As a teacher myself (in a private school) I couldn't agree more with your conclusion, even having not seen the films. Unions do lots of good, in lots of arenas. But I believe deeply that when it comes to kids, and schools, the needs of the students trumps all. If as a teacher you can't buy into that you don't belong in the classroom.

My experience is that it's the overwhelming culture of anti-intellectualism in the United States that influences both the students and the teachers. Teachers are worn out by year after year of apathetic students and budgets so small they sometimes end up using their own salaries to buy classroom supplies. Students are under-stimulated and lose interest bland lessons; this willful ignorance is reinforced by their peers.

The past few years I've been surprised multiple times about how little knowledge and how few skills are needed to graduate from high school and get into college. Peer reviewing papers in junior-level (college!) English literature classes can be depressing. Some of my professors have started including the phrase "this essay must be an analysis not a summary" on their assignment forms, and some forbid grammatical corrections in peer reviews in the hope of discovering those with weaker skills.

Reworking tenure and teachers' unions can't be the only solution to this problem. But I wonder what else could be done -- aside from changing the entire national culture. It makes me wonder what I should do with my future, too, since I've been fortunate enough to receive a good education.

hi roger,

i am an educational researcher who has devoted the last 15 years to the improvement of mathematical performance in low-performing urban schools. i agree that the importance of teaching cannot be overemphasized. but there are structural challenges involved -- beyond the unions and merit based pay -- that keep good teaching from happening. just to illustrate, most high school teachers see 130-180 students a day. if they spend just one minute reviewing their work after school, that approaches 3 hours of teachers' time. that does not include any kind of lesson planning, any consultation with colleagues about difficult cases, any following up at home with phone calls or emails to pre-empt a kid in trouble, etc. even in this scenario, it should be troublesome to imagine students doing work that receives just a minute of a teachers' attention. our schools are *designed* on a factory model, and we have deprofessionalized educators to not give them adequate time, structures, or resources to do their jobs well. nobody becomes a teacher to fail students or to contribute to structural racism. people become teachers for the opposite reason and the institution of schooling fails to make places where best practices can be supported.

What worries me most about the state of our education system is the amount of time it will take us to fix what has gone horribly wrong. I think it will take a revolution of sorts. In fact, the timeframe I'm imagining frightens me.

Thank you for not just raising the awareness of these two films, but providing important context by contrasting them.

My daughter just decided to change her major from business to education - fully understanding that she is perhaps making the greatest economic decision of her life. I hope she will be inspired by these films to do her small part in changing the world.

One additional note - the link to the Bill Gates story on the ABC News page is broken (some HTML markup got included in the link) - the correct link is: http://abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/wireStory?id=9644610

I would like someone to publicly examine the role of parents in regards to U.S. education. After teaching in wealthy districts for six years, I became so frustrated with parents who seemed to do everything possible to sabatoge what teachers were doing in the classroom. After working myself to the level of burnout and after dealing with many amazing students (and some wonderful parents, too, I might add), I had to leave teaching. I could only do so much to compete with what was happening in students' personal lives: students pulled out of school for weeks to go on trips, students allowed to sleep in/miss classes to rest up for sports or family activities, little to no reinforcement/encouragement/supervision at home, etc. I agree that there are problems with our educational system...but, it seems like few people want to address what happens outside of the classroom. Many teachers only have students for a short time each day--there's more to this story!

"Waiting for Superman" sounds great. I'm 36 and went to public schools in Massachusetts. They were not as bad then as they are now. But when I did get to college, I was so far behind people who had gone to private schools. I had no idea what I was doing. I felt like I was hanging on by my fingernails the whole time. Even if you get to a good university you just don't have the skills to get the education you're paying for. You don't know what to do with it.

I'm so glad that people have finally realized that it's not children who don't want to learn. It's teachers that can't or WON'T teach. Unions have caused many of the problems in the US. I know I'm not supposed to say that but it's true. People who can't get fired, don't do their jobs. That's just how it is. And when it comes time to make cuts a good worker who's not in the union gets fired. It should have been a great thing to protect workers but it's become a nightmare. Can't wait to see "Waiting for Superman" now but since I live in the boonies it'll probably take a while.

I look forward to seeing both these films but I have one issue with bar we are using to measure success of education. The reason for this is that I am not sure test scores are entirely accurate at the high school level to ensure education. My reasoning is that at such a level the goal should be drifting away from obsessed memorization and rather be pushed towards independent thought so that these students can get facts when they so please. A former professor of mine was quite fond of saying "It is not like I have you education in my desk drawer. I can only give you an environment where you can find it."

I only say this because in the countries that I am familiar - being Greece, Canada, and the United Kingdom to a degree - I am seeing a lack of independent thought among the people only a bit younger than me despite some of them having a great deal a statical information a their disposal.

Still rewarding teachers that have students with higher test scores would be better than nothing.

Actually, It Might Get Loud was the last doc by Davis Guggenheim. Go education!!

I'm a tenured academic (who realized what he wanted to do with his life while taking intro class in a classroom in Gregory Hall at U of I). I agree that there is no reason for a strong tenure system for K-12 teachers. But I'm somewhat cautious about advocating its elimination for two reasons. First, it's not clear how one might go about evaluating teaching such that one make proper decisions vis-a-vis firing incompetent teachers. If there is one thing we've learned from NCLB, it's that test scores don't answer the question, "Is our children learning?" Second, teacher pay in the places where it is hardest to teach is so low that there is little incentive to teach in those places. Teacher pay would have to go up in these places to compensate for a loss of job security.

If teacher pay went up in our worst-performing schools and we were able to better ascertain when good teaching is occurring such that teachers wouldn't be fired capriciously, I'd be all for getting rid of tenure.

I'd also like to see all teachers in grades 6-12 be required to have Master's degrees obtained in a brick-and-mortar setting in the subjects they teach.

I taught public-school English for three years and to an extent agree with you -- there are plenty of teachers out there who do little more than give their students a book and tell them to read silently for an hour, never testing them or in any way evaluating the progress they've made.

But there are other, eager and earnest educators who find themselves babysitting children whose parents have taught them to despise authority, that their feelings are their guide, and that the brain is simply not something to be developed. How can I instruct kids who have no desire to be instructed? How can I exercise authority over kids who believe any authority beyond themselves is bad?

In my experience it came down to relationships. If I could form a relationship with a student I could teach him. But forming a relationship with 150 students a year is not Herculean; it is impossible.

If I could offer an answer it would be to treat the secondary grades as we do the primary ones : with single-teacher classrooms, where one educator teaches the basic subjects. Any educator worth his salt should be able to instruct in basic math, science, history, and language. For the most advanced students, we could have specialty classes (as we do in elementary school; I was in an accelerated math program in elementary school, leaving my home classroom for an hour a day).

That way we'd have the same numbers -- teachers and students would be accounted for, but not moved around as they are now. When I taught eighth grade we had a homeroom, and I noticed that some of the students in my homeroom who were "problems" in other classes tended to do very well in my English class; the same held true for some of my problem kids, who did very well in the content classes taught by their homeroom teacher. I think this was due to the relationship; seeing those 15 kids for a half hour every morning, during largely unstructured time, allowed relationships to form that carried over into the classroom.

Having single-teacher classrooms would also immediately identify the bad teachers. If I teach an hour of English to every eighth grader in the school, and the eighth grade does poorly on state tests--well, maybe it was a bad crop of kids. Or maybe the other teachers were so bad that they undid everything. Or some other excuse. But if there are five eighth grade classes, and my kids do poorly while the others improve, then we know in a single year I am a bad teacher.

I apologize for the length, but this is an issue about which I (obviously) feel strongly. I don't think I'd want to be in the classroom again; not the way schools are now, anyway. But I'd love to see some serious, not merely cosmetic, changes take place.

Thanks for the entry! Always a pleasure to read your work.

@Kabe: Peer review can be useful when you don't have large disparities in ability within the peer group (that is, when they're genuinely instances of "peer review"). They should not be the primary means of assessment, though. Or so says this professor.

@Antoinette Unions have done a great deal to push up wages across-the-board in this country and abroad. There are problems with them, but there are problems in non-union settings, too.

I had a similar experience to you when I got to U of I. The kids who had gone to the rich suburban schools had a *much* better educational background than I had. I really had to scramble to keep up, and I was pretty resentful at the time.

I created a digg for this at:
http://digg.com/educational/Your_Teacher_Probably_Sucks

Well, the title is a little inflammatory, but I would like the problem with the teacher's union to be brought up into the public eye more.

If you support Roger Ebert, please digg!

My wife is a math instructor at a college, and she is constantly butting heads with the education department (you know, the ones deciding who become the future elementary and high school teachers!) My wife teaches a class on teaching elementary school math. But many of her students (college juniors and seniors) show up not even being able to *solve* elementary school math problems, let alone understand the concepts deeply enough to teach them. She has to fail half the class sometimes. But the education department is trying to force her to pass these students anyway. Apparently, the department feels that as long as they show up to the class and turn in homework, they should be allowed to become teachers, regardless of their ability.
And then they can join the teacher's union and not get fired after that?!!! WTF!

I'm 36, the child of two high-school teachers (english and foreign languages), and a college graduate Summa Cum Laude from a respectable college in the California system, and I couldn't me more saddened by this revelation. I'm a staunch liberal, a vocal supporter of Unions, and have defended their excesses by pointing to the encroaching power of the Corporate entity... and this movie, I'm afraid, will only convince those pro-corporate folks moreso that Unions should be banned / abandoned 'for the good of the country,' giving them ammunition in discussions with folks like me. And it's sad, too, because it's all true; the Teacher's Unions are too powerful. Power corrupts, etc.

The reason for them not budging on the tenure system, I think, has a lot to do with what others have been mentioning here in the thread: The life OUTSIDE of school is encroaching on life inside.

Granted, Teachers have to take that into mind; if a child is not getting homework done because they are taking care of their family while the parents are away, other methods of instruction need to be considered. But what I'm talking about are the parents who dump their kids off to be babysat, and then scream and complain if the kid is told to sit down and be quiet in class. The lack of parental understanding that their child does not rule the universe (and thus the instructor) becomes a much bigger factor in their thinking if teachers don't have some kind of protection from unreasonable parents.

This is all just a massive overreaction to the 'Cult of Me - and My Child' that has swept our nation in the past generation. It needs to be fixed, but there still need to be some kind of safeguards that ensure good teachers will be kept despite vocal - and narcissistic - parents.

The interplay of these issues is amazing, and even in the few comments so far on this blog post, I see them all conflicting. There seems to be a standoff between people blaming teachers and people excusing them... people isolating the problem at the level of teacher competency, and people dismissing that assessment because they see broader structural problems as being the decisive factor.

In point of fact, we have to fight these problems at every level. There may be a culture of anti-intellectualism in America; there may be a lack of parent involvement. However, these problems feed off one another, and you have to make progress where you can.

The widespread antagonism toward standardized tests is seriously misplaced; dozens of studies have correlated low standardized scores with low long-term success in educational and employment. The correlation is right there: our standardized test scores are low, and our global educational performance and math/science accomplishments are dismal. Looking for a "better way of measuring success" is idealistic and broad-minded, but it's a dead end as far as concrete progress goes. The suggestion that teachers don't have enough resources is untrue; the United States spends an enormous amount of money per child. There may not be enough teachers, but this is because the teaching profession simply isn't respected or rewarded. The only way to change this fact is by opening the profession up to competition and higher pay.

If you don't think the unions are a problem, consider their actual behavior. When Michelle Rhee made her proposition, she wasn't intending to force teachers into a high-competition environment. She actually wanted to offer them the choice: they could lose their job security and earn much higher pay, but only if they wanted to. The union shot down this proposal, denying the teachers the right to make this decision for themselves. This union wasn't acting in the interests of its teachers OR its students... it was simply protecting its own political power.

In short, please listen to Ebert. He's absolutely right. I hope these documentaries manage to draw some attention to this crucial issue.

(Roger: I saw my comment posted with your response, then it disappeared before I had a chance to reply. I had a draft of it saved on my computer and am reposting that.)

I grew up in the then-socialist Poland in the 1970s and 80s. I had one really excellent teacher in school, some good ones, most were mediocre, some were truly bad. We often resented the teachers, called them names behind their back, you name it. The point is, it never really occurred to anybody that the quality of teaching would be a valid reason for our lack of education. If your teacher couldn't teach, you would read the textbook, look up other sources, or take private lessons. My mathematics teacher in high school was generally doing a decent job, but did not believe that I, as a woman, would have a career in mathematics. (I am now a full professor in mathematics at a large research university.)

When I went to university, the quality of teaching was again highly variable. There were no student evaluations and teaching was not a part of review for promotion as far as I knew. It was not uncommon for professors to come to class late and unprepared. That, again, was not an excuse for us. If we didn't learn something or other from the lecture, it was our responsibility to look it up in a textbook, get some scratch paper, and apply ass to chair for as long as it took, because the stuff would be on the final exam anyway and the grades did not have to be scaled so that almost everyone would pass. Also, if you were male and flunked out of the program, the compulsory 2-year military service was waiting for you.

Obviously I'm not proposing that as a model for education reform, nor would I suggest that American kids should live in mud huts and walk 12 miles to school every day, uphill both ways. But there is a difference between, on one hand, someone for whom getting an education is the only way out of a mud hut, and on the other hand the passive students who expect the teacher to "inspire their interest" in the subject even as they spend the entire class texting their friends. (Although I have had some mud hut students here in America, too. I hope that they have done well.)

I guess what I'm trying to say is that, while America could certainly have better teachers, it is only one part of the picture. The other part is how easily American students can abdicate their responsibility for their own education. Is it really true here that having a bad teacher, or going to the wrong school, can keep you from learning stuff and going to college if you want it and make the same effort that we made? This is a real question, not a rhetorical one. I didn't go to school in America and don't know enough about how it works.

Dear Mr. Ebert,

I am studying to be a high school English teacher and have taught for various test-prep companies for the last 5-6 years. Your comments (and this documentary, which I will see ASAP) could not have come at a more resonating time for me. I am learning about pedagogy and how to create lesson plans, but there is precious little in my current education that focuses on classroom management and motivating teenagers in my classes; they all seem to be focused on younger kids, and while smaller children do need to be motivated, it is a whole different ball game once kids hit puberty.

In addition, while a massive standardized test might - and I stress the word MIGHT - work for assessing a student's progress in math and possibly chemistry, it cannot possibly work to assess a student's understanding of literature and its complicated relationship with humankind, or art, or history, or even science. Forcing teachers to teach a test is despicable. I posit that a partial reason for such widespread standardized testing is the effect that tenure (and more broadly, unions) has on shuffling out the ineffective teachers. Because we can't police the teachers and ensure quality dedication in our classrooms we have turned to standardized testing. It's appalling.

And into this professional ring I throw my hat. But I will give you a quote that my favorite teacher of teachers said last term: no one goes into this profession thinking, "I really hate children and learning and original thought. I think I'll be a teacher!" There is a disconnect in our education system that turns eager, excited people into automatons and worse. We need to find it and weed it out.

I can't begin to lament how many injustices I've faced in our educational system, so I'll stick to one simple story: My logic teacher in college had an affinity for German military stories and always incorporated them into his logic proofs. When an exchange student presented him with a translated German poem, they engaged in a seemingly one-on-one conversation in the middle of class. American students raised their hands and asked to join the discussion.

"You want to talk about this?" Was his response. "You can't possibly understand this."

With that he continued talking to the exchange student, and I promptly dropped the course.

Thanks for that support, professor.

I've personally experienced the Chinese, Canadian, Japanese and Irish educational systems. My most extensive experience is in the Chinese and Canadian ones, and between them I see a stark contrast in the expectations of students.

In China, education is rigorous from an early age. I remember being in class at 8am and coming home at 6pm, and then doing homework after dinner, and going to bed right after. The next morning the cycle starts all over again. There was hardly time for entertainment or TV. Time to play with your friends are earned by finishing your homework faster. Each homework assignment is graded the next day and given back to you. There are weekly quizs and monthly tests, and exams at end of every semester. This started in grade 1 and continued all through elementary school, and the amount of homework and the rigor of testing only got more expansive and serious with each passing level, building up to the entrance exam to high school which starts at grade 7. This is a HUGE deal. It is seen as the definition of your academic and career future. Getting into a good high school means better chance to get into a good university, and a good post-grad program, or job, etc. The test weekend is known as the "black weekend," and kids prepare day and night for the entire grade 6 year for it. By the time they get into high school, those that made it hold a vast amount of knowledge for 12 year olds - I'm talking advanced biochemistry and math and stats and literature, and the cycle starts again for university entrance exams. And so on.

In Canada, my experience from grade 6 - 8 consisted of annual repetitions of fractions. That's all I can remember. I went to a public elementary school, but a good one, with decent teachers who tried to teach. But the curriculum was just...for lack of a better word, slacking. Geography and history proceeded at a miniature rate. Math and science were repeated annually. I remember counting how many times I had learned fractions in those 3 years - 6 times, once each semester. A refresher of the previous semester's material is repeated for the first half of the current semester, and if the student slacked behind, well, there is always next year. It just boggled my mind how little was expected of the students. I remember asking my teacher why we were being retaught and he replied "so that you don't forget". Funny, I didn't realize I was expected to forget part of what I learned. By the time I got to high school I've learned to push myself for extra materials. The repetition got less as the levels got higher, but there was never that sense of academic rigor and urgency that I experience in elementary school in China. A "B" grade is considered great news, where as in China kids would be crying over it. The idea of "coasting" was introduced to me for the first time, and frankly, most teachers are just happy that you aren't failing.

I think the Canadian system is in many ways, representative of the North American educational system mentality - they expect little, and they get little in return. I'm not saying that the solution is to mimic the Asian educational system and to push kids like a drill camp from grade 1. But the point is, kids are smarter than you think, and they are very capable of learning at a very young age. Don't write them off as playful young things who will forget what you teach. Don't lower your expectations of their enthusiasm or potential for learning. Be kind to them, but push them to learn. They are only children, after all, and they need to, and deserve to be guided. You can't just put a pen in their hand and walk away. Teachers need to advance with the levels of the students, now simply keep them bubbling with the current curriculum. The curriculum also need to be stronger and more diverse, accommodating not only those in the middle, but also the ones struggling at both ends of the spectrum.

Wow, gone off on a rant. Sorry. I've always felt strongly about education, both from personal experience and from what I see around me. Frankly, if I started off with the North America educational system I doubt that I'll be where I am today. The ones that rise to the top are always those with an innate, strong self-motivation. But many more have the potential, and those who are not as strong need to be nurtured and protected and challenged, from an early age.

This is an important entry. Thank you.

First off, I cannot wait to see both of these films. But I confess I’m writing this post for reasons that are a little vindictive. I’d like to shame the principal of a particular elementary school in Denver, Colorado. This school is located in the public housing projects near 10th and Federal. I used to work there as a paraprofessional teachers’ aide. The students there are among the poorest in the city. Every day I came to work, I was astounded at the courage and intelligence of the 2nd and 3rd grade students I worked with. Many of these kids were effectively raising themselves, or being raised by older siblings. There were only two or three white kids out of 70-some students in the two classes I assisted. Most of the students were Latino. The neighborhood also had a large number of families from Somalia and Vietnam. The hardest-working students there were the children of immigrants.
The school system was failing these kids. The school had a few good teachers and many who were either burnt out or badly inexperienced. The discipline policies were thoroughly negative and totally ineffective. The principal was a bully who did not communicate well with her staff. In addition to helping the 2nd and 3rd grade teachers, I helped the teacher for the Gifted and Talented group. The students in that group were supposed to rehearse a scene for the citywide Shakespeare festival near the end of the school year. The teacher who normally handled this for the school was unable to do so this year, and the GT teacher had almost no experience with Shakespeare. Since I was familiar with The Tempest, I ended up helping direct thirty 2nd, 3rd and 5th graders in part of Act 4, Scene 1. The boy playing Prospero gave the most emotionally honest rendition of the “We are such stuff as dreams are made on” speech I’ve ever heard.
The problem was that some of the kids who weren’t considered “Gifted and Talented” saw the GT kids rehearsing and felt left out. These included the smartest kid in the 3rd grade class, who happened to have the misfortune of being dyslexic. He was a big guy who had a curiosity and ability to reason that far surpassed that of most of the GT kids. He simply couldn’t read or write without spending massive amounts of effort and time. Another boy who felt left out was a squirrely little guy who was forced to act tough to protect himself. Both of these boys were fascinated by history, which was sadly under-taught in the school’s state-mandated curriculum. The smaller boy told me he wanted to read Shakespeare. I said I’d bring my copy of Henry V (which seemed like it might appeal to third-grade boys) and help him read it during individual reading time. The problem here was that every kid had taken tests to ascertain their reading level, and were required to read only books in that level, not matter how boring the books might be. A couple of days later, while the class was reading silently, and after the boy had finished reading a couple of books in his level, he asked if I would help him read some more of Henry V. The principal walked in five minutes later as we were reading, and yelled, “That is NOT your reading level. Put it away.” I apologized to the boy. I’d gotten him in trouble because I’d wanted him to be able to read something he found interesting. It was the last time I ever did that.
I don’t work for Denver Public Schools anymore. Never intend to again.

“A union that protects incompetent and even dangerous teachers is an obscenity.”
Absolutely, and a disgrace to those who struggled and even died so that a union could protect them from being exploited. Now, it appears, that this union is exploiting the most vulnerable of our nation, our children. The above bolded quote of yours I can put on a t-shirt.

Anyone who really loves America cannot stand by as we become a virtual third-world country!

Among the books I have in my library are some High School English books. They are not easy books. When one considers what is expected to have a formally decent High School education, it is impressive. Algebra, Trigonometry, Chemistry, and a good working knowledge of English Grammar and Composition.

If there was ever a few issues worthy of the Supreme court’s attention, this sounds as if it’s one of them.

In a sense, what this union is doing is treasonous.

Hey Mr. E!

As you can probably tell by the poor grammar and structure of my previous comments, I have not been educated very well. I can't even write this comment correctly. I honestly have little idea as to how I am supposed to transition from thought to thought. But I'll do my best.

I think that the problem is that I never concerned myself with reading when I was younger. I always blew it off. I thought that if you're smart, then you are smart. I finally learned as a senior in high school that its possible to become smart and articulate and knowledgeable. Someone should have told me this when I was younger! "Read to Achieve" sounded more like a joke than a truth.

I have always been very creative. I took a personality test from an actual psychologist and it even said so. "You are very creative and have a unique world perspective". I never understood that knowledge concomitant with creativity equals a work that is great, rather than just ridiculous. I was never taught anything about art. Though, I do have good taste. I agree with you 99 percent on most movies and could stare forever at paintings, but until recently I couldn't tell you why a movie was good or not. I didn't know how to say it.

I have just graduated from a private high school and I can tell you that it is no better than any public school; in fact, many I know who have gone to both consider the public school superior. I was in CP1 (College Prep 1) classes my whole four years. Rather than pushing the students to become knowledgeable, my teachers tolerated our ignorance and shitty essays. I would get A's on papers that would have received in C's in a real school. They would assign chapters of books for homework, yes. But in class we did not discuss any literary elements in the book, we simply discussed what happened so that the teacher would know if we read or not. And nobody did! In all my classes, they checked the homework to see if it was done, not correct. They spawned in me the delusion that I was a smart person.

It was in my senior year, when I decided to transfer to Honors English, where I had my only descent high school teacher. The kids in her classes were able to analyze novels and pick out underlying themes or messages. I could do none of this; I didn't even realize such things existed in novels. I got C's on my papers in her class, deserved C's. I learned so much more in just that one year than in all of the previous three years combined. I showed her that very short story that I posted on your "Things Fall Apart" blog post (the one about the high school teacher that you didn't say anything about) and she said that it was "Excellent" and that the last line was very powerful. I was hoping you would tell me the same thing.

Now, I am trying to get what I am missing. I have taken up reading the New York Times on my IPhone, and have been spending much time in the library. I spent six hours the other night reading "A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court", looking up the words I didn't know on my IPhone. I feel my intellect growing. A month ago I wouldn't have been able to write this how I did, I wouldn't have known what "concomitant" meant (Though, I'm not completely sure I used it correctly here).

Well, that's my tale. I enjoy a good tale.

With Sincerity,
Luke

Ebert: Luke, let me promise you, this is a splendid comment that clearly expresses what you want to say, and allows us to identify with you. Don't sweat the fine points. You are a writer.

A great story---as a Kenyan I've always thought that kids here do stuff that is far more advanced for their age---but may be it is worth it.

Blaming the teacher's union for all the ills of the U.S. public school system seems a bit naive at best and simplistic scapegoating at worst. What about administrators? What about parents who refuse to allow teachers to discipline (and I'm not talking corporal punishment) and grade poorly? What about taxpayers who routinely vote down budgets and leave teachers scrounging for school supplies and spending personal money to get what they need? What about those same budgets that make teaching something only someone with a calling, or no other option, would consider? What about NCLB that forces teachers to teach a test and to hell with actual education? What about those parents and administrators and budgets that grind down good and not so good teachers alike until they're so hopeless, that despite their best intentions their classrooms become Classrooms of Death.

Focusing on the unions seems like blaming a symptom and ignoring the root causes. Maybe tenure needs to be re-evaluated, but so does how we fund our schools, how administrators get chosen and compensated, and how we value our good teachers (in terms of respect and money.)

While I generally agree with Jesse M.'s sentiment, he states, "The suggestion that teachers don't have enough resources is untrue; the United States spends an enormous amount of money per child."

But we need to consider that not every dollar in the system is seen in the classroom. Kabe suggests that teachers "sometimes" need to spend their own money on classroom supplies. I hear that complaint from teachers I know, even in reasonably well-off districts, as simply a matter of course every month, every year.

There are indeed structural problems that need to be addressed at every level, unions included, but administration and underlying funding need to be examined as well.

I'm a teacher. Here's my take, which I've often heard echoed by others when this topic comes up. And, of note, I haven't seen either movie. I might, though. They sound pretty good.

If "unionization" is indeed as poisonous as some believe, then it should be clear across countries. Are other countries with high unionization rates (Sweden, France, Denmark, etc) also failing their students?

Also, another natural experiment would be to measure the performance of Americans in other educational systems in other countries (or even non-unionized US schools, such as a private school) as well as the performance of recent immigrants in America. After all, if US schools are such failure factories, then a recent Chinese or Indian or Vietnamese immigrant should do much worse than they would in their homeland.

Or, even better, if there is an educational system elsewhere in the globe that is so superior...the savvy US entrepreneur should have no problem creating a private school on US soil that creates Asian-level academic success with American children.

Personally, I think that the main problem, bigger than the scary anecdotal evidence of "unions", is that teachers used to come from the best (female) students in school. But in today's world, some of the worst students in school end up being the next crop of teachers. No easy fix for that problem....

I put this question to my students:
"Will you ever sit at the kitchen table and dream of a day when your children will go to a top university in China?"

And most of them cannot imagine such a case. Seems about as likely as some professional development speaker telling an auditorium full of teachers about the latest Kenyan teaching technique.

Yeah, I had a few of those very teachers. They were proud to say their tenure allowed them to do whatever they wanted. One of our teachers just left the room, while the other just rambled on about conspiracy theories, the nature of tenure, crazies in the neighborhood, and the fun things that happen when you use drugs, for the entire hour like a damn comedy routine. At first I found it a relief to be able to sit around and do nothing, but I got angry after a while: why am I wasting my time here? Is there really nothing else I could be doing?

Test scores are often used as a metric but they aren't standardized throughout the world, and any school that gears toward standardized results is teaching kids how to produce standardized results.

It may sound silly, but I think teaching kids critical thinking at a young age might help in ways that are hard for us to even fathom right now because of the total overhaul it would require.

Your point about doctors being outsourced, if one wants to put it that way, applies well to teachers. Not that teachers come from other countries, but they come from groups who don't really want to teach. Many come for the tenure, for the secure job that they can eventually get to, while others think that it fits their skill set because they love kids, or keeping kids in line. Never mind that real teaching is dynamic, tailored for the individual, and an everyday challenge. When a teacher messes this up, it creates a cascade effect that damages subsequent teachers' abilities to keep kids interested and learning.

And we all know that sports get an inordinate amount of emphasis in most schools. Sports ARE important, but they get the lion's share of budget and attention, and most of the worst teachers I had were teachers just so they could also be coaches.

Still, it's not just teachers. It's parents, too, and the environment that kids live in.

Sorry, this feels more than a list than an essay. Can I at least get partial credit?

"Waiting for Superman" makes a compelling case for the apparent fact that American students from all ethnic and income groups are not receiving competitive educations."

I think the documentary might have as well been called "Smoking is Bad For You" or "A Bear Does That In The Woods." :)
To give you some idea of just how bad the system is, consider:
I am a tenured teacher being evaluated today, coincidentally. It is my evaluation year, which I have every three years.
According to our contract, the evaluation has to be ALL positive. I'm not kidding. Any constructive criticism must be met with a probationary plan of action, which my principal and I work through for the next year. (Or some ridiculous thing like that.) I started asking him "off the record" what I can do to make lessons better when we started. It wasn't until I'd taught for about 4-5 years that he trusted me enough to give me the feedback I'd been asking for all this time.

I have not seen the movie, but I will.
I wonder:

Does the filmmaker mention the stranglehold the NEA currently has on one of our political parties?

You didn't ask, but taking on an issue unsupported by my union(s) is one of the reasons I campaigned for Senator Obama over Senator Clinton in the primaries:
http://www.philly.com/philly/news/8335627.html

I see potential problems with merit pay (like how to gauge merit for art teachers, sped teachers, ESL teachers,PE teachers), but I think it is a step in the right direction.

One of the biggest problems is that it is simply easier to dump a teacher to another school than fire him. This is especially true in a large district, like the one I teach in. Our principal, a good man and generally a good administrator, does this all the time. He sets the incoming students' schedules so that an ineffective teacher's licensing can't be accomodated, forcing them to move.

I cannot say I wouldn't do the same thing, though. Knowing what it takes to fire a tenured teacher, that is. I might just find some kid out of college who was licensed to teach English AND Social Studies to get rid of the English teacher down the hall who lets the kids watch TV instead of teaching.

Being a product of the 1980's French Canadian educational system, and a high school dropout, reading this post evokes a deep sadness inside me. You see, I went to one of those dropout factories. In fact, I'll go as far as saying that once I left primary school, where most of the teachers were old Catholic nuns who would teach with the single minded determinism of a marine drill instructor, I stopped being educated by the educational system.

High school wasn't a school for me, it was a zoo. Kids would sleep in class, yell at teachers, fight, do drugs. The usual things you'd expect punk kids in the 80's to do. However, what always struck me is that behind all that rebellion lay a kind of lazy nihilism. They didn't care if they passed because the teachers weren't trying very hard to teach them.

Part of the overall failure lay in the way we were taught. For example, I never read a single book in high school french class (Remember, my french class was like your english classes, it was a primary course along with Math.) much less did book reports. Instead they'd focus almost obsessively on spelling and grammar. They'd give you a bunch of phrases and you had to circle the verb, the adverb, the subject and on and on... I can feel your eyes closing as you read this. Now imagine this dragged out over a period of months.

But as much as I feel High School failed me, I have to admit I didn't exactly try hard. I was a lazy and preoccupied student. I had my own problems at home and no matter how bad the school was, I had a hand in my own failure.

However, what still has the power to foster rage in my heart is thinking of the remedial classes I took afterwards. Firstly, they demoted me. I was in 9th grade when I dropped out, but was put back into 7th as soon as I entered the classes and essentially had to start back from scratch. Okay, not very pleasant, but perhaps fair, perhaps... Then, the in order to be eligible to be tested and pass/fail whatever subject you were taking, you had to first pass a pretest by at least 80-90%. If you didn't get that grade, you didn't take the test. The problem was that remedial class was taught even more halfassedly than regular class, but at the same time, had a much higher standard for allowing you to even attempt to pass the classes. In the five years I was there, I don't think I ever saw anyone graduate. In fact, most of the people I first saw there when I started were still there when I left.

It bears noting that these pretests weren't anything given or approved by the government, they were just printed out by the teachers to "test" you on wether or not they'd allow you to take a proper government, official test.

Nowadays, I can see how much of a scam this was. The teachers could keep you in limbo perpetually until you either managed to pass by some miracle or gave up in disgust.

I hardly think I'm a genius, or even all that smart, but I do think I'm somewhat clever. I learned to talk in english without an accent by watching Doctor Who on PBS when I was two and learned how to write in english by reading books. I certainly didn't learn it in school. In fact, I write better in English than I do French. It's ridiculous. Was I that unteachable? I doubt it.

As for all the people I went to high school/remedial classes with? Most of them didn't get their high-school diploma, only a tiny fraction went to college.

So much wasted potential.

The idea that a magic bullet solution to this problem exists in breaking teachers unions is appealing, but sheer fallacy. I'm not a teacher or a liberal, but I can see where the problem lies. The problem begins with budget, class sizes and teacher pay, period. Teachers are paid for classroom hours, but not for all the ancillary work they must do. Lesson planning takes time. Emailing and calling parents takes time. Meeting parents and arranging extracurricular activities takes time. This is work expected of a quality teacher, but it all unpaid, out-of-classroom time. It is manageable if classes are small, but they aren't. Even a teacher who takes a job thinking he/she can handle the tremendous work load soon loses control as class sizes inevitably balloon year after year, due to endless budget cuts. In order to do the job to anyone's satisfaction, you would have to spend hours of your own time each day trying to keep up. But does anyone here want to work twenty extra hours a week for no pay? Can you imagine how exhausting that would be? How disheartening? And yet here come more students the next semester, packed in with the rest. Most of teachers want to get out of the profession so badly, but they've trained to be teachers and jumping stream is extremely difficult career-wise, as you all know, so they hunker down and try to survive. I would never ask my employees to perform well under such circumstances, yet we ask America's teachers to do it? People can excoriate teachers, but none of you, in any of your professions, would be able to handle this constant deterioration of your work situation. The unions are not blind. They can see the problem just as clearly as anyone else. But to the extent that they are a problem, they are at the second level, or even the third. Or put another way, if you break the unions, here's what you will see. Pay will go down and teaching quality will drop even further. Recruiting new teachers into a profession that sometimes seems like combat will become impossible without the promise of job security. Fewer teachers means classes will get bigger and teaching quality will drop even more. It's a death spiral, and it all starts with that magic bullet idea of breaking the unions. Only higher pay across the board can allow for union-free teaching, but do any of you really think that's going to happen? Really? We're mostly adults here, so please don't try to pretend to yourselves or others that a river of money will suddenly be uncovered to pay teacher what they deserve and shrink class sizes to the level where efficient teaching can take place. Well, maybe it can happen--if all the schools change their names to something that sounds like an investment and go with their hands out to D.C. By jove, I think we've got it!

Perhaps, there also ought to be psychological evaluations.

They have psychological evaluations for people who have jobs concerning people's safety and things like that to see how they handle the pressure.

Well, students can exert a kind of pressure (and students who have such a bad life can even be so depressed as to cause physical discomfort, which may cause health problems for teacher for which strength is scarcely their most notable attribute).

To add onto another thing:

We should try to find teachers with passion.

Passion.

Passion.

Passion.

Roger,

I have noticed in various English classes in both high school and college an alarming level of incompetence from some of the students. Back when I was in high school in Nebraska, a short story I had written for my Creative Writing class was returned from a peer editor with the less-than-helpful comment: "You don't need you use such big wrods. You will loose your writer."

In college, my freshman english professor lamented that she had a student who submitted an essay written entirely in texting shorthand (i.e., "u" for "you", "4" in place of "for", etc.), as if he'd composed his essay on his mobile phone.

In both instances, the teachers cannot be blamed for each student's shortcomings. But each student in each case was demonstrating a deficiency in their command of the English language that some teacher should have caught earlier in their education and made some attempt to fix.

For god's sake, tweet this!

http://www.c-spanvideo.org/program/290953-1

A one-man musical about Darwin's life.

Maybe this is what our teachers's need!

(I tried to post this in "new agers" blog, but the spam filter got it)

I went looking for a beautiful story I read recently about a boy who lives in a slum but somehow managed to get into a good school. Now he goes to school all day and when he returns, he spends his evenings teaching the rest of the kids from the neighbourhood everything he learned that day.

But I found this story instead.

http://www.indiaedunews.net/in-focus/July_2008/This_slum_school_gives_hope_to_less_privileged_children_5192/

We in the western world are so arrogant.

I believe the one-man musical on Darwin's life was to commemorate the 150th anniversary of "On the Origin of Species."

(it was originally a response to Marie Haws comment/recommendation in "New Agers" blog for the movie "Creation" and how we (America) can't see "Creation" yet)

Actually, this musical is also about others who have contributed to our understanding of evolution...sorry.

But Darwin is mainly who it is about.

http://www.c-spanvideo.org/program/290953-1

Ebert:The fact is, American education is failing...The fault can be laid at the feet of bad teachers and their unions.

Isn't that the case that conservatives have been making since at least Reagan and Secretary of Education Bill Bennett?

Why did it take a 2010 documentary for you to arrive at this conclusion?

Take the next step. Ask the following questions:

1. Which political party most supports, and is supported by, teachers unions?

2. Which political party most opposes charter and magnet schools?

3. Which 2009 President of the United States defunded charter schools in Washinton D.C.?

4. Why do you, and anyone who cares about the education of children, continue to support that political party?

I am a Returned Peace Corps volunteer. I taught English in West Africa for two years under some very difficult conditions. Tiny rooms with nearly 80 students. No textbooks. No electricity. But my kids came and they worked hard, most of them. Then I returned and spent some time as a substitute and was amazed when I returned to a school with everything and no one cared. The kids cared more than parents and even the teachers. Something needs to change soon. Thanks for the great blog.

Some background:
1. My mom teaches at an alternative highschool for kids who have been kicked out of the regular school or are too old and behind to graduate on time.
2. I got a superb education at Boise High School. I never studied as hard in college as I did there - and I have a PhD.

The problem with performance based pay is that AP and honors teachers will be much higher paid than teachers teaching remedial classes. Why, because remedial classes are going to perform poorly no matter how good the teacher is. The honors kids will learn almost regardless of the quality of the teacher, but the remedial kids won't. Why only reward good teachers with good students?

My high school principal - Blossom Turk, worked hard to recruit quality teachers with masters and PhD degrees. Anyone who wanted to was able to take college level courses in high school.

Does the average American student want to though? That is the question. And why don't they? Education was my escape from poverty, do most students look at it that way? The Kenyans obviously do. If students are motivated they will learn regardless of the environment. If students aren't motivated the best environment in the world won't help them.

In my opinion, the best diagnosis of the American school system yet was provided by the recently departed Theodore Sizer, in a 1984 book entitled “Horace’s Compromise.” In it, Sizer argued that even good teachers’ day-to-day efforts are circumscribed by a series of compromises. They can’t coach students towards higher level learning when they have too many students; the decisions over what goes into curriculum are political rather than pedagogical; above all, the emphasis in our school system, despite all pretenses to the contrary, is on “coverage” - on insisting that students memorize an ever-greater mass of facts. This goes on even though we know that facts taught in this manner are forgotten in short order and never really understood. But it does please quiz makers and the advocates of standardized testing.

Sizer also had a prescription for a cure: smaller classes; greater emphasis on depth over breadth in the curriculum; focusing on the quality of the students’ intellectual traits rather than on the rote memorization of facts; and insisting that students demonstrate — in a variety of ways, including public exhibitions — that they have mastered the subjects they have studied. Mastery means much more than accumulating facts. Above all, it means producing students who have a love of learning and can think, and reflect, and find answers on their own when they need to, so that their education serves some purpose after their formal schooling has ended.

There’s a reason why, to give just one example, half of Americans don’t believe in biological evolution. Oh, their teachers are, in most cases, told them about it, and made them repeat what they learned on tests in order to get marks. But that’s an entirely different thing from them understanding it. And that’s the problem. Poll those same people who say that they don’t believe in evolution and you’ll find that the problem isn’t that they’ve thought it through and rejected it. It’s that they have no idea *how* to think it through or how to discriminate between one truth claim and another. That’s the key point. We need to stop just giving students fish and start teaching them how to fish, as the old saw goes. Problem is, most politicians, parents, and students just want to see the damn fish. And many teachers are happy — or are only just competent enough — to give it to them.

Right now our students — and I’m Canadian and am speaking for my school system, too — are on a sort of scholastic conveyor belt, where they emerge from the other end more credentialed, but not many of them can said to have been educated.

I know this story is subjective, but...my sister is a grade school teacher. When she first started out, one of the only schools hiring close to her had been blacklisted by the union for trying to fire a teacher that had been abusive to children there. She didn't know all the details going in, but found out when she accepted a position there and the union tried to stop her. The union offered nothing in return for not taking the job - they just wanted her to stay unemployed. As a result of taking the job she was herself blacklisted - not welcome at union events and not allowed to run for union positions for 5 years (what a punishment!). My sister is about as left-leaning you can get, and she's a teacher, and she can't stand the teachers unions.

Ebert: I anticipated a lot of messages defending the unions, but the responses have been so very much like yours.

The problem with failing shools in the US is the same as in Kenya: poverty. It's way too easy to blame the unions. They have some issues but the failure of the American public ed system - where that failure even exists - can not be put completely at their feet. End poverty and suddenly our education system will improve. Do some research b/y these two films.

One problem with NCLB rewarding good scores on standardized tests is that the gifted kids will do well on them no matter what, so they are ignored while the teachers put their resources behind the low-scoring kids.

I'm in CA, which has appalling public school education. My yougest child is in a fourth grade class with 36 other children of all ability levels. The teacher teaches to the struggling kids, and my (gifted) child is bored out of his mind.

I also think the unions are at fault. The median teacher salary for 8 months of work in our school district is $80,000, plus amazing insurance and pension benefits. The elemetary school lets out at 2:05 every day except Thursday, when it lets out at 12:50. Nice work if you can get it. We have large classes here partly because teachers cost so much.

There is a fifth grade teacher at the school who surfs the Net all day on his laptop while giving the kids worksheets to do. My son had a wonderful teacher in second grade who really challenged him. She was named teacher of the year. She was laid off last year due to budget cuts. It's all based on seniority rather than merit.

I could go on and on about my daughter's racist math teacher or her Spanish teacher who she had after lunch every day and always arrived ten minutes late, etc., but not in public because I have three kids in public schools and I fear retribution from their teachers.

We home-schooled our two children. I have advanced degrees, my wife, who supervised the teaching, has no degree. Both of our children went on to good colleges and performed very well.

Yet, my wife and I weren't great teachers in the sense that we taught them every subject. But we did nurture their native curiosity and let them pursue things that they were passionate about. We provided great materials to help them learn the basics, and whatever area they found interesting. We read books to them from an early age, many, many books of all kinds and difficulty levels.

I'm not saying that home school is the solution for every child. Still, it awoke me to that fact that children want to learn and in fact are programmed to learn from the moment of birth. When that innate curiosity and ability to assimilate something as complex as language is fostered, they thrive.

Sadly, some combination of things about this country and schools in many cases kills this drive to learn. When it dies, few teachers, union or not, can bring it back to life.

So why wouldn’t D.C. teachers consider the “offer”?
Consider – the Superintendent entered the job vowing to make a clean sweep of the system. Massive changes. She made it clear she would go after any teacher she thought wasn’t getting it done.
Suppose you were a D.C. teacher. As such, by definition, you have failing students. The Superintendent has made it clear she blames the teachers when students fail. So she dangles money in front of you, and says she’ll give it to you… maybe… but only if you give her the opportunity to fire you instead.
Would you take that deal?
Do you think she has any intention of retaining most of the staff, or even a substantial portion of the staff, at double the salary?
I recently reviewed the job postings for D.C. schools. They are not offering these high salaries to incoming teachers.
It seems likely that anyone who takes the deal would have better than a 50-50 chance of being “released,” whether deserved or not. And that means the end of a career – every job application asks if the candidate has ever been released from a school, and most districts automatically reject anyone who says “Yes.”
What would you do?

I don't know much about the school system or the teachers unions and their overall effect, but I thought I would offer one anecdote from a teacher I know. In her first year of teaching, before she became tenured in the union, she was told that a book by a Nevada author named Robert Laxalt had to have one page razorbladed out of it because it included a vague reference to sex. She couldn't say no or else she would've not had her contract renewed. Now that she's in the union, she CAN say no to such censorship because the school administration can't fire her for vague reasons or reasons like teaching something they disagree with. In this case, the union helps her. It sounds like unions can hurt in other ways but since tenure works well for college professors, it seems like it could work well in earlier education, too, perhaps if there were methods of removal for proven gross incompetence.

Unfortunately Ebert's facts are wrong, as are the "facts" in the film. DC student test scores were rising faster before Rhee arrived than they have since. And virtually all research points to student socio-economic status as the number one predictor of school success. (Been to River Forest recently Roger?)

So now Roger Ebert has jumped on the Rhee/Teacher-Hater bandwagon. Education is a simple industrial task. The less trained, and more scripted, the "workers" (teachers) are, the better (which is the Rhee/Teach for America theory). It is, of course, easy for America's wealthy to make these claims. When they do, they need not fix America's social problems or school funding problems, they can simply profit by bashing teachers for another generation.

Sad stuff.

Ira Socol
Michigan State University

If the schools were so much better 25-30 years ago, then why is it that so many of my old HS classmates who friended me on Facebook can't write?

Unions are the only organizations out there protecting labor right now. The teachers unions are some of the few remaining after 30 years of Reaganist union-busting. I think we have to ask why the unions are so defensive. It's because they have a lot to lose--a lot. It's not just power or privilege. It's a public school system that has been under relentless attack.

Are their methods always the best? No. It's true--they defend bad teachers. But so do police unions defend bad cops. That is their job.

I think the teachers unions need to be understood in the context of their fight to maintain and preserve a public education system in the face of president after president after president since 1980 who has either openly wanted to destroy the system or who hasn't fought hard enough for it.

Roger, I am disappointed in you. You see one film by a "liberal," and you jump on the anti-teacher bandwagon. When was the last time you stepped foot in a public school? When was the last time you taught at a college? I'm a mother of two in public schools, and I'm a college professor who works with the results of both public and private schools, and believe me, there's no difference. My kids' public school? It works (though NCLB claims it "needs improvement"). Are there bad teachers? Yes. But there are bad teachers even in schools that do not have tenure or unions.

Do all schools work? No. My college students do community service in some of the "bad" schools in our city. Here is a city school my students and I have volunteered at. It is a school that was failing and is now improving. And all that positive change is going to be thrown in the toilet, and not by teachers unions. Did teachers unions oppose the positive changes? No. Are they responsible for the proposed negative changes? Hell no. Maybe teachers unions aren't responsible for problems in public education, and maybe it's time to stop creating scapegoats. Abolishing unions isn't some sort of magic bullet.

Parents all over the world sacrifice to give their children a chance at a better life. I am a single mom and my two children are in private school. It is hard since the court system doesn't make the non-custodial parent contribute to private school tuition. The judge at my divorce told me that I should send my kids to public school if I couldn't pay for private school by myself. Making tuition every month is a lot of work but my children are worth it. It's really inspiring to read about children in much worse situations who gain so much from their education.

But it's not fun to pay for education twice. Florida voters approved school vouchers but they were struck down by the Florida Supreme Court. The Teachers Union is nothing but a political force and they obviously don't care about children. I know there are bad parents, just like there are great public school teachers, but these are the exceptions. Usually parents are the ones who know their children best and want to give them what they need. Parents should be able to choose where they want to send their children to school.

I live in Texas, a state with a low-performing educational system, no tenure and unions that are, admittedly, not as powerful as in other states. Up to about three years ago, I was a high school teacher. I taught in a poor, Title 1, majority-minority school in a small city with about 1000 students in four grades, and a gigantic (3500 students) school in the middle of major urban area with students who spoke dozens of languages at home, and came from the poorest and the richest of families.

While I agree that unions can do a lot of harm, they are often the only people watching out for the teachers. I worked in a school where the administration was repeatedly violating district and state rules regarding such things as conference time (the only time during the day when teachers aren't with students, and if you think it's enough time to plan all your lessons and grade all your papers, you are sorely mistaken), to the number of students in a classroom, to the general work environment, and so on. The only reason there was a change was because the union started putting pressure on the school. Pressure from teachers within the school had done nothing, and situations like that are detrimental to not only the teachers (greatly increasing the burn out rate) but also to the students.

There is no one contributor to the poor state of American schools. Schools are at fault, the government is at fault, families are at fault, and the community is at fault, all in their own way.

I remember watching a documentary, I don't remember hat it was called, that started out informing us about the most backward district in Karnataka (one of the states in India) and then went from village to village, and every one of them had an active movement of people fighting for progress.
And getting it.

I am married to a Special Ed teacher who is also vice president on his union's board. He joined the union to protect his students who are mostly minority students in a predominantly white school district. The administration is trying to "outsource" special ed students by sending them to off site facilities so their standardized test scores do not count against the schools. And even though there has been a rise in the number of autistic students, the number of teachers and aides has not increased. So far, five teachers have been attacked this year. This is a school district that just installed a new state of the art indoor pool and has a budget surplus. I hope that when discussing the problems with our education system one group does not carry all of the blame.

Sadly, the truth of this issue couldn't be more obvious. I also get tired of hearing about how poorly paid teachers are. In our rural community, teachers are some of the best paid in the area, and also receive almost 3 months off in the summer. I hear all the time about how these teachers are sacrificing the big money they could be making in corporate America, but try getting some of those jobs in corporate America, and it could be a rude awakening. They don't exist anymore, and they all have taken pay CUTS in the past two years. By the way, I love teachers and have nothing personal against them, but their unions have kept them in a constant state of denial and have created a regressive educational system.

I feel that your assertion that the teacher's union is a bit unfair: by contrast to you assertion that The fault can be largely laid at the feet of bad teachers and their unions, there is a second fold to this statement – that good teachers are protected by unions as well.

My mother has been a chemistry teacher for almost ten years, and during my time in high school I became very close (and still stay in contact with) one of my very dedicated teachers. Through personal experiences and numerous discussions, I believe the general attitude of American students' parents is a major factor for the growing necessity of Teachers Unions. Sure, you argue that they have voted against an increased pay for teachers with better performing students – something that I am personally all for – but what you fail to mention is that oftentimes the parents and students, not the teacher, can have equal if not more power in demanding education to cater to their needs. Secondly, the Bush administration passed the "No Child Left Behind" act which, while noble in its ideal, was one of the stupidest practical incentives to improve education nationwide. Teachers began teaching only to the test, and there was no money to even fund the program itself.

I've read of articles where school districts require teachers to grade in lavender because the color red is too "distressing" for students; but hell, if you take an exam without studying at all, you will get an F regardless of the damn ink being purple, sky blue, or ivy green.

Students, too, can often demand for the teachers to bend over backwards over the most ridiculous demands.
"Can we just watch a video today?"
"At other schools they never learn about this. Why can't we just chill?"
"Why do we have to take the quiz again? I forgot everything over winter break!"

Some students can become venomously malevolent and actively try to get the teacher terminated. This is when the teachers union becomes necessary, especially in the case where both the school administrative, student and student's parent are against the defending teacher notwithstanding the teacher's level of competence.

In other countries like Japan or China, teachers have much more authority in what they will teach in class. There is a stringent social expectation of students' academic levels and what is expected of them, regardless of their emotional needs; parents understand this, and while they may disagree with classroom rules they generally will not confront the teachers out of respect: teachers enable their children to achieve greater in life, and to confront their authority is generally a sign of disrespect (unless, of course, this dislike is shared with other parents, in which the teacher is then subject to evaluation). Students invariably perform better and better each year, and this is why it has become more and more necessary to recruit non-Americans into jobs. Why spend money and time training an incompetent when you can hire someone who'll know exactly what to do fresh out of school?

I understand there is a need to find and fix the core of any problem. However, I do not believe placing blame on the teachers union alone is fair or realistic. The union is a necessary burden on the already deteriorating American education which has succumbed to a lack of power to teachers and an increasing demand for every educational institution to cater to every students emotional needs. There is a national undervaluing of education itself, believed to be a select institution for the "braniac and/or wealthy elite," and that you can get by in life "by your own gut." This nations attitude needs to be kicked in the ass and revamped full throttle into a national restructuring of education or help me God, we will be seeing more Sarah Palins and Glenn Becks in the new future.

I can say unequivocally that there is a direct correlation to student success and the family dynamic. You can be the most talented teacher in the world, but if you have a kid who comes from a home where there is no discipline or active parental support, then the chances of that child's success are considerably less than a kid coming from a supportive and disciplined household. I say quit blaming teachers and start looking at our decaying family dynamic. Wonder why inner city students fail? Well, gee, could it possibly be that there isn't a father around, and a mother who has to bust her ass just to pay the bills?
The teachers in my county in Georgia are pushed to the limit to achieve the required standards. I believe they do their part. But without any ability to discipline and correct children who come from undisciplined or coddled environment homes, the teachers are limited in their ability to demand concentration from the students.
Today's generation of kids are exposed to so much more influence from external sources than we ever were when I grew up, which cause distractions away from the subject matter that is required in school.
It all starts in the home. Dishing the blame to the teachers shows a very narrow understanding of the problem.

Ebert,

The main problem with American Education is that parents here don't emphasis the importance of education. Teachers shouldn't have to inspire children to learn. But when parents don't take and interest in their kid's lives you can't expect their children to take an interest in themselves through education.

Keep throwing all the money in the world at American Education but until home culture and attitude about education changes we'll continue on our current slide, with no hope in sight. With that said it is a crime against some of these children that they don't feel safe in school. No one can learn in that environment.

I ultimately agree with your stance on teachers unions. But I am not sure if that is the only problem. I went to a public school that was not unionized (it was in the Southern U.S.) and I despised the environment there. It focused on all of the wrong items. Instead of fostering intelligence, it praised mediocrity. Instead of praising free thought, it suppressed it. Poor teachers were not penalized, good teachers not rewarded and thus often leave for greener pastures.

I will tell the most important story of my high school experience. During my time there, we implemented the International Baccalaureate program. This is a worldwide program that has teachers all over the world examining our papers and a final essay. It is a long process-it takes two years to earn a diploma. The teachers involved were incredibly supportive of the students. Being involved in it was one of the best choices I ever made. It truly prepares you for the rigorousness of a college education.

However, the other AP and honors teachers at the school complained mightily. They insisted that students were being taken away from their other honors classes and thus, possibly, hurting their chances at bonuses. hey petitioned to have it removed altogether or to take away some of the credit that our classes came with according to state law. Of course, they never worded it that way. They always stated they had "the best intentions of the student body as a whole" in mind-never mind that the people in the IB program were a part of that student body too.

This lasted for the entire two years I was in the program. I was lucky enough to earn my IB diploma and am now in my final semester at college, hoping to further my education at graduate school. My point is that it is not merely the unions that are causing this. There is something about the culture of teachers in the U.S. that is failing the students. As a whole, that culture is suppressing our natural desire to learn. Yes, there are some wonderful teachers, but not nearly enough of them. We need the passion in education back-but it starts with the teacher's promoting it.

Unfortunately, pointing the finger at the teachers unions is a (rather uncharacteristically for you) simplistic answer to a complicated problem. I'm not a teacher myself, but have friends who are, and they have given me an earful. As I see it, the problems are as follows:
1. As a poster above mentioned, there is an anti-intellectual climate in American culture, that just seems to have accentuated over time. (See any discussion of climate change, evolution, etc.)
2. People give lip service to reading, but the sad truth is that many kids don't read and are not encouraged to read in their homes.
3. Parents send kids to schools expecting the teachers to teach them EVERYTHING, including simple subjects that should be taught in the home. I know a 4th grade teacher who has kids in her class who don't know colors, can't tell time, or tie their own shoes.
4. Parents routinely abuse teachers who give their children poor grades and the principals in the school system routinely cave to these complaints.
5. Education departments in many colleges have extremely low standards accepting and graduating students (new teachers) who are themselves semi-literate, and show little knowledge of grammar, writing, or mathematics. Some don't even like kids. (Seems like a lot of problems could be nipped in the bud at this level, but that isn't what happens.)
6. No Child Left Behind, while good intentioned, has put many teachers in the position of "teaching the test" and has not allowed good teachers to be flexible and creative.
7. Schools are too crowded.
8. And yes, the teachers unions that have made it almost impossible to get rid of bad teachers. I'm very leary of getting rid of the unions though, as in the pre-union days, teachers could be dismissed for a variety of reasons, including religious and political.

I read the article with great interest after watching the films. It is quite interesting and I should add, shocking too. I think our system has gone too far in protecting employees of all kind, making them loosing the will of doing their job well and investing all they can in it.
It is a very sad situation because nobody wins and people get used to it, and thus become frustrated.
It is also unbelievable that the ones, who assess the students, and who focus on results, are the ones that nobody can assess!
In my opinion, they should be the first one to prove how efficient and good they are...
Anyway thank you very much for this great article.

In Texas, teachers do not have tenure, and the unions are powerless. Yet I would guess our students' test scores and performance are just as bad as other states where unions rule.

Could it be the "Classrooms of Death" are actually few and far between, more urban legend than reality? Could the kids of today have learned less because there is so much else to do besides study?

For example, had there been an internet when I went to college, I can't imagine I ever would've finished a paper when I went to the computer lab. Or if I did finish one, it wouldn't have received nearly the same effort. Students today have far more to distract them than I did.

Love your blog, Roger. Thanks for all the hours of great reading you have provided!

I want very much to respond. I've seen this from the point of view of someone who

1) was a student in several educational systems of very disparate quality (the best by far was 1st grade in Japan; 2nd through 6th in CT and VA were middling, I guess; 7th through 12th grades were an educational wasteland);

2) had a mother who was a dedicated special education teacher;

3) has friends who are school teachers;

4) was interrupted (by neither pregnancy nor flunking out) my first time in college, and read as much as I could in the next many years while dreaming of someday getting that BA;

5) read to my children, starting in their infancies, from good children's classics,new award winners, and otherwise highly recommended books (they both could read before kindergarten and still love to read today);

6) was a low-income single parent whose children didn't flourish in school, despite the example, support, and love they were given at home- in part because they had special needs;

7) was not infrequently lectured by my kids' teachers on the importance of setting a good example in regards to learning, keeping books in the home, shutting off the tv (oh, the assumptions people make!);

8) went back to college as an adult and was shocked by the low skills, motivation, and interest of many undergrads;

9) worked at a university for a while and was shocked at how little the top students know about the inequities and inequalities in their own country and communities;

10) is married to someone who works in Adult Education, helping those who didn't do well in the institutional public school setting get their diplomas and more; and

11) has some well-earned qualms about the American institution of public education.

But at the moment, all I can do is cry.

i am eagerly awaiting both films, i am hoping they screen at True/False next month.

as an educator, working a couple different chicago west-side high schools over the past several years, i will agree that unions don't help the issue of student achievement (however you want to define it - and hopefully it isn't in the narrow way our politicians tend to - test scores and the like). unions are for job protection. it is too bad that in this one industry they actually are able to do what they are there for, as many teachers keep jobs when they shouldn't have them. that said, criticizing unions as the problem with public schooling is a disgraceful red herring. there are many public schools that ARE UNIONIZED that churn out successful students.

i believe standardized tests are a much more pressing issue than unions, and i suspect Gugenheim's (Gates friendly) doc doesn't pause too heavily on the issue. this multi-billion dollar a year industry has a stranglehold on how we judge success - this is shameful. the tests necessitate that half the test takers are winners, half are losers. we are going along with a measuring device that more than measure, it sorts. of course there is the issue of what these tests actually test (how would you fare on one?) and what kind of biases they show (class, race, etc.) - beyond that, why on earth would we want to base our educational system on such a narrow conception of learning? the pressure schools and districts place on teachers to show test improvements is disgusting. being of chicago, Roger, you might be familiar with how our district (CPS) has learned to game the system by focusing on one and two students per classroom that are on the cusp of the next stanine. this, more than the faults of the unions, is shameful. not that CPS is a model of success, but they have been showing improvement on this worthless indicator.

further, i suspect that Gugenheim's doc doesn't deal with the difficult notion that all of the marketplace pressures on the public schools is really a more-of-the-same solution to the problem. one of the popular suggestions these days from the likes of Gates and other "free-market" ed reform folks (including Daley and Duncan) is the charter school. the charter school is a public school. it is typically non-union. and in most states, the public dollars allotted the schools is less per pupil than non-charter public schools. the lower budget and higher expectations compel charters to "make-up" the lost revenue by leaning heavily on private dollars to operate. we are effectively allowing the public schools to be privatized. we are not only continuing to disinvest from a common fate that many proponents of public schooling think is important - and i suspect Guggenheim would hang with me here - but we are also selling out to corporate interests that do not want an active and engaged citizenry publicly educated that would hopefully wold them accountable to their profit-mongering practices. and, of course, while there are wild differences to be found in unionized public schools - take chicago's top and bottomed tiered neighbors Whitney Young and Crane Tech - we find the same kind of successes and failures in the non-unionized charters (e.g., North Lawndale Prep and ACE).

we live in a stratified society with a widening gap between haves and have-nots. unfortunately, the infrastructure of schooling works perfectly with such a model - it does not make citizens while while sorting "the deserving" from "the lazy". if our society would hold corrupt union bosses, politicians, and - most of all - corporate heads accountable, we might find a place where a holistic model of education (not necessarily schooling) would blossom. until then, while your cabbie might continue to be well-educated, your wal-mart employee (thanks walton family) likely will not.

I'm not sure I accept the premise that "quality of teaching" is the single most important factor in school performance in all cases; I'm not sure how one would isolate the involved factors enough to prove it in a study. But that's something I can research on my own time. Granting the premise, the question becomes: how do we bring about the necessary radical improvements in teacher quality? Eliminating tenure for teachers who are unquestionably incompetent and absolutely refuse to do work is an obvious and attractive solution, but what tends to disappear from the picture when these teachers are discussed is the question of how many of them there are. I worry that they may be a trivial part of the overall teacher-quality problem, one that administrators and bureaucrats focus on to generate anti-union sentiment, for reasons that aren't invariably noble. But that's another digression.

If we alter or remove the tenure system, that might remove the lingering attitude that teaching is an easy way out for people who can't hold down a job through actual effort. But all we'll have accomplished is to make teaching a job like many others, and in all those jobs you get a range of performance levels. There are teachers who care and work hard but just aren't naturally very good. Likewise there are good and bad plumbers, office managers, doctors. If we believe, as I do, that teaching is not a job that should ever be done badly, how do we close that gap? Merit pay is a nice idea, but it seems to be conceived primarily as a means of rewarding effort by those who are already teachers. Is it going to draw acceptable numbers of gifted people into the profession? If not, what other methods, short of a teaching draft for the best and brightest, will work?

The desire to see bad teachers leave the profession is a strong one. But until we change the way teaching is perceived in the US all we're going to get to replace them is a younger set of bad teachers. I have no particular opinion on Rhee and like-minded reformers, but I think the single-mindedness of their proposals and attitudes sometimes suggests there's a magic bullet for the problems of American education, which is unlikely to be the case.

Part of the problem, of course, is the weakness of our national discourse on education. There's as much intelligent and varied commentary in thirty-odd previous comments here as there is in a year's worth of media reports on the issue. Granted, American political discourse in general is poor, but I think the discussion on education is especially bad in a variety of ways. There are a lot of platitudes, which are laudable but not especially helpful, and not a lot of detailed discussion on the subject.

A different observation about education...I was an army brat, and attended "on-post" schools run by the military (civilian teachers and principals) for grades 1 - 8. The student body was all lower middle class to solid middle class (not even the officers made very much money), and very diverse racially. As a group, when we went off-post to the civilian high schools, we generally performed better than our peers who went to civilian schools through the eighth grade.

In my opinion, one of the big reasons was the lack of discipline distractions while attending schools on military reservations. If a child acted up, and didn't respond to normal discipline (sent to the office, study hall, etc.), the principal would call the parents. If the child still acted up, the principal would call the father's commanding officer. This generally got a reaction (imagine if your boss was called by the principal of your kid's school).

I have no idea how this approach could be applied to civilian schools, but I do think it illustrates how big of a role family involvement plays in education.

Here in Mexico, teachers under unions will even go as far as selling teaching positions (as if they were a prize), inheriting them to relatives; fighting against any kind of quality control testing. Every year they will spend weeks participating in demonstrations for higher wages while constantly blocking our capital's main avenues and leaving their students with no classes. Their leaders are wealthy and corrupt (everyone of the district leaders got a "free humvee" a couple of years ago, and this is just the "public knowledge" part, in othe words, the tip of the iceberg).
I've met kids here from public schools who can't even spell their names correctly(seriously).
Guess we share a problem.
What would be the moral of the story? I guess that the problem isn't one of unions or patrons but that of one part obtaining too much power, enought to do whatever best suits them.

Texting language shows up in end of semester law school exams now. Not first year courses, upper level. Scary as hell.

My older brother complained when his daughter was in primary grades and the school was using Writing to Read technique on pc's. Her spelling as a second grader bothered him. I smiled a lot and listened. I didn't say "When does she see you reading? Are there newspapers and magazines in your home? " OR Do you read higher level books to her or are you content with the pablum of young reader books that she masters in one try and just memorizes and repeats, repeats, repeats. Rushed off to bed with maybe that one book after watching her "favorite" animated movie three times. One example but I'm sure it isn't unique.

I don't know about Urbana, but our high school was seriously tracked back in my day. The college bound students were challenged. Not so much the others. Perhaps twenty percent expected to continue education in those days in my area.

We have a perfectly horrid history of low achievement and high dropout rates in my state. Some progress has been made in the last twenty years, but not enough.

The scariest thing I have learned in the last ten years is that the number of students having reading problems in third grade correlates to the number of needed prison beds when those children are older.

No quick and simple answers. One size does not fit all. My schooling benefitted from the cold war. We were charged with outsmarting our enemies and questioning everyone (a commie hidden in any unsuspected place you know). More science and math and critical thinking skills.

But, some of those kids also stole scales from college labs and learned to measure dope for themselves and their friends. Dropped out, reproduced, and carelessly let their progeny grow like weeds. I taught some of them. Hard lives.

Anti-intellectualism is a tough nut. We haven't figured out how to crack it yet. Hope we do. One of the shifts I am seeing is a focus on lifelong learning. It is never too late to learn. People earn GED's and start college as adults, amazed that they can do it. First generation can lead to another. Education becomes valuable for that family. Examples are set. The future demands it.

I cant wait to see A Small Act! The trailer looks familiar to me though. In 2003 some friends and I visited a school near Mt. Longonot in Kenya to donate 16 paperback children's books in English that I had brought with me. 300+ children cheered as we held them up. The building was in terrible condition but the children were studying hard. We adopted the school and have sent over funds to repair the roof, walls, bought new desks, set up a small library, built new latrines and showers, and more. Now we will start sponsoring a few children to go on to secondary school.
Some say we should use our money to support American children. I almost agree, but in my job I see a lot of schools and the attitude I see is that US kids often take their education for granted. The Kenyan children know it is their chance to advance in life and value their teachers and the parents who sacrifice to give them that chance.
I am delighted that the makers of A Small Act will show the world how this small amount of money by a compassionate woman has begun to change the lives of countless children in Kenya.

Mr. Ebert, it is clear you have not ever worked in schools.

I have. Teachers work harder than most people you will come across (I am not a teacher), and they actually do care about their work and the children they teach. I have not met a teacher who was phoning it in and waiting for the union to bail them out. Rather, I have worked side by side with teachers in designing evidence-based plans to address students' individual needs in innovative, flexible, data-driven ways. Yet you seem to boil down American schools to ignorant, lock-step failures.

Also, I am dismayed that you have not read the research on what determines quality of education more thoroughly. You usually do a better job than that. Maybe you were too dazzled by this movie to do some critical thinking. The fact is, high income area schools do better--their students do better--not necessarily because of the quality of teacher (although that is true--high quality teachers don't tend to pick the inner city of Detroit), but because of the amount of time spent in direct learning activities. There was a landmark study in your home state, Illinois (Gamoran is an author), that taught us this lesson clearly. It looked at schools that served primarily low-income African Americans, schools that served low-income racially/ethnically-mixed students, high-income predominantly white schools, and high-income mixed schools. The number one factor that affected school achievement was not income level or race. It was not teachers' years of experience or credentials. It was the number of minutes spent in direct instruction. The schools serving poorer children tended to spend more time on behavior management (my opinion is that it was ineffective behavior management) than on things like reading and math. There were lower-income schools that performed similarly to the upper-income schools in terms of cumulative minutes spent in direct instruction, and lo and behold, their students performed similarly to the upper-income schools. I am telling you about this study to highlight that education children is a lot more complicated than unions, or the anecdotal story of a union coming to an incompetent teacher's defense. That does not even begin to scratch the surface.

Also, I am sitting in South Africa right now as I write this. You say that America's schools are failing. You do not know what you are talking about. Come here to Africa--Kenya, even--and see how unequally the benefits of education are applied. Our system in the US is not perfect, but it is not a failure. The city where I live in the US serves students speaking 75 different languages. Many students are mobile and transient. Many good teachers do not have their students long enough to make an impact on their learning needs--then they are off to a new building or a new town. The challenges faced by teachers are seemingly overwhelming at times. And yet, any student who shows up at the door can attend. Can attend and even be given a breakfast and a lunch. Can have their reading and math skills tested regularly and be given individualized instruction as needed. In my city, there are even health clinics attached to schools designed to provide primary care to students and their families to promote better overall health. The fact is, education is much more than teaching children reading and math nowadays. If a child is unhealthy, not eating, not being cared for consistently, schools have a role, a formal role, in addressing those needs. It's easy to look back and say our schools have declined in quality. More likely is that our statistics were worse in the past, and the transient children with high needs were not accounted for.

Do better.

I am disappointed in this column and hope you will think about this more deeply.

All of my peers that went into teaching were lazy d-bags that wanted summers off and don't give two shits about broadening a child's horizon.

I have an in-law who is the epitome of this horrible scenario. She went into special ed specifically so that she could maximize her pay, as special ed teachers get a higher salary. When she goes home, all she does is make fun of the "retards" (her word). She's a loathsome woman.

To be honest, I'm skeptical of the argument that the film and Mr. Ebert present here. But let's assume for argument's sake that the problem is teachers' unions, which implies that the solution is to dispose of them, or at least weaken them considerably. But then this leaves open some questions that require addressing:

1. If tenure is the problem, should teachers have any protections at all? If so, what would those be?

2. How do we determine what is a good or bad teacher? What will such metrics take into account?

3. Are the standards to which we hold teachers fair? Will these same standards be applied to everyone in the educational system?

...and those are just a few.

I don't deny that there are bad teachers, that they can be hard to remove, and that some teachers' union locals are poorly led. But, as another commenter put it, breaking the unions as the "magic bullet" may not produce the result that we think it will. Frankly, I know of few other jobs for which such a high level of performance and dedication is expected. That's understandable given the mission that teachers have, but they're still human beings and can only do so much even if it's "for the kids". If anyone thinks that merit alone will keep you in a job like that, well, good luck to you.

We should keep in mind that there a lot of things behind the scenes that go on that we don't hear about. Since we're sharing anecdotes, I'll share one: I belong to a union. We aren't a traditional teachers' union, i.e. NEA or AFT, but my local represents teachers & teaching assistants. A colleague of mine was asked, in a pinch, to help out her department because they needed someone to teach. She agreed because she not only needed to work, but genuinely wanted to help. She was needed right away, so she started before her department had prepared the necessary paperwork and taught for six weeks without pay (in this town and at our pay level, that's serious). When she mentioned this to the department, they would not give her the documentation she needed to give to the payroll department so she could recieve her back pay. In essence, her department wanted her to donate, free of charge, six weeks of teaching. Our union went to bat for her, and she got the back pay that she had earned. Without that, I have no reason to believe she would have been properly paid for the work she did.

Maybe this seems like a minor thing, but my local deals with such issues all the time. Again, I'm not denying that there exist bad teachers and bad locals (and bad administrators), but it seems to me that if the problem of the unions is so widespread, then the solution is for the membership to reform their locals. "Breaking" the unions will not be the guarantee of better teaching that a lot people seem to think it will be.

Mr. Ebert, it is clear you have not ever worked in schools.

I have. Teachers work harder than most people you will come across (I am not a teacher), and they actually do care about their work and the children they teach. I have not met a teacher who was phoning it in and waiting for the union to bail them out. Rather, I have worked side by side with teachers in designing evidence-based plans to address students' individual needs in innovative, flexible, data-driven ways. Yet you seem to boil down American schools to ignorant, lock-step failures.

Also, I am dismayed that you have not read the research on what determines quality of education more thoroughly. You usually do a better job than that. Maybe you were too dazzled by this movie to do some critical thinking. The fact is, high income area schools do better--their students do better--not necessarily because of the quality of teacher (although that is true--high quality teachers don't tend to pick the inner city of Detroit), but because of the amount of time spent in direct learning activities. There was a landmark study in your home state, Illinois (Gamoran is an author), that taught us this lesson clearly. It looked at schools that served primarily low-income African Americans, schools that served low-income racially/ethnically-mixed students, high-income predominantly white schools, and high-income mixed schools. The number one factor that affected school achievement was not income level or race. It was not teachers' years of experience or credentials. It was the number of minutes spent in direct instruction. The schools serving poorer children tended to spend more time on behavior management (my opinion is that it was ineffective behavior management) than on things like reading and math. There were lower-income schools that performed similarly to the upper-income schools in terms of cumulative minutes spent in direct instruction, and lo and behold, their students performed similarly to the upper-income schools. I am telling you about this study to highlight that education children is a lot more complicated than unions, or the anecdotal story of a union coming to an incompetent teacher's defense. That does not even begin to scratch the surface.

Also, I am sitting in South Africa right now as I write this. You say that America's schools are failing. You do not know what you are talking about. Come here to Africa--Kenya, even--and see how unequally the benefits of education are applied. Our system in the US is not perfect, but it is not a failure. The city where I live in the US serves students speaking 75 different languages. Many students are mobile and transient. Many good teachers do not have their students long enough to make an impact on their learning needs--then they are off to a new building or a new town. The challenges faced by teachers are seemingly overwhelming at times. And yet, any student who shows up at the door can attend. Can attend and even be given a breakfast and a lunch. Can have their reading and math skills tested regularly and be given individualized instruction as needed. In my city, there are even health clinics attached to schools designed to provide primary care to students and their families to promote better overall health. The fact is, education is much more than teaching children reading and math nowadays. If a child is unhealthy, not eating, not being cared for consistently, schools have a role, a formal role, in addressing those needs. It's easy to look back and say our schools have declined in quality. More likely is that our statistics were worse in the past, and the transient children with high needs were not accounted for.

Do better.

I am disappointed in this column and hope you will think about this more deeply.

Mr. Ebert;

I have respected your opinions as a film critic because I have given you credit for thorough thought and research. Yet, you make your condemnation of teacher unions based on one movie and one school system? Thank you for lumping all educators, union or non union, into one category, bad!

Had you checked your facts you would find that bad teachers CAN be let go and that all, ALL good teachers prefer that they would. The unions protect an individuals right to "due process" and "just cause", two rights that many think teachers should not be given.

I don't have the luxury of a bully pulpit as you do so I can't correct your mistakes here. Are there poor teachers? Sure. (I think there are bad movie critics too!) Can something be done? Yes, if people like you want to use your influence to "help" the unions make change. WHO MAKES DECISIONS ON HOW TO RUN SCHOOLS? Legislators and board members; NOT educators. Look it up. Do your research!

Steve

As someone who used to substitute teach whenever I was in between full-time employment as a web designer and developer, I'd like to echo the readers here who say that the corrupt teacher's unions are only one part of the problem.

I cannot tell you how evident it was that the vast majority of the students' parents just didn't give a damn about their children's education. Parents frequently showed up dressed in lounge pants and flip-flops to pull their kids from class for whatever reason (Evolution was being taught, the child was "needed" at home, etc.) and were often downright hostile toward teachers and other school officials.

I never earned a grade less than a "B" in my academic career in public schools, but I often wonder if I could manage that feat these days. I saw no real learning or structure in these schools, just little more than controlled chaos in a classroom of 40 incurious and apathetic students and one beleaguered teacher.

Furthermore, I think that the timing of the American school day is a huge culprit here. High school classes start at 6:55am and end at 1:55pm, resulting in an entire student body that is semi-comatose in the morning and has a full 4 hours to spend unsupervised until their parents get home (if their parents work.)

I agree that education is failing in America but I would dare say that it's not something that can really be laid at the feet of an organization, but rather society. I will try to be brief...I am an American who spent most of my life in South America and from grades 3-11 I was homeschooled, as were my brothers. The curriculum my parents used was mostly self-paced and focused around reading. My mother handled most of the day to day, with no college education. When we returned to the states we took placement tests...all of us tested out of high school in almost every subject (Also none of us are socially retarded as many anti-homeschoolers would suggest). Most American students have no appreciation for knowledge, or education, and in a culture obsessed with skin-deep issues, I don't find that hard to believe. Combine that with the fact that many parents take 0 personal responsibility for their child's behavior and education. Pearls before swine if you ask me...

I think many of our academic issues are not necessarily on the surface but are instead ingrained and mostly societal and cultural in nature.
There is no doubt that many of our educational problems in this country have to do with unfocused and lethargic teachers. It has been twenty years since I have been in high school but I remember that I could easily, in a matter of one class session, determine who was a committed, effective teacher and who was merely passing the time and collecting a paycheck.

Another major factor in our bad educational system is the lack of national standards. For the most part we have let individual school districts set standards on what should be taught, emphasized, and most importantly, to the detriment of scholarship, what should not be taught. I think that American's fear of centralized authority keeps us from having national standards on education. Other countries have it and it is hard to argue that they are not more effective that we are in imparting knowledge to their students.

But I would place most of the responsibility for our substandard system on parents. I can remember going into the houses of my friends when I was a teen and never seeing a book, magazine or periodical. We do not take education, learning and issues seriously as a culture. If education is highly prized it is only for a means of obtaining employment. A necessary goal, but very few people debate ideas just for the sake of it anymore. I went back to the University about 5 years ago to complete my degree and the lack of interest in academic issues among many of my fellow students was appalling. This was an expensive, private university and many of the students were content to merely pass the time, unengaged with the big issues and concepts of the world. Most professors have office hours and many love to talk about and debate issues. My most enlightening and valuable moments at the University were the hours I spent discussing philosophy and history with one of my professors during his office hours. These sessions led to a friendship and we continue to exchange ideas on movies, book ideas, etc... There are opportunities out there but you have to have some curiosity to begin with. And that usually can't be taught.

Please understand and accept that all comments that follow this statement are founded in my belief, that your blog about this topic is the best you have ever written. Having got that out of the way, here are some comments and questions that are posed to challenge a viewpoint in your blog:

1) Do you honestly believe that the American education system is failing or has failed? Having graduated high school in India, undergraduated in England, and post graduated in the United States, I am not privvy to the public schooling system here, however, it is hard for me to accept that a nation that builds the best roads, creates the most advanced technology in many arenas, designs the best cars, and provides many entreprenuerial opportunities, can fail in the spectrum of education. Yes, a Kenyan or Indian can solve complex algebraic problems in a jiffy, but does he/she have the expertise to manage businesses or create wealth as an American has done for ages (and continues to do so for many years)?

2) Unions are only as good/bad as the ultimate management that oversees them. In this case, the blame/buck should stop at the foot of the Government of the United States. It is they who have failed in installing the appropriate safeguards and fail-safes to prevent the union from exploiting resources. The merit or flaw of unions is not a liberal/conservative discussion. When an administration is not inclined to take the unions head on, it does become a liberal/conservative argument.

3) Bill Gates should not have the need to defend the process of acquiring talent for Microsoft from East Asia. People make fundamental choices on what they want to do in life. An Indian student frames him/herself towards a career in engineering (particularly software) from the very beginning. A career in hotel management, film making or critique, plumbing, constructing houses or roads is frowned upon by a large segment of society in India. In America, people are rewarded for how they contribute and this motivates the individual to choose their career of choice, rather than a career of rewards/convenience. It does not matter if you fail at Math or Science in America, because you can be a successful plumber, nurse, or chef who is respected by all.

4) Finally, any comparison of public schooling in the United States needs to be made with public schooling in other nations. Having been exposed to public schooling in India, I can vouch that the system is more corrupt, less rewarding to teachers, and run by individuals who have never gone to school themselves. The problem is not the teachers or students, but the system. Any government run/funded/overseen operation without accountability to the public will under-perform. Your liberal beliefs continue to question this when it comes to health care, but an universal education system that takes taxpayer money and pours into the system will always suffer compared to a privately run system that needs to make profit.

This does not excuse the flaws in the education system of America or negate the need for driving improvements, but lot of good remains in the way Americans educate and motivates their young, let's not migrate to the African or Asian system (just because they seem to be better at Math, Science, or English).

I am not a teacher or a student, but have two children that received a very fine education at the local public school system. I feel there is a disconnect between some of what I am reading and what I *KNOW*.

Bill Gates can't recruit talented Americans? As an IT person, I find that to be a complete and utter lie, unless you add that he can't recruit Americans for the price he wants to pay in salary. I can show you many unemployed IT people right here, right now, that would be more than willing to work for Microsoft.

I live in the Detroit area, where they hold Spaghetti dinners and raffle off toasters and other small appliances in order to get parents to come to teacher conferences and open houses. Even so, some teachers have no parents visit during these events. Do you think they have difficulty holding on to talented teachers? I do!

The reason that education is not a priority is that these people don't know anyone that did better for themselves because they got a high school diploma. As people in Detroit become successful, they move out of the city and never look back.

Tenure? I'm sure that it is a problem, but I'm not sure it is the major problem. Once you figure out how to make people *want* an education for their children or for themselves, then you will have half the battle won.

And less and less it pays to have an education. I'm amazed that anyone majors in Computer Science these days since most companies have quotas for off shored jobs. I am not talking about people losing their jobs that are bad at what they do, I am talking about working hard one day and Oops - your job moved to Bangalore the next.

When companies start putting their money into America there will be incentive to become educated for a profession. Until then, see you at McDonald's.

In 2008, Dallas Independent School District realized with a month into their school year that they had a budget deficit of 80 million dollars. So, in October of 2008 with the school year well under way, they laid off hundreds of teachers--one account put it at 460 teachers. Students were reassigned classrooms, and the school year was effectively reset in mid-October.

Everyone has personal anecdotes to share about incompetent teachers and the short-sighted unions, so I thought I might share one about bungling administrations. Christ, don't get me started on school boards...

Roger,

As a teacher, there is much that I want to say here, but my 20 minute lunch break is about to end and I must get back to the task of teaching children. Some quick thoughts though:

-Yes, there are definitely some issues with teachers' unions (New York's "rubber room" comes to mind), but to brand every one as evil and by definition anti-student sounds like the kind of rhetorical tactics that you normally rail against concerning the so-called right wing.

-Why have you not responded to some the very valid points brought up here concerning the problems with standardized testing, teaching load, parents, etc.? Why is the only response to Warren, which leads me to...

-I'm sorry, but I really have a hard time buying Warren's story. This is because A) If a teacher has broken the law and abused children, no tenure rules can save them. B) In my experience, you only have the opportunity to join the union AFTER you are hired by a school (ususally the building rep will appear in your classroom and give the pitch to join some time in the first week of school). If your sister was just out of college, she would not have been in any union, therefore no one from any union would have had any means or inclination to contact her, and C) Perhaps I'm ill-informed, but I have been a member of both the NEA and AFT during my 16 year career, and I have never heard of any school or teacher being "blacklisted." I've never even heard the term uttered in 16 years of meetings.

Just my quick two cents....

As a fairly recent high school graduate, I'm sick of hearing about how classroom sizes are too large. I think they should be smaller for younger grades, but in higher grades, not so much. I had a lot of good teachers, and a lot of not-so-good teachers, and quite frankly I would much, much rather be in a class with 150 peers and a good teacher than in a class with 20 peers and a bad one. Bad teachers should be fired, or at least assigned a different role. I feel cruel saying this, as a lot of my bad teachers were good people, but they simply couldn't teach, and eduation quality is important!

Perhaps I see things differently because I was generally motivated in high school, but I could feel my motivation slipping away in the classes where I had lousy teachers. As an example, I took a programming class in high school and despised it and learned nothing because the teacher was a moron. Last year I took nearly the same class in University and I absolutely loved it and felt compelled to learn more. Of course, the University class had probably four times more students, but the instruction was simply so much better.

I am not a teacher, but one of my closest friends has been a public school teacher for over 10 years. His wife is also a teacher, and they taught for 5 years in the NYC school system, he in Queens, she in Brooklyn. My many long conversations with them about their profession has led me to believe that the primary problem with troubled public schools (many public schools are excellent) is that a substantial portion of the student body is unteachable. Since this group of troublemakers cannot be effectively disciplined, they prevent the rest of the class from learning.

According to my friends, the worst teaching positions are in middle school, where young, budding criminals have not yet dropped out to perfect their craft. My friends support social promotion (i.e. promoting failing students to the next grade solely because of their age). I was originally opposed to this practice, until they told me how older males who were held back would bully and rape their younger and weaker classmates.

The Brooklyn and Queens schools both received the same amount of funding, as mandated by law, but the two schools were worlds apart. The Brooklyn school looked like a prison; every window was protected by an ugly grate. This was necessary, since otherwise the students would break all of the windows. Fire alarms went off daily in the Brooklyn school, because the students set off fires in the bathrooms. Homework was not assigned, because the students might assault a teacher who assigned it, and the homework would not be completed in any case. A 60 year old teacher at the Brooklyn school was sent to the hospital by one of her students; the offender was back in school after two weeks of suspension.

The school in Queens, while not a utopia, did not have these sorts of problems. Coincidentally, 70% of the student body was Asian. The Asian parents tended to stress discipline, obedience, and scholastic excellence. Not surprisingly, these kids did extremely well.

Why would anybody teach at the Brooklyn school, given the conditions there? For one, expectations were low. All teachers in NYC schools must complete their master's degree within five years. There was plenty of time to study for a master's while the students were watching movies. Since there was no homework to grade, and no concerned parents calling the teachers at home to complain about their childrens' performance, it was easy to leave the job behind when at home. Lousy and lazy teachers find it easier to get along in a school like this than in one where expectations are higher. Eager, naive suburbanites, fresh out of Teach For America, do not fare as well.

http://www.theonion.com/content/node/30911

http://www.theonion.com/content/news_briefs/inner_city_teacher_inspires

You can abolish the unions, throw all sorts of money and the best teachers at schools like the Brooklyn school (which is not even close to being the worst public school my friend taught at), but the students there will never achieve the same results as motivated, eager-to-learn children from stable families. You will have to pay a small fortune to keep good teachers in schools where they will be constantly cursed at, disrespected, and possibly attacked; even so, I doubt the performance will improve dramatically.

Creating a separate school (i.e., warehouse) for the troublemakers may be a possible solution, but you are essentially doubling the education costs, since you have to pay for a second school with the staff to maintain it, pay double for your transportation costs, etc. Rhee has gotten into trouble in D.C. by consolidating partially filled schools into a single school. By doing this, she forced into close proximity gang members from different neighborhoods who had blood feuds with each other.

For a more in-depth look at the reality of teaching in inner-city schools, I highly recommend Will Okun's blog entries in the NYTimes. Mr. Okun taught at a Chicago public school, but resigned in frustration after many years.

http://kristof.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/12/06/policing-the-halls/

I have read through all the comments, as well as the original article, and, as a high school English teacher, I find myself in a quandry, as I agree with both sides. There are bad teachers, but I don't think we need to blame the unions for that. There are also phenominal teachers, but I don't think we need to thank the union for that either. When a person places blame on an entity, he must also give credit to the same entity. If we are judging schools, claiming the unions are responsible for the state of our schools, we can't just ignore the good things.

As a union leader, I have spent most of my time trying to help teachers become a better teacher each day. I teach a workshop designed by the union in conjunction with county school boards in CA; its purpose is to aid new teachers in areas of classroom management. I also do a community outreach class, which attempts to bring parents back into our schools. As a union leader, I have been trained in Covey's Seven Habits and his Seven Habits for Students and help my fellow educators and students to apply Covey's techniques to their daily lives.

Yes, unions are against merit pay, but, for many reasons. How is merit determined? Test scores? As one writer pointed out, those who teach the most academically challenged students would probably never get a raise, yet we need good (actually, probably the best) teachers for those students. Evaluations? If that were the case, every teacher would be afraid to disagree with an administrator or an administrator's decision. (Don't want to upset the one who determines your level of pay!) But a lot of these administrators have spent little time EVER in the classroom, so many truly have no idea what would be good, authentic teaching, successful strategies and assessments.

We do need to improve our schools, and we do need more money to do it - not for teacher pay, but for smaller class size and for supplies and equipment. Students need individual attention, but can't receive it as often as needed in a classroom of thirty or more children. Schools and teachers need supplies - everything from more up-to-date textbooks, to computers, to buildings that are safe and protected.

So, as to the original statement, yes, there are "bad" teachers, but most are dedicated, hard-working, educated, compassionate individuals. Most would give almost anything to help their students to succeed. "Bad" teachers can be eliminated from the system; even tenure doesn't protect a teacher who deserves to be released, if the administator handles things correctly, with documentation and proof. (Isn't that what we all want? Honest, open communication as to the problems that exist and a chance to rectify them?) That's all the tenure law requires. As a union leader, my job is not to protect the unqualified, but to protect the process, ensuring each individual's basic rights are preserved. I have been involved in a number of teacher releases, and I can only think of one I would say was unjust. And even with that one, the union couldn't stop the release because the teacher's due process rights had been guaranteed.
Please realize tenure laws do not make it impossible to release a unsatisfactory teacher.

Do we need to "fix" education in America? Yes, but we need to fix a lot of other aspects of a child's life, if we ever want to be able to have each child reach his/her potential.

Roger,

Good article, but don't limit blame to the unions. The system has failed, and they are only one component(though a major one). The parents and administrations are also failing our students and teachers, as the below anecdote will demonstrate.

A friend of mine taught science in a suburban Rhode Island high school. He was generally well regarded by students and the faculty, but ran afoul of parents when it was discovered that he was "failing too many of his students". Now mind you, this was not to say that the parents had not had the opportunity to notice this before the final grade. My friend would personally contact the parents of each student failing at the term's mid-point to give them an opportunity to intervene for their child's benefit. Suffice it to say, the majority of his calls went unanswered.

Then grades arrived, and the administration's switchboard lit up. Apparently, this teacher was too strict in his expectations that high school students do homework, participate in class, and pass their tests. Thus the administration called him down and instructed him to "fix" the grades. He needed to make more Ds & Fs into Bs & Cs. My friend replied that if those students wanted better grades, they could earn them the next term. He was informed that he would not be there the next term to see this happen if he did not increase the grades. He agreed he would not, and resigned on the spot.

This is just as much a problem as the union: parents who believe their children can do no wrong, and refuse to believe the view of another adult who observes their child's academic progress firsthand. And then the administration, not wishing to risk the cushy jobs they've secured that do not involve any teaching responsibility, cows to their persistent demands that their child be given a grade they didn't earn.

Roger - I failed multiple classes in high school. I was a lousy student and worked hard only in the subjects I liked. But when I failed, I was disciplined by my parents, and by my school. Extra-curricular activities were taken away and I lost privileges. But through that punishment, I learned the value of education, and am completing a Master's degree this May.

Sadly, our culture of entitlement is causing parents, teachers, principals, and students all to tear down what the previous generation took so much time and care to build.

Ebert: "Decades of research and test data indicate that the primary factor determining a school performance is not its budget, physical plant, curriculum, student population or the income level of its district. It is teaching. The most powerful opponents to better teaching are the teachers' unions."

OK, but let's define "teaching"--necessary before we can even consider "better teaching." I will join "decades of research" myself in asserting that class size is an essential prerequisite for good teaching. For instance, the National Council of Teachers of English has long recommended class sizes of 15-20 and workloads totaling no more than 60-80 students.

Of course, the cost of such a measure would be huge, and the benefits would not accrue for a generation, when the first cohort graduates from high school. Where will we find the school boards, members of Congress, union officials, etc. willing to wait 18 years to demonstrate those benefits to their constituents?

Roger, I suspect you're right about what students years ago knew compared to those now. I went to public schools, and never had a problem...but that was over 30 years ago.

As to unions vs. management, I think history makes clear that you need *both*, and they need to be in balance. When management has all the power, they exploit the workers. When unions have all the power, they exploit the system as well.

Can the government take action? Should it? I'm never in favor of the government stepping in on anything, since it rarely has an incentive to do it efficiently. However, if no one else can act...will a Democratic administration act against unions? (Why am I thinking, "Only Nixon could go to China"?)

These sound like compelling films indeed.

I have gone to school in Iran, Belgium, US and Taiwan. By far the easiest classes were in the US where sports compete with academics head to head. But even my easy going school which sent 90% of its graduates to college is going downhill these days.

Even in good areas schools have started to cater more towards the people who have the money.
http://www.svmoms.com/2010/01/should-money-buy-you-privileged-access-to-a-public-school-system.html

Just one of the reasons me and my wife decided to raise our kids outside of the US.

I agree that teachers unions can end up protecting bad teachers, but if you control for poverty, the US has some of the top test scores in the world. From the work of Stephen Krashen:

"Missing from the discussion is the research on reading.

Study after study shows that the most powerful factor in increasing reading proficiency is reading itself: Students who read more do better on tests of reading, writing, spelling, grammar, and vocabulary. Research also tell us that "late intervention" works: Students who become readers at any age can make enormous improvement.

Research also says that when students have access to good books, they generally take advantage of them. For many students, especially children of poverty, the major source of reading material is the school library. Studies consistently show that school library quality, which includes quality collections and credentialed librarians, is related to reading achievement.

The first step in improving literacy is to make sure all students have access to excellent classroom and school libraries.

Sources:

Children who read more do better:

Krashen, S. 2004. The Power of Reading. Libraries Unlimited and Heinemann Publishing Company (second edition)

McQuillan, J. 1998. The Literacy Crisis: False Claims and Real Solutions. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.

Late intervention:

Krashen, S. and McQuillan, J. 2007. Late intervention. Educational Leadership 65 (2): 68-73.

When children have access to books:

Krashen, S. 2004. The Power of Reading. Libraries Unlimited and Heinemann Publishing Company (second edition)

School library major source:

Feitelson, D. & Goldstein, Z. (1986). Patterns of book ownership and reading to young children in Israeli school-oriented and nonschool oriented families. The Reading Teacher, 39, 224-230.

Neuman, S.B. & Celano, D. (2001). Access to print in low-income and middle-income communities: An ecological study of four neighborhoods.
Reading Research Quarterly, 36, 1, 8-26.

Di Loreto, C., and Tse, L. 1999. Seeing is believing: Disparity in books in two Los Angeles area public libraries. School Library
Quarterly 17(3): 31-36.

Libraries and achievement:

Elley, W. 1992. How in the World do Children Read Hamburg: The International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement.

Lance, K. 2004. The impact of school library media centers on academic achievement. In Carol Kuhlthau (Ed.), School Library Media Annual.
188-197. Westport, CT: Libraries Unlimited. (For access to the many Lance studies done in individual states, as well as studies done by
others at the state level, see http://www.davidvl.org/research.html).

McQuillan, J. 1998. The Literacy Crisis: False Claims and Real Solutions. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann."

Roger, I hope both of these movies do well and stimulate some real debate. I was a very mediocre Catholic school student. When I got out in the world I found my class ranking in the middle would probably be good for national honors in public school. It scares me the amount of basic information people don't know, forget about algebra and geography! I thank my lucky stars that my parents forced me to go to Catholic school. I can't see progress any time soon. Unfortunately the unions are too strong and will kill the goose just like the auto unions did. Then it will be too late as more countries pass us by. I tell kids all the time they should study their asses off and listen for those footsteps coming up behind us. China, S. Korea, India, etc... When their economies really flourish how will you lure an Asian away from their homeland to work here? Bad things man, bad things!!

As I recall, there were 67 students in my fifth grade Catholic school class (the other night I made an effort to remember all their names. Got as far as 37. Just today, remembered 2 more: Hey, Karen Henry and Jon Wald! If you're out there!) The reason I thought of this is to that my teacher, whose grammatical rules have been more important to me than anything learned since.

The class behind us had 73 students, I think.

If I go much further than this, I may find myself meditating too much on slapping the false teeth out of the Superintendent of Schools of Watkins Glen, New York -- plus those of his nepotistic hirers. I've been feeling that way since 1990.

There's just too much to rage about. Better a millstone hung around their necks, etc. Rage we did, and effectively. But I'm still raging, even tho' my kid's long grown up.

They're killing the enthusiasms of kids and teachers alike. Few want to teach, and few want to learn, the way things are set up these days.

Which of these political-Frankenstein "educators" can pass the 1898 Kansas City Board of Education exam? I'd like to see.

Homeshooling is an option for those who can, but it takes a high level of commitment.

I am a product of Hawaii's public schools (30+ years ago). Living right next to the local high school, my parents saw no sense in trying to pay for four kids to go to private school (my dad and everyone on his side of the family attended Punahou, the same school Barack Obama attended, and have done so since the school's founding more than 160 years ago). I got a great education, was accepted at two highly competitive colleges, and have fond memories of my teachers throughout my educational experience.

But I have to agree with you, Roger--times have changed, and not for the better. Today, the Hawaii public school system is being asked to slash its budget by $500 million, and to furlough its teachers (and, by default, its students) for as many as 20 days a year to cut costs.

The most visible effect of the degradation of America's schools that I can see from all the way over here in Tokyo is in the use of language. What you do so well, Roger, seems to have become something of a lost art. Everywhere, from newspapers, to public documents, to blogs and online magazines and corporate press releases, a well-turned phrase--or even a simply properly constructed one--is going the way of the Dodo, with the result that the more I read, the less I want to. That most basic of human skills--communicating with words--is slowly being eroded, and I am not referring to the prevalence of IM abbreviations or the transformation of "gift" into a noun. The fundamental quality of language in public discourse is gradually, but visibly, falling apart.

I am also a left-leaning, political person, brought up with the United Farmworkers boycotts and a general attitude of support for most unions. But the things I have seen and heard about the role unions now play in our public school system, along with the obsessive focus on testing, on microscopic levels of rules and restrictions, on declining competitiveness in academics and crumbling support for arts education, convinces me that we are moving farther and farther away from a focus on our students, their well-being, and their futures.

It's time to bring some common sense back to the classroom.

I look forward to both of these documentaries, if and when they show up in Japan!

Push poor students through? Well, do you want an eighteen-year-old in your ninth grade English class?

Hello Roger and thanks for writing this piece.

Like many others here I am a teacher, and I consider myself a very good teacher. I work in an affluent upper-middle class suburban area outside Chicago, and our school has a lot of very good teachers. I've been teaching for about 10 years, and I'm sorry to say that even in that short of a time I've seen the level of student achievement drop off. The level of teaching in my school has made a decided improvement, yet our students seem to perform worse on standardized instruments.

I point to a general anti-intellectual strain running through America at this point in time. Within honors-level courses the kids are smarter and more interested than ever, but for the majority of kids there seems to be very little interest in working hard to get better at school. They often want to be told exactly what to do in order to earn a certain grade (usually a 'B'), and they frequently blame the teacher or other forces "outside their control" when they fail. Many of these kid feel entitled to a high school diploma just for showing up, and I'm sure they carry the same attitude into college and then the working world.

I do have to take exception with the oft-repeated idea that it is "impossible" to fire a tenured teacher. Tenured teachers are actually frequently let go by a number of means including forced retirement and others. Frequently the reason ineffective teachers are not fired is because school administrators lack the backbone or the will to stand up and hold them accountable.

Every district I've ever worked with had pretty specific policies in place for intervening in the case of ineffective teachers. Usually the first step is training and mentoring to help the struggling teacher. After it becomes clear that the teacher is not qualified for the job, they can be let go. The administration needs to present evidence to a professional review board that the teacher is not performing their job duties, and then the teacher can be fired. Frequently the teacher will resign before it ever gets to this point in the process.

The real problem is not the teachers' unions protecting the teachers (that is their job, after all), but rather a lack of accountability on the part of school administrators to step up and do the dirty work. MANY school administrators are actively working to find their next job: department chairs want to be Assistant principals; APs want to be Principals; Principals want to be Superintendents. I've never known an administrator to stay in the same job for more than 5 years, they are ALWAYS on the look for the next step up the ladder. The problem this creates is that every administrator is essentially always on a job interview; they are afraid to ruffle any feathers or make too much noise that might be noticed when they go looking for that next job. They generally just try to keep their heads down and go unnoticed so that they can step up to the next job when there's an opening. It's MUCH easier to ignore a bad teacher than it is to document teacher failings, intervene to try to help, and finally begin the formal firing process.

So I agree, there certainly are bad teachers. And the bad teacher need to get out of the classroom to allow the kids to achieve. The problem, however is not just the unions. The problems run much much deeper than such a simplistic answer would suggest. If the AFT and NEA were dissolved tomorrow, and every school district was allowed to hire and fire anyone they wanted to, what do you think would happen? Would our public schools suddenly turn around and give us the bang-for-the-buck we are looking for? Would apathetic parents suddenly start to care how their kids to in school? And more importantly, who would take all those empty teaching positions?

Roger, your article and all these different thoughtful responses represent what is needed most to "fix" the education issues in the US--taking a step back and re-thinking how/why we educate, revamping schools according to what is positive and holistic and proven to work, and being willing to throw out every current/standard practice that is not.

I agree that parents are part of the problem. And teacher's unions (both my parents were h.s. educators there in Champaign, my dad in science at Centennial for over 30 years--I remember as a kid going with them to picket for better salaries, since the garbage men get paid WAY more than the teachers do!). And a big problem is the "let's build up kids' self-esteem" platform of the 1990's that made it hugely unpopular for teachers to hold kids accountable for their classroom/classwork choices.

BUT it seems the biggest problem is that no one seems to know how to best educate. Every decade, every state, every school system has its own pet philosophies, and the truly innovative educational approaches that are proven to work and get kids learning and behaving well in the classroom (in exclusive private schools in major cities, of course) seem to be either ignored or dismissed as too much work to implement.

A fscinating article on such a potentially successful practice was in the New York Times Dec 20, 2009, "Studying Young Minds, and How to Teach Them." The model currently inspiring me is Charlotte Mason's--an approach we use as the basis for our homeschooling (see simplycharlottemason.com for free e-books on this topic).

Neither of these "looks" at all like what we think of as a good education. And yet, they have the potential for producing scholars of much healthier and positive mind and spirit than any public school model I have yet seen.

I started out teaching at an urban university--and left to homeschool my kids, now ages 9, 6 and 4. I have never regretted it; my teaching now will have much more of a positive, lasting impact on the world than anything I would have done in the realm of academia. And especially now that the state of CA, where we live, has cut back school funding to such an extent that one public school teacher friend told me this year they are not really teaching science, history, social studies--certainly not "extras" like art and music. They are just teaching in "survival mode"--or, as we commonly call it, "teaching for the test." All that matters is test scores. And what are those coming to, anyway?

I find it so interesting that when people first learn we homeschool, their immediate response is not concern for the quality of my children's education (my just turned 9 year old tested at 11th grade language arts level--which is not really bragging, considering what you were saying about a high school education now being what a jr. high education was then, but does help prove we are thriving in our schooling). Their concern is that my children are not being socialized.

Hmmmmmmm. My well-socialized children aside, when did THAT become the purpose of public education in the average person's mind?

Thanks for writing about this all-too-important topic, Roger.

P.S. Being a former "speechie" at Central H.S., I remember making it to the State tournament and seeing the honor roll of who won first in state in the different categories in different years--your name under Radio was a pleasant surprise. I only got as high as 11th in the state, in Verse. But that moment was when you became my favorite film critic. ; )

As a public school teacher for five years in struggling urban schools, I've had exactly zero conversations with colleagues about unions or union-related activity. Maybe I've been lucky. The vast majority of working teachers want what's best for our students.

That said, we are not angels. Some are more effective than others- in some cases, vastly so. We complain. We are not always honest about our shortcomings; blaming the administration, class size, student deficiencies, society, their parents, etc..

It is all nonsense. Your most salient point- that ability has nothing (or little) to do with achievement- is one that is reinforced every day. How can one group coming from the same demographic be so much better off than a similar one? This is the question that makes all others moot. When teaching is improved, learning is improved. One of the great gifts of this profession- besides the students- is that it constantly affords you the opportunity to get better. To refine. To say more with less.

Roger seems to be on a crusade. I recall a review, maybe Boys of Baraka, when you stated your wish to triple the education budget. That would work, maybe. Maybe not. It comes down to us. We need to see our students with a sense of urgency. Demand that they use their wonderful, unusual minds. Make them solve the same quadratic equation using four different strategies. Demand that they consider (just consider) going to A Single Man instead of Legion. Stop destroying their will to create, a desire that's been dying since age 8.

Frank McCourt: "Whatever ideas they had came from the avalanche of media in our world. No one had ever told them they had a right to think for themselves."

Oscar Wilde: "Discontent is the first step in the progress of a man or a nation."

The only problem with the anti-union argument is that there are states (Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, and Texas) in which collective bargaining is illegal. Teachers may join the NEA but there are no union contracts. No tenure for public school teachers.

You can't turn to the no-union states and point to them as shining models of educational achievement; indeed, most of them are at the bottom of the achievement ladder.

I think it has more to do with anti-intellectualism, the me-first culture (lack of parental interest and involvement), and children who from an early age are without adult supervision at home.

No, Roger. You are wrong. "Excellent teachers" would not agree with you. It is not bad teaching that is the problem. The number of "bad teachers" is very, very small. It is first and foremost an issue of parents valuing education. I can teach the best lesson in the world, but if there isn't a parent at home to ask "what did you learn in school today" or to make a child read 45 minutes daily, or to turn off the T.V. and computer, then my efforts will be for naught. Chris' parents knew the value of an education, and so did Chris.

Unions can improve, but rarely are included in talks of education reform. Politicians prefer to implement new programs without our input. If they asked us, we would advocate for the same teacher student ration as private schools: 15:1 or even less, kindergarten to 12th grade. Now we can talk about some serious depth and complexity in the curriculum. But instead, our government chooses to spend billions of dollars on war and prisons.

No teacher can combat that.

Martha Infante
California Social Studies 2009 Teacher of the Year

Great piece, Roger, and as a teacher I'm looking forward to Waiting for Superman.

My experience in teaching has taken me through wealthy districts, poor districts (one school that was immortalized in a movie) and working class districts, so I can speak with at least a little authority based on experience with students of various social and economic backgrounds.

You are 100% correct in saying that an education begins and ends with the teachers in the classroom. A good teacher produces students with skills and knowledge and a poor teacher does not. In that sense the debate is very simple. What is not as simple is the environment in which a TEACHER can thrive.

As a sworn liberal myself, you will rarely hear me beat the drum of less government intervention, but in the case of education, it is vital. There is far too much state and federal oversight in our school systems for them to ever be successful. Allow me a moment to describe how the chain of oversight creates an untenable learning environment.

The state of NJ hands down mandates to the districts of struggling schools (No Child Left Behind has made them even more stringent). Many of these have to do with student behavior and the number of suspension/expulsions that are acceptable. The state deems that said high school must reduce the number of student suspensions over the course of a given year to x-number (let's say 100 for the sake of simplicity though the number for a larger school like mine was higher). For the first semester of the school year, the principals use the tool of suspension to combat excessive tardiness and truancy and see results--these are children that WANT to be in school and learn. They see the results of the uneducated in their lives every day. Unfortunately the number of suspensions gets nearer to the max level set by the state. Disciplinarians begin to get lax with their use of the tool for fear of the state taking over the school and the loss of their jobs. They are only human after all.

Students, especially street wise teenagers, notice that infractions that used to earn severe punishments, now earn lesser punishments, if any at all. They notice pretty quickly. Incidents in school begin to increase. Teachers in such cases NEED to have the tool of sending an unruly student who is disruptive to the learning process to the school disciplinarian's office and expecting the student to receive appropriate consequences. If the consequences are not meted out, the student learns that the behavior can be repeated without consequence.

We were all teenagers, Roger. We were all going to be teenagers for our entire lives. We can make trouble today, because tomorrow would always come and we could fix it and today's teens are no different.

Anyway the teacher, unless they are a master (and there are many in such schools) loses some of the authority of the class--some of that gravitas that tells a student that you must/should do what I say because it's the best thing for you. From there the educational environment has been compromised and education does not happen.

Government oversight has also produced for us standardized tests that give us clear measurables on what a student should be able to accomplish, but mandates that now are so out of hand with NCLB that teachers do not have the time to teach the most basic concepts that have to do with their subject. 8th grade math students do not have the times tables memorized and Language Arts students cannot give you the definition of a noun or verb (seriously. more than half cannot.)

There is a connection between these basics and higher test scores--though they are not measured on the tests, observation shows us that students that can do the basics score better.

There must be a system where the people in charge trust the men and women they hire to do a good job, perform periodic reviews and are trusted to make the decision whether their hires are doing a good job. There is no trust in the system and this is where unions are both necessary and evil. The state and nation do not trust district administrators to do the job they're being paid to do. Because the administrators must bend to the government standards, they cannot by nature trust the men and women they hire. Because there is little trust, both sides must steel themselves in all fights and neither feels they can give an inch less a mile is taken.

The tenure question is an easy one. It needs to still exist but in a form where it is up for review every five years or so. Should a teacher be lacking in some way during that time, an administrator must provide proof and reason to the teacher and union and achievable goals the teacher must reach in order to be retained as a teacher when tenure is up for review.

As for the other problem, we need to be honest with ourselves and admit that all the oversight is nothing more than a show for the media so that the government on all levels has the appearance of trying to do something about the problems that we have. Really what we need to do is take the reins off of the people that we've hired to do the job and trust that we've made good decisions in hiring the people we did and provide them with the grounds to flourish into the teachers they can be. Consequently, their students will flourish along with them.

It seems to me - as someone who came up through an inner-city public school system and graduated from a public university - that the problem isn't so much in the schools, as other readers have noted, but in the environments outside of them. Of course there ARE problems in the schools. That goes without saying, although I suppose that in Washington it needs to be said, anyway (and many times, no less). But even if there was a "magic bullet," and schools across the board suddenly snapped into top form, with small classes and excellent teachers and engaging curricula, that wouldn't change the underlying issue. That issue IS the difference between an American student and a Kenyan student, and that difference, of course, is one of motive.

In Kenya, to speak in generalities, students want to learn. In America they are required to do it. But even in China (to put Kenya aside), where students are also "required" to learn, those students are more motivated because their motivation is built culturally into them. They are driven not only by the system, but also by their parents, by their peers, and by themselves. Perhaps they are driven too hard, but they are driven. In America, meanwhile, the system drives the students, but outside of that system there is little to compel students to want to educate themselves. Their parents might expect them to do well, but in an offhand, wishful manner. Their peers expect much less than that. And as for the students themselves? What business do they have prioritizing education? They would rather coast along, and drown in the saccharine pleasure of "the moment," watching television, attending concerts, roaming the mall, seeing a movie, getting drunk at a party or even merely lazing about the house. Somehow our culture has been depleted to that level. Nobody cares about world affairs, or art, or history, but if Britney shaves her head, or if someone sings a bad rendition of a Gloria Estefan song on American Idol, we're like moths drawn straight in to the flame!

Such statements are admittedly stereotypes, but they touch in the only way that I know how to touch on a deeper intellectual apathy that, for whatever reason, has been gradually encroaching on the nation. Is it a result of technological advancement? Has that made people not only come to expect, but to depend upon instantaneous gratification? I have heard that we are more and more a “visual culture.” Pictures are processed much faster than words – and especially faster than novels, newspapers and textbooks! Public speeches are increasingly (or decreasingly) composed with lower “reading levels.” Commercials are designed to make their impact within seconds. Why, then, should someone bother reading The Great Gatsby, when the Robert Redford version is available for viewing? Why, indeed, bother viewing that whole film, when the prime parts of it have been cut out and put on youtube? This seems to have been the mentality of a great many people I knew throughout middle school, high school and college. These children, adolescents and adults would not have altered their behavior under any circumstances. Assuming that a “magic bullet” could reform the school system, I doubt that reformed system would reform its own students.

There must be a much larger change – something more intangible and more profound than the dissolution of anything like a union – and this change must permeate much more than our school systems for our school systems to better educate their students. Brian G said that “If students are motivated they will learn regardless of the environment. If students aren't motivated the best environment in the world won't help them.” I agree with this entirely. The question, however, is not how to motivate the students. The question is how to motivate the nation. This question does not have an answer that can be put into words, and especially not one that can be put into legislative terms. It is a question of perception, of intelligence and taste, and the only way that America will ever answer it is by rising of its own volition beyond its own standards. That will certainly be a challenge, but the nation must put the challenge to itself. Otherwise we will simply all drift to wherever the current takes us.

The only people I've ever known to feel that today's public schools fail students are people who have never been through them themselves. As a recent high school graduate (and current college student), teacher-administration conflicts that brought up the issues of tenure and unions are still fresh in my mind, and I thank god for the union support my teachers had. I'm shocked to hear the opinions of older adults about this issue--their suspicions about public education are twice-removed from reality.

I was raised in a pop. 6,000 backwater* where the greatest opportunity was to work as a corrections officer in one of the many prisons East of town. When I was in grade and middle school, television and CD-ROM encyclopedias were a boon--they offered an intellectual escape from what I could sense, even at the age of 8, was an intellectual and cultural desert. As I got older, of course, the internet came to replace these. It was my high school experience, however, that was critical in helping me find my way. If I could rightfully express the gratitude and affection I personally have for each of the teachers that shaped my view of the world for the astoundingly better in a reasonable amount of type, I would, but for now just take my word: without these select few people, I may not have gone anywhere in life. They showed me the world. They were my AP teachers, my honors teachers, my French teacher. They were my band instructor, my gym teacher, my math teacher. So many of them struggled with the administration. Mostly for intellectual or artistic freedom, sometimes to keep our higher-level courses available to students who could benefit from them. Each one of my AP teachers was a fierce supporter of the union--and I'll tell you what: exposing me to authors from Shakespeare to Vonnegut to Morrison; showing me how the rich history of our nation affects and can inform life today; teaching me le plus-que-parfait, exposing me to francophone culture, opening the window to the world for me; equipping me with invaluable musical experience and knowledge that may be the bedrock for my career; teaching me the specifics of evolutionary theory (and by extension how its opponents are full of crock); being taught exercise routines that have been useful to this day and will provide me with a lifetime of good health; exposing me to the exciting fields of sociology and psychology; giving me personal role-models and showing me how fantastic an adult can be despite the model my parents have to offer--this is all infinitely more than our smarmy principle and administrative office ever offered us. This is all infinitely more than I could ever ask for, especially considering the location where I grew up. I could fall to my knees from the sense of intellect and opportunity these people bestowed upon me--the public education system has made me feel like the luckiest guy in the world. Some of my very best memories are those high school teachers, and they all depended on their union. They could not have offered this to me without it. This was no charter school, no private school, no rich or cosmopolitan school. This was a run-of-the-mill public high school in BFE, Michigan.

My comment has become a novel, but I can scarcely find any part of it to remove. All I'm left to say is, if the student seeks the higher knowledge and achievement, there will always be a host of incredible educators in our high schools willing to offer it to them (thanks in part to teacher unions), even in a one-horse town like the one I lived in. The system isn't failing students, students are failing themselves and their parents are failing them. Our anti-intellectual culture is failing them. Even without the aid of excellent teachers like the ones I was blessed with, illiteracy in the age of the internet is inexcusable and is nothing more than a sad, sad choice of the individual.

Every 30+ year old adult who thinks students don't have enough opportunity in our education system, and that it's the unions of all things to blame for the idiocy of so many Americans, needs to re-enroll in high school to see for themselves how ignorant a perspective that is. I worry about the effect documentaries like these will have on future students' educations. I hope every student after me has at least the opportunity I did. As far as I'm concerned, power to the teachers!

*The official population clocks in at 10,569 ever since the census decided to include prisoners as if they were residents. The census also says there are 2,421 households with an average household size of 2.53. Do the math: that's 6,125 real people, leaving over 4,000 of the town's "population" incarcerated. The state government was astounded at how our city was suddenly the fastest growing in Michigan... until they caught on to that little trick.

Tenure does not create conditions where teachers can't be fired. Any principal can document pretty much anything they want, and then the tenured teacher can be fired for cause. Tenured teachers get fired all the time. Most union law suits, that are frequently lost by districts, expose these shenanigans.

If there are teachers who are so bad, and surely there are some--like in any profession--a principal should know that, document it, and give them the boot. Remember, administrators are politicians, teachers aren't.

Tenure is protection from powerful, often over-zealous, non-unionized, top-down loving management.

There are lots of teachers out there who are disliked by their principals, but are great teachers, who get fired for nonsense, made-up reasons. The only protection a teacher has is tenure and the union.

I am really sick of this broad-brush approach to describing teachers in America. They get almost as bad a rap as lawyers and movie critics!

A quick note for anyone who believes Bill Gates when he says he can't find enough American computer/software engineers so he is forced -- forced! -- to lobby the government to let more foreign engineers in, and to outsource to India: I have a bridge you might be interested in.

Bill Gates got to where he is because he is a very, very good businessman, and as such, he wants to pay as little as possible for his employees. There are tons and tons of unemployed computer engineers in this country, but bringing in foreign engineers and outsourcing is one, cheaper than hiring seasoned American engineers, and two, helps to keep all engineer salaries low.

A quick note for anyone who believes Bill Gates when he says he can't find enough American computer/software engineers so he is forced -- forced! -- to lobby the government to let more foreign engineers in, and to outsource to India: I have a bridge you might be interested in.

Bill Gates got to where he is because he is a very, very good businessman, and as such, he wants to pay as little as possible for his employees. There are tons and tons of unemployed computer engineers in this country, but bringing in foreign engineers and outsourcing is one, cheaper than hiring seasoned American engineers, and two, helps to keep all engineer salaries low.

“to mimic the Asian educational system and to push kids like a drill camp from grade 1”

Actually, it is more severe than that. I have heard about parents who send their children(4-6) to private teachers outside schools for various courses: Math, English, speech, piano, ballet... These kids have lots of things to do besides homework every day, even in weekend.

Again, I like your piece and it thankfully reminds me that South Korean education system is maybe flawed and insane but far from the bottom yet. Like one of commenters points out, Obedience, principle, and scholastic excellence are always emphasized by our dear zealous parents. This is good, but I think we have gone too far at this moment.

However, it is better to be pushed, how hard and unproductively, to heaven and then to be plummeted into hell. It is always best to learn as many as possible at young age. One of my big regrets is I did not read Faulkner or Woolf or Austin during teenager years. In case of Twain or Dickens or Swift, books I read during my childhood were trimmed-down version for children(I'm sure they will be rolling in their grave seeing those small books).

But it looks outrageous to me sending very young children to US or Canada or Philippine(ask Mr. Mirasol) at expensive cost just for learning English. Boy, they still don't speak or write Korean well yet. And they will never know about independent thought or opinion of their own. At least, Some smart children will preserve their ability and will become leading citizens. But others? They will be just nameless nuts and bolts of our society. After watching "The Great Debaters" and "Rocket Science", I was a little frustrated that our children do not even think about doing such activity. In fact, Neither did I.

By the way, our teacher's union also has problems, but the situation is opposite. Fat cat government hates it and attacks it with any excuse they can get, like being too political(Government thinks public servants do not have right to voice their political view, but aren't they citizens of democratic society?). And due to private teachings outside schools(it becomes so huge that it has already reached the level of industry), their position has been on the edge for long time. Teachers have hard time, and students also suffer. In any problem of education system, students are always casualties and we lost potentials for the future.

Andrew,

My husband has almost the exact same story, although he was teaching in the South. Most of his students couldn't do basic math but were put in his physics class anyways, and then were expected to just be passed along. It exhausts and frustrates me to talk about it. The system is so broken.

I think a majority of the problem starts at home, were education is devalued, discipline is non-existant, and parents want schools to babysit and leave them alone. I think the American school system is doomed, because there are so many factors contributing to its collapse.

What an incredibly sobering -- but incredibly important -- column you have written. I had no idea that tenure protected teachers from being fired FOR INCOMPETENCE. That's mind-boggling.

Could you tell us the name of the charity that Hilde Back donated to, so that we can all do so? Thanks.

This idea that "all we have to do is get rid of the bad teachers and our educational problems would disappear" is going viral these days, but not because it makes sense. Let me give you an example.

Last year I saw an article about a Mexican teacher who was teaching Spanish in an American high school as a Fulbright Scholar. He was complaining about the lack of motivation and disrespectful attitude of the American students. He did not see either of these problems in his Mexican students. I fail to see how unions had much impact in this situation. This teacher was not a member of the union. I also fail to see how "bad teaching" has much impact either. This man was a native speaker of Spanish in this country as a Fulbright Scholar. I would say he is probably fairly good at teaching Spanish.

We are coming to see education as a commodity that is provided to passive student consumers. But education is not a passive process. I'm sure the retort would be: it's up to the teachers to motivate the students. That's true, but way too limited. All of society is responsible for setting expectations. I wonder why we don't?

Interesting discussion. I am from a small liberal arts college so don't know much about reasearch 1 universities, but I feel all my professors didn't just teach "facts," but the ability to use those facts. This is most helpful for upper-level Mathematics courses in which you have a better shot seeing a number than Ronald Reagan rising from the grave to accept the Henry Kissinger Peace Prize. (No one knows how Kissinger made Nobel disappear considering he has been dead for 100 years.)

Speaking of school administration, when my family moved to Illinois, I was placed in mostly remedial classes because the school didn't find it convenient to lead me from the advanced classes since I needed an aide. This was despite my parents' claims I was intelligent. Thus I spent that year reading Crime and Punishment and Don Quixote while we were reading in class The Lottery Rose. All you need to know about that book is it shows originality is overrated when it comes to selling books. Luckily the next year I ended up at a much better middle school with all supporting teachers. From this story, you can guess I support teachers when they do something right, but it is the mysterious administration that bothers me when I feel cheated. Hope many more interesting blog posts come.

P.S. I am now a double major in Mathematics and Chemistry and will spend my years hopefully in academe remembering you as one of my favorite teachers.

I grew up in what was then Yugoslavia. A socialist country where people didn't lose their jobs. Among my teachers, I could recall a few incompetent ones (all with some mental issues, it seemed, but benevolent), however the system and the culture had one clear message: education mattered and if you were able-bodied and able-minded you WERE going to finish school. I had never heard of high school droputs until I came to Canada. Finishing school meant going as far as you want to go, University being only one step on that road.
The grammar was so successfully drilled into me that I can recite it today, any time of day. Have a language? Know it! Multiplication tables... in no-air conditions on Mars if necessary, since grade 2. Nothing special about my abilites in no-air conditions, but I always had a clear sense of being able to achieve. It was not given to me - it was NURTURED.

My daughter, who is now 13, has none of that. In the country considering itself the greatest place on Earth, and neighbouring another even greatest-er.
It is not only the Teachers' Unions.

I am so disappointed to read this post. I admire you so much, but this breaks my heart a little. As a teacher, I feel a little less empowered every time I read another public figure criticize our union, especially knowing you do not know your subject matter as well as you may think.

Your blanket statement claims that teachers' unions are ruining public education, as if there is one union for all teachers nationwide. In fact, the unions are individual by district. They all work independently to some extent, each having their own president. Our union in San Francisco is not perfect by any measure, but they make an effort to protect what we already have in place. That is the most we can hope for with the budget being cut again this year.

Regardless of what people may believe, teachers are not powerful. We are the lowest rung on the ladder. Everything comes down to us. When things go well, the administration is praised. When things go wrong, fingers point to us first. Our union is the last line of defense for us, especially when we are fighting an unjust claim from a spiteful administrator or fellow teacher that has a personal agenda. Autonomy has given principals too much control, and in some cases we have paid the price.

Although you say bad teachers can't be fired, that is not necessarily true. Teachers are written up, transferred, and fired. Unions will protect you as a teacher as much as they are willing, but believe me when I say they do have their limits and will drop you if your cause does not match theirs.

Your claim that money is not the reason to blame for our "failing" public school system is odd, considering our nation spends less than 1% of our budget on our schools. That includes state colleges and city colleges, and the enormous salaries of the people who run them.

Here is a snippet of my job, for your consideration...

I teach 5th grade in a low-income, very diverse school. The parents are mostly immigrants with little money, so fundraising is always a difficult task. Last year, and every year before that, I have reached into my own pocket to pay for supplies, food, and whatever was necessary to make my classroom a place where students can learn comfortably and without want. Next year, the district will be cutting $113 million. Just what do they expect us to cut? (The proposed cuts are in staffing, professional development, school closures...they also plan on raising the class size of the lower grades to 30.)

With NCLB looming over our heads every year, we are pressured to make due with what we are given...the very basics. We are also pressured to fundraise like crazy to make up for the budget cuts, which shifts the focus off school and onto survival mode.

In addition, we have lost most support staff and paras, which makes it all the more difficult to teach the kids who fall behind due to various issues, most of which are home-based. Last year alone I had four kids who had parents in jail or prison, two who had lost their mothers, three who had alcoholics in their family...needless to say, they did not get much academic support at home.

The testing is brutal, especially when you have children in your class who don't speak any english at all, or have fallen so far behind due to low attendance they can not catch up to where they are supposed to be in the time given in a year.

Also, you have the special education inclusion children who are tested just like everyone else, with no special consideration given to their difficulties. And on top of it all, last year my class was 80% second-language learners, with most parents speaking no english at home. Their knowledge of the english language was basic at best, and I was expected to get them up to a native speaker level by the end of the year.

The pressure to raise scores is immeasurable. Two years ago, my scores rose 22%. Last year, they dropped 12%. I did not change my curriculum or my drive to succeed. I just had a different set of children, each one with new, unique difficulties and academic challenges.

Every time I read another criticism about teachers, their unions, or public education "failing," I am disheartened. Our district is actually improving every year, despite the cuts to our budget. The failing educational system you speak of is an unfair generalization I hate hearing over and over again when I know what I see every day in the classroom. Small victories.

It's hard to be a teacher nowadays, not because of the difficult students, troubled kids, or absentee parents. It's hard because of people like you who don't believe in the public school teachers anymore. I can't think of another profession with so little pay that is criticized so consistently. For the most part, a large majority of us work hard with very little acknowledgment. I so wish people would consider our successes along with our shortcomings.

We obviously don't do it for the money or the power. We teach because we value knowledge and love our kids.

Wonderful article, Roger. I went to public schools in the '60's. The schools then were not perfect; yes, there were the "dummmy" rooms, there were some teachers even then who were just punching a time clock. I feel one of the problems we're having in schools is that parents don't parent and most teachers have to do a double job of teaching and parenting. For the most part then, we had teachers who cared what we were doing, how we were doing and most importantly, we had parents who cared what we were doing and how. Parents checked homework (I was raised by a single mother and my aunt). If homework wasn't turned in, you got a call from the teacher. God forbid that should happen. There wasn't any, "Oh no, not my child", if the teacher happened to call and say something wasn't right; the child didn't dare raise a hand to that teacher. The parent didn't dare raise a hand to the teacher. Parents took time with their kids; we were read to. May have been the newspaper, a sports magazine or the dictionary, but parents took the time. I do the same thing with my niece who is in high school. I check homework. If she's assigned a book or play to read for English, I get the book or the play and read along with her. (Right now it's Hamlet). I know that many things were different then, kids today are going through much more insanity these days. But a parent can't let these insane times keep them from doing what's important.

Roger, just a small interruption which I hope you'll forgive. Will you be reviewing Creation? I understand that it has already opened there in the U.S.. Apologies and thanks.

Ebert: Yes, it opens Feb. 12.

Can't wait to see both of these films. But to play devil's advocate, blaming any ONE thing for the failure of America's schools is silly. It's been going on for ages and there are no quick fixes. My personal bugaboo is standardized testing. Having teachers "teach to the test" is such a nasty way to educate our kids, more like filling a bucket up with water rather than, say, tending a garden.

But even THAT "one" thing isn't the only thing wrong. Liberals and conservatives have been arguing about this forever.

Having aided a child in surviving American public education (in a low income neighborhood in Chicago)I feel like I can add something informative to this discussion.First and foremost to the parents whose kids may be trapped in these wretched schools,your main interest in this is that little Johnny or Susie does not wind up on the great heap of people who aren't equipped to function in modern society. Make sure the kid learns to read. Make sure the kid learns to enjoy reading. Get him or her a library card. I am assuming here that you've already taught the little bugger that a first rate education is the ticket to whatever wonderful life you can dream of, or desire. That it will make you a better human being. That it will be interesting, exciting, amazing, fun, and down the road will make you one of the coolest people in the room (if you are reading this blog by default, that is so).I cannot stress this enough. If you turn your child into a voracious reader of a variety of subjects, he or she will be competitive with just about any other child in a purely academic setting. And where they lag behind, they'll be able to learn. It helps if you have more books than furniture. But again, use the library, while we still have them (ah Carnegie, back when capitalists had some feelings for others).Another thing, if you live in a world class city, like Chicago, take advantage of the many cultural events that occur that anyone in town may enjoy, free of charge. Live music. Art exhibits and museums.Political events (civics). An occasional trip out to a forest preserve, more nature in education means fitter kids, after all. I'll assume you can't afford cable so try this, PBS. Age appropriate and intelligent programming for the whole family! Also, talk to the kid. You know how to think, right? Teach the kid to analyze and not just believe everything they are told. If you follow this plan, barring some tragedy, (and I understand in the neighborhood tragedy is the roulette wheel that saint and sinner alike is forced to negotiate) you will have one day have the dubious pleasure of having your own wisdom refuted with facts, examples, logical, reasoned argument, and unseemly stubbornness by someone that bears a striking resemblance to you, only younger and better educated! My heart goes out to the kids in the these rotten schools. There seems to be fewer avenues for them to enrich and improve their lives and so many more opportunities to be dragged down into negative things.

Did gremlins eat the message I tried to post last night? I'll try again.

I am a Chicago Public Schools baby. Head Start through grade 12. My parents always had subscriptions to newspapers and magazines. I am lucky to be the youngest child. I was curious and got to peruse all of the books. I also studied the encyclopedia set, and year books, and dictionary. I was a sort of oddball because I thought free school and free library were the greatest things in the world. Even now the library where I did most of my high school projects research is open seven days. You can't beat that. (Last night I wrote, You can't beat that with a stick.)

I attended a general enrollment high school for 9th grade. I was bored stiff. During the summer I transfered to the school I tested for in 8th grade. The vice-principal took me without grudge.

What I'm getting at is students have to want to learn. Parents have to want their children to learn. And teachers have to want their students to learn. Are there bad, unqualified teachers? Sure. But what are teachers to do when the all the brightest kids enroll in the good school? The school that they don't work in. I may be from the last generation when parents told their children that education was important. They told us that bad behavior would be recorded on our 'permanent record' and follow us the rest our lives. But when you get an education no one can take it from you.

End of ramble.

I guess it's not too far off topic, happy Robert Burns day everyone.

Man, is there anything more essentially middlebrow than a bunch of educated people moaning about US public education?

First, we don't do a bad job of educating our students. We do a terrible job at educating poor students and students with low IQs. But guess what? No one is doing any better that that, either. But we do an excellent job of educating our top students and a decent job at educating our middle-range students, and all the data supports that assertion.

The poster who observed that European teachers are unionized is very on point. In Europe, they have homogenous populations and track ruthlessly. American schools have challenges that European schools can't even conceive of and are required to pretend that all students can be educated equally well in the same amount of time. It's a joke.

And Roger, there's an abundance of evidence showing that the better results in charter school are a result of selection bias. Teacher turnover in charter schools is horrendous.

An eighth grade graduate of the St. Mary's Grade School of my youth knew more than a typical high school student does today. A typical graduate of the Urbana High School of my youth knew more than some college graduates do today.

That's your problem, Roger. The word "typical". There's no such thing. A "typical" suburban high school student is far better educated then you were in high school, much less eighth grade. And "typical" suburban high school students today also know more than "some" college graduates do today. A "typical" urban student is a few steps up from illiterate today--and guess what? Back in your day, that same student wasn't even going to school. He or she was working. Your fabulous era didn't even bother trying to educate the students we struggle with today.

So for all your great daring, you didn't say all that much.

Disclosure: I'm a teacher, I could care less about unions or tenure, and I don't glorify the profession. I merely find it absurd when Americans whine about an excellent education system that falls apart because it can't handle a challenge that no other education system in the world can handle, either.

I hope you'll forgive the digression, Roger, but in your review of "Extraordinary Measures," what's posted says "The film also fails to explain that the cost of the medication is $300,00 a year for life...."

I'm thinking an extra zero is missing there, rather than the error being a comma for a period?

$300,000.00 a year would make perfect sense in context, whereas $300: not so much.

Ebert: Right. $300,000. Which the insurance companies would not pay.

@Jeremy

"Personally, I think that the main problem, bigger than the scary anecdotal evidence of "unions", is that teachers used to come from the best (female) students in school. But in today's world, some of the worst students in school end up being the next crop of teachers."

In my quasi-suburban (Chicago suburbs) high school nearly all the top students in my class went into a profession other than teaching. I think this is pretty common.

@Roger

"Ebert: I anticipated a lot of messages defending the unions"

I think it's hard to defend the current system of tenure for K-12 teachers. It's something they have to bargain away for higher pay. With higher pay, hopefully more smart people are attracted to the profession.

I'm enjoying this thread; the contributions from the teachers are particularly helpful.

Hello Roger,

I am a regular volunteer with my university's international program center, and I've yet to hear one student who has studied abroad in the United States admit that classes abroad were more challenging that domestic ones. I'm a student in the Business School and Romance Languages Department, which has allowed me to see two distinct aspects of an American college. In the B. School, the focus of our education is on attaining a favorable position after graduation. My Spanish major classes are much different. We study literature, syntax, history, and culture holistically.

I think a problem facing many students in high schools and vocational majors is their view of education as merely a tool for employment. Have you observed this in your experiences teaching?

To Randy Masters over his on January 25, 2010 6:52 AM comments.

Randy, I’m onto you. Over at your hero’s site, I’ve found articles like, “Enjoy Christmas, Enrage Liberals.”

Let me contrast Limbaugh with Ebert for a moment.

Limbaugh takes the very courageous stance that everything that is wrong with this country is the fault of the Democrats and that Liberals despise everything about this country. He mocks those who oppose him and his agenda. Although I see no agenda at all from this person who makes at least $400,000/year ranting and running. If he gets called on something, it’s not because he’s ever wrong about anything, rather, it’s because the haters of America are out to get him. There is no place on his site for comments from the general public. One needs to become a 24/7 member to enter some sort of right-wing underworld. Limbaugh calls himself “The Last Man Standing,” which of course puts him and his ego in the position of needing to be correct on everything. (I suppose that could be considered an agenda: to prove he’s the best at everything.) Limbaugh proudly displays a grinning man with an assault rifle kneeling beside his car with its “No Dems” license plate. Limbaugh’s favorite "comment of the day" last week was from a listener who said that Rush should offer to double whatever the Liberals contribute to Haiti relief, which means he would have to donate $20.

Mr Ebert, on the other hand, lets everyone have their say in this open forum. He has mentioned you respectfully at every turn. You ask him, “Why did it take a 2010 documentary for you to arrive at this conclusion?” And he posted it. Mr Ebert’s description of himself is not the bombastic “The Last Man Standing.” Rather, his description of himself fits in with the mindset of a Liberal: “Thinker, writer and blogger, shallow and profound, correct and mistaken.” The first word there is something missing from the Right, because when you think, the other attributes (qualities) usually follow.

Both political parties have their strengths and weaknesses. Colin Powel is a Republican and he speaks of the necessity of a two party system. (Of course he’s also the same guy who was handed his hat and shown the door for disagreeing with Rumsfeld.) Thinking does have its risks.

You may be right that the good teachers need a raise and the bad ones need to be weeded out.

But as a current Uni and not-too-long-out-of-highschool student, and as an older brother, all I can say is that education comes down to this:

http://www.thestar.com/living/fashion/article/753368--don-t-like-this-thuggish-trend-whatcha-gonna-do-about-it

And this:

http://www.gautammalkani.com/about_londonstani.htm

You figure out how to stop that, you've got yourself you're fixed education system. Til then you'll continue to have non-responsive students who are that way because this is what capitalist/consumer and technology-driven culture is telling them to be and because they're disillusioned, depressed, feeling worthless, because they can't measure up with the gangstar rappers of today, for example and it's not a good example. A better might be: they can't measure up to anybody. Even Sherlock Holmes is now an ass-kicking machine. So they escape into super-hero movies or, if that's too gay for ya, macho porn fantasy flicks like "Fast & Furious. And then, the side product of all this is movies is girls who are thanatophiles.*cough, hack* Twilight fans *cough, puke*

Doesn't help that the U.S., Canada and Britain have been at war for the last decade... for business reasons but of course. Those country's world leaders have really paved the way for a brighter future... The message has been heard loud and clear from the younger generations: consume and destroy. And their parents took it lying down. Didn't have much choice as of late, clinging onto their jobs for dear life.

Kids didn't mind though, they got cell phones out of the deal.

And then we wanna lay this on the teachers. Well, I can't speak for everyone I know that. I also know my teachers are about the only reason I'm still alive. Were they just the heroic ones? Maybe. I don't blame the ones that are not so heroic. Not when this is what it takes to really make a difference now:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ubie5UQCj1A

A teacher and film buff's review of "Waiting for Superman":
http://www.darkhorizons.com/news/16158/sundance-review-waiting-for-superman-

"The reasons why this country is so far behind the result of the world has to do with political apathy and lack of funding, rather than constrictive union interference. A film like this has the responsibility to take on all sides of a debate that will go on beyond the life of this movie, and one questions how a film like this will affect the growing disillusionment that already exists within a very fragmented profession."

So my gut feeling: We're living in, and have been for a long time, a diseased, insane culture. That is the root of it all. But it's not a pretty thought. Giving the teacher's a kick in the ass is easier to deal with.

But then that's just a feeling, not worth any more than an opinion. The best I can offer for credibility is say it is I have been a part of this thing first hand for the last 15 years, it is my generation you're talking about, and when I think school the first thing I think about is "a place to go and look cool". I put this on celebrity culture and capitalism and I don't even think Laurence Fishburne from "Boyz N The Hood" could tough his way through, not when some people consider 50 Cent a musical genius.

And sorry Robert Redford, you may be objectively right but you just dated yourself: Paris Hilton means everything to everything right now, like it or not, those with a pulse on youth culture know.

Fail all the students, all of them! won't change a thing. I sincerely believe it'll just make the glamorous seem more glamorous, reemphasize in them a perceived need for the alpha male... I don't see a way out except dealing with this situation head on, sorry.

There are good jobs in Silicon Valley yes, but currently I believe the unemployment rate is higher than the national rate.

Attention without interest is one definition of boredom. It seems to me that there are many obvious solutions to the problem. Take for instance, the issue with cafeteria food; obviously you mix healthy stuff in with the unhealthy: so you aren’t giving someone a salad, you’re giving them some sort of taco thingy. Hire inventive and resourceful cooks.

Being on the sports team should be a reward for hard work in your studies, not an excuse to avoid your studies. Remember how many young people became interested in reading when Rowling wrote stories they were interested in? Kids like to play computer games. Why not make computer games where the kids are learning something while they’re making it to the next level. For instance if you are a US Navy Seal, you need to know some trigonometry before and/or while you get to blow stuff up. Same thing with physics. Why is the stuff you’re blowing up getting blown all to hell the way it is when you blast it?

Have homework that the parents are interested in also. That way the parents might learn something new also. Let kids have some time in school to text each other, and then have them get into groups on how the ideas could be communicated better, etc, etc.

It took me all of ninety seconds to rattle off a few ideas from the top of my head. Where am I going wrong with this line of thinking?

I think this puts teachers in a kind of defensive position that seems unwarranted.

Okay, say a teacher teaches kids that all do pretty bad at testing, or, rather, below average. Does this really mean that that teacher is a BAD teacher? Does your relationship with your "hero" teachers (for those of you who've had the good fortune to have had one) necessarily combine with that kinship (if you were lucky to have that personally as well) an a-plus? Obviously, some things teachers do should follow with an automatic termination, but beyond that I think they should be treated respectfully as people of importance; and likewise, in general, I think that is what this is about: they should be treating their students with same respect.

What should be most important in school is not grades, but self-esteem.

At the end of the day, the student should feel that they built their self-esteem.

I visited New York for the first time last year. I stayed at some friends in Connecticut. I got there from the airport in one of those Limoservice taxis, not a Yellow Cap and the first thing I noticed was that the driver was listneing to NPR the driver was from Africa I think. He did't speak good enough english to be born and raised in America and I was surprised because he was listening to a program about how companies set up shell-companies in the Caymans to avoid paying tax i the US. It explained the ins and outs on how it's done and possible ways to get rid of the loopholes that makes it possible. So very complicated stuff.the driver was silently commenting on the radio.

In Denmark where I'm from schools and education is back on the agenda as well. I don't think it is as bad as i US, but it's not good. One of the problems is that there has been a move towards old virtues, by which I mean more diciplin in the classrooms. I don't mean that diciplin is a bad thing, but just because the kids sits quiet doesn't that they are listening. Also more and more tests in school, without any clear idea of what the tests are for. The effect: the good students are still doing good, but the weak students gets even more failures. We expect more and more from our teaches, but doesn-t give them more hours to do the extra work which mean that they may overlook the kid in the back who doesn't make noise but is silently failing. On top of all this the teachers are being critisized and scrutinized to a point where they don't feel appreciated or trusted to have some good ideas on how to better teach children.

Everytime a new study shows that kids are getting worse at reading or math, the goverments answer is to increase the hours spent on this and reducing hours spent on music, sports or art, eventhough every study shows that these kind of things actually stimulates the ability to learn.

Adding a bit onto my last post:

Rhee fired a principal where her kids where going to school because the students weren't learning Spanish fluently.

Wonderfully insightful blog with an important message for all. I am very much looking forward to these two films.

It is unfortunate that most teachers' unions forget that they are in the education business and their goal should be to create an environment that demands that teacher be a dedicated, hard working, caring and motivating educator.

I recall discussions with some union reps who would point blanketly say "the welfare of the students is of no concern of ours, only the welfare of the teacher is a concern." There is no doubt that unions and tenure are major problems. I do however feel that ineffectual school boards and administrators, misguided politicians, weak principals, and disinterested parents or broken homes also play a role. The students with good teachers are fortunate that their teachers are able to shut the classroom door locking out these obstacles and bring the riches of learning to life for their most precious charges. Unfortunately as you say the students with a poor teacher find themselves locked in hell. In my many years of teaching the former were very predominant but we have a long way to go because even one bad teacher can destroy thousands of students' futures.

As I approach the thirty-year mark in my teaching career (in colleges and universities), I find myself increasingly uncertain that we can solve the problem of education in the US. We are simply too diverse to arrive at a macro-solution, and too self-absorbed to assess the situation clearly--with resulting contradictory values: The Puritan settlers mandated literacy (for the express purpose of salvation; you can take that as a neat metaphor), and yet today we value most the person who can throw a ball or shoot a moose or charge up San Juan Hill (by the way, what exactly are Scorsese and DiCaprio going to do with Teddy Roosevelt?), not the one who can think clearly and act carefully; just ask Adlai Stevenson or Barack Obama.

As a result, we wring our hands over failing schools and students while pouring our money--and the futures of many of those young people--into the pockets of the military-industrial complex, eager to assert Mission Accomplished--for the wrong mission.

Are we heading toward a crisis point, the social environment as damaged as the physical one? I'm afraid it may be time to water the tree of liberty, and that we are heading for "interesting times."

So many people, including me, want something done about the parents and society in general so that children aren't unmotivated. The problem is that when discussing changes in the educational system government can only do so much. After years of thinking about these issues (and our system has been in trouble for many years) I have come to the conclusion that we should push for better ways to measure teacher effectiveness and administrative proficiency. Those things can be controlled and monitored by government whereas parental responsibilities and societal pressures cannot be addressed by any regulation. In other words, do what we can to make it better where we can. Worrying about what parents do or think does little good.

Calabogie

Sometimes I wonder whether the test scores of certain developed countries are inflated. I'm not saying those countries are lying. I'm simply stating that in some nations, like China or Japan, only the very best are allowed to go to school and take tests. In America, we allow everyone to take the tests and go to school. Therefore, our scores appear deflated. China may have higher test scores, but that's only because of the student's they allow to take the tests. Matter-of-fact, students in these nations have so much pressure that they suffer psycological stress from the push to succeed at all costs (http://www.topix.com/world/china/2010/01/third-of-chinese-primary-school-children-suffer-stress-study-finds)

Also, setting salary based on performance seems like a good idea on paper. In practice it has issues. For one, how do you rate performance? Based on standarized tests? All that does is encourage teachers to teach only what is on the tests and never go beyond that to a true, well-rounded education.

I'm not saying there is no room for improvement. I'm just saying that things are not necessarily as bad as they appear.

And, honestly, I'm a student in the school system now. Perhaps it's merely my school, but I simply don't see a lot of the problems that people claim are there. Then again, students at my school always score high on tests, so it could just be the enviroment I just so happen to be in.

Lastly, art is a subject that is constantly minimized and discouraged in schools. Kids call anyone who tries to compare works of art as "pretentious".

I remember being made fun of for thinking Dandelion Wine was a touching novel that changed my life and Ray Bradbury as a great author. They said he was boring. I actually pretended to like Twilight for a while just to fit in, even though I hate that book.

I've mentioned this film before here and I will mention it again. Country Boys. It's the story of two young men in an Appalachian school. I would compare it to Hoop Dreams. You can watch it free online. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/countryboys/

I recommend it to anyone who reads the blog.

For the first three months of 2009 I volunteered at at primary school in a small slum outside of Nairobi in Kenya. Even though public school IS now legally available for free in Kenya, there are still several communities which are too far from the nearest school and can't afford the commute for their children everyday to the school.

The school I volunteered at is made from corrugated iron sheets with desks made out of wooden boards. This school is not sponsored by the government or any large organization. It was founded and built by the members of the community who wanted their children to have an education. They sacrifice every day to keep the school open and running. The school fees each month amount to less than $5, yet more than half the families with children at the school can't pay. The teachers, who try their best, make about $50 a month. The administrators earn nothing. For these kids this is the only opportunity they have, and highschool is distant dream that most or all of them will never reach.

The culture of the school is very different to what I was used to in Canada and I definetly think that, while the essentials of reading, writing and math are covered, there are a lot of other aspects of education (creativitiy, problem solving, art) that are sadly neglected due to culture and lack of resources and training. But the students are bright and learn very quickly. Their faces lit up when we used a mirror to make a rainbow, did a magic square or completed a crossword puzzle. It was tough to see so much potential in them, such good people with such limited futures.

I would be so thrilled if even one of them could be a success story like Chris. Education is a powerful thing. Let's spread it around.

Thank you, Roger. This is a deeply reasonable, agreeable and heartfelt piece.

As a teacher of future teachers (year after year, I teach English Literature to many education students enrolled at university), I can provide a perspective that's perhaps missing here.

What do future teachers learn at university in their major? Not much. Rather than learn 'content', that is having at least a good university level general education, they are spoon-fed all sorts of programmatic information and trite 'diversity' studies which anyone with a brain should first resist and second know already in his or her bones.

In any class of Education students, 5%-10% will be brilliant, energetic, involved students who are the match of the best of my regular English Literature students. Inevitably, they will come to me and speak of the resentment with which they are treated by their peers and by the Education program. Many will realize they have potential and will switch to proper undergraduate degrees.

Therefore, Education departments reward students who follow set trajectories, who remain passionless and unambitious, and who can regurgitate reams of 'studies', themselves brought forward to justify the perpetuation of Education departments. This chastening of the soul takes the heart out of the students and kills their drive. And this is before they step into the classroom. Combine this with the near totalitarian rigidity of teacher's unions and you have a deadly status-quo that will fight simply to remain implacable.

None of this excuses the conservative-driven gutting and hideous laissez-faire approach that has left the urban-poor American schools out to dry. That is the new racism. But that's another matter.

For me, it is the consistent refusal to accept that more effort is required, that standards of commitment to learning should be higher, and most of all, refusal to think independently, to think for oneself that characterize the majority of education students.

It's willful and disheartening and yet not really their fault. But it breeds intransigence to the very thing that could help a teacher most in the classroom: empathetic consideration of the perspective of others. And as you've written before, film--and I'll generalize to fiction here--is the best vehicle for that. You wouldn't believe the resistance I had last year from some students who were asked to read 'Huckleberry Finn', that archetypical work of justified rebellion and the development of a child's soul.

My solutions are to require teachers to have a university degree before entrance to an education program; to abolish the lockstep mentality that has won out at the Education Departments and Unions; and, obviously, to pay teachers better.

As an amusing side-note: the sole program on television right now about a teacher is HBO's "HUNG", produced by Alexander Payne and starring the highly underrated Thomas Jane. The show is set in Detroit. The premise: to make ends meet our hero the basketball coach moonlights as a prostitute for the richer women of the Detroit suburbs. This is timeliness.

I grew up in an area where public schools were horrific and private ones cost astronomical amounts. When I was 13 my family moved to the border of SC and GA, whose school systems have been fighting for bottom rankings over the past dozen years.

So, my parents made the difficult choice to homeschool me, K-12. It was still semi-legal at the time (in places), it had a stigma, it deprived our household of an extra income, and it was occasionally frustrating for all involved.

While the situation allowed me to take summer vacation strategically, work multiple jobs in high school (to pay for extras and eventual private college), and take trips to ski in Colorado and visit national monuments and places of historical significance, I was never allowed to slack.

It did have payoffs. When I took the standardized tests at the end of every year, I regularly tested above the 85th percentile in every category - even math, which I abhorred - and never below the 65th in anything. Not (trust me!) because I was brilliant, or 'special,' but because I was taught with care, rigor, and an expectation things should not come easily. The way this country *used* to run most schools.

Is this the right answer for everyone? No. Is it financially or practically feasible for everyone? No. Are all public or private schools to be avoided? Of course not. But I'm grateful my parents made the sacrifices they did. I feel I'm better equipped to face the world because I was given a good, basic education that so many people aren't able to attain these days.

The fixes to improve our educational system are extremely easy, just as are the fixes for our government. There simply is no political will to make the necessary changes. When we get campaign finance reform, we will have a better educational system. Ask who benefits from these two current systems as they exist and you have the answers needed for effective reform.

I agree that unions protecting incompetent teachers is part of the problem, but it's presents a simplistic solution to a complex problem. To graduate as many poorly prepared students as we do, the majority of existing teachers would have to be incompetent. However, I understand the lure of an easy solution.

To get a better understanding of what American schools - particularly urban schools - are facing, watch season four of The Wire. Then come back and tell me that teachers' unions are the problem.

Personally, I think think the biggest problem is class size. Give me 15 kids per period and every one of them will learn. Cram 35 or 40 kids in my classroom and all I'm doing is trying to stop them from burning the place down.

Wow! This thread has certainly made some waves in the educator's community.

Let's not forget the old saying (and it is old): Those who can, do. Those who can't, teach. Unfortunately, our system has gotten to the point where this is becoming more and more true.

What's the cause? Is it because our system is so lax that anyone can get a job as a teacher (and then keep it)? Or is it because our society holds teaching in such contempt (despite heartfelt speeches and rousing documentaries to the contrary) that they won't make the efforts to pay teachers what they're worth and enforce higher standards?

Strangely enough, I suspect a deep link between the latest SCOTUS decision and our approach to education.

This is a very interesting read and I'm also enjoying reading comments about other experiences regarding education in the United States.

We are lucky to live in a pretty decent school district; although, it is in Texas. I couldn't agree more with other comments regarding the pervasive attitude of anti-intellectualism in this country, in particular and especially in the south.
I also agree that it really boils down to parenting, how someone is raised and whether or not education is stressed to a child as being important. We have always taught our son from the time he could understand us that nothing in this world is more important than an education. It is so hard to try and make that an important aspect in a child's life when the very Board of Education in our state tries to force anti-intellectual concepts like "creationism" or "intelligent design" into our public school classrooms.
My husband is a community college educator and is appalled at the lack of very basic English skills from his students that supposedly graduated from high school. How can one attend college without knowing the difference between "your" and "you're" or "their" and "there"? I believe that the use of text messaging and online chatting has really led to a decline in the proper use of language and grammer.
Our children and young adults are at a sad disadvantage which will only persist, leading to poor or nonexistent job skills and continue their cycle of poverty.

I agree with a lot of the comments above including about the teacher's unions. Tenure is ridiculous in k-12. I sometimes dream of a world where teachers (and social workers) are paid what they are actually worth. . .

@Ben -- I had a similar experience myself growing up. When I was in 3rd grade my mother had to come to the school to give permission for me to check out Little Women. When in 6th grade we were required to do X number of book reports a month. I struggled to get these done because I was reading Dickens while my classmates were re-reading Super Fudge. My teacher suggested to my mother I read easier books instead.

I now live in a state where systematic discrimination against the poor (and predominately non-white) keeps them "in their place" (see our Lt. Governor's comments over the weekend regarding school lunches: http://www.thestate.com/breaking/story/1127678.html). I'm getting a Masters degree currently and I often wonder how some of my classmates made it into a graduate program. But then I'm reminded that many of them are local South Carolinians who have been subjected to our "minimally adequate" school systems (see: http://www.goodbyeminimallyadequate.com/content/blogcategory/19/40/ and http://www.corridorofshame.com/ )

It's shameful. This is supposed to be AMERICA.

Like all unions, teacher's unions exist to protect the rights of the members. If it weren't for the union, I would not have health insurance or decent pay (and some teachers still have to supplement their incomes with second jobs). To the uninformed, it may appear that the unions are protecting poor teachers, but that is not the goal. The union cannot keep a bad teacher from losing his or her position if the administration follows its own rules. Good teachers don't want to teach with poor teachers, but expect that their colleagues' rights are respected and due process is followed in their dismissal. Because if their rights aren't protected, we know our rights won't be either, and we could be let go on a whim or because the principal wants to hire his cousin.

The preponderance of teachers I have worked with have been hard-working and willing to go above and beyond to help their charges learn. But, in spite of our efforts, we are relentlessly blamed for the great failure of our education system. It seems as though the deck is stacked against us as we are asked to take on more and more responsibilities that used to belong to the parents. And even as one side says we need to be more challenging, administrators and superintendents are telling us we are not allowed to give D's and F's. It's not easy to find the right way to address conflicting demands. We are not self-employed. Any school that has teachers that aren't doing their jobs has administrators that aren't doing theirs.

And I teach in a good system, one that pays well, not a poor one that cannot attract quality educators. Education is NOT free. It must be paid for. Money isn't the whole solution, but lack of money exacerbates the problem.

Long story short, the issue is not simple and busting the unions is not a solution, just an easy scapegoat, so that parents and administrators and politicians can point the finger and keep on saying, "Not OUR fault."

Last year, I, my father (a far-right wing manager of 25 years who returned to college to get an education degree to turn teacher), my girlfriend (A liberal grad student and aspiring teacher who is majoring in reading education), my aunt (a middle school teacher), and my uncle (an major Telecom ex-VP), and my college roommate and best friend (a senior lab tech at a nuclear reactor) all sat around and talked about this issue. The severity of the issue was argued. We reached a tentative consensus on the causes of the issue. Different descriptions of the same thing.

Due to my own horrible experiences in high school--an inefficient waste of at least 2 years if not the full 4--I've always felt that tenure should be stripped from teachers and their pay should be considerably increased. Make it competitive so the job would attract the best. Basically, make teaching more like my job: if I don't do it, I get fired. Although, I mostly blame administrations for caving into the whims of community backlash. I was one of those kids that wore the dreaded black trenchcoat. I was always angry and looked it. After the Columbine shooting, I was pulled from class, I had my sketchbook confiscated and I was dragged into a psych evaluation. My art teachers came to my aid and I got out of any "trouble". Communities all want to know why aren't schools doing more to fix things, whatever the hot-topic problem of the time is. Administrations try to appease the community by issuing constant new rules that force teachers to pass students who don't deserve it. Nobody wants to tick off the idiots' parents.

My father agreed to a point. He had a career and he retired. He doesn't believe teaching is work, anyway. He's his student's favorite teacher and he loves his kids. He wouldn't quite do it for free, but he believes he has a pretty good gig. He's in a school that allows him to flunk students and parents mostly understand. He knows he has a rare position.

My girlfriend thinks the fault is primarily the fault of parents who want teacher to raise their kids. An example: teachers now have to teach hygiene to kids when it should be none of their concern. But she also recognizes the alarming idiocy of some of her GRAD LEVEL peers. They don't deserve to be there and she's afraid of the time they become teachers. Overall, though, she believes teachers are exempt from blame.

My roommate lays a lot of blame on what he calls "special snowflakism." Most parents believe their child is a genius and couldn't possibly fail because they're stupid or lazy or both, or that they are poor parents. They blame schools. The South Park song, "Blame Canada" comes to my mind.

My uncle and aunt are more or less of the same opinion. It's the general attitude toward education. It is unappreciated. Kids don't want to learn, they want to take what they believe is rightfully theirs, a bright, unhindered future. As my dad puts it, "they want me to pour it in."

Essentially, we all believe that parents are making their kids into entitled brats (my words, not theirs). There are business conferences on how to "accommodate" Gen-Y employees, how to deal with the entitled recently graduated Gen-Y applicants, how to deal with THEIR PARENTS WHEN THEY CALL. I graduated from high school just 10 years ago, and I can't even fathom my parents calling work to defend me.

I think, since we're already laying our hopes, dreams and parenting in the hands of teachers, you're probably right, we need better teachers.

My son had to watch "An Inconvenient Truth" at school twice in consecutive days (in different classes). I wonder what the odds are that the teachers will show their charges this once.

Ebert: You made me smile.

I got my masters in philosophy 5 years ago. I taught ethics and logic at the community college part time while in grad school. When I graduated I needed a full time job. I could not find a full-time philosophy gig anywhere so I looked into teaching high school English or math. I was not credentialed so I was turned away. I did not have time to go back and get credentialed or take more tests or student-teach.
I now work in the private sector.

Dumping the accumulated problems of the educational system on the teachers' unions is absurd.

I spent time in schools in an urban school district as a tech volunteer. The experience was eye-opening, to say the least. For example, a math and science "magnet" high school in which most of the students were grossly under prepared for the curriculum. Hardly the fault of the union.

The problems are complex, and won't be solved by a knee-jerk reaction to a movie.

My brother was born in 1951 (I in 55). When my brother was old enough to enter public school, my parents moved us to the suburbs so that he could get a better-quality education. The performance of the Chicago Public Schools was just as dismal in 1956 as it is today.

The problem with public education is very complex and is tied to sexism, racism, classism, and all the other isms out there. Poor kids - usually minority - do the worst because they lack educational resources, parents with the time to be involved in their education, safe environments, good nutrition, enough sleep, etc. etc. NCLB has compounded the problems of schools in poor areas because they can't make up for the deficits in their students lives to show the Average Yearly Progress they need to to stay open and funded.

Teacher pay scales vary, but in general, teachers don't make the kind of money or gain the kind of respect they could in other industries; as a traditionally female occupation, teaching will never gain parity in a society as long as American society devalues women and pays lip service to caring about kids.

Unions have brought some ills, but many more goods to society by giving the underclasses some control over their lives and working conditions. Conservative groups have been targeting unions for decades now, so I have my doubts about how nonpartisan this film really is. Bill Gates does care about education but if you think he is a liberal, then I'm a princess from the planet Mongo.

There are a lot of problems in the way students are taught, with subtle biases that affect boys and girls (click here for more information). Education is a faddish industry, with a new "method" of teaching or school management trotted out every so often that makes children and teachers the guinea pigs.

The funding schemes for most schools - tied to property taxes - reward the rich and punish the poor. In Chicago, politicians have ransacked school funding through the crazy and profligate use of TIF districts that have become legalized slush funds for those in power. Educational systems in general are very politicized, with elected school boards and a profusion of districts in overlapping locations fighting amongst themselves. There seems no interest by legislators to untangle these messes, and not enough public outcry to make it happen.

Roger, you know I respect you enormously, but holding a single movie up that demonizes teachers unions is irresponsible and wrongheaded.

Ebert: I'm sure it's a lot more complex than just the unions. I feel another entry brewing.

As one of your right wing readers, I naturally agree that the unions and their archaic policies are in need of a huge overhaul to improve our public education system. However, I think your intro (and these two films) implies a different conclusion: motivation and competition improve learning. The films' endings point to this issue: Kenyan students are tested, while US students await a drawing. Students in the US often lack motivation, encouragement and perspective, but rarely lack sufficient educational resources. Kenyan students must further their education with far less. The issues presented in these films display two contrasting cultures and the wholly disparate challenges each society creates for its students, regardless of system dynamics.

I was educated in three different countries, and - counting my undergrad and postgrad studies - in school for 18 years. It has been my experience that the best teachers are the ones that can take that glimmer of interest in their pupils and give them the tools to turn it into a passion.

I am also reminded of an excellent recruitment ad from the late 90's for the UK's Teacher Training Agency. It featured a whole bunch of British luminaries, from Tony Blair to Stephen Hawking, John Cleese to Joanna Lumley, as each looked at the camera, and said a particular name. The title card at the end of the advert read "No one forgets a good teacher."

Wow! Speaking only for myself, as a retired 20+year third grade teacher, it seems as if somebody ought to let the teachers fix the problems in education instead of the government intervention. To say that unions are at fault for our declining test scores is too simple. To keep this brief, as I read the summaries of the 2 films, there is one outstanding point I would like to make. The value of education in America vs. other parts of the world is tremendously different. In America teachers and an education are not placed as a high priority. In many other countries they are both held with high esteem. Cultural value and parental influence are never considered as to have as much importance as they should be given. Motivation to achieve isn't something that you can smear on a child like peanut butter on bread. It comes from many places like parental expectations and a student's own desire to excel. Educational excellence is not found by simply demolishing the unions. We must raise the cultural value we place on education and parents need to become involved in their children's successes in school.

"4. Why do you, and anyone who cares about the education of children, continue to support that political party?"

Because the other side actually wants to make our children stupider. Go look up what's going on in TX as far as textbooks in History and Science go. Fact of the matter is that while both sides pay lip service to education, neither really cares that much about the kids themselves. And it's a shame.

The "teachers unions", per se, are not the problem; the "labor unions" are. Labor unions helped the United States through a period of history where they were necessary to drive beneficial social reforms. Organized labor no longer performs this role, no longer is needed, and, thus, no longer is desirable.

As an aside, I find your apology to fellow liberals for taking a position against the teacher's union disconcerting. The need of the "liberal" to defend the union is akin to the the need of the "conservative" to defend the NRA. The voter (be he liberal or conservative)is not beholden to the special interests that manage to affiliate themselves with the Democratic and the Republican parties. Thus, the voter need not "apologize" when he speaks out against such interests.

Roger, (may I call you Roger?)

This is my first time posting here although I am a fairly devoted reader of both your blog entries and the remarkable discourse they often inspire. I am a Canadian but I spent the eighth grade (1996) at a public school just outside of the D.C. limits in Maryland (the family was on sabbatical). The middle school I attended was atrocious. There were cockroaches in the lockers, a myriad of physical altercations (amongst students themselves, and between teachers and students), draconian rules, and rampant disorganization. We were marched in lines from one class to the next and to the cafeteria for lunch, where rows were called one at a time. It was also my first experience with standardized testing. I happened to score 366 out of a possible 366 on the State English examination and was rewarded with a McDonald's gift certificate. A number of years ago I reread what I had written and was astonished that I had done so well; it was certainly not perfectly literate.

This is not to say that my secondary schooling in Canada didn't leave much to be desired, although the experience easily outstripped my eighth grade in the U.S.. I graduated high school in Canada having never written an essay, and I still couldn't tell you what a pronoun is off the top of my head. I went on to a reputable university and studied film (in fact the home of Canada's oldest film program) graduating with honours.

I firmly believe that success at university and in much of my life has been a direct result of being an avid reader. My mother is never without a book, and often has two or three on the go at any time. She instilled in my sister and me a love of reading that I view as the primary source of my education. It has always seemed to me that life would be so much easier for so many people if they had only had a love of reading nurtured in them during their formative years. While teachers should shoulder much of the responsibility for this task (which I believe is largely a failed one at present) I think that parents themselves can insulate their children from a public education system that seemingly lacks the ability to do its job.

As for the Teacher's Union, in my opinion it is bureaucracy at its most malignant. I, unlike yourself, believe that the time of unions being socially necessary has passed in both Canada and the United States. Certainly workers were systematically and occasionally brutally taken advantage of in the not so distant past, but the degree to which labor regulations are legislated today has, I believe, rendered unions largely unnecessary. In the wake of this I think we are left with these behemoth organizations who pose infinitely more challenges to progress than they do to help drive it. The two most scurrilous aspects of contemporary unions are, I believe, a deep rooted fear of change, and a refusal to equate performance with reward. We are First World, Capitalist nations, and a fear of rewarding talent and innovation for the sake of those unwilling to work hard enough or without natural talent not only runs antithetical to our very purposes, but will in the long run harm those it purports to protect.

I think we are seeing this enacted presently in the public education system.

Sincerely,

D.E.C.

I wish that teacher unions protecting bad teachers was the problem with public school education in America. Then my husband wouldn't go through the following things every year -

1. 2-3 votes on the school budget.
2. parents who view school as a mere babysitter until their children can go out and get "real" jobs.
3. administrators who don't want to say no to or upset parents even to the detriment of the safety of students and teachers.
4. the misconception that teachers get 3 months off every year when what they really do during the 2 months off (at least in Vermont) is work extra jobs to make ends meet or go to school for their recertification.
5. phone calls at 10pm or even later from parents who are worried about the fact that their child isn't doing well in a class not to see what their child can do to improve their grade but basically berate the teacher into just giving their child a better grade. (hasn't happened to my husband but to plenty of his colleagues)
6. worry about music getting cut b/c it's more important to teach to a test and cut the school budget at the same time according to both administrators and parents than to actually educate children.

The problem is bigger than unions or even bad teachers. While I'm sure it's a factor I think the entrenched culture of education as a commodity that can be bought or earned by just showing up is a far greater problem. Even the idea that everyone should go to college and is entitled to go to college and should basically be guaranteed a living just by going to college is a problem. Not everyone should go to college and the purpose of college shouldn't be to guarantee a high paying job either.

Rather than pointing fingers, I'd much prefer to see a bigger discussion of what is education, what is the purpose of it, what sort of things do you expect a child who has graduated high school to know? etc., etc. Maybe music, art, history, social studies, geography, etc could finally make their way back to classrooms as a result.

I went to New Trier East High School in north suburban Chicago, graduating in 1978. We had a pool, tennis courts, radio station, fencing team, multiple bands, etc. etc., etc. My British History teacher had a PhD and drove a Rolls Royce! I received a superb education, which including writing a "junior theme" comparing an ancient Greek play with one by Eugene O'Neill - very intellectual ANALYSIS, not summarizing. I then went to the University of Illinois in Urbana and found I was so much better prepared for college than many of my classmates. However, knowing what I know today, if I had the power, I would take away some of the over-the-top luxuries at New Trier and invest them in the education of inner-city kids. A mind IS a terrible thing to waste.

Thanks to all, especially Mr. Ebert, for a thoughtful discussion. I'll try to re-post my thoughts without all the links...

American education has been politicized, and the quality of students continues to slide as politicians get more involved. High school graduates are semi-literate at best, and it's only logical to blame “bad teachers” as “Waiting for Superman” and Mr. Ebert do here. But laying the blame largely at the feet of teachers' unions is overly simplistic.

Our problem is that our system DEMANDS “bad” teachers. It's as easy as 1, 2, 3:

1) “Tough” politicians require administrators to meet MINIMUM pass/fail rates and standardized test score requirements in order for their schools to receive funding. Politicians pretend that every student is a little scientist: electives are slashed (especially the arts). Few politicians are brave enough to add foreign language instruction at the elementary level despite research that lauds the benefits (even to lagging students). Increased science & math requirements for each student are mandated without funding. Schools are rewarded for producing an increased number of students who meet minimum standards, and literally closed if they fail to improve their standardized test scores. Our schools have been up for the “challenge,” as standardized test scores have generally gone up every year! Really. Hooray! What success!

The results: politicians are seen as “tough on education,” and they stay in office.

2) “Dutiful” administrators pressure teachers to give good grades to students who have not earned them and REQUIRE that teachers make “teaching to the test” part of their daily lesson plans. Art and music teachers are forced to add math and vocabulary to their lesson plans (or eliminated entirely, depending on the school). There is zero incentive for fostering creativity, which is difficult to test. Outstanding students are left unchallenged in the same classes with everyone else in order to be good examples. Critical thinking falls away while average standardized test scores go up!

Unfunded mandates = larger class sizes and more and more classes jammed into the same amount of time. Overworked principals encourage teachers to handle discipline themselves. Unqualified teachers are asked to teach newly required science & math classes. Some uninterested students drop out of school -- an unfortunate side effect, but on the bright side, standardized test scores go up every time an inept student drops out.

The results: The school receives accolades and funding. Administrators get to keep their jobs, and just might get a bonus!

3) “Bad” teachers do not teach critical thinking and spend class time “teaching to the test.” Beginning in elementary school, students do not learn how to think, research or write. Teachers lower their grading standards to meet the ever-lowering standards of administrators and parents. Any teacher who fails too high a percentage of students risks standing out as a failure. Any teacher who does not “teach to the test” will be terminated.

The result: Students learn to regurgitate facts for the short term pretty darn well. Outstanding students become mediocre as standards deteriorate. There is so little opportunity, let alone incentive for achievement, that learning is simply not worth the effort. As Ebert points out, a LOTTERY is used to determine which students are eligible for accelerated programs at magnet schools. As a product of the public school system, I can only say, “WTF?”

SOLUTIONS: Our communities can demand that both teachers AND students be held accountable. Education is a privilege. Disruptive students should be reprimanded. Students (and teachers) who excel should be rewarded. Creativity must be nurtured, not extinguished. Critical thinking should be taught beginning in first grade. Not every kindergardener is a little scientist, but every kindergardener should have the opportunity to be.

Who knows best how to teach? Teachers.
Sincerely,
Ryan F.

Latest authoritative study on school success lists five ingredients:

• Strong leadership, in the sense that principals are “strategic, focused on instruction, and inclusive of others in their work”;

• A welcoming attitude toward parents, and formation of connections with the community;

• Development of professional capacity, which refers to the quality of the teaching staff, teachers’ belief that schools can change, and participation in good professional development and collaborative work;

• A learning climate that is safe, welcoming, stimulating, and nurturing to all students; and

• Strong instructional guidance and materials.

http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2010/01/27/19ccsr.h29.html?tkn=TNZFOo3eeJNWSzI7ukN4TdKwJNAsy0%2FfkGdK

I must confess enjoyment at the notion of the man who helped Al Gore wash away the taint of rationality, objectivity and Scientific Method in favor of hysteria and Carbon Credit pyramid schemes now turning around and acting concerned with the miseducation of our youth.

Ebert: I am particularly concerned it may have happened in your case.

I'm embarrassed by all the typos and not-sure-what-they're-doing-there words in my first post. I was at school from 8 am to 10 am and I had to get to sleep cause I worked the next morning. Not that anybody's looking but if you are, please forgive my rush-job.

Perhaps that is also my lame excuse for missing this key information: Ebert and the film are talking, primarily, about primary schools.

I was focusing more on high schools (cause, to me, that's where things are really falling apart). Much of what I said, however, does still apply to primary students. The tough guy/ bad ass/ rebel/ anti-intellectual posing, for example, starts early and it has the unfortunate side effect of alienating those students who don't act that way, who do want to learn, but now hate having to go to school and be made fun of for participating in class and/or being "Let the Right One In" bullied during recess and ultimately fall into the mindset that if they continue to achieve, this will be their life sentence.

True, those kids may just need to toughen up. I think that might be how many teachers, especially male ones in my experience, see it. But they are still kids and they need *some* evidence of "I got your back" (so to speak) from teachers, to know that the teachers care, to give those teachers some credibility in the eyes of the children. Where are the "Happy-Go-Lucky" Poppy's of the teaching world? I'll admit I don't remember many and this is a problem that can't be had at the primary level.

But will modifying teacher's unions fix this? Will failing kids? Training teachers to look out for bullying (psychological/verbal, not just physical)? Under the current curriculums, how many teachers are able really rally a class, even a young class, to caring?

I remember being in grade six and already teachers were having to compete with kids adopting the attitude of Eminem after hearing his latest album. These are battles the teachers will not win, the kids just have to grow out of it through experience and wanting to become nicer people who will *listen*, I'll bet you my tuition on that having been one of those kids myself.

So I still stand by education failings being attributable to *cultural* epidemic.

I will note one thing though in fairness: I haven't seen the documentary yet!

Ebert: Typos?

I'm always thrilled to hear from a reader I've influenced.

It is the parents not the schools or the teachers.

The parents problems include:
- poverty
- addiction
- crime
- lethargy
- lack of concern for education/homework/respect, etc.

These are all problems for which there is no quick fix. Throwing money at schools continues to fail. Look at schools in the American West where the per pupil cost is half that of DC and the results are far superior.

My daughter has had the same teachers, schools, etc. as so many of the failing students yet she excels. Part of it is genetics, I am smart and so is she. An even bigger part of it is being there for her as a parent.

I have not been poor, addicted, incarcerated, lazy, or uninvolved but neither was my mom.

By Strange_Bundle on January 25, 2010 4:53 AM
It may sound silly, but I think teaching kids critical thinking at a young age might help in ways that are hard for us to even fathom right now because of the total overhaul it would require.

Critical thinking is the answer. Most people don't learn it until they stumble onto something like Jim Emerson's Scanners blog.

It's something I didn't realize as a concept until my grade 12 writer's craft class. Here's how I started to learn it: My teacher (who looks so much like the kind, concerned teacher in "The White Ribbon"!) started every class with a headline from the news paper and then the class would discuss their thoughts on it. Very open approach, teacher moderated to make sure everybody got a word in, he won over every student, even the ones taking the course just for a credit, because he treated them as if their ability to reason mattered and that made them feel like they mattered, that what we did there mattered, even if everything everywhere else did not.

By Graham on January 25, 2010 7:21 AM
...even good teachers’ day-to-day efforts are circumscribed by a series of compromises. They can’t coach students towards higher level learning when they have too many students; the decisions over what goes into curriculum are political rather than pedagogical; above all, the emphasis in our school system, despite all pretenses to the contrary, is on “coverage” - on insisting that students memorize an ever-greater mass of facts. This goes on even though we know that facts taught in this manner are forgotten in short order and never really understood. But it does please quiz makers and the advocates of standardized testing.

Exactly. Class sizes too big, can't focus in on individuals. And we have curriculums seemingly designed by machines.

By Tom on January 25, 2010 8:44 AM
I'm not saying that home school is the solution for every child. Still, it awoke me to that fact that children want to learn and in fact are programmed to learn from the moment of birth. When that innate curiosity and ability to assimilate something as complex as language is fostered, they thrive.
Sadly, some combination of things about this country and schools in many cases kills this drive to learn. When it dies, few teachers, union or not, can bring it back to life.

In highschool I sometimes skipped class just so I could do my work at home, where there was some peace to think.

By Ira Socol on January 25, 2010 9:13 AM
It is, of course, easy for America's wealthy to make these claims. When they do, they need not fix America's social problems or school funding problems, they can simply profit by bashing teachers for another generation.

I've heard horror stories, at the high school level but the point stands anyway I think, about teachers being held at knife point when they intervened with students being bullied. And are you gonna ask those teachers or those students to start leading the way?

By eRobin on January 25, 2010 8:27 AM
The problem with failing shools in the US is the same as in Kenya: poverty. It's way too easy to blame the unions. They have some issues but the failure of the American public ed system - where that failure even exists - can not be put completely at their feet. End poverty and suddenly our education system will improve.

So simple. So complicated. So true. But it'll never be fixed. Ways of thinking perhaps can be over time... but very little can change within the system itself in the near future and poverty has always been a problem, the rich aren't getting any poorer, et cetera. Teachers, just keep doing your best and you have my sympathies.

The wealthier neighborhoods and schools must be the ones to set the standard. So why aren't they? What excuses could they possibly have? How is that affluent kids don't care about their education, aren't helped by various luxuries a school has, aren't even literate?

Well, see my earlier post on this page. Everybody looks up to Having solid governmental leadership might change this ridiculous cycle. Obama is one small step forward... He's just one man though, we are collectively responsible.

Ask any college graduate at random the easiest classes in the university and they will tell you that it is the College of Education. Whenever I was carrying a heavy course load, thank God there were Education electives I could take to help the GPA. There shouldn't be an Education major in college. You should major and be competent in history, math, science, etc. and then take a minor or certification in Education.
Some teachers don't know what they are teaching.

Hi Donald Miller:

Let me contrast Limbaugh with Ebert for a moment.

Rush Limbaugh has nothing to do with this thread, other than getting under your skin.

Roger Ebert is brilliant man and a gifted writer who has written another excellent article for us to ponder and agree/disagree with. I am honored to participate here.

My point that you referenced was: Roger's point on teacher's unions is the point that conservatives have been making for at least 30 years. Agree or disagree, it was a valid observation.

I am enjoying the teacher input, by the way.

I saw a news program regarding Michelle Rhees a few months ago.
It scared me. I came away believing that Ms. Rhees has no idea what she's doing. I'm a long-time teacher and a good one.
I just couldn't find justification in her methods that the whole problem with schools were the teachers. Her teacher side manner is that of a wet rat. That's part of the problem, but the real problem is that the education system we aqdopted from Hitler's Germany is an oppressive and not efficient. It's bound to fail and has since it's conception.
If Ms. Rhee thinks she's going to solve anything, she may need to get out her chauffer-driven limo. and see the underlying casuse of a system that has failed children and our societyr from the beginning. Instead of firing teachers, scrap Ms. Rhees and the entire public school system. What is it going to take to bring about real change where the student are clients instead of thorns in society's side?

It seems that education is one of those topics about which everyone feels qualified to pontificate. Having been on the consuming end of some semblance of an education, they consider themselves experts. This is akin to considering oneself a musician after mastering the tuning of a radio, but this gives almost no one pause. This is especially galling when the clueless rail for a single magic bullet like breaking unions.

In a way, I hope the hysterical campaigners for making teachers "accountable" achieve their quixotic goals sooner rather than later, because then they will discover no good teacher will accept a job in a surprisingly large portion of schools because there is no hope for those schools without solutions to the myriad other problems mentioned by other posters above. Guess what: schools will get worse.

But the biggest of the Big Lies in this national "discussion" is the topic we don't mention: parental involvement, attitudes, and behavior. It's apparently unthinkable that parents might need to be held accountable for being in jail or abusive or simply absent. It's apparently unimaginable that parents might tell their children that education is unimportant -- certainly education doesn't help you become an alcoholic, so what use could it possibly be? And privileges, such as hours of video games a day, even when grades are in the toilet, apparently must be awarded at all costs. Oh, and did you hear? It's apparently impossible for a child to lie to her parents about what a teacher said or did, and the parent should always insist that the teacher is at fault. As well, it's apparently ridiculous to consider the possibility that taking a child out of class days before and after any scheduled break to accommodate a parent's vacation schedule could have any effect on academic performance. And heaven forfend that a parent accept the reality of her child's emotional problems and allow the district to put her in a special class so she can get the help she needs. Oh, no, that child definitely needs to be in a mainstream classroom so the teacher can spend 90% of her time policing the disturbed and disturbing behavior of 10% of the class and 10% of her time instructing 90% of the class. The alternative would be too humiliating for the parent, so we can't have that.

Parents engaged in this discussion will vociferously denying fitting any of the descriptions above, and that's fine. Parents who care about this topic probably don't, in fact, fit any of the descriptions. But bad parents are out there, and the fact that we aren't talking about them is cowardly and shameful.

@ Paul J. Marasa on January 26, 2010 8:43 AM

Hi Paul. On a side, and humorous, note: did you have to throw in a Sarah Palin dig? (today we value most the person who can...shoot a moose) Are you trying to validate that most college professors are liberals? :)

I'm in the middle of reading Sarah's book. Not only did she graduate from college, she paid her way through working jobs to pay for semesters before she attended semesters. A rare fiscal discipline for a college student, wouldn't you say? Do many college students do that these days?

She's coming to the Peoria area in April for a speech. Tickets went on sale today. I got my seat before they sold out in an hour. Worth the price? You betcha!

Just ribbing you, Paul. Back to the thread...

Dear Mr. Ebert,
First, let me thank you for attending our screening. I have tickets for "Waiting for Superman" and after reading your article and the subsequent comments, I can't wait to see the film.

I just returned from screening "A Small Act" for local students in Salt Lake City. We screened for both high school and jr. high students. I talked to some of them after the screening, and their comments were VERY similar to the kids I interviewed in Kenya. These kids just wanted to know they had some hope of a future. In Kenya, many of the public schools lack teachers altogether. Lack of teachers and teachers who can't or won't teach creates more or less the same outcome. That said, just like the young students in Kenya, these students haven't given up. Many of them talked about wanting to give back in their own communities and others asked how they could help the kids in Kenya. I agree that it will be very hard to fix the state of education in the US (and in Kenya), but every attempt toward change will make a difference and from what I saw the students are ready to work!

It was an honor to have you at the screening. I do hope both of these films create a space for discussion and debate.

Jennifer Arnold
Director - A Small Act

I'd just like to comment on my comment:

Mmm, that's good analysis.

Roger,

I agree with many of the things you say here - that American education is failing, that it is not because of poor physical plants or poor students, that poor teaching plays a large roll, that the teachers union, by protecting bad teachers at all costs, is an obscenity (I am also a liberal). I would like to make an addition to the reason for the problems in American education: we change it too often, and for no good reason. Every few years there is a new "revolution" in teaching. A new theory is trotted out, a new set of standards complete with lengthy testing to measure them, and a new methodology that teachers must learn. Inevitably the theory fails, only to be replaced with another one. And so it goes, ad noseum, with our kids as lab rats.

I have a few theories of my own:
1) Teaching is as much art as it is science. I have experienced great teaching and I can't exactly describe it, but I know it when I see it. This endless striving for a scientific way to measure teaching and learning is a fools errand and we should stop wasting our time. Trust competent administrators to separate the wheat from the chafe and get out of the way.
2) As in so many other American pursuits, we are looking for a magic bullet that doesn't exist. There is no one, easy way to teach all kids. There is no system that will work for all students and can be easily emulated by all teachers. Humans are organic and complex. See point one above and stop wasting time looking for a solution that cannot exist.
3) More testing and measuring doesn't make better educated students or better schools. Testing is a weak indicator at best. Some kids test well. Some don't. Some schools figure out how to teach to the tests. Some don't. Currently my kids spend at least 3 weeks/year taking standardized tests. They spend many more weeks preparing for these tests, at the expense of worthwhile instruction. See points one and two above and get out of the way of real teaching.
4) As a side note, home schooling is not solving the problem. A good education cannot come from parents picking and choosing what they want their kids to learn. Education is not a boutique. Sometimes the government, and the greater population, do know better what is best for your kids and our country, and that means teaching the entire body of knowledge, not discarding those parts that aren't convenient or don't fit your particular world view.

I used to be a teacher. I quit for two reasons. One was that I realized, as many had warned me, that you can't actually live on a teachers salary in this country. Since I wanted to have a family, and enable my wife to stay home when the children were young, teaching was no longer an option for me. The second is that (refer to my first point) I realized I was not a great teacher. I was young and green and team taught with one of the most amazing teachers I have ever seen, and I knew I could never emulate what she did. In comparison the quality of my teaching was just depressing. I did not want to continue to serve my students so poorly. Now that I am older and hopefully wiser, I realize I do not need to teach the way Mary Jane taught. I need to find my own way. Some day I hope to return to teaching and try to do just that.

Having only escaped high school six years ago, I can confirm that, yes, the public education system is terrible. Spending eight hours a day forced to sit and be talked at is absolutely mind-numbing. I would learn more in a half-hour of outside reading than in a day of charlie-brown-adult-style droning.

I've heard politicians say the answer is a longer school year. Any teacher (my mom included) will tell you that is bloody well not the answer. What you can't accomplish in nine months you aren't going to accomplish in ten. If anything, the lengthy school-day is part of the problem. When knowledge has no context, but is just another of a thousand facts to be listened to, briefly remembered, and plugged into tomorrow's multiple choice test, the students won't feel their lives have been 'enriched' in any way.

The first thing we need to do is eliminate the multiple-choice test. No wonder my generation answers everything in grunts and mono-syllables; it's what they've been trained to do (true/false, anyone?). There is no thinking involved, just inserting the answer one has been trained to. B.F. Skinner taught pidgeons to do pretty much the same thing. A short-answer or essay question, on the other hand, involves active thinking, and I think would spare us another "idiot generation".

Also, parents need to teach their children to read for recreation at an early age. This, I believe, would resolve an infinity of education problems. There. I step down from the soapbox.

Where to begin!

Okay, let's start with standardized tests. In Connecticut, they started something known as the CAPT test when I was a sophomore in high school (the test was for juniors). The first time I took it, I failed the essay portion of the test. Me, who graduated as an English major in college with a cumulative 3.8 GPA. Me, whose lowest grade on an essay in school (middle school through college) was a B+. Me, who is a vociferous reader, published a book of poetry, is working on a novel, writes a blog, and has received praise from teachers and professors in Connecticut, Virginia, and London for my writing skills.

From what I understand, the tests were sent to Texas, where they were graded by educators (though having read an article last year in my local newspaper about who actually grades standardized tests, I wonder if they were really educators, or people hired out to perform the task). All my school got back were the numbers. And for this, the students lost a week of instructional time.

So, I ask you, did I fail because I am a bad essay writer, because the test graders didn't know what they were doing, or because the test was and is a complete waste of time, time that could have been spent teaching me more about history and art and English and science, instead of on how to take a test?

At least one person commented that the problem with education in America is standardized tests. I disagree. The problem is not standardized tests, but too many standardized tests, and too many bad standardized tests.

In addition, a good education depends on five factors: teachers (including teachers' unions), students, parents, communities, and school boards. If there's a problem with any of these factors, trouble ensues. School boards fail our students when they enact inefficient policy. Communities fail our students when they cut school budgets. Parents fail our students when they don't stress the importance of education to their sons or daughters. Students fail themselves when they don't pay attention in class, or don't try to learn as much as they can while in school. And teachers fail students when they aren't passionate about passing their knowledge on to their pupils. To say that all of the blame is due to one group or one factor is simplistic, but to say that teachers' unions do not factor into the equation, or that all teachers are great, or that all students want to learn, or that all parents stress education, or that all communities willingly pay for education, or that school boards always make enlightened decisions, is to continue this downward spiral that is the American educational system.

This thread has pretty quickly transformed into everyone's recounting of their own personal righteous struggle against the tide of the educational system. We get it, you're a hero.

There's something else I want to say, and I find I still can't write about it, so here's another list:

1.My son was severely bullied in middle school.
2. I tried resolving the issue with the school and got nowhere.
3. My son started hinting more and more that he didn't want to live anymore.
4. His therapist confirmed for me that my concerns were justified:
5. My son was at risk for suicide.
6. I was a low-income, single working mother; I had no money for a lawyer.
7. I ran out of options.
8. Could I have sued? I didn't know, and there wasn't time.
9. I pulled my son out of school and homeschooled him.
10. We ran out of savings, we went into debt.
11. But at least he was safe.

1. He had had trouble in school since kindergarten.
2. Because he could read, the teacher said he was lazy.
3. She'd keep him in at recess, marked him as different from the others from the start.
4. She was only the first teacher I had to fight.
5. It was so sad; I had told him kindergarten would be fun.
6. But what did I know? I skipped kindergarten.
7. He was so sweet; you never knew such a sweet, curious kid.
8. And the way he could take things apart and put them back together again!
9. We took him to one doctor, then another. (Soon after, the “we” turned into me/I.)
10. Ended up with diagnoses that the school didn't know what to do with.

1. Then he was given IQ tests, which came out about average.
2. However, in some areas he scored quite high; others disturbingly low.
3. The tester mixed them all together and said all is well.
4. At group activities, the kids at my son's table would say,
5. “Let's take a vote: who wants to kill ____ (my son)?”
6. (It's ridiculous writing this list. I should just keep quiet if I can't write it right.
7. Once upon a time, I had to be tough to stick up for him; I had to be articulate.)
8. The teachers said, and the principal said, it must be my son's fault.
9. He must be doing something to bring it on.
10. I'll tell you what he did: nothing.
11. He just brought his unusual but friendly self into the room and expected people to be friendly back.

1. Although the kids found he acted stranger after they started bullying him.
2. Something is wrong that our kids are so cruel.
3. Not all kids, sorry. Not mine. So many people's kids.
4. But not the homeschooled kids, we found out.
5. Not even when they were in groups of twenty or more on a regular basis.
6. They had no need for pecking and culling.
7. Is there something about our schools that makes kids cruel?
8. Something about our society? Does it have to do with competition, or with feeling discarded?
9. My son survived.
10.From time to time, I read in the paper that another child hasn't.

I think paying teachers by merit would be an improvement, if it could be done fairly, but I don't think it would solve the whole problem. I understand if this is too unconventional to post.

I can't wait to see that twosome of documentaries, which have been rejuvenated in a gigantic influx of quality in the last few years: Those that appreciate the genre are evermore grateful to this change in tide, as opposed to the 3D locust swarm.

My high school years were unbelievably great. One time I walked into the (honors) classroom and set my books down, in a puddle of piss. I interrupted the teacher, who was slurring a delightful anecdote about a hostile beating his wife to death with a frozen monkey, and irately asked him, "Is that lemonade?" He said that the last class, having just come from lunch, decided they wanted to play football. A particularly inventive kid, the later valedictorian (then again, I was salutatorian), brought in an empty milk carton, launched it once and discerned it was exceedingly lightweight and needed something weighty to make the trajectory run snazzier. So, he urinated in the container and resealed it as much as one could. Lo and behold, it was Super Bowl time! No need for Saints and Colts in the 90s when you have urine and cardboard! They started lobbing the piss-filled would-be pigskin, spraying the desks and floor and walls of the AP institution with glorious streams of golden shower. I assessed the situation and refused to blame those involved, because they were just having fun with bodily fluids (turning piss into lemonade, or milk)...that and "No Child Left Behind." I asked the teacher why he didn’t stop this from occurring. He said that he was indisposed, on the computer, reading an article about an individual beating his wife to death with a frozen monkey. I wish I was fabricating this…and I wish whoever is creating “Raging Bull 2” with William Forsythe is just getting over an opium dream and listening to reality’s reason.

What about the "parents?" I bet if the parents spent a little time each evening helping their kids study, they would learn more. Also there is no cultural/social/familial expectation or pride in achieving good education.

@ John Chasse on January 26, 2010 12:28 PM

My son had to watch "An Inconvenient Truth" at school twice in consecutive days (in different classes). I wonder what the odds are that the teachers will show their charges this once.

Really?

Did those two teachers then balance the propaganda in this documentary with recent "Climate-gate" news stories about the UN IPCC panel and the CRU engaging in fraud related to Anthropogenic Global Warming?

http://www.investors.com/newsandanalysis/Article.aspx?id=513542

About the UN report committing fraud for political purposes in claiming that the Himalayan glaciers are melting?

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1245636/Glacier-scientists-says-knew-data-verified.html

About NOAA skewing data through selective use of temperature measuring stations:

http://www.vancouversun.com/technology/Scientists+using+selective+temperature+data+skeptics/2468634/story.html

Or, did those two teachers share their personal views about "deniers!".

Political propaganda in the classroom is educational malpractice. It is a symptom of the problem.

jeremy knox and robert. thank you both for providing what i think is the best blog topic of the new decade. i've learned so much, just reading the comments and will certainly see both movies.
jeremy. it's obvious you are an intelligent person and a good writer. after reading the book by teacher john taylor gatto i realized that it was actually planned for you to drop out.
he says in his free