Paper #3 Rough Draft

Paper #3- Critiquing Education

Finland has one of the best education systems in the world. They have a 93% high school graduation rate while the US only has a 75% graduation rate. They require all of their teachers to have master's degrees and they only let the top 10% of graduates teach each year. On the other hand almost any teacher can begin teaching right away in the US; and then, if they turn out to be a bad teacher, they can not be fired because of tenure. I also believe that the current teacher's union helps prevent better teachers from getting jobs. The most important change that needs to be made in the K-12 curriculum is the teachers, both the quality of them and the rules and benefits that go with the job.

The first step that must be taken in order to improve the overall quality of education for the students is to evaluate every teacher over the course of a school year. It will most likely take many years to evaluate every single teacher, but it needs to be done so we know exactly what teachers are actually able to help the students. The teachers would be monitored on their skills and progress and the students can give feedback on the teachers. In the article, Against School, John Gatto talks about how one of the biggest problems for students is that they are bored in class. Good teachers can keep the students engaged in the lessons which results in the students learning more information. The teacher Mr. Escalante from Stand and Deliver would fit Gatto's guidelines and would score in the top percentage of teachers being evaluated. He was very passionate about teaching and set high expectations for his students while making the lessons interesting for them. He used real world examples for some of the problems which made it more interesting for the students, the jiggolo and his hoes. He may have gone against normal protocol at times but the students learned math and enjoyed him as a teacher. 

After all of the teachers were evaluated, then the teacher's union will need to be completely reformed. Everyone who currently holds a position of power in the union will be replaced with the teachers who scored highest on the evaluation. In the movie Waiting for Superman the teachers said that biggest obstacle to fixing the quality of education was the teacher's union. The union is not necessarily a bad thing, but it prevents good teachers from being paid more and it helps bad teachers keep their jobs. The union supports tenure which prevents teachers from being fired and is run by people who don't really know what's best for the majority of teachers and students. It is not fair to all of the students that have to deal with bad teachers. When Michelle Reid became the superintendent of the Washington DC schools she attempted to fire many bad teachers and principals, but she was unable to because of tenure. She then tried to make a deal with the teacher's union: if they would remove tenure, then she would increase the salary of all the good teachers to six digits. They refused to even vote on her proposal. Therefore the teacher's union need to be reformed if the quality of teachers is to improve which inturn would greatly improve the quality of education that the students receive.

After the teacher's union is reformed then we can try to propose another deal like Michelle Reid's to remove the tenure, or at least limit which teachers are protected by it. Then all of the bad teachers would receive pay cuts and be placed on probation until they improve while the good teachers will receive raises. The raises and pay cuts provide incentives for the teachers. If the teacher is happy, then they will most likely perform better and be able to teach the students more information. Lewis Black talks about a school that is worth half a billion dollars and questions the train of thought that led to that much money being spent on it. In the article Children, Arts, and Du Bois, Keith Gilyard talks about a humanities after school program for elementary kids and they all enjoy it, but it was discontinued because of budget cuts. Programs like that provide a creative outlet for the kids which eventually leads to them being more willing and able to learn during the school day. Also in the NEA article the author talks about a very successful program that helps Hispanic teenagers in high school. Although it wasn't canceled because of budget cuts it still shows how special programs in school can help the students succeed. If the money that is spent on making the school look nicer is instead spent on the teachers, then the teachers will be able to keep the after school and other programs going which improve the students overall performance.

Finally after all the bad teachers are fired or given a reason to improve we will need to make sure that the incoming teachers will be able to teach well. There will need to be a training program for the teachers before they can teach their own class. They can teach as an assistant for other teachers and current teachers can can give seminars for them on how to maintain control of the classroom and make sure that the students understand the information. In the movie Chalk it was Mr. Lowry's first year ever teaching. It was obvious that he was nervous and had no idea what he was doing. He kept apologizing to the students about stuff and they took advantage of his weakness. Towards the end of the year he became more confident in himself as a teacher and the students began to respect him, they even had a rap session with him. Throughout the year he was able to get a little bit of help from other teachers, but he was left mainly on his own. Most teachers who start out without being able to teach and that don't receive help will quit the job. 50% of teachers quit within their first 3 years of teaching; that is a lot of potential good teachers that quit because they feel lost and unable to control the students. If these teachers were to receive training before they actually began to teach then they would have a lot more confidence and the students that they taught in the first year would learn a lot more information.

Although it is not the teachers fault whether a students fails a class, a good or a bad teacher can still make a big difference on whether the students actually learned some new stuff. Some students just have a hard time learning information in one way and a good teacher will be able to help them while a bad teacher will ignore them and just continue passing them through, setting the student up to fail later on life. Therefore we need to get more better teachers into the classrooms and we can do this by providing raises for good teachers and offering more training for new teachers. Finland is a great example of how school should be and they are very successful in the education of their children. The success of the student ultimately comes down to whether they had good teachers or bad teachers and that is why we need to change the quality of teachers in our K-12 education system.

Paolo Friere

I agree with Friere that the narrative form of education is not very helpful, but only in higher levels of education. In elementary school it is very helpful, first the students learn the information then later they can understand it as their brain develops more and they gain more knowledge. For example proofs in geometry require you to start with a problem and an answer, then you have to write down each individual step to find the answer using properties. This helps you understand how it works and an elementary schooler would not understand. I believe that Friere's idea of communicative education is good. The more communication that goes on, the more you will learn. Also debating can help you learn a lot about a topic and it helps sharpen your mind.

Waiting for Superman Notes

Narrator is lucky because his kids get to go to a private school, other parents put their kids in a lottery to get into a good school. One kid lost his dad at a young age, all the kids that talk seem to want to learn. Teachers are trying to teach them. Little girl, daisy, wants to be a veterinarian. Everyone is trying to fix the education but fails. Money problem. Reading and Math scores have flatlined since 1971. Third largest overcorweded school, guarded by a desk and a security guard. Bianca's mother will do whatever she has to do to make her daughter able to go to college. Bush started the no child left behind and they started measuring children's basic education. Many states half less than a third of their students profficient in math, same wiht reading. worst skills for reading are in Washington DC. By the time daisy leaves middleschool only 13% of students will be profficient in math. Only 3 out of 100 students will graduate from her highschool with the ability to be admitted to a four year college. Over 2,000 droppout factories, elementary and middleschools send ill prepared students to highschool. People think that neighborhoods fail because the schools fail. 68% of inmates in pennsylvania are highschool dropouts. DC public schools have everything wrong with them. 2007 Michelle Reid began to try to fix the DC school district. She is the seventh superintendent of the DC schools in 10 years. There are over 14,000 autonomous school boards. The governement sets schools guidelines but then states set their own and they conflict. Studies show and parents believe that it all comes down to a good teacher. Students with high performing teachers progress almost 3 times as fast as a low performing teacher. A student took a video of teachers and students doing bad stuff in school. Public school teachers get atomatic tenure. Even horrible teachers are gaurenteed their jobs no matter what they do. NEA and TFK have given the most money to politics, 90% are democrat, to help the education system. People aren't allowed to talk about teacher unions. A ton of forms and deadlines required to fire a teacher and if they aren't met you must wait another year. Teachers say their biggest obstacle to real reform is the contract with the teacher union. In dysfunctional systems you see good people do weird things- dance of the lemons. Each principal tries to get rid of the bad teachers to a different school and they hope to get better teachers. New York has to pay teacher for 3 years while they are under trial even when they aren't working. Only 38 school districts in Illionois were able to fire a teacher, only 1 in 2500 teachers lose their credentials. In the 90s some communities began to all teachers to create charter schools. Schools must hold a lottery for limited space. Michelle Reid is goin to close many public schools and fire many teachers and principals. Only 1 in 5 charter school produce great results. Up until the 1970s American public schools were the best in the world. Since then the US has fallen into the 25 slot in the world. Americans rate #1 in confidence. Not all schools in fancy neighborhoods are very good. Some colleges have to remediate 50% of the freshmen to prepare them for college courses. 50 years agi the system of tracking was a good thing because they needed certain people for certain jobs, now schools haven't changed bu the rest of the workd has. Bill Gates testified before congress to try and fix the schools. There is an education gap between rich and poor children and nothing has changed it. One teacher realized her students could't remember the terms so she made rap songs out of them for the students. The top charter school are sending over 90% of their students on to 4 year colleges. KIPP Academy was named the highest performing middle school. Now there are 82 KIPP schools. Students at KIPP do better then everyone and shatter the myth about poor kids being unable to learn. Reid is trying to make a new contract with the teachers union, proposed that they can keep tenure or give it up and get more pay. Her proposal was rejected before they could even vote on it. It takes a lot of outrage and good examples to change the status quote.

Gilyard and NEA

These two articles passionately argue for something that the writers wish to see changed in schools. Unit 3 is about critiquing education and what would you change if you could in the education system. The essay for unit 3 will have to be persuasive and will have to illustrate why you believe that part of the curriculum should be changed. Both of these articles are very persuasive and provide many reasons that they believe the school curriculum should be changed. They are backed up with numbers and positive feedback of students who agree with the attempted changes. Also if someone was to write about the subject of humanities or Latino classes in the education system, then one of these articles would be an excellent example and source for that essay. Even if you don't choose one of those topics you can still use them as examples of how to organize the essay or in which ways to effectively use your arguments towards the change that you are promoting.

Mike Rose and Lewis Black

Black talked about a school that was half a billion dollars and made a comment about how a school shouldn't be the nicest building that you ever go into. I agree with him on this; school is a place to learn and it does not need to have a fancy park for students to learn. Although the school itself doesn't need to be super expensive, the school should have enough money to purchase the supplies necessary for giving the students a good education. He also criticizes the teachers and about how qualified they are for teaching (Tony Danza). In Finland only the top 10% of the graduating class of teachers each year are given jobs and they have a 93% high school graduation while the US is only at 75%. It just shows that schools need to rethink their staff and how they spend their money.
Rose also talks about how schools need good teachers. A good teacher will be able to teach the information to the students and keep them interested or engaged in the lessons. Some students do not want to learn just to know the information so a good teacher would help the student find a way to motivate themselves. He also talks about how standardized testing is bad because it sets one "gold standard" and makes everything else not as important. In the core classes I believe that the standardized test is the best thing because you cannot go out into the real world during high school and test what you learned. Now when students enter college or if they are in a non core academic class, then there may need to be a different way to measure the skill of the student.

Critiquing Education

Teachers Should have an air of confidence, even if they don't feel confident because it will help the students respect them and want to learn. At first the teacher may not know what to do but eventually they will learn how to act in a classroom because teaching takes practice like sports. Also teachers should be friends to provide support and to help new teachers and so that they can learn together. Also if the teachers worked together it would take care of many of the problems that they have with discipline and rules at the school. They should never lose their temper with a student or else they will lose power and respect. Their first job is to make sure the students learn the information and have some fun. If the teachers have higher expectations than the students will most likely rise to those expectations. Actually train the teachers and have meetings with other teachers to better learn how to teach. Teachers should try and teach, not get an award. Teachers need gray areas. Teaching salaries.

Chalk Notes

50% of teachers quit within their first 3 years of teaching. Some teachers don't know how to respond to some student comments or actions that are inappropriate. One teacher seems to be confident and the students are laughing and enjoying his class(Mr. Stroop), while another one is struggling because it is his first day and he is nervous(Mr. Lowry). Mrs. Raddel is the assistant principal. Coach Webb is the gym teacher. Mr. Stroop isn't supposed to use sarcasm, is supposed to be more organized, and write lesson plans. People assume that the female PE teacher is gay. Teachers aren't supposed to be a students friend, but Stroop cares about them and tries to help them. Lowry has no authority and a weak voice with students and teachers. Gym teacher is uptight and cares too much if a students is a couple seconds late to class. Students took Lowry's chalk. Gym teacher believes in students and has high expectations for them and they succeed and perform at the level of expectations. Lowry is reading books on classroom management. Raddel and Webb had a fight about amount of time it takes to be an assistant principal. Mr. Stroop has to ask a student to use smaller words so that he can better understand and another one to act a little dumber because she knows more history than him. Lowry is trying to add some humor to his teaching and it is helping with his confidence a little. Webb likes Lowry. Stroop is asking the teachers if they have used some school stuff and tells them that they have to stop. He talks about integrity and character and how the teachers should be role models for the students. Webb assumes that people thinks she is pushy, probably is though. Stroop us calling a students parents because he has a bad grade, fake call same students who used big words. Lowry fell asleep and fantasized about Webb, then the assistant principal asked if he would date her. He has been divorced for two years and is afraid to start dating again. Lowry wishes that student didn't bring cell phones. Gets really mad at a student, he is a horrible teacher. Stroop is up for teacher of the year and is talking to his class about it. Lowry doesn't feel as if some of his students don't respect him, a mother gives him advice on how to get students respect. School runs out of fish sticks because of lack of funds. Gym teacher is still uptight about the tardy policy. She thought that her friend who became the assistant principal would help her and is mad that she isn't helping her as much. Raddel feels manipulated. Stroop really wants to be a teacher of the year and thinks that he will win. He didn't win and is all sad and stuff. Desk flip and yells because a student said that second place isn't last place. Teachers keep complaining about the gym teacher. The AP misses teaching. Lowry made a deal with his students that he could participate in a slang spelling bee. Seems more confident and wins. teachers seem to bond throughout movie. Lowry is rapping with his students. Lowry may not return to teaching the next year. Teachers learned more about themselves and how to be better teachers throughout the year.

John Gatto

The article was definitely different. I agreed with some parts of it and I thought other parts were kind of crazy. I agree with him when he talks about how school is boring and that most teachers aren't very smart. The school system seems to go at the slowest students pace while I believe that it should go a little faster than the average student's pace. This will keep the students more interested and require them to take learning into their own hands. Most of the teachers that I have had were good and tried to keep the class interesting, but there were a few that were boring and stupid. The boring teachers always had to highest fail rate of all the teachers; students just don't want to learn if they aren't interested. I disagree with Gatto when he compares school to Prussian education. The public school system provides a lot of social opportunities for the students and can be fun. It also prepares students for the corporate job market by having a set schedule with set deadlines. The problem with the school isn't the system, it's the amount/usefulness of the information taught and how well the teachers do their jobs.