??? Excuse me, but I don't think any of this discussion, until now, has concerned Africans. I think the thread had to do with a U.S. school in Denver Colorado.
It is likely that when the teachers were terminated and then invited to reapply, only a fraction of them did. So if the end result was that you only hired back 5% of the teachers you laid off, how could anyone in their right mind conclude that therefore 95% of the original teachers "weren't up to par". This kind of lame brain "analysis" is not helpful. My best guess would be that many of the terminated teachers were happy to escape from what may have been a ghetto hell hole. It's nice to know that the school was apparently improved, but what is gained by jumping to conclusions with out all of the facts.
Well said. "It is, in fact, nothing short of a miracle that the modern methods of instruction have not yet entirely strangled the holy curiosity of inquiry ...which stands mainly in need of freedom... It is a very grave mistake to think that the enjoyment of seeing and searching can be promoted by means of coercion and a sense of duty." - Albert Einstein
I was referring to Africans that live in the USA, in other words African Americans. My contribution to this thread was with regard to the notion that our school system is failing do to "teachers unions" and the movie, "waiting for superman" which was mentioned in the first post.
In fairness, in many states there is a huge problem with school board members being basically stooges for teachers' unions. Even as liberal a publication as the Washington Post has commented editorially on the practice, using the situation in MOntgomery County , MD, one of the richest counties in the country, as an example. The county has many well-educated parents who moved there for the schools. Endorsement by the teachers' union is virtually a prerequisite to election to the school board. The union not only endorses candidates but funds their campaigns. Many candidates are teachers or former teachers. The problem is there is a practical limit to just how much money can be productiuvely spent on schools. Counties have other, equally pressing needs, and taxes cannot be raised indefinitely. I do see the other side of the question. Teachers in many jurisdictions are not paid hige salaries, although in most places it is a lot better than it was decades ago. There is the chicken and egg problem of not attracting the best graduates to teaching because of the compensation but not wanting to pay often below-average grads big money just because they are teachers. Often compensation is secondary in any event. One of my relatives was a top graduate of a presitgiou suniversity and had a masters from an even more presitgious shcool. She taught high school in an upscale system but quit after one year because of discilplinary problems, most likely with diversity students hwo were bussed in. She was cursed and verbally abused by students in class, and the adminsitrators were unwilling to do anything about it. They probably feared a hassle with some civil rights group. So she quit teaching and went into another field. Private schools have their own issues. I know a highly dedicated veteran teacher who is being pushed out of a prestigious private school. They won't admit it, and she can't afford litigation, but it is obvious they want young, perky girls who can identify with the parents better. Old school teachers seem too demanding and judgmental. There is one overriding issue about compensation that illustrates the difference in the government and private sectors. In the private sector, it is easy to tell if a job is properly compensated. If it is not, you can't get qualified applicants. If you are swamped, you are probably paying too much. There is no issue of fairness or whether this level of education deserves this much compensation. It is purely supply and demand. In the public sector, and not just in education, the calculus is totally different. There it becomes a matter of what people "should" make, what is "fair" and political pressure becomes a factor.
No, it was not there. I don't want tos ay where exactly, because she might not want it publicized in case she wants to get back into teaching at some point. The fact that you thought it was somewhere else kind of makes the point that this is not a one-off problem. You can't expect to attract the best and brightest to teaching, when you put them in a situation that could better be handled by a prison guard. There are three parts to the equation really. You have to have good teachers, you have to have students who are motivated to learn and you have to have administrators who will maintain order in the schools.
The problems you state are correct. In Georgia we do not have teacher unions, but are still 49th out of the 50 states in education. Here quite a few children going to college from HS have to be remedial trained in the basic skills they should have learned in HS. The reason I see for this comes from a single problem..discipline.. Here we pay for "cops" that work at the schools, because the administration can not discipline (paddle) disruptive children. The disruptive children are so bad that quite a few teachers actually get assaulted by them. case in point; there was a 16 year old boy over 6 feet tall weighing about 220 and he shoved his books into the chest of a woman teacher that was simply trying to get him to sit down that he broke several of her ribs. Here we pay for school crossing guards, where that function use to be performed by school children and sponsored by AAA. Here we pay excessive administrative staff and pay that administrative staff more than teachers. case in point; the Dekalb school board had a temporary school superintendent from Feb 2010 until Dec 2010...this person was making $170k per year and does not have a doctorate. She demanded a pay increase of $76k per year and the school board gave it to her! I had contacted the school board chair to express my disapproval of this and he told me that they "could not find a suitable replacement"...even though there is a 20% U6 unemployment rate and they had 10 months to find one!
I agree with you. I can remember being in high school and my amazement at the total ineptitude of some of my teachers that had been there for years. It was a total, total joke.