Comments about ‘Fix education like my dealer fixes cars’

Teachers believe no one can or should "grade" them, offer advice, or criticize because "unless you are a teacher, you can't know." Twenty years ago as a PTA president I tried to explain to the teachers that with the new "school choice" and the new trend in "home schooling", (prior to charter schools) that they would have to adapt and become "customer service" oriented. I was snickered at because I was just a parent. We tell them again and again, that they must serve the needs of their "customer" or they will not be viable. They have seen public education lose money from the legislators, go to charter schools and the legislators tried to pass vouchers. These varities in education are because the public wants teachers to be accountable, until they figure it out, public education will just keep losing more and more funding. I am glad Ogden District has the courage to demand more!

Well said. This is not about teacher's jobs or educators pride in the public school system. This issue is vastly more important and has long-lasting consequences. It is about our children and the future of our country. We need to wake up and fix it now.

The problem with the analogy is that machines are way easier and more predictable to work on than humans, and emotion comes into play far less. If your car needs a new starter or tie rod ends and an alignment, chances are pretty good the dealer can quote you a price beforehand and get the work done when promised. And he quotes a job price, not time and material, and the job price has lots of fat in it for the free shuttle and coffee. So he comes off looking pretty good. On the other hand, if your darling child has been raised as a self entitled brat who's never had to do anything and has always been perfect in your eyes, you're going to blame the teacher when he does not do well in school. The dealer can fix your car. The teacher cannot fix your brat.

Good idea. If performance pay is based only on factors like standardized test scores, it can't possibly be fair.

But in order to get a fair evaluation, a very large number of responses would be needed to eliminate the threat of a few parents whose kids were brats being able to control the process. Too often it's only those with an axe to grind who will respond to a survey.

To be fair, any performance based pay scale must depend on a very wide range of evaluative tools.

To Hutterite,

You must be a teacher. Teachers need to do their job at school, and allow the parents to do their job at home. A teacher has as much power to assist the child to learn to value himself and others, and to take joy in learning.

Parents should not "blame the teacher" if a child misbehaves, nor should the teacher blame the parent. It is all about education.

Unfortunately, teachers seem to focus on the child who learns material easily, like they did as a student. An average learner may understand that a slow poke student, may be just as intelligent and capable as a fast learner. We all have different skill sets. An average learner simply needs additional time and patience.

A broad approach to learning, which includes creativity and an eclectic approach to learning, would be best.

The four letter word "NCLB" is an excellent way of testing learning, and is valid. Too often, teachers teach the fast learners, and make excuses as to why others can not learn.

It takes patience and understanding to be an effective teacher. I appreciate excellent teachers who care about all their "customers".

I agree with this editorial.

As always, John Florez's insights have much merit. If all parents were like his mother, who pushed him to excel in his studies and take advantage of the opportunities an education provides, then our schools would have an easier job. My recommendation right now for knowledgeable parents is to do what their student's teachers ask their sons and daughters to do: some reading, writing, and inquiry about the new Common Core State Standards that Utah is a signatory to. Making generalizations about teachers from twenty years ago to buttress causative claims or debating the efficacy of various analogies is fine, but limited. The truth is this. The USOE has had a group meeting together for months discussing ways to assess teachers in light of interest in teacher merit pay. The current UEA president has been an integral part of those discussions. Teachers I talked to already this summer at Timpview High in Provo, Canyon View High in Cedar City, Cottonwood High in SLC, and my co-facilitator from North Sanpete High welcome assessment that fairly measures all of the innovative and research-based ways that literacy and content is being taught in our 21st century schools.

"So why do lawmakers keep asking bureaucrats special interests and other stakeholders..."

That's the problem - stakeholders, people who don't use or pay for a government service and yet bizarrely claim a "right" to interfere in the providing of that service. We see that in the schools with environmentalists demanding that Al Gore's "An Inconvenient Truth" be shown in our schools and homosexuals, forcing their agenda, demanding that "homosexual history" be taught in California schools. These people need to stop interfering with our children's learning. Schools are there to educate, not indoctrinate.

First, "When 104 legislators keep local school boards in constant chaos trying to accommodate any whims turned into law, is it any wonder our schools are floundering?" Amen!!

Second, I think we must and will keep progressing towards merit- and progress-based systems. But assessing teacher merit and student progress is extremely difficult. Some people get this, some don't. But it is hard.

Nevertheless, we are getting better, getting closer, and we will get there. Teachers need to understand that it WILL happen, and they should be an active part of the process. Communities need to understand that it will not happen overnight, and needs careful planning and buy-in from majorities of stakeholders, including teachers, parents, administration, and community. Ogden's jump-before-you-look tactics will prove to be a setback to this overall process, I believe. It will cause problems, and then some will conclude that the premise was wrong, rather than the process, and here we go some more. Thanks but no thanks, OSD.

Most of our schools aren't floundering, they're flourishing. And will only improve as the new Core Standards are implemented. Those standards remind ALL teachers that literacy is the "soul" of education, that reading and writing are the mega-tools in every discipline. Too, as the new technologies & digital literacies are embedded in school-wide teacher practices, it will be more difficult for parents AND LEGISLATORS to mis-characterize what it is that public schools actually do. Legislators who view public schools through their ideological prisms & try to micromanage or even dismantle what has been the foundation of democracy in America for over 150 years should be voted out and replaced with those who will support public schools. That's where 90% of Utah's K-12 school-age children are educated and as John Florez continually reminds us: All of those children, all of them, are our country's future and deserve our collective best efforts.

This quote says it all, "When 104 legislators keep local school boards in constant chaos trying to accommodate any whims turned into law, is it any wonder our schools are floundering?"

Get the legislature out of education and leave it to the experts.

Great suggestion John. Question in the case of public education is who is the customer? While students are the product, and parents of these products may benefit, (and in most cases do provide some funding) in the main the state and all its taxpayers pick up the tab for the product under the liberal education idea of social benefit. Given this, it would appear to me that the legislature elected by the citizen's as their representatives are the customers and if should be their standard whom public educators try to meet. Better system would be a parents supported by the state allowed to make a free market choice. But, then we tried that and the political, educational, and social elites ended that experiment before it got started.

This message is to John Florez, and all the Education reporters here in Utah. I'm a retired CEO that knows how to run a business, but education is NOT A BUSINESS. After I retired, I began to look into the problems of Public Education. Rather than just sit on the sidelines and complain, I decided to roll up my sleeves and try to help the system from the inside. Three years ago, the economy was still on a roll, and public schools were begging for help because there simply were no new young teachers entering the profession in Science, Math, Physics, or Chemistry. To try to get some help, the Legislature begged for older, experienced professionals like me, to enter Public Education and help via the ARL program. I will now be entering my fourth year teaching Jr. High and High School Biology, and I think I've got things pretty well figured out. The problem now is who do I tell? The main issue facing Pub Ed. is its lack of getting the facts out and a cohesive message to Parents, Legislators, and even Students. Without media help (you guys) nothing will change. Give me a call.

Want to improve schools? Go back to the ways of the 30's, 40's, or 50's.