Mitchell Robinson, professor of music education at Michigan State University, attended the Public Education Forum in Pittsburgh. He graded the candidates, using the Danielson rubric.
Read what he thought about the candidates.
He writes:
In the spirit of our country’s current rather draconian approach to “accountability” in public education, I thought I’d describe the candidates’ performances on Saturday by rating them on the Danielson teacher evaluation rubric, a common teacher evaluation system used by many school districts across the nation. That means that each candidate will be graded on a simplistic, reductionist, atomistic, 4-point scale of the sort loved by corporate education reformers, as though it makes sense to distill the entirety of an individual’s performance on a complicated set of tasks to a single number between 1 and 4.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
A wonderful (and very funny) report! Thank you, Michael!
Mitchell. So sorry. I was typing hastily!!!
Thanks!
I thank Mitchell Robinson for his take on the candidates and his decision to use the Danielson VAM scheme to rate them.
Thanks!
And, I love heart-warming teacher stories as much as the next person, but Dr. Robinson has an excellent point here: https://www.eclectablog.com/2018/08/please-stop-with-the-heartwarming-teacher-stories-this-is-no-way-to-treat-professionals.html
Thanks…again!
Thank you for fighting the good fight, and for your wonderful blog!!!
Bob, your link re: the supt hiring low-pd teens to re-paint his school – kind of sleazy – reminded me of real-deal summer gigs of pubsch teachers I’ve known in my chi-chi central-NJ town, & how they mgd to hang on to their houses as OK-pd employees but barely enough to cover mtg/RE taxes [while raising families]. One was an ind arts teacher who did exterior house-painting summers [eventually in partnership w/his teen son] for 40-+ yrs! Another was a math teacher [w/artistic flair] at a Title I sch in a nearby inner-city urb, married to an equally underpaid county-employed scientist. For 30+ yrs she was color-consultant while he [eventually aided by teen sons] did interior painting. When they retired, the couple did another 10 yrs as $12/hr school crossing guards. And these were union employees.
The comments I read on threads at ed articles by union-busting conservatives bemoaning greedy teachers/ public employees are so off the wall. These are solidly middle-class professions, which exchange salaries 30% less than those w/equivalent background– for decent long-term benefits. Cut the bennies & salaries, bye-bye teachers [county scientists, etc].
And, remove the teachers’ autonomy and create work environments that no one wants to stay in. The Deformers call this applying business principles to education. What fools.
yup
Have only read the accounts on Bennet and Biden, so far.
Loved the review of Bennet! So good.
Went too easy on Biden, imo. He’s effectively been exemplary DFER…until Saturday in front of the opposite side. Rating of 2 at best, and that’s probably being too forgiving.
YES.
Buttigieg finished his session by recycling the worn-out reformster argument from Raj Chetty, that “a good kindergarten teacher is worth $300,000 to a kindergarten student’s earnings over time,”
Oh, no. Of all the ed reform nuttiness this may be the nuttiest.
What I especially love about it is how it completely exonerates college-level instructors, which isn’t an accident, I think!
Many students don’t finish college. So, do we ask colleges why that is? No. We demand their kindergarten teachers explain it.
It’s nuts, but there’s a method to this madness.
If Joe Biden objected to Obama-era treatment of public schools, why didn’t he say anything at the time?
I just find it hard to believe he would do anything differently.
If Biden actually objected to Obama’s education policies but said nothing during his 8 years , he is just a coward
And if didn’t object and now says he does, he’s a liar.
Hmm.
Which Biden should we vote for?
This is a suggestion for public school advocates at these forums- teachers are obviously important but I do think the candidates could do more to address parents.
Unlike ed reformers, I do not believe parents are the be-all and end-all of schools- in my experience (including myself) parents advocate for their own child and the school has a broader duty- the school has to serve all the students, so I’m not asking for the ed reform approach, which I think is wrong-headed.
I just think one of the mistakes ed reformers made was excluding PUBLIC school parents and I would hate to see public school advocates make that same mistake.
Talk directly to public school parents.
I think the reason the “limit testing” movement was successful is because testing is actually relevant to parents of public school students. They engaged on it because it happens in public schools.
There were a LOT of parents at this forum.
Right, and thanks, but I think what the governors who have won on public school issues have done is they reached parents of public school students.
They told them how electing a pro-public school politician will benefit the schools their children attend, as compared to keeping the ed reform status quo.
That’s absolutely what the Wisconsin governor did, and also the Kentucky governor.
We don’t have any charters around here, but we do have vouchers. If you ask public school parents here about vouchers, they’ll tell you their kids attend public schools. That should be the hint to switch to talking about their schools.
Ed reform doesn’t offer anything of value to public school students and parents. Offer then something. No one else is.
This is an example:
“Seven Democratic candidates discussed issues as well-trod as their plans to increase education spending and disrupt school segregation, and as little-discussed as corporal punishment and a hypothetical constitutional right to education at a presidential education election forum Saturday.
But candidates, moderators and audience questions at the teachers union-organized event in Pittsburgh focused only briefly on what is arguably the most contentious K-12 issue in the race: charter schools.”
This is how ed reform publications “cover” public schools. They don’t cover them at all- they cover charters and vouchers.
Imagine you’re a public school parent reading this- your schools and students are so unimportant they’re not even worth mentioning, except as a kind of “control” for charter and voucher experiments.
If all ed reformers talk about is charters and vouchers, and all public school advocates talk about is charters and vouchers, guess who loses? Kids in public schools. Who are ignored. Public school parents won’t engage at all- after all, no one is talking about the schools their kids actually attend.
Don’t make the mistake ed reformers made. Talk to the 90%.
Certain candidates (to be left unnamed) deserve to be pelted with a hailstorm of rubrics cubes.