It's just as knee-jerk reflexive for you to suggest that all people who disagree with you about this issue are just playing partisan politics.

For my own part, I believe that the "teacher problem" is greatly over-exaggerated. So a tiny percent of teachers that deserved to be fired can't be fired. Who gives a diddly ****? That's a small issue in the big picture.

again, tiny percent? There's a lot of evidence to suggest that's not true at all.

for the way you started off your post, your personal anecdotes sure failed to deliver

i spent many years in private and public schools, and my worst teachers by far were in both the private schools i attended.

Performing well academically and in sports can still get you free college monies, right?

Also, was the subtext of the ikes post on the locker renovations and school performance that any district with donors plunking down $400k for a locker room is probably a well-to-do district, which tend to perform well?

Manhattan Beach, pretty rich area, seems like the teachers are very good (I have two kids and have had them from elementary through high school). Average teacher salary is like $55k. It's like $67k in LAUSD.

Also, seems like there's more money in general for facilities in schools in poor areas. But, a lot more money for certain extra stuff here that the parents pay for. There are pretty strict rules on what the parents are allowed to pay for, facilities and teacher salaries are not allowed. Musical instruments, librarian, trips outside school - there a lot of money for that stuff.

Which is a symptom of a different bad thing.

Probably a better prompt than anything that's ever caused you to tell us all about your soccer playing

Grunching but this. Teacher unions are currently the worst things ever that will be knee jerk defended on here.

Mark Berndt. End of story.

Well jeez I guess I'm convinced.

Education reform could be a good issue for the GOP. The Dems seem to be wedded to the status quo which many believe does not work well.

Well, I'll grant the reasonableness of the theory, but I wouldn't anticipate a plan any more detailed than cutting funding and handing out bootstraps.

Kids, already vulnerable in the worst neighborhoods, getting screwed out of a year of education. Who gives a diddly ****? Nice. But hey I'm sure your suburban school had decent teachers.

Some public schools are great. KC and LA public schools are not. Both have terrible reputations. In general the larger the district the more BS.

http://billmoyers.com/2013/06/07/new...ting-it-wrong/

No offense but that's a lot of high-minded bull**** written by someone who obviously has never come within miles of a school in the hood.

I went to the Kansas City public schools "magent" junior high - Lincoln Academy. It was a war zone. I could fill this page with stories - and that was just 7th grade. No way I'd ever send my kid to that.

I personally know several families in my age group who have stayed in the very integrated midtown KC area because they have charter school options for their kids.

With my work I sometimes volunteer at a science and math charter school near LAX which has kids from 47 zip codes. Some kids travel 2 hours each way by bus. The principal told us when she calls parents to let them know kids have gotten in, they act like they won a $million lottery. It's those kids I care most about. At least give the kids who really want to learn a fighting chance - instead of spending 80% of their efforts all day just trying not to get their ass kicked - like I did in 7th grade, and I'm pretty big.

The benefits charter schools are giving to the neighborhood and to kids from all sides of the tracks who want to escape the chaos are very real. Just because republicans are for them doesn't make them evil.

Again though, they aren't the complete answer. But in my opinion they are a huge win.

Suzzer,

Why are schools in LA bad?

If it's because the teachers are bad, why are the teachers there worse than in, say, Manhattan Beach?

I think everyone is with you that bad teachers should not be immune from firing, but I don't think changing that alone would have a huge impact.

No other organization has a fire-rate like .7 teachers per year out of 30,000. I don't see how you think that wouldn't have a huge impact.

Remember when chef Jamie Diamond tried to improve the nutrition of what kids were being fed in LA Unified? They shut him out.

The normally liberal LA times has been railing against LA Unified for decades

You didn't answer the question. Do they not have teachers unions in Manhattan Beach? Does the MB union operate under a different legal environment?

The point is that there are a whole lot of differences between successful and unsuccessful school districts, but unionization isn't one of them.

Yet another strawman itt. I've never said that small, wealthy suburban districts have a problem with teachers' unions.

The MB teacher's union is like 500 times smaller than LA. They don't have the clout to be unfirable. I mean this is basic stuff, size means everything to unions.

Just compare the two websites: http://sbut.org/MBNews.htm VS. http://www.utla.net/ Who would you rather be up against in negotiations?

Here's the MB teacher's tentative contract: http://sbut.org/MBTentAgmt2014.pdf (6 pages)

Here's a recent LA contract: http://www.utla.net/system/files/Fin...1_contract.pdf (331 pages, a huge chunk of it on discipline and types of absences)

Yes, they operate under different legal agreements.

MB parents would never stand for the **** LA parents have to put up with, because they're upper middle class and they don't have the same FUBAR political situation.

And no I have never said that unions were the sole reason LA schools suck. In fact I've even explicitly said otherwise many times itt. I get that inner-city schools have huge challenges to navigating the chaos and educating kids. I was in them and saw it with my own eyes. Unfortunately I feel that unions are often one of those challenges.

Okay, fine. I don't know much about LA, so I'll take an example I do know. Fairfax County has an enrollment about 4x the size of DC, per wikipedia, and is one the best public school systems in the country. My junior year the teachers went on strike for several months (they did a 'work to the rule' thing where they all left promptly at the days end and offered no after school help or program sponsorship). Even during that period of unions not caring about the kids, I am certain I received a better education than every single student in the DC system.

You already know and it seems like you agree with my point, that education quality is overwhelmingly driven by other factors. And if you want to make teachers unions your thing, I guess that's fine. I know I have plenty of relatively trivial causes, and I'm sure that the bargaining process could be improved. But acting like firing more teachers and having greater leverage to pay the remainder less money is somehow going to meaningfully improve educational standards is absurd.

Yes there are other factors in relatively well-off suburban districts that trump the unfirability of teachers - mainly well-off white people simply aren't going to tolerate that stuff. They have the clout to do something about it. Those districts, because they're spread over many cities, may not have the conflict of interest where big-city unions help get a lot of local politicians elected.

That doesn't mean I hold the unions blameless for their excesses in the places they can get away with it.

Better performing schools don't pay teachers better. It's pretty much just an undeniable truth, that outside of a completely totalitarian state, rich kids, in public schools or no, are going to outperform poor kids.

What's the biggest factor imo? Far far and away it's parental expectations (which are influenced by other things of course). I do believe in taking extra measures to try to make up for this, but I don't think the schools/teachers can completely make up for bigger problems - certainly not overnight.

Suzzer you had a point about bad teachers in MB. I don't know how hard/easy it is to fire teachers in MB. Most likely it's hard. There's a union here too. There are some bad teachers of course, but if someone is bad enough to get on the wrong side of the PTA/Education Foundation heaven and earth would be moved. Mostly not necessary though I think, because good teachers like to work here, despite lower pay, because it's a nice place to work where most kids are expected to do well in school.

I'm not trying to say that the whole picture doesn't suck for kids in bad schools, just that I don't think firing teachers would really change much. It's hard to hire teachers in inner city schools. A lot of good teachers start there because it's easier to get a job, but leave when they can. A lot of openings would be hard to fill, and luring good experienced teachers would be really hard.

Microbet, I don't know about other places but I've heard from people with teaching certificates that it's very very hard to get into LA Unified or Orange County schools right now as a teacher. There are tons of tenured teachers hanging on well into their 70s. There are plenty of eager young teachers trying to get jobs right now.

Edit: It looks like maybe just recently things have turned around in LA. Hmmmm I wonder if that mass firing rjoe talked about helped?

http://articles.latimes.com/2014/jan...chers-20140105

Performance can't be considered in layoffs. Awesome.

I don't know stats on this or if there are stats on it, but look up emergency credentials. The three friends I had that became teachers all got emergency credentials to teach in the hood. One quit after 6 months and being threatened by a student with a knife. The other two found jobs in better areas after a while. One in Huntington Beach and the other in LAUSD, but University High by UCLA which is a pretty good school.

One of them lasted like 6 years at Locke High School (near Watts - graduation rate has been improving, but in 2007 it was 32%) and seemed to enjoy it, but I guess enough was enough at some point.

Yeah like I said I think those teachers are heroes. I just don't agree with the way unions protect the bad teachers. If it was that bad for your friend, as a teacher in that spot, imagine how bad it must be for the kids?

My first day in 7th grade I saw one kid hit another with a combination lock around his finger, sent blood splattering all over my locker. Welcome to Lincoln Academy!

We had a kid piss on the outside of our door and run off during drama class.

One time a puppy was loose in the building and kids were kicking it. My stoner teacher (who was still a great teacher) rescued the thing. I helped him take it to his house which absolutely reeked of weed.

When it was your birthday you didn't get swats, you got punches. And it was your birthday about a dozen times a year in the locker room. All it took was one kid to yell it was your birthday.

I got in 6 or 7 fights, and I never fight. I had a kid wanting to kill me to the point I begged my mom not to go to school - all because he wouldn't stop making fun of me for carrying a tuba on the bus and I finally stood up to him.

I quit playing tuba after that year. I wonder why? Well ok I sucked at tuba. But still - imagine how many kids stop pursuing something like that because they get bullied. And I'm not talking about mean names, I'm talking about getting beat up for being weird or different. Physical violence was the norm in that environment.

Kids would show up after missing a month of class with no discipline whatsoever. I guess teachers were glad they showed up at all and didn't want to scare them off again.

This is just some of the outlier stuff I remember. Every day your number one priority was not to get your ass kicked. Learning was secondary. Don't look at anyone funny or say anything that could be remotely taken the wrong way.

And that was just the junior high - and it was the freaking magnet school - the only one in the hood that had kids bussed in from other neighborhoods. I can't even imagine what the other schools were like. There weren't a lot of white kids at the magnet high school across the street, they were just too much of a target. Supposedly the white kids that were there got out 6th period every day so they could get a jump on getting home and not get their ass kicked after school. I have no doubt it was just as bad if not much worse for plenty of black kids.

Those kids need every impossible advantage they can get. Having a terrible teacher on top of all that chaos is just an unmitigated disaster.

Having said that, I was also in the Houston public schools the year before - which were very integrated, and still great. Not just my experience, they had a very good reputation at the time. So I know it can be done. But I would bet my life savings to $100 that at that time Houston had a way of dealing with/forcing out bad teachers better than 1 out of 40k teachers every year.