Here’s something Oprah and Bill and Michelle and their cronies aren’t considering, as far as Oakland is concerned:

It’s difficult enough to get some of our students invested in, much less excited about, their own education. Some of them walk in the door on Day One already believing that school is a joke, purposely designed to waste their time. And that’s a hard shell to crack, even when it’s not Superman they’re waiting for, but for a chance to slip their cellphones into their laps and text all their friends during class, hopefully without my tiresome, prying eyes interfering with the latest “What’s up?” or…worse, sometimes much worse.

The last thing our students need is for some slick, opportunist movie guy, or Oprah, or anybody else who doesn’t really care a hoot in hell about Oakland to inform them that their schools are worthless and that their teachers are lazy, clueless flunkies.

When the most troubled of our students hear all this, who’s to guarantee that they’ll look for salvation at one of the local charter schools? It’s just as likely, once they’ve given up on the neighborhood public school, that some of them will turn to (or turn back to) the neighborhood dope dealer, pimp, or gang poobah.

Twice in the last month, I’ve gotten something to the effect of, “Oprah says you’re stupid.” Sure, from a couple of kids who were looking for any excuse not to participate in their own education that day. And they’re teenagers. They don’t hurt my feelings anymore than Oprah could.

But if this film is providing Oakland students with “valid” excuses for blowing off school, there’s got to be a special cave in hell for flaky movie producers with blood on their hands. Fortunately, I haven’t heard a single student mention having seen the movie or wanting to see it.

As for Michelle Rhee, radical changes are not always the RIGHT changes (and I haven’t seen any indication that her actions have improved test scores, student learning, or the education climate in DC.

From what I gather, she ordered principals to list their “undesirable” teachers, and if they hadn’t, it would have been THEIR heads on the block. Ms. Rhee succeeded in disappearing a number of older, more payroll-heavy teachers and replacing them with far more “cost-effective” TFA people. (One hand washes the other.)

There absolutely was serious work to be done in the DC schools. And the Barbara Bullock embezzlement fiasco painted the Washington Teacher’s Union with quite a nasty bulls eye.

But if Ms. Rhee was the hero for the job, would the local citizens have banished her to the hinterlands? That never happened to the real Superman.

Did anyone see the CTA explanation of their support for prop 24(tax fairness act). The dripping irony of CTA lobbyists(who live off of tax money that is forcibly extracted from their members and non-members alike)telling legislators ” The tax giveaway was made for California’s largest corporations with no requirement or expectation that they would use that money to create or maintain jobs in the state”. This is just so hypocritical, I just don’t believe they would be oblivious enough to say it. I am not a money loving capitalist, but I see the necessity, and I understand the nuts and bolts of how the system works. I know employment depends on available jobs, which depend upon companies to stay in business to supply those jobs, and we must make it attractive for companies to stay and be able to compete in California so we can have employment opportunities. These lobbyist are complaining about high paid CEO’s, but they don’t mind collecting their own impressive tax funded pay and perks, do they? It is true that no one is worth all that money, but that is part of the price we pay for capitalism and prosperity.

http://www.cta.org/Professional-Development/Publications/Educator-October-10/Yes-on-Prop-24.aspx

http://educationnext.org/the-long-reach-of-teachers-unions/

supporting and developing and making teachers amazing–that is 98% of the work. retaining these masters and paying them more–yes!

but there has to be a way to say ‘this is not the right job for you. good luck in another industry.’

it is patently unacceptable that tenured teachers can’t get fired. it is bad for kids, bad for parents and community members, bad for socioeconomically disadvantaged kids, bad even for the teacher who is in the wrong line of work.

does OUSD have rubber rooms?

JR–as usual, keep it up. Next, you are on some intellectual stuff, there. Have you read NUMBER CRUNCHERS? Fascinating book on stats and the future.

The charming social activist was excited at the prospect of using black rage at the BART shooting as a catalyst to get hundreds or a thousand blacks to apply for police jobs. We sat for awhile and talked about the job/employment thing (it was a recent black event we were attending).

One of the things I forgot to mention to her that acts as an impediment in trying to get blacks into entry level civil service jobs is the driver’s license thing. No driver’s license, no application permitted. You must have one to apply for entry level oil changer at the motor-pool or a garbage job. All the civil service jobs – gardener up, require a driver’s license. Then… if you are after a competitive job – like a $100k police officer – you’d better have a clean driving record. There go your black applicants…

What does this have to do with public schooling? A lot I believe. Public schools teach indiscipline. Basically they train students that you can do whatever you want – your way – and it’s all going to blow over or work out. The important thing is to force things until you get your way. Nobody get quickly, forcibly or publicly disciplined. Why if you want to drive a car you just do so. Worry about licensure later. Worry about the tickets manana also.

That is incompatible with a lot of things including getting and maintaining a driver’s license. Compare the black rate of licensure now to the 1960s. My experience with the typical mid 20s black is they don’t have a license, a passport, a bank account, birth certificate etc..(examine teeth also). Having and keeping these things require among other things the foresight to qualify for them before you need them, to follow enough rules to keep them in force. the mother type may have done some paperwork for them, she may have a birth certificate somewhere – they don’t know. They’ve not been conditioned to take care of much.

This is particularly alarming to me when I see it in the adolescent children of educated or professional blacks. I have a relative who graduated from OUSD, refusing to apply for a permit or a license or take the private courses to do so (despite instructions and payment from the mother). This older black teen doesn’t “see the need”. The teen does see the need to demand the mother constantly provide rides – and the mother permitted this. The father isn’t in the equation. Very typical. Doesn’t bode well. This isn’t unusual I am told. Do I blame the school? I suppose I do. This person is full of entitlement notions – love discussing the social justice thing. Unemployed also. If the mother becomes too ill to drive the family around there is no one to help out. That clearly is no concern to this fully grown child. When I pointed out this behavior renders a job applicant ineligible for a number of better jobs I was told no one had said that before. Funny, I knew that one when I was 16-20. Maybe I went to a good school. There are still no plans to deal with this months later.

Compare this to the Italian/Irish good (and rowdy) Catholic blue collar boys I grew up with. They drove fast, they got tickets (or talked their way out of them). But they kept licenses and lined up at the police job fairs – or prison guard fairs (license required also). Not a bad retirement, either. They get to go to Rossmoor.

I’ve often said that it was a huge mistake to take driver’s education and training out of the public schools and we should shut down some of the AP/College prep before we ever let that go. Too bad. The behavior deficits the current prole public school kids pile up in their teen years hold them back for the rest of their lives. We used to avoid this.

Brave New World.

We do have a problem with the feminization of secondary education. It does a lot of harm to the prole males.

AA is a mistake that is going Bye Bye. It may have gained ground when things were booming. Now that we are heading into bad times (remember, a politician friend recently described what we are currently experiencing with municipal finances as “this is the GOOD times”) AA is not longer sustainable politically. Besides, it doesn’t help in the long run.

AA in law school is a mistake because there are a defined, finite & small number of (for example) black candidates nationally who have the chops to complete a Nationally Accredited Law School (450 of them?) and pass the bar. I believe 1000 was the figure mentioned of black candidates on the national LSAT each year that have presentable scores. Whatever the number is it’s low.

Since that number is too low for political correctness we admit black candidates wildly unqualified for top law schools and get a resulting bar pass rate a fraction of the white pass rate. Then you look at the disbarment stats. Actually, you don’t since they are not reported by race because of PC. It has been said that if the students were properly matched to the schools so as to fit into the rest of the class the results would improve – but alas, that’s not PC either.

As far as medicine, The state medical boards are not keeping the black candidates out like the state bars do but the flunk rates in the National Medical Boards are so huge the black Drs have the “not board certified” issue. Patients can easily choose.

Either way you look at it, the immigrants are supplanting the black physicians. Lawyers, remain to be seen. Can good public schools improve this situation, I believe so. Is it going to occur, No, it’s not.

I recently spent time with a Bay Area Social Justice Activist. Charming woman. Her politics are irrational but I liked her anyway for some reason. She was mentioning the BART Officer situation – saying that she’s exhorting groups of black adolescents to become cops. She expressed frustration that they told her they didn’t want the $100k jobs. I told her that that’s not going to happen anyway, they’d never pass background in significant numbers. They’d also get barred because of criminal histories of friends and families (to the extend she expected to get huge numbers through the system).

It never occurred to her that the hiring process for peace officer includes examination of the “society” the applicant is part of and low life applicants are systematically barred. Not to mention literacy (principal reason black applicants are deselected prior to background). And academy (few blacks pass) and probation (more than half blacks flunk).

Those that do make it tend to either be from families with police members or returning military. Wanna-be’s typically fail. To make it you have to be committed and realistic about what it takes. Wanna-be’s are living a fantasy and don’t want to change.

Back to the thread. People are what they are and do what they want. At least in this “free” society. That is why we are having these problems with education. We keep insisting that reality isn’t real.

We need to create clear paths withing public education leading to the various goals. We need to be open about the requirements for each step. We need to ruthlessly prune student wanna-be’s who won’t deliver on commitment and performance. We need to keep education affordable/free and open to citizens and lawful residents. We need to stop blaming teachers for an untenable school system and change it.