teacher2 wrote on May 01, 2008 06:39 AM: Teachers do not make the policies of the district. I have heard several other teachers say they have been told by principals or supervisors that they cannot fail students, or even give a grade of below C! My principal is not like that. One problem in this district is that principals are allowed to run amok with their own personal philosophies. A teacher who goes against a principal is considered insubordinate, and the joke that is absurdly called a
"union" cannot or will not help teachers in such a situation.
Additionally, parents can override the decisions of teachers. I've been told that is school board policy, but I don't know if that's true or not. I've also been told that failing elementary school children is virtually impossible unless parents agree to it. A lot of the problem here and in the rest of America is lawsuits.
The notion that teachers support unions because they want incompetents to be job safe is silly. That just makes our jobs harder. Most teachers here don't even belong to the ridiculous, sorry organization for teachers. The public misconception that teachers here have some power due to this org is WAY, WAY OFF BASE. Teachers are powerless here; they are vicitmized left and right.

William wrote on April 23, 2008 09:58 PM: Robert, you are so out there as to defy belief. Who is this communist/socialist person you are ranting about? The teachers? The Parents? The Russkies? You really sound like General Jack D. Ripper, the paranoid-schizophrenic from the movie Dr. Stranglove. Robert, it's 2008, not 1963. Right now, you are scarier than the Russians!

Robert wrote on April 10, 2008 04:20 PM: Let's also not forget how part of the communist/socialist attempt to take over our public institutions (ESPECIALLY the schools) in an effort to destroy our society is by teaching disrespect for family and church. Kids who swallow the poison mental seed and grow to become adults who believe the BS that perversions such as homosexuality, etc. are normal, or even good things and don't respect the family unit (both expressed goals in a 1963 KGB memo that recently came to light), tend not to be committed parents who care about raising a good, well-adjusted child. There is also a contribution from the schooling system, as J.T. Gatto exposed in his book "Underground History". When schools are mandated to hold in class children who don't want to be there, teaching them isn't difficult, it's impossible. Their mandated presence can only be disruptive to those who do want to learn, thereby contributing to the dumbing down of all. Education is far too important a thing to allow it to be professionalized. As we have seen, that gives an incentive to the practicioners to make what it actually quite easy APPEAR difficult. Even Socrates recognized this over 2000 years ago.

tim wrote on April 01, 2008 08:01 PM: isnt it funny that every year the schools get worse and every year the teachers blame everyone but themselves. its always someone elses fault.i guess thats why homeschoolers out perform gov.schooled kids every time.most parents want their kids pushed to do better at schools,but schools are to busy with social promotion and for kids to feel good about themselves even if they are not performing up to standards. sadly,for teachers there is always someone else to blame.

Mom & Dad have failed wrote on April 01, 2008 07:20 PM: Sadly, someone else is always to blame in today's society. If the kids aren't getting passing grades and graduating, blame the teachers! If kids have guns and do drugs, it is because the police and the schools don't do enough. If a teenager becomes pregnant, it is because they were taught abstinence. Or they were taught sex education. If a child is ill mannered, lacking in class, and uses foul language, blame their friends.

Wrong, wrong, wrong. The home is the most important place for learning the lessons of life. It doesn't take "a village". It takes parents. Correction, it takes parents who care and are active in raising their children to be intelligent and moral members of society. A person of quality does not happen by osmosis. It happens when parents are invested in the child they create and teach them those most important lessons.

A lack of personal responsibility in parenting has created a generation of many illiterate, immoral buffoons. These parents are probably the ones blaming someone else because they bought homes they couldn't afford. Blame the credit card company because they are in debt. Blame Cadillac because they had to have an Escalade. Yea, there is always someone else responsible.

The chase for the almighty dollar and the biggest and best of everything has left us with many children who from the cradle to adulthood have had parents with no time to teach and nurture. It is so much easier to point the finger of blame elsewhere. Time is required for personal reflection and responsiblity. If they have no time to be parents, they surely can't see that the blame is with their parenting abilities.

Huston wrote on April 01, 2008 03:38 PM: CAS, you missed the point. In the analogy, the dentist is NOT "ineffective." His clients sabotage his work with their life outside of his office, and their parents subvert him by allowing an unhealthy lifestyle. Ditto for this valley's population, sadly.

Your cartoonish caricature of teachers as jack-booted thugs was cute, though. "First we extort them while we waste their children's potential, then we conquer the world! Mwah-ha-ha-ha!"

Huston wrote on April 01, 2008 03:34 PM: Jon, I'm sorry if I offended you--I certainly didn't mean to. On the contrary, I respect and enjoy your comments. Rather than indulge in the insults that often fill this site, I look forward to the "polite company" that you offer. So there was no personal slur intended in my remark, but I maintain that your philosophy, as it appears in these posts, is counterproductive.

Read them again; you make parents sound like helpless stooges who can't possibly know their own children's status or abilities until someone from the school draws them a picture (somewhere, Hillary Clinton is smiling).

If someone wants to blame teachers for parental inaction, fine, but back it up with more than just conjecture. Actually, the point from my letter applies here, too: if school's were doing a shameless job of communicating with parents about children's academic needs, then the parents, if THEY had any initiative, would still be able to raise their own children so that more than 10% passed that Algebra test.

If they had any initiative.

Please don't read a tone into my comments that I don't intend to be there, but in the marketplace of ideas, we're expected to point out the shortcomings of others' arguments. As a teacher, I'd be betraying the trust you mention if I didn't.

CAS127 wrote on April 01, 2008 03:06 PM: "why do we assume teachers aren't doing their jobs"

My dentist doesn't use the coercive power of the state (and the bought votes represented by his "union") to *force* me to pay for his ineffective, overpriced services.

Only teachers (and other creatures of the government) do.

Jon H. wrote on April 01, 2008 02:34 PM: Huston wrote:

“"How else are they to understand that their children need" help? I have no idea how to dignify a quetsion where such a lack of vision about involved parenting is evident.”

Honestly Huston, what possessed you to say something like that?

What does it accomplish with regards to furthering this discussion?

I certainly hope you don’t treat your students or the parents of students like that.

I do understand that the anonymity of blogs can cause some people to say things they would never say in polite company.

I do hope that is the case, here. After all, you are a teacher . . . a person we have put our trust in to educate our children!

Huston wrote on April 01, 2008 01:55 PM: Wendy, illegals are undeniably having a negative impact on our society, but even the millions of illegals in our nation today are only a statistical blip, a small fraction of the massive fail rates coming to light now. The fat bulge in the middle of the America's academic bell curve is now the ignorant slacker you see on every campus in town, not just the urban ones. Yes, it's Juan and Maria, but it's mostly Johnny and Sally.

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