We do need a big change in our education system. As a mother of school age children I couldn’t agree more. I hope to see some solutions other than the high cost tutoring help. So far my help has been getting in the class rooms of my children at least monthly. It’s helped but I still worry. The worlds gotten tougher, job competition has gotten tougher, and I want my kids to succeed.

Why is it, when anyone decides to discuss education, it always comes down to the teachers’ fault, and the unions’ fault for trying to protect them? Yes, there are teachers who may not be competant that the union protects, however for every handful of those teachers, there are thousands of highly qualified competant teachers who the union also protects. We are under a consistent barage of unfair demands from school, city and state officials. We are the “fall guys” when students are not passing. Let me give a personal example here. I spent three class days with students, helping them write an essay. They peer edited. Then, I corrected/commented on their essays. After that, they were to take them home, and over the course of four days (in case they did not have a computer at home, that gave them library time) type them up in the correct format (with a handout I gave as guidelines.) Even a week after the typed essay was due,despite my constant reminders and the date marked on a previously handed out syllabus, I only recieved 25% of the essays. When is it no longer my responsibility? Luckily, only 18% of my students failed first quarter. Teachers who had a 20% failure rate recieved notes from administration about their lacking ablility to effectively motivate students. I am a second career high school teacher. I’ve been in business and am appalled at the way the school, town, state and federal officials regard and treat teachers. Believe me, teachers do not get into teaching for the money, benefits or retirement package. Most of the public would be surprised to know that only a very small percentage of school systems offer high end benefits. It’s the only profession that I know of that requires its employees to get advanced degrees, but does not pay for it, and the reimbursement by way of advanced degree stipends is ridiculous. I just completed my masters and it will take me almost eight years to recoup the money that I put out for it. Yet, it’s the teachers’ pay that is the first to be considered to be cut in budget crises. Perhaps, people should be looking at the mismanagement of funds within their own cities and school systems first. Perhaps the people who are coming up with educational reforms should first teach in a classroom. Perhaps people who are so negative towards teachers, should look at their own children and themselves as parents before pointing the accountability finger.

There has been a radical change in education. When college students participated in Teach for Aemrica - they were horrified at state run education. Many tried to make recommendations that were not happily received by the the status quo. So several started their own charter school operations that have become wildly successful. They have figured out a cost-effective way to re-condition the students, parents and teachers to make them all part of a team effort. One of these is the Kipp Schools that now teaches over 16,000 students in some of America’s worst neighborhoods, 90% of students are African Americans- and Kipp is a college prep program with a high success rate. Read about Kipp here: http://www.kipp.org/01/ “KIPP began in 1994 when two teachers, Mike Feinberg and Dave Levin, launched a fifth-grade public school program in inner-city Houston, TX, after completing their commitment to Teach For America. In 1995, Feinberg remained in Houston to lead KIPP Academy Middle School, and Levin returned home to New York City to establish KIPP Academy in the South Bronx. These two original KIPP Academies became the starting place for a growing network of schools that are transforming the lives of students in under-resourced communities, and redefining the notion of what is possible in public education. Since their founding, the two original KIPP Academies have sustained track records of high student achievement. While fewer than one in five low-income students attend college nationally, KIPP’s college matriculation rate stands at more than 80 percent for students who complete the eighth grade at KIPP. In 2007, nearly 95 percent of KIPP alumni went on to college-preparatory high schools; collectively, they have earned millions of dollars in scholarships and financial aid since 2000.” A government school monopoly will never, ever produce these kinds of results.

Here is another publicly financed private company with superior results: http://www.greendot.org/ I learned about Green Dot on a video produced and narrated by Drew Carrey at Reason TV. The video interviews a black mother who when visiting her daughter at school found the classroom in chaos with the teacher reading in the corner. She got together with other parents to bring in Green Dot. This short video describes the process. http://reason.tv/video/show/60.html

Ms. Cooney, You state “And then there is the union problem which is hardly trivial, particularly in the big urban school systems like New York. The unions resist change and oppose merit pay and, often, fight the right of principals to fire incompetent teachers. ” Sounds like you are drinking the BloomKlein Kool Aid. Teachers do not resist change. What we do resist is the change without the proper staff development. We have no say in selecting curriculum or textbooks. And, when we do find something that works, the powers that be changes it again. When Klein forced schools to drop the new version of Open Court, many principals pleaded with him for an exemption because the program was working. He refused. These schools paid a pretty penny for the program too and lost that investment. Yes I am against merit pay. First of all, not every child learns at the same rate. A teacher can have a student who is 3 years below level and raise him to 1 year below level, and that is not seen as an accomplishment under Klein. What merit pay does is force teachers to teach to the test rather than teach. NYC teachers are constantly complaining about administrators who change their student grades to passing grades so that they can qualify for a bonus. Here’s an idea! How about paying teachers a good salary to begin with! And another idea…instead of holding teachers accountable, how about holding students accountable too (and their parents). And how about not cutting the psychologists and guidance counselors who are so overburdened with cases. And one more idea—-allow city teachers to follow the same discipline code Charter Schools have. Teachers are not allowed to be collaborators, yet we know our students and their learning styles better than anyone. You make it sound like their are more bad teachers than good ones. Principals go after great teachers that voice their opinions. Principals go after great teachers that are pro-union. Principals go after great teachers that blow the whistle on their illegal practices. So these are the teachers that are labeled “bad”. Maybe you can explain how the most violent schools got an “A” on their school’s report card, and the best schools (the schools where over 80% of the students are on levels 3 and 4) got a “B” or “C”?? The rating system is flawed!! Life in NYC schools is no Sesame Street!! I could go on about the revolving door of teachers in places like Kipp and Green Dot. But, you are so into their PR, you wouldn’t understand the reality.

I live in Long Island, where teachers are carefully selected and well-paid. In the city, for thirty years, they’ve been hiring anyone who could draw breath, and granting tenure to anyone who managed to still be alive after three years. This was necessary, of course, if they wished to continue their carefully crafted policy of paying the absolutely lowest wage in the area, keeping class sizes the highest in the area, and leaving the schools in a disgraceful state of disrepair. Interestingly enough, the so-called “reformers” have addressed none of these issues. Then, after implementing this brilliant policy, they were shocked (shocked!) when things did not work out. Naturally, they introduced “accountability,” which oddly did not entail taking any responsibility whatsoever for their years of ignoring what they had created. The comparison of public schools, which accept everyone, and charters, whose students have 100% proactive parents, is preposterous on its face. Yet public schools often as not do better than charters anyway. In towns like mine, kids are never in classes with more than 25, no teacher gets tenure without deserving it, and all buildings are clean and welcoming for our kids. No one talks about charters, merit pay, union busting, vouchers, or any of the other gimmicks that politicians who won”t sent their own kids to schools they administer indulge in. If you have good teachers, reasonable size classes, and decent facilities, you don’t need to have these discussions. Of course Michael Bloomberg, who chooses to invest in sports stadiums and real estate tax breaks rather than schools, has to blame someone. Naturally it’s the working people of New York. And it’s plainly idiotic that making conditions even worse for working people will help our kids. Those who indulge in such baseless speculation fail to note that our kids will have to work under such conditions, and a good number of them don’t give a damn about our kids anyway. After all, children of Mayor Bloomberg and Joel Klein attended private schools with precisely the same conditions they deny kids of working parents. To think they won’t continue to deny them when they grow up is to ignore everything they’ve done up to this point.

Yes, it’s me again, and I would like to add to what Frank Rich wrote about in today’s NYTimes. What he is saying is so true. When I first started teaching in the 70s, a topic like the American Revolution would take weeks to over a month to cover. We would learn about the founding of each and every colony. Learn about the people and events that led to the Revolution and the Revolution itself. Today city textbooks give a paragraph to the Stamp-Act and Boston Tea party. Nothing is covered in depth!! What a disgrace many of these textbooks are!! It’s no wonder that Jay Leno gets so much material with his “Jay Walking” segment. Yet teachers are blamed. Then they came out with new programs that destroyed math. Again, nothing taught in dept. Everything became a mile wide instead of a mile deep. Too many concepts were being taught in too little time. And teachers had no say to correct any of this or else be written up for insubordination. When seasoned teachers went beyond the curriculum, we did it behind closed doors. New teachers, who were too afraid, of course taught what was placed in front of them. There was a time I could cover all subjects, but that changed years ago when Literacy and Math were mandated for 90-minute blocks. I had to use my reading time to teach Social Studies “reading through the content area” just so I could get it in. I also used to do current events with actual newspapers—not the watered down Scholastic News. Sorry, but test prep took that away too. Teachers never lowered the standards, the powers that be did. But we get the blame. Teachers also use their personal money to buy pencils, sharpeners, books, bookcases, charts and art supplies. I wonder if people working for Joan have to supply their own toilet paper. Yes, toilet paper!! Of course I doubt you find roaches walking around her office. Bloomberg promised to get rid of the trailers, but then decided it was okay for 21st century students to go to school in trailers that are not always heated and have plumbing problems. The money that was promised to overcrowded out-dated schools went to sports stadiums instead. So kids have to put on their coats, boots etc just to go into the main building to bathroom themselves. No new library or state-of-the-art science lab for them. Like I said, it’s easier to blame teachers and their unions and refuse to look at the real reasons and factors facing the day to day lives of teachers. Michelle Rhee was by her own admission was a failure as a teacher, yet those who can’t, now run the system.

Brooklyn Gal, Thank you for saying it all, for all of us.

As a parent in a rural community, I have to chime in to say that you can have the best teachers in the world, but tie their hands by requiring that all students test to a certain level. This was not a local issue by any means! Government mandates about student funding have a major impact on how our children are being taught. Both of my kids got so bored in school because the required curriculum was too easy for them. Unfortunately, and especially after the “No Child Left Behind Act” my children’s teachers did not have the time to challenge them. My children had some Wonderful teachers who instilled in them a desire to learn, but they can only do so much while still meeting the testing requirements. I did what I could from home, but without having time to home school, and because they were required to attend school a certain number of days a year, they did not receive the same quality of education I did 20-30 years ago.