Archives for category: Teachers and Teaching
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Miami: Are These Fears the Reality?

By dianeravitch
May 19, 2013 //
15

A teacher in Miami asks these questions. Can you answer and help us understand?

“I am writing out of anxiety and fear .. I have been a bit down for a year, I realize I may have to switch careers or move to another state.

“I could be wrong but I feel the greatest school reformation in the US is occurring in Miami-Dade county public schools.

“Miami-Dade is the 4th largest district in the country (392 schools, 345,000 students and over 40,000 employees). Miami-Dade has a WEAK union (right to work state)… The union is so weak, it feels as if the union is part of the school system.

“Miami insights

– teachers contribute 3% of our salary for retirement
– salary tied to Testing
– VAM
– weak union
– Eli Broad award
– Common Core
– $1.2 new technology bond (My fear, Bill Gates’ cameras will soon be in the classroom.)
– charter schools/ virtual schools
– 11,000 new immigrant students a year, 68,000 esol .
– financially, it is difficult for teachers to make ends meet … Miami is an expensive city, I wonder if some teachers are on Food Stamps and or have lost their homes — our salary scale is shocking
http://salary.dadeschools.net/Schd_Teachers/

***( I have been teaching 14 years but I am on step 11 due to frozen salaries ($42,128) , I just advanced a step, $300, which the school system considered a raise ( it was a step)….. No cost of living expense was factored in)

– the school system pays for teachers health insurance but high out of pocket expenses (Dr visits, prescriptions are VERY high, I pay an additional $2,400 a year with dental & vision) .

What do you see happening in Miami Dade County public schools??

Are my fears a reality???”

Categories Corporate Reformers, Florida, Teacher Evaluations, Teacher Tenure, Teachers and Teaching, Unions

Deborah Meier: Am I Part of the Problem or the Solution?

By dianeravitch
May 18, 2013 //
19

Deborah Meier has been blogging recently with Michael Petrilli of the Thomas B. Fordham Institute.

Deb is known as a progressive, Mike as a conservative. Deb was one of the founders of the small schools movement and a leader of opposition to standardized testing through her involvement in Fairtest. Mike strongly supports standardized testing, charter schools, and competition a drivers of change.

In his previous post, Mike asked Deb whether she was part of the problem (because of her opposition to standardized testing and her general skepticism towards what is called “reform” today, I.e., No Child Left Behind and Race to the Top).

This is a good exchange. I wonder if they can bridge their differences.

Deborah answered here. I won’t begin to summarize what she said. Let me just say that she is at her best and what she wrote about children, about the shrinking middle class, and about what schools can and cannot do. Please take the time to read what she wrote.

Categories Accountability, NCLB (No Child Left Behind), Parents, Poverty, Race to the Top, Students, Teachers and Teaching, Testing

How Corporate Reform Discourages Prospective Teachers

By dianeravitch
May 18, 2013 //
14

I have heard repeatedly in the past few years that teachers don’t want student teachers in their classrooms. The teachers are so focused on raising test scores that they can’t take the time to mentor the younger generation, and they are afraid to lose ground if they let a student teacher try a practice class. Consequently, the opportunities for the would-be teachers to get student teaching experience are closing up. This is not a problem for Teach for America, whose recruits get five weeks of training, but it is a huge problem for those planning a career as an educator and eager to get classroom experience before they enter into the profession.

This comment from a reader confirms the stories:

I am currently enrolled in a MAT program in Chicago, and I have been following your blog closely for quite a few months. One side of the story that I think is missing is how all these corporate reforms and testing have a negative impact on preservice educators. With teachers held to such high accountability, it seems that less are willing to have us preservice teachers come observe or work with them. With isat testing going on, my classmates and I have had very little success setting up observation times at schools. This is something that we have all been struggling with (even when testing is not happening). These observation hours are required for our degree. Also, I have heard anecdotes from a student teacher a year ahead of me about how the teacher is so concerned with testing that she would not let the student teacher teach.

I doubt that “reformers” and proponents of accountability think about how these high stakes measures make it difficult for preservice educators to learn the craft of being a teacher. The time spent observing, helping, interviewing students and teachers, and teaching are invaluable experiences for us and teach us so much about being teachers, but current reforms make these experiences hard to come by. I think a shared sentiment among my classmates and I is frustration. We want to be successful, prepared educators, but it feels like we have to jump through hoops and beg for time in schools. If we really cared about preparing quality educators, it should not be so difficult to get into schools, to see. feel, and experience the real deal.

Categories Corporate Reformers, Teachers and Teaching

Rothstein: Advice to Future Teachers

By dianeravitch
May 17, 2013 //
7

Richard Rothstein recently gave a commencement address to the graduates of the Chicago Loyola School of Education.

What do you say to new teachers, embarking on their careers in these perilous times? What do you say to those who have chosen a profession that is under siege?

Rothstein is a deeply knowledgeable and fearless scholar. Read what he said.

Categories Education Reform, Teachers and Teaching

Can Machines Grade Essays? Should They?

By dianeravitch
May 16, 2013 //
50

I posted earlier today about a new Xerox machine that is being marketed to “read” and grade student essays. Not to score bubble tests, but to grade essays. Granted, this is not a new idea. There are now different companies selling machines to grade student writing. I have seen demonstrations of this technology, and I can’t shake the feeling that this is not right.

Why? I am not opposed to technology. But here is the nub of my discomfort. I am a writer. The moment I realized I was a writer was when I discovered many years ago that I write for an audience. I think of my reader(s). If I am writing for a tabloid, I write in a certain style. If I am writing for the New York Times, I write in another way. If I am writing a letter to a family member, another style. If I am writing for a scholarly journal, something else. When I write for this blog, I have a voice different from the voice in my books. I don’t know how to write for a machine.

Robert Shepherd reminded me how important the audience is for a writer when he posted this comment about the Xerox grading machine:

“The slick piece of marketing collateral that Xerox produced for this product features, most prominently, a picture of a smiling teacher bent over to help a smiling student. But the promise of the product is precisely the opposite–that teacher feedback will be eliminated (automated).

“Clearly, it’s a fairly simple matter to create technologies that correct multiple-choice and other so-called “objective” tests. More troubling is the promise that the technology will score “constructed response” items (in non-EduSpeak, writing). Let’s be clear about this. There is no existing system that can read, as that term is understood when it is predicated of a human being. What creators of such software can do is to correlate various features of pieces of writing that can easily be recognized by software to outcomes assigned those pieces of writing by human teachers.

“So, one might come up with some formula involving use in the piece of writing of terms from the writing prompt, average sentence length, average word length, number of spelling errors, number of distinct words used, frequency of words used, etc., that yields a score that is highly correlated with scores given by human readers/graders using a rubric. At a whole other level of sophistication, one might create a system that has a parser and that does rudimentary checking of grammar and punctuation. Some of that is easy–e.g., does each sentence begin with a capital letter? Some of it is rather more difficult (a system that correctly identifies all and only those groups of words that are sentence fragments would have to be a complete model of grammatical patterns for well-formed sentences in English).

“Who knows whether the Xerox system is that sophisticated. One cannot tell whether it is from the marketing literature, which is a concatenation of glittering vagaries. But even if one had a perfect system of this kind that almost perfectly correlated with scoring by human readers, it would still be the case that NO ONE was actually reading the student’s writing and attending to what he or she has to say and how it is said. The whole point of the enterprise of teaching kids how to write is for them to master a form of COMMUNICATION BETWEEN PERSONS, and one cannot eliminate the person who is the audience of the communication and have an authentic interchange.

“Since these writing graders first started appearing, I have read an enormous amount of hogwash about them from people who don’t understand that we don’t yet have artificial intelligences that can read. Instead, we have automated systems for doing various tasks that stand in lieu of anyone doing any reading.”

Categories Teachers and Teaching, Technology, Computers

Pasi Sahlberg Blows Up Reformer Myths

By dianeravitch
May 16, 2013 //
8

Pasi Sahlberg, the great expert on education in Finland, here examines the founding myths of the corporate reform movement.

Reformers search for the teacher who can generate high test scores. They like the idea that teachers compete for rewards tied to scores. Sahlberg points out that a school is a team, not a competitive individual sport. Teachers must work together towards common goal.

Another fallacy is the “no excuses” claim that great teachers overcome all obstacles. Sahlberg reminds us that the influence of the family and student motivation is far greater than the efforts of teachers in determining outcomes.

A corollary to this fallacy is the belief that three or four great teachers in a row eliminates all social and economic disadvantage.

Sahlberg maintains that teacher education requires high standards and even standardization to produce highly skilled teachers. Once the pipeline is improved, teachers should have a high degree of personal autonomy. He notes that there is no Teach for Finland. All teachers go through a highly selective process and are well educated and prepared for their profession.

All in all, a great post.

Send it to your legislators and leaders.

Categories International, Poverty, Teach for America TFA, Teacher Evaluations, Teachers and Teaching

EduShyster Discovers an Excellent Teacher-School Matching Service

By dianeravitch
May 15, 2013 //
8

EduShyster gets great tips!

In this post, she describes a dating service that matches teachers with just the right charter school.

What will they think of next?

Categories Charter Schools, Teachers and Teaching

Teacher to Iowa Governor: This Is What Teachers Need

By dianeravitch
May 14, 2013 //
2

Amy Prime teaches second grade in Iowa. She writes frequently about education issues in her state. When the politicians began passing laws to “fix” teaching, Amy decided they should know what teachers want and need.

This is the article she wrote.

Amy is engaged not just in teaching second grade, but in educating the public. This is crucial, as we must build public understanding, demolish the myths about teaching, and allow the public to recognize the realities of education today.

She concludes her article with this message to Governor Branstad:

“The governor’s desire to help support teachers is noble. His administration has acknowledged many times that Iowa has great teachers. So let’s not fix a nonexistent problem and create more hoops for teachers to jump through. Instead let’s provide real assistance. Let’s make sure facilities, materials and technology are current and that support staffers are plentiful. Let’s find ways to provide more time for teachers to prepare for students and find ways to help kids be ready for school. And, most of all, let’s stop sending the message that the dedicated professionals of this state who put their hearts, minds, time and money into the kids of Iowa are somehow failing them.”

Categories Teachers and Teaching

A Teacher’s Life

By dianeravitch
May 12, 2013 //
17

A teacher writes to explain how life in the classroom differs from his earlier life in another field:

I worked in industry for 15 years before switching careers and moving into education. I can honestly say I work harder as a teacher than I did in my job in the communications industry.

I do make comparable pay to my previous job now although it has taken 20 years of service to do it. There were some lean years when I started as an educator. I get paid for 9 months of work and it gets spread out over 12 months. I have yet to actually see “3 months” off. I may, if lucky, squeeze about 4-5 weeks off where I’m not responsible for something directly related to teaching or keeping my professional certification so I can keep my job.

That’s what I had in my previous job after 15 years. I could take my vacations when I wanted to then. I can only take my vacations between mid June and mid August now. I had a health plan that I paid into in my previous job that was very similar to the one I have at my current school. I had a retirement account through a large investment company which I paid into and the employer matched it. I was evaluated once per year in my previous job and had the option to join a union but was not required. I signed a contract each year which I had to negotiate with my immediate superior and the corporate lawyers. That was not easy and I got eaten alive on a few occasions by their New York lawyers. I was evaluated by my superior strictly on my performance in my job and how he as a professional in the same field thought I did.

If I had to base my pay and job security on one test given to a group of 7th and 8th graders who knew nothing about how I did my job, I would have left sooner. I watch my students take some of the state mandated tests and cringe when I see them drawing dot to dot puzzles on a scantron or sleeping during a timed portion of the test. That’s supposed to be a fair evaluation of my performance? No parent, no adminstrator, no other teacher will see that student’s indifference because I’m the one proctoring the test and I can’t influence them in my room while they are testing. They will only see the final numbers or the media spin on the scores.

I think we as professional educators can contribute in a positive way to improving our profession and not trying to excuse away the questionable parts. Our product isn’t perfect yet but we continue to improve on it and it will happen if we don’t have to put up with profiteers and politicians trying to cut the legs out from under us. We can’t do it if we have our ability to negotiate take away or if we have to negotiate with people who know nothing about what it is like to be in front of a classroom full of adolescents everyday. We are professionals. We know our craft as well, if not better, than a politician or a boardmember who was given the position. I work in a state where the legislature seems to have a vendetta against educators.

They have their high paid superpack working to help them stay in office and keep all their perks, which I also pay for. While the union I belong to helps me keep my job and some of the benefits, which as a tax payer I also pay for. But according to the politicians I’m over paid, under worked, and don’t deserve any benefits for the sacrifices I make to do my job in a professional manner. Several politicians who fit that description too. I didn’t go into education to get rich and 70K per year is by no means rich, especially compared to some of our elected officials.

The Chicago teachers deserve the terms they have asked for and the respect that should be given to them. In other countries, it is expected that students thank the teacher each day after class for taking the time to teach them. If we instill that value in our students about their teachers instead of publicly demeaning them, just maybe we could fix some of the problems and indifference that seem to be dragging our kids down and keeping us from being viewed as the best educational system in the world.

Categories Education Reform, Teachers and Teaching

A Teacher Weeps on Teacher Appreciation Day

By dianeravitch
May 12, 2013 //
36

Angie Sullivan, a kindergarten teacher in Las Vegas, sent the following message to members of the Nevada legislature to mark Teacher Appreciation Day:

It’s been a long, long time since my district has had positive educational leadership.

I watched this short video of Interim Superintendent Skorkowsky – and I wept. Something unusual – to NOT receive abuse and berating – but instead a positive uplifting message. I weep because my heart is breaking for my profession that is being destroyed – and not being replaced with anything of value to kids.

I don’t know when the “witch hunts” for the infamous “bad teacher” started but it’s now become harrassment for everyone.

I don’t know when it became sport to hurt women who teach people to read.

I don’t know when everyone became convinced that testing is teaching and. . . now there is NO MORE teaching. . . only testing.

I don’t know when we started paying “reformers” without research to “fix-it-up-chappie” our schools instead of being willing to pay for retirement for professionals who were dedicated for decades.

I don’t know when it became OK to privatize by charter . . . but not hold charters accountable . . . even though they use tax payer funds.

I don’t know when it became OK to fail an entire city and not recognize significant amounts of poverty and obstacles. Cities full of people, families and kids that did not graduate – most likely because they couldn’t understand English?

I don’t know when the textbook companies and computer software manufacturers took over and decided the nation must be standardized to common core – not because we would all benefit – but most likely to sell more product nationally.

I don’t know when people became convinced that some silly rich people became MORE knowledgeable than trained professionals about my classroom.

I don’t know when politicians started taking money from Students First, TFA, The New Teacher Project, ALEC, and other union busters – to privatize instead of fund our schools.

But I’m grateful to hear from a leader who was a TEACHER first and sounds like he remembers – and knows how important the front line – LABOR – is to public education.

So as you decide to legislate – could you please ask someone in the CLASSROOM their opinion? Please ask my union. Please ask an educational leader. Please encourage the school boards to hire educational professionals – not unionbusting businessmen in disguise. Our problems are significant. I will fight this war as I beg for support. But I’m drowning in impossible mandates in a sea of needy five year olds. So I weep.

But I’m grateful someone powerful thanked me today.

O God, hear the words of my mouth. Let hardened hearts be softened to hear the cries of women who love children – and the children in need.

Angie Sullivan

Categories Support for public schools, Teachers and Teaching
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