More on Steve Jobs’ education advice: from a former teacher

Not so much leave this to the experts as make sure the experts are involved. You can't really solve a problem without understanding the situation and what has been tried already.

Yup, and the experts I've talked with say we need a dramatic pay increase to attract and keep good teachers, particularly in fields that we should be focusing on (math and science).

Seems that the message we can take from this is that is is yet another example of the govt being incompetent. Can we all agree that govt not attempt to solve problems. Why govt has to be involved in education in the first place boggles the mind.

Scoble, where is that "dramatic pay increase" going to come from? Right! The taxpayers. So, with local and state govt budgets already stretched thin, how successful do you think local and state govts would be in asking citizens to pay MORE (and not cutting anything, which I know of NO govt entity that is in favor of cutting programs to free money up for something else). And this is NOT a problem for the Fed Govt to solve. And even if it was, that too would require RAISING TAXES. The other problem we have is that the Constitution does not give Congress the authority to collect taxes to fund or operate schools. In fact, the Tenth Amendment is pretty clear in indicating that this is the responsibliity of the States. But since when did our elected representatives ever pay any attention to the Constitution?

Salary increases likely won't be the panacea you think. Increasing salaries will simply bring more candidates to the teacher job pool--a fair amount of them being poor candidates. But the way hiring practices are today, the lousy teachers will likely continue to get hired.

Seems the solution is what many parents are already doing.. vouchers and private schools. The problem there, of course, is that parent then feel like they are paying double--taxes to support a failing public school system and tuition to provide their kids with a quality education. Also, school choice will help to weed out the lousy teachers. As administrators see their student an parent population fleeing to better performing schools, they will be forced to improve their hiring processes and find the better quality teachers. This is what works in private and charter schools.

Amazing what a free market and capitalism can solve, isn't it?

LayZ: I already said that we aren't willing to pay more to fix these problems. Which is one reason why we have such a poor system today.

So, it *seems* we all agree on three things: 1) that principals need to be able to fire teachers that aren't up to scratch; 2) that teachers that perform well should receive more money than average teachers; 3) and that teacher's unions prevent this from happening.

Alfred says that it's "stating the obvious". Well, yes - it is.

However, he then says he has yet to meet a teacher that doesn't understand this... that everyone in education knows this.

But I'm sorry - this simply can't be true. Why? Well... who is it exactly that comprises the *membership* of teachers unions? Oh yes - *teachers*. The truth is: if teachers wanted these reforms, they would happen.

Of course there are lots of other problems, as Alfred points out. However, if teachers were to work together on this, there *could* be major reforms of teaching that would improve the education system *without* requiring new money.

Yes, the other issues need to be addressed... including putting new money into the system. But there's no point in fixing the other stuff (particularly pouring money into a failing system) without reforming teaching first.

I guess I'll post this again since it has a lot about both unions and money…20/20 segment on schools/unions…
http://chotha.blogspot.com/2007/02/2020-stupid-...
(It’s a YouTube video. Wouldn’t be surprised if it got pulled at some point)

I must disagree with LazY.

"Seems that the message we can take from this is that is is yet another example of the govt being incompetent. Can we all agree that govt not attempt to solve problems. Why govt has to be involved in education in the first place boggles the mind."

The public school system was started because private education was abysmal. Yes, there has always been a rich elite that benefitted from expensive private schools, but that left the overwhelming majority out. A major incentive for starting the public education system was that draftees for the military, particularly in the South, often scored as if they were retarded. If conservatives got their way we would again have a society in which only children of people who could afford to pay well stood much chance of gettng a good educstion.

And, for the record, public schools, despite their problems, still get better results than private schools when class and parental education are controlled for. Charter schools perform was worst of all.


As for the Tenth Amendment, it has no effect whatsoever on what forms of government can fund public education. The courts have recognized federal support of education because society as a whole has an interest in having an educated populace,

Teachers know about the problems but that doesn't mean they can or even want to fix them all. As for who controls the unions many of the top union officals are not elected by the full membership. They are elected by the :eadership." Think about what *that* means sometime.

Alfred, I was going to post this comment to your blog, but I refuse to Join WndowsL Live just to make a remark.

"Perhaps you do have some useful ideas about improving education, Alfred. But, unfortunately, this blog entry is marred by glaring evidence of your own shortcomings:

•Shilling for Microsoft - Your digs at Steve Jobs reek of jealously and sycophancy for your employer. I laughed when you jeered at iTunes/iPod, which just happens to be driving Microsoft up the wall because it is unable to compete. As for Microsoft's 'donations' to schools and libraries, the computers and software are really meant to attract future customers for Microsoft. That is not charity. Your behavior also shows incredible shortsightedness about the topic -- technology and education. The iPod and iTunes combo are becoming significant education resources, yet your response is to sneer at them. Feel free to keep sneering while iTunes U. keeps growing. You care more about wagging your tail for Microsoft than technology that helps students learn, obviously.

•Writing - The blog entry is badly written, rife with incoherence, bad grammar and misspelled and misused words. I expect better of someone who claims to be a competent educator. "

Enjoy your sinecure at MIcrosoft. You are lucky to have it.

Podesta is absolutely correct. I'm also miffed by the lofty pronouncement that non-educators can't have an opinion.

What a tool.

@7 "The public school system was started because private education was abysmal. Yes, there has always been a rich elite that benefitted from expensive private schools, but that left the overwhelming majority out. A major incentive for starting the public education system was that draftees for the military, particularly in the South, often scored as if they were retarded. If conservatives got their way we would again have a society in which only children of people who could afford to pay well stood much chance of gettng a good educstion."

Well, we now see how successful it has been since the fed govt got involved. Throwing more money and programs at the problem obviously it not help. My point was, even though we are now stuck with a government school system (which is really what it is) there is nothing wrong with them considering to run it like a private business would. Allowing more choice to which government school you want to send you kids to would put pressure on administrators to hire better teachers to attract more students, thus allowing them more govt subsidies. As it stands now, there is no incentive for an administrator to hire a lousy teacher over a good one.



"And, for the record, public schools, despite their problems, still get better results than private schools when class and parental education are controlled for. Charter schools perform was worst of all."

Really? Then why are we even having this discussion? Why do we see more and more parents opting for private and charter schools? Or crying out for choices? If the govt schools are performing as well or better, the surely we don't have an issue,do we? What is your reference point for your statement? Surely it's not this one, is it? ttp://nces.ed.gov/nationsreportcard/pubs/studies/2006461.asp If here, there are a number of NOT accounted for in that report. Namely, what you as a taxpayer is getting for your money. You imply that private schools are primarily the domain of the rich and well off, but interesting to note that private school tuition comes in at about half of what our all knowing govt spend per student on government schools. So I as a taxpayer am not really getting my money's worth, it seems. I spend more per student on government schools to get just about the same performance as private schools. What a bargain!!!! if the govt would give that money back to the taxpayer I gotta believe private schools would not be so unaffordable. Maybe across the board this report suggests that government schools perform on par or in some cases better. But tell that to the parents of minority kids in L.A. or other major metro areas where their schools are performing well below proficiency. So, as a parent it doesn't matter what some report says if it doesn't reflect the results I'm getting at my local government school. That parent wants options. That parent wants a choice. It's also interesting to note that Dept of Ed, started by that disaster of a president, Jimmy Carter, to "improve our education system" was given about $14Billion dollars. With a budget today that is almost seven times that amount we still haven't seen a marked improvement in performance in our students (based on testing scores). Remind me again why the govt is involved?

"As for the Tenth Amendment, it has no effect whatsoever on what forms of government can fund public education. The courts have recognized federal support of education because society as a whole has an interest in having an educated populace"

Well, actually yes it does. The Tenth Amendment is clear that if that where the Constitution does not explicitly grant powers to the Fed Govt, then those powers are left to the states. Show me in the Constitution where the Fed Govt is granted the authority to collect taxes to fund public education (and NO, it does not fall under the General Welfare clause. Try, again). The fact that courts have made up new laws to grant the fed govt this power doesn't mean the Fed govt didn't have constitutional authority to do so. For the longest time the SC ruled against govt funded welfare program, until FDR stacked the SC in his favor. Courts make incorrect rulings all the time. You do realize that for the longest time in this country the SC held that discrimination was Constitutional, right?

But that's not really the overall point. The overall point is that until there is some form of competition in the hiring and firing of teachers, we will always have poor performing government schools. A blanket increase in taxes will not solve that problem. History shows that we consitently increased funding in education, with no results.

I teach computing in an australian senior school and it's the same deal here. Any competent computing teacher probably took a big pay cut to become a teacher. I have Microsoft and Adobe accreditation in different areas and used to run my own consulting/training/web development business. I could easily make a lot more than I make on a teachers salary. I earn almost as much from part time university lecturing as I get from full time teaching.
Same with teachers in other subjects. For instance, we have a female metalwork teacher who is a qualified boilermaker in a mining town during a statewide resources boom. If she left teaching she could triple her income. I know qualified geologists and chemists teaching science etc. These teachers can do the math and they know very well how badly they're being ripped off. Yes there are incompetent teachers but there is no reward or recognition for the ones who do have a lot of knowledge and experience. A new teacher with loads of real world experience is generally seen as being no different to some kid who's come straight out of hight school and done a teaching degree. I think that is the main problem. The education systems in countries like the US and Australia don't do much to keep the best ones and it's only the ones who really want to do something for the kids who stay. There's no other good reason for being in what can be a very stressful and thankless job.

LazY, here is the NYT's article on the most recent comparative study of types of schools. (Read it before it goes Select.)

http://tinyurl.com/lrxot

You can follow up on the study from the information there.

Some parents may think that charter schools and conservative Christian schools are better than public schools, but the data proves them wrong.

Have I offered any solutions to the problems of childhood education? No. But, we need to be understand how things are now before we can consider solutions.

And, lay off the Tenth Amendment. Other than its use by segregationists to fight racial integration it has had next to no effect on modern law. You sound like a naive freshlaw extolling its supposed virtues. The one use the Tenth Amendent currently has is that it can be invoked as grounds for allowing state governments to experiment as long as they don't violate the federal constitution. An example would be Oregon's assisted suicide law. (BTW, I have taught constitutional law.)

(Please excuse my typos, everyone. I'm typing on a ruined keyboard that I've ordered a replacement of.)

Yeah, leave it to the experts. You know, the ones who end up settling with school systems for locking them in ... by locking them. It's kind of funny that neither Scoble nor the moron at the MSDN blog even bothered to mention Microsoft's sordid history in the educational space.

Pathetic.

Podesta, I doubt there is very little chance that a NYT article from way back in July '06 will suddenly go Select.

Color me skeptical, but, wow, imagine my surprise, a report from the government Dept of Ed that shows that children in Gov schools generally performed as well or better in reading and mathematics than comparable children in private schools.

Any one want to bet that 4 out of the next 5 winners, from 2007 to 2011, of the Scripps National Spelling Bee will *NOT* be home schooled? Easy money for me.

Our tutors and teachers are under paid and over worked.

I'm a teacher with a M.A. + 16 and this is my last year or next to last year of teaching in public schools. I've been teaching here in Colorado for 8 years and earn a whopping 42K per year. I earned this little as a bartender over ten years ago. I adore teaching but all the b.s. paperwork and such makes it a drag...
The system sucks; it's been the same since the beginning and needs a massive overhaul. All of the best and brightest end up getting the D-licensure in order to ensure that one doesn't live as a pauper later in life.
Yes, paying teachers living salaries for the level of education required would help, but it still won't fix our broken system.

The free enterprise idea doesn't apply to public schools, because it's not just about the selection, retention, and pay of quality employees. It's about the raw materials that go into the finished product. In a free market entrprise, businesses are free to select their raw materials, and can reject those which they know will not perform well for their purpose. In the private schools, administrators may base admissions on the scholarship and aptitude that a potential student has already demonstrated. In doing so, they choose the raw material that provides the best foundation for their finished product: an educated young adult. For public schools, however, laws require "no child left behind", and expects the same product even though their raw material includes the students with things like learning disorders, the ones with things like fetal alcohol syndrome, the ones with a juvenile criminal record, the ones who can't even speak English, the list goes on. Those public school students who ARE inclined to do well are often shortchanged while these other subgroups suck up the resources. Yet no one dares to say out loud that a big reason that public schools struggle is that they are forced to deal with poor quality students, and that these are frequently the result of poor quality parenting. Let the public schools pick and choose which parts of the public they want to educate as the private schools do, and only then it will be fair to put them in a "competative marketplace".

The big question is what do you do if you can't afford education? Become a businessman, work as a clerical officer? Is life fair for people who are educated? My advice is if you want to be a teacher go for it and don't worry about the pay. If you feel you want to do it, then all I say is go for it. One thing I like about being a teacher is I get lots of holidays and I am soon going on a cruise.

Do anyone know of universities that offer post graduation degrees to undergraduates???