Arthur Goldstein, veteran high school teacher in New York City, reacts here to Donald Trump Jr.’s comments about public schools and teachers.
Who should we blame for the crumbling conditions in Detroit’s schools? Teachers? Or the people in charge of the state of Michigan?
He checks the claims in Jr.’s speech and concludes:
What planet is this kid living on? I live in New York, supposedly a bastion of liberalism, we have a Democrat Governor who pushed an evaluation system specifically designed to fire more teachers. When that system didn’t work as designed, he called it “baloney,” and proceeded to push a new system, which hopefully will fire even more teachers. That’s what Democrat Andrew Cuomo considers a victory.
Every teacher I know is acutely aware of this. That’s why we’re all so fidgety. We don’t mind doing our jobs. Let me tell you something–this guy is stereotyping teachers just like Daddy stereotypes Muslims. In fact it’s not teachers who are stalling the progress of the middle class. This started with Saint Ronald Reagan, and now Republicans are all about cutting taxes for the wealthy.
Who picks up the slack? We do. We teachers pay what people like Trump and Baby Trump used to pay. Our children pay what they used to. If Baby Trump gave a golly gosh darn about folks like us he’d have been out on the streets working for Bernie Sanders instead of driving his Lamborghini to gala luncheons.
It’s absurd and obscene that we who devote our lives to helping children are vilified by the same people who make it impossible to fund their schools. It’s even worse that their remedy for public schools is making it easier for zillionaires to profit from them.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Not that any of the Trump children would know it, but it isn’t just Detroit.
This is Erie, Pennsylvania. They can’t get politicians in Pennsylvania to pay attention to their public schools.
“That dynamic has come to a head in the city of Erie, where leaders of one of the largest school systems in the state are contemplating closing all high schools.
In early June, busloads of people from the Gem City made the nearly five hour trek to Harrisburg to deliver a simple message to any lawmaker who would listen.
Parents, students, educators and community members stood on the steps of the grand capitol rotunda chanting:
“Fund our schools! Please! Fund our schools! Please!”
Erie is not a fashionable city and public schools are generally ignored by lawmakers, so it’s a double whammy. They’ve simply abandoned this whole school system.
http://crossroads.newsworks.org/keystone-crossroads/item/95600-erie-public-schools-a-district-on-the-brink?l=mt
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The problem with Pennsylvania is the charter industry has captured the legislature, and they are holding the governor hostage. There are many conflicts of interest by members of the legislature as well some that are riding the charter industry gravy train. It is sad when government fails to serve needs of the people.
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Rage I wish I could edit every post Obviously because of lousy proof reading skills. (full employment Chiara )
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I wish someone would explain to me how unemployment is at 5% yet politicians in Michigan, Ohio and Pennsylvania can’t fund public schools at even 2008 levels.
What did they do with the tax receipts that are supposed to go to public schools? Why are the still cutting funding? They’re all bragging that their economies are booming. Why are schools still in a recession?
I know they’re ideologically opposed to our schools but this is ridiculous.
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Michigan is a Democratic stronghold nationally (e.g., for POTUS and US Senate), but is completely and seemingly irrevocably due to gerrymandering of the worst kind in America in the steel-trap grip of the GOP.
They wouldn’t vote to help public schools other than in utterly racist and inequitable ways unless this were a lot of $$ in it for them personally. A LOT of $$. There aren’t and so they’re not going to vote to improve public school funding.
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Mike,
My guess would be that there are the same proportions of “bad teachers” as there are “bad doctors,” “bad lawyers,” “bad dentists,” etc.
Teachers are supposed to be evaluated by principals. Teachers do not give tenure to themselves. Unions do not give tenure. If there are too many “bad teachers,” there must be too many “bad administrators.”
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You’re making a familiar argument, but that’s not one I buy as sufficient, having been on the inside and outside-working-inside. Getting tenure isn’t all that much more difficult than getting certification. And there is lots of blame to go around in that arena as well. It’s not simply bad principals. Maybe it’s bad PRINCIPLES, however, both in schools and in schools of education, and most importantly, in our overall societal conception of and attitude towards schools and schooling. The problems are fundamentally systemic well beyond the schoolhouse door.
But all of that said, deflecting the blame away from individuals is an error. Teachers who are truly bad, who truly have no place working with kids (and I’m not talking about alleged child molesters and adolescent-seducers here), either know it from the jump or should have figured it out at some point in the first ten years of their work. Good administrators may try to help, but most of the bad teachers I’ve seen weren’t particularly new. They may have started out good enough to get certification and tenure, perhaps marginally so, and then once they were “safe,” utterly let themselves go. Or they might have been destroyed over time by the system. Or they might have had a plan to sneak through and then phone in the rest of their career (this happens in other jobs, too).
My points are: 1) there really are bad teachers regardless of who is to blame; 2) we need to be able to have a REAL conversation about that and how to deal with it effectively for the sake of children; 3) the latter is not well-served by focusing on whose fault it is – that’s an important but very different conversation, and allowing it to dominate the one I’m interested in is an enormous error; 4) if we can’t have this conversation in the spirit of growth and change, educators leave themselves wide open to precisely the sorts of attacks they’re trying to weather today; 5) if we CAN have it, we can regain the trust of the public and fend off the irresponsible attacks by politicians and Wall Street interests; and 6) teachers should be falling over one another to improve meaningfully, but the system has made that both unnecessary for decades and unsafe today due to the interference of outsiders who want to see heads roll.
I know from past experience posting here on these issues that there will be far too much desire to focus on who is to blame and not on the sort of things the Finns are purported to do. Who cares whether it’s bad schools of education, bad principals, or bad State Boards of Education and DOEs if we don’t have meaningful ways to improve the majority of those teachers we have and then replace the tiny number (it is to be hoped) of utterly recalcitrant turkeys? I’m not talking about a “let’s fire the “worst” 5 or 10% every year” sort of idiocy. I talking about doing everything possible to support and improve our teaching core, and finding something else for the ones who really don’t belong. I’m also ultimately talking about a system that looks a lot more like Finland’s than about the one that evolved here for a lot of political reasons and which will only get worse for teachers and students if we don’t make some radical changes in attitude and direction.
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When it comes to the bad math teachers you have observed, was it primarily an elementary, middle level, or high school issue?
I have long advocated for math specialists at the elementary level.
Could it be that teaching math or any other technical subject well, to the masses, especially before adequate brain development has been manifested, is simply a very, very difficult thing to accomplish?
What’s your solution?
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Good observations and questions, RATT. I’ll come back to them later. Need to take a break from the ‘Net but didn’t want you to think I missed this or wouldn’t/couldn’t address it. Or that your general animosity towards me elsewhere would stop me from dealing equitably with points you make that don’t entail insulting me or counseling me to be someone else. Some folks here think they’ve seen me rage, rant, etc. That’s only because they’ve not read my views on mathematics education or those I personally hold responsible for making it impossible for things to get better (going back to long before we had to deal with the bloody Reagan/Bush/Clinton/Obama-backed Deformers from Hell).
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No animosity my friend. Us Spartans have to stick together through thick or thin. This blog sometimes seems like a family, including the usual dosage of temporary dysfunction. Who hasn’t clicked “Post Comment” wishing a minute later they could edit or delete?
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Chiara
We are talking about several different issues here . Funding is one issue . The details of the unemployment rate another . There is no doubt that the tax burden has been shifted in a number of ways. This has placed more costs on to the poor and working classes. Certainly intentional as a means of encouraging tax rebellion. What better way to encourage tax cuts than to make the middle class feel over taxed. Those costs do not have to be in taxes , the cost of tuition has increasingly been placed on students as taxes on the wealthy corporations and individuals have declined. The cost of public schools increase as resources are diverted and state contributions cut . The cost of nuisance fees and on and on… … This has left the lower middle and middle class sharing a much larger burden than in the “Golden Age” .
Now on to that 5% unemployment rate . It is not Grandpa’s unemployment rate from the 1960’s and I am not talking about the way it is calculated.
First ,5% was not considered full unemployment, before rising unemployment became a secondary concern to inflation.
Next one of the components of employment is the worker participation rate . That rate is at historic lows . It is at lows in the prime age working group 25-54 years old for both men and women .
Thirdly, as Elisabeth Warren pointed out in the “Two Parent Trap” families today are dependent on two incomes. Leaving less disposable income after costs. Also in the sixties women went to work when a husband was laid off , that got them by. Today they are already dependent on two incomes.
Fourth ,what is the quality of those jobs are they part time , do they pay a living wage ,do they provide pensions and healthcare do they leave disposable income…
Dean Baker coming out of the same economic think tank as Robert Reich and VP adviser Jared Bernstein, does a very nice job of explaining how policy decisions over the last 35 years have left us with a hollowed out economy incapable of generating sufficient demand with out bubbles.
We have replaced income with debt. In the 1960s and seventies a car loan was a 2year loan. My father a working class person bought a car every six years cash. We are working on seven year loans or the infinite loan of leases. When speculative bubbles occur people exhibit “Irrational Exuberance” and borrow against their fictional assets till everybody comes back to earth in steep recessions.
So it’s not daddy’s 5%. Which explains why Bernie was so popular, as well as why people are turning to demagogues . Further teachers and public workers are such a convenient scrape goat. They are seen as having what others do not have ,true or not. People ask the wrong questions. Instead of asking how can I get what you have? They ask why should you have what I do not have. The oligarchs are thrilled.
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RageAgainsttheTetsocracy wrote: “When it comes to the bad math teachers you have observed, was it primarily an elementary, middle level, or high school issue?”
MPG: Good question. But there’s variety in my sense of “bad” teachers. Type 1: doesn’t know the subject well or past a very low-level of procedural knowledge which is easily broken. If a kid comes up with a different way to think about or solve a problem, such teachers are lost. They often lash out, refuse to think about or entertain before the class the new approach. They are the death of thinking and independent reasoning for far too many millions of kids. These are common in K-5, but not unheard of in 6-12. Try Detroit Public Schools for the latter. Not all, but more than you would ever imagine possible.
Type 2: not lovers of mathematics, not deep thinkers about its utility or beauty or connections to anything. They know enough math to teach it procedurally and have enough intelligence to know more than one way to do a problem but generally think that their preferred way is THE way nonetheless. Pretty rigid. Enjoy showing up and humiliating the “dumb” kids who don’t get math or aren’t quick calculators.
Type 3: racists, either blatant or otherwise, but indisputably biased against minority kids (or in addition, like Type 2, against any kid who is slow at math). Have a well-developed set of reasons of why their students are failing, none of which has to do with their own shortcomings as teachers. Their biases are glaring to everyone but themselves and deny that they are racists if confronted.
Type 4: regardless of the above-mentioned issues, these are the burn-outs, schemers, and scammers who are mailing in some part of their careers. They may have started out like that, seeing teaching as an easy way to make a secure living without hard work, simply have fallen into that attitude with time, or have been ground down to it after some time of decent work.
I have empathy for the burnouts. I’ve seen what schools do to teachers, even very good ones. And it’s worse now than ever. But for the other two sorts, I’ve nothing but disgust and a strong desire to either light dynamite under their asses or throw them to the sharks. Of course, that makes me a bad person in the eyes of some. I challenge those people to visit the classrooms I’ve been in and then stick up for these lazy non-teachers. They are shamelessly just collecting a weekly paycheck, period. Later, I’ll comment on administrator “responsibility” for some of these.
RATT: I have long advocated for math specialists at the elementary level.
MPG: Same here since I got officially into math education in the early 1990s. It’s obvious and sharply resisted for reasons that I understand but think inadequate and grounded in outdated thinking about young kids and learning mathematics and science.
RATT: Could it be that teaching math or any other technical subject well, to the masses, especially before adequate brain development has been manifested, is simply a very, very difficult thing to accomplish?
Not necessarily so. But doing what we try to do for the most part is a losing proposition. Expecting kids to sit still for an hour or more with a subject that is unmotivated (that is, teachers don’t motivate lessons mathematically or any other way, in the sense of providing a connection to previously learned ideas and ideas to come, or to things outside of mathematics itself) is generally a mistake with typical youngsters. And once you’ve killed the beauty AND utility of the subject, made kids feel like idiots for not getting it all quickly and facilely, and turned it into a sprint instead of a journey, only a certain type of student is left to pay attention and succeed. I was one of those, but I gave up on math in high school (at about age 15) until my mid-30s. I’m one of the rare lucky ones who carved out a second chance for himself despite loads of reasons not to.
The Japanese teach math and science only in the AM in K-12. Makes sense. Brains are sharper (given other factors like sleep and nutrition). More fun to play with words after lunch, recess, etc.
RATT: What’s your solution?
No simple single solution to a diverse set of problems. Maybe some other time, but I think my answers above hint at a few things.
As for your question about where the boys, er, bad teachers are. Lots of 1s, 2s & 3s in K-5, particularly 1s & 3s. Not many 4s that I’ve actually worked with, so empirically I can’t speak about the 4s, other than a couple that I had as a kid. Far more 4s in middle and high school. In the high-needs schools, lots of 4s in high schools. In my own education, some notoriously bad 4s in junior high. The sorts of women who blatantly were waiting to get married after which they’d quit teaching, make babies, and eat bonbons (hey, I’m just reporting what they said, more or less, except for the candy-eating).
In my coaching work, the number of 4s at the high school level was staggering, deeply depressing and personally frustrating. There were a few I would have attacked physically were it legal and if I thought it would have done any good other than for alleviating temporarily my sense of justice denied.
But this brings me to the “responsibility” of school leaders. Ever heard the phrase, “The Dance of the Turkeys” or something similar? I heard it from a principal I taught under for three years in Ann Arbor. Not referring to us, but rather to some teachers he dealt with at a small (and all white) public high school in “the Thumb” area in NE Michigan. Regardless of his perceptions, the definition he gave proved prescient for what I ran into in Detroit, Flint, Pontiac, and elsewhere. At the end of the year, principals do what they can to encourage their worst (but tenured) teachers to move along. And they do. But generally to other schools in the same district. They do, after all, have tenure in that district. And of course, while a principal might breathe a sign of relief after successfully ridding her/himself of the biggest bag of useless sludge in the building after years of failing to find a way to get him/her off his lazy ass, the replacement is almost always someone as bad or worse from another building and another justifiably disgusted principal. Hence, the name. It’s all too real. And there are few easy options for getting such people fired. They know the rules of tenure and firing, often better than anyone else in the district, and they know how not to do things that could readily result in termination. They just don’t teach much or well.
No, these aren’t REALLY what the Deformers talk about. They couldn’t tell some of these bozos from anyone else without a test score printout to tell them and probably not even then. In a really damaged community, there may not always be clear-cut differences in test scores because of absenteeism, kids coming and going, and a host of other factors that can mask both really good and really bad instruction and practice. Can I prove that? No, it’s a gut level very strong suspicion. But the building principals DO know these turkeys because they DO hear from kids, parents, other teachers, and make their own observations or have vice principals who do.
The issue isn’t that anyone covers for these dogs (though maybe that goes on, too), but that they’ve figured out just how to play the “holes” in the system.
It would be interesting to talk with Pasi Sahlberg about whether such creatures exist in Finland and, if so, how they are addressed. And if not, how he thinks they can be reached. I tried. I can be very diplomatic, but I can also be very blunt when necessary. But there really are immovable objects in the universe. I think everyone deserves the opportunity for growth and change. But there is a line that, once crossed, cannot be ignored. And when that happens, nothing – not tenure, not contracts, not empathy – should matter.
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MPG
Thanks for he detailed response. Got a rib-eye on the grill and my G&T ice is melting. Get back to you.
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The beauty of mathematics is a tough sell, but if present, provides a backdrop of passion that I still think would resonate with kids. The utility of math is what most students yearn for, and sadly too many math teachers ignore it out of ignorance. This might suggest that math education programs provide much more comprehensive coursework in the physical sciences and engineering. The big push for STEM instruction overlooks the fact that teachers have little integrated knowledge. The NGSS are pushing an engineering component into the sciences, yet the vast majority of teachers have little if any knowledge in the subject.
Those city schools can wear down even the best intentioned teacher.
High school math teacher frustration levels regarding skill deficits is hard to combat.
This passage says it all for me:
“But doing what we try to do for the most part is a losing proposition. Expecting kids to sit still for an hour or more with a subject that is unmotivated (that is, teachers don’t motivate lessons mathematically or any other way, in the sense of providing a connection to previously learned ideas and ideas to come, or to things outside of mathematics itself) is generally a mistake with typical youngsters. And once you’ve killed the beauty AND utility of the subject, made kids feel like idiots for not getting it all quickly and facilely, and turned it into a sprint instead of a journey, only a certain type of student is left to pay attention and succeed.”
This statement should be the guide for anyone attempting to improve math instruction.
Thanks for your thoughtful response. Cheers.
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You’re welcome. Glad you liked it. Hope a few closed-minded people can get over their defensiveness when they see anyone criticize teachers (even when my criticism is based on direct experience and multiple observations of very specific people; it’s hardly a general criticism of the entire profession) long enough to realize that if we were doctors, lawyers, engineers, etc., and put up with some of the willful dereliction of duty I’m talking about with that last group, and the incompetence on various levels with the other three, we would soon discover that the general public had no confidence in us at all, without any propagandizing by politicians and billionaires looking to destroy public schools.
My job has been in many instances to help teachers improve their instruction in K-12 mathematics. It’s deeply satisfying work when it entails true professionals who are passionate about what they do and eager to become even more effective at it than they already are. It’s frustrating as hell, however, when any number of things conspire to undermine or derail the possibility of seeing that work succeed. One such factor is deep personal entrenchment by teachers (there are others that I’ll discuss another time). Some teachers really do seem to find their comfort zone during their tenure-earning period and shortly thereafter. After that, asking them to do anything different, even say a 10% change over the course of a year of teaching in what they’re doing, is viewed as an unreasonable imposition and interference with their autonomy.
When you contrast some of the notions American teachers have about “my classroom is my castle,” with how Japanese teachers work (and are supported in that work by the entire apparatus of public education there), it’s not hard to see why it’s very difficult to effect small changes in pedagogy or other aspects of classroom practice in mathematics.
Please note that I don’t mistake the US for Japan or Finland or anywhere else. I suspect that most teachers in countries where good practice is nurtured would shoot themselves if they were forced to work in many US schools given the current politically-charged, test-mad atmosphere. We deal here with a host of problems that are not common in most of those countries. But then, we bring so many problems down on our own heads due to issues of social injustice, economic inequity, racism, etc., that it would be idiotic to suggest that because the Japanese or Finns are doing x, y, or z that it would be trivially easy for us to copy those things (even to the extent that we believe that they’d be effective and desirable).
Nonetheless, there are things that are within the power of individual teachers to work on that some teachers, presented with support to do so, absolutely refuse to even consider, let alone actively engage with. On the contrary, some do whatever it takes to resist and avoid such changes.
I worked without another math teacher colleague for a lot of my classroom career. I’d have killed for collegial or professional support, but the nature of my jobs precluded or simply didn’t provide either. It’s difficult to accept how recalcitrant some teachers are when it comes to self-reflection and modification of practice resulting from reflecting with others. As long as that sort of resistance continues, I hold out little hope for the kinds of mathematics teaching and learning I value to become at all commonplace.
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Of course, Trump, Jr. is talking out his rear end and is fundamentally wrong. But also, there really are god-awful teachers out there. And it’s a tragedy that the deformers on the one side and the unions on the other have made it essentially impossible for anyone to have a meaningful public conversation about such matters and how to effectively deal with them.
I speak as a teacher, supervisor of student teachers, professional development trainer, and content-area coach in primary and secondary mathematics in saying that there are too many teachers in high-needs districts who need extensive help (in the sense that Pasi Sahlberg mentions is a matter of course in Finland) that they either aren’t getting or are refusing to accept, or need to be moved into another area of employment entirely. They don’t like, let alone LOVE, mathematics or children, particularly not the children they’re charged with teaching, and they harbor deep biases against both their subject and their students. Some are simply lazy, burned out, or irresponsible. And there are no excuses that justify what they’re doing and failing to do in their classrooms. And yes, I know the connotations of “no excuses”; I’m not talking about whether we should be taking into account the social justice issues of high-needs schools and districts (of COURSE we should be dealing with those as a nation!). I’m talking about teachers whose attitude and work ethic has far more to do with who they are as people and professionals than with where they teach and under what sorts of destructive rules and pressures.
And yes, I know it’s heretical to speak of this anyplace teachers gather, at least in public. Just as it would be heretical to speak at a deformer gathering about the economic and social injustices that our capitalist nation imposes on poor and minority students throughout the land.
But both these truths should be self-evident to anyone who works with high-needs students, teachers, and schools and is interested in seeing democratically-based, student- and community-centered improvements in public education and the circumstances in which it lives.
Don’t expect that sort of vision from the Republicans or the presumptive nominee of the Democrats. If there’s a prominent politician in the United States who actually has a clue about education that isn’t derived from politics of the worst kind or television and movies, I’d love to know him/her. Zephyr Teachout, should she be elected, might be the kind of person I’m looking for, but if not, we’re in even deeper trouble than we know.
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I think math and science teachers are the hardest to attract to teaching as they have more lucrative options available to them. You probably find some of biggest disappointments in under funded urban schools. Even in my suburban district, I found that the math teachers my math phobic daughter had were among the worst. My husband and I had to tutor her at home to get her to make the connections and build the understanding in order to get her to do well. Other students that may not have had parents that could help had to hire tutors, if they could afford it. It is important that we attract competent people to teaching, but it becomes harder as any “perks” diminish, and teachers are whipping boys for society’s ills.
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Chris Christie certainly blames the teachers for failing schools in NJ. All those bad teachers, that’s why we need to eliminate tenure, outlaw unions, eliminate seniority and the first in first out rule (according to Christie and the other reformers, not me).
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And Christie is just one such GOP gov. But what does that have to do with the thrust of what I said, Joe? Telling me what I already know isn’t really all that helpful.
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Just remember that every biased, burned-out, lazy, irresponsible, math and child hating, god-awful teacher you have encountered was vetted, interviewed, hired, observed and evaluate for three years, granted tenure, observed and evaluated, and retained by a building principal or administrator(s). If what you say is true, do not expect the incompetent (harmful) teachers to counsel themselves out of the business or to fire themselves. Blame management No one ever seems to hold principals responsible for bringing such teachers into their schools. As peter Greene has written. “Did they hire deadwood, or did they kill a living tree?”
Believe in Teachout. I think she will prove to be the real deal.
By the way Micheal there is nothing wrong with being a zealot. Your progressive political passion is admirable; just turn it down from “11” every now and then. Please take FLERP’s comment to heart.
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Whoops, I goofed up, it’s last in first out rule. When school systems have to reduce staff for budgetary reasons, they fire the newest hires first and not the teachers who have many years of teaching behind them. Christie certainly wants to eliminate that protection for veteran teachers. If LIFO is eliminated, teachers with many years of experience will have targets on their backs. The veteran teachers are more expensive than the newbies.
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Mike, I think your comments about bad teachers give ammunition to the teacher haters. Of course there are some bad teachers but does it rise to the level of a plague? You blame unions and deformers for these bad teachers. How are unions to blame? Unions don’t hire the teachers, unions don’t evaluate the teachers, unions don’t observe the teachers; unions just defend teachers against unfair practices and false charges. If a teacher is so god-awful bad, where is the principal or the administrator who observes and evaluates the teacher. The administrators have all the tools in the world to get rid of bad teachers. During the initial trial period, a teacher can be fired for any or no reason. The trial period in NJ is now 4 years long.
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Never heard that one before, Joe, other than the billion times it’s been said every time I or anyone else addresses this point. And – mirabile dictu! – it’s the identical logic to, “Openly criticizing Hillary Clinton is giving aid and comfort to the GOP!” that I’ve heard for the last 14 months in Democratic circles.
So let’s never say that someone running for the nomination of a party sucks because is s/he’s already anointed we’re giving aid and comfort to the evil ones in that other party. And never openly mention that we as a profession are ETHICALLY OBLIGATED to do everything in our power to improve ourselves, our colleagues, and our profession because that might be used against us by a bunch of self-serving, money-grubbing bad guys.
Sorry, Joe. That’s not how I roll. 45 years in education and 50+ years of political activism tell me that your philosophy is just dead wrong on these things.
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” I’m talking about teachers whose attitude and work ethic has far more to do with who they are as people and professionals. . . ”
And where are/have been the administrators in allowing this to happen? Which segues into another statement “And there are no excuses that justify what they’re doing and failing to do in their JOBS AS ADMINISTRATORS.”
If there is a teacher problem as you describe, and we’ve all seen/heard of at least a few of them, it is an administration problem/lacking/shortcoming, ultimately it is negligent administrative practice.
Although I’ve seen some handled properly by administrators including counseling them out of the profession not just out of the particular school.
And no, it’s not the “union’s fault” for demanding due process. If the teacher is that bad such that everyone and there brother, including the kids know that teacher shouldn’t be there, it shouldn’t take that much to get rid of them.
When I was the supervisor of purchasing pharmaceuticals at a major hospital I had two positions under me that were union, that we had to hire the most senior applicant period. Well, we got one man that had a serious alcohol problem. He had bounced around many departments not only in the hospital but also the university system. No one took the time or effort to address his issues. We did and documented the help we tried to get him to take advantage of. I documented the days he came in with alcohol on his breath, etc. . . . And yes, even though he was supposedly “union protected” we got rid of him. Took us a few months but it got done.
So far me the “bad teacher” problem is in reality a “bad administrator” problem.
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You’re now the third person here to focus completely on whose fault it is (and so far it’s all the fault of shadowy administrators. Having worked with some good ones both as a teacher and content-area coach, they don’t have it quite as easy as you seem to imagine, with or without unions).
Unions are necessary. They didn’t cause the problem, though they may in part be keeping it from being fixed. Due process isn’t the issue, either. Of course, we should have due process. But have you ever tried to get teachers to reflect on and modify their pedagogy, content knowledge, and/or pedagogical content knowledge (the three keystones of practice)? Some, generally younger teachers, are eager for ideas on how to improve (though I’ve worked with teachers nearing retirement who were just as enthusiastic about the prospect of learning new ways to reach students in mathematics classrooms). But age and experience are not the point: openness and honesty about the profession are. When teachers are entrenched and interested only or primarily in protecting their jobs, they generally are not going to be truly open to evaluating their own real effectiveness.
The Deform Movement has set us back at least twenty-five years and it’s only going to get worse if that movement isn’t countered and eliminated. But meanwhile, real kids in real classrooms are being miseducated and hurt. We can’t sit around waiting for a Vast Epiphany, the Second Coming of Christ, or Der Revolution. We have to find ways to reach actual teachers – good, bad, or indifferent – and get them to stop pointing fingers and stop worrying about fingers being pointed at them if we’re going to make things better for this and every future generation of kids to the extent that schools and teachers are capable of so doing.
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I basically agree with what you are saying but I don’t get the point.
It’s not a matter of assigning blame, but since there are struggling teachers one, most importantly the teacher him/herself has to analyze how it got to that point for each teacher. If they can’t (and sometimes don’t or refuse) then it is the administrator’s responsibility organizationally and ethically to do so. If they don’t do so for whatever reason then the buck stops at their desk organizationally and ethically.
I’m not sure why but you seem very inhibited to assign any blame whatsoever (and yes I am assigning blame because that is part of the analyzing the problem) to the administrators. What they get a free ride? And yes I’m very aware of the restrictions under which administrators work, but it is because most administrators cannot critically think through those “restrictions” and who only follow through with those restrictions in place as an excuse for not doing the totality of their job.
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their brother and not “there” brother, ay ay ay!
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And so for me, not “far” me. Double ay ay ay
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“Even in my suburban district, I found that the math teachers my math phobic daughter had were among the worst.”
I hope you made your concerns known to the building principals that hired (or inherited) them.
“BAD” teachers. Everyone has had them, and everyone survives them. Out of the 60 or 70+ different teachers and professors that you have had, how many were truly incompetent (inflicted permanent academic harm)? Teachers or professors so BAD that if you had the power, the adult you, in retrospect, would actually fire them? My guess is maybe one, possibly two.
The bad teacher meme certainly proves one thing: good teaching doesn’t come easy.
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As the non educator here who was a supervisor for 35 years not every worker is a supper star and not every worker is the same through out his career. But most workers are adequate to preform the job. But I would be lying to you, to say that productivity in an industry that had no seniority and frequent unemployment, was the prime decision factor when it comes to lay offs. As a parent who put three children through Public Schools, I found one teacher that was terrible. The Kindergarten teacher who as the award winning first grade teacher freely admitted “some people do not belong in early education”. That’s one out of 39 . not to shabby , 2.5% hardly the problem with education from where I stand.
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Mr Goldenberg: Might it be that identification of a teacher as “God-awful” is more difficult than anyone would like to admit? We have all known teachers who many people felt were incompetent or to confrontational or too lazy. Once there was a teacher whom I thought to be terrible. Then I learned what he was doing through a conversation with a student. For that guy, he was the best ever. Who knew?
How about some postulates:
Teachers who are treated as expendable generally leave to go to a school where they are appreciated.
Teachers who do not succeed are generally frustrated and leave the profession (can we all say high turnover together)
Few administrators are competent to oversee all subjects, for it is difficult to be well versed in all subjects.
Teachers are subject to burnout just as other professions are, and, like any person, we find it hard to change professions when it might benefit us and others, especially when there are few alternatives in a tight job market.
Students should not be subjected to our worst selves as professionals.
Political leaders are responsible, at all levels, to make sure structures are in place to minimize natural problems in any system, generally with adequate funding.
No system is perfect
Gradual change yields more positive results than catastrophic change.
All these things need to be taken into account. Then we can remedy some of the problems raised in this discussion.
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ROY T: Mr Goldenberg: Might it be that identification of a teacher as “God-awful” is more difficult than anyone would like to admit? We have all known teachers who many people felt were incompetent or to [sic[ confrontational or too lazy. Once there was a teacher whom I thought to be terrible. Then I learned what he was doing through a conversation with a student. For that guy, he was the best ever. Who knew?
MPG: Is that a useful anecdote? No idea why you thought this teacher was terrible or what made the student feel the exact opposite. I’m perfectly aware that there is always the possibility that some student thinks that teachers who I would deem utterly incompetent for a host of reasons are in fact really swell. But that fact has to be interrogated, not simply accepted at face value. The real question is whether the student is actually learning the subject as a result of the teacher’s classroom practices, whatever they may be. If Joe Student is happy because Teacher X never requires Joe to do a lick of work, that might not be quite the sterling endorsement of the year.
ROY T: How about some postulates:
Teachers who are treated as expendable generally leave to go to a school where they are appreciated.
MPG: Sure thing. What has that got to do with incompetent teachers, exactly?
ROY T: Teachers who do not succeed are generally frustrated and leave the profession (can we all say high turnover together)
MPG: There are loads of reasons teachers quit. But the continued presence of really awful teachers in the schools I’ve worked with in high-needs districts suggests that self-weeding out isn’t quite working. The Dance of the Turkeys suggests a systemic issue that “high turnover” doesn’t solve.
ROY T: Few administrators are competent to oversee all subjects, for it is difficult to be well versed in all subjects.
MPG: Sure thing. But you do know that there are assistant principals who are expected to evaluate teachers in particular areas in which they are experienced and share what they see with the building principal? That doesn’t solve the problem in all schools, since not all schools have that sort of situation and some are so small that it would be financially irresponsible to have multiple APs. Nonetheless, there are some practices that any vaguely competent principal would recognize as wrong-headed regardless of the subject being taught.
ROY T: Teachers are subject to burnout just as other professions are, and, like any person, we find it hard to change professions when it might benefit us and others, especially when there are few alternatives in a tight job market.
MPG: And so let’s not worry about the damage they do to children?
ROY T: Students should not be subjected to our worst selves as professionals.
MPG: Agreed, but since I’ve seen awful things happen to students in classrooms that are attributable solely to the teacher’s choices, the word “should” seems a bit irrelevant here.
ROY T: Political leaders are responsible, at all levels, to make sure structures are in place to minimize natural problems in any system, generally with adequate funding.
MPG: Equitable school funding is vital; its lack reflects our broken and pathological social, economic, and political systems. But lack of money never justifies lack of decency on the part of adults charged with educating children. I will fight all I can for more than adequate funding on an equitable basis, but that will never deflect me from calling out incompetence, negligence, and willful malpractice by teachers I’m charged with evaluating. Doing so in fair and supportive ways with individual teachers is part of the challenge of effective coaching and supervision. I don’t always get it right, but I can’t let imperfection in that regard stop me from striving to help teachers improve.
ROY T: No system is perfect
MPG: Granted.
ROY T: Gradual change yields more positive results than catastrophic change.
MPG: I support evolutionary, not revolutionary change in teacher practice. 10-20% a year is a reasonable goal in asking teachers to reflect upon and modify what they do. No one can entirely remake her/himself in one year, nor is it reasonable to expect that sort of thing.
ROY T: All these things need to be taken into account. Then we can remedy some of the problems raised in this discussion.
MPG: There are numerous truisims in what you offer that I’d not argue against. But I wonder how a significant number of your points moves us forward.
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The vilification was embedded in federal law with No Child Left Behind and continues in Every Student Succeeds Act.
Teachers are presumed to be incompetent, guilty of neglecting children, protected by unions, in need of endless professional development and “interventions,” in addition to micromanagement with the production of increments in test scores the measure of “effectiveness.”
Now ESSA has authorized a dismantlement of the last vestiges of professional preparation for teachers while boasting in Trump-like language that the law–Title II is “PREPARING, TRAINING, AND RECRUITING HIGH-QUALITY TEACHERS, PRINCIPALS, OR OTHER SCHOOL LEADERS.
Just love that the law equates high-quality with “just about anybody who can pass a background check is qualified to teach.”
So, the trope toward Trumpism is hardly new, just a realization that Orwell was (at minimum) perspecatious.
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Andrew Cuomo went to two private/parochial schools –St. Gerard Majella’s School and Archbishop Molloy High School. Trump Jr. went to The Hill School, a university-preparatory boarding school in Pottstown, Pennsylvania. So obviously these two understand everything about public schools.
The Hill school boasts an average class size of 12 students. In New York City class size can go up to 34, even for specialized classes such as AP biology which I taught. I could not find average class size for St. Gerard’s. the old school also points out that they do not have any ESL students. When I taught in New York City my high school had double digits of ESL students. Please understand that I am not Donald Trump trying to build a wall to keep out ESL, but a teacher who knows that ESL requires more training for the teacher and a double knowledge set of both subject and language; effectively ESL teachers are teaching to subjects to every child. The Hill school does not have to worry about ESL; I am so happy for them.
So we have these two private school brats with no education experience or knowledge of education telling us what a poor job we are doing. I’ve got a great idea for the Republicans. Put into your platform a goal of achieving class size of 12 for every school, including public schools, immediately. I supposed to fund it we will have to raise taxes but if they can figure out a way to do it without raising taxes, that would be nice. Donald Trump Jr says the reason private schools are better than public schools is that the parents had choice. I vote for giving all parents the same choice that Trump Junior’s parents had: A school with the class size of 12.
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Class sizes of 12 can be a doubled edge sword. With the right chemistry they can be a dream come true, however, without that, they can be more challenging than much larger classes. It’s on odd group dynamic when the numbers are too low and the personalities don’t quite match such an informal setting.
The best fix for education will be the political will to end the plutocracy.
There is a very restless underclass, mired in economic hopelessness.
That is unsustainable.
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Spoken like AN ACTUAL TEACHER. Thank you.
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“So obviously these two understand everything about public schools.”
Just because one didn’t attend public schools that doesn’t mean one can’t “understand everything about public schools”. My sister and I went K-12 Catholic schools in St. Louis. We both retired from teaching in public schools, she after 31 years, me after 21 years. Do we know “everything”? Probably not but certainly as much as or more than those who went K-12 public schools because we experienced a different system and we understand the good and the bad of both systems.
What counts is what is done with the education, public or private, by the individual.
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But Duane, your understanding comes from experiences as a student in a parochial school and as a teacher in a public school. Son of Trump only has $50K prep school experiences and a life of absolute privilege that puts him in the 0.0000001%. His concern for public school teachers and student is probably equal to his concern for Dollar Store workers and their customers.
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Rage is right. A small class can have its own challenges. However, large classes raise the probability of someone not getting the attention they need to succeed.
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I used to endure reading the comments accompanying LATimes anti-teacher hit pieces circa 2010, when they were killing Refugio Rodriguez. I’d say there were three categories of commenters: teachers and supportive parents, liberals who thought Barack Obama could do no wrong, and conservatives who thought everyone was a communist working for some sort of KGB apparatus. I recoiled from both political parties.
After watching most of the convention this week, though, I am painfully reminded of all those ignorant, angry, stuck-in-the-Cold War commenters. If the Clinton candidacy is the only thing standing in the way of Cold War ideology regaining power, so be it. You’ve convinced me, Donald Trump Jr. You’ve got me off the fence. Congratulations! I’m voting for Hillary.
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Ugh.
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And on the other hand, I just found out that Antonio Villaraigosa will speak at the Democratic National Convention next week, a a Broad disciple who could easily swing my vote back to None Of The Above. That’s not to mention Corey Booker. I have a bad feeling about the future of public education. Again, ugh.
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Hillary just don’t get it . It is the height of arrogance that she assumes the base will vote for her no matter what. I will and then vomit . Enough will stay home and we will be looking at a President Trump. Possibly with a supper majority in the Senate. This getting uglier by the day the stupider she gets.
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Joel, I agree with every single word you’ve written on this blog. You’ve convinced me to read and share books you’ve suggested. The Dems have been hijacked by Wall St and Silicon Valley. The Repugs have watched it happen, and taken it as an invitation to walk off the plank at the end of the political spectrum. Bernie was the last hope.
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No — not “was.” Bernie (and his philosophy) IS the last hope. If he had started earlier (and with a greater belief that he could actually “win” and not just be a gadfly), this might have ended differently. But eight years ago — heck, even FOUR years ago, I knew very few progressives who really understood some of the issues that Obama has failed on (I include myself in the mostly clueless crowd — education and federal banking/lending policies being maybe my only 2 exceptions).
After St. Ronnie left the scene and Clinton was elected, the horribles on the right didn’t just fold up and go away — and we cannot either. This is an extremely long game that they are playing — and if we are only in for a round or two before we give up — we (and democracy in the US) will not prevail. We don’t have as much money as they do; and we won’t / shouldn’t stoop to some of the tactics they are willing to use — but, there are more of us than there are of them (and the vote hasn’t been taken totally away — yet). Plus, we are right on the merits. Those things — plus a resolute, unwavering willingness to continue this struggle — will ultimately win it.
I hate having to do this. This isn’t how I wanted to spend my retirement years. (I suspect there were folks in Poland in Czechoslovakia in the 1930s and 40s who felt the same way). But it is the battle of our time. We have to show up and fight it.
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JEM, I am humbled by your wisdom.
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JEM
Well stated as to the goals .
I think the structural divide in the Democratic party is greater than the divide in the Republican party was after Reagan.
After South Carolina it became apparent that Bernie was never going to win the nomination for reasons that he and his surrogates never addressed, so I will not go into it on this Blog.
My fear is that if Hillary loses, which is becoming a very real possibility.
Neo Liberal Democrats will not stand up and obstruct Republican legislation and it will be devastating.
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As a so called bad teacher, I do not presume to speak for others. I can only share with you that the vilification is extremely painful and toxic. If I were ever to entertain the prospect of treating my students with the lack of respect afforded me, it would be inexcusable. Due to the fact that I do not teach math, I am refraining from that portion of the discussion.
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The current epithet “bad teacher” as judged by those who: a) have never taught; b) couldn’t teach if availed of the opportunity to do so; c) wouldn’t survive 5 minutes in most of the places I’ve taught, consulted, supervised, and coached in the last 25 years; and d) come at the entire question of what comprises good education and good teaching from perspectives that are anathema to me personally, is thus completely invalid and should carry zero weight with anyone. Sadly, right now, that seems to be all that counts.
However, as educators, we can’t allow that to stop us from judging OURSELVES critically and reflectively and striving to improve our work and that of our colleagues.
Imagine a school with no input from building administrators, whose jobs would not have to do with instruction. Everything would fall on the teachers and their students when it came to evaluation (of both teachers and students). What would the assessment process look like? Would there be grades as currently construed? Tenure? I’m asking for a radical rethinking here of the very idea of school. Ownership for work and learning belongs to “the people” in this kind of model. And that means ownership in many senses, including self-criticism and evaluation. It should unglue the power relationships that have ruined education for a couple of centuries. It must undo the factory model entirely. And then we must be willing to suffer and struggle to grow an environment in which the sort of obscene finger-pointing that we have today is looked at as a sad aberration of a naive period in human history. Imagination letting others take both the responsibility and blame for one’s teaching work or personal educational and learning pathways and experiences!
I’ve truly been a bad teacher, by the way. I’m not a “bad teacher,” but I’ve taught badly, I’ve been irresponsible, I’ve violated my own standards and precepts. Why that’s such a difficult thing for so many other people to admit even silently is part of the problem. Ditto my studenting, by the way. If I were able to talk to my 15 y.o. self, I’d kick his ass six ways from Sunday. He was a puerile, silly little shit who didn’t have a clue what learning was about or how to take charge of it. I blew with the winds and wound up losing out on far too much, even if I did manage, almost by chance, to get a lot out of a few opportunities.
I wanted my son to have a better experience than I did, but mostly couldn’t pull it off. However, he’s 21: it’s not too late, particularly as he’s chosen not to start college yet. I want him and everyone who follows him to have vastly better experiences of learning than most of mine in K-12 and at some other points. And I want every single teacher to be ready, willing, and able to take teaching by the horns and make it into a dynamic experience for students and teacher alike. We’re mostly not there, not close, and hurtling headlong in the wrong direction. But we can chance things, both in and out of the school building, if we have the vision and the will. And no politician is going to do it for us.
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I am also a so-called “bad” teacher, who is being attacked because I spoke up against sexism and bullying of teachers in my school. The label of “bad” teacher doesn’t automatically make it so.
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MPG, I would look at it a different way, from the strengths side. I’ve seen teachers who
1) excel in and love the content, and can make connections to the real world all over the place,
2) are great connectors with the students, know what certain reactions must mean, know how to motivate students, know how to talk to students in and out of class, know how to talk to their parents,
3) always have their eye on the pedagogy, always assessing how the strategy is going, how it can be tweaked or turned around, how to use or create a teachable moment, where to borrow a new bag of tools or materials or gadgets,
and/or
4) are flexible enough to change methods and adjust or create materials on a dime to fit new initiatives or curricula.
These days I see degrees of burnout in nearly everyone. And nearly everyone has bits of those types you mention, as we all have our personal biases, myopias, blind spots. I’ve only seen one in all my time who really falls pretty squarely into one of your types. But a big thing left out here, especially with all of the missions and visions flying all over the place, is the extent to which teachers fit in with their specific school, how they get along with colleagues, admin, students, mission and vision versus actual school culture, etc. Granted a true turkey will gobble-gobble anywhere, but sometimes they are just misplaced within the system.
I think almost anyone can change for the better in an area key to teaching. It’s like the lightbulb/psychiatrist joke, though: they have to want to change. But that’s also a matter of how it is presented to them and how they are being treated. Build people up, present opportunities or let them find them, give choice and allow them to grow in their own ways. Guide for fits. Advise on mandates.
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And meanwhile, what about the children in the classrooms of teachers who assign worksheet after worksheet and then sit with feet up on desks reading the newspaper? Not hiding, but doing this in plain sight while an outsider (me, another coach who works with the principal) is visiting/observing. To me, that says that the observed behavior is normal and considered perfectly reasonable by the teacher. Private conversations with various students reveal a host of similar behaviors that these teachers indulge in that have little or nothing to do with any flavor of teaching qua teaching with which I’m familiar.
Presenting some of the above-mentioned teachers with opportunities for growth are ignored, resisted – actively or passively – and otherwise squandered on a repeated basis. I could relate multiple anecdotes of how utterly clueless some of these teachers are and will do so if you REALLY don’t know what I’m talking about.
I am perfectly and joyfully familiar with effective, dedicated teachers. I revel in working with them, learning from them, sharing ideas with them, struggling with them to help the most challenging and difficult-to-reach kids in their classrooms. I share my experiences in their classrooms with colleagues in a host of venues. What makes you think that discussing what I have been talking about here means that I am either unaware or uninterested in the other end of the spectrum? I didn’t invent great teaching. I wouldn’t be in much of a position to coach teachers if I didn’t have models of effective teaching to share and build upon.
Clearly, there is an enormous paranoia among teachers these days. Few teachers under the thumb of the Deform Movement are sanguine about criticism – be it from colleagues, peers, supervisors, department chairs, professional development providers, coaches, students, parents, or men from Mars. The repeated insistence here from commenters that the PRINCIPALS are to blame for weak or terrible teachers is indicative of the near-impossibility of having a meaningful conversation with teachers about what sorts of practices should be minimized, eschewed entirely, modified greatly, or anything of the kind. Simply mentioning the EXISTENCE of poor teaching is sufficient to have a significant number of educators shut down entirely, deflect the subject to anything but bad or lazy practice that is in the control of teachers themselves to change. If we were having this discussion about, say, surgeons, would you tell me to change my focus to those good surgeons whose patients generally don’t die, while giving those who seem to lose a lot of patients, possibly through incompetence, laziness, ignorance, malfeasance, malpractice, etc., the opportunity to grow in their own ways while continuing to kill people in the operating room?
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Sounds like disgruntled employees not some strain of “not getting how to teach”.
I’m sure you’ve seen it all. No need to elaborate.
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They have to want to change, meaning really that they have to want to teach.
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His solution is more charter schools. If teachers are the problem, aren’t there bad teachers everywhere? Wouldn’t the case be made that there are bad teachers in charter schools as well? We actually already have choice in our district, you can get a waiver and go to any school-I’m sure we are not the only ones.
I have a feeling he has never been in either a public school or a Soviet era department store.
PS-we have not had tenure available in our district for the past probably 8 years-there are not more teachers let go because of this. I truly don’t believe teachers are the problem here.
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Forget about Jr for a minute and consider, quite seriously, what Sr could do to the world, and exactly how he could do it.
https://www.google.com/amp/amp.usatoday.com/story/87380604/?client=safari#
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