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02/03/2012 5:46:00 AM
As a teacher not "as a teaching"..........also I think you typed "them" where you should have typed they. As for poor neighborhoods, many professionals work in areas they may not choose to live in. Teachers need to stop acting like poorly paid over worked beasts of burden. You make a good living and retire very nicely. Grow up and learn to proof read.
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12/15/2011 3:35:00 AM
Aaron,
Excellent piece. Thanks for writing it.
It disgusts me when teachers blame the parents and make as if it's OK that only 4 of 40,000 teachers in 10 years get fired for poor performance.
What is happening in the LAUSD is a holocaust for poor children.
Ant
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12/13/2011 8:11:00 AM
Without parents who care, education will always fail some.
Bad teachers are not as bad as bad parents.
George Vreeland Hill
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Sfpaulo 11/25/2011 11:06:00 PM
As a teaching for LAUSD, I can say that the major problem with education, is not teachers but parents. I can't list how many time I have given students "D"s and "F"s and never received a call form a parent. Yes, it is true that bad teachers must go, with that said, you are going to have a very hard time filling those positions in the poor income districts. Good teachers simply will not work there for the money them make. Again, bad teachers but go, but the conversation needs to focus on improving parent participation in the educational system. It is not okay for your kid to get a "D" or an "F" in class and the parent not come to the school. Parents need to carry their load.
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RobE 11/21/2011 10:06:00 AM
There are few people who are as useless as school administrators. In my experience, these push the panic button first and cover your ass mediocrities are more skilled at kissing the butts of school board members to attain their positions than being competent instructors or managers. Fire the lot of them now. Then abolish the school boards, too, and let the pros, that is, teachers, run their campuses. Then they won't be able to pass the buck for failure anymore.
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RobE 11/21/2011 9:57:00 AM
Parents also vote in school board members who are largely a bunch of dopes.
The other natural fact is that this country has an anti-intellectual tradition and the Republican Party masturbates that impulse through its non-stop celebration of redneck cretinism and the kind of distaste for science not seen since the Inquisition.
And let's not forget that a high school diploma doesn't mean squat anymore. It definitely didn't when I was a teen in the 1970's (I have a college degree, btw). To tell kids otherwise is to lie to them. So if you're some poor kid whose family needs you to work rather than go to school why go? If they decide they want to get an education they can always get remedial education later on at a junior college before moving into mainstream coursework. The failure to recognize this reality makes a lot of the bullshit rhetoric about education, which is something that this country doesn't, in its heart of hearts, give two shits about, little more than posturing.
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RobE 11/21/2011 9:44:00 AM
What is ironic to me is that the L.A. Weekly continues to whore for not just Yolie Flores, who is a stalking horse for the corporate feudalists who want to shovel kids into the maw of corporate America, but for Mayor Tony Showbiz, whose job performance is just crap. The guy is a narcissistic hustler and yet the L.A. Weekly gives him credence as if he is qualified to speak on anything or even capable of being honest. .
The problem, though, starts with the local school boards because they are the ones who approve those teacher contracts that some find distasteful, they are responsible for allocating resources on the local level and they are the primary sources for impeding innovation. Most school board members are complete fools and few of them are professional educators. In corporate America, we don't allow this kind of amateurism, so why should we allow it with regard to something as important as education.
The L.A. Weekly hasn't rarely gone after the LAUSD's members and has given us no insight as to how to change education in a holistic way. Instead, they go for the most facile device here, teacher bashing. While children are the ultimate victims here, the fact remains that teachers have to put up with the bullcrap from dumbass school board members every day. How about we look into abolishing school boards and really put accountability in the hands of teachers by having them run their campuses? Because leaving the decisions in the hands of school board members isn't working and, as the saying goes, doing the same thing over and over again with no results is the definition of insanity.
As for tenure, I had a professor when I was in college who used to teach high school in Tustin. He got fired for discussing with his kids the Japanese-American internment during WWII. That kind of crap is why we need tenure, to protect teachers from power hungry and easily offended narcissistic bozos on school boards and in the principal's offices.
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11/21/2011 7:45:00 AM
It's real simple: students must pass the state tests or fail the classes and teachers must show the bulk of their students can pass the tests or get out. Now, that is a fair assessment.
A Teacher
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Bob 11/21/2011 7:15:00 AM
Spell check is a good thing
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Mv1957 11/21/2011 5:22:00 AM
is all about the fucking unions pecions and there bebefits , you all dont like the true.
what about the tea pary .
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Vmm60419 11/21/2011 12:36:00 AM
LA WEEKLY has Tea Party Agenda? Thanks, LA Weekly, for giving us your valuable insite into the world of LAUSD teachers. What better place to learn about the difficulties that LA teachers face than from a weekly publication that is 45-50% porn adds and head shop advertisements. Once a stallwart of the Los Angeles cultural scene, the LA Weekly is now attacking teachers unioins and gasping to remian relevant, while they feign interest in such relevant social events as the occupy movement or the CFA strike that is rocking the CSU system. Now I remember why I stopped reading this bullshit along with nearly everyone else in Los Angeles.
To the author of this article: Hillel Aron you arrogant fuck. Seems like someone has had some teacher issues? Maybe still harboring some misdirected resentment towards a certain teacher? Maybe mommy and daddy were a little soft with you, so you weren't ready to have a big bad teacher tell you that you needed to put in more effort and that you are not special, just a complete lazy ass.That fact is apparent when reading your poorly researched and written article. I'm no journalist, but niether are you.
Let's play a game. It's called "Apply this logic to any fucking thing else". Here we go:
Question: The crime rate in Compton is higher than it is in Malibu. Does this mean that the cops in Compton just aren't doing their jobs, and that they are lazy and undeserving of a paycheck? Should we evaluate each police officer individually and attack the police officer's union?
Answer: Crime already existed. There will always be crime, more in some places than in others. We pay poilce officers to do the best that they can do, and accept that they can not be everywhere at once. No matter how much evaluation or union busting you do, there will always be some crime, even though each police officer is well trained, well equipped and doing his job. I personally thank God that these people exist.
Question: I still see litter and garbage on the street sometimes, so does that mean that garbage men aren't doing their job, and so we should attack their union?
Answer: When you live in a city with 3 million occupants, there will always be garbage. Sanitation has always been a huge problem in large cities throughout the 20th century. Despite the fact that we have a very organized system of trash pick-up and removal, there will always be SOME litter and garbage on the streets of a large city like Los Angeles. This is not an indication that garbage men aren't doing their jobs.
Do I need to do another one? Ignorance has always existed. Schools were created and teachers put in place to combat ignorance and to teach people. Unfortunately, people have lost the ability to communicate the importance of an education to their children and have forgotten all together why schools were put in place to begin with. So, the product that we as teachers receive from parents is of increasingly poor quality. We as teachers can only do so much to motivate learning. If the parents are not re-enforcing those ideas at home, then there is little chance that a student will be successful, regardless of who the teacher is or how that teacher scored on his/her evaluation. But let me guess, this is our fault right?
Finally, in the course of writing this, I came up with another heading for this article:
Group of common opportunists rides the latest wave of Republican created distraction and sues teacher's union for not being able to educate their lazy, unmotivated and uncontrollable offspring, instead of becoming involved, taking a genuine interest in education and becoming teachers.
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PhobicBard 11/20/2011 3:10:00 AM
So true! Other than high-profile politicians, I can't think of another profession where employees are subjected to such intense scrutiny for each word they utter, each gesture they make, every split-second decision that is made. The difference being, of course, that teachers don't have teams of people covering up their missteps and multi-million dollar lawyers at their beck and call.
And now we have students illegally and unethically capturing teachers on cell phones, then posting videos on the internet. We are navigating uncharted waters, and instead of supporting the educators who endeavor to teach the standards mandated by the Federal Government and the States, the American public empowers its youth to rebel against the authority vested in the teachers by the Feds and the States by enabling and condoning such behavior.
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PhobicBard 11/20/2011 2:54:00 AM
Eco Fem13, thank you!! When I was going through the credentialing program, I remember my professors telling us that most teachers last only two years before throwing in the towel. This is so not a 9-5 job and you definitely don't "leave your work at the office."
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Eco Fem13 11/20/2011 2:36:00 AM
Actually, high school teachers in the 60's were fired for their beliefs which is why we have tenure. Tenure protects us in politicized environments. It is necessary
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Eco Fem13 11/20/2011 2:35:00 AM
Actually, as I said above, there are not six qualified applicants- 50% of teachers leave the field within 5 years of teaching. Students must come to school willing to learn
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Eco Fem13 11/20/2011 2:31:00 AM
So then Dawn, why not get your teaching credential? I mean if it is such a great field, go for it. Junior teachers are not any better. Connect with students? They need to meet us halfway. I have no desire to befriend a student who calls me a b#$@% just because I ask him for his homework. When I was in school, I didn't expect my teachers to "connect with me" I expected them to teach me.
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Eco Fem13 11/20/2011 2:28:00 AM
actually, there aren't six other qualified applicants- 50% of teachers leave within five years on their own which is why the supposed 95% stull rate is a fraud- most teachers self select out of the field - those that are left are the tough ones. Efrain, you have to face the truth that middle class kids do better in school- its a fact
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PhobicBard 11/19/2011 11:56:00 PM
Hi Dawn, I know what you mean about teachers who rely on copies and packets to teach the material for them and they are passive supervisors instead of active facilitators; there are some of those at my school too. Most of them are, like you said, the dinosaurs who need to retire, but are spared when RIF notices are handed out because of their seniority. Ridiculous. I have been RIF'd three times in the past five years, but each time, by hook or crook, my job has been saved. It was so scary, though, not knowing whether I would have a job or not, that I couldn't eat, I had trouble sleeping, and I was depressed and nervous until I finally found out that I would have a job the next year. Meanwhile, you see the teachers, fresh out of college with all the latest philosophy and ideas, ready to implement them and exact positive change, being cut left and right simply because they haven't been there long enough. Disgusting. But there was nothing that I could do about it.
As far as salary, my first teaching job at a private school paid only $26,000/year, which even at that time was below the poverty level, but I was so happy to be teaching, I didn't care! Now I make $54,000/year, and each year has seen a steady increase in my portion of benefits. We haven't had a cost-of-living adjustment in five years. In my district, we work 182 days, and my hours are from 7 a.m. until I leave, which is usually around 4 p.m. I also participate in our school's Intervention program, which is desperately needed, as I have students entering my seventh grade classroom at a fifth grade reading level. Intervention is slow and difficult work, which may be why you have a hard time getting buy-in from your teachers; but what a shame, because so many kids desperately need it!
Anyway, I totally empathize with what you describe; and I dislike it too. But please try to remember that we're not ALL like that, and some really great things would happen if people like you and your colleagues would team with people like me to open a dialogue about how to best help our kids, and leave the politicians and bureaucrats out of it.
~C
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PhobicBard 11/19/2011 10:59:00 PM
You have totally misunderstood what I have said and miscontrued the meaning of my posts. To say that I have contempt for my students and their families proves how very far removed you are from understanding what it is that I do. Teaching is not a profession that just ANYONE can be successful in; even you would have to agree. I never claimed to be "extraordinarily talented" nor did I claim to possess "nobility of character;" I simply said that I have received positive evaluations from my evaluators. To me, this indicates success in efforts to perform a job properly within the parameters of which one has been mandated to do so. I love my students and it is reciprocated. Many, many times, this is reason I'm thankful that I chose this profession.
I have worked in the private sector, as I mentioned in my prior post, as a teacher and elsewhere. I experienced success there as well. In the end, I am a human AND a teacher. I gave examples of what our students have to face on a daily basis and THEN come to school on top of it, because some people don't think about that side of education. I may not have, if my students hadn't confessed these situations to me. I do NOT hold them in contempt. It breaks my heart every time one of them builds up the rapport and the nerve to divulge his/her situation to me. I cannot believe you would have interpreted those examples any other way.
By the way, you never owned up: what is YOUR profession?
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Dawn 11/19/2011 9:57:00 PM
I work as an administrator and programmer at a Boys & Girls Club. I get paid quite a bit less than you, have just as much education, and compared to most teachers I know, I work about twice as many hours with much less benefit. I am constantly finding our youth are at remedial levels in math, reading, and critical thinking. When I try to create a plan for intervention, I can never get the teachers on board to work with us. When I enter their classrooms, their curriculum is bland and dry (mostly ditto sheets). Of course, most of the children aren't soaking in any of the information (half the time they send homework of ditto sheets for subjects like science or language arts and do not send the children home with a textbook to reference. The kids are just blindly guessing. All of the teachers that really had passion for underserved kids and were really great at their profession were laid off during the past couple of years because of lack of seniority. Now we are left with teachers who are completely jaded make twice as much as the junior laid off teachers, don't really care anymore, and have no ability or want to connect with their at-risk students. I have also worked in three other states, California schools are never in session. These kids don't even seem to have the minimum 180 days of school that other states have, and the kids' day is 1-2 hours shorter than the minimum in other states.
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11/19/2011 9:50:00 PM
You made your contempt for your students and their families abundantly clear. Why would you choose to stay in this profession given how extraordinarily talented you have to be to become a teacher in the first place? If that is true, you shouldn't have the slightest bit of trouble securing more rewarding work in the private sector. Of course, your nobility of character demands you shun the rewards of private enterprise which would otherwise be your due as a result of your extraordinary talents.
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PhobicBard 11/19/2011 9:24:00 PM
And what is YOUR profession? What gives you the imagined ordained knowledge to pass judgement on a profession and/or its agents of which you may know nothing? You do not know me. I am not an agent of the LAUSD. Why should teachers be held to a higher standard than lawyers or doctors or insurance agents or bank managers?
And as far as being up to the challenge, I have consistently received excellent evaluations from my administrators over the course of my ten years as a teacher in both the public and private sectors. I do believe I have risen to the challenge. Would you? I'd love to see a person like you try to walk just one day in my shoes. I don't think you'd write such an ignorant response if you were exposed to reality of the demands of the teaching profession.
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11/19/2011 5:53:00 PM
You are not up to the challenge of teaching. There are six other qualified applicants looking to take your position. Please leave if you hate the clients that enable you to have a teaching position in the first place.
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11/19/2011 5:51:00 PM
If you are a teacher and that is your attitude, clearly you are not up to the challenge. Please leave the profession. There are six other qualified applicants looking to take your position in average. They can't do any worse than you.
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PhobicBard 11/18/2011 5:50:00 AM
Ma'am, with all due respect, I am a teacher, and I do not "pretend to do my job." The majority of my job actually involves more of a caregiving-parenting aspect than it does academics. Education is not about money and where it is allocated, nor is it about in which areas the state of California decides our children should/should not be tested.
I have been teaching for over ten years and have never once participated in a protest. I have not had a cost-of-living adjustment raise in five years. I actually make less money now than I did five years ago. I'm not a Democrat, or a Liberal, and I'm in a Union by force. I agree that money is being wasted in the education system, but not by the teachers. Each year, I spend about 5% of my salary on supplies because if I don't, my students won't have the materials they need. Now THAT'S "insane." I'm not sure where you got your information about "40% of the state's budget will be going toward union benefits/pensions," but I can tell you I won't see one cent of that money (as I said, I haven't even had a cost of living adjustment in 5 years).
Anyway, before you lump all of us into one pile of people who "pretend to do our jobs," consider that not all of us are cut from the same the mold; and furthermore, I don't personally know anyone in the teaching profession who would fit the description in your post.
~C
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PhobicBard 11/18/2011 5:36:00 AM
How about we start evaluating parents, too? We can draw up a 4-page evaluation document and critique them on their parenting skills and see how they measure up to their peers. We'll then use said results to conjure some type of scale with which to rate parents; and we could even print these results in the newspaper for all to see! You could see how your neighbors measure up, how your hairdresser measures up, how the single mom down the street measures up compared to the stay-at-home mom two doors down.
Or...... how about we start examining the real sources of the problems that prevent these kids from graduating: parents in prison, kids shooting up in the restrooms at school, kids rampantly cheating just to get points (who cares about learning????), kids texting each other in class, kids sleeping in cars because they're homeless, girls keeping track of condom wrappers in their wallets as trophies, kids showing up for free/reduced lunch because it's their only meal of the day, kids walking to/from school in neighborhoods where murders and abductions are commonplace events, victims of sexual abuse trying to sit there and learn about prepositional phrases.
These are only a few of the issues that teachers encounter on a daily basis in their classrooms. For these kids, learning is about the LAST thing on their minds. They are in survival mode--and they are NOT in the minority.
You can evaluate the teachers on any scale you wish, using any criteria you like. Until people decide to look at the real sources of our problem, the results will never improve; kids will continue to fail, and the dignity, integrity, and self-worth of educators will continue to be under assault for wrongs the teachers cannot hope to correct alone. Teachers today face obstacles that their predecessors couldn't possibly have conceived of; and yet, they are forced to tow the line in an antiquated school system that desperately needs an overhaul in an era where parents are increasingly deflecting blame for their children's actions & situations away from themselves and onto external sources (like teachers, because they are easy targets).
Why are teachers held to a higher standard than the rest of the populace? It seems like a premise destined for failure.
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11/18/2011 12:17:00 AM
Wow another article on teacher evaluations! What a groundbreaking and fresh look at education. You guys at the LA Weekly are really thinking outside the box. Why are kids performing poorly? Can't be the billions in cuts, the poor home environments, the lack of security in the school and neighborhoods, must be the terrible teachers! Looking forward to your next piece on the evils of teacher unions!
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Artsoldier 11/17/2011 10:03:00 PM
It is ironic that many sdministrators at LAUSD are failed teachers who have a limited amount if experience in classrooms. They ascend not because they are educators but because they are careerists. This means they are not concerned with students or community , much less quality control in instruction. They abuse their power, teachers and funding, ultimately betraying the public's trust. Mr. Deasy, like Arne Duncan, is not an educator and his education itself is dubious given reports he has a degree he didn't earn and that he was forced to resign from one of his posts due to unethical comportment.if these allegations are true, it isn't surprising to find he fits right in with white chalk criminals entrenched at LAUSD.
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11/17/2011 9:17:00 PM
That is an absolute lie. Pensions account for 3 percent of the State General Fund. But you are so full of anti worker hate that facts dont matter.
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11/17/2011 9:15:00 PM
"schools where 3 percent of the students are proficient at math and 100 percent of the teachers are at the top rating performance."
Maybe bad genetics, bad family systems, bad peer groups and social settings & no money come in to play. Teachers can only present the material, learning is up to the student and parents.
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Gzwhat 11/17/2011 6:44:00 PM
The idea of tenure was created so college professors could include unusal ideas and not be fired for it. College not gradeschool. Tenure was never intended for grade school and high school where they follow a set curriculm anyway. Tenure makes no sense at lower grade levels.
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Guest 11/17/2011 4:28:00 AM
9th Street (Ninth Street (sic)) Elementary School no longer exists. It has been shutdown by LAUSD in order to reopen a newer facility to cater to the rapidly gentrifying downtown community. So how could the author of this poorly researched piece write that "Ninth Street School's principal and district officials insisted to the Weekly that all was well."
Who did the writer talk to?
Check for yourself on LAUSD's listing of schools...
http://notebook.lausd.net/schoolsearch/search.jsp
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11/17/2011 2:06:00 AM
As a grandmother I'm just disgusted by these teachers who pretend to do their job but are protesting every waking moment. Either they picket for higher salaries or bigger pensions. Do you know that 40% of the states budget will be going toward union benifits/pensions. That's insane. Politics should never enter the classrooms. Good luck with that. Last week teachers were complaining there's no money or time to teach science. What a crock. Science is not tested so it's not a priority. Our tax dollars are being wasted by our education system. Unions have bankrupted every state but they complain there's no money. Let's send the unions and all democrats/liberals a message this next election. We're mad as hell and we're not taking it anymore. Go protest that.
