Public Education Matters
1-28-10
Teacher Unions
It might surprise you to know that I wasn’t always a strong supporter of teacher unions. First off, I had a “fairly” Republican type upbringing, meaning that in my home, the very word “union” seemed to have a “bad” connotation connected to it. “We” were “business” people. “We” didn’t like rabble-rousing unions.
That word (union) conjured up images in my mind of “evil” teamsters violently fighting for pay and benefits and rights that people didn’t earn or deserve, and seemed exorbitant to me in the first place. And, I seriously thought of unions as defending the lazy and even the incompetent and not in any kind of dignified way at all- but instead with cocky words and brute force.
It seriously seriously irritated me that someone could come straight out of high school and never even try to go to college or not even finish high school and they could make $17 an hour at a local factory, courtesy of a union. (And this was back thirty some years ago- so $17 was a lot.)
I admit it- I was somewhat of an a** back then. But what I’m trying to convey to you is that THIS is the frame of mind I was in about unions when I was first approached by a teacher union representative- my first year of teaching. “Um, no thank-you, I’m just starting out and I really can’t afford the dues” I said meekly and politely while secretly thinking “HECK NO, I’m not going to part of any such thing even if I could afford it ten times over!”
Eventually though, I have to say that curiosity got the better of me. I wondered why all the teachers that I admired belonged. What did they see in it all? And I started by attending a meeting. And at first I have to say I was a bit offended by some of the stridency I saw there. But then I started to listen to the stories behind the stridency and well, I have to say that bit by bit, I began to see a complete other side to my image of unions and what they were about.
What I saw, in fact, were educators who were very deeply concerned about their wages and benefits and their rights- but not just for selfish reasons. Largely what I saw was a genuine concern that our field be filled with people of intelligence, stability, worth, and integrity. These teachers felt that by standing up for their profession, it was the best way to assure that their students would be well served all throughout their school years.
There was and is an agreement that good teachers make all the difference in the world to their students’ lives; and there was and is a sincere belief that the best way to get and retain quality teachers in our field is to pay them decently and to provide them with good working conditions and to have support and guidance from their administrations.
I became a card carrying member of the NEA and the ISTA. A decision that I have never regretted. I particularly did not regret it when one year because I refused to follow a directive to do something illegal (which was to change a section of an Individual Educational Plan without a parent’s agreement) a director decided to go “after me.” Besides being treated with hostility and despite the fact that in all my years of teaching, I’d never once had anything but great evaluations (two in fact by her) suddenly, everything I did was “wrong” in her eyes. After much consideration, I went to my union representative and from there on I was supported in every way by my union representatives. It was even discovered through an investigation that my boss had specifically told someone that she was out to get me and why. Eventually, she was counseled out of our employ. I kept my job.
At any rate, this experience also started me thinking. What would I have done without the union representation? What would have happened to me? Chances are I would have been fired for my alleged insubordination and I would have been denied due process to defend myself against it. I also wondered what would have happened with that student whose IEP I was "supposed" to change. Chances are, after my dismissal, it would have been changed and the student's rights would have violated and her education would have been compromised.
Teachers unions and the members of teachers unions long before me STOOD TOGETHER and won the right to collectively bargain and that all important right of due process.
They stood up for me and for every other teacher in the public schools. By doing so, they also stood up for every child I ever served. I was ashamed at this point to think that I once made the decision not to join with my colleagues.
It is patently untrue that teachers cannot be fired, even if they have tenure. It is also patently untrue that they can’t be fired because of the teachers unions. The ONLY thing that teachers unions guarantee their members is that they will be represented and that they will be guaranteed due process. If there are unfit teachers in my field (and sadly, I will admit that there are) it is NOT because of teachers unions and their insistence on decent pay and basic rights for workers, it is because administrators have not gone to the work of providing just cause for dismissal. It is because of bad hiring practices. It is because of a lack of support and guidance for struggling teachers either to improve or to get out of the teacher career path.
Today I read a post from a blog that I’ve been reading lately and have even cited on this blog. The title for the post is “Are Teacher Unions Bad for Students?” In the post, the author publishes a comment from one of his readers and deftly answers them regarding the issue taken with teachers unions. I hope that you will take the time to read it. I could not have said it all any better. http://blogs.edweek.org/teachers/living-in-dialogue/2010/01/are_teacher_unions_bad_for_stu.html
Thursday, January 28, 2010
Wednesday, January 27, 2010
Studying School Improvement
Public Education Matters
1-27-09
Studying School Improvement
Tonight the President gave his State of the Union Address. He talked about the economy mostly, of course. He also spoke a bit about education.
As you might be aware, despite the fact that I am a big supporter of Barak Obama, I’ve not exactly been thrilled about his educational policies as proposed by his Education Secretary, Arne Duncan. You might even think that so far all I’ve done in this blog is whine about those policies or about my own state’s education agendas.
Am I just a malcontent? Possibly. But I don’t really think so. There is very much in education that I find to be very positive. Generally, my problem is that I don’t think that there is enough real thought put into educational policies before they are set into motion. I don’t think that there is enough inclusiveness of the thoughts of educators who are down in the “trenches” or even those of educational researchers.
I think that the policies generally start with an agenda that is something other than providing our nation’s children with good education. I don’t think the research is looked at critically enough or in the right ways. I think there is a business agenda. I think “the numbers” are manipulated until they don’t mean what they mean anymore. And, I think “they” always want to put a square peg in a round hole. The square peg meaning what is true and the round hole being what policy makers want to believe.
Today I read an excellent article in Education Week entitled “Scholars Identify 5 Keys to Urban School Success.” The article is a review of a new book called “Organizing Schools for Improvement: Lessons From Chicago.” I’d sure like our nation’s educational leader to read this book. I’d like Tony Bennett and Mitch Daniels to read it as well. I personally can’t wait to get my hands on it.
The article’s opening statement is “Offering a counter-narrative to the school improvement prescriptions that dominate national education debates, a new book based on 15 years of data on public elementary schools in Chicago identifies five tried and true ingredients that work, in combination with one another, to spur success in urban schools.”
What does the author mean by “a counter-narrative?” Basically, the book is saying that the things that are on our Education Department’s school improvement agenda are NOT the things that their independently researched data bears out as being effective in improving schools and improving the education of our children.
What are the five keys that the book discusses as being essential? According to the article they are:
1. Strong Leadership, in the sense that principals are “strategic, focused on instruction, and inclusive of others in their work.” (Note this doesn’t say “focused on testing and standards.” Note the word INCLUSIVE)
2. A welcoming attitude toward parents, and formation of connections with the community. (Note the word CONNECTION.)
3. Development of professional capacity, which refers to the quality of the teaching staff, teachers’ belief that schools can change, and participation in good professional development and collaborative work. (Note that this doesn’t talk about pitting teacher against teacher for merit pay or being evaluated based on student achievement. Note the word COLLABORATIVE.)
4. A learning climate that is safe, welcoming, stimulating, and nurturing to all students. (Note- this really is counterintuitive to the testing fests we have going on in schools today. Note the words SAFE, WELCOMING, STIMULATING, NURTURING.)
5. Strong instructional guidance and materials. (Note the words STRONG and GUIDANCE.)
What’s further interesting to me is that the data gathered for this book took charter schools, and magnet schools, and gifted schools out of the equation when they studied schools and student achievement. In essence they did not study schools who have the unfair advantage of being selective about who they will enroll. Since they are attempting to answer the question of what makes for PUBLC school improvements, they only looked at “true” PUBLIC schools.
They looked only at neighborhood schools that were determined to be “truly disadvantaged” and compared them against each other and found out which ones were able to boost achievement and attendance. And lo and behold, the ones that were able to do these things were the ones who shared the above 5 commonalities. The schools that were not successful in raising student achievement and attendance only had some of these 5 “ingredients.” The authors propose that all 5 are essentials in improving schools. You can’t just have some of them in place.
So my questions- If there is this great research out there about what can make a school great and what can raise student achievement, then WHY aren’t my legislators looking at it? Why aren’t my state and national education leaders asking the right questions and/or even listening to the answers or at objective data? Why instead do they seem only to be listening to “big business” and billionaires who don’t live in the real world about what will work in schools?
1-27-09
Studying School Improvement
Tonight the President gave his State of the Union Address. He talked about the economy mostly, of course. He also spoke a bit about education.
As you might be aware, despite the fact that I am a big supporter of Barak Obama, I’ve not exactly been thrilled about his educational policies as proposed by his Education Secretary, Arne Duncan. You might even think that so far all I’ve done in this blog is whine about those policies or about my own state’s education agendas.
Am I just a malcontent? Possibly. But I don’t really think so. There is very much in education that I find to be very positive. Generally, my problem is that I don’t think that there is enough real thought put into educational policies before they are set into motion. I don’t think that there is enough inclusiveness of the thoughts of educators who are down in the “trenches” or even those of educational researchers.
I think that the policies generally start with an agenda that is something other than providing our nation’s children with good education. I don’t think the research is looked at critically enough or in the right ways. I think there is a business agenda. I think “the numbers” are manipulated until they don’t mean what they mean anymore. And, I think “they” always want to put a square peg in a round hole. The square peg meaning what is true and the round hole being what policy makers want to believe.
Today I read an excellent article in Education Week entitled “Scholars Identify 5 Keys to Urban School Success.” The article is a review of a new book called “Organizing Schools for Improvement: Lessons From Chicago.” I’d sure like our nation’s educational leader to read this book. I’d like Tony Bennett and Mitch Daniels to read it as well. I personally can’t wait to get my hands on it.
The article’s opening statement is “Offering a counter-narrative to the school improvement prescriptions that dominate national education debates, a new book based on 15 years of data on public elementary schools in Chicago identifies five tried and true ingredients that work, in combination with one another, to spur success in urban schools.”
What does the author mean by “a counter-narrative?” Basically, the book is saying that the things that are on our Education Department’s school improvement agenda are NOT the things that their independently researched data bears out as being effective in improving schools and improving the education of our children.
What are the five keys that the book discusses as being essential? According to the article they are:
1. Strong Leadership, in the sense that principals are “strategic, focused on instruction, and inclusive of others in their work.” (Note this doesn’t say “focused on testing and standards.” Note the word INCLUSIVE)
2. A welcoming attitude toward parents, and formation of connections with the community. (Note the word CONNECTION.)
3. Development of professional capacity, which refers to the quality of the teaching staff, teachers’ belief that schools can change, and participation in good professional development and collaborative work. (Note that this doesn’t talk about pitting teacher against teacher for merit pay or being evaluated based on student achievement. Note the word COLLABORATIVE.)
4. A learning climate that is safe, welcoming, stimulating, and nurturing to all students. (Note- this really is counterintuitive to the testing fests we have going on in schools today. Note the words SAFE, WELCOMING, STIMULATING, NURTURING.)
5. Strong instructional guidance and materials. (Note the words STRONG and GUIDANCE.)
What’s further interesting to me is that the data gathered for this book took charter schools, and magnet schools, and gifted schools out of the equation when they studied schools and student achievement. In essence they did not study schools who have the unfair advantage of being selective about who they will enroll. Since they are attempting to answer the question of what makes for PUBLC school improvements, they only looked at “true” PUBLIC schools.
They looked only at neighborhood schools that were determined to be “truly disadvantaged” and compared them against each other and found out which ones were able to boost achievement and attendance. And lo and behold, the ones that were able to do these things were the ones who shared the above 5 commonalities. The schools that were not successful in raising student achievement and attendance only had some of these 5 “ingredients.” The authors propose that all 5 are essentials in improving schools. You can’t just have some of them in place.
So my questions- If there is this great research out there about what can make a school great and what can raise student achievement, then WHY aren’t my legislators looking at it? Why aren’t my state and national education leaders asking the right questions and/or even listening to the answers or at objective data? Why instead do they seem only to be listening to “big business” and billionaires who don’t live in the real world about what will work in schools?
Monday, January 25, 2010
Indiana Senate Bill 309
Public Education Matters
1.25.10
Indiana Senate Bill 309
One of the things that is confounding about education budgets is that you can’t (if you are a school superintendent) just transfer money from one place to another whenever you want. For instance, say you have a whole bunch of cash in your transportation stash that you end up not needing to use to repair the busses but you don’t have enough in technology to buy those new computers for students; you can’t just move it.
There are good reasons for this. It means you can’t rob Peter to pay Paul and then say “Too bad Peter” when Peter is hurting. It’s a protection of sorts for both “Peter” and “Paul” really. In fact, many years back, I worked for a director who had it in her head that she would shortchange the technology part of our budget every time she needed a little extra cash somewhere else in her budget. The problem grew to the point where she’d absolutely depleted the student technology budget for the whole year within 3 months time and perhaps two items of actual technology for student use had been purchased thus far. I was a bit steamed when I went to her with the requisition form to purchase something that was necessary for a student to succeed (and required by law for us to provide) and she said “oh, well you’ll have to wait until next year.”
You really don’t want that kind of thing to happen and what a shortage in one area of your budget should tell you is that the next year, you need to examine whether or not you need to allot more or less for that area of the budget in the first place, NOT that you should steal from something else. At all times, I do think you must be a responsible steward of the public money.
So of course, right now, our overall state budget is in dire straits and so our Governor, Mitch Daniels wants to cut school funding. Also, how much federal funding for education that we can count on is uncertain due to the Race to the Top agenda. RttT is also going to be somewhat specific about how it’s dollars can and can’t be used. So I guess (per the Indianapolis Star on 1.24.09) our state lawmakers are scrambling around saying “Whatever can we do?” and a Senator from Noblesville named Luke Kenley has decided to propose a bill to his fellow Indiana State Senators to say “Hey, Superintendents, it’s ok, if you move your little funds around!” (not exact quotes, of course)
Specifically, according to the article, the bill would allow school districts in Indiana to take money from transportation and capital projects accounts and use those funds for operating expenses, at their discretion. “WHOO HOO!” say the Superintendents, I would think. I mean what’s not to like about that?
EXCEPT THERE IS A CATCH!
The catch is that Mr. Kenley has tacked something on to this bill. The bills says that this great new flexibility in funding will only be a deal IF school districts guarantee that their teachers and their staffs will forgo pay raises in the 2010-11 school year. And if by chance the 2010-11 teacher contracts have already been settled then this bill would require those districts to reopen union contract negotiations to change those agreements.
Never-mind that the proposed bill’s ban would apply even to increases in benefits and to “step increases” which are required by state law. Never-mind that there were numerous objections to this proposal from school officials. Never-mind that already 100 of the local unions of the roughly 300 public school districts in Indiana have refused to sign off on Race to the Top proposals that want them to have contracts that allow for merit pay rather than the current negotiated salaries through collective bargaining and that’s an indicator that union agreement to this wage reduction is never going to happen. Never-mind that there are lots of other things that might be looked at besides cutting teacher pay. Things such as eliminating newer programs, spending cash reserves and rainy day funds and dropping testing that goes above the state requirements, or cutting other non-instructional costs.
I also have a problem with Mr. Kenley’s bill because of what it seems to imply. Call me “touchy” but because it ONLY has the stipulation of cutting teacher pay and nothing else, it rather seems that he’s saying the reason the schools (and the state) are in such a fix is because teachers make too much. And, it almost comes across to me like he’s blaming teachers for “bankrupting” the state in the first place. At the very least it certainly seems like he’s saying “Teachers ought to be the solution to the state’s budget problems."
Now I feel pretty bad for Mr. Kenley. I do. He and his fellow Senators and their brethren members of the House must feel compelled to do something about the state’s budget woes. They certainly must feel compelled to do something about school budgets. However, I also feel that he is one more legislator who sees the easy way out of the mess that we are in is to vilify teachers and teachers’ unions as money grubbing folk who don’t care about children.
It seems as if he’s saying that if we teachers just wouldn’t demand these “exorbitant” salaries for our work, the whole world (or at least the state) will be peachy.
As a person who works in education, I have to object.
I supported my family and raised two children putting them through college on a teacher’s salary with the help of government grants and loans for their higher educations. (There was not a second family income involved in most of those years.) A teacher’s salary is what pays my mortgage on a modest house and my car payments and the educational loan payments. It buys my groceries and my utilities payments and my phone bills and I admit it- sometimes I go out and buy things like clothing or dinner for myself. Last night I bought dinner for my my mother, my son, his wife, and my grandson and it cost me a little over $50. Sue me, I felt like being generous and supporting the state’s economy after the Colts big win.
But I would beg to tell Mr. Kenley that I’m not extravagant. I shop at places like Wal-Mart and the dollar store. My house needs painting and new carpet and repairs of all kinds. I drive a Ford Focus, one of the cheaper cars on the market. I have an older model tv and a refrigerator with no icemaker. My newest major appliance, for that matter, is over 15 years old. I’ve never owned a boat or a recreational vehicle or a summer cottage or a time share. My family took 5 vacations total in the time my kids were growing up and two of those were camping vacations and one was financed by my father. My children did not wear designer clothing or have the latest electronic gadgets and toys. I do not have a savings account of my own, although I maintain a small one for my grandson. Everything I make is eaten up by bills with none left over for savings. I’m NOT getting rich off this salary, even after working in the field for over 30 years.
I get by. I do. By the standards of much of the rest of the world, I get along quite nicely and I’m not complaining. Thanks to my contract I have a very modest retirement fund and healthcare. Thanks to my parents I learned that you can’t throw your money away, this way and that, and you have to think about “tomorrow.” I am OK, really.
However, if you ask me if I’m paid what I’m worth, I’ll flatly tell you “No.” If you ask me how my younger colleagues make it on their pay with the costs of living being what they are, I’ll tell you “I really do not know.” If you ask me who in their right mind would go into the field of education right now with the prospect of merit pay coming down the pike, I’ll tell you “I’ve got NO idea and I certainly would never advise a child of my own to go into the field, not if they have an alternative.”
I recently cited in a reply to a comment on one of my posts a blurb that I believe I saw on twitter. (I apologize for not saving it when I saw it.) It cited that there is currently starting to be shortage of pediatricians in this country. The reason cited for that was that they no longer make enough to make it a worthwhile profession to go into given the cost of living and the cost of malpractice insurance. This raises a shudder down my spine to be honest. Why? Because it makes me fear that the only people that will go into pediatrics now are the people who couldn’t cut it elsewhere. And I don’t know about you, but I really want our best and our brightest dealing with our children’s health care needs, not those who are just scrambling for something/anything. In a similar vein, I also really want our children’s educational needs being served by people who are the best and the brightest as well.
I just do not feel that you are going to attract those types of people as our current teaching force retires if you do not offer a competitive wage. And honestly, gone are the days when a teacher’s salary was just a side dish to the entrée of a man’s salary. (Also please refer back to my post about merit pay if you are tempted to think I believe that’s the answer. In short, I believe that you have to offer a decent wage in the first place to get people of quality to entertain entering the field.)
Senate Bill 309 could be eligible for amendments in the full Senate as early as Monday (meaning today.) The Star reports that the Senate is also likely to take a final vote on the legislation this week. If it passes the Senate, it would move to the House for consideration.
This might be a good time to speak up regarding your thoughts about this. Your state Senator’s number or email is just a “google” away.
1.25.10
Indiana Senate Bill 309
One of the things that is confounding about education budgets is that you can’t (if you are a school superintendent) just transfer money from one place to another whenever you want. For instance, say you have a whole bunch of cash in your transportation stash that you end up not needing to use to repair the busses but you don’t have enough in technology to buy those new computers for students; you can’t just move it.
There are good reasons for this. It means you can’t rob Peter to pay Paul and then say “Too bad Peter” when Peter is hurting. It’s a protection of sorts for both “Peter” and “Paul” really. In fact, many years back, I worked for a director who had it in her head that she would shortchange the technology part of our budget every time she needed a little extra cash somewhere else in her budget. The problem grew to the point where she’d absolutely depleted the student technology budget for the whole year within 3 months time and perhaps two items of actual technology for student use had been purchased thus far. I was a bit steamed when I went to her with the requisition form to purchase something that was necessary for a student to succeed (and required by law for us to provide) and she said “oh, well you’ll have to wait until next year.”
You really don’t want that kind of thing to happen and what a shortage in one area of your budget should tell you is that the next year, you need to examine whether or not you need to allot more or less for that area of the budget in the first place, NOT that you should steal from something else. At all times, I do think you must be a responsible steward of the public money.
So of course, right now, our overall state budget is in dire straits and so our Governor, Mitch Daniels wants to cut school funding. Also, how much federal funding for education that we can count on is uncertain due to the Race to the Top agenda. RttT is also going to be somewhat specific about how it’s dollars can and can’t be used. So I guess (per the Indianapolis Star on 1.24.09) our state lawmakers are scrambling around saying “Whatever can we do?” and a Senator from Noblesville named Luke Kenley has decided to propose a bill to his fellow Indiana State Senators to say “Hey, Superintendents, it’s ok, if you move your little funds around!” (not exact quotes, of course)
Specifically, according to the article, the bill would allow school districts in Indiana to take money from transportation and capital projects accounts and use those funds for operating expenses, at their discretion. “WHOO HOO!” say the Superintendents, I would think. I mean what’s not to like about that?
EXCEPT THERE IS A CATCH!
The catch is that Mr. Kenley has tacked something on to this bill. The bills says that this great new flexibility in funding will only be a deal IF school districts guarantee that their teachers and their staffs will forgo pay raises in the 2010-11 school year. And if by chance the 2010-11 teacher contracts have already been settled then this bill would require those districts to reopen union contract negotiations to change those agreements.
Never-mind that the proposed bill’s ban would apply even to increases in benefits and to “step increases” which are required by state law. Never-mind that there were numerous objections to this proposal from school officials. Never-mind that already 100 of the local unions of the roughly 300 public school districts in Indiana have refused to sign off on Race to the Top proposals that want them to have contracts that allow for merit pay rather than the current negotiated salaries through collective bargaining and that’s an indicator that union agreement to this wage reduction is never going to happen. Never-mind that there are lots of other things that might be looked at besides cutting teacher pay. Things such as eliminating newer programs, spending cash reserves and rainy day funds and dropping testing that goes above the state requirements, or cutting other non-instructional costs.
I also have a problem with Mr. Kenley’s bill because of what it seems to imply. Call me “touchy” but because it ONLY has the stipulation of cutting teacher pay and nothing else, it rather seems that he’s saying the reason the schools (and the state) are in such a fix is because teachers make too much. And, it almost comes across to me like he’s blaming teachers for “bankrupting” the state in the first place. At the very least it certainly seems like he’s saying “Teachers ought to be the solution to the state’s budget problems."
Now I feel pretty bad for Mr. Kenley. I do. He and his fellow Senators and their brethren members of the House must feel compelled to do something about the state’s budget woes. They certainly must feel compelled to do something about school budgets. However, I also feel that he is one more legislator who sees the easy way out of the mess that we are in is to vilify teachers and teachers’ unions as money grubbing folk who don’t care about children.
It seems as if he’s saying that if we teachers just wouldn’t demand these “exorbitant” salaries for our work, the whole world (or at least the state) will be peachy.
As a person who works in education, I have to object.
I supported my family and raised two children putting them through college on a teacher’s salary with the help of government grants and loans for their higher educations. (There was not a second family income involved in most of those years.) A teacher’s salary is what pays my mortgage on a modest house and my car payments and the educational loan payments. It buys my groceries and my utilities payments and my phone bills and I admit it- sometimes I go out and buy things like clothing or dinner for myself. Last night I bought dinner for my my mother, my son, his wife, and my grandson and it cost me a little over $50. Sue me, I felt like being generous and supporting the state’s economy after the Colts big win.
But I would beg to tell Mr. Kenley that I’m not extravagant. I shop at places like Wal-Mart and the dollar store. My house needs painting and new carpet and repairs of all kinds. I drive a Ford Focus, one of the cheaper cars on the market. I have an older model tv and a refrigerator with no icemaker. My newest major appliance, for that matter, is over 15 years old. I’ve never owned a boat or a recreational vehicle or a summer cottage or a time share. My family took 5 vacations total in the time my kids were growing up and two of those were camping vacations and one was financed by my father. My children did not wear designer clothing or have the latest electronic gadgets and toys. I do not have a savings account of my own, although I maintain a small one for my grandson. Everything I make is eaten up by bills with none left over for savings. I’m NOT getting rich off this salary, even after working in the field for over 30 years.
I get by. I do. By the standards of much of the rest of the world, I get along quite nicely and I’m not complaining. Thanks to my contract I have a very modest retirement fund and healthcare. Thanks to my parents I learned that you can’t throw your money away, this way and that, and you have to think about “tomorrow.” I am OK, really.
However, if you ask me if I’m paid what I’m worth, I’ll flatly tell you “No.” If you ask me how my younger colleagues make it on their pay with the costs of living being what they are, I’ll tell you “I really do not know.” If you ask me who in their right mind would go into the field of education right now with the prospect of merit pay coming down the pike, I’ll tell you “I’ve got NO idea and I certainly would never advise a child of my own to go into the field, not if they have an alternative.”
I recently cited in a reply to a comment on one of my posts a blurb that I believe I saw on twitter. (I apologize for not saving it when I saw it.) It cited that there is currently starting to be shortage of pediatricians in this country. The reason cited for that was that they no longer make enough to make it a worthwhile profession to go into given the cost of living and the cost of malpractice insurance. This raises a shudder down my spine to be honest. Why? Because it makes me fear that the only people that will go into pediatrics now are the people who couldn’t cut it elsewhere. And I don’t know about you, but I really want our best and our brightest dealing with our children’s health care needs, not those who are just scrambling for something/anything. In a similar vein, I also really want our children’s educational needs being served by people who are the best and the brightest as well.
I just do not feel that you are going to attract those types of people as our current teaching force retires if you do not offer a competitive wage. And honestly, gone are the days when a teacher’s salary was just a side dish to the entrée of a man’s salary. (Also please refer back to my post about merit pay if you are tempted to think I believe that’s the answer. In short, I believe that you have to offer a decent wage in the first place to get people of quality to entertain entering the field.)
Senate Bill 309 could be eligible for amendments in the full Senate as early as Monday (meaning today.) The Star reports that the Senate is also likely to take a final vote on the legislation this week. If it passes the Senate, it would move to the House for consideration.
This might be a good time to speak up regarding your thoughts about this. Your state Senator’s number or email is just a “google” away.
Friday, January 22, 2010
Educational Mythology
Public Education Matters
1-22-10
Educational Mythology
Below I'm reprinting a commentary from a fellow teacher. He says a lot of things that I agree with. It's rather an interesting either accompaniment or counterpoint to a documentary that is receiving a great deal of attention at the Sundance Film Festival this year entitled "Waiting for Superman." http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1566648/
I watched a clip of the film-maker discussing his film and he said that he felt that he was a hypocrite of sorts of his own ideals about the need for public schools for driving his children past two public schools everyday to get to their private school. He does state that he IS part of the problem. However, in his statements that every child deserves a great school, (a band wagon which Bill Gates has jumped on- he's touting the documentary all over twitter) I also hear a hint of that once again we are going to blame the teachers for all of this and a dismissal of the many great things that really ARE going on in public education. In my head I'm imagining this film is going to be the next "tool" used by legislators and politicians and big shots like Bill Gates to say that charters and private schools deserve the public dollar.
I simply can't understand that they do NOT get the math that if you give a dollar to private ventures who do not have to accept everyone, you take a dollar away from the public schools. Really, how hard is that? It's 1-1=0.
As for that the film will be another call for misguided (my opinion) reform efforts in public schools which will of course in "their" eyes have to center around breaking up teachers' unions and teacher accountability- please read below....
Misguided: Education's Biggest Myth
By Anthony Cody on January 20, 2010 4:48 PM | No Comments | No TrackBacks
This week I received the following essay from Maryland teacher Dave Russell. It offers us a fresh lens,questioning some of the assumptions that lie under our education reform paradigm.
The Myth
A pervasive myth has caused havoc in public education for far too long. The myth is the belief that the academic achievement level for each child in the country can and should be controlled by the government,through public education.
What Makes It A Myth?
The goal of public education is to provide a high quality education to every child in the country. This high quality education is an opportunity that should be provided to every child. Since government run public education does not control whether a family or child will take full advantage of this opportunity, they have limited control over the final academic achievement level of each child. It is simply not logical to try to control a students or families beliefs, values, or expectations, when the authority to do so has never been granted.
Our country is a democracy with specific rules that guide the development of our laws. Many of these laws are created with the intent of providing equality and freedom to our citizens.
Public education can only require specific behavior from its students and families, if a law or regulation that dictates it has been created and accepted through our democratic process. In education, some of the laws or lack of laws are very significant to student achievement. For example, there is no law that requires a child to engage in anything educational before he/she enters kindergarten. The law in most states, permits students to drop out at sixteen years of age. There are no laws that require a student to graduate from high school or even to reach a defined level of knowledge in any specific subject area. There are no laws that require students to complete homework, complete summer school work, or accomplish anything educational outside of the school day.
The laws for truancy are fairly strict, only permitting ten unexcused absences a year. However, absenteeism is still a major problem. Truancy is not regulated sufficiently and some parents or eighteen year old students simple write excused notes for each absence. It is futile to try to assume control over a student's behavior or academic achievement level, without the establishment of laws that approve of it and enforce it. That is like trying to require every student and family to eat nutritious meals and exercise everyday. It may be a desirable goal, but our citizens have not agreed to institute a law that supports it.
Students and families do not have to agree with or strive to achieve every goal that public education or the government have deemed essential for our country. Nobody has been given the authority to supersede our democratic process and create their own requirements for citizens, even in the name of righteous goals.
Now What?
We need to make a paradigm shift in the current way we determine the competency of public education. Public education needs to be measured by its ability to provide every child with a high quality education that is capable of producing high achieving students, who think for themselves and contribute positively to our society.
Capable is the key word in the definition. Educators and schools can possess and apply all the qualities that are needed to produce high academic achievement. However, they can not and should not ever hold the power to completely control their students' beliefs, behavior, or academic achievement level. Public education's only
power lays in its ability to influence and provide knowledge to the children who attend school.
Technology has created extremely effective ways of collecting data in education. This data can be very helpful in producing effective educational practices among educators, schools, and communities. However, data is only useful if it is being applied appropriately. Student achievement on math and reading tests will never accurately reflect the competency of public education. Measuring overall student achievement in every subject area would give only a small indication of whether an educator or school is competent.
Measuring the achievement growth of every student over the course of each year would be an improvement, but is still grossly inadequate at verifying educator or school competency. Currently, there is no precise way to confirm what knowledge a student has learned from his/her educators or school and what knowledge a student has learned from parents, siblings, tutors, personal determination, or any other external factor. Perhaps the most overlooked problem is the lack of an effective way to determine each student's effort or motivation when taking a test.
The government needs to be accountable for providing the resources that all children need both in and out school. It also needs to provide the competent educational workforce that will give every child the opportunity to receive a high quality education. Families, schools, communities, and local/state/federal governments can
use incentives to help influence or motivate children to reach specific goals. However, each child will ultimately decide which goals he/she will strive to achieve.
Every child is an individual. Every child, parent, educator, and school is unique.
The progression of learning fluctuates from individual to individual. Although many people believe that each child's academic potential is limitless, each child will not reach the same level of achievement at the same time. Educators, parents, and
schools need to help each student progress at the pace that is appropriate for them. This means that all students will not reach the same learning standards at the end of each year. Some students will need more resources or educational time to reach each standard, because they may lack support or need support in a particular area. Other students will accelerate through each learning standard and they may want or need to graduate ahead of schedule.
The current gap in achievement between underprivileged or minority students and White or Asian students can be justified as long as the underprivileged or minority students are given the resources and time that they to reach the potential that they or their family desire. This may mean a longer school day, longer school year,
or more than the traditional thirteen years of school. The same will be true with non English speaking students, special education students, and students who have inadequate parental support. These students may need considerable help outside of the school day. Educators and schools need to facilitate each students learning
from whatever part of the continuum that the student is currently on. Public education should be held accountable for meeting the academic needs of its students, not for trying to ensure that every child reaches a specific level of academic achievement.
Final Thought
To continue to allow this Myth to dictate educational policy is to continue to live a lie. No matter how honorable or desirable the goals may be, operating under a false premise will only end in failure. As children develop their own values, priorities, and critical thinking skills, they will ultimately decide what they want to achieve in school and in life. Our schools should support all children in the pursuit of their individual vocation or calling in life, their true potential. The longer our country uses public education in an attempt to control each student's
academic achievement level, the more misguided our students, families, and schools will eventually become.
I am a product of The Howard County Public School System in Maryland. After spending 5 years at Oakland Mills High School, I finally graduated in 1989 with a cumulative GPA of 0.6. I never took the SAT's and required remedial reading and writing courses when I attended Howard Community College in Maryland. I graduated from Towson State University in 1995 with a Bachelor's degree in Education. For the last fourteen years, I taught for the Montgomery County Public School System in Maryland. I am the father of two daughters, who I believe are receiving an excellent education from the Howard County Public School System in Maryland. My goal is to create positive change in education. I can be reached at daverussell12@yahoo.com.
What do you think of Dave Russell's point of view? Should schools be accountable for students achieving at a predetermined level? How can schools be held accountable when students cannot be compelled to learn?
1-22-10
Educational Mythology
Below I'm reprinting a commentary from a fellow teacher. He says a lot of things that I agree with. It's rather an interesting either accompaniment or counterpoint to a documentary that is receiving a great deal of attention at the Sundance Film Festival this year entitled "Waiting for Superman." http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1566648/
I watched a clip of the film-maker discussing his film and he said that he felt that he was a hypocrite of sorts of his own ideals about the need for public schools for driving his children past two public schools everyday to get to their private school. He does state that he IS part of the problem. However, in his statements that every child deserves a great school, (a band wagon which Bill Gates has jumped on- he's touting the documentary all over twitter) I also hear a hint of that once again we are going to blame the teachers for all of this and a dismissal of the many great things that really ARE going on in public education. In my head I'm imagining this film is going to be the next "tool" used by legislators and politicians and big shots like Bill Gates to say that charters and private schools deserve the public dollar.
I simply can't understand that they do NOT get the math that if you give a dollar to private ventures who do not have to accept everyone, you take a dollar away from the public schools. Really, how hard is that? It's 1-1=0.
As for that the film will be another call for misguided (my opinion) reform efforts in public schools which will of course in "their" eyes have to center around breaking up teachers' unions and teacher accountability- please read below....
Misguided: Education's Biggest Myth
By Anthony Cody on January 20, 2010 4:48 PM | No Comments | No TrackBacks
This week I received the following essay from Maryland teacher Dave Russell. It offers us a fresh lens,questioning some of the assumptions that lie under our education reform paradigm.
The Myth
A pervasive myth has caused havoc in public education for far too long. The myth is the belief that the academic achievement level for each child in the country can and should be controlled by the government,through public education.
What Makes It A Myth?
The goal of public education is to provide a high quality education to every child in the country. This high quality education is an opportunity that should be provided to every child. Since government run public education does not control whether a family or child will take full advantage of this opportunity, they have limited control over the final academic achievement level of each child. It is simply not logical to try to control a students or families beliefs, values, or expectations, when the authority to do so has never been granted.
Our country is a democracy with specific rules that guide the development of our laws. Many of these laws are created with the intent of providing equality and freedom to our citizens.
Public education can only require specific behavior from its students and families, if a law or regulation that dictates it has been created and accepted through our democratic process. In education, some of the laws or lack of laws are very significant to student achievement. For example, there is no law that requires a child to engage in anything educational before he/she enters kindergarten. The law in most states, permits students to drop out at sixteen years of age. There are no laws that require a student to graduate from high school or even to reach a defined level of knowledge in any specific subject area. There are no laws that require students to complete homework, complete summer school work, or accomplish anything educational outside of the school day.
The laws for truancy are fairly strict, only permitting ten unexcused absences a year. However, absenteeism is still a major problem. Truancy is not regulated sufficiently and some parents or eighteen year old students simple write excused notes for each absence. It is futile to try to assume control over a student's behavior or academic achievement level, without the establishment of laws that approve of it and enforce it. That is like trying to require every student and family to eat nutritious meals and exercise everyday. It may be a desirable goal, but our citizens have not agreed to institute a law that supports it.
Students and families do not have to agree with or strive to achieve every goal that public education or the government have deemed essential for our country. Nobody has been given the authority to supersede our democratic process and create their own requirements for citizens, even in the name of righteous goals.
Now What?
We need to make a paradigm shift in the current way we determine the competency of public education. Public education needs to be measured by its ability to provide every child with a high quality education that is capable of producing high achieving students, who think for themselves and contribute positively to our society.
Capable is the key word in the definition. Educators and schools can possess and apply all the qualities that are needed to produce high academic achievement. However, they can not and should not ever hold the power to completely control their students' beliefs, behavior, or academic achievement level. Public education's only
power lays in its ability to influence and provide knowledge to the children who attend school.
Technology has created extremely effective ways of collecting data in education. This data can be very helpful in producing effective educational practices among educators, schools, and communities. However, data is only useful if it is being applied appropriately. Student achievement on math and reading tests will never accurately reflect the competency of public education. Measuring overall student achievement in every subject area would give only a small indication of whether an educator or school is competent.
Measuring the achievement growth of every student over the course of each year would be an improvement, but is still grossly inadequate at verifying educator or school competency. Currently, there is no precise way to confirm what knowledge a student has learned from his/her educators or school and what knowledge a student has learned from parents, siblings, tutors, personal determination, or any other external factor. Perhaps the most overlooked problem is the lack of an effective way to determine each student's effort or motivation when taking a test.
The government needs to be accountable for providing the resources that all children need both in and out school. It also needs to provide the competent educational workforce that will give every child the opportunity to receive a high quality education. Families, schools, communities, and local/state/federal governments can
use incentives to help influence or motivate children to reach specific goals. However, each child will ultimately decide which goals he/she will strive to achieve.
Every child is an individual. Every child, parent, educator, and school is unique.
The progression of learning fluctuates from individual to individual. Although many people believe that each child's academic potential is limitless, each child will not reach the same level of achievement at the same time. Educators, parents, and
schools need to help each student progress at the pace that is appropriate for them. This means that all students will not reach the same learning standards at the end of each year. Some students will need more resources or educational time to reach each standard, because they may lack support or need support in a particular area. Other students will accelerate through each learning standard and they may want or need to graduate ahead of schedule.
The current gap in achievement between underprivileged or minority students and White or Asian students can be justified as long as the underprivileged or minority students are given the resources and time that they to reach the potential that they or their family desire. This may mean a longer school day, longer school year,
or more than the traditional thirteen years of school. The same will be true with non English speaking students, special education students, and students who have inadequate parental support. These students may need considerable help outside of the school day. Educators and schools need to facilitate each students learning
from whatever part of the continuum that the student is currently on. Public education should be held accountable for meeting the academic needs of its students, not for trying to ensure that every child reaches a specific level of academic achievement.
Final Thought
To continue to allow this Myth to dictate educational policy is to continue to live a lie. No matter how honorable or desirable the goals may be, operating under a false premise will only end in failure. As children develop their own values, priorities, and critical thinking skills, they will ultimately decide what they want to achieve in school and in life. Our schools should support all children in the pursuit of their individual vocation or calling in life, their true potential. The longer our country uses public education in an attempt to control each student's
academic achievement level, the more misguided our students, families, and schools will eventually become.
I am a product of The Howard County Public School System in Maryland. After spending 5 years at Oakland Mills High School, I finally graduated in 1989 with a cumulative GPA of 0.6. I never took the SAT's and required remedial reading and writing courses when I attended Howard Community College in Maryland. I graduated from Towson State University in 1995 with a Bachelor's degree in Education. For the last fourteen years, I taught for the Montgomery County Public School System in Maryland. I am the father of two daughters, who I believe are receiving an excellent education from the Howard County Public School System in Maryland. My goal is to create positive change in education. I can be reached at daverussell12@yahoo.com.
What do you think of Dave Russell's point of view? Should schools be accountable for students achieving at a predetermined level? How can schools be held accountable when students cannot be compelled to learn?
Wednesday, January 20, 2010
Promoting Literacy
Public Education Matters
Promoting Literacy
1.20.10
Last night in his state of the state address, Governor Mitch Daniels (besides asking for us all to be more optimistic) asked the state legislature to consider a proposal for a bill that would require all third graders to be at third grade level before they were promoted to 4th grade. The proposal does have exemptions for students with disabilities or those who have been previously held back for two or more years. Stats from the Indiana Department of Education say that nearly a quarter of third graders fail the reading section of annual statewide tests. Governor Daniels and Dr. Bennett posit that the single greatest cause of student failure is the inability to read.
I would hesitate on endorsing that last statement partly because I believe that it ignores underlying issues about why a student might not be able to read by the time he’s ready to be a Cubscout and partly because I don’t believe that it’s fatal for a person not to be able to read, especially in this day and age with all the technology we have available.
Even the commercially available Kindles will read text out loud for you now and in a product catalog I just received I saw a device that is like a camera and if you snap a picture with it, the device then reads out loud any text it sees. And did you know that your windows operating system now has a free text reader and also a free voice dictation program? There are lots and lots of new fangled ways to get around the ability of reading these days, apart from the tried and true methods that people have always had at their disposal; things such as asking to have something read to you or compensating by using auditory and picture clues to get at meaning in a text. And did you know that the man who invented and designed Cracker Jack toys could neither read or write or cipher? So it’s never held completely true that a non-reader will turn out to be a dismal failure in life.
That said, I do personally and professionally agree that the ability to read makes it much easier to succeed in life and I am for almost anything that will help children learn to read. Almost. What I’m just not sure about here is the issue of holding back a student because he can’t read or can’t read at grade level. What does that do to a child emotionally? What does it do to a parent emotionally?
I have to wonder also if the stats on the number of 3rd graders in the state that can’t read at grade level has nothing much to do with the instruction as much as it has to do with that the average IQ’s in any one population of people are between 90 and 110. If you look at this on a IQ bell curve, you’ll see that those with IQ’s between 80 and 90 comprise 16.1% of a population, those with IQ’s between 66 and 79 comprise 6.7% of a population and those with IQ’s below 65 comprise 2.2% of a population. If you do that math, that shows you that exactly 25% of the population have IQ’s below what is considered normal.
Now please don’t jump all over me about the meanings of IQ scores. I am, in fact, fairly well read on the subject and I do not maintain that we shouldn’t consider that there are other types of intelligences that haven’t been typically measured by IQ tests or that scores can’t be inaccurate or that scores can’t be affected by racial bias among other causes.
What I am trying to say to you is that it’s just flat out true that some people (and children are people too) are just plain smarter than other people. I’m sorry, but it’s true. And I’m also trying to point out that it’s probably a mite easier for a child of average or above intelligence to learn to read than it is for a child of below average intelligence and I can’t believe that I am the ONLY person who doesn’t find it coincidental that a quarter (25%) of Indiana’s 3rd graders can’t read at grade level and a quarter (25%) of any one random population of people have IQ’s below what is considered average.
Am I advocating against trying to teach those with IQ’s below 90 to read or to read more proficiently? NO! I’m not. I, personally have taught children to read who had IQ’s below 80. What I am saying is that it takes more time because they might learn more slowly, that it takes extra drill and repetition, that it sometimes takes smaller groupings of children or one on one attention, and that it sometimes takes different methods than the ones used in the typical elementary classroom.
What I am questioning however is whether or not it makes sense to hold them back in the 3rd grade. Has anyone that is going to make this decision looked at the research about the successes or failures of children who have been held back? Has anyone in our legislature been provided with statistics about what types of Reading methods provide the best instruction and remediation? Are they considering the logistics of what you are going to do when ¼ of your 3rd graders get held back? Does the state have the money for the extra instruction that will need to be provided or will they just make class sizes higher, ignoring a whole lot of research about the effects of primetime? (And yes, I have also read the research saying that the positive effects of primetime programs don’t hold after so many years but I’m waiting for researchers to come up with the real reasons for that before I dismiss the idea of being of worth.)
I’m pasting below a passage that is measured to be at a third grade reading level. I’m guessing that most people outside the field of education will be somewhat surprised about how difficult it is. What I’m also guessing is that about ¼ of the general population of anywhere in the US won’t be able to read it with comprehension. Should we put them all back in the 3rd grade? Is that the answer?
Types of Teeth
Everyone has several different types of teeth. Each type has a unique name and a different purpose. The teeth in the front of your mouth, and the easiest to see, are called incisors. There are four incisors on the top and four on the bottom. Incisors are shaped like tiny chisels with flat ends that are sharp. These teeth are used for cutting and chopping food. They are the first teeth to chew most food we eat. The pointed teeth on either side of your incisors are called canine teeth. People have a total of four canine teeth, two on top and two on the bottom. Because they are pointed and sharp, they are used to tear food.
Next to your canine teeth are the premolars. You have eight premolars in all, four on top and four on the bottom. They have a completely different shape than both the incisors and canines. That is because premolars are bigger, stronger, and have ridges – all of which makes them perfect for crushing and grinding food. Finally, there are your molars. You have eight of these, four on the top and four on the bottom. Molars are the toughest of the teeth. They are wider and stronger than premolars, and they have more ridges. Molars work closely with your tongue to help you swallow food. The tongue sweeps chewed food to the back of your mouth, where the molars grind it until it is mashed up and ready to be swallowed.
By age twenty, four more molars grow in the back of the mouth, one in each corner. These are called the wisdom teeth. People do not need wisdom teeth now, but many years ago these teeth were necessary to help people chew tough plants, which were an important part of the human diet. Now, many people get their wisdom teeth pulled by a dentist, a doctor who takes care of teeth, to keep them from crowding their other teeth.
The next time you eat, pay attention to which teeth do which jobs. Having a cookie? Incisors do a good job of biting into that tasty treat. What about a carrot? Those molars get the job done, not the teeth in front. How about a slice of pizza or a piece of bread? Your canines will help you tear at the food, and your premolars and molars will help you grind up that pepperoni pizza or peanut butter and jelly sandwich. © Jim Cornish
1. What do your molars do?
A. Tear your food.
B. Cut and chop your food.
C. Taste your food.
D. Grind and mash your food.
2. A tooth that looks like a chisel would be what shape?
A. Pointy and sharp.
B. Flat and sharp.
C. Curved and shiny.
D. Long and jagged.
3. What would be another good title for this reading passage?
A. Many Kinds of Molars.
B. The Food I Love to Eat.
C. How to Prevent Cavities.
D. Different Types of Teeth
4. Why do some teeth have different shapes?
A. To pass food to the back of the mouth.
B. To help us talk.
C. To help us chew tough plants.
D. To chew different types of food.
5. Why is the tongue important to the eating process?
A. It pushes food to the front of the mouth.
B. It helps people talk.
C. It pushes chewed food to the back of the mouth.
D. It sits next to the wisdom teeth.
*Extra credit question*
Do you believe that the Indiana State legislature should pass a law to hold students in the 3rd grade back from 4th grade if they cannot read the above passage? Yes or No.
Promoting Literacy
1.20.10
Last night in his state of the state address, Governor Mitch Daniels (besides asking for us all to be more optimistic) asked the state legislature to consider a proposal for a bill that would require all third graders to be at third grade level before they were promoted to 4th grade. The proposal does have exemptions for students with disabilities or those who have been previously held back for two or more years. Stats from the Indiana Department of Education say that nearly a quarter of third graders fail the reading section of annual statewide tests. Governor Daniels and Dr. Bennett posit that the single greatest cause of student failure is the inability to read.
I would hesitate on endorsing that last statement partly because I believe that it ignores underlying issues about why a student might not be able to read by the time he’s ready to be a Cubscout and partly because I don’t believe that it’s fatal for a person not to be able to read, especially in this day and age with all the technology we have available.
Even the commercially available Kindles will read text out loud for you now and in a product catalog I just received I saw a device that is like a camera and if you snap a picture with it, the device then reads out loud any text it sees. And did you know that your windows operating system now has a free text reader and also a free voice dictation program? There are lots and lots of new fangled ways to get around the ability of reading these days, apart from the tried and true methods that people have always had at their disposal; things such as asking to have something read to you or compensating by using auditory and picture clues to get at meaning in a text. And did you know that the man who invented and designed Cracker Jack toys could neither read or write or cipher? So it’s never held completely true that a non-reader will turn out to be a dismal failure in life.
That said, I do personally and professionally agree that the ability to read makes it much easier to succeed in life and I am for almost anything that will help children learn to read. Almost. What I’m just not sure about here is the issue of holding back a student because he can’t read or can’t read at grade level. What does that do to a child emotionally? What does it do to a parent emotionally?
I have to wonder also if the stats on the number of 3rd graders in the state that can’t read at grade level has nothing much to do with the instruction as much as it has to do with that the average IQ’s in any one population of people are between 90 and 110. If you look at this on a IQ bell curve, you’ll see that those with IQ’s between 80 and 90 comprise 16.1% of a population, those with IQ’s between 66 and 79 comprise 6.7% of a population and those with IQ’s below 65 comprise 2.2% of a population. If you do that math, that shows you that exactly 25% of the population have IQ’s below what is considered normal.
Now please don’t jump all over me about the meanings of IQ scores. I am, in fact, fairly well read on the subject and I do not maintain that we shouldn’t consider that there are other types of intelligences that haven’t been typically measured by IQ tests or that scores can’t be inaccurate or that scores can’t be affected by racial bias among other causes.
What I am trying to say to you is that it’s just flat out true that some people (and children are people too) are just plain smarter than other people. I’m sorry, but it’s true. And I’m also trying to point out that it’s probably a mite easier for a child of average or above intelligence to learn to read than it is for a child of below average intelligence and I can’t believe that I am the ONLY person who doesn’t find it coincidental that a quarter (25%) of Indiana’s 3rd graders can’t read at grade level and a quarter (25%) of any one random population of people have IQ’s below what is considered average.
Am I advocating against trying to teach those with IQ’s below 90 to read or to read more proficiently? NO! I’m not. I, personally have taught children to read who had IQ’s below 80. What I am saying is that it takes more time because they might learn more slowly, that it takes extra drill and repetition, that it sometimes takes smaller groupings of children or one on one attention, and that it sometimes takes different methods than the ones used in the typical elementary classroom.
What I am questioning however is whether or not it makes sense to hold them back in the 3rd grade. Has anyone that is going to make this decision looked at the research about the successes or failures of children who have been held back? Has anyone in our legislature been provided with statistics about what types of Reading methods provide the best instruction and remediation? Are they considering the logistics of what you are going to do when ¼ of your 3rd graders get held back? Does the state have the money for the extra instruction that will need to be provided or will they just make class sizes higher, ignoring a whole lot of research about the effects of primetime? (And yes, I have also read the research saying that the positive effects of primetime programs don’t hold after so many years but I’m waiting for researchers to come up with the real reasons for that before I dismiss the idea of being of worth.)
I’m pasting below a passage that is measured to be at a third grade reading level. I’m guessing that most people outside the field of education will be somewhat surprised about how difficult it is. What I’m also guessing is that about ¼ of the general population of anywhere in the US won’t be able to read it with comprehension. Should we put them all back in the 3rd grade? Is that the answer?
Types of Teeth
Everyone has several different types of teeth. Each type has a unique name and a different purpose. The teeth in the front of your mouth, and the easiest to see, are called incisors. There are four incisors on the top and four on the bottom. Incisors are shaped like tiny chisels with flat ends that are sharp. These teeth are used for cutting and chopping food. They are the first teeth to chew most food we eat. The pointed teeth on either side of your incisors are called canine teeth. People have a total of four canine teeth, two on top and two on the bottom. Because they are pointed and sharp, they are used to tear food.
Next to your canine teeth are the premolars. You have eight premolars in all, four on top and four on the bottom. They have a completely different shape than both the incisors and canines. That is because premolars are bigger, stronger, and have ridges – all of which makes them perfect for crushing and grinding food. Finally, there are your molars. You have eight of these, four on the top and four on the bottom. Molars are the toughest of the teeth. They are wider and stronger than premolars, and they have more ridges. Molars work closely with your tongue to help you swallow food. The tongue sweeps chewed food to the back of your mouth, where the molars grind it until it is mashed up and ready to be swallowed.
By age twenty, four more molars grow in the back of the mouth, one in each corner. These are called the wisdom teeth. People do not need wisdom teeth now, but many years ago these teeth were necessary to help people chew tough plants, which were an important part of the human diet. Now, many people get their wisdom teeth pulled by a dentist, a doctor who takes care of teeth, to keep them from crowding their other teeth.
The next time you eat, pay attention to which teeth do which jobs. Having a cookie? Incisors do a good job of biting into that tasty treat. What about a carrot? Those molars get the job done, not the teeth in front. How about a slice of pizza or a piece of bread? Your canines will help you tear at the food, and your premolars and molars will help you grind up that pepperoni pizza or peanut butter and jelly sandwich. © Jim Cornish
1. What do your molars do?
A. Tear your food.
B. Cut and chop your food.
C. Taste your food.
D. Grind and mash your food.
2. A tooth that looks like a chisel would be what shape?
A. Pointy and sharp.
B. Flat and sharp.
C. Curved and shiny.
D. Long and jagged.
3. What would be another good title for this reading passage?
A. Many Kinds of Molars.
B. The Food I Love to Eat.
C. How to Prevent Cavities.
D. Different Types of Teeth
4. Why do some teeth have different shapes?
A. To pass food to the back of the mouth.
B. To help us talk.
C. To help us chew tough plants.
D. To chew different types of food.
5. Why is the tongue important to the eating process?
A. It pushes food to the front of the mouth.
B. It helps people talk.
C. It pushes chewed food to the back of the mouth.
D. It sits next to the wisdom teeth.
*Extra credit question*
Do you believe that the Indiana State legislature should pass a law to hold students in the 3rd grade back from 4th grade if they cannot read the above passage? Yes or No.
Tuesday, January 19, 2010
(B)race for the Top
Public School Matters
1.19.10
(B)race for the Top
Do you like numbers? Well, this is the blog post for you then. Tonight I’d like to talk about numbers. Specifically, I’d like to talk about the “Race to the Top” numbers. Race to the Top, of course, being the name for the educational stimulus money being held out by the nation’s Education Secretary, Arne Duncan, for the application for grants by the states. Mr. Duncan is calling it a race. I guess that makes it sound fun.
Well ok then, let's have some fun with numbers. (-: Numbers have to mean something right? Otherwise they are just numerals, just funny- shaped, chicken scratches on paper. So let’s try to attach some meaning to these numbers. The first number you need to know is $4 billion. That’s how much money in grants that the federal government is saying they have to award to the states.
How much is $4 billion? That’s 4 with 9 zeros after it. And if we were to divide the money equally by 50 states, each state would get $80 million dollars. Of course that would not be completely fair, because not each state has the exact same number of school children. Also, we need to keep in mind that the federal school secretary has other ideas of how it ought to be distributed. Remember it’s a race- a contest. There will be losers; there will be winners.
However, for now, let’s pretend that Indiana would get 80 million smackeroos. What would that mean? Well, using the figures for public school enrollment (from the IDOE website) there were 1,046,263 children enrolled in Indiana Public Schools last school (08-09) year. (That’s as current a number as I can find.) And let’s pretend, for the sake of discussion, we’d use this money to give each child enrolled in the public schools (We are not even going to discuss private schools in this blog, that will be coming.) in the state of Indiana a bonus on their allowance with the RttT money. This would mean that each public school student in the state of Indiana would get about 76 dollars and about 46 cents- about enough to buy a pretty nice game for his or her Wii system. That's fun, right?
Of course, I’m being quite facetious here. That is NOT how the $4 billion is going to be distributed. The way it will be distributed will be based on a competition between states to get the most points they can by demonstrating their compliance on points on a rating scale of 500 points. I don’t know ALL of what you have to do to get the total of 500 points. I do know this is available on the IDOE website for your review. But I do know how some of it can be “earned.” I know 70 of those points will be for states who have adopted common academic standards, such as Indiana has. I know states get points for showing that they allow charter schools. Again, Indiana would meet this requirement.
The points that seem to be causing the most controversy right now, however, are the 45 points that are connected to whether or not “states secure agreement from local school leaders to implement what in many cases will be an ambitions and difficult array of changes designed to improve public education. States must demonstrate those agreements in signed memorandums of understanding (with the amusing acronym of MOUs) from local school officials.” (I’m sorry- all I can think of is “a mou mou here, and a mou mou there, here a mou, there a mou….) “A MOU requires the signature of the district superintendent, president of the local school board, and the leader of the local teachers’ union if there is one.” (from an article “District Stances on Race to the Top Plans Vary” by Lesli A. Maxwell in Education Week with the parentheses being my own)
The Education Week article also cites the U.S Department of Education to say that some of the measures of a “model” MOU are under the category “Great Teachers and Leaders” and that includes measuring student growth, designing and implementing evaluation systems, conducting annual evaluations, using evaluations to inform professional development, using evaluations to inform compensation, promotion, and retention, using evaluations to inform tenure and/or full certification, using evaluations to inform removal, ensuring equitable distribution of effective teachers and principals to high-poverty and/or high-minority schools and hard-to-staff subjects and specialty areas, and providing effective support to teachers and principals."
These MOUs are going to be difficult to come by in a lot of places for various reasons, but one of the stumbling blocks that I can see is that no self-respecting teachers' union would sign such a thing without first making sure that none of the measures were going to hurt the people that they exist to support. (My pro- opinions on teachers’ unions will be an upcoming blog topic!)
Another point of hesitation on applying seems to be opposition to federal intrusion. Some school districts really do not want to have more federal stipulations shoved down their throats.
So there are some districts and some states that are just plain saying “Wow, is what we are going to get worth all of this work even if we are “lucky” enough to win?” The Education Week Article cited above quotes David Britten, the superintendent of the 1700 student Godfrey-Lee school system, a high poverty district adjacent to Grand Rapids, Michigan. “We just don’t agree that there is a one-size-fits-all approach to improving our schools, and frankly, for $50,000 a year for four years,…. We’d have to do an awful lot of funny things for just a little bit of money.”
The Education Week article lists many school districts across the country who are just plain opting out of their state’s “race entry.” They are turning their little yellow busses around at the starting line and racing on home. In addition to that, there are many districts that are trying to sign on to “the race” without the backing of their teachers unions. The article also states that Texas has just decided to say (in my words) “Hell No!” to the whole shebang. (God Bless Texas!)
The Indiana State Teacher’s Association has done some projections about the money that Indiana school districts could receive from the grants. The numbers are based on Title I numbers. (Title I is federal funding academically disadvantaged students.) ISTA is projecting that our state stands to get (if awarded) a total of about $125 million, which of course is better than the $80 million that we’d get if it was all handed out evenly to each state.
So would it make sense to go for it in Indiana? Well that depends on who you are, I think. Read on, please.
The ISTA projects the following amounts (again according to Title 1 figures) to be awarded to the six districts that my Special Education Cooperative serves. And one thing you have to note is that the districts themselves would only be getting roughly half of the amounts (below) directly. The other halves would be “siphoned” off by the IDOE, is my understanding. So you can kind of see why Tony Bennett and Mitch Daniels are all for this – it seems that it might help fund Tony’s salary and his very nice suits, and his manicures, and his spiffy haircuts. And Mitch can use his state revenues elsewhere possibly- maybe buy his tollroad back or something. But I digress, here are the projected numbers:
South Adams $497,064.44
Adams Central $331,741.69
North Adams $134,371.40
Northern Wells $154,587.66
Bluffton Harrison MSD $95,827.29
Southern Wells $25,696.81
Obviously, the Southern Wells District especially doesn’t seem to stand to gain much from signing on for the grant. They’d really only be bringing home about 13,000 dollars. That’s not much bacon- about enough to pay for 1 teacher’s assistant. And that may seem worth it to you, however, I think it would be so much less fuss and muss to just have a big old rousing Southern Wells bake sale or two. Or even (God forbid) require athletes and supporters of athletics to self-fund their programs.
What do you think?
(I do ask you to please forgive some of the weak sarcasm in this post. I had vowed I'd try really hard to stay away from that in this blog. I'll try to do better in the future.)
1.19.10
(B)race for the Top
Do you like numbers? Well, this is the blog post for you then. Tonight I’d like to talk about numbers. Specifically, I’d like to talk about the “Race to the Top” numbers. Race to the Top, of course, being the name for the educational stimulus money being held out by the nation’s Education Secretary, Arne Duncan, for the application for grants by the states. Mr. Duncan is calling it a race. I guess that makes it sound fun.
Well ok then, let's have some fun with numbers. (-: Numbers have to mean something right? Otherwise they are just numerals, just funny- shaped, chicken scratches on paper. So let’s try to attach some meaning to these numbers. The first number you need to know is $4 billion. That’s how much money in grants that the federal government is saying they have to award to the states.
How much is $4 billion? That’s 4 with 9 zeros after it. And if we were to divide the money equally by 50 states, each state would get $80 million dollars. Of course that would not be completely fair, because not each state has the exact same number of school children. Also, we need to keep in mind that the federal school secretary has other ideas of how it ought to be distributed. Remember it’s a race- a contest. There will be losers; there will be winners.
However, for now, let’s pretend that Indiana would get 80 million smackeroos. What would that mean? Well, using the figures for public school enrollment (from the IDOE website) there were 1,046,263 children enrolled in Indiana Public Schools last school (08-09) year. (That’s as current a number as I can find.) And let’s pretend, for the sake of discussion, we’d use this money to give each child enrolled in the public schools (We are not even going to discuss private schools in this blog, that will be coming.) in the state of Indiana a bonus on their allowance with the RttT money. This would mean that each public school student in the state of Indiana would get about 76 dollars and about 46 cents- about enough to buy a pretty nice game for his or her Wii system. That's fun, right?
Of course, I’m being quite facetious here. That is NOT how the $4 billion is going to be distributed. The way it will be distributed will be based on a competition between states to get the most points they can by demonstrating their compliance on points on a rating scale of 500 points. I don’t know ALL of what you have to do to get the total of 500 points. I do know this is available on the IDOE website for your review. But I do know how some of it can be “earned.” I know 70 of those points will be for states who have adopted common academic standards, such as Indiana has. I know states get points for showing that they allow charter schools. Again, Indiana would meet this requirement.
The points that seem to be causing the most controversy right now, however, are the 45 points that are connected to whether or not “states secure agreement from local school leaders to implement what in many cases will be an ambitions and difficult array of changes designed to improve public education. States must demonstrate those agreements in signed memorandums of understanding (with the amusing acronym of MOUs) from local school officials.” (I’m sorry- all I can think of is “a mou mou here, and a mou mou there, here a mou, there a mou….) “A MOU requires the signature of the district superintendent, president of the local school board, and the leader of the local teachers’ union if there is one.” (from an article “District Stances on Race to the Top Plans Vary” by Lesli A. Maxwell in Education Week with the parentheses being my own)
The Education Week article also cites the U.S Department of Education to say that some of the measures of a “model” MOU are under the category “Great Teachers and Leaders” and that includes measuring student growth, designing and implementing evaluation systems, conducting annual evaluations, using evaluations to inform professional development, using evaluations to inform compensation, promotion, and retention, using evaluations to inform tenure and/or full certification, using evaluations to inform removal, ensuring equitable distribution of effective teachers and principals to high-poverty and/or high-minority schools and hard-to-staff subjects and specialty areas, and providing effective support to teachers and principals."
These MOUs are going to be difficult to come by in a lot of places for various reasons, but one of the stumbling blocks that I can see is that no self-respecting teachers' union would sign such a thing without first making sure that none of the measures were going to hurt the people that they exist to support. (My pro- opinions on teachers’ unions will be an upcoming blog topic!)
Another point of hesitation on applying seems to be opposition to federal intrusion. Some school districts really do not want to have more federal stipulations shoved down their throats.
So there are some districts and some states that are just plain saying “Wow, is what we are going to get worth all of this work even if we are “lucky” enough to win?” The Education Week Article cited above quotes David Britten, the superintendent of the 1700 student Godfrey-Lee school system, a high poverty district adjacent to Grand Rapids, Michigan. “We just don’t agree that there is a one-size-fits-all approach to improving our schools, and frankly, for $50,000 a year for four years,…. We’d have to do an awful lot of funny things for just a little bit of money.”
The Education Week article lists many school districts across the country who are just plain opting out of their state’s “race entry.” They are turning their little yellow busses around at the starting line and racing on home. In addition to that, there are many districts that are trying to sign on to “the race” without the backing of their teachers unions. The article also states that Texas has just decided to say (in my words) “Hell No!” to the whole shebang. (God Bless Texas!)
The Indiana State Teacher’s Association has done some projections about the money that Indiana school districts could receive from the grants. The numbers are based on Title I numbers. (Title I is federal funding academically disadvantaged students.) ISTA is projecting that our state stands to get (if awarded) a total of about $125 million, which of course is better than the $80 million that we’d get if it was all handed out evenly to each state.
So would it make sense to go for it in Indiana? Well that depends on who you are, I think. Read on, please.
The ISTA projects the following amounts (again according to Title 1 figures) to be awarded to the six districts that my Special Education Cooperative serves. And one thing you have to note is that the districts themselves would only be getting roughly half of the amounts (below) directly. The other halves would be “siphoned” off by the IDOE, is my understanding. So you can kind of see why Tony Bennett and Mitch Daniels are all for this – it seems that it might help fund Tony’s salary and his very nice suits, and his manicures, and his spiffy haircuts. And Mitch can use his state revenues elsewhere possibly- maybe buy his tollroad back or something. But I digress, here are the projected numbers:
South Adams $497,064.44
Adams Central $331,741.69
North Adams $134,371.40
Northern Wells $154,587.66
Bluffton Harrison MSD $95,827.29
Southern Wells $25,696.81
Obviously, the Southern Wells District especially doesn’t seem to stand to gain much from signing on for the grant. They’d really only be bringing home about 13,000 dollars. That’s not much bacon- about enough to pay for 1 teacher’s assistant. And that may seem worth it to you, however, I think it would be so much less fuss and muss to just have a big old rousing Southern Wells bake sale or two. Or even (God forbid) require athletes and supporters of athletics to self-fund their programs.
What do you think?
(I do ask you to please forgive some of the weak sarcasm in this post. I had vowed I'd try really hard to stay away from that in this blog. I'll try to do better in the future.)
Monday, January 18, 2010
Teacher of the Year
1.17.09
The following is a blog post by Anthony Mullen. He was named the 59th National Teacher of the Year. His, is an important voice to be heard. Too bad that it seems no one in my state is listening. I even have to wonder if perhaps the "governor from the midwest" that he mentions below is my own. You can find this post that I've reprinted below and others at his blog at http://blogs.edweek.org/teachers/teacher_of_the_year/2010/01/teachers_should_be_seen_and_no.html
Please read. Oh and I have an answer to his final question on this blog and I think it might be "ALL OF US!"
Teachers Should Be Seen and Not Heard
By Anthony Mullen on January 7, 2010 9:12 AM
I am a fly on the wall sitting at a table. Seated at a round table are three state governors, one state senator, a Harvard professor and author, and a strange little man who assumes the role of group moderator. The strange little man asks the group to talk about their experiences at the education conference. The ex governor from the South begins to talk about how the traditional school model is not working and the problem of too many teachers who do not understand what they teach. Teachers, he complains, are not prepared to teach in 21st century classrooms because they possess, in his words, "only 20th century skills." He does not provide specific examples or elaborate upon his theory but the other guests at the table nod their heads in agreement.
A governor from the Midwest first pays homage to the governor from the South. He tells us that his "good friend "is "right on target" about teachers not prepared to teach in 21st century classrooms. The governor from the Midwest thanks the governor from the South for presenting "the best talk at the conference." Not to be undone, the governor from the South responds by telling the governor from the Midwest that he "presented the best talk at the conference." When both men are done patting each other's backs, the Midwest governor complains that teachers, particularly math teachers, don't know their subject materials. Again, the other guests at the table nod their heads in agreement. All is civil.
The third governor hails from a cold northern state but his words have a scorching tone. "The problem with schools, "he says, "is a lack of accountability. Schools need to be guided by specific core curriculum standards and data-driven assessment." The governor continues his diatribe. "I don't understand why schools are not managed more like businesses." This time the guests nod their heads vigorously, not unlike those small bobble head dolls seen on car dashboards.
The next education expert to speak is the professor from Harvard. He gives a mini lesson about the role of chaos theory in education. His new order of thinking-or New Age way of thinking- argues that seemingly unrelated events occurring in the classroom (the boy coughing, the girl raising her hand, and the teacher writing on the board) when taken together form a pattern of continuity and purpose rather than chaotic or random events. The 21st century teacher must be able to recognize these events as purposeful moments in time and space because education is connected to the rest of the universe. Wow. I will forever wonder if I did something to upset a time and space continuum the next time I admonish a student for not covering his mouth while coughing. Teachers do recognize that order and disorder exist in classrooms and that educating children is often an uncertain endeavor, but we do not have time to reflect on such esoteric thoughts when breaking up a spit ball fight.
The strange little man tries to fuse all the promulgated ideas together and asks the group to consider the following question: "Where do we take education from here?"
The state senator from the West is asked to go first. She is a diminutive lady and pauses to reflect upon the question. "I think we need to consider the role of teachers in the classroom," she replies in a soft voice. "We are headed toward a teacherless classroom and must be guided by this fact." A teacherless classroom? I look around the table and hope one of the esteemed guests will ask her to clarify or possibly expand upon her statement. Instead, the guests just nod their heads in agreement.
The strange little man interrupts. "I agree. Technology is making the traditional classroom teacher less relevant-possibly obsolete. Soon students will be learning at home from online classes on their laptops." I silently question who will be teaching the online classes.
The senator continues her line of reasoning, asserting how the rapid infusion of technology in classrooms is better understood by students than teachers. Teachers are best suited to facilitate the dissemination of knowledge through interactive technology rather than try to teach ideas and concepts using traditional methods. A Brave New World suddenly enters the discussion and the senator's vision of a utopian classroom is greeted with comments such as "indeed" and "without question."
The Harvard professor tugs at his chin with his right thumb and index finger and compliments the senator. "In the future," he says, "students will be learning at home using their computers. School buildings and classrooms will not be the primary learning environment." Really? Could any sane person envision millions of school children staying home and learning a full curriculum online? I foresee a stay-at-home mom or dad spending most of the day trying to keep their children away from Facebook.
The senator from the West is very pleased that her comment about technology replacing teachers is embraced by the people seated at the table. So far I have not been asked to speak or comment. I remain a fly on the wall at the table. How weird and familiar it feels to be an invisible teacher listening to politicians and academics speak about teachers and the teaching profession. I try not to move lest they notice me.
The governor from the South changes the direction of the conversation and boasts about how he personally raised test scores in his state by challenging the "status quo of education." He forgot to mention that he lowered the passing grades for state assessment tests- a status quo practiced by quite a few states.
The strange little man grabs a large strawberry from a fruit dish and gnaws at it. I have never seen a person eat a strawberry with two hands. "I think we all agree that changes are needed, "he declares to the group.
"That's why we are here," the senator replied.
The politicians and academics enjoy a dessert of pastries and fruit. I can't keep my eyes off the strange little man nibbling on the strawberry like some backyard squirrel. The group discusses the need to drastically modify classroom management and teaching practices. They talk about curricula and how children learn best when they are provided meaningful activities. We are reminded by the governor from the South that teachers must be proficient in content knowledge.
Once again the strange little man grabs the reigns of the discussion and now alerts the group of my presence. He deposits the strawberry's calyx on a plate. I am no longer a fly on the wall at a table as the others look upon me.
"What do you think?" the senator asked.
Where do I begin? I spent the last thirty minutes listening to a group of arrogant and condescending non educators disrespect my colleagues and profession. I listened to a group of disingenuous people whose own self-interests guide their policies rather than the interests of children. I listened to a cabal of people who sit on national education committees that will have a profound impact on classroom teaching practices. And I heard nothing of value.
"I'm thinking about the current health care debate, "I said. "And I am wondering if I will be asked to sit on a national committee charged with the task of creating a core curriculum of medical procedures to be used in hospital emergency rooms."
The strange little man cocks his head and, suddenly, the fly on the wall has everyone's attention.
"I realize that most people would think I am unqualified to sit on such a committee because I am not a doctor, I have never worked in an emergency room, and I have never treated a single patient. So what? Today I have listened to people who are not teachers, have never worked in a classroom, and have never taught a single student tell me how to teach."
An uneasy silence cloaks the table. The governor from the South looks at his watch, the governor from the North bows his head, the governor from the Midwest stirs his coffee, the diminutive senator stares at me, and the strange little man grabs another strawberry. One by one the lunch guests leave the table.
I return to being a fly on a wall at a table.
I wonder how many other teachers have been treated in such a manner.
The following is a blog post by Anthony Mullen. He was named the 59th National Teacher of the Year. His, is an important voice to be heard. Too bad that it seems no one in my state is listening. I even have to wonder if perhaps the "governor from the midwest" that he mentions below is my own. You can find this post that I've reprinted below and others at his blog at http://blogs.edweek.org/teachers/teacher_of_the_year/2010/01/teachers_should_be_seen_and_no.html
Please read. Oh and I have an answer to his final question on this blog and I think it might be "ALL OF US!"
Teachers Should Be Seen and Not Heard
By Anthony Mullen on January 7, 2010 9:12 AM
I am a fly on the wall sitting at a table. Seated at a round table are three state governors, one state senator, a Harvard professor and author, and a strange little man who assumes the role of group moderator. The strange little man asks the group to talk about their experiences at the education conference. The ex governor from the South begins to talk about how the traditional school model is not working and the problem of too many teachers who do not understand what they teach. Teachers, he complains, are not prepared to teach in 21st century classrooms because they possess, in his words, "only 20th century skills." He does not provide specific examples or elaborate upon his theory but the other guests at the table nod their heads in agreement.
A governor from the Midwest first pays homage to the governor from the South. He tells us that his "good friend "is "right on target" about teachers not prepared to teach in 21st century classrooms. The governor from the Midwest thanks the governor from the South for presenting "the best talk at the conference." Not to be undone, the governor from the South responds by telling the governor from the Midwest that he "presented the best talk at the conference." When both men are done patting each other's backs, the Midwest governor complains that teachers, particularly math teachers, don't know their subject materials. Again, the other guests at the table nod their heads in agreement. All is civil.
The third governor hails from a cold northern state but his words have a scorching tone. "The problem with schools, "he says, "is a lack of accountability. Schools need to be guided by specific core curriculum standards and data-driven assessment." The governor continues his diatribe. "I don't understand why schools are not managed more like businesses." This time the guests nod their heads vigorously, not unlike those small bobble head dolls seen on car dashboards.
The next education expert to speak is the professor from Harvard. He gives a mini lesson about the role of chaos theory in education. His new order of thinking-or New Age way of thinking- argues that seemingly unrelated events occurring in the classroom (the boy coughing, the girl raising her hand, and the teacher writing on the board) when taken together form a pattern of continuity and purpose rather than chaotic or random events. The 21st century teacher must be able to recognize these events as purposeful moments in time and space because education is connected to the rest of the universe. Wow. I will forever wonder if I did something to upset a time and space continuum the next time I admonish a student for not covering his mouth while coughing. Teachers do recognize that order and disorder exist in classrooms and that educating children is often an uncertain endeavor, but we do not have time to reflect on such esoteric thoughts when breaking up a spit ball fight.
The strange little man tries to fuse all the promulgated ideas together and asks the group to consider the following question: "Where do we take education from here?"
The state senator from the West is asked to go first. She is a diminutive lady and pauses to reflect upon the question. "I think we need to consider the role of teachers in the classroom," she replies in a soft voice. "We are headed toward a teacherless classroom and must be guided by this fact." A teacherless classroom? I look around the table and hope one of the esteemed guests will ask her to clarify or possibly expand upon her statement. Instead, the guests just nod their heads in agreement.
The strange little man interrupts. "I agree. Technology is making the traditional classroom teacher less relevant-possibly obsolete. Soon students will be learning at home from online classes on their laptops." I silently question who will be teaching the online classes.
The senator continues her line of reasoning, asserting how the rapid infusion of technology in classrooms is better understood by students than teachers. Teachers are best suited to facilitate the dissemination of knowledge through interactive technology rather than try to teach ideas and concepts using traditional methods. A Brave New World suddenly enters the discussion and the senator's vision of a utopian classroom is greeted with comments such as "indeed" and "without question."
The Harvard professor tugs at his chin with his right thumb and index finger and compliments the senator. "In the future," he says, "students will be learning at home using their computers. School buildings and classrooms will not be the primary learning environment." Really? Could any sane person envision millions of school children staying home and learning a full curriculum online? I foresee a stay-at-home mom or dad spending most of the day trying to keep their children away from Facebook.
The senator from the West is very pleased that her comment about technology replacing teachers is embraced by the people seated at the table. So far I have not been asked to speak or comment. I remain a fly on the wall at the table. How weird and familiar it feels to be an invisible teacher listening to politicians and academics speak about teachers and the teaching profession. I try not to move lest they notice me.
The governor from the South changes the direction of the conversation and boasts about how he personally raised test scores in his state by challenging the "status quo of education." He forgot to mention that he lowered the passing grades for state assessment tests- a status quo practiced by quite a few states.
The strange little man grabs a large strawberry from a fruit dish and gnaws at it. I have never seen a person eat a strawberry with two hands. "I think we all agree that changes are needed, "he declares to the group.
"That's why we are here," the senator replied.
The politicians and academics enjoy a dessert of pastries and fruit. I can't keep my eyes off the strange little man nibbling on the strawberry like some backyard squirrel. The group discusses the need to drastically modify classroom management and teaching practices. They talk about curricula and how children learn best when they are provided meaningful activities. We are reminded by the governor from the South that teachers must be proficient in content knowledge.
Once again the strange little man grabs the reigns of the discussion and now alerts the group of my presence. He deposits the strawberry's calyx on a plate. I am no longer a fly on the wall at a table as the others look upon me.
"What do you think?" the senator asked.
Where do I begin? I spent the last thirty minutes listening to a group of arrogant and condescending non educators disrespect my colleagues and profession. I listened to a group of disingenuous people whose own self-interests guide their policies rather than the interests of children. I listened to a cabal of people who sit on national education committees that will have a profound impact on classroom teaching practices. And I heard nothing of value.
"I'm thinking about the current health care debate, "I said. "And I am wondering if I will be asked to sit on a national committee charged with the task of creating a core curriculum of medical procedures to be used in hospital emergency rooms."
The strange little man cocks his head and, suddenly, the fly on the wall has everyone's attention.
"I realize that most people would think I am unqualified to sit on such a committee because I am not a doctor, I have never worked in an emergency room, and I have never treated a single patient. So what? Today I have listened to people who are not teachers, have never worked in a classroom, and have never taught a single student tell me how to teach."
An uneasy silence cloaks the table. The governor from the South looks at his watch, the governor from the North bows his head, the governor from the Midwest stirs his coffee, the diminutive senator stares at me, and the strange little man grabs another strawberry. One by one the lunch guests leave the table.
I return to being a fly on a wall at a table.
I wonder how many other teachers have been treated in such a manner.
Sunday, January 17, 2010
Race to the Top?
Public School Matters
1-17-10
Race to the Top?
This article comes under the heading "I WISH I WOULD HAVE WRITTEN THIS!" Worth your time!
COMMENTARY
Over the Top
Six Tips for Winning 'Race to the Top' Money
By Yong Zhao
I have been reading through the voluminous
document published in the Nov. 18, 2009,
Federal Register , giving the final versions of
application guidelines, selection criteria, and
priorities for $4 billion in competitive grants under
the Race to the Top Fund, the largest education
grant program in U.S. history.
From news reports, op-ed pieces, and blog posts,
I can guess that many states are working hard
now to prepare their applications. My reading of
the criteria leads me to suggest that the following
are winning strategies and actions to include,
even though they may be inconsistent with
research findings or common sense.
1. Stop paying teachers and principals a salary.
Instead, pay them on a per-standardized-test-point basis each day. At the end of the school
day, simply give each student a standardized test. Then calculate what the teacher and
principal will be paid that day based on the growth of the student, that is, on how much the
student has improved over the previous day.
This is true accountability and is sure to keep teachers and principals on their toes. (It also
seems to be the true intention behind this requirement: “At the time the State submits its
application, the State does not have any legal, statutory, or regulatory barriers at the State
level to linking data on student achievement or student growth to teachers and principals for
the purpose of teacher and principal evaluation.”)
But to do it, you must not ask the question of whether this accountability will lead to better
teaching. You also will need to ignore the fact that “accountability” has driven many teachers
out of the schools, and to forget about attracting highly qualified talent to the teaching
profession.
2. Remove all “non-core” academic activities and courses and reduce all teaching to math and
reading. What the U.S. secretary of education wants is “increasing student achievement in (at
a minimum) reading/language arts and mathematics, as reported by the [National
Education Week: Over the Top Page 1 of 3
http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2009/12/16/15zhao_ep.h29.html?tkn=NNLFNTbTNs... 12/13/2009
Assessment of Educational Progress] and the assessments required under the [Elementary
and Secondary Education Act]” and “decreasing achievement gaps between subgroups in
reading/language arts and mathematics, as reported by the NAEP and the assessments
required under the ESEA.” Actually, no need to teach students these subjects; just teaching
them how to pass the tests may be even more effective.
But to do so, you have to forget the reasons for education in the first place, ignore all
research findings about the negative consequences of high-stakes testing, and suppress any
desire to care about the students’ emotional well-being, to cultivate their creativity and
entrepreneurship, or to consider their interests and strengths.
3. Make sure every child takes courses in STEM subjects (science, technology, engineering,
and mathematics), the more the merrier. This is because, as the guidelines state, “Emphasis
on Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM)” is a “Competitive Preference
Priority,” worth 15 points, and you either get 15 points or nothing.
But this requires you to ignore research findings such as those from Lindsay Lowell and Hal
Salzman , showing that “over the past decade, U.S. colleges and universities graduated
roughly three times more scientists and engineers than were employed in the growing science
and engineering workforce,” and that “there is no evidence of a long-term decline in the
proportion of American students with the relevant training and qualifications to pursue STEM
jobs.” You also must not think about what children will really need to be successful in the 21st
-century global economy, such as cross-cultural competencies, foreign languages, and digital
capabilities.
4. This suggestion is only for the states of Alaska and Texas, because the others have already
committed themselves to doing it: Develop and adopt “a common set of K-12 standards …
that are supported by evidence that they are internationally benchmarked and build toward
college and career readiness by the time of high school graduation.” The other 48 states have
signed on to the Common Core State Standards Initiative spearheaded by the National
Governors Association and the Council of Chief State School Officers. So I guess the initiative
counts, even though it covers only two subjects.
Well, there may be a small problem: how to prove that the standards are internationally
benchmarked. Did the authors benchmark against national standards in Canada, our closest
neighbor, or Australia, a large federation of states like the United States? Of course not,
because these countries do not have national standards. Or perhaps they benchmarked
against China, since it is our perceived competitor. Probably not, because China has been
reforming its curriculum over the past two decades and loosening its national control on
curriculum. Or perhaps it is against the Program for International Student Assessment or the
Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study—yet these are tests, not curriculum
standards.
To wholeheartedly embrace this suggestion, states have to overlook the damages national
standards can do to education, and not take into consideration the fact that having national
standards neither improves education for students nor narrows achievement gaps.
Education Week: Over the Top Page 2 of 3
http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2009/12/16/15zhao_ep.h29.html?tkn=NNLFNTbTNs... 12/13/2009
5. Write in lots of money for testing companies and assessment consultants in the
application, because you will be rewarded for “developing and implementing common, highquality
assessments.” In the spirit of this recommendation, I would also suggest that you
promise to test the students more frequently, at least twice a day—once when they come to
school and once when they leave—because this will help you collect more data to meet the
data-systems requirement and hold teachers accountable.
Of course, what this means is that you cannot think about students’ individual differences, the
need for diverse talents, or the costs of standardized tests. You cannot think about who will
eventually benefit from the assessments either. And in no way should you worry about the
corruption that high-stakes standardized testing brings with it.
6. Oh, and while you’re at it, include a proposal to bar all children under the age of 18 from
entering museums, public libraries, and music events; lock up all musical instruments in
schools, and fire all music, art, and physical education teachers; close sports facilities;
disconnect all Internet connections; and cut down on lunch time, because the Race to the Top
initiative wants to lengthen the school year and school day, and all these are distracting kids
from studying for the tests. Of course, these actions will save money as well.
But that requires you to discard the notion that creativity, talent, and technology are
important for the future. You must also not think that a healthy society needs musicians,
artists, and athletes. Nor can you assume that a well-rounded human being is essential for a
democracy. Of course, you should also deny the fact that creativity, art, design, and music
play significant roles in the world of science and technology today.
But other than all that, your new federal funding should enable you to do great things.
Yong Zhao is a university distinguished professor of education at Michigan State University, in
East Lansing, where he is the founding director of the Center for Teaching and Technology. He
is the author of Catching Up or Leading the Way: American Education in the Age of
Globalization. His Web site is http://zhao.educ.msu.edu.
Vol. 29, Issue 15, Page 21
Education Week: Over the Top Page 3 of 3
http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2009/12/16/15zhao_ep.h29.html?tkn=NNLFNTbTNs... 12/13/2009
1-17-10
Race to the Top?
This article comes under the heading "I WISH I WOULD HAVE WRITTEN THIS!" Worth your time!
COMMENTARY
Over the Top
Six Tips for Winning 'Race to the Top' Money
By Yong Zhao
I have been reading through the voluminous
document published in the Nov. 18, 2009,
Federal Register , giving the final versions of
application guidelines, selection criteria, and
priorities for $4 billion in competitive grants under
the Race to the Top Fund, the largest education
grant program in U.S. history.
From news reports, op-ed pieces, and blog posts,
I can guess that many states are working hard
now to prepare their applications. My reading of
the criteria leads me to suggest that the following
are winning strategies and actions to include,
even though they may be inconsistent with
research findings or common sense.
1. Stop paying teachers and principals a salary.
Instead, pay them on a per-standardized-test-point basis each day. At the end of the school
day, simply give each student a standardized test. Then calculate what the teacher and
principal will be paid that day based on the growth of the student, that is, on how much the
student has improved over the previous day.
This is true accountability and is sure to keep teachers and principals on their toes. (It also
seems to be the true intention behind this requirement: “At the time the State submits its
application, the State does not have any legal, statutory, or regulatory barriers at the State
level to linking data on student achievement or student growth to teachers and principals for
the purpose of teacher and principal evaluation.”)
But to do it, you must not ask the question of whether this accountability will lead to better
teaching. You also will need to ignore the fact that “accountability” has driven many teachers
out of the schools, and to forget about attracting highly qualified talent to the teaching
profession.
2. Remove all “non-core” academic activities and courses and reduce all teaching to math and
reading. What the U.S. secretary of education wants is “increasing student achievement in (at
a minimum) reading/language arts and mathematics, as reported by the [National
Education Week: Over the Top Page 1 of 3
http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2009/12/16/15zhao_ep.h29.html?tkn=NNLFNTbTNs... 12/13/2009
Assessment of Educational Progress] and the assessments required under the [Elementary
and Secondary Education Act]” and “decreasing achievement gaps between subgroups in
reading/language arts and mathematics, as reported by the NAEP and the assessments
required under the ESEA.” Actually, no need to teach students these subjects; just teaching
them how to pass the tests may be even more effective.
But to do so, you have to forget the reasons for education in the first place, ignore all
research findings about the negative consequences of high-stakes testing, and suppress any
desire to care about the students’ emotional well-being, to cultivate their creativity and
entrepreneurship, or to consider their interests and strengths.
3. Make sure every child takes courses in STEM subjects (science, technology, engineering,
and mathematics), the more the merrier. This is because, as the guidelines state, “Emphasis
on Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM)” is a “Competitive Preference
Priority,” worth 15 points, and you either get 15 points or nothing.
But this requires you to ignore research findings such as those from Lindsay Lowell and Hal
Salzman , showing that “over the past decade, U.S. colleges and universities graduated
roughly three times more scientists and engineers than were employed in the growing science
and engineering workforce,” and that “there is no evidence of a long-term decline in the
proportion of American students with the relevant training and qualifications to pursue STEM
jobs.” You also must not think about what children will really need to be successful in the 21st
-century global economy, such as cross-cultural competencies, foreign languages, and digital
capabilities.
4. This suggestion is only for the states of Alaska and Texas, because the others have already
committed themselves to doing it: Develop and adopt “a common set of K-12 standards …
that are supported by evidence that they are internationally benchmarked and build toward
college and career readiness by the time of high school graduation.” The other 48 states have
signed on to the Common Core State Standards Initiative spearheaded by the National
Governors Association and the Council of Chief State School Officers. So I guess the initiative
counts, even though it covers only two subjects.
Well, there may be a small problem: how to prove that the standards are internationally
benchmarked. Did the authors benchmark against national standards in Canada, our closest
neighbor, or Australia, a large federation of states like the United States? Of course not,
because these countries do not have national standards. Or perhaps they benchmarked
against China, since it is our perceived competitor. Probably not, because China has been
reforming its curriculum over the past two decades and loosening its national control on
curriculum. Or perhaps it is against the Program for International Student Assessment or the
Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study—yet these are tests, not curriculum
standards.
To wholeheartedly embrace this suggestion, states have to overlook the damages national
standards can do to education, and not take into consideration the fact that having national
standards neither improves education for students nor narrows achievement gaps.
Education Week: Over the Top Page 2 of 3
http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2009/12/16/15zhao_ep.h29.html?tkn=NNLFNTbTNs... 12/13/2009
5. Write in lots of money for testing companies and assessment consultants in the
application, because you will be rewarded for “developing and implementing common, highquality
assessments.” In the spirit of this recommendation, I would also suggest that you
promise to test the students more frequently, at least twice a day—once when they come to
school and once when they leave—because this will help you collect more data to meet the
data-systems requirement and hold teachers accountable.
Of course, what this means is that you cannot think about students’ individual differences, the
need for diverse talents, or the costs of standardized tests. You cannot think about who will
eventually benefit from the assessments either. And in no way should you worry about the
corruption that high-stakes standardized testing brings with it.
6. Oh, and while you’re at it, include a proposal to bar all children under the age of 18 from
entering museums, public libraries, and music events; lock up all musical instruments in
schools, and fire all music, art, and physical education teachers; close sports facilities;
disconnect all Internet connections; and cut down on lunch time, because the Race to the Top
initiative wants to lengthen the school year and school day, and all these are distracting kids
from studying for the tests. Of course, these actions will save money as well.
But that requires you to discard the notion that creativity, talent, and technology are
important for the future. You must also not think that a healthy society needs musicians,
artists, and athletes. Nor can you assume that a well-rounded human being is essential for a
democracy. Of course, you should also deny the fact that creativity, art, design, and music
play significant roles in the world of science and technology today.
But other than all that, your new federal funding should enable you to do great things.
Yong Zhao is a university distinguished professor of education at Michigan State University, in
East Lansing, where he is the founding director of the Center for Teaching and Technology. He
is the author of Catching Up or Leading the Way: American Education in the Age of
Globalization. His Web site is http://zhao.educ.msu.edu.
Vol. 29, Issue 15, Page 21
Education Week: Over the Top Page 3 of 3
http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2009/12/16/15zhao_ep.h29.html?tkn=NNLFNTbTNs... 12/13/2009
Saturday, January 16, 2010
School Fun(ding)
Public Education Matters
1-16-10 School Fun(ding)
Yesterday the Indiana State Board of Education sent out a memorandum to Indiana’s Superintendents, School Board Members, Principals and Indiana Educators. Ok, the memo says they sent this out to Indiana Educators. However, I’m an Indiana Educator and they didn’t send one to me. No other teacher I know was sent one either.
So how did I get this? Well I was sent it by a member of the press. So apparently the memo was sent to the press but not to me. Hmm. What do I think about that? Hmm. I better keep that to myself.
The memo itself touts the “formally adopted Citizens’ Checklist to be utilized by local school communities as they move to make adjustments to respond to lower state tuition support funding as a result of the State’s declining revenues.”
Wow, that’s quite a mouthful, yes? It’s a lot of nice words for suggestions of ways to cut and slash a school district’s budget. The memo is also careful to explain that "school boards, the district’s leadership team and teachers associations will retain the flexibility and autonomy to make monetary, programmatic, administrative and other decisions based on the district’s and school’s fiscal position but in the best interests of its students.” It says I can contact Lance Rhodes at 317-232-9139 if I have any questions.
Something tells me that it’s probably best that I not call good old Lance right now. It’s best to wait until I can sputter out something besides “Hey Lance, How much money is the state paying for its marketing strategist here?” Or “Hey Lance, does this smack to you as a thinly veiled attack on the state’s teacher’s union that Mitch Daniels hates because he can’t control?”
The memo says “By distributing the Citizens’ Checklist throughout the local community, it is the intent of the State Board and the Department of Education to stimulate meaningful and transparent dialogue that will be held in an open forum so that positive action can be taken and obstructions to solutions can be identified and addressed. Conducting open forums will allow local communities to find adjustments that do not affect student learning.” (I’ll save for another time, my thoughts on the last part of that last sentence.)
Or, the C’ checklist may just incite lynch mobs. Villagers with torches. Why do I think this? Well think about it; we have a depressed economy. We have real people losing their jobs or working fulltime at jobs that pay below the poverty level. We have people who cannot get healthcare. We have families struggling to survive. We have people losing their homes. We have a national educational agenda (Race to the Top) that dangles a competition between states for an uncertain amount of money to entice them to buy into a set of criteria that no one really defines and only some states will win. (The long way of saying we have no idea how much money will come from the federal government, if any.) We have a very foolish, irresponsible, and vote seeking state legislature who promoted putting caps on property taxes and took away a stable avenue of funding for schools among other things. So what do you think the public response is going to be to the 22 items of “adjustments and considerations that reduce the cost of staff?”
My guess is they are going to say “YEAHHHHH! CUT AND SLASH! BURN AND PILLAGE!”
It’s not that the 22 items each one are not worthy considerations, even if some of them in my eyes are not at all wise and some of them appalling. It’s not that it’s not always a great thing to review how money is going to be spent or how money might be saved. But part of the problem with this checklist going out to the public like this is that the public is not likely to make decisions with the education of children in mind. They are going to make decisions based on their pocketbooks, based on the panic they feel every time they reach in and feel no pocket change down there.
The other part of the problem is I have a great fear that the “leaders” (and I use that term very loosely here) of our state will take the public opinion they get from this checklist and promote it as a mandate from the public. They’ll say “Hey aren’t we great? We LISTENED to you, the small little people! Aren’t we awesome big people! Vote for us AGAIN!” And they’ll have a scapegoat for when it all comes crashing down when the effects of the cuts actually start to mean something in the communities of the little people. They’ll say “Hey, we were only listening to what YOU wanted. YOU asked for this!”
Last I looked we lived in a Republic- which means we elect leaders to make our decisions for us. The theory is that we will elect wise people who will make wise and informed positions for us. There is an element of trust given to these people to look a little deeper into considerations, than say what any one of us “little people” can or will or would. There is an element of trust that they will dig deep enough to understand the ramifications of their decisions. There is an element of trust that they will do what is right without regard to whether or not it gets them elected again. (By the way, I learned about republics in the public school way back when. And sometimes I that is perhaps one reason why public schools are under attack today.)
And you can blame the citizenry for not electing wisely. But I, personally, won’t take the heat on this one. I did not vote for Mitch Daniels and I certainly didn’t vote for Tony Bennett to be our state’s educational “leader” and Mitch’s puppet. There was an intelligent, articulate choice offered in Richard Wood who also ran for the position of our State School Superintendent. But Mr. Daniels and Mr. Bennett, rather than looking at what would truly be beneficial for our state’s educational system and our state’s most valuable resource (our children) only looked to what would get them elected and would reinforce Mr. Daniel’s economic policies and his presidential aspirations (whether he admits them or not.) They are the result of a massive and effective marketing campaign to manipulate the public and so assure their elections.
I believe this Citizens’ Checklist with its accompanying memo is just more of the same.
1-16-10 School Fun(ding)
Yesterday the Indiana State Board of Education sent out a memorandum to Indiana’s Superintendents, School Board Members, Principals and Indiana Educators. Ok, the memo says they sent this out to Indiana Educators. However, I’m an Indiana Educator and they didn’t send one to me. No other teacher I know was sent one either.
So how did I get this? Well I was sent it by a member of the press. So apparently the memo was sent to the press but not to me. Hmm. What do I think about that? Hmm. I better keep that to myself.
The memo itself touts the “formally adopted Citizens’ Checklist to be utilized by local school communities as they move to make adjustments to respond to lower state tuition support funding as a result of the State’s declining revenues.”
Wow, that’s quite a mouthful, yes? It’s a lot of nice words for suggestions of ways to cut and slash a school district’s budget. The memo is also careful to explain that "school boards, the district’s leadership team and teachers associations will retain the flexibility and autonomy to make monetary, programmatic, administrative and other decisions based on the district’s and school’s fiscal position but in the best interests of its students.” It says I can contact Lance Rhodes at 317-232-9139 if I have any questions.
Something tells me that it’s probably best that I not call good old Lance right now. It’s best to wait until I can sputter out something besides “Hey Lance, How much money is the state paying for its marketing strategist here?” Or “Hey Lance, does this smack to you as a thinly veiled attack on the state’s teacher’s union that Mitch Daniels hates because he can’t control?”
The memo says “By distributing the Citizens’ Checklist throughout the local community, it is the intent of the State Board and the Department of Education to stimulate meaningful and transparent dialogue that will be held in an open forum so that positive action can be taken and obstructions to solutions can be identified and addressed. Conducting open forums will allow local communities to find adjustments that do not affect student learning.” (I’ll save for another time, my thoughts on the last part of that last sentence.)
Or, the C’ checklist may just incite lynch mobs. Villagers with torches. Why do I think this? Well think about it; we have a depressed economy. We have real people losing their jobs or working fulltime at jobs that pay below the poverty level. We have people who cannot get healthcare. We have families struggling to survive. We have people losing their homes. We have a national educational agenda (Race to the Top) that dangles a competition between states for an uncertain amount of money to entice them to buy into a set of criteria that no one really defines and only some states will win. (The long way of saying we have no idea how much money will come from the federal government, if any.) We have a very foolish, irresponsible, and vote seeking state legislature who promoted putting caps on property taxes and took away a stable avenue of funding for schools among other things. So what do you think the public response is going to be to the 22 items of “adjustments and considerations that reduce the cost of staff?”
My guess is they are going to say “YEAHHHHH! CUT AND SLASH! BURN AND PILLAGE!”
It’s not that the 22 items each one are not worthy considerations, even if some of them in my eyes are not at all wise and some of them appalling. It’s not that it’s not always a great thing to review how money is going to be spent or how money might be saved. But part of the problem with this checklist going out to the public like this is that the public is not likely to make decisions with the education of children in mind. They are going to make decisions based on their pocketbooks, based on the panic they feel every time they reach in and feel no pocket change down there.
The other part of the problem is I have a great fear that the “leaders” (and I use that term very loosely here) of our state will take the public opinion they get from this checklist and promote it as a mandate from the public. They’ll say “Hey aren’t we great? We LISTENED to you, the small little people! Aren’t we awesome big people! Vote for us AGAIN!” And they’ll have a scapegoat for when it all comes crashing down when the effects of the cuts actually start to mean something in the communities of the little people. They’ll say “Hey, we were only listening to what YOU wanted. YOU asked for this!”
Last I looked we lived in a Republic- which means we elect leaders to make our decisions for us. The theory is that we will elect wise people who will make wise and informed positions for us. There is an element of trust given to these people to look a little deeper into considerations, than say what any one of us “little people” can or will or would. There is an element of trust that they will dig deep enough to understand the ramifications of their decisions. There is an element of trust that they will do what is right without regard to whether or not it gets them elected again. (By the way, I learned about republics in the public school way back when. And sometimes I that is perhaps one reason why public schools are under attack today.)
And you can blame the citizenry for not electing wisely. But I, personally, won’t take the heat on this one. I did not vote for Mitch Daniels and I certainly didn’t vote for Tony Bennett to be our state’s educational “leader” and Mitch’s puppet. There was an intelligent, articulate choice offered in Richard Wood who also ran for the position of our State School Superintendent. But Mr. Daniels and Mr. Bennett, rather than looking at what would truly be beneficial for our state’s educational system and our state’s most valuable resource (our children) only looked to what would get them elected and would reinforce Mr. Daniel’s economic policies and his presidential aspirations (whether he admits them or not.) They are the result of a massive and effective marketing campaign to manipulate the public and so assure their elections.
I believe this Citizens’ Checklist with its accompanying memo is just more of the same.
Wednesday, January 13, 2010
Merit Pay
Public Education Matters
1.13.10 Merit Pay
In an article comparing state and county school graduation rates written by Jerry Battiste in the Bluffton News-Banner of Bluffton, IN, Mr. Battiste writes “Indiana Superintendent of Public Instruction Dr. Tony Bennett used the latest numbers (graduation rates) to both applaud the efforts of state educators and push his agenda to reward only those educators who perform well at their jobs. Bennett has said repeatedly he favors the idea of merit pay for teachers, a key part of the new Race to the Top program which will provide federal stimulus money to schools which implement changes, including a system which rewards teachers and administrators at schools where students perform well academically.”
The state’s schools, including those in Adams and Wells Counties where I work, are struggling to figure out how to replace and or supplement dwindling tax revenues. This does seem to put them and the state’s education officials at the mercy of applying to compete for stimulus funds from the Race to the Top federal program being implemented by Education Secretary Arne Duncan. From my perspective it is disheartening to see the country’s educational system going down this particular road. It is particularly disheartening to me to see Tony Bennett seemingly revving up his engines enthusiastically to join in this race. There are many reasons why I feel this way, many of which I’ll write about in the future, but the subject I’d like to tackle today is Merit Pay (sometimes referred to as performance pay.)
Merit pay is part of education reform agenda currently being pushed by our President (Sorry, I love you Obama but we aren't seeing eye to eye on this issue!) and his education secretary, Dr. Duncan. I’ll let you go ahead and “google” for their reasons to push this agenda. In the meantime, I hope you’ll also read through my thoughts and concerns about merit pay for educators.
So what is merit pay? Merit pay is a pay scale based on performance. In theory, the teachers who are judged as being poor teachers would be paid less than those teachers judged as “super-duper” teachers. There could even be a scale of some sort rather than just two categories. Those types of details are not important for the sake of this discussion however. What I’d like to question here is, “How do you decide who is good and who is bad?” I dare you again to google for answers to this question because I’ve been googling for the answer for years. I’ve been “googling” before there was google and you had to go to actual libraries and bookstores. I’ve also asked my colleagues and asked my friends this question. And here’s the thing that I found and that I think you’ll find too; NO ONE REALLY KNOWS!
Not only that, but no one even seems to agree really on "What or who IS a good teacher?" The closest thing to actual research that I can find on the matter is from an article in Atlantic Monthly “What makes a Teacher Great” by Amanda Ripley. What Ms. Ripley cites is information from the “Teach for America” program. What they concluded through their research is that there are patterns and tendencies of teachers who were consistently able to raise test scores for children over a grade level’s growth in a year’s time. (In the future I’ll be writing about these patterns and tendencies.) These patterns and tendencies might be looked for in teacher candidates and also rated in teachers already employed, but I don’t necessarily see this as an argument for merit pay.
Some people think that just measuring teacher performance by test scores would be a fair way to evaluate for a teacher’s pay. But I don’t think it’s very hard to see the flaws in a system that does this. First, there is the issue of the population of students being evaluated; individual differences and changing conditions of and around the students themselves. In short, Ms. Fingato’s 3rd grade class is not comprised of the exact same children as Mr. Baker’s 3rd grade class. (Ms. Fingato and Mr. Baker are fictional characters based on the many fine 3rd grade teachers that I know.)
A person might also think that you can compare individual student’s test scores from one year to the next to see if there is growth and base a teacher’s pay on this. Woe to the teacher who has a student with a debilitating illness or injury then! Hooray for the teacher who happens to have a classroom full of students whose parents have many resources and are involved and reinforce lessons and insist their children do homework! The point is- many factors can interfere with or promote a student’s achievement. Is it fair to attribute them all to the teacher?
Second, there is the issue of testing itself. Are the tests we use really valid in measuring student growth accurately? Again, I’ll tackle this issue in another blog post, but let me just say that given the experiences I’ve had in our schools with these tests (particularly the NWEA and the ISTEP) I sincerely doubt that a lot of them do anything more than pad the pockets of test publishers and give education officials and legislators numbers to use in their manipulations.
None of this touches on my biggest problem with merit pay. My biggest problem is that I can’t find any research anywhere saying that it really works across the board in raising either productivity, achievement, or cooperation, even in the private sector. Sure, competition for a prize or a score or a cupcake might motivate some individuals to achieve. We’ve all read anecdotal stories in our papers about such individuals. But unless you make it a “Special Olympics” there are a lot of losers and only a few winners. How is it fair to award the fabulous flamboyant 12th grade AP Science teacher when part of his success (or the students’ success) is based on the frumpy little Ms Fingato (our fictional 3rd grade teacher) who excited little scientific imaginations with her rap song about gravity way back when.
So if you have few winners and many losers in this race, do you not think that eventually this might become quite discouraging to some of the teachers who might only be considered “foot soldiers” and not judged to deserving of “the big bucks?” And what are the effects of pitting Ms. Fingato against Mr. Baker in a competition? I doubt if Ms. Fingato is going to be too willing to share her rap song with Mr. Baker. Nor is Mr. Baker going to share with her, his double top secret method of simplifying multiplication. And don’t we want our teachers to share and collaborate and trade their best secrets? Don’t you think this might be advantageous for our students?
Also, I just don’t see that logistically merit pay makes any sense for a school system. Right now in Indiana (as well as in the rest of the country) we have a process that is called “Collective Bargaining” to decide on salaries and benefits for teachers. Representatives from the school district and representatives from the teacher’s union sit down to come to agreement for all the teachers in a system. Sometimes it’s not a very pretty process, but can you even imagine how UGLY and time consuming it would be for administrators (as well as the teachers) to have to come to pay agreements with each individual separately? I’d think you’d have to hire more staff just to do that! Because take a look around next time you are in a school and I think you’ll see that teachers and administrators are all quite busy already! And then think of the disputes that could arise! What if Mr. Bleak the principal just doesn’t like poor Ms. Fingato and she decides to take issue legally? Really, do you want to tie up MORE of our educational dollars with the legal system? I don’t!
I sincerely wish that I could talk personally and debate the issue of merit pay one to one with Dr. Duncan and Dr. Bennett. I’d like to hear their answers to my questions and my concerns. I’d like to be convinced that I’m wrong, because I tell you what- if they are going to want to start paying me what I’m worth, then they better be ready to pay big! Otherwise, they better just go for one of those low dollar dime-store teachers and not one with a Masters Degree and a whole boatload of experience and expertise.
1.13.10 Merit Pay
In an article comparing state and county school graduation rates written by Jerry Battiste in the Bluffton News-Banner of Bluffton, IN, Mr. Battiste writes “Indiana Superintendent of Public Instruction Dr. Tony Bennett used the latest numbers (graduation rates) to both applaud the efforts of state educators and push his agenda to reward only those educators who perform well at their jobs. Bennett has said repeatedly he favors the idea of merit pay for teachers, a key part of the new Race to the Top program which will provide federal stimulus money to schools which implement changes, including a system which rewards teachers and administrators at schools where students perform well academically.”
The state’s schools, including those in Adams and Wells Counties where I work, are struggling to figure out how to replace and or supplement dwindling tax revenues. This does seem to put them and the state’s education officials at the mercy of applying to compete for stimulus funds from the Race to the Top federal program being implemented by Education Secretary Arne Duncan. From my perspective it is disheartening to see the country’s educational system going down this particular road. It is particularly disheartening to me to see Tony Bennett seemingly revving up his engines enthusiastically to join in this race. There are many reasons why I feel this way, many of which I’ll write about in the future, but the subject I’d like to tackle today is Merit Pay (sometimes referred to as performance pay.)
Merit pay is part of education reform agenda currently being pushed by our President (Sorry, I love you Obama but we aren't seeing eye to eye on this issue!) and his education secretary, Dr. Duncan. I’ll let you go ahead and “google” for their reasons to push this agenda. In the meantime, I hope you’ll also read through my thoughts and concerns about merit pay for educators.
So what is merit pay? Merit pay is a pay scale based on performance. In theory, the teachers who are judged as being poor teachers would be paid less than those teachers judged as “super-duper” teachers. There could even be a scale of some sort rather than just two categories. Those types of details are not important for the sake of this discussion however. What I’d like to question here is, “How do you decide who is good and who is bad?” I dare you again to google for answers to this question because I’ve been googling for the answer for years. I’ve been “googling” before there was google and you had to go to actual libraries and bookstores. I’ve also asked my colleagues and asked my friends this question. And here’s the thing that I found and that I think you’ll find too; NO ONE REALLY KNOWS!
Not only that, but no one even seems to agree really on "What or who IS a good teacher?" The closest thing to actual research that I can find on the matter is from an article in Atlantic Monthly “What makes a Teacher Great” by Amanda Ripley. What Ms. Ripley cites is information from the “Teach for America” program. What they concluded through their research is that there are patterns and tendencies of teachers who were consistently able to raise test scores for children over a grade level’s growth in a year’s time. (In the future I’ll be writing about these patterns and tendencies.) These patterns and tendencies might be looked for in teacher candidates and also rated in teachers already employed, but I don’t necessarily see this as an argument for merit pay.
Some people think that just measuring teacher performance by test scores would be a fair way to evaluate for a teacher’s pay. But I don’t think it’s very hard to see the flaws in a system that does this. First, there is the issue of the population of students being evaluated; individual differences and changing conditions of and around the students themselves. In short, Ms. Fingato’s 3rd grade class is not comprised of the exact same children as Mr. Baker’s 3rd grade class. (Ms. Fingato and Mr. Baker are fictional characters based on the many fine 3rd grade teachers that I know.)
A person might also think that you can compare individual student’s test scores from one year to the next to see if there is growth and base a teacher’s pay on this. Woe to the teacher who has a student with a debilitating illness or injury then! Hooray for the teacher who happens to have a classroom full of students whose parents have many resources and are involved and reinforce lessons and insist their children do homework! The point is- many factors can interfere with or promote a student’s achievement. Is it fair to attribute them all to the teacher?
Second, there is the issue of testing itself. Are the tests we use really valid in measuring student growth accurately? Again, I’ll tackle this issue in another blog post, but let me just say that given the experiences I’ve had in our schools with these tests (particularly the NWEA and the ISTEP) I sincerely doubt that a lot of them do anything more than pad the pockets of test publishers and give education officials and legislators numbers to use in their manipulations.
None of this touches on my biggest problem with merit pay. My biggest problem is that I can’t find any research anywhere saying that it really works across the board in raising either productivity, achievement, or cooperation, even in the private sector. Sure, competition for a prize or a score or a cupcake might motivate some individuals to achieve. We’ve all read anecdotal stories in our papers about such individuals. But unless you make it a “Special Olympics” there are a lot of losers and only a few winners. How is it fair to award the fabulous flamboyant 12th grade AP Science teacher when part of his success (or the students’ success) is based on the frumpy little Ms Fingato (our fictional 3rd grade teacher) who excited little scientific imaginations with her rap song about gravity way back when.
So if you have few winners and many losers in this race, do you not think that eventually this might become quite discouraging to some of the teachers who might only be considered “foot soldiers” and not judged to deserving of “the big bucks?” And what are the effects of pitting Ms. Fingato against Mr. Baker in a competition? I doubt if Ms. Fingato is going to be too willing to share her rap song with Mr. Baker. Nor is Mr. Baker going to share with her, his double top secret method of simplifying multiplication. And don’t we want our teachers to share and collaborate and trade their best secrets? Don’t you think this might be advantageous for our students?
Also, I just don’t see that logistically merit pay makes any sense for a school system. Right now in Indiana (as well as in the rest of the country) we have a process that is called “Collective Bargaining” to decide on salaries and benefits for teachers. Representatives from the school district and representatives from the teacher’s union sit down to come to agreement for all the teachers in a system. Sometimes it’s not a very pretty process, but can you even imagine how UGLY and time consuming it would be for administrators (as well as the teachers) to have to come to pay agreements with each individual separately? I’d think you’d have to hire more staff just to do that! Because take a look around next time you are in a school and I think you’ll see that teachers and administrators are all quite busy already! And then think of the disputes that could arise! What if Mr. Bleak the principal just doesn’t like poor Ms. Fingato and she decides to take issue legally? Really, do you want to tie up MORE of our educational dollars with the legal system? I don’t!
I sincerely wish that I could talk personally and debate the issue of merit pay one to one with Dr. Duncan and Dr. Bennett. I’d like to hear their answers to my questions and my concerns. I’d like to be convinced that I’m wrong, because I tell you what- if they are going to want to start paying me what I’m worth, then they better be ready to pay big! Otherwise, they better just go for one of those low dollar dime-store teachers and not one with a Masters Degree and a whole boatload of experience and expertise.
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