What’s wrong with the Vergara ruling

Replies

• Don 10 years ago10 years ago

  Thank you Mr.Porter. I made the same case earlier on this thread regarding the false narrative as a by-product of the ruling.In that comment I went as far as to say that the defense encouraged this false narrative to promulgate the notion in order to gin up the opposition that Vergara is nothing more than teacher bashing. Anti-Vergara activists construe Treu's cautionary statements not to blame teachers for the difficulties inherent in the laws as … Read More

  Thank you Mr.Porter. I made the same case earlier on this thread regarding the false narrative as a by-product of the ruling.In that comment I went as far as to say that the defense encouraged this false narrative to promulgate the notion in order to gin up the opposition that Vergara is nothing more than teacher bashing. Anti-Vergara activists construe Treu’s cautionary statements not to blame teachers for the difficulties inherent in the laws as nothing more than a token effort to appear fair and balanced in the context of a deeply teacher unfriendly ruling, but the rank and file have not shown any particular resolve to demonstrate opposition, even while the union leadership in conjunction with the other state defendants have appealed.
  I suspect that there is a silent majority who will accept a reasonable rewrite of the statutes, even if they would rather have never ever heard of Vergara.

• navigio 10 years ago10 years ago

  So now I'm curious. If these statutes are in fact not the primary hinderance to successful urban school districts, what is? And more importantly, why are we not addressing that instead? Are you saying that changing them actually won't bring any meaningful change? The lawsuit claims that minority and low income students' constitutional right to equal opportunity of educational quality is being violated. What could be more important than that? Looking at some 'urban' districts I … Read More

  So now I’m curious. If these statutes are in fact not the primary hinderance to successful urban school districts, what is? And more importantly, why are we not addressing that instead? Are you saying that changing them actually won’t bring any meaningful change?

  The lawsuit claims that minority and low income students’ constitutional right to equal opportunity of educational quality is being violated. What could be more important than that?

  Looking at some ‘urban’ districts I am seeing many with minority rates well over 95% and many with F&R rates well over 80% (lausd’s unduplicated rate is 84% and that district has a tenth of the state’s students). If the lawsuit is correct in its characterization of the effect, those districts are effectively impacted wholesale by these statutes. If that’s true, how could it not be a significant hurdle? Even the biggest one in districts where it impacts virtually every single student?

  • FloydThursby1941 10 years ago10 years ago

    Whether or not it is the primary issue is not the main point here. It damages kids, and makes many parents frustrated. People remember the bad experience and over the years, people have been stuck with a bad teacher or their kid has, and they don't remember the 10 good teachers, just like someone harassed by a cop often is negative towards them and forgets the 10 good cops...and police pay has gone … Read More

    Whether or not it is the primary issue is not the main point here. It damages kids, and makes many parents frustrated. People remember the bad experience and over the years, people have been stuck with a bad teacher or their kid has, and they don’t remember the 10 good teachers, just like someone harassed by a cop often is negative towards them and forgets the 10 good cops…and police pay has gone way up since they cracked down on abuses which were once common.

    Yes, there are bigger problems than bad teachers, but that’s a distraction comment which avoids the main point. We still must get teaching to improve, and the threat of being fired always makes people work harder, and some are just bad.

    It’s true, bad parenting is more significant, the average parent lets their child watch and play on screens 40 hours a week while studying under 6, so I’d say the average parent is horrible by European, Asian or educated standards, take your pick. That’s atrocious parenting…and that’s average. Well parented kids, even in bad schools, will get a good education and Asians prove that.

    Then you have poverty, which Asians overcome but which hurts performance, a culture which is anti-intellectual, lazy kids, and other issues. Yes, these are bigger. However they are vague, and difficult to do something about. We can do something about teacher quality, let go the bad ones, replace seniority/entitlement to earn your promotion/transfer/raise and avoid the lay offs by quality, not quantity (of years). It’s in our power, let’s do it. Let’s work towards the other issues, but we can control this one, so let’s do so.

    If you’re a bad student or worker and part of the reason is a bad boss, a difficult environment, a boring class, bad books, a long commute, a winner focuses on what they can control, work harder, study more, focus more, etc. A loser focuses on what they cannot control and ignores what they can. You won’t change the other things in the short run, so focus on what you do and can control. We can’t make all parents great within a year if the average one is negligent and atrociously indifferent. However, a quick change in laws can drastically improve teacher quality and drastically reduce the incidences of teachers, fully in accordance with their contract, playing hooky and damaging kids by doing so. Let’s do that. Let’s do it now. Not later. The writing is on the wall. Let’s be winners, let’s prioritize kids and focus on what we can control.

  • Carl Cohn 10 years ago10 years ago

    You can get rid of the existing statutes, and still have lousy HR practices that put weak teachers in critical classrooms. You can still fail to provide high-quality professional development to teachers. You can still fail to attract, develop and retain talent. You can still fail to address critical school safety issues in urban schools and classrooms. You can still fail to engage parents in their children’s education.

    • Don 10 years ago10 years ago

      Mr. Cohn, I absolutely cannot fault your comment above. At the same time, I believe those issues are different than the constitutional questions posed by Vergara and do not in any way trump or devalue the meaning of Vergara's challenge. The Brown v. Board decision didn't purport integration as the singular solution to the achievement gap. The idea that somehow Vergara should be faulted for not being the end all to be all … Read More

      Mr. Cohn, I absolutely cannot fault your comment above. At the same time, I believe those issues are different than the constitutional questions posed by Vergara and do not in any way trump or devalue the meaning of Vergara’s challenge. The Brown v. Board decision didn’t purport integration as the singular solution to the achievement gap. The idea that somehow Vergara should be faulted for not being the end all to be all doesn’t comport. I don’t deny that the plaintiffs at times may have overstated the case as a panacea as lawyers will do. That doesn’t diminish the fundamental question of the trial: are students, and in particular students of color, experiencing inequitable educational opportunity as a ramification of the five statutes? I understand that the defense’s case – that the uneven application of the statutes is at fault, not the statutes themselves. Because it was agreed that student do suffer educationally from low quality teachers, if the appellate court agrees that students have a legitimate case of constitutional inequality, will the court determine it to be as a direct result of an imperfect law or will it decide to take a more activist stance and determine the imperfect implementation, with or without imperfect law, is enough to uphold Treu’s ruling? Or will it strike it down?

      In the meantime, it is somewhat of a spectacle to watch as the union-supporting left wing in California tries to grapple with the paradox of backing teaching unions to the detriment of minorities, civil rights, and educational inequality. Ironically, it’s progressive advocates who are lining up to file more educational inequality challenges now that the bar of proof has been lowered from “fundamentally below prevailing statewide standards” to the lesser standard of “real and appreciable impact”.

      No doubt the legal conundrum of how to prove teacher incompetence played no little part in Treu’s decision to overrule the academic logjam on that issue.

      • Carl Cohn 9 years ago9 years ago

        I think some of your arguments against my critique of Vergara are well-reasoned, but we part company on the issue of equating Vergara with Brown, the most important judicial decision of the 20th century, which had a profound impact on the course of our country and its social fabric. In addition, Brown was a unanimous decision of the highest court in the land. While I respect Judge Treu as a jurist, the facts and issues argued … Read More

        I think some of your arguments against my critique of Vergara are well-reasoned, but we part company on the issue of equating Vergara with Brown, the most important judicial decision of the 20th century, which had a profound impact on the course of our country and its social fabric. In addition, Brown was a unanimous decision of the highest court in the land.

        While I respect Judge Treu as a jurist, the facts and issues argued in his Los Angeles Superior Court proceeding in no way rise to the level of Brown. And, his application of strict scrutiny was very thinly argued in the decision for some inexplicable reason known only to him.

      • Don 9 years ago9 years ago

        To be clear, I wasn't equating the import of the Vergara case with Brown v. Board. I was providing an example of another judicial decision where the law of unintended consequences played a part in the aftermath. That said, while Vergara doesn't come close to the societal significance of Brown, it surely could have a huge impact in California and snowball across the country (as already appears to be the case). Thank you for your … Read More

        To be clear, I wasn’t equating the import of the Vergara case with Brown v. Board. I was providing an example of another judicial decision where the law of unintended consequences played a part in the aftermath. That said, while Vergara doesn’t come close to the societal significance of Brown, it surely could have a huge impact in California and snowball across the country (as already appears to be the case). Thank you for your reply. BTW, I agree with most of your article.

    • Don 10 years ago10 years ago

      Getting back to Mr. Cohn's article and his comment above, much has been made of the idea of Vergara as a false solution to the achievement gap and that it may exacerbate that gap as a result of unintended human resource consequences. These arguments, while possibly valid in their own right, are intended to divert the attention of the viewing public away from the constitutional questions at hand and on to some politically … Read More

      Getting back to Mr. Cohn’s article and his comment above, much has been made of the idea of Vergara as a false solution to the achievement gap and that it may exacerbate that gap as a result of unintended human resource consequences. These arguments, while possibly valid in their own right, are intended to divert the attention of the viewing public away from the constitutional questions at hand and on to some politically useful ramifications which are extraneous to the legal challenge itself. For example, without seniority fewer college grads may go into teaching. The purpose of the court is to dispense justice, not to draft education policy.

Replies

• Paul Muench 10 years ago10 years ago

  If we can legislate our way back to a healthy economy and society independent of public education…what do you see as the role of public education? There seems to be something left out in that argument.

  • Gary Ravani 10 years ago10 years ago

    Paul: Based on what Berliner has to say in the article I referenced you can see that much of the discussion about educational achievement has the cart before the horse.If we want to see real education improvement we need to work on creating a "Finnish model" in the US. That is, work on social and economic equity first and the educational achievement will follow: "The evidence shows that public schools serving the middle class and the wealthy … Read More

    Paul:

    Based on what Berliner has to say in the article I referenced you can see that much of the discussion about educational achievement has the cart before the horse.If we want to see real education improvement we need to work on creating a “Finnish model” in the US. That is, work on social and economic equity first and the educational achievement will follow:

    “The evidence shows that public schools serving the middle class and the wealthy are doing very well, suggesting that an unequal economy, not bad teachers, create the problem.

    But when Berliner displays scores to show American schools by the percentage of students in poverty, the picture is different. American schools with fewer than 10 percent of students in poverty score higher than any country in the world. It continues from there: Schools under 24.9 percent rank third in the world and schools from 25 percent to 49.9 percent rank tenth and still above the PISA and the U.S. averages.”

    Therefore, if we really want the highest international test scores we need to draft legislation at all levels of government that will insure that no public school has greater than 10% of it’s students living in poverty. Or, if we want to be more modest in our goals and just be near if not at the top, then we need to reduce poverty to less than 25%.

    Berliner’s point is our schools are doing those things right now when the conditions are right. This is the “big lie” of the self-styled reformers and efforts like Vergara. They are a distraction from the problems Berliner talks about. You have teachers with the same backgrounds, preparation, and execution operating under (mostly) the same laws about hiring, layoffs, evaluations, and seniority in all the schools. It’s not those issues and it’s not the teachers. It’s the poverty levels of the students. The huge obstacle the self-styled reformers who blame teacher job protections and the unions for low student achievement have is that those US states with the highest achievement for students are almost all unionized states with teacher job protections in place and the lowest achieving states do not allow for teacher unions and have few protections in place. It’s one of those things that is so obvious that it’s rarely addressed in the media. Targeting “bad guys” makes much better press, if not policy.

    BTW. International test scores and international economic prowess have almost no meaningful relationship. For example, the US has always had middling success on the tests and “always” had the world’s strongest economy. The test scores do seem to be useful indicators of children’s well-being. Finland and Singapore, high scoring countries, have useful educational strategies like little reliance on standardized tests that we could emulate, but don’t. We need those scores to point out the “bad guys,” even if it doesn’t help student learning.

    • Paul Muench 10 years ago10 years ago

      Gary, You don't need to convince me not to measure teachers by student test scores. I don't want teachers tempted with "helping" students on the tests to inflate their scores. It seems pretty clear this happened in Washington DC and in Atlanta when superintendents started to use test scores as a way to evaluate teachers. I like standardized tests because they give me some idea of what my children are retaining for the … Read More

      Gary,

      You don’t need to convince me not to measure teachers by student test scores. I don’t want teachers tempted with “helping” students on the tests to inflate their scores. It seems pretty clear this happened in Washington DC and in Atlanta when superintendents started to use test scores as a way to evaluate teachers. I like standardized tests because they give me some idea of what my children are retaining for the long term. That is a real value that I don’t want to jeopardize.

      My point was really off the general topic and addressed the argument Berliner is proposing, at least as I know it from what you described. I’m not convinced that Berliner is on the right track, but I don’t claim to know is full argument. My counter argument comes from the book “The Race between Education and Technology”, by Claudia Goldin and Lawrence Katz. The very short summary of their argument is that education has not kept pace with technology in that technology has changed the job market and that inequality is increasing due to people’s lack of preparedness for jobs. So they see this increase in inequality as arising from real causes. Perhaps we can say it is manufactured because of political short-sightedness that led to not investing more or smarter so that education did not fall behind technology. But nonetheless we now have a real crisis on our hands.

      • Gary Ravani 10 years ago10 years ago

        I would suggest there is plenty of evidence to suggest the lack of preparedness of US workers, particularly in tech fields, is largely a myth.

      • FloydThursby1941 10 years ago10 years ago

        A myth? I'm a technical recruiter living and raising kids in San Francisco. Most of my friends in SF and cousins in the South Bay long ago left the Bay Area. Very few of them learned enough or were interested enough in tech., our celebrated industry, to have become scientists, programmers, or even work in any aspect of this booming industry. We study 6 hours a week or less on average … Read More

        A myth? I’m a technical recruiter living and raising kids in San Francisco. Most of my friends in SF and cousins in the South Bay long ago left the Bay Area. Very few of them learned enough or were interested enough in tech., our celebrated industry, to have become scientists, programmers, or even work in any aspect of this booming industry. We study 6 hours a week or less on average and watch TV and play games over 40, from ages 11-18, and those taking these lucrative jobs for the most part had those figures roughly reversed during childhood. Most move here from 3d world nations where they would laugh at anyone in housing projects saying they can’t study because they’re too poor, from Russia, India, China, Korea, where they grow up in a manner which make life in the projects seem luxurious by comparison. They fill libraries on Friday Nights at Universities not because they are rich but because other kids are partying. We aren’t motivating American kids to do well in school at all and a low percentage of engineers are American born. This is the furthest thing from a myth you can possibly fathom Gary. It’s absolutely true. In the midst of tech. prosperity, we are not teaching our children to do this work.

      • FloydThursby1941 10 years ago10 years ago

        We ought to run the tests like the SAT and the costs would be worth it. You go to a different location, cameras, a government security administrator ensuring no cheating, and a pure mix of kids in each classroom. Then the test scores are re-calibrated to judge the value add for each teacher. That, combined with an evaluation for each teacher, student and parent reviews, and a multiplier based on attendance should … Read More

        We ought to run the tests like the SAT and the costs would be worth it. You go to a different location, cameras, a government security administrator ensuring no cheating, and a pure mix of kids in each classroom. Then the test scores are re-calibrated to judge the value add for each teacher. That, combined with an evaluation for each teacher, student and parent reviews, and a multiplier based on attendance should give each teacher a rating. It should be possible for a 25-year old to earn more than a 60-year old based on value added, not seniority formulas. The union should negotiate the average, but the district should formulate the criteria in a manner which rewards hard work. A teacher who comes in every day should know that will increase their pay and rating. A teacher who takes days off with no explanation just because it’s in the contract should know it will decrease. Test scores will motivate teachers to teach parents to have a top work ethic. I have countless times been advised by teachers to not have my kids work too hard, have them study about an hour in middle school and then relax, and not worry about As vs. Bs, just get what you get. This is partially because most teachers, though not all, are below average college students in terms of GPA. This leads to us being last in international comparisons. If we pushed a culture of academic diligence, intellectual curiosity and societal engagement, we could be #1 again. Parenting is an issue, but teachers should give parents good advice as to raising kids, from a young age (60% of Asians prepare kids for kindergarten vs. 16% of whites and Asians 11-18 study 13.8 hours vs. 5.6 for whites, the largest group in our trailing Europe and Asia). Universal Pre-K can help, but mostly if the teachers teach parents things they can do to transform their homes into hotbeds of intellectual curiosity and discussion, reading, library usage, diligence and competitive determination.

      • Gary Ravani 10 years ago10 years ago

        Paul: Here is a "sample article" (excerpted) from USA Today re the inability of qualified minorities to find tech jobs. There are plenty of others available asserting that the tech companies are whining about "unqualified applicants" when what they are really talking about is the poor job they do upgrading the skills of current employees and the powerful desire to get access to green card employees who are unable to demand market level salaries and otherwise … Read More

        Paul:

        Here is a “sample article” (excerpted) from USA Today re the inability of qualified minorities to find tech jobs. There are plenty of others available asserting that the tech companies are whining about “unqualified applicants” when what they are really talking about is the poor job they do upgrading the skills of current employees and the powerful desire to get access to green card employees who are unable to demand market level salaries and otherwise get the education system to flood the market with qualified people who will drive down demand for appropriate stating salaries.

        The US business community has a long history of complaining about the qualifications of new employees, and thereby criticize the school system. In the 1980s and A Nation at Risk the auto industry successfully deflected criticism of its own lousy decisions-not enough high milage vehicles of sufficient build quality (planned obsolescence)–and its inability to compete with Japan and fob it off on “a rising tide of” unqualified workers emendating from the schools.

        Tech jobs: Minorities have degrees, but don’t get hired

        Elizabeth Weise and Jessica Guynn, USA TODAY 11:42 a.m. EDT October 13, 2014

        SAN FRANCISCO – Top universities turn out black and Hispanic computer science and computer engineering graduates at twice the rate that leading technology companies hire them, a USA TODAY analysis shows.
        Technology companies blame the pool of job applicants for the severe shortage of blacks and Hispanics in Silicon Valley.
        But these findings show that claim “does not hold water,” said Darrick Hamilton, professor of economics and urban policy at The New School in New York.
        “What do dominant groups say? ‘We tried, we searched but there was nobody qualified.’ If you look at the empirical evidence, that is just not the case,” he said.

      • FloydThursby1941 10 years ago10 years ago

        If you can program Android or iOS Apps, have worked at a company for 2 years without quitting or being fired, you will be at 150k. If you've been doing this. Some people call in sick, or don't try hard on the job. Having a degree is some of it, but if you work like these immigrants work, you'll make 150k developing apps. If you complain and clockwatch, you won't. … Read More

        If you can program Android or iOS Apps, have worked at a company for 2 years without quitting or being fired, you will be at 150k. If you’ve been doing this. Some people call in sick, or don’t try hard on the job. Having a degree is some of it, but if you work like these immigrants work, you’ll make 150k developing apps. If you complain and clockwatch, you won’t. Trust me, it’s all about ability and work ethic in tech.

      • Gary Ravani 10 years ago10 years ago

        Paul: For further reflection re the existence of a STEM worker shortage/lack of qualifications. From: Economic policy Institute-Richard Rothstein (Excerpted) Many of those who see a skills crisis in the American economy, attributable to inadequate education, confuse the fastest growing job categories with the job categories having the largest openings. It is true that many (though not all) of the fastest growing categories require post-secondary education, but this fast growth starts from relatively small bases, so does not … Read More

        Paul:

        For further reflection re the existence of a STEM worker shortage/lack of qualifications.

        From: Economic policy Institute-Richard Rothstein
        (Excerpted)

        Many of those who see a skills crisis in the American economy, attributable to inadequate education, confuse the fastest growing job categories with the job categories having the largest openings. It is true that many (though not all) of the fastest growing categories require post-secondary education, but this fast growth starts from relatively small bases, so does not generate many new jobs for college graduates.
        In reality, during much of the last 40 years, the wages of college-educated workers in science, technology, engineering and math have been stagnant or growing very slowly. The giant wage gains of college graduates in some recent years are attributable to big boosts in compensation of managers and sales workers (for example, in Wall Street and similar finance occupations). It is hard to take seriously a claim that the giant bonuses paid to finance workers in the last decade are indicative of a nationwide shortage of college graduates.

        From: NPR July 2013 (Excerpted)

        We’re Already Generating More Qualified Students Than Jobs
        Our analysis of the data finds that high-skill guest worker programs supply the preponderance of all new hires for the IT industry. The inflow of guest workers is equal to half of all IT hires each year and fully two-thirds of annual hires of workers younger than 30.

        Can it be a coincidence that wages in IT jobs have been stagnant for over a decade?

        At the same time, U.S. colleges are graduating more than twice as many science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) graduates than the number of STEM openings generated by our economy each year.

      • TheMorrigan 10 years ago10 years ago

        You keep wanting us to trust you, Floyd, but the evidence is pretty clear that there is no shortage of STEM graduates out there. The Center for Immigration Studies says, "The findings in this analysis are consistent with other examinations of the STEM labor market. We find no evidence of a general shortage of STEM workers...There may be a specific geographic area or a highly specialized field in which demand really is outstripping supply. However, … Read More

        You keep wanting us to trust you, Floyd, but the evidence is pretty clear that there is no shortage of STEM graduates out there.

        The Center for Immigration Studies says, “The findings in this analysis are consistent with other examinations of the STEM labor market. We find no evidence of a general shortage of STEM workers…There may be a specific geographic area or a highly specialized field in which demand really is outstripping supply. However, it makes little sense to allow public policy to be driven by very narrow interests.”

        Or

        Back in 2004, RAND stated “The analysis found that despite concerns about potential shortages of STEM personnel, particularly in engineering and information technology, there is little evidence of such shortages in the past decade or on the horizon. Economic indicators, notably the low levels of unemployment and rising wages that one would expect to accompany shortages, have failed to materialize.”

        Or

        The Economic Policy Institute stated last year that “the best available evidence indicates that the supply of STEM-potential and STEM-educated students has remained strong and appears to be quite responsive to standard economic signals of wage levels and unemployment rates. In the meantime, the flow of guestworkers has been substantial and targeted to one specific segment of the overall STEM labor market, namely IT occupations and industries. . . the data suggest that current U.S. immigration policies that facilitate large flows of guestworkers appear to provide firms with access to labor that will be in plentiful supply at wages that are too low to induce a significantly increased supply from the domestic workforce.”

        It seems that you, Floyd, being a technical recruiter yourself, are a huge part of that mythos.

      • Don 10 years ago10 years ago

        TheMorrigan, this is just another one of Floyd's informal anecdotal fallacies - his extended family didn't get into tech so the whole US market must lack tech workers. Whether it actually does or not probably depends from which lens the labor situation is viewed. If viewed from the employer side (cheap labor) it certainly does. At the same time domestic production is under pressure from cheap labor overseas in this new world … Read More

        TheMorrigan, this is just another one of Floyd’s informal anecdotal fallacies – his extended family didn’t get into tech so the whole US market must lack tech workers. Whether it actually does or not probably depends from which lens the labor situation is viewed. If viewed from the employer side (cheap labor) it certainly does. At the same time domestic production is under pressure from cheap labor overseas in this new world global market.

        In your comment your third example seems to contradict the other two if your point was to demonstrate an ample supply of American tech workers.

      • FloydThursby1941 10 years ago10 years ago

        It's not anecdotal. How many people who grew up in the Bay Area are scientists and engineers here? I agree age discrimination is an issue and training is another issue, tech. companies should spend more on this, but most kids even now simply don't study at the level needed to become a programmer. The attention to detail is beyond their educational level. I am against off shoring and think W should … Read More

        It’s not anecdotal. How many people who grew up in the Bay Area are scientists and engineers here? I agree age discrimination is an issue and training is another issue, tech. companies should spend more on this, but most kids even now simply don’t study at the level needed to become a programmer. The attention to detail is beyond their educational level. I am against off shoring and think W should have passed laws to take away the profit resulting from off shoring early on as there is no general benefit to the US from it, only to stockholders, most of whom are already wealthy, at the expense of the shrinking middle class. I realize 95% of the economic growth since 2008 has gone to 1% of Americans at the top and support laws to reverse this, such as progressive taxes and minimum wage increases. I think the rich should ensure 95% go to the bottom 99% for the next 6 years to compensate as they control most of the means of production. I just think we don’t educate many engineers. You need a phenomenal work ethic to get a degree in these fields.

      • Don 10 years ago10 years ago

        Floyd, on the subject of studying, there's been a great deal of research and though there is some general correlation between higher grades and norms test results in relation to more studying in high school and to a lesser extent in middle school, in elementary there no overall correlation at all. And when you break down the results of those studies it appears only a few percentage points of achievement gains are … Read More

        Floyd, on the subject of studying, there’s been a great deal of research and though there is some general correlation between higher grades and norms test results in relation to more studying in high school and to a lesser extent in middle school, in elementary there no overall correlation at all. And when you break down the results of those studies it appears only a few percentage points of achievement gains are attributable to homework and study. In fact, no overall achievement gains are seen past about 1.5 hours per day even in high school. This runs counter to your idea which simply stated is more is better. Almost no education experts subscribe to that belief because they have no evidence to back it up.

        You can read more here add the http://www before the link:
        nctm.org/uploadedFiles/Research_News_and_Advocacy/Research/Clips_and_Briefs/Brief%20-%20Homework%20What%20Research%20Says.pdf

        Since this area seems to be your interest, I hope you have familiarized yourself with the literature on this subject going back to Behaviorism vs. Constructionism and the many studies done in more recent times like the metastudy including in the above article.

        On a personal note, your opinions on this subject seem to imply that only learning that can be measured on a test is worthwhile and that hours studying regardless of the quality is all that matters in the quest for learning.

        Alfie Kohn has some interesting views on many of the popularized notions about homework, grades and test scores. Many of the education apologists cite his writings, but he’s someone who has successfully popularized areas of philosophy much to his credit. To be sure, he has plenty of detractors. Worth a look for a better understanding of the issues surrounding homework – the issue you seem obsessed with.

        By the way,if you pass laws “to take away profit”as you said, what’sleft of American enterprise will entirely disappear. Sorry, but totalitarian remedies have not been very productive, if history is any judge.

      • Paul Muench 10 years ago10 years ago

        Gary,

        I think the authors point was not about technology workers. It was about the benefits of higher education and stagnant high school graduation rates. The authors claim their analysis held through the Great Depression so I imagine they believe it will hold through the Great Recession. But that is just speculation on my part.

      • navigio 10 years ago10 years ago

        That discrimination still exists in our workplace should not surprise anyone. Perhaps even less that it also exists in the tech industry. This is partly a function of 'traditional factors' but also stems from the mis-application of the generalization of lower achievement rates for non-Asians to all members of those groups, even those on the 'high achieving end'. Overall, the percentage of stem graduates working in stem fields is not much different than in other … Read More

        That discrimination still exists in our workplace should not surprise anyone. Perhaps even less that it also exists in the tech industry.
        This is partly a function of ‘traditional factors’ but also stems from the mis-application of the generalization of lower achievement rates for non-Asians to all members of those groups, even those on the ‘high achieving end’.
        Overall, the percentage of stem graduates working in stem fields is not much different than in other fields (only somewhere between 20 and 30% depending on study), however, those numbers diverge on ethnicity, gender and age with Asian ethnicity far outpacing any other measure, and the other ethnic minorities under-pacing the average–though by a smaller margin. As long as there is a belief that one group is smarter or simply works harder, those numbers are unlikely to change, regardless of what people claim ‘the realities’ are. (Note that even within the stem fields, compensation also differs by ethnicity for people that get hired.)
        And even though most of the people involved there are arguably scientists, they are for the most part probably even less willing than others to let go of such perceptions and more willing to apply them once they have them. Tech people revel in taking risks with technology and money, not so much with people.

      • Gary Ravani 10 years ago10 years ago

        Paul: From a 2012 WAPO article: "For the first time in U.S. history, the national high school graduation rate surpassed 80 percent in 2012, according to a new report. If the rate of improvement over the past few years is maintained, the country would see a 90 percent rate by 2020, meeting the goal set by America’s Promise Alliance, the group founded by former secretary of state Colin Powell that produced the report with other organizations. The national rate … Read More

        Paul:

        From a 2012 WAPO article:

        “For the first time in U.S. history, the national high school graduation rate surpassed 80 percent in 2012, according to a new report.

        If the rate of improvement over the past few years is maintained, the country would see a 90 percent rate by 2020, meeting the goal set by America’s Promise Alliance, the group founded by former secretary of state Colin Powell that produced the report with other organizations.

        The national rate has risen an average 1.3 percentage points annually since 2006. Hispanic students have seen graduation rates grow 15 percentage points since then, while graduation rates for African Americans rose nine percentage points. Still, they lag behind their white counterparts. Whites have an 85 percent graduation rate, compared to 76 percent for Hispanics and 68 percent for blacks.”

        A reflection on the “stagnant” HS graduation rates. Yet another myth I would suggest and yet another attempt to link a societal problem, growing inequality, to the schools. As I mentioned it has been a historical truth that business in the US, and those who are their cheerleaders, have (with considerable success) been able to divert public and political attention from their own misdeeds and used the schools as the whipping boy.

        I just heard Lt Governor Gavin Newsom talk about how technology has so revolutionized our world that the “old model” of a 4 year college degree program is obsolete. What he’s talking about, of course, is not college education it’s job training. This is a huge debate. Just what is the value to an individual or society in having a person actually educated, in the full sense of a “liberal education?” Should the state only subsidize those in STEM courses from now on (to the extent CA is subsidizing anyone today) and say those who are art, music, social science, etc. majors are on their own? Is education just a function of economic competitiveness or does it have some other, larger, value to individuals who partake and the societies they live in? I’d say, to our loss, that the former assertion has the momentum. Some will say, everything else in our culture is weighted towards the ultimate monetary rewards available, why not education? Why not?

        The “diversion” aspect, publicly and politically, re the issue of inequality is pretty transparent I think. The US is the wealthiest nation on earth and tolerates a child poverty rate that is near the top in the industrialized world. The assertion is education will “cure” this poverty. Actually, the evidence points to “curing” poverty will go a long way to solving educational inequality. But that means going back to Progressive Era and New Deal solutions, meaning active government action to redistribute wealth more equitably. That’s how Finland solved its educational problems. But if you bring these ideas up here, today, all you get is hysterical slogans about “making excuses.” Diversion.

      • TheMorrigan 10 years ago10 years ago

        Gary, I would argue that rises or falls in graduation rates are highly suspicious. We could have gotten there by lowering the hurdles for the students: by not having rigorous coursework; lowering graduation expectations; making teachers take late work; not having homework but only classwork; not giving zeros but half credit; adding more accommodations to IEP students; giving more students IEPs; and having questionable summer school or credit recovery programs. While we have increased hurdles … Read More

        Gary,

        I would argue that rises or falls in graduation rates are highly suspicious.

        We could have gotten there by lowering the hurdles for the students: by not having rigorous coursework; lowering graduation expectations; making teachers take late work; not having homework but only classwork; not giving zeros but half credit; adding more accommodations to IEP students; giving more students IEPs; and having questionable summer school or credit recovery programs. While we have increased hurdles in some areas, with the CASHEE for instance, we have significantly lowered it in others.

        Or we could have gotten there, as in the case with LA Unified, by just changing what graduation rates actually mean so we could have a higher percentage.

        While these two points do not negate the hard work that teachers and schools put into helping students meet their graduation requirements, they certainly muddy the waters and make it difficult to determine if rates are actually rising because schools, parents, and teachers are doing a better job. There is no doubt in my mind that we are doing a better job than what we did in the 1960s-1980s but it is after that where we start to see through a glass darkly.

      • Gary Ravani 10 years ago10 years ago

        To the Morrigan: Yea, we "look through a glass darkly" because we want to look through that glass. There is a long historical tradition of getting hysterical about what's going on in US schools. For the media, "if it bleeds it leads," and if it's good news it goes on page 14. Back in 2007, as I recall, the US Dept of Labor put out a news release: High School Graduation Rates Highest in History--- it … Read More

        To the Morrigan:

        Yea, we “look through a glass darkly” because we want to look through that glass. There is a long historical tradition of getting hysterical about what’s going on in US schools. For the media, “if it bleeds it leads,” and if it’s good news it goes on page 14. Back in 2007, as I recall, the US Dept of Labor put out a news release: High School Graduation Rates Highest in History— it was ignored.

        Below find the Wiki article on “educational attainment” which links to Census, Dept. of Labor, Labor Statistics.

        To my knowledge there has been no more/less manipulation of data then at any other time in history. Poor kids struggled at height of recession with HS, but we’ve accepted that for a long time.To paraphrase Jack Nicholson: We can’t handle good news!

        Educational attainment in the United States
        From Wikipedia

        ]
        The educational attainment of the U.S. population is similar to that of many other industrialized countries with the vast majority of the population having completed secondary education and a rising number of college graduates that outnumber high school dropouts. As a whole, the population of the United States is spending more years in formal educational programs. As with income, levels differ by race, age, household configuration and geography.[2]
        Overall the households and demographics featuring the highest educational attainment in the United States are also among those with the highest household income and wealth. Thus, while the population as a whole is proceeding further in formal educational programs, income and educational attainment remain highly correlated.[2]

        General attainment of degrees/diplomas[edit]
        Educational attainment in the United States, Age 25 and Over (2013)[3]
        Education Percentage
        High school graduate 88.15%
        Some college 58.33%
        Associate’s and/or Bachelor’s degree 41.50%
        Bachelor’s degree 31.66%
        Master’s and/or Doctorate and/or professional degree 11.57%
        Doctorate and/or professional degree 3.16%
        Doctorate 1.68%
        In 2005, the proportion of the population having finished high school and the percentage of those having earned bachelor’s degrees remained at an all-time high, while the growth in both categories has slowed down over the past two decades. The vast majority of the population, 85.2%, had finished high school and nearly a quarter, 22%, had earned a Bachelor’s degree. The percentage of both college and high school graduates has continued to increase since 2000.[2]
        Since 1983 the percentage of people graduating from high school has increased from 85% to 88%. The greatest increases in educational attainment were documented in the 1950s, 60s and 70s. In the 1950s and much of the 1960s high school graduates constituted about 50% of those considered adults (25 and above). For young adults aged between 25 and 29, the percentage of high school graduates was roughly 50% in 1950 versus 90% today.[2]

      • Don 9 years ago9 years ago

        Gary, there’s no national standard for high school graduation so increases don’t mean much. More students are starting college unprepared due to the ease of high school which could account for the increase. Many high schoolers consider the CAHSEE a joke. But your point that it isn’t all gloom and doom is worth keeping in mind.

      • TheMorrigan 9 years ago9 years ago

        It doesn't have to bleed to lead. It could, as in the case of Deasy, Rhee, Moskowitz, and New Orleans, be hip for hyperbolic hype. My gut feeling tells me graduation rates fall into this hip to hype category. While the extremely slow and gradual graduation rates probably have some truth to them, punctuated jumps, like what occurred in LA Unified signal manipulation. I've learned that there are no miracles in education. Anyone selling … Read More

        It doesn’t have to bleed to lead. It could, as in the case of Deasy, Rhee, Moskowitz, and New Orleans, be hip for hyperbolic hype.

        My gut feeling tells me graduation rates fall into this hip to hype category. While the extremely slow and gradual graduation rates probably have some truth to them, punctuated jumps, like what occurred in LA Unified signal manipulation. I’ve learned that there are no miracles in education. Anyone selling them definitely profits from it.

      • navigio 9 years ago9 years ago

        Gary, great comment at 1:27. Liberal education in that sense is done for. We've already changed the priority in reading away from literature and toward 'non-fiction' in our standards (I expect if reading weren't so correlated with so many other 'skills' we'd get rid of it altogether). We've done away with non-core electives, including music, art, trades and sometimes even PE. We've limited community college's ability to provide non-goal-based coursework and given some of them … Read More

        Gary, great comment at 1:27.
        Liberal education in that sense is done for. We’ve already changed the priority in reading away from literature and toward ‘non-fiction’ in our standards (I expect if reading weren’t so correlated with so many other ‘skills’ we’d get rid of it altogether). We’ve done away with non-core electives, including music, art, trades and sometimes even PE. We’ve limited community college’s ability to provide non-goal-based coursework and given some of them the ability to provide 4-year degrees (in interesting contrast to Newsom’s comments). We even have people arguing against the value of going out into the world to have real experiences (eg via field trips, etc) and instead staying indoors studying, due to the ‘urgency’ surrounding ‘economic competitiveness’ (and that fact alone highlights the core difference between a liberal education and a workforce-driven one).

        I might argue that we are the wealthiest nation on earth partly because we have such a high poverty rate. This is why trying to address it is so difficult.

        And it’s too late if the remedy is to redistribute wealth. The differences between our culture and ‘more equitable’ ones stem from the priorities of the culture itself, not the extent to which they redistribute. Here it’s arguable that stagnation would occur if financial incentive is removed because of the value we place on competition with others within our own society. In other cultures there are priorities other than individualistic financial and competitive ones. This often manifests in a comparatively smaller income gap, and thus less need for redistribution in the first place (although admittedly it also provides less resistance to the concept of redistribution when it does exist).
        This is one reason I believe, even if we wanted to, we could never be like Finland (or most other–especially northern–European states).

Replies

• Gary Ravani 10 years ago10 years ago

  Answer: Because most other state employees are not subject to the political winds the way teacher are. You can look up the origins of most teacher due process protections and find that they are the product of legislatures. Many laws were enacted during the Progressive Period. (Watch the PBS Roosevelt series?) They were enacted, mostly, to protect women teachers (who still make up about 70% of the profession) from being fired for dating, getting married … Read More

  Answer: Because most other state employees are not subject to the political winds the way teacher are.

  You can look up the origins of most teacher due process protections and find that they are the product of legislatures. Many laws were enacted during the Progressive Period. (Watch the PBS Roosevelt series?) They were enacted, mostly, to protect women teachers (who still make up about 70% of the profession) from being fired for dating, getting married (scandalous!), or getting pregnant (even more scandalous!). Legislators also noted that senior, more expensive teachers, were targeted when layoffs were necessary. That, of course, was before the wide-spread mythology about how younger teachers, by definition, are more “effective” than more senior (and “coincidentally” more expensive) teachers.

  Then you have the “Monkey Trial,” or Scopes Trial. Try watching “Inherit the Wind.” Good movie as well as instructive. This was about the teaching of evolution. Think in modern times this is not an issue? Try looking up curricular events in Texas or the five other states that “allow” the teaching of “creationism” in lieu of science.

  The look up the topic of banned books. And books banned in schools specifically Somewhere, behind every one of those cases, is a teacher potentially under attack for teaching those books.

  Then there is the usual run of “litigious paranoiacs” who routinely are dissatisfied with their child’s teacher and, often year after year with different teachers each time, file charges (as long as they don’t actually have to face the teacher they are accusing), go to the local board, file charges with the credentialing commission, and/or file lawsuits. Been through dozens of cases.

  Take some time to do all of this stuff and then come back with why you don’t think teachers need a clear level of due process rights different than other general public employees.

  • Gary Ravani 10 years ago10 years ago

    For those who wonder why teachers need due process rights--excerpted from HuffPost: “This assignment upset me because they are presenting Allah as the same God of the Christians and Jews. This paper, in my opinion, is promoting Islam by describing Allahs names as 'beautiful'. To me this is not simply factual like it should be,” Hall wrote about the assignment. The school's principal, Brandon Graham, responded in his own Facebook post over the weekend, saying he wanted … Read More

    For those who wonder why teachers need due process rights–excerpted from HuffPost:

    “This assignment upset me because they are presenting Allah as the same God of the Christians and Jews. This paper, in my opinion, is promoting Islam by describing Allahs names as ‘beautiful’. To me this is not simply factual like it should be,” Hall wrote about the assignment.
    The school’s principal, Brandon Graham, responded in his own Facebook post over the weekend, saying he wanted to correct “inaccurate information” about the assignment.
    “While our high schoolers do study religions, the content is NOT presented to elementary students or used to proselytize in any way,” Graham wrote. “Furthermore, we *do indeed* teach Christianity along with other world religions.”
    .
    “The assignment was to cover the five major world religions: The religions included Christianity, Judaism, Hinduism, Buddhism, and Islam,” Graham said. “In our social studies classes, we certainly study all those religions to learn how a people, group and culture function. It helps us understand culture.”
    But on Facebook, Hall noted that she still takes issue with the assignment, even though she has no problem with students studying the five major world religions.
    “I was SHOCKED when my daughter showed me the pamphlet that she was required to make promoting Islam in a way 3rd graders could comprehend,” wrote Hall in her latest post. “As a mother who teaches her children that the One True Creator God is the GOD of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, it made me sick to my stomach to see my daughter promoting another god (Allah) as the One True Creator on a pamphlet!”
    Hall wrote on Facebook that she plans to meet with the school’s principal about the issue.

• el 10 years ago10 years ago

  I hope you are active in your area at recruiting better school board candidates, attending board meetings, and campaigning for good people when the school board elections come around.

  The truth is that school board elections are relatively small and low information races. A few people taking the time to canvass, make phone calls, knock on doors, hold parties/candidate meet-and-greets, and write letters to the editor can absolutely change who is elected when the vote is taken.

Replies

• Manuel 10 years ago10 years ago

  Last time I looked, I did not see an increase in funding for the Reed Schools over and above what other schools are getting. I suggest that if you really believe this that you should check the budgets of those schools and see if indeed they are getting more support. And, in my opinion and experience, teachers do not get greater protections. It is just that the administrators are often too inept to manage the … Read More

  Last time I looked, I did not see an increase in funding for the Reed Schools over and above what other schools are getting. I suggest that if you really believe this that you should check the budgets of those schools and see if indeed they are getting more support.

  And, in my opinion and experience, teachers do not get greater protections. It is just that the administrators are often too inept to manage the process to firing teachers.

  In their defense, though, administrators have way too many other responsibilities to be chasing after bad teachers. Also, I’ve been told by at least two administrators that if they were to fire some problematic teachers their replacements might be worse. You get what you paid for, I guess.

  • Frances O'Neill Zimmerman 10 years ago10 years ago

    I am tired of hearing the canard that it is the incompetent, weak or lazy administrator who causes poor teachers to remain in place. That may be, but it is less and less true as there is more and more pressure for the public schools to perform at some minimum standard of effectiveness -- measured by soon-to-disappear tests. School principals have other tasks than just managing lagging teachers (who may lag for many reasons, including … Read More

    I am tired of hearing the canard that it is the incompetent, weak or lazy administrator who causes poor teachers to remain in place. That may be, but it is less and less true as there is more and more pressure for the public schools to perform at some minimum standard of effectiveness — measured by soon-to-disappear tests.

    School principals have other tasks than just managing lagging teachers (who may lag for many reasons, including gold-bricking and general burned-outedness.) Principals properly should mentor newer young teachers develop their skills. The rest? It becomes a herculean task for the conscientious principal to “document” and “consult” and document some more and consult some more before removing a single inadequate teacher from his/her assignment. “Counseling out” of the teaching profession is the most humane method, but it often requires having something dire “on” the teacher that will be brought forward if there is resistance. In my experience, it is the exceptionally experienced, determined, confident and resilient administrator who successfully removes lagging teachers from a faculty. There are ways to do it in the book, but it is a tremendously time-consuming, confrontational and draining process.

    Other jobs for the principal? Knowing the names of every kid at the school, checking into classrooms to actually work with students; managing the data that should be showing continuous progress for each student; conferring with teachers and parents about the child’s status and any needed remediation. Oh, and don’t forget managing one’s own school budget; making sure there are adequate supplies and equipment; directing clerical and janitorial staff; meeting with worried, angry or concerned parents; going to special ed conferences; meeting with faculty for professional development, morale-building and collaborative planning. It is a huge job which, done well, benefits every person in the community. Weak-link teachers distract and detract from the quality of the principal’s engagement with the work. To function at a high level, every school needs a fully competent and willing team.

    And that’s where Vergara comes in: everyone on the team needs to stand on his/her own two feet.

    • Don 10 years ago10 years ago

      And Vergara comes in because the state supreme court already ruled that the state cannot leave the constitutional mandate of equal opportunity to the idiosyncrasies of districts. Even if local administration is deemed widely incompetent vs. widely competent teachers, students don't get to decide where they go to school or who the principal or teacher will be. There has to be a statewide solution. Between that and the other principle contention of … Read More

      And Vergara comes in because the state supreme court already ruled that the state cannot leave the constitutional mandate of equal opportunity to the idiosyncrasies of districts. Even if local administration is deemed widely incompetent vs. widely competent teachers, students don’t get to decide where they go to school or who the principal or teacher will be. There has to be a statewide solution. Between that and the other principle contention of uber due process, it is clear even to Mr. Cohn that some change is needed, as he noted. He appears to be advocating waivers. That is not a constitutional solution to educational inequality, but a capitulation to it.

      In the meantime, why doesn’t the CTA sue the state for failing to in its constitutional mandate to ensure that administrators

      • Don 10 years ago10 years ago

        cont. follow the law? After all, if Vergara can sue the state so can the CTA. The reason they don’t is because the CTA has been the historical partner of the State of California. Better to fight a different foe than to start cannalbalizing one another

    • navigio 10 years ago10 years ago

      Just because you are tired of hearing it doesn't mean it's a canard. It is curious that you highlight the impact of 'weak-link' teachers yet ignore the even more greatly distracting and detracting impact of weak-link principals, yet on whom vergara is silent. You're right that the principal's task is hurculean (I may have posted a link to an example list of principal tasks about a year ago, but if I didn't, try to find … Read More

      Just because you are tired of hearing it doesn’t mean it’s a canard. It is curious that you highlight the impact of ‘weak-link’ teachers yet ignore the even more greatly distracting and detracting impact of weak-link principals, yet on whom vergara is silent.
      You’re right that the principal’s task is hurculean (I may have posted a link to an example list of principal tasks about a year ago, but if I didn’t, try to find one in your district. It is literally absurd. It’s also a set of tasks that cannot be done alone and this why schools in which there is support and trust and parent participation run better), and that it takes an ‘exceptionally experienced, determined, confident and resilient administrator’ to do it. But we should not be lowering our expectations for that position by merely clearing legal brush just because that happens to be the easiest way to pretend we run our schools well. We should want our principals to be those things. And the last thing we should do if we are not willing to extend those expectations to implementation is give more power to people who are not those things.
      Btw, take a look at UTLA’s most recent negotiation proposal. Note how many of those things are not about teachers per se, but are about having school staffing resources that allows schools to run better (arguably more like they were designed to do but no longer can due to staffing cuts). IMHO, those cuts were the vanguard for vergara: a strategy to make schools impossible to run so that the scapegoats could be attacked.

    • Manuel 10 years ago10 years ago

      A canard, you say? In my experience, it isn't. OTOH, it is true that principals have been saddled with more and more duties. This is, however, a reflection of the relentless drive to make principals CEOs of their schools. At LAUSD they even have to design their own budgets, all in the name of "local accountability." But that is not the point here. The point is the classical conflict between labor and management. If management claims … Read More

      A canard, you say? In my experience, it isn’t.

      OTOH, it is true that principals have been saddled with more and more duties. This is, however, a reflection of the relentless drive to make principals CEOs of their schools. At LAUSD they even have to design their own budgets, all in the name of “local accountability.”

      But that is not the point here. The point is the classical conflict between labor and management. If management claims that labor is not doing its job, then management needs to go through all the steps that management is clearly required to take. It doesn’t matter that “middle” management (principals) are themselves being oppressed by their higher-ups, all the way to their Superintendent.

      A classic example is what recently happened at Jefferson HS in L.A. Students finally had enough and did a walk-out over their not getting the right classes and other horrors caused by the imposition of a nearly-useless master calendar by a principal who clearly was overwhelmed and a “management software” known as MiSiS that was to be used for enrollment. Somehow this got twisted by Superintendent Deasy as being the teachers’ fault for not agreeing to teach these “missing” classes. Really? Anyone who has ever dealt with high schools knows that the master calendar and the ability to timely enroll students is a local administrative responsibility that is made possible by the resources made available by the Superintendent.

      Another example is when Superintendent Deasy introduced his “Academic Growth over Time” system, a VAM-based evaluation process. It got piloted in a few high schools but quickly fell apart because neither the principals nor the assistant principals had the time to do the close supervision that it required. Why couldn’t they? Because of the boat-load of things they are supposed to be in charge of. (And if you are curious what they are, go look through the archives of AALA; somewhere in them is a newsletter listing all the duties of a principal.)

      So, yeah, if the principals can’t do the teacher supervision, is that the teachers’ fault? Or are you asking that teachers police themselves? If that’s the case, then you don’t know what a jungle a high school is. That should not be surprising: they are all human beings, and not all can be perfect.

      Implementation of Vergara will not put a dent on these problems at all. It is my opinion that it will exacerbate them because very few good teachers are going to put up with this. They’ll either retire early or go on to other careers leaving behind only the inexperienced and the dead-wood that can’t go anywhere else.

      And then what?

      • el 10 years ago10 years ago

        The other part of the reason that Principal duties are so long and arguably cannot be done inside the hours allotted is because there is a strong ethic to cut "administrative" costs and to spare the classrooms from cuts. While I completely agree with the sentiment, what is often missed is that those administrators and the related overhead is there to support teachers and kids, and many of the duties that they have that are … Read More

        The other part of the reason that Principal duties are so long and arguably cannot be done inside the hours allotted is because there is a strong ethic to cut “administrative” costs and to spare the classrooms from cuts. While I completely agree with the sentiment, what is often missed is that those administrators and the related overhead is there to support teachers and kids, and many of the duties that they have that are affected end up being done by teachers or end up affecting the classroom in another way. Having responsible adults on campus who are not attached to any particular child but are there to handle whatever need arises during the day – rather like a ‘sweeper’ on a soccer team – is itself an important duty that is significantly underappreciated. A good admin does that job first … but the paperwork, the IEPs, the staff mentoring, the classroom observations, the research, the physical plant monitoring, the budget, the curriculum oversight… that all still needs to be done too.