Leave no blame behind

[Tigermike 3,031]

Clarence Page

Leave no blame behind

What's so wrong with being hard-core about the education of our schoolchildren?

Published April 24, 2005

WASHINGTON -- My wife is sitting on a gold mine, I tell her. She's a part-time creative writing teacher in a District of Columbia public high school. She comes home with stories more shocking, poignant, bizarre, scandalous and hilarious than I have ever seen on "Boston Public" and other TV dramas about the traumas of high school.

I was particularly touched by what she heard one day from a 16-year-old girl from "Southeast," which is how Washingtonians refer to the poorest section of town. "Ms. Page, you come to every class, don't you?" she asked. "I never had a teacher who came to every class before."

No, the sad thing about some teachers is that they don't take their job as seriously as they should and their sloth is protected too often by their union, which is only doing what unions are supposed to do, protect their members.

Unfortunately, a system that rewards mediocrity inevitably penalizes those who encourage excellence. I applaud dedicated, self-sacrificing teachers like those who saved my life. Today, such dedication is often squashed by spirit-killing public school systems.

Such anecdotes may never turn into the Oscar-winning script, I imagine, but they do come to mind as I examine the lawsuits and other objections that more than 30 states --including some Republican strongholds--have kicked up recently against President Bush's No Child Left Behind education reform law.

The National Education Association, the nation's largest teachers union and a leading critic of No Child Left Behind, and eight school districts in Michigan, Texas and Vermont, sued the U.S. Department of Education Wednesday. They accused No Child Left Behind of violating a federal law that forbids the federal government from requiring states to spend their own money to enforce mandates Washington has imposed on them.

Hours earlier, Utah's very-Republican legislature cited the same grounds in passing a bill that requires educators there to spend as little state money as possible in carrying out the requirements of No Child Left Behind. Connecticut's attorney general two weeks earlier announced his state's intentions to sue the Department of Education on the same grounds.

I also have criticisms of No Child Left Behind. The law's one-size-fits-all approach on setting national education standards is treacherously simplistic. It flies in the face of what just about every parent realizes: Every child learns differently.

And the law's standards for learning disabilities are unfairly narrow. For an administration that opposes racial or gender quotas, Team Bush is remarkably eager to impose quotas on how many of a school district's students can be judged "learning impaired."

One significant example is Bush's home state of Texas, which is engaged in an ongoing dispute with U.S. Education Secretary Margaret Spellings, another Texan. Texas has exempted 9 percent of its students from regular state achievement tests on the grounds that the schoolchildren are learning impaired. Spellings has agreed to exempt as many as 3 percent of students in each state.

But, imperfect as No Child Left Behind may be, I'd rather stick with it and try to improve it than replace it with nothing--and nothing is precisely what too many of its critics are offering as an alternative.

As much as I quarrel with some of Bush's policies, at least he took his own campaign promises about education seriously. He stepped up to the plate in the manage-by-objective fashion of other Harvard Business School grads and set a clear, achievable goal: Make every student in the country proficient in reading and math by 2014.

That alone caused much snarling and gnashing of teeth from critics. But, as little as Bush may be known for soaring oratory, his best quote in my memory was his criticism of "the soft bigotry of low expectations" for our public school students.

And who knows? Just as it took President Richard M. Nixon to open the doors to communist China, it may take another conservative Republican like Bush to kick-start national education reforms.

After decades of fighting for equal educational opportunities for the poor, national Democrats and too many civil rights leaders have become extensions of the teachers unions, falling into a self-defeating pattern of lock-step support of more funding without more accountability from teachers and administrators.

The result, too often, is a school system that spends more per student year after year and has less to show for it. Somebody could make a heck of a movie out of that. Unfortunately, as they say in Hollywood, tragedy doesn't sell.

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E-mail: cptime@aol.com

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[Tiger Al 0]

"Ms. Page, you come to every class, don't you?" she asked. "I never had a teacher who came to every class before."

No, the sad thing about some teachers is that they don't take their job as seriously as they should and their sloth is protected too often by their union, which is only doing what unions are supposed to do, protect their members.

I guess I'm guilty of sloth, too. I've missed work in the past because I was sick, had car problems and once I even had the nerve to take my child to the doctor so I laid out to do that, too. I really should take my job more seriously.

[CCTAU 3,327]

"Ms. Page, you come to every class, don't you?" she asked. "I never had a teacher who came to every class before."

No, the sad thing about some teachers is that they don't take their job as seriously as they should and their sloth is protected too often by their union, which is only doing what unions are supposed to do, protect their members.

I guess I'm guilty of sloth, too. I've missed work in the past because I was sick, had car problems and once I even had the nerve to take my child to the doctor so I laid out to do that, too. I really should take my job more seriously.

157165[/snapback]

Once again a simpleton's answer. If a student notices a teacher is there often, then you know that they are used to a teacher hardly being there at all. And usually, in a decent school system, the student's will converse enough with a teacher as a human being to know why they were out.

And if YOU are what I have to look forward to teaching my child, then I will lobby even harder for vouchers.

[Tiger Al 0]

Interesting...the girl says she never had a teacher who was there 100% of the time so you take that to mean they're there less than, what, 50% of the time. I don't think the girl quantified the amount of time except to say that it was less than 100%.

[Tigermike 3,031]

Interesting...the girl says she never had a teacher who was there 100% of the time so you take that to mean they're there less than, what, 50% of the time. I don't think the girl quantified the amount of time except to say that it was less than 100%.

157172[/snapback]

I was particularly touched by what she heard one day from a 16-year-old girl from "Southeast," which is how Washingtonians refer to the poorest section of town. "Ms. Page, you come to every class, don't you?" she asked. "I never had a teacher who came to every class before."

So a 16 year old who has NEVER had a teacher who came to EVERY class is not a problem for the resident lib.

[CCTAU 3,327]

Interesting...the girl says she never had a teacher who was there 100% of the time so you take that to mean they're there less than, what, 50% of the time. I don't think the girl quantified the amount of time except to say that it was less than 100%.

157172[/snapback]

Not very interesting that you pretty much took the exact opposite stance. Funny how you dems throw out a percentage number when one did not exist. I, and many others, do not surmise that the student meant 100%, just consistent attendence with the implied statement that most teachers do not consitently "bother" to come to class. Whether or not they are in the building is another story.

When you sign up and work a downtown Montgomery school, let us know. And if you already do, let us know the percentage of teachers who do show up consistently.

[Tiger Al 0]

Interesting...the girl says she never had a teacher who was there 100% of the time so you take that to mean they're there less than, what, 50% of the time. I don't think the girl quantified the amount of time except to say that it was less than 100%.

157172[/snapback]

I was particularly touched by what she heard one day from a 16-year-old girl from "Southeast," which is how Washingtonians refer to the poorest section of town. "Ms. Page, you come to every class, don't you?" she asked. "I never had a teacher who came to every class before."

So a 16 year old who has NEVER had a teacher who came to EVERY class is not a problem for the resident lib.

157180[/snapback]

Have you EVER missed any time at work?

[Tigermike 3,031]

Interesting...the girl says she never had a teacher who was there 100% of the time so you take that to mean they're there less than, what, 50% of the time. I don't think the girl quantified the amount of time except to say that it was less than 100%.

157172[/snapback]

I was particularly touched by what she heard one day from a 16-year-old girl from "Southeast," which is how Washingtonians refer to the poorest section of town. "Ms. Page, you come to every class, don't you?" she asked. "I never had a teacher who came to every class before."

So a 16 year old who has NEVER had a teacher who came to EVERY class is not a problem for the resident lib.

157180[/snapback]

Have you EVER missed any time at work?

157194[/snapback]

It really does not matter what I have done. But what is evident is that (you a libbie Democrat) seem to be taking the side of and wanting to make excuses for part of the Democrat base (NEA). What about the kids Al, do they not matter since they can't vote for a Democrat? Check the article Al, it says nothing about 100%, only that she (16 year old student) had NEVER had a teacher who came to EVERY class.

Is that not a problem for you?

[Tiger Al 0]

Interesting...the girl says she never had a teacher who was there 100% of the time so you take that to mean they're there less than, what, 50% of the time. I don't think the girl quantified the amount of time except to say that it was less than 100%.

157172[/snapback]

Not very interesting that you pretty much took the exact opposite stance. Funny how you dems throw out a percentage number when one did not exist. I, and many others, do not surmise that the student meant 100%, just consistent attendence with the implied statement that most teachers do not consitently "bother" to come to class. Whether or not they are in the building is another story.

When you sign up and work a downtown Montgomery school, let us know. And if you already do, let us know the percentage of teachers who do show up consistently.

157181[/snapback]

I didn't take the opposite stance. I agreed that because I missed work I was also guilty of sloth, by the writer's standards. The girl said, "Ms. Page, you come to every class, don't you?" she asked. "I never had a teacher who came to every class before." (emphasis mine)

The statement says Ms. Page came to 100% of the classes and that none of her other teachers ever comes to 100% of the classes. She didn't say how many classes they missed. You have automatically assumed an inadequate attendence record on the part of the rest of the teachers. A teacher could've only missed one class in a twenty year career and she would be considered slothful, according to Mr. Page.

For what it's worth, I just asked a girl that I work with who goes to Alabama Christian Academy (a private school) if any of her teachers ever missed class. We don't have an emoticon that adequately represents the look she gave me, but she did admit that none of the teachers or principals there have a perfect attendence record.

[Tiger Al 0]

Check the article Al, it says nothing about 100%, only that she (16 year old student) had NEVER had a teacher who came to EVERY class.

Except Ms. Page, who came to every class which would be...100%.

It really does not matter what I have done.

If you have good reasons for missing work, why is it unacceptable that public school teachers do, too? It seems to me to be a pretty weak "reason" to hate public schools.

What about the kids Al, do they not matter since they can't vote for a Democrat?

There's no need to get into a hissy. Substitute ANY job title for "teacher" and it's still a weak, manufactured "reason." Democrat has nothing to do with it.

[Piglet 0]

The fact that the child is ASTONISHED that a teacher seems to care enough to show up all the time indicates to me that we're talking about a lot more than occasional sick days here. It also raises questions in my mind about how the other teachers act when they DO show up.

This is what happens when we have a system that chews up idealistic young teachers and spits them out. We've taken one of the hardest, most important jobs in the world, and equated it with garbage collecting. Teachers work harder for less money and respect than just about anyone else I can think of. They get dissed by their own students, assaulted by parents, held accountable by mind-bogglingly stupid administrators and forced to conform to lamebrained models. No wonder the best teachers burn out or move on to something with a little dignity, while the schools hire and reward the people with the fattest butts to sit on the kids' holding bins during their formative years.

The old adage, "pay peanuts, hire monkeys" applies. Society needs to emphasize teaching as an honorable profession, and pay teachers accordingly.

[WarTim 3,456]

I wonder why slick willy and president hitlary didn't solve all of these problems in their eight years in office?

Too busy with "other jobs" in the Oval office?

[Tiger Al 0]

The fact that the child is ASTONISHED that a teacher seems to care enough to show up all the time indicates to me that we're talking about a lot more than occasional sick days here.  It also raises questions in my mind about how the other teachers act when they DO show up.

This is what happens when we have a system that chews up idealistic young teachers and spits them out.  We've taken one of the hardest, most important jobs in the world, and equated it with garbage collecting.  Teachers work harder for less money and respect than just about anyone else I can think of.  They get dissed by their own students, assaulted by parents, held accountable by mind-bogglingly stupid administrators and forced to conform to lamebrained models.  No wonder the best teachers burn out or move on to something with a little dignity, while the schools hire and reward the people with the fattest butts to sit on the kids' holding bins during their formative years.

The old adage, "pay peanuts, hire monkeys" applies.  Society needs to emphasize teaching as an honorable profession, and pay teachers accordingly.

157214[/snapback]

I was only pointing out the silly manufactured point of outrage that the author employed to bash public schools and teachers. I would be curious to know what the student's attendance record was. Would Mr. Page accuse her of sloth if it were less than perfect?

[CCTAU 3,327]

The fact that the child is ASTONISHED that a teacher seems to care enough to show up all the time indicates to me that we're talking about a lot more than occasional sick days here.  It also raises questions in my mind about how the other teachers act when they DO show up.

This is what happens when we have a system that chews up idealistic young teachers and spits them out.  We've taken one of the hardest, most important jobs in the world, and equated it with garbage collecting.  Teachers work harder for less money and respect than just about anyone else I can think of.  They get dissed by their own students, assaulted by parents, held accountable by mind-bogglingly stupid administrators and forced to conform to lamebrained models.  No wonder the best teachers burn out or move on to something with a little dignity, while the schools hire and reward the people with the fattest butts to sit on the kids' holding bins during their formative years.

The old adage, "pay peanuts, hire monkeys" applies.  Society needs to emphasize teaching as an honorable profession, and pay teachers accordingly.

157214[/snapback]

I can't say that we agree on everything, but Dang if you didn't just cut right through the 100% smokescreen and get to the meat of the matter. I had teachers who missed an occasional day jsut as I do. But it was the exception, not the rule. Seems like this young lady sees it as the rule. And that is wrong.

And all Al can do is start throwing made up numbers around. Sounds like a demoncratic presidential debate. Throw enough bullshirt on it and people won't even be able to see out the window. Much less make an informed decision about what's on the other side.

[Tigermike 3,031]

I was only pointing out the silly manufactured point of outrage that the author employed to bash public schools and teachers. I would be curious to know what the student's attendance record was. Would Mr. Page accuse her of sloth if it were less than perfect?

157225[/snapback]

His e-mail address is posted at the bottom of the article. Why don't you ask him?

[Auburn85 432]

the article also said SOME not ALL