One of the axioms of corporate reform in education is that experience doesn’t matter. Also, they say, degrees don’t matter. Certification doesn’t matter. Nothing matters except “performance” or “results,” and these are defined as the “measurables,” the test scores. If a teacher can get students to produce higher test scores, he or she is a good teacher. If they can do it year after year, they are “great” teachers.
Reformers say that you can’t know in advance who the great teachers are. You have to collect the test scores for three or four years, and then you know who they are, and you give them a bonus. You also know who the “bad” teachers are, and you fire them.
But is it true that experience doesn’t matter? The reformers’ claim that teachers reach their peak performance by their third or fourth year, and they never get any better.
This could be taken in different ways. It might mean that teachers hit their stride in the third or fourth year, and districts should hold on to those who have reached that level. It also might mean that districts should avoid TFA, because most of them will leave after two years, and never hit their stride.
But reformers think it means experience doesn’t count, because teachers don’t continue to improve after that magical third or fourth year.
Of course, this is based on economists’ analysis of test scores, not interaction with teachers or deep study and observation of teacher performance.
This teacher disagrees:
| After 26 years, I am still tryng to perfect my craft and get better every day. Building my own classroom library of close to 1,700 YAL books takes years. Reading most of them, or at least the first in a series, and keeping up with the interests of 12 and 13 year olds is constant, time-consuming and ever changing. There is so much that can’t be measured by a Gates selected “researcher” who has no clue how to relate to, motivate and respect children. |
I have been teaching science in high school for 25 years and have an award winning program. I believe a diversity of faculty is the best way to bring our students into reality of the work force. I also think that there are teachers that get better every year as I have. I take it upon myself to constantly improve, to learn the lessons of each year and carry them forward. Effective administration can take care of the small amount of burn outs and teachers that have lost their entusiasm and care for children but that takes good administration and they are so rare you would sooner get a camel through he eye of a needle. The union protections and good pay keep these people in education. Instead we have huge and costly programs complete with tests, privatization, and removal of pensions, reduction of pay and media cultivation of public animosity. All for want of good administrators. Getting rid of more experienced teachers is all about cost cutting.
So here we are and we will see where we go. I think it is very much like the Chinese cultural revolution- a huge sweeping failure to get rid of another failure. We are a profession in need of a way to get rid of bad teachers, not old ones, not ones with less education etc We are being held responsible for a culture that has lost its opportunity and we are about to use politics and policy to throw out the baby with the bathwater.
“Effective administration can take care of the small amount of burn outs and teachers that have lost their entusiasm and care for children but that takes good administration and they are so rare you would sooner get a camel through he eye of a needle. The union protections and good pay keep these people in education.”
Elissa, union protections don’t keep “bad” teachers on the job–faulty administrations do. Unions only protect a teacher’s right to due process wherein if it is proven that the teacher is not effective, the teacher is dismissed…with the union’s blessing. It’s not a good idea to spread misinformation regarding due process.
“Unqualified is the new qualified!” (Gary Stager 2005)
Experience we’re told doesn’t matter. So why is this? Well, one reason might be the belief that all teaching is, is lecturing, delivering facts and passing out papers. We all know that is a crock of crap. Another reason. It makes it easier to justify firing teachers and replace them with 5 week wonders. If you repeat this along with a quality teacher (whatever the definition of ‘quality ‘ is) is all that matters in the classroom, then there really is no reason for having a person who understands child psychology, pedagogy, children; a person who plans lessons with the goals of teaching and enriching a child’s life and also believes that there is more to teaching-then just a relaying of facts. Experience matters. Why do we trust the people who don’t believe this with our children’s education? Why.? How comfortable are you with a surgeon telling you this is his first procedure? A mechanic with his first brake job? An air traffic controller? Why should education be any different? Don’t say that the examples above deal with safety and teaching is well…important but not life threatening. Well- tell that to the kids whose been taught by people with so little experience. It wasn’t life threatening. Yeah! It was just life altering.
One last thing. It would be nice if all these “sage” reformers stopped for a moment and took a look at the possible consequences for their actions. Who needs an experienced college professor or one who researches and teaches? (Very timely due to Bill Gates setting his sights on higher public education.) Why not have your entire collegiate learning experience taught by TA’s, and not graduate TA’s. Heck, I just finished the course therefore, I’m qualified to teach it.
How many of you are eager to have your children taught by a teacher with 5 weeks, or a year or two’s experience? Not many? Why? If it’s good enough for children of the city or the hinterlands/sticks then it should be good enough for you
OK, I’ll begin by admitting that the “eschools” comment pushed my buttons, as a veteran classroom teacher and as a professor who has taught at both bricks and mortar and online schools (with college students from across the globe).
“eschools are best” and “better” if “run by universities”, AND if they are only for adults, not P-12 students –who should have limited screen time, more active learning and more personal, face to face interactions with peers and teachers.
Even at the university level, online schools are not the best fit for all adult students. Those who currently benefit most from online US programs are autonomous learners, with good English literacy skills, and corporations running for-profit schools.
However, a lot of corporations waiting in the wings for school “reform” to hit public higher ed, including Bill Gates, so they can increase online learning and reap profits, have failed to realize that they’ve already missed the boat on that. Colleges with online programs are no longer dependent on a proprietary Learning Management System (LMS).
More and more universities (including for-profits) have been switching over to the wide variety of open source LMS platforms that are available today. Therefore, while profiteers seek to tear apart what has been often referred to as, “the greatest higher education system in the world” (see link below), there is very little likelihood that corporations will benefit much from the online colleges in the US that they want to see proliferate –unless, of course, they open their own schools.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/05/14/united-states-global-ranking_n_1514261.html
Apparently, opening a degree granting for-profit college can be done rather easily these days, too (re: Relay, Phoenix, Kaplan, etc.), so, our public community colleges and universities need not be taken down for corporations to profit from higher ed.
Can’t you just envision the University of Microsoft, with “stack ranked” students and professors? I can only imagine how that’s going to be depicted online. Their management approach is very similar to the demeaning “pyramid” that the abrasive Dance Moms teacher uses on her young students. It’s all about the carrot and the stick –which we already know DoE supports.
One would think that technologically advanced people would have evolved from that archaic model. But, then, so many of those prganizations are led by non-educators and college drop-outs who think, by virtue of the size of their bank accounts, they have the right to tell college professors and P-12 educators what to do.
That is, unfortunately, consistent with a culture that kowtows to celebrity and wealth –often regardless of the true value of the contributions such people have made to our society. However, while the overly glorified 1% may have the financial edge, 99% is a HUGE number of people and we must continue to speak out against such nonsensical, inhumane corporate practices being imposed on us, as teachers, parents, students and communities.