Karp "Who's Bashing Teachers and Public Schools and What Can We Do About It?"

I was hoping that Stan Karp would give us some great answers to this mess the education system is in. As I read his commentary I realized how insignificant the classroom teacher is perceived  in this overall picture. We get blamed but never thanked. I still can’t believe that President Obama applauded the decision to fire all the Central Falls teachers.  I am feeling bad! As I researched other venues of information I realized more and more how Johnson, Delpit and Kozal, Finn and Karp all understand what is wrong with the education system and the President and the U.S. education Secretary do not.  I don’t see any real changes happening. Why isn’t anyone listening and doing something productive that makes sense?

“Tepper made $4 billion as a hedge fund manager. This was equal to the salaries of 60 percent of the state’s teachers, who educate 850,000 students. But Gov. Christie rolled back a millionaire’s tax and cut $1 billion out the state school budget, so people like Tepper would have lower taxes”  (1)Is there anything  we can do or say about this?

“Serving schools with high numbers of students in poverty is no excuse for bad teaching, poor curriculum, massive dropout rates, or year after year of lousy school outcomes. We need accountability systems that put pressure on schools to respond effectively to the communities they serve. In my experience, parents are the key to creating that pressure, and teachers are the key to implementing the changes needed to address it. Finding ways to promote a kind of collaborative tension and partnership between these groups is one of the keys to school improvement”(4).

There is no excuse for bad teaching period! However, there will always be some bad teachers, just like there are policemen and policewomen who are bad, politicians who are corrupt, priests who are immoral, parents who are abusive… I could go on and on.  All teachers cannot be labeled because of a few bad ones. But we sure do get blamed for the failing education system. According to the article in the NY Times article “The High Cost of Low Teacher Salaries” Eggers makes a great analogy regarding the US Military. He compares the soldiers to teachers and discusses the lack of respect teachers get compared to the respect the soliders get”(3). WHEN we don’t get the results we want in our military endeavors, we don’t blame the soldiers. We don’t say, “It’s these lazy soldiers and their bloated benefits plans! That’s why we haven’t done better in Afghanistan!” No, if the results aren’t there, we blame the planners. We blame the generals, the secretary of defense, the Joint Chiefs of Staff.” This is a very interesting article that touches on many of the issues we discuss as educators.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/01/opinion/01eggers.html

Can we really blame the parents? I am always disappointed in the parental involvement in my school. I, too, have been quick to blame parents for their lack of support. After reading Johnson and Delpit I realize how the social and racial differences in the country contribute to the lack of parental support.  It is not that parents do not want to be connected and involved, many of them simply cannot. Lack of their own education, lack of time, and the lack of communication makes it impossible for many parents to be actively involved in their kids education. Mahar’s 4 minute monologue is quite enlightening and funny, however, he is quick to blame parents.

“But the system’s Achilles’ heel continues to be acute racial and class inequality, which in fact is the Achilles’ heel of the whole society” (8). Karp wraps up his talk with this statement.  My question is , when is anyone going to listen? Johnson and Delpit would agree that we, as a country need to identify that much of the issue is a result of  racial and class inequality. In the 20/20 video so many issues with the public school system is brought up but again not too many answers. One very interesting clip is at 23  minutes. The “privileged” America is mentioned. The documentary interviews the wife of South Carolina’s governor. When she moved with her husband they were given a “choice” of what school their kids could go do, unlike everyone else in that neighborhood. She graciously declined and said it was unfair. However, she sent them to the private school. This is a good video to watch but beware.. they do a little "teacher bashing."