I am a casual viewer of Bill O'Reilly's show on Fox cable and was shocked to see that teachers-bashing 20-20 reporter, John Stossel was trying to explain why he wrote the piece that dissed the New York City public school teachers. However, even more shocking was Randi Weingarten's failure to accept the invite to debate Stossel. In fact, no UFT representative showed up! It was left to O'Reilly to question Stossel. To be fair O'Reilly did question Stossel about his statistics and teacher incompetence. Further, O'Reilly did defend teachers when he brought up the student culture, class values, and using tests that compared different community schools rather than the same type of schools. Finally, O'Reilly informed Stossel how clueless parents are to what goes on in the schools. This seemed to have caught Stossel off guard.
While, Bill O'Reilly, did not protect the public school teacher, he did not buy into Stossel's voucher rap either. He seemed to me to have been "Fair & Balanced" in his interview and it is too bad that Randi Weingarten did not see fit to debate Stossel on an equal footing. It's a pity, this was the chance Randi needed, she claimed she was edited by 20-20 and came off badly. In my view Randi has come up worse for not defending the teachers she is supposed to represent.
The NYC public school system subjects kids to a mind-numbing experience for all the years in which they are channeled through it. The smart kids in better programs might escape the death by boredom that many kids experience.
ReplyDeleteHowever it's laughable and naive to think the system would become an exemplar of education if the members of the teachers union were given total control.
Such a switch in management would only trade one failed bureaucratic monopolistic management for another.
no slappz:
ReplyDeleteYou don't know that until you try it. However, we both agree DOE policy is a complete failure.
Unfortunatly, our fearful leader chose not to appear and present the teachers side. Very unfortunate.
I asked my first-grader what health care issues had been discussed Monday and Tuesday in school.
ReplyDeleteHe said he learned a little about pink-eye and how it can travel from hand to eye where it forms a crust.
Anything else, I asked. Well, he said he and his classmates were asked for the names of any illnesses or diseases of interest to them.
What disease did you ask about, I asked him.
Amnesia, he said. He's a jokester, so I had to ask him whether he was claiming a sudden case of it had struck him or he actually asked the teacher how one acquired amnesia.
He said he wasn't joking; he wanted to know what caused the onset of amnesia.
What were you told, I asked.
Of course you know he said, I don't remember, and then he went back to the spin-art project on which he'd been working until I intruded.