Sara Stevenson is the librarian at the O. Henry Middle School in Austin, Texas.
She is an activist for public education.
She is tireless.
She scans the Internet, reads voraciously, and writes letters to the editor to set people straight about the facts.
If every teacher and principal and superintendent and parent and librarian and guidance counselor and school psychologist did what Sara Stevenson does regularly, the national conversation would change.
The American public would be better informed.
The policymakers would change their tune.
The hedge fund managers would go back to dabbling in polo ponies and yachts.
And we could all concentrate on doing what is necessary to make our schools and our society better for all students.
Watch for her letters to the editor in the Wall Street Journal and other national publications.
Can it not be a combination of these things. Must it be either-or?
Combination of what? Intrinsic motivation plus carrots and sticks? I think not. The latter cancels out the former.
Are you a teacher?
Oh right on! I gave this book on motivation to my last principal who referred to me as ‘the listed teacher’ and a ‘person of interest’. Since I was vulnerable (NM is a right to work state) he refused to even evaluate me and his actions were held up by the EEOC as fair and grounds for dismissal.
His use of pejorative language and demotivating tactics was well known. He has an unearned dissertation, “Calling for an end to Manifest Destiny’s Influence on Education: A participatory approach to instruction” (from Fielding Graduate Institute)that, when read, sharply calls into question the legitimacy of his credential, but not by the New Mexico Public Education Department, strangely enough. Standards? We don’t got to show you no stinkin’ standards!
The disruptive and undermining influence school administrators have been unleashed to spew forth can be traced to the privateers, of course.
Thank you for reading. I plan to keep on writing.
Here is my contribution:
The editorial Carrots and Sticks for School Systems reflects nothing more than deferential acceptance of a Gates-funded propaganda piece. The Times offers unconditional praise for a study entitled “The Irreplaceables” from a “The New Teacher Project” (TNTP), a well-funded organization dedicated to using Value-Added Measures (VAM) to abolish teacher tenure and teacher unions. TNTP claims that the performance of its new teachers generally exceeds that of experienced teachers and, moreover, that a TNTP-trained teacher can overcome the effects of poverty.
The study that serves as the basis for this editorial is filled with unsubstantiated generalities and claims based on soft (or nonexistent) data. A careful analysis that includes the social context of its genesis would certainly raise numerous questions and critiques. The overarching goal of TNTP and its many partners is to create a corps of teachers willing to have their effectiveness reduced to test scores. Race to the Top is a carrot that feels like a stick.
The NYT – and the LAT, WAPO, WSJ and the Chicago papers – are all part of the problem. WAPO is owned by Kaplan Test Prep – what are they going to tell us about incentives and reform? All claptrap and cant from these quarters is painfully predictable and deliberately wrong headed.
What I find highly objectionable is the idea of using violence to achieve a means. Whether the saying ( carrot & stick) is just an anxiom or old adage is of no matter. The underlying concept is that a behavior that is in not in the norm requires violence or the threat of violence to change the behavior.
Now there are some who are reading this and saying “why is he being so picky or concerned with the words” but remember that words are powerful. And the true educational philosophy of these people who use the “carrot & stick” analogy, is one that shames/demeans, or uses violence on people that perform or don’t perform a certain behavior.
Is it ok to paddle students? teachers? so any implicit words & analogies that support such notion condones abuse.
Is it our job to teach or shame?