The pancake story in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, got national attention.
Edith Gallagher, president of the school board (and parent activist) explains that the teacher’s job was not in jeopardy and that all teachers receive due process.
She begins:
”First, Byler was never fired. It was never on the school board agenda to consider his termination. It is just not possible for a teacher or anyone to be fired that easily. A multistep process is involved in removing an employee, and it is in place to protect our teachers. Something as serious as termination is never done without due process. Our Lancaster Education Association union representatives know this very well.”
Diane Ravitch's blog 
All teachers in community-based, democratic, transparent, traditional public schools are supposed to receive due process and if they aren’t, then the fired teacher that did not receive due process has the right to go to court and sue.
But I do not think due process rights exist in private sector corporate charter schools or any private or voucher schools. In those schools, teachers can be fired for any reason at any time.
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Due process doesn’t exist in public schools, no matter what the powers that be say.
I know from experience.
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From the article: “Thirdly, our students receive free breakfast and lunch every day. And during PSSAs they are actually given breakfast during first period — rather than before school — because we want to make sure everyone is well fed and ready to do their best.”
Free breakfast and lunch every day! Wow, that’s pretty advanced for Pennsylvania or any US state.
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“Thirdly, our students receive free breakfast and lunch every day. . . Free breakfast and lunch every day! Wow, that’s pretty advanced for Pennsylvania or any US state.”
There is no altruism involved. Only the self-interest of raising test scores. That’s it! Nothing more.
Effin bastards (and I’m being nice with that statement) who use students for their own gain, whether they be edudeformers or public school personnel.
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Huh? The students get free lunches every day, tests or no tests, according to the article.
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Yes Joe, they do get free breakfast/lunch everyday. The school decided to serve breakfast during 1st period instead of before school. They likely did this, so that they could push the kids to sit longer before giving them a break for lunch. Nothing wrong with giving them the food, but it’s the motive behind changing the time.
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Thanks Lisa M for responding. That 1st period breakfast is what caught my eye also.
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What’s the “EVIL” motive? Oh yeah, they want the kids to do well on the STATE MANDATED tests. What terrible people! Edith Gallagher, the author of this article appears to be very pro teacher and pro public schools.
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Joe,
Don’t know how long you’ve been reading this blog, but I have shown many times the inherent falsehoods and errors of standardized testing that causes many harms to the students. The whole standards and testing regime has so warped instruction that the students are being cheated out of a proper education. There is no doubt about that!
What benefits do the students get from doing well on the state mandated tests? NONE, absolutely none, as the students, teachers and parents are never allowed to see what each student has done on individual questions. This lack of having students, parents and teachers be able to see and learn from having to take a BOGUS BS (if you don’t know what that acronym stands for then go to Peter Greene’s blog and find out) test means that the students, via the test scores are BEING
USED by the powers that be for something that has no benefit whatsoever, other than perhaps a bit of a free breakfast or lunch-hot diggity damn!
And yes, that is evil. It’s disgusting that the adults use the children thusly. Perhaps you have no trouble with that. Then you are part of the problem, and if you are a teacher or administrator I ask that you consider getting out of the helping, caring profession that is teaching.
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Duane: I would appreciate it if you would not put words and thoughts in my mouth that do not exist. I was commenting on the fact that the kids at this school district get free breakfasts and lunches across the board, needy or not. I find that amazing and commendable. PERIOD
I do not appreciate being mischaracterized and attacked for my very simple observation which has nothing to do with the tests which are imposed on the school districts in PA.
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The teacher fed the kids during the test to make it more palatable and pleasurable. Does that make him an evil person?
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As you requested of me Joe, I’ll do the same of you: Please do not put words in my mouth. I never said anything about the teacher being an “evil person”.
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If they’re serving breakfast in the classroom, the district would be upset if teachers were offering better options. They count how many students eat the convenience store quality breakfasts to receive funding from the government for each “healthy” meal served. (The meals are hot pockets.) Thanks a heap again, Obama.
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Oh and, not just hot pockets. Sometimes hot dogs. For breakfast.
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This is my school district, and I know the community members who serve as unpaid board members (full disclosure, I’m married to one of them), as well as the administrators. To Duane, Lisa M, you can generalize all you want about motives in other school districts, but your comments below are misplaced and offensive with regard to the people involved in this case:
“There is no altruism involved”
“They likely did this, so that they could push the kids to sit longer before giving them a break for lunch.”
“…the adults use the children thusly”
All are serving to make our urban, impoverished school district as successful as it can be in a state funding climate that financially penalizes districts like ours, with test scores as the foundation of that.
The need to feed students is also an unfortunate reality in our district, and our superintendent makes this a priority every school day, not just when testing is on the agenda.
And the reason this post even made it to Diane’s page is because some of them follow her blog and agree with her on the topic of testing. They saw her original post about the first reporting on this subject, and sent this to clarify the district’s position on the issue.
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John, thx for your note and thx for your family’s involvement in public education. Several things can simultaneously be true.
1. School board members serve not for $ or glory, but because they care about students, families, educators and your community’s future.
2) The teacher who was innovative was threatened with termination by a school administrator,
3) The school board member who started the meeting (it appears that she is chair, but I’m not sure of that) skillfully avoided saying whether the teacher had been threatened with termination. She said that there was nothing on the agenda OF TONIGHT’S MEETING about terminating the teacher. She did not say anything about whether the teacher had been told he would be recommended for termination.
4) Many of us who been public school teachers have seen similar situations where school board members and administrators provide partial information (ie there’s nothing on tonight’s agenda; there is a process for termination; but NOTHING about what was said to the teacher).
For what it’s worth, I’ve been an inner city public school teacher administrator PTA president, researcher, newspaper columnist, researcher and advocate – and have worked with families and educators in more than 35 states. I’ve seen and heard similar situations all over the country.
So while thanking you and your family for your involvement, I think it’s important to acknowledge the full story.
Or are you saying that the teacher made up this threat? Are you saying he lied to the students?
Clarification would be helpful.
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John,
I stand by my statement.
And thanks to your wife for donating her time and doing what many wouldn’t do-serve the community gratis.
Living and teaching in a rural poverty district I fully understand the problem of hungry, not well fed or clothed students and minimal funding-hell our district spends right at $8,000 per student. What is so bothersome to me about the testing malpractices is that the state is using the students to gather data, completely invalid data at that, that has nothing to do with the child’s education. The state incorrectly uses that corrupted data to make decisions about whether the student can continue in school, can graduate, etc. . . and then falsely on the supposed capabilities of the teacher, school and district.
I would hope that you see the inherent problem with that scenario. If not may I suggest reading Wilson’s “Educational Standards and the Problem of Error”. Or contact me at duaneswacker@gmail.com and I’ll send you a copy of my book “Infidelity to Truth: Education Malpractice in American Public Education”. In it I discuss the purpose of American public education and of government in general, issues of truth in discourse, justice and ethics in teaching practices, the abuse and misuse of the terms standards and measurement which serve to provide an unwarranted pseudo-scientific validity/sheen to the standards and testing regime and how the inherent discrimination in that regime should be adjudicated to be unconstitutional state discrimination no different than discrimination via race, gender, disability, etc. . . .
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For most of the years if not all of the years I was teaching from 1975 – 2005, about 70 percent of the students at the middle school and then high school where I taught received free or reduced breakfast and lunch every day.
National School Lunch Program (NSLP)
“The National School Lunch Program is a federally assisted meal program operating in public and nonprofit private schools and residential child care institutions. It provides nutritionally balanced, low-cost or free lunches to children each school day. The program was established under the National School Lunch Act, signed by President Harry Truman in 1946.”
https://www.fns.usda.gov/nslp/national-school-lunch-program-nslp
And of course, we can safely bet that the Koch brothers and their minions in the GOP want to eliminate this program too along with all the other social safety net programs and that includes Social Security, Medicare, food stamps, and unemployment benefits.
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I get the impression that all the students are getting free breakfasts and lunches, not just the poor or financially needy ones in this PA district. Maybe I am mistaken. We certainly had free and reduced lunches for the economically disadvantaged kids when I taught in a poorer district in NJ. Finland has free breakfasts and lunches for all the kids, rich or poor.
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If you want to boost test scores, it makes sense to feed all the students a free breakfast and/or lunch because studies show that most children and teens don’t eat a nutritious breakfast or lunch. They eat crap that doesn’t include brain food.
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She says he was not fired but it’s interesting that no details were given in that article about exactly what WAS done
Was he reprimanded? If a process was started, is it still ongoing?
Someone seems to be avoiding the real issue here: that this whole thing could easily have been handled simply by informing the teacher that serving pancakes was not kosher( not even if they were kosher ones) and requesting that he please not do it again.
Its possible that that was actually what happened and that everything else was a rumor, but I somehow have a hard time believing that, especially given that the board will still not say exactly what they did, only what their policy is.
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Incidentally, now Lancaster will be famous for two things instead of just one: horse-drawn buggies and teacher-drawn pancakes.
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“VAMcakes”
A pancake score is what we need
To separate the “good” from “weed”
To winnow out the teachers who
On testing day, ask “One or two?”
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From the article: “Secondly, the rules from the state Department of Education associated with taking and giving Pennsylvania System of School Assessment exams are onerous. The teachers and the staff need specific training to make sure they are following all of the legal mandates (test paper counting and security, exam proctoring protocols, etc.). The department monitors our processes.
If we do not adhere to the rules, we get in trouble. We might have to pay fines or be subjected to extra monitoring over the next few years by state authorities. Many school board members are working, through political advocacy at the state level, to change standardized testing requirements (a conversation for a different article). In the meantime, however, we must follow the rules.” End quote
Reading in between the lines, that teacher’s pancake stunt may bring the wrath of the state down upon this school district? Just wondering, I’m not bashing the teacher.
This class’s test papers are distinguished by food stains and drool marks, what’s not to like.
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Like your last sentence, Joe.
Actually, pancake batter should be spilled over every single “standardized” test answer sheets (& booklets, as well) all over the U.S.A. (& world).
Sort of like the motto for (is it Sherwin-William’s?) paint, “Cover the World.” The rallying cry could be, “Spoil the tests.”
Oh, wait–most of the testing is now down on computers.
Curses, foiled again!
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Pour it over the computer keys.
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Good evening, Diane,
I am a retired classroom teacher and a current school trustee.
I thought this teacher who made pancakes for the kids to help them through the tests was doing the absolutely right thing. I used to have regular BBQs with parents and grand parents invited too. On test days or others.
It’s all about what is important in your community
Cliff Boldt
>
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Mealy-mouthed addendum by board member. Meanwhile, at the very local LancasterOnline site, the original 4/16 report had 153 comments that day (now more): there were maybe 1 or 2 that didn’t outright excoriate Pricipal Gill’s [Grill’s?] handling of this non-issue. I’m thinking this school admin has earned itself a well-deserved black eye among local public.
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And hopefully raised consciousness about wrong-headed testing regime – tho many commenters seemed already in the lnow, & steamed.
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Thanks for the heads up about the LancasterOnline site. According to the article I found, the teacher was suspended without pay and he expected he might be terminated! But because of all the protests by parents and students who love this teacher, the school board did not fire him. I’m not clear what his status is now. Geez, just give the guy a minor reprimand and move on, it’s not a crime to feed kids pancakes.
From what I could glean from the article, it appears he fed the kids the whole wheat pancakes to make the test taking experience more bearable and pleasurable.
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My understanding is that he was back to work today.
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That mealy mouthed board member should resign.
She is obviously trying to now make the public think that there is nothing to any of this and that it was all just wild eyed rumor.
I suspect most members of the public can see right through her “walk back” (or is it a waddle, like a duck?)
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It appears the person speaking is the school board chair
It appears the total truth is not being laid bare.
She thanks students for their concern, it’s true
But disrespect for innovative teachers is nothing new.
So thx to the teacher and thanks students too
For more learning and better schools, this is a great glue.
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The school board president wrote the article. She is a parent activist who gives hours of her time to help the schools. She wrote it to assure the public that the board respects the due process rights of teachers and never intended to fire Mr. Byler. She felt the matter was blown out of proportion.
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Apparently the teacher felt threatened. Or perhaps the district decided to back off after students showed their support?
Who is to know what would have happened if the students had not turned out in support. Some terrific teachers have been fired because some “higher up” got overly upset,
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Yes. It was clearly blown out of proportion.
The only question is “who blew it out of proportion?”
Hint: I don’t believe it was the teacher.
If the principal or board chair had simply said to the teacher “for future tests, please be advised that serving pancakes — or sausage and eggs or anything else — is not allowed” I suspect that would have been a perfectly sufficient response and would most likely have been the end of the story.
What possible reason could the teacher have for pushing the issue further if that were indeed what was said?
Whatever the board said and did was quite clearly out of proportion with the actions of the teacher or this whole thing would never have reached the point it has.
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Out of proportion or end of job
Kinda tricky, like a tennis lob.
What SomeDAM poet suggests sounds like wise advice
Hope district learned lessons about playing nice.
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Thanks for posting the article, Diane.
Many of us have seen how school systems treat innovative faculty. All too often, not well. Like others who post here, I’ve had experiences with that. I wrote a book about that, Free to Teach.
And as many have pointed out, sometimes teachers are not treated well in charters.
This is part of the reason why growing numbers of educators are interested in an approach that puts a majority of teachers on the board that supervises/runs the school. There are examples in both the district and charter sectors. More info here:
https://www.teacherpowered.org/
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Joe,
As I’m sure you realize, collaborative management/supervision of the teaching and learning process (by that term I mean everything that occurs in a school) was happening in the 90s. Then along came a strong push, not sure from exactly where, but that push, in all the administrative literature, conferences, etc. . . was to have administrators (before they became sycophantic adminimals) be “strong educational leaders” who needed to have everyone on board with their dictates. The supposed leader was to demand explicit fealty and devotion to that supposed leader. This was following the corporate model of the superstar CEO with which the business community was so enamored.
Out with collaborative management and decision making, it being way too slow, cumbersome and democratic. The “leader” (and I’m tempted to spell it “Líder” signifying the Latin American “caudillo” or strong man) was supposed to be some sort of nimble, agile, savior of the organization. And boy most administrators, almost overnight, turned into adminimals.
It’s been top-down, downhill ever since.
Why these folks don’t understand that many heads working on a problem will (if encouraged correctly) come up with many more workable solutions to problems in the teaching and learning process than a single adminimal reading homogenized articles, attending homogenized conferences and otherwise being the supposed know-it-all.
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Agreed, Duane. But having finished a masters and PhD ed ad program, and attended a number of principal conferences here and in some other states, I find that many (not all, but many) administrators think they are wiser and see the “bigger picture” than do classroom teachers. Again – not all, but many.
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It was my experience while teaching for thirty years (1975-2005) that most administrators that started out as teachers fled the classroom to administration because they couldn’t manage their classrooms so they could teach. In fact, it seems they think they have all the answers even though they couldn’t manage their own classrooms during the brief time they taught before moving over to administration.
Most administrators have this in common with the arrogant TFA recruits that fled teaching before their two-year stint ended and then moved into administration with the arrogant attitude that they had all the answers and real teachers were failures.
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I too have an MaEd in admin and was working on a PhD when the university pulled my funding, so I do have a good idea of what and administrator prep program is about. And yes, it is that hubristic attitude that is part of the problem-at least from my experience. Those many do not realize that were they to share that supposed “bigger picture” they might find out that others, teachers, parents and even students see an even “bigger and better picture”.
And well stated, Lloyd!
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We agree.
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Joe, is there somewhere where I can get a copy of “Free to Teach”?
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Thx for your interest, Duane. You can get a paperback copy from Amazon:
Then Tennessee Governor, now US Senator Lamar Alexander read it and hired me to coordinate a project for the Nat’l Governors Association.
That 1985 NGA report called for, among other things, increased investment in early childhood, community schools/shared facilities, more public school choice, dual high school/college enrollment, and more decision making authority at the local school site in exchange for greater responsibility for results. The report did not spent much time on how results would be measured. The name of the report was Time for Results.
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Thanks, ordered a used one. Can’t afford new books.
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Used has the same ideas. 🙂 Lots of real stories as well as research. Reactions welcome.
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If they don’t treat innovative teachers poorly, they tend to ignore them as if they don’t exist while they continue to push the crap that is flowing downhill from the corporate reform movement that is out to profit from our community based, democratic, transparent, public schools by destroying those schools.
If an innovative teacher’s methods work, the administration doesn’t even attempt to find out what that teacher is doing. Instead, they will apply pressure on that teacher to fall into line and follow the viral crap that is flowing downhill from the top, crap that was created by noneducators like Bill Gates.
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Agreed, Lloyd, that innovative and successful teachers all too often are ignored or mistreated. Sadly, imho, this has been going on for at least since 1970 when I became a St Paul Public School teacher. And when I entered public school teaching in 1970, I talked with many veteran teachers who had encountered similar frustrations. This experience (and that of many others around the country and some research), formed the basis for a book I wrote in 1983 called “Free to Teach.”
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This is probably a silly knuckle headed question but here goes: did the teacher actually cook the pancakes from scratch on a griddle or did he pop frozen whole wheat pancakes into a microwave? The man had so many things to juggle: administering a test (which is a whole thing unto itself) and preparing pancakes.
Administering these standardized tests are incredibly stressful and labor intensive enough as it is. You have to account for everything and triple check tests and booklets, dot your i’s and cross your t’s.
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Are you suggesting it makes a difference?
Ha ha ha.
School Board Inquisitor:
Confess, Sir! You made pancakes from scratch and used a hot griddle to cook them in your classroom, a clear violation of the Pennsylvania fire Code, article 17, section 2.3
Had you simply put frozen pancakes in a toaster, we could have let you off with just a warning. But given the wanton disregard for student safety, we have no choice but to throw the book — and pancake — at you!
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“The Pancake Nazi”
“No pancakes for you!”
Said the teacher to Board
“You made me quite blue
And hence, you’re ignored!”
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Nicely done.
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