Chip Griffin: Pardon the Disruption

Steve Jobs Blasts Teacher Tenure, Unions

I have enormous respect for teachers.  But the fact of the matter is that, as with any profession, there are good teachers and bad teachers.  Unfortunately, unions and tenure prevent the bad ones from being fired in most cases, unless they step so far over the line that no sane person could conclude they were not unfit.

Steve Jobs delivered this message forcefully in Austin on Friday, according to an Associated Press report.

Jobs compared schools to businesses with principals serving as CEOs.

"What kind of person could you get to run a small business if you told them that when they came in they couldn't get rid of people that they thought weren't any good?" he asked to loud applause during an education reform conference.

"Not really great ones because if you're really smart you go, 'I can't win.'"

I couldn't have said it better myself.  I went to school years ago in a district that had to implement layoffs as the student population declined with the closure of a local military base.  To see good, young teachers let go while those with seniority but less talent and enthusiasm were kept, was a huge disappointment. 

Teachers educate future entrepreneurs, workers, and citizens.  As many have said, children are our must valuable resource.  Hopefully, more leaders like Steve Jobs will step up to the plate and deliver the message bluntly.  Teachers' unions are a powerful force in this country and will not take this lying down, but we all need to do our part to highlight the structural problems facing education today.

UPDATE: Robert Scoble weighs in and has a mixed view of Jobs' comments:

Steve Jobs is right that unions are corrosive on the quality of our schools. Our schools are bad because we can’t get rid of bad teachers. But, it’s worse than that — Steve Jobs’ fix wouldn’t fix the total problem. Patrick’s Mom was a teacher for a while. She left for a variety of reasons, but partly because the pay is so bad for the work you put into that job.

Dan Farber has similar views on Jobs:

He's right that the ideal would be to only have great teachers, but blaming the bad teacher syndrome totally on the unions isn't going to solve the problem. Paying teachers a better wage to attract more talent (they don't get those nice back-dated stock options) and keeping the good teachers from seeking other employment because they can't afford to teach would be a good start. That's not to say that the teacher unions can't improve on performance standards for their members to eliminate poor performers from the teacher pool.

Certainly teacher pay should be factored in and must both fairly compensate for the work involved and also be substantial enough to attract excellent talent (as is the case frankly for any job).  But throwing money at the problem before the structural issues caused by unions and teacher contracts are solved makes no sense to me.

Technorati tags: Steve Jobs, education, teachers unions, unions, teachers, tenure

Wikipedia Being Cited in Court Cases

I missed this January 29 New York Times (registration) story when it first came out, but apparently

More than 100 judicial rulings have relied on Wikipedia, beginning in 2004, including 13 from circuit courts of appeal, one step below the Supreme Court. (The Supreme Court thus far has never cited Wikipedia.)

The article does a decent job of presenting the pros and cons.  Concerns include reliability and "stability" of the information (it can change from when the Court writes its opinion to when it is released, for instance). 

Ken Makovsky thinks this practice will only increase, and he is probably correct.

But according to comScore Media Metrix, there were 38 million unique (Note: comScore Networks says 165 million) visitors to Wikipedia, and therefore, the site has wide usage and, presumably, acceptance. And, according to the courts, if the public accepts it as an authority, it is one. Today, judges are citing Wikipedia for “soft facts” but not those that are central to a judge’s rulings. In due time, I predict this will change.

What struck me about Ken's post and the Times story itself was the notion of public acceptance of a source as reliable makes it so.  Certainly significant numbers of people regard Keith Olberbmann, Bill O'Reilly, or even Jon Stewart as authoritative sources of information.  I would guess most courts would not, however.  But how does one draw the line in this new media age where the dynamics of information are constantly shifting?

And, of course, this also points to the importance of people monitoring relevant Wikipedia entries for changes that may impact their reputation or business.  It also raises again the question of how companies and individuals should address the issue of factually incorrect information in Wikipedia.  The community seems to frown upon direct editing, or even encouraging others to make factually correct changes.  Yet on most subjects with any level of controversy at all, the oft suggested solution of raising issues on the discussion forums seems likely to lead nowhere productive.

Individuals and companies clearly should not be attempting to introduce commentary into Wikipedia, but there must be a better way for them to make factual corrections or to have other commentary removed.  Wikipedia will remain a valuable resource so long as it can be respected for a follow-the-facts approach and keeps itself free of rhetoric, partisanship, politics, and advocacy.

The Times story clearly demonstrates this is not an issue that will go away any time soon and everyone in the communications industry ought to take it very seriously and seek to find good alternatives for addressing the occasional weaknesses in the Wikipedia model.

UPDATE: James Joyner points out that Middlebury College has banned citations from Wikipedia in student papers.  So not everyone thinks it is a credible source.

Technorati tags: Wikipedia, New York Times, Ken Makovsky, Jon Stewart, The Daily Show, Bill O'Reilly, Keith Olbermann