A Fly Went By

I enjoy reading the picture book
A Fly Went By by Mike McClintock. I long to relax barefoot in that row boat chewing on a blade of grass as the sun slowly makes it's way across the sky. Of course this idyllic scene is soon interrupted by a frantic fly. The fly ran away in fear of the frog
Who ran from the cat, who ran from the dog. The harder the boy worked to find the cause of the commotion, the more complicated the commotion became. Finally, after after talking to several terrified animals each terrified by the one coming after it, the problem is discovered. A hunter runs by. But the hunter doesn't stop to negotiate an end to the chase because he is running too. The hunter is running from a loud clanging sound. And what do you think it was? It was a lamb with a bucket stuck on it's leg.

I had a similiar feeling reading education news in my email.

I read this:

June 29, 2009 Chicago Tribune Newspaper BY ROSALIND ROSSI Education Reporter

The typical Chicago public school loses more than half of all its teachers within five years -- and about two-thirds of its new ones, a study released today by the University of Chicago indicates. Teacher churning is especially severe in high-poverty, heavily African-American schools -- about a hundred total -- where half of all teachers disappear after only three years, the study found.

"I find that really disturbing,'' said Elaine Allensworth, lead author of the study from the U. of C.'s Consortium on Chicago School Research. "I just see no way they can improve if they can't maintain a stable work force.''

And this from Florida,

By Tony Marrero, Times Staff Writer
In Print: Monday, June 29, 2009

Under a new policy up for a vote by the Hernando County School Board next month, the new grade for a missed assignment or test at the elementary level would be 40 percent.

Translation: no more zeros.

And this blog about a KIPP school teacher:

"No," he told me, shrugging. "I'm leaving teaching. I don't have a plan."

I was shocked. "Why? You're such a wonderful teacher! What happened?"

"It just got to the point that every morning I thought, 'I don't want to go in.' We start at 7:20 and go til 5pm. I wake up at 4:45 for my commute and some days don't get home til 10. I'd honestly rather work in an office at this point." I am still trying to reconcile this new image of Joe with the old one, who was so in love with teaching and seemed to be made for the job.
When Joe left my school, it was a huge loss to our students. But I understand why he wanted to go somewhere less crazy, more organized, that serves a similarly needy population. His current school has one of the highest student achievement rates in NYC, but something is wrong if it killed Joe's drive to teach. He told me that a many other teachers at his school burnt out and quit, much like him. I'm wondering if this KIPP school sees its teaching staff as expendable. Perhaps it has such a great reputation that it can easily replace good teachers who leave with other good teachers.

http://teacherleaders.typepad.com/shoulders_of_giants/2009/06/a-casualty-of-the-teaching-profession.html

And this:

June 15, 2009 Education Week

Study Casts Doubt on Charter School Results By Lesli A. Maxwell

A national study by the Center for Research on Education Outcomes at Stanford casts doubt on whether the academic performance of students in charter schools is any better than that of their peers in regular public schools.

Looking at 2,403 charter schools in 15 states and the District of Columbia, researchers at Stanford University found that students in more than 80 percent of charter schools either performed the same as—or worse than—students in traditional public schools on mathematics tests.

“If this study shows anything, it shows that we’ve got a two-to-one margin of bad charters to good charters,” said Margaret E. Raymond, the director of the center and the study’s lead author. “That’s a red flag.”

Mr. Henig said the Stanford report, along with others that have similarly compared charter school and traditional public school performance, is more evidence that asking which of the two types of schools is better “may be the wrong question.”

As you can see, teachers are leaving the profession in which they invested an expensive college education. School Boards are interferring in individual teachers decisions, one of the key protections of tenure. And when you look at the proposed alternatives, private and charter schools, you see the same burnout with no discernable difference in outcomes.

As more and more government intervention chases fewer and fewer resources, and judicial decisions erode en loco parentis, it is time to take stock.

Can we come to an understanding of what causes what? We know so much about education. Can we synthesize this information into a fishbone diagram in order to get a better picture of the problems and the causes?

Lets take stock of the situation. Lets begin with what exactly we as a nation want to get from our educational system. What constitutes an education? Should it be the same for everyone? Should it look the same for everyone?

When we know what education is for, we can begin to design it. I would guess that education in the future will not have traditional schoolhouses.

But I am asking you to join me in a discussion of National Goals for Education.

WE NEED A STRATEGIC PLAN FOR U.S. EDUCATION