02-02-2015, 03:27 PM
Howie,
I'm glad to see that you are still around and active here at DLT. Let me briefly offer my take on the teachers' unions nationwide and the ills that trouble our educational system. I think that the single biggest problem with the educational system is the inability of teachers(unionized) to effectively initiate, with the follow-up of administrators (management), the to remove the problem students from the local public school system. I have cousins who are career educators (he is a science teacher/coach and she is an Asst. Principal in suburbs of NYC). During the course of their respective careers, their biggest gripe has been the difficulty in getting rid of disruptive students. Those students are a cancer to the learning environment. Sure, there are lousy teachers, even teachers who shouldn't be permitted to step foot in a classroom. I understand and accept this; there should be some mechanism for getting rid of the truly sub-par teachers before they irrevocably damage even more kids. Yet when you talk to good teachers about what is wrong with the public school system, the problem of disruptive students ranks far higher than problems stemming from under-performing teachers. Sure there my be some bias due to teacher affinity, but it is not so strong as to distort the far larger problem of the disruptive student.
An Asst. Principal at a suburban middle school who formerly worked at a "special high school" for problem ("disruptive/criminal") students, said that the only reason that the kids in question even show up for school is not to impact the benefits their family receives from the government. The failure to show up at school every day puts their family's benefits in danger of being revoked.
Little Arminius
I'm glad to see that you are still around and active here at DLT. Let me briefly offer my take on the teachers' unions nationwide and the ills that trouble our educational system. I think that the single biggest problem with the educational system is the inability of teachers(unionized) to effectively initiate, with the follow-up of administrators (management), the to remove the problem students from the local public school system. I have cousins who are career educators (he is a science teacher/coach and she is an Asst. Principal in suburbs of NYC). During the course of their respective careers, their biggest gripe has been the difficulty in getting rid of disruptive students. Those students are a cancer to the learning environment. Sure, there are lousy teachers, even teachers who shouldn't be permitted to step foot in a classroom. I understand and accept this; there should be some mechanism for getting rid of the truly sub-par teachers before they irrevocably damage even more kids. Yet when you talk to good teachers about what is wrong with the public school system, the problem of disruptive students ranks far higher than problems stemming from under-performing teachers. Sure there my be some bias due to teacher affinity, but it is not so strong as to distort the far larger problem of the disruptive student.
An Asst. Principal at a suburban middle school who formerly worked at a "special high school" for problem ("disruptive/criminal") students, said that the only reason that the kids in question even show up for school is not to impact the benefits their family receives from the government. The failure to show up at school every day puts their family's benefits in danger of being revoked.
Little Arminius