July 20, 2015
Another under-educated cowboy riding into the rodeo — thinking he can ride the bronco that is American education…
David, David, David — just because you are a wildly successful venture capitalist does not mean that you know the first thing about education.
If you had been a regular reader of my column, you would know that every profession: doctors, lawyers, airline pilots, plumbers, electricians (which I gather your Ph.D. is in), police, fireman, psychologists, social workers etc. has good and great practitioners; average practitioners; and, lousy practitioners. You would have also learned that it\’s not teachers who have control of student success in standardized testing…It\’s the home life of students that explains the greatest variance in student standardized testing.
A principal I came to respect (though certainly NOT my favorite or the best principal I have ever worked for), suggested that there are 2 types of teachers: Those who are good for students; and, those who are bad for students.
So, just like any other profession, we have good and great educators; so-so educators; and, weak educators. But the other cutting line — which muddies up utilizing student standardized test scores — is the one that suggests that some teachers who are BAD for students, might generate excellent standardized test scores from their students — while other teachers who are GOOD for students — might not see very presentable standardized test scores from their students. What irony!
Why is everyone so afraid of looking at a student\’s home environment as the most powerful determinant of a student\’s standardized test score? Why do these for-profit and non-profit pundits keep going after public school teachers when so much more than school life factors into a student\’s performance on standardized tests?!
It\’s like school-age students have been born from a vacuum, to miraculously appear in our public schools with the full comportment of knowledge and skills to make them successful in a world created by White, middle-class males…NOT!
David, David, David — the White-male, middle-class Way (sponsored and maintained [of course] by mega-millionaires like yourself) doesn\’t necessarily create a successful Path for Success with the multitude of cultures beginning to manifest themselves in American public schools. The normal curve really doesn\’t explain what\’s going on in the brain, like the unenlightened ETS (Educational Testing Service) would have us believe. David! THERE IS NO JOHN OR JANE NORMAL.
But you know this, David. You know that \”No Child Left Behind\” is, and was, bullshit — a stupid construction for lobbyists representing agencies like ETS and school districts receiving kickbacks. IT WAS NEVER ABOUT EDUCATING AMERICA\’S youth!
The normal curve suggests that there is an average John and an average Jane that characterize 50% of us — and then — 50% more-of-us are either sub-par; or, above par (but at the rate in which students are being labeled with \’special needs\’ — I would venture to say that 70% of US will soon be labeled with \’special needs\’). And David, if you dared to actually speak with a few John or Jane Normals — you would find that their only commonality is their score on standardized tests!
You Dunder Heads! Your time, energy and monies should be spent on shoring up American families and enriching early childhood education!
But what do I know? After teaching high school for 33 years and college for 27, I should probably defer to the experiential knowledge of the David Welch\’s of the world — they really know what makes a human mind tick…all that electricity and shit…
I tell all of my incoming college students (because they haven\’t heard it before) that WE Baby Boomers have left them with a-pile-of-shit — and that the David Welch\’s of-the-world, along with languishing school districts — are merely fighting over a massive pile of manure!
Elsewhere I have suggested how we might right the American Ship — but, sadly, it doesn\’t fit the capitalist\’s paradigm — so say goodbye to those proms, those graduation ceremonies, those yearbooks and those high school parties…cuz the Hunger Games are a comin\’!