Priorities in Education

As a teacher who doesn't partake in these sermons and is generally opposed to them, I wonder if Hanson has much clue about what is going on in many of our nation's classrooms and outside of them. Service learning projects give students a chance to expose themselves to different community actions and customize those actions to their own growing set of individual  values.

One wonders if you and Hanson are opposed to sermons or simply opposed to students being exposed to different values at all, and allowed to make their own choices.

Would you at least agree that the lead is one of the best examples of terrible education in existence? If we talk to each for 15 minutes and see that we are some of  the smartest persons alive, does that mean that our schools are the best we have ever been? Surely before you thought to link this article you considered the hazards of anecdotal evidence?

Our kids today know more skills than ever in history. The skill selection might be poor, but that's something to consider as a society. How many of us could use a cell phone or text message or web browse or IM or email, or use a word processor or design web pages twenty years ago? I'm not being snarky, but have you considered the content and skills that the kids DO know and the comparative importance?

I also find it amazing that he would vilify schools for having multiple valedictorians in the same paragraph as he complains about low achievement. I have yet to meet a low achieving valedictorian. Or is he claiming that having two valedictorians somehow contributes to kids failing to graduate?

I do agree with this section:

The old approach to education saw things differently than we do. Education (“to lead out” or “to bring up”) was not defined as being “sensitive” to, or “correct” on, particular issues. It was instead the rational ability to make sense of the chaotic present through the abstract wisdom of the past.

Except that the "old approach" was more concerned with being "correct" on many issues, and he is right that in some cases misguided educators have replaced old dogma with new dogma. But as usual, Hanson's tone implies that he wants to replace the new dogma with old dogma.

To encourage our best minds to become teachers, we should also change the qualifications for becoming one. Students should be able to pursue careers in teaching either by getting a standard teaching credential or by substituting a master’s degree in an academic subject. That way we will eventually end up with more instructors with real academic knowledge rather than prepped with theories about how to teach.

This is great. I would have benefitted greatly from this, as I had already ample teaching experience overseas and didn't really want to take the time to finish a teaching certificate. But is he really foolish enough to suggest that the main element needed in a classroom is "real academic knowledge". I would submit that "real academic knowledge" is not in the top five of component required to make an accomplished teacher than leads children to strong academic performance.

But if you don't believe me, take your master's degree and start subbing at a low income school (like most of the public schools in the country).

And once hired, K-12 teachers should accept that tenure has outlived its usefulness. Near-guaranteed lifelong employment has become an archaic institution that shields educators from answerability. And tenure has not ensured ideological diversity and independence. Nearly the exact opposite — a herd mentality — presides within many school faculties. Periodic and renewable contracts — with requirements, goals and incentives — would far better ensure teacher credibility and accountability.

And this helps with "encourag(ing) our best minds to become teachers" how? Sure, I agree that greater accountability is necessary, but one of the few reasons why our best minds are encouraged to become teachers is the fact that one won't have to worry about losing one's job and unable to feed one's kids in an abrupt fashion and can instead focus on teaching someone else's.

I mean, sure, there are some teachers who see teaching as an easy way out. There are those of us too with multiple higher degrees and the opportunity to be lawyers or business leaders or doctors who think we better serve the society as a teacher. But would we still do it without the security? Probably not.

Why not attract people with more respect for the teaching profession rather than attacking it like folks seem to enjoy so much. Personally, I think it's insecurity at seeing someone else doing something meaning with their life.

Athletics, counseling and social activism may be desirable in schools. But they are not crucial. Our pay scales should reflect that reality. Our top classroom teachers should earn as much as — if not more than — administrators, bureaucrats, coaches, and advisers.

Ah, another salient point wrapped in an idiotic package. Sure, administrators and bureaucrats are overpaid. But has he ever been to a school to argue that counseling is "not crucial"? When kids are killing outside the school, is a good counseling team optional?

Liberal education of the type my farming grandfather got was the reason why the United States grew wealthy, free, and stable. But without it, the nation of his great-grandchildren will become poor, docile, and insecure.

Projection?

Finally, I would wonder if you would join Hanson in calling some of the historical events taught in school  "supposed wrongs".
Which are those? Slavery? Chinese Exclusion? The Trail of Tears?

I'm not saying that there aren't classrooms somewhere that are filled with anti-American sermons of biased portrayals of historical events. But this vague lashing out at any sort of teaching plays into the hands of historical revisionists.

Surely we should be invoking excerpts of Columbus' diary and letting students judge for themselves.

Anyway, my final question that I hope I can get a decent answer for is "Why are you happy to see this in print?"

There is much room for improvement in the school system. I just spent three days of my vacation working on developing curriculum to improve basic skills through choice community involvement (measuring lake samples, drawing community maps, etc.). Why should I applaud the NRO boys' "I just rolled out of bed and slapped together a poorly researched work" column?

If you want to see a lack of logical skills and writing ability, look no further. They are welcome to hire me as a free lance tutor anytime (I have plenty of upper class references as well :P). But they should lay off the by-lines until they receive that training.

When you see people graduating from our education system unable to read, write, or perform the most basic of math calculations,  (or who do so at very low levels), you have to wonder what is going on in the education system and what we can do to turn out more students who are at least minimally qualified to work in today's economy.

When I see someone peeing on the sidewalk while wearing a business suit, I don't assume that all businessmen are irresponsible community destructos.

I love the way that people are replicating Hanson's poor argumentative style in defending him. Perhaps he's not the only one who would benefit from a Dangerfield-eque return to an institution of learning.

When you see people graduating from our education system unable to read, write, or perform the most basic of math calculations, (or who do so at very low levels), you have to wonder what is going on in the education system and what we can do to turn out more students who are at least minimally qualified to work in today's economy.

Where do you see this?

Are you referencing the fact that public schools spend more per pupil than other countries and get worse results? Or that public schools spend more per pupil than private schools and get vastly worse results?? Or is that some hint at a request for teachers to be paid more? The $9200/student we spend here is a very hefty sum.

No, I'm referencing the fact that the money that actually goes towards education, and not bureaucratic nonsense, is inadequate.

Arguements, stats, blah blah. http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/09/13/national/main838207.shtml

So, other countries are improving their education faster than we are. We're still increasing the number of graduates, just not as quickly as other countries - that doesn't sound like much of a crisis to me.

Your ivory-tower babble is falling on deaf ears. The only people that want to argue this point (that our schools are in trouble) are the teachers who should be held accountable. Everyone else can see the issues clearly.
And my qualification to have this discussion: the fact that I pay your salary through my property tax. Yes, I get a seat at the table, too, like it or not.

I'm not a teacher at all. I'm glad to see that your golden-era education taught you sound logical reasoning, though.

I do find it telling that American educated students simply aren't able to compete for admission to our grad schools by and large.

I don't think it's that student's aren't able to compete so much as they aren't interested in competing in the sciences. There aren't a lot of jobs that require a science PhD and those that do (i.e. academic research) often pay worse than industry jobs requiring a BS.

That being said, the understanding of basic science by Americans is, on average, horrifyingly poor. I can't help but wonder if part of the reason is that pseudoscience flourishes in our society: creationism/intelligent design, homeopathy, astrology, etc. Or maybe it's the ignorance that is driving the pseudoscience. Chicken, meet egg.

Just to keep the fire going here: As I watched on the news the smug Mahomet teachers leave the school last night at the 11th hour before school starts, the announcer said :"the teachers received a 5% pay increase for the next three years after long negotiation."  Wow, is that a sweet deal or what? In my job, I get reviewed each year based on my performance... and MAYBE get 3-4%. I like my job. I'm good at it. But I doubt my boss is willing to give me guaranteed raises three years out.

Maybe you need to find a job that a better compensation package, because while I'm no longer teaching, I now have a job that I've seen an average 5-8% raise each year.  It looks like the free market approach to compensation has left you in much worse shape than me, but hey, I'm not complaining :)

I'd love to see any of you work regular, consistent 9-11 hour days (2-3 preparing and modifying lesson plans to reach the students, 5-6 hours teaching those students when a good chunk of them have no interest in what you're trying to teach, and another 2-3 hours doing reporting, parent contacts, grading, more reporting, faculty meetings, more grading, etc. ) for an average starting salary of $31,847/year (bachelors) or $35,511/year (masters) (go ahead and take the numbers into Excel and average them yourself if you don't believe me).  And this is in the Chicago Suburbs....imagine how much less a district like Mahomet, St. Joe, etc. pays....my friends who have made the jump from Champaign-Urbana schools to the surrounding small towns said it was between a $2000 to $6000 pay cut.  Not many people would be willing to take that kind of a cut just to stay in the field that they love.

And let's not forget that on top of all this work, teachers are REQUIRED to complete a certain number of hours of continuing education and professional development, mostly on their own and out of pocket, in order to keep their certificates and their jobs.  Tenure does give job security, but it's not 100% do-what-you-want and screw the consequences.  If a teacher fails contract-mandated remediation, exhibits gross negligence/disobedience, or even fails to keep up with professional development and their certification will find themselves on the unemployment line, regardless of tenure.

So yes, a raise like this (most of which will find its way either back into the classroom as supplies or into higher ed classrooms as continued education) is certainly appropriate and deserving.

And for teachers who are supposed to be in it for the kids, I fail to see how that fits with jeapordizing the start of school on time over a contract negotiation that could have been handled during the THREE MONTHS THEY HAVE OFF.

This is the kind of ignorance of how labor disputes get resolved that drives me nuts.  This contract had been in negotiation for almost a year, it's not like they waited until the last one expired in June to sort this out.   I also love how those who don't work in education are quick to get on teachers as not really working because they have the summers off. What they don't realize is that most teachers do work a 12-month year....they just do it in a 9-month school year.  Some would say that's far more efficient than most workers :)

I work in the non-profit sector, making roughly 70% of what I could in the private sector. Don't lecture on servitude... I fully understand making sacrifices for doing something you are passionate about.

I'm not lecturing on servitude, I'm pointing out that you have a less generous compensation package than I do, and apparently a less generous one than most non-profit sector jobs I've seen/had, too.  That must be a lot of passion :)

You forgot to cue the violin music. Please spare us the "oh, teachers work so hard and are so unappreciated" routine. Get in line - everyone is working hard these days and thinks they ought to be paid more.

Most do work hard, and most are underappreciated, and they deserve to be paid more just as much as anybody else who works hard and is underappreciated.  So what's wrong with them being able to make a better case for a raise to their bosses than you?

Is that some teacher joke? Like, how do you fit 2 gallons of water into a 1 gallon jug?? Most teachers I know either have a second job from June to August or they sit by the pool.

Since you're having a hard time with this concept, why don't you consider that most of June, all of July, and most of August that teachers have off while you're working to be comp-time for all those weekends and evenings that they spent grading, taking more classes, communicating with parents to help their child succeed, and/or filling out mountains of reporting paperwork while you were off doing a second job, chilling by the pool, going to movies, etc.

Anonymous 4:27 says: "Vouchers will hardly solve the problem for the rural white kids, who probably don't have ANY other options than their consolidated school districts. "

We're seeing a similar issue locally right now - PBL schools have failed at "No Child Left Behind," and so they're required to give the students the option of attending another school. But  hey, turns out Hoopeston doesn't want them going over there.

Cities too, have this problem, because usually the school district lines are set up to split the suburbs off from the center city. So, schools from the city might let their students move among the various schools, but heaven forbid anyone want to extend that to allow the city kids to go to the suburban schools - every time, the screaming is heard 4 states away. 

As long as we don't have a reasonable set of standards for what students should be learning, at least in basic subjects, and as long as we do not have a method of measuring student progress within those standards, we have no real way to tell how individual schools are performing.

The absence of standards and measurement, given the importance of the subject and the immense resources poured into education, is a scandal.  The resistance to setting standards and measuring student progress is even more scandalous.

We have way too many standards. I have no problem at all aligning my lesson plans with standards, but until they are better organized and put together by people who have a good conception of what the classroom environment is like, I don't think it'll make much sense to use the standards to create lesson plans. It'd be nice to see them work curriculum mapping into the mix too.

We are tested as well, and evaluate on those results. The testing scheme is ridiculous and fails to account for progress rather than knowledge. Sure, the "yearly progress" provision considers improvement, but schools still find themselves on a watch list pretty quickly if their scores are low to start out with.

The evaluation scheme is either disingenuous or was put together by someone with no understanding of what tests are for or what they evaluate.

Given that it was a Kennedy-Bush adminstration joint venture, I don't find that surprising.

Anyway, the point is, I don't disagree that the standards and testing is insufficient, but I fail to see how this is the fault of teachers. It's the fault of people who don't understand education, and can't be bothered to learn about it running the bureaucracy.

You see, this is my point--it's not that people who aren't teachers shouldn't talk about education. Quite the opposite--I agree that as a vital public service we should be directly answering to the general public.

But why do people fail to understand that this is a professional occupation. I sometimes question my doctor, but not with a bunch of fallacies I picked up on NRO.

Otherwise, you're just that crazy guy who thinks that because he "has a right to speak", he must destroy any constructive discussion with disjointed gibberish.

My "mamma" taught me that a person has to earn the privilege to keep their job through hard work. Not through entitlement. You obviously disagree.

My momma taught me that if you are ignorant of the work others do and then call then entitled for wanting to be treated with respect, it speaks poorly to your definition of respect.

I've also found people who soundbite actual problem solvers words and edit out the content (say the cross-cultural comparisons to the Japanese education system) are probably more interested in winning the argument than actually solving the problem.

Your concrete "solutions" I've seen in your posts are:

1. Cut tenure to one year. I said this would hurt retention and recruitment. You said that it would help prevent in-year teacher turn-over. That makes zero sense.

2. Don't give teachers any respect. I said that you need to understand teachers' situations and evaluate them fairly so that you are capable of giving them the respect that they in many cases deserve. I also think you can't understand the difference between respecting the necessity of a profession as a whole and holding individual members accountable.  This helps recruit quality teachers, HOW?

My point is that you'll whine and insult and disparage teachers without knowing what we are doing as individuals, and then won't lift a finger to do anything to improve the system. I'm open and happy to hear your ideas, but when it's clear you are not interested in growing your understanding of the educational system before making all sorts of ridiculous demands, then I question your motives.

In my book, you are the same as the legislators who are happy to attack teachers, but have no vision for a successful educational system. In the end, you hurt kids and you enjoy it. And then you go eat a sandwich and forget about it.

But hey, everyone deserves a second chance--why don't you take an hour and outline what you think it is that a high school teacher does. Please tailor your response to a school environment that is representative of the experience of the significant portion of students in the country. Some hints: You will look foolish if you don't have some plan for neighborhood violence, gang involvement, parental neglect, etc. Don't forget your actual subject and curricula as well as your plans for professional development.

It may take some time, but I'll tell you if you get the job ;) because since you are so happy to drive away the existing "bad" teachers, you must want to fill that gap right.

Remember, in order to drive off inadequate workers, you actually have to have someone stable and willing to fill the position. I haven't seen that in any of your "plans" to this point.

ILVoter,

Your lack of knowledge of this subject is astounding.  All teachers can be terminated, regardless of whether or not they have tenure. The only difference between firing a non-tenured and a tenured teacher is that you have to have a good ,well documented case for canning a tenured teacher, taking largely into account their effectiveness in the classroom, what change factors have modified that performance, and what can be done to remediate the situation (IE, making sure you have just cause).  This is opposed to the firing of a non-tenured teacher, which can pretty much be for any arbitrary reason the administration feels like (at-will employment, which does not require just cause).

Tenured is also not something that is automatically granted. If a teacher started out well, but started to slip after their first year and it doesn't appear that they'll improve and grow, tenure will be denied and that teacher is terminated.  It's not simply a case of teachers half-assing their way through the first four years, and then really go to crap as soon as that tenure contract is signed.  This is true in all districts in all places, at least in Illinois.  As I have no teaching experience outside of this state,  I won't speak with authority on areas I'm not personally familiar with.  Perhaps you should consider trying that approach as well.

- only 2 percent of teachers up for tenure in Chicago Public Schools last year were denied the job protection

It's funny because you've now provided two examples of school systems both of which do not fit your generalizations.

In CPS we have no job protection before the last year before tenure. In the first three years, we can be "clicked off" without cause. After the third year, the teacher may still be "clicked off" as long as the principal provides a reason. The reason why "only two percent" of those up for tenure are denied it is that there is ample opportunity to fire them---with or without cause--at any time.

It's interesting that the website you cited chose to exclude the numbers for the teachers dismissed in this manner from CPS, since it is actually the significant number. It's like saying that "Only two percent of people who were not attended to in the first 72 hours after a life-threatening injury survived" to indict a medical system, when the vast majority of patients were saved because they were treated in that window.

If you look it up, you'll find much different statistics--overwhelmingly high--that describe the percentage of prohabationary period teacher (which is the first 3+ years, much longer than you recommended) fired last year.

So I suppose now you will apologize and being advocating for MORE job security in line with your previously stated recommendations?

Oh, and I'm still waiting for your constructive plan to show all of us that you actually have a goal here except to attack educators who are good at their jobs and hurt children.

1. I'm still waiting for your plan. You managed to insult me again, but still no plan.

2. You aren't providing a credible standard of respect. You can't only respect teachers who agree with you. If someone is doing an amazing job at a tough assignment and happens to disagree with you on tenure, you are nasty to them. That's what I'm attacking. I would imagine that you are the only one who thinks that constitutes wanting "unquestioned respect and authority".

3. You are talking past everyone in the thread. You claim ultimate job security and won't do any of the research to confirm it. 775 teachers were cut in CPS last year. That constitutes 11% of the PAT population. With tenure, the process is much tougher because it seeks to protect a decorated teacher with a long career from a personality conflict with an administrator. You'd be lucky to find a single 30 year teacher who has never had a poor administrator. You seem to think that the vast majority of teachers are terrible, which is possible, but then give adminstrators a completely free pass.

Here's a link citing the Tribune article, which has been taken offline.

4. The statistics you cite are intentionally cooked (not by you, but by the anti-teacher group you cite). Depending on the exact area, 40-60% of new CPS teachers never make it to tenure. That speaks to a lack of support and possibly poor recruitment, right? Show me another professional job with multiple years of graduate level training that 40-60% of new hires are not retained after 4 years. That impacts children when retention is so low. Your tenured retention statistics are not interesting either. It really doesn't matter if poor teachers are "fired" specifically. If I am I bad teacher and walk away next week, that doesn't show up in the fired teacher statistics you are presenting. We are interested in who is in the classroom rather than who is specifically "fired".

That being said, you could argue that "it's the wrong teachers being retained". In other words, the best teachers move on to other things, while the worst teachers become upper-administrators and hang on indefinitely. I'd like to see some research to support that argument about the quality of retained teacher, but even so, that does not indict tenure, only the evaluative abilities of administrators.

Conclusion: Sound-biting arguments and attacking them is fun, but I'm still curious if you have any solutions that logically address the problems of the system. It's really hard to have a constructive discussion when it's unclear what your goals are.

I posted the above so parents and taxpayers could get a grip on where your money goes....these HUGE property tax increases keep on coming with no accountability and no refund for poor preformance. Let's have vouchers now, and let us spend..: OUR" money were we deem worthy!

To the person who was asking me where I see all of these poorly performing students, have you been to ______________(insert the store of your choice) and purchased one item that was offered for two for 99 cents?  have you had to tell the cashier how much one item was because they couldn't figure it out in their head and had no calculator next to the register?  Try sitting in court sometime and watch young defendants go through the system.  It's clear that they don't read well, among other things. I'm assuming they're products of the school system we've been talking about.  Oh, and for a really good laugh, try watching one of the late night shows where they take a survey on some general point of knowledge--the results are funny and pathetic at the same time.

I'll pose this question again - if literacy levels are so dismal in today's youth, why have exclusively text media (i.e., SMS, web browsing, email, blogs) gained so much popularity with that generation?

Is it also really a tragedy that a cashier at a store can't perform mental arithmetic consistently? We invented calculators, cash registers, and POS for a reason - why should employees be able to perform redundant functions? Basic calculators are so prevalent (every cell phone has the feature) that mental arithmetic isn't that important. Now, if the clerk had no way of solving the problem (e.g., didn't know to divide), there's a problem.

Face it..any criticism of the so called...EDUCATIONAL PROCESS is bombarded with these  comments from hyper sensitive chicken littles. We all know the system is bad, the results dismal, the property tax out of whack...and yet we keep passing kids who cannot read and write at even minimal grade school levels. Don't worry, the pensions are safe, and 5 years from now, we'll have the same arguments, the same mantra...MORE MONEY FOR EDUCATION! Vouchers now....IT's YOUR MONEY!

You are a thoroughly well-trained defender of the indefensible, but the weight of anecdotal and scholarly evidence against the public education monopoly is simply too large to be gainsaid.

If you've read a lot of my other posts (not in this thread), you'd see that I advocate a voucher program. I think it's a far better use of resources - even in this thread, I've mentioned the problems with so much money going to "bureaucratic nonsense" in the current system. I'd love a debate, but I think we have a similar solution - the creation of a voucher program, allowing for market efficiency and choice. It'd be a pretty boring debate. However, your false dilemmas are a little transparent - try rewording some of your more colorful language, and I'm sure you'll find more followers.

I'm merely acting out my name in this thread - people keep baselessly condemning the current level of education, and I'm policing those thoughts. Yes, the education system should be improved - but so many people sit around falsely blowing the problems out of proportion (e.g., "kids cannot read!"), diverting attention from real structural problems (e.g., "teacher's unions and tenure make teachers lazy!"), or just placing blame on individuals that aren't responsible for the problem (i.e., teachers).

So much of this nonsense stems from falsely remembered childhoods, statistics taken out of context, and attribution errors in anecdotes. Should we fix the current system? Of course - but let's not characterize it as some completely backward institution that un-educates the youth and only produces illiterate morons that can't solve 1+1.

Ha! Just goes to show the old IP adage is true: the less they know about something, the more willing they are to argue about it.

Oddly enough, I brought this exact observation up in this thread, talking about the Oakland AAVE debate. Again, the strongest opponents of the Oakland teaching initiative had no idea about education methods or the issue at hand.

Thought Police,

If you are a proponent of school choice, then let me be first to congratulate you and apologize for assuming otherwise (though your comments on this post could easily lead one to believe otherwise).  As for some of your other points, they are open for debate.  Teachers, to the extent they (through their 'unions') use their monopoly power to block choice, are to blame for the substandard education in America (again, compared to the price).  Further, some are lazy, and others are not qualified.  Further again, tenure for K-12 serves no societal purpose, but is (again) a wonderful demonstration of their ability to flex political muscle.

However I have characterized the current system (it DOES, in many cases, "uneducate" youth), the fact remains that the system is , IMO, "unreformable" in its current structure.

Anonymous,

My grasp of curricullum and instrucution theory is quite strong, even if I haven't gone through the indoctrination of "ed school" (Where Tomlinson holds tremendous clout and sway - assuming you are talking about Dr. Carol A. Tomlinson, a 20-year veteran of the classroom who’s now an associate professor at the University of Virginia’s Curry School of Education.)

Just as I might question the Tobacco Co PR person, or the Oil Industry Shill, I reserve the right to question Dr. Tomlinson's motives, agenda, and even her veracity (given my experience with so many in the education field - particularly Superintendents).  She appears to advocate "differentiated instruction."  She is also a proponent of "mixed ability classrooms," and other such "par for the course" ideas that pass for big thinking in our ed schools.

I lack the time to offer a critique of your "differentiated instruction," although it appears to be another one of those brilliant distractions that allows for hours of 'Masters Degrees" class time, as well as great "seminar fodder" for "teacher's institute day." (although I'm sure they are calling it something else now).

One of the reasons I always come back to "choice" is that I have no real problem with "differentiated" whatever, balanced illiteracy, concocted math, or whatever the latest fad pumped out of ed schools might be.

Just tie every dime of funding to the child, let the parents choose from a wide variety of methods, programs, and blends, and let the best methods be discovered.  This makes much more sense than creating 1000s of top-down, centrally managed "districts" and imposing (through massive political clout) the same curricullum on all of them (with the rich getting the choice of remedial products (tutoring, Hooked on Phonics, Kumon, etc.) and the poor getting the $10-12,000/yr/child shaft.

For those reading your snide post and my response, I offer the following.

Background on the so-called "non-existent dichotomy" of "traditional v. progressive" debate.

___

I know it's hard to find the time, Anon, but if I'm as clueless as you would like all the readers to believe, it should be pleasure to take me up on my offer and rip me to shreds in front of an audience.  The fact is you wouldn't, which is why you must resort to attacks and distractions like "differentiated instruction."

Fund Children, not wasteful bureaucracies.

Anon,

Your Rant is a perfect demonstration as to why "your side" is incapable of winning a sustained debate/argument over education.

Once again, you provide a shotgun blast of seemingly unsolvable problems that can (in your opinion) only be solved inside the "Rube Goldberg" bureaucracy you dogmatically defend.  Your attacks on "choice" are woefully weak, given that people are quite well-suited to solve their particular problems once empowered to do so.

Let's have some fun with some of your howlers...

_____

These are extremely complex legal and legislative entities that are controlled through a democratically elected school board.

Of course, I agree that they are "extremely complex."  I'm one of the few critics of the monopoly that sees that the complexity is intentional, wasteful, and completely unnecessary.  As for control, the school board has next to none.   Their ability to drive hard bargains with rapacious teacher's unions is curtailed by statute.  Boards are more often than not dictated to by Superintendents, who lobby aggressively (along with unions) to keep and expand a net of increasingly unnecessary mandates, many of which confict with each other.  This does absolutely no good for the student, but it does wonders for growing payroll, bureaucracy, and spending.

"Democratically elected" provides an interesting issue.  On paper, this is certainly true, but given that many board races are ignored by the electorate, it is easy to recruit and elect rubberstamps who "do what they are told" by a revolving cadre of Superintendents. (which incidentally, the board has no control to circumvent, as the school code - -bought and paid for by the unions, IASB & IASS - prevents any board from hiring anyone outside the monopoly.)

I meet regularly with reform minded School Board Members who have done the hard work of getting elected so that "they can have an impact."  I have also talked to numerous former board members who served (as reformers) in various districts.  They are ignored, stone-walled, ridiculed, and generally left to 4 years of 6-1 or 5-2 votes, where the monopoly shills rubberstamp the Admistration.  Most leave in frustration.

Local control in Illinois is mostly a myth, and nearly every one who has experience with the system pretty much knows it.

In all of your snide caterwauling, you never address the issue as to why we need this complexity or what purpose it serves.  You can't.  It serves only the wasteful and greedy bureaucracy.

___

You seem kind of unaware about things like inclusion, which dictates that certain kids have to be give accomodations in the classroom according to their medically diagnosed conditions. 

I'm quite aware of these wasteful mandates.  If a parent/child wants to be included, a free and open market will provide for such benefits.  "Mainstreaming" is a debate in and of itself.  The narrow interests of a few, combined with the drive to pad payroll, creates a situation where regular kids are left in a class where their learning is impacted by all manners of distractions.

This goes right to the heart of the "differentiated instruction" canard you posted earlier.  First, get rid of ability grouping (exposing the ideological bias of the monopoly).  Second, impose draconian behavioral standards (PC) on the "normal" child while creating incentives to classify as many as possible as "disabled." (nice political manuevering, BTW) Third,  get rid of any meaningful learning standards.  Fourth, put all the kids into one room and demand that the only way to manage the mess is to impose "differentiated instruction" - which is nothing more than a euphemism for capitulating to the "lowest common denominator" while demanding more funds for the continuing failure to educate the populace.

I didn't need 10 minutes to process Tomlinson's theories. (though your description of the Google search is quite accurate)  Once you've read about "Project Follow Through" and the superiority of direct instruction, the stuff coming out of 'ed schools' is pretty easy to address.

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If you were ever in front of a classroom of high school juniors who are reading at every level from post-graduate to third grade THEN Tomlinson might appeal to you.

First, I've already rejected the notion that we must have children from every level in the same room.  It is bad policy based upon what I consider bad ideology (forced equalization).  While there are good arguments to be made for integration of people and ideas, crushing education down to the lowest common denominator serves no useful purpose.  Implicit in your argument is the belief that children who can process and learn faster need to be held back. This goes not only against common sense, but the rights of the faster learner - whose education is sacrificed on the alter of your (or is it Tomlinson's?) ideology.

Second,  I have offered many like you the opportunity to take you up on your offer.  Find me the worst classroom of Juniors in the state and give me the Salary of the lowest full-time payrollee in that school.  I'll drop what I'm doing and even pay your stinking union dues out of it.  I'll impose upon myself standards that your union masters refuse to allow.  I'll hold back every dime of that salary unless I produce a well educated class at the end of that year. (metrics would have to be negotiated in advance)  I could provide more details, but why bother?

Everyone reading this knows that;

1. Your monopoly would never allow it (Stossel tried in vain to take the New York Union/Distri