Archives for category: Teachers and Teaching
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Teachers and Principals Together

By dianeravitch
August 7, 2012 //
8

A wonderful comment by a principal. Build alliances:

Please do not assume that administrators are not every bit as disheartened as teachers at what is happening in public education. I am a principal. I taught for over 20 years. I became a principal because I knew that teachers need administrators who know how hard they work, how dedicated they are, and how much they give to the children in their classes. I became an administrator to ‘stand in the gap’ and allow teachers to teach, even in this high stakes testing, anti-teachers environment. It breaks my heart every single day to see what is happening to our schools. Every day my goal is to help the teachers in our school build the learning environment where our kids find joy in learning and our teachers find joy in teaching. And trust me, it is not easy. Sometimes I feel like the only way to DO my job well is to put my job on the line every day.

 
Categories Principals, Teachers and Teaching

This Teacher Invites Michelle Rhee to Come Home to Ohio

By dianeravitch
August 7, 2012 //
17

This reader has some ideas for Michelle Rhee and an invitation:

 As a teacher from a small city in Ohio, I resent Michelle Rhee making statements about my teaching based on a small sample set from inner city schools hundreds of miles away. The next question is- What sort of administrative support did these “poor experienced teachers” receive?Dear Michelle- You came from northwest Ohio. Why don’t you come back and talk to some of us? Talk to the many outstanding public school teachers who do great things every day. The one thing we have here is support. We support each other as fellow teachers where there is no or little administrative support. We can identify strengths in each other when YOU and so many others try to beat us down. When, due to your example, administrators tell teachers that, as a building, they are broken, we are able to look at each other and lift each other up again. That is what makes great teachers. We also have parents who support us, in spite of our administrators. Did your sample set have this?

It is disheartening to speak with younger teachers this summer. They are away from each other, and many are not looking forward to the new school year. Why should they? When they come together for convocation day, they will be put down by their administrators, told they are broken, and need to change or get out. Who, in any job, would want to work under those conditions? But they will. And when the administrators are gone, the teachers will again lift each other up, and remember why they are there- for the children. They will squeeze in ‘real teaching’ in between testing teaching, when the administrators aren’t looking. What part of this looks like freedom, or the United States I grew up in?

How different would our country be if all of us and our children saw our leaders complimenting each other rather than bullying each other. What if they could model working together for all of us? And isn’t it sad that this will never be anything but a dream?
Categories Education Reform, Rhee, Michelle, Teachers and Teaching

Only in Education Would This Happen

By dianeravitch
August 7, 2012 //
7

A retired teacher writes:

Education is the only field in which people (i.e., teachers) are moved around like chess pawns, often at the whim of
administrators. Would a law firm tell a lawyer who specialized in real estate law to switch to labor law? Would a hospital or medical group tell a gastroenterologist to become an ob/gyne? And yet, we have teachers (like me–duly certified, in numerous areas–because I taught special ed. and I continued to take classes so that I could better help my students in the evolving world of disabilities, inclusion,
RTI, etc.) who are moved from early childhood classes to middle
school, because, “Oh, you are such a wonderful teacher–you could teach anyone!” And, then, when you are not quite the teacher they cracked you up to be, they criticize you, make your life miserable (and this from other teachers!), and–instead of placing you back in the job for which you trained and were extremely successful in–they
transfer you somewhere else because NO ONE  “wanted” to teach
that class in that school! (This was successfully fought–and won!–
thanks to the union contract!) Further, in the last job (which lasted
twenty years), it took at least three years to gain the expertise.
Lucky for all concerned that it stretched to seventeen more. What a
gain for the students and parents!

Categories Teachers and Teaching

Do First-Year Teachers Become Ineffective?

By dianeravitch
August 7, 2012 //
11

In response to the post about the “irreplaceables,” in which the New Teacher Project claims that an average first-year teacher is more effective than 40 percent of teachers with seven or more years of experience, teachers are asking the inevitable questions.

Why is education the only field in which experience is undesirable? In what other line of work would a first-year practitioner be considered better than those with years of experience? When you go to a hospital, do you want to see a doctor or a first-year intern or, for that matter, a new college graduate with no medical training at all?

And this:

If a first year teacher is more effective than one with seven years, what happens when that first year teacher has seven years? Does she too become ineffectual? I have been teaching for 16 years and know I am definitely better now than I was then. I also believe I will continue to get better with each passing year. This is nonsense.
Categories Alternate Route To Certification, Teacher Evaluations, Teachers and Teaching

Who Is Really an Irreplaceable Teacher?

By dianeravitch
August 7, 2012 //
11

We have lately heard that certain teachers are “irreplaceable.” So was the conclusion of a report by The New Teacher Project, an organization founded by Michelle Rhee to place new teachers in the classroom. TNTP always thinks big ideas that will push out experienced teachers and make room for the new teachers they recruit. TNPT is enamored with test scores as the bottom-line measure of good teaching because they are convinced their new teachers will raise test scores faster and higher than veteran teachers. Whether this is so, it is hard to say because the new teachers have never taught before and one year of data doesn’t mean much. So maybe after three or four years, it is possible to test their claims. The larger question, which TNTP never addresses or considers unimportant, is whether the ability to raise test scores is the very best way to measure who is a good teacher, who is irreplaceable.

Here is the tip-off to their self-interest: “In fact, in these districts, 40 percent of teachers with more than seven years of experience are less effective at advancing academic progress than the average first-year teacher.” Imagine that! The average first-year teachers (that is, the ones you can get if you work with TNTP) are far more effective that 40 percent of teachers with more than seven years experience! You can see where this is leading: experience is irrelevant because those great first-year teachers are better than 40 percent of the veterans. Why not ditch tenure and seniority and get rid of 40 percent of anyone who has taught for more than seven years? Unfortunately, the report laments, those ineffective experienced teachers were making more money than the average first-year teacher, which struck TNTP as blatantly unfair! Why not pay the highly effective, irreplaceable first-year teachers even more than the seven-year veterans and fire the veterans? I’m not clear about how they know first-year teachers are irreplaceable when they have no data until they are in their second year or third or fourth or fifth year. And maybe they are just good test-drill instructors. But since I don’t understand why anyone would think the way TNTP thinks, I can’t explain their thinking. Read it for yourself.

When the New York Times wrote its editorial advocating carrots and sticks, it was responding to the TNTP report, taking it as fact and truth.

Here is a different point of view about who is irreplaceable:

I was a good teacher before I went through National Boards. It was a grueling process–I had three episodes of shingles during that year, and cried the entire month of January. But I came out the other end a much better teacher, and I can document the impact I’ve had on student learning and student lives. If you’re NBCT, you’re highly effective–one might even say you’re one of the “irreplaceable” teachers that are beginning to make the news. BUT…you can’t use test scores to show student learning–it’s a much more complex and subtle process of actually looking at students as individuals and measuring learning in many ways. This is not comprehensible to anal-retentive number-crunching business-type reformers, who see the world in black and white–their world is binary. Research has shown that NBCTs are highly effective teachers. Several of my fellow NBCTs are leaving teaching for the private sector, and many others are retiring early, because of the “reforms” in education. So not only are the reformers destroying a program that increases teacher effectiveness, they’re driving effective teachers out of the classroom. I’m sad for our students, because they’re the ones that are getting the raw deal.
Categories Corporate Reformers, Education Reform, Rhee, Michelle, Teacher Evaluations, Teacher Tenure, Teachers and Teaching, Testing

When Merit Pay Went Wrong

By dianeravitch
August 7, 2012 //
1

A thought-provoking comment by Jere Hochman, the remarkable superintendent of the Bedford, New York, school district:

Merit pay existed well before the corporate interest in the ’80s / ’90s, the Governors’ attention in the ’90s, the Federal Intrusion in ’01, and the recent corporate takeover of politicians and state education. (Hopefully an unintended consequence of RTTT).

Several school districts had “merit” pay plans in place in the ’70s and ’80s with at least two presumptions: 1) Motivate and provide incentives (not just monetary) for leadership development, innovation, action-research, and professional growth in areas of interest and school direction. 2) Distinguish compensation for those who “seem” (no data used then) to be teaching at higher levels of proficiency but mostly expertise. Early research was clear on the development of novice vs. expert professionals so in lieu of or complementing the traditional step schedule, raises for continued growth and expertise that gets results.

Sadly, the politicians and state education / corporations have co-opted the model as a fixed pay-for-learning-to-follow-scripts-that-get-results model while stripping the schools of creativity, innovation, and intrinsic motivation. But let’s not throw the baby out with the bathwater (the way we have with just about everything else in education). Teachers are eager. They are on a mission. In spite of the rhetoric, they are not all about unions and raises, and clock-punching – the good ones just depend on the outspoken unions to protect them from unfair practices of the past. (Yes – it’s gone too far in counting minutes and pay-for-everything but there are millions of remarkable teachers in this for children and, yes, a fair wage, benefit, and protection). Teachers are motivated to continue learning and reaching every student – and those who pursue leadership and continued innovation and growth toward expertise should be compensated (again, not for sit-and-get credit workshops and poor online courses).

There was/is/can be great value (and return-on-investments for those who follow that) in “merit pay” but not the way the politicians and corporate quick-fixers are defining it. It’s time to take it all back: curriculum, pedagogy, innovation, bona-fide authentic evaluation, minimal standardized testing and more local authentic assessment, and professional development.

Categories Merit pay, Teachers and Teaching

But He Didn’t Mention His Test Scores

By dianeravitch
August 7, 2012 //
4

An amazing exchange took place on this blog.

I posted a comment by a reader who gratefully remembered four teachers in the Chicago public schools who literally changed his life.

One of the four teachers responded.

And the original writer wrote back:

Wow! Thank you, Miss Schwartz!Of the teachers that I mentioned, you actually impacted my life the most. At the time, I was primarily into writing, but I learned from you that, in order to improve one’s writing, one must read. At that point, I had not enjoyed reading and actually avoided it, and I was a rather rebellious adolescent… However, you were patient and inspiring… After exploring different genres and concepts with you, I discovered that there were many books I wanted to read, as well as many things in the world that I wanted to read about. Ever since, I’ve been interested in learning about virtually everything and my library has been my prized possession.

You also alerted me to my first two teaching jobs, working with preschoolers in Head Start and tutoring primary aged kids who were struggling readers. I had never planned to become a teacher, but that resulted in my 44 year long teaching career. (And, yes, I know what it’s like to have students return to touch base years later, too…!)

Thank you ever so much for appreciating my strengths, opening up the world to me (and me to it), and setting me on such an intrinsically rewarding path! Forever grateful (and sorry that I was not an easy kid)–
Categories Education Reform, Teachers and Teaching

Note to New York Times: What Motivates Teachers

By dianeravitch
August 7, 2012 //
2

In response to our discussion about merit pay, this teacher writes:

We become teachers for the rewarding feeling we get from touching childrens lives, not for the money. If that feeling is stripped from us, what or who will be left?

 

Categories Merit pay, Teachers and Teaching

Why She Left Teaching

By dianeravitch
August 6, 2012 //
35

I don’t think teachers who are passionate about teaching should quit, no matter how awful the circumstances.

I know it’s easy for me to say, because I am not there.

But it is important to keep experience and wisdom in the profession.

Don’t let them push you out.

Do what you love and what you believe in.

Be there the day this war on teachers ends, a victim of its inanity, stupidity, and ignorance.

Be there for your students.

This is a teacher who couldn’t take it anymore.

I retired early with just 20 years because the profession I have been so dedicated to and passionate about my entire life has been trashed by reformers like this idiot who don’t know what they are talking about; by the mayor and his educrats who have taken to vilifying teachers and disrespecting us at every turn; by the principals who haven’t taught long enough to be considered pedagogical experts on anything; by the most micromanaged, scripted, suffocating instructional mandates (everyone teaching the same lesson on the same day at the same time…day1, day2, day 3, day4, day 5, test); by the incessant and overwhelming collection of data that appears to have more value than actual creative planning and professional judgement. We have principals and Network leaders whose english and communication skills are abysmal; superintendents who don’t visit the schools they oversee; and a culture that supports the abusive and punitive treatment of teachers. This is antithetical to everything that made me want to become a teacher. New York City has lost many outstanding and experienced teachers in the past 5 years who left because they refuse to continue working under such conditions. Under the current system of school based budgeting, it’s always a good thing when a senior teacher leaves -they can hire two teachers at half the salary. When you’re looking at numbers and not people, that’s what really matters.
Categories NYC, Teachers and Teaching

A Florida Teacher Describes A Plan That Worked

By dianeravitch
August 6, 2012 //
29

In response to another reader, this Florida teacher describes a plan for teacher professionalism that worked very well but was de-funded by the Legislature.

In Florida, we used to have a system in place for such merit: It was pay for National Board Certification. Teachers went through a very rigorous process of evaluations, lesson planning, test-taking, etc. over a year and submitted their work to a national organization to be evaluated. It was a tough process, and not every teacher made it. Some teachers took several years of re-submitting their work before they were considered National Board Certified.

Once teachers earned initial certification, they were expected to become mentor teachers to newer teachers. The idea was to help develop and retain other strong teachers in the field.

Florida used to pay for the costly process of becoming certified. Once teachers were certified, they got an bonus of several thousand dollars- merit pay if you will- each year. They even had to re-certify every few years. Beyond that, NBCT teachers were paid bonus money for the number of hours they put in mentoring.

So what happened to this system of merit pay? It got cut. Completely done away with. The legislature used to fully fund it, but even before the economy tanked (because of course, that would be the argument for doing away with a program that actually improved the teaching profession and retained the best teachers) they cut all funding for the program. The very same legislators who pushed through our ill-conceived current merit pay plan- cut all funding for a merit-pay program that was actually working.

And how much funding is there now for our current merit-pay plan based strictly on test scores? Nada. Nothing. Zilch. How in the world does any businessman propose a merit pay plan with no actual merit?

It’s destined to fail in every capacity. Well, except one: increasing the bottom-line for test companies. As we divert (not come up with new funding, but divert from existing classroom funds) millions of dollars into hundreds of new poorly-written tests meant to “fit” this merit pay plan and determine who the “best” teachers are.

And as others have said, you are trying to quantify something that can’t be measured. Bonuses for coaching, sponsoring clubs, taking on leadership roles, extra tutoring, going through rigourous evaluation systems like National Board, I could buy it- those generally are your best teachers who truly are there for the kids.

But what we are doing with test scores is a complete joke. This WILL fail and I pray in a few years the pendulum starts to swing back towards common sense.

 

 
 
Categories Accountability, Florida, Teachers and Teaching
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