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Politics : View from the Center and Left -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Bread Upon The Water who wrote (255477)	7/9/2014 2:58:02 PM
From: epicure	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 542566

They can tell schools how many they should have, but that doesn't mean they'll be able to get them. (Kind of like "People in hell want ice water, but that doesn't mean they'll get it") And this: " Every witness in Vergara, on both sides, agreed that teacher quality is the most important in-school determinant of student outcomes." is insane. The most important factors for student success, the elephant in the room, are parental education and parental income. Sure, teachers make a difference, but it's miniscule compared to the two aforementioned parental parameters. There's no way I'd teach in a dangerous location. I value my life too much. Teaching can be dangerous even in suburban schools like mine- I've had a few kids have very bad medication related issues while in my class (and one of the kids was violent, and had punched a coach- although I never ever felt in danger, I think if he'd gotten angry with me, I could have been vulnerable). Most teachers go in to teaching because they are social, and relatively friendly, and they don't want to carry guns, or work in a war zone. For those teachers who want to, more power to them- they're doing heroic work, but for most really gifted teachers, are they really going to want to work in dangerous, impoverished areas? Probably not. So how do you get those kids these fabulously qualified individuals? Because fabulously qualified individual can work where they want to work- that's the way the market is. I get offers all the time- just got one from a new start up school in San Jose- offering much more cash than I make in the public sector, but I'm not even tempted. I love where I am, who I work with, and what I do- and I would probably do it for free (and have in the past) but I probably won't share that with my employer.

To: Bread Upon The Water who wrote (255477)	7/9/2014 3:55:04 PM
From: JohnM	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 542566

If I'm reading this right, and I may not be, the Calif. Courts will soon be telling Calif. School districts on how many "good" teachers poor performing schools have to have. From today's WSJ: The "soon" above is well down the road. This decision will be litigated and litigated and litigated. My own guess is we're at least a year and more likely several years from a definitive decision. Before we start discussing this very much, we need some more points of view on the issue. To take a WSJ opinion piece written by one of the plaintiff lawyers is hardly the end of information gathering. This piece pairs two known, serious problems in public education--some bad urban (and should add rural) schools and permitting tenure rules to keep schools from firing admittedly terrible teachers. They are quite separate issues and deserve separate conversations about best policy. My own guess is that this law suit was funded by right wing anti union folk who think they've found yet another way to undermine the role of unions in American life.