You all have probably gathered by now from my rants that the world of school is not easily walked away from. You have probably gathered that I have little use for the school “reform” movement, which, in the cynicism of geezerhood, I consider to be misguided at best, and at worst, deliberately malicious. I hope you have also gathered that I believe, with equal ardor, in Progress, in the continuous improvement of our schools, their institutions and practices, and I am concerned when I read of dysfunctional and deteriorating schools that do not do right by their students. I hope that over the years I did my bit, both in the classroom and out of it, to contribute to the improvement my school in particular and American Public Education in general.
So it is that when I read something that makes sense, amidst all the hoopla and hype, I feel compelled to pass it on. In a letter to the editor of the Statesman, no less, I came across this website: One Nation Supporting Education. I recommend it if you have the least interest in such issues.
Be aware that this site has links, and the links have links. As far as I have followed them, all are good reading, all seem sound and sensible, advocating a much more reasoned approach to the actual improvement of our public schools than the propaganda propagated by the Reformists – you know, those usual suspects, the Politicians, Pundits, Polemicists, and all too many Professors Who Really Know Better.
I have written at some length about bad teachers. We usually think of bad teachers as those who are characterized by malfeasance, misfeasance, and/or nonfeasance: that is, wrongdoing, incompetence, and/or dereliction. But how do bad teachers become bad? No doubt some should never have gone into the profession in the first place. The time to identify these is the first two or three or four years (depending on state law), a probationary period, when it is relatively simple to tell such a person “this isn’t working out” and show him the door.
Sad cases are the bad teachers who started out with the best of intentions and perhaps even with lofty ideals, but are bad because their system sets them up to fail. How often are incompetent, indifferent, or downright hostile administrators at the root of the problem? With a “toxic” principal who undercuts her teachers at every opportunity, there is no way this school or anyone in it could succeed. How often do such administrators take their cues from the District Office? How often were they hired expressly to punish the teachers in bad schools?
I recently read an essay, “Confessions of a Bad Teacher” by John Owens. Owens left a lucrative career in publishing because he wanted to teach. He found himself in front of a classroom for the first time at the age of 55 in one of a number of small public high schools started by the Bloomberg administration in the past decade, the 350-student Latinate [not its real name] … housed in a former elementary school. In this regard, he was very much like Ruben Jackson, but his experience was far different.
This is why getting rid of Continuing Contract (calling it “tenure” is a deliberate and malicious lie) is a really bad idea. Just think, what if a controlling, punitive, unsupportive Principal like Ms. P. could strut down the hall and bellow ‘You’re fired!” at whomever she pleased. On the other hand, I fault that union for not negotiating a better evaluation instrument and fair rules for its implementation. I fault the union for not supporting teachers like Owens by filing grievances on their behalf. That’s what you pay your dues for.
Owens was lucky. He had another (more lucrative) line of work that he could go back to. But consider someone who started out to be a career teacher, who invested four to six years and much treasure on his degree and certification. Consider that in the world of work, teaching experience is not very portable to other jobs. He is sort of stuck isn’t he? Think about being stuck in this system year after year, with nowhere else to go. Who wouldn’t become jaded and cynical, one of those burned-out cases, a sour old fart who just goes through the motions and keeps his ass covered, and spends the next thirty years counting down the years to retirement?
Why do I suspect that Mr. Owens replaced “Mr. K.,” a quiet fellow with aspirations to writing, who phoned in sick one morning, said the kids bugged him, and never came back. He would have been part of a 50% annual teacher turnover at that school. Owens describes what sounds like a successful year, given that his students were not an easy bunch. He got most of them on board and actually taught them English, even if he took liberties with the prescribed curriculum. I have been there and can think of no better way he could have done things. But no good deed goes unpunished, and his performance evaluations were consistently negative – he was a bad teacher – and before the end of the year, he had a chance to return to his old job, and he too left.
With all due (dis)respect to Mayor Bloomberg and Bill Gates and Superintendents Luna and Rhee and all the other Reformists who sing the same tune, a lot of “bad teachers” are made by the systems in which they work. Owens describes it thus:
Little did I know I was entering a system where all teachers are considered bad until proven otherwise. Also, from what I saw, each school’s principal has so much leeway that it’s easy for good management and honest evaluation to be crushed under the weight of Crazy Boss Syndrome. And, in my experience, the much-vaunted “data” and other measurements of student progress and teacher efficacy are far more arbitrary and manipulated than taxpayers and parents have been led to believe.
http://www.peavinequarter.com/thoughts-on-bad-teachers/
http://supportingpubliceducation.yolasite.com/
http://www.salon.com/2011/08/29/confessions_of_a_bad_teacher/
http://www.vpr.net/episode/52210/burlington-teacher-profiled-on-story/