I agree with much of what Heather
Poland says in the comments section of yesterday's Voice of San Diego article, but I
have to agree with Sherry S. regarding teacher evaluations. Too many
students are failing; something needs to be done. I am appalled by teacher
union complacency with the status quo.
Heather says, "We already DO
evaluate teachers. It is not a perfect measure, I don't think anything could
be..."
Not perfect? It's a complete
joke! Of course nothing can be perfect. That's no excuse for
maintaining the current failed system.
Teacher evaluations could easily be
much more effective.
We could start with the obvious:
observations by unbiased observers instead of, or in addition to, principals.
Most principals don’t even bother to
observe teachers, and why should they? Few principals have the skills or
inclination to work closely with teachers who aren’t part of the clique that
controls their school.
Heather Poland describes the
situation accurately: “We have seen how some principals just want teachers who
are quiet and do what they say, regardless of their teaching ability. We have
also seen great teachers who are also outspoken, be targets.”
And I think student scores should be
part of teacher evaluations. I think teachers should be given more credit
for improving the scores of poor kids than for improving the scores of rich
kids.
I agree with Heather that teachers
should be paid more. At least, the best teachers should be paid more—lots more,
maybe twice as much as a regular teacher. And I don't even think that the
less competent teachers should be fired. The best teachers should be
teaching most of the lessons in ALL of the classrooms—but they don’t have to
stay all day in one classroom. Less competent teachers could be doing
reinforcement of lessons and other activities that they are perfectly
well-equipped to handle.
P.S. Regarding school uniforms:
At my elementary school, children
were required to wear black leather-soled shoes. It was a disaster during
physical education class and recess. Those poor kids slipped and slid on the
asphalt. It was much better when they just wore sneakers to school. But only
the ruling clique of teachers had any input on how our school was run, so the
problem never got fixed.
Voice of San Diego
April 16, 2015
...Comments...
Heather Poland
I agree that an unbiased third party
should be involved in evaluating teachers. The system now is not a joke, it can
work well, but it is up to the principal to make it work. I would like
specifics on just how it is a joke? I'm not sure the general public actually
understands what goes into the evaluation?
I disagree that most principals do
not observe teachers. They do. Yes, some more than others, but they do. Also
not every site has a clique that "controls the school". Some schools
do have dysfunctional climates, and that definitely needs to be addressed.
How do you know students are failing? There is a big misconception
about this...
If you are going to compare country rankings, well, most countries don't
educate every single person, like we do. Most western countries also
don't have the poverty we do. When you control for poverty, we are
actually at the top.
Maura Larkins
Heather, you say that the current
teacher evaluation system "can work well", but that it is up to the
principal to make it work.
Well, then, Heather, if it only
works when there's a good principal to make it work, it doesn't really matter
what the system is, does it? It only matters who the principal is.
You say, "I'm not sure the
general public actually understands what goes into the evaluation."
You yourself already pointed out
that principals can be very arbitrary in their evaluations. So, again, it
all depends on the principal, doesn't it?
Also, you say that principals DO
observe teachers.
I assure you, Heather, that you are
just plain wrong about this. Many principals don't do observations.
I have gone years without having a principal do an observation, and so have
many other teachers.
Of course not all schools are run by
teacher cliques. But when they are, obviously, the principals work with
those cliques. I stand by my statement that few principals have the
skills or inclination to work with ALL the teachers in their school. Of
course, even the principals who aren't interested in what is going on in each
classroom are plenty interested in the teachers who are part of any clique that
might be running their school.
You write, "How do you know
students are failing? There is a big misconception about this." You're joking, right, Heather? You think it's acceptable that our
colleges have to teach remedial math and reading and writing to the graduates
we produce? You think our drop-out rate is acceptable? You make clear that you think we
shouldn't be expected to educate poor kids because some other countries
don't. But we're the richest country in the world! It's not okay
that we're creating an underclass in an economy where employers require
more and more education.
Here's a related story from the San
Diego Reader:
...Kristin Phatak and Heather
Poland, educators and parents who believe that students lose too much class
time on test preparation and test taking, hosted the party to encourage parents
to opt their kids out of standardized tests.
Heather Poland has two children who
attend a local elementary school. She teaches in San Diego Unified School
District, is an administrator for a national teachers’ association called BATS,
and a California contact for the national United Opt Out group.
Poland said she administered a field
test for the new standardized test last year.
“My students struggled with this
test,” said Poland. “One reason was because it’s online and they didn’t have
pencil and paper to write things down. Many of them had trouble with the
keyboard. The instructions were fairly complicated and even more so for English
language learners…. The test will be graded on a curve, which condemns many
students to fail.” ...
[Maura Larkins comment: Grading on a
curve only condemns students to fail if they perform
significantly worse than average. By definition, grading on a curve PREVENTS the majority of students from failing.
You imply that most of your students
had trouble with this test so it would seem that almost ALL of them might fail
if the test weren't graded on a curve.
Are you saying that you think that
the very lowest students should pass? Why? Why would you say that? You want a test that kids can pass whether or not they have
mastered the skills being tested?]
...[Heather Poland] said, "I've
always incorporated critical thinking into my classroom."
Here's another thread from the Voice of San Diego comments:
George Sheridan
San
Diego Unified has much more money this year than anytime in the last
several years. And it will have more money again next year and the year
after. It's true that state funding of schools in California is
significantly lower than in most other states. It's also true that we
have significant challenges with high rates of poverty and high numbers
of students learning English as a second language - factors that have a
major impact on student achievement. But more money than last year means
the district does not have to cut existing programs to fund raises
which are long overdue.
Merit pay for teachers is not
an original idea. It has been tried repeatedly over the last fifty
years, and it has never worked. Of course it is subject to cronyism. Of
course test scores are a terrible measure of teacher quality. But the
biggest reason is that good teachers are not motivated primarily by
money. Teachers want to be paid fairly. But there are very few teachers
who would - or could - work harder or give students more one-on-one
attention in exchange for higher pay. The average teacher now is working
more than fifty hours per week.
There is no secret
sauce for improving education. But everyone knows what good schools look
like. We need to make sure all our students have access to the
resources typical in the best schools, including fully staffed
libraries, art and music and drama and career education and classes
small enough for one-on-one attention. Really good schools work, not
only because they have the resources to provide opportunity for all, but
also because the educators work as a team. Merit pay is destructive of
that necessary collaboration.
Maura Larkins
There are two obvious ways to combat cronyism in teacher
evaluations: use unbiased outsiders to do observations, and use student
standardized test scores.
Test scores aren't a perfect
measurement, but they are surely not affected by cronyism. Over a
period of years, student scores are a reliable measure of teacher
effectiveness. And the top 15% of teachers can be revealed even more
quickly by student test scores: their students are consistent year after
year.
Studies have shown that graduates of the
best colleges have been shying away from the education field more and
more over the past few decades. As other fields open up, more women are
choosing to become doctors and lawyers and executives, etc. We need to
bring some of these women back to teaching, and high pay--equivalent to
the pay of those careers I just mentioned--would likely lure some
excellent candidates to the teaching profession.
There
are huge differences between teachers. Some are much, much better
teachers than others. They should NOT be paid the same. We should
institute effective teacher evaluations for many reasons, such as
identifying which teachers should be given extra help. The best
teachers should be utilized differently from mediocre teachers: they
should be teaching more of the lessons and doing fewer of the activities
that can be handled by their less-skilled colleagues.
George Sheridan
Maura Larkins
I am appalled that you would make this statement: "Your statement about test scores over a period of years is not supported
by data."
You must know that the student test data used to evaluate teachers is
the "value added" by the teacher to the students' test scores.
You
are absolutely wrong when you deny that the top 15% of teachers (as
well as the bottom 15% of teachers, by the way) can be spotted by the
consistency of the value they add each year to their students' test
scores, while the middle 70% of teachers tend to have dramatically
fluctuating value-added scores. It takes a number of years to figure
out how well most teachers are actually performing.
Why would you deny this? You yourself admit, "The Teacher of the Year, found "highly effective" one year, is rated "unsatisfactory" the next on the basis of test scores."
You also say, "The best predictor of student
test scores is the zip code
where the students live." Of course it is, but no one is suggesting
that teachers should get credit for how high the scores are to start
with. Test scores are used to figure out how much the teacher IMPROVED
the students' test scores.
I would have agreed with you
if you had said that it is harder to raise the scores of kids who are
below grade level. But that problem can easily be fixed by tweaking the
formulas for calculating a teacher's "value-added" score.
First you say, "But there are very few teachers who would - or could - work harder or
give students more one-on-one attention in exchange for higher pay."
Then you say, "Obviously this [evaluation plan] won't work if people's pay is tied to those evaluations."
Aren't you contradicting yourself?
At first you seem to say that teachers always give everything they've got, no matter what they're paid.
Then you seem to be saying that there is some connection between pay and performance.
Or
perhaps you meant something else. Are you suggesting that merit pay
would cause evaluators to falsify their evaluations of their peers?
In
fact, even if pay isn't tied to peer evaluations, there are other
motives for falsifying peer evaluations. School politics exerts amazing
influence over the ethics of teachers. Teacher culture is not unlike
high school clique culture. And the situation is further complicated by
genuine friendships between teachers.
So I'm not at all convinced that CTA has the best evaluation system.
Why not have observations by teachers from outside the school district, or at least outside the school?
I
do think that there's no reason to fire teachers based on evaluations.
I think teachers who can't manage to achieve a high level of
effectiveness should have different responsibilities and different pay
than the most highly-effective teachers.
[Maura Larkins' note: There are a lot of people named George Sheridan. I won't assume that the George Sheridan who made the above comments is an NEA Executive Committemember:
George Sheridan at the 2015 HRC Foundation’s Time To THRIVE Conference
February 19, 2015
NEA Executive Committemember George Sheridan addresses the Time To THRIVE Conference in Portland, OR...
Well, my goodness, you didn't mention that your evaluation system relied on teachers reporting their own weaknesses!
People often can't see their own weaknesses, so you have a problem here.
But I certainly agree with you that a self-evaluation system should ABSOLUTELY NOT BE CONNECTED TO PAY!
The
truth is that most people would be loath to reveal their weaknesses to
any but their closest friends. This sounds like a pretty bogus
evaluation plan. It sounds more like a mentor plan. It needs to be
accompanied by an effective empirical evaluation.
I suppose we'll all shrivel and die before CTA comes up with a meaningful evaluation plan.
And I wouldn't put much stock in an article by ASCD. Judging from its
board of directors, it looks like an association of school
administrators.
Maura Larkins
By the way, regarding that "Teacher of the Year" you mentioned who was
found effective one year and then unsatisfactory on the basis of test
scores: what measure was used to find the teacher effective in the
beginning? It wasn't by any chance a principal who happened to be a
political ally, was it? The finding wasn't based on popularity or
charisma, was it? In fact, in Los Angeles Unified it was discovered
that MANY of the charming teachers who had been deemed superior by their
cronies turned out to add little or nothing to their students' test
scores. It's lovely for a teacher to be popular, but parents have a
right to know when popular teachers aren't actually delivering results.
Gina Amodeo
Maura, are you saying that
principals don't need to be accountable for executing the evaluation properly?
If administrators used the resources available to them to evaluate and
mentor teachers (and dismiss them if necessary), then we wouldn't be having
this discussion.
Additionally, I don't think Heather is saying that we shouldn't be expected
to education "poor" kids. I think she is saying that
comparisons to other countries should be adjusted by the poverty factor, based
on the fact that we do educate all children.
Also, regarding your language that teachers "produce" graduates.
This sounds like you are applying the corporate model of production to
education, which is inappropriate. Teachers teach to the needs of each
individual child. And each individual child comes into school with
different resources, background, and baggage. The best predictor of
success in school is parent income and education level, not because that's
where the best schools are, but because those students come
"pre-loaded" with experiences and skills that children born in
poverty do not have. Children born in higher income households usually
have early access to books, parents that read to them and talk to them,
exposure to engaging educational experiences, and healthy nutrition.
Children raised in lower income communities have lower nutrition and
other kinds of life experiences that might include having a parent in jail,
neighborhood violence and crime, siblings in gangs, or an unstable home (e.g.
homelessness).
Do you expect these students to learn at a faster rate in order to catch up
with those students who enter school already knowing how to read? Instead
of blaming teachers, we should be thanking teachers who are teaching a class of
30 kids with 30 different sets of needs and experiences
Your statement about test scores over a period of years is not supported by data. The best predictor of student test scores is the zip code where the students live.
Even in a given school, teachers do not usually have comparable classes. The best and most dedicated teachers often are assigned or volunteer to teach the most difficult students. As a result, their test scores may be lower than those of other teachers. In the same way, the very best hospitals often have the highest mortality rates, because they treat the sickest patients.
The psychometricians who design these tests caution that they are not valid and reliable for purposes of assessing teacher quality. Nonetheless, evaluation by test scores has been tried in a number of states in recent years, with entirely predictable results. The Teacher of the Year, found "highly effective" one year, is rated "unsatisfactory" the next on the basis of test scores.
Teacher pay needs to be raised across the board. Teachers are underpaid compared to other professionals with comparable levels of education. They are underpaid compared to other workers with comparable levels of responsibility. Teachers in SDUSD are underpaid compared with colleagues in neighboring districts. Many are taking home less money now than seven years ago. Raising teacher salaries won't fix every issue in the schools. But continued failure to raise those salaries will make things worse and worse.