What a got damn shitshow. [warning politics]

[tautologies]

"My dinner with Bannon" by a senior researcher at the Cato institute.
Worried now?

https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=no&tl=en&js=y&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.aftenposten.no%2Fkultur%2FMin-middag-med-Steve-Bannon-614904b.html&edit-text=

More on the Cato institute: https://www.cato.org/about

[pdxmike]

Hah!  He mispelled Gouda.

And also BARIN.

[PonoBill]

The shitstorm over DeVos is not simply random people being outraged. It's coordinated and well-directed. There is money and power behind it. I assume it's unions, but it might be more. I don't agree with Admin that it's simple politics. Too slick, too coordinated to be just a talking point.

In a different administration and a different time some component of both sides would consider her to be a potentially good choice for the position, some wouldn't care, and some would decry her "lack of credentials".  Her lack of credentials as identified by the media stems from not knowing some inside baseball terms and not sending her kids to public school. Not too surprising as the chairperson of the American Federation for Children, which supports "school choice".

She didn't contribute to the Trump campaign--that's misinformation--though she's former chairperson of the Michigan Republican Party and certainly she and her husband have been long time contributors to the party. I don't recall many Secretaries of Education who were educators. And I'm not certain I'd consider that a qualification. In other words, I don't see anything in her history that says unqualified to be Secretary of Education.

It's something else. I don't know what.

I don't know squat about Mrs. DeVos, other than what I'm being manipulated into "knowing".

From the standpoint of the general public, I think the only substantial block of the voting public that thinks education doesn't need massive overhaul is teachers. There's not a lot of traction there for votes. So I don't see that as the motivation for the effort.

We've had many conversations here in the Random Zone about education. I think it's imperative that our country do much, much better, and I reject the notion that the solution is just more money. We may need to spend more, but it also needs to be spent effectively. A lot more effectively.

My thoughts parallel SupLeave's. I consider public employee unions to be destructive, I think there's no lack of evidence in support of that idea.  I understand the comment about certification as well. The world changes quickly. Teaching English and math--a teacher who graduated twenty years ago who hasn't burned out might do fine. Anything that has to do with technology? Good luck. The notion that certification trumps current knowledge seems wrongheaded to me. I accept and support Tautologies argument--in exactly the opposite way he means it.

And if we have actually improved so greatly over the last 100 years, WTF happened to our educational system and the performance of our high school graduates compared to just about anywhere else on earth?  Fifth in spending per student, 26th out of 34 in math, similarly crappy in all other subjects, and not statistically different from all the other low performers.

No room for imporovement there. It's got to be that we're not spending enough.

Add to the sorry results the fact that students who did well enough to go to college face a choice of a huge debt burden or forgoing college and we're not doing much to retain any semblance of technological leadership.

[DavidJohn]

Mr President.. http://www.thepoke.co.uk/2017/02/08/donald-trump-mr-men-cartoon-just-superb/

[SUP Leave]

Everyone is making noise about lack of qualifications, but what qualifications do you want her to have? If she is an expert at the ins-and outs of education, then her opinion is going to be slanted towards the status quo, or even worse some other hare-brained scheme. I hope her hare brained scheme is reduction of the fed's fingers on our education. The states have and should retain the most power over education. IMO the fed needs to de-regulate its grip over schools/states further. Education is local - allow the states to determine if school choice is required and where the money is best spent for the education of the kids. The fed should ensure the state's rights for this, but never make it a mandate.

This is such a backward argument, and it holds no truth. What do you do for a living? Do you think someone with no credentials or experience can come in off the street and solve the most complex issues you face? If you do then the value you bring is extremely limited.

Fact is that she needs to solve extremely complex issues, and you do not do that well by having no experience. It just doesn't work that way. You need expertise. The ide that you will be for status quo just because you have expertise makes no sense, and I would like to see you back it up. Status quo or not is not a function of experience. I what I think you might be alluding to is that people can be stuck in a context of "this is how we have done it for as long as I can remember and it will not change"....but that is not at all a function of experience, it is a function of personality and problem solving approach. Plenty of people with a lot of experience can be creative and propose solution that are good.

So you prefer the individual states solve the problems by themselves? Why would they do a better job? This isn't a function of locally responsive. The cultures aren't so different that education needs a completely different methodology.

Beyond that, pushing for Right to Work in each state (by each state) is the next step. Put power in  the hands of administrators. Right now I see principals in schools as basically babysitters for adults (teachers and support staff), when they should be leaders of adults with a common goal. Beyond that, I think that teacher certification should NOT be a requirement to get a job as a teacher. Why reduce the pool of qualified individuals due to a regulation? Make the regulation that they must have a certification within 5 years of taking the job. I think some people are natural educators, even if their degree is in something like psychology or physics.  Do the same for Administration- find quality administrators first, then worry about certifications.

WHAT? Holy smokes, I think you are probably the best proof why not some random person should not come in and lead an organization like this. By letting any person with no skill in educating teach you are undoing 100 years of humanity getting better and more efficient at teaching.

Thank you Taut, for the entertainment this Friday afternoon.

Me personally, I have a couple of businesses but by trade - I am a Professional Engineer (Civil P.E.) - it took 4 years of school, 8 years of on the job training and 2 tests to get my professional certification (plus a bunch of extra hours per year of training updates). When I am doing technical work there is only a small percentage of people in the world who can do it. However, and this gets to my point - I took  over (purchased) a surveying business, of which I only have a passing knowledge (1 semester in college). The business has exceeded my expectations and frankly has outperformed its prior ownership everywhere from gross/net revenue, technical proficiency, and production rates. The last owner was an actual surveyor (nuts and bolts, technical stuff, on top of management), while I will not even look at a survey. Why- because I am only big picture- set the policy direction and let the staff work it out. I have learned so much from being in this position that it has helped my other business (the engineering one) immensely.

Which leads to my point again - what qualifications make for a great SecEd? Is it vision for policy or getting tied down in the nuts and bolts of the business of educating kids? My point is and will remain - education is local. The Fed should fund education - period. For my money eliminate the Ed dept, and disperse the money to run it to the states. To say that the Fed Gov't is going to be able to solve the extremely complex issues with school performance is putting waaaaaay to much stock in the government. I operate from the opinion that most politicians are first idiots, and politicians second. No person in that position could solve the problems in our schools (R or D). If DeVos was some kind of former teacher, or administrator it would make no difference. Start going through the lists of federal student programs: "No child left behind" "race to the top" etc. How did they do, did they help or just add additional regulations and requirements to an already hard job? The Fed can't solve the problem - it is too diverse.

Right to work means that a teacher is not required to join the union to have a job. Nothing more or less. It weakens the union, and makes teaching a more accessible field which is what I am getting to. I want the best talent teaching my kids, certification be damned. Would you rather have some old near-retiree riding out the string (yet fully certified) half-assed teaching your kids physics class, or an enthusiastic out of work mechanical engineer?

Trying to apply a national standard for education, is VERY challenging, and only wastes time and money. I would definitely counter that the cultures are different. Schools should have the right to educate students to suit the job market, it changes way too fast for some national standard to keep up.

Here is probably the answer to Ponobill's question about the money. The standardized testing industry makes more money than the NFL every year. (Houghton-Mifflin, EST, Pearson, McGraw-Hill) check their lobbying payments. America has fallen behind due to the status quo, national testing has not helped. Colleges and the job market should be what drives education, not a nationally recognized (lobbied for) test.

[PonoBill]

"My dinner with Bannon" by a senior researcher at the Cato institute.
Worried now?

https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=no&tl=en&js=y&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.aftenposten.no%2Fkultur%2FMin-middag-med-Steve-Bannon-614904b.html&edit-text=

More on the Cato institute: https://www.cato.org/about

I'm always worried. Bannon is spoky. I'm a big fan of the Cato institute, of course. Pretty much a clubhouse for Conservatives Leaning Towards Libertarianism If Only They Weren't All So Batshit Crazy" (CLTLIOTWSBC). This looks interesting: https://www.cato.org/events/islamic-liberalism-real-or-false-hope  I more or less vote "false" though true would sure be nice.

[connector14]

Regarding unions,  it's going to be interesting to see if Tesla has difficulty trying to keep their workforce independent. I think the UAW would sure like to go after them. Elon is not a fan. He might just figure out a way to do the entire job with robots......he's about half way there now!

[SlatchJim]

SUP Leave, you very eloquently put into writing the very spirit of the rant I went off on this morning.  Well done my friend.

[seadart]

The top twenty national educations systems based on performance do not have anything like the US system being proposed, where the  states can do what they want, religious leaders can set curriculum  and the national government stays out of the equation. Quite the opposite, in the top performing countries like Korea, Finland, Japan the national government plays a strong central role in guiding and financing the education system, and standardized testing through out the country is used to grade and evaluate all students and teacher performance and serves as a gateway for students who progress to Universities.

In both Korea, Finland and Japan education is held in high regards and teachers are treated with great respect (equal to how we revere doctors), not called worms waiting out their retirement.

The models where local religious groups control schools (Islamic Fundamentalists or Evangelical So Called Christians) or the Libertarian model "I've got mine, go find your own" (like Somalia or Mississippi) produce shit.

[PonoBill]

South Korea has a population of fifty million--state level. Finland has five million--city level. Japan is 125 million--region level.

But hey, fine, if we actually build a model like that. But that isn't what we have. That would take a massive rework of our educational system and probably twenty years of work. A complete rework of who pays and trashing all state authority.  Sounds impossible and no one trusts the feds to do it efficiently or effectively. More importantly, try doing anything in the face of union opposition, or even anything less than full support.

It's more likely that individual states could build better systems, but some states would never get there.

We can take lessons from cultures and countries that excel, but there's no simple model to copy.  Kids in American public schools attend 180 days on average. Two of the systems you mention have a minimum of 210 (Finland has 190) but most students attend 240 days and Finland has a tradition of very heavy homework and tutoring. That automatically puts American kids perhaps 25%  per year behind.  You could start there. Of figure out how to get kids to do homework.

[Admin]

The shitstorm over DeVos is not simply random people being outraged. It's coordinated and well-directed. There is money and power behind it. I assume it's unions, but it might be more. I don't agree with Admin that it's simple politics. Too slick, too coordinated to be just a talking point.

This is all just blather.  Only one cabinet nominee ever has been rejected by the senate for an incoming president.  Trump was always going to get his picks.  He is also gunna get Gorsuch.  The fervor is showmanship.  It is a short window where we get to connect emotionally that leads to nothing. 

[Area 10]

You couldn't follow the model of Japan. It would not be "culturally acceptable". Their kids work so many more hours in school than yours it's unbelievable. It might not be even desirable - there is an argument that East Asian forms of education stifle creativity, and it is going to be creativity that is a driving economic force as robots take the more routine jobs.

Russia too. In my experience their students are used to working much harder than US or European students, and have built up a tolerance for it over many years.

So, in cross-cultural comparisons you do have to start asking yourself deep questions such as what the purpose of life is as far as your culture is concerned, and how this should be encapsulated within the education system, right through from kindergarten to university postgraduate. What is it you are hoping to achieve? It is unlikely you could compete with eg. Japan and Russia at what they do so well. The gap is too large, and parents and students alike probably wouldn't have the stomach for it, even if the taxpayer would be willing to support the vast number of extra teachers and associated costs it would take. Your culture doesn't value education highly enough, and some commentators argue that there is almost a lack of trust of intellectuals, perhaps typified most recently by the Ginger Whinger and his rejection of the overwhelming opinion of scientists on matters such as climate change. If your leaders do not value science your children won't either. This trend should worry you because in modern economies investment in the science base leads to an increase in productivity in the private sector, which helps the economy to grow.

The country with the best boffins is also the safest country militarily. It's having hoards of top boffins that will keep you safe, rather than defence spending per se. You need people who are constantly inventing new weapons, and ways to defend against those that others are inventing. And of course eg. cyber-warfare and its role in terrorism, state-sanctioned snooping etc. You can encourage or stifle the characteristics required in these boffins by the way you run your educational system.

So it is definitely worth having someone with a substantial knowledge of the conditions that foster good education at the helm IMO. It's a delicate balance, and that person may even need sometimes go against prevailing social trends. If the "free world" is going to stay competitive in the coming years, the basis of that is going to be education - and not just hours of schooling, but something much smarter that taps into and enhances your particular cultural strengths, whilst not letting your cultural weaknesses swamp them. This is no time for looking back to bygone eras.

[lucabrasi]

We do need some sort of standards. Of course we do but you shouldn't be forced to teach the same or use the same methods across the board.
I can't think how that could be a good idea. Kids everywhere need to know some of the same things but you can't fill up a day, every day for 12 years with the same stuff for everyone and expect it to be successful. The local teachers, board, parents, etc all need to have lots of input on how their schools are taught.

[Ichabod Spoonbill]

I shouldn't have even gotten involved with this conversation, but now that I dragged my ass in, I'll say what I have to say.

Education is a field which everyone thinks they understand and very few non educators actually do. One of the things that I enjoy about this site is the level of expertise here. We have great respect for expertise, but somehow when we talk about education that goes away.

Teaching isn't what you guys think it is. The solutions you want to put upon schools will (usually) hurt teachers and students more than you'll ever realize. And this is the kind of thing which you won't understand unless you've done your time in front of kids, having successes, failures, kids who love you, kids who hate you. It's a place which requires wisdom, and modesty. What kills with one group of kids might be an absolute failure with another. The reason: you're dealing with people — kids. They don't bend to rules well and they are as varied as the world.

I could refute a lot of what you're saying, but I don't really have the energy. I don't want argue about this. I don't come to StandupZone to argue. I'm a mid-career teacher, having done this for about fifteen years. All I can say is that if before you make pronunciations about how teachers should be teaching, how how to fix schools, or why unions or bad, you should walk a few miles in a teacher's moccasins. If you want to refute me, go right ahead. As I said, I don't have the energy for any unnecessary arguments.

This is a far more complex topic than most of you understand. Neither teachers nor teachers unions nor public schools are the enemy to a good education. They want the exact same thing. Really. No ifs, ands, or buts. I could post pictures and videos of me in action, so you could see how committed I am to teaching well, but all my pictures have kids in them and it's against professional ethics to use them on social media. But this sin't about me. Most teachers feel the exact same way. And sure we get burnt out or depressed or negative sometimes. That's part of the job too. We're human, not supermen (and women).

[PonoBill]

The shitstorm over DeVos is not simply random people being outraged. It's coordinated and well-directed. There is money and power behind it. I assume it's unions, but it might be more. I don't agree with Admin that it's simple politics. Too slick, too coordinated to be just a talking point.

This is all just blather.  Only one cabinet nominee ever has been rejected by the senate for an incoming president.  Trump was always going to get his picks.  He is also gunna get Gorsuch.  The fervor is showmanship.  It is a short window where we get to connect emotionally that leads to nothing.

Certainly worked out that way.