An editorial in the Los Angeles Times says that experienced teachers get better results than inexperienced teachers!
It might seem too obvious to be a headline, but the fake reformers have railed against “last-in-first-out” and veteran teachers for years. Those “reformers” insist that the veterans are burned out while the new teachers are great on Day One.
There is even a lawsuit in Los Angeles to eliminate tenure.
Will wonders never cease!
Diane Ravitch's blog 
How absurd. While power resides with the few, it’s impossible for a healthy society to function. Crowd thinking – follower worship, all these things are quite sinister really. Unhealthy minds.
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What experienced teacher will want to stay in a system in which the evaluation laws stemming form the federal and state governments are still grotesquely flawed, not empirical, have so many confounding and external variables, and tend to punish far more than motivate?
I am so fortunate in that my district works unbelievably hard at implementing a system that is fair and logical; but it is taking its mandated guidelines from a state and federal system that is almost all wrong to begin with. My district does not have a choice when it comes to tha parameters set forth by RttT.
NO teacher should have to have scores tied to employability, as most research shows that teacher quality makes up only about 4% to 14% of the outcomes on standardized test scores. These percentages rise when the exams are local and teacher created.
Still, we must have excellent ways of evaluating and developing excellent pedagogy, continuing eductaion, and professionalism through parent outreach.
And the best assessments are those that are local and formative. They show where the REAL growth is . . . . .
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Did anyone notice all the pro charter and school choice anonymous comments following the Op-Ed piece in the LA Times? Do the fake ed reformers have a comment factory in Bangladesh, India or the Philippines? It sure looks like it.
Anyway, experience does count.
For instance, a few years before I retired in 2005, we had a long term substitute walk off the job at lunch because he couldn’t’ control the kids in the 10th grade English class he was assigned to. He’d struggled for a few weeks and couldn’t take it anymore.
Administration was desperate and called several teachers who had a planning period right after lunch and I was the one who said yes.
When I arrived the class was in session and there were two campus police officers in the class with a mob of unruly kids making a loud racket. I walked to the front of the room and the CPOs left. Several kids who had me as their teacher in 9th grade fell silent as a ghost while the others, who may not have recognized me, kept right on being noisy.
It took me less than a minute to gain control and call on one of my former students to let the rest know who I was and what would happen if the class didn’t cooperate.
Once the room was silent, I called on another former student of mine to tell me where they were in the textbook and then the lesson started and ran smooth to the end.
The principal offered me the extra class at $45 addition dollars for each day (what the contract called for), I agreed and gave up m planning period and taught that fifth period the last three our four months of the school year. Those kids cooperated better than my 9th grade English students. They were a pleasure to work with.
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Aw, come on Lloyd! Anyone could have done that, they’ve all been in a classroom before! Betcha the Dunkster, or any edudeformer would have had it under control before they walked in.
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LOL
I’d love to send my pick of the fake ed reformers into the class of my choice at the high school where I taught.
I’d love it.
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And I’d let the kids know who it was who was coming and what they were trying to pull off.
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That’s an unfair advantage to the students!
Not that they would need any “advantage” in that situation. Kind of like Billy the Goates challenging me to see who can make a million dollars first, him starting with $35 billion in the bank, or me with my teacher’s retirement fund of ??$.
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I choose David Coleman! Yeah, David Coleman! Those kids would eat him up and spit him out!
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I think the kids I taught would do the same to Arne Duncan.
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xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Check out the comments thread again now that I’ve had at it (@ “bethree5”)
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Lloyd,
I have a similar story. Somewhat early (7th year) in my career, our principal (he was fired that year) failed to find a ‘suitable’ math teacher, and, suddenly in August, all qualified candidates had other jobs and it was “Too Late”! In our fairly small town, we had a respected liberal arts college. The ‘professor’ who was in charge (mind you) of student teacher evaluation was coerced into taking on the “remedial math” course (nothing beyond simple algebra required).
During he first week, the class ate him up and spit him out. The second week, he had his wife in “helping” and at the end of that week, he quit! You see, he had plenty of ‘book learning’, but no classroom experience with adolescents.
I had been hired to teach natural science, but I also had certification in math. Since the Math Dept. folks had schedules which were already very full, due to the poor management that allowed the situation to occur in the first place, I was asked if I could take over this class (as in your case, for a tiny increase in pay). Always willing to help out, I agreed.
Looking back on my career, this class was one of my most rewarding (and transforming) experiences. The kids were wonderful. Perhaps they understood that; a) I knew what I was doing b) I was there to help them c) I was their last chance in a required course, and d) they had seen a taste of what an inexperienced ‘teacher’ could offer. Whatever the reason (could it have been my opening speech laying out the situation?), I had absolutely no problem from day one. I’m not an authoritarian, which is why I enjoyed my students at the secondary level.
I taught that class “practical math” that could help them better solve problems they would likely encounter and would also help them from being victims of those who prey on the innumerate. They taught me the brilliance and compassion that so many of those students who are labeled ‘failures’ offer to society, if we would only listen.
Later in my career, I never forgot the lesson of that class. As a ‘physics teacher’ (my degrees are in physics and astronomy, but State certification was obtained, from the start, via many valuable graduate Education credits ), I jumped onto the ‘conceptual physics’ bandwagon. By then, teaching the sons and daughters of the wealthy, I found a similar satisfaction in leading those who had been convinced that learning inductive logic necessitated being taught a bunch of irrelevant deductive exercises by people who had no grasp on the position of ‘logic’ to our experience of world about us. This is, of course, something that was obvious to the ancient Greeks, but (too often) fails to occur to such people as ‘economists’.
At any rate, I loved those ‘physics “c” classes, and they, again, taught me the same lesson as the “remedial” kids decades earlier.
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When I saw the headline, I thought the L.A. Times might actually be practicing journalism on an educational issue. But the editors are just up to their old tricks. Experience is a wonderful thing when forcing teachers to work at difficult sites, but not so great when districts are populated by burnouts who are protected from laziness and incompetence by tenure.
The Times fails to take into account one fact, really good teachers can pick up and move to other districts (and states), particularly now that money is flowing back into public education.
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Lloyd, that is proof positive that “veteran” and “experienced” are not negatives. Teachers become good at their profession through time, practice, and dedication. Even as I near completion of my 16th year of teaching, I strive every day to try new things, enhance my lessons, reach more students, and be an even better teacher. I’ve come a long way and will never finish growing as an effective educator.
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I taught for thirty years (1975 -2005) and we were required to attend staff development meetings on an annual basis (several times a year) and go to off campus/district seminars/lectures that offered new knowledge, teaching techniques and demonstrated different methods of teaching.
Compare 15, 20, 25 or 30 years of this annual exposure to someone with a few weeks of training who is just starting out. There is no rational way that a beginning teacher can compare to the skills and experience of a veteran teacher—no way
In addition, we often worked together in departments to develop lesson plans and curricula while sharing the best teacher generated materials. Newbies benefits from us veterans and those who survived and stayed might have stayed because of the veterans willing to help them improve.
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xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx The school district described in this book is near me. I’ve read that one of the most important factors in its success was the sort of collaboration you describe in your post: http://www.amazon.com/Improbable-Scholars-American-Strategy-Americas/dp/0199987491
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There was an interesting discussion on BATS about whether administrators are being trained to get rid of older teachers. At church yesterday, I mentioned this to a mom who told me she worked at Motorola when they were first downsizing about 15 years ago. She had a good position and had been with them for 25+ years. They began to harass her and make her life miserable. She tried to stay, but retired at 28 years. She told me that in business the administrators were definitely hired to get rid of higher paid employees. She thinks the same is being done to teachers now. I agree, since I believe this was done to me. I am having a difficult time believing that people can be so uncaring and disrespectful. What has happened to the human race?
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xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx I hope people note your post, Dottie. I spent a dozen yrs in a corporate job myself, & you are describing a time-honored way to get rid of expensive employees– we were not union, but the co was subject to employment laws, & feared gender-bias & age-ist lawsuits. Bullying & harassment in the hopes of resignation was always the opening gambit, with a back-off position of settling on a nice early-retirement bonus if necessary. Is your school unionized? If these methods are used in unionized schools, it tells a story of weakened or even useless unions.
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I’m in Arizona, and we are a “right-to-work” state. However, my dues were supposed to go for representation, if needed. The fourth principal I had who was a tyrant, had 12 teachers file complaints against him. The District did nothing and neither did the AEA. I eventually hired a lawyer who filed a complaint. This guy tried to get hired for a District job, and they basically told him, “We’ve had 12 complaints filed against you. Why would we want you here?” He is now in another District where a whole bunch of schools are closing and charters are opening.
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Can anyone think of any service they receive for which they would prefer a novice to deliver that service? From my plumber to my doctor I want someone who has been around or is being supervised by someone who has. ( Does anyone really think that your surgeon is performing your operation when two residents are in there as well?)
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The studies I’ve seen are all pretty clear: first year teachers aren’t good on average, and the most improvement for a teacher occurs between the first and second year. That year-over-year improvement tends to continue through the fifth year.
Some studies claim that performance is flat from the fifth to the tenth year, and declines slightly after that.
I doubt that a teacher is at the peak of his or her abilities on the day he or she retires, so it’s not inconceivable that there is a decline at some point.
Should we use seniority for a proxy for performance instead of trying to measure performance? For a plumber, doesn’t a BBB rating or Angie’s List feedback mean more than years of experience? For surgeons, would success rates for particular surgeries be more helpful?
Measuring teacher performance is difficult, and I object to using standardized tests results as the primary input. Couldn’t a combination of peer (especially master teacher) and administrative evaluation work?
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Do you honestly believe that nearing retirements means a decline? Seriously? Or after 10 years the decline begins. I really find that hard to believe.
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A combination of experience and evaluation by knowledgeable peers and administrators seems reasonable. As to studies purporting to analyze growth in performance…they are like the test that fails to show much improvement in the performance of students who score highly to be begin with. I don’t know what measures they are using to make these judgements, but I suspect they may rely heavily on test data. Experienced teachers add value to a school in so many ways that are not measured by tests.
It is not unreasonable to suspect that some teachers may rely more on the “tried and true” at the end of their careers although it is also not unreasonable to contend that for many of them their “tried and true” outperforms the beginners’ “bells and whistles.” Again, a teacher at the end of his/her career is in the ideal position to pass on to the next generation of teachers a wealth of history and culture on which the new generation will build. You sound like a relatively young teacher eager to get the deadwood out. I would suggest that you remember that age and/or longevity are not the only potential reasons for disposal. Forgive the bite, but I get rather tired of being defined by my age. I hope you plan to work hard to provide for my longer than planned retirement.
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I don’t know the answer, but I think using seniority alone is wrong.
Here’s a study that implied some decline in effectiveness after 10 years:
Click to access 1001455-impact-teacher-experience.pdf
I do think most people peak in their job performance sometime prior to retirement. Some skills decline with age, is that a controversial position?
As far as ageism, I’m over 40 and have already survived cancer twice, so best to pick a better earner to root for as far as your retirement goes.
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I’ve had cancer once and probably have 20 years on you, so maybe my retirement won’t be much of an issue. Since I was a late career returnee, my pension wouldn’t be much even if my state wasn’t doing their best to reduce it and we do not get social security. I haven’t figured out how to retire yet since I had hoped to work again. That is not going to happen, so I have to figure out how to retire when you are not retiring from a school district.
The research you cited appears to be based on VAM studies of student achievement i.e. test scores. If you have been around for awhile, you know the score on evaluating teachers with student tests. As a special ed teacher with a lot of self contained classroom experience you can imagine how I felt about being rated on the basis of test scores. It was a joke and ignored so much about how those students grew from where they started emotionally, socially, and academically. It’s just more blatant how unfair VAM is to certain teachers, but it is no less invalid with any teacher.
By the way, Matty, I hope you never have to face the beast again.
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“Some skills decline with age, is that a controversial position?”
What age?
40?
50?
60?
What skills?
Skipping rope?
Running the 100 M?
Thinking?
Reading?
Analyzing information?
Caring about others?
I believe our hostess is 75.
Is she too old?
To do what?
Too old to have book on the NYTimes best seller list?
To be leading a revolution?
Please enlighten us.
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Sure.
Crystallized intelligence tend to be preserved with age, but fluid intelligence does not.
Attention on a single subject tends to remain the same with age, but divided attention does not.
Memory tends to be stable with age, although speed of recall does not.
Problem solving skills tend to be preserved, although cognitive and motor processing speed does not.
I think the cognitive science is well established on this.
I never said anyone was too old to do anything.
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“Attention on a single subject tends to remain the same with age, but divided attention does not.”
You are a little behind on your cognitive science research. All those multi-taskers out there are not performing as well as those who focus on one thing at a time. In fact, there is no such thing as “multi-tasking.” It just means you are rapidly switching your attention among several things, none of which are retained as well as when they are attended to individually.
I think the most useful piece of information that has come out of recent research is “use it or lose it.” It’s exactly your attitude that made it impossible for me to find another job at the age of 61. Just wait until you get contacted for a job interview until they find out the dates attached to your resume.
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The notion of paying state or federal workers, or fireman, or poiceman, all different individual wages by trying to measure their work is an exercise in futility. A standard pay scale plus intrinsic motivation to do the job is still the most efficient system. Maybe a ten year step scale is rational, but I’m not buying five.
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Nice dodge, Matty.
Fluid and crystalized intelligence? Really?
Still waiting to hear what a person of 75 (or any age) is too old to do.
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Ang,
Yes, those are terms used in cognitive science.
How about you bring something to the discussion other than gainsay and “really?”
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2old2teach,
Agree with your comments on multitasking and on “use it or lose it.”
I’m 43 and haven’t experienced age discrimination. I can’t speak to it other than to say it’s abhorrent.
I’m not advocating firing more experienced teachers or trying to imply experience is bad. And I never said anyone is too old to do anything.
I think using only seniority as a measure is bad. I feel like I’m surrounded by Tea Partiers – say one thing about the Government paying for something and you’re a socialist.
Thanks for the well wishes.
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Matty, you just stepped on a hornet’s nest. 🙂 I have 21 years on you and there are quite a few other posters who hail from the olden days. I would not give up those years for youth because of the experience I gained during them. Sometimes I imagine going back to my twenties, but only if I could do it with the accumulated “wisdom of years.” Those who have shared this dream agree. You came too close to the reformer mantra when you started reciting research about our decay. I look back on my eager, bouncy, fluffy days and groan at some of my actions, which I will never reveal to anyone. That energy did drive me to pursue my masters in special ed while working and raising children. Yes, there is a reason 60+ year olds do not have babies (although there are more than a few grandparents raising their grandchildren). Cognitive research is interesting, but it is very young. They are having a lot of fun with MRIf imagery. I think back to the days when child development experts said that babies didn’t smile until they were at least three months old. I came home from college and announced that fact to my mother, who smiled and said we all smiled well before that. It wasn’t long before Dr. Terry Brazelton came along to debunk that piece of my college expert wisdom.
By the way, as you get older if you change jobs at any time, do not mention your cancer journey. They will not see it as a source of strength but as a liability. Believe it or not, I had to learn that lesson the hard way. I talked myself out of a job offer by revealing that bit of info. It’s a good thing I did since the job would have been awful. My incredible innocence and belief in the goodness of people saved me. They got rid of me by not answering my calls to HR. (You can see why I value my experience. I was no spring chicken when I was offered that job.)
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xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx That we even have this discussion shows how weak teachers’/ parents’ voices have become. YES, for all those with an ounce of common sense, more years in service generally produces a more competent employee.
In teaching, this may mean as little as having mastered control of the classroom– which means no matter how mediocre our offering may be teacher-wise, it can be assimilated by our students. For gifted, creative teachers who also have mastered control of the classroom, yrs in service indicates a superior employee. If there are any teachers who after 7 or 8 yrs can neither control the classroom nor provide methodology beyond reading text & answering end-of-chapter questions, I have to wonder what’s going on in the front office.
As to Matty’s question below, should we use yrs in service as a proxy for performance or is there something better, not student results on stdzd tests but perhaps a combination of peer & admin evaluation? This is a knotty question. I firmly believe all the public really cares about are school-wide factors: %graduation, %college acceptance, caliber of colleges accepting. There is room for improvement here: a revival of vo-tech & specialized industrial training could an important category or two for ‘good’ schools. I think it might also be useful to have stats on the ed qualifications of teachers en masse (%BA, %state cert, % advanced degrees).
The crux lies in the stats for schools that are not ‘good’ (i.e., in poor areas). If vo-tech and specialized industrial training could gain equal status as measured categories, that would be a big plus. In these schools it would be particularly useful to have stats on teacher quals as described above.
But as to measurement of an individual teacher’s value to the district? I like the idea of admin/peer evaluation, but only if used internally to identify those who need, perhaps, more mentoring during the pre-tenure years (to be continued as input to promotion). On-the-job teacher-development, through mentorship and peership should be the medium.
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It is generally true that experience is a great teacher…It is not the same as years soent at the same job. Some few teachers have one or two years of experience, but it is not enriched much in the next 25 years.
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Your purpose in pointing this out is…? The teacher who spent 25 years in the same job vegetating certainly has to be an outlier.
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cccccccccccccccccccxCan you elaborate please? I don’t understand “It is not the same as years spent at the same job. Some few teachers have one or two years experience, but it is not enriched much in the next 25 years.” Perhaps you are saying that if one stays in the same job, there is growth in the first 2 yrs, then stagnation? I have witnessed such stagnation, in a long-established private school where I once taught; it is true there were a few ‘master teachers’ whose tenure was long under the same admin & never grew beyond a lecture-style class. Is that what you mean?
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Yep.
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I wish Weingarten had taken experience into account before she ALLOWED Bloomberg to implement the ATR agreement. Now good, experienced teachers are nothing but low-level subs who are treated horrendously by both principals and the UFT.
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Are your subs members of the union? It’s not a matter of being treated in any manner by unions in my state. You do not exist. As for principals, you are a useful convenience. You serve at their will and are disposable.
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Huh, I thought the ATR agreement was a huge win for the union and a huge defeat for Bloomberg. Something about how the union won big salary increases, with retroactive pay, and refused to agree to a time limit in the ATR pool. If only I could remember who said all that . . .
http://www.edwize.org/taking-stock-of-the-contract-agreement
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Edwize is nothing but the “spin” Weingarten. Even our comments are starting to get deleted. Maybe you should research blogs by ATRs and you will see how they are mistreated.
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See my extended comment to “Spanish and French Freelancer”.
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zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz Could you elaborate on “ATR”? I researched a bit… it seems to be a teacher who has been laid off & is awaiting assignment. I take it from your post that such people can be sent anywhere to do anything regardless of their qualifications &/or seniority?
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In 2006 our union contract gave us more money but took away many rights, among them our excessing rights. Those excessed teachers became ABSENTEE TEACHER RESERVES. Some principals called other principals to secure a position for excessed teachers. But Klein sent an email to all principals saying they could not be hired because they are “undesirables”. Weingarten never fought that. In fact she never fought any of it until the ATRs were about to file a discrimination suit. Then she and Bloomberg stepped in and told them they would have a crack at getting positions. Right after the suit was dropped, it only got worse. They were not allowed to go to any open job fairs. Instead they were given their own time, forced to wait on long lines with only a few principals at the site. Big difference from the Open one that was so welcoming to all the college grads.
A typical ATR can be assigned to a school either monthly or weekly depending on what year it is. I believe it’s back to weekly. They walk into a classroom that was previously held by another ATR. Principals won’t even talk to them and many report they get the same treatment from teachers and the school’s union rep. The ATRs have been begging the union to give them their own chapter, but so far it has been turned down year after year.
Bloomberg wanted them fired, so yes they are still collecting their salary, and depending on the position, you can be lucky or unlucky. Some ATRs have been able to fill temporary positions, but they have no seniority and therefore cannot keep it. The DoE decided on a new tactic–Observations!! Many on the first day of their new assignment. No teacher I know gets observed on the first day of school and for these ATRs, that’s exactly what it is. The Union has not filed any claims to stop this harassment.
It also speaks volumes about how we care for our students. Where is the continuity if a class cannot have one full-time teacher? It is bound to effect test scores. ATRs who have excepted assignments have either had good experiences or horrible ones. If the goal of the principal is to rid the system of ATRs, you can only imagine the treatment they receive. These are experienced teachers whose schools were closed under the Bloomberg regime in order to force more teachers out of the system.
BTW, I voted against the extra money because I saw the writing on the wall. Others voted their pocketbooks over rights. You see this now happening all over like places in Newark where teachers see the money that is tied to an evaluation system that will make it impossible to received excellent status. Newark teachers are now suffering under this contract brokered by Weingarten.
I am hoping deBlasio will make the necessary changes. Just because a school is closed doesn’t make each and every teacher a pariah.
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This is from the editorial, and it is hilarious:
“Framing the debate in outdated terms of union vs. anti-union, new teachers vs. veterans, as schools have been doing for decades, is not going to get the work done.”
I’m sorry — did you say “the schools” have been framing the debate this way?! Are you kidding me?
The debate has been framed by the corporate media: specifically, outlets like the LA Times, which is flailing under bankruptcy. Remember the horrible VAM-model this rag did a couple of years ago, when they published ratings for teachers even though the model was badly flawed?
Our corporate media is a much greater failure than our public schools.
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The sad part about it all is that after all the bs attacks on teachers through the media I have a hard time believing any of their stories. I always wonder if they are reporting a story for the sake of Gates or some other billionaire.
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Well said.
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xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx not to mention our economy– left increasingly to the whims of the corporations over the last 30 yrs; their ‘success’ now rests mainly in the Dow average& the salaries of the 1%– & of course the trumpetings of the media organs they own.
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“Our corporate media is a much greater failure than our public schools.”
BINGO!!
Amazing that the Times writers/editors (and I’ll blame the editors more than the writers-aren’t the editors supposed to be like the “head” writer-kind of like a principal is supposed to be a “head” teacher?) couldn’t differentiate as to who has been “framing the debate” in that way.
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The only teachers “framing” it are TFA and E4E, both groups funded (fronted) by Gates.
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Every teacher who has ever taught knows they are better now that the first day they walked into a classroom, Far far far superior. I would imagine doctors, lawyers, pilots etc. feel the same way. Think of it, do you want to be the first to be operated on by a surgeon because he is new and fresh, or the first to fly to China with a new pilot? Or have a lawyer right out of law school. But teaching, nope any fool can do that. Not really, and any one who tries to do it knows that you’re a fool if you think it’s easy.
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xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx It is sad you even have to say this. Shows the rock-bottom level of this public debate.
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“Those “reformers” insist that the veterans are burned out while the new teachers are great on Day One.”
No, they do not. That is absurd. What reformers say is that not all experienced teachers should AUTOMATICALLY BY LAW be assumed to be great teachers while all newer teachers are automatically assumed to be horrible teachers to be laid off first. What reformers say is that principals and administrators should have more discretion to determine who is the better teacher, in the case of a difficult choice. In many cases, that will indeed mean that the older teacher keeps her job while the younger one is laid off.
But sometimes — and who is arrogant enough to say that this could never happen? — the younger teacher might actually be much better. So why should the law force the much better teacher to be laid off?
No one has a good answer for that.
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xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx This is the usual anti-union straw-man argument. I worked in a non-union, corporate environment for a dozen yrs, & have been in teaching the same amount of time. The employment situation is nearly identical. Union or no, when a corporation enters a tough economy or loses a few big contracts, it’s last-hired, first-fired. Likewise in the best of times, if an employee proves sub-par in his first couple of years, it’s easy to fire him. But if you’ve got a weak-kneed administration who hangs on to a sub-par employee for decades despite his drinking or losing clients or whatever, it’s the devil to let him go, even in a recession: by virtue of keeping him on, you cannot now declare him incompetent, or risk a gender-bias or age-ist lawsuit.
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“No, they do not.”
Yes, they do. If you deny that, either you haven’t been paying attention or you’re being intentionally obtuse. That’s why the rephormers believe that fresh young TFAers with five weeks’ experience are automatically better than veteran teachers and why they’ve been replacing the latter with the former at such a shocking pace.
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I have no fear of novice teachers who are better than I am. I have taught every grade in my field from pre-kindergarten through community college. My education includes a plethora of graduate credits. I have traveled extensively and I am a voracious reader. They do not hold a candle to me. As my mother used to say, “I have lived a life.”
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Experienced teachers also have a better grip on how the whole school functions. When I was in my first few years, I spent most of the time in my classroom holed up preparing and planning for lessons. When I was monitoring in the halls etc. I really leaned on the veterans to show me the way and to help me with all of the other non-classroom related workings of the school (there are many!).
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If younger teacher is trained properly like experienced teachers–not a bunch of those coming from phony Teaching Factory Association and dime-a-dozen charter schools.
Pity reformers tend to believe experience has inverse relationship with cost efficiency to monetize public education
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from the Rheeformish Lexicon:
failure. What U.S. public schools did before they were replaced by virtual charters run by the grifter brothers, cousins, and golfing buddies of Party members.
teacher. 1. Pimply adolescent from a wealthy private school with five weeks of TFA training who spends two years doing Great Grates with dark-skinned children before moving on to his or her real job in investment banking. 2. Low-wage worker hired to oversee a thousand students to make sure that they are obediently gritful and that their tablets are in working order. 3. Computer running computer-adaptive software (worksheets on a screen that reduce teaching to the bullet list). Motto: “Teaching, there’s an app for that.” See Powerpointing of U.S. education. Archaic usage: Whiny union member with ersatz degree from an education “school,” responsible for failure. See failure.
PARCC. CCRAP spelled backward. Pronunciation note: There is scholarly debate as to whether the lengthened initial consonant, indicated by the digraph CC, is a genuine phonetic feature of Rheeformish or simply reflects the typical hatefulness of Rheeformish speech. See Appendix B, “Prosody of Financial Statements and Other Rheeformish Poetry.”
VAM. Value-Added Measurement, or Vacuity-of-curriculum-and-pedagogy Acceleration Mechanism; means for enforcing the reduction of the complex, unquantifiable, humane enterprise of teaching and learning to a number intended to measure the extent to which a teacher has
a) effectively narrowed his or her curricula to the bullet list of “standards”;
b) based his or her pedagogy on extrinsic punishment and reward;
c) robotically parroted his or her canned scripts;
d) modeled for his or her students proper obsequiousness to superiors; and
e) identically milled his or her differing students to specification, via test preparation, thereby inuring them to the performance of meaningless tasks and preparing them for the low-wage service jobs of the future.
See data-driven decision making (Rheeformish numerology) and technocratic Philistinism (Rheeformish creed).
more:
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It seems to me that seniority is an example of a “false proxy”. As Dr. Ravitch pointed out some time ago,
“Sometimes, we can’t measure what we need to measure, so we invent a proxy, something that’s much easier to measure and stands in as an approximation.”
Years teaching is certainly easier to measure than teaching effectiveness.
The whole post can be found here: https://dianeravitch.net/2012/11/19/the-false-proxy-trap/
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TE,
“Years teaching is certainly easier to measure than teaching effectiveness.”
No doubt! But one doesn’t “measure” years teaching. One counts them, 1, 2, 3, etc. . . .
From google.com:
to count-determine the total number of (a collection of items). “I started to count the stars I could see”
synonyms: add up, add together, reckon up, total, tally
to measure-ascertain the size, amount, or degree of (something) by using an instrument or device marked in standard units or by comparing it with an object of known size. “the amount of water collected is measured in pints”.
synonyms: calculate, compute, count, meter, quantify, weigh
I believe that this fundamental distinction lies at the heart of our disagreements concerning the writings of Wilson (and where “economic” thinking many times goes wrong, that counting something is the same as measuring it or, vice versa, that measuring something is the same as counting something.)
Measuring involves a standard that has a certain amount of error built in by definition. No measurement is ever 100% accurate, whereas a count, if correct, is always 100% accurate (I understand that correct = 100% accurate is tautological/circular but a count is either right or wrong, whereas, a measurement is never 100% accurate). And it is the epistemological and ontological error components that Wilson focuses on and utilizes to completely destroy the validity and reliability of educational standards and standardized testing.
So it has taken a “blood moon” and your comment for me to finally conceptualize the error component in mistaking counting for measuring and vice versa. Thanks, TE! :-}
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Strike the “doubt. But” and capitalize One.
It should read “NO! One doesn’t . . . ”
How appropriate that this concept came to me on 4/15-income tax day, eh!!
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Blood tax day???
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No wonder some think it’s the end of the world, it’s BLOOD TAX DAY!
“I see the blood moon arising. . . ”
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The standard is one year = 365 days, one day = 24 hours, one hour = 60 minutes, one minute = 60 seconds, and one second. No clock is 100% accurate. Time is measured like inches are.
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Ah, so we don’t agree on what a “year of teaching” is, eh! Ha ha!
Time in minutes, hours, days and years are counted. Seconds, the base unit-the standard is measured, quite accurately but still with error as we still bump up against the measuring device/phenomena measured intersection whereby one influences the other, And then we count the seconds, minutes, . . . .
We could base our time on something different and have a different standard. But I argue that, ultimately, time also is not measurable, as what is “measured” and then counted is the human construct of a second. Does that construct, a second of time, actually exist in the physical world outside the human? I’m not sure.
Can you name any universally agreed upon educational standard?
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The ability to count, maybe?
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