A teacher writes from Utah to explain conditions there:
I teach in Utah, the lowest per pupil expenditure state. Ironically, we are also one of the most equitable in funding. We have no money, but ALL of our districts have no money.
I have 256 students. That equals out to over 30 for each class but two (out of nine total). HOURS spent grading, calling parents, etc. In my district, we’ve just been told that if a student fails, it is the teacher’s fault. So more and more paperwork and calling to drag kids to passing.
I wish Bill Gates would come and substitute in my 8th and 9th grade classes for a week, and then, like my lovely state legislature, tell me that money doesn’t matter. Gates, and my legislators for that matter, wouldn’t last a day. Maybe not even a class period.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Bill Gates doesn’t care. He is rubbing his palms together and laughing. After all, HE is the education GURU…NOT! Gates is a marketer of bad ideas and products.
Yvonne Siu-Runyan: not to worry.
Bill and Melinda Gates send THEIR OWN CHILDREN to Lakeside School. What you’re objecting to is only directed at the vast majority aka OTHER PEOPLE’S CHILDREN.
And as Mr. “Stack Ranking” Microsoftie Himself said about Lakeside School:
“Finally, I had great relationships with my teachers here at Lakeside. Classes were small. You got to know the teachers. They got to know you. And the relationships that come from that really make a difference…”
Link: http://seattleducation2010.wordpress.com/2012/06/18/bill-gates-tells-us-why-his-high-school-was-a-great-learning-environment/
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P.S. Did I forget to mention that the same link includes this bit of startling info that explains why teachers “got to know you”: “Student/teacher ratio: 9 to 1” and “Average class size: 16”?
Boy, when it comes to the “most precious assets” of the self-styled “education reformers” they Rheeally put some skin in the game…
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“. . . we’ve just been told that if a student fails, it is the teacher’s fault.”
Just one of the perverse effects of “grading” students with only one letter category having a word attached to it: “F”=FAILING.
Perhaps, just perhaps, if we could just let go of this completely invalid, illogical and unethical practice of “grading” students we could get on with the teaching and learning processes that should be our main concern.
Many of the anti-edudeformer camp, many here, rail against “grading” teachers and schools but accept grading as a valid, useful mechanism for describing the student’s learning. This I don’t understand.
I have a problem using standardized tests to determine “grades” for schools and teachers especially when those tests are produced by a large corporation and they are not designed to measure school quality or teacher effectiveness. I think grades based on teacher-produced assessments (ones designed by real educators) are fair and accurate.
In retrospect, I recalled a particular teacher teacher after reading your anti-grade post. He taught 8th grade health, so I only had him for one nine week period (with PE for the other three quarters). During the first class, he stated his grading policy: “I give out two grades – either an ‘A’ or an ‘F.'” We learned you either get it or you don’t. I think he felt the same about letter grades as you did and the grade you got (A or F) was merely a formality because he had to report something.
Teachers regularly reported getting hauled in because too many of their students failed. In our school that meant that they never did homework and probably missed a month or more of school. Every teacher was required to call home when a student showed a pattern of nonattendance, so a parent could expect a string of calls if the phone number provided still worked. Frequently it didn’t. Where have I heard this story before?
Story of my life!
Bill Gates would only last 10 minutes in your class!
Until he started handing out cash to get the students to do what he wanted them to do (usually not an option available for those of us who earn a teacher’s salary).
Off topic: Now that Vincent Gray was defeated in the primary in Washington, DC, do we have any knowledge on the Democratic candidate, Muriel E. Bowser, stand on education? Will she also keep Rhee’s people in charge??? Gray ran against Rhee than did a turn around after the election. Obama did the same thing. I am worried that the Democratic party is now the Neoliberal party.
Schoolgal, from what I read in the Washington Post, the winning Democratic candidate Muriel Bower was mentored by Adrian Fenty, so I am not optimistic about a real change in D.C. But there is always hope.
So sad.
9 classes! That is insane.
Well the fact is, per pupil spending DOESN’T matter once basic needs have been met. In 2009, Utah spent the least per student in the country ($7217). The highest spender was right next door in Wyoming ($18,068 — almost 3x as much). So, did Wyoming beat the pants off Utah in achievement? Not really, at least according to conventional measures. Both states ranked in the middle of the pack nationally.
Once the minimal amount of funding needed to run a modern school is secured, additional spending buys “nice-to-haves,” although much of that extra spending tends to be siphoned off to feed administrative bloat.
I completely understand why teachers would want more money for smaller classes, higher salaries, and nicer school buildings. I want those things, too. But in terms of educational achievement, it really doesn’t matter all that much. The biggest predictors of achievement are the kinds of kids being taught, the culture they come from, and their attitudes toward education. Alabama outspends Utah by over $3000 per student, but the results are still pretty much what you would expect for Alabama… and an additional $10k per student wouldn’t really change things much.
However, Utah’s test scores are sliding dramatically, because we have a lot more students with special needs than we used to. Also, Utah ranks dead last in scores compared to states with similar demographics. The local newspaper, the Deseret News, did a study a few years ago. I will try to find the link to that study.
Besides, class sizes in Utah are INSANE. Largest in the country by far. While the numbers say that it is about 22 kids per class, that is not the reality. Most classes, including kindergarten, are at over 30 students. Averages include special education classrooms, and count anyone in the building with a teacher certification, including librarians, counselors and administration.
Money does matter, especially when districts and charters put that money toward different ends. I did a study awhile ago comparing the charter school (in Detroit) where I was teaching with other local public schools according to how the same state funding was spent within the district. Public schools spent much more on “instruction” and “resources” than the charters, which spent double what public schools spent on “administration”. It was clear the charter CEO’s were pocketing the money they cut from the teachers and students.
Utah suffers from the statistical Simpson’s Paradox. On the surface it looks to be doing very well, but when test results are parsed out, that is when you can tell how poorly the minority groups are doing. And yes, funding DOES make a difference. Teachers in Utah are very underpaid and have ridiculous class sizes, and the culture there means many of the teachers don’t or won’t speak up; it’s part of their “duty” to teach. Union membership is low and apathetic in many areas, and most will say UEA or their local doesn’t do much for them.
Then there’s the disgusting mess with legislators and charter schools, which further depletes district budgets, but the state legislators are so in cahoots with the charter management orgs and involved in setting up their own charter schools so they can profit by selling the land/building the school/hiring all the family members, they don’t care. Then you have legislators like Becky Lockhart, ignoring the class sizes and the underpaid teachers to push for a huge technology bill that – oh by the way – will just happen to benefit her hubby and a good number of his clients. Doing the Deasy, it might be called – let the schools fall down, but make sure those kids have a device in their hands! That’ll sure fix public education!
I have to disagree K Quinn, in regards to your comment about teacher associations. I am a member of my local association, the largest in the state, as well as the fastest growing – in Utah and the western region. My uni-serve directors are completely dedicated and vigilant on our behalf. NEA has approached our uni-serve directors on many topics, to get their expert advice.
If UEA or any local association has low membership then I would ask, what are the building reps doing to recruit new members? Most importantly, why are teachers not members? From my experience it is usually a misconception a teacher has, and they simply aren’t educated about what our association stands for. Again, what is the building rep doing about this?
Above very low levels of spending the decisive factor becomes demographic composition of the student population.
256 students?! 256??!! I bow down to you and your Utah colleagues.
We all need any support we can get. Utah’s motto for a long time has been: “Stack em deep and teach em cheap!”
I’m a Utah teacher as well and I follow Ravitch’s blog daily. I’m always sharing with my colleagues, about the information I read on this blog. I know for sure half of them roll their eyeballs at my ‘extreme liberal’ thinking; some take it seriously – my superintendent once asked me where I get my information from and I told him from Diane Ravitch’s blog (he didn’t respond). A recent announcement from our superintendent that my ‘failing’ school, which is going from focus status to priority status next year, is the lucky recipient of SIG money. $1,000,000 for the next three years. I know several teachers were thinking that they should have paid more attention to what I’ve been sharing over the last year. When I first heard of SIG money, I had a feeling that it could easily happen to our school. And voila!
My school is in the largest district in our state, which has also been labeled as a failing district. There are hundreds of families that are immigrants, refugees, very low socio-economics level, and several industrial and business areas that affect housing and the economy of neighborhoods. The boundaries for my school brings in 5-6 bus loads of students everyday. Essentially, we are not a neighborhood school. Also, a majority of these students are bussed in, and come from 2 massive apartment complexes that accept state housing assistance as well as refugee housing assistance. It’s your basic slumlord situation. Consequently, as we all know, our students are not coming to school ready to learn, for many reasons. We also have the highest rates of absenteeism and mobility within our district, and the state. As much as I hate saying that we are set up to fail, the facts are just that.
Aside from those unique obstacles, we also have a very unique faculty and staff. In my 30+ years working with youth from high-risk and low-come neighborhoods, I have never seen a group of people who care so much. Typically, Title 1 schools have a high turn over of teachers. My school does not! Sure we’ve had the occasional teacher retire, move, or decide to be a stay-at-home mom, but this team of highly dedicated, altruistic, compassionate and caring teachers have stayed through thick and thin. We are a family that supports each other, collaborates with each other, has bonds that are strong, and together we teach every single student in our school. We have created an environment of trust for our students and their parents. I have stated many times how proud I am to be a part of such a stellar faculty. So you can imagine the range of emotions that filled up our library as our superintendent tried to sell us on this great “opportunity”, and teachers could see right through his facade.
Under federal stipulations for SIG money, all the teachers and the principal are surplussed out to other schools, and a whole new crew is brought in. Aside from the fact that we all know this does not work, essentially my colleagues and I have been told that we are indeed failing teachers; what other reason is there that our district administration would even consider applying for this grant? Because they don’t believe in us! They haven’t listened to our pleas over the last few years for additional resources, and no one has ever step foot in our classes to see what it happening in our trenches. I’ve been emailing our super for over a year, trying to relay research, information and our experiences teaching refugee students. There is a distinct difference between the needs of an immigrant student compared to a refugee student. Most people don’t know the definition between immigrant and refugee, so they can’t imagine what it is like having both in our classes. Sadly, there are very few resources or program models to study because this is such a new problem that is affecting more and more public schools across the nation. Someone didn’t take the time to think about this logically and how it would affect communities and our resources over the long haul. It’s becoming a crisis situation in our school/s, and at a time when we have felt the pain of billions of dollars cut from funding over time, we have practically non-existence resources.
I want to point out that the teacher’s association for my district is of course the largest in our state, the strongest, and fastest growing number of members. We have a Professional Agreement that is negotiated between district and the association, and it is a binding contract. Our association has managed to protect our steps and lanes in times when other districts were experiencing freezes, or were forced to do furloughs. On top of that we have received a nano-sized COLA, and two years in a row of a one time bonus. I’m proud to be a member, a board member, and active volunteer advocate for my profession and my colleagues. Once again my representatives stepped in and negotiated some parameters for us, despite the SIG guidelines. We got a decent deal, but it doesn’t come without strings attached. If any teacher chose to stay, which was a negotiated option, he/she would be required to work many more hours past contract time, designing and creating a model for our school that will increase our test scores.
Listen! Did you hear the sarcastic chuckles from all of us?
So despite the fact that we have no control over the circumstances that our students come from, we are expected to come up with a miracle and our students will be standard enough to pass the standardized tests! And then we won’t be considered failing teachers! Yeah for us!
Friday afternoon we get the news. By Monday morning we are expected to have decided whether to stay and take on this challenge, or request being surplussed at a school and grade of our choice. Our superintendent guaranteed it! Sadly, a few teachers didn’t get what he guaranteed. There went what little bit of trust any of them had left. I chose to stay! For two reasons…First, if my team of colleagues and I create and implement something that is truly the silver bullet of success, we will be applauded by others in our profession, as well as proving to the reformers that they should have considered us in the first place. Second possibility, nothing will work, the entire project, grant, or whatever else will prove senseless and illogical, which will prove also that the reformers don’t know what they are doing. A big failure! Either way, I am part of something big that is happening in education, and I will truly be making a difference!
I realize that things might get horribly worse before better, and that’s okay. Yes, so many students will suffer, but they too will be part of something big, and who’s to say that this generation couldn’t actually learn from current mistakes, and create something better when they are adults? I could be completely off my rocker and naive as can be, but if no one has hope for our students, how can they have hope for themselves? I try to instill in my students that despite challenges and adversity, they can make something of themselves, to achieve a dream or vision! Just like those we read about in class and discuss, who took their own situations and rose above it all. They get it! They make the connections! They can put it in perspective with real life and their own situation! They are sympathetic and far from standard. They will make a difference too!
I’ve always said that we are trying to teach students who are far from standard, using standardized thinking and approaches, with standardized curriculum, so they can pass the standardized test. Try as we might, you can’t keep trying to put a round peg in a square hole, while putting a new label on it. So let’s move away from this insane approach of doing the same thing over again, hoping for different results.
Diane, I would respectfully request that you consider removing this post for its obvious racism.
Dienne, what is it about the Utah post that you think is racist? Not a word in it refers to race. It is about the state not funding education. What am I missing?
No, I think Dienne means the post by Jim above. He always has to bring race into everything, and it is appalling.
Dienne, I see it was the comment you referred to, not the post. I deleted it.
Round pegs will never fit in square holes– even with a million dollar grant. My hope is that the state will begin to recognize the value of these round peg students and the teachers who willingly teach them. Standardized testing will never reflect the true growth these children make each year– educationally and culturally. Nothing is wrong with these students OR their teachers. The only thing wrong is the overly-simplistic formula states are using to determine student success.