Tag Archives: School

Videos

John Stossel documentary on public school costs and performance

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I found this documentary on the Prof Blog.

I recommend that you watch Clip 4, then Clip 5, then Clip 6.

Part 1:

Guest Ben Chavis: (who runs a charter school)

  • Ben explains how bad schools teach self esteem and victimology
  • Ben explains how good schools teach knowledge
  • Ben took the worst school in Oakland and made it the best
  • Ben talks about the importance of firing bad teachers
  • Ben talks about the importance of discipline
  • Ben explains how students that miss school have to come on Saturday
  • Ben explains how his school gets the least of money
  • Ben explains how class sizes and teach certifications don’t matter
  • Ben says that public schools don’t need more money to perform

Guest Andrew Coulson: (Cato Institute)

  • public schools spend 4 times more per pupil (K through 12) than in 1974
  • but the reading success rate has stayed the same

Part 2:

Guest Ron Packard: (K12 online school)

  • using a public school curriculum delivered online
  • 70,000 students are learning online at their own pace
  • they have more poorer students and yet score higher than average
  • flexible schedules allows more time for sports and activities
  • the unions attacked the online schools even though they are better
  • the politicians listen to the unions and limited the number of students

Part 3:

Guest Janine Turner: (Founder of “Constituting America”)

  • children need to learn about the founding documents of the USA
  • children need to understand what America unique
  • children need to understand the notion of limited government
  • the founding documents are basic to understanding everything else

Guest Colin Hanna: (Founder of “Let Freedom Ring”)

  • the Constution is very important for people to read out loud
  • it’s also good to read it with others

Part 4: (A debate! Between Michelle Rhee and some lazy union thug!)

Guest Michelle Rhee: (Superintendent of Washington, D.C. schools)

  • public school tenure means having a job life regardless of performance
  • you can judge how teachers are performing look at test score improvement
  • you can’t look at teacher performance reviews they are always good
  • you have to look at the test score improvement year over year
  • it is almost impossible to get a teacher fired even if they are awful
  • Rhee fired lots of administrative people and costs went down
  • scores went up, and now DC is no longer the worst school system
  • more money doesn’t make students learn better
  • DC used to spend the MOST money, and had the WORST performance
  • the key to improvement is holding people accountable to perform

Guest Noah Gotbaum: (NYC Local School Board President/son of a union boss)

  • teachers aren’t to blame! most of them are excellent!
  • firing bad teachers is a bad idea! that won’t solve anything!
  • the DC schools haven’t improved! test scores don’t measure improvement!
  • we need more money! money will solve everything! it’s for the children!
  • you’re scaring the poor teachers when you talk about firing them!
  • Michelle Rhee is evil! Evil! She’s a witch! Burn her! Burn her!
  • those gains in test scores are not real! You can’t measure results!
  • test scores going up doesn’t mean that the students are doing better
  • the causes are more complicated and systemic but give us more money!

(I snarkified everything the union guy said – he didn’t really say that stuff like that)

Part 5: (Q&A)

  • Question for Noah: How much money is enough?Noah: well, other schools spend lots of money!
  • Question for Ben: Where does more money go?Ben: its impossible to tell how much is spent on administration vs teachers
  • Question for Noah: What about a voucher system?Noah: no! don’t let parents choose! that would deprive bad teachers of lifetime jobs!Noah: vouchers aren’t enough to cover a private school education!

    Ben: top private schools cost 10,000 a year less than half of NYC public schools

  • Question for Andrew: Is there any legislation to provide vouchers?Andrew: yes there is legislation to create voucher projects
  • Question for Ben: Are you cherry-picking the best students?Ben: every kid who applies is accepted there is no cherry pickingBen: we have more poor students than the average school

(I snarkified everything the union guy said – he didn’t really say that stuff like that)

Part 6:

John Stossel:

  • Americans spend way way more than other countries and we score much lower
  • teacher unions are still complaining for more money
  • teachers average 50,000 in salary a year for 9 months of work
  • teachers make way more than chemists, computer programmers and nurses
  • and school administrators waste tons of money on school
  • we spend four times as much per pupil since 1974
  • the real problem is lack of competition
  • the public school system is a government monopoly
  • monopolies are bad for consumers: less competition = high cost and low value
  • monopolies create worthless junk that no one wants
  • competition makes service/product providers accountable

Awesome! Down with government monopolies! The segment on online schools gives me hope – maybe there is a way to turn the young people away from secularism (= moral relativism) and socialism. This is another sign that there may be a way to turn this thing around if we can just get the government out of the education business and let parents choose schools that produce marketable skills. How did we ever let these union thugs produce worst test scores that poor countries with a billion times more money spent? Is this the United States of America? These unions are UNAMERICAN. They should be outlawed. First the public sector unions, then any private sector union that influences politics.

More John Stossel stuff

News

Former-leftist Robin of Berkeley explains the left’s corruption of children

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Warning: this post discusses topics that are not suitable for young readers. Reader discretion is advised.

Her article is in the American Thinker. (H/T Wes Widner)

Excerpt:

Through Obama’s election, some of the most ferocious and unhinged inmates of the nation’s radical sexual fringe have been released upon the citizenry.

This fringe doesn’t want to be left alone. In fact, it will not leave you and your children alone. We’re talking about a lethal combination of traits: for many, manic-depression, severe character disorders, and addictions, sexual and otherwise.

The fusion of the three produces the most toxic of people, what I call “poisonous personalities.” Empowered, they are now wrecking havoc in every place imaginable.

Corrupting the public has been on the Left’s agenda for decades. Beginning in the l930s, the Frankfurt School plotted the installation of Marxism in the West. They knew that a debauched citizenry is easier to manipulate.

The school found willing henchmen in the amoral Left, which worships at the altar of pleasure: If it feels good, do it. Their hedonism has been legitimized by a host of mad scientists, such as Drs. Wilhelm Reich and Alfred Kinsey.

A principal architect of the sexual revolution, Kinsey purportedly falsified evidence to support his subversive theories that everyone, babies included, is hyper-sexual and bisexual.

Growing up, Obama himself was surrounded by people with no boundaries to speak of. Grandpa Stanley told lewd stories about women in front of young Barry. Stanley anointed alleged pedophile Frank Marshall Davis to be the child’s mentor and tutor.

Frankly, given Obama’s early exposure, I wonder if he’s desensitized to abuse. Can he see it if it’s front of his eyes?

This possible blindness may partly explain Obama’s selection of Kevin Jennings as the Safe Schools Czar. Jennings, a militant gay man, has been “queering” students in Massachusetts for years.

Robin goes on to explain how the favorite allies of Democrats – the UN, the public schools, etc. have been going after children. And she links it to moral relativism, which is in turn a consequence of Christians who refuse to defend the existence and character of God using mainstream evidence – which grounds objective morality. We made our religion about “faith” and people rejected that as delusional and instead pursued pleasure. And the pursuit of pleasure means that even if you do something wrong, you want people to approve of you, since being judged by others makes you less happy. Which brings us to indoctrinating children to approve of hedonism, which is a project of feminists and gay activists alike.

The left goes after children because they want to normalize their own views. Parents are the enemy. And that’s why Christians need to get serious about de-funding and abolishing public schools and enacting school choice. Every Christian who votes Democrat is voting to destroy the innocence of children. That’s one thing that redistribution of wealth rhetoric results in – it really means letting strangers teach your children how to sin. If you think that voting Democrat means “sticking it to the rich”, then you’re a fool. It really means that you won’t have a job, that you’ll be depending on the secular left government, and that your children will be taught from cradle to grave by people who repudiate your worldview and values. And since when are Christians supposed to be envious anyway? Leave the rich alone and worry more about who is teaching your children.

News

Teacher union tries to block parents from seeing teacher evaluations

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Story from the leftist Los Angeles Times. (H/T Wes Widner)

Excerpt:

The Los Angeles teachers union president said Sunday he was organizing a “massive boycott” of The Times after the newspaper began publishing a series of articles that uses student test scores to estimate the effectiveness of district teachers.

“You’re leading people in a dangerous direction, making it seem like you can judge the quality of a teacher by … a test,” said A.J. Duffy, president of United Teachers Los Angeles, which has more than 40,000 members.

Duffy said he would urge other labor groups to ask their members to cancel their subscriptions.

[…]The district has had the ability to analyze the differences among teachers for years but opted not to do so, in large part because of anticipated union resistance, The Times found.

The newspaper plans to publish an online database with ratings for the more than 6,000 elementary school instructors later this month.

[…]After learning of the analysis and the database last week, union leaders began making automated calls to teachers objecting to publication. In the Friday evening call, Duffy said the database was “an irresponsible, offensive intrusion into your professional life that will do nothing to improve student learning.

“Our attorneys are looking into the legalities of this database,” he said in the recorded message. “This is part of the continuing attack on our profession, and we must continue to fight back on all fronts.”

On Sunday, Duffy declined to talk about any legal action or other protests besides a boycott. “I’ll keep that to myself,” he said.

Remember that Obama is lapdog of the teacher unions, because they got him elected. In fact, he just paid them off with another billion dollar bailout from him just a few days ago. I would not be surprised to see him intervene to stop the publication of teacher evaluations. He doesn’t care about parents and children – he cares about bailing out the people who got him elected using money from the parents who trust these unions to provide their children with a decent education.