This teacher in Houston reviews what is happening in HISD schools.

Anyone know the HISD superintendent Terry Grier?

The teacher’s evaluation:

Another transplanted North Carolina education experience. I teach in Texas in the largest school district that has inherited one of North Carolina’s education mediums, T. Grier. In his ready, shoot, aim masterplan, all teachers are graded on the growth of their students on a year to year basis, as the statistical junkies decide that growth will be measured on EVAAS- a nonpeer reviewed performance analyis program. This is in addition to a whole slew of other tests. We personally ran into an issue where our social studies students were passing 95% of the tests or higher provided by the State, but when the results did not grow past 95% the teachers were penalized! There is no average of, say, three years performance, or a plateau of achievement where the grading stops, but a slap for high achievement – the District refused to reconsider our highly validated protests.

Teachers were baited with the prospect of “bonus” money, and assumed we were like pipe salepersons who would do more for a bigger payday. A teacher might earn up to $7,000…great, but there have also not been any raises for over 4 years. The bonus money available has been reduced by half, so the District reduced the teachers who could obtain a bonus – no senior level teachers, art, electives, nor foreign language because??? those subjects do NOT have to be tested. In our case, high performance ran into an effective ceiling. So now, bonus money has shrunk, teachers salaries have been reduced, a bait and switch incentive atmosphere has been created. Incentives in business are great, this is not business. Teachers do not get to select inputs and the inputs change, perhaps dramatically, year to year; or we average over 37 kids in a class compared to 30, but that should’nt really effect performance. It defies good science to measure unlike test groups.

Morale in our District is terrible, particularly with the school administrators who cringe when the headquarters decides on some new hoop teachers and students need to jump through. For example, we are supposed to drop students into category buckets within the first month so we can establish their goals…what sense does that make? who knows kids after a month? and then the system crashed, or dropped data or just didn’t work. Nobody holds senior administration accountable.

So fair is fair, how are Grier and the District grading themselves in the Broad competition they flaunt? 1) on the basis of how many kids take the SAT 2) how many kids take Advanced Placement courses and 3) how many more kids graduate. Fine as it goes, but a) the District paid for the SAT for all 10th graders b) it pays for any AP tests and recruited teachers and kids who were completely unprepared for this incredibly rigorous course load (SpEd kids were enrolled in some cases!) and c) created an on-line self paced Grad Lab program that is never backstopped for performance nor any real check on comprehension. There are no effective teacher unions in Texas (no strike state), so no one can blame that factor on Texas’ dismal performance of Houston’s. Maybe it is the super? From North Carolina Greenboro, then San Diego…any comments from other teachers who taught under T. Grier and dealt with the North Carolina experience?