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California Law Gives Powers to Parents, Troubles Teachers

jamesrage

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Commiefornia's liberal governor finally does something right.


California Law Gives Powers to Parents, Troubles Teachers - ParentDish

California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed an education reform bill Jan. 7 that has the state's teachers peering out their windows looking for villagers with torches and pitchforks.

Teachers are worried because the new "parent trigger" law gives parents the power to demand expensive overhauls if at least half of them sign a petition declaring a school inadequate.

Leaders of the California Teachers Association call the law a "lynch mob provision," reports the San Bernadino Sun. Many parents and legislators -- as well as the Governator himself -- call California Senate Bill 4 an important restoration of parental control.

"For too many years, too many children were trapped in low-performing schools and couldn't do anything about it," Schwarzenegger said the day he signed the bill. "As a matter of fact, the exit doors might as well have been chained.

"Now, because of SB 4, parents have the right to free their children from those under-performing schools -- and that without the principal's permission," he added.
That last comment got a chuckle out of the crowd gathered for the signing at Bethune Middle School in Los Angeles.

The teachers' union, however, is not smiling.

Union leaders, on their Web site, say the law will "create chaos in school districts and drain resources from local classrooms and punish lower-performing schools without providing needed assistance."

The law requires at least half of the parents in a school to sign a petition to declare the school inadequate. If that happens, parents can call for the building to be shut down or turned into a charter school. They also can ask for the principal and up to half the staff to be fired.
 
this will work well.
 
This is a really crappy idea. Parents, in my experience, tend to have NO IDEA why half the things that go on in a classroom do. They dont/wont take the time to sit down and discuss with a teacher what is going on in the classroom and the idea that parents have veto power over, you know, PROFESSIONALS is unsettling to me. Granted a lot has to happen before this kind of thing goes into effect, but the fact that it CAN happen is unnerving.

When I worked for a daycare/afterschool program, the hardest part of the job was dealing with parents complaining about the most insignificant parts of the kid's day when they spent a grand total of ten minutes a day there.

Parents are often reactionary, panicky, and over-protective and I dislike giving people with those tendencies control over the education of others. If they want to screw up their kid's future, that's their problem.
 
Hoplite said:
This is a really crappy idea. Parents, in my experience, tend to have NO IDEA why half the things that go on in a classroom do.
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Totally irrelevant.Parents expect results for their money that is being spent. If you hired a gardener and that gardener did a ****ty job,shouldn't you be able to fire his ass regardless of the fact if you know how to mow a lawn,transplant plants or any thing else?




If teachers and or school are doing a crappy job educating kids then the parents should have a veto power


Parents are often reactionary, panicky, and over-protective and I dislike giving people with those tendencies control over the education of others. If they want to screw up their kid's future, that's their problem.
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You seem to fail to understand the concept that teachers are public tax payer funded employees. The owner of a large corporation does not need to know how to put ink in the printer or make coffee,transfer calls or put people on hold to know whether or not his secretary is doing a ****ty job.
 
I am uncomfortable with the idea that laymen have control over professionals
 
Hoplite said:
I am uncomfortable with the idea that laymen have control over professionals
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It's not like they're putting the hiring and firing of each teacher or the details of the lesson plan up for popular vote, it's just a simple way to measure public satisfaction with each school.


California Passes Reforms to Compete in Race to the Top - by Evelyn Stacey - School Reform News

I'd rather give laymen the chance to propose reform for professionals than to give professionals the unchallenged authority to ruin a child's education.
 
RightinNYC said:
It's not like they're putting the hiring and firing of each teacher or the details of the lesson plan up for popular vote, it's just a simple way to measure public satisfaction with each school.
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Its a way for parents to bully schools and teachers. This gives the parents the ability to say "I want this done or else we're going to kick you out!"

I'd rather give laymen the chance to propose reform for professionals than to give professionals the unchallenged authority to ruin a child's education.
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This is neither, this is giving laymen veto power over professional's jobs.

Harry Guerrilla said:
Professionals?

Your very loose with that term I take it.
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Believe it or not, teaching IS a difficult job, one that not every fool can pick up a textbook and do.


Part of my problem is there is a shortage of teachers already. If we give parents the ability to basically kick the teachers out of school, where are we going to get the extra teachers from? I would argue it's better to have a teacher who doesnt perform well than no teacher at all.
 
Hoplite said:
Believe it or not, teaching IS a difficult job, one that not every fool can pick up a textbook and do.
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I disagree, most people teach themselves things more often than teachers do.


A crappy teacher needs to be warned, then booted.

Keeping them for the sake of a shortage is not a good reason.
This at least gets parents more involved.
 
Hoplite said:
Its a way for parents to bully schools and teachers. This gives the parents the ability to say "I want this done or else we're going to kick you out!"
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Except the parents have absolutely no say as to whether the teachers get kicked out. Reread the four options that are available to the school board.

This is neither, this is giving laymen veto power over professional's jobs.
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How is this different from anything else? The public has veto power over congressmen, and they're way more important than teachers.

Believe it or not, teaching IS a difficult job, one that not every fool can pick up a textbook and do.
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I'm not going to say teaching is the easiest thing on earth, but it's not hard either. Any decently sociable and hard-working college graduate can get accepted to Teach for America, which requires better qualifications than your average teacher. It's not really a "professional" job like doctor or lawyer.



Reread the law - nothing in it gives the parents the authority to kick teachers out.
 
Hoplite said:
I am uncomfortable with the idea that laymen have control over professionals
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I am uncomfortable that teacher's unions have more control over my child's education than I do, in some ways.

Keep in mind that you have to get half the parents to sign off on the school's inadequacy to trigger the action, and that even then a lot of the options on what to do are up to the local school board. If the school actually is doing a halfway decent job, I doubt half the parents will risk the school being shut down.
 
Hoplite said:
I am uncomfortable with the idea that laymen have control over professionals
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But those so called professionals are employees of the laymen. Those so called professionals are hired by the laymen to teach the kids of the laymen.
 
jamesrage said:
But those so called professionals are employees of the laymen. Those so called professionals are hired by the laymen to teach the kids of the laymen.
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I'd put it this way.

When I take my kid to the Doctor, I expect professional treatment. I do not walk into the doc's office and say "My kid has Type A influenze, you will prescribe Tamiflu and prescription antihistamines." No, I go in and let the doc do the diagnosing.

However, if my child takes whatever meds the doc prescribed and is still sick two weeks later, then I expect the doctor to come up with a better treatment. If he does not do so, then I may well take my kid to a different doctor and get a second opinion. If the first doctor's treatment causes my kid to have an allergic reaction that nearly kills him, I may consult with an attorney about whether charges of malpractice are in order.

In other words, when I hire a professional to do a job for me, I don't insist on micromanaging every detail, since I assume he knows his speciality. However, if I find his results ineffective, he is going to get fired and replaced.

There is no reason not to treat schools in a similar fashion. A voucher system would be a good start.
 

Your analogy is good up to a point. Most of the problems with parents occur not with the parents who follow the doctors orders but with parents who don't. What I see most ofter, and I'll use your analogy, is the parent drops the kid off and say fix him/her. The doctor spends a great deal of time with the child and formulates a plan for treatment. The parent picks up the child, doesn't listen to anything the doctor says, and doesn't follow the treatment plan. When the child doesn't get better the parent is shocked and blames the doctor.

This entire idea depends on the kind of parent. There are parents who support education and support the teacher. They are involved in the school. I'd have no problem with this parent's having more input, in fact I would encourage it. Then you have the parent who wants a baby sitter. They don't want to be involved and in fact can become angry when asked. When things don't go their child's way(for example the child is expected to behave or do the course work), suddenly they become involved by throwing a fit and wanting everyone in the building fired. These will be the parents who sign petitions. I think sometimes they are people who didn't do well in school and so this is their payback to teacher.

Lastly, teachers are professionals. They have gone to college for at least 4 years and most for much more. They are constantly attending training to improve in their field. Are all teachers wonderful? Of course not, just like not all doctors, lawyers, etc. are excellent. Are most teachers doing a good job in spite of low funding and difficult working conditions? Absolutely! Not everyone has the skills necessary to be a teacher. Someone mentioned they could teach themselves. That's true. But, can you teach someone else who learns in a completely different way they you do? Do you know how to deal with different learning styles according to the latest brain research? Can you motivate someone who doesn't want to learn by finding ways to tap into their interests? Can you help a child who is abused or neglected at home so can't concentrate enough to learn? Finally, can you do all of this while filling out tons of paperwork, dealing with discipline problems, keeping parents informed, preparing kids for standardized tests, reading journal articles to stay current, going to grad school to advance your degree, and many other things?
 
I'm really loving the teacher hate going on in this thread.

Yea 1:1 teaching is fairly easy, even 5:1, but throw 20:1 at most people and I believe they'd crack in a month. That not even acknowledgeing the diffrent levels all the students are at. To make matters even worse, some schools are have 28:1......

I'm not even going to mention School Politics and Teaching Unions. <shutter>
 
This is an interesting law and I see some potential upsides and some potential downsides.

If it works the way it was intended, then parents will have more empowerment and this could potentially help underperforming schools where there are problems with the school's staff.

However, the idea is that it is automatically the teacher's fault when a school is underperforming is potentially problematic. Especially since students and parents have as much or more to do with the education of their children then the teachers do.

I think only time will tell whether this law is a good idea or not.
 

What happens if the gardener does all he can to help the plants grow, but the plants just don't want to?

This is the problem with equating education to a business. A business who owns a manufacturing company just needs to hire craftsmen. Those craftsmen can then fashion goods from materials.

However, children aren't "material" for educators to craft. They are people with independent minds and will. They are just as responsible for their own education as their teachers are. And, let's face it, there are a lot of children who hate school and don't do their work.

So while I have no problem getting rid of bad educators, I am concerned that this provision could unduly punish good educators who get bad students.
 
This isn't between teachers and parents, this between schools and parents. It just says schools will have to do overhauls if enough people sign a petition WHICH, I mihgt add...a lot of schools NEED overhauls. It will still be up to the school administration to do something, this may actually help teachers alot in most instances because school reforms usually benefit them.

This is nothing about the teachers, as long as the teachers show they are doing well, then I don't see them losing their job, no matter what a few complaining parents say.

Now the principals on the other hand...
 
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What happens if the gardener does all he can to help the plants grow, but the plants just don't want to?
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so your equating children to plants now?
 

When your school has a HISTORY of failure...maybe something NEEDS to be done. And maybe its at least PARTLY because many of those 'professionals' arent very...professional.

Rather than a kneejerk defense of the status quo...what would YOU see done differently? Its OBVIOUS...MANY of the Ca public schools are NOT insitutions of learning...
 

and so your solution is.......
 
Hoplite said:
Believe it or not, teaching IS a difficult job, one that not every fool can pick up a textbook and do.
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Maybe thats a good first place to start...get rid of all the union protected, incompetent school administrators and 'educators'...
 
VanceMack said:
and so your solution is.......
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The only solution that will ever work is that our culture begins to idealize intelligence and education again. If we generally don't feel that these things are important, we will not pursue them.

I would say that the biggest difference between the US and countries that often have better educational results for less money is that those countries do not hate educated people and call them elitist. Changing rules and throwing money at education will only get us so far. For us to excel, we need to want to excel.
 
VanceMack said:
Maybe thats a good first place to start...get rid of all the union protected, incompetent school administrators and 'educators'...
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Completely Agree. Tenure is extremely flawed. While it protects teachers from unjust fireing, it also protects incompetent teacher from being justly fired. It needs to be eather abolished or massivly altered to still protect the good teachers from unjust firing.

Perhaps a system that flags a teacher as needing assistance in becoming competent, and if the assisntance doesn't work, the teacher can be terminated.

Although firing teachers creates a need for replacements. Theres already a shortage of teachers, which is a big reason many of these incompetent teachers get tenure to begin with.
 
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samsmart said:
What happens if the gardener does all he can to help the plants grow, but the plants just don't want to?
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Then there should be no harm in firing that gardener trying another gardener.If it is the plant and not the gardener then the plants should still refuse to grow regardless of the gardener that is used. Besides that would be a ****ty gardener if he couldn't get a plant to grow. A gardener would know what kind of environment/climate, soil,amount sun and shade a plant needs to grow.

This is the problem with equating education to a business.
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Education is a business. They perform services for the tax payers which is to educate children.

A business who owns a manufacturing company just needs to hire craftsmen. Those craftsmen can then fashion goods from materials.
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Not all businesses make things some are just service industries. Maids for example clean,gardeners for example garden,window washers clean windows,accountants do accounting, and etc.


However, children aren't "material" for educators to craft.
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Educators however are paid to perform a service and that service is to teach children.




They are people with independent minds and will. They are just as responsible for their own education as their teachers are. And, let's face it, there are a lot of children who hate school and don't do their work.
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There are always a few bad apples in every classroom,however if the school has a significantly high above average fail rate then perhaps it is the teachers who are doing a ****ty job.
 
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