What Does a Superintendent Do?

From Bad Teachers, by Guy Strickland:

... the superintendent comes to realize that it is not her job to decide where the educational "train" will go; the superintendent's job is merely to keep the train running.

In fact, the superintendent is no longer an educator; he is a corporate manager hired by the school board. In fact, the skills that the school board expects from the superintendent have nothing to do with either teaching or learning. What the school board wants from an administrator is conservative day-to-day management of a large, financially critical enterprise. That requires good political and managerial skills, a knowledge of finance and budgeting, planning ability, and god public relations skills. If the superintendent is ever fired, his termination would have more to do with a lack of management or political skills than with any failure on the superintendent's part as an educator.

Small, Homogeneous Classes in Private Schools

From Bad Teachers, by Guy Strickland:

Typical class size in a private school is about twenty, give or take a few students -- many fewer than in most public schools. And since the students are more homogeneous in ability (children at the low end of the range were never admitted), the teacher's attention is less fractionalized. It is much harder for a child to get away with bad behavior in a smaller class; and it's harder for a child to fall through the cracks and go unnoticed when he doesn't understand something. The teacher should be able to give more time and attention to each child in a private school. If your child works better with a more personal relationship, then a private school may benefit him.

How Public are the Public Schools?

From Bad Teachers, by Guy Strickland, copyright 1998 (pre-NCLB!):

In most schools, even those that pay lip service to "parent involvement", parents have no voice whatsoever in any decision that is really important to a child's educational well-being ... [The principal] remembers that when Henry Ford was the only supplier of low-priced automobiles, he could tell the customer, "You can have any color Model T, as long as it is black." Like Ford, the principal knows she is the town's only supplier of her particular product, low-priced education, so she doesn't have to satisfy the customer either. Her attitude may be polite, but the essence of her message is, "Shut up and take what we give you, and be thankful we're giving you anything at all."

We all know the public schools are truly public in the sense that they are run on taxpayer money (and plenty of it, in my district.) But why is it that in the public schools, the public has no voice? In particular, why do parents of kids attending the school have no voice?

Recently I was talking to a mother at the private school my younger dd attends. She told me she had decided to send her kids to public school, and had just moved to my neighborhood so the kids could attend our "excellent"(!) public elementary school. She said she had called the school to ask about their math curriculum, so she could ensure her kids had the needed background, but "the school hasn't called back." She was genuinely puzzled by this.

Another private-school mother, on hearing about my older dd's troubles, and the public-school principal who tried to talk me into staying at the public schools, said, "Why would the principal want your daughter to stay in a school that makes her miserable?"

I began my journey as a public-school parent, and the expectations of private-school parents are amazing to me. You call the school with a question about math curriculum, and you expect to get a call back? You expect the principal to approve of a high-scoring kid leaving the public schools, just because she's miserable? Wow.

But really, these parents' expectations are quite reasonable. They expect to have a voice.

Why can't parents have a say in our public schools? We are the public, we pay for the schools, and we send our kids there. It's time for us to take back our schools.

Classroom Management vs. Teaching

From Bad Teachers, by Guy Strickland:

[The teacher] was taught that if she follows the approved method, she will be an approved teacher. She was also taught that the approved method leads to student learning and that the accepted method is the only path to student learning...

This is very sad for our schools, because approved teaching methodology does not equal student learning, and there are many reasons. The biggest reason is that approved teaching methodology is not even aimed at student learning; its goal is classroom management, which is a whole lot different from learning...

Having twenty (or more) children in one classroom, with wide differences in abilities and attitudes, requires that a teacher have skills in organizing and supervising children before any learning begins.

Teacher training recognizes this very real problem, and gives teachers the skills they will need to organize and manage a classroom full of children. The problems arise because the best way to manage is not the best way to educate, but given a choice between the two, principals and teachers prefer to manage rather than to educate.

Parents should be concerned if their child's teacher is enamored of approved teaching methodology...

Listen to the teacher talk. If she talks about what she is doing rather than what the children are doing, gently bring the focus back to the children. Ask how the teacher knows whether the methods are working; ask for evidence that the children are learning.