whatever connections the operators have been able to establish with key politicians.

Another issue is that, by and large, parents aren't sold on the concept. One charter operator in Indianapolis, for example, says he's running out of money quickly because the financial assumption was that he would get X number of students, and as it turned out once the school(s) converted to charter, a lot of parents pulled their kids out and put them in other public schools.

Certainly, existing public schools aren't faultless and should be held accountable in some way. I do like the idea of charters as laboratories to try different styles of education to see if something might work. Of course, in that scenario, the profit motive can get in the way because the goal would not be to make as much money as possible. The goal would be to come up with something that could be transferred into the school district at large.

The problem with the charter system now is that it's expanded to become a quasi-private school system within a public school, enacted to fulfill a desire to root out teachers' unions and keep people in the public school system who might otherwise go to private schools or move out of town. What's interesting is that private schools are lobbying damn hard for more vouchers because, between the increased cost of providing an education and the general declining state of family incomes, many are getting killed by charters. That's the motivation for "let the dollars follow the child."

The last problem with a for-profit model for all kids is that you aren't going to make any money with it. The for-profit model assumes you have a certain audience you want to reach. Stuff like special education is a money drain, not a moneymaker. The way to make a profit in education is to style a school for a particular audience -- like private schools have done for years.

The big problem for the education system, and it's not one of its own making, is that America once had the luxury of throwing out people because many could find jobs anyway, or they were groups of people nobody gave a shit about. We no longer have those luxuries. So the education system has to try to answer the same question as the country at large -- what do you do with the poor, the needy, and others who have a difficult path to success?

 

Agreed on this. The teacher's union in our city is extremely sensitive and recently got all sideways over having to move their "half days" to Fridays (along with eliminating 50% of the half days). For six years, every other Wednesday was a half day. WTF? I live by a high school. I go to work at the same time the high school students get out for half days. Most of the parents are two-income households.

So, for four hours, the kids get an empty house. Drugs, booze and endless sex. I hear the police calls on Wednesday afternoons for disturbances where "no parents are home".

And the teachers probably wonder why their students can't focus on those Thursday and why test scores are down.

My reply has been consistent on teacher appreciation days. I volunteer a ton and simply say, "my appreciation comes in raising kids who often set the curve and make their jobs easier."

When the police association would call for donations, I would always say, "I do my part by never getting arrested and never causing you trouble."

 

Had a great superintendent tell me this once. Mixed district, some challenges, some schools that were easy.
"Teachers are like any other workforce. 20 percent are good, 60 percent are average and the final 20 percent should be fired yesterday."