Commentary and Criticism about the National Education Association
We have absolutely no affiliation with the National Education Association and do not represent its views in any way, shape or form.
BACKGROUND
In a previous blog post, I expressed my concern about the NEA’s ability to champion the cause of every downtrodden minority group in modern society, while somehow never finding time for the lowly, forgotten, “cognitively privileged” student. I used the euphemism “cognitively privileged” on purpose – to make a point that education terminology in the modern world has gone politically correct. As I explained in that past blog post, “cognitively privileged” refers to: “… the smart kids, the intelligent kids, kids that can process information more quickly and efficiently than their peers. These are the students that any honest teacher who you talk to will be able to identify within the first two weeks of school (at the end of September at the latest).” The National Education Association provides an excellent example of this political correctness. It simply refuses to use the word “intelligent” to describe students who are … well … let’s see … intelligent… TO THE NEA, INTELLIGENCE IS A FOUR-LETTER WORD? To prove my assertion that the NEA doesn’t like the word intelligent, I went over to its website (nea.org) and used the search bar in the upper right corner of the page. I researched NEA articles related to students and intelligence. Below you will find all of the searches that I performed and the number of page results that were returned:
That’s right. Searching the entire NEA archives going back at least 10 years, only 2 articles can be found that refer to “intelligent students.” SO WHAT DOES THE NEA USE INSTEAD OF INTELLIGENT? It’s not as if the NEA denies the fact that some students are actually intelligent. They just don’t like the term. So how does the NEA solve the problem? It uses euphemisms, of course. How do I know this? Well, I went back to the nea.org search bar again and tried other possible replacement terms. I had a list handy already. Throughout my many years teaching in public school, I have heard my colleagues use a wide range of more politically correct euphemisms for intelligent students. I applied this list through the nea.org search engine and the result I obtained was quite interesting. The results are ranked from least popular to most popular euphemism:
So the most popular NEA euphemisms (by far) for intelligence were:
WHY DOESN’T THE NEA LIKE THE WORD INTELLIGENCE? The results of my research were fairly definitive. The NEA simply does not like to use the word intelligent and student in the same sentence. Why is that? I honestly don’t know, but it could be that it thinks that IQ tests which measure intelligence don’t actually measure what they purport to measure. Or maybe it feels that IQ tests are culturally biased and so they are unfair. Finally, it is possible that it adheres to Howard Gardner’s multiple intelligences which concludes that everyone has an intelligence of some type, so why bother calling any particular student intelligent. WHERE THE NEA DOES ACCEPT THE USE OF THE WORD INTELLIGENT What is interesting, however, is where the National Education Association DOES allow the use of the word intelligent. Keep the following list for future educational situations. You can be sure of being politically correct if you follow these guidelines:
CONCLUSION: I THINK WE SHOULD HETEROGENEOUSLY MIX THE FOOTBALL TEAM So what is it with the NEA and many educators not wanting to use the term intelligent? They don’t have a problem using the words bright, gifted, high ability, advanced, high achievers, smart and talented when talking about students. Why not just reintroduce the original term – intelligent. What the heck is wrong with calling a student intelligent? As a middle school teacher I am forced to teach heterogeneous classes and am then expected to “differentiate” within them to make sure that my motley assortment of students each gets the proper level of education. The very fact that I have to differentiate proves the point that some kids are more intelligent than others. If we acknowledge this, then why continue the charade that splitting the class by intelligence and ability would be harmful? And if any reader is going to refer me to all of the “research” which “proves” that mixing intelligent and not-so-intelligent students together is better for all, don't waste your time. I have read it already and don't find it compelling. The suggestion that heterogeneous grouping somehow helps the kids of lower intelligence AND also helps the kids of higher intelligence is preposterous. My personal experience as a student and my actual teaching experience suggests the exact opposite. Teachers just need to be honest and admit the fact that we mix kids like this because we don’t want the individuals of lower intelligence to feel bad about being put together in a lower group. It will hurt their self esteem. I don’t care if this all sounds elitist and you are offended. The truth hurts sometimes. Consider this. Do we hold back star athletes on sports teams? For example, do we let any and all join the football team and then when the big game comes use a heterogeneous mixture to see if we can defeat our rivals? Of course not – that would be roundly criticized as silly. We put all of the good football players together so we can win. So why do we allow this heterogeneous silliness in the classroom? All honest teachers know that some students are more intelligent and should be pushed further so that they can attain goals appropriate to their higher ability. So why not put them together so that the teacher can do this directly? And as for those students at lower intelligence levels, put them together by ability also. I know that I could easily and effectively tailor my lessons to a group’s general ability level. I could push each group to attain the highest level of achievement. By the way, next blog post I will tell you how I really feel …
1 Comment
Let me state at the outset that I don’t have a real strong opinion for or against charter schools. If they are held financially accountable, produce decent academic results and parents like them, then why not allow them?
I actually taught at an urban charter school for a couple of years before getting a position at a standard public school. One thing I can say for certain is that the parents loved the school because of the small classes, individual attention, uniforms and tighter discipline. In any case, the point of this blog post is not to argue for or against charter schools. NEA PROPAGANDA? So what is the point? My goal is to make clear that the National Education Association used propaganda when it posted an article on its Education Votes website on November 28, 2017. As a dues-paying member of the NEA, I don’t deserve this propaganda – I deserve the truth. But since my union didn’t provide the truth, I had to spend this past weekend ferreting it out for myself. Don't worry, I still got my lesson plans done :) The article in question was: “Charter school experiment has ‘failed,’ concludes national investigation” The specific wording in the article was even more damning than the title would suggest. According to the NEA, charter schools have not just “failed,” their model of education is a “fiscal and education disaster [bold, italics and underline added].” Strong words indeed. BUT, BUT, BUT … THE NETWORK FOR PUBLIC EDUCATION SAYS SO! What backs up the NEA’s strong commentary on charter schools? A report published by the Network for Public Education. Let’s see if my “non-rocket science” background can analyze the situation that we have here. An organization which is “for Public Education” funds a report that comes to the conclusion that the charter school experiment has “failed.” Surely we can accept the report’s conclusions as legitimate … There can’t be any bias … Right? ABOUT THAT NETWORK FOR PUBLIC EDUCATION … “The Network for Public Education is an advocacy group whose goal is to fight to protect, preserve and strengthen our public school system, an essential institution in a democratic society.” Quote From the Network for Public Education Action Let’s drill down a bit here. An advocacy group is “a group of people who work to support an issue or protect and defend a group of people.” Well, I didn’t have to drill down too far because that about sums it up. According to Tax Exempt World, the Network for Public Education is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization. This means that it is able to raise money tax-free in order to fight for public education. If the fight for public education involves trashing competitors (i.e. charter schools) in the meantime, then so be it I guess. MEMBERS DESERVE BETTER INFORMATION But maybe the report, Charters and Consequences: An Investigative Series by the Network for Public Education, is actually correct. Maybe the NEA had every right to highlight this report and make its conclusions known far and wide. Unfortunately, my research says otherwise. Realistically, I shouldn’t have expected the NEA to be unbiased on the question of charter schools. It is common knowledge that it has mixed feelings about the legitimacy of these institutions. You can read the details of its viewpoint in the NEA Policy Statement on Charter Schools. Still, this does not excuse the “hit” piece that they decided to publish. As I indicated above, members deserve better. THE NEA IGNORES “ALTERNATE” FACTS A quick Google search provides a completely different perspective on charter schools. You can click on any of the links included below if you want details, but suffice it to say that the only fair conclusion is that the jury is still out. One thing, however, is certain. The NEA’s declaration that the “Charter School experiment has failed,” is way overblown. The Unappreciated Success of Charter Schools, Adam Ozimek, January 11, 2015 Charter school experiment a success: Our view This next link is from a charter school supporting web site so read it with a grain of salt. I include it because I consider it to be pretty much equivalent to the NEA’s piece. They both are biased in their own way. The point is simply that you need to consider the source of your information. Facts About Charters This is an interesting article. My thought here is that if they are taking the time to rank charter schools then this must mean that there is some success. US News & World Report Charter Rankings City’s thriving charter schools find success with closer attention to individual kids, high expectations of students (2014) Study: Charter High Schools Have 7-11% Higher Graduation Rates Than Their Public School Peers (2014) The facts are in: NYC’s charter schools are a smashing success, James D. Merriman, March 2016 Celebrate Charter School Success, Neil Campbell 10/5/17 Charter school’s success causes focus change, March 15, 2017 When I made the claim a while back that teachers are not underpaid (I never said overpaid by the way), I upset a lot of people. I now have to confess that I probably went too far in that blog post. I used my own personal experience from New Jersey and assumed it applied throughout the entire United States. I have somewhat softened my view since then. Clearly, some teachers have it better than others.
NOW TO THE ISSUE AT HAND I started thinking about this issue again last week when I read a Tweet from the United Federation of Teachers (UFT). I clicked on the link in the Tweet and was taken to a UFT website article called The fight for paid parental leave. It turns out that the UFT launched a campaign to fight for paid parental leave some time ago and is asking for member support because the “… current parental leave policy forces members to choose between their own children and their profession.” MY PERSONAL EXPERIENCE I can totally understand the desire for paid parental leave. When my wife delivered our second child, she almost died because of a postpartum hemorrhage. In addition, our son had digestive problems which complicated his feeding regimen. At this point, my wife had used all of her sick days and so we were relying on my salary only. Finances were seriously strained at this point. Because we relied on her teacher salary to make ends meet, we had to make some tough decisions both about her health and the welfare of our son when it came time for picking a day for her to return to work. She eventually went back after 3 weeks and we put our son in daycare. Fortunately everything worked out OK for us. But I can still remember my point of view from those many years ago. Never once did I expect either of our school districts to pay for parental leave. I thought that the unpaid maternal leave which the districts granted was more than fair. WHO SHOULD PAY? I distinctly recall that at no point did I feel that the public (i.e. the taxpayers) owed me compensation for our private decision to have a baby delivered during the school year. Knowing that we would be living on one salary for a short time period, we saved up some money to get us through those lean times and we managed as well as possible. With twenty-twenty hindsight I also concede that we should have been more responsible - we should have planned the delivery for July. This would have given us a couple of months of breathing space before needing daycare. Young parents (like we were) don’t always think these things through in the heat of the moment … ABOUT THAT TAXPAYER You probably already realize where I am going with all of this. As a self-interested individual, of course I want as many perks in my job as I can get. My local union has been pretty good about getting us a decent 2% annual raise, keeping our 12 cumulative sick/personal days secure and making sure that the amount we contribute for health insurance stays in a reasonable range. Beyond this, I don’t expect much else. Do I want a whole lot more? Of course, who wouldn’t? But I interact with individuals in the private sector all of the time and they keep me grounded. We need to remember that these are the people (the taxpayers) who fund our salary and benefits. They complain that their local and state taxes are high enough already. And given that the average cost per pupil in the United States is over $12,000 (according to the NEA in 2016), they balk at the idea of spending more on education. Can you blame them for being “stingy” when the average cost of a private school is under $10,000 per year? And I will add that this lower figure is for the 2017-18 school year. The NEA’s public school figure was for 2016. This means that the current discrepancy is probably a lot larger. And I won’t even go into the fact that U.S. students fare much more poorly against students in other parts of the world who pay way less per student. You can read all about this at Rossier Online THE BOTTOM LINE – TAXPAYERS WILL VOTE WITH THEIR FEET I wrote a blog piece last month which concluded that you can’t get blood from a stone. No matter how you look at it, there isn’t enough money to pay for the set of benefits that teachers currently enjoy. Asking taxpayers to provide more benefits (no matter how much they are “needed”) will simply not work. The numbers don’t add up. ASKING FOR MORE? Unions like the NEA, UFT, AFT and all of the other state unions can, like the little Dutch boy, continue to hope that their efforts will stem the tide. But the sooner they wake up to reality the better for all. Teachers need to be more content with the benefits that they currently have. Asking for more given the current state of federal /state government finances is destined to fail. Worse, it may lead to a more restrictive backlash from the taxpayers. Remember, the people who fund our salary (the taxpayers), also have bills to pay. At what point will they finally draw the line and say enough? I’m not sure I want to get to that point. Do you? |
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October 2018
AuthorJonathan Smith - A New Jersey Public School Teacher who disagrees with the National Education Association. |