NPR has set out on a search for the 50 best teachers in the nation. I searched the story linked here and could not find the criteria being used to identify who was “best” or what “best” meant.
In this story, NPR invited the fourth-grade students of Mrs. Marlem Diaz-Brown at Sunset Elementary School in Miami to explain why their teacher is one of the 50 best in the nation.
They talk about her kindness and how she makes learning fun. She cares about every student. She comes up with fun ways for them to learn things, like a writing project based on American Idol, where the students are the judges.
Here are two typical comments:
Mrs. D-B has taught me so many things in the past year, and I can’t wait to learn more. Like a shoe polisher, she polished us until we shined like stars in the night sky. But of course, there is no such thing as being too bright!
I believe that Mrs. D-B teaches from her heart and not only from our books. She teaches us to be kind and she sets a great example for us. It’s incredible that one person can touch so many children’s hearts.
Not a word about test scores! Not a word about VAMs and SGPs.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Reblogged this on Diane P. Proctor and commented:
Why do we need to find ‘the best’ anyway? Are we just playing the same “Race to the Top” game that the federal government is playing?
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Thank you, you beat me to it. I’m sure Ms. D-B is a great teacher, but there are thousands (millions?) of great teachers. How can we possibly determine the 50 “best”? We really need to stop comparing people to each other, whether teachers or students.
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Absolutely my point. When we put teachers on a pedestal, the only place to go is down. If teachers are special, let’s applaud them for their achievements, but make their achievements (and failures) transparent so others will know that these people have struggled, too. It is through struggling for years and years that one achievement means so much.
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NPR should spend less time looking for the “Best Teachers” (TM) and more time looking for good journalists — to replace the hacks at NPR.
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TAGO!
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My guess is that she is a great teacher from the descriptions. My guess she also teaches in a wealthy public school with significant parent involvement- check out the school website and the required student supply/book lists. The district makes our supply lists, which are VERY minimal and we are lucky to even get the supplies off of that list from 1/4 of the students. I wonder what the testing requirements are there.I wonder how many students are in a classroom.I wonder how many great teachers there are out there who are required to be just as successful with very limited supplies and parent support.
Teachers in some public districts have very little prep time (cancelled specials, no specials, after school meetings, etc) They spend time writing grants for basic school supplies to support curriculum (IF they have a curriculum).
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What a horrendous idea. They are not Consumer Reports and we are not cars or vacuum cleaners. Every child deserves “the best teacher.”
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The eternal USA quest for ranking, sorting, and pretending that we have a thriving meritocracy in this country and some few need to be elevated above all others to a place of privilege because . . . . ?
Fits into that secret sauce, magic bullet, cheap and easy fix that the reformsters are all grifting with to me.
I work with teachers every single day, in ‘F-‘ and ‘D-rated’ schools who work from sunup to sundown, spend thousands of dollars of their own money buying supplies, snacks, clothing, and shoes for their students, who give up Saturdays and evenings with their own families to attend professional development workshops for free and spend every waking minute thinking, worrying, planning for, and preparing for the students they love. They attend concerts and ball games and awards ceremonies and religious services in support of their students. They neglect themselves and their own families for other peoples’ children every minute of every day of every year.
The teachers who are the ‘best’ are the ones who show up day in and day out despite being scapegoated by society for the effects of poverty, for being bullied by greedy Friedman-disciple capitalists, who are humiliated over and over by drive-by ‘walk-throughs’, ‘data meetings’, and Danielson/Marzano rubrics that no human could ever achieve. They go back, again and again, despite lousy pay, lousy benefits, and lousy working conditions all because they are dedicated to other peoples’ children.
I’m talking about those who don’t see children and schools as a stepping stone to their real, big-money making edupreneur careers after 2 years of TFA, in other words, real teachers.
Teachers, I salute all of you for being the BEST you can be every single day under the most impossible circumstances. We toss and turn in our beds at night, we cry in the parking lot before entering the building every morning, we harm our own health and wellbeing all because we love those kids and we want to do what is right for them. We keep coming back, day after day. WE ARE THE BEST. Every darn one of us!
Real teachers are amazing! You are light in a very dark world. Never forget that. NPR can take their silly story and tell it someone else.
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Well stated Chris.
Trying to identify the “best” 0.0003% of all teachers?
This leaves the realm of just silly and enters the world of stupid.
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Bravo, Chris!!!!! Thank you!
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Out of the 50 teachers selected, how many will come from non-public (charter, private, etc.) schools. My over under is 24.5. Any takers?
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Because of sheer numbers of public school over private/charter schools I’ll take the under! Two bits down!
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What does NPR hope to accomplish by this? The roles of a high school science teacher, a special education teacher, a music teacher have different challenges. The “Teacher of the Year” concept doesn’t make sense either, IMO.
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“Heart VAM”
We need an EKG
To help us gauge the teachers
A VAM for heart, you see
To measure loving features
Note to Bill Gates: it’s my idea. Hands off!
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“NPR has set out on a search for the 50 best teachers in the nation.”
Ah I see that NPR (national propaganda radio) has joined with the edudeformers in search of the Holy Grail of Education (HGE), that ever elusive “best teacher”!
I hope that they heed the warnings:
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Or they could use the same logic applied to this witch hunt:
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“Ah I see that NPR (national propaganda radio) has joined with the edudeformers in search of the Holy Grail of Education (HGE), that ever elusive “best teacher”!”
No surprise there: at least in Memphis, NPR is heavily supported by the Gates foundation and the Waltons. I hear it every morning, afternoon.
I wonder why selecting best actor makes more sense.
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I’d be willing to bet that a search for “America’s 50 Worst Reporters” would find 25 of them at NPR — with the other 25 at Fox News (Mara Liarson would count twice)
NPR makes even the NY Times look good.
And sometimes, they even make Fox News look good.
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Personally, I wouldn’t go this far. I certainly noticed, though, that NPR stays away from discussing controversial issues, and the story of money and the show Marketplace dominate more and more of the news.
Seemingly unrelated to the 50 best teachers story, but here is a piece from NPR which is about the corporate takeover of the university—and I can’t believe, that they managed to address it without any bite whatsoever. In fact, many people will read it and I bet they will say “profs are whining again”.
http://www.npr.org/sections/13.7/2016/05/12/477687350/resisting-the-corporate-university-what-it-means-to-be-a-slow-professor
It’s a pity because the basic idea, that fast change ruins the university, is at the heart of most perhaps even all problems we have been experiencing today: reformers act as if they were in the ER and curriculum changes, school take overs, teacher firings—hence the demolition of the tenure system—need to be done speedily so that more kids can enter colleges and then pushed through in 4 years so that that they can start working for Microsoft, Fedex, GE asap.
Without timely and massive graduation, the economy will collapse and we’ll be left behind in the Big Race and, of course, then the world will collapse.
Change is always questionable and the need for it requires firm evidence, but fast change and fast action are unquestionably bad except in the ER.
Despite what we have been made to believe, speed and learning can’t coexist and the kids’ obvious love of the playful teacher Mrs D-B is a testimony to that.
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“The Holey Grail of Teaching”
The Holey Grail of Teaching
Is found with test and VAM
And Profit seeking leeches
Are sure to lend a hand
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Thanks to everyone for a thought provoking posting and an excellent thread.
My take in a nutshell: the rheephorm obsession with the “best” is simply a way of taking an ugly and destructive idea that is false to the core and making this bitter pill easier to swallow—
Decide who’s “best” [the few and worthy and meritorious] so we know who is the “worst” [the vast majority that have little or no value]. Then we know is deserving and who is undeserving.
Ugh!
☹️
P.S. I have no problem with the children and their take on things.
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“Not a word about test scores! Not a word about VAMs and SGPs.”
Kids are so annoyingly simple minded. They just don’t know that true happiness lies in college and career readiness.
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An IMAGINARY child response from an IMAGINARY PROTOG´e of the Gates Foundation…
“Wow my teacher is the best… she is able to quantify everything I do and create these complicated data sets with impressive looking flow charts. She does this for everything I do. It is so exciting to read passages from books that are by famous writers but to never actually read the whole book and YEAH to still score great on my understanding of the books anyway! I just love doing practice tests all the time in preparation for “the big tests”. Wow, the week before “The Big Test” we get to do all kinds of fun things like on Monday wear our favorite t-shirt and on Tuesday we get to wear hats in school – yeah! I just love having my test scores posted so everyone can see my results. My teacher is so wonderful. She makes sure I have sharp pencils during the tests. She likes me so much because I do well on the tests and this helps her stay in her job. My friend Jackellen likes her too because he does poorly on the tests but understands that she will help him learn “grit” and this in turn will make him into a stellar test-taker. I will never forget my teacher because of how much fun it is to take tests. Tests are so creative so spending so much time doing them makes me really creative. YEAH…
NOT 😦 !!!!
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“What I love most about my teacher is her accuracy and speed: she teaches exactly what’s in our book and she always finishes every single lesson on time. She never talks about irrelevant stuff, she never allows us, stupid kids, ask questions that would slow her down. It’s all in the book; no need for digression.
I know that this prepares me best for college which then enables me to get my degree right on time so that I can get into the workforce and start making money hence I can have kids of my own on schedule who can then readily go through the same thing hopefully even faster than I did. Faster and faster is how we live better and better, happier and happier. “
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What i like most about my teacher is that she is so Siri-ous.
As a matter of fact, she is Siri
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Hi, National Parrot Radio,
I’m a 4th grader and here’s my comment about teachers (of the human kind). I hope you air it because, in my opinion, human teachers are a complete waste of money (just like NPR)
“Siri-ous School Relationships”
Relationships with Siri
Are Siri-ous and very
Good for learning stuff
In schools, she is enough
The teacher isn’t needed
She really has been beated
By Siri and her kin
The best there’s ever been
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This whole discussion about “the best” has me thinking about what purpose this identification process really has. I’m thinking all the way back to the yearbook of a small town high school that identified/labeled individuals as “Most Likely to Succeed” or “Best Athlete” or “Class Artist.” I moved away from that town before I got to participate in that exercise, but now I wonder what it felt like to be the one who hoped to be but was not “chosen.” How many people stop trying because they will never be the best? That may sound like a stupid question, but I wonder how many pastimes have been put aside because they would never be good enough. I was a good enough teacher, not outstanding; there was still so much to learn, but for some reason being “the best” never was a goal. Don’t get me wrong; it did feel good to have someone compliment me or thank me for something I did as a teacher. I worked hard to be competent, and I still resent being dismissed for reasons that had nothing to do with my competence. How should we honor each other and for what?
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There are worse things than not being selected. I was “chosen” as “biggest brown noser.” It was humiliating.
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I sympathize. When I was in Jr. High, I got asked why I smiled all the time. I was the new girl trying to be likable. I don’t think I smiled again for weeks, at least not in front of that kid. To be fair he immediately tried to backtrack, but I was humiliated. My high school was too big for those embarrassing ratings, but it was overwhelming for me anyway. I was far too self conscious (and probably still am).
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The “best”, “most popular”, etc contest that was started in high school took up right where it left off when Facebook arrived.
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I keep debating whether I want to join Facebook or not. Some friends use it to stay engaged with far flung famiy. Then I read another reason why I don’t want to get involved.
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I love the third pic at Diane’s link
http://www.npr.org/sections/ed/2016/04/29/466326635/reporting-live-from-miami-a-bunch-of-fourth-graders-tell-their-teachers-story
which shows Mrs D-B’s advice to the kids
5) If you don’t understand … ASK, ASK, ASK!!!
I wonder how she has time and energy to do all this decoration in the class room, thoroughly entertain the kids and still meet all the standard evaluation criteria.
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While I agree that identifying “the best” teachers/students/gurus/etc. is as inappropriate as the way standardized tests “rank” children, I do think there is something to be gained by asking people to recall and describe their favorite teacher. This type of question has been asked for years…with consistent results…people of all ages recalling teachers for who they were as people, and the relationships they developed with their students…how they made their students feel!
I’m not sure how many times this has to be done before the public realizes what Diane said in the last paragraph…not a word about tests…and very few words about content itself, except for a few references to how the student learned to love a subject because of the teacher. One of the nicest compliments I ever received as a teacher was from a physics student who told me “I came in here determined to hate physics…and you wouldn’t let me!”
What’s amazing is that results such as these still surprise people.
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Diane – I read and share your blog .. However, “Be Kind”- I felt extremely let down by this post – why the negative spin? “Not a word about test scores! Not a word about VAMs and SGPs.”?
Mrs DB is an Amazing teacher! I think you would be impressed – She goes way beyond the extra mile and lives by the “Kindness” rule. NPR contacted her because one of her students wrote in about her (hence, “Best”) – Mrs DB’s students interviewed her and took the photos. Did you listen to the interview?
Of course testing was not mentioned, the interview was student driven. Data is STRESSFUL – however, Mrs DB incorporates many teaching strategies to make learning fun. She also uses Mindfulness is in her classroom because she knows the pressure her students are under.
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When I read your comment, I went back to read Diane’s post again to find the negative spin. The one comment you chose I saw as an affirmation–the kids said nothing about VAMs or SGPs as reasons for why they loved their teacher. They saw her as the best for the relationships she built with them and the engaging way she helped them learn. I see no indication that Diane was not impressed by this teacher nor would any of us disagree (although many of us probably see nothing new or innovative about what she is doing, just that she is doing what teachers do well). Those of us who took issue with the story were questioning NPR’s motivation more than anything and with a decidedly reformy bent in recent years NPR is likely to not receive automatic praise from those who have been negatively affected by the current status quo. If NPE ran stories about teachers students love, I think the reaction might be different, especially if “the best” was not included in the description. Those words are likely to set off alarm bells in the current climate.
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You are correct 2old2teach, I was thrown off when I read many of the comments about NPR and “Best”, not Diane’s.
I know many “Best” teachers and I think Mrs. DB is the “Best”. One of many things that make Mrs. DB the “Best”… it is how she makes students feel – ‘Valued”- the true VAM score.
I applaud NPR for finding the little spark in teaching, not testing.
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“One of many things that make Mrs. DB the “Best”… it is how she makes students feel – ‘Valued”- the true VAM score.”
That’s an idea: use student evaluations to evaluate teachers. We know how reliable that is… 🙂
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Adorable!!! Did you listen to the student driven interview? A positive in teaching 🙂 sounds like a fantastic teacher, bless her.
I guess “the Best” was based on students opinions…. best mom/dad Etc. “best”
I am sure if you contacted the teacher in the article you would get an earful! FL testing is out of control! Miami is the worst teacher pay in major cities. Miami public school pay scale is extremely deceptive (fraudulent deception) a 19 year teacher does not break $50,000! Out of which 3% of stated teacher salary goes back to the state for teacher retirement.
All is not well in Miami !
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That is great about what the students said of their teacher. I am a retired teacher and the older I got the more I loved to help children love themselves. I talk to young people every day and recognize their worth.
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By the way, friends, I think we went off on a tangent: rereading the NPR piece, I now realize, NPR is not talking about the 50 best teachers just 50 great teachers. The project is called 50 great teachers.
Only one of the kids is talking about the best teachers.
MATIAS SIMON, AGE 10:
Breaking news! Mrs. D-B is one of the best 50 teachers in the country. She motivates her students like no other teacher does. She also does fun activities. Read on to learn why Mrs. D-B is one of the best 50 teachers in the United States of America.
Here is the project with much more interesting and varied pieces than you might have thought.
http://www.npr.org/series/359618671/50-great-teachers
Here is the latest piece from the project. How she is making time for kids while trying to cover the crazy kindergarten curriculum is admirable.
http://www.npr.org/sections/ed/2016/05/04/467217123/5-pieces-of-wisdom-for-kindergarten-teachers
Here is another piece about teaching in college
http://www.npr.org/sections/ed/2016/04/14/465729968/a-nobel-laureates-education-plea-revolutionize-teaching
This Nobel laureate prof at Stanford called Wieman characterizes a college lecture “bloodletting” and says
“The quality of teaching is not something that university administrators are rewarded for, and correspondingly know or care about,” Wieman says. “If they improved the quality of teaching by 100 percent and in the process reduced the amount of research funding and publications by 1 percent, they would be penalized, since the latter is carefully measured and compared across institutions, while the former is never measured.”
It indeed is a fact that profs are not trained to teach and the lecture format, especially those for 100+ students, is bad, but their numbers are increasing.
The NPR piece says the Stanford prof gave up on lectures in favor of active learning.
Wieman sees himself as a kind of cognitive coach rather than the classic “sage on the stage,” delivering knowledge.
which is simply going back to Socrates.
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Here is a piece from the 50 great teachers project about a retiring art teacher (when do we hear about art teachers nowadays?)
http://www.npr.org/sections/ed/2015/07/15/420876522/mr-spider-says-goodbye-an-art-teachers-final-day-at-school
He is just a cool dude in the toughest neighborhood.
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Thanks Mate Wierdl – Congrats Mr. Spider, neat interview!
Keep creating
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The Art of Teaching 🙂
Fantastic Interview
Refreshing to hear the positive in education
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