Politicians, Pundits, Polemicists, and Professors Who of All People Should Know Better, love to lament that “teachers unions reflexively reject anything that smacks of accountability.” Or so said Leonard Pitts of the Miami Herald, who usually hits the nail right on the head, but who, in this case, swatted my thumb with his hammer. And I am sure it must seem so to readers and listeners, as the 4P’s present their case. But why is this true, if it is true? Why do the teachers’ unions so often seem “the party of no,” aside from the fact that the 4Ps get lots of mileage out of picturing them that way? Why might D. C. Superintendent Rhee, having “offered a significant raise and big bonuses for effective teachers in exchange for weakening tenure protections [have] to fight the union?” (Pitts) Perhaps they saw this as a devil’s bargain, for reasons that are another topic for another day. Why, when “The White House put up $4 billion in grant money to spur innovation in schools. It had to fight the unions?” (Pitts) Perhaps the unions, besides looking at the $4 billion, was also looking at deal-breaking strings attached thereunto. Perhaps they saw the White House as Greeks bearing gifts. Why might teachers and their unions distrust the earnest “C’mon, just trust us a little, why don’cha” entreaties of the Reformists. Well…
August 18, 2010, NPR’s All Things Considered ran a story, “’L. A. Times’ Series Examines Teacher Ratings.” The NPR story says “The Los Angeles Times is taking a groundbreaking step as part of a series on teacher effectiveness. It is publishing the names of more than 6,000 teachers, along with ratings indicating how effective they have been in raising their students’ standardized test scores. The series explores one of the most controversial issues in public education today: how teachers should be measured. NPR’s Robert Siegel talks to one of the series’ co-authors, Los Angeles Times investigative reporter Jason Felch.” In the NPR interview, Felch says that since test scores are public records, the Times was entitled to publish them. No doubt they are, but what good is served is less clear.
The way the Times did so is a good example of why rating teachers on the basis of test scores makes many teachers nervous. Even as the 4Ps are crying “hold them teachers accountable” and “dump more (bad) teachers, Education Leaders are placating teachers’ fears with dulcet tones: “These high-stakes tests are to improve the quality of instruction only. We would never use them to compare individual teachers, much less to hold individual teachers up to public ridicule.”
Predictably, however, the Times article publishes scores not by aggregate, not by school, but by name. Further, it compares two teachers, Miguel Aguilar, who is characterized as a good teacher, and, right down the hall, John Smith, a bad teacher. Whose picture is on the front page? Why John Smith, of course. (I sincerely hope the picture, like the name is a fake.)
Whose interests does this serve? How does it make anything better for anyone? How can John Smith hope to salvage his career? L. A. Unified won’t be able to keep him. Pukwana, South Dakota won’t dare touch him. I can just hear it now, what would transpire the next morning, Teacher: “Sit down, Suzy.” Suzy: “My father says he read in the paper that you are a bad teacher with nothing to offer me and I shouldn’t pay any attention to anything you say.” Is Suzy served? No, she has just been taught a sorry lesson.
Whose interests does this serve? The self-serving agendas of the Politicians, Pundits, Polemicists, and even some Professors, Who, Of All People, Should Know Better? No doubt. The megabuck corporate interests who circle like vultures to commercialize the remains of American public education once the Reformists have dismantled it? That is my personal paranoia.
Do you see why teachers and their unions can seem a distrustful bunch, “resistant to reform?”
The sad thing is that there is a question here that no one asks and answers that are out there for anyone, real reformers, who are willing to do the hard work of teasing them out. Why is Aguilar a better teacher than Smith? What, precisely, does one do that the other does not? What might one learn from the other? Do these men share their best practices? Do they even talk to each other? Does the system encourage them to do so and provide opportunity?
Right here, in this hallway shared by Aguilar and Smith is the place for meaningful change to begin. A philosophy of Continuous Improvement worked for postwar Japanese industry and brought that little nation from ruin to the second largest economy in the world. Continuous Improvement is the way of real “reform” (I am coming to hate the word). But it must happen school by school, teacher by teacher, and kid by kid. The 4Ps will tell you otherwise, but that is phony baloney.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=129282823&ps=cprs
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-teachers-value-20100815,0,2695044.story