The American Spectator : Teacher of the Year

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Teacher of the Year

By Sean Higgins on 6.29.11 @ 6:10AM

Bad Teacher knows what teachers’ unions have done to our schools — and this time the message is getting out.

Last year, education reformers had high hopes for a documentary film called Waiting for “Superman.” With impeccable liberal credentials — it was made by the same people behind Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth — the film mercilessly highlighted failures of the American public school system.

It also systematically demolished the argument that the problem was underfunding and instead pointed the finger at government bureaucracy and the control teachers’ unions have over the system.

Hopes that the film would do Fahrenheit 9/11 numbers, though, were in vain. It pulled in about $6 million at the box office. That’s good for a documentary, but far less than the average horror flick or rom-com.

Then, shortly after the film’s release, the filmmakers got a lesson in how little impact their documentary had. Its nominal star, D.C.’s public schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee, was obliged to step down. Her patron, Mayor Adrian Fenty, lost his bid for re-election mainly because teachers unions spent massively to elect his Democratic primary opponent, Vincent Gray.

The teachers unions did it solely to get the crusading reformer Rhee fired and make an example of her to anyone else who dared cross them. (Meanwhile, it took only two months for Gray’s administration to become embroiled in a variety of corruption scandals.)

But where thoughtful, sober-minded commentary failed, savage mockery might succeed. Another film has hit the theaters and this one may have a far more potent effect on the education debate.

Bad Teacher took in $32 million last weekend and is certain to become a one of the summer’s biggest hits. That’s very bad news for defenders of the educational status quo like American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten. This black comedy is the most scabrous portrayal of public education ever put to celluloid.

Cameron Diaz stars as Elisabeth Halsey, a public middle school teacher who literally does not care for students at all. When we first see her, she’s just marking time until she can land a rich husband and not have to work at all. When her fiancé calls off their engagement she’s forced back into teaching and her dislike of molding young minds curdles into outright loathing.

She doesn’t bother to teach the kids at all, regularly shows up to class hungover, solicits bribes from parents in exchange for good grades, embezzles money from school fundraisers and tells the one go-getter in her class to give up her dreams of becoming president in exchange for something more realistic, “like a masseuse.”

“When I first started teaching, I thought that I was doing it for all the right reasons: Shorter hours, summers off, no accountability …” she explains.

The last part is key: No matter how big a train wreck Halsey is, she is never in any danger of losing her job or even being disciplined. When a rival teacher confronts the principal with the (accurate) charge that Halsey is using drugs on school property, he balks at probing the matter, fearful of what the unions will do to him.

There is nothing that can be done about her, so the authorities pretend not to notice. This, the film suggests, is routine.

Later in the film (Spoiler alert!), Halsey does buckle down and start teaching her students — but only because she discovers that a big financial reward goes to the teacher whose students do best on a statewide test and she wants the money to get a boob job. (Merit pay, anyone?) Her methods include pelting her students with basketballs until they give the correct answers.

Even this turns out to be short-lived when she realizes the students aren’t doing well enough, so she instead engages in an elaborate scam to cheat the test. When her rival tries to expose her fraud, Halsey has her — a teacher who actually does inspire students — framed for drug possession and bounced out of the school. And that’s the happy ending.

It is a tribute to the talents of the Diaz and the filmmakers that they actually manage to get you rooting for this horrible person. But the fact that the public is ready to accept such a portrayal no doubt played a part as well.

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About the Author

Sean Higgins is a writer in Arlington, Virginia.

Letter to the Editor View all comments (110) | Leave a comment Leave a comment

drudge ette obama| 6.29.11 @ 6:33AM

Welcome to the Atlanta School System which must have been the model for this joke of a movie plot.

Pure example of greed. What ever happened to actors who refused roles for ethical reasons? This Carmen Diaz is silly and self-absorbed. It's not cute anymore to play or be a jerk. We need serious and mature people.

Stuart Koehl| 6.29.11 @ 6:53AM

Schizoid, are we?

loulou| 6.29.11 @ 9:42AM

Do you know what schizoid means?

Stuart Koehl| 6.29.11 @ 11:48AM

Yup.

wolflen| 6.29.11 @ 1:18PM

yes..we both do...

Tex Expatriate| 6.29.11 @ 2:37PM

I wonder if any of you know what schizoid means. It certainly does not mean schizophrenic. There was nothing in the description of this movie that suggests a schizoid personality disorder, and nothing in the remarks of drudge ette obama to suggest it.

Maddox| 6.29.11 @ 9:08AM

I have been following the Atlanta situation in The AJC somewhat and that situation is deplorable. It really is no different than many other systems around the country. Public education is a joke and the tests scores are often inflated by cheating on the part of school officials to continue funding for failure.
My child had a fourth grade teacher who continually left the kids to go shopping and plan her daughter's wedding. She gave the boys a hammer to repair a plumbing leak once that resulted in the class swimming in their basement classroom. One of her students broke into teacher cars and vending machines at the YMCA next door to steal during her absences. These are just a few of the troubles but she couldn't be fired. She eventually moved to another State and we decided expensive private school was the only solution.
The future of America is in the hands of so many inept and dishonest teachers and we can't do a thing about it unless we earn enough money to pay for an education. I pity those who care and cannot.

missouri Dave| 6.29.11 @ 11:10AM

As O.Wilde said, "Truth is rarely pure and never simple." But the fact remains that when we were bounded by Judeo-Christian Values as explicated in the Bible, America led the Industrial World in scholarship, plus our country was blessed with riches uncomparable! Simple to say Jesus is the answer, But Jesus is the way the truth and the life. What is our first amendment freedom? Lets all cow tow to the IMF and wis for a fish head with our bowl of rice. Thanks Obama! dmc

C. S. P. Schofield| 6.29.11 @ 11:39AM

I am an agnostic. Nevertheless I regularly infuriate my Liberal friends by asserting that the only cultures worth living in on this world are based on Protestant Christianity. Catholicism seems to produce peasant based societies. Buddhism sounds wonderful, but appears to result in societies that treat people like farm animals. Don't even get me STARTED on Hinduism and Islam. And, last and worst, Western Intellectual Atheism has spawned little other than dictatorships run by genocidal madmen.

I don't include Judaism in this litany because I feel that the available information about Israel is too heatedly biased (one way or another) for me to have a justified opinion. but I do note that the Jews, through their habit of calling God on his promises, gave us the Rule of Lew...one of the key ideas behind the most successful Protestant societies.

Stuart Koehl| 6.29.11 @ 11:49AM

Who is this Lew, and why don't we see him on television more often, if he's the one who rules us?

the permanent newbie| 6.29.11 @ 2:38PM

If you can afford it, take a trip to Israel and see for yourself. I think you'll find it worth it...

Eddie| 6.30.11 @ 7:55AM

Hey Scho,
Great points. You strike me as a person who has been able to maintain a true prespective on the foundations of culture(s). I follow a similar train of thought on how different religions have influenced humanity. Actually, I agree with you on many points. That's all I ask of people. Christianity, particularly Protestant Christianity, has done much. I'm Catholic and do not count out or demean our great influences in the world but, as of lately, Catholicism has been hijack by the PCers. Also, I do not follow the Vatican (they're full of it - hey, maybe I'm Prostestant). Thanks and it's nice to know there are some reasonable agnostics out there. Take care -

G. Field| 6.30.11 @ 12:22PM

Schofield you definitely got that one right. Kudos.

Savta Achimeir| 7.1.11 @ 6:31AM

I've lived in Israel since 1983, ad I'd say as a society, we do fine when we don't go whoring after the foreign gods of socialism and political correctness. We also suffer from an overly muscular supreme court that too often overrides the will or the people as expressed by the legislative branch, as well as a legislative body in which party representatives are selected by slate and are not directly accountable to their constituency.

Things are getting etter the more we purge the Labor Zionist socialist "tradition" from our midst. Socialism was areal wrong turn for the entire Zionist idea, even though it was based on "good intentions".

We have a strong base in medical and scientific innovations, no one here is starving, and although we are a tiny country, we are always among the first to send disaster relief (emergency medical aid, evacuation and clearance of building collaps, etc) to any other country in distress that allows us entry. Not bad for our first 63 years, but we're going to do better, please G-d.

MacWell| 7.3.11 @ 9:37PM

Well said C.S.P., and spot on. We the people allowed one woman to throw G_d out of our schools. Our children and grandchildren have been paying for that betrayal ever since.

lydia | 6.30.11 @ 1:54PM

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I didn’t realize that this movie was a black comedy; I thought it was a documentary based on sort of an amalgamation of schools throughout the country.

P.Smith| 6.29.11 @ 7:32AM

I didn’t realize that this movie was a black comedy; I thought it was a documentary based on sort of an amalgamation of schools throughout the country.

Dave | 6.29.11 @ 11:14AM

From where I sit here on the left coast, watching the AFT and their affiliated minions at work is kind of like listening to Bart Simpson explain how cooties are spread. Glancing at the numbers, your average taxpayer, on the hook for those increasing wage and benefit packages, have long since reached the break point. At the same time, our Romulan president would prefer to stick another half billion in taxes on the productive who help provide the funding for his iron fisted union brethern, and pay for that free federal housing he and the family enjoy at 1600 Penn Avenue. In the meantime, he's also developed an apparent aversion toward the founding father's governing documents and what they place in his pathway to herding us aboard the Last Train to Karlsville. So far, he hasn't seen the need to Monkee around with issues constitutional. My guess is the old dead white guy papers tend to slow down the agenda.

But I digress.

Occasionally, it's helpful for Joe Six Packers like me to have facts and minutia broken down to their simplest form. Or as I like to call it, street level. First, and to all truly dedicated teachers, the ones forced to dog paddle in that big union pond, it probably comes as no surprise that millions of friends and neighbors, the ones watching moths fly from of their depleting wallets, are beginning to lean toward the testy side. Having been a member of two unions in my own working lifetime, I understand the pluses and minues of membership in organized labor. Unfortunately, over the last few budgets, coupled with a Wag The Dog mentality, Reverend Wright's chickens finally came home to roost and the golden goose has now assumed fully plucked status. As it now stands in here in California, Jerry Browns political posse is still trying to coax the sheep inside for another shearing while those test scores just keep on droppin'. At organized rallies, rallies quietly supported by the B.O. administration, we often hear the chant - "WE'RE HERE FOR THE CHILDREN!" Fair enough. And maybe some are. But if you've seen any state capitol protests like some we've had in Sacramento, a lot of those kids in the crowd are only there for two reasons: (1) To hold up a sign and (b) look underfed when the TV crews show up.

As the future begins unfolding for June and Ward's great-great-grandkids, all the while whizzing through their own graying process, the chants should start sounding a different pitch. When that happens, the tones will shift a bit, but the message will remain: "No corte mis beneficios!"

Thumbing through recent scorecards, here's a little of what's occasionally underreported. Overall student test results from previous decades, the decades since the NEA, AFT and their local affiliates began slowly applying a Klingon submission grip to the pocketbooks of earthbound taxpayers, the numbers reveal that while Johnny and Janine may get their degrees, they'll probably hit the highway still not fully understanding the concept of basic math and how it works. Or ...

How to pay for ...

(a) Unfunded Retirement Pensions.

(b) Unfunded Healthcare Plans.

(d) Mandates to Fund Classroom Space for Children of Illegal Aliens.

(d-2) Funding for bi-lingual education in Spanish, additional language programs for Asian immigrants and pending configurations of Farsi, Urdu and (maybe) Ebonics.

So is there a solution for cleaning out this cesspool? Sure there is. But as long as the teachers unions have parking privilages in the hip pockets of state politicians, the outlook for serious solutions appear bleak. For now? Just beam me up, Scotty. I need some fresh air.

Mr Eddie| 7.2.11 @ 7:02PM

Well said, Dave

Michael Tomlinson| 6.29.11 @ 7:34AM

If Americans really want good public education they will support the destruction of teacher's unions and the failed tenure system as it now stands. Abolish the Department Education too -- a bit of fiscal sanity would be a good thing.

Alan Brooks| 6.29.11 @ 8:34AM

"If Americans really want good public education"

That's the heart of it: they do not, they only care about their own children. If you cared about other people's children, there wouldn't be ghettos, they wouldn't need food stamps, etc.
So we wont go anywhere politically, educationally..

DC| 6.29.11 @ 8:59AM

That didn't take long...the perfect union attitude, personified: the government and its vassal unions will force you, at gunpoint, to "care" for other people's children, pay for their housing and food while they're at it too. Works well in Cuba and North Korea--should work pretty well here too, right?
I'll stick with homeschooling my children, and if you, Brooks, decide to try to force them into your union-run re-education camps, I'll be happy to give them a live dissection/anatomy lesson, on you.
Every time I read the troll dung on this site, I thank God for the 2nd Amendment.

Alan Brooks| 6.29.11 @ 9:25AM

I do agree that homeschooling is the way to go; I am saying above that education can never be improved, as naturally people don't care about others' children.
So private/charter schools wont ever be cost-effective.

Alan Brooks| 6.29.11 @ 9:33AM

a) unless the teachers teach pro bono, the cost can't be lowered enough, so:
b) someone has to pay large sums to teach others' children. Thus, unless you do radical intelligence enhancement on children, SOMEONE has to fork it over royally to pay for quite expensive education for other peoples' children--which as you know includes equipment as well .
This is not hard to grasp, is it?

Dan Hirsch| 6.29.11 @ 10:38AM

Mr. Brooks,

Your repeated assertion that "...naturally people don't care about others' children." is one key to your failure to comprehend or appreciate many of conservatism's tenets. We as a nation have always cared about others' children; ever hear the liberal bromide: "Do it for the children!" Property taxes levied on all property owners irrespective of the presence of children on their property pay for education in much of the nation.

If Americans did not care about others' children this taxation system would not survive.

Then simply caring about others' children will not end poverty, or slums. What will end food stamps and ghettos and the crime that seems to be running in the streets of Chicago, Philadelphia and other major US cities (look for recent flashmob activities there) is the return of the nuclear family. Increasing government transfer payments to families in poverty when the father leaves destroys the nuclear family. Simple question, when the father leaves, why would payments go up? I believe that they do not actually. But the system is arranged so that a woman can increase her government payments by having more children - irrespective of the presence of the father. This is the problem. I personally am aware of two, unmarried, middle class young women who intentionally got pregnant so as to be eligible for state and federal aid payments! They both live at their parents' homes and view this as sort of a job. Meanwhile the Caylee Anthony trial is running on the television. This madness must stop.

As to your negative attitudes towards charter schools, what do you propose as a solution? I think Wisconsin's efforts to de-fang the teachers' unions as the most likely successful approach to resolving our current education problems in the short term.

We as a nation pay a heck of a lot for education - if we were buying cars that performed this poorly, we'd shop else where...

Alan Brooks| 6.29.11 @ 11:44AM

"We as a nation pay a heck of a lot for education - if we were buying cars that performed this poorly, we'd shop else where..."

That's how Americans think, that children are like cars; that a school is a car lot.

YouNitwit| 6.30.11 @ 4:13AM

Oh, is that how Americans think, Allan. Such a clever disection of what Dan said, but
you forgot- "and the Principle's office is like the sales manager's office!"

lost| 6.29.11 @ 11:58AM

De-fanging of the teachers unions here in Wisconsin can not happen fast enough. A city here is trying to increase the work day for teachers to be 8hrs. The uproar over that is just nuts. 8 hour work day is fairly common. Yet I hear how teachers are always working way more than what their hours are. If that were true why the uproar?

Alan Brooks| 6.29.11 @ 12:18PM

You think of children as being commodities, not human.

Dan Hirsch| 6.30.11 @ 9:14AM

Alan;

I know my kids' names. Do you? Does the Secretary of Education? Does the head of the local school board? No, of course not. No one should care more your own children than you.

That does not take away from the fact that there are millions of children in schools that are providing inferior educations that result in undereducated and under-performing children.

That an experiment is tried a million times rather than once or twice does not make it less valid. I.E. my kids got educated in spite of education professionals, while millions do not. Complaining about treating children as commodities is nothing but smoke to hide the real failures of government run indoctrination, oops, I mean, education programs.

Yes, concerned, interested parents can be helpful; but they alone are neither necessary nor sufficient to insure educated kids. Although they represent the closest thing to sufficiency that's out there.

Higher education expenditures, fancier, ridiculously overbuilt education structures both physical and organizational are far less important. You want schools to do better? Then get rid of the educators with their ineffective methods and theories. Go back to discipline and memorization. Train minds like you train muscles - through work and use. How strong will you get from saunas, massages, and hot tubs? That is what education has become in this country.

mejamom| 6.30.11 @ 1:49PM

How can a teacher work less than 8 hrs? From working in a school to still having children in school teachers have to be in the classroom at least 15 min. before the buses arrive and have to stay at least 15min. after they leave. That makes 7hrs. and 45min. in our schools. However, most teachers, myself included, arrive earlier and stay later than required.

Southern_Comment| 6.30.11 @ 11:28PM

That's not true, please do your research and do not confuse private with charter please - two different types of schools, one is public and the other private. Charter schools are public schools that operate with the application of the same rules as public schools.
With private schools as is true for most of society . . . Money talks. Meaning that your tuition allows a lot of say in your education. Also, if people are thinking of the Foxcrofts and Madeiras they are misguided as to the affordability of private schools. There are many fine private schools that are great values.

John Navratil| 6.29.11 @ 9:28AM

Alan Brooks,

I doesn't take a village, it takes a family. Of course, my principle concern is for my own children. What I CAN do for my children, I CANNOT do for my neighbors'. If my neighbor needs my help and I am able to give it, I will.

One thing is certain, the government doesn't care, either. Look most recently at Wisconsin. Specifically closing the schools as so many teachers were protesting. That's caring in the government approved manner.

Alan Brooks| 6.29.11 @ 9:39AM

Homeschooling is the best. But as I wrote above, it doesn't solve the problem at this time because-- at this time-- not all families want to homeschool.
You think by abolishing teachers unions, abracadbra presto change-o, education is exponentially improved? you DO agree that education has to be greatly improved, don't you?

gearjammer| 6.29.11 @ 12:08PM

Come to Rhode Island and watch the teacher union in action. Yes, abolish it, here at least for the sake of mercy upon what is left of the middle class. My home town pays 45 cents to public employee retirees for pension and benefits. Soon I will be saying my home town is gone.

Alan Brooks| 6.29.11 @ 12:22PM

What do you expect if you live in Rhode Island? Sheesh.

SpiralArchitect| 6.29.11 @ 3:21PM

Homeschooling is best? What are the parents base of education to then educate others.

What is the literacy rate in the nation.

Yes, people that are uneducated should be educating others...

You provide nothing more than your basic opinion of 'what is best'. Typical.

darcy| 6.29.11 @ 7:29PM

That's truly funny given the fact that you provide no statistics whatsoever in backing up your own comments.

Franco| 6.29.11 @ 4:15PM

I think we're on the wrong track. It isn't so much that the education needs to be greatly improved (it does), but rather the intellectual and popular culture that produces such abysmal education does. One-room, bible-textbook schools worked in the 19th century for the same reason Catholic and other private parochial schooling works--minimal bureaucratic interference and adherence to intellectual and numeric basics.

Let's face facts--the free market culture has its ugly side, and the commodification of education is one of them.

The Bruce| 6.30.11 @ 12:12AM

Franco, I fail to understand what the free market has to do with public education. Public schools are run by the state. The public school in your neighborhood is essentially a monopoly as you can't take your kid to a better public school in another neighborhood. The public school system is essentially socialism.

Private and parochial schools produce much better results for the reasons you mentioned (no government bureaucrats).

Eddie| 6.30.11 @ 8:08AM

True Bruce,
Even European countries (one of the few things they have right) know that privately runned schools are better. In Europe, I believe its the Netherlands and Germany, if schools do not produce positive results they get closed down. Unlike the school cesspools we have here producing ignorant and criminal brainwashed autobots. Also, home schooling, in America, is making a major comeback and will be another reason teacher unions will go crazy. They'll start losing their taxpayer funded cushy jobs....

John Navratil| 6.29.11 @ 5:32PM

Alan Brooks,

I never suggested abolishing teachers unions. I'd simply abolish public schools and replace them with a stipend. If the unions are beneficial, they will survive.

Southern_Comment| 6.30.11 @ 11:32PM

So your suggestion is that we either ignore it or try to tackle the problem as a whole?
Each is a bad idea, mainly because tackling it as a whole allows to many mistakes. To correct our terrible public educational system we must rebuild it, brick by brick - first brick. . . . Teacher's Unions. They've had 20 or 30 years to wreak their havoc, time for them to be stopped.

Southern_Comment| 7.1.11 @ 12:43AM

sorry too not to

Stan Redmond| 6.29.11 @ 9:53AM

How much more resources are we to waste funding these garbage dumps of school? We spend more money ever YET still the schools fail the students. And when the kids fail we taxpayers pay their way through welfare programs or jail.
Liberals OWN the school system and the results. The "road to hell" paved with these good intentions should be paved with pink slips.

alice moore| 6.29.11 @ 7:54AM

I think it is the tenure system along with the unions that has contributed to this state of affairs. My school years were in the late 60s to mid-late 70s.

A primary grade teacher of mine, looking back, was psychotically ill. This is not hyperbole. She assaulted a student by trying to throttle the child. Long story short, teacher was able to stay on 2 more years. She moved when the principal was transferred to another school. This was the result, I would guess, of a long established tenure system.

I do remember having good teachers. The unions or the tenure system had nothing to do with their quality.

tsd| 6.29.11 @ 7:54AM

The Education System in our country is just that, " a system" . A huge money eating system that plays on the deception that is is all about the kids. It is all about the money to feed this monster system that is run by a corrupt liberal establishment to foster a self destructive philosophy of entitlement. Within this system the real teachers and kids are just being used and abused. It is time to get rid of the system and let it be run at a local level by real educators.

MikeBee| 6.29.11 @ 8:50AM

TSD,
Thank you for your comments. You are spot on. We're beginning to become mind-numbed robots on the school issue, parroting what others say, when we know little about the situation ("Teachers bad!"). My wife works in a large, failing public school system. She has seen teachers who have been gotten rid of. The last of these was tenured, with over 20 years of teaching experience. He was clearly not doing his job, not educating students. The principal made his life such a living hell that he simply quit (visiting his classroom often, intense review of his lesson plans, etc.). Additionally, in the tenure system, you can be fired during your first four years of teaching, for almost any reason. During this time, many bad teachers are weeded out.

Secondly, every honest teacher will tell you that his worst years were his first years. It takes most teachers about five years to actually get good at what they do. Most will admit that they were terrible in their first year. Tenure makes a lot of sense, given this fact, and, given the secondary fact that, if they could, most districts today would replace higher-paid teachers with lower-paid new teachers, simply to try to make their budget. While lowering costs for school districts, this would ensure that kids have the worst teachers, those in their first few years.

Third, unions have acted together with districts to remove bad teachers when there is cause. Sure, they lose a dues-paying member, but that member is replaced by another, so it's no net loss to them in dues, and they are able to keep their noses clean, showing that they will remove bad teachers.

Are there bad teachers? Absolutely. They only exist when they have "connections," or when their superiors don't have the courage to try to get rid of them. One bad teacher that my wife knows of would wander the hallways all day, talking with people, instead of teaching her classroom. She was not fired, as she was a friend of the principal. But, if everyone in the district does his job, including the teachers' superiors, bad teachers will be weeded out. More often than not, bad teachers exist because administration is not doing its job. How many times did Cameron Diaz's principal perform an in-classroom review of Diaz? This is part of a principal's job. Too many principals today are pushing paper all day, and forget to do the "tougher" part of their job, roaming the halls, and reviewing the teachers' performance in the classroom. How many times do you recall, from your formative years, a principal sitting in your classroom in the back, reviewing the teacher's performance? Probably not too many times.

Lest anyone be confused: I'm not arguing for tenure; I tend to think that merit pay is a good idea. But, merit pay can be abused by poor administrators, also. Friends can receive raises, while good teachers who are "not connected" receive nothing. All I'm promoting is a better understanding of all the issues involved before decisions are made.

2Anglico| 6.29.11 @ 9:36AM

All I'm saying is you need to watch "Waiting for Superman" and read "The Underground History of American Education" by John Taylor Gatto. If you have the courage to watch "Waiting for Superman" you won't use the term "parroting" to describe critics of the government education system. The fact is, the system is probably WORSE than you could ever imagine.
As Professor Walter E. Williams says, "The Ku Klux Klan could not have come up with a better system to keep blacks down than the government education system". You can include poor whites in that statement too.

MikeBee| 6.29.11 @ 4:12PM

2A,
Thank you for your comments. I agree with most of the criticism here and elsewhere of teacher unions, and of the government-run education system. But, being the spouse of a public school teacher, I know a lot more about what's going on inside school districts and teacher unions than those who don't have this connection. All I'm saying is for folks to get the complete picture before making judgements. Don't just parrot the party line about education (bad schools!; bad teachers!). Find out; do some research. In my wife's failing school district, there are some remarkably good, conservative things being done, to try to educate the kids. Things that, if conservatives heard about them, they would yell, "Huzzah! Finally some common sense." But, even with these improvements, the district is failing, as it is too top heavy, and it contains children of parents who really don't give a rat's xss about educating their children. The government will give you money when you grow up.

I expected to be lambasted here about my above comments. But, all I'm really asking is for conservative folks, who are the really open minded people out there, to keep an open mind on this issue, as well.

Paul Milenkovic| 7.4.11 @ 11:38PM

"I expected to be lambasted here about my above comments. "

And your expectations are correct. I don't know what has happened, but the Conservative Movement seems to have taken to emulating the worst habits of the Liberal/Left, especially in subsituting talking points for serious discussion.

PCC| 6.29.11 @ 9:56AM

"Tenure" means a guaranteed job. Apart from judgeships, which may have a claim for a guaranteed position in order to achieve impartial justice meted out free of political influence, why should teachers or professors or anyone else be granted such a perverse privilege?

TrueBlue| 6.29.11 @ 1:46PM

Given that very few judges actually make decisions based on following the exact letter of the law instead of putting their political spin on it, I don't think they should have tenure either.

MikeBee| 6.29.11 @ 4:02PM

PCC,
Tenure does not mean a guaranteed job for teachers. It may mean that for other tenured folks, I don't know. But, there are tenured teachers who have been fired. It's possible to get rid of tenured teachers; it's just more difficult than getting rid of non-tenured teachers. The district is forced to make a very good case for firing, in the case of tenured teachers. Also, teacher unions have joined with districts to get rid of bad tenured teachers, when there has been cause. What do you think happens when a teacher has been found to have sex with one of his/her students? In these cases, unions only ask for due process to be followed; but, when the case is proven, they join with the district in firing the offending teacher.

gearjammer| 6.29.11 @ 12:22PM

What state are you from ? You do not discuss pension and benefits. This is the budget buster in many places. You do a white collar job. Private sector white collar workers are in soc sec, medicare and 401k-most will work into mid sixties or beyond. You must accept same terms-you work no harder or have no tough a tome at work than an accountant or salesman. Accept these terms or screw=we will hire better teachers at these terms. By the way Mr. Democrat illegal immigrants are driving down wages for many Americans=do not see you complaining about that. They are the future voters you are depending on to ruin the prospects in life for every one else. You are the ENEMEY. Get ready for war-we are not like these pissy pants Greeks-WE WILL EAT ARE ROCK THROWING BOMBING ANACHIST FOR LUNCH.
Submit or else-work till your 70 and deal with medicare like the rest=OR ELSE!

Southern_Comment| 6.30.11 @ 11:47PM

Thank YOU Gearjammer! Teachers work a few hours a day. Lets see these last two weeks I have worked 280 hours, sometimes working 30 hours straight only to get 4 hours sleep. This is part of my job for which I get paid while I have to pay a teachers benefits as well as my contribution to the company's health plan (which by the way, thanks to Obama care allows my company to raise my insurance by 50 bucks a month). So whining about teacher's unions and how wonderful a purpose they serve is incredibly insulting to those of us in the private sector because we understand the gigantic flaw in your glorification of the teacher's union. The flaw is humans. Theory and practice, please distinguish between the two. You are correct that in THEORY the purpose of the teachers union sounds good. In application, we have seen the disaster that people have made of it. Those who are only out for their own wants and are apathetic to providing the services for which they are being paid have filtered in en masse and this country is suffering for it. So as I stated before . . . the teacher's unions must be abolished.

Southern_Comment| 6.30.11 @ 11:57PM

Also, it ticks me off to see some very good educators have bad reputations or have to deal with parents who have dealt with so many of the bad teachers, just because the selfish stupid lazy liberal has infested one of the basic requirements of our society that
is needed to prosper.

Dawn| 7.3.11 @ 3:43PM

I am also a teacher in a large, failing public school. I just moved from elementary level to high school level to make a difference in the reading ability of struggling readers. I was involved in a grant which was supposed to be three years. However, after one year, the funds were cut. It is very discouraging when there are teachers who really want to make a difference in the lives of students. Yes, there are teachers that should have a different career. However, there are many great teachers who need to continually be pushed to update their skills often. Then, there are the teachers that are OK. Lots of those teachers could become great if given the right guidance and support from administration and fellow teachers. This movie appears to exemplify the worst possible teachers. It is meant to be funny, but unfortunately, people will remember and believe the truly horrific parts as real. I take teaching very seriously and it makes me sad to see an important profession portrayed in such a negative way.

daddio| 6.29.11 @ 10:17AM

Local level accountability is the key. When things are run on a national level by faceless, nameless and unaccountable bureaucrats, parents have no leverage. Education should only be run at the state and local level.

J.C.Eaton| 6.29.11 @ 12:16PM

Dad, I agree with you and have nothing to add on the matter today. I write to simply thank the author of this blog for giving me a fig-leaf of cover to explain why I sat through [after paying reduced Old-People prices] this absolute wreck of a movie. I too, thought Ms. Diaz had suffieient pride to turn down a role in this cinematic phlegm-ball. It is disgusting from open to close and worse, produced two muted chortles. Now I can say I watched a beguiling documentary. Grazi.

Intelligent Design| 6.29.11 @ 8:03AM

State and local governments should sell their public schools to private education companies. This would ensure free enterprise competition, which invariably leads to reduced costs, freedom to choose, and higher quality. State and local taxes would be cut in half, and education companies would be free to hire qualified non-union teachers. In addition to selling the K-12 schools, the states should sell their public colleges. The entire business of education would be revolutionized, our students would be free of political curriculum, and the United States would be a stronger country. Also, eliminate the U.S. Department of Education, and all federal funding of schools and colleges.

Free enterprise has given us the best medicine, the best homes, the best clothing, the best food, the best technology ..... so why not the best education?

John Navratil| 6.29.11 @ 8:19AM

Intelligent Design,

We do have the best education education system. It's called "private schools". You pay your money and you get the kind of service you will never get from an institution which receives its economic reward from a warm backside in a chair at the second roll call (talk about perverse incentives).

The public funding of education isn't the problem, itself. After all, everyone benefits from an educated populace. The problem is with the state being the monopoly supplier of publicly funded school houses.

That the state should, itself, be in the business of education creates a fatal conflict of interest, but that's another topic.

Phil Sukalewski| 6.29.11 @ 10:01AM

I agree wholeheartedly. A workable (meaning politically viable first step) is to petition for vouchers and the elimination of being locked into a given school based upon where you live.

PCC| 6.29.11 @ 10:03AM

In this day and age, all education at every level should be provided by private institutions competing for parents' dollars, via vouchers or cash on the barrelhead. Public education in America, once a blessing, is now a scam.

Matthew Quigley| 6.29.11 @ 8:18AM

Reminds me of the "Teach For America" losers I had to work with before I got smart and went into ranching.

The only way to salvage the public school system is to tear it down, and rebuild it with actual professionals...NOT with the bureaucrats and morons who run it now.

PJ| 6.29.11 @ 8:42AM

I think Sean Higgins makes a great movie critic. I had no intention to see this movie; I'm not a Cameron Diaz fan. After reading Higgins' essay, I think I just might go & watch it to see if some of my children's public school teachers' nutty actions were used in the movie.

fmm| 6.29.11 @ 8:42AM

I am afraid that the message from this movie will unfortunately not be the one you suggest. You do state that it is to the movie maker's credit that viewers actually begin to root for this lousy person. One has to know right from wrong before an informed decision can be made.

Kristal| 6.29.11 @ 8:49AM

Writing as a retired schoolteacher, I say, hurrah!

Maybe someday SERIOUS people will have observed enough, and thereby understood all they need to know, to transcend the do-or-die SERIOUSNESS of all political fights, and MOCK AWAY, McDuff!

Not only is the union-dominated pubic school system rotten unto suicidal death, but it is also physically true that the entire scientific materialism conventional wisdom of dominant western societies is laughably sinning---

You could say the unions are sinning by COMMISSION and society by OMISSION.

It’s as if Einstein is only really important as a photo with wild hair to put on the walls of classrooms---TRIVIAL knowledge, at best!

And, WHAT he said is totally ignored, because the implications are too threatening to the status quo .

We like to make fun of people from the past who thought the earth was flat, or the Catholic Church that burned heretics like Bruno, or banned the literally far-sighted Galileo.

But, right NOW, schools don’t even give lip service to E = M C (squared)!

The lost implications are profound---consider the following TRUE quote, all you who “believe” in science:

“Every second 600 million tons of hydrogen is converted to 596 million tons of helium, with 4 million tons per second converted into pure energy”

Or, how about this---

“Gamma rays are in the center of the sun, so it’s dark there. They work their way to the ‘surface’, passed from atom to atom for several 100,000 years, and gradually convert to visible light.”

From “1001 things everyone should know about the universe” pages 78 and 232 respectively, by William Gutsch.

Now, we each exist as PHYSICAL bodies--- surely that’s not in dispute?

Well, as SCIENCE has proved, the trillions of elements that are spinning AS you, the body you always ARE, resemble gamma rays, over billions of years, and the essential TRUTH is that they, and YOU, are simply transformed groupings of LIGHT.

Just as the electrical grid in America is created to generate energy and spread it around by stepping it down, Absolutely the same process always takes place when it comes to YOU.

As I used to enjoy telling classes, everybody is a star---literally!

And, “serious” people make fun of eccentrics like me, who have long ago learned this FACT.

Indeed, we could truly admit that the DARK state of humanity these days closely resembles the way a gamma ray spends so many years bouncing from element to element, “evolving” its way to visible light.

Is it true that it’s always darkest before the dawn?

Is it “Turn out the lights, the party’s over”, or is it that the time has come to---

OUT LIGHT?

Out damned spot, open the closet doors!

BE the Light you ARE---as Plato said, Know your TRUE Self!

If you really want to stretch “your” understanding of physical reality, I offer you this quote from John A. Wheeler, one of the brilliant physicists who was involved in cosmological research---it’s from “Miracles of Mind”, 1957. It takes more than a cursory read to get---

“There is nothing in the world except curved space. Matter, charge, electromagnetism,….are all only manifestations of the bending of space. Physics IS geometry.”

Enjoy.

Maddox| 6.29.11 @ 9:13AM

Kristal, there are teachers, like you, who are qualified and dedicated but are trapped in the system. Thank you for your comments and your efforts.

daddio| 6.29.11 @ 10:22AM

And just try to teach something meaningful that is not part of the official curriculum! You'll quickly be unemployed.

Stormzeye| 6.29.11 @ 8:50AM

My wife has a degree in design and a graduate degree in art education. She is also a professional artist. She taught art in high school until she lost her non-tenured job to a "shop" teacher who had enough college level art courses to qualify him under union rules to take her job from her when the school system had a mandatory reduction in force. The School Board was very upset and tried everything they could to keep her but the union rules prevented them from doing so. Sadly, after a brief stint as an underpaid private school teacher she left teaching altogether. This happened in one of the best and highest paying school systems in Massachusetts.

C Smith| 6.29.11 @ 9:36AM

The caption "Teachers Unions Gone Wild" screams for attention. Seems some itinerant journalist recently "crashed" a New Jersey Education Association's "leadership" conference and video chronicled the event. Reminds me of an expose I compiled (circa 1992) regarding America's only government funded religion. The intent: to challenge believers to "have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather reprove them" (cf. Ephesians 5:11). The Elder Board did not approve distribution.

The following is a facsimile:

The National Education Association (NEA) with 2.1 million members is the most powerful force in education. Although it purports to represent the interest of teachers, many of its members are not in agreement with its policies, have limited awareness of its politics, and are naive about its power and past. William Bennett, former Secretary of Education, in The Devaluing of America, describes the NEA's policies and politics:

In recent years, the union's Representative Assembly went on record in favor of teacher strikes; school- based clinics dispensing contraceptives; a nuclear freeze; gay rights; the Equal Right Amendment; D.C. statehood; and Jimmy Carter, Walter Mondale, and Michael Dukakis for president. It has voted against merit pay for teachers; parental choice; voluntary school prayer; state takeovers of bad schools; home schooling; English as the official language; drug, alcohol, and AIDS testing; nuclear power plants; aid to the Nicaraguan resistance; the nomination of Judge Robert Bork to the Supreme Court; and Ronald Reagan and George Bush for president...Opposes every common-sense reform measure: competency testing for teachers, opening the teaching profession to knowledgeable individuals who have not graduated from 'schools of education,' performance-based pay, holding educators accountable for how much children learn, an end to tenure, a national examination to find out exactly how much our children know, and parental choice of schools....

Thomas Toch, education correspondent for U.S. News and World Report, "In the Name of Excellence" writes:

In 1989 it [the NEA] spent $7.4 million on such things as a computerized system of mass producing letters to Congress from 300,000 NEA members who "pre-authorized" the use of their names; "Congressional Contact Teams" made up of 2 NEA members in each Congressional district who are specially trained as lobbyists and flown back and forth from Washington to promote the NEA's cause from the local level; a computerized file of NEA's entire membership; a satellite link-up between a television studio in the NEA's Washington headquarters and its state affiliates; and a full-time lobbing staff of 15.... The NEA also has been a major backer of Democratic candidates since 1976, when it played a leading role in the Carter campaign. (Carter signaled the size of the NEA's contributions to his election by pushing through Congress the law that established the U.S. Department of Education - a longtime NEA goal).
The NEA's power in Iowa is of special concern. Again quoting Mr. Toch: "The NEA has sought to gain control of teacher licensing by establishing licensing boards with teacher majorities. Only Minnesota and Iowa have granted this board final authority in teacher certification." Particularly disconcerting for those of us in Iowa where an overwhelming majority of teachers are NEA members." With the NEA in charge, the role of the teacher continues to evolve. The NEA's report, Education for the Seventies, states: "Schools will become clinics whose purpose is to provide individualized psycho-social treatment for the students, and teachers must become psychosocial therapists."

The NEA has encountered little resistance because so little is known of its political expediencies, and according to Mr. Toch, that's the plan. "Though the NEA has fought virtually every educational reform, it has poured millions of dollars into a public relations campaign designed to convince the nation that it is committed to the reform of the public schools, and of teaching in particular." The NEA's publication NEA Today spawns a plethora of glossy images of appreciative students and their obliging teachers, but so little content that it prompted author Samuel Blumenfeld to describe it as having been "written at the intellectual level of the National Enquirer."

No expose on the NEA would be complete without investigating its contention with evangelical Christianity. Blumenfeld in his book NEA: Trojan Horse In American Education describes the organizations long association with secular humanism:

...in 1933 John Dewey and 33 other liberal humanists drew up and signed that extraordinary document known as the Humanist Manifesto. It reflected all of the influences of science, evolution, and the new psychology which were reshaping American education... It was thus Dewey who began to fashion a new materialist religion in which humanity was venerated instead of God. This is basically the religion of Secular Humanism, and this is what has become the official religion of the United States, for it is the only religion permitted in its public schools and totally supported by government funds.... The NEA has remained remarkably faithful to the Humanist Manifesto since 1933. For all practical purposes, the public school has become the parochial school for secular humanism. Its doctrines pervade the curriculum from top to bottom.

Dewey, for his contributions to education, was elected honorary president of the NEA in 1932. He was also issued the American Federation of Teachers' first membership card. With the 1973 signing of Humanistic Manifesto II, humanism became even more culturally entrenched:

As in 1933, humanist still believe that traditional theism, especially faith in the prayer-hearing God, assumed to love and care for persons, to hear and understand their prayers, and to be able to do something about them, is an unproved and outmoded faith. Salvationism, based on mere affirmation, still appears as harmful, diverting people with false hopes of heaven hereafter. Reasonable minds look to other means for survival.... No Deity will save us; we must save ourselves.

Signers of Humanist Manifesto II include Alan F. Guttmacher, president of Planned Parenthood; Betty Friedan, founder of N.O.W; behavioral psychologist B.F. Skinner, a horde of Unitarian ministers, and Lester Mondale, former president of the Fellowship of Religious Humanists. Such is the NEA's consanguine "fellowship.

"The NEA's domination of education affects all teachers. It dictates the rules of professional advancement. It pressures teachers to be politically partisan. Its infusion of humanist curriculum places conscionable teachers in a moral dilemma. And its influence over accreditation and other policies is disconcerting for teachers public and private. In summation, the NEA's monopoly on education places teachers, and our children, at risk!

"And whosoever shall offend one of these little ones that believe in me, it is better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and he were cast into the sea" (Mark 9:42, cf. Matthew 8:16 & Luke 17:2).

Groad| 6.29.11 @ 9:40AM

Teacher's unions are no more about teaching kids than the Energy Dept is about producing energy or HHS is about providing Health or services. Same for De[t of Ed. They are all about control and regulating. EPA is the same, they are all about regulating the Economy, environmental protection has nothing to do with it. These rogue agencies and unions need to be brought under control, not the citizenry they are oppressively screwing.

TKP| 6.29.11 @ 9:46AM

Most expensive, lowest performing public education system in the developed world.

Gravy train for the unions, politicians, and myriad of highly paid administrators.

Who loses? - kids and taxpayers

How does ANYONE defend that? It is the most racist element of our society, yes racist, in the real meaning of that word. Warehousing lower income kids, many black & hispanic, in horrible schools, and so many make excuses for the schools, and anyone who challenges the status quo becomes a sacrificial lamb

Stan Redmond| 6.29.11 @ 9:58AM

The make good democrat voters. No way Obama would be president if we had an education system that actually educated people.

BackToBasics| 6.29.11 @ 10:56PM

Totally agree! And that is the point of it all. And with sufficient numbers of Democrats voted in over enough time, eventually we willl get a some form of a communist / dictatorial government. We are probably 50% to 75% of the way there already. The total transition will happen quicker than we think if there is a big crisis, real or contrived.

loulou| 6.29.11 @ 9:47AM

One problem is that public school teachers are as a rule Ed. majors and are not very bright. Add to that their parasite mentality and look at the result.

Home schooling or private schools are the way to go.

Did the Cameron Diaz character have an affair with a prepubescent boy? That would be realistic.

Conrad Spiracy| 6.29.11 @ 11:41AM

"One problem is that public school teachers are as a rule Ed. majors and are not very bright."

AMEN loulou. Ever hear the expansion of that old adage?

Those that can do, do.
Those that can't teach.
Those that can't teach, teach college.
Those that can't teach college, teach Teachers' College.

My older daughter attended a Christian Academy through first grade when we lived in Michigan. We couldn't afford it, but we received a discount on tuition as my then wife taught eighth grade math and science there.

We moved to NC when our older daughter went to second grade, and the next year our younger daughter started kindergarten. In the middle of her kindergarten year, the Winston-Salem Urinal printed a picture and story about how kids were racist IN KINDERGARTEN!!! The picture was of my daughter's class waiting with coats on to go out for recess. The caption literally said, "Mary Jo Brewer's kindergarten class at Bolton Elementary appears to gather by race as they wait to go outside for recess." Appears to whom? True there were some groupings of a sort, but there was also notable intermingling.

Well, needless to say, a bunch of us parents were outraged. We arranged a special meeting with the teacher (and a wonderful one she was! - and white), the principal (highly principled, pardon the pun - and black) and the board members of the school's PTA to discuss a retort to that screed.

As we parents arrived for the meeting with our children (about 10-12 families in all, about half white, half black, one hispanic), you should have seen our kids running across the parking lot to greet AND HUG EACH OTHER. There was not one iota of racism on display by these treasured blessings we called our children.

Net result, I was elected to draft a response to the paper. It was blistering and noted our "racist kids" hugging each other before the meeting. We met again to review the draft, it was sent, and the Urinal never published it. PUKES!

A few months later one of my IT vendors took me to lunch at a good restaurant. There at the next table was the dishonorable, despicable John Gates, the publisher of the Urinal. It was all I could do to keep from jumping the railing and choking the ever-loving excrement out of him.

Needless to say, I stayed involved with both of our daughters' educations. Took time off to be a room parent at a second grade Christmas (NOT Holiday) party and play games. Took time off to be a chaperone at an eighth grade graduation picnic. Busted a hump every high school football game and marching band competition. Served on the Board of Directors of the band parents. Met with the HS principal after one daughter's "science" teacher showed the class the movie "Armegeddon" in the first week of school. Anybody remember Bruce Willis catching his daughter Liv Tyler in bed with Ben Afflect outside of marriage and addressing him as "Harry?" The principlal apologized and committed to reviewing the school's approved movies list before showing another one. Incidentally, that list had to pass muster with the PTA board as well as a cross-sectional group of concerned parents. By-the-by, the principal was named Principal of The Year last year, a well deserving accolade for a class-act adminstrator.

As I could not afford private elementary/secondary school for multiple thousands per year per child, neither can I afford multiple of TENS of thousands a year for private college. I am glad that both of my daughters attend what is probably the academic jewel in the UNC system - a tiny little school in the mountainous God's Country of western NC - a school which some of you may remember gained a little bit of fame a few years back due to a football game in Ann Arbor. Last academic year, the school received 14,000 applications for 4,500 freshman seats. Needless to say, they can be picky about whom they admit.

FOLKS - if you have kids in school, stay with them by staying ON the teachers and administrators. Take a day off now and then to get into the classroom or outside on a field trip. Know the teachers, know the kids your kids hang out with (I never had a complaint about those whom our daughters chose for socializing.)

If your kids made it through a public school education, are law abiding, productive, and contributors to their community and family, be thankful. I know I am.

Con Spiracy

KDW| 6.29.11 @ 1:02PM

Those who can, do.
Those who can't, teach.
Those who can't teach, teach gym.
Those who can't teach gym become community
organizers.

ZAK KLEMMER | 6.29.11 @ 3:00PM

Those who can't teach teach teachers how to teach. ;)

cowgirl| 6.29.11 @ 10:11AM

California - highest paid teachers in the country - third worst-performing schools in the country.

Tim Martin| 6.29.11 @ 10:36AM

I used to really respect teachers. I went to Catholic grade school and high school. Almost all of my teachers were excellent, especially the ones who taught the core subjects. I do realize teachers today are confronted with the task of trying to teach kids who come from a home where education is put pretty far down the list of priorities. I worked in the bad areas of my city and one of the things I noticed in virtually all of the homes I visited was the lack of books. Lots of expensive toys and the latest electronic gadgets but no books. When I was growing up books were always part of my presents at Christmas, birthday and other times. From Little Golden childrens books to classics printed for children, my brother and I were always reading. The schools reinforced this on a daily basis. Getting back to the teachers, I think the quality of teaching has gone down greatly. I live in a state with a lot of teachers strikes. The last thing most of these people care about is the kids. It's all about the money. The union has them convinced that they are a "special class" deserving of much more than everyone else. I feel sorry for the good teachers stuck in this system but they are the ones who have to get it changed. Having been in a union all my working days I know how hard it is to buck the union system but it has to be done. As long as you have unions whose sole intent is to line their pockets with more money and power nothing will change. While I am ranting le me add that the schools should truly get back to basics. How about teaching kids how to budget money and live within their means. Or to actually read and write at a more than basic level. The time spent teaching our kids about the rain forest, global warming (?), all the poor animals we are supposedly wiping off the earth (?), and all of the other stuff which adds nothing to their ability to function in the real world could, I think be put to better use. After they have been taught to read, write and do math then we can get into this other stuff. First things first. But . . . this leads me back to the fact that if none of this is reinforced at home it doesn't sink in. What is the solution? I think the only way to solve this and a lot of other problems would be to take the children away from their parent/parents and place them with people who truly care about them. But we all know that isn't going to happen. It is a giant problem and if we do not solve it we will become a third world nation full of uneducated people who can't read or write at a high level but can tell you all about the "plight" of the polar bear, rain forest and snail darter. and how we are all going to die from "climate change". That'll help you get a job, huh ?

Tina B| 6.29.11 @ 11:10AM

If Cameron did not seduce a teenage boy in this bad teacher flick, which as a teacher about to retire I will undoubtably view, it is because in Hollyweird (think Roman Polanski worshippers) that is no crime, nor is it cause for shame.

The movie will probably make me want to laugh, cry and puke (not at the same time, silly) when I rent it on DVD. This summer, hopefully, because once school starts it probably wouldn't be productive for me to watch it. I teach middle school. It is my last year doing so.

I left the union over 10 years ago, when I discovered my dues $$ was going to support Planned Parenthood. I have seen and heard it all before. Not all wrapped up in one teacher, but essentially the writers above have captured the state of the Public Schools System today. As has the writer of this film, apparently.

Gary| 6.29.11 @ 11:39AM

Public "education" is nothing more than a union shakedown.

CalMark| 6.29.11 @ 12:05PM

Go back to the pre-1900 model. If a community wants a school, they create a board and hire teachers. If not, it's everyone for themselves.

Teachers do nothing but complain about lifetime tenure, high pay (remember, they work less than 3/4 of a year if you count all the school vacations), no relocation, and fabulous benefits. Force teachers to shop their services and join the real world.

Seek| 6.29.11 @ 12:08PM

I enjoy a black comedy as much as the next person, especially those directed by Alexander Payne ("Election," "Sideways," etc.). I may have to check this one out.

wolflen| 6.29.11 @ 2:03PM

california at one time had the "best schools in the country"...the la times reported last week that approx 50% of high school kids drop out...and the remaining..only 30% of them are ready for college...lets see..the gang population should have a notable spike..crime in all communities in LA county should be breaking records..and the prison population should have alot of new tattoos ..

perhaps there should be a warning label..

public education: may be bad for your health..may produce life long poverty..may produce criminal behaviour..may produce attraction toward street gangs and incarceration in state or federal prisons

ZAK KLEMMER | 6.29.11 @ 2:58PM

Education co-ops would be a way to go. Have 4 or 5 families set up a home school and group teach all their kids. We all live in airconditioned homes and own computers. Either that or buy land in a remote area where the educrats can't pester you. Free at last, free at last, free at last!

Naturalborn Texican| 6.29.11 @ 4:14PM

Point is, this is just another stupid Hollywood, degenerate film. Why does Hollywood NEVER make anything worth viewing any more?

I am thankful that I live and teach in a state that doesn't make teachers join a union.

My experience has been great when it comes to teachers in my school going the 100 extra miles for our students and their academic futures.

Quite frankly, we bust our tails with tutorials AFTER school, sometimes 4 times a week thru the entire school year, close monitoring of struggling students, and working to get and KEEP parents as partners to ensure that our students are successful academically.

Said this before and will say it again...yes, there are "bad" teachers who should have chosen another career from the get go. But the large majority of teachers that I know, and have known, are truly invested in helping their students to become successful!!!

Seek| 6.29.11 @ 4:23PM

How about seeing some movies (like this one) before condemning them? The "degeneracy" is all in your head. Depiction is not de facto endorsement.

Adrian| 6.29.11 @ 4:20PM

Change the title to "Typical Teacher" and it'd qualify as a documentary I bet.

Gary| 6.29.11 @ 6:14PM

Adrian, that's funny...

Steve in Pittsburgh| 6.29.11 @ 4:28PM

There is also Steel Town, currently filming in Pittsburgh.

It more or less follows the plot of Lean on Me. Like that movie, it will be a feel good movie; the parent, played by Maggie Gyllenhaal works with a teacher, played by Viola Davis to either change the school or make it a charter school.

I was an extra in this movie.

Thom| 6.29.11 @ 9:18PM

Why should government school employees be held to any different standards than say government post office, rail road, police, fire, employees? All these groups are unionized which is not the core problem in and of its self. Most threaten and sometimes carry out extortion via their illegal strikes. Can government military employees go on strike? Why not?

The central problem here is multifaceted. The first part is this notion that government employees can unionize and then use their monopolistic position to extort jobs, money and benefits from the taxpayers. Freedom to associate, via a Union and collective bargaining is one thing; using that as a form of extortion is another particularly since government is by default supposed to be “necessary” to the function of society. If government employees can choose to make themselves unnecessary via their attempts at extortion (strikes and alike) then they should be fired on the spot. A union in practice that does not have the power to strike is worthless in the eyes of most unionized employees thus a unionized government employee work force is by definition an oxymoron. As long as government employees can unionize and collectively intimidate or practice extortion via strike or similar actions as we saw in Wisconsin recently you aren’t going to change the behavior at the core of this problem.

Second, everywhere you see accountability decoupled from outcome you get declining standards and rising cost. The lack of accountability in the teacher profession is blazingly obvious to anyone that spent 10 minutes in most public schools. If a union determines who works, or is fired or what the work conditions are then there is no need for management. Government Motors is run by the UAW. They set the rules of who, what, when and how much. The management teams that Ford, GM and Chrysler have are window dressing. The Post office loses billions each year and it will do everything but that which will bring its cost in line with its revenue. Cut salaries and benefits to match market reality. The Post office is a government monopoly and acts accordingly because it has no free market forces to compete with. Likewise those who support government schools through their taxes don’t have a viable option to walk away with their money as one does in the private sector. If vendor A does not meet your expectations then you have every right to go to Vendor B, C etc. How do those with and without children and are compelled to support systematic failure year after year have a choice in this matter? Likewise, if government teachers can’t be held to an objective standard like the rest of the world and Administrator can’t be held accountable for keeping said teachers and social promoting failing students year after year and students that have no motivations to learn aren’t sent home to their parent(s) then nothing is going to change in the “system”. The Best teachers in the world can’t teach students anything if they don’t have the motivations at home to learn and behave. Keeping unmotivated and undisciplined students in school serves the function of Day Care not education. That government schools are responsible for the standards they maintain and holding students to those standards is a given but the parent(s) are responsible for seed corn that walks in the front door every day. All three groups, the Public School employees, the Parent(s) and the students have been decoupled from their respective responsibilities and the government school system is run by the lowest common denominator now. This is not the Public School system I attended in the 50s and 60s although it was already changing by the time I left it in 1970.

All rolled up the lack of accountability on several levels has to be restored or nothing fundamental is going to change. I was a government employee for 20 years and I was accountable. I’ve never been part of a union or collective as such. Everywhere I’ve seen a union run the business the business has failed. Only “government” seems immune to market reality and customers being able to seek a better use for their dollars. That has to change.

play nice| 6.29.11 @ 10:35PM

Lighten up folks - see the movie - it is a hoot.
leave the kids at home...

Petronius| 6.30.11 @ 1:02AM

Come back Edward James Olmos. People outside of the LA basin don't know that after the acclaim for Stand and Deliver, Jaime Escalante was ganged up on and run out of the California school system for life by the teachers unions and the administrators, who were actually still union members waiting to retire. He taught his students things they do not want people unlike themselves to know.
And does anyone remember Marva Collins in Chicago? If any teacher left a public system to start a school with personal savings in a union dominated city today, they would not get an occupancy permit from city hall.
If anybody finds these films on DVD, give us a heads up.

Marc Jeric| 6.30.11 @ 1:17AM

Given time all unions fall into the hands of communists (sometimes passing through the hands of the Mafia. Then the union destroys the industry in which it works: steel, textile, automobiles, apparel, electronics, etc. - and of course Postal Service, Amtrak, education, all government services. After 40 years of teachers unions our education has fallen to the level of Zimbabwe. Factually all government employees unions are by definition criminal conspiracies against the people, and should therefore be routinely prosecuted under the RICO Act.

Petronius| 6.30.11 @ 3:27PM

Apples and oranges don't mix. Federal employee unions do not have the latitude enjoyed by craft unions in private industry. Remember what happened to PATCO. Had the Airline Pilots Assn. backed them, they would have had leverage. Instead they struck and were removed under Title XVIII. G. Wm. Miller tried his best to force the NALC to strike against the Postal Service. At that time President Rademacher and our negotiating team never considered it because we have arbitration and also because the provocation was an obvious trap. The NALC Political Action Fund and C.O.L.C.P.E are purely voluntary as no dues monies may be spent legally for any political purpose. And while the majority sentiments of our membership are redolent of the New Deal some attitudes are changing. One of my branches newest members is coordinating our own marketing program through your active Letter Carriers on the street as I write. Besides Customer Connect single rate Priority Parcels, we have launched an in zone door to door bulk mailing program where local merchants can cover as much of their own zip code as they want with unaddressed circulars by having printers drop ship that mail in their districts and get billed for the deliveries they specify at substantial discount from doing it the old way by securing a permit and depositing at the weighers unit at the main office. The only large scale crime in the Postal Service is the idiotic work rules imposed upon the carriers which sabotage our work. Get rid of DP Mess and let us case and carry our routes our way. Put a stop to the contract violations, eliminate the processing bottlenecks, and pass H.B. 1351 to adjust our benefit prepayment obligations to OPM. Then the Postal Service will be viable again. One more thing. We want the $26 billion Senator Dole expropriated from us to fund ADM and the ethanol scam we are all still paying for.

RetUSA1/75| 6.30.11 @ 1:21AM

I was the lucky one's; educated at Fork Union Military Academy, Fork Union, VA. I eventually went on to serve my country further, 20yrs, 4mos, and 18days of active military service. RetUSASNCO. GBA, baby!!!

john bunny| 6.30.11 @ 2:57AM

I'm a survivor of the great late '50 midwest school reorganization era (close the country schools, send everyone to a larger-size school in the county seat and bring in a lot of recent college grads as teachers). It was supposed to educate us to be smart enough to beat the Russians at everything. The whole thing was promoted by James Conant of Harvard, and Eleanor Roosevelt, who always seemed to be writing something in the Sat. Evening Post about the wonders of the Russian school system. Maybe the venture might have worked if some preachers ("God doesn't want you to know his secrets") and farm commentators ("you can't do your chores and keep your head in a book") had kept their mouths shut. Later in the '60s the great mania in college education classes was the wonder of the overhead projector. You could teach anything using an overhead projector--we were taught. I could go on and on about school reforms a half-century ago, but wanted to get in here something about the great school reorganization. It was well-meaning, but the results did not live up to the ideals.

john bunny| 6.30.11 @ 6:47AM

Sorry about my uncalled for sarcasm about farmers not thinking kids should be educated. My folks worked very hard to get their kids through the schooling process. Dr. Conant's big education project to turn rural kids into young Einsteins and Bohrs may have been necessary for the future of America, but finding teachers who could fulfill the dream did not always work out perfectly.

Eddie| 6.30.11 @ 7:26AM

Sneaky how Hollyweird masks their failures, and support of failures, through comedy. This "lessens" the truth and pain of the reality that our culture must face on a daily basis. America, however, is waking up, finally. Sixty years of liberal corruption, lies and selling out of our country in nearing its end. They've had their fun at taxpayers expense; it's time for the grown-ups to reclaim our country and get it back in order. Bad teachers = bad politicians.

Sue| 6.30.11 @ 1:27PM

This movie was disgusting. From the foul language including very descriptive language about sexual behavior, to the horribleness of relating to the students. I'm sorry I paid good money (even cheapened Obama-fiat money) to see this piece of garbage. Take out all the foul language, perverted sex acts, and Hollywood might have had a reasonably good product. This product stunk like a skunk squished on the highway.

weddingdress | 7.1.11 @ 12:35AM

Carl Peter Klapper | 7.3.11 @ 7:54PM

We don't need the schools, public or private. What we need is a diploma which can be earned by demonstrating mastery of certain courses. Acquiring that mastery can be done in the home with the assistance of libraries, museums, zoos and botanical parks. We should create course exams, have them judicially administered and have the state grant diplomas to the students who has completed their course requirements, whenever they do so. We can do the same for the BA and masters. Let the colleges and universities then compete for students under open enrollment.

Carl Peter Klapper | 7.3.11 @ 7:55PM

*have

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Bless B| 7.7.11 @ 7:25AM

This movie was soooo funny. I think it made so much money because there is so much truth to the movie. I'm an SLP and I hear teachers talk all the time about non productive teachers. This movie should be a wake up call to educators and to the government. "The world is laughing at you." If people would stop looking at their pockets and really focus on students maybe so actually change would occur. Yes tenured teachers are fired but the process is sooooo crazy and long it deters adminstrators from taking action. A change in the education system will only occur when teachers, parents, administrators, and politicians make quality decisions for students together. This makes me wonder how NCLB came into existance.
I give good teachers credit. School isn't what it used to be. I wonder if a real change will ever occur? I look at all the social factors that are affecting our students are wonder, how is a teacher really suppose to teach through that?

maltomiel| 7.9.11 @ 5:48PM

Teachers actually educating young minds seems to not be a high point in popular culture going way back. Ichobod Crane was not a great educator. The Katzenjammer Kids don't seem to have learned much from Der Professor and Mama. Grundy spent a lot of school time trying to hook Weatherbee. Brooks seems to have spent most of her school time getting yelled at by Conklin and trying to hook Boynton. The best portrayal of a school teacher IMO was the old coach in Grease played by Sid Caesar. I wish I could have a teacher or coach like him.