Jeff, I agree that schools should be adaptable, but I don’t understand why that has to come at the expense of working conditions for teachers. Our local district has already shown SOME flexibility in creating programs like Maria Montessori and ACE High School. What’s perplexing is that these are the same types of programs that were placed on the chopping block. In my experience, teachers are willing to change and experiment in education. Instead, it is the district leadership that stymies creativity and enterprising notions by attempting to standardize everything (the factory mentality of which you were speaking.) Please don’t equate your complaint about an unresponsive educational system with a right to penalize the teachers who do their best to live up to their professional obligations every day.

The world we live is changing radically under our feet. traditional solutions may not be part of any future scenarios. The world our kids are going to inherit looks remarkably different compared to when i graduated high school. Yet we keep arguing about an old systems that has a factory organization construct to train factory and office workers. Those jobs do not exist anymore. Every day you hear about how manufacturing, technology and health-care business cannot find people with even the basics of the new skills necessary. At the same time there are 1.3 billion Indians and 1.45 billion Chinese that are chopping at the bit to take jobs that SHOULD go to 310 million Americans. With the current world reality in mind, I have a very difficult time seeing how our traditional public school system ever changes to meet the demand.

While Charters are not the panacea, they represent change and experimentation. Show me how the outdated, bureaucratic system can change (it hasn’t in 30-40 years of trying) and we will talk.

Decent working conditions for teachers should be everyones concern. Your 90% does not take into account the cost of draining students from other public schools where the costs must still be paid for facilities and teachers. Charters typically exclude the higher paid union teachers in favor of cheaper less trained teachers.(except the charters where Obama and Arne Duncan’s kids went in Chicago ) There is also an exceptionally high teacher turn over rate in charters.

According to the US Dept of Education US teachers are paid 13th out of 17 industrialized nations at career maximum (dollars adjusted for comparative GDP)..and all the other nations include national health.

Take a look at how far this attack on teachers has gone in Florida just this week.The pending Illinois bills are cited in my previous TRRT article.

FLA Senate Bill 736 ENACTED:

1) Teachers will have 50% of their evaluations based on student’s nationalized test scores.
This is effective immediately and impacts every teacher. Anyone who does not teach Reading or Math will receive a score based upon a calculation of all the teachers. So, to be clear, teacher’s salaries, their ability to be re-hired for one more year, their colleagues’ jobs and the opening or closing of your school itself all fall on the shoulders of that child taking that one test, that one day. How’s that
for “high stakes for the teachers?”

2) This Merit Pay Bill was a moneyless bill.
Legislature admitted they have no money to fund the merit pay.

3) New standardized tests will be created for every course taught- bill
states 1,000 new tests to be created.
Important to note: The State does not fund the creation of these new tests. Each new test is estimated to be between $1M – $1.5M. Taxpayers will
be burdened with this mandate.

4) All new teachers, hired after July, will be placed on a one-year contract which must be renewed annually.
Teachers must earn the right to be re-hired every year. This goes for seasoned, veteran teachers who move from one FL District to another FL District as well. They will fall under this rule.

5) In 2014, all Florida teachers will have two choices.
All FL teachers must choose either to:
A) stay with their current contracts and accept the high probability of never receiving another raise again; or,
B) opt to go on the one year contract which must be renewed every year contract. How’s that for job security?

6) Effective July, teachers will no longer be paid at a higher rate for a Masters Degree
even if it is earned in the subject they teach.

7) Effective July, teacher seniority is eliminated.
This will be important when layoffs occur. No more Last In, First Out with layoffs. Soon, we’ll have armies of underpaid newbies driven by data in order to retain their underpaid job.

I hasten to add a few more important points. Most of FL’s 67 School Districts have already discussed a longer workday for teachers. Pay will remain the same. Florida teachers already receive $5,700 less per year than the national average; and $6,300 less than its neighboring state, Georgia. Florida has had a difficult time recruiting teachers for the past five (5) years already.

Keep going Jeff. It’s a big learning curve. I was mad and sarcastic at the complainers at first too.

What’s the sacred cow? Ignorance. Gore it.
David

Charter school nationwide do not all produce excellent results, nor do traditional public schools. But Charter schools perform no worse than average and have a five times better chance at producing excellence. And considering that they operate at 90% of the local public school funding levels how on earth is this a bad thing?

I guess the only way it is bad is if the alternative is goring your sacred cow.

With so much noise going on in the smaller arenas most everybody, myself included, tends to lose sight of the bigger pictures.

Thank you.