On this week’s Dropout Nation Podcast, I discuss how poor-performing teachers damage the educational destinies of students, bring down the morale of their colleagues and foster the nation’s dropout crisis. The damage wrecked by ineffective teaching — and the culture of mediocrity they foster — is promoted and sustained by schools of education, collective bargaining agreements, state laws and cultures within districts.
At first, I thought I was going to disagree with most of this podcast. The title seems like yet another “blame the teachers” piece is coming along, and those do get a bit tiresome. Then, in the opening minutes, there were plenty of adjectives – bad, awful, terrible, horrific – but not much substance. But in the long run, there were enough qualifiers and specific suggestions to make it worth a listen and a response.
If unions are such a big part of the problem, (and if you accept test scores as a measure of quality) why are most top-performing states those with unionized teachers, while the “right to work”/non-union states tend to perform worse? The answer is that unions are not the problem. They provide a convenient scapegoat because they can be easily cast as bad guys in stories about the worst teachers. The problems we face are much, much broader than that.
I appreciate that you noted part of the problem is administrators who, for various reasons, are unable to do proper evaluation. Also keep in mind that collective bargaining agreements can only “protect bad teachers” when districts and school boards sign the contract that offers what you consider too much protection. Those practices can be changed if you change the contracts, but few districts are willing to offer what it would take in teacher support, professional development, or higher pay, in order to effect any compromise with their unions.
Ultimately, I think your podcast recognizes the systemic problems that must be addressed – and in a way, the title does the podcast a disservice, because you have specific ideas about improving the whole structure (not that I agree with all of them – but they’re worth discussing). There is no huge cadre of great teachers out there waiting to enter teaching but unable to wrestle jobs away from those bad, tenured teachers. The systems we have now need to do more to help all teachers improve continually – a focus on work conditions and professional development would help everyone, and would make it so that fewer teachers need to be removed, and fewer decent teachers slide in the wrong direction. The focus on “bad” teachers is misdirected and counterproductive – but even if that were *the* problem, it could be mititgated by a focus that helps all teachers do a better job.
[...] and degree- and seniority-based pay scales they have won on behalf of their rank-and-file. The consensus that teacher compensation fails to reward high-quality instruction and keeps laggard teachers in [...]
[...] facing the National Education Association is the consensus that it helps perpetuate a culture of low quality academic instruction. But it isn’t just the NEA taking the hit. As Layla Avila of The New Teacher Project explains [...]
When it comes to the role of teachers in stemming the nation’s dropout crisis and crisis of educational failure, the American Federation of Teachers, the National Education Association and their allies in traditional public education tend to argue that they play no part in either solving the crisis — and that low-quality teachers and the [...]
This week’s Dropout Nation Podcast focuses on the internal cleansing school reformers and other caring adults must do to reform American public education. Far too many within traditional public education are either defending the status quo of systemic academic failure, anti-intellectualism, obsolete organizational structures and poor practices that perpetuate a dropout crisis in which 150 [...]
As a further elaboration on Tuesday’s Dropout Nation commentary on the anti-intellectualism within traditional public education circles, listen to this Dropout Nation Podcast on the importance of fostering a culture of genius in education. Playing off John Taylor Gatto’s famed declaration, I discuss how schools and teachers should educate kids from the perspective that almost [...]
Let’s just call the recently-passed Edujobs bill what it really is: A congressional Democrat plan to keep control of the federal legislative branch by subsidizing the National Education Association and the American Federation of Teachers — and absolutely useless and unnecessary to boot. It really is that simple. As I pointed out in The American [...]
“One of the big problem in this industry is the whole human capital chain… can be improved… A great teacher in a dysfunctional school or a great school in a dysfunctional district isn’t going to affect the change we need. We need to change the whole system.” — Arne Duncan’s Chief of Staff, Joanne Weiss, [...]
Editor of Dropout Nation and Co-Author of "A Byte At the Apple: Rethhinking Education Data in the Post-NCLB Era". Conttributor to The American Spectator and Labor Watch. Author of "Left Behind: A Star Editorial Board series" and longtime editorialist on education and economic affairs.
On this week’s Dropout Nation Podcast, I explain why one must stop thinking about big cities as being the only epicenters of the dropout crisis and the nation’s crisis of low educational achievement. While Detroit and other major urban areas are often associated with systemic academic failure, small cities such as Hammond, Ind., and Alexandria, […]
On this week’s Dropout Nation Podcast, I take a look at the Schott Foundation’s report on black males and offer reminders that the achievement gap is not just one of race. All males, especially black and white males, are failing badly, with major consequences for America’s economy and society. It will take the reform of […]
As you continue flipping through the Schott Foundation’s new report on the low graduation rates of black males (and the educational crisis threatening the futures of our young black men), listen to this rebroadcast of April’s Dropout Nation Podcast on what black men must do to help their sons and the younger men around them. […]
At first, I thought I was going to disagree with most of this podcast. The title seems like yet another “blame the teachers” piece is coming along, and those do get a bit tiresome. Then, in the opening minutes, there were plenty of adjectives – bad, awful, terrible, horrific – but not much substance. But in the long run, there were enough qualifiers and specific suggestions to make it worth a listen and a response.
If unions are such a big part of the problem, (and if you accept test scores as a measure of quality) why are most top-performing states those with unionized teachers, while the “right to work”/non-union states tend to perform worse? The answer is that unions are not the problem. They provide a convenient scapegoat because they can be easily cast as bad guys in stories about the worst teachers. The problems we face are much, much broader than that.
I appreciate that you noted part of the problem is administrators who, for various reasons, are unable to do proper evaluation. Also keep in mind that collective bargaining agreements can only “protect bad teachers” when districts and school boards sign the contract that offers what you consider too much protection. Those practices can be changed if you change the contracts, but few districts are willing to offer what it would take in teacher support, professional development, or higher pay, in order to effect any compromise with their unions.
Ultimately, I think your podcast recognizes the systemic problems that must be addressed – and in a way, the title does the podcast a disservice, because you have specific ideas about improving the whole structure (not that I agree with all of them – but they’re worth discussing). There is no huge cadre of great teachers out there waiting to enter teaching but unable to wrestle jobs away from those bad, tenured teachers. The systems we have now need to do more to help all teachers improve continually – a focus on work conditions and professional development would help everyone, and would make it so that fewer teachers need to be removed, and fewer decent teachers slide in the wrong direction. The focus on “bad” teachers is misdirected and counterproductive – but even if that were *the* problem, it could be mititgated by a focus that helps all teachers do a better job.
[...] and degree- and seniority-based pay scales they have won on behalf of their rank-and-file. The consensus that teacher compensation fails to reward high-quality instruction and keeps laggard teachers in [...]
[...] facing the National Education Association is the consensus that it helps perpetuate a culture of low quality academic instruction. But it isn’t just the NEA taking the hit. As Layla Avila of The New Teacher Project explains [...]