Here is ANOTHER school that has gone from failure to success.  (The last time I did this it was a school in Compton. Now we go to the Bronx)

The parents, kids, demographics, neighborhood, number of private tutors, the quality of public libraries, all stayed the same.  Blame the failure of the school in the old days on anything you want, and it is all still there in a good school.

Something happened to change this school and save the lives of the kids. He fired half teachers, the bad ones, I assume. He hired new ones. (So there is no net job loss to teachers, only to bad teachers.)

He instituted a dress code.  Go on. Mention your funny Carlin line about Germans and uniforms.  Better to laugh it off that realize it may have saved poor kids.  Gosh, a Nazi innunedo. That proves the point.

Now I am sure you are going to attribute it to the bias of the reporter who you don't know. And I am sure that the NY Times, that hotbed of Cato Institute dropouts, is just doing this to tout a right wing agenda.

The bottom line is that this school has turned around dramatically.  Now, you find a school that has had an equal degree of success and let's see what they have in common.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/08/nyregion/08principal.html

From the article you linked:

"the school is far from perfect; it is one of 32 in the city that the state lists as failing and at risk of closing."From the article you linked:

"some of his fiercest critics are teachers who say he interprets healthy dissent as disloyalty."

&

"Mr. Waronker gathered his teachers and had them hold hands and pray. Some teachers winced with discomfort."

Do I even need to mention that this is a violation of the First Amendment to the US Constitution, and the religious rights of the teachers?

&

"Sometimes teachers balked, as when Mr. Waronker asked them to take to rooftops with walkie-talkies before Halloween in 2006. He wanted to avoid a repetition of the previous year’s troubles, when students had been pelted with potatoes and frozen eggs.

“You control the heights, you control the terrain,” he explained.

“I said, if you go on a roof, you’re not covered,” said Jacqueline Williams, the leader of the teachers’ union chapter, referring to teachers’ insurance coverage."

...it seems to me that Waronker is firing teachers for not having a military background, when he should have asked the country for a team of police officers.From the article you linked:

"In an effort to eliminate gang colors, he instituted a student uniform policy."

Why not just ban gang colors? If the school is having a problem with rival gangs, then it might lead one to wonder, "why are the kids joining gangs?"

Missouri State University gave an answer to this question.

http://people.missouristate.edu/michaelcarlie/what_i_learned_about/gangs/whyform/why_gangs_form.htmOr, perhaps propaganda from AIPAC. No, this school has changed significantly. From your link:

"When Mr. Waronker spent $8,000 in school money to give students a copy of “The Code: The 5 Secrets of Teen Success” and to invite the writer to give a motivational speech, it outraged Marietta Synodis, a teacher who has since left.

“My kids could much better benefit from math workbooks,” Ms. Synodis said."

Despite the motivational speeches for kids who have no future, the school is still, as your link stated: "one of 32 in the city that the state lists as failing."

Any other news articles you wanna link Phil?

-- Modified on 12/13/2010 2:18:04 AM

A war zone. In the United States. I don't question your characterization of the school. But do you really think teacher unions could have caused a war zone? The obvious question is: "why is this school a war zone to begin with?" Answer that, and it might appear that Mr. Waronker is putting a bandaid on a terminal wound.   And that's the definition of a sucessful school! Better test scores! Of course, the question becomes, why did test scores increase?

From the article you linked:

"In his first year, [Waronker] suspended so many students that a deputy chancellor whispered in his ear, 'You’d better cool it.'"

I'd bet you could dramatically improve test scores by kicking all the "dumb" kids out of school. What do you think, Phil?They're not in fear because he forced his employees to pray? For some reason a certain quote from Benjamin Franklin comes to mind.Anyone can improve attendence scores by kicking 25 of the absent kids out of school. How is a religious poster any better than graffiti? Hell, at least with the graffiti, you don't have a violation of the separation clause. At least with the graffiti you can enjoy some quality street art.

But it seems that the power of the Holy Mother is rather limited. I once heard a news story some time ago how a local community stopped drug dealers from owning the street just by planting some flowers along the street. Yes, flowers. It seems that the addition of tulips made the drug dealers feel out of place, and they just moved along.

In other words, direct investment in a destroyed community turned it around. What a waste, eh Phil? We should stick with tax breaks for Paris Hilton.That's funny coming from you Phil. The important question is why were these kids in a lousy school to begin with? I'll offer a few possible explanations.

1) Black families earn 62 cents for every dollar of white families make, Latinos earn 68 cents.

2) This number has declined since the late 60's, when black families made 72 cents for every dollar white families made.

3) The primarily cause of this are our nation's drug laws, which have disproportionally targeted black males, leave black families as single parent households.

4) Large urban areas have been divested from, leaving them to rot.

5) While this divestion occurred, the manufacturing base of this country has been destroyed to allow wealthy people to concentrate wealth from cheap overseas labor.

6) Unions have been relentlessly attacked, resulting in a decline in wages, forcing the impoverished to seek employment in less lawful sectors.

7) Crack cocaine was introduced to urban centers. Accusations remain that the CIA was involved.

In other words, these failing schools are all just fodder in the class war. Until you address that first, then fixing a school will just be putting a band aid on a terminal wound.

-- Modified on 12/13/2010 11:12:58 AM

First, the school was a terrible war zone before. For some reason, you excuse based on history, except for this guy. Obama inherited a bad economy...... Kids come from a bad situation.......

Here is the bottom line, whether you like it or not:

"Test scores have risen enough to earn J.H.S. 22 an A on its new school report card."

Is it perfect yet?  Nope, but if test scores are rising at that rate, give it a chance to do more, since its the right direction.

It used to be one of the city’s 12 most dangerous schools, and it no longer is. That means kids are no longer in physical danger, or at least as much as they were.  If they are safer, they can do better than living and studying in fear.  This is a tremendous accomplishment.  Again, it it is going in the right direction, give it a further chance.

Attendance is up to 93% from a school where previously 25 out of 30 students were absent from some classes.  

The summary is  “It’s an entirely different place,” Schools Chancellor Joel I. Klein

Yeah, it still has problems, but in at least three areas it is making great progress.  

As to religion in the school, I will give you my view. We used to have a bridge near us that had major gang graffiti. We painted and cleaned and painted and cleaned, time after time after time.  One day, a neighbor put up a big poster of the Madonna (the mother, not the singer) of two of the posts on the bridge.  Funny as it may sound, they stopped tagging.  Now, I am not Catholic.  (Jewish by descent, not practicing.) But I don't mind seeing religous objects.  I was overjoyed that my neighborhood seemed to be under the protection of the Holy Mother.

I adopt the view of Henry IV, who when he converted in order to be king of France is purported to have said "Paris is worth a mass."

What schools do you have that are doing better?

Could he be doing better. I don't know.  Is the school BETTER now. Yes, in terms of attendance, safety, and test scores.  As long as those three things are heading in the right direction, I am overjoyed.

The status quo, which you seem to prefer, did nothing but destroy the kids.

The only question I have to ask, is why do I have to repeat myself with shit I've already debunked?

"The kids are in a lousy school because schools were allowed to become centers where there is no discipline"

What evidence do you have that discipline makes for smarter kids? Teaching subservience to children leads to lousy citizens who don't participate or contribute to society.

"where a bad teacher is not fired, where a bad teacher is not fired, where a bad teacher is not fired."

Non-unionized school districts have very low turnover rate, just like unionized districts.

"Hundreds of thousand of teachers and they can't find any who suck. Wow. They are all saints."

Not all, but a very large number of them are. That's why they take it upon themselves to educate our country's children, and do it for SHIT money. If you aren't happy with the results, then pay them more money and watch better talent come rolling in.

"There have been schools that have turned the corner, as this one is starting to do."

Do I even need to repeat that quote from the very article you linked that said the school was failing so horribly that it may be shut down?

"By any standard it is improving, and you are not even happy when standardized test grades  go up."

I would be more pleased if test scores on average went up without tossing all the dumb kids out of school. It seems you're content if a school's "improvement" only if the principle fudges the results.

"Yes, two of the five most influential people in my life were teachers, so don't give me "anti-teacher" shit."

In other words, you're saying that your argument still has merit, when I've just proved that it doesn't. Why does it have merit? Because you really like a couple of teachers!

"The inner city schools deserve better than voters like you."

They certainly deserve far better than any of us on this board. They deserve talented well paid teachers, who are experts at what they do, and a stable and solid support network made up of the community and their families.

But we both know what you'd prefer Phil. Tax breaks for Paris Hilton.

The kids are in a lousy school because schools were allowed to become centers where there is no discipline, where kids are promoted even if they are failing, where a student can threaten a teacher and not be suspended, where they can dress like gang bangers and little hookers, where they are seeing littering and nothing happens, where they are given a text book in good condition in September and lose it or return it with missing pages, and no one has to pay for it, so there are now no books, where a bad teacher is not fired, where a bad teacher is not fired, where a bad teacher is not fired.

Every profession - Dr., lawyer, Indian chief - has its 20% bad people.  It says nothing against teachers to say that 20% of them are lousy.  It just says they are people.  If you get the CA bar magazine, every month a dozen (AT LEAST) attorney are suspended or disbarred. That isn't anything bad about attorneys in general. It just means that some are bad.

The number of teachers fired in L.A. in the last decade can be counted on one hand. Maybe one hand of a person who worked in a cotton gin. (little sick humor)

Out of thousands of teachers in L.A., it is probably less than one a year. Every bad teacher has 30 students per hour.  Same in SF. Same in NY. Same in Chicago.  Hundreds of thousand of teachers and they can't find any who suck. Wow. They are all saints.

But you are happy with that.

It is so funny that the conservative gets really pissed at 20% of kids having lousy teachers, and you make excuses.  (Don't ask for data. I use that as a hypothetical number. I am sure you agree that a % of every profession is bad. Use your own percent.  Do you really think that only 1% of teacher are bad, as opposed to every other group in the world?)

There have been schools that have turned the corner, as this one is starting to do. By any standard it is improving, and you are not even happy when standardized test grades  go up. Yeah, better they suck also.  You have no evidence that learning is getting worse, so you bad mouth the one objective standard of quality.

Yes, two of the five most influential people in my life were teachers, so don't give me "anti-teacher" shit.

The inner city schools deserve better than voters like you.

You ask what evidence I have that discipline in schools make it better.

Use your common sense or ask a teacher.  If there are two classrooms, one is noisy with kids talking out of turn, walking an and out f class at will, talking to each other, and throwing spit balls,  which I have seen, and a second where the kids are sitting in some sembence of order and listening or talking when called on, which do you think is going to be better?

If you need a study for that, I am sorry you can't figure stuff out yourself. If you need to ask a teacher.

Again, I would submit to the court of public opinion on this one.  If most people think that the first type of school is good, my hat goes off to you.  If most people think an orderly classroom is better for kids, I expect the same. (Gosh, now you say Cato and Heritage and Rush convinced people that an orderly school is good, and if the Dems  had any financial support or left leaning institutional support, they would convince people a disorderly class is better.  Poor, poor left.)

A large number of teachers aren't saints. They are people and have the same percent of good as any other group.  (Turn around: WHat is your evidence that more teachers are saints than attorneys.)

In any event, you changed the subject. I was saying bad teachers hurt, and you say, "There are lots of good."  That ignores the problem, which you are good at.  

it is the one bad apple. If many are good (arguendo), the school and kids are still hurt by the 20% bad, which you protect.

Teachers in LA get paid very well.  I know many teachers. They all travel, have nice houses or condos, comfortable cars, GREAT RETIREMENT and health care. And that is for working 75% of the year.  If they want to work 100% they can do summer school and make even more.  They don't have to do the job well, which eliminates a lot of stress. (There is no blow back if they do poorly, as we have discussed ad nauseum.)  If you calculate their hourly wage and compare it to member of the Attorney General's or the D.A.'s Office, they are not under paid.  Same in SF. I would wager its the same in Boston, Chicago and 100 other cities.  (Remember, find teacher salaries and add and additional 25%for the time they are on vacation. Then compare it to government attorneys.  Teachers are doing okay.)

-- Modified on 12/14/2010 5:25:37 AM

Also, if I am repeating myself about bad teachers not being fired, it is because you never address whether that creates a problem and how bad it is. You ignore it.

I say there are some bad teachers. You say they parents don't give them tutors.
I say there are some bad teachers. You say they don't have good libraries
I say there are some bad teachers. You say they don't have breakfast.

You ignore the fact that bad teachers are not fired and that hurts kids, and ignoring it does not make it false.

Nice spin. What if there were two classrooms, where one is noisey from all the snoring that's going on, all the desks are in neat little rows, and the kids are expected to learn by being silent little ineffectual stenographers.

In the other classroom the kids are free to engage their fellow classmates with the material. The ones who don't understand the material have a support system in the other students, as every student who understands the material become for the moment defacto tutors, while challenging these students own understanding of the material.

You may think that this is bonkers, but I suggest you talk to the private school teachers at the Hunter School. Here is their website:

http://www.hunterschool.org/

And speaking of spitballs, I would say that kids throw spitballs for the same reason that historically adult crowds have thrown tomatoes and eggs at a speaker. It's to register their discontent. Perhaps before discarding this and demanding submission to authority, you should question if this discontent has any legitimacy. I know that's asking a lot from you Phil, since challenging your own ideas is so uncomfortable for you.  I have no impirical data on this, all I have are personal anecdotes. But that aside, let's take this question to the public. If your average American was asked to pick out a scumbag, and told one person was a teacher and the other was a lawyer, who do you think they'd pick?

In my experience, with the exception of the lawyers who work in my office, I have never met a lawyer that I didn't think was a scumbag. Sorry, I'm just being honest. On the other hand, while I can certainly say I've met one or two teachers who I thought were lazy, I've never met a teacher who wasn't a wonderful human being down to their core.

True story: I had an algebra teacher in high school who was outstanding. I wasn't very math oriented in those days as I was focused primarily on foreign language. She turned around my thinking on the subject, challenged me, and got me to learn the material. At the end of the school year I asked her about taking on another student who was a friend of mine. She declined. Her reason? She was retiring because she had decided to adopt a child from a third world country, and wanted to focus her life on raising that child.

Now, it's one thing for a rich musician or actor to do this. It's quite another for a person making 45k a year to do this. It shows character, integrity, and a strong moral compass. Something I have never found in a single lawyer I've ever met.http://www.payscale.com/research/US/All_K-12_Teachers/SalaryNo, you just ignore my answer. If you want better quality talent, then PAY THEM MORE MONEY. If you did so, better talent would come pouring in.

-- Modified on 12/14/2010 2:48:38 PM

"Again, it is all fluff. Even if everything you say is true, if 10% are bad, just to use a hypothetical number, and you replace 10% bad with 10% good, you have improved education 10%."

For some reason you seem to have great difficulty comprehending the written word. I said pay NEW HIRES more money. Things will sort themselves out from there.

"All the rest is distraction."

You mean inconvenient to your prejudices.

"You don't know any bad teachers. Wow. That proves none exist."

No, there certainly are bad teachers out there. I'd say the ocassion gym teacher who has relations with one of his female students would qualify.

But if someone told you they volunteered for the Peace Core or worked for the Salvation Army, would you assume that they're a serial killer? You can judge a lot about a person's character by their profession. Teachers get paid shitty money to educate America's future. That alone demonstrates that they're good decent people.

And I still think you ignore the fact that X % are bad.

Again, it is all fluff. Even if everything you say is true, if 10% are bad, just to use a hypothetical number, and you replace 10% bad with 10% good, you have improved education 10%.

Yeah, you can give them a raise, but if you still have bad teachers, they are getting a raise, and 10% of the students are still getting screwed.

Yeah, what ever you want to say....... The question is if you have 10% bad people in a profession, should you leave them there because they have been there a long time?

The question is if you have 10% bad teachers, could education be improved by dumping them.

All the rest is distraction.

As to never having had the type of experience you described with a lawyer, two things: I have never defended the legal profession, so that is a distraction.
Second Hitler was an artist, Ghandi was a lawyer. Thurgood Marshall was a lawyer.
You don't know any bad teachers. Wow. That proves none exist.

I think if a teacher molests a student he'll find himself in jail. Firing them isn't necessary.

Apparently you missed the point of paying new hires more money.

If you did this, the incentive for teachers with tenure would be to look for a new job. Since they are now competing against better quality candidates they are now given the incentive to do their job better before getting a new job with another school.

It solves the problem of lousy teachers without firing anyone, and greatly improves the quality of the teachers at the same time.

We may disagree on salary and other things, but we have a final agreement.

There are bad teaches.  We may even disagree on the number, you trying to limit it to the rare gym teacher who molests a kid, while I think it is more common.

Excellent. What ever the number, fire the bad ones.  How ever many, regardless of tenure. If it is 99% are saints, fire 1%.  I think its more, but what ever it is, out that number goes, and at last we agree.

"Assuming you paid new teachers more, why would that cause old (and maybe bad) teachers to look for another job."

What would you prefer? 45k a year and tenure, or 75k a year?  

"If the bad ones are just coasting, they may be happy with their current salary."

Or maybe they're not paid enough to work harder.  

"Now, if you want to institute merit pay for good teachers, I am 100% with you assuming, that it works both ways. Good teachers get more, bad get less.  That would be incentive."

I'm all for merit pay, but just like we found with No Child's Behind Left, the incentive usually involves fudging numbers to produce the desired result. You'd have to eliminate that possibility first if you want to see any real progress.

"It is hard to set up a system that evaluates the quality of teachers because there are so many variables outside of their control."

I agree. But I think the best people to evaluate the quality of the teachers are the students. I had a physics teacher who was pretty horrible. A lot of kids started dropping out of his classes, and this resulted in the assistant principle interviewing the students on his performance. The next day he became a first rate teacher.

"Finally, there are a lot of people who are happy to coast at a lesser salary.  I am not talking about teachers, per se, but about every group."

I'm sure that to some degree that's true. But in most localities, offering 75k over 45k is one hell of an incentive.

Assuming you paid new teachers more, why would that cause old (and maybe bad) teachers to look for another job.  They already have their job, tenure, benifits, etc locked in.  If the bad ones are just coasting, they may be happy with their current salary.  
They don't compete. They get their salary regardless.  A good teacher makes the same as a bad teacher.  Oh, that's right, you don't know any bad teachers.

Now, if you want to institute merit pay for good teachers, I am 100% with you assuming, that it works both ways. Good teachers get more, bad get less.  That would be incentive.

Every thing in the world can be evaluated.  Set up an evaluation system, and use it.  Yes, there are lots of factors that go into the final outcome.  The same is true in every job.  

(The molesting scenario was brought up by you, with you implying that the bad teachers were limited to that class, but you should know that even allegations of molestation can take years to prove and in L.A. the teachers remain on salary, while they are on home leave for up to 3 or 4 years.  Yeah, the judicial system sucks.  I never have defended that system.)

It is hard to set up a system that evaluates the quality of teachers because there are so many variables outside of their control.  

However, the same can be said of many, many things.  Whether an attorney wins a case may depend on whether a judge had a bad day, the jurors who happened to be called to the court that day, whether a witness has a stutter, whether the defendant knows how to smile and look nice, whether his mother comes to court (sadly, sadly, sadly, I have seen some that don't), or numerous other factors.

But attorneys can still be evaluated.

Institute a system of evaluating teachers and it will do two good services.  One, the good ones and be rewarded, the bad ones can be retrained or fired.  Two, you and I won't have to argue about how many bad ones there are.  

Finally, there are a lot of people who are happy to coast at a lesser salary.  I am not talking about teachers, per se, but about every group.

All the teachers in L.A. that I know have a nice house, go on trips - every time we go to Europe, the joint is loaded with U.S. teachers, have decent cars (as good as mine), better health care and better retirement.  Many may just be content.  (If they wanted more money, they could teach summer school, but very few want more money for working all years long. Most teachers I know went into teaching because the live the big vacations.)

Yes. Surprisningly, students do know who is good and who is lame.

The other group is teachers themselves.  Every teacher knows who is good and who is dead weight. This is the same in any group.  In the AG's office, every Deputy AG knows who is a work horse, who is a jerk, who is dead weight.  

The problem is getting any group to evaluate their buddies.

But, yes, students do know. and if you through in teaches, you have 90% of your system of evaluating.

Easy