The Myth of the Korean Super Teacher

Myth of the Korean Super Teacher and the 3 Bird Tragedy

   Recently, teachers at my elementary school were subjected to a poke in the eye with “data” confirming that we were among the lowest 5% of performing schools in California.  A presenter threw out the latest mantras. “It’s all about teachers. Teachers matter. In Korea, teachers are held in high esteem.”

    Whoa, stop right there reformer. Pull out a factoid (It’s all about teachers) with: no inkling of the realities accompanying it. Then “reform incorporated” pushes to transfer that one little factoid without the rest of the support pyramid beneath the factoid.  I lived in Korea, taught in Korea, my wife is Korean and although it is wretched I can speak some Korean.

      Korea’s phenomenal educational performance has little to do with teachers. It is entirely about parents. Parents who were weaned on a Confucian ethic which echoed for centuries - education is the route to success and status. Korean parents sacrifice all for their kids. One of the most disturbing and tragic outcomes is the three bird syndrome. Many educationally inspired families are separated, moms live overseas with their kids from New Zealand to Canada, anywhere the natives speak English. The dad’s reside in Korea or other nations and they work to pay the overseas bills.  If they make lots of money they can fly often and see their kids and wife regularly (eagle dads), some less monied fathers only visit once a year like a migratory bird (goose dads), saddest of all are the fathers who toil in dire solitary poverty, and reside in horrible conditions. They are separated by miles and years. These wingless dads rarely see their families. (Penguin dads) Their willingness to sacrifice their families for educational opportunity is commendable, yet sad and shocking. Teachers play no role in this.

      Educational intensity in Korea is off the scale – one-hundred days before the one and only national test date, moms and dads go to churches and temples and pray three or four times - a day and for each of those one hundred days. They are praying for high scores. Church calendars even come with these days pre-marked.

    Still think it’s teachers that make Korea perform so well? If a child misses the bus or gets up late on test day, police bring them to test areas in squad cars. Children in hospitals are brought via ambulances to test centers. To reduce noise during the exam, commercial vehicles are not allowed within 200 meters of the testing area. Planes are not allowed to take off or land during the listening section of tests.  Taxi companies hire extra fleets of cars to make sure kids arrive on time. Oh, and in major cities work is delayed for one hour to accommodate the test takers.

    In preparation for all this, high school students spend years finishing school at 10:00 P.M. and then many attend private institutions until midnight. Parents pay unbelievable sums of money to buttress their kids’ educational weaknesses.  Stress is unbelievable – far too many kids and parents commit suicide.

    So, you reformers get your facts right. All of them. Conditions are just a smidgeon different in Korea.  When we get parents who care like they do in Korea our kids will perform better. But some Koreans are beginning to ask - “Is it worth it?”

    So please don’t tell us about the importance of teachers in Korea. We know how important teachers are.  Just don’t blame us for conditions beyond our grasp - positive or negative.

     And back here in USA - we have trouble with a different kind of our own bird – the flightless dodos of current educational reform.

Dear President Obama

(Letter from a teacher) 
I mean this with all respect. I’m on my knees here, and there’s a knife in my back, and the prints on it kinda match yours. I think you don’t get it.

Your Race to the Top is killing the wrong guys. You’re hitting the good guys with friendly fire. I’m teaching in a barrio in California. I had 32 kids in my class last year. I love them to tears. They’re 5th graders. That means they’re 10 years old, mostly. Six of them were 11 because they were retained. Five more were in special education, and two more should have been. I stopped using the word “parents” with my kids because so many of them don’t have them. Amanda’s mom died in October. She lives with her 30-year-old brother. (A thousand blessings on him.) Seven kids live with their “Grams,” six with their dads. A few rotate between parents. So “parents” is out as a descriptor.

Here’s the kicker: Fifty percent of my students have set foot in a jail or prison to visit a family member.

Do you and your secretary of education, Arne Duncan, understand the significance of that? I’m afraid not. It’s not bad teaching that got things to the current state of affairs. It’s pure, raw poverty. We don’t teach in failing schools. We teach in failing communities. It’s called the ZIP Code Quandary. If the kids live in a wealthy ZIP code, they have high scores; if they live in a ZIP code that’s entombed with poverty, guess how they do?


We also have massive teacher turnover at my school. Now, we have no money. We haven’t had an art or music teacher in 10 years. We have a nurse twice a week. And because of the No Child Left Behind Act, struggling public schools like mine are held to impossible standards and punished brutally when they don’t meet them. Did you know that 100 percent of our students have to be on grade level, or else we could face oversight by an outside agency? That’s like saying you have to achieve 100 percent of your policy objectives every year.

It’s not bad teaching that got things to the current state of affairs. It’s pure, raw poverty.

You lived in Indonesia, so you know what conditions are like in the rest of the world. President Obama, I swear that conditions in my school are akin to those in the third world. We had a test when I taught in the Peace Corps. We had to describe a glass filled to the middle. (We were supposed to say it was half full.) Too many of my kids don’t even have the glass!

Next, gangs. Gangs eat my kids, their parents, and the neighborhood. One of my former students stuffed an AK47 down his pants at a local bank and was shot dead by the police. Another one of my favorites has been incarcerated since he was 13. He’ll be 27 in November. I’ve been writing to him for 10 years and visiting him in the maximum-security section of Salinas Valley State Prison.

Do you get that it’s tough here? Charter schools and voucher schools aren’t the solution. They are an excuse not to fix the real issues. You promised us so much. And you want to give us merit pay? Anyway, I think we really need to talk. Oh, and can you pull the knife out while you’re standing behind me? It really hurts.

Sincerely yours,

Paul Karrer
Fifth grade teacher at Castroville Elementary School
North Monterey County, CA
reprinted with permission

Support Teachers in Wisconsin

As NEA members, we all have a big stake in stopping Governor Scott Walker's attempt to slash the benefits and take away the labor rights of teachers here in Wisconsin. He's made it clear that he hopes to be in the vanguard of a national movement to undermine collective bargaining.

For my wife Heather and me, the stakes are as personal as they can get. We're both teachers here in Sun Prairie, and, if Walker's plan doesn't get blocked, we'll be looking at a $13,200 pay cut. I don’t have to tell you how scary and disheartening that is for a family with two young children.

But what galls me the most is that this attack comes specifically because we are teachers. Our out-of-control governor is going after K-12 teachers, higher education faculty and staff, nurses, and public service workers. We all have to band together – because if it succeeds in Wisconsin, Governor Walker's strategy will be repeated in state after state. Already, the governors of Ohio, Indiana, Idaho, Florida and New Jersey are going after teachers. That's why we need your immediate PAC support to keep the pressure on.
Help the NEA Fund fight to protect public education and defend our right to collective bargaining.
Heather and I are doing our part to take a stand against Governor Walker’s dangerous proposals. I've been working the phones, mobilizing colleagues in the Wisconsin Education Association Council to call and email their legislators, and to attend rallies at the statehouse.


The sad thing is, with a little decency and common sense, we could resolve this crisis. Everyone understands that we're in a financial crisis in our country. And we're all willing to do our part to help solve it. But instead of pulling people together to find a collective solution, Governor Walker has chosen to single out and vilify one group of people - teachers, nurses, and other middle class workers.

That's because his real agenda is not just to slash our benefits, but to permanently dismantle our right to collective bargaining. You and I can't let that happen – not in Wisconsin, not anywhere.
Donate now to help the NEA fight to defend our hard-earned right to collective bargaining in Wisconsin and beyond.
The last thing I will tell you is this: All of us here in Wisconsin recognize how crucial this battle is not only for our own jobs and families, but for NEA members all across the country. It lifts our spirits every day to know that you and other NEA members across the country are standing with us.

https://www.neafund.org/solidarity


Thanks for all you do,

Brad Lutes, NEA Member
Sun Prairie, Wisconsin
NYT. On Scorning Teachers
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/03/education/03teacher.html?_r=1

Teach for America : Looking past the spin

Looking Past the Spin: Teach for America
By Barbara Miner

Rethinking Schools - Spring 2010
submitted to portside by the publisher

http://www.rethinkingschools.org/archive/24_03/24_03_TFA.shtml

    Most Teach for America recruits are idealistic and
    dedicated. But who is behind the organization, and
    does its approach bolster or hinder urban education
    reform?
Great article. explains much about the recent controversy in Sac City Unified

Florida votes to end teacher tenure

From the South Florida Sun Sentinel, Wednesday, March 24, 2010. See http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/education/fl-teacher-tenure-bill-032310-20100322,0,3262837.story  --  

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Florida Senate kills teacher tenure pay system; raises tied to student success

By Josh Hafenbrack

TALLAHASSEE - In a major shift, the salaries of Florida's 167,000 teachers could soon be tied to student test scores, rather than seniority and education level.

The state Senate on Wednesday approved a controversial bill by a 21-17 vote to dismantle teacher tenure, a decades-old system in which educators' pay is based on years of experience and whether they earn upper-level degrees.

New teachers hired after July 1 would work on one-year contracts and face dismissal if their students did not show learning gains on end-of-year exams for two years in any five-year period. For them, job security would be based soley on two factors: standardized scores and job reviews by principals. Existing teachers would have future pay raises tied to student scores and reviews but would keep their current job security.

"It takes a sledgehammer to the teaching profession," Sen. Dan Gelber, D-Miami Beach, said Wednesday.

Bill sponsor Sen. John Thrasher, R-St. Augustine, said the bill means teachers who earn high marks will get higher salaries and it "will help put a good teacher in every single classroom."

Despite President Obama pushing merit pay on the federal level, Florida Senate Democrats were unified against the proposal -- and joined by four Republicans in opposition. Still, Republicans, who have a 26-14 majority in the state Senate, had a comfortable margin to push the bill through, which now must be considered by the Republican-controlled House.

Gov. Charlie Crist, a Republican running for U.S. Senate, indicated he likely would sign the bill into law if it passes the Legislature, as expected.

"Generally, I support that," he said Tuesday. "That's how it is for most of us -- you do well, you keep your job. It seems to me that wouldn't be a bad idea in the area of education, too."

Well, as described, this is not really tenure. It is the pay system.