Commentary and Criticism about the National Education Association
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In his latest installment for NEA Today from October 10, 2017, Tim Walker tells us to Beware of Hype Over Grade Inflation
Here is my take on that article. THE POSITIVE Tim Walker makes one good point in this article. He says that, when considering which is more important, GPA or standardized tests (like the ACT or SAT), “high school GPA has consistently proven to be the best available predictor of undergraduate success.” Although my personal experience would have told me otherwise, there actually is some research that supports Walker’s point of view. Confirmed: High school GPAs predict college success THE NEGATIVE Unfortunately, the article ends on a weak note by referencing questionable work by a man named Alfie Kohn. Walker quotes from this man as if he is some type of authority on the subject of education when in fact Kohn’s ideas are way outside of the mainstream. He describes Kohn as “a long time critic of letter grades” and that he “is a proponent of ditching number and letter grades in favor of, among other alternatives, qualitative narrative reports in which teachers describe and discuss student progress.” But if you actually read some of his work … No Contest: The Case Against Competition The Schools Our Children Deserve … you will get a much better idea just how “far out” his theories are. ALFIE KOHN SAYS COMPETITION IS BAD, REAL BAD To quote from a review of Kohn’s book No Contest: The Case Against Competition: “OK-- so no Olympics. Or baseball teams. Or college debates. Not even Nobel Prizes or Pulitzers. Let's also stop all spelling bees while we're at it. And no ranking of best and least good hospitals, which may make a highly important difference in health outcomes." "For that matter, we should not rank restaurants either, even when used with a 'star system' to inform diners." "We also should forget scientific labs which sometimes compete to solve difficult medical issues, and come up with best treatment to save human lives. Finding the best solution is often its own best reward, through friendly competition aimed at the common good. This idea of 'competition' is bad -- is a false issue, unsupported by researchers, principals or U.S. school policies.” Let’s see…no competition…no market economy… I get it, Kohn is a communist – or maybe a socialist? And I thought that by now Americans would have realized that socialism/communism doesn’t really work all that well. At least that is the rumor down in Venezuela.
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Some Financial Stuff Before I Get to the Point
When the U.S. government promises retirees that that their Social Security and Medicare benefits will always be paid no matter how dire budget talks get in Washington, they are technically telling the truth. I use the word "technically" for reasons explained below. You see, the U.S. government will never run out of money. That's right. If it doesn't have enough, it can always borrow whatever it needs. Now you may rightly ask: "What will happen if no one wants to lend money to our government at some point?" But this is still not a problem because the Federal Reserve (our Central Bank) will lend as much money as necessary to the U.S. Treasury so that all bills can be paid. Now wait a minute there. Are you saying that the Federal Reserve has a bottomless bank account? Sort of. If the Federal Reserve doesn't actually have money to lend to the U.S. Treasury, it can just create it in unlimited quantities out of nothing. There is a great video which explains this process in more detail at the Peak Prosperity website - Chapter Eight: The Fed - Money Creation Back to the Point of This Blog Post Unlike our Federal Government, states cannot print money to solve their individual debt problems. This is a huge problem because public employee retirement systems in many states not only don't have enough money in them to pay future retirees, they also have no hope of every getting enough money. Governments have simply promised too many benefits that they can't afford. The only possible way out is expressed very succinctly by Carl Dincesen his article "Creditworthiness of New York and Illinois: One is Bankrupt": "Retired public employees might understand that it is better to negotiate a fair agreement than to demand one the employer can’t afford." That is a nice way of saying exactly what the title of this blog post reads. The NEA is constantly suggesting that its members contact politicians to get more benefits. But as I wrote on my other blog njea-info.org - you can't get blood from a stone. Teachers will need to be super flexible in negotiations if they want to save the system. Taking a hard line is selfish and will simply destroy the retirement system sooner rather than later. "We teach our students that America is a nation of immigrants..." So says Cindy Long in her October 3, 2017 article from NEA Today: "Coming to America: Books Celebrating Immigrants, Refugees" Ms. Long, I think that you forgot to add one very important word to that sentence - you forgot to put the word "legal" in front of the word "immigrants." And that makes all the difference..... As long as immigrants are legal, I (and probably 99% of the rest of America) will be happy to celebrate immigrants and refugees. But my criticism of Long's article doesn't end there. I take issue with her sneaky and underhanded attack on Donald Trump (I don't support Trump by the way). Of course, Ms. Long doesn't specifically mention the President by name. She does, however, discuss three phrases associated with him: "travel bans, border walls, and refugee quotas." She mentions these phrases because she is concerned that "our kids" will be asking questions "to make sense of conflicting messages" surrounding Trump's policies in these three areas. TRAVEL BANS As for travel bans, although I don't think barring people from Muslim countries will do much of anything to make the US safer, the president clearly has the authority to do this. Check your history, Ms. Long, as many presidents have exercised this authority. Other presidents have blocked groups of foreigners from the U.S., but never so broadly BORDER WALLS As for border walls, although there are better ways to stop illegal immigration than wasting billions of dollars on a physical wall, a sovereign country has a right to enforce its borders. The old truism applies here: Without borders, there is no country. QUOTAS As for quotas, the US has had quotas for years. Read the Immigration Act of 1964 if you want to see some quotas put in place. Here is a quote describing this Act from history.com: “Over the next four decades, the policies put into effect in 1965 would greatly change the demographic makeup of the American population, as immigrants entering the United States under the new legislation came increasingly from countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America, as opposed to Europe.” Sounds to me that in this Act people of “color” (as the expression goes) were given special consideration over people who have “no color." No color is the opposite of color, right? REFUGEES Finally, the main reason there are so many refugees in the world today is because of the US policy of intervention, bombing, droning and regime change in the Middle East. Here is a good timeline to describe this immoral intervention: The U.S. and the Middle East Since 1945 to 2008: A Guide to Mideast Policy From Harry Truman to George W. Bush And this article doesn't even get to Obama's and Trump's warmongering. We need to get out of other people's business and bring our soldiers home. Tim Walker, writing for NEA Today on September 28, 2017, expresses the standard union position that teachers should be forced to pay dues to their unions ("With 'Janus,' Corporate Interests Launch Another Attack on Workers") whether they agree with their policies or not.
Of course, he didn't express it this way, but this is the bottom line as far as I am concerned. Now, my commentary here is not about the boring details about the Supreme Court Case which Walker alludes to in the title of his article: Janus v. AFSCME. You can read all about it in his article as well as at the LA Times among other places on the net. Instead, my point is simply to address the unfairness of forcing teachers to pay union dues when they don't agree with what the union represents. TIM WALKER'S VIEWPOINT Tim Walker has a negative view of "right to work" laws. He is against them. Now, you might be wondering how anyone could be against the "right to work." I mean, shouldn't everyone have a right to work? Walker doesn't like these laws because when teachers have a right to work, they don't have to pay dues to the union. He states that these laws will be "imposed .... on the entire public sector" which will mean that unions will probably lose a lot of money and thus lose their political influence and power. He is against these laws because they will harm unions. MY POINT OF VIEW I evaluate "right to work" laws from the perspective of an individual teacher. For me it means that I have a right to teach and not be coerced into giving up part of my paycheck to the teacher's union. "But, but, but......the teachers' union does so much for teachers," argue supporters. "If you don't pay dues you are just a free-rider getting the benefits of unions without helping to shoulder the cost." Sure, the teacher's union has done some good things, but I think it has outlived its usefulness. As I wrote in my other blog, NJEA-INFO.ORG, "A Labor Day Thought: Are Teacher's Unions Really Necessary": "I can understand the point that in the late 19th and early 20th century a worker's life was harsh. Unions formed to address some important issues like safety conditions, reasonable work week, reasonable pay, etc. But none of this applies to teaching - at least not in the 21st century. Most teachers work in nice surroundings, get free time during the day (a prep and lunch are at least 1 hour total), 2 months off in summer, weekends off, 10 sick days and 2 personal days, only work from 8:00 - 3:00, get full health benefits, a pension, maternity leave, etc. The reasons for the importance of unions in the early days don't apply any longer." MY ARGUMENT In just about every other occupation, individuals personally negotiate their own contract with the company they are working for. As a result, companies offer better compensation packages to more highly qualified/efficient workers. Why can't this also be done in education? If I am an excellent teacher and I prove it by putting in more time and effort, why should't I get paid more than a teacher who has been in the district for 20 years but just shows up to school to collect a paycheck? Why should a teacher "with seniority" get paid more than a better qualified teacher? Teacher contracts specify the minimum that educators have to do in order to get paid - and most teachers only do the minimum as a result. After all, why do more when you gain nothing for it? In effect, contracts that apply to an entire school district protect mediocre teachers and punish excellent teachers because the good teachers don't get any monetary reward for doing more than the contractual minimum. Bottom Line: More qualified teachers should get paid more because they are better at what they do. Compensation should not simply be a factor of how many years you have been at the job or what step you are in the contract. |
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October 2018
AuthorJonathan Smith - A New Jersey Public School Teacher who disagrees with the National Education Association. |