Education

Teachers Union Chief: U.S. Could Learn a Lot From Foreign School Systems

For one union chief, America has a lot to learn about the education system and should take its cues for countries like Canada andTeachers Union Chief: U.S. Could Learn a Lot From Foreign School Systems Finland.

Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, reportedly said that American exceptionalism does not “exempt” the U.S. from employing education practices that “work” in other countries. And for Weingarten, that includes a nearly 100 percent unionized teacher-force like the one found in Finland.

During her speech Monday at the labor union’s annual conference in Washington, D.C. Weingarten spoke about how she feels teachers are more highly valued in other countries than they are here. CNSNews reports:

Weingarten said she has visited schools in Canada and Finland. Those countries and others, she said, “all put a strong emphasis on teacher preparation, continuous development, and mentoring and collaboration — and in each of these countries, teaching is a highly respected profession.”

In Finland, she said, teacher training is “demanding, rigorous and extensive.”

“Finnish teachers are esteemed and are compensated fairly, and their training is fully paid for by the government,” Weingarten said. “And they’re virtually 100 percent unionized, as teachers are in most of the top-performing countries.”

According to CNS, Weingarten believes that while other countries’ school systems are improving, the United States is stuck “experimenting” with “stop-start” programs such as vouchers, merit pay, tour-of-duty teaching, and the Obama administration’s Race to the Top program.

“The problem with all of these experiments is that our children are not lab rats,” Weingarten said. “This is not about navigating through a maze. It’s about navigating through life, and we have to help them do that.”

So what say you? Should our school system follow the lead of other countries, or should we be the ones setting the gold standard?

Comments (151)

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  • KissMyConservativeValues
    Posted on July 13, 2011 at 7:53am

    So tired of teacher union crap. Whine, Whine, Whine. I am a teacher. I have a love/hate relationship with my job, like anyone else. I love teaching, I hate the government mandated hoops that are only in place due to politics. If my fellow educators want to feel appreciated for their professionalism and talents, try voting for non-progressives. Small government/low regulation conservatives inherently appreciate the talents of the individual. It is lib/progressives that want to micromanage every aspect of your life and school day. Get a clue and make all states right to work. I would love to leave my union. It is unAmerican to not give the individual the choice.

    Report Post »  
    • UH60L13
      Posted on July 13, 2011 at 8:37am

      Well said, I agree with you 100%. Teachers should be and are a valuable part of American exceptionalism. Let the Teachers teach and stop the Politian from making silly ass rules and regulations just to please their Union Leadership that got them their job. If a Teacher doesn’t perform well, give them a warning and point them in the right direction to fix their short comings and if after that, still fail as a Teacher it is time to part ways with that person. Just like any other job, explain to them what is expected of them, train them, encourage them, reward them, and if you fail and can’t perform to standards, fire them.

      Report Post » UH60L13  
    • sWampy
      Posted on July 13, 2011 at 9:11am

      Our schools were great until they decided that you need someone with a doctorate to teach first grade. The best education for a teacher/doctor/welder/pipe fitter/thousands of other jobs is on the job training. We had better teachers, doctors, etc back when you apprenticed with an actual teacher/doctor for 10 years as an assistant slowly working your way into the job than you get now with 10 years of the anti education system in this nation.

      Report Post »  
    • crazyhorse
      Posted on July 13, 2011 at 9:37am

      I am a teacher as well and I am sick and tired of my profession being hijacked by unions who could give a rats a** about me but “represent” us solely to fill their coffers. Interestingly enough, she states “they’re virtually 100 percent unionized, as teachers are in most of the top-performing countries.” Obviously unions must be the answer! I do not join the union and still pay 65% “fair share” and I am no lesser the teacher than my peers who join the union. If the events in Wisconsin taught us nothing else, it’s that success can be achieved without union intervention.

      Report Post » crazyhorse  
    • JRook
      Posted on July 13, 2011 at 9:56am

      The Gold Standard as Tiff mentions should be based on student achievement, graduation rates and student competency not whether teachers are unionized or beliefs on how schools should be organized, funded and, certainly not on curriculums that are influenced by any religion. A story such as this that does not include relative standing of US students in the world, just perpetuates the baseless rhetoric put forth by both sides. Similar to health care our relative student performance in the world is not what we like to think it is and it is moving in the wrong direction.

      Report Post »  
    • TomFerrari
      Posted on July 13, 2011 at 10:38am

      So,
      The extent of her detail of WHY other countries work, is that they have MORE UNIONS!?!?

      How about researching what and how they TEACH!?!?
      How about researching what and how they raise their children? The child’s obedience? The child’s desire to learn?
      How about researching with what and how they INDOCTRINATE their children in things such as class warfare, and entitlements?

      Content is what is learned
      Structure is how it is learned

      After all, unions have worked SO WELL for us here!

      Report Post » TomFerrari  
    • Bloody Sam
      Posted on July 13, 2011 at 11:15am

      She says “children are not lab rats…”

      Right. Just future ‘Rats to you right Randi?

      Report Post » Bloody Sam  
    • Jaycen
      Posted on July 13, 2011 at 1:13pm

      Amen! Your statements are valid for every aspect of American life.

      Report Post » Jaycen  
    • smithclar3nc3
      Posted on July 13, 2011 at 1:40pm

      EXACTLY HOW DOES HAVING A 100% TEACHERS UNION WORK FORCE BENFIT ONE STUDENT(LIKE FINLAND)….. OH WAIT IT DOESN’T IT BENEFITS TEACHERS.
      You want smarter children base teachers pay on student performance. It they are doing a good job thier pay increases if they are now their pay decreases. PUBLIC UNIONS ARE ENEMIES OF THE STATE.

      Report Post »  
    • Patrick in AZ
      Posted on July 13, 2011 at 1:52pm

      ” … our children are not lab rats”
      ——————————
      Then why are teachers & their unions constantly treating them like lab rats?

      Report Post » Patrick in AZ  
    • cokoskirt
      Posted on July 13, 2011 at 2:12pm

      soon they will take rights away from the parents to home school their kids because the parent doesn’t have formal education to be a teacher. If you have the knowledge, you can teach, period

      Report Post » cokoskirt  
    • fantasywriter
      Posted on July 13, 2011 at 5:04pm

      The problem we have in education is that we still believe that a teachers job is to impart knowledge to their students. This not only puts pressure on the teacher but also allows them to impart their own personal beliefs. What is necessary is to teach our children how to learn, how to study and how to use failure as a stepping stone to success. Most children have the barest idea how to to study much less complete homework. It’s the tools they need as well as mentors and guides. When I was in school I would take a homework assignment and find information that went far beyond what was required. A good deal of the information I brought in was even beyond what the teacher knew and that was the whole point. My reason for the extra research was to harass the teacher and sometimes embarrass the teacher. My plan worked to well but didn’t lead to better grades for obvious reasons. Not until I met an older junior high school literature teacher did I learn a true life lesson. She taught me to channel my efforts and helped me to understand that self learning was a positive thing if used for the right reasons. In later years I learned what is lacking most in education is the knowledge of how to learn and how to study. Looking at your homework and not knowing where to start then putting it off for later and then never getting to it doesn’t get it done. The current teaching methods seems designed to create followers and those who would rather depend then contribute. This needs to end.

      Report Post »  
    • paperpushermj
      Posted on July 13, 2011 at 6:10pm

      What ever the Left touches turns to CR*P.

      Report Post » paperpushermj  
    • chickster
      Posted on July 14, 2011 at 7:29am

      well you need to run for the head of the union job. it only pays 585,000 a year.

      Report Post » chickster  
  • judostatic
    Posted on July 13, 2011 at 7:53am

    well for me the problem with that is this training would be dumbed so much because certain minorites would cry afoul when they weren‘t passed and say its racism that they didn’t pass the test maybe we need seriously reconstruct our system so that it works i mean if illegals are going to get an education and not pay for it maybe we need to start chargin a direct fee to go to school

    Report Post » judostatic  
  • dave88
    Posted on July 13, 2011 at 7:51am

    She‘s right that students aren’t lab rats, but if the current system is turning out students with no education then something has to be fixed. It has been proven that giving teachers more money and benefits do not cause them to teach any better. Vouchers and merit pay are excellent ideas. It is unfair to the students to keep a teacher that doesn’t teach.

    Report Post »  
    • Mil-Dot
      Posted on July 13, 2011 at 11:39am

      Teachers in the US have become communist enemies of the parents whose children they “teach”. (I mean indoctrinate, sorry)

      Report Post »  
    • CatB
      Posted on July 13, 2011 at 4:29pm

      HOME SCHOOL!

      TEA!

      c

      Report Post »  
  • meritocracy
    Posted on July 13, 2011 at 7:50am

    Maybe we could look at Belgiums system, it is the ultimate voucher system and it appears to be working pretty good.

    Report Post » meritocracy  
    • adamic
      Posted on July 13, 2011 at 8:17am

      I agree 100%.

      Report Post »  
    • Al J Zira
      Posted on July 13, 2011 at 8:55am

      I second that! They can educate a child for somewhere around $3000 a year and they kick our butts in school testing. In my area the average cost to educate a student is around $15000 (that’s not a typo) a year. I should say that what we pay to send a child to school each year, we really don’t know what it actually costs.
      And the reason their costs are so low is because the schools are forced to compete for the money the parents are provided through vouchers instead of the black hole created by government funding.

      Report Post » Al J Zira  
    • sWampy
      Posted on July 13, 2011 at 9:20am

      Amen, if we want to spend $15k, fine, spend $6k on voucher, put $4K in a college fund, and put $5k in a housing fund. If the kid graduates high school and wants the college fund they get it, if they want to go to take up a trade fine, when they turn 21 and show they have a good start on a profession, they get their college and housing fund towards a home. If they graduate college, they get the housing fund. This way at least we would be giving people that worked hard a super shot at becoming upper middle class, rather than encouraging people to stay in poverty.

      Report Post »  
  • seeker9
    Posted on July 13, 2011 at 7:40am

    Union translation: Go global and cherrypick benefits. That’s the ticket!

    Report Post » seeker9  
  • Seabee79
    Posted on July 13, 2011 at 7:31am

    I think this idiot should look at the size of finland and canada. canada is bigger but the population size of these two countries are very small compared to the usa. heck Cal. may have more people then these two countries alone. I’d have to look it up.

    Report Post » Seabee79  
  • treshall
    Posted on July 13, 2011 at 7:25am

    I have been a teacher (at the university level) for 22 years now and I would never, repeat NEVER join a union. Michele Bachmann and other Conservatives are correct when they say that the abolition of the Dept. of Education could save us all untold billions of dollars and, I would add, help us save face and whatever remnants of pride we have left since the election of the malignant narcissist.

    Report Post »  
    • KissMyConservativeValues
      Posted on July 13, 2011 at 8:00am

      When I was hired my district told me that the union will be taking x about of money from your check. If you don’t like being in a union you can opt out and that money will go into a scholarship fund. Either way you are going to pay. We need to make all states right to work.

      Report Post »  
    • drbage
      Posted on July 13, 2011 at 10:32am

      I was a teacher for 20 years in Africa and the Middle East and planned to continue doing so when I returned to the US. Went on 3 interviews and the most important topics in all 3 were the union, what the union would do for me, what I had to do for the union, and salary. About 15 minutes into the third interview, I excused myself and told the interviewer that I was not interested in unions, but rather in educating students and from what he had said to that point, the union was more important than the students and education.

      Report Post »  
  • teddrunk
    Posted on July 13, 2011 at 7:24am

    Poor teachers may lose their freee Viagra. They are not appreciated as they should be here.

    Report Post »  
  • cassandra
    Posted on July 13, 2011 at 7:23am

    the teachers unions are what has been keeping our kids dumb, they keep asking for more money for what the kids? no it goes toward pensions and more and more adminstrators that have redundint jobs,allowing teachers to show contemp for our country, going insane if someone mentions GOD in school, they are more concerned about their benifits then teaching our kids, and getting them ready for college, some teachers are good teachers but most want to go on teaching their rhetoric and indoctrinating our children for their own goal, the teachers union must be stopped. they just use our children as pawns

    Report Post »  
  • obfuscatenot
    Posted on July 13, 2011 at 7:21am

    The two greatest words spoken in education in the USA nowadays is home school! I’d be glad to contribute to a fund to send Ms. Weingarten to Finland to teach!

    Report Post »  
    • rose-ellen
      Posted on July 13, 2011 at 9:40am

      Home schooling should be outlawed.Children belong in transparent social educational settings where they learn to be part of society This family unit as educator, socializer is a form of incestuous [ batton down the hatches garrisson we're at war with the society] mentality and is barbaric.That home schooling is allowed in this country puts us on the level of the taliban in the mountains of afghanistan!Paranoid Neanderthals!

      Report Post »  
    • Lesbian Packing Hollow Points
      Posted on July 13, 2011 at 10:17am

      Except that homeschooled students routinely, as a rule, outperform publicly educated students. If that’s what it takes to educate a free people, then batten down the hatches.

      Report Post » Lesbian Packing Hollow Points  
    • MidWestMom
      Posted on July 13, 2011 at 10:33am

      Homeschool kids, as a group, consistently score higher across the board than kids from the public education system. Many colleges (including the big name schools) & junior colleges state homeschool graduates are better educated and have a higher success rate than public school graduates.

      Although homeschool regulations & requirements differ from state to state, parents do the bulk of the teaching, supervising & implementing their children’s education. And they do it with little to no government interference, no government money. And they don’t need a “teacher’s union”.

      Less government, more parental involvement & no teacher union produces better educated kids. Funny how that works.

      For all the teachers out there – I’m speaking in general terms & from personal experience. I know there are wonderful teachers (some are very good friends of ours & just as frustrated with the system as we are) in the public school system and I highly respect them. As with most things in life – there is the good & the not so good.

      Report Post »  
    • Rickfromillinois
      Posted on July 13, 2011 at 10:40am

      On the average Home Schooled children perform much better on standardized testing much better then those who attend public schools. To say that Home Schooling should be outlawed because of a lack of social education is not only a false argument but upon reflection, idiotic at best. The SOLE reason that most people are against Home Schooling is because it makes Pubic Schools look bad because of the disparity in test scores. The detractors try to make it sound as though the children are locked in their homes and are unable to interface with other children outside of school. Also, one of the reasons that many people Home School outside the obvious in order for their children to get a good education is because of the so called societal learning that they learn in public schools. The “educators” decided that they are the ones who are going to teach something that many parents consider their responsibility. The argument seems to be that teaching social views is more important then a basic education. That explains why the U.S. students rank so low in international test score comparisons. Typical union bs.

      Report Post » Rickfromillinois  
    • MidWestMom
      Posted on July 13, 2011 at 11:03am

      @ rose-ellen
      “Children belong in transparent social educational settings where they learn to be part of society”

      Oh sure, and that’s such a great benefit in public schools. Those same schools that have armed guards, metal detectors, violence etc. – from kindergarten on up. Curriculums that teach the overthrow of the government, the concept of entitlement without effort, that teach & encourage class & racial warfare etc. Such a wonderful social & learning environment.

      Hate to burst your bubble but we’ve homeschooled two kids, now 17 & 16, from the beginning. They’re very socially competent. They’ve always been involved in sports, church youth groups, scouting, 4H etc. They are perfectly at ease in any situation. They have no prejudices – race, age, gender, class etc. They are emotionally secure and have no need to belong to the “right” group in order to define or validate themselves.

      Report Post »  
    • caazilin
      Posted on July 13, 2011 at 12:32pm

      You are the craziest nut job ever. I am tired of listening to your tired sh*t. Get a life you piece of cr*p. Go check out media matters it is more your level if idiocy.

      Report Post »  
    • rose-ellen
      Posted on July 13, 2011 at 12:46pm

      Children need to get away from their parents and get exposed to adults who are not parents. Insulation is not an asset,but a detriment to wholeness.Success is a relative term,parents have no business being the sole teachers of their children its anti social and uncivilized and ominous..Yes public schools in an advanced country of 350 million people should be supported through taxes and policies that insure public education is the standard of american education.Private schools should exist but not be subsidized[unless and until we have money to burn].This libertarian self centered,paanoid[my family ,my children belong to me and no one gets to indoctinate my children] is so backwards,uncivilized and barbaric.Ican’t believe americans really think like this.very bizarre that this has taken hold in this country.Reactionary paranoid luddites trying to stem the tide of enlightened secular democray.

      Report Post »  
    • dmforman
      Posted on July 13, 2011 at 2:30pm

      @ Rose Ellen

      I am very picky with the adults my child is able to be with, because of people like you. I want my son to have high values and morals. It upsets me when other adults try to undermine what is taught and valued in my home. It’s important to me that my son has critical thinking skills before he is bombarded with crazy ideas such as yours, so that he can think through what you are saying and shred your thoughts to pieces.

      Report Post »  
    • summertime
      Posted on July 13, 2011 at 2:41pm

      @Rose-ellen:
      Wow, your lack of tolerance and appreciation for diversity and facts is stunning!
      I would like to see the evidence behind your position instead of just more hateful opinion. But I won’t be surprised if you ignore the actual facts coming from the research out there. For the rest of you who may be interested in the peer-reviewed home-school data (there‘s more than you’d expect), please take a look:

      http://www.nheri.org/Research-Facts-on-Homeschooling.html

      Here are some highlights from the link:
      · The home-educated typically score 15 to 30 percentile points above public-school students on standardized academic achievement tests.
      · Homeschool students score above average on achievement tests regardless of their parents’ level of formal education or their family’s household income.
      · Whether homeschool parents were ever certified teachers is not related to their children’s academic achievement.
      · Degree of state control and regulation of homeschooling is not related to academic achievement.
      · Homeschool students are increasingly being actively recruited by colleges.
      · Participate in local community service more
      · Vote and attend public meetings more frequently than the general population, and
      · Go to and succeed at college at an equal or higher rate than the general population
      · The home-educated are doing well, typically above average, on measures of social, emotional, and ps

      Report Post »  
    • summertime
      Posted on July 13, 2011 at 2:47pm

      (oops, here’s the end of the highlights from the homeschool research site http://www.nheri.org/Research-Facts-on-Homeschooling.html ):

      The home-educated are doing well, typically above average, on measures of social, emotional, and psychological development. Research measures include peer interaction, self-concept, leadership skills, family cohesion, participation in community service, and self-esteem.

      · Homeschool students are regularly engaged in social and educational activities outside their homes and with people other than their nuclear-family members. They are commonly involved in activities such as field trips, scouting, 4-H, political drives, church ministry, sports teams, and community volunteer work

      Report Post »  
    • Lesbian Packing Hollow Points
      Posted on July 13, 2011 at 3:13pm

      99.999% sure Rose-Ellen is a troll.

      She’s railing about educational excellence and yet her prose betrays ungrammatical, unreadable pablum that runs 180⁰ counter to objective reality.

      I’ll also note that many, if not most, home schooling parents know that they can’t teach their kids every aspect of every subject, and so the home schoolers in an area will pool resources and bring in an expert fro the community on the more advanced topics (calculus, physics, engineering, etc.) and get them to go around to the homes, or bring a bunch of home schoolers together in one place for a communal lecture series on material the parents themselves deem necessary.

      So, as a rule, are home schoolers trapped in the home 24/7/365? No.
      Are home schoolers taught exclusively by their parents? No.
      Do home schoolers interact socially with other children in their cohort outside the family? Yes.

      Troll slain.

      Report Post » Lesbian Packing Hollow Points  
  • treshall
    Posted on July 13, 2011 at 7:21am

    We are supposed to bow down and worship our nation’s teachers and their almighty union, pay them twice what we and our neighbors are making and provide them with their health care benefits, Cadillac pension plans and lucrative retirement payments for the rest of their lives. What do we get in return for this considerable investment? Well, in the school district where we live, the elementary and high schools are on “academic watch‘ which is one step above ’academic probation’ (Note: our daughter is home schooled since her graduation from a Catholic grade school, which our son still attends). And now we learn that teachers in Atlanta conducted “cheating parties” in which teachers would sit around each others’ living rooms with boxes of erasers, rubbing out all of the incorrect answers on their students’ exams and replacing them. Wow, doesn’t that make us all proud? My friends, the N.E.A. and all teachers’ unions are a bad joke on those of us who pay for the insult.

    Report Post »  
  • Chet Hempstead
    Posted on July 13, 2011 at 7:21am

    Well great but the U.S. has almost ten times as many people as Canada, and Canada has almost seven times as many people as Finland, so they can run an education system efficiently on the national level, but we have to keep doing it on the state level like we always have. Some of our states can’t even afford to keep the crummy schools they already have from getting worse, let alone improving them. We should be able to pay for better and more teachers just be cutting less important stuff, but it always seems to turn out that all of that less important stuff is important to somebody. And even if we started training teachers better tomorrow, it would take decades to see real improvement if we can’t get rid of teachers who just aren’t very good at what they do. You wouldn’t let us do that, would you Randi? No, I didn’t think so.

     
  • jasmer
    Posted on July 13, 2011 at 7:19am

    Hey, my favorite militant lesbian opened her trap again! Hey, didya make an “honest womun” of Hilary Rosen yet? http://www.nypost.com/p/pagesix/item_Ev0ht9hSRKt2YQhiJLxwLJ

    Of course, use of the word “honest” regarding either Weingarten or Rosen is for entertainment purposes only…

    Report Post »  
  • Cherynn
    Posted on July 13, 2011 at 7:18am

    Unions, keeping the mediocre employed for decades. I would be impressed if teachers would just teach instead of being a baby sitter service. Our schools have become IDIOT FACTORIES, thanks to unionized teachers. The US used to be #1 in education,,,,,,,,what happened there ?????

    Report Post » Cherynn  
    • Lesbian Packing Hollow Points
      Posted on July 13, 2011 at 10:27am

      Every public school class has to be three separate courses delivered simultaneously. The teachers have to develope complete lesson plans for three classes in one. Each subject has to be taught to the advanced students (exceedingly rare these days), the great middle ground of average students, and then for the slow (special education) students.

      Inclusion is crap. Those advanced students need to be in their own class where they can excel further, and the SpEd students need to be in their own class where they can get the intensive assistance they need (at parent expense), and let the great middle class of student achievement get a single, overarching, coherent lesson plan from a teacher who’s not pulling triple duty.

      Report Post » Lesbian Packing Hollow Points  
  • Cuthalu
    Posted on July 13, 2011 at 7:15am

    So to sum up what she is saying, Unions 1st and our children 2nd.

    Report Post »  
    • Mil-Dot
      Posted on July 13, 2011 at 11:56am

      No, its Unions 1st, Teachers 2nd, their pay and benefits 3rd, the indoctrination agenda 4th, support for Democrat party 5th, the kids-ah, maybe 6th or 7th.

      Report Post »  
  • NOBALONEY
    Posted on July 13, 2011 at 7:14am

    Do they have Tenure and Unions in education in Finland and Canada?

    Report Post » NOBALONEY  
  • notreally
    Posted on July 13, 2011 at 7:12am

    The main reason people go into teaching is the same reason why people pursue government jobs: superior pay and benefits as compared to the private sector. As a group, they’re pretty much “the bottom of the barrel”:

    -According to “2000 Profile of College Bound Seniors,” a report from the College Board, the organization that administers the SAT, 10,280 Michigan high school students from the class of 2000 took the SAT I test. The report presents SAT math and verbal scores and also the students’ “intended college major,” chosen from 23 categories. The tables below show the math and verbal scores and intended college major for the highest and lowest performing students. Of concern to many educators is the fact that the highest performing students are not choosing education as a field of study in college. Of the 6 percent of students who selected education as a major, their average math score is 35 points below the state average. The average verbal score for education majors is 26 points below the state average, on par with home economics majors.

    Affirmitive action and liberal abhorence of any effective code of discipline gets the results we see:

    -12/7/07 Washington Post: “The scores from the 2006 Program for International Student Assessment showed that U.S. 15-year-olds trailed their peers from many industrialized countries. The average science score of U.S. students lagged behind those in 16 of 30 countries in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and D

    Report Post »  
  • kestrel27
    Posted on July 13, 2011 at 7:09am

    Yea, like American kids learn about their overblown self esteem, homosexual love, and bully free zones, while their foreign counterparts are learning math, science, and geography. American kids seem to thrive on looking, acting, and being stupid, while the kids in the other part of the world value learning. All thanks to the Teachers unions which need idiots to keep voting for Democrats, so the teachers can keep getting handouts from the American Taxpayers.

    Report Post »  
  • Eliasim
    Posted on July 13, 2011 at 7:00am

    Wait a minute. This is the Teacher’s Union Chief saying this about looking to foreign nations for guidance. The Teacher’s Union Chief? In other words – part of the cause of the problem to begin with, and the same type of brain and way of thinking. Here’s a better idea: America needs to scrap the Teacher’s Union and come up with a completely new system by ourselves.

    Report Post »  
    • bluegoldnationdotcom
      Posted on July 13, 2011 at 7:13am

      I missed the part where she said that Canada and Sweden lead the way in student achievement….oh yeah she didn‘t because they don’t…Japan and Korea lead the way. Maybe she doesn’t like the teacher set up in those nations?

      Report Post » bluegoldnationdotcom  
    • obfuscatenot
      Posted on July 13, 2011 at 7:19am

      Only 24 outrank the US in performance….Only 24! So yeah, lets outsource, to any of the countries that are able to teach their kids better than the Tenured Union Members!

      Report Post »  
  • Steve Neiling
    Posted on July 13, 2011 at 6:50am

    I’m so sick of hearing that teachers are underappreciated. Really? How many trash collectors get lauded on trash collector appreciation day? Or plumbers? Or, you fill in the blank. Teachers seem to get an unbelievable amount of praise and recognition. My goodness, give it a rest, do your job, and shut up.

    Report Post »  
    • RepubliCorp
      Posted on July 13, 2011 at 7:15am

      Good point and when you consider how many days they don’t work in a given year.

      Report Post » RepubliCorp  
    • Liberty7
      Posted on July 13, 2011 at 7:53am

      I couldn’t agree more with you Steve. I am so sick and tired of teachers playing the whoa is me card and look how hard I work. And I have to do work at night at home doing lesson plans and grading papers. Boo Hoo. I have been doing work at night for over twenty years as a sales rep and manager without two plus months a year summer vacation along with Christmas and Spring breaks. I once read that education majors graduate with the lowest GPAs when compared with other college graduates. The college curriculum for education majors is a joke.

      Report Post »  
  • beenaroundyaknow
    Posted on July 13, 2011 at 6:49am

    Same old union story, pay us more and we will get better. Respect and compensation are earned, not a right. See you in Finland, Randi.

    Report Post »  
  • kickagrandma
    Posted on July 13, 2011 at 6:48am

    AMERICA could learn a lot from the way we used to teach classes. Parental involvement meant staying out of our business until your child needed discipline, and then you behaved like a parent and disciplined your child so that he / she behaved in class. Parental involvement meant leaving the teaching in class to the teacher. In the old days, teachers were teachers, and parents were parents. Kids studied and learned, or they stayed behind a year to get what they missed. It was a BIG DEAL to fail back in the old days, and there was no “social promotion”, well, except for the football players, of course. Look where that got us!

    Back in “the old days”, GOD was still welcomed in school. We began the day with a devotional over the P.A. system followed by a prayer. We said the Pledge of Allegiance while standing up with our hands over our hearts. There was no whiny, wimpy objection to honoring our country or our GOD. There was pride in AMERICA and in being an AMERICAN in the “old days”.

    AMERICA should always set the standard in everything, folks. But, you all know that. Here I am again, “preaching to the choir”. Sorry `bout that.

    GOD BLESS and have a wonder-filled day!

    Report Post »  
    • adouglass1
      Posted on July 13, 2011 at 3:16pm

      @ KICKAGRANDMA

      Ah oh im 36 amd I kinda remember those days I also remember when it changed. I have two children one is 7 my son Michael one is 2 my daughter Adarious I worry for them everyday. God bless us all!!

      Report Post » adouglass1  
  • beekeeper
    Posted on July 13, 2011 at 6:44am

    Respect is earned, never given, Ms. Weingarten…

    I suspect there are about two ‘clock punchers’ for each teacher deserving of parent‘s and student’s respect – the unions shoot themselves in the foot when they insist that all are treated equally with regard to compensation and tenure…

    Report Post » beekeeper  
  • tifosa
    Posted on July 13, 2011 at 6:40am

    Speaking of unions, hear the GOOD NEWS from Wisconsin? The fake dems all lost. Nice try WI Teapublicons (teaparty republican conservatives)

    Report Post » tifosa  
    • IAMMADDOG
      Posted on July 13, 2011 at 2:56pm

      We did not expect them to win you dolt. Just the fact that a few of the “fake” democrats got 35 % or so of the votes should scare the hell out of liberals. These “fake” democrats had NO financial support, did NO campaigning, had NO ads on tv and still got in the 30 percentile. That says a lot. It means that the recalls are probably going to FAIL miserably.

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    • spotster
      Posted on July 13, 2011 at 3:12pm

      they were not meant to win moron troll

      Report Post »  
  • ISeeDanger.com
    Posted on July 13, 2011 at 6:37am

    Yes, more unions will pull us out of our financial woes and improve education.
    Sorry, I think I just smoked crack.
    http://www.ISeeDanger.com

    Report Post » ISeeDanger.com  
    • grandmaof5
      Posted on July 13, 2011 at 7:43am

      So now we have the “chief” lab rat trying to tell us why the schools have failed for so long, because we haven’t emulated other countries…..how about Japan? How about getting rid of tenure and cleaning house, starting with the chief lab rat and the unions – actually, start with the Dept of Ed.

      Report Post »  
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