"Teachers Get Little Say In Book About Them"

[teacher gal]

I have long felt that it is likely the arrogance that so often comes with privelege that leads our elite ed reformers and pundits (the majority of whom have little to no experience whatsoever in public education) to imagine that they are helping and standing up for poor children by savaging their schools and teachers. While they would not openly admit it or actually say so, public school teachers are quite beneath them.

Stephen Brill of Court TV is the most recent "new best expert" on our schools and teachers.

At the bottom, find link to Michael Winerip's NYT review of Brill's new book, "Class Warfare".

Excerpts:

In Steven Brill’s new book celebrating the movement, “Class Warfare: Inside the Fight to Fix America’s Schools,” teachers are literally the least of it. Of the three million who work in traditional public schools, three are interviewed by Mr. Brill on the record; their insights take up six of the book’s 437 pages.

Mr. Brill has little positive to say about teachers. Veterans “hanging on for 20 or 30 years caring only about their pensions and tenure protection are toxic.” While he admits that there are thousands of teachers who are skilled and highly motivated, “increasingly” there are those who put in an “8:15 a.m. to 3:15 p.m. workday with a civil-service mentality.” (How Mr. Brill could possibly know whether the number of these teachers is increasing is unclear, since he provides no statistics or attribution.)

Read Winerip's review in full at http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/29/education/29winerip.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all%3Fsrc%3Dtp&smid=fb-share

Thank you Michael Winerip.

[Kerrytravelers]

1. Just blame the teachers. It's easier that way.

If you put down the teachers enough, you also take the concept of and the value for education along with them. They have worked very hard to destroy the public school system.

[bluestateguy]

2. Veterans “hanging on for 20 or 30 years caring only about their pensions and tenure protection"

I could say the same thing about politicians in DC who effectively do have tenure by way of cozy safe gerrymandered districts that give them lifetime seats in Congress.

[teacher gal]

3. Yes, what an unexamined assumption

Brill makes about teachers' motives. And surely demeaning teachers and undermining the teaching profession is a sure fire way to lift up poor children.

[11 Bravo]

14. I taught full time for 32 years and for the last 5 years have substituted nearly every day.

Steven Brill can kiss my ass.

[LWolf]

16. Yes, except that they make a hell of a lot more money than I do,

and I don't think they are working any harder or longer.

:(

[RaleighNCDUer]

4. You know, there actually is a grain of truth in that.

I know several teachers who are just hanging on - they are not enthusiastic and are not committed (at least not yet). That's because over the past decade they've had less and less input, having less responsibility but more blame for the failures of their school system.

They are being turned from being dedicated professionals into drones who are hanging on until retirement - if they can last so long. My sister took early retirement, as did one friend, while another had to take medical disability. Others I know are only hanging on because the economy sucks so badly they can't risk walking away.

I think there is a single basic flaw with school reformers - they want to reform schools because of their own experiences IN school. IOW, the people trying to 'fix' the schools HATED school. Naturally, that is reflected as anger (though they never use that word) at teachers - all teachers, everwhere.

Was there ever a reformer who loved his teachers, loved the curriculum, and felt he was getting everything he wanted out of the schools? It is a logical improbability - you don't fight to change something that works for you. Therefore, the starting point with all school reform is the angry, disappointed reformer who may have had a bad teacher or two, or simply was a bad student to begin with. Personally, I'd go with the latter, as it would take a really bad student to so totally misapprehend the causes for poor performance of schools and suggest standardized testing 24/7 as a solution.

[indurancevile]

5. the starting point is finance capital wanting to turn public education into a profit center for

global capital.

not people who had a bad experience in school.

[MadHound]

7. Oh, I don't know,

There are lots of school "reformers" who seem to have hated school, and can't wait to use their position of power to take out their vengeance on teachers now. Bill Gates comes to mind, and there are many, many others.

[indurancevile]

8. well, i do. sorry you don't. the people pushing ed reform aren't in it because they hated school.

they aren't even in it because they're interested in education.

they're interested in money & power.

i won't bother to read the roll call of ed "reformers", but it's all about the benjamins.

and that is amply demonstrated by what they're pushing and calling "reform".

[WinkyDink]

12. "....it's all about the benjamins." Bingo. That is why the focus is on test$ and tenure, not

actual curriculum, teaching methods, student creativity, etc.

[RaleighNCDUer]

13. Well, that is the point I'm making -

the ONLY object of school reform should be improving education. What we have here are people who are, if not antipathetic to the system, at the least indifferent to it.

It is not that they are necessarily out for revenge on the system - they simply feel it doesn't work anyway, and anything they are today has nothing to do with the education they received at public schools. Their interest is not to improve, but to make money from the system. The point is, if they believed in the education system, in the concept of free public schools, and felt they had benefited from it, they would not advocate 'reforms' like this even if there was a profit in it.

[Starry Messenger]

6. k&r

[no_hypocrisy]

9. I'd like to see a nonfiction book in the tradition of The Help

where teachers tell THEIR stories.

[FLPanhandle]

10. Every parent knows there are good and bad teachers at their childrens schools.

It's a common frustration which is why selling teacher reform is so easy. Unfortunately, most of the "fixes" proposed will make things worse.

[WinkyDink]

11. Mr. Brill is part of the Great American Tradition of "Making a Quick Buck." No-one EVER EVER

discusses CURRICULUM.

WHAT IS IT AMERICAN STUDENTS SHOULD LEARN?

Besides the ubiquitous answer of "math and science because those subjects lead to jobs."

[Johonny]

15. My fav part of that article on a book titled "class warfare"

If a substantial part of the problem was poverty and not bad teachers, the question would be why people like them are allowed to make so much when others have so little. I hear this all the time from teachers, but when I asked Mr. Brill, he said, “I didn’t see it as the rich versus the union guys, although now that you say it, I can see how you could draw that line.”

So he appears to have spent more time thinking of a good title for the book than you know thinking about what he was going to put in it.

[teacher gal]

17. Here is another good review of Brill's new book

by Richard Rothstein:

http://www.slate.com/id/2302578/