Back in October, I posted a little bit about tenure. I was (and remain) pretty adamant that "tenure" does not grant with it a status of "unable to be fired." That being said, I do want to let you all know that I absolutely realize that it does have a de facto sense of that. I tried make that clear in the original post and realize that Iwas not as clear as I could have been.
So, here's the summary:
"Tenure" means that you have a right to due process and an appeal if you're fired. It does not entitle you to your job in perpetuity; merely to a right to know why you're being fired, and to be heard if you're forced out. And of course, you can't be fired arbitrarily. With tenure, you can only be fired for cause.
That being said, historically administrators do such a poor job of documenting cause, that by the time it is clear that a teacher really really really needs to go, administrators are way, way, waaaaay behind in having a justification for firing that tenured teacher. Generally speaking, unless the offense is egregious, the paper trail to show cause for the firing can't be created overnight. (You can't show a history of bad behavior if your history only started recently and therefore can be explained away...) So, if you have a lousy teacher who's getting worse, but no single "big thing" to point to, you can't fire this teacher unless you've documented the issues, however small, all along. Most of the time this doesn't happen. (Do I have data? No, but I have anecdotal evidence and heck, I watch the news and read education blogs!)
Moreover, once you've got this teacher you want to fire, very often the union steps in to represent the teacher. Now, whether you like it or not, those union reps and attorneys are doing their jobs to represent their client teacher. (Think, if you will, of the defense attorneys who represent the worst of the worst. Those criminals still have rights, and the attorneys don't defend the criminals, per se, but rather protect the rights of those criminals.) Same is true for the attorneys and union reps who step in to "save" the teacher's job.
I was speaking with an education law attorney recently who said she doesn't believe in tenure precisely because of this part of the process. Teachers who need to leave teaching (by any standards but their own) will fight, and put the administrators through such efforts and misery that the administrators almost universally say "never again." Quite frankly, it takes such time and effort (and therefore, money), and the process is made so miserable, that it is easier for school districts to let bad teachers languish until retirement, than to be repeatedly dragged through the mud.
I am not convinced I don't believe in tenure, though, because I have seen arbitrary decisions by petty administrators, and tenure generally works to balance that. It allows teachers to stand up for themselves without fear of retribution. (Before you go saying that there are other protections in place, I will say that there are infinite ways for an administrator to make a teacher miserable, any of which standing alone is perfectly "justifiable given the circumstances and needs of the school." To document and show a pattern of retaliation is difficult, if not impossible, and yet we all know it happens.)
What we do need is for administrators to start the evaluation process and paper trail immediately -- and we need an appeals process that isn't so miserable that it makes administrators want to forget it and keep terrible teachers around. This is where more robust teacher evaluations are very important, and I think we're starting to see a swing towards such evaluations nationally. Of course, there are still many issues to work out with teacher evaluations in general, but that's another post. My point is that richer, more detailed evaluations would help avoid this lack-of-documentation issue.
I'm going to try to sit in on some hearings in the future, to see how the tenure/firing process works in person. I don't know if I'll be allowed to do this, but if I can find a public hearing, I'll write more about what I see.
Monday, April 18, 2011
Sunday, April 3, 2011
I had a glimpse into a Value-Added Classroom, and all I can say is "Go Back"
Do you remember the movie Say Anything, and the joke in Diane Court's valedictory speech, "I saw our future, and all I can say is, 'go back'"? Well, if value-added is our future, I'm with Diane. Maybe not as staunchly, but after what I read today, I am leaning that way.
An article in today's AJC starts out:
HOUSTON — Andres Balp’s Texas classroom provides a glimpse of the data-driven future facing Georgia teachers and students.
In his fourth-grade room at Houston’s Lyons Elementary, the focus is clear: measuring exactly how well students are progressing. Children are grouped by how they have done on standardized tests, making it easier for Balp to work with the lower-performing kids. A poster charts daily test scores — black ink for high marks, red for low — to show who’s on track to hit state exam goals. Students follow their own progress too: Taped to each desk is a small square of colored paper with the student’s goal score for a daily 12-question assessment.
Balp, a 17-year classroom veteran, holds the master key to all this data: a three-ring binder filled with graphs showing test scores for every student — and forecasts of how they’re expected to do going forward. It informs the interactions he has with his students.
His income hinges on this data. So does his job.
As for me, I am still reading everything about Value-Added data and evaluations that I can find. I tend to think it's okay, with some qualifiers (namely, that it is used, as the article goes on to say, for the teachers to help the students and not as a means to penalize teachers). But, when I read this article I was struck by the classroom that's described in the lead. In particular, I have to say that I would not want my children in this room, or any like it. Nor would I want to teach like this.
I don't want anyone tracking every minute grade like a fantasy baseball stat, and neither do I want every action in any classroom dictated by some metric, as the article would have us believe all good teaching must be. I am all for the extrinsic motivation of the old-fashioned "gold star" charts, but the red-and-black comments letting students know who's on track to meet state testing requirements? Doesn't anyone fear that goes a bit too far, perhaps losing the too-much-red-not-enough-black-grades kids to the phenomenon of a self-fulfilling prophecy? I absolutely believe (or really, know) that we need some data to evaluate where we stand, but this goes too far.
What really put me over the top, though, was the charts on the desk to tell us the daily assessment goals. Doesn't anyone see anything wrong with these "forecasts" of what is expected of each student, like abstract stock figures, with growth and plateau assessments calculated -- well heck, somewhere I am sure there are actuaries involved, at this rate -- to let us know what to buy and what to sell, and when, perhaps, to exercise our options? And what, pray tell, are those options? Do we really want our kids learning, as this would seem to be, by checklist? Today, you will get a 90% and then you've met your goal. All learning can cease. Check, check, check, list is done! No. These constant checklists and benchmarks send the WRONG message about learning. Not all that is worth doing in a day can be quantitatively measured, and I don't want my childrens' days determined by only that which can be quantitatively measured. Setting daily goals is important, but we need qualitative ones as well, and we don't need checklists on the desks to press home the point that we're all working towards a goal. What I fear these checklists convey is that we're working towards passing some test, as opposed to learning and growing and becoming better readers, or better at math, or better at writing. Do tests measure that? Sure. But we don't need to frame every single day's goals in terms of tests and cutoff scores. We need to learn (no, I am not so trite as to say, "for the sake of learning," though I'm close to it) and learn and learn, and the test scores will follow. "Goal" test scores should not dictate or determine our learning plan.
I know we're data-driven right now, and I know that in many ways value-added methods provide a much-needed antidote to teachers who don't belong in a classroom. Yes, it can help us show "cause" to get rid of the obvious bad apples.
I'm just not sure that the good outweighs the bad. I don't like this classroom of the future one bit. Not one. Little. Bit.
Here are another few excerpts for you to gnaw on while I head to bed. We come back to the law of diminishing returns, which I think I've mentioned before on this blog (and if not, which I will certainly discuss in the coming days), what to do when your kids are already at the top, and what to do when the evaluation method fails. Enjoy.
...
An article in today's AJC starts out:
HOUSTON — Andres Balp’s Texas classroom provides a glimpse of the data-driven future facing Georgia teachers and students.
In his fourth-grade room at Houston’s Lyons Elementary, the focus is clear: measuring exactly how well students are progressing. Children are grouped by how they have done on standardized tests, making it easier for Balp to work with the lower-performing kids. A poster charts daily test scores — black ink for high marks, red for low — to show who’s on track to hit state exam goals. Students follow their own progress too: Taped to each desk is a small square of colored paper with the student’s goal score for a daily 12-question assessment.
Balp, a 17-year classroom veteran, holds the master key to all this data: a three-ring binder filled with graphs showing test scores for every student — and forecasts of how they’re expected to do going forward. It informs the interactions he has with his students.
His income hinges on this data. So does his job.
As for me, I am still reading everything about Value-Added data and evaluations that I can find. I tend to think it's okay, with some qualifiers (namely, that it is used, as the article goes on to say, for the teachers to help the students and not as a means to penalize teachers). But, when I read this article I was struck by the classroom that's described in the lead. In particular, I have to say that I would not want my children in this room, or any like it. Nor would I want to teach like this.
I don't want anyone tracking every minute grade like a fantasy baseball stat, and neither do I want every action in any classroom dictated by some metric, as the article would have us believe all good teaching must be. I am all for the extrinsic motivation of the old-fashioned "gold star" charts, but the red-and-black comments letting students know who's on track to meet state testing requirements? Doesn't anyone fear that goes a bit too far, perhaps losing the too-much-red-not-enough-black-grades kids to the phenomenon of a self-fulfilling prophecy? I absolutely believe (or really, know) that we need some data to evaluate where we stand, but this goes too far.
What really put me over the top, though, was the charts on the desk to tell us the daily assessment goals. Doesn't anyone see anything wrong with these "forecasts" of what is expected of each student, like abstract stock figures, with growth and plateau assessments calculated -- well heck, somewhere I am sure there are actuaries involved, at this rate -- to let us know what to buy and what to sell, and when, perhaps, to exercise our options? And what, pray tell, are those options? Do we really want our kids learning, as this would seem to be, by checklist? Today, you will get a 90% and then you've met your goal. All learning can cease. Check, check, check, list is done! No. These constant checklists and benchmarks send the WRONG message about learning. Not all that is worth doing in a day can be quantitatively measured, and I don't want my childrens' days determined by only that which can be quantitatively measured. Setting daily goals is important, but we need qualitative ones as well, and we don't need checklists on the desks to press home the point that we're all working towards a goal. What I fear these checklists convey is that we're working towards passing some test, as opposed to learning and growing and becoming better readers, or better at math, or better at writing. Do tests measure that? Sure. But we don't need to frame every single day's goals in terms of tests and cutoff scores. We need to learn (no, I am not so trite as to say, "for the sake of learning," though I'm close to it) and learn and learn, and the test scores will follow. "Goal" test scores should not dictate or determine our learning plan.
I know we're data-driven right now, and I know that in many ways value-added methods provide a much-needed antidote to teachers who don't belong in a classroom. Yes, it can help us show "cause" to get rid of the obvious bad apples.
I'm just not sure that the good outweighs the bad. I don't like this classroom of the future one bit. Not one. Little. Bit.
Here are another few excerpts for you to gnaw on while I head to bed. We come back to the law of diminishing returns, which I think I've mentioned before on this blog (and if not, which I will certainly discuss in the coming days), what to do when your kids are already at the top, and what to do when the evaluation method fails. Enjoy.
Because the data predicts a student’s future performance based on past results, teachers have better insight into how their students should be scoring in class. If a student isn’t on track, the teacher can offer remediation. It also allows teachers to work with their colleagues to address weaknesses revealed by the data. For example, if one fourth-grade teacher isn’t “adding enough value” in math, and another fourth-grade teacher’s students aren’t scoring well in language arts, the two might swap classes for one subject.
...
But in some areas — including classes of highly advanced students and students moving from Spanish to English — a teacher’s true impact isn’t showing up in the test data, she said.
“We do have some principals who say, ‘My best teachers in these certain areas are not being identified as good teachers, but we know they are,’” Stevens said. “We’re trying to run the numbers, investigate and see where this is a problem, and where it is a perceived issue but not a real issue.”
Darilyn Krieger, a physics teacher at Carnegie Vanguard High, a Houston school for gifted and talented students considered one of the best in the nation, said she is proof value-added data can be misleading.
Krieger said last year she earned almost $6,000 because of her student-growth scores. But this year, the data showed her students didn’t learn a year’s worth of information, even though 100 percent are passing and doing college-level coursework.
That’s because the district uses a test that doesn’t measure what her students learned in the current year. Instead, it’s an exit exam designed to measure what they have learned in science over 11 years. Her chief concern is the value-added data’s lack of transparency — it isn’t specific enough to show where her students did not meet expectations.
“I am being measured and told I didn’t do my job, but they can’t tell me what I did wrong,” Krieger said. “I don’t care what my scores were. I don’t care if I get a dollar on this stupid award. I want my kids to do well because they know the material.”
...
Supporters of using student test data to rate and pay teachers almost universally agree that it can’t be the only factor used in decision-making. In Georgia, 50 percent of the evaluation of teachers in “core” subjects — those covered by standardized tests — will be based on the growth scores; the other half will come from classroom observations, lesson plans and student surveys. Core teachers, such as those in math and writing, make up about 30 percent of the educator workforce.
Note: this article is entitled In a Texas Classroom, Big Lessons for Georgia. It was written by Jaime Sarrio and appeared as the front-page story on April 3, 2011. Here's a link, though I am not sure it is a permalink: http://www.ajc.com/news/georgia-politics-elections/in-a-texas-classroom-895675.html
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