If Harris was asked to make the call, she would fire Mike Miles in an instant.
The "loon" is the only one who has policies that conform with reality. How do you manage to jive that with your entirely emotional reaction that he's a loon?
If that is the case, how are we going to replace the inadequate teachers? More money for more competent teachers and teacher’s aides so we can have smaller class sizes and more time for teachers to give individual instruction to those kids that need it.
Ineffective people still get managed out or quit. Teachers constantly get “feedback” from students. You can reward the most effective people with bonuses; class size and support services really do matter as well
Unfortunately, the kids to a large degree don't get the basics like respect taught at home, and teachers then have to deal with it. I recently spoke to a couple teachers voicing their frustration of having constantly to deal with discipline issues and mountains of paperwork for lousy pay. A friend recently resigned due to constant battles with cell phones in her classroom.
I agree we need education reform and Miles is doing good work in Houston as he did in Dallas. Don't you think we could get the unions on board if we coupled these reforms with advocating for significant pay increases? The type we pay all professionals
All of Miles' reforms are already coupled with the biggest pay raises HISD teachers have ever seen. But those raises are tied to teacher effectiveness/ student achievement. Across the board raises produce no bump at all in student achievement. They may even harm students by incentivizing the least effective teachers to remain in place rather than seek another livelihood. Those ineffective teachers who are resistant to retraining actively harm students., retarding their development in ways that will never be recouped. So across the board raises that are not tied to student achievement may make the adults in the picture happy, but they are not good for the kids. And by the way, is 85 grand too low a wage?
While more money is great- HISD teachers (like many teachers in general) are not primarily motivated by large paychecks. There’s a reason people work in education and not like, Deloitte. It’s the kids. You’re not going to find people that want to work in a place where someone with a six figure salary comes into your classroom and tears posters off your wall while you’re teaching. 43% of HISD teachers left last year and probably went to suburban districts with slightly less salaries but much higher benefit costs.
Let's divide the universe of teachers then, into those whose posters were torn from the wall, post-Miles, and those whose posters were not, pre-Miles. The pre-Miles teachers who got to keep their posters were doing a fine job teaching the easy kids, the middle class and up ones, but they were doing such a shit job teaching the tough ones, the poor and down ones, that they actually put the district in violation of state law, and this in Texas, not exactly a bleeding heart state. The no-posters teachers, the ones whose posters were brutally ripped from the wall, have already begun to reverse the deeply entrenched tradition of race-centric neglect in one short year. Given the immense promise of this new trend in the lives of Houston children, all Houston children, I'm having trouble summoning a tear for adults who would quit the entire effort because their posters were violated.
This is a reference to a specific non-NES school where people making six figures tore down the posters in the middle of a class. Now I know you are not eight years old sitting in a class looking at the list of birthdays and don’t care if Miguel and Harper share a birthday next week but does that seem like it would improve morale? Is it the best use of resources?
What do you think about every school in the state adopting NES? Would every child in those state benefit from the immense promise of the system?
Two stories here: Miles and school reform are the second; the “loon” is the first. Every reader except teachers union leaders and those to whom they make political contributions agrees with you on that one. But many of those are in the 49.999% you hope represents the “loon ceiling.” Don’t leave ‘em out.
Shoots, Love your stuff, but the trouble with the argument here is you’re saying roughly half of your fellow citizens are loons. I don’t think you believe that.
I found myself wondering if that infamous memo Lewis Powell wrote for the National Manufacturers Association way back when actually outlined corporate America's preferred long-term approach to funding (or not funding) public school education. I've been meaning to read that damn thing again... I do so about every 20 years and I think I'm due. If I find anything that enlightens, I'll share it with you.
One other thought that occurred to me in reading your latest is this: Has anyone ever written about how Miles's reforms in Dallas changed their lives... or, perhaps better, has a scholar or journalist interviewed and written about a bunch of young grown-ups in Dallas who know their lives were transformed by Miles' work there?
No, and, more immediately, nobody interviews the kids who are presently learning to read or their parents. My excuse, I'm not in Houston, I need to go, just hard to get to. But, sure, I think you're putting your finger on the real story, screw all this other stuff, do the products of the reform regimes believe their lives were changed for the better? Or not?
I appreciate your perspective and I've read your writing for decades. I've been struggling to talk about racism and growing up in Dallas (and Irving) and the many intersections that have shaped me. Now at age 73, I'm even more befuddled than ever as to how we haven't solved more of our racial inequality and justice. I started to write about it; I've already made art about it and still do in fits and spurts. You might enjoy my rambling narrative which I intend to continue as ideas and themes form in my head. "Me and the KKK" - "Growing up Texan."
Reading is the key and we have done a poor job of standardizing an effective approach. Have you listened to the podcast "Sold a Story"? As a Montessori trained educator, I have watched children as young as 4-years-old learn to read effortlessly. Not every child reads that young - the age span is 4-7-years-old when the Montessori approach (writing first, reading second) is used. The other problem we are facing is that the numbers of young people going into teaching is dropping at an alarming rate. Teacher pay is abysmal compared to other occupations and working with parents and in a system where you may very well lose your life to a random shooter is not great incentive.
I did listen to and then read the transcript of Sold a Story. The news for me in that incredibly powerful podcast was that poor kids are far from the only victims of decades of terribly wrong pedagogy. How many thousands of middle class lo affluent kids have been convinced they were some combination of dyslexic, ADD or autistic when in fact their teachers were using a stupidly ineffectual and destructive method of teaching reading. And exactly how much fealty do we owe to a profession that committed that level of malpractice for that long?
The podcast sketches a mention of Shrub's (and Teddy Kennedy's) "No Child Left Behind" initiative. The teachers (not necessarily all union members) who bought into Lucy Calkins and fought against direct instruction in phonics kept on doing the stupid ineffectual destructive and softly bigoted teaching that the bi-partisan NCLB law was intended to expose. According to Emily Hanford, the Calkins system publishers left their methods intact while changing the advertising and abstracts describing their methods, all in order to make the "approved lists" of programs NCLB funded. And soon enough, of course, the tests showed that despite NCLB, reading scores were no better after than before. So, NCLB (and the Shrub) were derided as failures.
Not podcasted, but in recent living memory: We know that he was not to be outdone, so when Barry O embraced the "Core Knowledge" sequence advocated by E.D. Hirsch, the beloved Department of Education and textbook publishers ignored the time tested direct instruction work, and rushed publication of old crap in new wineskins and called it "Common Core." The Federal version of "the core" offered universally confusing and hated materials that, if anything, left kids more ignorant after a year's instruction that without it.
From my perspective, the federal government, two parties, three presidencies, and the entire apparatus of federal school "guidance" (distributed across not only the Dept of Education but Health and Human Services (mostly HeadStart and PreK) and the Department of Agriculture (School Lunch programs, now including breakfast and meals served at school campuses during summer when schools are not even in session) -- where was I in this sentence? -- the federal government has wasted two decades, a full generation, of children's lived dinking around at "reform", pissing money at "education industry" special interests and profiteers, all while interfering with real efforts at real improvement.
I'm rooting for the guys who want to abolish the Federal Department of Education. It' can't be loonier than the idea we can fix crime and racism by shrinking Municiple police forces.
(That aside, remember the 10 plank manifesto Black Lives Matter originally put forward? Cameras recording law enforcement officers? No "for profit" policing -- speed traps and similar? Ban "asset forfeiture"? Quit sending surplus tanks and armored cars to local cop shops? ... As I recall about 7 of 10 demands were pretty reasonable. Why didn't either party embrace? Local (big city) cops, like local (big city) schools, are perceived to be causing and perpetuating racial divides. Is the perception wrong? )
If Harris was asked to make the call, she would fire Mike Miles in an instant.
The "loon" is the only one who has policies that conform with reality. How do you manage to jive that with your entirely emotional reaction that he's a loon?
Um, because he's a loon?
Doesn't that mean that sanity is where all the danger and risk is?
If that is the case, how are we going to replace the inadequate teachers? More money for more competent teachers and teacher’s aides so we can have smaller class sizes and more time for teachers to give individual instruction to those kids that need it.
Ineffective people still get managed out or quit. Teachers constantly get “feedback” from students. You can reward the most effective people with bonuses; class size and support services really do matter as well
Unfortunately, the kids to a large degree don't get the basics like respect taught at home, and teachers then have to deal with it. I recently spoke to a couple teachers voicing their frustration of having constantly to deal with discipline issues and mountains of paperwork for lousy pay. A friend recently resigned due to constant battles with cell phones in her classroom.
I agree we need education reform and Miles is doing good work in Houston as he did in Dallas. Don't you think we could get the unions on board if we coupled these reforms with advocating for significant pay increases? The type we pay all professionals
All of Miles' reforms are already coupled with the biggest pay raises HISD teachers have ever seen. But those raises are tied to teacher effectiveness/ student achievement. Across the board raises produce no bump at all in student achievement. They may even harm students by incentivizing the least effective teachers to remain in place rather than seek another livelihood. Those ineffective teachers who are resistant to retraining actively harm students., retarding their development in ways that will never be recouped. So across the board raises that are not tied to student achievement may make the adults in the picture happy, but they are not good for the kids. And by the way, is 85 grand too low a wage?
While more money is great- HISD teachers (like many teachers in general) are not primarily motivated by large paychecks. There’s a reason people work in education and not like, Deloitte. It’s the kids. You’re not going to find people that want to work in a place where someone with a six figure salary comes into your classroom and tears posters off your wall while you’re teaching. 43% of HISD teachers left last year and probably went to suburban districts with slightly less salaries but much higher benefit costs.
Let's divide the universe of teachers then, into those whose posters were torn from the wall, post-Miles, and those whose posters were not, pre-Miles. The pre-Miles teachers who got to keep their posters were doing a fine job teaching the easy kids, the middle class and up ones, but they were doing such a shit job teaching the tough ones, the poor and down ones, that they actually put the district in violation of state law, and this in Texas, not exactly a bleeding heart state. The no-posters teachers, the ones whose posters were brutally ripped from the wall, have already begun to reverse the deeply entrenched tradition of race-centric neglect in one short year. Given the immense promise of this new trend in the lives of Houston children, all Houston children, I'm having trouble summoning a tear for adults who would quit the entire effort because their posters were violated.
This is a reference to a specific non-NES school where people making six figures tore down the posters in the middle of a class. Now I know you are not eight years old sitting in a class looking at the list of birthdays and don’t care if Miguel and Harper share a birthday next week but does that seem like it would improve morale? Is it the best use of resources?
What do you think about every school in the state adopting NES? Would every child in those state benefit from the immense promise of the system?
Two stories here: Miles and school reform are the second; the “loon” is the first. Every reader except teachers union leaders and those to whom they make political contributions agrees with you on that one. But many of those are in the 49.999% you hope represents the “loon ceiling.” Don’t leave ‘em out.
Shoots, Love your stuff, but the trouble with the argument here is you’re saying roughly half of your fellow citizens are loons. I don’t think you believe that.
I am hoping against hope that the loon quotient is below 49.9999 percent.
I found myself wondering if that infamous memo Lewis Powell wrote for the National Manufacturers Association way back when actually outlined corporate America's preferred long-term approach to funding (or not funding) public school education. I've been meaning to read that damn thing again... I do so about every 20 years and I think I'm due. If I find anything that enlightens, I'll share it with you.
One other thought that occurred to me in reading your latest is this: Has anyone ever written about how Miles's reforms in Dallas changed their lives... or, perhaps better, has a scholar or journalist interviewed and written about a bunch of young grown-ups in Dallas who know their lives were transformed by Miles' work there?
No, and, more immediately, nobody interviews the kids who are presently learning to read or their parents. My excuse, I'm not in Houston, I need to go, just hard to get to. But, sure, I think you're putting your finger on the real story, screw all this other stuff, do the products of the reform regimes believe their lives were changed for the better? Or not?
How hard would it be to find some Dallas alums of the Miles reforms?
Excellent idea. Working on it.
I appreciate your perspective and I've read your writing for decades. I've been struggling to talk about racism and growing up in Dallas (and Irving) and the many intersections that have shaped me. Now at age 73, I'm even more befuddled than ever as to how we haven't solved more of our racial inequality and justice. I started to write about it; I've already made art about it and still do in fits and spurts. You might enjoy my rambling narrative which I intend to continue as ideas and themes form in my head. "Me and the KKK" - "Growing up Texan."
sounds intriguing.
https://open.substack.com/pub/darrylbaird/p/me-and-the-kkk?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android&r=fzu0d
Reading is the key and we have done a poor job of standardizing an effective approach. Have you listened to the podcast "Sold a Story"? As a Montessori trained educator, I have watched children as young as 4-years-old learn to read effortlessly. Not every child reads that young - the age span is 4-7-years-old when the Montessori approach (writing first, reading second) is used. The other problem we are facing is that the numbers of young people going into teaching is dropping at an alarming rate. Teacher pay is abysmal compared to other occupations and working with parents and in a system where you may very well lose your life to a random shooter is not great incentive.
I did listen to and then read the transcript of Sold a Story. The news for me in that incredibly powerful podcast was that poor kids are far from the only victims of decades of terribly wrong pedagogy. How many thousands of middle class lo affluent kids have been convinced they were some combination of dyslexic, ADD or autistic when in fact their teachers were using a stupidly ineffectual and destructive method of teaching reading. And exactly how much fealty do we owe to a profession that committed that level of malpractice for that long?
The podcast sketches a mention of Shrub's (and Teddy Kennedy's) "No Child Left Behind" initiative. The teachers (not necessarily all union members) who bought into Lucy Calkins and fought against direct instruction in phonics kept on doing the stupid ineffectual destructive and softly bigoted teaching that the bi-partisan NCLB law was intended to expose. According to Emily Hanford, the Calkins system publishers left their methods intact while changing the advertising and abstracts describing their methods, all in order to make the "approved lists" of programs NCLB funded. And soon enough, of course, the tests showed that despite NCLB, reading scores were no better after than before. So, NCLB (and the Shrub) were derided as failures.
Not podcasted, but in recent living memory: We know that he was not to be outdone, so when Barry O embraced the "Core Knowledge" sequence advocated by E.D. Hirsch, the beloved Department of Education and textbook publishers ignored the time tested direct instruction work, and rushed publication of old crap in new wineskins and called it "Common Core." The Federal version of "the core" offered universally confusing and hated materials that, if anything, left kids more ignorant after a year's instruction that without it.
From my perspective, the federal government, two parties, three presidencies, and the entire apparatus of federal school "guidance" (distributed across not only the Dept of Education but Health and Human Services (mostly HeadStart and PreK) and the Department of Agriculture (School Lunch programs, now including breakfast and meals served at school campuses during summer when schools are not even in session) -- where was I in this sentence? -- the federal government has wasted two decades, a full generation, of children's lived dinking around at "reform", pissing money at "education industry" special interests and profiteers, all while interfering with real efforts at real improvement.
I'm rooting for the guys who want to abolish the Federal Department of Education. It' can't be loonier than the idea we can fix crime and racism by shrinking Municiple police forces.
(That aside, remember the 10 plank manifesto Black Lives Matter originally put forward? Cameras recording law enforcement officers? No "for profit" policing -- speed traps and similar? Ban "asset forfeiture"? Quit sending surplus tanks and armored cars to local cop shops? ... As I recall about 7 of 10 demands were pretty reasonable. Why didn't either party embrace? Local (big city) cops, like local (big city) schools, are perceived to be causing and perpetuating racial divides. Is the perception wrong? )