John Ewing, mathematician, is CEO of Math for America, an organization that supports teachers of mathematics.
In this post, he reviews some of the recent ill-considered efforts to “respect” teachers and offers advice about the minimum conditions necessary to assure that teachers have the respect, autonomy, and trust that professionals deserve.
You will also enjoy reading John Ewing’s brilliant takedown of teacher evaluation by test scores, which he called “Mathematical Intimidation.”
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Nice article. Of course,non-mathematicians have been abusing mathematical and statistical models for quite some time.
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Respect the teaching profession? Eva: “That’s crazy talk.”
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The USDE Program called RESPECT is nothing more than a recycled McKinsey & Co. proposal for eliminating tenure, cutting pensions, putting pay for performance in place based on teacher productivity (gains in test scores). Add extending the length of the school day, and days worked per year, and creating tiers of managerial responsibility for teaching roles…rationalized as a career ladder, with higher pay for more responsibility, just shy of being a principal.
At the highest level, master teachers would be responsible for the performance of about 400 students, and for securing great value-added metrics for all of the tiers of teachers working under their management, no job security for anyone, ever.
Variants of this vision for “elevating and modernizing” the teaching profession are still being marketed by USDE, and friends, such as Public Impact, Teach Strong, and Opportunity Culture. Other efficiencies in “instructional delivery” are secured by data mongering and so-called personalized learning with computer stations and performance monitored by paraprofessional supervised by aspiring teachers who enter at the lowest level of the ladder.
The worst part is the Teach Strong agenda, from my viewpoint, is the rollout. This began in November-December 2015 with rhetoric carefully shaped by PR firm Peter Hart (focus groups in two cities) and a Hart push survey reported as if there is a bandwagon and everyone should join the parade.
The strategy is very much like marketing the Common Core. And it is working. Seven principles for this version of the McKinsey& Co. managerial scheme have been endorsed by the AFT, NEA, Teach for America, the Education Post, ASCD, the Relay Graduate School of Education–about 50 groups (strange bedfellows)–who had not yet seen any of the specifics for any of the principles. Those details are being rolled out one by one. In my opinion, this is the biggest bait and switch since the the promos for the Common Core Standards, pushed into the edusphere before all of the standards were published.
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Thank you ,and right to the point . I would have saved a little typing had I checked back .
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The article is good and rightly focuses on the misuse of mathematical models. The inability of the public to question the misuse of math is frustrating. Even policy makers and legislators admit they make decisions based on models they know nothing about and can’t understand. Another example of systemic ignorance that played out on Wall Street as the financial meltdown. The author does seem to accept Gates initiatives without question. Also barely mentioned is the issue of bad data fed into the flawed models. The tests themselves used to generate data are invalid. But an enjoyable read.
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I believe he was on PBS recently. BRILLIANT examination of total education.
We must not lose the faith. The struggle for equal rights took a LONG time and is not yet finished, sadly as we see now.
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“Since the _________________ have no public position, their private positions as individuals determine in what direction each of them goes; but, as individuals, they do not know where to go. So now they waver. They hesitate, confused and vacillating in their opinions, unfocused and discontinuous in their actions. They are worried and distrustful but, like so many others, they have no targets on which to focus their worry and distrust.”
Are those assaulting Teachers, really concerned with the problem of unqualified Teachers,
is their concern for more qualified teachers?
Did the notion of non Professional teachers arise out some grass roots revolt by the parents of school children ?
Why would one think that any effort to increase the qualifications of Teachers to become more “Professional” is the appropriate response?
A response to an Ed reform movement that would replace class room teachers with day laborers monitoring children at computer screens . Or in any event a six week crash course on the way to a 1-2 year fill in position, at the start of ones lucrative career.
Most of the older teachers and Professors here will recognize that quote as C.W.Mills. The blank was the “New Middle Class” . A somewhat Professional Class that saw their place in society as individuals, rather than having the need to join collectively with other workers to achieve agency. He did have a bit of disdain for the “White Collar” worker.
Teachers are part of a class that has an Eight Headed Hydra coming at it . Perhaps its the 1960’s class warrior in me, that sees myself as well as Teachers having more in-common with that disaffected Trump voter, than the elite Professional donor class at the DNC.
No not Trump,nor any Republican, nor those xenophobic supporters at his rallies. Thirty five to forty percent of Americans are not rabid bigots the are workers who feel left behind.
Teachers must first have a voice, to do that they need collective action.For that action to be effective, it has to be part of a much broader movement. Teachers have failed to do this. They are not alone, but they are particularly egregious in this respect . But they have lots of company among working class Americans. Yes the failure is also among the leaders of those organizations supposed to represent Teachers and other workers .
You can see it in Weingarten’s association with Gates as if the way forward for students and Teachers is a Common Curriculum or more Professional training for teachers , rather than an economic policy that does lift all boats. One completely opposite from the course we have been on for forty years.
Are there teachers who do not belong in education? Yes. Could everybody benefit from more professional development? Yes. Is that what will improve education or the stature of teachers? No. (IMHO)
The first link being that we discussed EPI a day ago was in my mail box today. The second a Thomas Frank interview with Robert Scheer at the DNC , once they fix the mic its pretty good.
This goes under the category of how not to retain good Teachers .
http://www.epi.org/publication/the-teacher-pay-gap-is-wider-than-ever-teachers-pay-continues-to-fall-further-behind-pay-of-comparable-workers/?mc_cid=ddfc4cb89f&mc_eid=a20f783394
https://youtu.be/RxYOKW_H30M
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Two links there. I’ll skip the other edits. It’s hopeless
http://www.epi.org/publication/the-teacher-pay-gap-is-wider-than-ever-teachers-pay-continues-to-fall-further-behind-pay-of-comparable-workers
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Reblogged this on David R. Taylor-Thoughts on Education.
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Love John Ewing’s work.
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