How Kafkaesque Bureaucrats Are Ruining Education

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from truthdig:


How Kafkaesque Bureaucrats Are Ruining Education

Posted on Aug 19, 2013
By Wellford Wilms

Last week the Los Angeles Unified School District, the second-largest in the nation, opened its doors to more than 640,000 students for the new school year. The following story is a sobering tale of bureaucracy run amok, to the detriment of its schoolchildren.

When John Deasy took over the Los Angeles Unified School District in 2011, he promised a “world-class” education for all students. A cornerstone of his plan has been to tie teachers’ jobs and salaries to their students’ scores on standardized tests. For the past two years Deasy has driven his vision relentlessly from his 24th floor executive suite in the district’s downtown headquarters, through a half dozen layers of administrators, to nearly 900 Los Angeles schools.

But on July 2, 2013, a new school board was sworn in, and the majority seems skeptical of Deasy’s business model. Matthew Kogan, an educator who walked precincts for the board’s newest member, teacher Monica Ratliff, explained, “It’s a very narrow model and there’s a lot of hostile things about it towards teachers.”

Despite intense pressure from the district headquarters to boost scores, academic performance is shockingly low and it trails behind students in most other large California districts. Just 39 percent of LAUSD students are proficient in math and only 41 percent are proficient in English (though their scores have improved since 2010). Nearly four in 10 LAUSD students fail to graduate from high school, and African-American students are nearly twice as likely to drop out as whites.

Deasy is quick to blame the schools for students’ poor performance but the real problem is right under his nose. As my experience attests, the villains aren’t the teachers, as many believe, but often are power-hungry district bureaucrats who set their own agenda and are accountable to no one. .....................(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/how_kafkaesque_bureaucrats_are_ruining_education_20130818/

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1. An incredible change in education is taking shape

Yes, this very moment incredible changes are in motion likely to turn education into the most dynamic industry mankind will ever experience for the new millennium. The K-12 system already is in an ongoing up grade. What was considered the domain of the undergraduate-graduate level is migrating into the grade school high level of competence. The problem here is the real time experience or what is commonly called internship for both teacher and student is awkward.

The interesting thing that many know is that mastering a subject has a worth and value far more penetrating than the testing “mean score” approach currently dominating the system. Many educators that keep their sharp edge understand application of the Gaussian theorem always is not the total answer, or only answer. Or what can be thought of as a “walk in” a person can bypass the K12 window by taking a GED test. Moreover in most states a prospective engineer can “walk in” to the equivalent of a professional level. In either case results marshal success in the market place.

My personal time is toward online education material that has content open and free to look at. Currently science mathematics and engineering has been my particular interest although history and that relation to discoveries are actually fun to reference.

From my view being a person who is at the very edge of retirement envisions an inspiring computer communications capability to keep one’s mind thinking with reasoning power beyond my early education experience. Mathematics is the very key to good reasoning, especially advanced mathematics where educators hold those cards closely to their chest. However, there is a huge collection in the approach to master a subject which needs interpretation that can sift-out the real ascension to better knowledge. From my view the more the mastery of a subject the more in agreement that life is so fine-tuned man is not derived from a random order.