Re: Fw: hickok

[Peter Campbell <campbellp@mail.montclair.edu>]

On Jun 1, 2006, at 10:18 AM, GERALD BRACEY wrote:
> > While the law requires "highly qualified teachers" in the schools,  
> > it makes no such demands on the tutors.  They can have any level  
> > of education.

I spoke to a special ed teacher who used to teach in St. Louis. Her  
school was undergoing Year 3 AYP sanctions under NCLB. Sylvan  
Learning -- a for-profit educational tutoring company -- had been  
selected to serve her school. Having seen the flashy, well-produced  
commercials on TV, this teacher believed that Sylvan was a great  
company. So she strongly urged the parents of the children she taught  
to sign up for this "free" tutoring service. However, upon actually  
watching the Sylvan teachers in action, she realized she was wrong.  
She was appalled by their lack of knowledge, their lack of skill, and  
their lack of professionalism.

She told me, "I told those parents to take my babies to this tutoring  
service. I told them how great it was going to be and how much it  
would help. But as it turned out, I looked like a fool. All these  
people are looking to do is make a buck off poor kids."

At the end of the day, we have to ask ourselves: why would we want to  
risk our children's future in this way? Why would we want to allow an  
educational company to hire untrained, unqualified teachers? And why  
would we not demand that the same kind of oversight and  
accountability that applies to public school teachers be applied to  
private tutors?

Free-market supporters argue "if they don't peform, they're gone."  
But the state of Missouri has appproved not one but three divisions  
of Sylvan. Check out this web site if you don't believe me. In other  
words, they're still here. They're still in business. And they're  
still serving children in Missouri.

Couple final points:

It takes some knowledge of what a good teacher is to be able to say,  
"Hey, this person is a bad teacher." Sadly, so many of us were taught  
by really bad teachers. So if a parent sees a teacher standing in  
front of a class, holding a piece of chalk, and droning on about  
dependent clauses, it may occur to that parent that this is what a  
teacher does. After all, it may look mighty familiar. But if NCLB is  
about leaving no child behind, then we need more than this. Indeed,  
we should demand more than this. We are the ones who are paying for  
this "free" service.

Why would Sylvan hire such bad teachers? Is it because they are evil?  
No, not at all. They're doing what they can under what they are  
allowed to do. So they could recruit and hire highly-qualified  
teachers, or they could put an ad in the paper and hire anyone with a  
high school diploma. Which choice makes the company more money?  
Obviously hiring the person with the high school diploma makes them  
more money because they only have to pay this person a fraction of  
what a highly-qualified teacher would expect to be paid. Which choice  
is better for the customers, in this case the students? Obviously  
it's better for the students to have highly-qualifed teachers  
teaching them. But which did the students end up getting? They got  
the cheaper teacher.

Of course, Sylvan would probably argue that this person was put  
through some training and was qualified to teach. But the proof is in  
the pudding or, in this case, standing in front of the classroom.

For Sylvan to offer its services, ostensibly to help kids learn, it  
has to be able to run a business and stay in business. To run a  
business and stay in business, Sylvan has to afford to stay in  
business. And, to stay in business, Sylvan -- to use some corporate  
jargon -- has to "realize efficiencies in its operations."  
Ironically, and perhaps inevitably, to realize efficiencies, it ends  
up offering an inferior product.

It doesn't have to be this way. We can demand that private companies  
hire highly qualified teachers in the same way the federal government  
demands that public schools hire highly qualified teachers.

---
Peter Campbell