Several weeks ago, a Chicago website reported that the Chicago Tribune, the Joyce Foundation, and the University of Chicago were engaging in “push polling.” This is a telephone poll that literally “pushes” the listener in a certain direction, with questions designed to have pre-determined conclusions.
Read the transcript. Do you think this was a push poll?
Randi Weingarten and Vicki Phillips of the Gates Foundation have jointly written an article bout teacher evaluation.
At a time when teachers and the teaching profession and teachers’ unions are under attack in states across the nation, how important is teacher evaluation?
What do you think?
Yesterday I ran a post about an editorial in the Chicago Tribune. The editorial touted the results of a poll which the newspaper conducted in partnership with the Joyce Foundation. The poll purportedly supported privatization, merit pay, evaluation of teachers by test scores, and every other failed nostrum of the Rahm Emanuel-ALEC crowd.
But a Chicago parent group called PURE (Parents United for Responsible Education) says that the Tribune poll is a fraud. It underrepresented parents of children who attend public schools and it underrepresented African Americans. Based on PURE’s findings, the poll shows what white Chicagoans think that the children of black Chicagoans need.
According to PURE’s analysis, the poll was skewed towards privatization and it did not report its own findings accurately:
Who responded:
Of course, the Trib claims that results were “weighted” to assure a mix consistent with city demographics…but then, like Mayor Rahm, most of the white people in Chicago send their children to private schools.
Key results the Trib decided not to tell you about:
When I was in North Carolina last week, I spoke in Raleigh at an event pulled together on short notice by NC Policy Watch, a state watchdog for the public interest. As it happened, I spoke just a few days after State Senator Phil Berger introduced a horrendous piece of legislation that he claimed would produce “excellence,” by removing all job protections (i.e., due process) for teachers), by tying teacher pay to test scores (aka merit pay), and by removing any salary increments for those who earn a master’s degree or have additional years of experience. Everything tied to test scores. (The video is here.)
While there I learned that it takes a teacher in North Carolina fourteen years of teaching to reach a salary of $40,000 a year.
When I hear stats like this, I grind my teeth thinking of the pundits and think tank gurus who collect six-figure salaries advocating that teachers should be cut down to size and have their benefits reduced and their salaries tied to student test scores.
I loved my time in Raleigh. The cherry blossoms were in bloom (it was snowing in New York), the audience was enthusiastic, and the best gift of all was this wonderful editorial that I received in my email today. When there are editorial writers like this one, a man who clearly understands the futility of what is now called “reform,” and the damage that the so-called “reformers” are doing to the education profession and to our nation, my faith is renewed that the privatizers and teacher-bashers won’t win. At some point and it will not be long, the public will get it too.
In this important article, civil rights attorney explains how Governor Malloy switched sides on the funding formula for Connecticut public schools.
What hypocrisy! As mayor of Stamford, he was a plaintiff in the lawsuit. As governor, he now opposes the views he once espoused.
Lecker writes:
“As Stamford’s mayor, Dannel Malloy was an original plaintiff in the pending school funding case, The Connecticut Coalition for Justice in Education Funding v. Rell, and led the charge to win just and equitable funding for Connecticut schools. Now, Governor Malloy is trying aggressively to get the case dismissed. In doing so, he has exposed his 2012 education reforms as empty promises compared to what Connecticut’s children really need.
“The plaintiffs in CCJEF v. Rell charge that the state is violating the constitutional right of Connecticut’s children to an adequate education by depriving school districts of billions of dollars. Consequently, schools, especially in Connecticut’s neediest districts, cannot afford basic educational tools such as a sufficient number of teachers, reasonable class size, adequate school facilities, services for at-risk children, electives, AP classes, even books, computers and paper.”
Now Governor Malloy claims, with no evidence whatever, that his corporate reform plan focused on testing, accountability, rewards, and punishments, will do the job instead of equitable funding.
What hypocrisy!
The recent MetLife survey of the American teacher showed a high level of demoralization among the Marion’s teachers. For those wondering why, read on.
John Louis Meeks Jr. Is a Florida social studies teacher. He is a veteran of the U.S. Air Force. He wrote an open letter to Governor Scott to protest the disrespect shown to the state’s teachers. He points out that the Starr’s evaluation system makes no sense.
Governor Scott, please listen to Mr. Meeks:
Dear Governor Scott,
I have been teaching gifted social studies for over ten years in Florida and never have I experienced the type of fear and intimidation that I have endured either in my service to our nation in the Air Force or in any other capacity in which I have worked.
We would like to believe that education reform is designed to lift our students to a higher level of learning to best prepare them for citizenship and careers.
We would like to believe that the work of our state’s leaders is to truly improve our schools to ensure that educators are doing the work necessary to best serve our state and its future.
I take issue, however with the manner in which we evaluate our educators to gauge their work to teach our students and future leaders. The CAST evaluation system, in my opinion is grievously flawed because the value added formula actually ignores the value of the work that educators do every day.
First of all, the time that administrators are charged with observing educators is limited to small windows of opportunity to grade teachers according to a rubric that is well-intentioned but restricts them to what they actually see in the classroom. In this finite amount of time, principals and their designees only are allowed to record what they see and hear. I find fault in this because it provides no real context with which to judge classroom performance.
For example, a principal can walk into a classroom and can see that a teacher is sitting down to take attendance. This is behavior that is frowned upon as teachers are expected to be walking around the room and constantly hovering over their students.
For example, a principal can walk into a classroom and hear students talking about something other than their work. It is the teacher’s fault that they are not limiting their conversation to the work at hand. For example, a principal can walk into a classroom and observe that students are cleaning up the room to prepare for the next class. There is no instruction going on, therefore there is no learning going on.
And, once the administrator leaves, whatever flawed impression he or she has of the classroom is written in stone. It is because of this that I believe that CAST was designed to be a gotcha to drum out allegedly bad teachers for what may have been an anomaly in their performance that includes 180 days of constant work to help our students.
The darker side of CAST is the assessment end of the evaluation which is tied to student learning gains. Even with value added factors, this is a set-up in my opinion. The value of student learning gains cannot and should not be forced to rely on students’ performance on tests only.
Based on this metric, I am the second-worst social studies teacher in my school and this will become public knowledge when these CAST scores become public record in accordance with state law……
I am disappointed because I am often the last person to leave work each day because there is always something else to work on or complete and it is often the custodians who remind me when they are locking up the school. I am disappointed because there is no metric for the dedication that I have for my students and my school, and yet there is plenty of punishment lined up for me is I fail to make the grade for my students.
This is not the usual ranting of a lazy union flunky who wants to rest on his laurels. There have been days when I was sick and still went to work because it was my ultimate responsibility to serve the public. There have been days when I went to work on sick days to collect work to complete in my sick bed. Instead of appreciation, the usual condemnation that I receive from critics continues because I am a victim of the trite stereotypes that we are all bad teachers who get what is coming to us.
You might wonder why I do not leave for greener pastures. I should have left after being hospitalized for two weeks last year. I should have left after dealing with students who did not want to do any work no matter what incentives, prizes and rewards I offer. I should have left after my test scores remained stagnant in spite of all of my most sincere efforts. I stay, however, because I trust that our state’s leaders will finally hear what our educators have to say about CAST and its unintended consequences. I keep teaching because I know that a better day for education is ahead and because there will always be a better day for our students if we all believe that we are working as a team for public education.
Sincerely,
//signed//
John Louis Meeks, Jr.
Educator
New Jersey’s Commissioner of Education Chris Cerf has the good fortune to be leader of a state with some of the best schools and school districts in the nation. New Jersey also has some districts with high concentrations of poverty and racial segregation, where test scores are very low.
But New Jersey–inspired by the example of Arne Duncan’s Race to the Top–will attempt to raise test scores by imposing a teacher evaluation program. Will this address the root cause of poor academic achievement? Of course not.
In theory, it will identify the “best” teachers and the “bad” teachers so that the latter may be fired.
In reality, such statistical models have not worked anywhere because there are so many confounding, unmeasurable, and unknown variables.
But Commissioner Cerf is quite certain this plan will work, despite all the pitfalls and lack of evidence.
Jersey Jazzman explains here in detail why Cerf’s certainty is faith-based.
What is predictable is that teachers will be demoralized as they see their profession turned into a testing game, teaching to the test will become the norm, and teachers will figure out how to game the system. In time, teachers will avoid the high-risk students to preserve their jobs.
This teacher-evaluation-by test-scores is junk science.
What we really need is a way to evaluate our policymakers and hold them accountable for the damage they inflict on students, teachers, schools, and communities.
North Carolina is one of the red states with a super-majority of Republicans in control of he legislature.
So Republicans can do anything they want, as they control state government.
The editorial today in the Raleigh News Observer defends teachers. The editorialist sharply rebukes Phil Berger’s punitive, mean-spirited education “reforms.” That’s welcome news.
The editorialist points out that the predictable consequence of letter grades will be to stigmatize schools, not improve them.
What’s more, he defends teachers. Picking on teachers is a favorite ploy of the state’s politicians. Given that North Carolina is a right to work state and teacher pay is nearly the worst in the nation, this ploy looks like bullying.
Bullying is bad when kids do it in school, why is it okay for the president pro tem of the state senate to bully teachers? Phil Berger seems to think that the schools will improve if teachers have no right to due process, if they can be fired for any reason at all. He confuses tenure for university professors (which is close to an ironclad guarantee of lifetime job protection) with due process rights for teachers, which guarantees nothing more than the right to a hearing before they can fire you.
Berger wants to eliminate due process. He wants teachers to be fired if their students get low test scores. Teachers of kids with disabilities and teachers of English language learners will be axed. Students can withhold effort and fire their teachers. Does Berger have a plan to recruit teachers to work in a state where teachers are public enemy #1?
A teacher writes:
I went to a meeting today and had my eyes opened – WIDE. As a teacher at a ruraL schoo, we are a little behind on this VAM thing. Needless to say at district wide meetings I get to meet teachers from all over, some from much larger suburban districts. They already have their pay based on students’ and the school’s improvement on tests.
WELL, the teachers have figured the whole student improvement thing out- DISTRACT THE LIVING DAYLIGHTS OUT OF THE STUDENTS DURING THE BEGINNING OF THE YEAR TEST – Yep, that is exactly what many of them are doing. Play music, talk on the phone, talk to other teachers very loudly, clean the room…do what ever you can to lower your students scores at the beginning and then have a silent, well ordered room, with hints everywhere at the end of the year, Success. The test isn’t fair, why should teachers have to play fair
No more career teachers in North Carolina. That’s the goal of legislation introduced by Phil Berger, the President Pro Tem of the State Senate in North Carolina.
The experienced, high-performing teachers would get a four-year contract.
Others would get shorter contracts.
No tenure for any teachers.
Lots of performance pay built in.
Bonuses would be tied to new teacher evaluation programs now under development.
Apparently, Senator Berger has no idea that merit pay has never worked anywhere.
Nor does he know that there is no successful teacher evaluation program anywhere, despite the hundreds of millions expended on creating one.
His goal seems to be to make North Carolina teachers teach to the test at every possible moment of the school day.
North Carolina was once a progressive state.
No more.
Teacher salaries in North Carolina now rank 46th in the nation.
School spending has fallen to 48th.
This is sad. Sad for the children. Sad for the teachers.
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