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Zuckerberg also failed in his $100 million effort to fix Newark's schools. It's funny, because people like Gates and Zuckerberg are pushing the idea of "account

Zuckerberg also failed in his $100 million effort to fix Newark's schools. It's funny, because people like Gates and Zuckerberg are pushing the idea of "accountability" - if teachers can't get scores to improve, we need to fire them. Yet when they fail completely to improve things, the notion of accountability suddenly disappears, end the long list of excuses comes out.

orionblastar 11y ago
They always blame the teachers, but if the parents and guardians are not helping out with homework and support the child won't learn. If the child grows up in poverty, has emotional and psychological problems, has family issues, etc that can interfere with their learning. Which is why teachers are against standardized testing, because it punishes them for low scores. It is sort of like working as a programmer and having no support from management or your coworkers, being given projects that others have failed at because of how hard they are, and then being punished when it takes too long to finish or you can't get results.
- qrendel 11y ago
  Most of the educated blame seems to go towards the teacher's unions, which have always been heavily against accountability for teachers, in favor of seniority protections, so that the worst teachers can't be fired. Standardized testing, for all it's shortcomings, is equally bad for them, since it reflects on which teachers are the worst performing. Low testing scores due to poverty is a poor defense since such deviations can easily be controlled for, as is commonly done in statistics-based research. Teacher unions constantly fighting to kill educational reform has been a recurring theme in most all reform initiatives, including Zuckerberg's.[1] There are numerous documentaries (e.g. Waiting for Superman, The Cartel, etc.) covering attempts at reform and how the one thing the unions will never allow is holding bad teachers accountable. [1] http://www.businessinsider.com/mark-zuckerbergs-failed-100-million-donation-to-newark-public-schools-2015-9 http://www.businessinsider.com/mark-zuckerbergs-failed-100-m...

orionblastar 11y ago

They always blame the teachers, but if the parents and guardians are not helping out with homework and support the child won't learn. If the child grows up in poverty, has emotional and psychological problems, has family issues, etc that can interfere with their learning. Which is why teachers are against standardized testing, because it punishes them for low scores. It is sort of like working as a programmer and having no support from management or your coworkers, being given projects that others have failed at because of how hard they are, and then being punished when it takes too long to finish or you can't get results.

qrendel 11y ago
Most of the educated blame seems to go towards the teacher's unions, which have always been heavily against accountability for teachers, in favor of seniority protections, so that the worst teachers can't be fired. Standardized testing, for all it's shortcomings, is equally bad for them, since it reflects on which teachers are the worst performing. Low testing scores due to poverty is a poor defense since such deviations can easily be controlled for, as is commonly done in statistics-based research. Teacher unions constantly fighting to kill educational reform has been a recurring theme in most all reform initiatives, including Zuckerberg's.[1] There are numerous documentaries (e.g. Waiting for Superman, The Cartel, etc.) covering attempts at reform and how the one thing the unions will never allow is holding bad teachers accountable. [1] http://www.businessinsider.com/mark-zuckerbergs-failed-100-million-donation-to-newark-public-schools-2015-9 http://www.businessinsider.com/mark-zuckerbergs-failed-100-m...