We have lately heard that certain teachers are “irreplaceable.” So was the conclusion of a report by The New Teacher Project, an organization founded by Michelle Rhee to place new teachers in the classroom. TNTP always thinks big ideas that will push out experienced teachers and make room for the new teachers they recruit. TNPT is enamored with test scores as the bottom-line measure of good teaching because they are convinced their new teachers will raise test scores faster and higher than veteran teachers. Whether this is so, it is hard to say because the new teachers have never taught before and one year of data doesn’t mean much. So maybe after three or four years, it is possible to test their claims. The larger question, which TNTP never addresses or considers unimportant, is whether the ability to raise test scores is the very best way to measure who is a good teacher, who is irreplaceable.
Here is the tip-off to their self-interest: “In fact, in these districts, 40 percent of teachers with more than seven years of experience are less effective at advancing academic progress than the average first-year teacher.” Imagine that! The average first-year teachers (that is, the ones you can get if you work with TNTP) are far more effective that 40 percent of teachers with more than seven years experience! You can see where this is leading: experience is irrelevant because those great first-year teachers are better than 40 percent of the veterans. Why not ditch tenure and seniority and get rid of 40 percent of anyone who has taught for more than seven years? Unfortunately, the report laments, those ineffective experienced teachers were making more money than the average first-year teacher, which struck TNTP as blatantly unfair! Why not pay the highly effective, irreplaceable first-year teachers even more than the seven-year veterans and fire the veterans? I’m not clear about how they know first-year teachers are irreplaceable when they have no data until they are in their second year or third or fourth or fifth year. And maybe they are just good test-drill instructors. But since I don’t understand why anyone would think the way TNTP thinks, I can’t explain their thinking. Read it for yourself.
When the New York Times wrote its editorial advocating carrots and sticks, it was responding to the TNTP report, taking it as fact and truth.
Here is a different point of view about who is irreplaceable:
I was a good teacher before I went through National Boards. It was a grueling process–I had three episodes of shingles during that year, and cried the entire month of January. But I came out the other end a much better teacher, and I can document the impact I’ve had on student learning and student lives. If you’re NBCT, you’re highly effective–one might even say you’re one of the “irreplaceable” teachers that are beginning to make the news. BUT…you can’t use test scores to show student learning–it’s a much more complex and subtle process of actually looking at students as individuals and measuring learning in many ways. This is not comprehensible to anal-retentive number-crunching business-type reformers, who see the world in black and white–their world is binary. Research has shown that NBCTs are highly effective teachers. Several of my fellow NBCTs are leaving teaching for the private sector, and many others are retiring early, because of the “reforms” in education. So not only are the reformers destroying a program that increases teacher effectiveness, they’re driving effective teachers out of the classroom. I’m sad for our students, because they’re the ones that are getting the raw deal. |
It seems like first year teachers are only “irreplaceable” for one or two years. Then they run the risk of becoming veteran teachers.
My principal has been calling me “Eric” for two years now, which is not my name. I doubt that I am considered indispensable.
If a first year teacher is more effectivebthan one with seven years, what happens when that first year teacher has seven years? Does she too become ineffectual? I have been teaching for 16 years and know I am definitely better now than I was then. I also believe I will continue to get better with each passing year. This is nonsense.
Yes,it is, totally ridiculous nonsense.
Well, not Governor Sammiches or the Walnut Head Homunculus. Maybe Richard Barth.
I really don’t get it. With the exception of athletics (due to the physical constraints that come with age), what other career devalues experience? I remember applying for summer jobs in college and seeing ads for fast food, quick service, and casual dining restaurants only seeking people with experience. Before I can work at Backyard Burger, I guess I have to work for McDonald’s. Before I can wait tables at Ruby Tuesday, I gave to work the graveyard shift at iHOP or Waffle House. Sometimes, even those “lower end” restaurants were looking for experienced workers. But if you want to be a teacher, you better be fresh out of school, preferably without a degree in education or even the field in which you plan to teach!
We always hear recent college grads make this complaint about the job market: “All of the companies want people with experience. How can I get experience if no one will hire me?”
Education seems to be the only exception.
Just keep your own sense of right and wrong and don’t let the self-promoting reformers change your thinking. They do what is best for them, not what’s best for kids or society.
Is it me or was that “report” data deficient? They identified the teachers as good or bad based on what criteria? I thought perhaps test scores were used but that wasn’t stated clearly. There was only 1 table that identified any evaluation and it certainly wasn’t very enlightening, was there any real evaluation or did they just make these figures up? This stuff boggles the mind.
That executive summary is gibberish. It offered NO details on methodology. Meaningless summary of what I imagine is meaningless research.
I struggle with TNTP use of the word “irreplaceable.” Here’s the thing – we are all replaceable. I have been teaching for 20 years and I do not burden myself with the arrogance that I am irreplaceable. I try my very best, work diligently at improving my practice, and love my students. Some day I will stop teaching – not any time soon – but eventually. A teacher will walk into my classroom and take my place. My hope is that teacher will have a steadfast dedication to our profession. To congratulate oneself as “irreplaceable” places the dominant focus on the teacher. “Look at me – I’m awesome!” It’s a narcissistic approach. Teaching is about the students.
HA! After 5 years as both a grad school TA and aTEFL instructor abroad I came back to the States and was alternatively certified through TNTP. I am still at the same school that I was hired by, outlasting 4 principals over the last 4 years and one complete school reorganization for which I had to reinterview for the job I had had for three years. There was no way that I surpassed veteran teachers that first year, especially the ones who were hard workers. Yes we had some slackers but overall most of the staff worked really hard. I learned so much from the veteran teachers that first year. Really the “training” that I got from TNEP was pretty weak but lucky I already had a TEFL cert and teacher training in my grad program that helped me. I am definitely not getting worse with experience.
The “Reformation” has gone rogue.