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Illinois: District Fires Outstanding Teacher Because of Book She Ordered

By dianeravitch
April 3, 2023 //
18

While traveling in the Midwest, I visited Illinois State University, which has an excellent teacher education program. A leader of that program recently wrote me while in a state of distress. One of her best students, she said, was just fired by her district. Why? One parent objected to a book in her classroom.

Who will want to teach when teachers’ lives and reputations can be jeopardized by one angry parent? Maybe that is the point: Demonize public schools and their teachers to build support for vouchers, where uncertified teachers are hired and the Bible is the beginning and end of all knowledge.

Here is an excerpt from the letter I received:

Tonight, I’m writing to you to share the story of the most amazing teacher I have ever worked with in my nearly 25 years in education–except she is no longer a teacher as of last Thursday. I know you have committed your career to fighting injustices like hers, so it is my hope that you might amplify her story in the fight against misinformation and teacher defamation.

As a teacher educator at Illinois State University, I met Sarah Bonner 10 years ago when she was in my action research capstone class as the final requirement for her master’s degree. During the year I worked with her, I was struck by her approach to education, and I encouraged her to continue working toward a doctorate degree. Since that time, I have had the opportunity to work closely with her, co-designing a framework that paired literature and inquiry as a way to expand 8th grade students’ in rural Illinois worldviews; co-teaching alongside her to maintain my connection to the classroom and to continue to evolve our work; guiding her in her dissertation work where she connected with teachers who were interested in transforming their own teaching; watching her mentor emerging, new, and experienced teachers; and witnessing the blossoming of students under her guidance–especially those who are often marginalized in largely conservative, small schools. I can honestly say that I have never had the opportunity to work with a more compassionate, innovative, and thought-provoking teacher. She’s by far a better teacher than I was when I was still in the middle school classroom, and working alongside her has pushed me to be an even better teacher educator than I was before.

For this reason, I cannot begin to describe the devastation that I experienced when I learned less than two weeks ago that not only was she being attacked by our local conservative “news” station, but that her district advised that she seek union representation to represent her while they investigated the story. She received this news on Wednesday, March 15. By Friday March 17 she learned that she was being put on paid leave the next week so they could investigate–and they hadn’t even talked with her yet.

What was the story? As a part of a book tasting day, Sarah consulted NCTE, ALA, and Good Reads to find award-winning and notable books that would reflect her students’ interests–and checked out nearly 100 books from the public library. One of those books was Juno Dawson’s “This Book Is Gay.” A student picked up the book, a sex education book for LGBTQ+ youth, snapped some pictures of its pages, and sent those pages home. Rather than approaching Sarah with questions or concerns, this child’s parents alerted the media outlet, and a witch-hunt began.

Suddenly, the wild and false allegations began: Sarah was requiring this book; the book was a regular part of her classroom library; she was sharing pornography with children; she was grooming children. And then, they went to her class website, which shared a link to Common Sense Media’s Netflix Documentary page, which so happened to feature Moneyshot, and now she was encouraging students to watch and learn about porn. Ironically, this film hadn’t even been released when she was last in the classroom. The story just kept growing until this award-winning teacher realized that she could not go back to that community again. And so, by this past Thursday, she had officially resigned. In just over a week, a teacher’s reputation, livelihood, and life was completely upended.

Sarah is fortunate brcause she’s got the deep knowledge and experience to bounce back and counter the current narrative. Unfortunately, this kind of experience is not unique, and too often teachers who aren’t equipped to handle it take huge hits. It’s impacting their mental health, their careers, their entire livelihoods. We have a narrative around a teacher shortage. We don’t have a teacher shortage—we have a shortage of respect and support for teachers. And we live in Illinois, a liberal state that requires LGBTQ+ history and contributions to be taught by 8th grade. Too many people are watching the antics happening in states like Florida and thinking those are outliers. They are not. Sarah is an award-winning teacher. She is a leader in and on the executive board of the National Council Teachers of English. And yet, she will no longer impact the lives of so many students.

Democracy is in peril as we continue to bow to pressures to restrict the books students can read. We cannot normalize allowing a few loud voices’ the power to destroy careers and lives. I have attached the statement she wrote and read to her board upon her resignation.

Here is Sarah Bonner’s statement to her school board:

Thank you to the Heyworth Board and Administrative team for allowing me to speak this evening. If you know anything about me as a professional, you know that this is not the way I would have chosen to be here tonight. Twenty years ago when I was given the keys to my very first classroom, I knew teaching was my calling. And, while I’ve taught in previous school districts over the years, Heyworth was the place that allowed me to become the professional I was meant to be.

Throughout my time here, I earned both my Masters and Doctorate degrees with the help of district tuition waivers. I became the National Council of Teachers of English (or NCTE) Media Literacy Teacher of the Year in 2018 along with the national Outstanding Middle Level Educator award the following year. I wrote and published a book through Teachers College Press to further the teaching field. Additionally, I hosted and supported numerous future teachers from Illinois State University as they began their journey into the classroom. Lastly – most importantly – I had the opportunity to connect with the best kids I’ve ever worked with in my career.


Our community – or even our nation – may never know the gravity of what teachers bear on a regular basis. For me, I not only worked tirelessly on designing and cultivating meaningful learning experiences for my students, but I also worked hard to maintain healthy relationships with students and families, upheld weekly and transparent communication among all shareholders, contributed regularly to the junior high teacher team, worked a second teaching job at Illinois State University to better support my family, served as the Middle Level Section Steering Committee Chairperson for NCTE, wrote a doctoral dissertation, published a book for teachers, along with being a partner, a mother, and a human wrestling with being newly diagnosed with multiple sclerosis.

With all of this weighing heavily on my plate, I depended on national communities like the American Library Association and NCTE as well as reading communities like Goodreads to help generate texts that engage all readers with a vast collection of interests. The activity my students and I participated in last week was made up of close to 100 different books recommended from these spaces. Given the nature of the lesson compressed with a heavy list of responsibilities, vetting each and every single text for explicit details was impossible. Should the book in question be available to students? Yes. However, should this specific book have been a part of the 100 choices during this class activity? No. Simply put, the title was on the ALA Rainbow Reading Awardee list and I picked it along with a few others because I knew students in my class had interests. To make students, families, community members feel unsafe was never the intention of my decision making.

While I’m saddened by how the events have played out over the last week, there’s a piece of me that isn’t surprised. Being an innovator in teaching means that boundaries, perspectives, and ideas need to be pushed. When I realized years ago that our kids who would receive these amazing scholarships to these Big 10 schools were coming back the following year because they couldn’t adjust to life outside of a rural small town, I knew I needed to do something. I knew I needed to disrupt traditional learning practices to embody the needs of today’s world. Our kids deserve learning experiences that prepare them for our world and not just our town. However, being a changemaker often comes with a cost…especially if you’re one of the only ones willing to take risks and think differently.


London’s favorite soccer coach, Ted Lasso – the man who makes us all believe in the power of believe – said it best ”You know, people have underestimated me my entire life. And for years, I never understood why. It used to really bother me. But then one day, I saw this quote by Walt Whitman. It said, “Be curious, not judgmental.” All of a sudden it hits me. Of all those that used to belittle me, not a single one of them was curious. They thought they had everything all figured out. So they judged everything, and they judged everyone. And I realized that their underestimating me… who I was had nothing to do with it. ‘Cause if they were curious, they would’ve asked questions.”
As I leave here tonight, I hope you will remember a few things:

  1. Sometimes things need to break in order to rebuild it stronger. Encourage
    curiosity. As you enter a space of healing, I hope the district and Heyworth community can find a place to listen and understand that you all want the best for our kids. Our teachers especially deserve to be heard and questioned in responsible ways.
  2. Remember to support your teachers moving forward. If I were them at this point, I would feel scared, unsafe, and paralyzed knowing that I could be next. Our teacher community needs reassurance that innovation is still supported and protected as time moves on.
  3. And, remember the good I brought to our kids and community by taking innovative risks in Language Arts. While I’ve been here, I have witnessed students stand up for other students with disabilities, fight against racism, organize trash clean ups, create documentaries that tell the untold stories of their community, advocate for safe spaces, strengthen their own beliefs, shape their own personal identities, and critically think about the world around them. With the work I’ve been able to do with students, I’m reminded on a daily basis that our kids will be the hope our future needs.

The Heyworth school district has lost a teacher who is dedicated to their children and her profession.

Categories Accountability, Censorship, Creativity, Democracy, Extremism, Illinois, Teacher Shortage, Teachers and Teaching

Rcharvet: Was I a “Bad Teacher” Because I Taught Poor Kids?

By dianeravitch
March 28, 2023 //
26

A reader named Rcharvet wrote the following about his career as a teacher in an impoverished district in California.

All I know is for nearly 30 years, I taught the kids no one wanted. Back in the day, AWNOLD S wanted to have merit pay for teachers based on test scores (results). I turned and asked the kids, “Have I provided you with materials that you need? Have I stayed after school to help you? Have I helped with just about anything? Then why don’t you do your work? They replied, “I don’t know; there are always better things to do.” I said, “So if I am going to be evaluated on my “merits” then I am screwed, right?” I know they meant well, but just had no family support. At one school, we were testing and I said, “Just do your best.” The young student turned to me and said, “I don’t even understand the directions.” Meanwhile (our school was rated at a 1 out of 10) the other school was in the wealthy area (10) and didn’t even sweat the test. “What test?” Far too many had the stress levels of 34 year olds; translated for parents in the court system; made dinner and lunch for their siblings — they had more important things to do. Even though I would be deemed a “bad teacher” for not getting the kids to be “10s”, my son said that I was making a bigger difference in their lives than at the comprehensive high school. I stuck it out with “my kids” because they needed someone to believe in them; a hug; a ride home; food and water and clothes; and someone to remind them, “Without you, the world would be a darker place. You are meant to change the world whether you know it or not. And it will be the little things you do that with create the biggest change, not memorizing some facts for a test that you forget a week later. But, I guess that doesn’t count when looking at the analytics. Needless to say, for most teachers, why would they work at a place with kids who score low on tests? In the end, my tombstone would say, “He helped everyone and those who needed him the most.” Sad for those kids.

Categories Accountability, Education Reform, Teachers and Teaching

Texas: Teacher in Amarillo Explains the Voucher Hoax

By dianeravitch
March 23, 2023 //
11

Cecily Riesenberg, a teacher at Caprock High School in Amarillo, Texas, wrote an opinion article for the Amarillo Globe-News. She explained why vouchers will benefit the most affluent families and offer low-quality schools to most other students.

She wrote:

Both sides of the aisle agree that education needs reform. At first glance, vouchers seem like a great solution. Who wouldn’t think that parents should have “freedom,” and “choices,” and that more “competition” will make the market stronger. But that simply isn’t what the data shows.

Data shows that vouchers benefit the wealthy who need it the least, hurt the disadvantaged the most, abuse taxpayer dollars, and erase the separation between church and state. Vouchers act like a discount for wealthy students already in private schools. Picture a country club that won’t allow any new members, but now their current members get to use taxpayer money to subsidize part of their dues. Not only is everyone else stuck at the public pool, but now we’re all paying for a few people to go to the country club, and we have less money to maintain or upgrade the public pool. That’s how vouchers work in the states that have them.

There are three kinds of private schools. The first type are elite, exclusive, “country-club” schools that don’t want or need more students and won’t accept vouchers at all. These schools are able to stay elite because of their exclusivity. Then there are new private schools that pop up after states implement vouchers. New private schools don’t focus on quality education at all – they use taxpayer money to market themselves to attract more students and take more public money. After a few months, families realize these schools can’t offer what they were selling. Students withdraw, but the school keeps the money. Most of these schools close within four years, but not until after they’ve made a profit, and the students are left further behind. The third type of private schools are subprime schools that need taxpayer money just to stay afloat. These schools have a 40% failure rate.

Vouchers only offer the illusion of choice.

Many states have tried vouchers, the data shows they failed and abused public resources. Not only do charters and private schools in Arizona, Indiana, Ohio, and Louisiana, have worse educational outcomes than public schools, but when so many programs receive public money, it’s impossible to monitor where the money goes in the same way that public schools are held accountable. In Arizona, for example, an audit showed that parents were using taxpayer dollars to buy kayaks and take vacations. We can’t claim to value fiscal responsibility and support a shady cash grab for corporate charters, “service providers,” and bank fees.

Rural areas will be harmed the most by vouchers, because there aren’t enough students to make opening new schools profitable. But rural public schools would still lose enrollment and funding as some parents use vouchers for homeschooling or online schooling. Again, the quality of these options is almost always lower than public schools.

Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick and Governor Abbott are always ready to listen to their wealthy donors and the corporations that are lined up like vultures to make a buck. Recently, Governor Abbott has been on a whirlwind tour of private Christian schools to sell his agenda. He even came to Amarillo on March 2nd to speak at San Jacinto Christian Academy, a tiny school that serves less than 400 students. But the governor refused an invitation to tour Amarillo ISD public schools and listen to the tens of thousands of teachers, students, and parents who would be harmed by vouchers. Even if San Jacinto offered a world-class education, they would never have the capacity to serve a significant number of Amarillo’s students.

There are answers on how to actually reform education. We can follow the lead of countries like Finland that consistently rank high on international measures of reading and math skills. Finland doesn’t have vouchers. They don’t even have private schools. There, every school is public and wellfunded. Every student can get a quality education from their neighborhood school, and every student has an equal opportunity to achieve. Finland attracts the best and brightest to the teaching profession by requiring a masters degree and paying them as much as doctors or lawyers. Finnish teachers are empowered, respected, and trusted – essentially the opposite of how teachers are treated in Texas.

Imagine Texas as a state that consistently ranks higher in education than other states and countries, where students excel academically and socially, and find fulfilling careers post-graduation. We can get there, but it will not be by following Governor Abbott’s orders. The governor’s orders will only lead to the wealthy donor class pocketing taxpayer money while the average student falls further behind.

We know what works. So why don’t politicians want to do it? Simple – it’s impossible to monetize and profit from this approach the way they can with vouchers.

Reach out to your state senators and representatives to let them know that public schools are the bedrock of our communities. We need to make them stronger instead of tearing them down and selling them for parts.

The right to public education is enshrined in our constitution. We have to guarantee that right to every child, regardless of race, income, or zip code, and the best way to do that is by fully funding public schools.

Categories Accountability, Budget Cuts, Charter Schools, Competition, Corruption, Democracy, Education Industry, Fraud, Funding, School Choice, Supporting public schools, Teacher Pay, Teachers and Teaching, Texas, Vouchers

Paul Bonner: The Missing Strategy for School Improvement

By dianeravitch
March 3, 2023 //
87

Paul Bonner is a retired teacher and principal. He consistently posts wise insights about teaching and schools.

We spend a significant amount of time bemoaning the existence of charters, vouchers, and privatization, and deservedly so. However, what we don’t challenge is the the misguided culture that drives much of the leadership within public school bureaucracy. I have read untold articles, attended conferences, and sat through meetings with my superiors where the validity of school boards is questioned. I have watched politically tone deaf school board members, politicians, and citizens question the role of superintendents. I have heard little from elected or appointed leadership that shows real concern for the needs of individual schools. The circular firing squad comes to mind. Superintendents across the country along with School Boards should take some blame for the rise of privatized initiatives. Citizens get frustrated because the district apparatus too often comes off as aloof and disengaged from the issues facing communities. The disjointed efforts of school policy makers has given an opening to corporate interests who see the chance to make a buck through lobbying district leaders and various politicians because, too often, school districts seem incapable of carrying out their mission to serve children. Where are parents to turn? Finland famously turned their schools around by focusing on preparing and providing for teachers. We in the US continue to organize through top down bureaucratic models that contribute to the profound inequality of student opportunity while perpetually searching for the Superintendent who can fix it. The wasted resources spent on the ongoing dance in large city districts with failed superintendents, as evidenced by an average service time of 3.76 years (k12insight.com), will only continue if policy makers focus on “the one best system” over investment in the foundation of teacher driven instruction. Data clearly reveals that superintendents have almost no impact on individual student achievement, whereas teachers given the tools to establish relationships with students and their parents have a life long impact.

Categories Administrators, superintendents, Education Reform, Teacher Pay, Teacher Shortage, Teachers and Teaching

Kansas Public School Teacher: The Benefits of Privatization

By dianeravitch
February 24, 2023 //
22

Liz Meitl is a public school teacher in Kansas. She usually testifies against vouchers and other forms of privatization, but she suddenly realized what she could do if the Kansas legislature passes a voucher bill. She would open a completely unregulated school to do what the rightwingers fear most!

She wrote in The Kansas Reflector:

      

Liz Meitl

Liz Meitl testifies Feb. 6, 2023, before the House K-12 Education Budget Committee regarding legislation that would create vouchers for unregulated, unaccreddited private schools. GOP education proposals could allow for schools to turn into indoctrination mills, Meitl writes. (Kansas Reflector screen capture from Kansas Legislature YouTube channel)

Two years ago I wrote an opinion piece for the Kansas Reflector in which I argued that the Legislature should be celebrating Kansas public schools, rather than trying to tear them apart through voucher plans.

In the two years since, the fight has been ongoing, with no break in the Legislature’s efforts to destroy public education. This year’s session has brought us a tidal wave of proposed legislation that would divert hundreds of millions of dollars from public schools to private schools.

The legislation has shifted, though. Now it’s not just for low-income students, or for already established private schools.

The new legislation allows any kid to access the funds, and it allows anybody to set up a school. And so I have had an entirely serious change of heart. I am in no way taking a ridiculous idea to its logical extreme, so just put that out of your mind right now.

Let me explain.

Bills in the House and Senate that would allow families to use state money to send their kids to private schools — specifically House Bill 2218 — represent an enormous opportunity for Kansas educators. This legislation will allow Kansas to be a beacon to the rest of the country. Just as the world watched on Aug. 2nd as Kansans defeated the anti-choice agenda, the world can now watch as our liberal, woke educators are freed from the bonds of bureaucratic oversight and local, state and federal regulations.

Other educators, like me, will jump at the chance to open our own micro-schools and enact our own curricular agendas. We will be able to recruit the students we want to teach. We will no longer be asked to serve all students equitably, but instead we can create small, insular communities of learners, focused on the topics we feel are most valuable.

This is an enormous opportunity for all Kansas teachers who are tired of being subject to democratically elected school boards’ rules and out-of-touch federal lawmakers’ regulations.

When I think about opening my own school, I can’t help but be thrilled at the potential freedom. I will have the opportunity to teach English classes rooted in critical race theory. I know many legislators think we teach CRT now, but really there is so much oversight and collaboration that I am hamstrung and forced to teach lessons based on “pedagogical research” and “student data.”

This legislation will allow me to teach what many of the conservatives assumed I most want to teach: a leftist agenda focused on my Marxist, atheist ideology.

I can create a social studies class anchored in the history of white people as oppressors and colonizers. I can develop a rich, interdisciplinary course of study in which we study the benefits of recreational marijuana and psilocybin, and we can take scientific field trips to grow houses and dispensaries. My math classes will focus on the benefits of a socialist economy, and I will do my best to cultivate highly educated, intrinsically motivated radicals.

Further, work with my students will be based on a feelings-first curriculum. Their social and emotional well-being will drive instruction. I recognize legislators’ intent, that parents need to choose educational environments, so I will invite parents to provide tokens of comfort from home and I will use them to decorate our classroom.

Without the burden of state-mandated assessments weighing me down, and free from any governmental oversight, I will have the bandwidth to focus on supporting students’ identities. That will be especially rewarding for me and my LGBTQIA students.

In addition to the curricular and practical freedoms offered, this legislation creates an enormous financial opportunity. I know, without a doubt, that I can recruit 21 students to attend my little school. I have a big basement, and the materials will come from my own head (and heart), so I will have almost no overhead.

This means that I will make somewhere around $100,000 annually, based on current base state aid per student. This is substantially more than I earn now, and I will be responsible for many fewer students. It is clearly a financial windfall for any motivated adult.

In conclusion, these bills are a giant win for Kansas educators and youths. I can’t believe I didn’t see it before.

The total lack of oversight and regulation, combined with the financial incentives, create an almost irresistible opportunity for those of us with an agenda for our state’s future. Teachers’ dedication to Kansas’s public schools and serving every student will certainly mean almost nothing when we consider the possibilities offered via this legislation.

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Liz Meitl is a public school teacher in USD 500, and her two children attend Kansas public schools. Through its opinion section, Kansas Reflector works to amplify the voices of people who are affected by public policies or excluded from public debate. Find information, including how to submit your own commentary, here.

Categories Accountability, Class size, Creativity, Curriculum, Democracy, Education Industry, Freedom, Funding, Kansas, Privatization, Race, Teachers and Teaching, Vouchers

Jan Resseger: Why Are Teachers Being Demonized by Legislators?

By dianeravitch
January 31, 2023 //
11

Jan Resseger understands that legislators don’t know what teachers do all day. This ignorance enables them to echo outlandish insults about teachers and to write laws to solve non-existent problems. Legislators need to spend time in their local public schools to inform themselves and dispel the myths.

She writes:

Political attacks on teachers seem to be everywhere. Fanatical critics charge that teachers destroy white children’s self esteem by honestly acknowledging racism, and worse, they accuse teachers of “grooming” children. Public schoolteachers are the collateral damage in a widespread political campaign to discredit public schooling and promote privatization. As the new year begins, I have been grateful to prominent news commentators for calling out the scapegoating of schoolteachers.

The Cleveland Plain Dealer’s retired editorial page director, Brent Larkin devoted a weekly column to exploring what’s been happening in Ohio politics: “A large number of odious types in elected life are so obsessed with demonizing public schoolteachers that it interferes with these legislators’ ability to deal with real problems.” Larkin quotes Scott DiMauro, president of the Ohio Education Association: “When you have people deliberately fostering distrust, it has a devastating impact on educator morale… There are just so many challenges in terms of inequity of resources, discipline, poverty and culture-war attacks that have been very deliberately orchestrated by people on the right.'” Larkin concludes: “Great teachers are to be treasured. The way they’re treated speaks volumes about where we’re headed.”

The Washington Post’s culture critic, Robin Givhan wonders: “Who will remain when educators tire of picking their way through a political obstacle course of ginned-up outrage over bathrooms and manufactured controversies about racial justice?… Who will educate children when teachers finally become fed up with dodging bullets—or taking bullets—in service to someone else’s child?… It’s no secret that they’re underpaid for all the duties they perform… The United States has lost 370,000 teachers since the start of the pandemic… Critics have been punishing a them from all sides. The country asks public school teachers to carry this nation’s future on their backs, and then we force them to walk through a field of land mines.”

John Merrow, the retired education reporter for the PBS NewsHour recently wrote: “According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, teachers are about three times as likely as other U.S. workers to moonlight… However, if you factor in part-time jobs within the school system, like coaching, teaching evening classes, or even driving a school bus, then an astonishing 59% of teachers are working part-time to supplement what they earn as full time teachers, according to the Economic Policy Institute… Teacher salaries have not kept up with inflation… and according to Education Week, ‘Teachers are also working under a ‘pay penalty,’ an economic concept meaning they earn lower weekly wages and receive lower overall compensation for their work than similar college-educated peers…'”

Data confirm Merrow’s concerns. In last summer’s most recent report from the Economic Policy Institute on the need to raise teachers’ salaries, Sylvia Allegretto reported the serious and growing disparity in the wages for teachers and other comparably educated college graduates: “Inflation-adjusted average weekly wages of teachers have been relatively flat since 1996. The average weekly wages of public school teachers (adjusted only for inflation) increased just $29 from 1996 to 2021, from $1,319 to $1,348 (in 2021 dollars). In contrast, inflation-adjusted weekly wages of other college graduates rose from $1,564 to $2,009 over the same period—a $445 increase.”

Bloomberg adds that one consequence of low pay on top of a barrage of controversy about what and how teachers teach is the growing shortage of teachers: “Overall, the U.S. job market ended 2022 at a near record for growth but one area in particular underscores how some parts of the economy still lag far behind pre-pandemic levels… The slow crawl is largely due to one industry—education—making up more than half of the jobs lost… (T)here has been a mass exodus of educators, leaving school districts with mounting vacancies to fill.”

There is clearly a tragic disconnect between the needs of America’s public schools and the resources legislators across the states are providing. Why? Part of the cause, of course, is the ideologically driven campaign the news commentators have noticed. Far right groups like the Bradley Foundation, EdChoice, Americans for Prosperity and the Goldwater Institute are pursuing a lavishly funded lobbying campaign—with model laws written and distributed by the American Legislative Exchange Council—to encourage legislators to privatize the whole educational enterprise.

Something else, however, has made our legislators increasingly susceptible to the ideology of the lobbyists and school privatizers. For several hours in December, as I watched a televised hearing of the Ohio House Education Committee, I was struck by so many lawmakers who seemed to define the role of teachers as mechanical producers of standardized test scores—and who conceptualize schools as merely an assembly line turning out workers who will help attract business and manufacturing to Ohio. I listened to a conversation filled with standardized test scores—numbers, percentages, and supposed trends measured by numbers. The only time human beings appeared in the discussion of education was when legislators blamed teachers for the numbers. It is not surprising that the same Ohio legislators are trying to transform the Ohio Department of Education into a new Department of Education and the Workforce.

In Ohio and across every state, aggregate standardized test scores dropped during the school closures and remote learning during COVID-19, but as I watched the televised hearing, the legislators seemed furious that teachers had not quickly come up with a different set of test-score production methods and turned the scores around. They seemed to believe that teachers should have been able to erase students’ emotional struggles during the return to schooling after COVID disruptions. Several declared that putting the governor in charge of education would take care of the problem and make teachers accountable.

As I watched the hearing, I realized again something that I already knew: Many of the people who make public education policy at the state level don’t know what teachers do. Few people on that committee seemed to grasp that teaching school is a complex and difficult job.

Watching the members of the Ohio House of Representatives discuss their concerns about our public schools made me think about David Berliner’s description of teaching. Berliner is Regents’ Professor of Education, Emeritus, at Arizona State University. He has also taught at the Universities of Arizona and Massachusetts, at Teachers College and Stanford University. Berliner comments on the human complexity of teaching as he contrasts the work of teachers and doctors:

“A physician usually works with one patient at a time, while a teacher serves 25, 30 or in places like Los Angeles and other large cities, they may be serving 35 or more youngsters simultaneously. Many of these students don’t speak English well. Typically anywhere from 5-15% will show emotional and/or cognitive disabilities. Most are poor, and many reside in single parent families… Many patients seek out their physicians, choosing to be in their office. On the other hand, many students seek to be out-of-class…. I always wonder how physicians would fare if 30 or so kids… showed up for medical treatment all at once, and then left 50 minutes later, healed or not! And suppose this chaotic scene was immediately followed by thirty or more different kids… also in need of personal attention. And they too stayed about 50 minutes…. Imagine waves of these patients hitting a physicians’ office five or six times a day!”

Berliner continues: “(T)eachers have been found to make about .7 decisions per minute during interactive teaching. Another researcher estimated that teachers’ decisions numbered about 1,500 per day. Decision fatigue is among the many reasons teachers are tired after what some critics call a short work day, forgetting or ignoring the enormous amount of time needed for preparation, for grading papers and homework, and for filling out bureaucratic forms and attending school meetings. In fact, it takes about 10 years for teachers to hit their maximum ability….”

Watching our legislators also made me think about the late Mike Rose’s definition of good teaching. Rose taught college students how to teach and he spent a good part of his career visiting classes to observe and document what excellent teachers do. Rose’s very best book, Possible Lives, is the story of his observations of excellent teaching as he spent three years observing public school classrooms across the United States: “Some of the teachers I visited were new, and some had taught for decades. Some organized their classrooms with desks in rows, and others turned their rooms into hives of activity. Some were real performers, and some were serious and proper. For all the variation, however, the classrooms shared certain qualities… The classrooms were safe. They provided physical safety…. but there was also safety from insult and diminishment…. Intimately related to safety is respect…. Talking about safety and respect leads to a consideration of authority…. A teacher’s authority came not just with age or with the role, but from multiple sources—knowing the subject, appreciating students’ backgrounds, and providing a safe and respectful space. And even in traditionally run classrooms, authority was distributed…. These classrooms, then, were places of expectation and responsibility…. Overall the students I talked to, from primary-grade children to graduating seniors, had the sense that their teachers had their best interests at heart and their classrooms were good places to be.”

I wish the people who make the laws which allocate and distribute state funding for public schools, were required to spend one day every year visiting a public school to watch what teachers do. In fact, I wish every state legislator were required to undertake the challenge of teaching in a public elementary, middle or high school for at least half of one school day every year.

Categories Education Reform, Teacher Evaluations, Teacher Pay, Teacher Shortage, Teacher Tenure, Teachers, Teachers and Teaching

Kindergarten Teacher: Please, No More “Rigor” or “Data”

By dianeravitch
December 5, 2022 //
73

A reader who signs in as “kindergarteninterlude” posted the following comment in the discussion about “growth mindset”:

The year I retire, I will have a tee-shirt made. On the front will be the word- big and bold- “RIGOR”, with the NO Symbol on top (a circle and diagonal line through it).


On the back will be the word data with the same NO symbol on top of it.


I’d love to work in “growth mindset “. What a bunch of garbage.


Hopefully my tee-shirt will be a conversation starter and I will be happy to talk to people about my experiences in the kindergarten classroom.

I will explain that rigor is developmentally inappropriate and the desperate attempt to shove rigor into the heart and mind of kindergartners (and every other grade level student) can only hurt them.

As for data- the obsession is destructive on so many levels. What’s worse, it’s meaningless.


Diane, why does this insanity persist? Why are true best practices and proven methods of success in education completely dismissed? I have been shaking my head (and my fist) for 20 years. Nothing changes. It’s just getting worse. What will it ever take to shift this train wreck that is education?

Categories Childhood, Pre-K, K, Creativity, Cruelty, Data, Education Industry, Education Reform, Grit, Joy, Students, Teachers and Teaching

Dan Rather: Thank You, Teachers

By dianeravitch
November 24, 2022 //
24

I have been saving this lovely tribute for the right moment. It’s now, as red state legislatures rev up their attacks on teachers and on the profession. North Carolina leads the pack in its current effort to lower entry standards for teachers (only an associate degree needed to enter the field—two years of college), and pay tied to student test scores, a practice that has failed everywhere tried. In the background is the Gates Foundation, repeating its well-established practice of funding failure. Florida, too, is lowering its standards for teachers and welcoming non-professionals into the classroom. Think of it: Do you want your next air flight to be piloted by someone with six weeks training? Do you want a surgery performed by a medical student?

Dan Rather, a graduate of the Houston public schools (like me), remembers his teachers with gratitude:

One of the great sadnesses of our current age is how politics has polluted so much of our public discourse and spread into realms that once seemed free of partisanship. That this occurs at a time when much of the Republican Party has adopted the posture of a bully and is gripped by extremist ideology and attacks on truth and justice makes it all the more dangerous and dispiriting.

Perhaps nowhere is this more true than in the battlegrounds that our schools have become. We are living in an age when the number of books being banned is on the rise and the willingness to confront America’s complicated history is on the decline. We see intolerance worn as a badge of toughness, while inclusion, the great promise of what public education can be, is treated as weakness. We see a concerted effort to take over school boards, especially in deeply conservative areas, with true believers in the culture wars eager to inflict their small-mindedness, bias, and mean-spirited ideology on shaping how young minds are taught.

Teaching, already an underappreciated profession in this country, is becoming an even less appealing line of work. We have educators who have spent decades in the classroom now forced to look over their shoulders, wondering whether the books on their shelves or their carefully honed lesson plans will run afoul of the new draconian mandates. And we have young idealists with freshly minted teaching certificates wondering whether they can impart their excitement and new ideas into the students before them.

Some of these concerns are not new. When I was a student, for example, racial injustice in the form of legally segregated schools was a hallmark of public education. Schools have always been shaped by the larger societal forces that whip around them. Public education is, after all, about molding the minds and the mores of future citizens. Few institutions have more power in determining what this country will become than our schools.

But there have been decades of progress on what and how our children are taught, and today that wave of advancement is retreating in many parts of America. Sadly, there are so many examples of far-right ideology shaping curricula, on issues ranging from race to LGBTQ rights to science, that to call them all out individually is an impossible task. This is a broad movement not confined by school or district; much of the effort is being directed at the state level.

Republican politicians have learned that they can rally their base through bad-faith misrepresentations of school culture, which they depict as out of control with so-called “woke” ideology (which we wrote about in Steady here) and the bogeyman of “critical race theory,” which they totally mischaracterize — and which is taught in almost none of the schools where they have made it an issue. Nearly every parent wants good schools for their children, and Republicans are playing to fears they have carefully fanned to lure in voters even beyond their base. This was notably true in the last gubernatorial election in Virginia. Meanwhile, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has cultivated his political reputation (and a likely presidential run) by attacking professional educators — and indeed the very idea that schools should be welcoming, tolerant learning environments.

The elections that lie ahead — not only the big, marquee ones, but more importantly, those for school boards and other local offices — will do a lot to shape what will happen in our schools in the years to come. But there is another force that is even more powerful, and as we mark the beginning of a new school year, let us recognize it: teachers.

While we should grapple with the political context laid out above, let us shift the tone of this piece now to one of celebration. Writing about teachers, singing their praises, honoring them as American heroes has long been one of my favorite activities. It never gets old, and it never gets less important.

I would like to use whatever platform I have to shine a spotlight of deep respect on these invaluable public servants. And I am pleased that if you search for quotes from me online, one of the most popular is this:

“The dream begins with a teacher who believes in you, who tugs and pushes and leads you to the next plateau, sometimes poking you with a sharp stick called ‘truth.’”

I believe every word of it. These aren’t empty sentiments. They come from my lived history. A while back here on Steady, I shared my own experiences as a student of public schools, including an emotional return to my elementary school in Houston.

For all the challenges our schools face, right now millions of children are learning about the world and themselves thanks to dedicated teachers. Teachers are going the extra mile, reaching out to kids in need, tweaking lesson plans to include new insights, passing their own inspirations to the young people before them.

The work is not easy — far from it. And it can be an incredible grind, especially when it seems that society doesn’t value it or is even outright hostile to teachers. With this as a backdrop, it is understandable that many are choosing to leave the profession. This is not a reflection on them, but rather on the nation that is allowing it to happen.

Teachers, you are our inspiration and our hope. You nurture the flames of our democracy. You literally save lives. You work miracles every day. Your resourcefulness, resilience, and creativity are boundless. We saw it during the heart of the pandemic. And we see it now. It is all the more reason you should not be taken for granted.

Dear readers, how many of you can close your eyes and be transported to a classroom from your past? Do you see a favorite teacher? Hear that word of encouragement or hard truth that shaped the course of your life? Teachers are the winds that propel our children’s sails forward. They are the North Stars that help guide us all.

I apologize if this reads as a bit trite. I can imagine red ink on the page from some of my previous English teachers marking my excesses. Sadly, those teachers are all now long gone. But in me, as in my classmates, as in all of you, the work of our teachers lives on.

We cannot thank our teachers enough. Each day the gifts they have given us are renewed. We should do everything we can to protect them and value them. A lot of this work must be done at the ballot box, but it can also be accomplished through words of encouragement and support.

To all the teachers out there: thank you.

Categories Teachers and Teaching

Pompeo: Randi Weingarten Is “the Most Dangerous Person in the World”

By dianeravitch
November 23, 2022 //
81

Trump’s Secretary of State Mike Pompeo just proved that he is the stupidest person in the world. He said in an interview that Randi Weingarten, President of the American Federation of Teachers, is “the most dangerous person in the world.”

More dangerous than the President of China, Xi Jinping, who is threatening the survival of Taiwan and re-imposing a repressive regime across China.

More dangerous than President Kim, the dictator of North Korea, who is threatening South Korea and the rest of the world, with his intercontinental ballistic missiles and nuclear weapons.

More dangerous than Russian dictator Vladimir Putin, who is trying to destroy the people of Ukraine by destroying their access to heat, light, and water as winter begins,in addition to raining deadly missiles on them.

No, Pompeo says, Randi is “the most dangerous person in the world.”

Why? Because she leads a teachers’ unions, and unions are evil.

Teachers too are evil, Pompeo believes, because the children of America can’t read, write, or do math.

He said,

“I tell the story often — I get asked ‘Who’s the most dangerous person in the world? Is it Chairman Kim, is it Xi Jinping?’ The most dangerous person in the world is Randi Weingarten,” Pompeo said.

“It’s not a close call. If you ask, ‘Who’s the most likely to take this republic down?’ It would be the teacher’s unions, and the filth that they’re teaching our kids, and the fact that they don’t know math and reading or writing,” the former top U.S. diplomat added.

Randi replied:

In a thread on Twitter, Weingarten said she didn’t know if the remarks should be considered “ridiculous or dangerous.”

“At the state department, Pompeo defended Middle East’s tyrants & undermined Ukraine. He was more focused on pleasing Trump than fighting 4 freedom, national security & democracy. To compare us to China means he must not know what his own department says,” she wrote.

“Maybe spend a minute in one of the classrooms with my members and their students and you will get a real lesson in the promise and potential of America.”

Pompeo’s blast is ridiculous and stupid. But it’s also dangerous for Randi. It makes her a target of extremists in search of targets. This country has a surfeit of lunatics with guns. Pompeo should pay the cost of personal security for her.

His uninformed, ignorant remarks are insulting to teachers.

I challenge him to name a non-union state that outperforms unionized states.

Every teacher should belong to the AFT or the NEA. They would have higher salaries, health care, pensions, and job security. They would have state and national organizations to protect them in state legislatures and Congress.

The teaching profession is under fire by ignorant politicians like Pompeo. Consequently, many experienced teachers have resigned, and there is a national teacher shortage.

The best way to support teachers and their noble profession is to improve their stature, their salaries, and their working conditions. The only way that will happen is if there are strong unions to stand up for teachers, who alone are powerless.

Only strong unions will fight for the profession against the hostility of bombastic fools like Pompeo.

Pompeo can’t tolerate strong women or strong unions.

Categories Evil, Extremism, Shame, Stupid, Teachers and Teaching, Unions

Jacob Goodwin: Privatizers Attack New Hampshire Public Schools and Local Control

By dianeravitch
October 27, 2022 //
5

There are three things that privatizers hate: public schools, democracy, and teachers’ unions.

In New Hampshire, the privatizers are on the move.

Jacob Goodwin writes about them in The Progressive:

New Hampshire has a proud tradition of public schools, one that, in some towns, dates back to single-room school houses of early America when students would take horse-drawn sleighs to school in the winter. Our schools—and towns, for that matter—are known for operating largely under “local control,” meaning that school boards are made up of parents and community members and are designed to act as sentinels of democracy, tasked with uplifting the highest civic ideals and aspirations.

Historically, the state has had a limited role in determining how schools are run. Consequently, New Hampshire has provided a minimal amount of school funding. While the concept of local control can be both empowering and a burden of responsibility, students and teachers cannot carry out their important work without adequate funding.

Recently, school privatizers seized curricula as a new front in their pressure campaign against teachers, determined to further squeeze public schools financially. Lacking widespread public support, New Hampshire’s legislature restricted classroom conversations about race and gender in 2021—enacting a law which drew ire for its disproportionate penalties and vague requirements. The confusing act prompted the New Hampshire Department of Justice to issue a statement of guidance, confirming the harsh penalties and doing little to protect teachers from potentially career-ending false accusations. The law has placed additional costs on districts in terms of teacher retention and recruitment, compounding staffing shortages in the profession.

Privatizers advance their damaging agenda by undermining the public confidence in schools. Each teacher that leaves due to the relentless attacks is one less trusted adult for children. And the loss of experienced professionals is a way of further loosening communal ties. Traditional, deliberative decision making of small-town New England is rooted in neighborly relational knowledge, but this is now being undercut. Privatizers only see profits by cutting costs, not the most important thing in schools—the people.

Nationwide, attacking teachers and neighborhood schools has become part of a broader strategy to divert taxpayer money away from public accountability. Profiteering and mismanagement scandals in states like Florida and Pennsylvania warn of the danger of moving decision-making from parent volunteers in the auditorium to executives in corporate board rooms.

Despite the odds, teachers are speaking up for their community schools and mounting legal challenges to unjust laws that seek to erode the essential public good of education. On September 14, the presiding federal judge declared that he would rule on the state’s motion to dismiss a suit brought by a coalition including the state’s largest teachers union within sixty to ninety days. But while the speech-chilling law remains in place, teachers fear stifled classroom discussions and even loss of licensure. And the forces of privatization have continued to stretch the civic fabric of our communities through swiftly changing our state with little public input or oversight.

After failing to pass a stand-alone voucher bill in previous legislative sessions, the state Commissioner of Education shepherded a significant voucher bill through the state legislature and into the budget. He promised that the measure would be limited and require a budget of $130,000 in the first year. In October 2021, however, the voucher law was already costing New Hampshire taxpayers $6.9 million…

Distracting the public from the actual needs of over 90 percent of students who attend public schools is part of the coordinated strategy against local control in New Hampshire. The refusal to address funding adequacy, meaningful mental health support for students, and building maintenance are among the major issues that are seldom addressed.

Categories Education Reform, New Hampshire, Privatization, School Choice, Teachers and Teaching, Vouchers
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