"They Can't Do It. It's Disgraceful and Disgusting"

[@seamoremonster]

Spot on. You well and truly have been there! That's exactly what happens.

[@3salamanders]

Thank you for posting this. Sides of the story like this *never* make the regular news reports.

[@redneckbryon]

Support all Teachers

[@TresJolie7]

If the teachers are incapable of teaching these kids, then they need to go elsewhere. Poverty is no excuse. Poor people CAN learn.

[@AnonEyeMouse]

There are always examples of extraordinary achievement in the face of overwhelming adversity - but they are just that, extraordinary. The very fact that his is a noteworthy story confirms that there is a massive problem in general.

[@RonBurton65]

Hi Mike. Keep up the good work.

[@pongman]

Tell that to Marva Collins a school teacher who is quoted as saying, "Don't try to fix the students, fix ourselves first. The good teacher makes the poor student good and the good student superior. When our students fail, we, as teachers, too, have failed." ..and another quote, ""There is a brilliant child locked inside every student." These teachers forgot why they are there and destroyed a generation. I have no pity for them. They should have been fired a long time ago.

[@seamoremonster]

@Kapan60 Spoken like a person who has been there. Truly dedicated educators take on these positions in inner city schools and are rarely appreciated. You're dead right. Anyone who's been there knows it's damned hard work.

[@sugarraygras]

@fattkidd. You speak the truth. I have witnessesd the same here in the UK.

[@tenagliac]

It seems like a general overall system collapse is happening. I have seen private schools in the same boat. Not even unions to contend with. They're all hurting. Plenty of money in TARP, but hardly any for that which benefits people. The priorities are clear to see.

[@AdamDiddy]

Yup !

[@hozehd]

and better management comes from privatization. Everything else is good enough for government work.

[@aSheeple]

BadBunnyRides, That would give teachers an incentive to stay away from kids that need their help the most, let kids drop out if they dont get good grades, push lower performing kids onto other teachers, tolerate cheeting etc. I work in sales where this type of reward system is in place, and I have to say, it gives us incentives to weasel our way into raising our paychecks. And when times are tough it forces us to weasel our way into keeping our jobs. I dont want teachers to have that conflict

[@pongman]

Tell that to Ben Carson, MD Chief of Neurosurgery at Johns Hopkins. I wouldn't want to have to live what he went through when he was a kid. His mother was a crack addict in the streets of Detroit.

[@ipwnorcs]

We need the entire damn workforce unionized. Take the damn schools, factories, and banks.

[@bagelboi66]

How is this school board, already so stuck for cash, going to have the resources to recruit teachers any better than the ones they've just let go? Even if they can re-hire some of the more qualified of the fired staff, recruiting and on-boarding so many new people at once is going to cost them a bundle, and the kids won't be any further ahead.

[@pongman]

Again, tell that to Marva Collins who taught in the poorest communities around. She never gave up on her students. These teachers gave up the minute they got their first paychecks. They looked at their students like they weren't worth teaching as they drove in their cars to go back home to their white picket fences. It reminds me of the book by Jonathan Kozol "Death at an Early Age". We need to educate the teachers first before they attempt to educate the children.

[@no1saphead]

I had some real sorry ass teacher's when I was in School.What would I like to do with them.Fire them .Demote them . I had a union I got fired because I argued with a customer who was a friend of mine .

[@aSheeple]

kerrielynn, I think the problem is even deeper than that. arts arent the only creative persuits taking a beting, every advance in science and engineering has required enormous creativity as well. our system is standardizing the creativity out of all our kids, artists, scientists, and engineers alike. we need to inspire creativity first instead of focusing on standardized test scores and wrote memorization. a creative mind will find something interesting to do.

[@pongman]

Au contraire. It shows that someone believed in him and that's what students need. Teachers who know how to mold a child in believing in themselves and not giving up because he lives on the wrong side of the tracks. All too often we get teachers who don't know how to do that. Most of these teachers looked at their job as a paycheck and could have cared less about these kids. Now they're crying because they lost their jobs and not because they failed a school of children.

[@AnonEyeMouse]

You can't fill a broken glass with milk, my friend. If the child is sleep-deprived, malnurished, and preoccupied with problems at home, the greatest teacher in the world cannot get them up to the same level as another from a stable home. The best a teacher can do in that instance is identify the problems the child has and inform the appropriate care worker and hope for the best. The problem of poverty is down to a failed civic structure, and that is very hard to fix.

[@nezmaster]

the problem is that some of the public, and many administrators have this delusion that Test scores have something to do with education. AS a general rule, those things which are spent to increase test scores, take time away from things that teach critical thinking, the only real thing anyone needs to learn. We need better ways to evaluate teachers. Test scores a joke.

[@AnonEyeMouse]

Yes they were wrongly fired. That is exactly the case. Addressing the root cause of the poor performance is beyond the powers of the administrators. It requires a generation of investment in the local community to eradicate. This is simple stuff, I am surprised it is beyond you.

[@swami24u]

if money is not the answer then why is it the only answer for the rich to go to yale , harvard, brown ect.

[@zrexs]

American students always finish last in international academics, yet teachers always complain of being underpaid. you can pay them 100k a year and they would not be any better. they should not be unionized and be paid based on their student academic scores. we have the most expensive education system ind the world with the least educated student.

[@pongman]

48 % graduation rate?! I'm sorry I have a problem with that. The teachers should watch the film "Stand and Deliver" and realize they have an obligation to teach these children no matter what their social economic status is. If they can't teach they shouldn't be teachers.

[@IVIaggotx]

You're not the only one. I wish there was a link to the full story.

[@seamoremonster]

Don't agree Moxie. What do these tests prove and who are they set for? A child that comes from a disadvantaged background is not going to compete well against a child who is nurtured and taught the value of an education at home. Take a teacher who achieves top results in a top school and transfer that teacher to a disadvantaged school and then check the results his students achieve in a standardized test. Herein lies the problem and the seeds to the solution.

[@ImAMassiveBender]

No way, teachers are already underpaid considering their qualifications, that system would just drive able people away; perhaps put that system in place but without the low base pay, instead of spending millions on killing some child in Afghanistan the money should be used to help the people that are, after all, paying it in the first place.

[@pongman]

It is the teacher's fault that students fail.

[@Snowflake70]

I easily give you high marks for that observation. I also believe the parents need to take a greater role in their children's up bringing instead of slapping ll the pass or fail responsibility on teachers. They deserve every penny of $30 but that's it. Let them rely on SS or a 401k like the rest of us too.

[@AnonEyeMouse]

Now you're quote-mining. Collins was addressing teachers about teaching not discussing in wider terms the various factors that effect a child's education. Motivational quotes do not change socio-economic realities. Here is the reality - poverty stricken areas (with a few statistical anomalies accepted) have schools with lower performing students and vice versa. This is indisputable fact. Placing all the responsibility on the teachers is both overly simplistic and flat wrong.

[@Anticleric]

umm.. anyone else think it's weird that the president of a teachers union can't speak properly? I'm not saying that the cause isn't just... but you have to represent.

[@aSheeple]

BadBunneyRides, 1) I havnt read too much material on education reform so I dont have a lot of Ideas (If somebody has looked into this please chime in) what I do know is that the statistics show a lot of funds going into masters degrees for teachers without any benefit to students so we should try something else with that money. and we need to refocus away from tons of standardized tests and toward creative tasks, creativity seems to breed bright minds, and standardization seems to kill them.

[@globe255]

The meaning of life- whats that?

[@IneptTroopr]

Yeah, if you're going to base "education" on standardized testing results. As it stands public education focuses on teaching facts so schools get good test scores, rather than actually educating children or preparing them for post-education life.

[@AnonEyeMouse]

I'm not saying Carson's teacher didn't have an effect. What I'm saying isn't the definitive factor. If it was, then Carson's entire class would have inspiring rags to riches stories. The entire community around this school is failing. The teachers are not superheroes, they cannot wipe out the effects of poverty on children by giving an inspiring pep talk, no matter what hollywood has taught you. Maybe one or two children will succeed despite their poor surroundings, but most will not.

[@pongman]

I guess the test scores from these students were wrong and these teachers were wrongly fired. Lol, c'mon genius it's not rocket science.

[@garydupuis]

Somehow I feel I'm not getting the entire picture, someone care to elucidate?

[@AnonEyeMouse]

You clearly misunderstand the situation here. It has nothing to do with laziness and everything to do with the effects of poverty. Children who have parents who work two or three jobs just to keep the roof over their heads suffer greatly due to factors at home. There is a proven link between malnutrition and poor scholastic performance and poverty struck families are more often than not malnurished. The problem is the poverty in the local area, not laziness on anyone's part.

[@aSheeple]

BadBunnyRides (continued), also if we look at the times when kids were inspired to learn, it seems to be when cool things were being done in science (think the space race) so more funding for science research might be good. I think its a structural problem more than an incentive problem, I dont know any teachers that decided to teach for the money. those are my thoughts at the moment, 2) holy chipotle sauce, im having a real conversation with someone on youtube. humanity is not lost!

[@AnonEyeMouse]

You claim a massive amount of knowledge about these particular teachers and their personal attitudes and motivations. I've kept close tabs on this story since it was first reported and I see no source that could give you that information. So, either you are in direct personal contact with these teachers or you are making a huge number of unjustified assumptions and knowledge claims. I wonder which it is?

[@AnonEyeMouse]

It's a shame you didn't learn about grammar and sentence structure. Maybe if you'd had a decent, well-funded english teacher you wouldn't have the problems you do.