Waiting for "Superman" (2010) (college, Associates degree, middle school, salaries)

[Ivorytickler]

Originally Posted by collegestudentfromalabama

Perhaps I agree with you, but how can failing students be trained, given summer jobs, and paid in such a bad economy? I like the idea, but I don't know who would agree with it since even highly trained professionals are looking for work these days. I'm sorry if I misunderstood you, but I would like more information about this. It does sound like a possible solution. Could a program like this start as a grassroots initiative, or would it need to be implemented by the government to be successful? What qualities would the students already need to possess? What if the students are apathetic?

It would have to start as a grass roots iniative. When I lived in Detroit, it was, painfully, obvious that the norm was for successful blacks (actually people in general but the neighborhood was mostly black) to leave the city. We had one, succesful, educated, black family on our block. The black kids next door to me (ironically, a multi generational welfare family) used to stand on their front steps and taunt them with cries of "Oreo, Oreo, you're only black on the outside". They moved. I don't blame them but that leaves only the local drug dealer three doors down as a model for success for the young black kids left behind. Without role models like them who are successful, it's an uphill battle.

[antredd]

Originally Posted by HappyTexan

Definitely more than the school.
My son went to the typical suburban public schools and I was pretty active and "thought" I knew how the schools were.

Now I do Math tutoring in one of the high risk schools in a semi-rough neighborhood. It's night and day. Their life outside of school is a MAJOR factor in their life in the school. You cannot separate the two and think if we just change the schools the kids will change with them.

I agree with you. I plan on seeing the film sponsored by one of our local university this week. Then they will have a panel discussion after the viewing of the film.

I work at a inner city elementary school that scores keep increasing, and yet the students that we are getting are becoming more and more harder to manage and teach. My class this year is one the most difficult classes I have had in years.

How do you teach a class anything, if their attention is on who's about to fight during recess? How do you teach a class whose parents are busy working two jobs or raising 5 to 6 other kids, and can't help their child do their homework? How do you teach a class whose parents don't speak English and can't understand the home work in English? And how do you teach a class whose parents can't even do the work themselves because they didn't do well in school? What people expect teachers to do is not shy of performing a miracle. Last time I checked, teachers are not miracle workers.

[stepka]

Originally Posted by lhpartridge

We have a nation suffering from a severed femoral artery and we are spending our time trying to find a big enough bandage to staunch the bleeding. Instead, we really ought to re-examine the reality of the situation.


I am interested in seeing the film so that I can see which way the stories are slanted. I hope that I will be wrong about there being a pre-existing bias. In mind mind, charter schools are just another way to ignore the status quo. Like the lifeboats on the Titanic, there are simply not enough of them to go around, inherently leaving many children behind in our race to the top. Every parent who cares will do for his or her own children, and the devil take the hindmost.

Such is the state of public education in the United States of America in 2010.

Wow, that first sentence should be the first sentence of the book I think you should write--it's that great!

I saw the film and what you said about charter schools is spot-on--it's a big part of what they were talking about and the most heartbreaking moment in the movie is when they show the kids waiting to hear their number get called in the lottery that they use to choose students. The sad thing is that when they didn't get chosen, there were no other options for these families, except to go back to the bad public school that they lived near.

One key piece of info that was left out, and that I think that all of us would agree on here, is that the charter schools get the students who are serious and want to be in school--a big part of their success is based on that. There are some great teachers in the inner-city schools but I don't think they're enough to offset the culture, or the teachers in the school who are not very good.

Also, a couple of years ago, I had an opportunity to sub for a school that is not inner-city, but may as well be. It's in a very economically mixed neighborhood, but anyone who can afford it has taken their kids out and put them in private, and the schools don't try at all with those who are left. On the first day of middle school, I found this: trash left in the lockers from the previous year; no room numbers on the doors and no teachers posted in the hallway to direct lost students, and I never met the principal. It was the first day of school! I met one of the crappiest teachers I'd ever seen, and one of the best, but what really struck me was the total disrespect the school had for the students--not cleaning out lockers was enough evidence of that. I remember overhearing one of the students groan to another that they'd have to endure another 2 years of this place and it was their first day in that school--it was heartbreaking--and the sadder thing than that is that the rep of the high school of that district is even worse. And that the things I noticed about the school could have easily been fixed for little to no money--if you don't have room number plaques, then make them out of index cards--the no money excuse is overdone.

[loves2read]

I too saw Waiting for Superman and while the film makers did a great job of creating sympathy for the children they focus on and showing that charter schools can be successful...
that was a movie designed to present a position and point of view
so it "cherry-picked" the "facts" it used to present that position

it was not an even-handed presentation of the facts (+/-) about charter schools in general OR problems that children and educators face in improving the educational system...

There are plenty of charter schools in my state--Texas. In fact the state has gone out of its way to make charter schools LESS responsible to oversight than public ones..
while there are successful charter schools here, there are probably just as many that are borderline fradulent entities--taking state money for enrollments that are not taking place, not doing any better job at teaching students than the public schools they left--and left often for disciplinary reasons...

The schools in Waiting for Superman--if you have seen it--have none of the problems with parents who don't care or kids who don't care and yet must be taught...
I know (as a retired teacher in public school and the parent of two teachers--one of whom still teaching) that the most necessary item for education to take place is a motivated student...
the charter schools in that movie do not have to deal with so many problems that public schools face--
there are NO special needs students in those schools because they are not required to take them (as a public school is)
there are no students who fail to come to school, no parents who come between the admin and their children if there are problems with discipline, non-attendance, poor performance for lack of trying...
those students can't stay--it is in their contracts that they can be removed from the school and believe me they ARE removed...
students who don't care probably aren't trying to get into those schools so it is not really an issue--
like it is in public schools...

that film tried to make a big deal about tenured teachers being obstacles to school performance--and I know that there are plenty of bad teachers out there--I taught with them...
BUT the lack of strong administrators who will defend teachers who are going a good job when they cross parents is as bad as the number of bad teacher.

The bad administrators who allow bad teaching to persist because they don't want to do the documentation to prevent it, the bad administrators who would rather spend money on something they get a kickback for than other materials/programs they don't--
those problems in the system were not addressed--

and yes unions can be an obsticle--but Texas does not have unions -- and most teachers will tell you that they feel pretty powerless to keep the administration or the state from imposing new policies on them that demand more and more of their time and energy without getting paid any more for the extra work...
the school district for Fort Worth which is just west of Dallas in north TX is considering an alliance with
Teach for America -- putting those teachers in many of the schools that are struggling--
bad idea to me because I am sure the district thinks that will be the "easy" way to fix its problems...
this opinion piece by a FTW resident makes many valid points about why FTW is making a bad decison
Ivy: Teach for America's place is not primary classes | Editorials & Opinions | Fort Worth, A... (http://www.star-telegram.com/2010/10/17/2553401/ivy-teach-for-americas-place-is.html - broken link)

FTW ISD has many elementary schools that are doing a good job teaching lower socio-economic, disadvantaged children...
it is the middle schools in the district that are basically horrible and failing--and they have been for years--THOSE schools and the struggling high schools would be ripe for a new game plan and maybe this infusion of new POVs would help...
but the fact is that it takes teaching for 3-5 years (as Mr. Canada who runs one of the charter schools featured in Waiting for Superman said) so nothing is going to happen overnight--
no matter how willing and talented a new teacher might be...

[Nedely]

I saw this movie last weekend and thought it was OK. There were a couple of things that I was a bit critical of afterwords though.

The whole thing about the kids not getting into charter schools... I wonder if those children now believe that they haven't a hope in hell of ever amounting to anything because they didn't get accepted.

The movie did a good job of showing the small percentage of children being proficient in reading and math across each state. HOWEVER, there was no mention of HOW proficiency is measured (two week long testing in most states). No mention of the flawed methods in which AYP is determined. Also no mention of just how terrible the NCLB act.

There was no mention of ridiculous, "experimental" curriculums and how they could be playing a part.

What about teachers "teaching to test"? Nope, not mentioned either. Or what about the fact that in a lot of schools, a teachers hands are tied about what they can and can't teach because it's not part of the curriculum, or part of state standards. No, not a word of that.

As for bad teachers, yes, there are plenty. The fact that New York has "rubber rooms" and lengthy procedures the district must go through to get rid of a bad teacher is NEW YORKS PROBLEM. Unfortunately, too many people seeing this movie will think that all districts are bad, all districts have "rubber rooms", and if the unions would just go away everything will be find and dandy again. Right...

If the local union is hell bent on not allowing tenure to be reformed, then the district has to refuse to agree to the terms. Let the contract run out, let the teachers strike or go somewhere else. The district will have to hire subs or new teachers in the mean time. But do districts want to bit the bullet that hard and go that route? Not usually.

In my district, the principal can call you in when there's a problem. The second time, you can get a written warning. The third time, it's a meeting with the problem employee, the union, and the principal. And investigations are speedy. Usually in a week or two, matters are "wrapped up" one way or another. I've worked at my school for four years and I've seen the principal slowly weed out the lousy employees. She runs a tight ship and she's great at it!

My husband bought the companion book and it's the same thing. Not a whole lot of extra information from what I saw when I glanced at it. The movie isn't bad, it just left a lot of important things out. And it may leave parents feeling a little too empowered for two simple reasons; 1) they have kids, 2) they saw this movie.

[Snort]

I've worked for the US Postal Service and for a few school districts. I'm not sure which system is more dysfunctional. It all starts with the design and the sickos who get entrenched in administration.

[cpg35223]

Originally Posted by ccr4tigers

While I believe that school reform is necessary, I also believe that we need to take a long, hard look at the culture that is producing these schools. It is a joke to pretend that the only reason these kids are struggling is that their school is inadequate.

I teach in a school in a very, and I mean very, rough neighborhood. We are a school that is viewed as a success. And while our test scores just keep on climbing, and teachers put in 12 hour days full of free tutoring and clubs, our kids still go home to drug addicted mom, abusive older brother, no food in the fridge, and a gang waiting with open arms.

You said a mouthful. Yet if you say anything about a woman who spawns a couple of children outside of marriage or some worthless scum who won't bust his youknowwhat to find a job, then you get slapped with the ultimate pejorative in our society today: Judgmental.

And I've seen more than my fair share. I never forget the time I had to consult for a public housing authority in my city. Part of my research was to interview somewhere close to a hundred residents on how they got into public housing, what they do with their days, etc. etc.

The interviewees fell into two broad categories: Those who had met with some tough circumstances and needed the safety net of public housing, and those who were content to suck the government's teats for decades rather than go out and get a job. These were the people who watched television all day, waited on the government assistance check, and occasionally worked an under-the-table job for case, all so they didn't have to go to work every day.

The first category, I have no problem with, because it is a legitimate function of government to help those who need it. But I encountered people who have been gaming the system for decades, and have ignored the large number of programs available to help get them back into the mainstream of society.

The way I see it, judgmental isn't such a bad thing. In fact, I think we need a little more judgement. We need to tell the woman with multiple daddies that she's a freaking drain on a society. We need to tell the joker who is content to sit at home all day watching the idiot box that he should feel ashamed of himself. Hey, I'm sympathetic with the guy who got laid off from his factory job. I have no sympathy for the guy who won't hold down a job if his life dependent on it.

[crbcrbrgv]

There are not enough skilled people to work in these schools. Teaching is extremely difficult, necessitating that the best and brightest go into the profession. Since it is not seen as an ideal profession due to status, pay etc, the best and brightest don't tend to go into teaching.

In a way, it reminds me of soccer in our country. In the U.S., the best athletes play football. Imagine how many World Cups we would win if the best athletes in our country chose to play soccer. Now imagine how much better our educational system would be if our best and brightest citizens chose to be teachers.

As a former teacher myself who still works in education, this is not to say that there aren't some extremely intelligent people in education. There are many. Until we do something about the status, the pay and the abuse teachers constantly take on a day to day basis, education will never improve.

[Ivorytickler]

Originally Posted by crbcrbrgv

There are not enough skilled people to work in these schools. Teaching is extremely difficult, necessitating that the best and brightest go into the profession. Since it is not seen as an ideal profession due to status, pay etc, the best and brightest don't tend to go into teaching.

In a way, it reminds me of soccer in our country. In the U.S., the best athletes play football. Imagine how many World Cups we would win if the best athletes in our country chose to play soccer. Now imagine how much better our educational system would be if our best and brightest citizens chose to be teachers.

As a former teacher myself who still works in education, this is not to say that there aren't some extremely intelligent people in education. There are many. Until we do something about the status, the pay and the abuse teachers constantly take on a day to day basis, education will never improve.

Problem is, who is going to hire them? The field is glutted. Higher pay will just mean more unemployed teachers as will better working conditions. And even if you got people to come out of industry to teach, how are you going to get the teachers who are tenured and in the system out to make room for them?

Sorry, but this change isn't happening any time soon.

[crbcrbrgv]

IvoryTickler, you really did a good job of continuing where I left off. Nicely put.