Waiting for 'Superman' Review: Are Teachers the Problem?

[abelenkpe]

Waiting for 'Superman' Review: Are Teachers the Problem?

http://news.yahoo.com/s/time/20100928/us_time/08599202195100;_ylt=Am8KF9h30D0O06su2cR3oiqs0NUE;_ylu=X3oDMTNrdGd2ODBnBGFzc2V0A3RpbWUvMjAxMDA5MjgvMDg1OTkyMDIxOTUxMDAEY2NvZGUDbW9zdHBvcHVsYXIEY3BvcwM0BHBvcwMxBHB0A2hvbWVfY29rZQRzZWMDeW5faGVhZGxpbmVfbGlzdARzbGsDZWR1Y2F0aW9uaW5h


In an episode of the 1950s TV show Superman, a school bus full of kids is threatened with disaster as it nearly topples over a cliff, when WHOOSH, the Man of Steel flies in and pushes the bus to safety. That was the fantasy that Geoffrey Canada, the South Bronx-bred boy who became a Harvard-trained education entrepreneur, hoped for as a child. All it would take to save school kids was muscle and a miracle. (See photos of the evolution of the college dorm.)

But America can't exist on muscle any more. With manufacturing jobs a sliver of what they once were, and field-level farming jobs largely stocked with immigrant labor, the coming generation of middle-class and working-class Americans needs not strong backs but educated minds. The titans and geniuses, the Warren Buffetts and Mark Zuckerbergs, will still propel themselves from privilege to power. What we need are people to work behind the counter at Southwest, to keep a million offices purring efficiently, to oil the machinery of civil service. A blue-collar economy is yesterday; white-collar is today and tomorrow. (Special Report: What makes schools great.)

Americans also can't afford the fantasy that we have the world's best educational system. The U.S. is near the bottom of advanced countries in math and reading scores. We may not pass sleepless nights worrying about Finland, but that country's kids get a world-class public-school education, and ours don't. Our problems are bigger and more systemic: that, in the world's richest nation, a seventh of our citizens live in poverty; that the majority of African-Americans form a near-perpetual underclass; that the nuclear family has detonated into pieces, leaving many children with only one parent, if that, to love, instruct and keep an eye on them; that the culture of instant gratification convinces kids that studying is a bore, while the infinitesimal chance of making millions as a pro athlete or a rap star is worth pursuing. Surely the young deserve full-time parents, more realistic goals and inspiring teachers. But maybe that too is a fantasy.

(more at link)

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This makes me so mad I can't think straight.

[MineralMan]

1. There is no single cause of the problem.

Every aspect of our public education system is part of the problem. That varies from school to school and district to district. And, since there's no single cause, there's no single solution.