I really want to thank the author of this excellent piece for clarifying what went on in Oregon in re the abolishment of standards.
At first I thought it was another case of antiracist racism or White Saviorism gone mad ("we're lowering all requirements to help POCs!") but now I know it was just more political corruption to cover up the dismal state of public education in America, and how the open alliance bw the Dem Party and the teachers' unions has been aiding and abetting all this negligence.
It helped remind me that first impressions can often be wrong, misguided or just incomplete (esp when the story seems to reinforce your own personal biases) and also that the DIE agenda has multiple purposes, up to and including being used as a fig leaf to cover the misdeeds of our institutional leaders.
Want to get away with something you know is wrong or just cover your tracks and hide your agenda? Emit a word cloud of Diversity-speak and dare anyone to disagree and maybe get smeared with a bigotry accusation. This seems to be a new, effective and popular strategy (unless this is just my own biases showing again).
Thank you! A subset of us at FBT collaborated on this.
You got the point exactly:
"At first I thought it was another case of antiracist racism or White Saviorism gone mad ("we're lowering all requirements to help POCs!") but now I know it was just more political corruption to cover up the dismal state of public education in America."
Aug 23, 2022·edited Aug 23, 2022Liked by Free Black Thought
This is excellent reporting. Thank you. The circumstances are utterly reprehensible.
Teacher's unions, public unions more generally, should be made illegal. Why? Because the purpose of a union is to represent its members via an essentially adversarial relationship. When a private company wishes to pay as little as they can get away with and provide insufficient protections for their employees, then the employees can unionize and pressure the company to change.
What happens in public unions, such as teacher's unions? The unions pour 10's of millions of dollars into the political campaigns of those who they then are supposed to pressure to do what, change on behalf of their employees? That is insane, how does the union have an adversarial relationship with a politician whom they helped elect? And how does a politician - who is responsible to pay the salaries, to set the standards, and insure the taxpayers are provided a quality service, have any leverage over the public union? --- Oh, I get it. They don't, they won't, and the system doesn't really incentivize them to do so either. The politician is beholden to the union and will have a very, very, hard time criticizing or otherwise requiring better outcomes from them else they lose their very significant funding source.
The teachers have a hard time too. To whom do they turn if the educational establishment is requiring them to lower standards, to coerce speech, to teach things they think are wrong? They have no one. And so what do they do? The retire early, they quit, they opt out. Leaving what, only the activists that the unions are seeking to create to achieve their ideological ends.
Also, the government exists to serve the people. We elect them to do so. If it does not pay a fare wage and provide fair protections then you vote them out! How does a public union add any value or possibly help to solve such problems?
I have one quibble with this story: "Teachers didn’t like it for various reasons, and students and their parents (overwhelmingly white) didn’t like it because only half passed. So everybody in the system wanted to find a way to get rid of the test while also saving face." -- how does the author know that the parents liked the lowering of standards? That seems unlikely - but may actually be the case. Most everyone wants their kids to do well, they'll wait years and make great sacrifices for access to a charter school. This was the only unsupported statement I found in the piece.
"The legislature called for the audit of the Smarter Balanced exam – as teachers raised questions and many parents withdrew their kids from taking it. Secretary of State Jeanne Atkins said state officials value the exams, often more than teachers and parents do.
“The Department of Education needs to take the lead on having good conversations with school districts, with teachers and with parents about ‘why this test, what this test is like, and what accommodations will be made going forward’,” Atkins said.
[...] The Secretary of State audit suggested teachers and parents are not clear on the additional value of the test.
Thank you! My kids don’t like the state tests but we explained their purpose and that they didn’t impact their grade. The school also emphasized that the scores did not affect their grade. They still don’t like them but they are kids, they don’t like tests. We like them as they indicate how the school is doing and how the our kids are doing.
All of these "progressive" (and by "progressive," I mean college-degreed white ruling class elite) efforts to "level the playing field" by reducing both opportunity and accountability are based on the foundational assumption that black and brown kids are not actually the equal of white kids; that there is no use trying to hold them to the same standards, because they can't possibly meet them. But doing away with those standards intrinsically equates to doing away with opportunities.
And yet we know, from the military, from sports, from Scouting, that when given a truly equal opportunity and hold them to high expectations, ALL kids can meet those expectations. Black kids don't get an easier path to Eagle Scout - you either complete your required Merit Badges and an Eagle project, or you don't. Uncle Sam doesn't care what color (or gender) you are when you're working on the flight deck of an aircraft carrier: You can either help put those planes and aircrews into the air and bring them back safely, or you can't.
Blacks and Hispanics (and Asians and Native Americans) have ALWAYS shown they are every bit as capable, as disciplined, as white kids.
So why does the ruling class keep pretending they aren't?
In this case, the ruling class pretended black and brown kids weren't up to the test so that they could get rid of a test that showed nothing so much as the ruling class's own failures!
Aug 24, 2022·edited Aug 24, 2022Liked by Free Black Thought
Excellent reporting and analysis - thanks for a job well done. It should be further emphasized, primarily for the benefit of other commenters who may be a bit over-anxious to jump on this as an example of the decline of American public ed, that the dropping of the SBAC (and its purpose of serving accountability) was the main purpose served by the Oregon shenanigans, and that it is the way this was done that added insult to injury. (Just a bit of clarification there for anyone whose reading skills are a bit rusty.) The gov and pols certainly earned negative style points for this caper.
Speaking as a public high school teacher I can vouch for the necessity of unionization. Few outside the field appreciate the persistent tension between educational administrators - loyal denizens of the professional managerial class- and rank and file teachers. It’s a widespread problem; I’ve taught in 7 different schools in 2 states - mostly inner-city LA but also suburbia and the rural Midwest - and have seen it in all of them. Much hope for improvement has been wasted on the charter school movement, soon to begin its 4th decade. It has always aimed to diminish the professionalism and status of teaching but has yet to clearly establish itself as a superior alternative to traditional public schooling. In any case, the culture of public education varies significantly from state to state, and teachers unions are essentially toothless in about half of them, with no right to strike. Many teachers would be happy to have public support when their administrative superiors hatch half-baked reform plans, but the truth is most people only act as if they care about education when they have a particular bone to pick. The people who led the effort to ditch the SBAC in Oregon were pols and bureaucrats who recently acquired the jargon they used to camouflage their intentions. Do Oregon teachers actively support such efforts to lower standards? That question wasn’t addressed in the article, but it is a safe bet that they do not.
"the dropping of the SBAC (and its purpose of serving accountability) was the main purpose served by the Oregon shenanigans, and that it is the way this was done that added insult to injury." The purpose was to cover up Oregon's failure to educate its students, not to provide "equity" for non-white chilfdren. That was just the cover story.
Thank you for the perspective on teachers unions and the likely views of the teachers—who were not asked—in Oregon. This was politicians making themselves look better and nothing but.
Thank you. Might you say a bit more about “Few outside the field appreciate the persistent tension between educational administrators - loyal denizens of the professional managerial class- and rank and file teachers.” What are some examples that might illustrate the typical problems?
“It (charter schooling) has always aimed to diminish the professionalism and status of teaching but has yet to clearly establish itself as a superior alternative to traditional public schooling.” I’ve been following that movement for a few years. The data suggest a mixed bag with some extraordinary examples of excellence -- same physical building as the public school, lottery admission (so no cherry picking motivated kids beyond caring enough to sign up, which is a factor) -- and for profit failures where the outcomes were basically the same or worse than the public schools. Thomas Sowell’s work here got me started in charter schools.
Teaching is hard and more so where you currently teach. Thank you for choosing to teach where dedicated teachers are most needed.
Finally, I would like to see school funding move to the state rather than zip code tax base level to better apportion resources to need.
Aug 24, 2022·edited Aug 24, 2022Liked by Free Black Thought
Thanks for your comment. I would've responded sooner but school's back in and I have to earn my pay! Anyway, I could go on length about the teachers vs admin issue and don't want to get lost in the weds too much for your sake, but will try to lend a bit of clarity. The difference is largely one of perspective and is analogous to the well-known tension between military field officers vs. staff officers. Teachers are intimately familiar with issues on the ground, while admins operate at a remove from that. Most of them have made attaining that status the focus of their career advancement efforts and ultimately have prioritized that personal goal over attaining excellence as a teacher. That goal is harder to reach; becoming a certified admin is simply a matter of passing the requisite classes and putting in 3+ years in the classroom. Conversely, good teachers who remain with the job continue to tweak their game and grow into their role as long as they stick with it. So, in a word, careerism is a big part of the problem. The Peter Principle comes into play and exerts much too much influence on strategic-level decision making. I think the particulars of the Oregon situation indicate this clearly. As far as charters go, they seemed potentially promising in the proposal stage. The great teacher's union leader Al Shanker was favorable to the concept at first. But he changed his mind and that was probably because he could see what was coming. Charters, which are recipients of public funds (at least here in Cali) have been granted waivers on many basic elements of professionalism, including certification reqs. I don't mention that b/c the actual extant teacher-prep programs are unimpeachable. The one I survived 3 decades ago was certainly less than perfect. But dispensing with a focussed effort to acquire the skills and knowledge necessary to be productive in the classroom is a mistake that only benefits and strengthens the hand of 'school leadership' - ie administrators and organizational bureaucrats. And they don't have a good record of going on to act in the public interest. One of the most prominent charter operators in the LA area serves as an example. Green Dot / Animo runs several schools that share campus space with established LAUSD schools. Their cozy relationship with the school board over the last 20 years has afforded them that convenience (& they are not the only charter system to reap the benefits of 'co-location'). Despite this very significant and cheaply acquired home-court advantage they have consistently acted in the best interests of...the Green Dot/Animo organization. They operate on a business model that compels them to simply close-up shop if enrollment at a particular spot brings insufficient returns on their investment. This has happened more than once over the years, but has received very little local notice. I know b/c I worked at a LAUSD high school that had a Green Dot school on campus. That school, which was housed in a newly constructed building, never managed to attract more than about 350 students - tiny by LA high school standards. Green Dot kept it open a bit longer than some of its earlier failures but ultimately shut down in the wake of the Covid quarantine. Once again, this shouldn't come as a surprise, since it operated on a commercial model. But it amounted to a waste of time, space and money for LAUSD and was an egregious disservice to the students Green Dot's aggressive PR campaign had succeeded in enrolling. (This effort extended to canvassing the neighborhood to bad-mouth the school where I taught.) I doubt the Green Dot management lost any sleep over that; after all, it was 'just business'. As far as funding goes, the picture is mixed, b/c funding formulae vary widely from state to state. One thing to always bear in mind about American public ed when some talking head decides to weigh in: it's almost exclusively a state level game, so focus on that tier first. Hopefully people in Oregon get the message.
Aug 25, 2022·edited Aug 25, 2022Liked by Free Black Thought
Thank you Tim, for the thoughtful response. I just reviewed the history and early accomplishments of the AFT and Al. They are laudable and were appropriate to the times (60's/80's). I am thankful for that good work. Your example was an excellent retort!
The career bureaucrat's you mention show up in business too. My brother, was a CEO, said "my job is to find and fire them." In government and public education, they can be quite hard to fire.
Sandra who took over next at the AFT, seems to have focussed on the growth of the union via the inclusion on non-teachers in its ranks, significantly increasing revenue and enabling and growing, generous political donations -- all in one direction. From my vantage, using the numbers the Obama administration required be reported via standardized test results, things have gone quickly downhill from there. There is less accountability, a hard turn ideologically to the social justice left, and significantly more money sloshing around all while student outcomes are not just down, but continue downward. As this story points out, now they sometimes just stop testing.
Before saying more, many schools have good outcomes, typically in those places where the majority of families are intact and the surrounding social circumstances are so good that focussing on "micro-aggression" is required to agitate for social change.
My concern is that despite "non-profit" status, the AFT, NEA, like some (all?) Charters, still operate on a money motive. For-profit private, non-profit, and public education work when and only when the primary customers, the students, and critically - their parents, are provided quality outcomes. Too many of the current systemic incentives are perverse and the performance feedback too slow.
I do not generically “blame teachers,” those families on the low end of the socio-economic spectrum, white (the majority), black, or brown, are most often led by single parents, in environments where that is the norm. They live in communities where crime, drugs, and lack of economic opportunity run rampant while traditional community support systems, community centers, churches, and charitable groups are in decline. As this story points out, now they sometimes just stop testing.
The government hands out money, so "poor" doesn't mean starving or freezing to death etc., but those communities face a spiritual, opportunity, and moral poverty which is horribly damaging to them and our country as a whole. It is possible to overcome these circumstance, but it generally takes more than only "a good teacher," though, that does happen!
The Democrats bring an identity based victim narrative to these circumstances for all but the poor, rural white neighborhoods whom they either ignore or insinuate blame. That is only making things worse.
The republicans historically seem to have assumed that "those people" are just lazy welfare mother's who want hand outs, etc. This attitude made them easy to paint as racist by liberal politicians. However, based on government data, in 2016 there were 20 million poor white families and a combined 10 million poor black and hispanic families in the US. (Sorry I haven't done the math in awhile - but it will not have substantively changed since then). So um, it looks like the seeming disdain is not so much about race but character.
And what about the character argument? Well, having looked at decades of annual survey data of poor families attitudes about welfare, that they are "just lazy," and "want to be on welfare" is utter nonsense. Across the board. Sure, some itty bitty minority thinks like that, but overall no. Just like most all of us, they want a good life for themselves and their kids. They want out and up. And it is only when hope for up is lost, that it goes very, very bad.
So what does this have to do with teachers unions? They have gotten all the money you could imagine they could have, and results are down not up. Some of the worse situations in the country, Baltimore, which has ranked in the top three $ spent per student and have been in the very bottom of results. The unions need to stop funding and selling victimhood in the name of social justice to the poor and stop selling gender ideology to the "rich kids" from whom big pharma can make 1.2 M over the lifetime of each "gender affirming" surgery patient.
We need a change because all the narratives above, Democrat, Republican, AFT, NEA, are counter productive. The bad charters are examples naked opportunism in the same way that other "non-profits" parasitically feed off of the social turmoil their actions promote.
Thanks for that. You didn’t say a single thing I disagree with! It should be noted, though, that the purpose of the ed. unions is to advocate on behalf of teachers, and they dont hold the reins of state & local systems. I have never liked the mission creep that has inflated our union dues - and historically the results they’ve brought forth have been a mixed bag. These include staunch support of some policies and contract provisions that now seem substantively injurious to minority students, such as ‘first in, first out’ seniority hierarchies in big urban districts, which have resulted in chronic staffing problems in inner city schools. And thats just one aspect of the damage done. But teachers have no alternative. Admins have been known to devote inordinate energy to harassment. I’ve even seen it in LAUSD, since the union can be erratic in doing its job. Its a shame. Teachers constitute a highly capable workforce and their bosses, a mediocre lot, are often clueless about how to get better mileage out of them in a satisfactory way.
Loan forgiveness for the rich and already educated is a dramatic mistake. It is political insanity in fact. I have been a college philosophy and ethics professor for over 30 years, with tenure. To solve the college extortion problem is simpler than most recognize:
First, attach government sanctions to colleges and universities that add administrators but cannot demonstrate that students benefit in either higher graduation rates or lower loan default rates from those administrators. Stop administrative bloat. Did that additional DEI hire for $120,000 actually improve graduation rates? Likely not.
Second, work to solve the precipitous drop in state funding of state universities. The second reason tuition rates have risen into the stratosphere is States no longer fund their higher education like they did only 30 years ago. WHY???? Is there a link between administrative bloat and states withholding funding? I think there is.
Third, and most important, lower the bar for students who default on their loans, or do not earn more than they would have had they entered the workforce with just a high school diploma, to sue the colleges that took their money. Many of those students were intentionally defrauded by those colleges, and those defrauded students should be made whole. Currently Colleges have no good motive not to take the money and run, and leave their failed students with life-crippling debt. Is that MSW from Columbia worth it? No. And Columbia, and most schools, darn well know it, bloated administrations and all. https://www.wsj.com/articles/financially-hobbled-for-life-the-elite-masters-degrees-that-dont-pay-off-11625752773https://www.thirdway.org/report/higher-eds-broken-bridge-to-the-middle-class
Thank you for sharing and I agree with your prescriptions - 3 is tricky, but worth attempting. I was unaware of number 2. Anything more you can point me to on that topic, specifically?
When it seems all the world is talking about one thing, ask yourself what is it that no one is talking about. And that is likely the truth hidden. Public education is corrupt, and that corruption begins at the level of our colleges of education. We funnel the least competent to become school teachers, and the colleges keep raking in the dough.
Thank You select members of FBT. As other's have "said," *outstanding* job. I and others had no idea. But can't say it surprises me, knowing the information You've provided.
TYTY again, and looking forward to further articles in the series.
Awesome work.: informative, lucid, compelling. This is what real journalism looks like.
I really want to thank the author of this excellent piece for clarifying what went on in Oregon in re the abolishment of standards.
At first I thought it was another case of antiracist racism or White Saviorism gone mad ("we're lowering all requirements to help POCs!") but now I know it was just more political corruption to cover up the dismal state of public education in America, and how the open alliance bw the Dem Party and the teachers' unions has been aiding and abetting all this negligence.
It helped remind me that first impressions can often be wrong, misguided or just incomplete (esp when the story seems to reinforce your own personal biases) and also that the DIE agenda has multiple purposes, up to and including being used as a fig leaf to cover the misdeeds of our institutional leaders.
Want to get away with something you know is wrong or just cover your tracks and hide your agenda? Emit a word cloud of Diversity-speak and dare anyone to disagree and maybe get smeared with a bigotry accusation. This seems to be a new, effective and popular strategy (unless this is just my own biases showing again).
Cheers!
Thank you! A subset of us at FBT collaborated on this.
You got the point exactly:
"At first I thought it was another case of antiracist racism or White Saviorism gone mad ("we're lowering all requirements to help POCs!") but now I know it was just more political corruption to cover up the dismal state of public education in America."
was an excellent piece...thanks!
Excellent analysis—concise and acute. You really exposed a shameful scam.
This is excellent reporting. Thank you. The circumstances are utterly reprehensible.
Teacher's unions, public unions more generally, should be made illegal. Why? Because the purpose of a union is to represent its members via an essentially adversarial relationship. When a private company wishes to pay as little as they can get away with and provide insufficient protections for their employees, then the employees can unionize and pressure the company to change.
What happens in public unions, such as teacher's unions? The unions pour 10's of millions of dollars into the political campaigns of those who they then are supposed to pressure to do what, change on behalf of their employees? That is insane, how does the union have an adversarial relationship with a politician whom they helped elect? And how does a politician - who is responsible to pay the salaries, to set the standards, and insure the taxpayers are provided a quality service, have any leverage over the public union? --- Oh, I get it. They don't, they won't, and the system doesn't really incentivize them to do so either. The politician is beholden to the union and will have a very, very, hard time criticizing or otherwise requiring better outcomes from them else they lose their very significant funding source.
The teachers have a hard time too. To whom do they turn if the educational establishment is requiring them to lower standards, to coerce speech, to teach things they think are wrong? They have no one. And so what do they do? The retire early, they quit, they opt out. Leaving what, only the activists that the unions are seeking to create to achieve their ideological ends.
Also, the government exists to serve the people. We elect them to do so. If it does not pay a fare wage and provide fair protections then you vote them out! How does a public union add any value or possibly help to solve such problems?
I have one quibble with this story: "Teachers didn’t like it for various reasons, and students and their parents (overwhelmingly white) didn’t like it because only half passed. So everybody in the system wanted to find a way to get rid of the test while also saving face." -- how does the author know that the parents liked the lowering of standards? That seems unlikely - but may actually be the case. Most everyone wants their kids to do well, they'll wait years and make great sacrifices for access to a charter school. This was the only unsupported statement I found in the piece.
"how does the author know that the parents liked the lowering of standards"
At several places in the piece we link to this article:
https://www.opb.org/news/article/oregon-smarter-balanced-exams-audit/
That article says this:
"The legislature called for the audit of the Smarter Balanced exam – as teachers raised questions and many parents withdrew their kids from taking it. Secretary of State Jeanne Atkins said state officials value the exams, often more than teachers and parents do.
“The Department of Education needs to take the lead on having good conversations with school districts, with teachers and with parents about ‘why this test, what this test is like, and what accommodations will be made going forward’,” Atkins said.
[...] The Secretary of State audit suggested teachers and parents are not clear on the additional value of the test.
We'll edit the post to clear this up!
Thank you! My kids don’t like the state tests but we explained their purpose and that they didn’t impact their grade. The school also emphasized that the scores did not affect their grade. They still don’t like them but they are kids, they don’t like tests. We like them as they indicate how the school is doing and how the our kids are doing.
All of these "progressive" (and by "progressive," I mean college-degreed white ruling class elite) efforts to "level the playing field" by reducing both opportunity and accountability are based on the foundational assumption that black and brown kids are not actually the equal of white kids; that there is no use trying to hold them to the same standards, because they can't possibly meet them. But doing away with those standards intrinsically equates to doing away with opportunities.
And yet we know, from the military, from sports, from Scouting, that when given a truly equal opportunity and hold them to high expectations, ALL kids can meet those expectations. Black kids don't get an easier path to Eagle Scout - you either complete your required Merit Badges and an Eagle project, or you don't. Uncle Sam doesn't care what color (or gender) you are when you're working on the flight deck of an aircraft carrier: You can either help put those planes and aircrews into the air and bring them back safely, or you can't.
Blacks and Hispanics (and Asians and Native Americans) have ALWAYS shown they are every bit as capable, as disciplined, as white kids.
So why does the ruling class keep pretending they aren't?
In this case, the ruling class pretended black and brown kids weren't up to the test so that they could get rid of a test that showed nothing so much as the ruling class's own failures!
Which is why they hate charter schools so much ...
Excellent reporting and analysis - thanks for a job well done. It should be further emphasized, primarily for the benefit of other commenters who may be a bit over-anxious to jump on this as an example of the decline of American public ed, that the dropping of the SBAC (and its purpose of serving accountability) was the main purpose served by the Oregon shenanigans, and that it is the way this was done that added insult to injury. (Just a bit of clarification there for anyone whose reading skills are a bit rusty.) The gov and pols certainly earned negative style points for this caper.
Speaking as a public high school teacher I can vouch for the necessity of unionization. Few outside the field appreciate the persistent tension between educational administrators - loyal denizens of the professional managerial class- and rank and file teachers. It’s a widespread problem; I’ve taught in 7 different schools in 2 states - mostly inner-city LA but also suburbia and the rural Midwest - and have seen it in all of them. Much hope for improvement has been wasted on the charter school movement, soon to begin its 4th decade. It has always aimed to diminish the professionalism and status of teaching but has yet to clearly establish itself as a superior alternative to traditional public schooling. In any case, the culture of public education varies significantly from state to state, and teachers unions are essentially toothless in about half of them, with no right to strike. Many teachers would be happy to have public support when their administrative superiors hatch half-baked reform plans, but the truth is most people only act as if they care about education when they have a particular bone to pick. The people who led the effort to ditch the SBAC in Oregon were pols and bureaucrats who recently acquired the jargon they used to camouflage their intentions. Do Oregon teachers actively support such efforts to lower standards? That question wasn’t addressed in the article, but it is a safe bet that they do not.
Thanks for this!
You nailed it:
"the dropping of the SBAC (and its purpose of serving accountability) was the main purpose served by the Oregon shenanigans, and that it is the way this was done that added insult to injury." The purpose was to cover up Oregon's failure to educate its students, not to provide "equity" for non-white chilfdren. That was just the cover story.
Thank you for the perspective on teachers unions and the likely views of the teachers—who were not asked—in Oregon. This was politicians making themselves look better and nothing but.
Thank you. Might you say a bit more about “Few outside the field appreciate the persistent tension between educational administrators - loyal denizens of the professional managerial class- and rank and file teachers.” What are some examples that might illustrate the typical problems?
“It (charter schooling) has always aimed to diminish the professionalism and status of teaching but has yet to clearly establish itself as a superior alternative to traditional public schooling.” I’ve been following that movement for a few years. The data suggest a mixed bag with some extraordinary examples of excellence -- same physical building as the public school, lottery admission (so no cherry picking motivated kids beyond caring enough to sign up, which is a factor) -- and for profit failures where the outcomes were basically the same or worse than the public schools. Thomas Sowell’s work here got me started in charter schools.
Teaching is hard and more so where you currently teach. Thank you for choosing to teach where dedicated teachers are most needed.
Finally, I would like to see school funding move to the state rather than zip code tax base level to better apportion resources to need.
Thanks for your comment. I would've responded sooner but school's back in and I have to earn my pay! Anyway, I could go on length about the teachers vs admin issue and don't want to get lost in the weds too much for your sake, but will try to lend a bit of clarity. The difference is largely one of perspective and is analogous to the well-known tension between military field officers vs. staff officers. Teachers are intimately familiar with issues on the ground, while admins operate at a remove from that. Most of them have made attaining that status the focus of their career advancement efforts and ultimately have prioritized that personal goal over attaining excellence as a teacher. That goal is harder to reach; becoming a certified admin is simply a matter of passing the requisite classes and putting in 3+ years in the classroom. Conversely, good teachers who remain with the job continue to tweak their game and grow into their role as long as they stick with it. So, in a word, careerism is a big part of the problem. The Peter Principle comes into play and exerts much too much influence on strategic-level decision making. I think the particulars of the Oregon situation indicate this clearly. As far as charters go, they seemed potentially promising in the proposal stage. The great teacher's union leader Al Shanker was favorable to the concept at first. But he changed his mind and that was probably because he could see what was coming. Charters, which are recipients of public funds (at least here in Cali) have been granted waivers on many basic elements of professionalism, including certification reqs. I don't mention that b/c the actual extant teacher-prep programs are unimpeachable. The one I survived 3 decades ago was certainly less than perfect. But dispensing with a focussed effort to acquire the skills and knowledge necessary to be productive in the classroom is a mistake that only benefits and strengthens the hand of 'school leadership' - ie administrators and organizational bureaucrats. And they don't have a good record of going on to act in the public interest. One of the most prominent charter operators in the LA area serves as an example. Green Dot / Animo runs several schools that share campus space with established LAUSD schools. Their cozy relationship with the school board over the last 20 years has afforded them that convenience (& they are not the only charter system to reap the benefits of 'co-location'). Despite this very significant and cheaply acquired home-court advantage they have consistently acted in the best interests of...the Green Dot/Animo organization. They operate on a business model that compels them to simply close-up shop if enrollment at a particular spot brings insufficient returns on their investment. This has happened more than once over the years, but has received very little local notice. I know b/c I worked at a LAUSD high school that had a Green Dot school on campus. That school, which was housed in a newly constructed building, never managed to attract more than about 350 students - tiny by LA high school standards. Green Dot kept it open a bit longer than some of its earlier failures but ultimately shut down in the wake of the Covid quarantine. Once again, this shouldn't come as a surprise, since it operated on a commercial model. But it amounted to a waste of time, space and money for LAUSD and was an egregious disservice to the students Green Dot's aggressive PR campaign had succeeded in enrolling. (This effort extended to canvassing the neighborhood to bad-mouth the school where I taught.) I doubt the Green Dot management lost any sleep over that; after all, it was 'just business'. As far as funding goes, the picture is mixed, b/c funding formulae vary widely from state to state. One thing to always bear in mind about American public ed when some talking head decides to weigh in: it's almost exclusively a state level game, so focus on that tier first. Hopefully people in Oregon get the message.
Thank you Tim, for the thoughtful response. I just reviewed the history and early accomplishments of the AFT and Al. They are laudable and were appropriate to the times (60's/80's). I am thankful for that good work. Your example was an excellent retort!
The career bureaucrat's you mention show up in business too. My brother, was a CEO, said "my job is to find and fire them." In government and public education, they can be quite hard to fire.
Sandra who took over next at the AFT, seems to have focussed on the growth of the union via the inclusion on non-teachers in its ranks, significantly increasing revenue and enabling and growing, generous political donations -- all in one direction. From my vantage, using the numbers the Obama administration required be reported via standardized test results, things have gone quickly downhill from there. There is less accountability, a hard turn ideologically to the social justice left, and significantly more money sloshing around all while student outcomes are not just down, but continue downward. As this story points out, now they sometimes just stop testing.
Before saying more, many schools have good outcomes, typically in those places where the majority of families are intact and the surrounding social circumstances are so good that focussing on "micro-aggression" is required to agitate for social change.
My concern is that despite "non-profit" status, the AFT, NEA, like some (all?) Charters, still operate on a money motive. For-profit private, non-profit, and public education work when and only when the primary customers, the students, and critically - their parents, are provided quality outcomes. Too many of the current systemic incentives are perverse and the performance feedback too slow.
I do not generically “blame teachers,” those families on the low end of the socio-economic spectrum, white (the majority), black, or brown, are most often led by single parents, in environments where that is the norm. They live in communities where crime, drugs, and lack of economic opportunity run rampant while traditional community support systems, community centers, churches, and charitable groups are in decline. As this story points out, now they sometimes just stop testing.
The government hands out money, so "poor" doesn't mean starving or freezing to death etc., but those communities face a spiritual, opportunity, and moral poverty which is horribly damaging to them and our country as a whole. It is possible to overcome these circumstance, but it generally takes more than only "a good teacher," though, that does happen!
The Democrats bring an identity based victim narrative to these circumstances for all but the poor, rural white neighborhoods whom they either ignore or insinuate blame. That is only making things worse.
The republicans historically seem to have assumed that "those people" are just lazy welfare mother's who want hand outs, etc. This attitude made them easy to paint as racist by liberal politicians. However, based on government data, in 2016 there were 20 million poor white families and a combined 10 million poor black and hispanic families in the US. (Sorry I haven't done the math in awhile - but it will not have substantively changed since then). So um, it looks like the seeming disdain is not so much about race but character.
And what about the character argument? Well, having looked at decades of annual survey data of poor families attitudes about welfare, that they are "just lazy," and "want to be on welfare" is utter nonsense. Across the board. Sure, some itty bitty minority thinks like that, but overall no. Just like most all of us, they want a good life for themselves and their kids. They want out and up. And it is only when hope for up is lost, that it goes very, very bad.
So what does this have to do with teachers unions? They have gotten all the money you could imagine they could have, and results are down not up. Some of the worse situations in the country, Baltimore, which has ranked in the top three $ spent per student and have been in the very bottom of results. The unions need to stop funding and selling victimhood in the name of social justice to the poor and stop selling gender ideology to the "rich kids" from whom big pharma can make 1.2 M over the lifetime of each "gender affirming" surgery patient.
We need a change because all the narratives above, Democrat, Republican, AFT, NEA, are counter productive. The bad charters are examples naked opportunism in the same way that other "non-profits" parasitically feed off of the social turmoil their actions promote.
Thanks for that. You didn’t say a single thing I disagree with! It should be noted, though, that the purpose of the ed. unions is to advocate on behalf of teachers, and they dont hold the reins of state & local systems. I have never liked the mission creep that has inflated our union dues - and historically the results they’ve brought forth have been a mixed bag. These include staunch support of some policies and contract provisions that now seem substantively injurious to minority students, such as ‘first in, first out’ seniority hierarchies in big urban districts, which have resulted in chronic staffing problems in inner city schools. And thats just one aspect of the damage done. But teachers have no alternative. Admins have been known to devote inordinate energy to harassment. I’ve even seen it in LAUSD, since the union can be erratic in doing its job. Its a shame. Teachers constitute a highly capable workforce and their bosses, a mediocre lot, are often clueless about how to get better mileage out of them in a satisfactory way.
Loan forgiveness for the rich and already educated is a dramatic mistake. It is political insanity in fact. I have been a college philosophy and ethics professor for over 30 years, with tenure. To solve the college extortion problem is simpler than most recognize:
First, attach government sanctions to colleges and universities that add administrators but cannot demonstrate that students benefit in either higher graduation rates or lower loan default rates from those administrators. Stop administrative bloat. Did that additional DEI hire for $120,000 actually improve graduation rates? Likely not.
Second, work to solve the precipitous drop in state funding of state universities. The second reason tuition rates have risen into the stratosphere is States no longer fund their higher education like they did only 30 years ago. WHY???? Is there a link between administrative bloat and states withholding funding? I think there is.
Third, and most important, lower the bar for students who default on their loans, or do not earn more than they would have had they entered the workforce with just a high school diploma, to sue the colleges that took their money. Many of those students were intentionally defrauded by those colleges, and those defrauded students should be made whole. Currently Colleges have no good motive not to take the money and run, and leave their failed students with life-crippling debt. Is that MSW from Columbia worth it? No. And Columbia, and most schools, darn well know it, bloated administrations and all. https://www.wsj.com/articles/financially-hobbled-for-life-the-elite-masters-degrees-that-dont-pay-off-11625752773 https://www.thirdway.org/report/higher-eds-broken-bridge-to-the-middle-class
Thank you for sharing and I agree with your prescriptions - 3 is tricky, but worth attempting. I was unaware of number 2. Anything more you can point me to on that topic, specifically?
When it seems all the world is talking about one thing, ask yourself what is it that no one is talking about. And that is likely the truth hidden. Public education is corrupt, and that corruption begins at the level of our colleges of education. We funnel the least competent to become school teachers, and the colleges keep raking in the dough.
Brilliant.
If you tried to turn BIPOC children into helpless victims who are ill equipped to handle life, you couldn't do it any better than Democrats: https://yuribezmenov.substack.com/p/how-to-groom-commissars
Thank You select members of FBT. As other's have "said," *outstanding* job. I and others had no idea. But can't say it surprises me, knowing the information You've provided.
TYTY again, and looking forward to further articles in the series.
Thank you for an excellent read.
Thanks for sharing this story! Happy your child got the help he needed. So sad for the many who cannot.