[Helmling]

It just goes to show you that people should (sometimes) stick to what they know.

So Jobs is taking another crack at teacher's unions and advocating privatizing education during an appearance about technology in the classroom.

Both points show how little Jobs understands the real problems in public education. Because of greater Title I funding for poor schools, most schools in low socioeconomic areas have better technology than some of the public schools that cater to upper-middle class neighborhoods, and yet, which performs better in the revered standardized test scores? Yep, the richer schools.

It goes to show you that socioeconomic inequity is the biggest factor in whether or not schools succeed, and privatizing will just augment that inequity. Vouchers and other anti-public school measures won't make American education anymore of a meritocracy--those driven and committed to succeed already have just as many opportunities as they would if we privatize education--all it will do is herd those we are trying most desperately to help achieve the American dream into holding tanks. Study after study shows that tracking--taking the kids who achieve and sheltering them in classes together, leaving the others with no positive peer examples--benefits the best students at the expense. A privatized education system based on market dynamics would make our schools as successful as businesses, and folks, most start-up businesses fail.

We should not surrender our struggle for egalitarian education by subscribing to this "the market cures all ills" philosophy which would in the end be used to justify society's disdain for the poor. Our schools are suffering, but they suffer under the weight of a deeply anti-intellectual culture that does not really value education, and this vitriol directed at teacher's unions is a prime example.

Conditions are so bad already for teachers and Jobs thinks taking away their job security is going to improve education? All that will do is convince more people not to even join a field that can't keep people as it is. 1/5th of new teachers leave the profession their first year. 1/2 by five.

Here's a better suggestion, Steve: use your influence and money to contribute positively to movements seeking to strengthen the public schools by developing professional learning communities, reducing class sizes, and teaching life skills for parents and children alike, instead of signing off on this right-wing anti-government agenda to destroy our public schools.

[Sage]

And I personally applaud Jobs – privatizing education would be one of the greatest steps in educational history.

But I’m a Libertarian, so what do I know?

[awcopus]

Originally Posted by Sage 

And I personally applaud Jobs – privatizing education would be one of the greatest steps in educational history.

But I’m a Libertarian, so what do I know?

I appreciated Jobs comments, but as someone who shares your perspective, I find it difficult to applaud Jobs without wincing. Jobs donates huge amounts of money to democrats who protect the stranglehold that teachers' unions have over our educational system.

Jobs' sentiments here clearly overlap with those of people who want to see free market competition in our education system. But Jobs, though a genius as a businessman, is no advocate of libertarian reforms.

[nonhuman]

Originally Posted by awcopus 

I appreciated Jobs comments, but as someone who shares your perspective, I find it difficult to applaud Jobs without wincing. Jobs donates huge amounts of money to democrats who protect the stranglehold that teachers' unions have over our educational system.

Jobs' sentiments here clearly overlap with those of people who want to see free market competition in our education system. But Jobs, though a genius as a businessman, is no advocate of libertarian reforms.

It's entirely possible that he supports the Democrats' policy on most things, but the Libertarians' on this. It's also entirely possible for us to support his position on education but not on other things.

I, for one, am a registered Libertarian, although education is one area where I'm not entirely sure if I agree with Libertarian philosophy (haven't yet made up my mind either way), and am quite comfortable with voting for a Democrat or a Republican if I think they're the best person for the job (also I don't get a whole lot of choice here in Massachusetts...).

[Big Mac]

Who would have thought Steve Jobs would be advocating an end to the bastion of socalism, K-12 education? I don't have much to add to what the other libertarians have said; all I'll say is I'm happy to see Jobs isn't a complete left-wing fanatic.

[macforray]

I agree with Mr. Job's opinion on this. As a parent with seven children in what is considered a very good school district, I still see the negative impact that teacher's unions and more specifically TENURE have on my children's education. There are many teachers that should be fired for a multitude of reasons, but because of the union's influence on contracts and TENURE, they can't.

Unions had a very important place in our history. They helped make this country strong. Now, I believe they are weakening it.

[Orion27]

Helmling, do you even read what you write because if you did you wouldn't agree with it?
>Both points show how little Jobs understands the real problems in public education. Because of greater Title I funding for poor schools, most schools in low socioeconomic areas have better technology than some of the public schools that cater to upper-middle class neighborhoods, and yet, which performs better in the revered standardized test scores? Yep, the richer schools<

So we continue to pour more money down a rat hole, while those contributing the most benefit the least.

>It goes to show you that socioeconomic inequity is the biggest factor in whether or not schools succeed,,,,<

Agreed. So, how much should we increase the minimum wage so we make things even? Oh and by the way, even that wouldn't help.

[Zeeb]

I don't think vouchers will help at all either. A voucher isn't going to change the fact of whether a particular student has a family that values education and supports them or whether he or she has a family that lets the kids stay up all night, drink beer, miss school and doesn't give a rats ass about their kids. Generally, people and particularly libertarians are always looking for these easy one-step magic bullets that are promoted as the solutions to much more complex issues. Once the magic bullet is fired, responsibility for the problem is transferred to the individual in the libertarian view and they can then continue to ignore a growing social problem while touting individual responsibility. That is, until the aforementioned ignored social problem comes into their nice neighborhood and mugs the libertarian.

[ebuddy]

As always, it's a multi-faceted issue which will undoubtedly require a host of means in addressing it. No one thing alone can solve the school problem.

*As an aside; I keep hearing about how sorely underpaid teachers are in one breath while insisting on support for the respective Unions. Why? They've obviously failed at making teaching any more desirable a career. It's time to try something new.

School vouchers and/or more money being thrown at the problem alone is obviously not enough as Zeeb mentioned and as always, people spend more time addressing symptoms rather than viruses. What is the primary problem? Parental involvement. Those communities with parents more actively engaged in their child's education will statistically have children more actively engaged in education. This is so in the rich neighborhoods just as the poor.

How to get parents more involved in their child's education? First of all, schools should assign the parent homework once a week starting with a questionnaire in getting to know them and their strengths. These parents should be called on regularly for their help in the classroom using their unique talents. Require more signatures and ask for more parental commentary on various assignments their children are given throughout the year. Teachers and/or schools should be more aggressive in sending newsletters, making phone calls, sending emails, and not only keeping parents abreast of various activities, but involve them in creating curriculum. Invitations to the classroom, on field trips, and in mentoring other students in the classroom should be commonplace. Parents should also be graded and gauged by their participation. Those parents who score below the "success threshold" will have children doomed to failure unless mentors, tutors, "big brothers", and aides are assigned to these children whose parents are not involved. Give me a school with the above and I will give you a school that is bursting at the seams with successful children.

There are too many "feel good/politically correct" policies going on in the Public school system that hamstring accountability not only for the child, but for the child's parent(s). I believe Jobs is dead on with this issue and it doesn't surprise me. In a world of "capitalist pigs", he's among the greater. Give it to the private sector and let parents fight for their children in getting them to the schools that will require this degree of success from both parent and child.

Where there is no competition, there is no growth.

[vmarks]

Originally Posted by helmling

It goes to show you that socioeconomic inequity is the biggest factor in whether or not schools succeed, and privatizing will just augment that inequity.

That's what the teacher unions and those who are invested in the Public School system never improving would have you believe.

Evidence shows otherwise:

Marva Collins - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Marva N. Collins, born in Birmingham, Alabama is an educator who in 1975 started Westside Preparatory School in Garfield Park, an impoverished neighborhood of Chicago, Illinois. She is famous for applying classical education successfully with impoverished students, many of whom had been labelled as 'learning-disabled' by public schools.

In 1975 she started Westside Preparatory, which became an educational and commercial success. In 1996 she began supervising three Chicago public schools that had been placed on probation. In 2004 she received a National Humanities Medal, among many awards for her teaching and efforts at school reform.

From her own site: Marva N. Collins - Biography

There are many ideas and issues to be shared with you about the education of children, American style. I have serious reservations about the true purpose of schools, and I will discuss them frankly as I have done during the trial period. It is imperative for you to understand my motives. I am passionately dedicated to quality in the classroom. I am not impressed by the myriad of fads that our children are subjected to daily, nor am I inclined to be patient with the excuses offered to explain why our little ones are not learning, as I know they can.

Many educators, certainly their school administrators at the highest levels, have a knack of talking around the real issues: “We’re making improvements.” Or, “Our teachers work very hard.” “The federal government has imposed standards on us through the ‘Leave No Child Left Behind’ legislation. It’s not fair,” they claim, “ because the government didn’t give us the funds we need to meet the mandated requirements.” Add to all of that, the list of endless circumventions that essentially blame the children: “That child is a discipline problem,” and, “That child is learning disabled,” or, “That child has an attention deficit disorder.” The roster would be incomplete without the relentless attack on the parents who, to hear education’s apologists tell it, don’t do this, or that, or the other. All of these “externalities” shift the focus from where it truly belongs: with educators who are trained in the methods of teaching but never learned how to inspire children and impart real knowledge, the kind of knowledge that develops thinking skills. On this last point, schools today teach to the test. At best, children are being turned into parrots that can regurgitate words without truly knowing what those words mean. Continuing, if a child doesn’t fit the arbitrary mold, it is the child or his parents who are at fault. Is it likely that some children simply cannot learn? Surely. But, that child is in such a small minority that he cannot account for the widespread failure to educate – educate meaningfully – the vast majority of children.

Let’s take a point-by-point closer look at the reasons reflected above. I begin by stating that it is a truism that children are born curious. Anyone who has ever been around a two-year old knows how wearisome it can be trying to keep up with the endless string of the one-word question, “Why?” I believe it is common sense to encourage that curiosity. On the other hand, our schools take in these babies in the first grade, and two years later, their curiosity has been shut down. In far too many instances, anger has replaced that innate inquisitiveness. I believe that, “We teach others how to treat us.” Children are subjected to prison-like strictness, and are ordered to, “Sit down! I told you to be quiet. I don’t want to hear you today.” Those are the mild entreaties. “Shut up,” is closer to what children hear, and in the most strident tones. Children are marched, prisoner-like, down hallways with their hands on their shoulders, or behind their backs, or with their fingers over their respective mouths. On several occasions, I have personally observed children proceeding down the aisle holding onto an uncoiled length of rope conveniently supplied by their kindergarten teacher. That, clearly, is basic training for the prison chain gang. It never occurred to these educators to teach the children how to conduct themselves like young ladies and gentlemen. The underlying assumption is that these children, certain children in particular, cannot learn. Ever since I opened my school in 1975, the so-called experts in the Chicago public school system had labeled many, if not most, of students I have enrolled “uneducable”. Yet, I have turned out academic scholars, who have entered some of the most prestigious colleges and universities and gone on to meaningful careers.

[Orion27]

Originally Posted by Zeeb 

I don't think vouchers will help at all either. A voucher isn't going to change the fact of whether a particular student has a family that values education and supports them or whether he or she has a family that lets the kids stay up all night, drink beer, miss school and doesn't give a rats ass about their kids. Generally, people and particularly libertarians are always looking for these easy one-step magic bullets that are promoted as the solutions to much more complex issues. Once the magic bullet is fired, responsibility for the problem is transferred to the individual in the libertarian view and they can then continue to ignore a growing social problem while touting individual responsibility. That is, until the aforementioned ignored social problem comes into their nice neighborhood and mugs the libertarian.

Vouchers would level the playing field. Public schools are failing. By giving parents choice, they would have a vested interest to protect and defend a school of choice. Schools would compete, e.g. admission standards ( grades, fields of expertise, ect.) religous affiliation or community standards. They would compete in the marketplace. While there are dedicated, gifted and compassionate teachers in the public system, there has been a total breakdown of discipline and minimum standards. Parents want the unmotivated and trouble makers culled from the schools. That is not going to happen in a public forum. By giving choice and upon gaining admission or working toward admission, parents will demand more from their children. That's the real world.

[Zeeb]

Originally Posted by Orion27 

Vouchers would level the playing field. Public schools are failing. By giving parents choice, they would have a vested interest to protect and defend a school of choice. Schools would compete, e.g. admission standards ( grades, fields of expertise, ect.) religous affiliation or community standards. They would compete in the marketplace. While there are dedicated, gifted and compassionate teachers in the public system, there has been a total breakdown of discipline and minimum standards. Parents want the unmotivated and trouble makers culled from the schools. That is not going to happen in a public forum. By giving choice and upon gaining admission or working toward admission, parents will demand more from their children. That's the real world.

First of all, not all public schools are failing. There are many very successful public schools in the system. The schools in trouble are the ones in poverty stricken areas where familial situations tend to be extremely unstable.

Here is my concern. Let's take the worst neighborhood in a given area and grant school vouchers to the children in that area. Well, the private companies I know want to maximize profit with a minimum of investment. Since the value of a school voucher is fixed, that means that such schools might reject students that would seem to require a lot more attention (and a lot more monetary investment) than a student who is already doing well and would require far less of an investment. Would these companies/schools then tend to avoid areas then that have poorly performing students? Also, how much "competition" is there really going to be? In a specific region, there is only room for a certain number of schools since students need a school close to them.

School vouchers will also not bring current private schools into competition for public school students. Once again, the value of these vouchers will be fixed and most private schools charge a whole lot more in tuition than would be covered by that voucher.

I do agree that current public schools need the ability to fire incompetent teachers and administrators. I don't favor the complete dismantling of the unions, but clearly no organization can function effectively if you can't get rid of people that aren't doing their jobs.

[Orion27]

Originally Posted by Zeeb 

First of all, not all public schools are failing. There are many very successful public schools in the system. The schools in trouble are the ones in poverty stricken areas where familial situations tend to be extremely unstable.

Here is my concern. Let's take the worst neighborhood in a given area and grant school vouchers to the children in that area. Well, the private companies I know want to maximize profit with a minimum of investment. Since the value of a school voucher is fixed, that means that such schools might reject students that would seem to require a lot more attention (and a lot more monetary investment) than a student who is already doing well and would require far less of an investment. Would these companies/schools then tend to avoid areas then that have poorly performing students? Also, how much "competition" is there really going to be? In a specific region, there is only room for a certain number of schools since students need a school close to them.

School vouchers will also not bring current private schools into competition for public school students. Once again, the value of these vouchers will be fixed and most private schools charge a whole lot more in tuition than would be covered by that voucher.

I do agree that current public schools need the ability to fire incompetent teachers and administrators. I don't favor the complete dismantling of the unions, but clearly no organization can function effectively if you can't get rid of people that aren't doing their jobs.

I'm not talking about unions and bad teachers. It the whole secular humanist approach to education which has failed miserably. Please forgive the post of David Brooks column
in the Times today:
"Sometimes a big idea fades so imperceptibly from public consciousness you don’t even notice until it has almost disappeared. Such is the fate of the belief in natural human goodness.

This belief, most often associated with Jean-Jacques Rousseau, begins with the notion that “everything is good as it leaves the hands of the Author of things; everything degenerates in the hands of man.” Human beings are virtuous and free in their natural state. It is only corrupt institutions that make them venal. They are happy in their simplicity, but social conventions make them unwell.

This belief had gigantic ramifications over the years. It led, first of all, to the belief that bourgeois social conventions are repressive and soul-destroying. It contributed to romantic revolts against tradition and etiquette. Whether it was 19th-century Parisian bohemians or 20th-century beatniks and hippies, Western culture has seen a string of antiestablishment rebellions led by people who wanted to shuck off convention and reawaken more natural modes of awareness.

It led people to hit the road, do drugs, form communes and explore free love in order to unleash their authentic selves.

In education, it led to progressive reforms, in which children were liberated to follow their natural instincts. Politically, it led to radical social engineering efforts, because if institutions were the source of sin, then all you had to do was reshape institutions in order to create a New Man.

Therapeutically, it led to an emphasis of feelings over reason, self-esteem over self-discipline. In the realm of foreign policy, it led to a sort of global doctrine of the noble savage — the belief that societies in the colonial world were fundamentally innocent, and once the chains of their oppression were lifted something wonderful would flower.

Over the past 30 years or so, however, this belief in natural goodness has been discarded. It began to lose favor because of the failure of just about every social program that was inspired by it, from the communes to progressive education on up. But the big blow came at the hands of science.

From the content of our genes, the nature of our neurons and the lessons of evolutionary biology, it has become clear that nature is filled with competition and conflicts of interest. Humanity did not come before status contests. Status contests came before humanity, and are embedded deep in human relations. People in hunter-gatherer societies were deadly warriors, not sexually liberated pacifists. As Steven Pinker has put it, Hobbes was more right than Rousseau.

Moreover, human beings are not as pliable as the social engineers imagined. Human beings operate according to preset epigenetic rules, which dispose people to act in certain ways. We strive for dominance and undermine radical egalitarian dreams. We’re tribal and divide the world into in-groups and out-groups.

This darker if more realistic view of human nature has led to a rediscovery of different moral codes and different political assumptions. Most people today share what Thomas Sowell calls the Constrained Vision, what Pinker calls the Tragic Vision and what E. O. Wilson calls Existential Conservatism. This is based on the idea that there is a universal human nature; that it has nasty, competitive elements; that we don’t understand much about it; and that the conventions and institutions that have evolved to keep us from slitting each other’s throats are valuable and are altered at great peril.

Today, parents don’t seek to liberate their children; they supervise, coach and instruct every element of their lives. Today, there really is no antinomian counterculture — even the artists and rock stars are bourgeois strivers. Today, communes and utopian schemes are out of favor. People are mostly skeptical of social engineering efforts and jaundiced about revolutionaries who promise to herald a new dawn. Iraq has revealed what human beings do without a strong order-imposing state.

This is a big pivot in intellectual history. The thinkers most associated with the Tragic Vision are Isaiah Berlin, Adam Smith, Edmund Burke, Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, Friedrich Hayek and Hobbes. Many of them are conservative.

And here’s another perversity of human nature. Many conservatives resist the theory of evolution even though it confirms many of conservatism’s deepest truths."

[OldManMac]

Public schools are failing because parents are failures, who don't really want to get involved in their childrens' education. I always find it amusing, well, actually, alarming, when people like to point fingers at every one but themselves. We, as parents, are responsible for seeing that our children are educated the way we want them to be. Unfortunately, our school systems have largely become babysitters for parents who really don't care what kind of education their children get. The question isn't even one of public vs. private schools; it's one of accountability, and simply shifting the focus from one to the other is just a temporary feel good band-aid, which we are good at using, while the wound never heals. We will never have a good educational system until people stop being apathetic about what's going on around them, and just pay lip service to the topic of the day. We barely go to vote in off-year elections, which can have dramatic effects on our lives, like school board elections, etc., but we sure know how to complain when something doesn't go the way we want. Other countries place much higher values on education, relative to ours, and it's why foreign students now comprise the vast majority of the Ph. D. and Masters degrees handed out in the United States of America! Unfortunately, our own failures, not the teachers or the principals, are some of the main reasons this country has seen its better days, and one of many reasons why we will no longer be the world's dominant economy by the middle of this century.

[vmarks]

Originally Posted by Zeeb 

First of all, not all public schools are failing. There are many very successful public schools in the system. The schools in trouble are the ones in poverty stricken areas where familial situations tend to be extremely unstable.

Not true. There are just as many failing public schools in middle-class areas. And then there are the schools that aren't failing, per se, but instead just fail to excel or become extraordinary.

Here is my concern. Let's take the worst neighborhood in a given area and grant school vouchers to the children in that area. Well, the private companies I know want to maximize profit with a minimum of investment. Since the value of a school voucher is fixed, that means that such schools might reject students that would seem to require a lot more attention (and a lot more monetary investment) than a student who is already doing well and would require far less of an investment. Would these companies/schools then tend to avoid areas then that have poorly performing students?

In Wisconsin where vouchers are in use, this fear you raise has proven to be unfounded.

You might also want to re-read what I posted before, about how Marva Collins has established private schools in impoverished areas, solely to teach those who the public school system considers unteachable.

Also, how much "competition" is there really going to be? In a specific region, there is only room for a certain number of schools since students need a school close to them.

Unless, in the process of competing, you happen to put another school out of business by providing a superior education.

School vouchers will also not bring current private schools into competition for public school students. Once again, the value of these vouchers will be fixed and most private schools charge a whole lot more in tuition than would be covered by that voucher.

That sounds like your opinion. In places where vouchers have been instituted, the pre-existing private schools have taken vouchers for tuition..

Originally Posted by KarlG 

Public schools are failing because parents are failures, who don't really want to get involved in their childrens' education. I always find it amusing, well, actually, alarming, when people like to point fingers at every one but themselves.

You know, you've got the part about pointing fingers right, but then you point them at the parents. Parents are an externality.

Quoting Marva Collins:

Many educators, certainly their school administrators at the highest levels, have a knack of talking around the real issues: “We’re making improvements.” Or, “Our teachers work very hard.” “The federal government has imposed standards on us through the ‘Leave No Child Left Behind’ legislation. It’s not fair,” they claim, “ because the government didn’t give us the funds we need to meet the mandated requirements.” Add to all of that, the list of endless circumventions that essentially blame the children: “That child is a discipline problem,” and, “That child is learning disabled,” or, “That child has an attention deficit disorder.” The roster would be incomplete without the relentless attack on the parents who, to hear education’s apologists tell it, don’t do this, or that, or the other.

You are public education's apologist, blaming the parents. Ms. Collins has been able to teach children with absent parents, uncaring parents, or any other word you wish to use to describe a parent who isn't invested in the education of his child. Not only that, but her students which public education gave up on have gone on to universities, to be extraordinary acheivers.

We, as parents, are responsible for seeing that our children are educated the way we want them to be. Unfortunately, our school systems have largely become babysitters for parents who really don't care what kind of education their children get.

Public schools have tried to be parents for some time. One example is the teaching of sex education, traditionally something best left to parents, as there is huge disagreement about how to teach it in accordance with a parent's morals. But the schools took it over, and have used it to spread basic facts accompanied by propaganda. This is one wedge in the door of schools taking over parental responsibility. Let me know when the public schools are ready to give up subsuming parental responsibility.

The question isn't even one of public vs. private schools; it's one of accountability, and simply shifting the focus from one to the other is just a temporary feel good band-aid, which we are good at using, while the wound never heals. We will never have a good educational system until people stop being apathetic about what's going on around them, and just pay lip service to the topic of the day. We barely go to vote in off-year elections, which can have dramatic effects on our lives, like school board elections, etc., but we sure know how to complain when something doesn't go the way we want.

Hi. I received 34% of the vote when I ran for School Board.

Other countries place much higher values on education, relative to ours, and it's why foreign students now comprise the vast majority of the Ph. D. and Masters degrees handed out in the United States of America! Unfortunately, our own failures, not the teachers or the principals, are some of the main reasons this country has seen its better days, and one of many reasons why we will no longer be the world's dominant economy by the middle of this century.

As a former teacher (two years teaching in Israel, three years teaching in the US) and observing my own lessons as well as the lessons and attitudes of teachers around me, the problem is not the parents. It lies with the teachers. Children can be inspired to learn. It is their natural inclination, and among apathetic students it is because too often the emphasis has been placed on teaching to the text, teaching to the test, or following the mandated curriculum so rigidly as to fail to engage. Learning is work, but it need not be drudgery.

[OldManMac]

Unfortunately, you apparently didn't get my message. Parents, at the end of the day, are responsible for seeing whether their children are being properly taught. It is the parents' responsibility to make sure the teachers are doing their job; if they're not, the community, comprised of concerned parents, need to replace the teachers. Everyone on this planet is accountable for what they do, and teachers are no different. They're not simply going to decide that they're doing a poor job and leave, are they? Everybody has to serve somebody, as a famous poet/singer once said.

You didn't say whether you won the election, and you also didn't say what the percentage of voters voted. School elections and off year elections are notorious for having low voter turnout, which once again illustrates the fact that people don't really care; as long as they get by, everything's cool. A great example of that is the recent death of Anna Nicole Smith; she's already received more news time since her death, than the Iraq war, on the major "news" channels. For some fascinating reading, you might want to check out Fame Junkies, by Jake Halpern. It will give you a great idea of where this country is heading, and why.

[vmarks]

Originally Posted by KarlG 

Unfortunately, you apparently didn't get my message. Parents, at the end of the day, are responsible for seeing whether their children are being properly taught. It is the parents' responsibility to make sure the teachers are doing their job; if they're not, the community, comprised of concerned parents, need to replace the teachers.

And unions stifle that ability to replace teachers. Parents don't replace teachers. Communities don't replace teachers. The school board or the administration beneath it does.

Steve Jobs is speaking about unions. I don't have a problem with that speech.

Everyone on this planet is accountable for what they do, and teachers are no different. They're not simply going to decide that they're doing a poor job and leave, are they? Everybody has to serve somebody, as a famous poet/singer once said.

You didn't say whether you won the election, and you also didn't say what the percentage of voters voted. School elections and off year elections are notorious for having low voter turnout, which once again illustrates the fact that people don't really care; as long as they get by, everything's cool.

It was 2003, an off year election season, consisting of city council and board of education.

For Member Board of Education District 6
(WITH 29 OF 29 PRECINCTS COUNTED)
CLARK. . . . . . . . . . . . 8,758
MARKS. . . . . . . . . . . . 4,269
WRITE-IN. . . . . . . . . . . 25

---- http://msweb03.co.wake.nc.us/bordele...al_summary.txt

Obviously, I did not win the election. But then, I'm uncertain why you asked if I did. I don't know under what conditions 32.7% of the vote could have won, mathematically speaking. It's simply not a majority of the vote. Even I know this, and I graduated from a public school!

A great example of that is the recent death of Anna Nicole Smith; she's already received more news time since her death, than the Iraq war, on the major "news" channels. For some fascinating reading, you might want to check out Fame Junkies, by Jake Halpern. It will give you a great idea of where this country is heading, and why.

That's fine and well, to point out a cultural trend of glorifying people who are famous as heroes and call it problematic. I don't know that it reflects on education other than the cases where people believe they don't need to study because they'll become dancers, musicians, or professional athletes. These students aren't lost causes. They need to have their curiousity engaged.

[Benton]

... and how did Steve Jobs represent Apple as a solution to the issues confronting education?
On Apple's time Steve Jobs should propose methods and procedures Apple is capable of bringing to the challenges faced by members of EDUCAUSE.
What ever his personal philosophies may be that influence how he prefers to spend his own money I wish he'd check them at the door.
Steve was invited to showcase Apple's vision for the education market. He was not invited to quarrel with or slander attendees.
On this day he was part of the problem, not part of Apple's solution. He needs to keep these Bad days to a minimum.

[besson3c]

I suspect Jobs is out-of-touch. Sure, being able to fire teachers in the right circumstances would be nice, but in many situations there is a shortage of qualified teachers. Why is this? Perhaps because the environment is not inspiring and positive enough for the landscape to be competitive?

There are a lot of variables to factor in here: pushing students ahead rather than making them take a grade over again, principals that don't want to get behind teachers in properly discipling students, apathetic parents, etc.

It's a complicated problem with no single source or solution, and this is what Jobs doesn't understand. His ideas only work if there is a steady stream of qualified teachers to match the demand.

[OldManMac]

Steve Jobs is out of touch; he's a someone who knows how to produce technologically innovative products, and for that he should be recognized (although not idolized as too many seem to do). He doesn't have a clue as to how to fix our schools.

http://www.wired.com/news/columns/0,...rss.technology

Steve Jobs makes a lot of sense when he's talking about music and copyright protection, but when the topic is schools, he seems to be on a different planet.
The teachers' unions, Jobs believes, are ruining America's schools because they prevent bad teachers from being fired.

"I believe that what is wrong with our schools in this nation is that they have become unionized in the worst possible way," Jobs told a school reform conference in Texas on Saturday. "This unionization and lifetime employment of K-12 teachers is off-the-charts crazy."

Jobs knows a lot about schools; he's been selling computers to them for more than 30 years. But don't you love it when a billionaire who sends his own kids to private school applies half-baked business platitudes to complex problems like schools? I'm surprised Jobs didn't suggest we outsource education to the same non-union Chinese factories that build his iPods.

As someone who sends his kids to a struggling San Francisco public school (where 60 percent of the students are eligible for free lunches), I know for a fact that Jobs' ideas about unions are absurd, he's-on-a-different-planet bullshit.

The solution, Jobs believes, is to treat schools like businesses: empower the principal to fire bad teachers like a CEO.

"What kind of person could you get to run a small business if you told them that when they came in they couldn't get rid of people that they thought weren't any good?" he said.

The issues are many and complex, and yes, there is a problem with firing incompetent or indifferent teachers, but it is not the number one reason schools are failing. It's not even in the top 10.

In California, the most pressing problems are schools that are the too big, too bureaucratic and chronically under funded. Teachers are criminally low paid and under trained. Education -- and school funding -- has become solely about test scores.

Hiring only insanely great employees and firing the bozos has been one of Jobs' longest held managerial principals.

"In everything I've done it really pays to go after the best people in the world," he said in a 1995 interview. "It's painful when you have some people who are not the best people in the world and you have to get rid of them ... but nonetheless it has to be done and it is never fun."

This may work for Jobs, who runs his autocratic business fiefdom like Mussolini, but it's patently simplistic to think that schools can be run like this, with performance measures and goals and metrics and other such nonsense. There are too many variables involved.

Jobs has also been a long-time advocate of a school voucher system, another ridiculous idea based on the misplaced faith that the mythical free market will fix schools by giving parents choice.

Jobs argues that vouchers will allow parents, the "customers," to decide where to send their kids to school, and the free market will sort it out. Competition will spur innovation, improve quality and drive bad schools (and bad teachers) out of business. The best schools will thrive.

It sounds great -- for the successful schools. But what about the failing ones?

Jobs thinks even the low end of the market will be hotly contested, like the market for inexpensive cars. Not everyone can drive a Mercedes, but there's lots of competition for cheap Toyotas, Kias and Saturns.

But Jobs is using the wrong analogy. It'd be more like the market for the low-end food dollar -- rich kids would have lots of choice, but for poor kids it'd be Burger King or McDonalds. For the system as a whole, vouchers are untenable.

A few years ago I visited a public elementary school in an extremely wealthy part of Palo Alto, California, not far from where Jobs lives. Not a computer in sight. Only one classroom had a few crappy old Macs.

I also visited a school in San Francisco's impoverished Bayview district. The school is opposite some housing projects. The kids practice gunfire drills, scrambling under their desks when shots erupt across the street.

Surprisingly, the school was full of the latest computer equipment. There were several iMacs in each class, real state-of-the-art stuff. The principal explained that none of the kids had access to computers outside schools, so she applied for every grant and corporate sponsorship she could find. She even loaned computers to the kids to take home, so their families would have access to the technology too.

The kids in Palo Alto, on the other hand, all had computers at home -- most of their parents worked in technology. The last thing they needed was more computers in school. They went to school to get away from computers.

The most pressing problems with schools lies outside the schools themselves: it's the socio-economic circumstances of the students they're trying to teach.

Last week Unicef released a report that was all but ignored in America, ranking the United States at the bottom of 21 industrialized countries in children's welfare, thanks to enormous economic inequality and the total absence of social safety nets.

This is the problem, not the unions.

[smacintush]

Originally Posted by besson3c 

It's a complicated problem with no single source or solution, and this is what Jobs doesn't understand. His ideas only work if there is a steady stream of qualified teachers to match the demand.

I agree. It is complicated.

De-unionization and privatization are good steps though. It doesn't have to be a panacea it just has to make things better.

[Folium]

Forgive my response, as I have never done this before. Being a mathematics teacher in the public school system for 33 years and hearing the various eloquent comments of many of you require some really careful responses. I have served as president of our local teachers association and have fought to bring better salaries and working conditions for our staff and to our students. Allow me to share some thoughts I have had on many of these topics for many years. Many of my "buttons" have been pushed in opinions shared, but the interest many have in "fixing failing schools" is commendable. It is time that we seriously address the issues of educating the people who will be the future leaders of our world.

Issue: Teachers Unions Protect Incompetent Teachers.

Mr. Jobs is wrong in blaming "teacher's unions" for the problems we face in education. Although some teachers may have their jobs protected by their local association, few teachers and few "teacher's unions" want to keep incompetent teachers working. I have witnessed the termination of educators for reasons that have little to do with their ability to educate students. I have also seen teachers terminated because they were not doing their job. They were terminated because the administrator in charge of them wanted them gone. It seems that, like the rest of the world, the reasons for their termination had more to do with the whims of an individual that the ability of the teacher to educate. Also, like the rest of the world, more often than not, the teacher should have been terminated. Teachers can be and are terminated if the school system wants to terminate them. The educational system is a complex system and blaming one facet will never adequately deal with the system as a whole.

Schools are failing

The statement that schools are failing is an interesting statement and one that is quite easy to "prove". It is, however, simply wrong. Schools have so many different groups with varying needs applying their "ruler" to determine the success of the school. A school is what a community wants it to be. On a daily basis, I as a teacher am told by a student's parent what grades he/she must obtain to earn a scholarship to get into a particular college. We, as the educators, must weigh what we know is right for the students against the pressures of the community and its wants and needs. In supplying what our community wants, are we doing our students need?

The question I find I am always asking is, "who is my boss?" Am I to be preparing students for their future job, for getting along in life, for satisfying standards of the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics, for the local university, for our state standards, for taking the SAT or ACT test, or for the many other groups or organizations telling me what I should be doing in the classroom? The answer is yes to all of them. The problem is that these "bosses" have needs that are sometimes incompatible. Skills needed today will not be required skills for the same job ten years from now. Interestingly enough, the very fact that there are so many needs to satisfy in education immediately give the "proof" needed to verify that schools are "failing". Perhaps a "classic education" is still the direction we can go that would best suit the needs of the students in the long hall.

In a need to keep this post from being many pages long let me conclude abruptly. Educators cannot change the society we live in. We work with the students we get. Instead of focusing on what schools are doing wrong, we need to decide what we want schools to do. In the opinion of many, as the needs of jobs will change dramatically at a faster and faster rate in the future, we should focus on more of a classical approach to education. I agree with this. The only real debate is technique. (Do I hear the need for another inservice?)

[Helmling]

Amen, brother.

Or sister?

[monkeybrain]

Just wanted to add my piece to this, from a Brit (in the UK Labour is moving to try and introduce semi-private schools in many cities).

Privatisation is a terrible step in my opinion. The education of children should not be linked with making a profit. Just imagine a school which is underperforming being simply closed to save money. Education always needs to put the children first, I don't believe privatisation would do that. It would soon become dominated by large school chains.

Blaming the public school system is not logical, it works in many countries.

[shinji]

Raising the barrier to entry (and salaries along with it) would be a start. Teachers don't make much at all, so you don't really attract the cream of the crop. I have a few friends who became teachers, and none of them were especially good students in high school or college. Sort of a "well this is a safe thing I can do with my degree" deal.

Tenure has to go either way as there is no need for anyone to have job security like that. Teachers who don't perform should be fired to make room for teachers who do, and there is far less incentive to do your job well when you can't easily get fired.

As far as socioeconomic inequity being the cause like Helmling said, yes of course that is the major issue, but that is not going to change any time soon. Better quality public education would at least be a start, and that won't happen if we don't raise standards for teaching jobs.

[Helmling]

To an extent, I agree. There are two kinds of people who go into education. There are those following a calling and there are those looking for a job. Those who are following a calling don't care about the money. The other group, though, are a slice of the job market you'd expect for the pay and conditions offered.