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How 'Waiting for “Superman”' Will Further Fuel the Education Debate

64 points by bhousel 16y ago

boredguy8 16y ago
Single page: http://nymag.com/print/?/news/features/67966/ http://nymag.com/print/?/news/features/67966/
untamedmedley 16y ago
Articles about education too often end with platitudes about how we need real debate to make changes occur. I'd argue we need action... preferably from the private sector. Judging by the lack of comments on this article so far, not many people here follow this issue. The DC public schools are a microcosm of the whole ed reform movement, and an example of how difficult it can be to navigate the politics of reforming a corrupt system. Rhee has done a lot to improve the efficiency of the district (in terms of getting books and supplies where needed, and using school resources wisely), but at the end of the day, her approach to reform (command and control vs. consensus building) is what will likely end her tenure early. Right now, the mayor who backed her (Fenty) is in a tight race with a candidate who is exploiting people's distrust in a government that, for better or worse, acts based on what it believes is right for the people, not what the people believe is right for them. Or, in the tl;dr edition: When working within the confines of politics, you can get short bursts of successful but temporary reform, or you can be safe politically while accomplishing very little. There's gotta be another way.
- DanielN 16y ago
  Could you explain how action from the private sector might help to reform the public education system. Unless you're referring to vouchers I'm not sure I understand the connection you're trying to make. Also, I'm not sure its accurate to claim that Rhee might lose her position if Fenty isn't re-elected. His opponent seems to be on the same side of education reform as him and most of his claims to "anti government" policies are more in the realm of police and tax reform (at least as I understand it; I don't live in DC)
  - untamedmedley 16y ago
    I apologize for the lack of clarity. Didn't want to get too far into the weeds, but I think after school is a great place to start. My favorite example of this are Japanese cram schools (Juku), which serve a much larger and varied function than most people who have heard of them realize. Japan has an extensive network of for-profit after school programs that act as a check on the standards enacted in Japanese public schools. When the Ministry of Education decided to change its standards (which affect curriculum across the nation), the juku responded by offering tougher courses, balancing out any perceived weakening of the public schools. Rosegaard's book is my favorite on the subject of Juku: http://www.amazon.com/Japanese-Education-Cram-School-Business/dp/8791114918 http://www.amazon.com/Japanese-Education-Cram-School-Busines... There is some inherent unfairness to that system, mainly having to do with parents who can and can't pay for juku. But there are ways to mitigate the issues caused by socioeconomic differences. Some of those issues have already been somewhat addressed in America by the Supplementary Educational Services (http://www2.ed.gov/nclb/choice/help/ses/index.html http://www2.ed.gov/nclb/choice/help/ses/index.html) portion of NCLB. The program essentially forces failing schools to pay for after school tutoring. I'd prefer a better designed SES program, but I think after school could be more promising than charters or vouchers for several reasons: 1. After school addresses the reality that children are as, if not more, affected by experiences outside of the normal school day 2. It would help avoid many of the contentious issues surrounding teachers unions 3. It would allow for innovative approaches to curriculum and teaching without the burdens of having to supply everything we expect from a school (music, art, gym programs; extracurriculars, tricked out facilities) 4. It might stimulate a growth of small, education-oriented businesses in poor/minority communities (there are several successful, minority-owned tutoring companies in my hometown that rely on SES) This isn't to say nothing should be done to reform schools from the inside. I just think we could use a two-pronged approach.
    - potatolicious 16y ago
      As someone who went through the tortuous education system in Taiwan, where the culture of cram schools also existed, and standardized testing was king, I would not wish it upon anyone. In fact, I think cram schools are one of the worst ideas ever conceived in education. All it does is created socially retarded (in the non-derogatory way) children unable to deal with anything that doesn't come out of a textbook, with no discernible life skills whatsoever. I've spent years unlearning things from that stage of my life, and I'm still not done. Every day I'm learning social norms and life knowledge that I honestly should have found out at age 12, not age 24. When you send kids to a public school for 8 hours, then spend the next 6 hours not interacting with people, and instead cramming for their next exam so they won't be hopelessly left behind, you're creating a massive social problem for later. When your children's only free time in a day is spent wolfing down packed dinner while the taxicab speeds from one cram class to another, you are doing yourself and your children a grave disservice. There is a fundamental difference between school and education, one would be wise not to confuse the two. More schooling is an absolutely ass backwards solution to our educational problems. The solution is better education, not slapping de facto mandatory private schools on top and making our kids work more hours than an EA employee.
Estragon 16y ago
I was stunned because [An Inconvenient Truth] was so powerful that my wife told me we couldn’t burn incandescent bulbs anymore. She didn’t become a zealot; she just realized that [climate change] was serious and we have to do something. Well, that's something, I guess. Not going to make much of a difference, though. As David Mackay says in Sustainable Energy - without the hot air, "If everybody only does a little, the impact will only be a little."
sachinag 16y ago
sigh Lookit, if teachers unions were the main culprit, then education outcomes in right-to-work states (the South, mostly) would be significantly higher than states where teachers unions exist. This is not the case. The problem is one of attitudes (both familial and institutional) and one of teaching talent (the students who enroll in Schools of Education are below the median for GPA and SAT scores for universities that offer education degrees). Attitudes are hard to explain; Friday Night Lights (the book) examines but doesn't explain. The quality of teaching stock is explainable, but no one likes the explanation - the opening of the workforce to women has taken a lot of high-quality women out of the classroom and into the previously male-dominated workforce. All those great women doctors, lawyers, managers, engineers, architects, and so on would have been teachers 50 years ago. I don't have a good answer, but Waiting for Superman's demonization of Randi Weingarten and the unions is a terribly small portion of the problem. Boogeymen are easy to hate; it's harder to point the finger at ourselves.
- yummyfajitas 16y ago
  I'm confused. In spite of being a right to work state, Alabama, Arizona and Arkansas [1] all have teachers unions. http://www.myaea.org/ http://www.myaea.org/ http://www.arizonaea.org/ http://www.arizonaea.org/ http://www.aeaonline.org/ http://www.aeaonline.org/ Why would you believe that right to work states would not have teachers unions? It's true that a right to work state will probably not have unions the workers don't want, but that isn't the same thing. [1] I'm not cherry picking, just working down this list: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right-to-work_law#U.S._states_with_right-to-work_laws http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right-to-work_law#U.S._states_w...
  - sachinag 16y ago
    Every state has public sector employee unions. The UAW is also in most right-to-work states. But the vast majority of employees (public and private) are not members of those unions and I'm positive that teacher contracts in RTW states are not collectively bargained.
- gojomo 16y ago
  Even in right-to-work states, public sector jobs (like teachers) may practically require union membership, and the conditions of work are largely dictated by union negotiating/political influence.
teye 16y ago
Just saw this last night in SF courtesy of the Commonwealth Club. Highly recommended. You're shown that getting results is straightforward: get rid of poor teachers and reward good ones. One stat that was particularly interesting, from a Stanford researcher whose name I forget, was that replacing the worst 6-10% of teachers would put us on the same proficiency level as Finland. Unfortunately, the system makes that very difficult. Many teachers are granted tenure, making them impossible to fire, and educators' compensation isn't designed to allow for performance incentives. Contracts demanded by unions are partially to blame. Also, our education system was built for previous generations' economies. Professionals, scientists, technical workers, factory workers, and laborers were needed in different proportions than they are today. Now we have more highly skilled jobs without enough highly educated Americans to fill them. SV and schools in Redwood City and Woodside are mentioned specifically. It examines the costs of poor education, like the staggering number of dropouts who end up in prison. Their incarceration cost could put them through private school with money left over for college. Saying the film demonizes Weingarten is exaggerating. She doesn't look great, but there are clearly a lot of factors at work. Waiting for Superman makes clear that the way forward is good teachers.
- jbooth 16y ago
  The problems are dual, and nobody likes the solutions. On the one hand, yes, you have unions, which theoretically are sticking up for the workers but in practice spend a large % of their time and resources sticking up for the lousy workers who deserve to be fired anyways. On the other hand, you have about half of the country devoted to relentlessly slashing education budgets in the name of "less government". In a small-l labor dominated industry, that effectively means smaller paychecks and/or more work for the same pay. So good teachers who are frustrated by the union shenanigans don't have a lot of other alternatives - who else is gonna stick up for them? Real solutions would be a combination of big pay incentives for star teachers (not that I'd necessarily be a star, but why on earth would I teach at those rates when I can be an engineer?), coupled with a much looser structure on tenure, more dynamic general situation, etc. That would be the kind of incentive to empower the good teachers and disempower the bad ones. But you can't just blame the unions without addressing the other side of the coin.
Symmetry 16y ago
"Most astonishing to Rhee was how easily the contract was finally approved. “The entire time the union was fighting us, they said, ‘Our members are never gonna accept this’—then it passed by an 80 to 20 percent vote!” she exclaims." Hah, never assume that the interests of the teachers and their union representatives (or any other set of elected officials) always coincide. Specifically, proposals to decrease the number of workers but raise their pay (and/or give large amounts of money to those layed off) often bring workers and unions into conflict.
- ahi 16y ago
  I think that's just Rhee being dumb. You're in a negotiation. Of course they're going to say they can't accept this, until they do. Union staff almost never bargain contracts anyway. Typically it's done by a bargaining committee consisting of members, some of whom are elected officers but mostly just volunteers.

64 points by bhousel 16y ago

Single page: http://nymag.com/print/?/news/features/67966/ http://nymag.com/print/?/news/features/67966/

Articles about education too often end with platitudes about how we need real debate to make changes occur. I'd argue we need action... preferably from the private sector. Judging by the lack of comments on this article so far, not many people here follow this issue. The DC public schools are a microcosm of the whole ed reform movement, and an example of how difficult it can be to navigate the politics of reforming a corrupt system. Rhee has done a lot to improve the efficiency of the district (in terms of getting books and supplies where needed, and using school resources wisely), but at the end of the day, her approach to reform (command and control vs. consensus building) is what will likely end her tenure early. Right now, the mayor who backed her (Fenty) is in a tight race with a candidate who is exploiting people's distrust in a government that, for better or worse, acts based on what it believes is right for the people, not what the people believe is right for them. Or, in the tl;dr edition: When working within the confines of politics, you can get short bursts of successful but temporary reform, or you can be safe politically while accomplishing very little. There's gotta be another way.

DanielN 16y ago
Could you explain how action from the private sector might help to reform the public education system. Unless you're referring to vouchers I'm not sure I understand the connection you're trying to make. Also, I'm not sure its accurate to claim that Rhee might lose her position if Fenty isn't re-elected. His opponent seems to be on the same side of education reform as him and most of his claims to "anti government" policies are more in the realm of police and tax reform (at least as I understand it; I don't live in DC)
- untamedmedley 16y ago
  I apologize for the lack of clarity. Didn't want to get too far into the weeds, but I think after school is a great place to start. My favorite example of this are Japanese cram schools (Juku), which serve a much larger and varied function than most people who have heard of them realize. Japan has an extensive network of for-profit after school programs that act as a check on the standards enacted in Japanese public schools. When the Ministry of Education decided to change its standards (which affect curriculum across the nation), the juku responded by offering tougher courses, balancing out any perceived weakening of the public schools. Rosegaard's book is my favorite on the subject of Juku: http://www.amazon.com/Japanese-Education-Cram-School-Business/dp/8791114918 http://www.amazon.com/Japanese-Education-Cram-School-Busines... There is some inherent unfairness to that system, mainly having to do with parents who can and can't pay for juku. But there are ways to mitigate the issues caused by socioeconomic differences. Some of those issues have already been somewhat addressed in America by the Supplementary Educational Services (http://www2.ed.gov/nclb/choice/help/ses/index.html http://www2.ed.gov/nclb/choice/help/ses/index.html) portion of NCLB. The program essentially forces failing schools to pay for after school tutoring. I'd prefer a better designed SES program, but I think after school could be more promising than charters or vouchers for several reasons: 1. After school addresses the reality that children are as, if not more, affected by experiences outside of the normal school day 2. It would help avoid many of the contentious issues surrounding teachers unions 3. It would allow for innovative approaches to curriculum and teaching without the burdens of having to supply everything we expect from a school (music, art, gym programs; extracurriculars, tricked out facilities) 4. It might stimulate a growth of small, education-oriented businesses in poor/minority communities (there are several successful, minority-owned tutoring companies in my hometown that rely on SES) This isn't to say nothing should be done to reform schools from the inside. I just think we could use a two-pronged approach.
  - potatolicious 16y ago
    As someone who went through the tortuous education system in Taiwan, where the culture of cram schools also existed, and standardized testing was king, I would not wish it upon anyone. In fact, I think cram schools are one of the worst ideas ever conceived in education. All it does is created socially retarded (in the non-derogatory way) children unable to deal with anything that doesn't come out of a textbook, with no discernible life skills whatsoever. I've spent years unlearning things from that stage of my life, and I'm still not done. Every day I'm learning social norms and life knowledge that I honestly should have found out at age 12, not age 24. When you send kids to a public school for 8 hours, then spend the next 6 hours not interacting with people, and instead cramming for their next exam so they won't be hopelessly left behind, you're creating a massive social problem for later. When your children's only free time in a day is spent wolfing down packed dinner while the taxicab speeds from one cram class to another, you are doing yourself and your children a grave disservice. There is a fundamental difference between school and education, one would be wise not to confuse the two. More schooling is an absolutely ass backwards solution to our educational problems. The solution is better education, not slapping de facto mandatory private schools on top and making our kids work more hours than an EA employee.

Estragon 16y ago

I was stunned because [An Inconvenient Truth] was so powerful that my wife told me we couldn’t burn incandescent bulbs anymore. She didn’t become a zealot; she just realized that [climate change] was serious and we have to do something. Well, that's something, I guess. Not going to make much of a difference, though. As David Mackay says in Sustainable Energy - without the hot air, "If everybody only does a little, the impact will only be a little."

sachinag 16y ago

sigh Lookit, if teachers unions were the main culprit, then education outcomes in right-to-work states (the South, mostly) would be significantly higher than states where teachers unions exist. This is not the case. The problem is one of attitudes (both familial and institutional) and one of teaching talent (the students who enroll in Schools of Education are below the median for GPA and SAT scores for universities that offer education degrees). Attitudes are hard to explain; Friday Night Lights (the book) examines but doesn't explain. The quality of teaching stock is explainable, but no one likes the explanation - the opening of the workforce to women has taken a lot of high-quality women out of the classroom and into the previously male-dominated workforce. All those great women doctors, lawyers, managers, engineers, architects, and so on would have been teachers 50 years ago. I don't have a good answer, but Waiting for Superman's demonization of Randi Weingarten and the unions is a terribly small portion of the problem. Boogeymen are easy to hate; it's harder to point the finger at ourselves.

yummyfajitas 16y ago
I'm confused. In spite of being a right to work state, Alabama, Arizona and Arkansas [1] all have teachers unions. http://www.myaea.org/ http://www.myaea.org/ http://www.arizonaea.org/ http://www.arizonaea.org/ http://www.aeaonline.org/ http://www.aeaonline.org/ Why would you believe that right to work states would not have teachers unions? It's true that a right to work state will probably not have unions the workers don't want, but that isn't the same thing. [1] I'm not cherry picking, just working down this list: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right-to-work_law#U.S._states_with_right-to-work_laws http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right-to-work_law#U.S._states_w...
- sachinag 16y ago
  Every state has public sector employee unions. The UAW is also in most right-to-work states. But the vast majority of employees (public and private) are not members of those unions and I'm positive that teacher contracts in RTW states are not collectively bargained.
gojomo 16y ago
Even in right-to-work states, public sector jobs (like teachers) may practically require union membership, and the conditions of work are largely dictated by union negotiating/political influence.

teye 16y ago

Just saw this last night in SF courtesy of the Commonwealth Club. Highly recommended. You're shown that getting results is straightforward: get rid of poor teachers and reward good ones. One stat that was particularly interesting, from a Stanford researcher whose name I forget, was that replacing the worst 6-10% of teachers would put us on the same proficiency level as Finland. Unfortunately, the system makes that very difficult. Many teachers are granted tenure, making them impossible to fire, and educators' compensation isn't designed to allow for performance incentives. Contracts demanded by unions are partially to blame. Also, our education system was built for previous generations' economies. Professionals, scientists, technical workers, factory workers, and laborers were needed in different proportions than they are today. Now we have more highly skilled jobs without enough highly educated Americans to fill them. SV and schools in Redwood City and Woodside are mentioned specifically. It examines the costs of poor education, like the staggering number of dropouts who end up in prison. Their incarceration cost could put them through private school with money left over for college. Saying the film demonizes Weingarten is exaggerating. She doesn't look great, but there are clearly a lot of factors at work. Waiting for Superman makes clear that the way forward is good teachers.

jbooth 16y ago
The problems are dual, and nobody likes the solutions. On the one hand, yes, you have unions, which theoretically are sticking up for the workers but in practice spend a large % of their time and resources sticking up for the lousy workers who deserve to be fired anyways. On the other hand, you have about half of the country devoted to relentlessly slashing education budgets in the name of "less government". In a small-l labor dominated industry, that effectively means smaller paychecks and/or more work for the same pay. So good teachers who are frustrated by the union shenanigans don't have a lot of other alternatives - who else is gonna stick up for them? Real solutions would be a combination of big pay incentives for star teachers (not that I'd necessarily be a star, but why on earth would I teach at those rates when I can be an engineer?), coupled with a much looser structure on tenure, more dynamic general situation, etc. That would be the kind of incentive to empower the good teachers and disempower the bad ones. But you can't just blame the unions without addressing the other side of the coin.

Symmetry 16y ago

"Most astonishing to Rhee was how easily the contract was finally approved. “The entire time the union was fighting us, they said, ‘Our members are never gonna accept this’—then it passed by an 80 to 20 percent vote!” she exclaims." Hah, never assume that the interests of the teachers and their union representatives (or any other set of elected officials) always coincide. Specifically, proposals to decrease the number of workers but raise their pay (and/or give large amounts of money to those layed off) often bring workers and unions into conflict.

ahi 16y ago
I think that's just Rhee being dumb. You're in a negotiation. Of course they're going to say they can't accept this, until they do. Union staff almost never bargain contracts anyway. Typically it's done by a bargaining committee consisting of members, some of whom are elected officers but mostly just volunteers.