In today's TownHall.com, Jonah Goldberg had a column, "The True School Scandal," about why President-elect Barach Obama and other politicians, both Democrats and Republicans, choose to bypass the public schools when they get to Washington, opting instead to send their kids to expensive private schools. Goldberg blames much of what ais public education on the teachers unions. I believe he is exactly right.
As a former educator with some 28 years of experience, I feel that I can speak with a bit of authority about the teaching profession. When I was a teacher (1954-56) at South Oak Cliff High School in Dallas, public school standards were much higher than they are today. And many teachers were a lot better too. There were no teachers unions as such. Then along came school integration.
I want to make sure everyone understands that I do not blame African-Americans for the downfall of our public school standards. WHITE SOCIETY IS TO BLAME FOR THAT. When schools were segregated, white society shamefully neglected our black schools. Many black teachers were ill prepared to carry out their assignments. Thus, blacks received an inferior education compared to that of most white students.
When you threw the whole mix together - black and white students and teachers - it was the beginning of a downward spriral for public education. Schools in cities with high concentrations of minorities suffered from a complete breakdown of discipline. The curricula for inner city, suburban and rural schools was watered down with the replacement of some core courses by multiculturalism and diversity courses. White flight to the suburbs resegregated inner city schools, re-establishing the inferior education blacks received during the segregation era.
Before continuing, I want to insert some exerpts from Goldberg's column:
".....most Washington public schools are hellholes.
According to data compiled by the Washington Post in 2007, of the 100 largest school districts in the country, D.C. ranks third in spending for each student, around $13,000 a pupil, but last in spending on instruction. More than half of every dollar of education spending goes to the salaries of administrators. Test scores are abysmal; the campuses are often unsafe.
Michelle Rhee, D.C.'s heroic school chancellor, in her 17 months on the job has already made meaningful improvements. But that's grading on an enormous curve. The Post recently reported that on observing a bad teacher in a classroom, Rhee complained to the principal. "Would you put your grandchild in that class?" she asked.
'If that's the standard,' replied the defensive principal, 'we don't have any effective teachers in my school.'
So if Obama and other politicians don't want to send their kids to schools where even the principals have such views, that's no scandal. The scandal is that these politicians tolerate such awful schools at all. For anyone.
The main reason politicians adopt a policy of malign neglect: teachers unions, arguably the single worst mainstream institution in our country today. No group has a stronger or better-organized stranglehold on a political party than they do. No group is more committed to putting ideological blather and self-interest before the public good.
Rhee has been pushing a new contract that would provide merit pay to successful teachers. The system is voluntary: Individual teachers can stay in the current system that rewards mere seniority or opt to join a parallel system that pays for superior performance. Many talented teachers would love the opportunity.
Alas, the national teachers unions insist that linking pay to results is an outrageous attack on the integrity of public schools. They have insisted that D.C. teachers not even be allowed to vote on the contract."
The teachers and their unions keep blah, blah, blahing sanctimoniously about the fantastic job they're doing under the most trying circumstances, their dedication to teaching students, their commitment to teaching excellence, their love for students, the extra time they put in, and the sacrifices they have to make because of inadequate salaries.
Whatever teaching problems they experience are blamed on excessive paper work, on uncaring or unaware principals and administrators concerned only about their own asses, and on little or no back-up from above when complaints are lodged against them. Hey, that's exactly the same line cops use when bitching about their problems and higheer-ups.
The truth is that the teachers unions are much more concerned about protecting the jobs of teachers than they are about how well or how poorly students are educated. Sad to say, there are quite a few border-line illiterates in the teaching profession. Instead of helping to root incompetent teachers out of the system, the unions do everything they can to protect the jobs of these misfits .
Goldberg is correct when he says "most Washington public schools are hellholes." But Washington is not the only place with those kinds of schools. The same description can easily apply to many other urban school systems. Those hellholes will never be cleansed of incompetence unless and until the teachers unions are reigned in. Good teachers, of which there are many, do not need the job protection offered by the unions.
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