Stan Karp's, "Who's Bashing Teachers.........." Hyperlinks

Stan Karp: Who’s Bashing Teachers and Public Schools and What Can We Do About It?

                                                          Stan Karp, gave an enlightening and realistic speech at Jefferson High School in Portland, Oregon called "Who's Bashing Teachers and Public Schools, and What Can We Do About It?"  
                         
   Oprah Winfrey                      Paramount Pictures


Stan Karp starts his speech off by saying " The Oprah Winfrey Show and Paramount Pictures—is where a lot of education policy is apparently being made these days—and was turning them all into publicly accountable institutions devoted to improving education for all kids—and this was the first meeting of the
new steering committee."

Waiting for Superman on Opray Winfrey-Take a Peek!

  
According to Karp, “Secretary Duncan and Bill Gates are going around the country proposing that schools save money by increasing class sizes, ending the practice of paying teachers for advanced degrees, closing and consolidating schools, and replacing live teachers with online computer programs."  This statement sounds exactly like what is going on in Rhode Island and around the country.    


Teachers' Union Responds to Waiting for Superman and comments made on Oprah Winfrey.


Teachers and Viewer Responses to Oprah Winfrey and Waiting for Superman.
   



Stan Karp gave this speech to resond to the movie "Waiting for Superman".  When this movie opened it created a lot of controversy on public education, teachers, reform and many other issues.    The movie looked at our current state of public education in a negative way.  It's message was that bad teachers and the unions that protect them are the root of the problem.   Fortunately Karp and many others do not agree with the message this movie is sending.  While some may be waiting for superman to rescue them, but Karp is definitely  NOT Waiting for Superman.

In "Who's Bashing Teachers...", Stan Karp discusses how unfair it is to judge teachers based on test scores, when there are so many other factors that affect a child's performance. The underlying issues that are hindering student performance in standardized testing, such as language, race, and poverty must be addressed in order to improve the education system.  This is what happened at Central Falls High School in Rhode Island, all the teachers were fired because students scored so  low on the state math assessment.


                                                          

Enough Bashing Teachers Article

I agree with Karp when he said, "Assessments are important. Assessments are a great tool to help educators understand what their students need extra support in and to plan instruction, but before you can give an assessment and expect to receive valid information children need to be protected from poverty first." Our country as Karp states has a 23% child poverty rate.  This is a huge issue that needs to be addressed.  Poverty like so many other factors contribute to low assessment scores not just "bad teachers".














                 David Serchuk

                                         Enough Bashing Teachers Article 

Everytime I turn on the news I find myself asking my co-workers that next day, "What's Up With All the Teacher Bashing?   There are many more reasons for lack of student achievement, I wish someone would dig deeper than their pockets to open charter schools.

Karp states "that in the past 10 years, the character of charter schools movement has changed dramatically from community-based, educator-initiated local efforts to create alternatives for a small number of students to nationally funded efforts by foundations, inevesters, and educational management companies to create a parallell, more privatized system."   Our president even is in support of more charter schools when in fact only 17%  had better test scores than comparable public schools.  Though the teachers who work in charter schools may be cheaper to higher, they are 4 times more likely to leave their position at the charter school.    

  

This is just a little video called "Superman" that is about someone realizing he needs to STOP pretending he is "Superman."  My opinion is that so should the people who wrote and support "Waiting for Superman."

My Final Thoughts:
I can't wait to see the movie "Waiting for Superman" in class.  All the controversy about it has intrigued me.  After reading Karp I can't imagine having any positive comments about it.
P.S. I tried my hardest on this "HYPERLINK" blog and let's just say things did not go as I planned.  Either myself or my computer is very "computer savy".  SORRY    :(  Blog troubles are getting me down.