Archives for category: Teachers and Teaching
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Joe Bower: Do I Work for Students or for Data?

By dianeravitch
May 11, 2013 //
13

Joe Bower teaches in Red Deer, Alberta, Canada. He blogs at http://www.joebower.org.

He wrote this for us:

DO I SERVE YOU OR ARE YOU TO SUPPORT ME?

As a classroom teacher, I spend the majority of my time working with students while they are still learning, so I have an intense understanding for how important it is for kids to be engaged in learning by doing projects that are in a context and for a purpose.

Without the information (read: observations) that I gather from such projects, I could not call myself a teacher, nor could my students call themselves learners.

But how often is data defined like this?

As a classroom teacher, I have absolutely no use for data that reduces learning to a number for the convenience of administrators, policy makers and others who wish to judge the classroom without ever stepping foot in the classroom.

I will not be an accomplice to those who have needs and have absolutely no intention of ever even meeting my students. A system with authentic accountability would never ask me to do so.

If you are a politician, superintendent, schoolboard trustee, administrator or someone else who rarely visits the classroom, you might be thinking to yourself: “I need spread-sheet friendly data to report the successes, failures and growth of the schools.”

To you I say: “As a classroom teacher, am I here to serve your needs for your spreadsheet, or are you here to support me so that I may better serve my students’ needs

Categories Teachers and Teaching, Testing

Naison: I Will Not Forget or Forgive Those Who Destroy What I Love

By dianeravitch
May 11, 2013 //
29

Mark NAISON is a professor of African-American Studies and history at Fordham University. He writes:

Thoughts on the Destruction of the Teaching Profession and Other Losses

As I watch the teaching profession be destroyed before my eyes, through bi-partisan initiatives that are difficult to fight, and through the march of technology that some view as irreversible, I am filled with anger. This after all is my life they are rendering obsolete, something that has been a source of pride and excitement for me for nearly 50 years since I first started teaching tennis at Camp Kitatinny in Dingmans Falls NJ in the summer of 1963 at age 17. The kind of freedom I experienced in teaching high school students in Upward Bound programs in the late 60’s and early 70’s and in teaching college students and graduate students at Fordham since 1970, is gradually simultaneously being crushed by “outcomes assessment” and scripted learning, and the replacement of tenured positions like mine with low paid adjuncts who have no job security. And what I am experiencing in universities is magnified tenfold in the nation’s public schools where surveillance, supervision and assessment have truly reached Orwellian proportions, and where teachers are browbeaten into squeezing all joy out of innocent children as they force march them into passing high stakes tests.

I hate what is going on, and will fight it with every ounce of my energy, but as a historian, I am hardly surprised to see something of value be destroyed both by the impersonal evolution of the economy and by conscious choices of policy makers. After all, I watched the Bronx burn before my eyes in the early 70’s as I took the 3rd Avenue El to Fordham in the early 70’s, and watched it burn some more when the El came down at I started taking the number 4 train up Jerome Avenue. These fires weren’t abstract to me. They destroyed neighborhoods where I fell in love, played ball, celebrated Thanksgiving and Christmas, and hung out and heard music in bars and clubs. Watching this, I felt like something precious in my memory was being desecrated, or better yet, like a limb was being violently torn from my body yet I was helpless to stop it. I joined with organizations which kept the fires from spreading to the Northern parts of the borough and began rebuilding slowly rebuilding devastated areas, but when the smoke cleared, buildings which once held 300,000 people had turned to ashes

Then, ten years later, I watched cities in America’s great industrial heartland be crushed by factory closings that not only destroyed millions of jobs that paid enough to support a family, but crushed the dreams of people whose labor had helped make the US the most prosperous, and one of the most equal nations in the advanced world, leaving huge sections of once vibrant cities looking as though they had suffered aerial bombardment. As I walked through devastated sections of Detroit, Buffalo, Youngstown, Baltimore and Bridgeport, and saw factories which once employed tens of thousands of people be knocked down, I thought of the what those communities had once been during WWII and the 50’s, and felt tears come into my eyes for what had been lost. once again I could do nothing.

Given these experiences, it would not surprise me for the Education Reformers to have their way and make creative teaching impossible in most American public schools. I will fight them, but I am not sure my efforts will make that much of a difference

But I will say this. I cannot and will not forgive those who profit from the destruction of other people’s livelihoods, institutions and dreams. I reserve the right to resist, along with the right of memory and of moral judgment . And I will never give those up, if only out of respect for those who lives have been crushed by “impersonal” forces which they experienced in the most personal terms.

May 11, 2013

Categories Teachers and Teaching

Hart Research Associates Explains the Methodology of AFT Common Core Polling

By dianeravitch
May 10, 2013 //
32

A few days go, Professor Ira Shor posted a comment and asked if Mercedes Schneider would analyze the poll showing that 75% of AFT teachers support the Common Core standards. Mercedes Schneider saw his request in the comments section and posted her analysis. Schneider is a high school teacher in Louisiana with a doctorate in statistics and research methods.

Hart Research Associates, which conducted the poll, did not agree with Schneider. The Hart firm is a highly respected polling organization. I invited them to respond to Scneider’s review of their work, and they agreed to do so.

Their response begins here:

TO: American Federation of Teachers

FROM: Guy Molyneux, Hart Research Associates DATE: May 10, 2013

RE: Methodology for Common Core Survey

Following are some facts about the methodology for AFT’s recent survey of AFT K-12 teachers on Common Core implementation that may help to answer the criticisms and questions raised by Mercedes Schneider.

Schneider’s objections speak to two distinct questions: 1) does the survey reflect the views of AFT K-12 teachers?, and 2) if so, can the AFT results be extrapolated to all U.S. teachers? The answer to the first question is “yes,” for reasons explained below. The answer to the second question is “not necessarily.” When Randi Weingarten refers to what “teachers” think about the Common Core, she is referring to AFT teachers. This shorthand is not meant to deceive anyone; if it were, the press release and various poll materials would not have stated so clearly and repeatedly that the survey was conducted only among AFT members. (Indeed, even the quote highlighted by Schneider mentions “a recent poll of AFT members.”)

In fact, it is likely that a survey of all U.S. teachers would report results broadly similar to what we found among AFT members, for reasons explained below. However, it is true that we cannot be sure of this unless further research is done among non-AFT teachers. Such research would be welcome.

 The survey employed a standard sampling methodology, used in countless surveys by many polling organizations. On behalf of AFT, Hart Research Associates conducted a telephone survey of 800 AFT K-12 teachers from March 27 to 30, 2013. Respondents were selected randomly from AFT membership lists. This process of random selection produces a representative sample, allowing us to generalize from the survey respondents to the larger population being sampled (in this case, all AFT teachers). There is nothing unusual or controversial about this method.

 A sample size of 800 teachers is appropriate and common. Schneider notes that “AFT/Hart only surveyed nine one-hundredths of a percent of the AFT membership (.09%),” and adds for emphasis: “Please don’t miss this. AFT did not survey even 10% of its membership before forming an opinion of teacher acceptance of CCSS.” In fact, a survey sample size of 800 is reasonable and quite common: for example, most national media surveys interview between 800 and 1,000 registered voters. Moreover, researchers understand that survey samples are not properly evaluated as a percentage of the underlying population. By randomly selecting respondents, a relatively small sample can provide an accurate measurement on a much larger population. If Schneider’s 10% standard were correct, pollsters would need to interview 20 million U.S. voters to conduct a single survey of registered voters. Needless to say, not many surveys would be conducted.

1724 Connecticut Avenue, N.W., Washington, D.C. 20009 202-234-5570 http://www.hartresearch.com

Categories Common Core, Teachers and Teaching, Unions

Mercedes Schneider: Do Most Teachers Support Common Core?

By dianeravitch
May 9, 2013 //
14

Ira Shor, a professor at the City University of New York, left a comment recently, wondering if “the great Mercedes Schneider” would take a look at the AFT survey showing that 75% of AFT members support the Common Core. As it happens, Dr. Schneider saw the comment and did exactly that. Dr. Schneider is a high school English teacher who holds a Ph.D. in statistics and research methods.

Here is her analysis of the AFT survey.

Categories Common Core, Teachers and Teaching

Why Rhee’s Test-Driven Incentives Always Fail

By dianeravitch
May 9, 2013 //
16

In this thoughtful article, Charles Taylor Kerchner of Claremont Graduate University explains that Michelle Rhee’s belief in using test scores to reward and punish teachers is guaranteed to produce adverse consequences like cheating.

Her reliance on test scores plus her “fear-based management style” is the Achilles’ heel of reform policy, he says.

“This is the lesson of organizational history, not an isolated “bad judgment” aberration. It’s about more than school test scores in the District of Columbia, Atlanta, Texas or even Rhee’s possibly outsized claims of how well her students did during the three years she taught school in Baltimore. The policies Rhee endorses create bad incentives. Bad incentives lead to disastrous results. They certainly played a part in the largest business collapses in recent history: Enron, WorldCom, Lehman Brothers and the collapse of the subprime mortgage market.”

There is a way to build better schools: “What motivates teachers most? Student success: If an organizational system of curriculum, pedagogy, professional training and school organization helps students experience success, then teachers are highly motivated. Teachers are motivated by being part of a winning team, a school that does well at its own mission, which most often is not test score maximization. Teachers are motivated by being part of an occupation that is honored and trusted. These are the lessons from a century of study.”

This is worth reading and pondering.

Categories Rhee, Michelle, Teacher Evaluations, Teachers and Teaching

Iowa Teacher: Save This Noble Profession Before It Is Too Late

By dianeravitch
May 9, 2013 //
30

Amy Prime, who teaches second grade in Newton, Iowa, noticed that many of the teachers she knows and admires are counting the days until they retire or quit.

She writes:

“If you teach, you don’t need to get online to read these thoughts. You hear them every day as you pass your colleagues in the halls, at sporting events, at church and in the grocery store. Teachers who are close to retirement crunch the numbers to see if they can make it financially if they leave a year or two earlier. Newer teachers wonder if the degree they earned in education might transfer to another type of job.

“If we don’t stop, take a serious look at what we are doing, and make a huge change, then we will have destroyed a noble and essential profession. This is not imagined. The attacks on teachers have been steadily increasing.”

Politicians and pundits overlook the root causes of poor achievement and blame teachers.

But, says Prime, we must not give up. Teaching is a great job, a great challenge, and every day is different. Besides, she writes, the people she works for give her hugs.

Her advice:

“To veteran teachers I say: Don’t go yet. You were here before No Child Left Behind. You were here before threats of unfair merit pay systems and micromanaging. We need you to remember the good that went on in schools then and fight for the return of those positive things. Your experience and wisdom cannot be replicated.

“To the young people who want to teach I say: Don’t be afraid. Join us. Teaching is a calling that can’t be denied. But be prepared to stand up and fight for what you know is right and good for kids. Don’t close your door and do your thing while hoping no one walks in to see that you’ve strayed from the script. Instead keep the door open and defend your good teaching practices when questioned.

“Fight for fun, creativity and laughter. Fight for art and music and drama in your room and in your district. Fight for smaller class sizes and for time to plan and prepare great lessons for your kids. Fight for better wages and improved benefits.”

Thank you, Amy, for good advice, for a vision of better days ahead, and for encouraging your colleagues to stand and fight for what they know is right for their students.

Categories Teachers and Teaching

A Teacher Responds to Obama Proclamation On National Charter School Week

By dianeravitch
May 8, 2013 //
28

Earlier I posted President Obama’s proclamation on National Charter School Week, which happens to coincide with Teacher Appreciation Week.

A charter school teacher responded with this comment:

“I’ve been an educator in Columbus, Ohio since university. In my 8th year, I currently earn 34,000 before taxes at a 9-12 charter school. I can be fired at any time. I have no tenure, no union, and scarce resources to teach. I also act as a librarian, though I wear no such title nor do I earn pay for wearing this hat. Students come in and depart through a revolving door of enrollment procedures I am not privy to. I’ve seen two administrators at two different charter schools resign because they were stealing. One continues his work at another charter in the city. My family needs the money I earn, so I must teach, but I just pray a public school gives me a chance.”

Categories Charter Schools, Obama, Teachers and Teaching

Charter Appreciation Week and Teacher Appreciation Week

By dianeravitch
May 8, 2013 //
60

By some strange coincidence, Teacher Appreciation Week coincides with National Charter School Week.

Bear in mind that almost 90% of charters are non-union, that charters may fire teachers at will, that charter teachers do not have tenure, that many charters are known for high teacher turnover due to the stress of longer school days, and that many do not hire certified teachers. In some states, like Ohio, charter teachers earn half as much as public school teachers, because the charter teachers are typically younger and less experienced.

Just thinking about that when I read President Obama’s proclamation.

Categories Charter Schools, Teach for America TFA, Teacher Tenure, Teachers and Teaching

Paul Thomas: Now Is the Time for Non-Cooperation

By dianeravitch
May 8, 2013 //
7

Paul Thomas reacts here to Randi Weingarten’s call for a one-year moratorium on high-stakes testing associated with the Common Core and to Jennifer Jennings’ apology to Secretary Duncan for being booed at AERA.

He warns that moderation and civility are not appropriate responses to extreme conditions.

Categories Duncan, Arne, Teachers and Teaching, Testing, Unions

Anthony Cody: Will a Moratorium Save Common Core?

By dianeravitch
May 8, 2013 //
19

In one of his characteristically thoughtful and provocative essays, Anthony Cody ponders Randi Weingarten’s call for a one-year moratorium on the high stakes associated with Common Core testing. Randi praised the Common Core standards lavishly but warned that they would fail if high stakes are attached to them before teachers and students are prepared to master them.

Cody does not agree. He maintains that the Common Core testing will have even higher stakes than NCLB. Not only will there be more testing, but teachers and principals will be fired, schools will close, communities will be harmed–as Common Core raises the bar and failure rates grow.

How does raising the bar help those who can’t clear the bar now?

As Cody writes:

“We have this entire project based on the premise that raising the bar will bring up those on the bottom, and make them better able to compete. In fact, when you raise that bar, you create huge obstacles for those at the bottom, and in effect, rationalize and reinforce their own sense of worthlessness, and society’s judgment that they are subpar. You further stigmatize these students, their teachers and their schools, based on their performance in this rigged race.”

He concludes that a moratorium on high stakes test is insufficient:

“We must move beyond not only the bubble tests, but beyond the era of punitive high stakes tests. Only then will we be able to use standards in the way they ought to be used – as focal points for our creative work as educators. I would be glad to have a year’s delay for the consequences of these tests, but I think we need to actively oppose the entire high stakes testing paradigm. The Common Core standards should not be supported as long as they are embedded in this system.”

Categories Common Core, Teachers and Teaching, Testing
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