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Obama's Idea of Education Reform? Fire All the Teachers
Central Falls Thrust into School Reform Forefront
CENTRAL FALLS, R.I. - "You're a coward!"
Central Falls High graduates gather in support of the teaching staff during Tuesday’s meeting in which all 93 teachers were fired. (The Providence Journal / Connie Grosch) "You should be ashamed!"
Shouts broke through the heavy silence that had fallen in the auditorium of Central Falls High School.
Supt. Frances Gallo had just recommended that the district's Board of Trustees fire the entire teaching staff of the city's only high school, effective at the end of the school year.
Then, as the board's vice chairwoman, Sonia Rodrigues, read each name aloud, a teacher stood. Some stood in silence, others held back tears.
"Look up, Gallo! Look at us!"
Gallo was sitting on the stage with the seven trustees and a small group of administrators. She rose and looked out at the audience in the packed high school auditorium. She remained standing until the last of 93 names - a history teacher, a reading specialist, physical education, music and art teachers, a social worker, a nurse, the school psychologist, even the principal - was called.
A few minutes earlier, a resolved Gallo had opened her remarks by lashing out at teachers union leaders who she said had contrived stories "that misinform and twist the truth." The union, the superintendent said, has distorted what went on in negotiations in "a deliberate attempt to obfuscate the issue of meaningful reform."
Once again, Gallo described what had led to Tuesday night's showdown.
She reiterated the conditions essential to transform the chronically troubled high school, plagued for years with dreadful test scores and a graduation rate of just 48 percent. She wanted the teachers to spend more time with their students and also more time improving their own skills.
Union leaders said at first they were on board with Gallo's vision for improving the high school. But the two sides couldn't agree on how much extra pay teachers should receive for the additional work.
Gallo said that if the teachers had gone along with her transformation plan, they would have had "100-percent job security."
Shouts broke out again.
"Boo!"
"Liar!"
The superintendent looked out and repeated: "100-percent job security. And still, the answer was no."
Gallo ended by recognizing the emotional toll the battle has taken. She acknowledged that many of the high school's 800 students love their teachers and have voiced support for the faculty in several public meetings. She asked the audience to also "remember those souls who make up the 52 percent of the student body we no longer see before us."
At a crowded outdoor rally held before the meeting, union leaders painted a very different picture.
"We think it's an outrage," Jane Sessums, president of the Central Falls Teachers Union, said, as hundreds of union supporters from across the state began flowing into Jenks Park. "Our members are feeling awful, devastated. How would you feel, being terminated?"
"If they can do this here, they can do this anywhere," said Marie Zaminer, a speech pathologist in Woonsocket schools. "I'm worried it will happen where I am."
Union officials said Gallo refused to negotiate with them and instead demanded they take on extra tasks. In some cases, teachers objected because they would not be paid for duties such as eating lunch with students once a week, or formalizing a tutoring schedule. In other cases, teachers said they already freely did those things, and resented being ordered to do so.
A dozen people - parents, students, union leaders - took turns at the microphone to decry the unfairness, to pledge solidarity and to vow to fight.
Jim Parisi, field representative for the Rhode Island Federation of Teachers, said Gallo was punishing teachers. "It is never acceptable to threaten anyone's job as a bargaining tactic. Not in this state," he shouted.
"This is not about time and money," Parisi said, as the crowd cheered. "It's about our right to negotiate time and money."
A few days before the showdown Gallo acknowledged the uncertainty that accompanies being at the forefront of radical change.
"I feel great trepidation," Gallo said in an interview in her office. "I have never been any kind of political entity. I do my job. I love my kids. This has thrown me into a new realm I am very uncomfortable with. But I can't wish it away. It is what it is. I have to promise to do my best, and see this through."
Gallo knows she has an ally in Education Commissioner Deborah A. Gist, who is aggressively adopting many of the changes outlined in new federal mandates to fix troubled schools.
From the day that Gist identified Central Falls High School as one of the state's worst performing schools, Gallo finally had the means - and the authority - to re-create the high school as a place entirely focused on the needs of students.
In her Jan. 11 order, Gist instructed the district to select one of four methods to fix the ailing school and gave Gallo just 45 days to decide. Transformation was one option; turnaround another. Gallo had already decided the two other approaches - closing the school or turning it over to a charter-management organization - weren't viable.
With their swift actions, Gist and Gallo have placed Rhode Island at the vanguard of the latest wave of school reform. And no one - not federal or state officials, not education experts, not union leaders - is sure how it will all work out.
U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan has taken notice.
"I applaud Commissioner Gist and Superintendent Gallo for showing courage and doing the right thing for kids," Duncan said Tuesday night.
Governor Carcieri also praised Gallo and the trustees for their "action to reform Central Falls High School."
As both Gallo and Gist fielded calls from the national media Wednesday, the commissioner of education said she recognized the gravity of their actions.
"These are the lives of young people - more than 50 percent of whom are not finishing high school, which completely changes the course of their lives," Gist said.
"And this choice that Dr. Gallo made, and that we support, also affects the lives of people who have chosen to be teachers and have dedicated their lives to education. So this is an extremely serious situation," she said. "But we have to do the right thing, and I do commend Dr. Gallo for her courageous steps."
It is unclear what will happen next.
Union president Sessums says she is pursuing all legal options to fight the across-the-board firings.
Gallo has 120 days to develop a detailed plan explaining how she will turn around the high school, starting in the fall.
Some of the fired teachers - up to half - could be rehired, as allowed in the federal turnaround model.
As of Wednesday morning, 88 teachers, along with the high school's administrative team, faced their own uncertainty. All 93 were sent letters of termination.
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204 Comments so far
Show AllThese administrators who engage in union busting are usually the ones who hire friends and family members into the school system beauracracy or put fools in the classrooms where they have no business being. Then they blame the qualified teachers for the ills of the school.
Now the superintendent has made impossible demands; and when they were not met she opted for her own nuclear option. Perhaps, the Rhode Islanders could build another high school or hire more teachers instead of expecting the present (and now future teachers) to work longer hours.
And not only that ask the school administrators what they can do to build a society where having a high school diploma means something...
Yeah, this is union busting pure and simple.
This is Obamageddon in action.
Obamageddon is must more disastrous than I thought he would be. Obamageddon is Reagan cubed.
Yup.
Forget Reagan, forget Harding, McKinley, or Hoover. From energy to high finance to healthcare to corporate run "charter" schools, there has NEVER been such an unapologetically pro-big-business president as Obama.
Why would Barack's best friend at education be in favor of such a move? Privatize,Privatize,Privatize!
What a sin! None of those fools in Washington D.C. care a rat's a__ ___ about the kids in the inner cities and low income neighborhoods.
For over 30 years, I watched Chicago Schools rob the people of Chicago of an adequate education. City officials put politicians in charge and those people guaranteed failure for millions: 35 to 40 students in classrooms with substitute teachers with no educational experience......Save money for Chicago!
When you have kids who have had no reading experiences at home, success is difficult. When you have kids from single parent homes, success is difficult. When you have kids who suffer from daily traumatic events, success is difficult. When you have kids who are always under nourished, success is difficult.
Twenty students in a classroom is the maximum for low income students. A teacher certified in the subject area being taught is mandated (30 Semester hours in Math to teach math. etc.) By the time kids get to high school, they have either given up or decided to break free by being successful....48% success rate is normal in low income schools!!!!!!
The goal of The Council on Foreign Relations is to privatize schools and dumb down the American Population.......Test! Test! Test!......Let's all work for $7.00 an hour!
Lets hope teachers unions wise up and stop supporting Democrats.
That is an excellent point. The corporate dems have sold the unions (people) down the river. Way past time for a change in that dynamic.
I don't know if the attitudes of single mothers are different in the US, but I have just finished conducting research here with indigent (low-income) women that shows many single mothers here help their children with their school studies and a great percentage of them read to their children before they start school as well as teaching them their alphabet and their numbers.
Of course, there are many who leave it up to the schools, but they tend to be supportive of their children's education in any way they can be. They know that to break the cycle of poverty, their children need a good education.
So therefore, not ALL children from poor single parent homes are difficult to reach and teach.
Chronic hunger is definitely a huge factor in teaching low income students as are traumatic experiences such as watching their families lose their jobs and homes.
Teaching to tests and not allowing children's inborn curiosity and creativity to be expressed is deadly for encouraging student learning.
This is true. There is struggle and there is serendipity. Even if 52% drop out, the other 48% finish. A few will excel.
Many parents are supportive despite all odds. These parents should be cherished and publicized by schools. They should be promoted to the role of primus inter pares. Many parents want to help, but do not know how. If they see more about what works, they may emulate the practices and work together.
Schools should avoid attitudes and practices that cast parents as the enemy. That creates a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Joe
Some points to consider:
1) Why did the school have a 48% graduation rate? What outside social factors are at play? How prevalent is teen pregnancy?
2) Why the deliberate and misleading focus on test scores? What is the literacy rate? Can they perform basic math?
3) What socio-economic forces are in play? What is the local economy like? The parents job security? Is this a community that has opted to pay little or no taxes, or as few as possible?
4) Are drugs a problem in the community? What is the crime rate?
There is far more going on in this community than a quick news bite can deliver. Remember that before you leap all over the situation.
That being said, this is a very troubling precedent. It is never good to have this kind of disruptive and destructive event happen during schooling. Moving is bad enough for a child's schooling.
This demonstrates to the students that the Board in particular and adults in general care more about money, power and prestige than their children's education.
"What is the literacy rate? Can they perform basic math?"
Sadly, too many people fail to understand that problems in these two areas generally stem from the same cause: perceptual difficulties.
If students can't read then their math skills are also impaired. In fact, their skills in all subjects are impaired.
q
The fact presented was a 52% dropout rate. If perceptual difficulties play any significant role in that figure, I believe the general socio-economic state of the population of the district is in serious need of examination. Are there poverty, nutrition, child neglect problems involved? I doubt very much that perceptual problems in and of themselves are much of a factor.
Actually, I think that undetected perceptual problems may be a bigger problem than we know, especially in poor neighborhoods in which trips to the eye doctor or free hearing aids are not that common. This is why is suspect that...
I was assisting a teacher with a sixth grade class in Bushwick (rough neighborhood) at one time. The kids told me they were the second worst class in the grade. I played a math game with them which I called "To the Max". They loved this game and would play it for 3 hours if we let them. The game involved me presenting numbers visually or orally for the children to place in a template in order to get the maximum or sometimes minimum result through adding, subtracting, multiplying or dividing. I spoke very clearly and the cards had large numbers in black magic marker.
Anyway, when I looked at the papers they turned in over many days, I saw two kids who consistently mixed up 5 and 9 on oral presentations, which made me suspect hearing problems. There were three kids who mixed up 3 and 8 on visual presentations, which made me suspect they needed glasses. That is 5 kids out of a class of 36. (Too big, right for a low performing group in a poor neighborhood.)
I told the teacher, who was an inspiration by the way, but am not sure if there were free resources to correct their problems and I no longer had time during the day.
Joe
Galen: Thanks for your comment. If you are correct in wondering whether factors other than the teachers have been major contributors to the problem, then anyone wanting to teach at this school after what has happened is a fool.
The newest educational fad is KIPP which in my book is the drill-sergeants approach: if you failed a push-up do 1000 more push-ups.
The fundamental problem of education in our country is that parents, schools, and the media effectively kill the natural curiosity of most children before they enter grade school. At that time the child is considered to be a total moron who cannot achieve anything without the aid of the presumably all-knowing teacher.
We now have an education Czar in Washington who sends his imperial blessing to the school-owners in our oblasts a.k.a. states. It was not too long ago that this was considered interference with states rights. Mark my words, the Tea Party will eventually blast Washington's meddling in education as another proof of a socialist/communist conspiracy.
Excellent points Galen. I have been both a teacher and an administrator and I have approached similar problems from both perspectives. There are, undoubtedly, poor teachers in every system that unions tend to unjustly protect; there is also the bureaucracy that fails to understand that hardworking teachers were trained as professionals and have personal lives and children of their own, and that additional duties continually levied upon them rob them of their initiative, their creativity and their passion.
Having said that, the CORPORATIZATION of education is the worst possible answer to all the problems. Students are human beings, not simply 'end products' of a system of intellectual production. Standardized testing, continually increasing expecatations for academic learning at extremely early ages, a lack of emphasis on social and emotional learning all contribute to the growing problem of drop-out rates and student disillusionment. The present system, seen by many as nothing more than an employment treadmill to serve the interest of both the business community and the military, often fails both students and teachers. The system has, too often, been parlayed into something that demonstrates little interest in the welfare of society, but immense interest in the production of passive, well-trained and politically ignorant workers and soldiers.
When we passively allow the corporate heads, the military, and the religious zealots to control the levers of public education, we will have lost this democracy.
Thank you, Gailenwainwright, for pointing out the most salient questions that were missing from this article. As a former Rhode Island social worker I know why they were missing from this Providence Journal article. Everyone in Rhode Island KNOWS how bad things are in Central Falls and NO ONE is surprised by the toll the answers to 1) through 4) have on the school system there.
I also know first hand that there are good, dedicated teachers in that community. As there are in every community - the only people that think teachers go into the warfield of inner city schools for "the riches" are idiots that could never or would ever even attempt it. Shame on this superintendent. But - as Rhode Islanders on both sides of this issue know - what this is REALLY about is that the Rhode Island teachers FIGHT for their rights. And the pols - especially in Washington - are PISSED when things like that happen.
These are very good points, galen. They match up with my experiences as a parent and teacher in the public schools. (When I was a student, the problems were different). I could elaborate on your points and give many specific examples of how socioeconomic conditions prevent children from attending school on a regular basis and performing in school. Untreated health, dental and vision problems among students and their parents are a huge, and often undetected, factor. Realistically speaking, some of the problems also stem from bad habits that have developed over time in communities that are economically and psychologically depressed. Tension between parents and teachers does not help solve this. Teachers, being better educated, better paid and being professionally charged with helping the children, should make the first moves toward working with parents.
Here those who make school policy increasingly skim off the better students for special programs and charter schools, while leaving the most distressed behind in a cynical exercise in child triage. They close underperforming schools and create 3 or 4 small schools in the same building. Or disperse the "poorly performing" students (sounds like circus dogs, doesn't it) to other schools which then in turn face lower test scores. These moves are usually not successful. They just move around the problems. The policy makers do not try simple things like smaller classes and supporting staff with lesson plans, mentoring etc. (They say they do, but the actual implementation is frequently ridiculous and unreliable). I cannot even begin to describe the meanness and incompetence of the Board of Education and its bosses. Part of this stems from the chronic unreliability of funding coming from the morons in the State Legislature in Albany.
But whenever a school brings together parents and community resources and takes an active and strong role in addressing health and economic problems, things improve. Think Anthony Alvarado. (Why do so many good guys shoot themselves in the foot with some lapse of judgement - and the bastards do far worse and are made of teflon?) Unfortunately, the schools are increasingly in the hands of stingy bean-counters who know little and care less about child development.
Here is a PBS dialog with Tony Alvarado. http://www.pbs.org/makingschoolswork/dwr/ny/alvarado.html
Joe
Uhmmm . . . proofreaders?!
q
so dedicate yourself to working with the poorest and most needy pupils and your reward is, get fired
Yeah - why didn't those teachers teach in a gifted program or a private school? How silly of them.
Joe
No one ever mentions class size.
No one ever mentions that, in schools since even when I was young, the right of a 15 year old to destroy the class is upheld in favour of the rights of every other member of that class to learn.
Class size is the bugaboo though.
Small class sizes work. But no one is ever prepared to pay for them....oh no. Let's build prisons and pay for police instead!
Good grief that's so screwed up.
And of course if you paid for the education on the front end you more than likely wouldn't have to pay for the police and prisons on the back end.
Amen. I wonder how big Sasha and Malia's classes are? And these are kids from educated parents, kids who probably learned to read at home.
Joe
"federal turnaround model"
The federal turnaround model a.k.a the corporate model is prosegregated, special ed discriminating, and Mc Wages for teachers with no health insurance. Charter schools are no better at increasing test scores or decreasing drop out rates according to a Stanford study last year. And according to a UCLA study this year charters actually encourage segregation. How ironic that our first black president is helping to return us to a segregated society.
And even when charters get public money, hand pick their own students, and bar any special needs students by what they call a "lottery system," they're still out performed by public schools. The guise this time being "School Choice."
Corporate schools will turnout corporate fodder. The dumbing down of America continues at their own expense. There won't be any job training necessary to take over those Wal Mart and McDonald's jobs. The public is waking up too slowly to this new reality. We're still being duped by attractive sounding slogans like "school choice" and "school reform."
Insert 'privatization' via Naomi Klein's concepts outlined in the "Shock Doctrine," and you have Arnie Duncan's plan for education in this country. And, oh yes, his willingness to allow the military to actually staff and run schools, as he allowed in Chicago during his tenure there.
Good lord, talk about throwing out the baby with the bathwater. Or in this case, the baby, the water heater, the plumbing and the bathtub too. I'm a young teacher (33 years old) I spent my first teaching experience in Mexico. I spent one year in Amerikkka teaching and gave up. I spent the next several years organizing to change things. That ended in abject failure (thanks prez, tried to get you elected instead of doing my usual of voting green, call me sucker now.) I teach in Korea now. Funny thing to earn a decent living and have health care, never saw it coming. I'm printing out this article and handing it to the director of the school here. He was extremely curious as to why I want to teach abroad before I came here. This article pretty much sums it up. Teaching for testing is about the same as voting democrin or republicrat for democracy, useless.
This is a glimmer of our future. I predict that increasingly, talented young people will leave here in order to get work in what used to be called third world countries. Reverse migration of educated people back to their countries of origin is now a real trend.
Joe
I've thought from Day 1 of the Obama Misadministration that his "education policy" may be the most frightening exhibit in his Chamber of Horrors (one of them anyway). Around the time Obama's best friend was about to become Secretary of Education, PBS (I think it was Bill Moyers Journal, might have been NOW) did a feature on Arne Duncan generally and the Chicago school system specifically. It showed in graphic and chilling (if Nazism turns you cold) detail an actual case of a "turnaround" in the CPS when the school personnel were fired down to the last lunch lady and a new "tough love" Principal came to rule the school and a fully militarized "discripline" was established by means of which those kids who actually used to move around spontaneously in their classrooms were literally doing everything "by the numbers." Not only had Duncan pioneered in making CPS the mecca for military schools and Junior ROTC programs; he was holding up a military model for those public schools that hoped to escape the ax of closing or being converted to charters. So now "turnaround" gets to Rhode Island and Arne Duncan cheers them on. Nightmarish!
(Oh by the way, all you teachers' unions who supported Obama's election: how's that workin' out for ya?)
In the late 19th and early 20th century American schools came under the mind-set of Prussian schools, as the United States' superintendents loved the military precision of German education, considered then the Gold Standard of education. Of course that over-discipled and reactionary school system gave us will war-criminals and a cowed populace.
Gotta go but read Howard Zinn on this.
Gary
"An educated person is one who has learned that information almost always turns out to be at best incomplete and very often false, misleading, fictitious, mendacious - just dead wrong."
-- Russell Baker
Good comments Gary and phoenix20. There can be different styles of education. Not every school can or should be Summerhill. Some children thrive with more structure, especially children whose lives have included much trauma and chaos. But the bottom line is love, backed up by competence and funds.
Joe
jclientelle
"But the bottom line is love, backed up by competence and funds."
Well said! WELL SAID!!!
phoenix20
"(Oh by the way, all you teachers' unions who supported Obama's election: how's that workin' out for ya?)"
Now, now...they are feeling bad enough! :)
Veritas: "now now...they are feeling bad enough?" Not as badly (watch your grammar!) I be betting as one of them fired R.I. teachers.
phoenix20
Theres that darned grammer thing again. :)
You're funny, phoenix20.
I do think it's a shame that the unions protect incompetent teachers. Our children deserve better. Teachers should be certified in the courses they teach and the unions should not be sacrificing children for jobs. That's abusive.
And yes, classes of 20 or less make a big difference. My son was in the Shoreham-Wading River school district on Long Island, generously funded ($18,000 per child per year) by the Shoreham nuclear power plant - which never opened due to lack of an adequate evacuation plan. Class sizes were 16-18 children. It was the Cadillac of schools. In 1993 he went from there to Eugene Or, which was being slammed by Measure 5, and walked into a 7th grade French class with 50 students and the harried teacher suggested anyone who wanted to leave was welcome to do so.
I also regarded Obama's Education appointment as the most horrifying of all his egregious picks. I did read that Duncan is one of his favorite basketball buddies and wondered if the was a crony pick or part of a plan to turn our youth into wage serfs and cannon fodder. Maybe Obama is just killing two birds with one stone. Of course, our children are one of those birds. What does he care? His kids are covered. Obama is such a slimebag. At least he has lots of company up there in DC. The place seriously needs a housecleaning.
Kathy
When the people fear their government there is tyranny,
when the government fears the people there is liberty.
~ Thomas Jefferson
BeForKids
"I also regarded Obama's Education appointment as the most horrifying of all his egregious picks"
AMEN!
This administration is going to be justly famous for corrupt cronyism.
"I do think it's a shame that the unions protect incompetent teachers."
"Class sizes were 16-18 children. It was the Cadillac of schools."
It's the unions who fight for lower class size. Are you sure you should be posting on this site or any other? You obviously never know WTF you're talking about. You spout your ignorance and in the very next sentence contradict your point.
You let your daughter talk you into voting for a corporate whore who appointed Duncan (Eli Broad's butt boy). As a responsible voter that's the best you could do.
And stop using Jefferson's quote to cover your inability to recognize the difference between tyranny and liberty.
School Superintendents are a waste of money, fire them all and have volunteer retired teachers run the Districts.
Have you ever smelled the food in those cafeterias? Its disgusting. Teachers need space from their students to recoup their energy. Teachers are continuously being mandated to do more and more on their own time.
We had one Superintendent who stole $1 Million, but was not discovered until she got busted in Dallas and another $1 Million went missing under another Superintendents reign.
More of Obombers Union busting.
RE: School Superintendents are a waste of money, fire them all and have volunteer retired teachers run the Districts.
That's a good idea!
Wow, something is seriously wrong with those teachers if 52% of all their students can't complete high school. Firing everyone and then rehiring the good ones might be a radical step, but I don't think small bandaid would fix a school culture that is failing so bad.
Judah - so the teachers, in your view, are totally responsible for the dropout rate in this system? Read some of the posts below and broaden your horizons.
Teachers are responsible for a student's education. How can you think otherwise?
I think you are the one with tunnel vision. It's hard to call someone a teacher if they can't teach every second person to pass the joke that is USA standardized tests. Go to Europe or Japan sometime, you'll see what a real school is like, if you care that much.
I've seen successful inner city schools with 98% graduation rates that have no budget and face all the issues below and then some.
I am very familiar with teachers who sit on their tenure and don't do their damn jobs. I had several in my public school. Lots of kids loved them, because they didn't have to do anything in their classes. So while teachers might not be the only problem, they are the biggest one. Get rid of the tenured coaches who couldn't get two sugars about whether their kids pass, and like talking their hobby in class and calling it 'education.'
Judah
Though Teachers obviously bear responsibility, wouldn't you agree that in many cases what they are mandated to teach and how also contributes to the problem in many cases?
And different states have different ways of financing schools. Some states have great disparity in funding while others don't.
Indeed Japan and SOME European schools have a jump up on us, but they teach generally homogeneous populations and do not have to contend with rules that produce undisciplined and dangerous class rooms.
Consider this...imagine going to Japan and having the school system required to provide education in your native language rather than Japanese immersion which works while the other does not. And the teacher has to deal with it. They would laugh in your face.
A bit of apples and oranges I'd say.
"I am very familiar with teachers who sit on their tenure and don't do their damn jobs."
Judah, what do you call something that's pushed through the bowels of a system and emerges covered in stench and clueless as to how it got there? You're a piece of it. Yes, we need you, but only insomuch as you're the byproduct of survival.
I've wasted as much time on something like you as I can bear, and only sorry I didn't have the restraint to ignore you altogether. It's that urge to look down before flushing.
local administrators, instead of taking it out on the schools and teachers, grow a pair and start defending your schools and fight against the infamy of drastic budget cuts plaguing our public schools today, reject the corporate rhetoric that is being used to frame public education.
public schooling in America already has concise, scientific, time-tested guidelines for providing the right education for our children. so when corporate fronts like the Coors Foundation hustle their bills which end up taking money away from public schools through your state senate, fight back and expose the psychopaths for what they are - public enemies
Why doesn't Obama hire Blackwater to run the schools? their agents could use their skills to sneak the exam answers to the students, raising the childrens' test scores and the teachers' own results based performance bonuses at the same time!!
An important problem facing American education today is spawned by the No Child Left Behind Act. Among undesirable spin-offs is the rise of such enthusiasts as Willard R. Daggett and Phillip C. Schlechty whose books present a negative assessment of public education and promote radical reinvention of schools. The proposals are consistently from the top down and begin with the premise that the NCLB and its state assessment tests are a trumpet call for shaking up the schoolhouse or redesigning the school and their true agenda is to publish and sell their products and books. The sales techniques bury both the agenda and the negative assessment philosophy beneath the sugar-coating of packages named Successful Practices Network or Character Education or catchwords such as Rigor, Relevance, Relationships and Reflections (Reconstitution—wholesale replacement of staff).
What such “charismatic” leaders accomplish is a deflection of resources and a skewing of the real solutions needed in the classroom. There is no method or technique or package that can replace a well-educated teacher adept in his subject area. Daggetteers find fertile fields in America's school boards wherein to plant their disinformation and almost extreme religious devotion to breaking with orthodoxy. Of our five-member local school board, one never graduated from high school! And school administrators? Their high salaries do not indicate anything satisfactory about their educational accomplishments. Our newest superintendent has a salary of $240,000 plus benefits and the spoils-system-hiring of two lackeys for $170,000 each, not to mention his making room for and importation of a principal, an assistant principal, and a custodial service from his adopted home state, Tennessee.
Testing? It's interesting to note some data to undermine the popular regard most communities extend to such education bosses as superintendents and principals: Mean Verbal - 429, Mean Quantitative - 520, Total - 949
So use testing against the testers. These figures
are the mean Graduate Record Examination (GRE) scores of applicants for graduate study in Education Administration tested between July 1, 2000 and June 30, 2003. Of 51 intended areas of graduate study, applicants in 45 fields had higher Total GRE scores than applicants in Education Administration. Candidates in 5 fields — Home Economics, Social Work, Student Counseling, Early Childhood and Special Education — had lower total GRE scores.
What these figures mean is that school boards and school administrators are ill-equipped to fend off the wacky plans proposed by such charismatic speakers as Daggett and Schlechty. The consequences are truly horrible for students and their communities.
I personally demonstrate to students, their parents, my colleagues, and my administrators that a skilled, experienced, and well-educated teacher can accomplish far more for his students and their community than the newest package of glittering bells-and-whistles programs. Such programs are cynically designed to obfuscate the real problem, poorly educated classroom practitioners, but nevertheless accomplish grand sales objectives for such moguls as Neil Bush (Ignite Incorporated).
School "accountability" and Secretary Duncan's reform movements clutter the issue. My efforts in the classroom ignore the accountability push of passing such performance-measuring devices as the Connecticut CMT and CAPT. Instead I read with my students; closely and carefully _read_ with them the best that has been thought and written in human history. The assessment tests diminish in importance. If the test cannot measure my students’ success, then it is a bad test. My students' lives after graduation are the true test.
In spite of their and my success, I, too, was harassed out of the classroom last year by administrators like Mr. Duncan who don't like teachers who are smarter than they are.
Good teachers are not valued and rewarded. Teachers who do not challenge and who go along with every idiotic initiative are easier for supervisors. Save me from a stupid boss! I would rather work for a competent taskmaster than an insecure and erratic supervisor, which is all too common in the schools. As you say, some of them do not start out with much on the ball, and then the system drives them bats. It is a problem.
Teachers need a union to protect them from the tonterias of the system, but the union also has to stop wasting time protecting bad teachers. They need to fight for better working conditions - things like a closet in which to hang up a coat or to store supplies (which the teachers often buy with their own money).
Joe
Joe
How about teachers that are producing a product that is so sub-standard year after year its embarrasing?
These teachers as I understand it were being paid an average of $72,000 in a town where the average take home is $22,000.
A teacher wants more pay to eat lunch with the students?
More pay for working an extra 25 minutes per day?
More pay for tutoring students that need it?
The Union made the mistake here (it appears), not the administration.
And some good teachers are undoubtedly paying for it.
Too early to say who is right for certain, but so far it looks as if the union was wrong.
Possibly some merit to your argument, when it applies to bad teachers. But you will not improve bad teachers by having them sit in the lunchroom or hang around for 25 extra minutes a day still being bad teachers. That is a different problem and requires better methods to correct or get rid of these teachers.
I will tell you that to be a good teacher, you must spend many hours every evening and weekend in preparing lesson plans, buying and assembling materials, grading, providing feedback and recommendations, contacting parents, etc. I do not know the RI district, but I know that many teachers also tutor and volunteer for activities like sports and music festivals after hours. This is unpaid, largely unnoticed and unappreciated by some administrators. I can see how teachers would be annoyed at the administration's petty demands when there is no respect, no quid pro quo.
Teaching is traditionally a woman's profession, so there is an unspoken expectation that they will do what they do for love and not for pay. There is some truth to that, but here is a very important profession that requires getting and paying for a masters degree. Why should they be expected to accept low pay when people who do things like swap derivatives get huge salaries for destroying our economy? Also, teachers have families to support.
The teacher is the key person in the school. Like a nurse, a caring teacher sees a lot about what is happening on the ground. But they alone cannot begin solve the social problems that affect students learning without support and structure from the school and the community.
The schools around here have fired $18,000 a year aides, often African-American men, who would supervise the lunchroom and often provide good role models for the children. Aside from the fact that their pay is scandalous, these aides provided a wonderful asset to the school, assisting teachers with large classes, providing warm guidance to kids. Now the schools want teachers who are highly educated and overworked already to fill in for these support staff positions. Teachers have a specific calling and a specific set of skills that are valuable. Maybe they should fire the cleaning staff and have the teachers clean the bathrooms. That would save money.
The teachers are resisting a slippery slope that will result in the degradation of their jobs, to the detriment of the children and community.
Joe
jclientelle
"But you will not improve bad teachers by having them sit in the lunchroom or hang around for 25 extra minutes a day still being bad teachers. That is a different problem and requires better methods to correct or get rid of these teachers."
No it won't. But as you know it takes almost an act of God to fire a union teacher. Simple fact.
Other than that I have little disagreement with what you say. I have three family members that are teachers in three different states and it is indeed three different experiences. One similar to what you outline.
My opinion is an overall and based on money in and "product" out. Obviously we are in a disaster from the evidence.
Actually I'd start with the vastly overpaid "superintendents" and the overstaffing in administration. Talk about freeing up a bunch of money.
The whole system needs a house cleaning I believe and yes, unions included. They are needed for teacher protection but they can become as corrupt as administartors, teachers or anyone else.
"fired $18,000 a year aides, often African-American men, who would supervise the lunchroom and often provide good role models for the children. Aside from the fact that their pay is scandalous, these aides provided a wonderful asset to the school, assisting teachers with large classes, providing warm guidance to kids. Now the schools want teachers who are highly educated and overworked already to fill in for these support staff positions"
Excellent example! You do NOT have $30 an hour employees do $10 an hour work.