For the purposes of this week’s Aggregate (as well as my own sanity), I’m going to ignore the passage of the healthcare bill in the House of Representatives this weekend. Instead, I bring you a proverbial salad bar of articles which cover religious pets, charter schools, Bay Area lunacy, and covert emigration. I promised to mix it up last week – what do you guys think about all this?
1
A fascinating and scary look into the secret rescue of 60 Jews from Yemen by the US Government. Although the experiences that these people went through in Yemen are horrific in and of themselves, their way of life in Yemen now poses significant challenges to their adjustment to American life. It is difficult to imagine what they're about to go through, but as a Jewish immigrant to America, I can tell you that they've now given their children a chance for true survival & success.
2
Despite the occasional four-letter word, this article very concisely explains the history behind why the world has so many different plugs. The article also links to an interesting explanation by a UC Berkeley Physics Professor of electricity about the history of electricity in America. It mentions that at one point the Europeans tried 50 seconds to the minute, 50 minutes to the hour, but the system just didn't take. That's fascinating if it actually happened, but I couldn't find any more information about it.
3
After decades of research indicating that school choice results in tangible improvements to educational systems, the current White House administration is actually doing something about it (see, not all of their decisions are shudder-inducing). The Race to the Top Program (regardless of its basic imitation of No Child Left Behind), and increased funding of charter schools provides a glimmer of hope in a system which gasps for air under the sheer tonnage of the despotic teachers' union.
4
Written by John Stossel, a 19-time (I kid you not) Emmy winner, this article examines the one-sided nature of the mainstream media. As we find out from his experience (and by watching CNN, NBC, MSNBC, etc) the only type of criticism & exposé allowed is the one aimed directly at the political right.
5
Although the Church (and LA for that matter) is no stranger to gimmickry, this one caught my eye out of the sheer ridiculousness of the idea. Fortunately, the Washington Times decided to add a little balance to that day's paper and include an editorial advocating that we should eat our pets in order to save the planet. Even Jonathan Swift didn't see these two ideas coming.
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In case you were in search of additional evidence that the Bay Area has completely lost its mind (and not even recently as seen in last week's Aggregate), this local article seems to pat the Bay Area on its back for passing more than a handful of tax hikes during the most significant economic downturn in more than half a century. Well done guys, well done.
I had a great conversation with my friend Cleve yesterday about the structural issues with our educational system and I'm looking forward to seeing the results of the Race to the Top initiative. We talked a lot about teacher's unions and how they could be improved. I would certainly not go as far as calling them despotic — there are, in my view, ways that they don't protect the interests of high-performing and talented teachers enough. Aside from crafting a proper measurement tool of performance (an very very very difficult thing to do that nevertheless must be done), we also need to look at the way administrations conduct themselves from the district level down to the front office staff at our local high schools. How is money being made and how is money being spent? What loopholes, for example, are being exploited? I hate relying on anecdotes and I don't want to right now, but I do wonder how widespread the following scenario takes place: a math teacher legitimately fears losing their job when an arts teacher does not. Why? Because administrators, in their zeal to make the case that they need more funding, want to show that 'we're so far in the whole that we even have to lay off our math teachers.' I know it's a fear by some math teachers I know, but at this point I can't say if it's cynical paranoia, or a harsh reality that hasn't surfaced in the public debate.
That still doesn't address the problem of properly basing pay and hire/fire practices for teachers on performance. Regardless of whether or not you think teachers get paid enough to attract only the best (they don't), the problem of not attaching pay to performance must be addressed. It's very difficult to do (if it wasn't we'd have it solved by now) but we need more brainstorming and experimentation. Because there are an incredible amount of factors that affect a student's ability to succeed in class, no hard and fast rule would suffice. The fact that 60% of the students in a classroom fail the standardized test is not sufficient to conclude that the teacher deserves a pay cut or is fully responsible. Many different measurements need to be considered that rely on input from administrators, parents, 3rd party groups, and, possibly, student input. I wonder what different experimental performance measurements we can develop.
This comment doesn't have a thesis. You're posting and the unveiling of Race to the Top just brings about so many questions in my mind about how we make our educational system competitive. I was just thinking last night, just brainstorming really, of how we can better improve our performance measurements. I wonder if we could somehow meld both standardized tests and grading systems in individual classes. This could be extremely convoluted and too complex to function, but if we had ways to bring teachers to the table and ask how their grading system in their classroom works, have measurements that validate the grading system (and give enough leeway), and have those grades students are receiving in class be looked at as well as the scores they receive on standardized tests. This opens another issue that is hotly debated: truly allowing students to fail if they don't perform in class. I won't go into that right now.
The other thing I was thinking about was developing a stronger market for private companies and non-profits to provide comprehensive school rankings. I know there are a few out there now, but it's a weak market that doesn't get much hype. I mean, say what you want to say about US News Rankings and how they choose schools, but it is one of a number of reports that people regularly look at. This is unfortunately not a good time to use this example, but look at S&P 500 (I know, how dare I use them as a model), an independent body (well, they ruined that rep) that took a hard look at the state of competing public companies. Developing a number of strong, credible organizations that listed their results and people actually cared about them may be a step in the right direction.
There are so many issues wrapped up in education and I find it hard to think of any issue more important. Again, I'm looking forward to seeing how Race To The Top plays out in the public debate (I think it's more than an imitation of NCLB especially in that it considers 'improvements' and not just meeting hard and fast standards across the board. Although the 'test-scores as a measurement' debate still rages, the additional focus on improvements is an important consideration). There are so many tools at our disposal and ways of thinking about the issue including both what paradigm shifts are necessary and what smaller scale structural changes can be implemented. There's a lot of work to be done.
While we can certainly debate the degree of despotism within the teacher’s unions, their taxpayer-funded pursuits of self preservation come at the cost of the most education-starved students, and discourage our nation’s most talented people from joining organizations like Teach for America.
I completely agree that following the money trail is a must for education reform – moreso than loopholes, millions of paper passing bureaucrats at the district level not only bleed the coffers of the educational system, but enact careless and shortsighted rules which get between teachers and their students. And just as with other levels of government, the case for additional funding should not even before a clear understanding and justification is made for the millions of dollars wasted in the current system.
I believe that the difficulty in tying pay to performance comes specifically from teachers’ unions, and not the idea itself. Your point about students failing standardized tests as a variable in teacher salary is true, but I do not believe that the education system cannot come up with pay scales which are normalized to the school and the community which houses it. This normalization can be the starting point, ramped up over time as incentives do their work.
You talked about developing a stronger market for private companies and non-profits to provide comprehensive school rankings – I think that’s a secondary step. What about developing a stronger market for private companies and non-profits to provide comprehensive schooling? While our students are racing to the top, why not incentivize schools to race against each other as well?
I agree that bringing teachers to the table to create and experiment with new performance standards would be a step in the right direction. Do you have any idea why this hasn’t happened, or better yet, why it hasn’t yielded any notable results?
Oh an PS – This is a blog on the internet: no comment has a thesis here
PPS – Have you guys seen Robert Reich's voucher idea?
PPPS – I believe this is a step in the right direction, but once again, the unions are standing in the way.