Steve Jobs and Teachers Unions
Saturday, March 10, 2007 | Permalink
I'm going to do something I've almost never done
before: disagree with Steve Jobs. I've used Apple
computers since the first Apple II came out in the
1970's, and I've used Macs since the early 1990's.
I'm a confirmed Mac user. I buy from iTunes, I have
an iPod, I think Steve Jobs is one of the true
visionaries of the late 20th and early 21st
centuries. True visionary.
I've disagreed with him in the past once or twice, and I was always wrong.
But on this one, he's dead wrong. At an educational conference on February 16, he said, "I believe that what is wrong with our schools in this nation is that they have become unionized in the worst possible way." He's already taken some flak for this this, and not all of it from teachers unions, who you could expect to react strongly.
Perhaps from his limited view of education, he believes that school-CEO's (AKA principals and deans) are wise and just and knowledgeable about their "product." But they are not.
In a perfect world, principals and deans and Academic Vice Presidents and School Boards and State Boards of Education would be wise and just and knowledgeable about education, and unions would not even be necessary. And Jobs would be right. But the world is not perfect. The people who run schools today are mostly hangers-on, bureaucratic paper-pushers, political hacks. (The former President of the University of Massachusetts, William Bulger, a staunch opponent of busing and integration of Boston public schools, was President of the Massachusetts State Senate before being appointed to his post, and is the brother of one of the most wanted mobsters in the history of the state.) These are the people calling the shots in educational circles today.
When these people deem someone worthy of firing, it is almost always for the wrong reasons, and done out of ignorance of how teaching and learning happen. It is to keep their job, to puff up some irrelevant statistical measure of success, to brown-nose a superior who also knows nothing about education, to look good on paper, to get an undeserved raise--everything except how well do the kids learn.
Into this mixture, then, come the teachers. Yes, there are some bad ones (I have known a few and right know can think of a few others), but for the most part they are well-trained, dedicated, and experienced teachers. They know what needs to be done, and their superiors won't listen to them, because their superiors' superiors won't listen to them, and so on up the whole sorry line to the state boards of education, populated by political appointees and not people who know the ropes of education.
So until there is a visionary worthy of Steve Jobs running the boards of education and indeed the federal Department of Education, we have to have unions to protect the teachers, the educational system, and our children from the know-nothings who are running our country's education right now.
I've disagreed with him in the past once or twice, and I was always wrong.
But on this one, he's dead wrong. At an educational conference on February 16, he said, "I believe that what is wrong with our schools in this nation is that they have become unionized in the worst possible way." He's already taken some flak for this this, and not all of it from teachers unions, who you could expect to react strongly.
Perhaps from his limited view of education, he believes that school-CEO's (AKA principals and deans) are wise and just and knowledgeable about their "product." But they are not.
In a perfect world, principals and deans and Academic Vice Presidents and School Boards and State Boards of Education would be wise and just and knowledgeable about education, and unions would not even be necessary. And Jobs would be right. But the world is not perfect. The people who run schools today are mostly hangers-on, bureaucratic paper-pushers, political hacks. (The former President of the University of Massachusetts, William Bulger, a staunch opponent of busing and integration of Boston public schools, was President of the Massachusetts State Senate before being appointed to his post, and is the brother of one of the most wanted mobsters in the history of the state.) These are the people calling the shots in educational circles today.
When these people deem someone worthy of firing, it is almost always for the wrong reasons, and done out of ignorance of how teaching and learning happen. It is to keep their job, to puff up some irrelevant statistical measure of success, to brown-nose a superior who also knows nothing about education, to look good on paper, to get an undeserved raise--everything except how well do the kids learn.
Into this mixture, then, come the teachers. Yes, there are some bad ones (I have known a few and right know can think of a few others), but for the most part they are well-trained, dedicated, and experienced teachers. They know what needs to be done, and their superiors won't listen to them, because their superiors' superiors won't listen to them, and so on up the whole sorry line to the state boards of education, populated by political appointees and not people who know the ropes of education.
So until there is a visionary worthy of Steve Jobs running the boards of education and indeed the federal Department of Education, we have to have unions to protect the teachers, the educational system, and our children from the know-nothings who are running our country's education right now.
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Deducation: Repeal the No Child Left Behind Act
Friday, March 09, 2007 | Permalink
The No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) is, perhaps
outside of the PATRIOT Act, potentially the most
damaging and far reaching legacy of the Bush
administration. It applies misguided notions of how
kids learn and how to teach them to further a
conservative agenda that will guarantee our students
will graduate with little more than a mass of
irrelevant, testable, and ultimately wrong "facts"
and have not the least clue how to think. It believes
in tests, it tests the wrong things, it rewards those
who score highly on these wrong-headed tests. The
damage it has done, and continues to do, to our
nation's children is incalculable. It may take
generations to undo this.
Our educational system is being killed: it's almost dead. Deducation, I call it. Mind-numbing, teaching to invalid tests, memorization of facts that won't be facts tomorrow, stifling all ability to think critically, taking all teaching decisions out of the hands of teachers, funneling educational funds into the best white schools, leaving behind all children except upper class whites. Repeal the NCLB today and put education back in the hands of people who know what they are doing.
Our educational system is being killed: it's almost dead. Deducation, I call it. Mind-numbing, teaching to invalid tests, memorization of facts that won't be facts tomorrow, stifling all ability to think critically, taking all teaching decisions out of the hands of teachers, funneling educational funds into the best white schools, leaving behind all children except upper class whites. Repeal the NCLB today and put education back in the hands of people who know what they are doing.
Mystery Maverick
Thursday, March 08, 2007 | Permalink