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Life & Times Transcript
10/20/05 David Okarski>> Tonight on Life and Times -- Both sides say they just want public schools to have the best teachers, but is Proposition 74 the way to do it? Margaret Fortune>> Tenure, the way in which it's practiced in public schools, turns out to be tantamount to a job for life. Genevieve Houssiere>> It's not as though you're tenured or not. You can do anything in the classroom that you would like to. That's silly. David Okarski>> And then, it's getting a lot of buzz, but will "Kiss Kiss Bang Bang" hit the mark? These stories and more next on tonight's Life and Times. Announcer>> Life and Times is made possible through the generous support of the L.K. Whittier Foundation dedicated to improving the quality of life by supporting innovative endeavors in the fields of medicine, health, science and education. And by a generous grant from Jim and Anne Rothenberg. David Okarski>> Children learn more when they have good teachers. That's just common sense and research confirms it. But how do we make sure there are more good teachers? That's what the debate about Proposition 74 is all about. Moorpark's Flory Academy of Science and Technology is a magnet elementary school. Inside, fifth grade teacher, Genevieve Houssiere, leads a math lesson. She's more than halfway through the two-year probation period California requires of all public school teachers entering a new district. [Film Clip] Genevieve Houssiere>> You are kind of on a trial and they come in and observe and make sure that you're what fits for their school, what fits for their district. So in those first few years, it's kind of a trial, but it's more of helping. David Okarski>> If all goes well, at the end of the two-year trial, Ms. Houssiere will earn tenure. Genevieve Houssiere>> It gives you job security, I guess, for lack of a better word. David Okarski>> But Proposition 74, one of four measures supported by Governor Schwarzenegger, would lengthen the time it takes for teachers to earn tenure. Political Ad>> "Making new teachers work successfully for five years before they get tenure in a job for life is a good idea." David Okarski>> In Ms. Houssiere's case, it would extend her tryout from two years to five. And Proposition 74 would make another change. Even with tenure, a teacher could be fired if he or she got two unsatisfactory performance evaluations in a row, a kind of two strikes, you're out clause. Margaret Fortune>> "We believe that schools ought to have more flexibility to make staffing changes when it's appropriate." David Okarski>> Margaret Fortune is a Democrat who worked in the Education Department under Governor Gray Davis. Now she's chair of the statewide Yes on Prop 74 campaign. Today she's arguing for Proposition 74 at a briefing sponsored by two nonpartisan groups. Margaret Fortune>> "Vote yes on Proposition 74 because it's a part of education accountability." David Okarski>> At the same briefing, USC's California Policy Institute presents its own analysis of Proposition 74. Richard Seder>> "Proposition 74 acknowledges the importance of quality teachers to student achievement, but it raises serious questions about how to accomplish that." David Okarski>> Richard Seder manages the nonpartisan institute's education program. He says California's teacher evaluation and tenure system is extremely difficult to weigh. What data did you find that California keeps about teacher quality, teacher evaluation systems, teacher dismissals? Richard Seder>> We actually have no data on the evaluation systems here in the state, which is mind-boggling when we consider the sophistication that the state really is in terms of the national leader. David Okarski>> That means even top-notch university researchers can't say which would be better, the current system or Proposition 74. David Pollack is on Genevieve Houssiere's school board. He opposed Proposition 74, saying the current system of teacher tenure and evaluation works just fine. David Pollack>> Of all the people, we're the ones that hire teachers and fire teachers and we deal with probationary teachers as well. You would think that, if anybody would support this, it would be us and we're opposed. David Okarski>> Pollack says two years is plenty of time to know if a teacher has what it takes and he has no interest in keeping a questionable teacher for five years. Genevieve Houssiere>> I think, after two years, you know what kind of teacher you have sitting in that classroom every day. You know what's happening in there. You know in the first six months. David Okarski>> You can probably predict what Ms. Houssiere thinks of Proposition 74. Genevieve Houssiere>> I'm not for it. I'm not very appreciative of it. I hope that Schwarzenegger doesn't pass it. I hope it doesn't go through because it would discourage a lot of really great teachers. We happen to have eight probationary teachers here on site right now, four of which were tenured in their old districts. David Okarski>> Including Ms. Houssiere, who started teaching five years ago in Tustin. Genevieve Houssiere>> In Orange County, I was tenured, yes. David Okarski>> She gave up tenure, as many teachers do, to move to a better district. But whenever a teacher moves, she has to begin the probation process all over again. Proponents of Proposition 74 criticize tenure, saying it guarantees -- Political Ad>> "A job for life." David Okarski>> A job for life. Genevieve Houssiere>> They're still observing you. You can still be fired. It's not as though you're tenured or not. You can do anything in the classroom that you would like to. That's silly. Margaret Fortune>> Tenure, the way in which it's practiced in public schools, turns out to be tantamount to a job for life. It's very difficult to dismiss a permanent status teacher. David Okarski>> That's why Proposition 74's two strikes, you're out clause is designed to make it easier for school boards to fire tenured teachers. David Pollack>> This change is certainly not needed in my district. Typically when we have a teacher that's become a problem, we negotiate with that person to get them out of the classroom. And if that doesn't work, then we will initiate formal dismissal proceedings and that's fairly rare. David Okarski>> Pollack is past president of the California School Boards Association which says Proposition 74 could actually make it harder to dismiss tenured teachers and more expensive. David Pollack>> And it requires us now to go to the Teachers Union to negotiate when the definition is of unsatisfactory performance. Right now, it's the education code. It's up to local discretion as to how we do that. David Okarski>> He says those negotiations would take time and cost school districts millions each year statewide. Both sides agree that Proposition 74 would make teacher performance and evaluation a high-stakes enterprise. Margaret Fortune>> So does Proposition 74 say that teachers ought to be evaluated more in their first five years of employ in a school district? Absolutely. That's the right thing to do because it means your job security is your performance. David Okarski>> Pollack says schools are facing bigger problems than teacher tenure. David Pollack>> That has not been our biggest concern with teachers. In fact, our biggest concern is where are we going to find enough qualified teachers, not how are we going to weed out the ones that we can't use anymore? David Okarski>> In fact, a state study predicts California's long-standing teacher shortage is about to become worse. A third of California's three hundred thousand teachers are over fifty. School boards have to attract a hundred thousand replacements over the next ten years as baby boom teachers retire. David Pollack>> And that's one thing that's really important for the public to understand. Yes, there is job protection built into this system for teachers and there's a good pension system built in also. That is in exchange for relatively low salaries. Margaret Fortune>> As someone who ran a teacher recruitment center and placed two thousand teachers a year, I know that teachers enter the profession because they want to educate kids. They should be worried about a job applicant for whom it is a deal breaker to have early and easy job security practically for life. David Okarski>> Both sides of the Proposition 74 debate say their goal is to put kids first and make sure they have the best teachers in the world. But like the math puzzles on Genevieve Houssiere's blackboard, there are usually several ways to solve the problem. David Okarski for Life and Times. Announcer>> Kcet.org is the place to look for the very latest on Life and Times. You'll find previews of upcoming stories, transcripts and audio of past episodes and links to some of our most interesting features. Just go to kcet.org and click on "Life and Times". Val Zavala>> Americans are popping more pills than ever before. I'm talking about legal prescription drugs. The number of prescriptions per American has more than doubled over the past ten years and, although these drugs can do a lot of good, they can also do a lot of damage. Greg Critser is a writer in Pasadena who has researched the down side of pharmaceuticals. You have written a book called "Generation Rx" and one of the groups that you focus on are children. We are medicating our children with prescription drugs more than ever before. Greg Critser>> That's right. So the question is, why is that? I think it's a complex, social, economic reason. We have more parents working away from the home. We have a very heavy focus on performance in the school. Performance is sort of like the tribal ethos of childhood now. If you remember, when we were kids, there was always a couple of guys in the class who we just always knew were never going to go to college, right? And it was kind of okay to think that. Well, today it's not okay, right? So the question is, should that person be medicated? What do we know about Attention Deficit Disorder? We know it's not a disease. We know it's a condition, right? It's a cluster of behaviors. We don't know exactly why it's there or when it happens. What we do know is that, if you give the person who you suspect has ADD Ritalin, they will get better. Now what you don't hear in this same argument is that everybody gets better with a little bit of Ritalin. Val Zavala>> Even if you have -- Greg Critser>> -- even if you're fine, your performance will improve. This is something that's at the core of most researchers' thoughts right now. Well, what are we really medicating? And there are no simple answers to Attention Deficit Disorder, although I'll point out a couple of important facts. One is that those who get it more often, probably too often, are the upper middle class and the middle class. Guess who don't get it enough? Poor students. Val Zavala>> You mean, don't get Ritalin? Greg Critser>> The poor. Ritalin, that's right. So it's a very much class-based diagnosis. If you wanted to make a big improvement in the lives of some poor kids, you might want to think about giving them Ritalin. On the other hand, if you wanted to make an improvement in the social fabric of the upper middle class and force them to make some kind of lifestyle changes like being home more often with their children, you might consider prescribing less. Val Zavala>> Interesting. Greg Critser>> Right. So Ritalin is very complex. Now when you get to childhood depression, this is a very frightening area because what's happening is that drugs that were never intended for children, such as Prozac or Paxil, are being prescribed to children and we know now that there is a severe down side to that and that is that it increases suicidality and suicidal thoughts among children. That's why the FDA is coming out with some of the warnings that it's coming out with. Val Zavala>> So children who are suffering from depression are getting drugs that have never really been tested on children? Greg Critser>> That's right, that's right. All of the major prescription drugs for depression were tested on adults for relatively short periods of time. Their main claim to fame is not their effectiveness. Their main claim to fame is that you can't overdose on those drugs, okay? Val Zavala>> You can't overdose? Greg Critser>> It's very hard to overdose on the new generation of antidepressants as opposed to the older generation. However, in terms of efficacy, how well those drugs work, they don't work much better than the older generation of antidepressants. So what are you really selling when you sell someone Prozac? You're selling them an easier side effect profile and there's really nothing wrong with that. Depression seems to be a bona fide condition. In some cases, using brain scans, we can actually see changes in the brain. But the way we dole out powerful drugs to children has really got to change and I think that you're seeing that change now where, five years ago, it was very common for a general practitioner to say, okay, let's try some antidepressants. Now those same GPs are saying, well, wait a minute. I don't really have the expertise to prescribe this drug and these drugs are more complicated than the drug companies ever told me about. So you're seeing some change there. Val Zavala>> But if parents are dealing with a child who is ADD or is clearly depressed, should they immediately go to the pharmacy or what should they do first before we jump right into the drugs as a solution? Greg Critser>> I think the answer to that is to go to someone who's not a general practitioner, to go to a therapist or go to a psychiatric counselor. Those people are fairly well trained at parceling out these behavioral problems. You know, in about five years, there will actually be a better answer to that question because there will be brain scan technologies that can detect when a certain behavior condition is based on your physiology or whether it's based on family dynamics or both. You know, the parent who's confronted with ADD and someone who's kind of whispering that in their ear is having a really tough time. My key piece of advice would be to, if you're going to invest money in this problem, invest it in a physician who really knows the issue, and that usually is a psychiatrist. Val Zavala>> Good advice, Greg. Thank you so much for all your work and your book, "Generation Rx". Greg Critser>> Thank you. Announcer>> To send a comment or a question to our program, you can reach us by mail at this address: Life and Times 4401 Sunset Blvd. Los Angeles, California 90027 You can also call our viewer comment line (323) 953-5555) or contact us the fast way by e-mail at kcet.org. Larry Mantle>> Welcome to FilmWeek on Life and Times. I'm Larry Mantle of 89.3 KPCC. Our first film this week, "North Country", stars Charlize Theron as a single mother dealing with sexual harassment in her job working for a mining company. She tries to organize her co-workers to find back. [Film Clip] Larry Mantle>> I'm joined this week by Jean Oppenheimer of New Times, and Peter Rainer of the Christian Science Monitor. Peter, start us off, please. What did you think of "North Country"? Peter Rainer>> Well, "North Country" is certainly well-meaning. It's a movie that certainly has its heart in the right place and it presses all the right liberal humanist buttons. But my feeling was that it did a bit too much of that, that it was too obvious in the way that it played through the usual trope of this type of movie. Charlize Theron is radiantly attractive as a worker in the iron mines who decides that she's had enough of the sexual harassment there and the movie is very loosely based on some facts that have to do with the first class action sexual harassment suit in northern Minnesota in the late 1980's. So it has a factual basis and it has a kind of "Norma Rae", "Silkwood" like quality. But to me, it reminded me more of "High Noon" because, as the character Josey goes through her various attempts to get other people to help her, she finds that there is really very few people who are willing to stick their neck out. So she's very valiant and the movie is very well-meaning, but it's also very familiar. Larry Mantle>> Do you agree, Jean? Jean Oppenheimer>> I do, to some extent. I think I liked it more than Peter did. I think Charlize Theron was very good. Frances McDormand was excellent. There were several things I liked about how the film was put together. Some of them is that you think there might be a romance in this between two characters and they don't go in that direction and I really appreciated that. Another thing is that I think, because it jumps back and forth in time. It starts out at a trial. It's a class action suit. Then it goes back in time and jumps forward, so a little more information is revealed each time. The first time you see the courtroom, you think what is she on trial for? Murder? What's going on? I liked the way that it revealed information as it went along. Larry Mantle>> Next up is a film that stars Steve Martin and Claire Danes. "Shopgirl" is an adaptation of a popular novella that Martin wrote a few years ago. [Film Clip] Larry Mantle>> Jean, what did you think of "Shopgirl"? Jean Oppenheimer>> Well, I think that anybody who associates the name of Steve Martin with comedy will be disappointed in this film and the very sort of gentle, melancholy music that starts the film is a give-away that this is not going to be a comedy. There were many things that I liked about the film. It's a very low-key story about this girl who's, you know, looking for a connection, a romantic connection, in her life. The movie tries to say that both she and her boyfriend, who's played by Steve Martin, have different expectations from their relationships and it's looking about how this happened. I actually think that he gave her a lot of mixed messages, so I don't think that the story is exactly how it's presented. It was a little bit long. There's no way that Claire Danes could have afforded her wardrobe on what she was earning. So a mixed bag. I actually liked it, but didn't love it. Larry Mantle>> What did you think, Peter? Peter Rainer>> Well, yeah, Steve Martin has on occasion made films that are quite melancholy and serious and this is based on his novella, so it's a personal project for him. I was sort of mixed on it. I think that, on the one hand, the movie tries to present itself as a kind of older man-younger woman love story, but there's something cold and hard-bitten about the relationship that I'm not sure was intentional. Claire Danes throughout the film is someone who is sort of innocently devoted to the Steve Martin character who's very wealthy and he's doing things like buying off her college loan and so forth. It seems like maybe there's a bit more to this relationship than simply, you know, she's eternally grateful and in love. I think, whether it was intentional or not, the most powerful thing in the movie for me was Steve Martin's portrayal of this dot.com millionaire. It's a very creepy study of a hollow man and I think it worked very well on that level. Larry Mantle>> Next we have the directorial debut of screenwriter, Shane Black. He was responsible for a series of hit films in the 1980's, but he's largely been missing in action as a screenwriter in recent years. In "Kiss Kiss Bang Bang", he's paired Robert Downey, Jr. and Val Kilmer. [Film Clip] Larry Mantle>> Peter, what did you think of "Kiss Kiss Bang Bang"? Peter Rainer>> I was pleasantly surprised by this movie because I'm not a big fan of the Shane Black oeuvre, the "Lethal Weapon" movies and "Last Action Hero". You know, he started very young as a UCLA film grad and sold these scripts for a fortune, so he has this reputation for being this kind of success story, except that he dropped out of sight for a long time, it seems, and now he's finally making his directorial debut in this picture. I thought it was a lot of fun. Robert Downey, Jr., whatever else may be going on in his life, is a marvelous actor who seems to have a certain syncopation that no other actor has, a way of, you know, talking and moving that's entirely his own. He's really hot-wired and it's a terrific performance. He actually outshines Val Kilmer, who can also be a handful in the movies, as his counterpart in a whole series of scams, but is far too complicated to begin to describe. Black was trying to base the film not only on his own "Lethal Weapon" pictures, but on a lot of the Raymond Chandler film noirs, and it's just as complicated and incomprehensible as "The Big Sleep". Not as much fun, but worth seeing. Larry Mantle>> Highly successful director, Marc Forster, comes back to the screen with his film, "Stay", a psychological thriller that stars Ewan McGregor, Ryan Gosling and Naomi Watts. [Film Clip] Larry Mantle>> Jean, you've seen "Stay". What did you think? Jean Oppenheimer>> Well, this is director Marc Forster's follow-up to both "Monster's Ball" and "Finding Neverland" and he does not do the same film twice. This is a mystery thriller that plays with reality. What's real and what isn't? I thought it was really intriguing and engrossing for the first half. Then I became disappointed. I think there's a problem inherent in this kind of story in that everything is moving towards a revelation at the very end of the film. Until you know what that revelation is, you go along with it psychologically for a while and then you sort of are stuck. I was rather disappointed in what the revelation turned out to be. However, I thought the actors were wonderful. There are three of my favorite actors, Naomi Watts, Ewan McGregor and Ryan Gosling, and I thought they were really all excellent. So it's sort of a jigsaw puzzle of a film. It sort of seemed like a throwback to the 1980's and I say that because there were a couple of films in the 1980's that had a somewhat similar resolution to the story. Larry Mantle>> It has been a pleasure having you with us for another FilmWeek on Life and Times. I'm Larry Mantle of 89.3 KPCC joined by critics Peter Rainer of the Christian Science Monitor, and Jean Oppenheimer of New Times. We invite you to join us next week for our next FilmWeek on Life and Times. Val Zavala>> KPCC radio broadcasts a full hour of FilmWeek every Friday morning at eleven a.m. And that's our program. I'm Val Zavala. For everyone at Life and Times, thanks so much for watching. We'll see you next time. Announcer>> Life and Times was made possible through the generous support of the L.K. Whittier Foundation dedicated to improving the quality of life by supporting innovative endeavors in the fields of medicine, health, science and education. And by a generous grant from Jim and Anne Rothenberg. Sponsored in part by:  | |
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