Less paperwork to fire teachers, but more paperwork on job
There is no lack of groups evaluating education and issuing rankings. Today, a report on innovative states was released by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the Center for American Progress and Frederick M. Hess of the American Enterprise Institute. (They are looking for schools to mimic business models so that clearly influences what they deem successes, such as ease of getting rid of unsatisfactory employees.)
In this review, states earn grades based on whether their school management “encourages thoughtful innovation.” The state-by-state report card defines educational innovation as “the process of leveraging new tools, talent, and management strategies to craft solutions that were not possible in an earlier era and seeks to catalyze flexible, performance-oriented cultures that can help drive system-wide change.”
Georgia earns two C grades, in school management and finance. According to the report, Georgia only gets an average grade in management because 93 percent of teachers report that routine duties and paperwork interfere with their teaching. However, the report says we have above-average academic standards.
Our C on finances is attributed in part to our lack of performance for pay plans for teachers and lack of easy access to financial data online.
Here are Georgia ’s grades:
Data A
School Management C
Finance C
Staffing: Hiring and Evaluation B (The evaluators like the fact that more of our teachers enter the classroom from alternative routes compared to other states.)
Staffing: Removing Ineffective Teachers A. (That is business world homage to our lack of true unions. Only 19 percent of our principals said teacher groups were a barrier to removing ineffective teachers, compared to the national average of 61 percent.)
Pipeline to Postsecondary B
Technology B
(I’m surprised at our A in data based on the comments that many of you have shared here on how the state has yet to finish its student tracking system.)
As with most reports, this one offers a blueprint for improvement, including:
* More flexibility. States and districts must empower schools and principals, develop student-based funding policies, and reinvent education management.
* Better accountability. States and districts should hold individuals and organizations responsible for performance, reform teacher pay, and develop stronger data systems for the collection and dissemination of information.
* More capacity. To make schools flexible and innovative, states and districts should provide teachers with focused professional development and encourage the research and development of promising practices.
* Stronger reform environment. States and districts should support efforts to create common academic standards as well as promote the development of entrepreneurial organizations.
I am going to two presentations this week on how to fix Georgia schools. Sometimes, I feel that we would have much better schools if all the time, effort and money that went into studying and grading schools was spent on actually fixing them.
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13 comments Add your comment
teacher mate
November 9th, 2009
5:35 pm
The quote “93 percent of teachers report that routine duties and paperwork interfere with their teaching” accounts for a major reason teachers are already feeling burnt out and stressed in this school year. School administrators needing to justify their existence with yet another phalanx of paperwork to show they are actively engaged is at the heart of it. If school boards were looking for a cost cutting measure they have found it. Experienced educators who do not need to prove they are doing a competent job through an inordinate amount of “busy work” will be leaving in increasing numbers and be replaced by less experienced, lower paid ones. The quality of education suffers with the stressed out teachers hanging on under the current conditions or with them leaving, either way.
Teachers have quite enough dealing with less than motivated students and parents, now they have administrators using them as lab rats for the their next great misplaced innovation in education. Add to that often poor choices of educational programs and materials that look more like they were chosen because of back door kick-backs from the vendors instead of thoughtful analysis. Teachers are feeling surrounded.
N. Ga Teacher
November 9th, 2009
6:23 pm
Maureen, this is a well thought-out introduction. Hopefully, there will be TEACHERS there that will provide the sane suggestions needed. “Pay for performance” is very dangerous, as teachers who have more disruptive, ill-mannered kids will suffer, while teachers in AP classes will always grade out well. The pay-for-performance would be too subjective, and would favor teachers who are more well-liked by administrators. Also, true professionals don’t necesasarily “work harder” for better pay. Teachers generally are working to their best levels already. Peer evaluations would be more useful here. A business model CANNOT be used in a public school, because we cannot control who comes in the door, and every teacher has different kids. Second, “data” is useful in macro situations,like comparing graduation test results among schools, but micromanaging the daily classroom with data is questionable. Third, it is disturbing that Georgia’s lack of true unions leads to our having a higher grade in “getting rid of teachers”. When you look at the states with strong unions, you usually see great public education: New York, Illinois, Michigan, Comnnecticut. The teachers have secure jobs and excellent morale, which translates into their being more productive, better teachers. Last, where is the mention of student discipline? Highly disciplined schools are always better. Where is the mention of parent involvement?
SallyB
November 9th, 2009
7:09 pm
N. Ga. Teacher………
I was wondering if anyone here would ever note what you just did….
.”When you look at the states with strong unions, you usually see great public education: New York, Illinois, Michigan, Comnnecticut. ”
Many here have expressed the opinion that GAE or PAGE are unions….which they definitely are not. Even MACE is not a union. For all practical purposes, teachers are on their own in GA.
THey take orders, comply, or leave. So sad.
Even though I am quite a conservative, I am willing to admit that unions actually came into being because of abuses…..as did most restrictive laws in our country…child labor laws, etc,
I never could understand why unions have not been able to get a foothold in Ga. considering all the abuses of power that have taken place in education over the years.
FultonTeacher
November 9th, 2009
8:00 pm
In Georgia, an employer can terminate you for any reason other than one based on discrimination. Our laws are antiquated and need to be updated for the 21st century.
Sarge
November 9th, 2009
8:54 pm
What’s with this grading system? Some sort of feel-good mechanism designed to generate euphoria within a failing system, no doubt. The worse part is the very fact that those in charge of the operation view such “reports” as indication that all is well and simply requires a little tweeking. This is tantamount to Daffy Duck toasting a successful cruise as the ship sinks while tied to the departure dock…WHO’S FOOLING WHO? The day when educational leaders pull their collective heads out of the sand and admit, at least to themselves, that they are FAILING, some element of progress might be within reach. Until then, we have only to look at the bottom line, the results of this failed system…huge numbers of kids, in Georgia and accross the Land, who fail to achieve that very basic essence of education…a high school diploma. (this G.E.D. stuff is, in my view, another “feel-good” tool designed to allow failures to…feel good)
tj stroker
November 9th, 2009
9:33 pm
6th!
Veteran teacher, 2
November 9th, 2009
9:38 pm
So, Sarge, are you assuming that each kid that comes in our classrooms are giving their best? And, if not, what do you propose for the individual teacher, or the principal for that matter, to combate the lack of effort? The major problem with all of this testing is that everyone seems to think that every student is giving his/her best in every class and is giving his/her best on each test. Every teacher knows this is not the case, but the assumption continues. I do not have a magic wand in my pocket to “make” students learn. I give everything that I have every day, and I do everything that I can think of to motivate each student every minute of every day.
Echo
November 9th, 2009
9:42 pm
Paperwork and useless meetings, 2 things that seem to be endless in a typical work week. There may not be a union but that can’t stop a sick out…maybe a “whiteboard flu”.
Echo
November 9th, 2009
9:58 pm
I think I just found where all the federal stimulus money for schools went. Check out how many positions are “federally funded”!
http://www.gadoe.org/pea_hr_jobsearch.aspx
Seriously???
November 10th, 2009
7:24 pm
Has anyone ever been to a high school football practice and heard the expletives that are used by the coaches in front of and often in reference to the students/players?? What a hypocritical joke this is! I hope she wins BIG!!!!!!!
Sarge
November 11th, 2009
12:28 am
Teacher Vet, first of all, let me admit that my foray into the classroom was short-term and left me with a very negative view of the educational system. In a nutshell, that system is playing “political roulette” with kids’ education and, in the end, with kids’ lives. Observations:
1) 5th graders who can’t pass a basic math/arithmetic test are, nonetheless, graded as “A” students. When questioned on this disparity, lead teacher admits to “granting a few extra points for trying”. A few extra points to help little Johnny go from a “high B” to a “low A” is one thing; from failing to excelling is quite another.
2) In an effort to enable kids’ to focus on long-term consequences for misbehavior, wayward students were, WITH LEAD TEACHER APPROVAL, denied recess privileges for a given period of time (days) and made to, with cooperation of assisting teacher, sit with lower-grade class which overlooked recess area. This was intentionaly designed to “allow” the kid(s) to observe his/her/their classmates (who, by my standards, knew how to behave) at play/reward while sitting in the company of “babies”. This plan worked magnificently for a period of time until (kid complained to parent complained to principal complained to lead teacher complained to yours truly) I was told that, in terms of behavior/misbehavior, each kid starts each day with a “clean slate”.
I have elaborated on these two episodes to illuminate the pc/political dynamics to which kids are being exposed. Contrary to what the educational powers that be would have the people of Georgia believe, providing, to students, the best education possible is not the #1 agenda. That spot is reserved for WHATEVER MAKES PEOPLE FEEL GOOD, the education elite, parents, the public, and, of course, the kids.
So, Teacher Vet, thanks for asking me what I would propose…here it is:
To the teacher: do your job as you were trained and educated to do. Contrary to political venom, THERE ARE NO BAD TEACHERS. Some may be in the wrong profession; weather they choose to stay in the field or not is/should be entirely up to them. Obviously, total ZEROs need to exit the building ASAP. Weak teachers need support…if they are in need of extra guidance, MAKE IT SO.
Principals: At this juncture in your career, you have two choices (you must choose one) a) support the troops, the teachers who are only there for one purpose…b) look good (on paper, anyway). Those to whom you report have you in “the microscope”; your school better not be turning out flunkies…if this is the situation, than, by organizational reason, it’s got to be bad teachers, it couldn’t be anything else. And, by all means, you don’t want irrate parents jumping down your throat because Little Johnny is unhappy.
Teacher Vet, it ain’t gonna happen overnight…you, as a group, must get politics and political correctness out of the classroom, out of the schools, and leave it back in that circus they call the Dome. Then, and only then, will teachers be able to teach.
END OF SERMON
Sarge
November 11th, 2009
12:38 am
Teacher Vet, no assuming about it…kids (all of us, for that matter) will perform to expectation/to standards. As long as politics and political correctness saturate the fabric of what our leaders foist upon the kids as education, the hole will just keep getting dug deeper. It certainly won’t happen quickly (therein lies the problem…thus far, the “education elite” has been addressing problems in the field on a “quick and dirty” basis)…as an organization, YOU, all teachers, must get pc out of the classroom. As far as I’m concerned, the venomous title of “bad teacher”, foisted by the clowns in that circus called the Dome, has done more damage to your profession.
Citizen
March 27th, 2010
8:34 pm
I believe all educators nation wide should go on strike. Our lawmakers need to pull their heads out of the sand and realize these federal laws such as NCLB are ridiculous. Let our educators do what they do best, that is teach, not jump through federal hoops.