Randi on Bill Maher: "The really good teachers don't want bad teachers"

[proud2BlibKansan]

She is talking about the need for better evaluations.

Non union states fire fewer teachers.

Teachers want to be supported. AFT is trying to figure out how to develop teachers better and evaluate them better too.

In public education we have to help all kids. We also know what works but principals come in and throw out the good and bring in the bad.

Maher: We want to know why Glenn Beck is giving blackboards a bad name :rofl:

[Catshrink]

1. Thanks for this.

HBO was one of the things that had to go when we had our last pay cut.

[proud2BlibKansan]

2. She was okay

She didn't really answer Bill's question. He wanted to know why we don't fire bad teachers.

[tonysam]

3. What in the hell is Maher talking about?

Who is he to decide who is "bad"? By this idiot's account I was a shitty teacher despite the principal violating federal and administrative law.

This overpaid idiot thinks it is impossible to fire teachers. What a crock of shit.

[proud2BlibKansan]

4. Randi deflected nicely

Bill has been on a teacher bashing bend for years. I expected that. I even wrote on my FB page that I had my teacher bashing armor on, ready to listen to Bill interview Randi :)

[JDPriestly]

5. My theory: Neither Randi nor Bill Maher were top students.

They aren't self-disciplined in their thinking. That's why they are so good at what they do. They are very creative, but not self-disciplined in their thought. School rewards those who are self-disciplined. To be a good student, you have to both study what you are supposed to learn and then do something creative with it. You have to have a balance between studying other people's ideas and creating your own. Randi and Bill Maher learn what they need for their own creative purposes, but they aren't that good at learning what someone else thinks they ought to learn. Bill Maher probably did pretty well in school, but I get the impression that Randi is pretty much self-taught. Nothing wrong with being self-taught. It's just hard to fit into a classroom setting if you are a person who learns independently better than in a system. I've done both. Some people learn more easily on their own. It's not the teacher's fault. It's a question of learning style.

[NotThisTime]

7. Any teacher failing more than 50% of her advanced students you have to wonder about

just saying it's not good when other teachers quietly admit that the teacher in question is a problem.... There ARE teachers out there who should not be teaching for whatever the reason, however when the failure rate among the most talented students is above 50% that is when I start asking questions

[Catshrink]

8. Some advanced students are master memorizers

and couldn't think themselves out of a paper bag. The teacher that challenges them to think is often "the worst teacher I've ever had" because the student is faced with the fact that regurgitating doesn't cut it. That critical think stuff is hard work. I'm not defending the teacher in question, just point out what I've seen with many "advanced" students.

[Bozita]

6. I really miss Al Shanker

[proud2BlibKansan]

9. So do I

[Dinger]

10. I'd Like to See Dennis Van Roekel (NEA) On There Too

I wonder why Mahre asked Weingarten instead?

[proud2BlibKansan]

11. The teachers in RI who were fired are AFT members

AFT has been out front speaking against the firing. I don't know what NEA has done.

[Starry Messenger]

12. I don't know if this is worth an OP of its own

I hope it's ok here. "Rebuttal" from John Legend of Bill Maher.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2010-03-16/john-legend-bill-maher-youre-wrong-on-education/

Blah blah blah. It's mostly the same stuff seen in astroturf. I don't know much about John Legend but evidently he's a pro-charter shill:

Recording artist, concert performer, and philanthropist John Legend has won six Grammy awards and was named one of Time magazine’s 100 most influential people. In 2007, John Legend launched the Show Me Campaign (ShowMeCampaign.org), an initiative that uses education to break the cycle of poverty. He is a co-chair of the Harlem Village Academies Founder’s Council, an advisory board for a group of charter schools in New York City. He was awarded the CARE Humanitarian Award for Global Change in June 2009 and received the 2009 Bishop John T. Walker Distinguished Humanitarian Service Award by Africare.