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posted by martyb on Friday April 07 2017, @02:21PM   Printer-friendly
from the stifling-curiosity dept.

As teacher resignation letters increasingly go public -- and viral -- new research indicates teachers are not leaving solely due to low pay and retirement, but also because of what they see as a broken education system.

In a trio of studies, Michigan State University education expert Alyssa Hadley Dunn and colleagues examined the relatively new phenomenon of teachers posting their resignation letters online. Their findings, which come as many teachers are signing next year's contacts, suggest educators at all grade and experience levels are frustrated and disheartened by a nationwide focus on standardized tests, scripted curriculum and punitive teacher-evaluation systems.

Teacher turnover costs more than $2.2 billion in the U.S. each year and has been shown to decrease student achievement in the form of reading and math test scores.

"The reasons teachers are leaving the profession has little to do with the reasons most frequently touted by education reformers, such as pay or student behavior," said Dunn, assistant professor of teacher education. "Rather, teachers are leaving largely because oppressive policies and practices are affecting their working conditions and beliefs about themselves and education."

The study quoted a teacher in Boston: "I did not feel I was leaving my job. I felt then and feel now that my job left me."


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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 07 2017, @03:57PM (15 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 07 2017, @03:57PM (#490302)

    On the matter of fixing the schools, see this comment

    Well, our education system right now is abysmal, and so are our standardized tests. How are you even going to determine just how much a student actually understands the material? That would require fixing the current situation anyway.

    As for the military aspect, see this comment; the "coercion" is actually corrective retaliation for a person's abuse of society.

    What I care about is liberty. Being lazy and disrespectful are not and should not be illegal, and should also not result in being forced into involuntary servitude by thugs. That doesn't sound free or brave.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 07 2017, @04:18PM (13 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 07 2017, @04:18PM (#490319)

    My HOA doesn't want your lazy disrespectful ass sleeping on our park's benches. I'm going to retaliate for your trespassing by having you rounded up and processed as per whatever contracts have been established for this purpose.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 07 2017, @04:23PM (11 children)

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 07 2017, @04:23PM (#490323)

      In a libertarian world, result would be the same. (

      In a libertarian world, forcing people into involuntary servitude would not be a thing. Maybe stopping them from trespassing, but enslaving them? No.

      Even in a non-libertarian society, we still have the decency to not be freedom-hating thugs to that extent.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 07 2017, @04:27PM (3 children)

        by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 07 2017, @04:27PM (#490330)

        You say "stopping them from trespassing", but that's even more loosey-goosey and hand-wavy than "testing for competence". You are just taking retaliation that you do not like and labeling it with emotion-evoking words like "slavery". Well, guess what? The productive part of society doesn't want to be the slaves of these loafers; you either contribute, or you will be removed from us according to well-defined plans.

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 07 2017, @05:48PM (2 children)

          by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 07 2017, @05:48PM (#490386)

          You say "stopping them from trespassing", but that's even more loosey-goosey and hand-wavy than "testing for competence".

          No, property lines are typically well-known and it's typically clear whether or not you're trespassing. Even if you could test for competence properly (which we can't currently, and I wouldn't trust the government to do), it would still be wrong to enslave incompetent people. You'd really just be giving the government virtually unlimited power to harass anyone, and trusting them with 'testing' powers.

          You are just taking retaliation that you do not like and labeling it with emotion-evoking words like "slavery".

          Your "retaliation" involves initiating violence against someone because you don't like their attitude, and using government thugs to do it.

          Well, guess what? The productive part of society doesn't want to be the slaves of these loafers; you either contribute, or you will be removed from us according to well-defined plans.

          Well, no one needs to be a slave. You can start by not forcing people into involuntary servitude using government thugs. Your "well-defined" plans are completely subjective, unjust, and anathema to a free society.

          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 07 2017, @06:06PM (1 child)

            by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 07 2017, @06:06PM (#490400)
            • We are talking about stopping trespassing, not determining whether someone has trespassed. Your rebuttal is a straw man.

            • If you're not certified as a productive individual, then you're defined as trespassing wherever you stand; you should be processed accordingly, as per the system of contracts that define such processing.

              Of course, perhaps you can find people willing to support you (say, your parents), but you'll be confined to their property or arrested for trespassing. If there is nobody, then you join the military, and if you don't want to do that or you fail to assimilate into the military, then you go to prison for trespassing (or insubordination, in the case of the military).

              Whether in your parents' home or a military prison, you can always choose to take those tests again to prove that you are a certifiably productive person, and thereby be released into society.

            • You're right. I bet there will be a large network of property owners who give refuge to indigent fools. That's their business. However, if those fools try to abuse productive society, they should be dealt with according to well-defined plans that are hopefully corrective—those plans are a retaliation, not an aggression.

            • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 08 2017, @09:04PM

              by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 08 2017, @09:04PM (#490963)

              We are talking about stopping trespassing, not determining whether someone has trespassed. Your rebuttal is a straw man.

              Nonsense. The point was that stopping people from trespassing is not subjective like testing for "compliance" is, and is not nearly as open to abuse.

              they should be dealt with according to well-defined plans

              What's with these "well-defined plans"?

              those plans are a retaliation, not an aggression.

              You are wrong. If you're attacking people simply for being lazy, then you're nothing but a thug. I'd rather have some lazy people than insane authoritarians like you.

              Well, the way you word things makes you seem like a troll, so hopefully that's the case.

      • (Score: 2) by Spook brat on Friday April 07 2017, @06:33PM (6 children)

        by Spook brat (775) on Friday April 07 2017, @06:33PM (#490422) Journal

        In a libertarian world, forcing people into involuntary servitude would not be a thing. Maybe stopping them from trespassing, but enslaving them? No.

        Don't be so sure of that.

        At least one Libertarian author has suggested indenture [bigheadpress.com] as a method for ensuring debts are repaid. For context, here are links to the events leading up to the applied fines [bigheadpress.com] and the arbitration proceedings [bigheadpress.com] where the financial judgement was agreed upon. The author later goes on to argue [bigheadpress.com] that this is OK, because some people are just happier [bigheadpress.com] being beta-dogs in the pack.

        The crazy thing is that this sort of thinking makes sense as a consequence of a contract-based libertarian society. If there's no central government, no police, and no jails, how do you redress grievances/punish crimes? Financial damages awarded by arbitration seem reasonable as a solution. How do you handle defendants who don't have the means to repay the damages, even after selling all their belongings? Indentured servitude starts to sound good as compared to letting the plaintiff take all the defendant's property and kill them.

        All kinds of things start to sound logical if you pick the right axioms...

        --
        Travel the galaxy! Meet fascinating life forms... And kill them [schlockmercenary.com]
        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 07 2017, @06:54PM (2 children)

          by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 07 2017, @06:54PM (#490438)

          For instance, if a person cannot repay the debt, the contract should specify what happens and how that is enforced—the debtor agreed to the rules of this game ahead of time, and made a bet.

          Guess what?

          The creditor also agreed to those rules and made a bet; perhaps those rules specify that the creditor loses his shirt, as is the case with equity investment (e.g., buying shares in a company).

          Get it yet?

          • (Score: 2) by Spook brat on Saturday April 08 2017, @06:32AM (1 child)

            by Spook brat (775) on Saturday April 08 2017, @06:32AM (#490726) Journal

            In a libertarian world, forcing people into involuntary servitude would not be a thing. Maybe stopping them from trespassing, but enslaving them? No.

            the contract should specify what happens and how that is enforced—the debtor agreed . . . The creditor also agreed to those rules and made a bet; perhaps those rules specify that the creditor loses his shirt. . .
            Get it yet?

            Sure, I get it. The contract says that if the debtor ceases to be able to pay interest on his debt that he becomes a slave to the creditor, so it's only fair. Except now we're condoning slavery. In a Libertarian-utopia society.

            Are you the same AC who said earlier that involuntary servitude wouldn't be a thing in Libertarian paradise?

            Anyhow, I can tell you didn't read the links I gave earlier; they weren't describing a debt entered into voluntarily by contract, it was the result of an arbitrator's judgement - reparations for theft and attempted murder. The community got together, examined the evidence, and a fine amount was determined; the defendants agreed to it, because the other options was likely to be shot by their would-be victims. They didn't have the assets to cover the damages, so they were indentured until they could produce the remainder of the debt. I have to admit, it's a plausible method for handling law-enforcement proceedings in a society without a government or police force.

            Depending on your point of view, I guess you could say that they voluntarily entered into the indenture contract (although one skipped out on it later, leaving the other two to pay his share as well as their own). Can you really say that they weren't coerced into it by the community? Think about it.

            --
            Travel the galaxy! Meet fascinating life forms... And kill them [schlockmercenary.com]
            • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 08 2017, @02:45PM

              by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 08 2017, @02:45PM (#490843)

              By entering a contract, one has by definition not been coerced by the enforcement of that contract; that is essentially one of the axioms from which a reasonable system arises (i.e., a system about which one can reason).

              The real problem is the lack of a well-defined contract, where all the cases are covered and understood ahead of time; a dispute is the lack of a well-defined contract, and dispute resolution is the process of coming up with a version of the contract that is better defined (a contract should ideally specify what should be done in every case, so that the game can proceed in a way that is predictable to every party).

              Now, because it is unreasonable to expect people to know and understand every kind of contractual obligation to which they've entered, I imagine that a robust framework of canonical, standardized contracts would arise, and could thus be referenced with shorthand—these ways of interacting would basically become a matter of culture that people learn intuitively for the vast majority of daily existence (after all, that's basically what culture is, anyway).

              I doubt this framework would have slavery or murder as an outcome, unless the interaction is similar to what today can lead to incarceration or the death penalty, etc.

              Also, with respect to your other comment [soylentnews.org], you should note that there are always 2 "sides" to a dispute; it is in each person's self-interest to ensure that his own contractual benefits be enforced, and similarly to ensure that he can withstand the onslaught of any other party (especially a party that engages in behavior that is not defined well, such as invasion by a foreign power, etc.). That is to say, there is a market for protection (including contract enforcement). It's also in the interests of protection services not to battle each other without good reason, because war is costly, and thus they would have incentive to come to terms, as per not only their customers' contracts, but also their own contracts with each other (such as how to handle evidence, arbitration, and so on).

              Everybody knows that a monopoly is probably a bad idea, and that a monopoly which is imposed violently is almost certainly a very bad idea; so, why don't you see that this same insight applies also to the service of providing contract enforcement or protection from aggressive non-contractual behavior? The security industry is not magical; as with any other industry, it would benefit just the same from competition within the market, growing and evolving along with the rest of society and its interlinking framework of contracts—the best check and balance and separation of powers is competition with a market, especially when this competition occurs within a culture that reveres the principle of voluntary trade as defined by contracts.

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 07 2017, @09:59PM (1 child)

          by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 07 2017, @09:59PM (#490553)

          I almost responded to the libertroll, but I think the only way to stop this endless cycle of the same argument is to simply not engage. Let him post his thoughts on any article and then ignore it unless it merits discussion. This "we must educate people" motivation is admirable but obviously it does nothing in this case. Once you recognize a repeat troller just disengage, the discussion / argument is what they thrive on.

          • (Score: 2) by Spook brat on Saturday April 08 2017, @06:44AM

            by Spook brat (775) on Saturday April 08 2017, @06:44AM (#490732) Journal

            I almost responded to the libertroll, but I think the only way to stop this endless cycle of the same argument is to simply not engage.

            You're right, of course.
            I don't mind this one so much, and he's behaving much better these days. To be honest, I'm curious to find out more about his ideas on how his ideal society will work. I'm not sure if he's just naively optimistic about people's willingness to be fair to each other, or about common people's ability to resist coercion by others with more resources, or about the ability of a community to gather together against common threats, or all three. I want to find out, so I'll keep poking at him until I find out.
            Really, I expect he hasn't thought it through very far yet. Last time I called him out on that, though, he just told me that my way of thinking was alien to him and he barely understood what I meant. =/

            --
            Travel the galaxy! Meet fascinating life forms... And kill them [schlockmercenary.com]
        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 08 2017, @09:08PM

          by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 08 2017, @09:08PM (#490965)

          But that has to do with debts and contracts, which is something totally different. The other guy is suggesting that we enslave people based on how "productive" they are, so it's even worse. I was only responding to the other person's comment about a hypothetical libertarian society.

    • (Score: 1) by charon on Friday April 07 2017, @10:33PM

      by charon (5660) on Friday April 07 2017, @10:33PM (#490571) Journal
      Hahahahahahah, you belong to a HOA. That's so libertarian. What color do they demand you paint your house?
  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 07 2017, @04:23PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 07 2017, @04:23PM (#490325)

    The tests are objectively available for people to scrutinize, as are the monetary rewards; this will lead to a healthy local discussion on what should be what.