Bill Gates in Atlanta: Don’t rush teacher evaluations. Do it right.
Here is the speech Bill Gates gave this week at the Education Commission of the States conference in Atlanta.
I’m very excited to be here. This is a rare opportunity for me to talk to the educators and policymakers who will determine what happens in our schools in the next generation.
And it’s a special honor to be here with so many state Teachers of the Year.
If we wanted to give the United States the best chance for a great future, and we were allowed to pick one thing to promote that – I would pick great teaching in America’s classrooms. In my view, nothing is more important. That is why helping all teachers get better is the primary focus of our foundation’s work in the United States.
Right now, we are funding pilot programs in five urban school districts, working with them to develop teacher evaluation and improvement systems. This is the heart of our work.
Developing a great teacher improvement system is truly difficult – because there are no models. The country’s teachers have been working in systems where almost everyone gets a good evaluation — and almost no one gets any feedback. That’s the key point. Our teachers get no feedback – no guidance on how to get better.
So the goal of our pilot sites is to answer pivotal questions on teaching: What are the great teachers doing? What are the average teachers not doing? And how do you help that average teacher do what the great teacher does? That’s what this is all about.
Now, let me just say that at this time, we don’t have a point of view on the right approach to teacher compensation. We’re leaving that for later. In my view, if you pay more for better performance before you have a proven system to measure and improve performance, that pay system won’t be fair – and it will trigger a lot of mistrust. So before we get into that, we want to make sure teachers get the feedback they need to keep getting better.
Fortunately, 24 states are now working to put in place new approaches to teacher evaluation and development. Just a short time ago, no states had comprehensive evaluation and feedback systems. So this is a great development.
But we need to remember: A new teacher evaluation system is not automatically a good thing. If states and school districts feel pressured to rush out new systems, those systems could evaluate teachers unfairly and fail to help teachers improve. That would be a disaster. A flawed execution of a good idea could convince people it is a bad idea – and that could kill this push for reform.
That’s why today I would like to describe the features of a strong teacher evaluation and development system — and warn against the shortcuts that could lead to failure.
Let me start with one overarching point: a strong teacher evaluation and improvement system costs money. We have estimated that it will cost between 1.5 and 2 percent of the overall budget for teacher compensation and benefits to implement an evaluation system based on multiple measures of teaching performance. This price tag might cause people to try to do this cheaply – to skimp on paying teachers to do classroom observations, to cut corners on training the evaluators, to get stingy on providing the feedback that will help teachers improve. But saving money on those measures would be like saving money on a car by leaving out the engine. One-point-five to two percent is a small investment compared to what is paid now for teacher development that shows little results. It’s possible that the costs could be met by reallocating existing dollars. And the returns in student achievement will be many times the investment. So I hope you will take a stand for spending the money it takes to do this well.
Now, based on our work in the pilot sites, and also from the Measures of Effective Teaching study, which is a large study we are funding that involves 3,000 classroom teachers – we have learned that there are a number of elements that are indispensable to a top-flight program.
The first and most important feature of a strong evaluation and development system is heavy teacher involvement throughout – from the conceptual stage, to the roll out, to revising the program once it’s underway. If someone wants to rush an evaluation system into place – and they think they can speed it through by doing it without the teachers – that is a grave mistake. The system will be low-quality, and will never get buy-in from the teachers.
None of us who work outside the classroom can do anything for students unless we do it with teachers. That’s why working with teachers is rule number one.
The second crucial element is to ensure that teacher evaluations include multiple measures. Some reformers believe that test scores alone are sufficient for teacher evaluation. I strongly disagree. Test scores have to be part of the evaluation. If you don’t ground evaluations in student achievement, evaluations will conclude that “everyone is excellent,” and that holds teachers back.
But using gains on annual test scores as a sole measure of teaching performance has huge drawbacks. First, the tests say how the students are performing too late for the teacher to do anything about it – and the whole purpose of evaluation is better student performance.
Second, annual tests are not diagnostic. If the scores are high, they don’t tell us what the teacher did well. If the scores are low, they don’t tell us what the teacher could do better. Teaching is part art, part science – there are lots of great things that teachers do for students that will never be captured on a test.
That’s why we favor three broad measures of evaluation – classroom observations by trained evaluators based on validated measures of good teaching; student surveys with questions such as: ‘did you work your hardest in this class?’; and third, a measure of student gains in testing.
The third crucial element of getting reform right is to make sure teacher evaluations are fused with professional development.
The key area where evaluation converges with development is in classroom observations. Part of this approach has to include evaluations done by the school principal. That is a crucial part of a sound process. But no principal has the time to be the sole observer for each teacher in the school, particularly at the high school level. Moreover, our Measures of Effective Teaching study found that for evaluations to be reliable, you need multiple observations by multiple observers: not just a once-a-year visit by the principal.
In the best evaluation and development systems, peer evaluators play a vital role in the work, alongside school administrators. In Hillsborough County Florida, one of our pilot sites, they have taken about one percent of the teachers and trained them to identify key teaching techniques that lead to higher student achievement. The peer evaluators observe a class, and then talk to teachers about their strengths and areas they can work on.
When Melinda and I talked to the students in Hillsborough, they said that their teachers are changing the way they teach because of the feedback they’re getting from their peers. They’re engaging the students more, not just lecturing — and the students can feel the difference.
The peer evaluators we talked to were very enthusiastic about their work. They were all confident they were going to be much better teachers when they returned to the classroom.
In Memphis, another pilot site, Melinda and I were invited to join teacher Mahalia Davis, who volunteered for the MET study, as she watched a video of herself teaching a class. Ms. Davis leaned forward in her chair and said, “Look, I just lost that student.” Then she said, “The class wasn’t with me on that point. I need to teach that concept in a new way.”
She told us: “I wanted to do the videos because I want to know how I was relating to students. I want to do my job better.” Now she finally has some of the tools for doing that.
As a point of comparison, you all have heard of Usain Bolt, the fastest man in the world. This past May, as he was preparing for the London Olympics, he ran his slowest 100-meter time in 3 years. After the race, he said: “I don’t really know what went wrong. Hopefully, I can go back, look at the replay, and my coach can explain to me what I need to do.”
I think Mahalia Davis deserves the same kind of support as Usain Bolt. It’s true – more people will be watching Usain Bolt than Mahalia Davis, but if you had to ask whose performance matters more in the lives of young kids, Mahalia wins that race going away.
The fourth element of a successful change is to align the curriculum and assessments with the common core state standards, now adopted by 46 states and the District of Columbia.
These new common core state standards in Math and English Language Arts pinpoint the concepts that are crucial. The standards are a staircase, and each step equips you to do more complex tasks. The standards in math are similar to the standards used by countries that outperform us in international tests.
The standards in English Language Arts emphasize the ability to read text, analyze it, and apply it at ever higher levels of complexity – with ever greater independence. This is the core of the core. It opens the door to everything.
The common core, rolled out with the right tools and templates, will let teachers teach the content they want, and still focus on the skills and concepts that students most need to learn.
Some people continue to say that the common core state standards are a precursor to a national curriculum. I hope you can help set the record straight. The common core state standards are led by the states, not the federal government; they are about goals, not methods. Their purpose is to create great learners, not to transmit facts.
As long as we all want our students to be able to read complex text and solve difficult equations, the common core state standards should not be controversial.
In addition, the common core will help deliver a huge advantage that our schools have never had before: a large market for new innovations that can help teachers teach at a high level and still reach each child.
Imagine if kids poured their time and passion into a video game that taught them math concepts while they barely noticed because it was so enjoyable. We’ve been supporting the Center for Game Science at the University of Washington, which has developed a free, on-line game called Refraction. The goal of the game is to rescue animals whose ships are stuck in outer space. The ships require different amounts of fuel, powered by lasers. So the players have to manipulate fractions to split the lasers into the right amount of fuel.
As the kids play the game, the teachers watch a dashboard on their computer that tells them how each student is doing, so they know instantly if the student is getting it or not. Teachers no longer have to wait for the unit test to find out if they’re kids understand the material.
Teachers have not had these tools before. Fragmented standards that differ from state to state and district to district have made it hard for innovators to design tools to reach a wide market. The common core will help change that.
In the classroom of the not-too-far-off future, kids will have computer devices with phenomenal interactive content. This will allow teachers to do what they call “flip the classroom.” Instead of learning a concept in class and applying it at home, students would learn the concept at home, on video, and apply it in class, where they can get help from the teacher.
When students learn a concept on video, they can take as much time as they need and learn at their own pace. They can pause the video, rewind it, or just listen to it all over again.
Then the students can use class time to do the problems. The teacher sees instantly on the dashboard which kids are getting it, and steps in if someone is stuck. The students move on when they master the material, and not before. This is very different from the old method where every student moves on to the next topic after the test, whether you got an A or a D.
Now we finally have the answer to the old riddle of education – ‘do you teach to the faster kids or the slower kids?’ This technology will let you teach each child. And often, when the so-called ‘slower kids’ are given the time and attention they need to master a core concept, it turns out they accelerate – and they’re faster than anyone thought.
I hope you’ll do all you can to help speed the adoption of new classroom technology. Teachers have waited long enough. Doctors don’t sit alone in their offices trying to find new ways to heal their patients. They’re supported by a huge industry that is constantly working to provide them better tools. Teachers deserve the same kind of support, and the common core state standards create an historic opportunity to make sure they get it.
We’re on the verge of a new era in our schools. For the first time, we have people who used to oppose each other now pushing together for standards, evaluations, training, and tools that will help every teacher get better.
I’m very excited about this. But I’m not naïve. This is difficult. We have to work together to design this teacher improvement system and make sure it’s implemented well in the early states, succeeds there, and moves to others. This is a delicate job.
But as long as we spend the time and money to get each element right; as long as we don’t let politics block the common core; as long as we let teachers use new technology in the classroom, this could be the educational equivalent of the Big Bang – creating a new universe of learning and discovery for our teachers and students.
Given the opportunities, the next five years could be the most pivotal in the history of America’s public schools. Your support could be decisive.
–From Maureen Downey, for the AJC Get Schooled blog
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131 comments Add your comment
Bill Gates: “Don’t Rush Teacher Evaluations. Do It Right”, | Scathing Purple Musings
July 13th, 2012
11:38 am
[...] Downey, posts Bill Gates’ speech to the Education Commission of the States conference in her GetSchooled blog. Gates’ foundation is funding a teacher evaluation pilot program in Hillsborough [...]
Prof
July 13th, 2012
11:39 am
@ Good Mother, July 12, 7:49 pm. “Almost all teachers on this blog just simply flat-out resent being evaluated and will fight it and criticize it regardless who initiates it. All working people have to be evaluated, including teachers.”
You’ve posted this many times before. I think what teachers resent is being evaluated by young (in the cases of grades 3-9, very young), untrained evaluators. Working people are evaluated by adult supervisors and superiors.
You’ve often noted that you work in an office. How would you like to be evaluated (with job and raises riding on the results) by those who are 9-17 years old and have never worked at your job?
Prof
July 13th, 2012
11:46 am
P. S. I think that much of the sound and fury here is directed at the student evaluation surveys of grade 3-12 teachers, not the sort of comprehensive administrative evaluation survey that A Teacher, 2, describes in his/her 11:33 am post.
ElemPrincipal
July 13th, 2012
12:03 pm
@ Mountain Man : “TEACHERS know what needs to be done. We the public knows what needs to be done.But we are ignored because what we suggest is DIFFICULT for ADMINISTRATORS and PARENTS and STUDENTS”
I agree that MANY teachers understand exactly what needs to be done in the classrooms. There are some who are constantly looking for better ways to teach. But not all of them.
I am not sure who “the public” is. I would think that term would encompass teachers, parents, administrators, and students – as well as others. So how can “the public” know what to do and members of that same group have such difficulty understanding? (I agree we need a sarcasm font!) As an administrator, I have a hard time believing that everyone else has the answers while I don’t have a clue. A member of “the public,” asked me last week why the number of furlough days was disturbing to me. This doctor didn’t realize that not only do we lose a day of instruction, but that teachers/administrators/bus drivers/cafeteria workers/custodians all lost a day of wages for each day of furlough. And you want me to believe that he knows more about what needs to be done in our school?
Not exactly sure what you think is “too difficult” for administrators, but please don’t group us all together. Many of us were, and still are, very good teachers. Many of us work ungodly hours trying to make sure things are right for our students and our teachers. Many of us are dilligent in trying to bring change to our schools.
The things that are difficult are finding the best way to teach children who do not come to school prepared to learn – how do you teach vocabulary to language deprived children (and no, I don’t just mean those who need to learn English, I am talking about poor children of all races and ethnicities who do not come to school with adequate vocabulary and life experience to be successful.); keeping the stress level of teachers at a manageable level when they are losing salary, we are losing funding, and they are expected to do more than ever before.
By the way…I also take disruptive students from the classroom, I make calls about students who are absent, the teachers and I set realistic learning goals for students in their classes and celebrate progress toward the goal (no one is expected to move a child 4 grade levels in a year), I do support some social promotion because I don’t think any 8 year-old girl should be sitting in a class with a 14 year-old boy.
So please be careful in making such general statements.
Abraham
July 13th, 2012
12:13 pm
Bill Gates:
1. Means good for education through funding research in improving processes. His money speaks.
2. He is correct that involving teachers is the only way to improve education.
3. Nowhere is anybody stating as to what is expected. 80% / 90% / 100% graduation rate?
4. Historically, in the previous 50 years what have the rates been? Does human factor match up?
5. In Bill Gates and other studies, it appears that it is “only” the teacher who is responsible for results.
6. Nobody talks about entry level… a student who does not basic foundation for the grade!
7. What can a teacher do for a student who does not attend or does not do the required work?
8. It is fair to expect teachers to have a laser like focus in delivering instruction.
9. However, teachers do hallway duty, manage disruptive students, prepare question-papers, photocopy, issue and collect textbooks, prepare labs and classrooms, grade answer papers, enter grades, prepare report cards/sheets, student grade-recovery and learning improvement, parent-teacher contacts, staff-meetings, student recommendations, student-research, etc, etc.
10. Finally, any and every voice wants to hold teachers solely accountable, but when it comes to any discussion on teacher compensation, nobody, and that is including Bill Gates, wants to speak about it.
Michelle Rhee:
1. Her single qualification to expertise in education is 3 years as a TFA – Teach for America teacher in an elementary school in Baltimore, Maryland.
2. During that period, it is mentioned that she found it difficult to control and manage students.
3. She, is reported to have stuck strips of masking tape to keep the students quiet.
4. Her claims of student performance, mediocre as it was, was exaggerated from the official record.
5. She founded the TNTP – The new teacher project, to recruit and train new teachers.
6. As DC schools chancellor, she implemented a 30 minute annual teacher-assessment-system, using which teachers were rated. Those who did not meet the minimums were warned or dismissed.
7. Michelle Rhee is the wrong leadership for any teacher evaluation initiative.
JDW
July 13th, 2012
1:35 pm
@Prof…”Working people are evaluated by adult supervisors and superiors.”
Not really. Almost every evaluation includes both peer and subordinates as well. If those 18 and 19 year olds work for or with you they get their chance. If a corporate training class is given, in every instance the participants rate both the material and instructor.
The children involved deserve the right to participate. They, like any learner, perform best when engaged and one of the best measures of that is to simply ask them.
JDW
July 13th, 2012
1:44 pm
@Prof…”How will Bill Gates get around this law that has such terrible results for teachers as well as students? Or, what do we do about the fact we live in Georgia?”
Those are indeed real issues but not in Gate’s purview. He is not trying to improve education in Georgia. He is trying to drive new concepts across the country. Each local or state system will have their own issues that must be addressed.
Gates is focused on providing insight and learning in these areas:
-Effective Teaching
-Standards Curriculum and Assessments
-Innovation and networks
-Strategic use of data
Our challenge is to learn from his work and apply it on our level.
Prof
July 13th, 2012
3:28 pm
@ JDW.
You seem to agree at 1:35 pm with my point, for I would say that those 18 and 19 year olds are adults, as are any who are training for corporate positions. Do you have 1 I get evaluated by 18 and 19 year olds whenever I teach freshmen and sophomores– no problem.
The point is that children are, well, children. Their informational feedback can be important, but not when taken as anything more than that. And when the students are 16 or younger, I really do think that they’re too immature to determine an adult teacher’s career.
As to your second point at 1:44 pm, I was trying to prevent Mountain Man’s practical questions about teaching within Georgia’s parameters from being ignored.
Can Gates’s “new concepts” be implemented in a state where its legislators have decreed that students must be passed whether or not they have grade-level proficiency? It seems to me that would seriously affect “Effective Teaching” in the areas of Curriculum and Assessments, Innovation, and the Strategic use of data.
The Ideal must somehow take account of the Real.
Prof
July 13th, 2012
3:32 pm
@ JDW. I seem to have hit the wrong button and sent out my comment. I meant to include the question in para. 1: “Do you have 15 and 16 year olds training for corporate positions?”
BSH
July 13th, 2012
3:42 pm
This is amazing. Here you have a powerful man expressing what he feels about evaluation system (PUT IT IN THE HANDS OF THE TEACHERS) and the TEACHERS on this thread are the ones trying to knock him down. Has he caused some damage in the past ? Probably. Is he a master in education, per se? Probably not. But I haven’t read anything in this speech making such claims.
He’s putting the power in our hands by suggesting that WE need to be involved in the process. Another thing I noticed while reading these comments. Does anyone have any suggestions or is everyone (I and do understand that it’s not everyone here) have any solutions to the problem? It seems that many of the people making comments are looking to shoot everything down
I do understand that there is little for us to trust when it comes to various “reforms” in education. But if we can’t get passed this then this system will continue to lag behind and we will never move forward. Come up with solutions, ideas, etc. instead of looking for the negatives in everything.
mountain man
July 13th, 2012
3:46 pm
Elemprincipal – “By the way…I also take disruptive students from the classroom, I make calls about students who are absent, ”
Maybe you are the exception. Where do you take those disruptive students and what do you do to make sure they do not disturb a class again? You make “calls” but does that solve the problem with student absenteeism? (my son’s principal called me – that was a TERRIBLE ordeal).
I constantly see complaints on this blog about administrators who change teachers’ grades or make them change the grades of their students. I see administrators initiate “no zeroes” policies. I see administrators vote to grant a variance and allow students to progress to the next grade even though they ahave not mastered the subject matter (social promotion). I see blogs about administrators who side with the parents and return disruptive students to the classroom.
Maybe you are not one of these principals. Maybe you are in East Cobb. But there are plenty of other administrators who would rather pressure their teachers to cheat rather than face the issues that prevent student learning.
Mike
July 13th, 2012
3:47 pm
He’s rich, so I guess we have to consider him an authority on this topic.
mountain man
July 13th, 2012
3:54 pm
Thank you, Prof, for understanding about these basics. and for Elemprincipal – maybe you can’t do anything about social promotion because it is the law of the State.
We, the Public who care about education, need to write our Georgia lawmakers and DEMAND that the social promotion law be rescinded.
mountain man
July 13th, 2012
3:55 pm
But tell me truthfully, Elemprincipal, do you agree that the issues that I have mentioned are very real problems in some of the worst performing systems?
Mary Elizabeth
July 13th, 2012
5:34 pm
About social promotion.
A principal I had had, who had been an Associate Superintendent for Instruction at the county office level, had said once in a lighthearted way, “We cannot keep ‘Johnny’ in the 8th grade forever, especially when he starts shaving.” This illustrates why we must think in terms of the continuous academic progress of students instead of “social promotion.” One has to understand the dynamics behind the reason students will always have varied instructional levels in each grade level to understand, at least, some of the reasoning behind sending a student to the next grade who has not totally mastered the concepts in the previous grade. This is why it is better to think in terms of “continuous academic progress” for each student than simply “grade level mastery.” For example, when my high school had tested, each year for over a decade, approximately 600 incoming 9th graders on their individual reading levels, the range of those reading levels, yearly, invariably was from 3rd grade level through grade level 16, with half (or 300 students yearly) of those 9th graders reading on 6th grade level or below. Those are the instructional permutations and logistics teachers are realistically dealing with in the academic development of students. Simply holding a child back a year, and not addressing his exact instructional level, may not make him any more ready for advancement the following year. Teachers must be trained in how to deal with instructional variances within their classes in every grade level. Instructional variance will always exist to some extent because of the great range of student variances from birth, onward. Please read the following example regarding “Johnny” from my personal blog, below, which illustrates why this is true:
————————————————————————————
“However, here is the catch. I was taught, as a graduate student, that if a student is reading within two years of his grade level, that he will be able to function in the reading requirements for that grade level. This means that if a 7th grade student is reading on 5th grade level that he will be able to function in the material for the 7th grade, but if he is reading on 4th grade level or below, in 7th grade, then he will not be able to function on 7th grade material.
Now, in considering the variable of IQ score, Johnny has scored in the IQ range of 83 to 88 for several years. That means that he is probably below average in his innate potential. One could, then, reasonably expect Johnny to grow 7 months in a 12 month period. Let’s say Johnny is in 2nd grade and he is reading on grade level 1.5 which is sufficient for him to function in 2nd grade. Next, he enters 3rd grade and he is reading on 2.2 grade level, having grown 7 months in 2nd grade. Johnny should still be able to learn and grow in 3rd grade because he is not reading more than two years behind 3rd grade level. So, he grows another 7 months in 3rd grade, with good instruction, based on his potential.
Now, we have Johnny in 4th grade and he has advanced in his reading skills to 2.9 grade level, which is within the two year cut off point for being able to master the curriculum for 4th grade. Next year, Johnny is in 5th grade and, having advanced 7 months in a year, he is reading on 3.6 grade level, but he can still cope. The next year, in 6th grade, Johnny is only reading on 4.3 grade level which is barely sufficient for coping with 6th grade material. In 7th grade, Johnny is only reading on 5.0 grade level, and he just barely passes his classes, but he does pass to 8th grade. In 8th grade, he reading on 5.7 grade level. Each year, then, from 2nd grade to 8th grade, Johnny has made his maximum progress which was – based on his IQ potential – 7 months of growth for a year’s work.
Johnny has been promoted to 8th grade because he passed 7th grade curriculum, but he is only reading on 5.7 grade level in the 8th grade, or more than two years behind his grade level. Therefore, although his 8th grade teacher may be a good teacher, Johnny may not advance 7 months in the 8th grade, as before, because he will have been taught on his frustration level during his 8th grade year. Johnny’s teacher was not aware of his IQ scores, nor of his academic developmental history, which had shown how he finally reached an academic frustration point in his 8th grade school year. In fact, Johnny may even regress in his reading skills in 8th grade because he will have spent a year being taught on his frustration level. At the end of his 8th grade year, his reading level may only be 5.5 grade level. When he entered 8th grade, his reading level was 5.7 grade level. His teacher is surprised that she received a poor rating based on Johnny’s 2 months’ regression in his standardized test scores. After all, his previous years’ scores had shown that Johnny could be expected to advance at least 7 months in a year’s time. His teacher does not know why he regressed by 2 months since she had tried so hard to help him grow. Johnny does enter 9th grade, however, because he (barely) passed most of his classes even though he regressed in his standardized reading scores, but now he is only reading on grade level 5.5 in 9th grade, or 3 and 1/2 years behind grade level – a perfect candidate for drop-out status. If teachers had made wise and prudent use of Johnny’s IQ scores, as well as having spent time assessing his developmental history, they might have analyzed his unique needs more wisely, earlier, and they might have provided him with the remediation he needed, earlier, even though he was advancing ‘according to how he had advanced previously.’
If student data continues to be used to evaluate teachers, a factor of data so vital as a student’s IQ must also be weighed, along with his curriculum standardized pretest and posttest scores, if one is to assess – accurately – the effectiveness of a teacher’s instruction, as well as how to instruct, effectively, to each student’s needs.
IQ is a variable that should be weighed within value-added-assessments, in addition to the already named criteria, above, of ‘race, gender, and income,’ in order to have a fuller understanding of each student’s potential. Of course, there are IQ variations within every race and ethnic group, within both genders, and within all income levels. IQ data is one additional source of data information which provides a more complete instructional analysis. Students’ IQ scores should be handled discreetly, and certainly IQ scores should never be published.”
———————————————————————————-
I would add that IQ is only one variable, among many, which contribute to the myriad instructional levels of students within each grade level.
http://maryelizabethsings.wordpress.com/2012/02/25/about-education-essay-5-assessing-teachers-and-students/
Michele
July 13th, 2012
6:01 pm
I know how Bill Gates can save public education. He can bankroll it so that ALL students can get the kind of education that he received in his elite private school that he attended as a young man. Small classes, modern facilities, beautiful campus all sound like great improvements on what we are dealing with now.
AND – WHAT DOES HE KNOW ABOUT EDUCATION??? LET HIM TEACH IN THE SOUTH BRONX FOR ONE WEEK AND THEN HE CAN TELL US HOW FAR HE GOT
ElemPrincipal
July 13th, 2012
7:22 pm
@Mountain Man…I am not in East Cobb. I am outside the metro area in a Title I school with almost 97% poverty and 90 minority students.
We have few discipline problems, but when a student needs to be removed from the classroom, he/she often spends a good deal of time in my office. My goal is (1) to make sure the child does the work from the classroom; (2) understands that the behavior is not acceptable. Parents are contacted (and in our school most are very supportive). The child only returns to the classroom when he/she demonstrates that the rules can be followed.
Promotion/retention decisions are based on many things – not just a standardized test score – but remember, parents have to agree to retention. Any child who is considered for retention and then promoted, goes to the next grade with a detailed plan for remediation. Any child who is retained also has a detailed plan for what the child will get that is different from the first trip through the grade level. There are so many factors that have to be considered. Personnally? I would prefer a non-graded elementary school where students progress to the next level of reading/math/science/social studies when they are ready. When did “5 before Sept. 1″ become the magic formula for being ready for school?
As for the issues you have mentioned, sure, all of them can be factors that cause a school to be low performing on a standardized test. But there are so many other factors –
children who live in poverty, children who are hungry/sleepy/stressed, children from homes where education is not valued, the educational level of the parents (mostly mothers according to research),
teachers who are ill-prepared to manage a standards-based classroom (teacher prep. programs are not all equal), teachers who don’t understand the use of assessment for learning, poor classroom management, poor instructional planning,
administrators who are not instructional leaders, administrators who believe that children should be seen and not heard (keep the halls, classrooms, and cafeteria quiet when research shows that we all learn by talking and discussing), adminsitrators who pressure teachers to change grades or test answers instead of helping teachers find more effective ways to reach the students in their care,
We could go on and on. Each situation is different. Each school is different. There are good teachers. There are good administrators. And there are those who seem to get all the attention and make a bad name for the rest of us!
This is is trip! Is this a joke or what?
July 13th, 2012
8:17 pm
The DeKalb County School District is currently seeking individuals interested in working as substitute paraprofessionals for the 2012-2013 school year. As a substitute, you will perform the duties both individually with students and organizationally in the classroom, of the permanent classroom paraprofessional whom is on a temporary leave of absence. Knowledge of, and ability to assist in instructing, reading, writing, and mathematics is preferred.
Substitute paraprofessionals are paid $58.00 per day.
Requirements: The minimum educational requirements include at least one year of college. The applicant must have a passion for working with all students and must be flexible.
N. GA Teacher
July 13th, 2012
10:43 pm
You can tell on this blog who the real professional educators are and who has no education work experience and spouts wild opinions picked up at bars or parties! First, unions have NO power in any Southern state I can think of. They make NO difference in state policies. Politicians and administrators can trample teachers at will. Second, teachers DO want to be evaluated- in a constructive manner, not in a fear-based, politically(how dare you disagree with me!) or economically(we need to get rid of the 30-year guys who are high on the pay scale). By FAR the best teacher evaluations are done by colleagues, who understand the subject material, have taught the same kids, and can critique their peers in a positive manner to improve instruction. For those out there who think that teachers will “cover” for each other, they don’t realize the extent of professionalism among Georgia teachers. The better teachers in each department WILL NOT put up with slackers, unprofessionalism among colleagues, lack of subject knowledge, and poor classroom management, and if their urgings do no good, they WILL go to the administration, because inept teachers not only hurt the kids but also hurt the cumulative efforts of the entire department!
Mr. Todd
July 14th, 2012
8:47 am
Go teachers. Never give up.
The people who know the most about a company’s faults and good parts are the salesmen. The people who know the most about a school’s faults and good parts are the teachers. When you’re the person actually providing the product to the customer you will be amazed about how much you come to know about everything and everybody. And you are always right.
http://www.adixiediary.com
Unions are to blame
July 14th, 2012
8:59 am
N. Ga Teacher, I was not limiting my comments about teachers unions to Southern states only. I was making an observation about the entire nation. Bill Gates is trying to reform education standards across the entire nation, so my comments were aimed at the scope of his plan from that perspective. Teachers unions are a major source of campaign contributions for politicians at the local, state, and federal level. Therefore, the federal money allocated to education (race to the top, no child left, etc) does have stain of union influence regardless of whether Southern states have unions or not.
Unions are to blame
July 14th, 2012
9:08 am
N. Ga Teacher, furthermore, I did not pick up that opinion at a bar or party! What an obnoxious and petty retort from a know-it-all who won’t admit that you are in a competitive business. If Georgia is so free of political influence from the education lobby, why has it been such a struggle for the private school voucher program to gain traction?
Proud Educator
July 14th, 2012
1:37 pm
This is all pointless. There is no “real” power in education because it’s not seen as a high end commodity or allows you to wield political power. It’s sad that the people outside of our profession with wealth and power are the ones who call the shots. That’s why Bill Gates now has the credibity to tell us what’s right or wrong. Think about the scholarships and grants that he’s responsible for around the country. Don’t get mad. Learn the rules and become a player. Ever notice that PTA moms have alot of power in schools? Teachers are important, but if you want to have power learn the game, move up the ladder, and use your influence in an ethical manner. Teachers have zero power, which means zero influence.
Ed Johnson
July 14th, 2012
1:38 pm
@Mary Elizabeth: “Teachers must be trained in how to deal with instructional variances within their classes in every grade level. Instructional variance will always exist to some extent[.]”
Indeed. Moreover, shouldn’t teachers have a rational way of learning when in their classroom instructional variances mean something and when they mean nothing? Otherwise, how could teachers avoid making one of two kinds of mistake except by happenstance?
Mistake # 1: Focus most exclusively on some individual students rather than the classroom.
Mistake # 2: Focus most exclusively on the classroom rather than some individual students.
It seems Mistake # 1 will likely happen when instructional variances pile up in a curve that shows no outliers, yet the teacher will give greatest attention to just a relatively few individual students. Likely consequence: The majority of students experience the teacher’s benign neglect that then tends to drive them to become or stay apathetic.
It seems Mistake # 2 will likely happen when instructional variances pile up in a curve that shows relatively many outliers on the low and/or high end of the curve, yet the teacher will give greatest attention to the classroom. Likely consequence: High-end Sue tends to be driven to boredom and low-end Johnny tends to be driven deeper into frustration and closer to dropping out.
So it seems if teachers had a rational way to continually minimize the number of times of making either mistake, then doesn’t it also seem instructional variances would stand a far greater chance of eventually piling up in a curve on the high end to evidence classroom-level involvement of teaching and learning and, for the politics of the matter, classroom-level mastery of standards?
Ed Johnson
July 14th, 2012
1:42 pm
“classroom-level improvment” not “classroom-level involvement”
Unions are to blame
July 14th, 2012
3:58 pm
Here is proof: The Wall Steet Journal reports in its July 12th edition that teachers unions have contributed $330 million in just the last five years to campaign contributions, giving them considerable clout on Capitol Hill. These funds were directed almost 100% to Democrats, which should come as no surprise to anyone.
Unions have placed jobs protection and politics as higher priorities than educating YOUR children. Underpaid teachers are being suckered into forfeiting part of their salary to fat cat union executives who live like royalty in Washington. Unions are protecting mediocre teachers to preserve the cash flow from their union dues.
Ashley A
July 15th, 2012
7:09 pm
Others might not agree with Bill Gates, but he makes an excellent point stating “the first and most important feature of a strong evaluation and development system is heavy teacher involvement throughout”. Teachers must learn to work together for a common goal and need to be open and willing to better themselves for their students as well as for their schools. Teachers must be held accountable for meeting the needs of their students and supporting academic growth. If teacher improvement is not a priority, then what is?
JLR
July 15th, 2012
8:26 pm
When you’re a hammer, every problem is a nail. When you ran a software company, every problem can be solved by technology.
NativeEducator
July 17th, 2012
3:13 pm
I have read through most of the comments on this page and I have taken a lot in as a 21 year old student at the University of New Mexico and future educator. I am still young and developing my skills everyday but one thing that I cannot get over is the fact that a national, cookie-cutter method to education reform does not, and WILL NOT work for everyone.
I plan to become a high school teacher at a rural high school in my home county in central-western New Mexico. The population of this public county high school is 95% Native American that happens to be in a district that will not be (according to a 60 year projection) a minority-majorty district anytime soon. This means that the educational techniques and practices that are being forced into this school does not work for the population that it serves. And with the technological divide that is occuring on almost all Native American Reservations, Technology in the classroom is not even an option. Native American children across the nation are already being “left behind” because they require specialized ways of learning. For generations, Native people have learned everything they know by using their environment, learning math and science (unknowingly) through agriculture, song and traditional dance. Some may speak their native tongue as their first language and need to learn to not only read and write proffeciently in English, but they may need to learn to speak it as well. There are so many factors that go into why this school is considered “failing” but it all comes down to the fact that us Native Americans will never learn the same way a child from GA learns and the methods that someone across the country uses will not work to improve schools in NM, and could, in someways, hurt them. Education reform, I feel, needs to happen regionally and then be reinforced with specific guidlines by each individual state.
Like I have stated before, I am still developing myslef academically and am open to any suggestions or opinions that any of you profesional educators would like to share.
Bill Gates in Atlanta: Speaks to Teacher Evals, Common Core and Ed Tech | CCSS News Curated by Core2Class | Scoop.it
July 18th, 2012
6:39 pm
[...] View the context of the speech Bill Gates gave this week at the Education Commission of the States conference in Atlanta. [...]
Bill Gates in Atlanta: Don’t rush teacher evaluations. Do it right. | Get Schooled « SS Teaching
July 19th, 2012
1:35 pm
[...] Bill Gates in Atlanta: Don’t rush teacher evaluations. Do it right. | Get Schooled. Rate this:Share this:EmailTwitterFacebookPrintMoreRedditLinkedInStumbleUponDiggLike this:LikeBe [...]