NY appeals court: Public should see teacher ratings
In a decision watched by educators nationwide, a New York appeals court ruled Thursday that teacher performance ratings can be released to the public.
The teachers union had challenged the New York school system’s plan to release the ratings, which categorize teachers as “high,” “above average,” “average,” “below average” or “low” based on how students fared on the state tests compared to peers. The district has compiled the scores for several years but has not used them in evaluations or released them to parents.
In the unanimous ruling, the four-judge appeals panel reaffirmed an earlier legal decision that the data can be made public, contending, “The reports concern information of a type that is of compelling interest to the public, namely, the proficiency of public employees in the performance of their job duties.”
The teachers’ union argued that the data is flawed and that the resulting negative labels and sensationalized news stories — “The 10 worst teachers in the Bronx” — could haunt teachers forever.
This case has implications for Georgia where Race to the Top participating systems are working to create evaluations that consider student performance in grading teacher performance.
In a column in the New York Daily News, education researcher Rick Hess decried the ruling. Here is an excerpt of his op-ed:
Student achievement should be incorporated into teacher evaluation and compensation, and transparency is a vital tool for recognizing excellence and shaming mediocrity. But a public data release is the wrong way to get there.
First, at the most technical level, there are enormous questions about the “right” way to construct a value-added model, and teacher evaluations can move markedly depending on the decisions that are made. Second, in the substantial number of cases where students receive considerable pull-out instruction – or work, for instance, with a designated reading instructor – value-added calculations aren’t going to effectively isolate the impact of a particular classroom teacher.
Third, there’s a profound failure to recognize the difference between responsible management and this sort of public transparency. It’s fair for taxpayers to want to know exactly how their money is spent and – and to expect leaders to report on organizational performance. It typically doesn’t make sense, however, for the public to get the numbers of citations each cop in the NYPD issues or all the performance reviews a National Guardsman was given by his commanding officer.
Why? Because we recognize that these data are imperfect, limited measures and that using them sensibly requires judgment. Sensible judgment becomes much more difficult when decisions are made in the glare of the media spotlight.
–From Maureen Downey, for the AJC Get Schooled blog
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151 comments Add your comment
Dr NO aka Mr Sunshine
August 30th, 2011
3:13 pm
Phil. Unions were needed during their time, however, their time has passed. We need a Union-Busting President not crybaby like Obama.
Philosopher
August 30th, 2011
3:41 pm
“Unions were needed during their time, however, their time has passed. We need a Union-Busting President not crybaby like Obama.”
The president, no matter who that may be, cannot absolve unions. And the minute unions cease, we return to a life of hell for anyone except the MAN. Forget it- just like freedom of speech, unions may have their negatives, but the alternative is unacceptable!
To unreal
August 30th, 2011
3:44 pm
Sure unreal. I’ll publish my rating.
Let’s start with my monetary contribution to APS. I pay $4500 a year in property taxes. I fork over cash to the teachers and the PTA and buy everything everyone sells. I provide supplies for the school — I seek out every teacher, not just my child’s teacher. Just yesterday I delivered art supplies for the entire school.
Snacks — I provide for all the students. I am a room mother — did I mention I work full time ? Yes, and I am the room mother. I’m at every PTA meeting, every principal meeting — and I have to sacrifice my living. I do not get paid while I am at these meetings.
I hire an after school babysitter to nap and help my children with homework. All homework is complete and reviewed and graded by me. My children are well-rested, well fed, impeccably groomed and respectfully dressed.
They ask “May I please…” or “Will you please…. and say “Yes, please” or “No, thank you.”
We are not just on time, we are early, every single day.
We have a curriculum over the Summer months. Education is not nine months out of the year at my house.
I do everything every whiney teacher on this blog says that parents don’t do. There are GOOD teachers on this blog — thank you, Beck and there are whiney little brat teachers who think they are entitled to work nine months a year, collect a pension and benefits and not be held accountable and they continue to bash ALL parents. I have yet to read a blog by a teacher who says she or he has some good parents. What I hear is the students are horrible and all parents are to blame.
My children’s teacher thanks her lucky stars every day for a parent like me.
Any teacher would love to have a parent like me.
Those teachers need to go.
Philosopher
August 30th, 2011
3:56 pm
@To unreal-did you just copy an old posting I wrote? lol- finally, another parent to say what I have been saying all along…It’s not just the parents!
Philosopher
August 30th, 2011
3:57 pm
Well, I didn’t mean both to and @ Unreal…just one of those.
Just Maybe?
August 30th, 2011
4:05 pm
Gee, there isn’t any name (though it’s required) for “To Unreal” at 3:44, nor is there one at the end of this long post. Could it be Good Mother, trying to hide the fact that she’s ranting again?
Nat Turner
August 30th, 2011
4:08 pm
Did you really expect Unreal to be honest? All the parents on this blog pretend to be the best parents with perfect, smart, well-behaved and well-mannered children.
I bet Good Mother aka Unreal greets her children with freshly baked cookies every afternoon.
It is about as real as a reality t.v. show.
Philosopher
August 30th, 2011
5:14 pm
When you have no defense, you simply call the other person a liar…and then you win.
Ole Guy
August 30th, 2011
6:26 pm
Grits, from what point of perspective do you base your feelings that union elimination would lead to educational improvements? Do you have stats and/or experience to back up this assertion? OR, stated in a “less-kindly” manner…DO YOU KNOW WHAT IN HELL YOU’RE SPOUTING? To be sure, unions, within other fields of endeavor, have played no small part in driving that organizational wedge between labor and managements, thus leading to eventual organizational degredation.
d, what is your experience? You seem to support a union presence within the Georgia Teacher Corps; indeed, this WOULD lend to teachers, THE EDUCATIONAL EXPERTS, assuming control of their profession; the end result would most-certainly be an educational improvement.
Teacher report cards, IN A PROFESSIONAL FORMAT, would certainly be a very useful tool, both for teachers, and the “consuming public”…students and parents. HOWEVER, given educational managements’ record of (somewhat) subjective teacher evals, one would have very little confidence in viewing these “report cards” as anything but another skewer with which to corral the teacher corps into good behavior borne of fear.
Teacher 101
August 30th, 2011
7:12 pm
“MmmmHmmmm…likely story but then again their is always a wonderful self-righteous story followed by pity. Awwww…
THE SCORES WILL BE PUBLISHED and you will be judged accordinly.
PS…you example is weak, at best. Us dummys in the private sector can sniff out your kind in about 30 seconds. YOU LOSE!”
Yikes, you sound like God. “YOUR SCORES WILL BE PUBLISHED…” I imagine a booming Barry White-like voice thundering down from heaven. I would be trembling in my boots, except I’m fairly certain that God knows the difference between “there, their, and they’re” and he probably also knows how to spell “dummies.” I WIN! If that’s what I even cared about doing, anyways.
But seriously, what I am is a 19-year veteran teacher who knows that the numbers have a lot more behind them than anyone outside education knows. I’ve had great scores in years when I taught gifted students in advanced courses and I’ve had lower scores in years when I’ve taught students who were faced with great obstacles. I always aim to improve on wherever they are when they come to me, but I also realize that I cannot fix them all.
What I wonder is, at the high school level, what happens to the teachers who teach courses that are not evaluated by standardized testing? And, also, when students typically have a different teacher for each different semester of a full-year course, they only take one test–which teacher gets the credit (or gets to be the dog)?
Also, to Good Mother: “The reason we don’t need to rate and publish ratings for parents is that parents are not paid by tax payer funds.”
This is absolutely not true. Quite a few parents are actually paid by taxpayer funds.
“Just think of it, we publish crime statistics and we judge the effectiveness of the police.”
Well, actually you are confusing general statistics of the agencies involved with statistics of individuals employed. Looking at educational statistics to judge the effectiveness of the schools would be parallel to what you stated above. Those statistics are out there ad nauseum. Graduation rates, AYP, School Report Cards, etc. The idea comparable to seeing each teacher’s individual rating would be the equivalent of seeing each individual police officer’s arrest and subsequent conviction rating. You can have a stellar police department with a few incompetent officers, and vice versa–a horrible department with a few superstars. Schools are exactly the same.
And here is a little more food for thought. I have worked in two different schools. In one, 95% of students pass every standardized test they ever take on the first try. In the other, test scores range from very low to very high on different tests depending on various factors. The teachers in both schools, however, teach just the same. The teachers in the higher achieving schools do not have any “magic bullet.” They just have the high-achieving demographics.
William Casey
August 30th, 2011
7:18 pm
@Philosopher: the entire purpose of performance evaluations is to improve educational outcomes, not play “gotcha,” so yes, client cooperation does matter.
Philosopher
August 30th, 2011
8:15 pm
@william casey: Using your bogus argument no one is responsible for his/her performance unless all their clientele are cooperative, easy to work with, and follow all instructions to the letter.
I love teaching. I hate what it is becoming...
August 30th, 2011
9:00 pm
For all those folks who think schools should be run like a business, how about this…
How many business owners and CEOs would allow their business to be evaluated by a measurement that has a 25-35% error rate and then allow those “findings” to be reported to shareholders without complaint?
When they come up with a method to evaluate teachers that has a statistically insignificant error rate and takes into account all the variation among subjects, students, grade levels, methods of providing educational services, administrative support, school funding, parental support, etc. then I will jump on board… but I will not sit back and meekly accept myself and my colleagues being “evaluated” and judged by a flawed methodology that even those who created the performance ratings have come out and stated should NOT be used to make decisions about teachers’ inherent abilities.
You want to know how well a teacher is doing with your child? Then arrange for a conference and talk with them! Ask questions and listen to the answers. Visit the school and do a walk through. Come have lunch with your child and look around. It really does not take that much to get a feel for what is going on in a school. Don’t depend on a bunch of dry testing data to tell you if your child is being supported or not…
Philosopher
August 30th, 2011
9:21 pm
Horse hockey- every business has its difficulties- that the part you are EXPECTED to handle in order to get the job done that you are paid to do. I can’t tell if a doctor is any good by sitting in his office and chewing the fat- it’s the OUTCOMES that make him/her a good doctor or not. An uncooperative, noncompliant patient will not do well…but the majority of the patients will respond to correct, professional treatment. Same goes with teachers- a decent teacher may have some who do not learn well or do not choose to do the work…buut the majority will respond well to a good teacher.
d
August 31st, 2011
5:49 am
@Ole Guy, I am a seventh year teacher. My feeling about educators being in charge of their profession comes from the fact that I look at other service-based industries whose professional associations (such as AMA and ABA) set the standards for admission to those professions. As an teacher, I am constantly subject to regulations that come from veterinarians, architects, realtors, accountants, etc who have never actually been in a classroom since they graduated high school themselves. Unlike in the late 19th and early 20th centuries where teachers could simply be high school graduates, teachers today must be well versed on both content and pedagogy and have coursework on child developmental psychology, the needs of special learners, and so on.
Cobb History Teacher
August 31st, 2011
5:56 am
@ philosopher
“..Sally has been an A student in Math all through her school years …but funny thing…she’s failing with Mr. Y”
Is Mr. Y a Math teacher? One thing I’ve noticed is some people think because a student has an A in one or two classes they should have A’s in all classes. I was an A students in Social studies because I liked it and excelled, but I was a C – D student in math because I did not understand and often was confused (no, I do not blame the teacher they did their best I’m just not a math person).
Some students excel in some classes because they are more interested in that subject or because they have a gift.
The problem is teachers can’t be everything to everyone. Case and point: I have had back to back parent conferences in which on parent says I give too much homework and the next says I don’t give enough…so which is it? We can’t please everyone. That’s the problem with rating teachers. I know teachers who are terribly popular because they are fun but they are not the best educators, and i know teachers who are hated because they are hard and require much from their students. Are we rating someone on their effectiveness or on their popularity?
Cobb History Teacher
August 31st, 2011
6:05 am
@ V for Vendetta
What we need are administrators who care about students and aren’t afraid to FIRE bad teachers.
I agree but what ever happened to retraining bad teachers and helping them to get better. we don’t fire bad students. If a student earns an F on the first assignment we don’t fail them for the year. The problem I have with the phrase fire bad teachers is that it breeds an atmosphere of fear. Why not rehabilitate them rather than fire them? All that is going to happen is that another unsuspecting or desperate system is going to pick them up. If they aren’t hired the taxpayer then has to pay then unemployment and other benefits because they don’t have a job.
I love teaching. I hate what it is becoming...
August 31st, 2011
6:12 am
Philosoher,
People walk into a business because they WANT the service provided. Patients go to the doctor because they WANT to get a checkup or treatment. You are looking at a self-selected “customer” base. That makes a HUGE difference. Give me a room full of students who WANT to be there and WANT to learn, and yes, I can make a big difference, even if they are struggling. However, that is often not the reality.
Philosopher
August 31st, 2011
6:36 am
I think the subject most of you would best excel at teaching is whinese. Bring on the evaluations…bet you will then begin to EARN the respect you demand and EARN the right to be called a profession…just like the rest of us. Regardless of the cards we are dealt, the REST of us are evaluated on our performances.
To Nat Turner
August 31st, 2011
8:23 am
No freshly baked cookies, just grapes or occassional treats out of the bag. But, why the cynicism? Why is it so hard for you to believe that some parents are good parents?
Did you have good parents?
Are you a good parent?
To I love teaching from Good Mother
August 31st, 2011
8:27 am
Why in the world do you think children don’t want to learn?
Children are born wanting to learn. They are also born wanting to help.
If your students do not want to learn it is because they have been taught, likely by a teacher, that school is boring.
I have had some good teachers in my day and one of my child’s teachers is good but some are absolutely horrible. One parks my son in front of a computer a couple hours a day with the headphones on.
The teacher calls it “self-directed” learning.
I call it lazy.
I hear teachers complain that students are parked in front of TVs and computers at home and they are not educated by their parents — but this is EXACTLY what is happening at APS.
To Teacher 101 from Good Mother
August 31st, 2011
8:42 am
There are no high achieving demographics. That’s a thinly veiled racist statement that says black kids can’t learn. Of course black kids can learn as well as whites.
There is no “smart gene” embedded in the melanin in one’s skin.
What is imbedded is an attitude about education. Black parents, poor and middle class do not read to their children as often as all whites. Poor whites read to their kids more than poor and middle class blacks. That begins the gap.
What furthers the gap — as a group in Atlanta, a stellar education is considered not a good thing in the black community. Black kids are teased for “acting white” when they succeed in education.
My friend and neighbor was born into poverty into a third world country and spoke no English until she moved to the United States. She now speaks perfect English. She is black and so are her children, who also speak English perfectly. My neighbor’s children are harassed by other black children for “acting white.”
However, my child’s teacher, who is black and born in the United States cannot use a singular verb. All her verbs are plural. She cannot speak using simple sentences.
For example: “Your lunch box (go) on the table.”
Every other sentence that comes out of her mouth is embarrassing and she is an APS teacher.
I do not wonder why her students do not score well on tests. She is teaching them incorrectly by example. It is a shame, a disgrace and an embarrassment and she should never be in a classroom, much less teaching students. At home I often have to “undo” the bad language habits my child learns from the APS teacher.
As a group, Asian parents value education and the results show. Their kids are kicking butt in school.
To Cobb History Teacher from Good Mother
August 31st, 2011
8:50 am
I read your post regarding some parents wanting more homework and some wanting less.
Can you be flexible?
For example, if a parent wants more homework for their child, assign more homework. If you need to be fair with grades and assignments, you can consider not requiring the extra assignments to be part of the grade.
It seems to be you can be flexible if you wanted to be flexible.
I have a similar situation in that I am a working parent. Homework is assigned on Monday and is due on the following Friday morning. As a working parent, I have very little opportunity to do homework with my child and I asked the teacher to assign it to my child early — to give it to me on Friday instead of waiting until Monday.
Both years both teachers flat out refused to do it.
So I dug deep and saved money to hire an after care babysitter to help with homework but that leaves me out of the equation.
I am a good parent and I want to work with my children more often but the teachers are inflexible.
Now on the weekends I make up my own assignments and my own curriculum but a little flexibility on the teacher’s part would certainly be in order and is a reasonable request…
so I encourage you to give it a try — give more homework to those that want it — and ENcourage them to do it and THANK the parent for partnering with you.
Dr NO aka Mr Sunshine
August 31st, 2011
8:59 am
“what I am is a 19-year veteran teacher who knows that the”
Thanx 4 thuh grammer/spellig leson!
November 6, 2012
August 31st, 2011
10:21 am
@Philosopher
August 30th, 2011
1:58 pm
@November 6, 2012: yes- abolish unions…and with it weekends, lunch breaks and coffeee breaks. We need forced overtime without increased pay, no benefits and children working 40 hour weeks…yes, that will bring America back to it’s former glory…and provide children with a much better education, too. Can’t wait!!
Yeah, I can’t wait for you “Union, That’s not my job” types to get back to work, also. It would certainly increase productivity in America
To d from Good Mother
August 31st, 2011
10:41 am
D, you write “teachers today must be well versed on both content and pedagogy and have coursework on child developmental psychology, the needs of special learners, and so on.”
So why is it d, that my child’s teacher can’t even speak and write at an elementary school-level ?
She can’t even write a coherent sentence in a note home to all parents.
English Teacher
August 31st, 2011
11:16 am
@ Dr. No aka Mr. Sunshine, 8:59 am. “what I am is a 19-year veteran teacher who knows that the”
Thanx 4 thuh grammer/spellig leson!
”
There is absolutely nothing wrong here with the grammar or spelling.
d
August 31st, 2011
11:40 am
@Good Mother…. I cannot, and therefore refuse to comment on an individual whom I have never met. Sorry that I cannot answer your question. I would say, however, in the system where I work, parents have a lot of power. I would express your concerns to your principal and request a new teacher for your child, and if that does not work, go to the superintendent and Board of Education if necessary. A principal doing his or her job can easily fire teachers not up to par – even if they have fair dismissal. All “tenure” is is the right to a fair dismissal hearing at which point a principal will need to provide documentation with the reasons for non-renewal including any remediation plans that they have put in place. If that doesn’t happen, it’s not the teacher’s fault, it is the principal’s fault.
I would suggest your efforts to fix this situation would be better aimed at talking to the teacher and leadership rather than complaining in a blog.
Teacher 101
August 31st, 2011
12:07 pm
English Teacher, it’s okay, I think Mr. Sunshine was just being a good sport and making a joke. But I appreciate the backup and I’m glad to know my grammar and spelling were good. That is important to me.
Teacher 101
August 31st, 2011
12:51 pm
Good Mother, I didn’t mention black, white, or any other color. There is no specific demographic that I was talking about. We had many more African-American students in the school with the 95% pass rate than we do where I currently teach. Research shows that socioeconomic status (income) is the most relevant demographic that ties to achievement, as higher education level directly results in higher paying jobs and also corresponds with those who place more value on education. And one should not automatically assume that when I compare incomes that I mean the minorities have the smaller incomes. That was not the case in my former district. It is obvious that around Atlanta there are more successful, middle-class to wealthy African American families who value education than anywhere else I’ve ever seen.
The point was, in either school, great teachers are doing similar things with different results–it’s not simply that you have better teachers in one school than another. Are there bad teachers? Of course. Is it harder to get good teachers to teach in urban districts like APS? Of course. Not because of colors, because of all the baggage those kids carry in that has to be overcome before they can learn. Some teachers are great with that and want that situation, but that is rare. And as a result, sometimes it is difficult to find a good teacher to fill a position, and they have to take whoever is available.
So, theoretically, let’s wipe out all the bad teachers. Why did that teacher get hired in the first place? Probably because there was no one else who wanted the job. So who is going to replace that teacher? Can we brainstorm ideas about how to get good teachers to want these jobs?
To Teacher 101 from Good Mother
August 31st, 2011
1:20 pm
You asked “So, theoretically, let’s wipe out all the bad teachers. Why did that teacher get hired in the first place? Probably because there was no one else who wanted the job. So who is going to replace that teacher? Can we brainstorm ideas about how to get good teachers to want these jobs?”
She got hired likely because she is black. APS has a black administration and a black agenda. So the bad teacher gets hired because she is black, not because of her skills. There are good black teachers but she isn’t one of them.
How do we hire better teachers? We make standards higher. One has to pass a test to get a teaching job. There are plenty of people who want to be teachers but right now there is a hiring freeze because the criminal teachers who cheated on the tests are now on administrative leave with full pay. APS is paying ONE MILLION dollars a month for those cheating teachers who are not working.
There will always be plenty of good, honest people who want to be teachers. We just have to have higher hiring standards and higher passing standards, meaning, those people who want to teach should have to pass a standardized test too, one that includes verbal communication.
I’m all for brainstorming too. How about making it a 12 month a year job instead of a part time job? In the Summers, teachers could concentrate on those students who are exemplary and need to advance and on those students who are behind and need to catch up.
To D from Good Mother
August 31st, 2011
1:24 pm
I’ve done all you asked with no result. There is no option to take my child out of that classroom because all the other classrooms are overcrowded.
But labeling my blogging as “complaining” is surely duplicitous as you do the same. This is what freedom of speech means, redressing grievances. I have a grievance with my government institution and I am complaining about it.
If you don’t like it, d, just skip my comments and read others.
To Philosopher from Good Mother
August 31st, 2011
1:40 pm
Yes, I read your comments and agree. It’s not just the parents. What is very telling is that I’ve never read a blog from a teacher that says there are some good parents. I would love to hear just one teacher say “Yes, I have some good parents in my school and I am grateful for their support.”
To Cobb History teacher from Good Mother
August 31st, 2011
1:46 pm
You write: “The problem I have with the phrase fire bad teachers is that it breeds an atmosphere of fear. Why not rehabilitate them rather than fire them?”
They should be afraid! If they are bad they need to go now because our children cannot wait for their teacher to become a good teacher.
We in the private sector are fired when we don’t produce. We lose our jobs immediately as we are appraised annually and sometimes twice a year. We cannot afford for our children to lose an education and be behind at the next grade because some lazy teacher is bad and we need to give him or her time to “rehabilitate.”
The bad teacher should never be in the classroom to begin with. Another reason is if a student gets a bad teacher, that student will not be prepared for the next grade — and that subsequent teacher cannot make up for all the work the previous teacher didn’t do.
Yes, teachers should be afraid of losing their jobs just as we in the private sector are afraid everyday of losing our jobs.
If you are a good teacher, Cobb History teacher, you should be thrilled to get the dead wood out of the school so that you can do a better job of teaching your students.
d
August 31st, 2011
2:28 pm
@Good Mother – I never said you don’t have the freedom to express your opinion. I am sorry that you seem to be having the issues that you are having. I do not complain about specific individuals. I work to address overall issues affecting the education of our children. The readers of this blog have little power to affect personnel decisions at a local school. I know in my system, people complain and then they reelect the people causing the problems. Perhaps the answer is to run for the BOE yourself. I don’t have that luxury, unfortunately.
And, believe it or not, I find myself agreeing with you on some occasions. This just happens to be one time I do not.
Philosopher
August 31st, 2011
6:51 pm
@November 6, 2012 : You know nothing of me- personal attacks are a crappy, idiotic form of argument- I have worked 14-16 hour days, most often without breaks at all, for most of my entire working life- Remember what the teachers taught us now…ASSUME makes and ASS out of you!
Ole Guy
August 31st, 2011
8:16 pm
Thanks, d, for your detailed response. Inasmuch as the educational systems, both in Georgia, and throughout the Country, should be/must be run AND managed by the resident experts…the teachers…I am/have always been in favor of unionization. To be sure, the history of organized “labor” (a term utilized with much leeway) is fraught with adversity and…all-too-often…organizational harm. However, unions do, indeed, have their rightful place in the labor/management saga of any organization…particularly one in which labor has absolutely no voice in the conduct of affairs/teaching.
I DO indeed become somewhat skeptical when comments, such as those eminating from Grits, do not seem to be in accord with the root problems du jour. If a comment is borne of experience…good or bad/agree or disagree…I can respect the views expressed. However, if those comments, as with what would seem to be the basis upon which many comments are formed, originate from a basis of UNINFORMED opinion, I become just a wee bit irrate.
I all honesty, my classroom experience is both short and somewhat dated; I have always felt, however, that the teacher corps, like any professional group, needs a collective voice in order for their profession to thrive. Based on my extremely limited experience, and my gut instinct, however, I have always suspected that the corps, as individual teachers, is just a tad too timid to attack the issues in an agressive manner…TO TAKE COMMAND OF THEIR PROFESSION.
Perhaps, d, you might be willing to “push that snowball over the hill” and introduce a union shop into the state.
I love teaching. I hate what it is becoming...
August 31st, 2011
9:06 pm
Philosopher,
“Bring on the evaluations…bet you will then begin to EARN the respect you demand and EARN the right to be called a profession…”
I AM a professional, thank you. I HAVE been evaluated – every year for the past 20 years in my profession. Every one of those evaluations scored me as excellent at my job. I am not worried about being evaluated. I am worried about being evaluated by a methodology which has been PROVEN to have a very high error rate, which was the whole point of my post!
GM “Why in the world do you think children don’t want to learn? Children are born wanting to learn. They are also born wanting to help.”
Children may have been born wanting to learn, but as you pointed out, they can be “taught” to dislike school work. They can be taught to dislike having to try, to put forth any effort, to take risks…and this attitude often does NOT come from the school.
You ask me how I can believe children don’t want to learn? First off all, I did not generalize to “children” as a whole. Children are NOT all the same…they come from vastly different background with vastly different influences. What works for one, will NOT work for another. You can’t just generalize to all children. Nor should people generalize to all teachers, or all parents. However, just a few unmotivated children in a classroom can wreck havoc with a VAM type of evaluation of a teacher.
Thankfully, many children DO want to learn, and DO want to help. However, I have also had students flat out tell me (at age 6) that they didn’t need to learn anything because they were going to stay home, watch TV and collect a “check” like mama does. Given a choice, most children would rather play on their Wiis than do their homework, and some parents give them that choice. I have also had student who would rather punch my lights out than “help” me in any way. It wasn’t anything personal. They would like to punch out everyone’s lights. They were that full of anger. They didn’t get that anger from school.
P.S. Perhaps you need to go back and reread some of my previous comments, as I have several times mentioned my supportive parents and how much I appreciate them.
Ole Guy
September 1st, 2011
8:21 am
Love Teaching…Hate what it’s become:
I agree, kids both want to learn and want/need to help. The difficulty arrises in motivation and drive to ACTIVELY pursue that which the kid NEEDS to know, as opposed to that which is perceived as “fun stuff”. Education, therefore, seems to have become far too diluted in those “fun things”, while blocking out the “meat an’ taters” of the subject matter. Then, the dislike of school work, as you have indicated, sets in.
Whether this influence comes from poor teaching or from the home environment is/should not be the major consideration. I believe this “at risk” tag only “allows” the kid to feel justified in “not wanting to learn”…”IT’S OUTA MY CONTROL!
STANDARDS and CONSEQUENCES…that’s the key.
November 6, 2012
September 1st, 2011
9:36 am
@Philosopher
August 31st, 2011
6:51 pm
@November 6, 2012 : You know nothing of me- personal attacks are a crappy, idiotic form of argument- I have worked 14-16 hour days, most often without breaks at all, for most of my entire working life- Remember what the teachers taught us now…ASSUME makes and ASS out of you!
I was making a broad statement and even though things are really getting bad in DC, I believe that my rights to an opinion are still intact……my, you’re touchy. “and ME” is the last of the phrase and I believe you meant “an” instead of “and”
Have a nice day…….
Tychus Findlay
September 1st, 2011
12:50 pm
Effective teaching demands a disciplined classroom, and discipline begins at home. It is unfortunate that so many teachers are impacted by lack of parenting spilling into their classrooms. It’s small wonder why private school teachers gladly take a reduced salary versus their public sector compatriots to not have to deal with unruly behavior.
If parents want to leave the parenting to teachers, then give the paddle back to the teachers and butt out of the disciplinary aspect.
To Tychus Findlay from Good Mother
September 1st, 2011
1:57 pm
Paddling doesn’t work. It escalates violence. Think about it. Boys are fighting on a playground so what do you do to teach them not to fight? Hit them with a paddle? That’s stupid but I understand your frustration. I have to make myself not spank. I have to force myself not to yell.
Rewards work well. Incentives work well especially for the very young. For older kids, in school suspension works. No cell. No iphone. No ipod. No friends. Just the student and a book.
I don’t have any patience for teachers who complain their students “argue” with them. It takes two or more to argue.
When my children give me a lame excuse, a whine or complaint I give them a choice.
You either do this this way, immediately or you will go here and do that immediately. For example:
You can do your homework now and then watch 30 mintues of TV or you get no TV and you will sit at this table until your homework is done while I am sitting here with you.
Discipline must be consistent, predictable and humane.
You can say to the student. “You speak when I allow you to speak.” You do not talk when I am talking.
It’s that simple.
It’s nerve racking, it’s frustrating but it’s absolutely “do-able.”
Query
September 1st, 2011
2:08 pm
@ Good Mother. And what do you do if the students keep on talking anyway? When you can’t physically punish them, and all class discipline cases sent to the principal’s office are sent right back to the classroom?
When, quite literally, the administration will not back up the teacher? This is true for many many schools.
To Query from Good Mother
September 1st, 2011
3:12 pm
RE: Talkative types. Who is the student talking to? Another student?
Put the student in a chair alone, by your desk. Put him or her at the front of the classroom facing only you.
How often are you actually sending the kid to the principal’s office? Every time?
Discuss it with the principal and parents.
If the principal isn’t backing you up, other teachers would likely feel the same way. Get organized and go as a group to the principal, then escalate. To the super and the State.
But I doubt it has to go that far.
You earn respect, it isn’t given.
Don’t befriend your older students. Get off Facebook. Dress like a professional. Speak as a professional. Don’t tell any jokes.
Get serious and so will they.
We as students knew which teachers we could derail and which ones we couldn’t. I had a teacher who hated President Nixon. All we had to do was mention him and she would be off and derailed for the rest of the day and do no work.
If your students are young, use incentives. Treasure boxes work well. Students earn small toys by behaving well. They work great.
I love teaching. I hate what it is becoming...
September 1st, 2011
7:18 pm
GM,
You have some good ideas – and in a reasonable situation, they would work. However, you must understand, many of us don’t teach in “reasonable situations.” We teach in schools where the prinicipal is having an affair with a school board member, and if you complain about anything you lose your job. We teach in schools where the prinicipal is the cousin of the Superintendant, and if you complain, you lose your job. We teach in schools where the principal is busy dealing with children who are molesting each other in the bathroom, selling drugs in the cafeteria and stabbing other students with pencils. The fact that some child in your class is talking too much would be laughed out of the building.
Many of you have such lovely intentions with all the good advice, but you really have no clue what some schools are dealing with out there.
P.S. I had a treasure box one year. The kids cleaned it out one afternoon, along with my purse.
Ole Guy
September 1st, 2011
9:03 pm
Good Mom, with all respects, you are talking out of the text book of idealism. Paraphrasing your example: “…you will sit here and do your homework while I sit here with you…” WRONG WRONG WRONG! The entire objective of discipline is to “enable” the kid to behave, appropriately, ON HIS OWN VOLITION. If the kid get’s used to doing the right ONLY when supervised/ONLY when being watched, than what’s the point? The kid learns absolutely nothing. The only time the kid will behave appropriately…be it taking time out of a “busy schedule” to do homework, getting up, in a college dorm, to attend an early morning class after a night of “A beers”, or any number of things expected of a responsible, stand-alone kid/teen/adult…is when a superior is watching.
This harkens back to that which I have always advocated: The ONLY way to train the kid to behave responsibly is through FEAR; fear (a more gentile way of expressing this concept is…ahm…CONCERN) of either receiving unwanted attention or having a desired commodity withheld.
In more terse terms, you either ground the kid or knock some sense into a thick skull. You can argue the tired ole “violence begets violence” song…FEAR, honed through maturity, leads to DISCIPLINE…it’s that damn simple. All this aversion to a pop on the six/a rattling of a few bones only leads to a soft generation, unable/unwilling to self-start; to exercise the initiative necessary to self-sustain. Those (apparently, a good many out there) who feel that kids will, somehow through the “osmosis of hopeful thoughts”, learn to do the right, though not necessarily fun, things are only fooling themselves and doing generations of young adults a great disservice.
Again, Mom…with all due respect, I must ask you…DO YOU THINK ABOUT THAT WHICH YOU PUT INTO WORDS? “Discipline must be consistent, predictable, and…humane(?)”. Consistent, by all means…Predictable…no way! Ya gotta keep em’ on their toes, even back on their heels now and again. Let em’ fall on their butts a few times; learn what it means to screw up and suffer an unpredictable consequence, cause’…THAT’S LIFE! As for the humane bit, we’re not talking 30 lashes at the post or a session with the ropes at the Hanoi Hilton. Dammit, Mom, we’re talking about kids who, in a few short years, will gain ever-increasing responsibilities…high school, college, the “man”, etc.
All this “consistent, predictable; humane” stuff does is foster a generation which will ALWAYS be in search of the teat, unable to act on instinct, borne of experience; unable to make informed judgements and decisions; ALWAYS ready to ascribe difficulties to others/never accepting responsibilities for actions.
I realize these “concepts” violate some sort of maternal instinct…ya simply gotta let the kid “fall outa the tree” once in a while; take his/her lumps for making the wrong choices and decisions. The sooner parents begin to realize these “old school concepts”, the sooner we’ll start seeing teens/young adults, and even a few older adults: make good grades in high school and college/actually graduate, and, as adults, maybe they won’t feel compelled to coddle THEIR kids and treat them like little princes and queens (gender-interchangeable). Maybe we’ll start seeing kids who are physically, mentally and morally tough, not necessarily because they want to but because they will know that THEY BETTER DAMN WELL DO SO.
To Ole Guy from Good Mother
September 2nd, 2011
12:31 pm
I completely understand self-reliance. You’re looking (virtually) at someone who sent herself to college and practically raised herself. I was on my own financially and emotionally at barely seventeen years old.
So, I get your point about teaching children self-reliance. You’ve misunderstood my meaning (and I’ll cop to helping you misunderstand
My point is we (teachers and parents) can enforce rules.
I was talking to and about teachers who on this blog virtually throw up their hands and say they have bad students and they can’t be taught. The whining….
To Ole Guy from Good Mother
September 2nd, 2011
12:38 pm
…and I do not beat my kids. That’s what I mean by humane. Consequences and real ones…but beat them? Of course not.
By “predictable” I mean the child must be able to predict that when he or she does wrong, there will be a predictable consequence.
I think our ideas are very close. My children are young so I am still much more involved than I expect to be when they are older.
I run a tight ship but I try not to lay a hand on my children. I also try not to yell at them.
I grew up being beaten and yelled at and I have absolutley no relationship with my so-called parents. So I am learning how to be a good parent by not following the example set by my own.
To I love teaching from GM
September 2nd, 2011
12:48 pm
I grew up in a school very much like the one you described. So lock up your purse for goodness sake and keep the treasure box under lock and key.
If you cannot get to the principal because he or she is having an affair and connected to the crooked administrator, document it, times, dates, places and put it in writing and send it fed ex to the State superintendent.
Ask all other like-minded teachers to do the same. Remember, a log, with dates and times is a powerful thing. Together, you are stronger than one.
Justice is sometimes slow but it is here. Beverly Hall was around for many years but now we finally have her where she needs to be.
Get strength knowing that good teachers do make a difference. They sure did make a difference in mine. We rememer you vividly. We remember what you taught us. We remember that you care.
Keep trying and in your heart, when you’re down, know that the student you get through to today becomes the good citizen and tax payer tomorrow. Keep trying.
rtman
September 3rd, 2011
8:40 am
It doesnt matter anymore to me. This ridiculous teacher bashing has made me and 2 of my co-workers leave the profession for good…. The teacher profession is doomed.