Peter Greene has an endless willingness to read the steady deluge of think-tank reports on how to fix teaching, how to fix schools, etc. it is not necessary to be a teacher to write these reports. That’s what think tanks do.
In this instance, he has read and dissected TNTP’s new report on how to fix tenure. Bear in mind that the original name of the organization, founded by Michelle Rhee (some claim that it was actually founded by Wendy Kopp but what difference), was The New Teacher Project. Its purpose was to place new teachers in urban districts. Thus, TNTP has a vested interest in teacher turnover as it creates more slots for its recruits to fill.
Given that anywhere from 40-50% of teachers don’t last five years, there are already plenty of slots anyway. One would think that a genuine reform would focus on how to recruit, support, and retain excellent teachers who want to make a career of teaching. But no, we still live inn an era when reformers are obsessed with he idea that schools are granting tenure too easily, and tenured teachers are in need of constant watch, lest they slip into their lazy, slacker habits bred of complacency.
Recommendation number one of the report is that no one should get tenure in less than five years. Greene says that any administrator who needs five years to decide whether a teacher is worthy of due process is a dope. (My word, not his.) it is also suggested that tenure be revocable based on test scores, which means it is not tenure at all.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Nothing new here.
USDE has become a champion of all things Rhee and Kopp and McKinsey & Co. and Gates and Broad and the Chamber of Commerce and economists at Brookings want–the list is long and well-documented by now. The “great” teacher is a de-professionalized teacher, no job security ever, test score increments the essential output measure for ratings, routine triage and churning of the workforce –25% rate of “reduction-in-force” notices are fine, more “tiers of great teacher-leaders” who have no problem managing 100 students in 90 minute classes, longer days, fewer “vacations,” etc etc etc. And this is the marketing campaign for USDE under Obama, Duncan et. al. with the double-speak label/ acronym RESPECT. See it all with the search terms USDE + RESPECT.
Even for Arne and company, this RESPECT deal is a new low:
“Despite the fact that teaching and leading schools is intellectually demanding, rigorous and complex work, too often educators are not acknowledged as professionals with unique skills and qualifications. They receive little classroom experience before certification, and once in the field, they are not supported, compensated or promoted based on their talents and accomplishments. Too often teachers and principals operate at schools with a factory culture, where inflexible work rules discourage innovation and restrict teachers’ opportunities to consult with others, to work together as a team, and to take on leadership responsibilities.”
It makes me think of the abuser who tells the victim, “I had to hit you. You made me do it. It’s your fault.”
http://www.ed.gov/teaching/national-conversation
Why are fair treatment and due process are now alienable rights in America? Seems too many Reformers favor rolling back centuries of human progress.
Cross posted with this comment
It has one purpose only, and that is to remove the voice and the salary of the professional in the practice…. YES PRACTICE!
It takes experience, not merely education, talent and dedication to master the ways to enable learning in a diverse population of emergent intelligences… i.e kids! Would you prefer to go to a doctor who is just out of school or the more experienced veteran?
The people of this nation believe that anyone can teach, but enabling real learning (i.e acquisition) of skills requires skills that are honed with experience. “Teaching’ today’s children requires skills in motivational techniques, too, and that comes with experience AND TALENT!
I was blind-sided by the war on veteran teachers, at the top of a career
http://www.opednews.com/author/author40790.html
when I was an acknowledged and celebrated edcuator. I held 4 degrees, many awards and just as I was about to see my salary go form a pitiful 58k, after 24 years, so I would make 70k, the lawless harassment that deprived me of due process, began.
As I travel as a photographer, I meet the parents of novice teachers and they tell the same story: within 3 years, just as probation is ending, their children find that suddenly they are ‘evaluated’ as ineffective. Instead of helping the novice to improve, they are hounded out, never to find another position as a teacher.
These oligarchs who have emptied our schools of the voices of real professionals, also ruined their lives, and the students are left with a revolving door where novice teachers are the only ones who remain.
Go to the NAPTA site
http://www.endteacherabuse.org
and read the sad stories, and read “Bravery Bullies and Blowhards”
to get an idea of the war on teachers, so that you can grasp the enormity of the hoax perpetrated on American citizens who have been brain-washed to believe the need to evaluate teachers into oblivion so charter schools and magic elixirs with no evidence of success, can replace experienced educators.
And if you have not seen the Grassroots film GRASSROOTS AN INCONVENIENT TRUTH WAITING FOR SUPERMAN click here for the video
https://vimeo.com/4199476
and see the process in action, as they emptied the schools of the real professionals in NYC the largest school district of the 15,880 that are targeted to be monetarized; the road to opportunity is being shut down, by a handful of billionaires (Broad/Koch/Walton/Gates) who are , behind the scenes ending more than tenure… ending THE INSTITUTION of public education.
The Constitution’s preamble noted the need to “ensure the common good;” We need leaders who acknowledge that education ensures that. (where is an FDR when we need a leader who cares about the people” did you miss the astonishing, wonderful history of our past by Ken Burns” especially FDR
The cross post address was left out above…it is
http://www.opednews.com/Quicklink/Peter-Greene-TNTP-Shows-H-in-Best_Web_OpEds-Diane-Ravitch_Need_Reform_Teacher-140922-962.html
Greene uses the term dope. I’ll use the term idiotic for the authors of this ‘study’. Who are these fools and why are they still allowed a platform?
Right. This read more like an opinion than a study. I guess TNTP thinks being a think means “I think that…” rather than a researched policy suggestion.
Steve K: actually, I was under the impression, perhaps mistakenly, that among the charter members of the “education reform” establishment, they are called “stink tanks.”
As in, they take any worthwhile ideas or behaviors or institutions, direct them towards $tudent $ucce$$ and—
Voilá! They stink, to high heaven!
😱
Of course, I could be wrong, since according to the usual unconfirmed sources, Arne Duncan has the words to “If I only had a brain” from THE WIZARD OF OZ taped to the ceiling of his DOE office so when he relaxes on the floor from his toils and travails on behalf of “the kids” he can memorize the lyrics.
😳
That assumes he can read and understand what he’s reading, like when he expounds on Campbell’s Conjecture [see Dr. Raj Chetty], er, Campbell’s Law at places like the April 30, 2013 meeting of the American Educational Research Association. He, uh, didn’t seem to understand that he was describing himself and the department he leads when he brought it up.
Link: http://www.ed.gov/news/speeches/choosing-right-battles-remarks-and-conversation
But no matter. I could be wrong about “stink tanks.” After all, every one of the leading ed rheephormers is worth his/her weight in gold [just ask them!] and thinks that no matter what comes out their mouths or what they do, they always smell like a rose.
What are the chances of that?
Go figure…
😎
Yes, MathVale, they thing the gilded age was the golden age. They aren’t big on spelling or history after all. Progress? They are progressing nicely. It isn’t personal after all, its just business.
I found some things of value in this related to what is going on at the high school from which the recently….shot and killed….Michael Jones graduated…public radio let my first post stand….
That is a great report, Dale. I think most teachers, and much of the general public can read between the lines on a lot of this, which is very depressing. I do not have a positive opinion about Nicastro, to put it mildly, but one thing I give her credit for……all the bullying tactics against Normandy public schools gave her what was desirable……the 7 percent testing scores for 2014. Now…..why would that be something the state wanted? I wonder if the 2015 scores will look “miraculous” by comparison.
msblkwidow • 2 hours ago
Sounds good; but the proof is in the pudding. One thing that is obvious to me, when the state department/school district decided who to re-hire as staff and who to not re-hire let me know that they still don’t understand how to run a school district. Many of the teachers that were not re-hired were the best around this country. Go figure. How did they make such incorrect choices is beyond me. Everybody knows that you should not throw out the baby with the bath water. We’ll keep watching; but right now, I still believe the superintendent just does not know what he’s doing.
I complimented her for being closer to what is going on, and asked for some details….they deleted my response, and they also axed a post about the nationally recognized teacher bashing of chris Christie. I was recently reinstated after being barred, but was warned…..they are doing things differently…….picking off stuff here and there with no real reasons given……I wrote and told her, that does not work for me.
dale singer did write a good article…assuming you speak administrative bs….a lot of people have caught on well enough to recognize it…..please add some comments to the st. Louis pradio site if you are able to….they are very uncomfortable with comments….http://news.stlpublicradio.org/post/normandy-schools-have-ambitious-goals-strong-spotlight
they reversed something….and put my comments…which were not very controversial…..back up. It was kind of like a brushback pitch in baseball…..so few comments are made, and so little attention paid, that it might not be worth my trouble.
Do these same people advocate for a longer amount of time to become a administrator? Because that is where the change needs to be made. Two or three years is plenty of time to see if someone has what it takes to be a teacher. It takes a certain skill set to be a good teacher , not everyone has it and that is why we need to be paid more. To be an administrator, it really should be at least eight to ten years classroom experience – prove yourself in the classroom first.
No caligirl, they lobby for LESS time to become an administrator. Isn’t the Broad Academy like 5 or 6 weekends of training? Just like TFA creates “teachers” in 5 weeks of summer school with 8 kids in each class, then gives those “teachers” bogus masters degrees, Eli Broad, who apparently controls Los Angeles, desires administrators of the business world, who get trained at his unaccredited “school” and turns them into Superintendents who then get anointed somewhere do wreak havoc. Broad would hire the devil himself if thats what it took; or perhaps he and his ilk are the devil?