[lbo-talk] More "school reform" nonsense

Carrol Cox cbcox at ilstu.edu
Thu May 27 11:16:25 PDT 2010


Wojtek S wrote:
>
> Carrol: "Please tell us how to Select the Selectors, Judge the Judges. And
> who
> judges those who judge who should do the judging?"
>
> [WS:] They would self-select, as it is typically done for such functions.
>
> Wojtek

Not bad. Le me provide some anecdotage.

In my 65 years of acquaintance with high schools & universities, as student then as faculty, I do not remember evidence of a single faculty member whose incompetence made a substantial difference in the education of the students. Nor have I heard of such from close relatives or friends. But I have knowledge of 3 principals, 1 supervintendent, one whole school board, and 3 department heads who had a serious negative impact on the quality of teaching. The number of Deans & Vice-Presidents whose impact was negative is incalcuable. Elimination of Merit systems and hiring/promoting by an arbitrary system would almost certainly reduce the number of positively destructive teachers, who in most cases are favorites of the administration.

Jan worked 18 years at the Post Office. You have a pretty random work force there. Surprisingly perhaps, most of the woerkers there were actually concerned with getting the mail to people. However, it seemed as thouth the managment deliberately planned ways to frustrate that desiire of the bulk of the workforce. This was so extreme that I would suggest that conspiracy theorists forget 9/11 and concentrate on the Post Office.

Carrol


>
> On Thu, May 27, 2010 at 10:58 AM, Carrol Cox <cbcox at ilstu.edu> wrote:
>
> > Please explain how you want to select the people who do the judging of
> > these 100s of millions of gross incompetents who yu assume are
> > destroying us.
> >
> > Please tell us how to Select the Selectors, Judge the Judges. And who
> > judges those who judge who should do the judging?
> > Carrol
> >
> > brad wrote:
> > >
> > > So either one is arguing for meritocracy (who did that?) or we accept
> > > and advocate for people performing below their full potential. My
> > > that binary looks good on you. Can we please not simply argue for the
> > > opposite of what the other side does. We are smarter than that.
> > >
> > > Brad
> > > ___________________________________
> > > http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk
> > ___________________________________
> > http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk
> >
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