The National Education Policy Center is a think tank known for its incisive reviews, studies, and reports. In this post, it demolishes five myths about teaching.
Myth 1: Evaluating teachers based on student test results is fair, objective, and effective. Wrong.
Myth 2: We’d get better performance out of teachers and attract better candidates to the profession if we handed out bonuses. Doesn’t work.
Myth 3: Five or so weeks of training prepares you to start teaching. Experience and preparation matter.
Myth 4: Education is more equitable and more rigorous when teachers are required to use a scripted curriculum that tells them what to say and when. Bad idea.
Myth 5: Teaching is easy—after all, you get the summers off and you play with kids all day! Try it for a day.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Definitely read the whole post: clear, concise, correct.
I o ce offered to swap jobs for a day with someone who kept insisting teaching was easy…funny, he never took me up on my offer….
Corrrection…once…
this reminds me of how often (after NCLB and then R2T hit our schools) I would be criticized and micro-managed by administrators and reform-hired ‘facilitators’ and ‘coaches’ who were always willing to go on and on about how I should be teaching but, whenever I offered to have them teach the class so I could observe, would ALWAYS say no
My suburban NYC district attracted many teachers that had taught in the city. While salary was one of the main issues, working conditions were second reason why some decided to seek a position in the suburbs. The teachers cited large classes and a lack of resources as a significant reason for the change. Some of them also complained about not having supportive administrators as secondary reason to leave the city. If school districts want a stable, professional workforce, then some of these issues need to be addressed. We need to work toward providing equity to districts with high need students, and we must support teachers that work with these students.
RI Department of Education and Providence, RI: Take note of this posting…it is what is needed in Providence schools,
Agreed. I was one of those who left my beloved HS in the Bx to move elsewhere when my great principals retired and were replaced by hacks. Wonder if we ended up in the same place… I went to two in Westchester.
CNN reported, “…where Melinda Gates will focus her multi-billion dollar fortune after her divorce.” The 5 point listing identified by the founder of Meridian Ventures does not include education.
Regardless of what people like the Gates fund, it is reprehensible for them to act as oligarchs influencing public policy.
Biden selected Rahm Emanuel for an ambassadorship.
I think the Japanese can deal with him. Gets him out of the way.
My thoughts too.
Another way that Biden is demonstrating that his administration is not a return to Obama and that Rahm was always exaggerating his influence.
Rahm gets the position recently held by Caroline Kennedy and Jon Huntsman (under Obama). I bet no one even remembers that Trump’s Ambassador to Japan was Bill Hagerty.
Job that sounds good and signifies nothing. Not influential at all. Rahm doesn’t deserve this position, but I would call the glass 3/4 full when Rahm’s influence is limited to being an ambassador with a name, just like Caroline Kennedy.
^^correction, Huntsman did not precede Caroline Kennedy, John Roos did. But point is the same — not people making policy.
That these myths even exist is Mystifying…. Guess we thank the Deformers, Charterers, and TFA for all of them. NO THANKS!
Let’s see. Myth #1 — No one would work with students who performed poorly on tests (many of my students read at 5th grade level in 12th grade). I have had students who refused to attend school because of tests. The students who need good teachers the most are the teachers you can differentiate and teach the way children learn — yell out, “Plot twist” and think on their feet; Myth#2 Bonuses are great, but what would be better is sincere support; checking in on a teacher’s well-being; making teachers want to feel celebrated, not tolerated, or ignored for their efforts. Just making them feel respected. — Myth #3 -Have you ever had an entire group of students say, “Nope, not doing it” ?– I have had students write excellent essays (testing) explaining (using expletives) asking why were they being tested on things they didn’t know on prompts by people they didn’t know (and not the teacher’s fault) but didn’t count because it was off topic. – Yeah, real life situations where you need to learn about “expect the unexpected” and it’s not always the kids who are the problem. Myth #4 — Then you don’t need teachers. Just play prerecorded videos. Students need REAL PEOPLE with personalities who have experienced sickness, death, babies being born, sports, playing in the mud and know what it feels like when the power goes out. Human beings, not automatons. Myth#5 — I never had a summer off. I went broke and had to use credit cards to pay bills and always had three jobs for nearly 30 years. Teachers only get paid for the days they work (typically 180). In order to “make the classroom work,” teachers provide food, water, rides home, help with jobs, hugs, make tears go away, find glasses for kids who cannot see and have no money, provide art supplies and clean their own rooms. Once again, students do not care about how much you know until they know how much you care. That’s it. FYI: I worked in elementary, middle, high school, continuation high school — at risk youth — and fought for everything the kids an I needed. Yeah, try it. Teaching is EZ.
All of these myths are based on false postulates.
Myth 1 is based on the idea that learning is a product. This is a false equivalency that leads believers to see education in terms of tests. Seems clear and neat. Is actually muddy and confused.
Myth 2 is based on the idea that material motivation is universal. False. Many people choose their life’s work for reasons other than money. Among the most prevalent are teachers.
Myth 3 is based on sheer stupidity. Would you employ the services of a cabinet maker who has only been making cabinets for 5 weeks? How about buying a guitar from a luthier who has only been making them for five weeks? Better google my nephew instead.
Myth 4 is based on the assumption that teachers are too ignorant or too busy to develop good curriculum. In act, teachers who are comfortable with scripted lessons worry me.
Myth 5 is based on reality. If it were not for a summer to forget how utterly impossible this job is, I do not know how I would have ever lasted this long. In the summer is when I see the Africa exhibit and incorporate what I learned in my lesson the next year. It is when I met the engineer who really did use imaginary numbers to route the cell phone calls. I am guilty of using my summers to enhance my understanding of the world, often in informal ways.
The biggest waste of my time is to spend some of it listening to members of the state education department who believe one or more of these myths.
What you said.
Myth #4 demonstrates a misunderstanding of equity. Equity is not equality. Equality is about equal treatment. Thus, the emphasis is on standardization and scripted lessons would be an example providing equality of service. Equity is about determining where students are and what they need. Students come to education with vastly different backgrounds. Equity is about providing what students need to learn. Poor, foreign and and learning disabled students may need modifications and different supports to get the education to prepare them for the future. Smaller classes, providing specially trained teachers, grouping and regrouping, family and social support for students would be examples of providing equity.
I was surprised to hear Dr. Cardona equate standardized testing with equity. Testing ranks, sorts, closes schools or privatizes them. When did separate and unequal education become equity, particularly since we know that charter schools are no better unless they cherry pick students. How is taking away legal protections from vulnerable students or assigning them to under qualified teachers equity? It is segregation, not equity. I would like to see Cardona address these issues.https://www.nsba.org/-/media/NSBA/File/cpe-educational-equity-research-brief-january-2016.pdf
I want to focus on MYTH 5.
I started working when I was 15 and joined the Marines in 1965 after graduating from high school. Then I ended up fighting in Vietnam in 1966.
After leaving the U.S. Marines in 1968, I worked several private-sector jobs while earning my first two college degrees with financial help from the GI Bill.
After earning a BA in journalism, I went to work for a private-sector corporation for several years in a middle management job.
The reason I point out my working life between age 15 and 30, is to establish that I wasn’t only a public school teacher for thirty years between 1975 – 2005.
Teaching was the toughest job I ever had. Even serving in the U.S. Marines and being in combat in Vietnam was easier.
After I retired from teaching, I swore that if I lost my CalSTRS retirement benefits and had to go back to work, I’d rather be a Marine in combat or volunteer through the CIA to become a human bomb willing to die blowing up a bunch of Taliban.
As a teacher, my work weeks ran 60 to 100 hours every week. I only worked with my students 25 hours a week. The rest of the time was spent planning lessons, correcting student work, calling parents, attending mostly mandatory useless faculty meetings, and serving duty as a teacher at sporting events after teaching hours. I didn’t do all this work in my classroom. It took work home and often was still sitting at the kitchen table correcting student work as late as 10 PM knowing I had to be up by 5:00 AM the next school day to get to work on time and prep for my classes. I usually arrived one to two hours before my first class.
Where I taught, teachers were only paid 10 months a year. We didn’t get any checks during the summer months. That meant many teachers had to teach summer school or find jobs in the private sector so they didn’t end up starving and homeless.
And that doesn’t mention the adolescent problems that walked in the door every day on two feet in every class we taught or the autocratic incompetent idiots running the district from the district office making horrible decisions and forcing teachers to comply or else they’d do everything they could to make our lives miserable and full of more stress.
“Teaching was the toughest job I ever had. Even serving in the U.S. Marines and being in combat in Vietnam was easier.”
Thank you for your service. I bet you did not go either to Vietnam or to the classroom for the pay. See myth 2.
I got an email from an old student who had recently graduated from college. She told me I had stopped her after class and told her she had a special gift for mathematics. I had quite forgotten. These things are why we teach. One day some kid does something special. We get to enjoy that. We tell them it was special. They get to hear that. Some of them remember.
Lloyd, I bet your days were littered with these moments.
Wow. That comment carries weight.
Some things on here I bookmark. This is one of them.
Awesome post DIane Thanks
Kelvin Woodley Principal Tapawera Area School kwoodley@tapawera.school.nz http://www.tapawera.school.nz 03 522 4337 021 024 75147
“…the most powerful learning arises out of the children’s own lives and experiences.” Elwyn Richardson NZ
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Bill Gates, Charles Koch, and Dennis Washington (CBC reported that he donated generously to Trump in 2016) belong to the same members-only Calf. golf club where Gates has been living for the past 3 months. (Daily Mail)
The three men’s opportunity to connect at the club makes it easier for them to reinforce their views about the superiority of government by the rich and, to scheme to make sure wealth concentrates.
Oh to teach in a school that knows all of these things! My current position put so many requirements and constraints on me, they broke all my best moves. And then they evaluate me on the things that they broke! If I squished myself into this model of teaching/lesson planning/grading I would be an ineffective teacher, minimally by MY definition. I am planning to relocate for a HS Mathematics position that ideally includes Statistics and/or Calculus (AP); I welcome any leads.
I don’t think there is only one way to be an effective teacher, my signature tools are collaboration and conceptual learning – Language is funny, I was going to say “discovery.” I could make the case that parts of my teaching are flipped but not exactly. What ever happened to giving the teacher enough flexibility to do what works best for her? I learned the word tailoring at this school – I would report that tailoring is one of my greatest assets as a teacher, but what I do that I consider tailoring doesn’t count as tailoring in this very restrictive environment.
I don’t think there is only one way to be an effective teacher.
You are, emphatically, correct about this.
Evaluators: shred those lists and checkboxes!
When I complained about the quality of common core instruction my daughter was receiving, a colleague(with grown children) replied, “well, at least everyone is getting the same education, making it “fair.” Ugh.
‘ “well, at least everyone is getting the same education, making it “fair.” ‘
…which, of course, isn’t true in any case. The “core” curriculum that students get in my well off community looks nothing like the curriculum offered to students in a poor community.