[lbo-talk] More "school reform" nonsense

[Carrol Cox]

Some examples come to mind. There was this psychopath who taught the
Mediveal Lit class at Michigan that every doctoral candidate had to pass
with a B. He was one of those people who at first you don't like and
then get to reall hatre. He graded one student's test a D because the
student was left handed (he had not seen her taking notes with her right
hand and didn't watch her left). Anyhow, one semesterhe really flipped
and gave everyone in the class a D (except for a couple I believe). The
world did not come to an end. The Department arranged a relatively
simple medieval prelim which those students took. One fairly well known
philosopher at Michigan developed Alzheiver's but did not retire. He
held classes in his home, 'taught' by his wife. Football players took
them, got As, and kept their shcholarshps. Again, I don't think the
gates of Western Civilization came crashing down. A wonderful teahcer I
had for 76th/86h grade (in a rural school -- grades 6-8 in one room) was
probably utterly incompetent by any objective standard. As an 8th-grader
I could see that some of his information was all screwed up. He probably
had had only one or two years of college, and probably goofed off. But
somehow it all still worked, for most of us anyhow. I had two semesters
of French history from one of the best prepared, most organized
lecturers I have ever encounted.  He was undoubtedly  highly competent
by almost any objective standard. I did enjoy his classes. I realized
after I had left them that I didn't know a fucking thing about 18th-c
French history. The  same semester I had a pointless education class
from one of the most hopeless professors I have ever encountered. I
mean, she was  reallly incompetent, and the class was a sillyone in any
case. There were 4 or5 other interesting students in the class, she
exercised no control or provided no organization (gave all As) & quite a
few of us realized as the semester went on that it was, at least for us,
a really fascinating class in which we were learning a lot (nothing she
had to teach but somehow something clicked. I have, however, known
relatively few elementary or highschool principals whom I would trust to
know the difference between a great teacher and an asshole. Probably one
of the great weaknesses of the u.s. education system is the habit of
letting principals rate teachers. Almost by definition anyone in a
position to rate teachers is incompetent  or he/hse wouldn't be in that
position.

No possible disaster (and there would be disasters) in a system where
all hiring and promotion is by seniority with no judgment of quality --
no disaster in such a system could possibly do as much damage as the
merit system does.

Carrol

Michael Smith wrote:
> 
> On Tue, 25 May 2010 14:49:37 -0700
> Miles Jackson <cqmv at pdx.edu> wrote:
> 
> > Given the existing bureaucratic structure and
> > social contingencies
> 
> ... all of which depends rather heavily on "grading", right?
> 
> It's ultimately an argument about the virtue of sabotage, innnit?
> An old question.
> 
> --
> 
> Michael Smith
> mjs at smithbowen.net
> http://stopmebeforeivoteagain.org
> http://fakesprogress.blogspot.com
> 
> "I am in favor of leaving people alone,
> no matter how imperfect their polity may
> seem." -- Stephen Maturin, MD
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