I don’t have a problem paying teachers but it should be for performance not time served.

The entire system in the US is set up to be contentious — this inherent friction and inertia is a “double-edged sword”. Rhee is a vital and POSITIVE part of this, as are the unions. What I’m so frustated by are lazy parents and several detractors who have posted here, who focus on all the wrong things.

And, the inference that in an inner city school, underperforming “children of color” do not get the attention that “white” children get really riles me. The true discriminators can be found in a much broader context, in which the teacher/administrator is the last person to influence the child. The rest of you lazy people better get busy with your kids, or they will end up like so many of my own childhood friends.

Their faillure is on your shoulders more than anyone. You can say anything you want, but we all know it’s the parents who are to blame more than anyone else. A child’s desire to learn will overcome a teacher’s mediocre desire to teach — or even total negligence. That child’s desire starts with good parenting, which is rare in the inner city.

Haters and deniers: Admit it. It is rare to see a good parent in the inner city adn there is NO excuse. None. Nada. If you’re honest, you will see this is true.

I for one applaud Rhee’s efforts as part of a comprehensive move toward education reform. But the damn parents have to get on board for any of this to work.

Thanks.

Sounds to me like this woman just wants to make a political name for herself. She’ll end up as a corporate honcho or federal Ed. Dept. honcho for her “innovative” ideas, making 300K. She’ll blame her failure in D.C. on lazy teachers and the union.

Plan B, indeed.

Uniformity still goes out the window as certain people within the “black” group become the new profitable subgroups. Nigerians, for example. I won’t even go into the other subgroups for fear of offending sensitive feelings. The point is you still are going to have teachers wanting to pack their groups with those most likely to score well to avoid sanctions. And they will be quite sneaky about it. Or in the alternative proclaim the new scheme a teacher pay take-back and start job actions.

You can’t just stick the teachers with whatever students come through the door and tell the teacher they will be fired if the class doesn’t meet statewide norms. This issues made national news in Pasadena years ago when a teacher there circulated a memo about the changing demographics of his school matched up with the new pay scheme and pronounced the pay scheme (tied to performance of the students) as a stacked deck against the teachers. There was a huge uproar of political correctness and that teacher was suspended for racial heresy. But no one could dispute the accuracy of his calculations.

These punitive pay schemes are just a fraud. As long as the students aren’t punished and/or removed from campuses for underperformance (like everywhere else in the world), nothing will change.

And don’t think this negative premium won’t affect how people are treated. The more serious and tangible teacher punishment is, the more the push to not deal with certain people in favor of others. Kind of like NCLB.

On the other hand, if you ended social promotion and imposed entrance requirements for high school maybe the schools and the teachers wouldn’t have these problems. Since that transfers the onus for failure from the teachers to the students – where it belongs – that’s not politic and it won’t happen. The students and their families must be publicly treated as raw eggs not responsible for a thing.

There is a way of punishing teachers who don’t add expected value to their student groups. But one way or another this would involve race norming the student groups – a politically unacceptable thing in an urban public school. They’d have to officially admit that all people are not created equal and they won’t do that damn the consequences.

So when I look at Ms Rhee’s smiling Asian face I wish her well but shudder at the prospect for “accidently” making things worse – and dumping on the unfortunate teachers in the process.

And I continue to say that the teachers had better make sure they have a strong and farsighted Union. They’re going to need it more than ever.

Brave New World.

I also agree that, “We need good teacher unions more than ever.” So where are they?

Contemporary local teacher unions are money grabbing (teacher dues collection) agencies for CTA & AFT. They don’t take on critical issues they take money (& cathartic volunteer time) from teachers for BIG UNION INC. What a joke!