“The California Federation of Teachers has invited Apple CEO Steve Jobs to either attend an annual CFT convention next month or offer a public apology for his ‘insulting comments’ to California’s teachers,” MacNN reports.
“Should Jobs fail to apologize or neglect to attend the conference, where he is encouraged to speak with the people who educate California’s children and hear from them what the situation is like, the CFT will create a new award specifically for Apple’s chief. ‘We’ll call it the Rotten Apple, for the individual who best personifies the need to think differently about public education and teacher unions,’ California Federation of Teachers president Mary Bergan wrote in a letter to the executive,” MacNN reports.
Full article here.
See, if you’re not with the union, you’re part of the problem. Unless you agree with the unions’ point of view, you’re not thinking correctly. Therefore, you can expect an invitation to another worthless conference that accomplishes nothing. While you’re stuck there, a bunch of proven education failures will inexplicably attempt to educate you. When that fails (because they’re wrong and you have a mind of your own that’s not susceptible to reeducation), they’ll give you an “award” seemingly named by a kindergartner (private; 8th grader, public) that’s meant to generate publicity while ridiculing your ideas because they differ from the union’s official stance. Isn’t it strange that “thinking differently” to people like Mary Bergan means “think like us or else?”
Related articles:
A clearer picture of Steve Jobs’ thoughts on public education and teacher unions – February 21, 2007
Steve Jobs & Rush Limbaugh agree: U.S. public schools are ‘unionized in the worst possible way’ – February 20, 2007
Apple CEO blasts teacher unions, says US schools are ‘unionized in the worst possible way’ – February 16, 2007
Shame on teachers that support this union. I’d never have my kid in public education.
I’m with Mactivist. I’d never have kids…..
Re: MDN Take.
Boom!
The MDN Take writer was obviously not educated in the U.S. public school system (he can write).
Yeah, fsck those underpaid, college educated role models that educate and inspire our nations youth.
Yes, there are bad teachers out there, but also many more good and great ones that do deserve our respect and admiration.
That is shockingly crappy.
A sizable portion of Apple’s business is education-based. Could this affect their sales?
blahger,
youre missing the point. we all know there are good and bad teachers out there. Jobs was criticizing the inability to fire or penalize the bad ones. whats wrong with that?
Boy… if I were Steve, I’d be weeping and gnashing my teeth in fear about now.
THEY’RE COMING AFTER YOU WITH A BIG, NASTY AWARD!! RUN FOR YOUR LIFE!
My mother teaches in California, she is forced to join the union and doesn’t agree with most of their policies. They take money from her check and use it to fund political issues she doesn’t agree with. I think their way out of control, and I think they are scared that Jobs is talking truth to power. Unions can be good, but this is a perfect example of when they go very, very bad. I hope Steve shows how a corrupt few union leaders are abusing their power and obligations to the thousands of good teachers in California.
MacDailyNews Take = Tony Snow
Not in a bad way or a good way . . . . . . just an observation.
Hey, I went to a LAUSD public school and I just finished my MBA so there’s nothing wrong with the public school system. It’s all about mentality.
The real issue is that the public school is full of children that see the older people in their neighborhoods who’ve rejected school and either are making money or are “cool” and they think to hell with school, fsck it. Now, you have kids showing up and not taking it seriously. The key to improving everything is to show that education really is the key to making something of yourself. We need to stop telling kids to “Be like Mike” and be more like Mike’s lawyers – the people that really make the money. But, until you have teachers that all truly want to be there and aren’t going through the motions, we’re going to continue with this bullshit. Of course no one wants their kids to go to public school – there’s far too much reality that you can’t shield them from.
But, to white people/anyone that isn’t directly affected by any of this, they don’t care. It only bothers people when it affects them and their families. Like cocaine – wasn’t an issue until all the little senators and rich people’s kids started doing it – then there’s a drug problem. Like Columbine. Oh, what a travesty, blah blah blah. Minority children are killed every day but never makes the news. But, when it happens in a white area, it’s national news, headline news!!
Anyway, unions as a whole suck. There’s no point for them anymore. They ruin businesses and hold shit up from progressing.
Unions in America have a long tradition of being penetrated by the Communists. The Soviet Union and it’s operatives had a decades long affair with American unions. So far, they have destroyed American steel, the American automobile industry, the textile industry, and more. Education would have been destroyed if it didn’t have unlimited amounts of tax money, MONEY THAT IS TAKEN BY FORCE, BY THREAT OF A PRISION TERM, from all of us suckers.
The answer is to get rid of all public education, and treat education as it ought to be treated, in that, Education is nothing more than another commodity, a service.
I recently attended an affair where there were about 100 teachers. What a bunch of low-lifes! They looked and dressed like x-cons, dirty clothes, unshaven, and really, really stupid. Low IQ’s would be the best description.
America is going down, and it’s forced education by Commie low-lifes that is leading the way.
I have always been a big fan of Jobs, and Apple Computer. But this is absurd! Sure there are a few crappy teachers, but most of them work really hard, are underpaid, underappreciated, and made to teach to state mandated tests, whether they want to or not. I agree than any union unchecked is a dangerous thing, and there should always be dialog and debate as to how we are doing things and how we can improve. But for Jobs to come out and blatantly attack a good portion of his user base is crazy! What does he think he knows about education? has he ever tried to teach in a public school system?! Bad teachers should be given the opportunity to improve, and if they don’t they should be fired. But for Jobs to come out on this random issue and lose his cool shows a lack of character and respect for some of the hardest-working people in our great country.
Stop demanding. Produce.
Just look at the example they are setting for the students they teach. Either agree with us or we’ll try to publicly humiliate you. Idiots. Last I knew they are supposed to be teaching things like history and the Constitution in which free speech is one of those rights..
Unions suck and I agree 100% with what Jobs said.
How about this:
“It’s time to admit that public education operates like a planned economy, a bureaucratic system in which everybody’s role is spelled out in advance and there are few incentives for innovation and productivity. It’s no surprise that our school system doesn’t improve; it more resembles the communist economy than our own market economy.”
Albert Shanker, former president of the American Federation of Teachers
I hope Jobs has the cajones to tell that teacher’s union to eff off and educate the kids like your being paid to do.
– Mark
So if you want to think “DIFFERENTLY” you’re immediately asked to apologise????
Teachers’ Unions like this are the scum of the earth, not fit to even take out our garbage.
I was abused (that is went to Government institutions) for the first few years of schooling.
Most of my teachers, however nice, were stupid. This does NOT mean that “ALL” teachers are stupid. It means enough people have run the majority of schools down and built their own power up enough to where they can run the schools to keep themselves in power. The Teachers’ Unions have become FAR to powerful to be even making demands REMOTELY like this.
Who actually realises that the FEDERAL Department of Education is UNCONSTITUTIONAL
Anyone??? Go look it up it’s called the 10th Amendment. Who gave the power to the Feds to run the schools??
Now go look up the FIRST Amendment, what does IT say? Make up your own mind.
MW: filled: The world is full of fools like these who think they can push others around.
War is Peace
THEY’RE COMING AFTER YOU WITH A BIG, NASTY AWARD!! RUN FOR YOUR LIFE!
Expect them to also be coming with recommendations to switch to Microsoft.
If Apple lets themselves get labeled as anti-union, this would have a very negative effect on their presence in education and other unionized markets.
Sometimes CEO’s just need to keep their mouths shut.
Do unions really accomplish anything any more? Back when employees has no rights I’m sure unions were sorely needed. But why do we need them now when there are federal laws that protect the worker?
Anyone?
If I were Steve, I’d wear the “Rotten Apple” award as a freaking BADGE OF HONOR. Teacher’s Unions are organized communism, the type the perpetuates mediocrity, rewards laziness, and erases accountability. I hate unions with a passion. They hold institutions and companies hostage and dictate and takes away control of management and along with it, sensibility at the expense of our children. Bad teachers need to go, and I’m glad Steve had the courage to say it!
The problems with our nation’s public schools go far far beyond ‘bad teachers’. Sure some exist, but that’s the least of our issues when it comes to kid’s educations in the US.
Steve should simply apologize, but this behind him, suck it up, and go out and sell more macs in the educational arena.
Whether he’s right or wrong is a moot point. Lets get rid of the drugs, guns, gangs etc in schools first. Most of the teachers in our inner city schools should be getting combat pay in my opinion.
I love ya Steve, but give it a rest.
I demand an apology from the teachers union for being an incompetent entity.
I wonder which part of, “If you can’t get rid of bad teachers, no amount of technology can make up for that” does the Union not understand?
GO, STEVE!!
You’re right on the money. The teacher union is now going to hide behind the skirts of all public school teachers and claim that Jobs was bashing “teachers”; in fact, of course, Jobs was bashing a terrible union bureaucracy. The sad thing, though, that if there’s one thing more harmful to public schools than unions, it’s the incompetence of public school administrators. They are just terrible. And NONE of it is going to get better until publicly-funded education is no longer governed politically (i.e., by politically-elected school boards), rather than by professionals. It would be like hospitals being governed by politically-elected local boards, rather than by professional managers and doctors–what a hash that would make of our medical institutions!!
I have two daughters in public school in Seattle. I have nothing but respect for the importance of and the dedication of the teachers we have encountered. They are human and at times flawed. They choose a profession where they know they will not get top pay because they want to make a difference in people’s lives. Some eventually get burnt out, I suppose, but, I have not yet seen them.
As much as I respect Steve, I think he is off base on this one. From what I have ready he hardly went to school after middle school. He has done well. He is the exception to the rule in very many ways.
Our schools do need to get better. Too many are being left behind. If we want our standard of living to improve in an increasingly competitive world we had better educate our young. If we want to continue being a democracy we had better continue to educate a broad base of our citizens so we continue to have a large middle class and the stability that comes with it.
Our public education is having a hard time for two reasons. One, many parents do not support it at home. Parental involvement is the biggest indicator of success. The next is class size. Smaller classes cost money. We need to support the schools.
This attitude of its my family against the world is sad. There really is an us and we need to grow and care for it together. The problem is not the unions. It is not the comunists. It is not them. The problems are ours and we need to work on them.
It’s true that sometimes it’s better to stay silent than speak out. But the quality of the U.S. educational system is important enough that Jobs should be lauded for speaking out. The problem is not the small percentage of teachers who are bad or incompetent. The problem is the current system PROTECTS those “bad apples” even if they don’t deserve it. We talk about how a single teacher can change the lives of thousands of people? Well, the system insures that those few bad teachers negatively impact the lives of hundreds of thousands collectively each year.
The proof is in the pudding. More than 1/3 of high school seniors graduate with an 8th grade reading level. Most can’t do basic algebra, despite having “passed” algebra classes. Heck, a significant fraction can’t even do multiplication tables in their heads because they’ve substituted calculators for thinking (and believe it or not, many school systems across the country have been experimenting for years with the idea that knowing how to do multiplication and long division are not necessary for learning math).
And the problem is that the teachers’ union is more interest about protect the livelihoods of their union dues paying member than giving kids effective and practical education. They are more interested in pushing failed sociology experiments in education than instilling a genuine joy of learning. And don’t give me the bullcrap about “not enough money” in education. Third world countries spend a fraction per student than the U.S. does yet produce students that perform better in almost every category than American students. The city of Sausalito in California spends close to $15,000 a year per student yet their elementary school kids come in close to dead last in the state achievement. L.A. county spends almost $10,000 a year per student yet has one of the highest drop-out rates in the state, if not the country, and a large fraction of the ones who do graduate can barely read.
All the whining from the teachers’ unions about “not enough money” is a whole load of horsehocky. Throwing money at the education crisis won’t solve anything because the people who control that money use it for almost everything except educating the kids. They use it to buy hundreds of millions of dollars in political ads blaming the lack of money as the source of the problem. They use it to protect bad teachers from getting fired in expensive court actions against the school district. They use it to pay themselves more so they can extort more of a teacher’s paycheck in “union due” – it’s just pure extortion that is not different than protection rackets offered by mafioso.
The unions have created the problem and not they are so addicted to the money, they are willing to perpetuate it at all costs. Jobs was right.
The problem with unions is they are a one way valve designed to protect the people inside, but also allow them to do whatever the hell they want and screw up peoples lives outside. People should only be allowed to work a job because they do a good job, otherwise they should be FIRED! My employers can fire me anytime, just like I can quit anytime. It should not work any other way.
I’m tired of hearing teachers are underpaid. They work 8 months a year (summer vacation plus 4 weeks vacaction/sick/personal time), teach a few classes a day, and have loads of benefits. The teacher living behind me spends 3 solid months tanning on his deck rather than do something productive. I realize teachers are important and many work hard. We just need the worst of them terminated, period. Teacher Unions are quazi-Natzi organizations that protect their own at the cost of children’s lives.
They can demand all they want… but ultimately f them and their f’in union.
Unions. Onions. They both stink and make me want to cry.
MDN succeeds when it sticks to Mac Daily News. Whenever you go off on a political tangent, you come off sounding like the frothy-mouthed ranting flunkies that populate the vast “conservative talk radio” landscape of my AM dial. *yawn* Now get back to work.
Is it not amazing that a nation can spend as much as it already does on education and still not claim the smartest children in the world. There is no country on earth that spends as much toward the education of its own children as the United States of America and the only ones who claim it is not enough are the educators! Its not bad enough that they derive their income from the taxpaying public adding to the burdens of working families. They lobby for a system that holds ideals found in socialism. Screw that! In the working world if you don’t cut the mustard your let go. Dont you think its enough that everyone who works off of the tax base, (federal state local officials and their staff, police fire teachers county and municipal workers, and lets not forget the military) more than likely out number those who derive an income from goods manufacturing and production in this country. How stupid is that? How long will that last?
Those that can, do. Those that can’t, teach. I hope Steve shows up.
Get rid of the illegal aliens and the bilingual education and many of the problems would disappear. Fix the border or fail.
@Ironman
It is illegal to “force” someone to join a union, at least
in my state. My wife is a teacher too. When she was
hired the union leaders gathered all the new teachers
into a room and bribed them with prizes to join the
union. They gave such a guilt-laden presentation that
some of the teachers were crying because, with their
measly salary, they couldn’t afford the $50 monthly
dues. I was so proud of my wife when she told me
that she had refused to join.
The teachers unions don’t only cripple administrators
from making personnel decisions, but they also
influence curriculum, funding, and lobby against
reforms that would challenge the pervasive mediocrity
in our schools.
Without the meddling unions maybe our teachers
could actually be paid what they are worth.
Jobs never insulted teachers. He is challenging unions. Big difference totally missed by this union.
… and how did Steve Jobs represent Apple as a solution to the issues confronting education?
On Apple’s time Steve Jobs should propose methods and procedures Apple is capable of bringing to the challenges faced by members of EDUCAUSE.
What ever his personal philosophies may be that influence how he prefers to spend his own money I wish he’d check them at the door.
Steve was invited to showcase Apple’s vision for the education market. He was not invited to quarrel with or slander attendees.
On this day he was part of the problem, not part of Apple’s solution. He needs to keep these Bad days to a minimum.
Re: New Type. Try looking at it from another perspective. Not everyone can or should get the same kind of secondary education. Just like you firmly believe that bad teachers should be fired and that bad employees should be fired, I firmly believe that bad students should be fired. But teachers are forced by pandering administrations, pushy parents, and the general “democratic” belief that everybody can go to the same high middle schools and high schools as everyone else and graduate, to give very few C, D’s, and F’s. And God forbid a school suggests flunking a kid and having them repeat a grade.
Teachers aren’t allowed to tell kids that they’re bad at something anymore, because it might damage their precious self-esteem. Do you think the pressure for grade inflation and social-promotion comes from teachers’ unions? Hell no. It comes from parents who can’t be bothered to work with their kids at developing study habits, to value school and to appreciate learning. You tell me just how great a teacher can be if (s)he consistently has to drag along that third of the class that should be learning a trade instead of how to write a research paper? Amazingly enough, some teachers manage even under those conditions, to be great.
Before you bash the teachers and their union as the root of all educational evil, ask yourself whether parents and society have realistic expectations of public education.
It gets tricky when we say the words out of someone’s mouth are ok because they’re in our favor. If it’s right, let’s work with it as the truth. I don’t want Steve or anyone lying on my behalf for a few bucks.
“Minority children are killed every day but never makes the news. But, when it happens in a white area, it’s national news, headline news!!”
Shawn, u really need to start thinking for yourself and forget about the indoctrination.
If you can read, you are suppose to thank a teacher ……..
If you make it to 12th grade and can’t read or do math above the 5th grade level, who should you blame……
“There is no country on earth that spends as much toward the education of its own children as the United States of America “
I really doubt that!
Wow! What a mess. Let’s talk religion now. No. Let’s not. Time to for me to get back to Apple Inc. product related posts.
“You tell me just how great a teacher can be if (s)he consistently has to drag along that third of the class that should be learning a trade instead of how to write a research paper?”
Well said, something can be learned from European countries regarding this.
Why am I not convinced by the protests of those who insist that most teachers are hard working and underpaid? “Our hands are tied!” they exclaim. But it kinda makes you wonder who would want such a lousy job, even if it’s your fault that public education in America is an embarrassment.
Teaching is supposed to be a calling, not the kind of job where you just show up for work and collect your paycheck. If the majority of teachers really cared about the welfare of their students, it’s very hard to believe that they wouldn’t find an effective way to protest against and ultimately change the bureaucratic educational policies that they claim are responsible for the sorry state of public education in America. People who really care don’t just sit around crying that their hands are tied.
In California CFT is very powerful. When Arnold tried to push through reforms the Teacher’s Union spent millions on negative and whiny ads, the public socked it up.
Sure there are a lot of good teachers but the bureaucracy is crippling. The amount of taxes going to the California Education system is staggering and what have we got to show for it? High drop out rates, kids that can’t read, terrible curriculums, college kids that need to take basic ed courses to make up for what they failed to learn in K-12.
It’s a sad state of affairs.
Without the meddling unions maybe our teachers could actually be paid what they are worth.
Without the meddling unions, you’d be astounded how fast the workers’ rights won over the last 75-100 years would be erased.
Look at Wal-Mart, they way they treat their non-executives, and their drive to a part-time, on-call workforce. Do you want YOUR industry following their model someday?
When standing alone, your rights are only as good as your attorney and as deep as your pockets. What power do you really have during a job review, or to successfully get a raise? You’re completely at your employer’s mercy, and they’d probably laugh you off if you didn’t have the right to organize.
IMO the specter of unionization benefits everyone.
@ Blahger and others with the same message.
Steve attacked the unions, not the teachers. The unions don’t give a rat’s ass about education or your children. They are in the business of self-perpetuation and political muscle. They are run with an iron fist by the most left wing of the left wing. I know many teachers in California who would love to be able to get a job teaching in the large public school systems without being forced into these unions. Steve was right on and shouldn’t be coerced into apologizing for simply stating an opinion, right or wrong. Why doesn’t The California Federation of Teachers state their case for how they benefit teachers and the education system instead of grandstanding with their infantile “Bad Apple” award? I’ll tell you why… they don’t have a case.
Maybe three days in “The Box” will make his mind right.
The amount of knee-jerk anti-unionism among Americans is frightening. The arguments seem to go like this: Unions protect workers from bad treatment at work, but some workers are bad and deserve to be fired, and unions protect them. So unions are bad.
Parallel argument: Laws guaranteeing civil liberties, such as habeus corpus, and innocent until proven guilty protect people from arbitrary arrest and false accusations, but some criminals who deserve to be punished escape because of these civil liberties. So civil liberties are bad.
What is also frightening is that there are a growing number of people who accept the second as well as the first argument.
Don’t underestimate these BIG FAT CATS! They can spend 70 millions dollars smear campaign against Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, remember? Union is the root of communist evil!! They should be eradicated out of this country!
Botox, how profound. Teachers’ unions are BIG FAT CATs are are the root of communist evil!! Let me respond in kind: Your mother wears army boots, is a Nazi, fascist, and ought to be sent back to wherever it is she came from. (I’m not sure what I said, but I feel perversely refreshed).
@Habeus Guantanamo
While there are anti union comments on this board, let’s once again keep on the topic… Steve flamed the Teacher’s Union in respect to its benefit to the educational system. I support his view and reiterate my previous comment:
In California, the Teacher’s Union cares very little about the quality of education. They care about perpetuating their union. They use membership dues to wage political battles that are outside the purvue of educational issues and fly in the face of large chunks of their membership. Teachers are coerced to join and pay dues, and if they don’t join, they don’t work. Historically speaking, and to a smaller extent today, unions have balanced the scales of workers’ rights vs corporate greed. But not all unions serve the purpose for which they were originally organized and have become corrupt in their own right.
Mack. Don’t get me started on that B.S. rationalization that minority kids drop out of school because of violence. That’s just a big, steaming metric ton of weapons-grade bullonium. Sure, violence is part of the problem for small number of the minorities in the U.S. However, drive-by shootings and school shootings are a relatively new phenomenon. Yet minority kids have been dropping out of school before they graduate at an alarming rate for decades and decades and decades. Places like L.A. are the publicized exception. Though many will try to pin the blame for the high minority drop out rate on “The Man,” the blame squarely lies with the parents (or one parent, or a grandmother sometimes) who doesn’t properly instill into their children, the value of an education so they are insulated from the pressures of a minority culture that makes dropping out part of what makes a guy cool. Find one minority 20-something-year-old who dropped out of high school (or earlier) and challenge them to identify the white guy who forced them to drop out of school.
The government is to blame in part for this too. If there were more minority fathers in the home actively engaged in raising their children, you’d have a hell of a lot more kids in school. As it is though, there is no downside for some guy to get spread his seed all over hell and creation. Down in the South in times past, you had shotgun weddings. The term “shotgun” was for a reason: they damn well meant it and would KILL the S.O.B. who dun it. You don’t impregnate some gal and leave her to raise her child in poverty; the father provides the resources necessary to properly raise the child. Today, the role of a pissed off father is formally institutionalized in government agencies that don’t enforce the law. In practice, the government lets the irresponsible father off scot free and pays the mother (poorly at that too) to raise her children. The result is children in poverty, no father in the home, a broken system that is perpetuated by government indifference. The end result is minorities who fall victim only to the failing that all humans share: blaming our misfortunes on everyone else but ourselves.
No one said life’s fair. No one said it’s easy. No business owner is going to walk up and give you money just because you ASK for it. You’ve got to have a skill, ability, and work ethic that generates gobs of work product that induces a business owner to come to the bargaining table and bid high for your services. That’s they way it works. Deal with it and spare us your “victim” crap.
Stevie boy insulted unions which support teachers. I’d like to know what is a good teacher? I’d like to know just how much Stevie knows about teaching. No Stevie, they don’t place students infront of computers or stick iPods in their ears. No Stevie, they all don’t teach Rhodes Scholars. No Stevie, they all don’t have nice cooperative students who are willing to learn. No Stevie, they all don’t have students who never bring the crap from their home lives to school. NO Stevie, they all don’t teach kids to pass a test which means that there is no time for computers or lesson enhancement. No Stevie, they all don’t teach hungry students with no pencil or pens or notebooks or clean clothes or….NO Stevie, you just don’t have a clue. APOLOGIZE; prove that you are a man and not a computer geek!
Man, somebody better call the whaaaaambulance… Wait, looks like we’ll need a few dozen. What a bunch of reactionary wankers you are.
Seriously:
1. (@Opie) The U.S. ranks second on per capita spending on education (after Norway, if you’re curious). Of course even that is not a very indicative figure. To get a more accurate picture of education spending disparity, you would need to divide spending per student by per capita income for each country, beacuse the U.S. has a significantly higher per capita income than many countries. If you did that, I suspect the U.S. would start falling very far behind.
2. There are, believe it or not, states and districts without teachers’ unions. And, believe it or not, the educational system is as bad if not worse than anywhere else.
Benton: “Steve was invited to showcase Apple’s vision for the education market. He was not invited to quarrel with or slander attendees.”
That’s what he did. He told the audience that spending huge amount of money to equip students with high tech stuff was meaningless if the teachers were incompetent. Too many people think that you can improve education simply by buying kids laptops. Things like laptops are just tools. They don’t educate, they make educating kids easier if they are used properly and the teachers know what they are doing.
Technology can’t solve education problems. Good teachers can. What prevents this from happening? The inability to replace bad teachers with good ones because that means firing the bad ones and the unions get in the way.
If I’m going to drone, I might as well proofread better.
Mack. Don’t get me started on that B.S. rationalization that minority kids drop out of school because of violence. That’s just a big, steaming metric ton of weapons-grade bullonium. Sure, violence is part of the problem for small number of the minorities in the U.S. However, drive-by shootings and school shootings are a relatively new phenomenon. Yet minority kids have been dropping out of school before they graduate at an alarming rate for decades and decades and decades. Places like L.A. are the publicized exception. Though many will try to pin the blame for the high minority drop out rate on “The Man,” the blame squarely lies with the parents (or one parent, or a grandmother sometimes) who doesn’t properly instill into their children, the value of an education so they are insulated from the pressures of a minority culture that makes dropping out part of what makes a guy cool. Find one minority 20-something-year-old who dropped out of high school (or earlier) and challenge them to identify the white guy who forced them to drop out of school.
The government is to blame in part for this too. If there were more minority fathers in the home actively engaged in raising their children, you’d have a hell of a lot more kids in school. As it is though, there is no downside for some guy to get spread his seed all over hell and creation. Down in the South in times past, you had shotgun weddings. The term “shotgun” was for a reason: they damn well meant it and would KILL the S.O.B. who dun it. You don’t impregnate some gal and leave her to raise her child in poverty; the father provides the resources necessary to properly raise the child. Today, the role of a pissed off grandfather-to-be is formally institutionalized in government agencies that don’t enforce the law. In practice, the government lets the irresponsible biological father off scot free and pays the mother (poorly at that too) to raise her children. The result is children in poverty, no father in the home, and a broken system that is perpetuated by government indifference. The end result is minorities who fall victim only to the failing that all humans share: blaming our misfortunes on everyone else but ourselves.
No one said life’s fair. No one said it’s easy. No business owner is going to walk up and give you money just because you ASK for it. You’ve got to have a skill, ability, and work ethic that generates gobs of work product that induces a business owner to come to the bargaining table and bid high for your services. That’s they way it works. Deal with it and spare us your “victim” crap.
Sparky
Almost all the comments about Jobs and unions were just anti-union diatribes. Whatever the particulars of the California Teachers Union, they were not discussed. I don’t recall Jobs giving a lecture or paper on the topic either.
Regarding teachers and politics: To be political is every citizen’s right; it is also a right of interested groups of citizens. Teachers are part of the system, and political decisions often affect their circumstances, both personal and pedagogical. Some members of the union will disagree with their leaders; but that’s inevitable with any group. Some citizens of the US disagree with the actions of their elected government, too. But the government has to act, nevertheless. The citizens can eject them if they don’t do their jobs to their satisfaction. Union leaders can be ejected in the same way.
The point is: Thoughtless generalizations about teachers or any other group reflect on the thoughtless generators. There’s too many of them here, including Steve Jobs. Would that he were more ruthlessly critical about his own political thoughts as he is about the quality of his commercial products.
CITIZENS AND STATES DON’T WANT TO PAY TEACHERS A DECENT SALARY TO ATTRACT OR KEEP TOP TALENT
Citzens know the people in charge in government are mostly crooks, giving their “friends” choice jobs and deals, wasting their hard earned money and getting little in return.
You want a better education for your children? PAY FOR PRIVATE SCHOOL OR HOME SCHOOL.
Steve Jobs shouldn’t be butting in school politics, but rather think of ways to sell more Mac’s to schools instead.
If I didn’t use a Mac in grade school, I would have wound up another of Bill Gates Windows Drones.
Windows makes you dumb.
The unions don’t give a rat’s ass about education or your children
—
Brilliant, except when they lobby for things like… oh… I don’t know… smaller class sizes?
Genius.
Until teacher’s unions support the public right to expect a minimal standard of performance, enforce accountability in public education, and encourage the use of vouchers the unions need to apologize for wasting taxpayers’ money and students’ time.
Thanks Habeus, right on the money. I wasn’t saying anything against Jobs, because like I said, something needs to be done to eliminate the problem of bad teachers. My comment was more at the union bashers from the last thread about this and so on. Nothing more, see ya’ll next pointless arguement.
‘A sizable portion of Apple’s business is education-based. Could this affect their sales?’
I do believe he went on to say something to the effect of, ‘We may have lost some business here today, but . . .’
I admire him for not being cowardly in his convictions, FWIW.
How many times do you have to hear it on this message board- every teacher in California goes through a 2 year probationary period when they can be fired at any time. After that, you can fire them with just cause, based on previously agreed upon contracts and education law. Teacher unions think that better salaries and better teaching conditions might attract better teachers-why all the anger?
mike,
Smaller class sizes also mean less work for the teachers.
So, which U.S. public schools did you attend, mike?
Oh Jesus… Are we having this stupid argument again?
mike,
Smaller class sizes also mean less work for the teachers.
—-
hardly. if there’s 30+ kids in a class, they’re going to be cutting back the curriculum and paying less attention to each individual student.
They’re pretty much going to put forth the same effort regardless of the number of students, the only loser with a bigger class size is the students, and you know it. What? You think these teachers have time off to sit around and twiddle their thumbs with a 25-seat class? Pfft.
I went to public school until grade 8, was in French Immersion, then went to private school, had a 92% average at the end of HS, hold a BA in Economics, and am currently in an Int. Business post-grad program. I was bilingual at about 9, pickup up Spanish in HS, and have been speaking Mandarin for about 10 years.
Don’t even bother questioning my education.
The trouble with public education isn’t the teachers’ union, it’s fools like SJ and MDN and 2/3 of the posters here who clearly spend too much time with drool on their chins mindlessly staring at the TV watching O’Lielly and his ilk on Faux News, then regurgitating the spew they’ve heard instead of making any attempt to use their hopelessly shrunken brains to examine the situation. Pitiful.
Well, I’ve taught for 25 years and I’ve seen an incredible number of dedicated teachers. BUT I’ve also seen the the product of the Colleges of Ed that really know all about “5 point lesson plans” and “individual assessment structures,” but who don’t know squat — and don’t care to learn — about the subjects they teach. The real problem is the sham education provided by the teachers colleges where content is sacrificed on the alter of educational theory. At my local university, over 50% of the ed majors graduate with honors. They must be so much better than the rest of the class — or maybe there’s no content to the ed courses…
TEACHER UNION… or for that matter, any UNION can KISS MY REAR END
LONG LIVE STEVE AND THOSE WHO HAVE THE SAME OPINION ABOUT UNION.
FYI:
California has TWO big teachers unions. CTA has 300k members. CFT has 100k members.
This is the smaller CFT union making all the fuss.
One thing is fairly obvious…the teachers unions can dish it out, but they sure can’t take it. A little criticism, I mean.
AFAIC, no…and I mean absolutely no, human institution is above criticism, although it appears some like to assume they are.
Jobs didn’t say that teachers unions (let alone any unions) or teachers were bad, just that teachers were “unionized in the worst possible way.” Translation: there is a better way to be unionized.
Jobs didn’t tar and feather all teachers with a brush of incompetency (or any negative attribute), but the way a lot of teachers (and some others) are commenting, one would assume he did.
It appears that a lot of dedicated, highly educated instructors of our young people may be lacking in a basic understanding of the English language.
Let the CFT know that tenure should be abolished – only then will the “good teachers” get the respect they deserve.
CFT Communications Director Fred Glass
cftoakland@igc.org
HAB
Gee, another CEO blasting a union. I thought that Apple (Steve) was pro-education. If you look hard enough, you’ll find people in education, policemen, firemen, politics, web-site commentators, and even priests/pastors, who need to update their resumes and move on to another job. I resent being painted with such a wide brush. Are all educators, policemen, firemen, politicians, web-site commentators, or others scum?
California Teacher’s Union is the worst. Absolutely.
“What is also frightening is that there are a growing number of people who accept the second as well as the first argument.”
This is about as infantile of statement as it gets. Fortunately, opinions (and a very uninformed one at that) like this have been the minority in this thread. The truth is, teachers unions are the most powerful lobbying group in the US. More powerful than AARP, more powerful than the oil companies, more powerful than defense contractors. The evidence (and that really should be the focus of the argument) shows one very important thing; our public education system is broken. The US ranks near the bottom of 1st world countries in nearly every educational category, yet, as has been mentioned above, we spend more than everyone else. In fact there appears to be an inverse relationship between the amount of money spent on a student and how well they are educated.
Who is to blame? Well, education quality has been declining through administrations of both parties for the last 40 years. Meanwhile, the teacher’s unions have grown in power during that time. They spend the most money of any union on political races and have little regard for the front line teacher. In fact, the unions themselves are at fault for making the individual teacher’s lives hell. Teachers can no longer teach specific disciplines for which they themselves were trained. They spend their days on all kinds of peripheral junk. For example, Al Gore’s Global Warming Egopic is being shown in schools across this country. A film that is full of half truths and unproven “science”. Many teachers have bought into the idea that the classroom is the ideal place to perpetuate leftist propaganda. I have hundreds of examples of the teachers themselves pushing this junk science of their own volition, So don’t tell me that teachers are the innocents here. They have the most to say about legislation. They have the most to do with the wide variety of experimental educational techniques that are conducted everyday in American schools. They are the ones who have the ability to rein in their union. But they don’t.
I know of what I speak. My mother was a long time 2nd grade teacher, my father had an EdD, I married a teacher, and I myself have a post graduate degree in teaching. I’ve worked 15 years in Higher Ed and when I say that the system is broken, trust me, it is broken. Power corrupts and power in the hands of the most well connected union in the world corrupts absolutely. The fact that the good teachers can’t change the way their own union is ruining the lives of millions of children should tell you just how powerful these people are.
ROFL! Go Steve!
“A sizable portion of Apple’s business is education-based. Could this affect their sales?”
Teachers don’t buy computers (especially the uninspired computer illiterate ones) administrators do.
i don’t have kids in the california school system….why do i have to pay taxes to keep these teachers employeed…??? since i dont’ have kids utilizing this, why do i have money going to this???…i want to opt out.
No one, not even teachers, should be guaranteed a job forever, even if their performance record is terrible.
Would we allow this with Doctors?
Tenure dumbs down the profession as well as the students. I had my share of lousy tenured teachers.
Unions were very necessary many years ago for sweatshops, and real employee abuse, not so anymore. Unions have outlived their purpose and now they are a negative.
fat chance
Maybe, once we can fire bad parents this countrys education problems will be solved.
How many of you that sit here and piss and moan are actually involved with public education? My guess would be very few. Why is it that since we have all been through school we think we know what it’s ike to be the teacher? Have we made lesson plans or had to discipline a student for beating of the kid next to him? Why is it that now that Jobs has said something about this education problem everyone feels thay are a specialist?
Who ever wrote that MDN take can shove it up their ass!!!!!!
Shawn, congratulations at making it through LAUSD (Los Angeles Unified School District). We’re all grateful so many students make it. The problem is that an enormous number don’t. And the illegal, immoral, and dangerous activities of many, many LAUSD students make it ill-advised to send any students to LAUSD and to most public and many private schools. I wouldn’t do it.
Here’s the link of the teacher in Philadelphia assaulted for confiscating an iPod:
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,254278,00.html
Even though this did not happen in L.A., this is what many teachers face. Threats of this happen often, sometimes almost daily in some areas. The actual assault, less so. And when it does, many schools and districts consider it the teacher’s responsibility to take care of it by filing police reports, using up his personal sick time, and justifying what he did that brought it about (i.e.: went to work that morning).
iMaki, you might know a teacher who has an easy time, and there are certainly others. But the assaulted or seriously threatened teacher is not uncommon. What’s your life worth? Further, students are rarely adequately disciplined. From the little I read in the article, I can tell that little will be happening to those students. Even if locked up, they’ll be laughing about it the whole time. And their friends may even go after the teacher (again) for getting the students locked up. Ridiculous. Scary.
There are some cases, where a teacher intervenes to stop a felony, the teacher himself may be threatened with arrest. You should hear this and other stories. And if that doesn’t make sense and you can’t believe it is happening to teachers, I can tell you that I have first hand knowledge of it. I also have first hand knowledge of students threatening a teacher with a physical assault and then have the student’s parents tell the teacher, “Well, yeah, and you probably deserve it.” Some support, huh?
And administrators often do…nothing.
There are some good districts. There are some good administrators. There are some good unions.
But there are enough bad ones to suggest that people keep their kids away. And the same can hold true at too many colleges, too.
Unions? Yes, unions are important. Many school districts do not care about the teachers at all. And they intentionally lie to them…and to the public. I have first hand knowledge of that, too. Unfortunately, unions also lie and are often more interested in preserving their power than in helping all their members.
Of course, not just teacher unions are important. Many other unions made important gains for workers. Read your history? As a concept, unions are good and even vital. But in certain specific cases, they can be as bad as the evils they purport to fight. Generalizations aren’t always correct. Specifics can be.
As for me, I think Steve Jobs should absolutely attend the union function to which he is invited. He is strong enough to hold his own there. And he really does have many friends in the unions who would support his point of view. Further, he’ll have plenty of teacher Mac “enthusiasts” around him to watch over him and ask for an autograph. Plenty. He can make his case directly to the union. I believe he will have an impact on many there, even if not on the union “leadership.”
But who am I to talk. After all I’m just a teacher with several state credentials in the Los Angeles Unified School District and have been for well over twelve years now.
And you?
Oh, and Jim and the rest blaming parents….
Parenting is absolutely an enormous problem.
But parents must know how to BE parents.
They must know moral rights and wrongs themselves.
They must understand how schools work and how our culture works.
So what do you suggest, Jim, for kids growing up in broken homes or in homes where there parents are involved in drugs ad gangs. Then, while still teenagers, they have their own babies and start raising them. How can they have a clue to know what they’re doing. But now people hold them responsible because they hold the magic title of “parent.” And what about kids whose parents come from other countries knowing nothing about the language or the culture. How do kids learn what they need to from them. Often morals may not even be specifically taught at all. Some parents, even many from this country, assume their kids will learn right from wrong through osmosis. Not ever learning right from wrong? Not knowing how to handle their own kids who (falsely) turn in their own parents for “abuse” because they tried to discipline them (no going out, stay home and do homework). I know this happens. I have tried to help many such parents. I don’t bring this up for immigration comments, but for students-becoming-parents issues. How can those “parents” know anything? Even when they really want to be good parents, they don’t know how.
Parenting classes?
Sadly, I don’t trust the teachers of those classes.
what really sucks is most of the posters on this thread. everyone is so quick to disregard and smugly point fingers at unions while they enjoy the fruits of their (unions) toils. people actually died so you can enjoy things like holiday, vacations, or the 8 hour work day. i suppose child labor was a good thing huh?
that’s only the tip of the iceberg, but go ahead and continue throwing about your imbecilic insights and comments
Nice take MDN!
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It’s very interesting to hear about the school situation in the US, when I, my self, are from Denmark, where things are basicly the same, although in a much smaller and more controlled invironment.
From today’s news, while not branding all teachers, read on and then ask yourselves the questions I placed at the end of the article:
From a USA Today article on awarding the Congressional Medal of Honor to a Vietnam era vet.
The hero:
“If the air bridge failed, the embattled men of the 1st Battalion, 7th Cavalry would certainly die in much the same way George Armstrong Custer’s cavalrymen died at the Little Bighorn — cut off; surrounded by numerically superior forces, overrun and butchered to the last man,” Moore, the infantry commander, wrote. Crandall volunteered to continue the airlifts and Freeman — his wingman for hundreds of flights in Vietnam — joined him. Together, they began flying into the clearing, dropping off supplies to Moore’s men while filling up their Hueys with the wounded. Crandall switched helicopters three times because of the fire he was taking. He and Freeman flew through the day and into the night, landing 22 times and taking out at least 70 wounded soldiers.”
the teacher:
“Back in America, Arlene Crandall was facing her own struggles. She was raising their three sons in a country where opponents of the war were becoming increasingly strident. She said a teacher refused to teach her oldest son when he learned the boy’s father was fighting in Vietnam. “I was on the principal’s desk the next morning,” she said. “Those are the kinds of things that happened back then.”
Do you think the educator’s union would (a) castigate the teacher and support the parent; (b) castigate the parent and defend the teacher; (c) defend the teacher behind the scenes and do nothing to help the parent?
As many posters have commented, teachers are over paid and don’t work hard enough!
They are just babysittters! So lets pay them as babysitters.
They only work 6 hours and 40 minutes a day. Lets subtract their 40 minute lunch.
They have many vacations and don’t work summers. By contract they work 182 days a year.
They babysit on average 30 students in a class.
Lets pay them what we could pay a 12 year old to babysit, say $5 an hour per child?
So if my math is correct thats 30 students X 5 per hour X 6 hours = $900 a day.
$900 a day X 182 days in front of the students = $163,800.00
Wow, compared to a average US starting teacher salary of $38K.
See, the unions are not doing a good job getting the teachers paid.
Steve usually thinks before he speaks, therefore he rarely gives apologies for ‘insulting comments’.
Arrgh…
1) Study your history. The exact same comments that are being made today about education have been made throughout history. I read an article from the ’60s that echo these same sentiments.
2) My wife was a middle school teacher in inner-city LA, primarily hispanic. Only about 30% of the population made it to high school graduation. Mostly, because their parents thought an 8th grade education was enough. And many of the “boys” did not want girls smarter than them so they forced girlfriends etc. to drop out.
3) My wife has had death threats put upon her by some of the students in her class. She is helpless to do anything about it. The parents, their lawyers, and a school district fearful of a massive lawsuit, refused to take any protective action. She lived in daily fear for months. (The administration’s solution was to have the boy change classes and my wife was to barred from interacting with him.)
4) Finally, if there is a problem with education, then we have an equal problem with society in general. Our current world is a direct result of public education. And the fact that we even have a public education system is in many ways due to the efforts of teacher unions. Remember, less than 100 years ago, universal public education for everyone did not exist. Education was considered a privilege for the elite.
WOW, to use a Vista ad interjection – just WOW! It is amazing that teachers, unions aside because they do far less to support good teachers than they should, are supposed miraculously overcome the pandemic of parents having offspring they’ve little clue how to raise. I teach in the LAUSD with over 30,000 teachers and way too few schools to physically take care of its 750,000 students. It is a disgrace that many of them have to be bussed over an hour each way to and from home to get to a school with seats for them to sit in, and many schools are on year round “multi track calendars. But even in small, affluent districts, parents who buy their child several video game consoles, their own TV and then think of computers, mostly PCs and some Macs as yet another gaming console could devote more time and energy to fostering their offspring’s drive to learn. For 20 years I’ve been telling parents the greatest gift they can give their children is their postitive time and attention, not more toys or other material things. I am ever so grateful for parents who actually communicate the value of education to their children, they make a teacher’s job so much more of a joy and less of a struggle. The parents who behave as though the schools are a dry cleaners, just drop of the stuff and the employees will take care of it – WOW, those are the parents I try to help figure out how to deal with the fact they have a life long job called “being a parent” and that job involves more than just giving in to their progeny’s every whim and demand. I send daily notes home, basically mini report card home with the students struggling with academics, work habits and behavior, making suggestions to parents regarding their children’s work and suggesting level of privileges the students should perhaps have at home based on their work and behavior each day. On the note is space for the parents to communicate with me about how the child worked, played and behaved at home – so students who are trying harder to improve and behave appropriately get more privileges at home and at school. The students who do not try to work and study harder, or do their chores at home end up with more work and less privileges at home and at school. It is not miraculous – it is simple common sense, good teaching and good parenting – and daily communication between school and home that helps me and the parents who take the time and energy to work with me and their children to turn “low achieving” students into students who love school and want to learn more every day. I am lucky to be able to use my own PowerBook, (the third one I’ve gone through), airport and digital projector daily in my teaching. I am lucky to have four Macs, 3 older G3 iMacs and 1 eMac to use to further my students learning and horizons. But I am hard pressed to accomplish near as much for students with parents who are basically guilty of the most wide spread form of child abuse in this country, neglect. I can still do a lot with to help those students, but I only have 6 hours a day, plus extra time I devote to teach, guide and inspire them. Students, parents, and teachers deserve better than the current state of affairs. More pay for teachers would help, but Mr. Jobs is wrong in underestimating the role technology, understanding it, and putting it to use everyday can make in schools, especially K-12. Make learning interesting and motivating and you will, with some help from the home even more so, have students who want to learn more. Condemn the providers of education, or ignore parents’ roles in students lives and learning and you will get more of the same old “stuff”. And do not simply force teachers to teach ever more to some standardized tests involving bubbling in answers as a way to demonstrate student learning or lack there of. The nonsense that is President Bush’s NCLB and the mania of school administration about test scores is like driving a generation of children of a cliff into an abyss of not caring about, or understanding about the joy of learning – a joy that should last our whole lives.
Expect them to also be coming with recommendations to switch to Microsoft.
Now that would be plain rude. Their dispute is with Steve.
To “Technology, funding, PARENTING and making learning”
First suggestion VISUALIZE PARAGRAPH BREAKS! Wow! (and that post from a teacher.)
Second, who is on the front lines of the political debate supporting open borders, he asked knowingly. THAT’S RIGHT, the teacher’s unions. The very policy they promote is what is causing the crowding in LA.
My daughter-in-law teaches in LA county and never sees a white student anymore in her classrooms. The Mexican anchor baby concept is swamping California, Arizona, Texas, Georgia and many other states with so many children that they can no longer keep up. Hospitals and schools are the hardest hit by idiotic immigration policy and the country’s immigration policy is currently in a shambles precisely because of teacher union support for open borders.
So LA teacher union supporting educators, you can complain all you want about crowding in the classroom. You made your bed, now you get to sleep in it.
I am trying hard to find these threads on education amusing…
The imbeciles who go on about commie unions destroying American business: well lads and lasses: you are being undercut by workers in countries where lack of unions mean they work for one tenth the pay you will. If you want your car plants and your factories back – work for fifty dollars a week. If you had received any sort of education, yu might understand how capitalism works (hint: red in tooth and claw) ROTFLMAO
As to the eejit who said the unions were more powerful than most other sectors of American society: the day a teacher union can get an American President to invade a country and then dish out the juicy contracts to rebuild the country the USofA destroyed to his pals AND get the local populace to pay for said destruction, you start a thread for me…
I do enjoy the ungrammatical, ill thought out diatribes: it makes me feel glad to be a European: you know guys – the continent full of liberal, commie, pinko punks who are a threat to everything for which you stand.
Oh Socrates – where are you at this hour?
“If you can’t get rid of bad teachers, no amount of technology can make up for that”
the sheer amount of ignorance posted in this thread is amazing.
i worked more than a decade in public education, and 7 years of that in tech. here are a few facts i saw along the way.
1. technology is just like any other tool in the school system. good teachers will find a way to use it well, mediocore teachers will get some use of it and struggle with it to some degree, and bad teachers will waste time with it.
2. it is nearly impossible to fire a bad teacher, and those teachers who are just doing their jobs, as well as those great teachers (few as they are) will have to struggle with fall out form that fact. so long as there are teachers that fail to do their job, there will be teachers who don’t want kids from that classroom when the new year comes. most people involved in education know this. some ppl just don’t teach, won’t quit, and can’t be fired.
3. no amount of whiz bang gadgetry iin a class room will make a bad teach into a good one. handing a good teacher tools they can use, and a small enough class size to make it teaching rather than an exercise in behavior modification is always good, but a bad teacher is STILL a bad teach after the same things are applied.
C. no amount of tech will make a class with a bad teacher a class with a good teacher.
or, what Steve said.
what is so hard about this concept?
an inspired “ron” fired his last neuron and wrote this beauty
“Get rid of the illegal aliens and the bilingual education and many of the problems would disappear. Fix the border or fail.”
You scare me dude, and I am a big tall strong anglo kind of guy. How many of you did your mommy make? how many left.” shssss!
Apparently, the public “school” system is just a place for parents, grandparents, aunt, uncles, and guardians to deposit their children for taxpayer supported babysitting. Well, if you send your child to the government “school” for babysitting, don’t expect them to be educated. Maybe the teachers would feel better if they were called “child care associates”, instead. This would most certainly be more representative of their job description and more accurately represent their true social function.
A few facts here…..
Teachers are paid as much or more than most equivalent jobs, and they work 9-10 months out of the year. THIS IS A FACT!
30 – 40 years ago our country was ranked in the top 10 in education world wide. Today, we are not ranked any higher than 40th.
THIS IS A FACT!
In the countries that do rank in the top 10 they are all competitive based teaching jobs. Meaning, they can be fired from their job just like you and me for poor performance. THIS IS A FACT!
In my job, if I don’t perform, I get FIRED. In teaching, after a few years of “so so” performance, teachers gain “tenure” and it is almost impossible to fire them regardless of their performance. All thanks to the Teachers Union. THIS IS A FACT!
Now, why do we tolerate this kind of a system? It is not working. The numbers do not lie.
Yes, yes, yes….. blah blah blah…. I realize that most teachers are very good teachers and very dedicated. My mother is a teacher and she works over 60 hours a week. Not because she has to, but because she wants to. I also have to hear her frustration when she talks about the crappy teachers that she works with. YOU TEACHERS OUT THERE KNOW WHO YOU ARE!!! YOU ARE THE ONES WHO HAND OUT AN ASSIGNMENT AT THE BEGINNING OF EACH CLASS AND THEN SIT BACK FOR 90% OF YOUR TIME EITHER READING THE NEWSPAPER OR BROWSING THE INTERNET!!!
This system has to come to an end. PERIOD. It is not working. Steve Jobs had the cojones to speak up and tell the truth even when he knew it might hurt his companies bottom line. There is the difference to right and wrong and everyone out there knows that Steve was right!
‘Teachers Unions are lobbying for smaller class sizes.’
That was said as if it was a good thing.
Yes, there is an optimal class size. It might differ from grade to grade.
But unions lobbying for smaller class sizes only means one of two things.
Either the union wants less work for the same pay for it’s members or, most likely, the union wants more teachers hired so the union can increase the size and power of it’s empire.
See, if you’re not with the MDN/Apple, you’re part of the problem. Unless you agree with the MDN/Maczealot point of view, you’re not thinking correctly. Therefore, you can expect more worthless anti-everything that isn’t Apple that accomplishes nothing.
The Myth of Tenure and the Terrible Teacher
I’ve always thought of tenure as protection for good teachers faced with the impossible task of trying to please all their bosses — students, teachers, administrators, taxpayers — all of the time. But does that protection come at the cost of keeping bad teachers in the classroom? Or is something — or someone — else to blame?
This week, I set out to write a column about tenure. Throughout the years, I’ve heard almost as many complaints about tenure as I’ve heard about teachers’ short hours and long vacations. Most of the griping is along the lines of, “You can’t fire bad teachers because they have tenure.”
I wanted to know whether the public perception was true, so I took an informal poll among the teachers I know. First I asked, “Is it possible to fire a bad teacher who has tenure?” The answer was a rousing and unanimous “Yes!” It’s harder, I was told, to fire a tenured teacher than a non-tenured teacher, but it certainly is possible. Next, I asked, “Is the real reason that bad teachers remain in the classroom the unwillingness of administrators to take on the admittedly arduous and publicly risky task of documenting and acting upon a teacher’s failure?” The response again was — a slightly more guarded — “Yes!” But it was not quite unanimous.
One of the educators I polled, a teacher with more than 30 years experience in a tough urban school district, the kind of district obliquely identified in recent press reports as hotbeds of uncertified — and by inference, low quality — teachers, disagreed. He greeted my question with a long moment of slightly exasperated silence.
“First of all,” my friend finally said, “contrary to popular opinion, there are very few hopelessly ‘bad’ tenured teachers in our classrooms. Most bad teachers don’t remain in the classroom long enough to become tenured; they move on to other fields — or to other areas of education — where they can be successful. There are unskilled teachers, of course. There are tired teachers; there are inexperienced teachers; there are veteran teachers overwhelmed by the new challenges presented by today’s students. But there are very few truly ‘bad’ teachers.”
“But isn’t it true,” I persisted, “that even a few bad teachers give all teachers a bad name? And isn’t it true that the real problem with getting rid of those bad teachers is not the umbrella of tenure, but the unwillingness of administrators to take the steps necessary to get rid of them?”
“The real problem,” my friend replied with slightly more exasperation, “is not a failure to take the steps necessary to get rid of bad teachers; it’s a failure to reach out to help and support struggling teachers. If a teacher has remained in the classroom long enough to be granted tenure, the chances are that that teacher wants to teach, and wants to teach successfully. Shouldn’t our first consideration be, not to document the teacher’s failures, but to offer that teacher the tools and training he or she needs to succeed?”
“A few bad teachers do give all teachers a bad name,” he continued. “And no one wants to get rid of bad teachers more than good teachers and good administrators. What too many of us fail to recognize, however, is that the way to get rid of bad teachers is not to fire them. It’s to help them become good teachers.”
Clearly, I had approached the issue from the wrong angle. I set out to write a column on tenure. I wanted to learn whether tenure or administrative failure was to blame for keeping bad teachers in the classroom. I ended up learning a more important lesson instead — one that all educators can benefit from. I learned that when good teachers see bad teachers and fail to extend a helping hand, they only have themselves to blame.
Isn’t it strange that “thinking differently” to people at MDN means “think like us or else?”
(i almost missed the best piece of hypocrisy.)
Punkinhead222 (and others), the problem extends beyone education. The actions of the legislatures and Congress, but especially the courts by kowtowing to many suit-hungry parents, have tied the hands of many teachers. This has nothing to do with the unions (they have their own issues). Unless teachers are given back some authority in the classroom, things will not change. Getting rid of incompetent teachers is also necessary, as is dumping problem administrators who interfere with education. But that is only part of the problem. Get rid of these court rulings and the requirements from a variety of sources for absurd amounts of paperwork and reporting that discourages both teachers and administrators and accomplishes little except to fill files at whichever government offices requiring them.
Big Al, smaller size classrooms are not to give more teachers jobs. That is an absurd statement from someone who has no experience in education: you. Running classrooms with 45 to 50 high school students, as I have done, does little for education. Even just two disruptive students stops education for the rest of the class. Classes that large can easily get out of control. Time is spent on administrative functions and class control, not on teaching and learning. In my view, a effective class size would be under 30 students. Twenty-five wouldn’t be bad. We could accomplish real education there. Too few isn’t good. Group dynamics help education. But beyond a certain level, learning all but stops. And teachers will not give out good learning assignments in large classes because they don’t have time to correct, or even review them all. Smaller classes allow more meaningful assignments that a teacher has time to actually review and provide personal academic input to students.
Feel free to put any kids of your into large classes. That will free up the smaller classes for parents who would really care that their children get an education.
You are clearly one who would have no respect for teachers. There are too many of you out there and I get sick of dealing with know-it-all parents who are above the lowly teachers tasked with educating this country’s next generations. There are still many countries and cultures in the world that have a high degree of respect for teachers and schools. On the whole, no matter what euphenisms are espoused, the United States is no longer one of those. Teachers have become fodder for insults, threats, lawsuits, and disdain, not in all quarters, but in far too many.
Insulting and potentially alienating a section of a major market is probably not a wise move by Steve Jobs. If teachers in general throughout America feel aggrieved by his comments the the folks from Redmond will be waiting for orders from the educational market to roll in.
Question: How many people here think that Steve Jobs was insulting teachers?
Some in this thread obviously think he was. If this is you I say, go back to school (preferably one that teaches critical thinking skills) and learn the difference between the individual and the group.
Most teachers are great people INDIVIDUALLY. COLLECTIVELY they carry great weight and that weight is being used for evil. They swing elections (no defense contractors can do that), they write key legislation, they run state curricular programs that do little more than indoctrinate children. They, themselves are making the bed in which they are now having to lay. Collectively teachers complain about the sorry parents, but need I remind anyone here that the education establishment is responsible for the sorry state of parenting as well?
School used to be about two things: 1.) scholarship, 2.) discipline. As time has gone along since the 60s (and worse now since the fed got involved with the process) the populace has become less educated. Look at something like the text of the Declaration of Independence and ask if any politician, K-12 teacher, or journalist would have the ability to write such prose today. You don’t have to go back even that far to see that critical thinking skills, writing, and general scholarship used to much higher in this nation than we find it now. What has happened?
Public Education has happened.
Is it all the Education Establishment’s fault? I do place the large portion of the blame with them because they are the ones in control. Just like we can blame Carter for giving us modern Jihadism, or Bush for not putting an end to modern Jihadism, because they were in control they bear the responsiblity, Likewise, the power brokers in the academic elite (the teachers unions being the most powerful of those elites) are to blame for the current sorry state of affairs in the American classroom because they have been steering. If you run into an iceberg, don’t blame the ship for getting a hole in the side. IT WAS YOUR FAULT!
Given that conservatives have held no sway over the education system in this country since the 50s the only other place to conceivably put the blame beyond the unions would be the Liberal political establishment. Either way, the system needs to be abolished and something more competitive put in its place. Public schools are to academia what Microsoft is to computing.
Blahger,
We aren’t attacking teachers. It’s the teacher’s unions we have a problem with. There is a difference.
There are a multitude of problems.
The unions aren’t the only problem, but allowing the bad to be paid the same as the good make it an anachromism.
All the social tinkering with education has not helped one iota.
Another problem is the over abundance of administrators vs. actual teachers. In my state of Wisconsin, the ratio of administrators to teachers is a substantial problem. The administrators then pile more PC (no Microsoft reference here) or other essentially useless programs onto teachers.
Another problem does lie with parents. Some parents do not get involved in their kids’ education at all. Not helping with homework, helping them with problems in school work, sometimes not being there PERIOD.
This country does have an educational problem. We have far too many kids not having the skills to fight in a global economy. I think Steve took a mirror to show one of the problems with education. Though this may not be the only problem, I am glad he did.
The unions should be able to handle criticism as well as the times that they dish it out.
I heard this once on the radio, and it rings true, so here goes…
No matter what you may think personally, Teacher’s Unions are NOT in business to improve public education. They ARE in business to improve the working conditions of public school teachers.
Although I am a public school teacher, I do NOT support most of what the local teacher’s federation promotes (basically job protection from government cuts).
I love teaching. I love getting to see the excitement on students’ faces when they finally “get” a difficult concept, or come to a realization about themselves or the world they live in, or discover what they really want to do with the next five years of their lives…
Then again, my own children are homeschooled… there’s NO WAY I’m going to subject my own children to the “brainwashing” that goes on in schools today (even my own district).
“They ARE in business to improve the working conditions of public school teachers.”
This may have been true at one time but no longer. Teacher’s unions are now largely about effecting political change that has little to do with the classroom. Often their efforts to fund left wing candidates both locally and nationally ends up harming the individual teacher (the open borders agenda comes to mind).
In many states (California for example) the teachers union is the number one lobbying organization, spending millions of dollars on political campaigns that have nothing to do with improving working conditions much less the quality of education in the classroom. Money that could be better spent on local workplace issues.
Of course, even if the union was only interested in working conditions, they should still have quality education for the student as a goal. The reason for this is obvious. Poor quality education leaves a bad taste in the consumers mouth. Eventually the consumer of public education programs will demand that the whole system be dismantled for lack of value (as I advocate). This would throw tens of thousands of teachers out of work.
Its the same thing as what happened with Ford, GM, and Delta Airlines. When the company can no longer afford the worker then the quality of the product suffers. Eventually people stop buying the product and the result is that the worker, who could have been making a decent wage without gouging, ends up with bubkis.
“If you don’t apologize to us, we will punish our students”—teacher’s union
Ah… critical thinking skills: now let me see…
The unions are their members. Exactly how do you attack a union and exclude its members, who are ultimately responsible for the policies of the union? I love it when rich ignorant people make comments based on not much at all and then don’t elucidate. It’s a common trick of politicians to attack someone whilst saying they’re not meaning you… just the other guys.
I have worked in schools and in the ‘real’ world. In the real world I have only seen incompetents promoted. In schools they become administrators or get out of the classtoom. If you are no good the classroom is a lonely and frightening place because the kids will run over the top of you. In an office you can blame someone else or create a situation where you can implicate others if they object to your incompetence.
Last real world job I was in the guy above me who I kept warning people about kept slandering me as the root problem in a £53 million building project. When the banks froze the company’s assets because he had been spending money he didn’t have, he got a £100,000 pay off to shut up, I and others were left to clear up his mess.
I will repeat once more: most of the people who whinge about teachers would last no more than five minutes in an inner city school class of 16 year old nutcases. Just thank your god you don’t have to do it.
“Pedro Martinez,”
I agree.
The internet offers equal opportunity to idiots everywhere. Folks feel strongly about education and unions and the flaws with both
but poor beeblebrox is taking some serious drugs – he lives up to his namesake from Doug Adams’ book as a two headed, hard drinking
imbecile. Let’s just look at three excerpts from his own crazy posts in this thread of this forum. The poor dude is living in his own fantasy
world.
His three quotes below show him saying teacher unions are MORE powerful than oil companies or defense contractors, never mind
AARP ? ? He has to be drinking something more mind bending than the original Beeblebrox!
But wait, there’s more . . . he then blathers on about the Mexican anchor baby concept – apparently a sinister plot in league with the incredibly powerful teacher unions – responsible for so many American woes – and again the teacher unions are the force behind U.S. immigration policy ? ?
The last of his rantings excerpted below point to his ignorance on the issue of climate change – but of course, like Joe McCarthy and the reds, the teacher unions, and of course their members themselves are pushing this junk science on the world. Oh and as a parting observation he thinks that teachers must be the most powerful force behind current educational trends or techniques like No Child Left Behind.
Below are some of the tin foil hat wearer type things poor old beeblebrox said in this thread – maybe he has some serious reality twisting pharmaceuticals working on his head.
The truth (according to bebblebrox) is, teachers unions are the most powerful lobbying group in the US. More powerful than AARP, more powerful than the oil companies, more powerful than defense contractors.
The Mexican anchor baby concept (according to bebblebrox) is swamping California, Arizona, Texas, Georgia and many other states with so many children that they can no longer keep up. Hospitals and schools are the hardest hit by idiotic immigration policy and the country’s immigration policy is currently in a shambles precisely because of teacher union support for open borders.
Many teachers (according to bebblebrox) have bought into the idea that the classroom is the ideal place to perpetuate leftist propaganda. I have hundreds of examples of the teachers themselves pushing this junk science of their own volition, (according to bebblebrox) So don’t tell me that teachers are the innocents here. They have the most to say about legislation (according to bebblebrox). They have the most to do with the wide variety of experimental educational techniques that are conducted everyday in American schools (according to bebblebrox). They are the ones who have the ability to rein in their union.
Beeblebrox, old man, get your shrink to adjust your meds quick and stop listening to Fox News 24/7.
To the mindless, ad hominem attack troll above:
Nice try with the insult-laden rant that was so totally devoid of actual rebuttal points I hardly think anyone probably bothered to wade through it. However, I did just to see if you actually had any valid arguments. As expected, none.
“His three quotes below show him saying teacher unions are MORE powerful than oil companies or defense contractors, never mind AARP? “
Are you saying they are not? AARP and teachers unions vie for the top 2 spots in the DC lobbying ranks all the time. However, last I checked AARP was neither a UNION nor involved in education politics, nor has anywhere the influence over state legislatures as the TUs. And if you think that defense contractors and the oil companies put ANYONE in power then you are sadly deluded. Last I checked, teachers votes while oil companies don’t.
“Mexican anchor baby concept… [snip]”
Feel free to completely rewrite what I wrote to form your own straw man debating point but you’re talking to an adult here. That doesn’t fly with me.
What I actually stated was that the TUs support “open borders” legislation and legislators. Do you deny this? Do you think that any TU anywhere EVER supported Tom Tancredo? Furthermore, do you have any idea of how many children of illegals there are in this country? Since I doubt you do; over 165,000 anchor babies are born each year in this country! Furthermore, over 60% of the children born in LA county every year are born to illegals. This is one of the factors blamed for the unusually high rate of hospital closures in the Southwest.
“…like Joe McCarthy and the reds, the teacher unions, and of course their members themselves are pushing this junk science on the world.”
Huh? What does Joe McCarthy have to do with any of this? Setting that little non sequitur aside for the moment. Are you saying that the teachers unions and their members DON’T believe or teach AGW? I maintain they do and I am fairly confident that few teachers would deny it. Right now, high school teachers are showing the laughable “Inconvenient Truth” to their biology students. That’s what I said, BIOLOGY, not religious studies where it belongs, but biology classes. My guess is that you probably believe in this pseudoscientific claptrap yourself.
“Oh and as a parting observation he thinks that teachers must be the most powerful force behind current educational trends or techniques like No Child Left Behind.”
Did I say that? Checking… Checking… nope. No mention of NCLB.
However, I take you think that someone else is behind education legislation in this country than teachers unions. Maybe Halliburton?
“The truth (according to bebblebrox) is, teachers unions are the most powerful lobbying group in the US…”
Yes, this undeniably true. AARP and the oil companies primarily work on DC congressional legislation. The teachers unions work at the local, state AND the federal level. They are currently the second most powerful lobbying group in Washington DC but typically rank #1 in most states. As I already mentioned, TUs are the most powerful lobbying organization in California.
“Hospitals and schools are the hardest hit by idiotic immigration policy and the country’s immigration policy is currently in a shambles precisely because of teacher union support for open borders.”
You’re overstating my case, but fine. I said the teachers unions support open borders legislation (are you denying this?) and thus, their complaints about overloaded classrooms fall on my deaf ears.
“Many teachers (according to bebblebrox) have bought into the idea that the classroom is the ideal place to perpetuate leftist propaganda.
So you’re denying reality again? Amazing. You may not have noticed my comment earlier but I have a post graduate teaching degree. I’ve been up to my eyeballs in the education establishment for the last 15 years. The education program at the university from which I graduated is just like most of them, hard left in its politics. In the three years of my program I never ONCE met a conservative classmate.
My guess is that you do not have any idea of what you are talking about which explains your fact free post. If you can demonstrate that TUs do not have the most say in education legislation, do not support open borders policy, do not teach the global warming myth in classrooms, then I’m all ears. If you can’t then feel free to continue embarrassing yourself.
Yes, crazy old dude Beeblebrox, I did troll in here to see if you would bite, to reiterate your nonsense, and big surprise to nobody, you did. Thanks for winning me a bet.
That you actually buy the data you spout that teacher unions are more powerful in politics than the oil industry or defense industry proves that you are raving and ranting.
Your argument is on its face so ludicrous that it is hard to imagine anyone but you, yourself, takes it seriously. Sadly of course you have many fellow nonsense believers. Maybe you thought, or still think there were WMDs in Iraq.
We wouldn’t want to involve inconvenient facts in your life, like what portion of the U.S. economy is constituted by teacher salaries as a whole compared to profits, not income, just profits, of the petroleum industry, or the defense industry – you are on some non reality planet.
Yes you are correct – I feel so embarrassed to point out your brilliance again. Your post graduate work must have taught you nothing but how to reinforce your preformed bias and hatreds. No wonder you couldn’t find any fellow scholars who shared your outlook.
Have a nice life in the real world. Perhaps a more conservative president taking over after G. Bush the younger might solve all your problems with immigration policies controlled by the all powerful educational lobby.
(Hard to imagine John McCain or Mitt Romney could do more damage than Hillary – I might agree with you there – but of course no matter which crook is elected the next president, they will bend to the all powerful teacher unions)
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You are at least worthy of your self chosen moniker. . . unless teacher unions forced you to call yourself Beeblebrox. Nothing ad hominem about calling a self-proclaimed idiot just that. Be confident in your ignorance, display it proudly and keep pointing it out with the amusing things you profess.
To the anonymous troll.
At laugh at your so-called response. You were not able to answer a single question put to you.
I just feel sad for you.
It is fun to quote folks back to themselves.
(from Beeblebrox)
To the anonymous troll.
At laugh at your so-called response. You were not able to answer a single question put to you.
I just feel sad for you.
Aw, well thanks Beeblebrox – that is so sweet and compassionately conservative of you to feel sad for me.
I am not exactly sure what your sentence- “At laugh at your so-called response.” – was supposed to mean . . . maybe
“I laugh at your so-called response.” If so, then I’m pleased to think I brought a laugh to your curmudgeonly existence.
It surprises me a daughter of yours actually ended up being an educator – maybe making up for the sins of the father – just kidding, you must’ve done something right for her to choose what can be a very satisfying profession. God bless her. It’s sad it seems to burn you up she has no “white” students. What a burden to confront. And obviously all the fault of the teacher unions.
Couldn’t you include a rant against the Catholic church for urging all those anchor baby begetting Mexicans, and other south-of-the-border-folks too, to procreate so much. No vitriol against the Pope and the previous Vicars of Christ?
(Maybe the Pope should have to change tons of diapers daily.)
(My dad was born in Guatemala but became a citizen legally, I was born here, but grew up part of my life there, my mom was born in the U.S. too, shucks i guess I can’t claim to be an anchor baby).
Since I’ve flippantly ignored so many of your incisive questions I shouldn’t expect you to answer any of my silly inquiries, but I do wonder – why a pseudonym after such a meathead of a literary character? Why not call yourself Hero Protagonist, like the fellow in Neal Stephenson’s novel, Snow Crash? Just curious but not needing an answer. I myself laughed aloud at much of Mr. Adam’s writings.
Peace to you – and to all those apparently reprehensible America destroying Mexican anchor babies.
Heck, more peace and understanding to all of us.
(And if the teacher unions went out of business, I would find it an improvment)
(If NCLB were done away with that would be great for me too!)
(Gosh, if they paid teachers more based on how much students learned – I could buy a bigger house)
(Bring on the meritocracy – I think that’s how we ended up with all our presidents – or, wait, maybe not)
(More money isn’t why I left a Wall Street Law firm to teach – teaching is what I want to do, what I like doing – plus less hours and more vacation doesn’t hurt!)
Education is a two-way street – if you want the good teachers, the parents need to be involved. Without parental involvement, you get what you deserve. Sure, both parents work, and they are busy. But that really isn’t a good excuse.
A town near me has perhaps the best school system in the state. Is it because they spend an enourmous amount on the school system? Perhaps. But it is also known as having extrodinary parental invovlement.
You get what you put in.
Spend the money on good teachers, the technology is ephemeral. The extrodinary teachers last a lifetime.
Is this the same Beeblebrox on AppleMatters? Or somebody who just shares the moniker and attitude?
The comments on this board underscore the need for teachers to have a union.
People who are eager to have our protections and rights removed need to think carefully about what they’re proposing. It’s a slippery slope.
Unions are not what’s wrong with American education. Children living in poverty and a funding scheme that discriminates against minorities are what screws it up. The schools I went to kicked ass because I grew up in an affluent suburb. The school in Brooklyn where I teach is struggling because of a million reasons, almost none of them having to do with the union.
Everyone whines that teachers are allowed to teach FOR THEIR ENTIRE LIVES. Almost every teacher has a Masters Degree and extensive student teaching experience. They are CERTIFIED by the state. Shockingly, after all of that, they are allowed to work in awful conditions for little pay until they are too old to go on, too tired, or both.
The teachers’ union protects us from the moronic whims of the revolving cast of local, state, and national politicians and the unscientific educational boondoggles they repeatedly foist on our students.
I’m about to dump my mountain of Apple gear in the Gowanus Canal (or at least carefully recycle it) if Steve Jobs doesn’t apologize to every hard-working teacher in America.
No more Apples for the teachers! Apologize now!
Jeeeze!
Will someone step up and do the right thing?
The solution is clearly Vouchers! Give each family a packet of 6 vouchers for each child.
Give one for Reading, Science, Math, Art, PE and Music. AND THAT’S IT!
Then let the traditional teachers all fight for those Voucher$. The best teacher wins cold hard cash, just like it works in the REAL world. It will blow up the current school “system” in short order and FIX ALL THE PROBLEMS within FIVE years.
Schools should be based on competition, not bureaucracy, paper texbooks and out of date “unions”.
Wake up TEACHERS!
Teacher’s Unions are only for propping up WEAK teachers, let’s just go ahead and get rid of the Unions and see what happens. It certainly wouldn’t make this situation any worse. Unions damage society in every industry where they are allowed to fester.
Mac Arch:
You said something to the effect “if you can read thank a teacher”……
Your absolutely right. So what I would like to do in the sight of the Mac community is say thank you to my stay at home mom for all the efforts she strove to put into me that I might be an educated man. As Popeye would say, “I ams what I am.” And I know it is all because of you mom, thanks!
OS11,
Vouchers wouldn’t solve the problem. We’d just end up with a bunch of teachers that are fun and don’t teach anything. The teachers I learned the most from usually weren’t my favorite.
Education is such a soft target.
Further proof that teachers’ unions are just stupid and unnecessary
Go Steve!!! No need to apologize for speaking the truth.