Charlie Rose

Gaye Ingram  09/16/2008 01:48 AM Report

First, does it say anything about what is wrong with national discussions of improving education, when only one of these teachers acknowledges that the most important test of his professional success is what his students learn about the subject for which he is responsible? Isn't that implicit in the title "teacher"? At the most basic level, that translates to performance on basic tests that measure achievement. The means toward that include getting to know one's students personally and caring about them individually; demonstrated enthusiasm for them and the subject we teach;deep knowledge of that subject; and more. But if we are measuring knowledge and skills, we will have to pay attention to tests. Nothing in the world improves a person's self-esteem like success in his work. Learning is a student's work. The child who learns will be a child who knows pride and has self-confidence. I've never seen it fail.

Second question, what was the most conspicuous student group not mentioned? The intellectually gifted children. And yet this is the group from whom will come any new ideas and innovations and creative leadership of the future. They are the ones who have the capacity for that particular contribution. They not only deserve a genuinely challenging education, one that lets them experience degrees of failure as well as success so they will be prepared for a world where the greatest success comes not from perfection, but from the ability to learn from failure, the confidence to take risks. But the national good depends on their having those opportunities. Like any other student, the intellectually gifted student actualy loses ability (measurable on standard measurements of intelligence)and bored, creates disruptions in classrooms or eventually drops out of school, literally or metaphorically. If we treated these students the way we treat gifted athletes, both they and their peers would benefit. All ships rise in a high tide.

I spent 40 years in education, and I've gone through decades of new buzz words and no telling how many workshops about the kinds of intelligence and other aspects of learning, many of which were, in my view, ways of excusing failure to succeed. In the end, whatever success I had--and I had some--came down to these things: my knowledge and personal enthusiasm for the subject I taught, my holding myself and my students to equally high performance and work levels, the delight the act of teaching gave me, the collegiality I insisted upon with my students, and the support I received from parents. Students respect and wish to please teachers who model achievement.

I was pleased that one teacher observed the No Child Left Behind Act was an important piece of civil rights legislation. It assured country kids, inner-city kids, Louisiana kids, and Fairfax County,VA kids a level playing field. If school systems cut arts programs---and many did--their doing that simply acknowledged they were doing poor jobs in the regular classroom. There should have been no reason for them. Yet, in the end, if we want our children to learn basic reading and mathematical skills, we must assure they do that, we must test to know what they have achieved. Those in place, let's move to the study of history, please.

JL Howell   07/29/2008 12:52 PM Report

Great show,Charlie!!! Bravo to the whole panel, especially to the insightful comments of Kamras and Geisen,concerning how education directly impacts national economic security. Our current Republican and Democratic politicians are certainly blind [ part of the problem \ to the coming costly future impact on our U.S. economy; and a progressive, centrist policy is certainly the right direction, away from the angry, resentful "discussion" about unions, NCLB, tenure, merit pay, ya dah, ya dah, ad nauseum. ---Advancing the "profession" with respectful compensation, collaborative time, and supportive risk-taking programs, which certainly TfA has shouldered and shown strong leadership,are good reforms that should be emulated. ---This panel gave us a great vision of what the future of education could become; and good strategies to follow as well.

john bedward  07/23/2008 01:18 PM Report

I enjoyed the program. I wonder if school is the only respected means of attaining a quality education in the 21st century. The work of Ivan Illich suggest that there are other possibly more human models of taping into a young persons genius. The question may be, what is learning and how should it be nurtured, inside and or outside of institutional settings? I'm in agreement with Jason and Micheal on a human capital strategy as a means of focusing financial and human resources on this national imperative. Cheers and thanks!!!

esther  07/18/2008 05:15 PM Report

Comment to Fred: Fred I wish all parents were like you. You are one in a million. I know not all parents can afford a computer for their child, but there are other ways to teach kids. When I was growing up my parents would read to me at least twice a day and play educational games with me as well. At the age of 5 I was playing the original Monopoly game and Concentration. They had me writing stories and drawing pictures about my stories. Then, being that they couldn't read my story, they would have me read it to them.

I would have never been able to do this if my parents would not have taken the time to teach me. By the way, they both worked! So people that say they don't have the time don't make the time. In today's world parents need to be very careful when it comes to choosing a day care for their child. The number one requiremnt should be what their program consists of. They need to ask themselves "is this daycare preparing my child for Kinder or do they have the kids just color and play outside?" Go to their future elementary school and find out what the expectations are for children entering Kinder. Then they need to choose a daycare based on the expectations. These few things can make it so much easier for our kids.

fred aruso  07/17/2008 08:32 PM Report

RE: Esther, July 15th. This is a moot argument. Yes, we do need to do our part as parents, but in the 21st century it is more a question of directing the child than actually teaching. My point being that my 3-year-old has been teaching herself how to read and add on an old computer running Win98, and pre-school ed software. I really nudge her to watch Sesame Street and other PBS educational programs for kids her age. Of course, I may soon have to get a good book on learning to read (hard to find) but media and computers do so much for these kids today, and they have fun learning too.

fred caruso  07/17/2008 08:25 PM Report

RE: John, July 14th... I agree. My daughter went to school but I tutored her math for the last three years from a math book I found next to the dumpster in our complex, getting thrown out by someone moving out. She's 12 now, and gets A+ every term in Math, but not every parent has the time and/or intelligence to do that.

esther  07/15/2008 02:55 AM Report

I feel that education starts at home. What happened to parents preparing their kids for Kinder? We need to catch the problems we have with the child's learning in the bud. There should be pre-requisites for students to get into Kinder. If it takes pre-kinder across our nation as a requirement, then so be it. I get so tired of people saying "it's a developmental thing they're going through" and they pass them on to 1st grade. Guess what? These students continue to struggle. If they're lucky they have dedicated teachers that are able to catch them up by 3rd or 4th grade by putting in over time for these students, one-on-one tutoring, after school tutoring, etc. Why put the extra pressure on the student and the teachers??? When teachers continue to pass students on to the next grade, although they are really struggling, it hits the child like a brick when they get into 3rd grade and they have to pass the state tests. If the child does not fit the requirements to move on from Kinder to 1st grade keep him/her back in Kinder. Why do the districts continue to push the students to the next grade? I'm sure it must have something to do with the funding!! In the end it has an effect on everyone, the student, the teacher, and the district. Why is it so hard to see that? I think that more teachers need to be included in the decision making for our schools across America. I know sometimes decisions are made by people that have been out of the classroom way too long.

john  07/14/2008 11:00 PM Report

I have more to say:

Schools should have more parallel tracks so that people of all levels of functionality/intelligence aren't thrown into one amorphous herd. I wish the world was created with perfect egalite; but it was not. There are people of lower and higher intelligences, and it does no one any good to try to teach to all these levels together. What winds up happening is that the smart kids are bored or stymied--or often, told to "wait"--and those of less intelligence struggle to keep up, become frustrated, disenchanted and ultimately give up. It does neither tail of the bell curve justice to teach simply to the middle. Classes should be separated by IQ.

john  07/14/2008 10:37 PM Report

I have more to say:

Regarding standards--people say that this will lead to "teaching to the test." Damn right! And the reason we have tests is because they...test what you know. And the point of learning things is to know. Can one test artistic ability, emotional empathy, joie de vivre? No, probably not. But you can test a lot of the basics--and the basics are what we need our students to learn. Its not to much to ask to memorize some math, some vocab, some dates in history. And if you know them, then you will score well on a test. Teach to the test--of COURSE you teach to the test. Thats what you're supposed to do. Is there more to education than that. OF COURSE. But making sure that students have the requisite building blocks is ESSENTIAL, not optional. Should teacher pay/job security be determined by how well their students do on the tests? Yes--but only in relation to how well the students do on a similar test in the beginning of the year. That way we can determine measured improvement. All these fatuous, light arguments about tests being unfair etc. etc. are going to look pretty silly when we've been demoted to some middling mediocrity

within the world order. To the teachers who are scared to be tested--too bad. Its too important morally, too important to the future of our country and to important to humanity that our children get the best education possible. Its freaking despicable that teachers resist having standardized tests for their students. Lead or get out of the way. You are doing a disservice to the young people. I had to sit through mediocre teachers for the first fifth of my life and now have to try to educate myself to make up for all that wasted time. Its a shame.

That doesn't mean that teachers should be uniformly judged according to the end of the year tests--the results of these should be made relative to the tests at the beginning of the year.

And I think more teacher pay would attract better and more talented candidates.

john  07/14/2008 10:24 PM Report

What the hell does everyone mean when they say "students need more resources," or "low-income children don't have the resources they need." Seriously; I don't know what they are referring to. When someone says "resources" I think of coal or lumber or something. In the context of education I suppose this means desks and overhead projectors and pens etc. Do students really need more of this kind of stuff? Cause, I don't think that adds up. Maybe people mean books when they say "resources." Students definitely need books, and the better the books, the better the education--no doubt. But I'll tell you what--take the oldest, rattiest grammar or geometry book you can find at the oldest, rattiest tag sale or library you can find--and I tell you what--if you learned/memorized everything in that "low resource" book, you'd be better off than 95% of the people you meet on the street. You don't need glossy books or all the accoutrements in order to learn; you need good teachers, and high expectations. Period. Eliminate the unions.

Mark Petrofsky  07/14/2008 04:46 PM Report

Tenure: a red herring. It's job security and almost all employees have it. The question is, how difficult is it to fire teachers and how good are administrators at going through the necessary steps to make it happen.

Merit Pay: a red herring or worse. People don't become teachers for the great pay and rewarding "results" isn't going to motivate them to change very much. It is a reward and punishment model a la NCLB. Plus it could pit teachers against eachother when they need to be collaborating more.

Plus, it is almost impossible to measure effective teaching except in the crudest way. There are innumerable ways for it to end up being extremely unfair to some very effective teachers. It would push teachers into teach to the test mode which would be a terrible thing to have happen (see Creativity below).

On a country by country basis, the more time teachers spend with students, the poorer the educational system performs! (Don't make the classic social science mistake of confusing correlation with causation.) What those teachers in Japan, Singapore and right down the line, is collaborating - every day - on lessons .

Parents - Red herring. Parents, aside from passing on genes, effect how students when they are with their parents. The school teachers, and students in the absence of strong teachers and administrators, determine how students act in school.

[I strongly recomment the book No Two Alike, by Judith Rich Harris, on this matter. It is a stunning piece of work.\

Great administrators enable teacher collaboration. Unfortunately I've mostly experienced poor administrators who are afraid of their own shadows, and their bosses and the parents - the one who wasn't was let go.

Creativity: Is only part of the picture. But the best way to build knowledgeable students is to engage them, which means they have to learn to think and build understanding. Every great teacher I've seen or heard about teaches for understanding and creativity is an almost inevitable byproduct. Boring teaches = little learning. I'll crib from "Ron Link's comment above: Ivan Illitch said, “Most learning is not the result of instruction. It is rather the result of unhampered participation in a meaningful setting.”

Pay: Teachers are underpayed - most Americans are hideously overpayed.

Our education system, as an outcome of our ideas?, is one-size fits all. It's hard to face the fact that it just isn't so.

fred caruso  07/14/2008 10:55 AM Report

LBJ, I agree...I sub taught once in one of the worst ghetto in Newark, NJ and I was struck one day to see two classes right next to each other. One was a bunch of angels, quiet as a mouse listening to the teacher. The other class was out of control bunch of devils. Same culture, same age. The difference was the teacher. She was a genius at her work, and the other teachers admitted she was the best. Incidently, this exceptional teacher was white and the kids were African-American. Race obviously was not a factor. How do we find such genius teachers? Not likely these days. With all the nepotism, cronyism, and political patronage in the hiring process, the chances are slim. No way that they'll be trial-and-error by hiring and laying off until they find someone like this exceptional teacher. And of course we know, once a teacher gets in, you can't get them out, regardless of how mediocre (or even bad) they are. No matter how good a teacher someone may be, they don't go in for teaching because they know if they don't know somebody, they may not ever get a job. On the other hand, people who have connections are often told by such connections that if they get the certificate, they'll have a job waiting for them after graduation. Of course, there's always someone to testify that the got hired without connections, yada yada yada, and even if that is true, they are the exception, not the rule.

LBJ  07/13/2008 11:33 PM Report

Todd, you're wrong on so many levels about parents. I teach in what you would call a failing school in a low-income neighborhood in the Bronx. The VAST majority of parents do what they can to get the best for their kids. They make parent-teacher conferences, they return phone calls, they visit the school, and if not they call first themselves. Stop blaming the parents; it's a sinister cultural argument that scapegoats the real issues.

Yours is an argument that suggests "these kids" CAN'T do well because their parents are poor or ill-educated. And the code words do nothing but heighten fears and misconceptions about immigrants or people of color. But in my experience as a teacher, these misconceptions have been wrong in every way. Bad parents, Todd, come in every shade & every color, as well as in every income and every class.

I'd be interested to hear your thoughts on the difference in resources though between different classes. Consider for instance, that the student:teacher ratio the best private schools in Manhattan is around 15:1 in middle school, compared with a class cap size of 32 in NYC public schools. I could list more statistics but I imagine you'd be a bit overwhelmed there.

Austen  07/13/2008 04:04 AM Report

Tenure is the problem. Open your eyes. This is the only industry that rewards people for being there. I have had some horrible teachers that I knew were getting paid more because of tenure. If some wiz-kid comes up with a brilliant idea, this is the only field that does not reward that. The education system has to become more like the rest of the world. It is not a "family." We are not all "raising" these kids together. The education system needs to impose the same type of management styles that corporations use. We need to re-think this whole operation. This is not the Ford in the driveway that you tinker with and say it is your "eventual hotrod."

Todd  07/13/2008 12:07 AM Report

Tenure is not the problem. Most of these failing schools are in some of the poorest neighborhoods. Parents are mostly to blame. There is no motivation at home to encourage homework completion. So the teacher must find time in her daily routine to deal with work that should be done at home. Teachers in lower performing schools are busting their tails trying to make it work. Without the support of the home environment (parental motivation), with the low parent turnout for conferences, poor behavior problems, and a high student absenteeism rate, success will not be achieved. No wonder lower performing schools have some of the least teacher experience. As soon as teachers gain enough senority, they transfer to better achieving schools, where there is success due to high parent expectations, better disciplined students, good attendance records, completed homework, which in turn allows more time for the teacher to do just that...teach!

Sheila  07/12/2008 05:12 PM Report

The problem in educating children in america is due to following reasons;

Parents are not pro-active.A lot of them whines, complains and always blame the goverment.

Education starts at home.

The central focus of children in america is how to look good,get the best clothes, shoes, bags and toys. Parents teaches their children to be vein at a young age.

While the Children in China and India, the moment they woke up, excitement in going to school to learn is part of their being.

Dr. Emile Piscitelli  07/11/2008 11:37 PM Report

The panel was a big disappointment. But then consider these teachers are singled out as “excellent” by a failing system of education. If they were really good teachers, they would have declined the honor of representing public education in America. Further more how do I know whether they are really good teachers? Because the system tells me? What makes a good teacher? None of them gave a satisfactory answer: Creativity? Engagement? Of course Mastery of the subject taught (that's a beginning). Gobble Gook! The answers are more obscure than the term they are meant to define. Perhaps a course in logic should be required of these “excellent teachers.” How about an example of a “good teacher’s teaching.” Maybe Charlie's programs on education are producing the evidence for what is wrong with our schools: The uneducated people running them and teaching in them and the even less educated pundits who know the answers to what's wrong with them. What should we do? First forget about competing with China and India. And if you really want quick reform, abolish all public schools K-12 and have Congress pass a law making public education illegal. In fact if Congress made all education illegal, there would be an underground movement to get an education. I am being a bit facetious but even Jonathan Swift’s A Modest Proposal contained much truth in it’s irony. What’s free and plentiful is cheap and worthless. Finally I would challenge the assumption that our colleges and universities are great institutions of learning. Have they not produced these very teachers and the system of education which we know are failing to educate?

Alice  07/11/2008 11:36 PM Report

Kamras is right. Tangible results can only be measured via testing. It shouldn't be the only measure, but it is the most important measure. Get rid of tenure, make it easy to fire teachers. Government workers shouldn't have more privileges than private sector workers.

Joanne Wisniewski  07/11/2008 11:27 PM Report

Some of your guests spoke of teachers teaching each other. I belong to and work with the National Writing Project and that is our goal. I have just completed my first week as a co-director of a Summer Institute where teachers spend four weeks looking at their practices in the classroom and the way others teach. We help teachers take an "inquiry stance" about their teaching which includes reading what experts have to say and reflecting on their own practices. During this next year many of these teachers will complete an Inquiry Project about some aspect of teaching that they want to learn more about. The goal of the project is to improve their classroom practice. I can honestly say I have learned more about teaching from the time I've spent with my writing project colleagues than anywhere else. If you don't know about this group you should investigate them because they inspire teachers to become the best they can be and to keep learning. This professional development really makes a difference and it is happening in every state and often in multiple locations.

Mary Zigman  07/11/2008 09:53 PM Report

RE: Andrew Eckhardt -- I did watch the whole program and there is a big difference between skirting an issue and addressing an issue directly. Could you please identify at which point in the program my issues were directly discussed? The teachers talked around the issues. Big difference, Big.

neil maccallister  07/11/2008 08:35 PM Report

On July 9th, Ted Koppel reported upon the industry, aspiration, and determination of the Chinese people by noting that their schools start teaching their students English when those students are 5 years old.

Here in California, our governor wants to start our students learning algebra when they are 14 years old.

On July 11th, our CCTimes editor deemed this was 'setting our students up for failure', as this work 'will prove to be an unachievable standard'.

I believe that view undervalues our children, and undervalues education.

I did notice on the front page of the newspaper that day, the CCTimes is highlighting a gardening program which 'hopes to create jobs and income' for homeless people.

I suspect we will be tending the gardens of those Chinese!

Irish  07/11/2008 08:15 PM Report

RON LINK: I loved your post! That is wonderful! And I really enjoyed the show as well. Thanks Charlie.

neil maccallister  07/11/2008 07:37 PM Report

"No Child Left Behind" could be reworded as "No Child Let Advance". Mr. Kamras states it is "The greatest thing since the 60's civil rights movement" that the best teachers are now alloted to the least performing students. Does that really sound like a good decision?

fred caruso  07/11/2008 07:00 PM Report

The creativity rant is a red herring. You have to have a media or skill with which to be creative, without that structural framework, "creativity" is hollow, a frivolous concept. Ben Franklin said "A quick wit is often accompanied by an empty head." Kids need to learn the basic skills and knowledge skills. That goes for higher education as well. It doesn't necessarily have to be fun, but it can be absorbing, interesting and challenging. Children are naturally creative. It is the teaching profession that needs to learn creativity (or find creative individuals who want to teach) in order for kids to learn basic skills.

fred caruso  07/11/2008 06:50 PM Report

RE: Mr. Lorengel... I live in Oregon, and once a bad teacher is in the system, you cannot get them out. Don't call it tenure, but a rose is a rose, by any other name. The Union just got a librarian a job in a classroom, rather than lay her off. My kid was a victim of that job security action. Like some bloggers are saying, the system works for the cult of the teaching profession, not the kids, or the parents who write their paycheck via taxes. Another teacher of my daughter had a 13-year-old son that walked into a 2nd grade whenever he felt like it. When I asked him about it one day, he said, "My mother is a teacher so I can go into any class in the district any time I want." Attitude. Hubris. The apple doesn't fall far from the tree. His mother refused to teach math, because it made the kids dislike her.

Linda Mae  07/11/2008 06:11 PM Report

There have been many comments about the need for creativity. It does not exist without a foundation of basic skills to support it. DaVinci was creative but none of his ideas worked because the basic knowledge to carry them out didn't exist. CT testing focuses on a basic skills foundation (at least grades 3,6 & 8)our kids should know. If they don't know them then a good teacher will / should do anything and everything to make sure they do. Some basics just have to be memorized. If not, then you would not be able to read these comments had you not learned the basic skills to decode and learn vocabulary. Enrichment activities are so important for all students. They provide a way to extend the skills as well as expand one's knowledge. Why do we neglect the fact that education is LIFE LONG. We must abolish the phrase K - 12 and replace it with K - A. In 3 Boxes of Life, the author (whose name I've forgotten in a senior moment) stated that we think of our lives as 3 stacked boxes. The bottom is education. The 2nd is work. The 3rd is relaxation where we can learn things that attract us. The author suggests that we need to think of our lives as 3 horizontal boxes - each divided into 3 sub boxes. At each level we need to learn, work and enjoy. That means we teach the basic skills, use them in life skill ways (curriculum, job)and then enjoy learning for our own personal sake. It is a way to consider the role of education throughout our lives. Adults love to learn and most do so outside the classroom. Kids are kids and they need to be taught the skills our society has determined that have value. As Americans we need to make a commitment to agree to the value of education for all - be it academic or hands on.

Ferdinand Gajewski  07/11/2008 05:28 PM Report

Who would disagree that an educated citizenry, and consequently municipal school taxes, is a necessity if we hope to live in a civilization? . . . Yet there is a feature of public-school taxation we overlook or else conveniently sweep out of sight. That is, both those with and those without children to be educated at public expense enjoy the indirect benefit of public education, but only those with children in the public schools receive the additional, direct benefit of having their progeny educated. . . . This reality, one might argue, warrants tax reform along fairer lines. All property owners, for example, might be liable for a basic property-tax assessment, which would include a school charge and which would be determined without reference to real estate values. . . . Inasmuch as children educated at public expense require fulsome expenditure, common sense dictates that parents be responsible for a surcharge to the basic tax bill. The additional levy might be determined, once again, without reference to property values. And any surcharge for use of the public schools should surely be greater or lesser depending on the number of children each family enrolls. . . . I'm told any such revamping of our current system of property taxation, here in New Jersey, would require an amendment to the state constitution. But constitutions were not dictated on Mt. Sinai-- they cannot remain fixed in stone for eternity while the world they govern continues, inevitably, to change. . . . A tax plan like the one suggested above would go a long way to remedy the injustice inherent in our current system of municipal taxation. For example, a working family and a widow with identical real estate valuations, the former, say, with two children in the public schools, the widow living off a meager monthly Social Security check and having no assets besides her house and property, would, no longer, pay identical municipal taxes.

Donna L Johnson  07/11/2008 05:20 PM Report

Initially, I am not a teacher, even though that was my career choice in 1963. However, I feel that our country, our system and our teachers are forced into comparative learning. i.e. global needs, future needs, competitive needs. In grade school in the 1950's, we learned every subject for an hour every day. And the emphasis on science and math is necessary to compete in the world, but we have lost sight of history, geography and simply, reading, writing and arithmetic (never really the 3 R's spelling wise). In Oregon in the 1950's, kindergarten didn't exist and "grade school" was 1-8...high school 9-12. That old way of doing things allowed children to learn in the same place and with their friends, rather than moving them to a new school/location. Any change, especially when it occurs during the teenage years is a detriment to learning. It is called stability and is already affected by job relocations, divorces, etc.

The teachers on your show speak very well but I was left with confusion as to what they felt would help children. Sometimes, words are cheap.

And two of the most important issues in teaching children are clarification and curiousity. If a teacher is clear about the subject matter, makes sure that the child can read and write and allows the child's curiousity to flourish, then everyone gains. When a teacher expounds on a subject for even a few minutes, children will lose interest very quickly. That is not to say all teachers do this, but some seem to think that what they say is more important than what they do.

It is necessary to find each child's initial interest and allow natural curiousity to take over. In turn, hopefully that will extend to other subjects as well.

J.M. Viani  07/11/2008 05:05 PM Report

"We got TV, Internet and living examples all around us. If kids fail, it's not only their fault, it's examples of success in society that drove their decision-making; or shall I say, the examples of INEQUITIES I-N-E-Q-U-I-T-I-E-S in this society."

True, but that is a much bigger issue. Where do you begin?

J.M. Viani  07/11/2008 05:00 PM Report

"Comment by Rob in Richardson, TX on Friday, Jul 11 at 03:39 PM"

"It seemed to me the teachers on the panel were too quick to dismiss the possibility that students entering their classrooms might be failing not because of poor teachers, but because they were not prepared to learn the material."

Yes, I agree with you there. I am not a teacher but, as a young person, I went to public school. They just want to to get you through and hopefully the creme will come atop, not very Platonic, methinks.

"Our assembly-line system of education assumes that each grade level builds on the level before; but what do you do when steps are missed?"

Hope for the best! What is the most realistic way to handle such a real problem? More mechanisms put in, more safety nets, more money???

"Is it the 4th-grade teacher's fault, are they a "bad teacher" when their student fails because he isn't ready for the 4th-grade material? I just think it's too easy, too pat to blame poor teaching for student failures."

That is the easy thing to do. Blame it to those within the trenches.

Anyway, nice comment.

joe 6p  07/11/2008 04:57 PM Report

We got TV, Internet and living examples all around us. If kids fail, it's not only their fault, it's examples of success in society that drove their decision-making; or shall I say, the examples of INEQUITIES I-N-E-Q-U-I-T-I-E-S in this society. Don't beat us over the head with stupid calls for more money or bullshit attention problems. Again, it's the powerful, grotesque and corrupt enjoying their position getting everyone else to do the real work. I'll bet that any working education microcosm in the US sets a good example of what's fair.

Maybe, one should just admit that, for all this zero-sum political bull, double-talk, self-delusional excuses and lies, if the nation was really such a good, moral, fair place of decent characters, our kids wouldn't have any problem setting their own compass.

J.M. Viani  07/11/2008 04:51 PM Report

"Mr. Ldee Lorengel

...but also representatives of the people who are doing the teaching every day, for far more than eight hours a day every day, without any expectation of awards or being on national television, but who just want their students to make appropriate progress in school, and in their lives."

If Charlie Rose did what you say, his one hour show would never end.

J.M. Viani  07/11/2008 04:39 PM Report

Do you believe that it is a good thing, as the one guest spoke, to revitalize the teachers college; Stricter guidelines, attitude, reasons etc,etc? A profession of teaching should not include those applicants that are only interested in the summer season vacation but not the educational interest of the student body. The guest went on to say that the teachers that exist presently, that shouldn't really be teachers, could be 'retrained' to a more suitable vocation.

But, are there enough good teachers out there?

I am sure that there is.

Mr. Ldee Lorengel  07/11/2008 04:11 PM Report

I have taught in the public schools of Oregon (where, Mr. Caruso, tenure in the K-12 public schools system does not exist, at all) for 31 years. I would like to congratulate Mr. Rose for even having the National Teachers of the Year panel on your program. It is very difficult to address the complexities of K-12 education in the United States in a single hour, but the idea that K-12 education is the corner stone of the success or failure of our entire country in every area - national and global economics, politics (Do our political leaders really want an educated populus that can think for themselves. Or do they want only a select few educated in their private schools, and the rest to believe their every word and to blindly follow them into war and debt, and to work in the cheap jobs they want to create for the next generation?,) health care, national defense, unemployment, national imprisonment rates, etc.- was introduced, which is a start from its total nonexistence in the national awareness and discussion prior to your program last night. One of the major factors that prevent merit pay from having any relevance in education is the totally unequal staffing of schools, and class make up from the perspective of size and the concentration of students with special needs, or low income background, or second language needs into individual regular classes. The next thing that is a major factor in the success of public education is the complete lack of stable funding. Oregon schools are facing major funding reductions due to the elimination of the federal timber revenues (Could this be because Oregon never gave President Bush a winning margin in either of his Presidential Elections? Or does he just need to send the money to the Pentagon for more bombs to go to Iraq?) The panel members were advocating for time to plan with their peers; I ended the last school year with a written complaint to my, very excellent principal,about not having the contractually required planning time (one thirty minute session per day) in my schedule for next school year due to the reduction in the staffing in our Special Education Department, which I am the senior teacher in, which, comes back to the stable funding factor. So, time to collaborate with colleagues is nice, and a worthy idea, but I would be happy to just have the contractually required amount of instructional planning time next year (which, if it wasn't for the "Union", I wouldn't even have a right to that, or any way to even try to get any planning time). Very much related to that, is that policy makers never stop adding more and more rules for pubic schools to follow and they usually come with more and more noninstructional paper work that is considered far more important than relating to our students. Also, not discussed was the amount of time our schools spend testing and not teaching due to No Child Left Behind. In my case,we spend every morning for a month to get all of our 545 students tested using the accommodations that the students need to really show what they know and can do. Finally, I do agree with some of the earlier comments that cronyism and nepotism need to be placed under much closer scrutiny in the public education system. It helps to demonstrate why merit pay would just be a fanny kissing competition. So, Mr. Rose, you started the discussion, but don't let it only include administrators, award winners, and Union/Association top officers, but also representatives of the people who are doing the teaching every day, for far more than eight hours a day every day, without any expectation of awards or being on national television, but who just want their students to make appropriate progress in school, and in their lives.

Rob in Richardson, TX  07/11/2008 03:39 PM Report

It seemed to me the teachers on the panel were too quick to dismiss the possibility that students entering their classrooms might be failing not because of poor teachers, but because they were not prepared to learn the material. Our assembly-line system of education assumes that each grade level builds on the level before; but what do you do when steps are missed? Is it the 4th-grade teacher's fault, are they a "bad teacher" when their student fails because he isn't ready for the 4th-grade material? I just think it's too easy, too pat to blame poor teaching for student failures. There was a lot of talk about "transitioning" bad teachers (what a horrendous construction! transitioning to where, presumably the unemployment line??) and promoting/rewarding "good teachers" who find ways to overcome the obstacles to student success, often by expending their own resources because the school does not or cannot provide them. What about teachers who don't have their own resources to expend, are they "bad teachers?"

I was not terribly impressed by this panel. They all may be "teachers of the year" and fine people, but I don't see their proposed solutions having much of an impact or much chance of success on the massive scale our educational system needs.

A.R.  07/11/2008 03:08 PM Report

I am so tired of hearing people talk about what the wonderful things that Teach For America (TFA) is doing. Many teachers long before TFA was in extistent was doing these things. I can not understand why someone would be happy to be National Teacher of the Year, when you come from a system that is the worse of the worse in the country. It says to me that you were only abe to reach the children in your classroom. What about the rest of school? How did those students fair on the test? Did you school meet AYP? I am all for someone being recognized for the accomplishments of their students, but we should focus on how the school and district did as a whole. So, Jason Kamras, congrats on your Teacher of the Year Award, but the DC School District is still the worse school district in the Nation.

Anthony  07/11/2008 02:56 PM Report

Mr. Rose,

I have enjoyed your education series news talk. I am little troubled by the teachers view of the system. WE as Americans are so quick to blame the system for everything, but no one is saying what about the family, what is their role in all of this. Many researchers know that the education of a child starts at home. The child is learning to speack even before he or she steps in a school. YEA, YEA...we can throw all the money at "GOOD TEACHERS" for doing a good job,, but what does that say to the rest of the staff. It says that you are not an effective teacher so therefore you will not be receiving an incentive for doing an average job. This ridiculous..

Brian Loudon  07/11/2008 02:40 PM Report

As a second-year teacher working in an overcrowded New York City public high school, I found that many of the views expressed during the show connected to my own experience. I was satisfied with the depth of the discussion on collaboration, and I was especially impressed with the Ms. Mellor 's and Ms. Oliver's comments about equity; only by improving struggling and historically disadvantaged students' access to excellent teachers will we see a system-wide improvement. For me, the high point of the show was when Mr. Geisen and Mr. Kamras couched the success (or absence of success) of our education system in terms of our national security. Americans need to begin to understand that quality education for ALL children is critical to repairing and maintaining the health of our democracy.

My only strong complaint about the discussion is that very little attention was devoted to the role that the knowledge and testing industry plays in the struggle to educate American students. People need to be aware of how much influence test makers, text book publishers, and curriculum developers wield over our educational system. Too often, contracts between public school systems and private "educational materials" firms dictate the ways we as teachers must assess, support, and instruct or students. Unfortunately, this connection was not made during this interview.

As long as we fail to critique this aspect our public school system, it will be difficult to marshal the political will necessary to engender appropriate changes. Why not follow up this piece with a show that examines the knowledge and testing industry? What harm could come from from a talented a popular journalist investigating how test and materials makers affect the success of our students?

Chinese American Parent  07/11/2008 02:35 PM Report

M. Kasai said, "They only knows the neighborhood... They don't go to museum."

Kasai, you may want to know that immigrant parents typically do not bring their children to museums because they are working their butt off to make ends meet. I saw that happen with my parents and am living it myself now.

The immigrant parents depend on their tax dollars to pay for schools that will expose their children to culture and museums that the parents would not know what to do and/or where to begin.

After a college education, I still don't know how to leverage museums and the cultural gems of NYC for my children.

I doubt a lower income family head-of-household whose struggling to make ends meet would be very interested in bringing their children to a museum when he/she is dead tired.

The child would be lucky not to get yelled at when his/her parent is tired.

We need to be realistic how much parents can do alone. Otherwise, WE do not really need the Education Profession and professionals.

Would we? Why pay others when you can do it and do it better and cheaper. ;-) ;-(

Conrad Tuerk  07/11/2008 02:19 PM Report

Decent show, as it was nice to hear, for once, the view from the trenches. With that said, Charlie could have probed deeper. Enclosed is a column I wrote in March that tries to illuminate the realities of teaching in a public high school.

As a high school English teacher, I’ve been thinking lately of an old African proverb: “When the elephants fight or dance, only the grass gets trampled.” Each day seems to bring new revelations, and contradictory messages, from our educational leaders. State Commissioners of Education want to revamp teaching; NEA Presidents bemoan the lack of resources and unfairness of standardized tests; District Superintendents gloss over blemishes and caution against reform.

And underfoot, amid the clashing of tusks, teachers and students soldier on, trying their best to survive the hamster wheel of the traditional public high school. It grinds away, indifferent to spirit, indifferent to dissent. Smart teachers learn to focus their energy on what matters: the students in their classroom. They alone seem to understand the rigors of their profession.

When done right, teaching’s a demanding job – and a maddening one. If the purpose of education is to maximize human potential, why does our current system minimize it?

I’m always struck by the fluctuations in a school year. In September and October, high schools are productive and energetic, but then, sometime around Halloween, the energy wanes and the year begins to unravel. Bells ring, students drag themselves from class to class, assignments pile up and teachers paddle frantically to stay afloat.

Why is that? Do teachers and kids suddenly slack off? Are unqualified teachers finally exposed as frauds? Or is the system such a grind that it wears down kids and teachers until they’re beaten into submission? Productivity, after all, is a small sacrifice for the assurance of order. That’s why we cling, like drowning swimmers to a piece of rotten driftwood, to an antiquated model from the late 1800’s. Its primary function was to control a large and potentially unruly herd of teenagers.

We still worship at its altar. Our governance and model is designed primarily to maintain order, not to maximize human potential. Logistics take precedence over learning. Bus and lunch schedules drive academic schedules, while teens are herded from room to room and shoved into desks, regardless of their aptitudes, interests and temperaments. What matters is uniformity, making sure everybody is where they’re supposed to be with the minimum amount of fuss. Creativity be damned. Imagination be damned.

And when kids get pounded by the rigidity, or lash out against it, all responsibility falls back on the teachers. Underperforming students must mean underperforming teachers. When teenagers show up stoned to class, or regularly skip school, or elect not to work, it’s the teacher’s fault for not motivating them. When the boy in back, normally affable, turns sullen and angry since his mother’s boyfriend started drinking again, it’s his teacher’s duty to inspire him. When teenagers break rules on a school trip, parents blame teachers for not being vigilant enough in their supervision.

Then, when another round of dismal test scores is released, our leaders take action. The Department of Education delivers its mandates and sends forth its army of consultants to shake us from our malaise. We’re barraged by jingoistic articles written by cutting-edge researchers and the top theorists in the field. Each one is an indictment of our teaching. If we worked a little harder, or were up-to-date with the latest methodology, or made our mission statements measurable, our students might actually learn something.

But it’s mainly a charade, a way for the educational establishment – its educrats, sycophants and hucksters – to earn their bread on the backs of struggling teachers. As long as teachers remain culpable, students, parents and educational policymakers are absolved of any responsibility.

I am teacher, hear me squeak! If we do, we’re branded from within as troublemakers, or scoffed at by the public for our easy lives, for not having real jobs. We get summers off, receive excellent health benefits and hang out with kids.

What folly. I’ve worked in the business world and I can assure you that laboring in a public high school is all too real. Every day the girl who lives in the local hotel, who’s been beaten and abused, sits in front of my desk, her cold eyes daring me to confront her. Or I try to teach a classroom of adolescents, most of them diagnosed with emotional and behavioral problems, how to write a coherent paragraph. That’s real work. It can be exhilarating, exasperating, delightful, disheartening -- and always humbling.

But it need not be robotic, or stifling. If it were less so, I suspect public schools would retain more than the 50% of new teachers who quit within their first five years. They’d be less inclined to chuck their “easy lives” for more difficult ones.

In an ideal world, teachers would be superhuman, respected and able to inspire all students to be superhuman as well. But that’s not the reality. Teachers are neither miracle workers, nor freeloaders. They, like most, have limited energy and patience. Some are extraordinary, some lousy, but most work hard in a very difficult environment.

To hold teachers entirely accountable for poor student performance is unfair and negligent. When asked what we can do differently to engage today’s youth, teachers need to redirect questions to the larger community.

Do our leaders have the vision, imagination, courage and political will to implement true reform? Do we want our high schools to be clinics, day cares, warehouses, weigh stations, athletic and social centers, or actual learning endeavors? How can parents help teachers combat the seductive dragon of popular culture, which often undermines all we purport to do? How do we as a society confront the corrosive effects of generational poverty?

Unfortunately, there are no easy answers. But until we reframe the discussion, and speak candidly, we will continue to plant seeds upon dry and trampled ground. Most will survive, despite the conditions, but few will flourish.

The elephants should know better.

TABS  07/11/2008 11:51 AM Report

Here is a quick little thought. The school system in the US is geared to meeting the needs of the school system and not the needs of the individuals attending the school system. In other words the school system is a self perpetuating institution that is trying to turn out uniform little students on an assembly line basis. These systems don't care about imparting knowledge but turning out test scores and attendance records so that the State and Federal monies keep flowing into the coffers of the system. Success in this system is not based upon how well one assimilates knowledge but how well one can navigate the institutional bureaucracy of the system. Students that don't have the skills to navigate this system are soon pushed aside and eventually leave. Teachers under this system are stuck between and administration that desires quiet conformity, that is loath to deal with problems and indifferent parents or parents who are wondering why their little Johnny is failing. To some extent teachers are treated as glorified day care providers.

Dean Manion  07/11/2008 11:20 AM Report

I enjoyed the show. The one point that was made that I find critical is the need to encourage creativity rather than to strictly rely on test scores. Creativity is the one thing that has always been the hallmark of US culture and is the one thing that will give an advantage in the global economy. We will never be able to match India or China in shear numbers, but having worked with software engineers from India and China for the last 20 years I see no advantage to their educational system when it comes to inventiveness and the ability to adapt to change. The other point is I find it sad state of affairs that we are willing to pay a mortgage broker a six figure income while the average teacher, on whom our future rests makes less that the national median income. One hour is far to short to cover everything that needed to be covered but I thought you did a good job of hitting some of the important points.

TABS  07/11/2008 10:52 AM Report

Sorry Mr Rose this interview was 15 minutes of substance and 40 minutes of cotton candied buzz words. There is far more substance on this Leave Your Comment page than in your entire interview. So maybe something usefull has taken place after all.... The only thing that the Teachers seemed to agree upon were MORE programs that are designed to help teachers learn the ART of teaching. Nothing was said about the administration of schools, little about teachers unions, little or nothing about the parents role, nothing about comparing our foreign competitors education system as a point of reference to our own, and nothing about curriculum.

Ferdinand Gajewski  07/11/2008 10:18 AM Report

Harvard has a long-standing tradition of “visiting committees”: each department must submit itself to annual review by a dozen or so authorities, none of them connected with the University. The input provided by visiting committees contributes significantly to the excellence of each department. A similar mechanism might be put in place in the nation's public-school districts. Our communities overflow with professionals in every field imaginable, many with doctorates and other distinguished credentials. American municipalities are sufficiently civic-minded that visiting committees to the various areas of instruction could easily be formed by volunteers at no expense to taxpayers.

T.G.  07/11/2008 10:18 AM Report

Hi, Charlie. On balance, I thought the program touched on most bases. I was pleasantly suprised to hear a discussion about accountability. Perhaps this was possible because this time you gave a voice to some actual teachers, instead of the usual politicians like Randi Weingarten and Joel Klein who wish to maintain the status quo of incumbancy protection for mediocrity.

The extreme ideologues all sides of this issue need to be rebuked and ignored, so again, this panel was refreshing.

I don't know how we should hold administrators and teachers accountable and provide pay for meritorious performance. Parents and guardians are the first stakeholders in this process and need to be held accountable also. Education cannot be not passive.

Largely, what ails American education the elephant in the room that no one wants to discuss: the myth that all teachers within a certain field or discipline are equally deserving of the same salary and pay increases.

Alan Greenspan, to his credit, touched on this in his recent memoir.

As an Obama supporter, it would be thrilling to see him confront this head on.

One of the panelist mentioned how quality education is the lifeblood of American democracy.

Let me respond this way: The most malignant myth in American education is that all math and science teachers are created equally. Largely because of this, China and India have surpassed the U.S. in math, science, and engineering--and rightfully so.

To paraphrase Clemenceau: Education is too important to be left to the teachers and the politicians.

Dan McGuire  07/11/2008 10:14 AM Report

Great show, Charlie. A number of crucial issues were, at least, touched on. This show was a level above the generic blabber that Joel Klein provided.

The charter school phenomenon that Jason Kamras kept referring to, KIPP, is analogous to using surgery to treat obesity - it produces some dramatic results using specific actions but is not something that is applicable to the whole system. KIPP and the charters like it are feeding off the problems without providing systemic improvements. No study, yet, has demonstrated the systemic benefits of charters; it is entirely likely that they are exacerbating the achievement gap, and maybe actually making things worse. The Teach for America group of which Jason is a product is, again, an educational enterprise that has not been shown to provide systemic benefit.

If our goal is to dismantle the system of public education, then we should pursue the Teach for America/KIPP model.

On merit pay, you hit the problem on the head - how do we measure merit. We are selling ourselves short if we only use a score on one test once a year that doesn't even compare individual student growth from year to year.

sheryl carlile  07/11/2008 09:52 AM Report

I worked in a school that was a regional special education school. We housed deaf and severely handicapped students for the region along with our regular population. Our special ed population was much larger for the size of school because of this. Yet, NCLB insisted that a only a certain portion of our population be tested below grade level. That was impossible and the school's performance paid the price. Also, special ed students included in the regular classroom can hold down the achievement of the others. I'm all for inclusion, but not to the detrement of the other students.

fred caruso  07/11/2008 09:49 AM Report

CHARLIE, you need to have a group of parents on your show, from the grass roots, from different groups, and geographical/cultural areas who have been frustrated at every turn ecountering the status quo in their local schools, and have turned to alternatives, like home schooling, private/parochial schools, etc. Then you will start to get at the heart of the common threads of embedded educational problems plaguing this country. Those in the professional, though well-intentioned, are reticent to condemn the establishment, and don't have the will nor the wherewithal to solve the problem on a grand scale. If they did, we would not have an education problem in this country.

Ken  07/11/2008 09:36 AM Report

Looks like you've struck a cord here. However, I was dismayed that the role of technology in education was not discussed.

fred caruso  07/11/2008 09:08 AM Report

CORRECTION: 8:27 (at end) should be "teachers don't get support because the DON'T give support [to parents' opinions, etc."\