Excerpts from my movie review in Taki's Magazine:
Davis Guggenheim’s much-publicized documentary with the meaningless title of Waiting for “Superman” makes the (by now familiar) liberal centrist case for school reform: the cause of the achievement gap is bad schools, which are the fault of bad teachers, who are protected from termination by bad teachers’ unions.
Why do so many liberals swear by what the Chinese might call the Three Bads Theory?
Guggenheim recounts how he made a 2001 PBS documentary, First Year, about the heroism of public school teachers. Why did he change his mind? Because, he explains, his children grew old enough for school, and he found himself driving from his home in Venice, California past three public schools to a private school, thus “betraying the ideals I thought I lived by.”
How come? Evidently, he could tell that these three public schools were bad schools infested by bad teachers.
Yet, how could he divine that from driving by? Guggenheim doesn’t mention the names of these bad schools, but here’s a picture of one school in Venice: Broadway Elementary. It looks okay, but if you drove by at recess, you’d notice the student body is about 80 percent Hispanic and 15 percent black. (Interestingly, Broadway is switching to a “Mandarin immersion” program, perhaps in pursuit of higher-scoring students.)
The Three Bads Theory lets liberal parents rationalize their white flight by publicly blaming teachers while they privately shun black and Latino students.
Read the whole thing here.
Let me add a few notes: Davis Guggenheim, who won the Best Documentary Oscar for directing Al Gore's global warming movie An Inconvenient Truth, has three children with his wife, actress Elizabeth Shue, who was Oscar-nominated for Leaving Las Vegas and is the daughter of a Fortune 500 CEO. (Here she is in a 1984 Burger King commercial.)
Davis Guggenheim is the son of Charles Guggenheim, who won two Best Documentary Oscars. The Hollywood Guggenheims are only "distant relations" of the New York Guggenheims of Guggenheim Museum fame, but in any case "Guggenheim" is perhaps the grandest name in American German-Jewish culture, the American equivalent of "Rothschild."
So, of course the Guggenheim-Shue children are going to private school. Lots of affluent parents in LA send their kids to LAUSD elementary schools. But these are the Guggenheim-Shue kids, not some set dresser's kids.
It's like when Barack Obama was asked yesterday why he sends his kids to Sidwell Friends instead of to the neighborhood public school for 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. and he implied that he would send them to public school if only they were good schools.
Sure, Barack. Nobody ever replies, "Hey, I'm rich from book sales. (Don't forget to pick up a few copies of my upcoming children's book, which will be on store shelves for the Christmas rush!) My wife and I have three Ivy League degrees. What do you think we should spend my money on instead of on our children?"
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49 comments:
"(Here she is in a 1984 Burger King commercial.)" Rather attractive, but spoiled by a silly ickle-girl voice.
Davis Guggenheim, who won the Best Documentary Oscar for directing Al Gore's global warming movie An Inconvenient Truth,..his wife, actress Elizabeth Shue,...is the daughter of a Fortune 500 CEO.
You can imagine the social milieu of these people: they and their friends have absolutely nothing to do with the day-to-day reality of low class Hispanics and Blacks. And they won't be depending on a work force composed of them to pay for their Social Security and Medicare benefits.
The problem with these schools is the same as with Mexico and Africa: they're full of Mexicans and Blacks.
It would be just too funny if these stupid and dishonest people weren't the same ones who are in control of immigration policy and setting the tone for public discourse on these issues. But unfortunately they are.
Broadway Elementary will become the go-to conservatory for learning to rap in Mandarin.
Don't Barack and Michelle have FOUR Ivy League degrees between them?
Outside of me being an obnoxious jerk, this is a good article and post. The movie sounds so truly ridiculous that I am tempted to watch it.
It's not fair to complain he doesn't have footage from inside the classrooms of the bad schools. How was he supposed to get the releases?
Fantastic post, fantastic review.
The Three Bads Theory lets liberal parents rationalize their white flight by publicly blaming teachers while they privately shun black and Latino students.
If the Dems want to win elections pissing all over their union base is a bad idea.
In reality, the Obamas have no real Ivy League degrees. I would be interested in interviewing all the worthy people who were displaced to let these mediocrities into these once-elite schools. And for the record, the Obamas have 4 "Ivy League" degrees between them.
Sure, Barack.
Speaking of Obama...
CNN -- Obama: Fox News is 'destructive' to America
Officials in the Obama White House have long made Fox News a punching bag, launching a full blown offensive last year when aides declared the network to be "opinion journalism masquerading as news." Then-White House Communications Director Anita Dunn said the cable outlet "operates almost as either the research arm or the communications arm of the Republican Party," and top aide Valerie Jarret called Fox "clearly biased."
Funny the things Obama finds 'destructive to America'.
I wonder what the White House thinks of MSNBC? Do they see any 'bias' there? At least during the election I thought MSNBC should have changed its name to 'The Obama Channel'.
The front page of the right-wing DC-Examiner today proclaimed "Obama Disses D.C. Schools" in the boldest, largest-text-font-in-peacetime I've ever seen.
In fairness, it was a no-win question for Barry Hussein. What was he supposed to say to maintain street-cred?
Mayor Bloomberg was on the Today show this morning and proposed having teachers earn their tenure in order to ensure that every child receives a quality education. He stressed how important it is to have quality teachers, etc....thats a given. But what frustrated me this morning is that he never once mentioned the problem of standardized knowledge that is the foundation of our ineffective school system. Our schools curriculum resembles the industrialized revolution, turning kids into virtual machines who memorize facts for a test, instead schools need to focus on developing critical thinking skills through knowledge based learning. Mark Zuckerberg recently pledged $100 million for a grant towards a New Jersey school system. That's great for the students at New Jersey, but what about the millions of other children in the United States and over seas? Oprah and the Gates Foundation work tirelessly to find global solutions, which is why StarShine Academy is one of the leaders in education innovation around the globe. StarShine is a K-12 charter school based in Phoenix, Az and works closely with the United Nations Millennium Development goals. StarShine is currently franchising their "school in a box" program to ensure that these solutions can reach every corner of the earth. From Monrovia, Liberia to the United Kingdom to Phoenix, Arizona; StarShine is on their way to make a significant impact in students from all walks of life. StarShine's goal is to continue expanding around the United States, and it's up to all of us to work together and ensure that "no child will be left behind" and that every student will "race to the top" together. Learn more about this incredible charter school organization at www.StarShineAcademy.org
Davis Guggenheim also attended Sidwell Friends in D.C., which is the school the Obama girls attend.
I saw him get choked up on Oprah and before he spoke, I thought he was a lesbian.
I never imagined I would defend public school teachers, but they are being scapegoated. Who in their right mind, who has options, would ever teach in an inner city school?
Excellent. There are, of course, plenty of "bad" teachers---but the fact is that "teaching" is relatively easy and "learning" is hard. Banging on "teachers' unions" has become the first refuge of the scoundrel, especially rich white honkies who wouldn't let their kids within a mile of a public school.
Last time craps was cool must have been 1994 or so. Ice Cube had a few lines and visual shots about craps and dominoes in the always-playing video for "Today Was a Good Day" (1993).
I don't know about the rest of you, but I can't wait to see how Newark's schools blossom with the $100 million grant from Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg.
Zuckerberg is following in the footsteps of other great 21st-century philanthropists, who compete with each other to fund utterly futile programs and thereby conspicuously demonstrate that they don't buy into race realism.
To get noticed they have to be really creative, because they're competing with government at all levels.
The "gate" program in the Cal public schools serves the same purpose.
It's interesting how a crack has been created in the gang. Teachers' unions are a very big part of the syndicate- not as big now as they used to be, not as big as the other public employees' unions are now, but very big nonetheless.
But leveling society through public education is a crucial part of the New Deal mythology. It worked pretty well for European immigrants, but to admit it won't work for blacks or Hispanics would collapse the whole enterprise.
Teachers won't lose any pay, benefits, or privileges, but they will lose control until Ivy League liberals realize they can't do any better, get bored and move on to something else.
I like the 3 Bads theory. I think the real 3 Bads would be Bad Students from Bad Homes with Bad Parents.
Liberal hypocrisy knows no bounds. The further away from blacks they live, the more liberal they are.
I almost expected the hoodlums to break into a chorus of “Luck, Be a Lady Tonight.”
Now that would make me want to watch this.
thus “betraying the ideals I thought I lived by.”
I think most readers here know him better than he knows himself if he's surprised that he's betraying the ideals he publicly professes.
Perhaps one reason Guggenheim didn’t show us his five students in class is that some of the tykes who seem so winsome when interviewed at home about their college dreams might actually be little hellions in school.
Another reason my be that the only obviously bad teachers he could get footage of are of a darker hue, which will not sit well with his intended audience.
You know, HBDers should think of solutions; what to do about innate inequality, what to do next. Without it, it's just an ugly truth that, were we to acknowledge it, would open cans of worms. No wonder no-one wants to acknowledge or think about it.
Here's another topic where HBD is a solution. We're stuck in a cycle where the racial gap is blamed on schools, and we're muscled into paying for more and more. HBD shows us the gap isn't owed to schools.
Yet another can of worms disposed of.
"Not my planet, monkey boy!"
Heh, they don't make 'em like that any more. Big Trouble in Little China is another one.
I'm waiting for a documentary to highlight the problem of classroom discipline. Say what you want about corporal punishment, but it kept my school under control.
Yard sticks and straps provided the necessary level of fear to build respect on.
"Carthago delenda est".
PRECIOUS.
By the way, your work is brilliant, dear Mr. Sailer.
Let's face it. White Americans also avoid really good schools as well, as evidenced by this old WSJ article. In fact, a lot of the sentiments expressed by Steve Sailer and his readers are echoed by the white parents the WSJ article discusses.
http://wsjclassroom.com/teen/teencenter/05nov_whiteflight.htm
Guggenheim is half-Jewish and his kids are apparently only a quarter-Jewish. The German-Jewish elite seems to be inter-marrying away (i.e. various Schiffs and Sulzbergers.)
I had a nice conversation with a hip, young black lawyer who abandoned New Orleans after Katrina and now lives in DC, but is getting ready to move.
I asked about Fenty's loss and she started laughing out loud. Fenty was out of touch, she said.
I asked her where her kids were going to school and she said they were going to Virginia schools because Virginia schools were "more diverse". Huh?
Black folks get to escape black schools and go to white schools because they are bringing diversity to whites, like Obama's precious angels and Sidwell.
The white and black liberals who send their kids to these schools get to pat each other on the back for their hipness and multiculturalism.
White folks who similarly seek to escape nasty black schools for exactly the same reasons are termed "segregationists".
Go figure.
Whatever happened to white liberals railing against southern "white-flight schools" in the 1970's, anyway?
..."Our schools curriculum resembles the industrialized revolutionturning kids into virtual machines who memorize facts for a test, instead schools need to focus on developing critical thinking skills through knowledge based learning"....
"Oprah and the Gates Foundation work tirelessly to find global solutions, which is why StarShine Academy is one of the leaders in education innovation around the globe"
"works closely with the United Nations Millennium Development goals"... "school in a box" program to ensure that these solutions can reach every corner of the earth. From Monrovia, Liberia to the United Kingdom to Phoenix, Arizona; StarShine is on their way to make a significant impact in students from all walks of life"... "and it's up to all of us to work together and ensure that "no child will be left behind" and that every student will "race to the top" together."
This post *is* intended as satire, isn't it?
The theory of the "Three Bads!" I like that. Perhaps you will wish to explore the evolution of "reformer's" thoughts even more. Please let me offer my views:
From the 1950's into the 1970's American liberals thought that desegregation (and forced integration; "busing") would eliminate "the gap." When that approach failed, liberals decided the problem with the schools was "institutional racism" along with "stick in the mud-ism." From the 60's into the 80's the American Left promoted teacher unionism on the theory that union power would defeat administrative resistance to liberal changes and counteract parents' supposed "racism" expressed through local school boards.
Early in that game liberals gained yardage quickly. Teacher unions did take power from school boards and administrators (so much, in fact, that administrators themselves are now forced to join the union in many districts).
However, there was no T.D. at the end of that drive. Once in power, the teacher unions concentrated on transferring all school funds other than those committed to bond payments or utility bills to their members in the form of salaries and PTO. Though union leaders paid lip service to liberal "gap" concerns and were always willing to spend more money on less work, implementing "smaller classes" or "more (teacher) training" and even "anti-racism" campaigns, they were truly incapable of adopting more effective teaching techniques because those all require more teacher discipline and teachers elect union leaders to shield them from discipline, not to impose it.
The reallocation of power in schools from elected officials and administrators to union leaders did not close "the gap." For a while American liberals accepted teacher-union leaders' claims that they just needed "more money." There was a superficial correlation between the affluence of a school district and how well its students did academically.
However, cross-district funding equalization and simple same-district funding experiments revealed by the 1990's that "the gap" was not caused by funding disparities and could not be closed by more spending. The results were completely predictable [and predicted] because the IQ gap which causes the school-performance gap was not amenable to any management reshuffling. Since liberals hold to the axiom that nearly all students are equally talented, though, they remain convinced that "the gap" must be caused by external forces.
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[continued from above]
Reorganizing public schools under teacher-union control while equalizing and greatly increasing funding had no effect on "the gap" (though it did help elect three generations of Democrat politicians), so liberals looked for other explanations.
At the urging of teachers they dallied with the idea that "bad parenting" causes "the gap." Liberals never could settle on that theory because parents of low-performing students tend to be the same color as their children. Any liberal who accused those parents of incompetence could himself be charged with "racism."
Through most of the 00's advanced liberals rode the notion that "bigotry" caused "low expectations." (Somewhat tardy liberals still thought schools needed "more money" to hire "more qualified" teachers.) They decided that teachers and students would magically rise to the challenge of tougher exams. They imposed "high-stakes tests" (and then complained about "teaching to the test"). Of course no amount of teaching to the test could close "the gap" because it depended on mostly-genetic IQ, so the unionized teachers cheated wholesale and retail. They dumbed the tests down and they handed out crib sheets. Liberals were disappointed again. More "anti-racism" campaigns didn't help, and neither did "more money (again)."
So now America's liberals, still sure that someone is causing "the gap" have finally turned on the teachers. "For forty years," they're saying, "we gave teacher unions power and money. They haven't done a darned thing about "the gap" except cheat on the tests which reveal it."
So liberals want to "fire at least half" of the teachers in "underperforming schools." That will show them who's boss!
The firings will take place with the full approval (in a spirit of vengeance) of the literate middle class, because for the last forty years the liberals' teacher-union-centered program has not moved "the gap" an inch, but it has utterly ruined the schools for middle-class children and their parents. Public school teachers are overpaid and insolent. They waste half of classroom time on "anti-racism" campaigns and the other half coaching "mainstreamed" morons for "high stakes tests" while nice 100+ IQ kids sit around so bored they start to mutilate themselves.
Firing teachers will not close "the gap." Nothing can close "the gap." Firing teachers also won't bring back reasonable schools for middle class kids. That goal isn't impossible like gap-closing, but liberals will not allow anyone to achieve it.
After liberals fire half the teachers without moving "the gap" perhaps they will do as Steve suggests and kidnap all the kids with "gap" problems into boarding schools. That's the logical next step
In Australia, Asians are topping the ranks in our selective school systems.
"CHILDREN of recent Asian migrants are dramatically outperforming students from English-speaking households to dominate the ranks of the top selective high schools.
A Herald analysis shows 42 per cent of children from non-English speaking backgrounds who sat the annual selective high school entrance test last year won a place in the elite system.
Fewer than 23 per cent of students whose families speak English at home were successful."
Relevant links:
http://www.smh.com.au/national/education/migrant-pupils-top-the-entry-tests-for-selective-schools-20100702-zu56.html
http://www.smh.com.au/national/education/top-schools-secret-weapon-95-of-students-of-migrant-heritage-20100912-156zd.html
http://www.smh.com.au/national/education/ethnicity-at-selective-schools-provokes-fierce-debate-20100913-159da.html
We must have the best teachers!
eh:
Obama is right, but doesn't go far enough. 24 hour news channels are a disaster. They have to fill every minute with some kind of fluff or pretend controversy, they're easily spun, and they are incapable of covering anything with any depth at all. Informing yourself on 24 hour news channels is like a diet of cotton candy and coke. You can better inform yourself with fifteen minutes of reading real news sources on the net than with a whole evening with Fox, CNN, MSNBC, etc.
But of course Obama's complaint isn't that--like most politicians, he has little incentive to want a more informed public. His complaint is that Fox News is someone else's propaganda operation, not his.
Big Bill:
She's probably providing some school with the right kind of diversity--smart well-behaved black kids who make the racial statistics come out right without hurting the test scores, college acceptance rates, etc.
Anon:
I think your three bads theory sounds right. Though I suspect there are some feedback loops in there. Every teacher and parent with any choice at all leaves the horrible schools as soon as they can. Sooner or later, most of the kids left have parents who either don't care about their kids school, or are too poor, sick, busy, whatever to get them out.
Ryan said..."StarShine's goal is to continue expanding around the United States, and it's up to all of us to work together and ensure that "no child will be left behind" and that every student will "race to the top" together. Learn more about this incredible charter school organization at www.StarShineAcademy.org."
Every student will "race to the top" together? Nice.
And I see clicking on your name takes me directly to the StarShine Academy's website with a Donate button prominently displayed on the home page.
You can take your substandard writing skills and your lousy PR and stick them where the stars don't shine.
The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, for the record, excludes all White kids. On the theory that, they must be icky, or something. I smell Melinda Gates behind that, no one hates White kids more than Nice White Ladies.
Zuckerberg's donation comes on the heels of an unflattering portrait of him in the Social Network movie as a duplicitous, treacherous, aspergery, rude, and conniving dealer who cheats his friends, investors, and coders out of their fair share of Facebook.
Make of the donation what you will. Apparently Aaron Sorkin made him the main villain.
I agree with you that the teachers are being scapegoated for racial realities. The task they are charged with it impossible. But I am leery as hell about public sector unions, including the teachers' unions. The interests of the teachers and the interests of the tax payers are not aligned, the interests of the teachers and the interests of the students are not aligned. Since teachers are tax payers and have children, a certain degree of altruism needs to be present in the teachers' unions to make them function well. that element seems to be lacking, and the teachers unions seem to be working solely for the interests of the teachers.
-qaz
"And didn’t we learn from The Wire that if you teach inner city youth to shoot craps, they‘d immediately grasp the mathematics of probability?"
No. I didn't learn that. To me it was the teacher showing the students a little basic math in terms of stuff they already knew. If someone plays dice enough, they should be able to pick up a little something about fractions.
They didn't show them going on to be Stanford grad students.
Three of the four main kids in season 4 went off to be criminals or drug addicts. One kid did give a speech at some debate thingy, but I didn't find that unbelievable. It was just a speech. Even by HBD standards you know, some black people can talk.
I think it's good to have an HBD perspective on things but I think you got blinders on with this one.
"I agree with you that the teachers are being scapegoated for racial realities. The task they are charged with it impossible. But I am leery as hell about public sector unions, including the teachers' unions. The interests of the teachers and the interests of the tax payers are not aligned, the interests of the teachers and the interests of the students are not aligned. Since teachers are tax payers and have children, a certain degree of altruism needs to be present in the teachers' unions to make them function well. that element seems to be lacking, and the teachers unions seem to be working solely for the interests of the teachers.
-qaz"
I would think that working 60-70 hours a week, spending about 1500 a year on school materials, breaking up fights, dealing with a 15 year old convicted killer, fixing broken electrical wiring, replumbing broken lab plumbing, writing and paying for the printing of your own textbook because the school won't provide one, working 15 sports events a year for free, working part of the summer for free, tutoring kids after school for free, paying for your own copies, dealing with gangs, paying for your own extra certifications so the school doesn't have to hire more teachers, and having to deal with accusations of racism constitute some level of altruism.
Of course, the real reason Obama doesn't send his daughters to dc public schools is because he isn't crazy or cynical enough to sacrifice his precious kids to win some political points. This speaks well of him.
Nobody with any choices who gives a damn about their kids sends them to the dc public schools.
@Anon
It's fascinating to find out that even in Australia, Asian kids are displacing white kids academically. Steve Sailer should write a blog entry about it.
The more important questions is should we comment here or at Taki's mag. I see they allow comments now and I missed the usual "read there, comment here" instruction.
One of the ironies is that evidence has shown that intelligent kids do well in low preforming schools.
elvisd,
I agree that many individual teachers exert great degrees of altruism, but I don't buy that all of them are teaching out of the goodness of their hearts. I believe that many are just trying to earn a living, and I don't begrudge that of them. I think that at the individual level teachers are probably more altruistic than they are collectively. You may be willing to go the extra mile to perform the job, but is your union willing to make sacrificing decisions on your behalf? When it is simply a collective bargaining relationship, the union representation of its employees in this way does not trouble me. But when the public employee unions begin taking concerted, political actions to further the interests of their members, they become a troublesome. Recall the California prison guards union that spent millions of dollars lobbying for three strikes and you're out, that was sick. Less striking examples occur all the time with the teachers' and other public sector unions.
qaz
I saw him get choked up on Oprah and before he spoke, I thought he was a lesbian.
A little off-topic, but I bet I can speak for a lot of iSteve readers when I note that I am getting to the age where if I don't get a regular haircut, then I can look suspiciously like a man who looks like an old lesbian.
[For me, without the regular haircut, I start to look like I've got a dyke mullet.]
If I had Fess Parker's money (I hear he owns half of Santa Barbara), I wouldn't care what I look like.
You show my neighborhood school. My wife and I avoided sending our Asian kids to that school because of it published scores. We also wanted a more diverse school population so we went up the hill to Westchester, where Anglos and Blacks are roughly even with Latinos and Asians coming in with lower numbers. Guess what? Broadway's API scores zoomed up over a hundred points in a year and may soon rival the Westchester school. It is still predominately Latino, but its Anglo and Asian proportion is going up. We may give it another go if its scores keep going up.
I never imagined I would defend public school teachers, but they are being scapegoated. Who in their right mind, who has options, would ever teach in an inner city school?
I'd give it a go. I think it'd be a blast.
Personally, I think if I got to do it my way you'd even have something to show for your money. Not in terms of academics. 90% of those kids aren't ever going to learn anything "academic." That's pretty much a given. But improving life outcomes for the bottom of the barrel is really simple, in terms of its requirements. That's not to say it's easy; but it is simple. Those kids' minds are locked into surviving the million and one hassles daily life presents them with. But if you can get into their heads and open their eyes to the realization that, holy cow, I've actually got some -- indeed, quite a lot of -- control over how my life turns out! then you can reasonably expect them to escape 90% of the crap that ruins their peers' lives. After all, getting someone to not do something is vastly easier than getting them to do something. As a society, you don't really need any more than that from this demographic.
Liberal hypocrisy knows no bounds. The further away from blacks they live, the more liberal they are.
Yeah, it's basically an exponential function of (a) distance (b) resources.
"Anonymous said...
A little off-topic, but I bet I can speak for a lot of iSteve readers when I note that I am getting to the age where if I don't get a regular haircut, then I can look suspiciously like a man who looks like an old lesbian."
I don't think that Fess Parker looked like an old lesbian. That site also claims that Fess Parker was in the Broadway production of "Bent". What the.....? I find that hard to believe. It's like hearing that John Wayne was in a Fire Island summer-stock production of "The Boys in the Band".
Mr. Anon -- that's someone's little joke or attempt to smear Parker. That's the *only* place in the blogosphere that that claim is made. In fact, I just researched and the role of Max was played by Richard Gere.
>you can reasonably expect them [guided NAMs] to escape 90% of the crap that ruins their peers' lives. After all, getting someone to *not* do something is vastly easier than getting them *to* do something.<
How so? Temptation is the hardest thing to overcome, for all people.
Sounds fluffy, friend.
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