Nicely skewered and BBQ'd, Lowell's corpse can rest a bit.
They resist changes to their work practices that the best evidence (see Ayers, Supercrunchers) seems to show works with disadvantaged kids: rote memorization, and phonics.
Admittedly, I've only read some of Ayres' book, but I didn't see anything to indicate that it was the best evidence in support of rote memorization and phonics, or really any evidence. Besides, in my tutoring experience, while phonic ability is a necessity for readers at any level to sound out new or forgotten words, word recognition skills are equally necessary to move beyond a collection of sounds to a level of actual comprehension. I saw kids who were only adept at phonics read like...............this...............eee.........
.....ven.............if they'd already seen the same sentence two paragraphs earlier. (And either/or absolutists on this issue are like the little/big-enders in Swift.) But I forget, Megan is the expert, at something.
Also, don't the McArdles know that post hoc ergo propter hoc is a fallacy of reasoning, not a basis for it?
That word "agitate" -- I've been hearing "outside agitators" used as an excuse for bigotry and cruelty my whole life. It just pushes the, er, nuclear button for me. Even if it wasn't obvious that the Meganomaniac has never actually, you know, taught school to struggling kids, from practically her first word, she would have lost me right there.
As far as I can see, the main difference between a teachers' union and a website or lobby group promoting phonics lessons is that the latter is private enterprise and therefore better.
If I were her I'd be mad at teachers too.
Indeed. Somewhere along the way she failed to rote-memorize those rules about apostrophe usage. Clearly this is the fault of the "teacher's union".
... spare James Russell Lowell and I this misery?
Might want to fix your pronoun before some McArdle-ite comes over here to make fun of it.
I know what you're thinking now: "Spare I your petty grammatical nitpicking."
Who could have predicted that having all the advantages of the upper middle class would result in better test scores?
gak. what is there to say? mcCardle is both stupid and inhumane. Not capitalization for you, megan.
aimai
The self-described "upper middle classes" like Megan need to learn their snobbery is not data.
I had a student once who refused to join a study group with black students in it. He said they would drag down his grade. I made sure to tell him later the black students did better on the test than he did. I'll bet he's now a Randian too.
It's like she revels in her own stupidity.
It's like she revels in her own stupidity.
Well, duh!
I realize I'm saying this about the woman who had the worst pen name in American letters not seen on a Tijuana Bible, but she really should go back to being pseudonymous. Anonymous would be even better.
I'm trying to figure out if the comments thread is like those of pro-war blogs with no enlisted readership, or suggests that ACTA and Horowitz have opened up their own 2ndary ed. school. Y'know, for people who think ed. school isn't "rigorous" and would benefit from "competition," like companies that sell microprocessors.
"tepidly gung ho" - ? Who is this person and why do you keep linking to her?
I teach at a charter school where the staff is taking the first steps toward unionization.
For the first couple years, not many of the staff seemed to care that we were working at one of only a handful of non-union schools in this large, Midwestern city. Without a union, certain things were possible that would not be otherwise, like the centralized curriclum and the ability of the administration to weed out the few incompetents among us.
Things were buzzing along quite nicely and we frequently celebrated our success. That ended a few weeks ago when they announced that next year we'd all have to teach an extra class for no extra pay; and that classes were all going to be five minutes longer; and that they were greatly reducing their contribution to our health insurance.
Now that union isn't looking so bad, after all.
[S]he really should go back to being pseudonymous. Anonymous would be even better.
Unpublished would be best.
Megan's like a lot of people who cover up insecurity with bravado. She must know she's not as smart as many of the people that she went to school with, and she's extremely eager to belong and to be liked. But her vanity and insecurity won't let her admit she's in over her head, so she's caught in the embarrassing position of arrogantly making stupid statements and then having to backtrack without looking even more stupid--an impossible task..
BrianD, sorry to hear it, and best of luck to y'all. But such pressures are not limited to non-union shops; Indianapolis Public Schools just lost a court decision after it tried, with no notice and no discussion of extra pay, to force teachers in NCLB-certified "failing" schools to teach for two months during summer vacation. This, by the way, violated state guidelines as well as the contract agreement; never stand between a journalist and the free buffet, or between an education administrator and the cameras.
However, I have to ask what "centralized curriculum" and "he ability of the administration to weed out the few incompetents among us" are supposed to mean? In Indiana, at least, curriculum is approved at both the local and state levels, and can be directed at the individual school by the administration; and incompetent teachers can be removed about as easily as a nose-picking fry cook for their first two years in the job, and with only the intermediate step of a union hearing, and the possibility of appeal, thereafter.
R. Porro: Expecting McArdle to support increased reading comprehension is like expecting the drug dealers to contribute mightily to Narcotics Anonymous. Her whole paycheck depends on people who can get through the words but are unable to think about what she's saying.
Roy,
Visit Crunchy Cons. Rod is talking about balls.
http://blog.beliefnet.com/crunch...gay-
priest.html
...The balls stuff is in comments. Priceless.
"You can disprove any position if you force your imaginary opponents to take the maximal side."
Oops, she gave away the secret of her success. I expect to see the above used as an all-purpose reply to her vapid solecisms. Could this be the beginning of the end for Megan "D'uh" McArdle?
But her vanity and insecurity won't let her admit she's in over her head,
Yea, but what's her publisher's excuse?
From the "maximal side," "duh" post:
I should probably clarify that I'm talking about twenty, maybe thirty failing urban school districts/agglomerations in the United States. I could care less whether Scarsdale has a powerful teacher's union that negotiates triannual ten month paid leave in Hawaii. And the problem in rural areas is not the teacher's unions, it's the geographic fact of no possible competition, and often the net outmigration of educated people who might make good teachers.
Classic. "Ignore how my every post so far has talked about systematic problems with teachers' unions in general; I'm only really talking about public schools 23, 56 and 57 in Queens and PS 102 in Los Angeles. Oh, a propos of nothing, I wonder how many teachers out there are grossly overcompensated? Competition solves everything. There's nothing we can do about poor performance in rural areas, so there's no point in trying." I exaggerate a bit, but damn, she really wouldn't know an honest argument if an example was tattooed backwards on her forehead.
I work in a local rural school district as a substitute. So when I hear the whines about overpaid teachers and the need to remove the union, I think of all the slow kids that cried when the bright ones excelled. Our district listens to idiot parents that use their children as pawns in a power game. The district attempts to educate every student, even those most fitted to dull and brute labor. The district offers opportunities to all, not just the rich,
I hear the stoopids whine about teacher pay. Feh, check out what other professions recieve with a Master's. Not only do I have to put up with your kid, I have about 29 others to deal with too. Parents come in and their entire argument is, "I'se a parent". You know, that only means you've procreated. Big deal. The rabbits in my yard do that, should I allow them equal standing?
Scores went up? Maybe we should investigate. Correlation does not mean causality (8th grade science). Must be our stenographer friend did not have to take those courses.
Megan has a new post up telling her commenters to not feed the trolls. "It causes a dangerous swelling of their ego, and uncontrollable vomiting of ill-informed screeds into the comments section."
Ah, Megan. Ever the lady.
Nobody has to respond to criticism, but some people can't stand the insult to their ego. Megan's the biggest "troll feeder" there.
"Dangerous swelling of ego" and "ill-informed screeds" pretty much define McArdle's crap of a blog. I'm guessing the irony flew right over her head.
And what is she? Suzy LiveJournal, 12-year-old fangirl? What in the hell is she doing typing. Like. This. on a professional website?
Maybe it's the equivilent of the clenched teeth beloved of sorority girls to signify that someone's been presumptious and it Won't be Tolerated.
Mr. Riley,
By the weeding out part I mean that at the local public (union) schools it's really hard to fire teachers, even those who are totally incompetent and need, badly, to find another line of work. People at my school, and elsewhere, tend to blame the union for it. At one of those schools, where I was student teaching, principals aren't even allowed to enter classrooms without two days' written notice. In this way, administrators weren't even entitled to accurate information regarding the teachers' job performance (anyone can throw together a great lesson with two days' notice).
As far as the centralized curriculum goes, again, this is comparing my school to the local union schools. Administrators don't seem to have very much control over the specific content taught in classes. Teachers there tend to be independent actors. Here, we're made to coordinate our lessons with each other. For example, the Freshmen are doing global warming now, so they study it in each of their classes. In biology, they learn the science, in civics the policy debates, in English they have tho write a persuasive essay about it, etc. I get the impression that this sort of thing is not possible in the local union schools.
she's caught in the embarrassing position of arrogantly making stupid statements and then having to backtrack without looking even more stupid
She shall henceforth be known as Jane Galtberg.
New Orleans is the land of the propter hoc--just after the hurricane wiped out teh gay, now it has also wiped out the union. I wonder where the Reverend Hagee thinks God is on the union question.
Through no fault of her own, my fifth-grader has been in three public and one private school in her schoolin' thus far. And I'd like to know where these phonics-spurning teachers are. The private kindergarten made it a cornerstone of the reading curriculum. So did the small-city public system. So did the large-city public system. So does the suburban district she's in now. I'm convinced this is another one of their "well, it happened somewhere" boogiemen.
Loathsome ads on the sidebar alert.
Loathsome ads on the sidebar alert.
That seems a tab harsh for this... 
I don't typically comment just to rave about Roy's writing (I mean, once you start, when do you stop), but just the titles of the last two posts leave me in awe.
Dunno what state you're in, BrianD, but two of your central points about unionized public schools simply aren't true here in Washington state. The union-busting types like to claim that boards/administrators can't get rid of bad faculty because of unions, but in fact it's relatively simple as long as there's evidence of just cause. In my experience (as both teacher and school board member), administrations and boards rarely pursue dismissal, even when they should -- but when they do, it's generally not a huge fight with the union. And as for innovative cooperation among faculty in different disciplines (a la your "global warming" example)? It's happening here, with the hearty approval of pretty much all constituencies, because administrations "allow" faculty to work cooperatively and innovatively.
But I'm curious about your complaint that administrators in unionized schools have little control over specific curricular decisions in the classroom and that teachers are "independent." In my view, administrators shouldn't micro-manage in the classroom. That's not their job. They're administrators; therefore, they should do a very careful job of hiring teachers, a careful job of establishing the essential outcomes of courses, and then let the teachers do their jobs. After all, teachers are the people who are the experts in, y'know, teaching.
Roy, you're flat right about McArdle's longed-for Brave New World; like the current Oval Office Occupant, she's dimly aware that despite every advantage of birth and upbringing, she's nowhere near as clever or even successful as a lot of the vulgar proles whose parents never knew one could use 'summer' as a verb. And because she's as selfish as she is stupid, her response is not to thank her stars & progenitors for her astonishing luck, but to attempt to prevent any *future* Gammas and Epsilons from climbing the greasy pole & further threatening Megan's unearned status.
Mortician (related to Mr. Joyboy, by any chance?), a data point in your favor would be the case a couple of years go where a teacher in the Seattle area responded to some black kid's use of "bitch" by asking him if he would feel okay if someone called him "nigger". Teacher was gone in weeks, union or no union.
mcmegan-entitlement syndrome reinforced with glibertarian rationalizations she doesn't really understand.
Now, if I never see another blogger link to her or mention her again I'll be happy. Make fun of her, sure. Call her names, why not? Actually engaging her drivel? No thanks.
Also, don't the McArdles know that post hoc ergo propter hoc is a fallacy of reasoning, not a basis for it?
Nice one R.P. That comment alone was worth the price of admission
New Orleans smashes it's teachers union...
Perhaps these nonunionized superteachers could teach Ms. McCardle the difference between "its" and "it's."
McArdle is not a "troll feeder." McArdle is a troll. A troll with a platform, yes, but still a troll.
I actually liked her old nom de plume. It pretty much told you everything you needed to know.
It's worse than that, Snag. Her apostrophes have gone completely feral. They are capering across the page like imps and demons in a Bosch painting, jumping into words where they do not belong and farting sulphur.* It is as if McCardle's editors have given her a set quota of apostrophes to use in each column, and like Qs in a scrabble game she knows she has to use them somewhere, but the editors were not so prescriptive about precisely where they should go.
* Image borrowed from Flying Rodent.
McArdle is a troll.
That's quite true. The reason I posted in her comments was her insults against the poor, but when I heard her mouth the same anti-teacher crap every other East coast pseudo-intellectual with a Masters comes up with, I got annoyed.
Her "don't feed the trolls" was precious. She responds to me as tersely as possible, but couldn't ignore the more valid questions I posted without looking weak.
Yea, but what's her publisher's excuse?
Page hits and attention. They also publish that Flannagan person.
Herr Doktor, that was masterly.
Susan - even better, a troll showed up in that "don't. feed. the. trolls" post and...she fed him/her. Her stupidity has taken on Zen-like qualities.
Roy:
Thanks, Brendan, for the proofreading.
Delighted. Thanks for acting on it.
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