Discussion for article #228503
You wrote an entire column without making fun of people who support teachers. I am so proud of you!
The key difference is that while there is very obviously something wrong with the security around the President, it is far from clear that there is anything fundamentally wrong with American education, as opposed to a set of general social problems that American schools have been forced to deal with. The Secret Service has a simple mission-protect the President. They don’t need to solve poverty, broken families, drug addiction, etc. The schools do.
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Another article by this toady for the charter school movement, and I might add, in defense of Michelle Rhee (he finally gets around to his motive in the 6th paragraph of a 9 paragraph article). Frankly, his writing is pure gobbledygook. I had a hard time getting through it because he doesn’t really come to any point.
Systems this, and systems that. Just like his previous article here, he doesn’t make clear that he’s arguing for or against the very subject he introduces us to consider. And tying American education and school reform into the recent problems with the Secret Service is just ludicrous. Because when I think of Secret Service screw-ups, the first thing that doesn’t come to mind is the workings of public education and the charter school movement, which in terms of the latter, he’s best known advocating for. Just because they both use some type of protocol or “system”, as he repeatedly states, doesn’t mean they’re at all comparable to one another. Sorry…doesn’t work for me.
According to Mr. Conor (who by the way does not accept comments on his own website because he doesn’t like to be contradicted) contends that it wasn’t Rhee that fired all those teachers in her efforts to “reform” the public school system in DC, it was the system itself that led her to make those decisions…so basically it wasn’t her fault…don’t blame her. It was the system itself that weeded them out and forced her to do the dirty deed. I would bet that the teachers that lost those jobs would beg to disagree…since it only happened after Rhee took charge and forced them out. See, it was “the metrics” that forced them out…not Rhee according to Conor.
Why they give this guy any space here is beyond me. He’s really trying hard to sell a product no one I see, really wants. And his analysis is clear as mud. His final analysis…it’s all about humanity. Too bad you can’t find anything in this article that deals with the actual subject he states in the end he’s most concerned about…Oh, the humanity of it all…
This last sentence, “Systems designed to guard against the weaknesses of our humanity still need to be inherently humane.” So much nonsense packed into one lousy sentence. Stick to defending Campbell Brown next time, as you did the first time around, and we’ll all know better where you’re coming from…and I’ll know better to avoid this guy’s writing next time too.
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What’s stupid about this argument (for me, at least) is that we have decades of experience in what kind of data-gathering works in really-high-stakes professions. The aviation industry and the healthcare industry have both shown that reporting systems focused on fixing systemic problems rather than disciplining or firing workers who screw up are way more effective at reducing deaths, injuries and major damage to equipment. But in education we seem to be taking the system as fixed, and working to punish people for whom that system doesn’t work. “Responsibility” without the power to change anything is a recipe for bad morale and cheating – as Rhee’s tenure in DC showed.
As long as the focus is on punishing teachers, principals and superintendents who are “bad” according to some arbitrary metric that no one is allowed to question or change, rather than on helping teachers and principals and superintendents to do their jobs, then the current mess will continue.
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Not really. The line “That is, it’s easier to make the case for putting away pre-packaged curricula and detailed evaluation systems for highly-trained, effective professionals” is basically saying “if teachers were professionals we wouldn’t need to come up with all these evaluation systems to judge their performance” and carries with it the implication that teachers today are not professionals and that is why we need these systems. And it is still ignoring all of the larger social issues that impact on student educational results that are outside any individual teachers control, choosing instead to scapegoat teacher competency.
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So basically we need a kindler, gentler corporate education system.
The Secret Service should have Charter Agents?