Arne Duncan recently announced his plan to put the “best” teachers in low-performing schools. These would of course be the teachers whose students get the highest scores, and most of them teach in affluent suburbs or schools for the gifted. Unfortunately, Arne has not figured out that the “best scores” and the biggest gains reflect the student population and family income.
Peter Greene has a series of scenarios for Arne.
He writes, to begin:
“This aspect of school reform has been lurking around the edges for some time– the notion that once we find the super-duper teachers, we could somehow shuffle everybody around and put the supery-duperest in front of the neediest students. But though reformsters have occasionally floated the idea, the feds have been reluctant to really push it.
“Now that the current administration has decided to bring that federal hammer down on this issue, you’re probably wondering what they have in mind for insuring that the best teachers will be put in front of the students who have the greatest need. I’m here to tell you what some of the techniques will be.
“Before Anything Else, Mild Brain Damage Required
“Any program like this requires the involved parties to believe that teachers are basically interchangeable cogs in a huge machine. We will have to assume that a teacher who is a great teacher of wealthy middle school students will be equally successful with students in a poor urban setting. Or vice-versa, as you will recall that Duncan’s pretty sure it’s the comfy suburban kids who are actually failing. We have to assume that somebody who has a real gift for connecting with rural working class Hispanic families will be equally gifted when it comes to teaching in a high-poverty inner city setting.
“And, of course, as always, we’ll have to assume that teachers who are evaluated as “ineffective” didn’t get that rating for any reason other than their own skills– the students, families, resources and support of the school, administration, validity of the high stakes tests, the crippling effects of poverty– none of those things contributed to the teacher’s “success” or lack thereof.
“Once everybody is on board with this version of reality, we can start shuffling teachers around.”
Some day we might have a Secretary of Education who cares about research, understands teaching and learning, and has common sense as well. It looks like we will have to wait at least two more years, while hoping that our best teachers haven’t chosen to leave.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Would higher salaries improve the quality of teachers at poor, minority schools?
Do you already have an opinion Flerp?
I don’t, actually. I mean that sincerely. I tend to think the reverse would be true at a certain point (that is, that *lowering* salaries would decrease the quality of teachers at those schools). But I’ve thought about it, and I don’t know whether increasing salaries would result in better teachers.
Love it:))
Not for the long haul… it’s helpful in that the incredible stress level of working in a high poverty environment can be somewhat offset by the finances. There’d then be enough money to make sure personal bills are taken care of and that teachers have enough $ to put food on the table for their own families. Having some of the extra money can offset some of how much teachers already spend on the kids in their classroom too. That is ONLY a piece of it though. In the environment of micromanaging and blame that is “school reform” (or more aptly deform), the poor emotional climate eventually takes its toll. Money cannot replace the emotional, and eventual physical health that is slowly sapped out of a person when in the “school reform” environment. Money is NOT the complete answer… a part of it, but by no means complete.
Hannah: what you said. The below is truncated but I hope you get my drift…
Let me go at this from another angle. If you decide to add in to the mix of very demanding students (including large numbers of SpecEd kids and ELLs and students with severe behavior problems), often uninvolved parents, constant badgering and shaming by the local board of ed & on-site administrators (or in more and more cases, those owning/managing charters) aka “fear by management,” weakening of already fragile job protections, at-will employment so that one cannot be assured of a job from year to year or even day to day—
AND then add in low salaries/wages [aka the McRecompense you get for your McJob] so that one has to choose between making up for chronic shortages of school supplies by spending one’s own money or providing for one’s own family and needs, reduction or elimination of meaningful benefits of any sort (e.g., health) and the toll on one’s mental and emotional well-being because of the preceding—
How can the so-called “practical minded bidness” crowd not understand that when you create a whole series of very punishing and mutually reinforcing disincentives you will not incentivize people to take on the most demanding (aka riskiest) teaching positions?
The “education reform” playbook makes no logical sense—unless viewed as a guide to displacing public schools with private ones.
Just my dos centavitos worth…
😎
Because there are so many bad teachers now Flerp? This entire plan, once again, presumes teachers are THE problem in our failing society. When only one facet keeps getting manipulated in many different ways, you won’t see any results. Obama and Arne don’t have a clue what they are doing. They are running out of schemes.
I take your point about emphasis, and I understand that this kind of question does denigrate a lot of the people who teach at poor, minority schools. But at the same time, if the teachers at those schools are no worse than the teachers at wealthier schools — or if they are worse, but higher salaries will not attract better teachers — then a significant part of the Campaign for Fiscal Equity lawsuit was a fraud.
Sure Flerp! Pay me more. Pay me more. Pay me more. I will get better and better like an aged cheese or wine. My wings are sprouting and the halo is in place.
There is something non-intuitive about the idea that people will be better employees if their pay goes up, at least for people who don’t work on commission or piece-rate. In that sense, the criticism of merit pay for teachers applies to a lot of other occupations. Salary levels would seem to have more of an impact on hiring and retention than on the job performance of existing employees. (Although I suppose there may be instances where a big enough decrease in salary can lead employees to just say, screw it.)
But I also like money.
FLERP!
“But I also like money.”
Be careful, as you know “For the love of money is the root of all evil.” (Just ask Billy the Gates, but then again maybe don’t ask him.)
No, it would have no effect on performance whatsoever, though it might be a way of attracting teachers who just don’t want to deal with the myriad problems facing the students in those schools The reality is that any bonus money or combat pay as it is often rudely called would probably be spent by those teachers on things that the schools and the students themselves were unable to provide for themselves.
Not immediately.
Raising salaries, I think, would show a slow but steady increase over time as the profession began to attract ambitious people who would have gone into teaching but for the reputation of low pay.
“Raising salaries, I think, would show a slow but steady increase over time as the profession began to attract ambitious people who would have gone into teaching but for the reputation of low pay.”
Another edudeformer talking point; that the “ambitious” don’t go into teaching and that teachers are not “ambitious”.
Do you really want the “ambitious” to be teaching?
This may be an unpopular response, but here goes. Teachers who have enough bravery to go into neighborhoods full of violence have my respect, no matter their results. How many of these privately schooled children of elitists would put their children in dangerous neighborhoods, working 12-16 hours per day, entering and leaving the building in the dark? I doubt they’d subject their child to the lack if safety outside the school building. They expect others to do this, for low pay and low respect? Who are they kidding? They claim they are throwing money at education and it isn’t working. Well, duh. The money needs to be there to demand safe, drug free communities first. Until the violence and poverty stops things won’t improve. Do they plan to force experienced suburban teachers to leave their positions to work in frightening conditions? Or will TFA take care of it for everyone. Ridiculous.
Deb: Well said, and thanks.
Agree Deb, so agree.
#harebrainedidea What makes any of these fellows think that teachers from the burbs say for example New Canaan, Scarsdale, or Winnetka would want to venture into New York, Hartford, Bridgeport or Chicago, and who is going to force them?
And as if the parents in the wealthy suburbs are going to willingly give up their best teachers.
When will Arne and Barack run out of stupid ideas?
They can’t even identify the problem, so how can they come up with solutions?
Winnetka residents with lake front homes pay as high as $212K per year in property taxes, and many do so primarily so their children can have a Progressive public school education. The entire school district is Progressive and has been for many decades, just like the private schools that “reformers” like Obama and Gates have attended and send their own kids to, yet never promote for urban public education.
I have been a college supervisor of student teachers in Winnetka schools and, believe me, you will never, ever see a teacher employed in Winnetka who only knows how to implement Behaviorist-based, motivation undermining, drill and kill test prep strategies, including TFAers. I worked with a number of students who went into education with the expressed goal of teaching in Winnetka and similar high income suburbs and some expressed resentment about having to even learn about urban education and low-income / high needs groups, so no one should plan on them being amenable for a swap either.
“The entire school district is Progressive and has been for many decades”
Oh no, that’s not possible. Teaching Economist has repeatedly said this can’t happen and I’m sure he’s an authority on the subject. Ahem.
LOL Linda.. I totally laughed out loud at your comment, “When will Arne and Barack run out of stupid ideas?” This is the platinum question we are all wondering about….. WHEN????
This latest “idea” borders on “Onion” absurdity. What will they do? Will they force an unwilling Scarsdale teacher to be bused to the Bronx? Gate’s may just run out of money trying to pay off all the legal challenges to indentured servitude and the likes. Is it for real that our very own president can possibly support such a misinformed hair-brained”idea”?????
Wow, Chi-town resident! Check your facts. There are few if any Winnetka residents that are forking over $200,000 in real estate taxes. I’m guessing that you would have to be talking about properties of around $8,000,000 and contrary to popular fantasy most (if not all) houses don’t come close to that in value and no one is paying that much just for the public schools. As to the progressive education, it is suffering in the enclaves of the super rich as well. Their corporate types love their data, too, and their teachers are being subjected to top down micromanagement that has a noticeable impact on progressive education. Winnetka is trying to hold on to some vestige of their progressive heritage.
2old2teach: an old lawyer/journalist trick. “One person pays $212K per year in property taxes” = “Residents pay as high as $212K per year in property taxes.” Mission accomplished.
Chi-Town Res,
I work in a low income/high needs school. If the young teachers-to-be do not want to learn about my students or any other students from similar backgrounds, then we don’t want them here either.
I can’t imagine teaching in any other type of school. My students didn’t ask to be born into their situations. Nobody gets to choose so God forbid anyone take a teaching position in one of these schools if they have an aversion to doing so. Good luck to them should their well-planned fiscally endowed lives take an unexpected turn.
2old2teach: Don’t inflate what I stated when I wrote “Winnetka residents with lake front homes pay as high as $212K per year in property taxes.” I did not say ALL people in Winnetka pay that or even all lakefront residents.
And check YOUR facts. People can see the tax record for the owners of this lakefront home, who paid, $211,119 in 2012:
http://www.zillow.com/homes/for_sale/Winnetka-IL/house,condo,mobile,land,townhouse_type/3359491_zpid/34876_rid/3-_beds/1.5-_baths/1_pnd/pricea_sort/42.145269,-87.678452,42.07166,-87.806339_rect/12_zm/1_fr/
It doesn’t surprise me that some Winnetka residents don’t appreciate Progressive education, considering the lengths Bruce Rauner went to, in order to get his kid onto Arne Duncan’s special list of elites, so that she could attend a CPS selective enrollment magnet school instead of New Trier.
Ms. Cartwheel Librarian: It’s not just low income kids those students did not want to teach. They also often commented that if they had wanted to work with children with special needs, they would have majored in Special Ed. Some people resist the notion that public schools are for ALL children.
Diene,
Schools in a district can be uniform. In fact they must be uniform or some of the residents of the 500 block of Maple will want to go to the school that the residents of the 600 block of Maple and some on the 600 block of a Maple will want to go to the school assigned to the 500 block of Maple. Traditional geographic admission systems require uniformity across the district.
BTW, Ms. Cartwheel Librarian, The complaints from such students, some of whom came from high-income families themselves, were supposedly regarding the lack of “relevance” to them of urban education and low income / high needs populations, since this was at a suburban college. However, due to NCATE requirements that teachers be prepared to work with all children and that the dispositions of future teachers be assessed regularly, such evaluations were made each semester and openness to diversity was an important component. Those who demonstrated negative attitudes were dealt with accordingly, with a range of consequences, anywhere from warnings to probation, to being counseled out and not recommended for certification. Some learned to just not verbalize their prejudices.
Sorry, Flerp. I am neither a lawyer nor a journalist and I don’t know your tricks. I just observe the real estate markets closely and take note of home prices and property taxes, as well as how long million dollar+ homes have been languishing on the market without a sale.
There are many homes that have sat for years, are pulled off the market, then put back on, often with a reduced price, and still they don’t sell, including the one I linked to previously. It’s not the only home on the lake with that size lot that I’ve seen with such high property taxes. I am not a real estate expert, but I wonder if many of those homes don’t sell because of the taxes, the high cost of the homes, financing issues, as well as a declining upper-middle income population (though that home is for an upper income family, not upper-middle.)
Chi-Town Res,
Thank you for your patience. I suppose nothing should surprise me anymore – such enormous senses of entitlement!
Perhaps these teachers in training can find employment at elite college preparatory private schools. I am glad to hear that there are some measures in place to enlighten them as to how the rest of the world lives. They may indeed be victims of the “have high expectations” and miracle of miracles those high expectations will result in say, high test scores or … the perfect job;^)
Wow. The taxes for that lakefront home were even higher a couple years previously. They were $224,541 in 2009!
Honestly, I think the outside of that house looks much more appealing than the inside and I don’t like how little green space is left outdoors. I love water views, but if I had that kind of money, I could not see spending it on that home.
I know we have a lot of places in the US where home prices are sky high, such as in NY and CA, but if you want to see truly outrageous home prices, look at London, where you get a real whimper for your buck.
Ms. Cartwheel Librarian, You’re right, the sense of entitlement can be shocking. Interestingly, one young student, who was a nanny for a high income family, demonstrated the worst attitude, sense of entitlement, prejudices and combative behaviors of all. I never fully understood how that happened, but she also thought that she already knew all about learning and teaching, from having been a student and from being a nanny. A huge ego seems to often go along with those dispositions, as well as a lot of defensiveness –maybe to conceal some very deep-seated feelings of inadequacy, although I never saw that kind of vulnerability.
Anyways, yes, knowing “how the rest of world lives” is really important, so clinical experiences and observations in schools in low income areas are required of students, too. That’s an eyeopener for many, but not for all.
Get a clue, peeps, the Mook is talking bout MOOCs …
Please give me a clue… what are you talking about? What is a Mook & MOOCs?
A MOOC is a Massive Open Online Course. Don’t know who or what Mook is.
thanks
noun: mook; plural noun: mooks
a stupid or incompetent person.
I’m legally obligated to post this clip in response.
I like what I see after the clip plays. Is that Sharapova?
It’s possible that the content in the “related videos” sidebar on YouTube reflect’s one’s browser history. . . .
Tried it again and a video of “The Yellow Rose of Texas” came up as the largest one. Can’t remember the last time I looked up “Yellow Rose of Texas” but it seems it was in response to someone somewhere who asked about it. ????
Working in such challenging settings REALLY is a calling… an individual decision and will that is THWARTED by the idiotic policies of current “school reform.”
Unfortunately, I doubt Hillary (or Biden) would choose a Secretary of Education like that. It’s clear that no Republican would either. Leadership from Congress will also be very important, but the level of dysfunction prevents meaningful action for the time being. We have to build a movement that is strong enough to make politicians think twice before messing with the lives of teachers and students. Ideally, this movement would be embedded within a broader one aimed at achieving socioeconomic justice.
This is completely ignorant. There was a farming suburb near me that had terrible schools for years. Then people from the big city moved to this suburb. The suburb actually become predominately Jewish. Most of the parents were scientists, lawyers, doctors (professionals), you name it. All of sudden the scores for this school went off the chart. Same teachers, same school building, but now it was full of high I.Q. Jewish kids whose parents pushed them to value education, etc. The Anglo farmers moved further north, and now this high school is one of the best public high schools in the nation. The principal quit and now tours the country giving lectures on how to turn around other failing high schools…LOL. What did that captain the German movie “Das Boot” say “Gute Leute muss man haben.” “You must have good people.” The captain can’t do it all himself. What impact does a teacher have… 6% or maybe 10%. Other factors more important.
Arne and Obama could save millions just by sitting down and having a beer with a few veteran teachers. I could save them a lot of time and money by saying what works and what doesn’t. They may not like my answers though…ha ha.
Call me Mike and I will come down and join you guys.
I think that Arne and Obama should send their kids to a DC school (not in tony Georgetown) and that kids from an inner city DC public school should go to Sidwell friends and the Arlington Montessori school for a year. Let’s see how the impoverished kids do without the rigor of common core, and let’s see how the Obama and Duncan kids do in a heterogeneous, scripted, militant, and punitive program that inner city teachers are forced to run or else be Vammed out. Now that is a fair solution.
I think this is a wonderful suggestion Nimbus.
Houston ISD tried this a few years ago. It failed miserably and cost the district thousands.
Moving teachers from high performing schools in upper middle class or wealthy communities that are mostly White or Asian to teach in schools with high rates of students who live in poverty will be a disaster of epic proportions. Many of these teachers do not have the skills to deal with the problems that walk in the classroom door out of the barrios and ghettos of America. Those skills can’t be taught and they don’t come from a high college GPA. The come from experience and the teachers who survive the gauntlet of stress and pressure are the ones who learn to work with kids who come from poverty. Those who couldn’t quickly leave the profession.
Has anyone done a study of teacher turnover by the socioeconomic level of the schools they teach in? What I mean is: What is teacher turn over in schools with high rates of childhood poverty at 50 percent or more compared to schools with less than 5 percent?
We could do a quick experiment and move the teachers from the highest performing public high school in the country to teach the kids in the lowest performing school and by the end of the year, I can guarantee that those teachers would mostly be consider incompetent when test scores are used to judge them, because it takes a teacher who survives in one of the low performing schools several years with support from veteran teachers to learn how to teach and work with those kids.
This is a skill that can’t be taught in a university classroom and is similar to the combat troops who must be bloodied in battle first to learn how to have a better chance at surviving in combat and come home in one piece—if we don’t take into account the mental damage caused by PTSD.
That’s another study that should be done. Comparing teachers with PTSD in schools with high rates of poverty to those teachers in the top performing schools.
There are two armies in the United States. The first army is the U.S. military and they fight in other countries like Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan. The other army is the teachers who work in schools with high rates of poverty and every day is a battle to survive.
I have serviced and fought in both armies, and to be honest, I prefer combat in the real military in a distant land with an enemy who shoots real bullets at you to combat in the classroom.
Diane, can you get an hour alone with Hillary to explain your research to her? One thing she is smart and she cares, so I’m dumb enough to believe she would speak for parents and teachers against the privatizers.
Hillary drafted much of this reform garbage years ago.
I still like Lauren’s suggestion about Diane getting together with Hillary Clinton. Ms. Clinton may just be smart enough to change her position, and who better to do this than Diane?
Yup, Hillary did indeed. People have SHORT memories. I remember the Billaries and their educational standards and testing. Seems, according to them, standards and testing (their ideas under their administration) were soooooo successful in Arkansas, had to make the entire nation write standards and tests. I refused! Saw the writing on the wall. Always follow the $$$$$. Can’t trust a politician. History informs; we ignore.
Forget Hillary. Just like Bill and Obama, she is a neoliberal who promotes privatization.
I marched beside Hillary in the NYC Labor Day parade (literally beside her) when she was running for Senator of NY. She made lots of promises to the UFT most of which were forgotten once she was in office.
I don’t trust her. Remember Bill Clinton was one of the first governors to take advantage of A Nation At Risk to shake up the schools in Arkansas and begin the birth pangs of NCLB.
He also began the demonization of the poor by Democrats through his triangulated welfare “reform” and his repeal of Glass-Steagall.
Nope, Clintons are no better than Bushes. They just lie to your face better.
So true, Chris in Florida.
New York teachers and parents need to vote Green, and if Astorino get it on the ballot, against common core. Neither Dems nor Repubs care about students-just money.
LA actually did this once, I think back in the 80’s. They took experienced teachers out of the suburban Valley and made them do 3 year stints down town. I don’t know if they tried to gather any data about it, but they don’t do it now even though they could.
Teachers as moveable furniture on the deck,
…of the RNS Dunctanic
Every time you think Obama and Duncan could not possibly come up with a dumber idea, they do.
Quite frankly, I don’t know how teachers put up with all this garbage.
I wonder what Obama would do if all the teachers in the country suddenly picked up their things and walked off the job in protest.
Would he fire them all like Reagan did with the air traffic controllers?
Good luck with that.
ATC is child’s play in comparison with public school teaching.
I’d like to see an air traffic controller successfully land 25 (or more) planes on a single runway simultaneously*, which is basically what public schools teachers do every day.
*and in the case of special ed teachers, land planes without landing gear and without lights or radar at night.
Obama and Duncan would do well to heed the saying” Don’t judge a teacher before you have taught a while in her classroom.”
But they won’t, because though they have never taught for even a single second in a public school classroom, they believe that their knowledge of education and teaching is greater than the collective knowledge of all the education research, all the education researchers and all the teachers in the US (or anywhere in the world, for that matter).
That’s the very definition of “stupidity.”
Obama would not know a science-based education policy if it bit him in the ass.
Larry, you read my mind! Well said. Dumber and dumber ideas is right. But watch, more dumb things will spout from them. After all, money talks with regards to politicians. Besides, the politicians actually end up believing their double talk and lies.
Can we rotate administrators as well? Why not just take the successful principals from Stuyvesant and Bronx High School of Science, and put them in charge of Boys and Girls and Erasmus? I’m sure the high test scores from Stuyvesant will by osmosis appear in the hallowed halls of Boys and Girls.
For that matter, let’s do the same with politicians. I’m sure if we transfer Obama to Somalia it will soon attain global dominance on a par with the U.S., right? Worth a try, anyway.
Your response, Dienne, is perfect!
What a hoot, Dienne! That really cracked me up!!!
This is done in business all the time, and it doesn’t work very well there either:
“CEO’s Do NOT Successfully Transfer Their Skills to Other Companies!”
http://www.willatworklearning.com/2012/09/ceos-do-not-successfully-transfer-their-skills-to-other-companies.html
I think the idea is not that Obama would make Somalia as powerful as the United States, but that he would likely do a better job than the pool of traditional candidates.
If we genuinely believe that there’d be no changes in student outcomes if the teachers in Bronxville switched places with the teachers in Bronx District 9, then isn’t it reasonable to ask what the point of having teachers and schools is, period?
Repeal compulsory education laws, give each family $10,000 for each school age child, perhaps with local cost-of-living adjustments and income phase-outs, and let everyone sort it out for themselves.
Dienne, Just ignore the garbage out “reform” nonsense in response to your very insightful trading spaces comment. (If anyone needs a better “pool of traditional candidates,” it’s probably where that teacher works.)
I had to laugh because that’s exactly what our ex-military superintendent is trying to do in my district. He got rid of almost all the old guard and advertised positions for what he called “world class candidates who are the best in the field”. When the interviews and job offers ended last month all these “best of the best” turned down the offers because our pay is so crappy and they were warned about the hostile environment here where you job is in constant peril.
Funny, but few seem interested in selling their home, packing up their family and yanking them out of schools and away from friends and jobs, move halfway across the country for LESS PAY, and be threatened on a daily basis with losing your job if the arbitrarily cut-scored tests don’t read well enough when the witch doctor, er state ed person, determines your school grade. Taking on a new mortgage that you might not be able to pay and all the disruption to your family is not as lucrative as they think, apparently.
Our ex-military jackass posted “Heroes Wanted” or some such nonsense on our Jobs page.
Then he put an ex-TFAer with no HR experience in charge of HR. This wizard instituted “group” interviews, with a bunch of candidates trying to out-impress and shout over each other.
Big surprise: very, very few Heroes actually signed the contract and stepped up for the dismal pay, conditions and constant criticism. Thousands of kids had subs for the ENTIRE school year.
Parents complained and the response? “This is why we need to dismantle the public schools and privatize.”
True story.
I guess the silver lining is that at least he’s no longer in the military and anywhere near nuclear weapons.
Public schools work when the superintendent isn’t corrupt.
Teaching and Learner Variation, by Judy Randi (published by the BPS)
(especially for FLERP to read)
Comment: Teachers who belong to a union and believe in the union’s pupose do not see their practice as being superior to that of a colleague. It is unethical. We are required to plan together and share research based best practices. That is, to know which classroom practices yield the greatest effect size on student achievement, and to share them for the common good.
Additionally, the configuration of the demographics of each classroom of kids, within one school, can vary widely, despite our best efforts at configuring an even playing field, so to speak. This is achieved through careful consideration of each child, but, of course, starting with their data sets of task performance scores. We sometimes don’t know anything at all about what the variables even are, for various and complex reasons often attached to the lifestyle choices of the child’s family.
We can begin to hope, after bringing to light of the vast quantity of variables ALWAYS present in EVERY classroom of learners that the suggestion of paying “better” teachers more than “bad” teachers, is an untenable proposal that just doesn’t cut the mustard. It is offensive, discriminatory, unjust, unfair & disrespectful, and does not make for a harmonious workplace. To make this more concrete: when preferential treatment in a cooperative group culture takes the form of monetary or material rewards for only a few members, those not receiving it will begin to feel a stronger scarcity mentality, and turn against those receiving the reward. Take two five year olds and give one a vastly smaller popsicle than the other for some arbitrary reason, like their shoes are blue, and you, as the powerful distributor of everything popsicle, considers the possession of those shoes a rewardable attribute, sit back and prepare to watch the Machiavellian manoeuvres and backstabbing begin.
Does anyone else think it would be fun to start a petition on the White House website not to consider TFA’s to be fully credentialed and experienced? We could quote Obama on the importance of experienced teachers in every classroom.
Thanks to Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Ohio), TFA interns who have yet to be certified and even TFA corps members enrolled in the 5-week Teacher’s Summer Camp may be considered “highly qualified” for purposes of meeting the requirements of No Child Left Behind. Harkin and his buddies planned ahead, inserting language in 2010 into the spending bill known as the Continuing Resolution. That language that will enable TFA and other purveyors of “alternative routes to certification” to send their trainees, interns, apprentices, and dilettantes in disproportionate numbers into low-income and high-minority schools, all the while labeling them as “highly qualified” teachers under NCLB.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2010/12/20/930341/-More-Underprepared-Teachers-for-Poor-Students-of-Color-Lurking-in-Continuing-Resolution
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2010/12/21/930477/–Highly-Qualified-Teacher-definition-left-to-back-room-bargaining
Kevin Wilson, Senator Harkin is soft on TFA because his education staff is from TFA. Imagine: highly qualified after five weeks training!
With only about 10 hours of actual team- teaching during the summer. Jeez. Unbelievable.
The law was changed in my state to allow TFAers to teach in their own classrooms, gain student teaching credit for it (even though most TFAers are not supervised by college faculty in their jobs) and be considered highly qualified about a decade ago! Prior to that, no one was permitted to earn an income in their student teaching placement, so people who had already been working as teachers for years, such as in private schools, had to leave their jobs and go student teach at another school in someone else’s classroom.
This meant that a lot of people in my field did not pursue certification because they could not afford to leave their jobs. No one cared until TFA wanted the law changed and Ta DA!
I know there has been some speculation that USED might seek to include teacher movement as part of the state educator equity plans, but I don’t think that would be enforceable. The letter to chief state school officers did not specifically mention teacher transfers so I’m going to wait until the detailed guidance is issued in the fall.
http://www2.ed.gov/policy/elsec/guid/secletter/140707.html
A child in an urban or often in a rural school is more likely to have teachers who are inexperienced or teaching out-of-field or level than in suburban districts. The problem of inexperience and turnover may be even more severe in the principalship. Even though many of the learning challenges in urban and rural schools are due to influences that school systems have no control over, I have no problem with the equity plan initiative in concept as long as the details are reasonable and they are developed in collaboration with educators.
We have good teacher preparation programs in the United States, but do we have enough programs that are tailored for rural and urban schools?
Most states have induction expectations for school districts, but is actual implementation actually of consistently good quality? And if the answer is yes for teachers, what about principals?
We know there are many schools where working conditions are poor.
Would student loan forgiveness be an appropriate and effective incentive for teachers who accept positions in high need schools?
Peter Greene’s “other alternative” has some good ideas that could be included in these equity plans. At least one can hope.
In 1998 I experienced the war on teachers that would, over the next decade remove over one hundred thousand teachers AND THEIR VOICES from the classrooms. To replace the voice of the teacher, came Arne Duncan, explaining what teaching should look like and how to evaluate great teachers. Now Arne has a new idea. In the end, the profession of pedagogy which deals with what LEARNING looks like, will be dead.
Duncan sweet-talked this nation about ‘reform’ when nothing was broken. The system needed an upgrade not a reformation; it needed an infusion of money for smaller classes and more schools, for example. He needs to GO!
So many imposters! Duncan, Obama, Cuomo, Hillary, Deblasio…
Imposter is really way to nice a word.
too not to
Oh, no–another brilliant idea from POTUS & Arne (& another one that sounds as if it were something printed in The Onion!). Actually, one of the best, funniest education blog posts I’ve ever read was one under the tag “Fake Education News” on the blog Mr. Teachbad. (Remember him–D.C. teacher who, of course, wound up getting fired?)
Google it–Mr. Teachbad Blog–December 10, 2010–“Principal Seeks to Replace Student Body, Improve Scores.” Absolutely side-splitting, unlike the news coming from the D.o.Ed. today–that’s more like nauseating.
Hilarious. Thanks for the laugh.
retiredbutmissthekids: it is not so much funny, as it is frightening, that the German writer and playwright Bertolt Brecht beat Mr. Teachbad by 57 years.
The following was initially anonymously circulated following the crushing of the insurrection in East Germany in 1953. “The Solution” [one of a number of translations]:
[start poem]
The Secretary of the Writers Union
Had flyers distributed in Stalin Way that said
That the People had frivolously
Thrown away the Government’s Confidence
And that they could only regain it
Through Redoubled Work.
But wouldn’t it be
Simpler if the Government
Simply dissolved the People
And elected another?
[end poem]
Perhaps Arne Duncan now has a tinge of Stalinist envy: wouldn’t his life be so much simpler if he could just dissolve the present teaching corps and replace it with another more to his liking?
😡
What will they do when all the super teachers become ineffective? Will they too be fired? I can’t wait to hear the pompous outcry, not to mention the protests from communities that have been untouched by this man made disaster. I wonder if they will admit error once they have isolated teachers as a variable and shuffled us around. When “failure” remains constant will they then back off of this test based reform and begin to look at something that might actually help? I fear they are too ADD impaired to notice the details of our current disaster.
This reminds me of forced busing back in the 1970’s. It was an experiment that didn’t last, didn’t make any difference, and was just another dumb idea in education. Duncan has one dumb idea after another, and we are obligated to try and implement them until they fail. This one is really dumb.
I suspect that this plan doesn’t involve forced relocation of teachers. Obviously, like everyone else, I have no idea what the plan actually does involve.
And neither do the two bumbling bloviators: Arne and Barack.
For them this is sport…experimenting on children, teachers and their families…entire communities, towns, cities and states.
Such careless disregard for the lives of others. Stupid, cocky, selfish, reckless men.
It ain’t good.
Isn’t the plan to make states come up with a plan? So who knows what will come out of it. So exciting.
They have asked the states to come up with plans so, yes, states like mine which have populated their DOE with sadistic teacher haters who get a kick out of making us suffer will surely come up with some kind of plan that includes forced relocation.
Our new superintendent played musical chairs this year with principals and asst. principals, moving them around at random.
A few years ago it was all the rage for principals to employ disruption and move teachers out of their specialty grade level to one that was far removed and they had no experience with.
The idea was they would work harder because they didn’t know what they were doing.
It was a disaster district-wide and was quietly abandoned except as a means of humiliating veteran teachers and punishing those who disagree with administration on anything.
Pitchforks and torches . . . .
It made a huge difference in LA. Thousands of parents pulled their kids out of public schools because they did not want them sitting on a bus for three or four hours a day to go to a dangerous neighborhood. Nothing good about losing the middle class’s parents in your district.
This is about forced busing… Posted in the wrong place.
I think Judy Collins had the answer: Send in the clones
Clone a “superior” teacher, and then leave the original teacher where he/she is and send the clone off to the low-performing school.
or maybe they could make 2 clones, or 4 or 100 or 10000 or even 1,000,000. Heck replace all the teachers in America with clones of the “single best” teacher.
The clones wouldn’t have a life, so wouldn’t mind picking up and relocating. In fact, since they had never been “located” to begin with (except in a test tube), they would not even have to be “re-located”
Also, a teacher who hates unions could be cloned so that way, Obama could solve the bad bad teacher and bad bad union problem in one fell swoop.
oh, and clone a teacher who only votes Democratic, that way all the teachers will vote as a single Democratic block (indeed, as a single person)
I think Obama is gonna love this idea.
He seems to prefer goofy ideas that have no relationship with reality and no chance of working.
Nice play on “Send in the Clowns”!
I am being being inundated on social media here in Nevada with references to this article in response to a proposed business tax for education: http://www.npri.org/issues/publication/33-ways-to-improve-nevada-education-without-spending-more
Inside, the author makes so many claims that Diane’s book refutes, including using test scores/VAM to evaluate teachers, the supposed miracles of charters, virtual education and so on…I am so sick of these supposed “studies” that purport to educate our citizens about the “benefits” of reform policies but are really propaganda. Thank you to everyone here who shares their own research, experiences and logic. You help me to recognize balderdash when I see it and to argue against it.
Does this idea not literally come from Her Koppness, Wendy? Isn’t this what the TFA Saviors do? They are the Best of the Best, the Most Elite college graduates, who know everything about everything, and they take their Privileged Brainiac Know-How and Stick-to-it-tiveness and 5 weeks of teacher training and Get The Job Done~! No ifs, ands or buts – ask Michelle Rhee, she wrote the playbook way before Wendy did (ask Rhee, its on her Resume).
You know why most teachers work in the neighborhoods they do? Familiarity. Kinship. Most teachers don’t do the TFA thing; that is backwards thinking (and all that really is doing is expanding Wendy and her cohorts’ bank accounts).
Remember the show “Welcome Back Kotter?” It was a show about a bad neighborhood and some wiseass kids and a teacher who returned to the same neighborhood…because HE CARED and he knew what it was like, and wanted to effect some change in their lives, because he had bettered himself. Imagine that, he BETTERED HIMSELF BY BECOMING A TEACHER. Now, being a teacher is a punchline to the reformers who claim that only the dumbest of the dumb become teachers. You know what tho? They may be on to something because why are teachers being subjected to this nonsense? Because they can be pushed around, that’s why.
Anyhow, here are the lyrics to Welcome Back Kotter. Do enjoy.
Welcome back,
Your dreams were your ticket out.
Welcome back,
To that same old place that you laughed about.
Well the names have all changed since you hung around,
But those dreams have remained and they’re turned around.
Who’d have thought they’d lead ya (Who’d have thought they’d lead ya)
Here’s where we need ya (Here is where we need ya)
Yeah we tease him a lot cause we’ve got him on the spot, welcome back,
Welcome back, welcome back, welcome back.
Ah! Mistah Kotta!
I remember when I first started teaching many of the faculty watched this show out of self-defense. Whatever happened on Kotter was reliably re-enacted the next school day. My students saw themselves in Kotter’s kids, and most of their teachers saw ourselves in Kotter.
Ah, but who sang “Welcome Back Kotter”?
Perhaps the TFAers see themselves as Sir.
My guess:
Teachers in the low SE schools will be fired….
To be replaced by the “excellent” teachers in high SE schools, this leaving…
TFA to go to the vacancies in high SE schools then…
“Excellent” teachers will be failing in those low SE schools so they get fired…
TFAs have become “excellent” in the high SE schools, so then they get in line to transfer to low SE’s due to their “excellence”….
They quit mid contract, go to law school…
New TFAs go to high SE schools
Low SE schools become charterized and filled with remaining TFA if possible.
…and THAT, is how the game of reform chess is played.
Titleonetexasteacher,
I am in a low SES district as are you I am guessing. So we will be the first sacrificial lambs. Charming!
BINGO! That’s been the plan all along. Once the Title I teachers are gone those schools will devolve into chaos and madness. Churn will increase, children’s lives will be disrupted, and the money will go to charter grifters who are rubbing their hands together in glee and licking their lips in anticipation. The culmination of NCLB and the 100% mandate.
Right on, Title 1 Tx Teacher.
Our ex-military jackass of a superintendent (who has had to be muzzled by people who hired him because he says and does such idiotic and corrupt things), is placing ex-TFA teachers as principals at the few “good” schools in the district–like the magnet schools.
We expect him to start moving the “good” teachers (who teach in the high-performing comprehensive and magnet schools) to the bad schools so more TFA can be placed with the TFA administrators at the “good” schools. Then they live in their own TFA bubble.
He won’t even have to fire teachers at the low SES schools because our turnover is approaching 30%–mostly at the low SES schools (who wants to put up with the most challenging kids AND a jackass micromanaging idiot?).
It is chaos. I’m not suffering; I’m an adult. The kids are suffering and losing so much. We’ve lost 3 fantastic programs at my low SES school over the summer because the irreplaceable teachers who built the programs and led them have quit.
titleonetexasteacher.. or how about this scenario.. title one teachers are purged left and right, teachers at elite SES schools are transferred to title one schools to work “their magic” and then the TFA’s can work two years at the “Scarsdales” and the “Greenwich’s” and the Weston school districts of the country so they can get their “teeth cut” for positions like Education Secretary and such without facing the title one challenges. This of course would support the notion that TFA’ers are better than ordinary teachers who dare get an education in education. The parents at these elite school regions can simply hire experienced fed up educators as tutors to accompany their children at school and implement some real learning. When the former elite SES public school teachers get frustrated and fed up at title one schools, they leave thus rendering states able to use the money saved on retirement and pensions to pay for more computers, unskilled teacher/proctors to monitor students as they watch lessons by that one “miracle teacher” able to teach 100’s of students at once (remember Gate’s and his vision .. it just takes one good teacher and student numbers do not matter)! And surely the testing industry will truly take off because an entire nation of one particular grade will be receiving the exact same instruction on the exact same day and will thus be ready to take the high stakes test at exactly the same time. So Pearson can produce one test per grade and sell it on a very large scale! Perhaps instead of scores, these students will receive “failure levels”. So a student with a failure level 1 will work in the fast food industry. A student with a failure 2 will work at the car wash etc… Could Huxley return from the dead to write a sequel to our Brave New Education World?
I like everyone’s ideas, but now I am disturbed at how cynical we are becoming lol.
@ Cupcake, call me crazy but you either a) have a Broad sup or b) a plus his name is Mike Miles? Are you in Dallas?
Brilliant analysis artsegal! As a former low SES teacher, I will lack proper tutor qualifications. I can head straight to a Walmart job.
It’s Mr. Moron I-can’t-make-a-decent-speech Duncan back at work again . . . . This time more disingenuous than ever . . . .
Well, it isn’t Obama or Duncan pulling the strings that make the words come out of their mouths…..they are well paid puppets.
Thank you for understanding the education system, while others are trying to figure it out.
Miami-Dade county PS tried this around 2003 or so. There was a new superintendent with the usual silver-bullet agenda. It failed. Look it up. I can’t remember the name of the policy.
I am surprised to see he’s promoting something that doesn’t involve profiting
edu-corporations.
I’m at a loss here. We acknowlege (well, most of us do) that our country is exceptionally segregated and that this segregation leads directly to inequality in educational opportunities. Yet any solution that involves moving students, giving their families choice, or moving teachers is rejected here.
How about giving families of color significant cash assistance to move to (and remain in) white-segregated towns and neighborhoods with high-performing schools? How about giving white and Asian families significant tax breaks or incentives to buy housing in minority-segregated towns and neighborhoods and send their kids to local public schools?
Any other solutions besides taxing the 1% to get per-pupil spending up to whatever you think the magic number is ($30,000 in NYC? $40,000? $50,000?) and doing everything else exactly the same?
Tim, cut your losses and bow out gracefuly. It’s the right thing to do. Playing a conservative who actually cares about desegregation and equality doesn’t fly or fit.
My kids go to traditional district, majority-minority Title I NYC DOE schools. Where do your kids go to school, Priscilla?
Yes, forget all your “reform” crapola and defense of the 1% and reduce poverty by requiring that workers be paid livable wages. Oh wait, that’s likely to cut into the outlandish profits of your beloved 1%.
The communities that are home to our most struggling schools were segregated when we had an economy based on good-paying manufacturing jobs that required little education and lower rates of income inequality, they are segregated now, and it stands to reason that they will remain segregated without intervention.
So again–knowing what we know about the major positive benefits of integration (see Kahlenberg, Rothstein, Montgomery and Wake Counties, etc.); given the staunch resistance to busing students, reapportioning human resources, and reforming zoning or housing laws; and keeping in mind the highly discounted home purchasing power of blacks and Latinos (IOW, if everyone gets a living wage, it won’t improve the ability of people to leave intentionally segregated neighborhoods–then what alternative solutions do you propose?
Think of this question as finishing the question asked in Chapter 31 of “Reign”.
BS. Most manufacturing jobs had disappeared twenty years ago in my area, which is a highly segregated city. And I made minimum wage for most of my 45 year career and it was never livable UNLESS you lived in the ghetto.
Hi Tim,
The one percenters will have the option of moving off shore to join their assets.
Your premise is completely wrong, Tim.
The schools aren’t high-performing–the KIDS in the schools are high-performing.
The kids perform well because they don’t live in poverty.
Moving a low-income kid into a high-performing school isn’t going to make the low-income kid perform better. You’d need to move the child into a higher-income FAMILY.
NO amount of moving kids or teachers or desks around is going to help. The only thing that will help is turning unstable, chaotic families into stable, orderly families so they can focus on their child’s needs and not the crisis-du-jour.
In Alamo Heights (a pricey district in San Antonio), there used to be a small number of poor kids mixed in with the rich kids. And guess what? The poor kids performed much worse than the rich kids!
Imagine that. Same teacher, same room, same supplies–vastly different outcomes. The only difference? The SES level of the family.
Right, I don’t doubt that the poor kids at Alamo Heights didn’t do as well as the rich kids. The key question is whether they did better than poor kids at schools where there aren’t any rich kids, and I’m guessing the answer to that is yes.
This is a very interesting (but long) piece by Richard Rothstein looking at the history of post-Brown segregation and the benefits of integrated schools–there are significant, lasting gains made by black and Latino children attending integrated schools compared to those who attend so-called “apartheid” schools.
http://www.epi.org/publication/educational-inequality-racial-segregation-significance/
Did they perform as poorly as kids from poor families who were isolated in schools in poor communities?
The entire district is small and wealthy, so hard to compare poor kids in completely separate districts.
If memory serves me, though, I believe that some did as well as some of the kids in other poor schools nearby (but in a different district) and others did worse.
It’s not the teacher. It’s not the other kids in the room. None of that matters. It’s the home life that matters, it’s the parent’s stability and commitment to education that matters.
Dude. I’d settle for $7,000 per student. My state gives $6,100 per student, which is 7% lower than 2008,
Right? I laugh when idiots say that spending doesn’t matter. How about the fact that we were not allowed to order the REQUIRED texts to teach our district’s CCSS reading curriculum the first 2 years due to budget shortfalls? If we wanted those 39 books we had to buy them ourselves or check them out of a library, if available.
How about the fact that every single year I spend around $2000 out of MY OWN POCKET because otherwise I would have no paper to write or draw on, no art materials whatsoever, no chart paper to make REQUIRED anchor charts on, no markers to write on the chart paper with, no books for my classroom library, no tape, no staples, no glue, no listening center, no computer programs or subscriptions, etc. etc. etc. My school is unable to provide any of these items.
My state ranks 41 out of 50 on per-pupi spending. I guess we are Tim’s dream of education on the cheap.
This ludicrous proposal is not seriously intended, has not been thought through, and will never be put into effect.
From your lips to Bill Gates’ ear!
Up to now, most of their attacks have been of the boil-the-frog-to-death-slowly variety.
Should they put this into effect – and I promise you, this is empty, election year nonsense – it might actually wake teachers up to what is being done to them.
We can’t have that, now, can we?
I never thought they were going to do any of the rest of the —- they came up with either.
Oh, good! I love a multiple guess fill in the blank question.
A. Love
B. Crap
C. Shit
D. Insanities
E. All the above
F. None of the above
G. A & E
H. B, C & D
C is the correct answer Duane. I can see you were educated prior to the advent of CCCS. You have well developed critical thinking skills. I have not yet determined the cut score on this little exercise.
We would also have to assume that the teachers who are accustomed to a great degree of freedom and flexibility in their affluent communities would be perfectly fine with a micromanaged, script heavy teaching environment because that is what they would get in the low income, low achieving schools.
I stand corrected Chi-town. I must admit I was surprised to see how many multimillion dollar houses there are, although those people paying $200,00+ in taxes were taken. Other properties of slightly less an asking price paid no where near the same in taxes. I think there was one approaching 7 million that paid close to $90,000. That may have to do with the asking price when they were last sold. A lot of old much more modest homes have been torn down in the last 10-15 years and replaced with McMansions, and housing prices have gone through the roof. The school population is dropping and staff cuts have been made. New Trier wants to do extensive renovation and building; I don’t think it will be approved. Despite the wealth of the communities feeding into New Trier, there are plenty of people of more modest means who do not see the need.
I know, 2old2teach, I look at some of those new McMonster homes and wonder how many hedge fund managers are building them. And when so many more modest but still upscale homes languish on the market for so long, I think it suggests that the upper middle class has taken a serious hit, but we don’t hear much about that in the media.
Actually, the neighbors of that one house with the $200K+ property taxes, who have full lots from Sheridan to the lake, have been paying about the same in property taxes. Some paid more, like this one, which paid $259,411 in 2012:
http://www.zillow.com/homedetails/915-Sheridan-Rd-Winnetka-IL-60093/3359483_zpid/
Properties that are on the lake north of Tower appear to be taxed at a higher rate, I guess because of the ravines. I would have assumed that lakefront homes on huge lots further south, like W. Clement Stones’ old property, would have paid $200K+ too, but they paid $175,606 in 2012.
Probably a look at what taxes were when they were last sold and how taxes were calculated once new cost basis was established would explain some of it. Then again, that world is one that doesn’t really touch mine. I am of the coupon cutting class, and my mantra is if it isn’t on sale, it isn’t worth buying and frequently isn’t worth it even if it is on sale. My idea of a luxury is buying a piece of cheese or some tomatoes at a local farmer’s market. The cost is higher, but the quality and taste is generally not available in the supermarket. I am so lucky to be able to choose to treat myself when so many don’t even have ready access to a supermarket.
FYI I wanted to bring this to Diane’s attention: great story!http://educationblog.dallasnews.com/2014/07/the-story-of-tom-ratliffs-daughter-one-data-point-about-texas-testing.html/
That would be a joke to put “great teachers” in low performing schools. Teachers who have taught a while in high performing schools wouldn’t last a day in a low SES schools to save their lives and job.
In fact I wish our union and district would agree to shuffling teachers around every 3 to 5 years, so that teachers would be more well-rounded teaching students of all demographics and pay teachers extra for working in low SES schools. We also want equity not just for students but for teachers as well.
I worked in a high performing school. Teachers are labeled great by students and parents, which can be interpreted as a popularity contest resulting in an appealing reputation (which is agreed by majority). Many genuninely great teachers go unrecognized.
I could not agree more. I currently teach in a low-performing school and I don’t think many teachers in the high-performing schools would last. Unlike them, we have to teach our students how to respect and act responsibly on a daily basis. I have observed in high-performing schools with affluent families and there is NO comparison. There’s a reason so many teachers decide to leave the low-performing schools within a couple of years, it is mentally and physically exhausting. I choose not to leave because I love my students and I know they need so much more than teaching. They need a positive, influential person in their lives to cheer them on and push through the very difficult behaviors often displayed. I would love to see a rotation every 3-5 years so everyone would understand just how difficult it is to work in that environment. Unless you’ve worked there, you can’t possibly understand.
Stephanie, the problem is that even other teachers believe the rhetoric that the staff at low performing schools are all novices. They don’t realize that there are many dedicated teachers, such as yourself, who spend their careers working with the neediest students. Most “newbies” don’t last, only those with steady nerves and a devoted heart.
And we all know that only a handful, if any, of the teachers working at the more privileged schools, those with higher ratings, would last out a week at the tougher inner city assignments.
Just sign me, been there and survived.
Teacher of the year is a joke. When do I have the time to observe other teachers? I have no idea of what they are doing and they have no idea about me. It’s a popularity contest, plain and simple.
Thoroughly agree with your first sentence. Another “rank em and stank em” tactic.
If you look within a state, or within a district, and compare low SES to high SES schools and the facilities and the teachers, are they equal?
Comparing the teachers, obviously you don’t look at student scores. But there is, years of experience teaching, years in the district, years in the spcific school, education level, salary. I’m pretty sure there are big differences.
When a position opens, how many people apply? How to make that more desirable? Higher pay at low SES schools, and better facilities, which is an issue unto itself.
Ironically, many new teachers apply at low SES schools to get into the system. I don’t agree with hiring brand new teachers to these schools unless you have a very supportive principal and staff or teacher mentors. If you read my comment above, I suggest district policy of teachers moving every 3 to 5 years. I don’t believe in teachers being privileged to teach in high SES schools for their whole career.
I wish districts would shuffle the deck a little more too. It also needs to be shuffled at the site level. I work at a low SES school and have seen new teachers given high performing easy classes for their first 5-8 years before getting a class loaded withIEPS, and lower performing kids. paradoxicaly I have also seen new teachers loaded up since day one for the same 5-8 years. When asked, administration usually says the begining teacher with the easier classes needs more time to figure out dicipline , class room managment etc. Guess which teachers get big heads? Sometimes the pot needs to bestired at the site level too.
Having moved around a great deal in my district, I don’t completely agree with your shuffling concept. I agree that teachers should get a variety of experiences, but having taught in four different schools, I was never as effective in my first year at any school because I was learning the community and the system for each school. I am not saying I was ineffective (well, I probably WAS my very first year of teaching), but being able to have a history with a school is very helpful to my teaching now. I’m coming up on my 7th year at this particular school, and by now I know most of the families and they know me. It helps a lot, because kids know what to expect from me, and so I can have my high standards and I don’t really get any complaints from either students or teachers about it. By the way, this school has about 40% free and reduced lunch, and the longevity of teachers at the school is astounding. The best teachers I have worked with have been in the low SES schools. The one high SES school I taught in was very uneven: some great teachers and some really terrible teachers.
More disruption aimed at those students who need it least. Some comments above about misguided superintendents and principals remind me of crazy cult leaders that split up families and move members around just for their own power trip. Why would we do this in education ?
Because some of the leadership we have in public education seem to strongly resemble cult leaders on power trips.
My district is really into moving administrators around. And they take the best ones for the flagship schools. My excellent principal was taken for the flagship high school, and we lost BOTH assistant principals too. So, this upcoming school year, my school will have an entirely new administration, none of whom have been principals before. It’s really nerve-wracking. I hope it’s successful, but there’s no history on these people, so there’s no way to know. That’s NOT a nice thing to do to one of the lowest SES schools in the district, and the district would NEVER have taken all of the administrators in the high SES schools.
The county I work for tried this and the teachers asked to relocate to title 1 schools said they would quit, and some did. They knew what everyone else who’s ever spent time in a classroom knows.
So does that mean I get to go to the affluent district while the “good teacher” gets my classroom where kids are resistant to basic reading? Oh what a dream Please put me in an affluent district!! Please.
What Arne and Obama haven’t figured out yet, or refuse to admit, is that there are plenty of effective teachers in schools with at risk kids. The kids aren’t at risk because of the teachers, the kids are at risk because they live in poverty.
Why won’t they just admit it.
Because that takes ownership and integrity. It is easier to blaim others. Funny how teachers are told to take ownership, not principals, supers, etc. Much less politicians, just teachers.
when it comes to ownership of education, let’s include parents and students. In thirty years of staff meetings (1875-2005), the only ownership for kids learning was heaped on teachers and no one else.
Parents were not held responsible.
Kids weren’t held responsible.
Only the teachers.
The secret to being a successful teacher is to get the kids to do the work. If the teacher is the one expending all the energy, then something is wrong. (See Harry Wong)
The something is wrong, because all the energy in this country is aimed at the teachers and nothing at the students who aren’t responsible for what they learn.
Lloyd, something is wrong, but it is not a new dilemma. However, each year it becomes more difficult to engage the children’s attention on academics. You have to be a true master to be successful with today’s kids.
1875????? Wow, talk about a veteran teacher! LOL (I know it’s a type-o, but I couldn’t resist).
Teachers are in a difficult position. Many are quick to blame them for dissapointing educational results. I believe that the most important factor is probably the quality of the students. Teachers have no control over this. Unfortunately teachers will probably continue to face msot of the blame.
The US public has unrealistic expectations of what can be accomplished by education.
When these expectations are not met there have to be scapegoats. Teachers are the scapegoats not because there is anything rational about that but because it is most convenient to make them the scapegoats.
And how do TFA teachers fit into Arnie’s “best” teacher strategy?
Come on, Patricia, we all know they are the bestest. They tell us so, every day…
Have these people ever heard of the power of incentives? “Congratulations, you are a hard-working great and effective teacher! As a reward, we’re sending you to the toughest school in the district!” or the inverse: “Mr. Smith, your ratings continue to tank; you need to straighten up and fly right, or we’ll be sending you out to the ‘burbs to teach!”
I teach at a low income public elementary school. The faculty is dedicated, with low attrition. We are over worrying about our image. We find humor in the naivete and ignorance of judging teachers based on the SES of their schools. BUT WHEN THE DEPT. OF EDUCATION reinforces this ignorance, I feel very sad indeed! Arne, are you out there? Obama? Anyone?
“These would of course be the teachers whose students get the highest scores”
Assumes facts not in evidence.
I agree that teachers in high income schools are not necessarily the best teachers, and I also agree that teachers who have been working with high income kids are probably poorly equipped to deal with the issues they’d be presented with in a low income school. However, where is it written that Duncan’s proposal would willy-nilly move the teachers from the high performing schools into the low performing schools? Hint: it’s not written anywhere.
I volunteer at a low income school with low test scores. Fortunately this school has outstanding teachers who have, on average, been teaching for 18 years. The problem in many/most low income schools is that the teachers are inexperienced — and when they get some experience, they move on to higher income schools.
Whether or not one agrees with Duncan — and I generally do not — it’s not logical to label him as stupid. And as a reasonably bright person, it can be assumed he knows that the best teachers are not necessarily those whose students have the highest scores. The best teachers are like the best plumbers, best dentists, best police officers, and best widget makers: the ones with experience.
The challenge for schools and districts is to find ways to motivate teachers to go to work in, and keep working in, low income schools. And of course the universal motivator is money. The challenge for unions will be to accept the resulting pay inequities. My prediction? The teachers’ unions will fight it tooth and nail, and low income kids will continue to suffer.
Gjones, why do you assume that Arne Duncan thinks the best teachers are the most experienced? He gave $50 million to TFA, and their recruits have zero experience. Based on the criteria in Race to the Top, it is reasonable to assume that he thinks the “best” teachers get higher test scores from their students. That being his assumption, almost everyone teaching in an inner-city school is a “bad” teacher. Why do you assume he is smart when he ignores all evidence that proves his theory wrong?
“Something there is that doesn’t love a wall.” ~ Robert Frost
(Not likely to see any “mending” going on with this stone barrier to recognizing genuine evidence, such as federal policies.)
I think a lot of readers are assuming that Arne is talking about putting more boots on the ground in disserved schools. They really ought to know him better by now. The plan will be something more like Drones For America and Superman will do his flying in a movie studio somewhere, just like he always did, with Uber-Techers distributing their Gates IP lessons to the masses over the new unfree internet.
The NY Times article actually uses the word “experienced” when describing Obama’s plan. Now they want “experience” when they are doing everything in their power to get rid of experienced teachers.
Exactly
the answer is at my articles at OPED
http://www.opednews.com/author/author40790.html
particularly these:
http://www.opednews.com/articles/Magic-Elixir-No-Evidence-by-Susan-Lee-Schwartz-130312-433.html
http://www.opednews.com/articles/BAMBOOZLE-THEM-where-tea-by-Susan-Lee-Schwartz-110524-511.html
Perhaps I’m wrong about Duncan, but I still think you are assuming facts not in evidence.
Let’s turn it around. How do *you* think teachers should be evaluated? And how should we get the best teachers to teach the students who are the most difficult to teach?
Your premise is wrong.
We shouldn’t be evaluating teachers first; we should be evaluating student needs first.
We shouldn’t worry about getting the “best” teachers in front of the kids who are most difficult to teach (don’t the easy-to-teach kids deserve excellent teachers, too?)–we should worry about getting the neediest kids brought up to speed. Any “best” teaching before then would be a waste anyway. A kid with a stellar chemistry teacher isn’t going to get much out of the class if the student can’t see, can barely read, is up all night or is innumerate.
Every year, I easily have a 20 kids (20!!) who desperately need glasses. They are given free prescriptions and often, the glasses are dropped off at the school for them. Of course, being kids, they lose them and the parent then does nothing.
I am good teacher, but kids whose parents won’t take the time or effort to replace free glasses is something far beyond my control. And, like I said, I easily have 20 of them a year.
Glasses are just one of a dozen examples of what I’m up against.
Don’t get me started on Special Ed services we no longer have.
When a shark bites you, any doctor is better than no doctor until the bleeding can be stopped. Deformers want to stand on the beach nitpicking the 3 doctors who have stepped up to help.
I have a fool proof method of creating great teachers from those lazy lotus at under performing schools. Just take those “sub standard” teachers and put them in a school with a low poverty rate. Poof, instant improvement! Just watch their students’ test scores soar. And it only takes one year to achieve these unbelievable results.
I’ve witnessed such miraculous success on numerous occasions when a principal shipped put those under performers who then, by chance, ended up at a higher performing school. Everyone was flabbergasted at the instant change in their ability. It works every time.
Like Magic!
And when you start moving teachers around without regard for their sense of job satisfaction and working conditions the good teachers will leave in droves.
Tony, your point is so true, especially for young teachers starting their careers. Without tenure, there is nothing to hold them to a particular school. In fact, there’s nothing to keep them in the profession. Low pay, bad working conditions, and no job security! Why would anyone want a job like that?
Watch out for more centralized control of education in your districts, folks, because it sounds like this policy will require assigning teachers to schools, which means requiring that all teachers in the district apply for jobs at a central office. That won’t fly in decentralized districts, where teachers apply to individual schools and principals hire the faculty.
In this administration, choices are only for the chosen.
CT – that is an interesting point. Unless a school district is large enough to be centralized, where are you going to move the teachers to? I suppose they could jump from school district to school district. Or from a school district into a new profession.
And if enough hop to a more lucrative job, who will be left to teach the kids?
I figure the head honchos are realizing that deregulating schools will actually worsen effeciency and worsen inequities. Sometimes a few rules and financial regulation is not a bad thing.
Why not deregulate professional sports? Get rid of salary caps, get rid of the refs. Wouldn’t be much to watch. Competition needs structure. Can Duncan build the structure, or is he Outback Steakhouse, no rules, just right?
Funny how “teachers” are the only factor to a student’s success. No other social or economic factors are investigated. And, many of these underperforming schools have some of the worst administrators, yet no one is looking at other causes for a school’s downfall. It’s always the teacher!!
School gal, I agree. There are some bad, even what I consider evil, principals out there. However, in the turn around model for a low performing school, the old principal is ousted along with half the faculty (unless the old principal is considered a “new” principal – one who has been in that particular school for one or two years).
Ultimately, it is easier to simply blame the teacher.