We have too many bosses. At our school, there are the principal, the Edison people, the NCLB mandates, coaches, the School Community Council, the politicians, the Board of Education and the parents. But the classroom is the arena of the individual teacher, not the so-called “experts.”

I am certain that NCLB has diluted education by focusing on the HSA tests. The odd thing is that most teachers are well-educated and became that way through traditional education, not the reforms we are embracing today.

There should be exit tests for fifth, eighth and 12th grade. Those who cannot read and write or function in math should not move on. But nobody in this state seems to have the courage to do such a thing.

Oh, well. I will just have to plod along until my retirement, which, thankfully, is now near.

I pity our children, whose future is ruled by minor minds and large egos, not pragmatic thinking.

Sincerely, Virginia Paine

This is not correct! Business people such as Bill Gates, the media, and maybe many in the general public may think they are best practices, but those who are the experts in education disagree. Arn Duncan sounds really good when he speaks in general terms, but when he puts his plans into action, they are NOT best practices. You cannot just write off educators as protecting their turf; the evidence is clear. Standardized tests are NOT the best way to measure student achievement, and that value-added assessment based on standardized tests is NOT the best way to measure teacher effectiveness. If you haven’t seen the report by the EPI in August 2010 titled, “Problems with the Use of Student Test Scores to Evaluate Teachers,” find it at:
http://epi.3cdn.net/724cd9a1eb91c40ff0_hwm6iij90.pdf
The panel of co-authors are recognized experts in education and testing.

See Fair Test: http://www.fairtest.org/

Furthermore, the teacher-bashing is based on a classic case of what Carol Dweck calls the fixed mindset, on the belief that skills like teaching are fixed—you have it or you don’t. Dweck’s more than 30 years of research shows that the fixed mindset is limiting and counterproductive, whether in parenting, business, sports, teaching or any area of life. It leads to JUDGMENT—like “good” or “bad” teachers, not to DEVELOPMENT of skills. We need better teacher training and professional development. We need a structure that assures teacher collaboration, not competition.
Dweck’s book:
http://www.amazon.com/Mindset-Psychology-Success-Carol-Dweck/dp/0345472322/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1287951247&sr=8-1

Merit pay for motivating teachers? Another bad idea. We’ve learned so much about motivation in the last 40 years, but we’re still following the primitive model using external rewards and punishments to motivate high performance. They produce compliance. They work well for boring, mechanical tasks that are clearly defined. They don’t work well for teaching or so many other occupations today that require thinking, creativity, innovation–engagement and commitment instead of compliance. For a good summary of the research and examples, see Dan Pink’s book Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us. His short video gives an overview: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6XAPnuFjJc

Finland gets cited as an example of educational excellence, but those who compare us to Finland don’t realize that the reforms they push are the opposite of what Finland is doing. We should in fact follow Finland’s approach because those are the real “best practices.” Candidate Obama’s education advisor, Linda Darling-Hammond, has a chapter on Finland in her latest book, The Flat World and Education: How America’s Commitment to Equity Will Determine Our Future. Read it here:
http://www.nea.org/home/40991.htm
Obama made a mistake in choosing Duncan over Darling-Hammond.

I’m a product of Hawaii’s public education system, which most people in Hawaii, including new residents from the Mainland particularly military families, would consider mediocre based on public high school students struggling with basic reading and math skills as college Freshmen, i.e., nearly 40% require remedial courses. I personally struggled with my Freshman English writing class, since I did not learn some basic principles for good writing skills and had to go through the school of hard knocks, and I was in the top 3% of my high school senior class of about 333 graduates!

I believe that we need a “revolutionary change” in our public school system similar to what Washington, D.C. and other major cities have done to overhaul their school system. Incremental changes will take us another 30 to 50 years before we bring our students up to the minimum standards of proficiency in the basic skills of reading, writing, and arithmetic, The 3 R’s. We cannot afford to continue sacrificing our children’s future and accept mediocrity as our norm and status quo. We should learn and emulate those public school systems that have made significant improvements in their overall curriculum and achievement test scores.

For example, Washington, D.C. hired a Chancellor who had the authority and responsibility to hire/fire school administrators and teachers, resulting in significant improvements in their overall test scores. Why can’t Hawaii do that or something similar? Are our teacher unions our major obstacle to progress? We taxpayers in Hawaii are paying much more than most public schools in the United States, about $12,000 per student! Why can’t we get our Return of Investment, when we spend so much money for public education? What other issues do we need to identify and correct? We need the support of everyone, parents, teachers, school administrators, politicians, unions, et al to work together towards a common goal: Significant Improvement of our Hawaii Public Education System! Anything less is UNACCEPTABLE! We owe it to our future generation of leaders to stop whining and start acting responsibly as one TEAM! WE CAN DO IT IF WE PUT OUR MIND AND HEARTS INTO IT!

Thank you for your time and patience as my patience is really worn thin! I’m completely flabbergasted and befuddled over something that should not be “rocket science!”

Mahalo Nui Loa

Thanks,

Dennis Brooks