Anthony Cody has emerged, in the eyes of many people, as a voice on behalf of the teaching profession.
This is quite amazing in itself because he is an experienced middle school science teacher in a high-poverty district, Oakland, California. He does not lead an organization. No one elected him. He has a regular blog that is hosted by Education Week. Last year, he was recognized by all as the driving force behind the Save Our School march in Washington. He is a leader because he speaks to the issues that concern teachers, and he is eloquent.
Anthony has just opened what he says will be a constructive dialogue with the Gates Foundation. Like many others, he has been disturbed by the foundation’s promotion of testing, by programs that imply that teachers are at fault for low test scores and that the right evaluation system will fix the problems, and by its support for Teach for America, which sends in a steady stream of novices to schools serving the neediest children.
What is especially valuable about his post is that he has a clear description of a school that is doing the right thing, where teachers are reflecting on their work, talking together about how to do it better, and where they are able to have small classes. They are treated as professionals, and they invest themselves in doing their work better. Professional autonomy makes them better professionals and better teachers.
The link above will take you to the opening part of this dialogue.
Feel free to raise questions and I will make sure that Anthony sees them.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Color me skeptical, but good luck with that …
i’m open to anything at this point but i agree with jon. i wonder how he managed to get an audience with Mr.G.
I don’t think Anthony met with the great Mr. G. himself, just high-level staff.
I’ve taught high school math for 6 years at Franklin High in Seattle.
To implement his ideas:
1. how many preps do I have a day?
2. how many classes do I have?
3. how long are the classes?
4. how many students per class?
5. how long does each Best Practice take to implement, per day, week, month?
6. how many Best Practices are there?
All the math teachers I work with would LOVE more collaboration TIME – does someone have a clock with more than 24 hours, and way to work productively for over 8 — 10? 12? 14? Oh yeah – and what about TIME to make sure my diet and my exercise and my home community aren’t ignored, all of which need to be nurtured so I can do my job better?
I worked for Microsoft 10 years ago and I’ve lived in Seattle for a few decades. It is a solid bet that Gate$ is surrounded by sycophants and toadies, and it is a better bet that Gate$ is most concerned with teachers who can call his crap, “crap”, which is something you can’t do at Microsoft if you want to keep your paycheck.
At least Mr. Cody doesn’t appear to use the language of Gate$. Education policy is political, and in modern politics when you use their language, YOU LOSE. Period.
I’d love to have solutions which I could implement – and that would require details. I actually do not need more sitting in meetings with adults reflecting on abstract ivory tower theory, I need solutions with details – oh yeah – and how about paying for the details!
rmm.
Maybe this guy? Is a failing hospital like a failing school?
http://www.gatesfoundation.org/leadership/Pages/allan-golston.aspx
It is time we stand up for our profession and our community schools together and that is exactly what our small, rural norther Michigan community did this past school year. As we faced yet another round of cuts in education funding from our state, we all stood together to prevent an Emergency Financial Manager from coming in to our community school and destroying all that we hold dear. See the link to the article in the Detroit Free Press: http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2012202050493 from February 15, 2012.
We ended our fiscal year in the black, raising the entire $551,000 needed thanks to the generous support of our staff, our parents, and our community. Suttons Bay is a prime example of the importance of our community schools and the people who believe in them.
Well it seems the Ed Week site is a pay to play. I clicked to register to comment and had two options to pay to register. So much for that!
Cody stated “what it means to “measure” teacher effectiveness?” And proceeded to say that that topic would be another blog. But it’s pretty hard to discuss a good teacher and learner atmosphere without bringing that up as later he states: “An increase in teacher turnover by 1 standard deviation corresponded with a decrease in math achievement of 2 percent of a standard deviation; students in grade levels with 100 percent turnover were especially affected, with lower test scores by anywhere from 6 percent to 10 percent of a standard deviation based on the content area.” To me “teacher turnover” is a proxy for “teacher effectiveness”. Maybe I’m wrong in that connection but it seems to me that “effective teachers” generally do not just switch schools willy nilly.
My main point being, though, that to even ask “What it means to ‘measure’ teacher effectiveness?” is to misunderstand what the teaching and learning process is about. One can “assess” teacher effectiveness but one can’t “measure” it as the teaching and learning process belongs in the realm of the logical category of “quality” and cannot be confused and conflated with the logical category of “quantity”, i.e., “measuring teacher effectiveness” as measuring implies a quantity of something. Right off the bat, Cody is falling into the deformers’ trap. A trap based on falsehoods and irrationalities that are “measuring teacher effectiveness” through educational standards and standardized testing which Wilson has completely destroyed as valid educational practices in “Educational Standards and the Problem of Error” found at:
http://epaa.asu.edu/ojs/article/view/577 and “A Little Less than Valid: An Essay Review” found at: http://www.edrev.info/essays/v10n5index.html
I understand by now that the everyday reader of this blog might be tired of my broken record repetition of pleading with people to read Wilson’s most important studies, but I know that there has to be “new” readers of the blog everyday and I am just trying to reach them.
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“Maybe I’m wrong in that connection but it seems to me that “effective teachers” generally do not just switch schools willy nilly.” Yes they do. Teachers do not like to go on lock down because of gun shots near the school. They don’t like driving through drug deals to get to work, or drive by prostitutes on their way into school. They do not like leaving school soon after the bell rings because the neighborhood is simply not a safe place to be. So when effective teachers land in these schools, they transfer out as soon as possible. Some of us stay, but most don’t. It’s not the teachers, it is poverty.
I disagree Mark. I know plenty of teachers who work in tough schools in tough neighborhoods. In fact, when I look at the best teachers I know, most of them work in high poverty schools.
I do not consider your examples to be teachers leaving willy nilly. The ones that stay (like yourself, apparently, and thank you!) have invested themselves into the lives of the students.
A high teacher turnover rate is both a cause and an effect of a troubled school. We would do well to have everyone keep this in mind.
One of my biggest concerns with outside “reformers” trying to standardize evaluation systems using VAM and the like is that they have little imagination for all the ways a person can be really brilliant or really terrible in an organization. The administrators on the ground have to be hand picked and wonderful… and then they need to make the decisions with a great deal of latitude within an acceptable framework.
To say 50% of a teachers’ evaluation will be test scores not only fails to capture your brilliant 4th grade teacher’s creative science lessons (science not tested at 4th) but it may also lock in the teacher who causes students to transfer out and better teachers to leave.
I am an avid follower of Anthony Cody’s blog. I did sense a change in the winds …I am a bit skeptical, only because many who have engaged with the dark side have ultimately succumbed to the grape koolaid. But I am hopeful that Cody’s sensible musings and honest inquiries will provoke Gates et al to begin to pay attention to views other than their own…let’s hope.
“I am a bit skeptical, only because many who have engaged with the dark side have ultimately succumbed to the grape koolaid.”
To paraphrase and older movie: “The dark side is very strong”.
Damnit, twice today, “an” older instead of “and”. The fingers sometimes have a mind of their own.