Zuckerberg throws $100M at Newark public ed

[Strickland33]

From that very brief write-up (I did not read the full NY Times story), it looks to me like Cory Booker did exactly what most politicians do with public education money - lavished it on all kinds of politically-connected "consultants" and blew it developing "initiatives" which cost a lot of money, make teachers spend a lot of time in meetings instead of teaching kids, and then ended up with nothing to show for it. Totally unsurprising.

Booker is an objectively miserable politician. I don't think this has to become a partisan issue.

 

[The Mangler]

Exactly. Spend $100M just on teachers, material, and support and watch the magic happen.

....and fire all the teachers and support staff two years later when you've used the $200,000,000. They needed to something smaller that was sustainable.

 

[SkinsNDeacs]

Meh. There are different kinds of funding problems. Politicians love to spend money on administration and accountability but refuse to spend it on quality teachers and (perhaps more importantly) competent management and coaching for the teachers and social support for the baggage that kids bring to school.

And what makes you think if we spend more on education that this will not happen? Again... It's not a money problem. It might be an allocation problem but we spend plenty on education. I have no reason to believe that increased funds would mean that politicians and bearcats would do a better job spending the money.

 

[bigdoublezero]

And what makes you think if we spend more on education that this will not happen? Again... It's not a money problem. It might be an allocation problem but we spend plenty on education. I have no reason to believe that increased funds would mean that politicians and bearcats would do a better job spending the money.

Serious? There are some schools that are absurdly underfunded.

One failed attempt at school reform that cost a lot of money doesn't prove that spending more money on education is fruitless.

 

[Strickland33]

And what makes you think if we spend more on education that this will not happen? Again... It's not a money problem. It might be an allocation problem but we spend plenty on education. I have no reason to believe that increased funds would mean that politicians and bearcats would do a better job spending the money.

You could also just make rich people pay their fair share in taxes, standardize a national education policy, cut the charter public\private crap and put all of the federal dollars in public education, and cut local education administrative salaries... Then, you wouldn't have to rely on benevolent billionaires and corrupt pols to the same degree.

 

[BillBrasky]

From that very brief write-up (I did not read the full NY Times story), it looks to me like Cory Booker did exactly what most politicians do with public education money - lavished it on all kinds of politically-connected "consultants" and blew it developing "initiatives" which cost a lot of money, make teachers spend a lot of time in meetings instead of teaching kids, and then ended up with nothing to show for it. Totally unsurprising.

#hope #change #FauxProgressives

 

[The Mangler]

You could also just make rich people pay their fair share in taxes, standardize a national education policy, cut the charter public\private crap and put all of the federal dollars in public education, and cut local education administrative salaries... Then, you wouldn't have to rely on benevolent billionaires and corrupt pols to the same degree.

IMO the fair share stuff is partisan crap. That said .... If we stay with state and local systems I, as a citizen, would like to see some evidence that we can better allocate the funds we already have before increasing funding. Once competency has been demonstrated I would be glad to increase funding as long as we continue to see substantial positive results. I see no reason to increase funding prior to that demonstration.

I see no reason to eliminate private schools. It just means we have more money per child for those who stay in public education. If you force everyone into public ed you'll just see wealthy parents home school their kids or spend a ton of money on tutors.
Charter schools are a great way to experiment on a small scale, nothing wrong with them either.

With common core, which I really like by the way, we have begun to standardize education. I believe 46 states had adopted it as of last year. Teachers are complaining about it and systems are seeing lower scores on their year end testing so instead of figuring out a way to successfully teach the more rigorous content Indiana recently withdrew and many other states, including North Carolina are considering withdrawing as well. That to me is extremely disappointing.

We need to figure out a way to get more high caliber teachers, something we've struggled with ever since women began to see more options in their employment. That does not mean simply paying the teachers we do have more money.

 

[avalon]

A few thoughts (I’m including some sections from the New Yorker article, so this will be a long one)…

1) It seems like a lot of money was spent trying to reform pay systems for teachers, and for redundant teachers because they didn’t want to lose the young ones and couldn’t fire the older ones.

Soon afterward, in November, 2012, the Newark Teachers Union agreed to a new contract that, for the first time, awarded raises only to teachers rated effective or better under the district’s rigorous new evaluation system. Those who got the top rating would receive merit bonuses of between five thousand and twelve thousand five hundred dollars.

All of this came at a steep price. The union demanded thirty-one million dollars in back pay for the two years that teachers had worked without raises—more than five times what top teachers would receive in merit bonuses under the three-year contract. Zuckerberg covered the expense, knowing that other investors would find the concession unpalatable. The total cost of the contract was about fifty million dollars.

The seniority protections proved even more costly. School closings and other personnel moves had left the district with three hundred and fifty teachers that the renew principals hadn’t selected. If Anderson simply laid them off, those with seniority could “bump” junior colleagues. She said this would have a “catastrophic effect” on student achievement: “Kids have only one year in third grade.” She kept them all on at full pay, at more than fifty million dollars over two years, according to testimony at the 2013 budget hearing, assigning them support duties in schools. Principals with younger staffs were grateful. Far fewer of the teachers left than Anderson had anticipated. She hoped Christie would grant her a waiver from the seniority law, allowing her to lay off the lowest-rated teachers, a move that both the legislature and the national teachers’ union promised to fight.

2) This seems like it was a rush job. Christie and Booker at least seemed to acknowledge that they may not be involved in a few years, but the plan was to push everything through rather go with a longer-term plan and find advocates to take their place as they moved on politically. This comment was telling:

Booker, Christie, and Zuckerberg had tried to recruit John King, at that time the Deputy Commissioner of Education for New York State, who had led some of the most successful charter schools in Boston and New York City, but he had turned down the job. According to several of his friends, King worried that everyone involved was underestimating how long the work would take. One of them recalled him saying, “No one has achieved what they’re trying to achieve—build an urban school district serving high-poverty kids that gets uniformly strong outcomes.” He had questions about a five-year plan overseen by politicians who were likely to seek higher office.

Baraka is heavily backed by education workers’ unions, and Jeffries by the school-reform movement. Booker has maintained a public silence about the Newark schools since being sworn in as a senator. Christie has been trying to salvage his Presidential prospects.

3) The $ was pledged in Sept 2010. Many of the plans haven’t taken into effect yet. It's fair to criticize the process, but isn’t it a bit soon to judge whether the investment was a failure?

4) The returns on the reform in the future may be questionable anyway, since the leading candidate for mayor is basically running in opposition to the superintendant’s plan. (Though the school system is under the control of the state.)

Baraka is heavily backed by education workers’ unions, and Jeffries by the school-reform movement. Booker has maintained a public silence about the Newark schools since being sworn in as a senator. Christie has been trying to salvage his Presidential prospects.

 

[2&2 Slider To Leyritz]

You could also just make rich people pay their fair share in taxes, standardize a national education policy, cut the charter public\private crap and put all of the federal dollars in public education, and cut local education administrative salaries... Then, you wouldn't have to rely on benevolent billionaires and corrupt pols to the same degree.

And what exactly is their "fair share"? I assume you think it is more than the 71% of federal income taxes that the top 10% of earners already pay? Is it more than the 35% of federal income taxes that the top 1% of earners already pay?

 

[ONW]

And what exactly is their "fair share"? I assume you think it is more than the 71% of federal income taxes that the top 10% of earners already pay? Is it more than the 35% of federal income taxes that the top 1% of earners already pay?

Mandatory 3 year Mets and Knicks fan period.

 

[Strickland33]

And what exactly is their "fair share"? I assume you think it is more than the 71% of federal income taxes that the top 10% of earners already pay? Is it more than the 35% of federal income taxes that the top 1% of earners already pay?

Those percentages look impressive until you look at those earners' total incomes relative to their taxable income. That's beside the point though - by that comment, I meant that we have to increase the tax base (or stop spending so much money on the military, but that's another story) if we are going to find some way of allocating more money to public education.

 

[PhDeac]

IMO the fair share stuff is partisan crap. That said .... If we stay with state and local systems I, as a citizen, would like to see some evidence that we can better allocate the funds we already have before increasing funding. Once competency has been demonstrated I would be glad to increase funding as long as we continue to see substantial positive results. I see no reason to increase funding prior to that demonstration.

I see no reason to eliminate private schools. It just means we have more money per child for those who stay in public education. If you force everyone into public ed you'll just see wealthy parents home school their kids or spend a ton of money on tutors.
Charter schools are a great way to experiment on a small scale, nothing wrong with them either.

With common core, which I really like by the way, we have begun to standardize education. I believe 46 states had adopted it as of last year. Teachers are complaining about it and systems are seeing lower scores on their year end testing so instead of figuring out a way to successfully teach the more rigorous content Indiana recently withdrew and many other states, including North Carolina are considering withdrawing as well. That to me is extremely disappointing.

We need to figure out a way to get more high caliber teachers, something we've struggled with ever since women began to see more options in their employment. That does not mean simply paying the teachers we do have more money.

Everything but the last paragraph explains the last paragraph. The reforms you want make public education less attractive.

Make the jobs attractive and get more talent and let them teach.

 

[Strickland33]

IMO the fair share stuff is partisan crap. That said .... If we stay with state and local systems I, as a citizen, would like to see some evidence that we can better allocate the funds we already have before increasing funding. Once competency has been demonstrated I would be glad to increase funding as long as we continue to see substantial positive results. I see no reason to increase funding prior to that demonstration.

I agree with this, but the way that results and effectiveness are quantified at the moment makes absolutely no sense. What are your suggestions for how to measure competency? Likewise, how do you adjust competency to disadvantage? If you can't find a way of doing this, then you'll merely reproduce a low wage teacher workforce in the schools that desperately need good teachers for longer than their pre law school Teach for America-detours.

I see no reason to eliminate private schools. It just means we have more money per child for those who stay in public education. If you force everyone into public ed you'll just see wealthy parents home school their kids or spend a ton of money on tutors.
Charter schools are a great way to experiment on a small scale, nothing wrong with them either.

You're misinterpreting what I wrote. I have no beef with private schools, though I don't think they should, under any circumstances, receive public funding (and some of them do).

My issue is more with charter schools. I don't have great internet right now, but take a look at the statistics about the extent to which charters are renewed relative to the population of charter schools. There is much less continuity than you'd imagine, I'm guessing, which makes little sense considering how all-in the current administration and local governments seem to be on the notion of public-private partnerships in education.

These schools receive public funding and, as a whole, are not that much better than the public schools that they are allegedly replacing, if better at all. There has been a lot of research on this latter point, in particular. Likewise, they're often lousy situations for teachers, as they tend to be non-union, with anti-labor administration and low pay/mobility.

With common core, which I really like by the way, we have begun to standardize education. I believe 46 states had adopted it as of last year. Teachers are complaining about it and systems are seeing lower scores on their year end testing so instead of figuring out a way to successfully teach the more rigorous content Indiana recently withdrew and many other states, including North Carolina are considering withdrawing as well. That to me is extremely disappointing.

The question that I have is "what" exactly is being standardized. These nationwide standards are rarely, if ever, hammered out with veteran educators' inputs (at least in their policy form, as in NCLB) and almost never with teacher unions' input.

What results is a situation where there is irreconcilable disjuncture between teachers' visions of education and government bureaucracy's. There is a middle ground, but common core is not it. Ask any veteran educator.

Furthermore, is it the teacher's fault for not figuring out how to teach it or is it the fault of the government that institutes this curriculum without the necessary corresponding structural and infrastructural adjustments (which are many and vary depending on the relative disadvantage of the school district). I understand that it's easy to blame teachers (as it has been throughout American history), but there are significant changes that need to be made before a common core can work and the states have expected teachers to adjust without doing their part to improve the corresponding contextual factors (environmental, policy/governmental, occupational, and social-psychological, for starters) that are significant variables in this equation.

I agree with you, though: that states are opting out of national standards is concerning, especially when thinking about states like NC that tend to be run by nincompoops.

We need to figure out a way to get more high caliber teachers, something we've struggled with ever since women began to see more options in their employment. That does not mean simply paying the teachers we do have more money.

And yet, most veteran educators that I speak to that got their start in the 70s-80s speak to just this type of policy intervention. Urban school districts used to, for instance, front load wages to attract better young teaching candidates with incentives built in for veteran teachers. Now, organizations like TFA have driven down wages significantly (not even to mention how disgustingly little private school teachers get paid), so that attracting young and talented teachers, especially as career teachers or in one district for a long time, is very difficult.

You get higher caliber teachers by offering competitive wages and valorizing the extraordinary amount of labor that teachers do on a daily and yearly basis. There is no way around that. It's not that much different than stock brokers, doctors, lawyers, postal workers, management consultants or accountants, either.

The difference, IMO, is that the occupation is still feminized, public school teachers toil in relatively underfunded districts and with disadvantaged populations, teacher unions have a huge PR problem, and the national social movement on education is trending toward "reform" (ie charters and privatization).

 

[Strickland33]

Serious? Most schools (and school districts) are absurdly underfunded.

One failed attempt at school reform that cost a lot of money doesn't prove that spending more money on education is fruitless.

FIFY

 

[TownieDeac]

And what makes you think if we spend more on education that this will not happen? Again... It's not a money problem. It might be an allocation problem but we spend plenty on education. I have no reason to believe that increased funds would mean that politicians and bearcats would do a better job spending the money.

Nope

 

[SkinsNDeacs]

Those percentages look impressive until you look at those earners' total incomes relative to their taxable income. That's beside the point though - by that comment, I meant that we have to increase the tax base (or stop spending so much money on the military, but that's another story) if we are going to find some way of allocating more money to public education.

Again, where is the proof that simply allocating more money = better results? As someone who lives very close to Washington DC where we spend nearly $19,000 per student (always near the top of the list) and god awful results I can tell you that the correlation is not clear. Even with all that money there are some seriously underfunded schools. The problem is not lack of money but horrible policy and allocation.

 

[BeachBumDeac]

Again, where is the proof that simply allocating more money = better results? As someone who lives very close to Washington DC where we spend nearly $19,000 per student (always near the top of the list) and god awful results I can tell you that the correlation is not clear.

Has anybody said this?

Saying that teachers need to get paid more in order to attract better talent to teaching is not "simply allocating more money."

 

[SkinsNDeacs]

Has anybody said this?

33 said we need to increase taxes to allocate more funds to education. I would like to see proof that would actually help. Serious reform is need WAY more than more money. More money alone would just be throwing good money after bad.

 

[SkinsNDeacs]

Saying that teachers need to get paid more in order to attract better talent to teaching is not "simply allocating more money."

100% agree and I think teachers need to be paid FAR more. But the debate about increased spending on education hardly ever results in more money for teachers.

 

[Strickland33]

Again, where is the proof that simply allocating more money = better results? As someone who lives very close to Washington DC where we spend nearly $19,000 per student (always near the top of the list) and god awful results I can tell you that the correlation is not clear.

Where is the proof that it doesn't? I'd argue that the associations that most would draw to answer that question are spurious...