Reforming education has been going on for a long, long time. It’s not a new idea.
Every time a teacher improves what she does or how she does it or shapes a lesson to better fit her current class, she reforms – i.e., improves – education. Every time she consults with her colleagues looking for new ideas, together they reform education.
Good teachers do it all the time, nearly every day. That’s one of the things that makes them good. And, that is how improving our educational system will always occur one classroom at a time, one teacher at a time. Not by policy makers forcing top down solutions or creating competitive systems as might be done in the corporate world.
Carrot and stick approaches, my way or the highway threats, will ultimately result in an essentially robotic teaching corps, one without a heart, one a good teacher wants to flee from. Clearly, that’s not a consequence any of us look forward to.
It seems obvious, however, that the legislature and others, frustrated by the difficulties involved in fixing public education, will continue to opt for easier solutions, charter schools being one example.
The only real way to improve our current public education system is to work within that system, tackling the hard issues in the very environment in which they exist. That’s where legislative efforts ought to be focused, not on phony fixes like charter schools or on punitive evaluation systems.
Thank you Mr. Bergeson for a well thought out letter – I agree 100%!
Well all of Tacoma knows that the teachers come first and the students last. So don’t give me any of that BS!
Reforms start with putting kids forst and the unions last. It’s upside down and will not change until we divorce ourselves from the unions.
Ah, old Truthbuster and the union hatred diatribe. The unions don’t have anything to do with what happens inside the classroom when it comes to instruction. The “union” bargains working conditions, not curriculum, so please tell me how what actually happens when a teacher is in front of a class would be any different with or without the “union”. I can tell you from first hand experience, both as a classroom teacher that has worked in BOTH union and non-union and has had kids in both situations, there is not difference. I know this does not fit your belief system, which is to blame the hated evil unions for all problems, but you are just plain wrong!!!
pawl
“Teachers comde first and studnets come last”–what does that have to do with the letter? Not only is it not true, but it means nothing.
Truthbuster
By the way, can you give me ONE example where teachers have been put first and students second?
Fibonacci,
Teachers priorities are their work environment, not how well each and every student learns the concept. This is where teachers come first.
My priority always has been teaching to each and every student as an unique individual. My attempts in this is stopped by the district mandated curriculum, its methods, the way I’m evaluated and what I can do with students.
fibon, you alway s ask for proof. OK you show me one shread of proof that teacher unions have contributed one good thing that have helped kids in the United States.
We spend more per student than any country on earth and here are the world rankings.
Math:(31st place)
Reading: (17th place)
Science: (23rd place)
Can you are any of your liberal nutty frinds say with a stright face that teacher unions are all about the kids????
Just look at how the unions are stopping school reforms in Olympia right now. Teacher unions are a cancer on society that must be cut out and NOW!!!
truthbuster
Teacher unions are about working conditions for adults. So? I don[t have to show you one shred of evidence that teacher unions have contributed good things to kids, that is not their purpose. With that said, YOU have never once given ONE thing that shows teacher unions harm kids. MatH (31st), Reading (17th), Science (23rd)–I have no idea if these are true or not, but if they are, WHAT DO THEY HAVE TO DO WITH UNIONS? Are you saying the UNIONS cause these resultS? By what stretch of the imagination.
I have taught both public and private schools, and guess what, there are good teachers and bad teachers in both. Gee, what a concept. But then again, there are good doctors and bad, good judges and bad, good barbers and bad–get the picture?
ccingthr
Teachers priorities are their work environment not how well the students learn the concepts? Says who? You scan on.y speak for yourself not all a teachers. Of course the work environment is important, give me one job that is different. So your district mandates curriculum–so what? Do you think you know better than everyone else?
truthie
What school reforms are the unions stopping? By the way, just how many schools have YOU been in? How many teachers have YOU observed? My guess is that you have not been in one since you went to school and probably hated it then too. But you are so sure that the evil unions are to blame. Give me ONE example of how they harm kids–come on, just one. Make it concrete, not some “blocking reforms” nonsense.
Sorry, Mr. Bergeson, but you’ve got it turned around.
Teachers can be adapting their lesson plans to supposed student needs til doomsday, but if the student isn’t learning what he/she needs, the public schools will continue to fail.
It’s not about how teachers teach, it’s about getting the students to learn.
The US Education system. The largest threat to our Country and way of life!
madtaxpayer
No, people that make broad statements with no basis in fact are the biggest threat to our way of life.
Well hugh, you obviously missed the memo from the hate-wing education “experts. To wit, teachers are all just stooges of the socialist unions and have no concern for kids. The hours they spend on weekends away from their families grading papers and preparing lessons and the money out of their own pockets that they spend on materials for classrooms are just false flag camouflage designed to fool people about their nefarious ulterior motives.
The source of failure for public education is not particular adopted standards or curricula. It is the greedy and selfish actions of teacher’s unions that has made public schools an institution for teaching careers instead of the education of the students. Teachers and unions blame their failures on the individuals they directly hand-cuff with pretentious demands, including staffing rules, found in their collective bargaining agreements. These staffing rules are inconsistent with sensible approach to reason and accountability, taking the power to improve the quality of teaching in a building out of principal’s hands.
Self-serving language inserted into union contracts for the petty whims of teachers are one of the largest least understood barriers to transforming schools and improving student achievement. These contract provisions allow experienced teachers with more seniority to stay planted at, or transfer to schools that serve more middle-class children.
As a result, poor and less desirable schools are often forced to hire teachers regardless of students’ needs, even if they are not the right match for the job. A disparity with a abundance of experience in the upper scale schools with a shortage at the more urban schools in the district. Only the more privileged student are removed from these poorly staffed schools by their parents who can afford other alternatives. What we are left with is the educational segregation, single-handedly, created by the teacher’s unions.
The process has become not about the best-qualified candidate but rather satisfying union rules. These selfish contract demands fail to serve student’s best interests and ultimately fail to serve teachers. Despite teacher deceitful claims, motivation for a change in these rules is not about politics or not supporting unions; rather, it is about the needs of students and the desire to provide them.
Meaningful reform is possible, and quality can replace seniority in determining who will teach our students.
Communities
lets allow teaching conditions to erode so horribly that only the truly committed would undertake such an undignified profession; that’ll weed out all the bad ones… smh
nwcolorist,
Getting kids to learn involves getting them involved in the process of learning; usually integrating their interest within the lessons. I often use cars in designing lessons, by involving students in using marketing, work order completion, taxes, overhead, profit, billing, car design, suspension alignment design, structure, gear ratios, fuel ratios, computer networking, electrical circuitry, art, and other topics that involve academics as early as primary elementary grades all the way up to high school. This involves ditching the district mandated curriculum and using the state learning objectives as a guide to fabricate a lesson plan that uses different methods at the same time.
Fibonacci,
I’m a very competitive person when it comes to doing the proper thing that gets the result that I expect. If that means mowing down the system and developing something from scratch, so be it. I’ll do that. I also will question the decisions made by others and demand they tell me it will work to the expectations I have. I once questioned a school decision that wanted a student with high functioning autism and ADHD in Western State Hospital rather than a classroom that was designed to allow him to learn easily. The school felt he was a danger to himself because they felt he was out of control and very agressive. Their first tactic in working with him was physical restraints. When I worked with him, I used a consistant schedule that was calmer and allowed him to work at a pace he was comfortable with. My insistance paid off because Western State felt he did not meet the criteria of their program.
pacman
what do you base
any of your absurd assertions on exactly? Is this what Faux News tells you? I will ask you the same question I asked the other school hater (Taxedenough), just how many schools have you been in to make your observations? Just what “greedy and selfish actions” have those evil unions perpetrated on schools?
ccingthr
Of course you use cars in your lessons, you teach autoshop.
It’s not about how teachers teach, it’s about getting the students to learn.
You don’t see any correlation between those two things?
Equally bizarre is the immediate anti-union response to a letter essentially about the need for teachers to be able to function more independently in the classroom to best serve the students. This letter was not a plea for more money, it had nothing to do with the union.
It is weird that the rightwingers on this board seem to be for MORE governmental/institutional control in the classroom. I guess they just hate teachers.
Fibonacci auto-posted -
“Just what “greedy and selfish actions” have those evil unions perpetrated on schools?”
Are you impaired with a reading and comprehension disability or do you not read the posts? Do you read the first sentence or until you determine the comment is listing one of the endless reasons how public schools have become the biggest rabbit-hole for tax money? How despite the ridiculous portion of state budgets dedicated to public schools, our nation’s sub-mediocre scoring embarrassingly ranks us down with 3rd world nations?
This stems directly from the unionists turning our public schools into centers for teaching careers instead of educational institutions for American children. Do you think others are as naive as you to deny any connection between the embarrassing results of our public school system and the fact out of all occupations, teachers salaries are based on merit the least?
Pacman
Can you READ? I asked how the UNIONS were at fault for the dismal results you seem to imply. How do the UNIONS come into play at all in the classroom. You have NO IDEA what the WEA does and does not do, but that is parr for thye school haters, they opperate out of ignorance, spouting their prejudice rather than facts.
If you can read these comments….
Thank a teacher!
turning our public schools into centers for teaching careers instead of educational institutions for American children.
So the solution is staffing our schools with unpaid volunteers?
One would think that all you had to do to improve public schools is to take what has proven to work at other schools and apply it to your school. Why doesn’t that seem to work?
There have been a number of very popular movies about schools and teachers, and here are 10 you might have seen:
10. Fast Times at Ridgemont High (1982) Sean Penn as a disruptive student
9. School of Rock (2003) Jack Black
8. To Sir, With Love (1967) Sidney Poitier
7. Dangerous Minds (1995) Michelle Pfeiffer
6. The Principal (1987) Jim Belushi
5. Mr. Holland’s Opus (1995) Richard Dreyfuss
4. Dead Poets Society (1989) Robin Williams
3. Stand and Deliver (1988) Edward James Olmos
2. Lean on Me (1989) Morgan Freeman
1. Teachers (1984) Nick Nolte
Except for “Fast Times…” and “School of Rock”, most of the rest of these movies highlight teachers who made changes for the students, sometimes by bucking the system, and really connecting with the kids to get hem motivated to learn. A lot of these movies are based on the real life stories of real people who actually did these things. If it can work in the movies, why can’t it work in real life, especially if some of these movies are based on real life?
I don’t know.
It just can’t be as easy as it looks.
” Meticulous attention should be paid to the special relationships and obligations of public servants to the public itself and to the government. All Government employees should realize that the process of collective bargaining, as usually understood, cannot be transplanted into the public service. It has its distinct and insurmountable limitations. The very nature and purposes of Government make it impossible for officials to bind the employer. The employer is the whole people, who speak by means of laws enacted by their representatives”
~ Franklin D. Roosevelt
I bet teachers skip that lesson in history. It’s unfortunate that we are where we’re at today despite a warning of this nature from the King of the most lefty of leftists. Instead of considering FDR’s words, we have allowed greedy Teacher’s Unions, who have become political lobbyists and machines bent on self preservation, and their corrupt, leftist Dem lapdogs to purport the most significant oppression of Civil Rights of this era. An American students right to an acceptable education.
Even though I doubt it, there might have been a time and place for labor unions. But the lean, mean, fighting machines have turned into big fat slobs who are only interested in getting a bigger piece of the pie for themselves, not for their members. The government is not for the people, by the people and of the people if they have become so large that they can’t see the harm that they are doing. And a company that only sees the bottom line and does not look out for the welfare of their customers, will not last.
Corrupt leftist elected officials and greedy, un-American teacher’s unions. Two big slugs – their big slug arms wrapped around each other, singing their slug songs, feeding at the trough of those they have promised to serve ….. does anyone have a really big saltshaker??!!
Pacman33 said, “I bet teachers skip that lesson in history.”
Alright, let’s talk history for a moment. Several times now, I have seen that same “anti-union” quote used by people who out of the other sides of their mouths accuse President Obama (and Democrats in general) of being a “Marxist socialist”.
Let’s look at your above quote from President Roosevelt in it’s historical context. Franklin D. Roosevelt is the same president who presided over the US during World War II. I’m sure you’ve seen the historical footage:
Everyone was expected to give everything from money to metal to even lipstick to the war effort – then they’d stand in lines to buy their rationed amounts of essentials such as gasoline, flour, and butter. Factories were commandeered to create bombs and planes for the war effort instead of their usual product lines. Land (such as the Puyallup Fair grounds, for example) were taken for use by the government. The United States was a more truly “socialist” country (look up the word in the dictionary) than it had ever been or probably ever will be again.
It was in THAT context that President Roosevelt gave his famous speech against public employees unionizing.
No. My teachers did not skip that lesson in history. Looking at my daughters’ textbooks, I don’t think they do now either – any more than they did when you were in school. The question is: were you fully paying attention in class when they taught it?
muckibr – those movies are good stories precisely because exceptional teachers must buck the system and hence are exceptions to the rule.
The first rule of attaining tenure (both in K-12 and in higher ed) is to not draw attention to yourself even if it means avoiding excellence.
The second rule is find out whose butt to kiss and firmly plant your lips for the next few years.
Third rule – keep a big jar of vaseline.
alindasue -
What the heck are you blathering about? “Marxist socialist”? President Obama? Have you lost your mind? How did you read that from my comment?
“Alright, let’s talk history for a moment.”
“….his famous speech against public employees unionizing.”
Famous speech? LOL. What a weirdo.
The quote is from a private letter FDR wrote to the president of the National Federation of Federal Employees and not a speech.
Do you own a Cuckoo Clock or two or 12?