Great Georgia teachers: Beyond the test scores
In an effort to highlight educational success stories — which people tell me they want — I am sharing a piece by Peter Smagorinsky, a UGA education professor. Smagorinsky hopes to profile great teachers here on the blog now and then. I invite others to contribute essays about remarkable teachers. Send them to me.
By Peter Smagorinsky
Teachers sure are taking a beating these days. Not all teachers, however. If you’re in a private school or charter school, you must be pretty danged good. No, it’s just the teachers with the hardest jobs who get the abuse heaped on them, day after day, by the great and small, named and anonymous: those in regular old public schools.
Teachers are subjected to increasingly urgent calls for accountability, no doubt because those high salaries and other cushy benefits need to be justified in the most rigorous, reliable, and valid of ways. No, make that way, not ways: The only measure of successful teaching these days is their students’ test scores. Everything that teachers do on behalf of kids can easily be boiled down to those scores, regardless of whether or not those kids have fridge full of healthy food or a clean change of clothes at home; or for that matter, a home at all.
Or, maybe teachers can be appreciated for other things that they do. In this series of columns, I’d like to feature teachers I know of who do extraordinary work, often with kids whose life circumstances do not predict college attendance or other arenas where test scores matter to them enough to do their best. What I hope to accomplish is to provide profiles of outstanding teachers without referring to their ability to train students to fill in bubbles on machine-scored answer sheets.
Today I’ll talk about a guy I really like and admire, David Ragsdale of Clarke Central High School in Athens. I first met David when he was working on his master’s degree at UGA and took some classes with me. I was always pleased to find him in my classes because of the ripple effect he had on other students. It’s pretty hard to be in a class with someone of boundless inquisitiveness and vigor, and not get caught up in the momentum yourself. He set a high standard for engagement and participation that inevitably gave the classes vitality and purpose—certainly for me as a teacher, and I believe also for the other students in the class, many of whom, like David, were coming to campus after a demanding and often exhausting day of teaching their own classes in Georgia schools.
David has taken a special interest throughout his teaching and education in the quality of learning experienced by students from low socioeconomic status groups. There are many such students in Athens, which is one of the nation’s poorest counties. David has made the academic success of such young people his mission in life. In a community in which the public schools experience unfortunately high dropout rates, David’s ability to find ways to teach students in meaningful ways is critically important in helping the district meet its goal of serving a broad and diverse population. With his unbridled passion for social justice, David has emerged as the sort of teacher that semi-urban districts such as Athens-Clarke County so desperately need.
At UGA, David was among the founding Fellows in the Red Clay Writing Project, a select group of teachers from North Georgia whose experiences laid the groundwork for the RCWP institutes that followed. RCWP is an affiliate of the National Writing Project, often described as the most important professional development program available to teachers interested in writing instruction.
David quickly took a leadership role in the RCWP, based on the strong impression he made on his university and k-12 colleagues, returning each summer as an institute leader. He is also a valuable recruiter for the RCWP, visiting summer classes to explain to other graduate students the advantages of participation and the processes experienced during the institute. With his tremendous interpersonal skills and infectious enthusiasm, along with his expertise as a teacher of writing, he often impresses a number of students into applying for Fellowships the following summer.
Locally, David has also become a key part of the UGA undergraduate program in English education as a mentor teacher. David’s gifts as a teacher and mentor are well-known throughout the local teaching community; we often hear students in our master’s degree classes refer to him as an exceptional and model instructor. His generous and caring mentorship is most appreciated by our teacher candidates, who are often fragile and require sensitive handling in order to weather the vicissitudes of school life. It’s well known that many teachers leave the profession within their first few years of teaching. Having strong mentorship during student teaching helps early-career teachers develop the resilience that they need to remain in the classroom in spite of the obstacles. David therefore plays a key role in both the careers of teacher candidates, and ultimately in the administration of schools that are able to hire teachers whose abilities and dispositions enable them to thrive as educators.
I have saved his most remarkable achievement for last. David has had astounding success as the faculty adviser to Clarke Central High School’s news magazine, Odyssey, and its literary magazine, Iliad. He has not merely advised these publications, however; he is the founder of both. Amazingly, before David came along, CCHS had allowed its only literary magazine to fall into dormancy, and had never before published a news magazine.
David saw the need for students to take pride in and have outlets for their writing, and so revived the Iliad and launched the Odyssey. Taking this initiative in a school in which student writing was so little appreciated reveals much about David’s spirited optimism and faith in his students in a setting in which many have simply given up on students’ prospects for achievement. Serving as advisor to one or the other of these publications would be an onerous amount of work; founding and advising both while pursuing graduate studies and being a key player in the RCWP is simply remarkable.
Each of these magazines has, under David’s dynamic leadership, risen to national prominence in very short order. The number of awards that these journals annually receive is far too long to list here, but if you’re interested in what Clarke Central students have achieved under his guidance, look here, or here, or here, or here, or in many other places. Or better yet, send him a contribution, because he’s done all this for the most part without a budget, relying instead on the generosity of regular folks to pony up the occasional sawbuck to keep the operation rolling. David has always modestly deferred credit to his student editors, but without a faculty adviser of considerable talent and dedication, students could not prosper in these roles. The remarkable series of accolades that his students’ magazines have accumulated can only be the work of a professional of magnificent devotion and ability, especially given the absence of a tradition of student publications in his school.
What are his students’ test scores? I have no idea, and I don’t care. They cannot begin to take the measure of the man or what he’s done for kids in Athens/Clarke County. David is a great teacher because he does so much more than teach. He works as hard as anyone I know, even spending his summers teaching in the Governor’s Honors Program in Valdosta. David is smart, dynamic, boundlessly determined, and a great asset to every institution he becomes a part of. We need more like him; I can only hope that the current toxic environment that surrounds our public schools does not run off those of similar gifts who might some day join him in the classroom.
–From Maureen Downey, for the AJC Get Schooled blog.
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152 comments Add your comment
bootney farnsworth
July 14th, 2012
2:42 pm
@ Dr. Craig
we’re already there.
education is mostly led by people who have no business running a burger king, much less a school. the rules established by wonks with no clue, and no interest outside of schools being a vehicle for football.
Solutions
July 14th, 2012
2:46 pm
When talking of the founding fathers, remember that they had all read the same 50 books, had the same education. Why? Because there were far fewer books to read in those days, and the 50 they had in common were widely accepted as being the best. Other than the bible, I doubt many Americans have read even one of those 50 books. Having those 50 books in common made it easier to cut through the clutter and self interests of the few to reach valid conclusions. It does not mean the founding fathers were smarter than we are, or more wise. Statistically, we have far more people in America today with higher IQ’s than the founding fathers. We just have more clutter, and misuse of Tommy J’s writings.
Dr. Monica Henson
July 14th, 2012
2:55 pm
Solutions posted, “…the neediest and slowest kids…in a larger sense…mean little to nothing. It is the AP and Honors kids who will collectively go on to lead the nation commercially, scientifically, and politically. Concentrate on educating them, let the others fall by the wayside, it is the way of the world.”
I understand the “big picture” sense that you reference in terms of focusing the most resources on those most likely to produce the most progress, although I disagree almost to the point of violence with the sentiment. However, if one accepts your premise, what about the cost to society in social services and human misery by allowing students who don’t fit into the high-achieving category to fall by the wayside?
If we don’t educate them effectively in their youth, they become at serious risk of dropping out, which renders them highly likely go on to spend their adulthood in prisons, on public assistance, and otherwise creating economic and other costs that society must pay. It costs less than $10,000 a year to provide a public education to a K-12 student, but it costs more than $25,000 a year to incarcerate an inmate. What we have to start doing is ensure a strong return on that $10,000 a year K-12 investment by providing all students with excellent, effective teaching and positive adult connections in the school experience. By using blended learning models, we can do that for a lot less than $10,000 per student per year, AND we can ensure for the neediest kids that face-to-face connection with caring adults who are highly skilled in teaching hard-to-reach students.
Solutions
July 14th, 2012
3:10 pm
Dr. Monica Henson – We are not educating them now, we are just tilting the whole education system in the direction of making it appear we are doing so. The decline in educational achievement has been at the top, not the bottom. The bottom has held its own, or improved in some small ways. The top has declined noticeable. Small efforts at the top can produce large results, large efforts on the bottom produce small results. I do not propose denying the bottom and education, I merely propose we stop emphasizing the achievement of the bottom to the detriment of achievement at the top of the IQ spectrum. Colleges are already sorting student enrollment based on IQ, as the SAT is a type of IQ test. When we dumb down all school books to no more than a 4th grade reading level, we have cheated the best and the brightest out of a challenging education, and we will pay for it in the decades ahead.
Bertis Downs
July 14th, 2012
3:26 pm
One of the things that made Professor Smagorinsky’s initial profile of David Ragsdale so worthwhile is the chance to look, as the title suggests “beyond the test scores” to gain insight into what educational experiences in our state’s “regular old public schools” thanks to dedicated educators like Mr Ragsdale (whom I know and have a child learning from, so I realize that is a lucky unfair advantage)(but there are a lot of David Ragsdales in lots of schools throughout our state).
Another point bearing on some of the discussion in the Comments– the advantages obtained by all kids, whatever their background, in diverse and integrated schools, like Clarke Central where Ragsdale teaches. A recent Florida Law Review article explores this and is worth reading– an abstract is here and the whole thing can be downloaded here too:
http://works.bepress.com/robert_garda/1/
Professor Garda visited Athens and presented his paper which can be viewed here:
bit.ly/Nt28K7
Bye-bye
July 14th, 2012
3:28 pm
Along with my earlier question (above) on the “teaching to the test” canard … I’d also pose to those self-pitying teachers reading this blog: Why is it that some are able to overcome all the obstacles you cite (i.e.,”whether or not those kids have fridge full of healthy food or a clean change of clothes at home; or for that matter, a home at all” etc.) and SUCCEED at achieving objectively quantifiable results with their K-12 pupils?
Next question: Given that the population of qualified applicants for most teaching posts FAR, FAR exceeds the number of available positions … why do we grant tenure? Why not dismiss those teachers who consistently fail to excel?
Do we not have a public school results crisis on our hands? Does our economic security as a nation not depend on finding solutions beyond education establishment double-talk?
Dr. Monica Henson
July 14th, 2012
3:29 pm
Solutions, thanks for clarifying your position. I share your concern that the most capable students are not being provided with the challenging education that they need and deserve. That’s one of the reasons that I have become involved with virtual education–I believe that leveraging technology, blending learning opportunities, flipping classrooms, and other innovations can catapult public education into what it needs to be: a menu of wide-ranging options from which students can choose. I don’t favor abolishing or privatizing public education, nor do I think that technology can out-teach an accomplished teacher. But I do think that public schools in general haven’t even scratched the surface of what can be done to personalize learning for kids in dramatic ways.
Solutions
July 14th, 2012
3:34 pm
Dr. Monica Henson – Then we are in agreement!
Truth in Moderation
July 14th, 2012
3:41 pm
“I’d love to add more teachers like David Ragsdale to my faculty–but ONLY if they have a proven track record of producing high student achievement among the students most at-risk. That is the truest measure of an accomplished teacher.”
THANK YOU! Dr. Henson.
As a home school mom, I would like to take some of the credit for my “at-risk” (Aspergers Syndrome/autism) child’s AMAZING accomplishments. Many of his private and charter school teachers deserve credit as well:
Bragging rights….
One of mine was
K- home schooled
1st -4th – small private Christian school ($1500/yr)
5th-8th -home schooled ($1000/yr)
Speaking of the Odyssey, as a culmination of our chronological study of the history and literature of the ancient world, we took a 2 week cruise of the Eastern Mediterranean and visited the lands of Homer and the Apostle Paul: Greece and the islands, Crete, Egypt, and Turkey.
For our Earth Science field trip, we visited Hawaii so we could see a volcano first hand, and even drove to the top! We also visited an amazing aquarium and snorkeled so we could see beautiful fish in their natural habitat.
9th-10th- Top STEM charter school (public) $$8,000+/yr
This child has maintained a 4.0+ GPA, has held many leadership positions including robotics team.
Nominated for Governor’s Honor’s in Physics (by a Star Teacher) and Engineering (Sophomore yr.)
Scored 700 on SAT Math (Sophomore yr.)
Scored 5 on AP World History, AP Chemistry, and BC Calculus (Sophomore yr.)
Also, this child has Aspergers Syndrome (Autism)
The teachers at his STEM Charter have been wonderful in helping him to achieve his dream of attending a top engineering school!
Dr. Monica Henson
July 14th, 2012
3:43 pm
Bye-bye posted, “And I’ve always wondered … if ‘teaching to the test’ is, as implied, such a trivial and easy thing to do—why are so very many of our public school teachers such spectacular failures at doing so?”
Accomplished teachers who work in classrooms with hard-to-teach students and consistently help them to achieve proficient and advanced test scores (without cheating) are not “teaching to the tests”–they are teaching to the STANDARDS in research-based ways, using techniques and strategies that are ordinarily reserved for gifted and advanced students. This approach is profoundly different from the tired old kill-and-drill test prep methods that is forced in many schools by administrators who think there’s a quick-fix solution to the complex challenges presented by high-poverty students.
It takes a strong, capable, knowledgeable teacher to accomplish this, and to achieve maximum effectiveness, that teacher must be supported by an equally strong, capable, knowledgeable administrator. Getting a whole lot of both of these types of professionals in a high-need school is really tough to do. History shows that most teachers gravitate toward schools with strong administrators, and those tend to be concentrated in the “better” schools.
Even if a superintendent is able to persuade a great administrator to take on the challenge of a “bad” school, that principal then inherits all of the problem employees (not just teachers) that have held on like barnacles to a sinking ship over the years. These people are highly resistant to positive change and are extremely invested in maintaining the status quo. Very, very few principals are able to build a faculty from scratch, and tenured veterans know that they can outlast any maverick, reform-minded principal. More than 95% of teachers eligible for tenure in this country are awarded it, regardless of how effective their teaching is. Once they get it, they are employed for life for all practical purposes.
Mary Elizabeth
July 14th, 2012
3:53 pm
EduKtr, 2:33 pm
You appear to understand Jefferson’s mind only on a very surface level, in a stereotypical way, without depth. I would encourage you to read Saul K. Padover’s book entitled, “Jefferson” for deeper enlightenment regarding Jefferson’s thinking. Jefferson supported public education, paid for by public taxes so that the entire populace could be educated and made aware of the machinations that the upper, wealthy elite might use to manipulate the uneducated masses to their ends. He did not support a government of the upper elite ruling over the masses for their own self-serving ends. He believed that the general public should not only be made aware of, but become part of, the political process of service and responsibility to community by becoming educated through public education.
Those who support private schools through public vouchers are supported, among others, by ALEC, which supports the interests of the upper wealthy elite of today’s world – the owners of corporations that exist for a profit motive for the welfare of the upper, wealthy elite, such as the Koch Brothers, who support ALEC and private education. Jefferson would not be standing with these ideologues who support their own monied self-interests. He would be against their vision and their use of America for their monetary self-interests. In his day, Jefferson would not take inappropriate money for his service to the government. While he was in France and England, serving America’s interests, he paid his own way, essentially. This was part of the reason he died with little financial assets. He used his own money in the service of his country, without looking for personal monetary gain in doing so.
Jefferson was a slave owner who stated that African-American were the equal of white Americans and that it was only the ill effects of their slave circumstances that made them appear less “equal.” He acknowledged that slavery was wrong and he predicted (when he was elderly), that within 50 years, slaves would be made free in America (which they were through the Civil War). His mind understood historical processes, and he saw himself not only as a product of his immediate locale and era in history, but also as a visionary of the future. His vision was that of unqualilfied egalitarianism. But, I hope that you will do the reading that I suggested, expand your awareness of Jefferson’s mind beyond surface generalities, and better learn how he (and others) think, in depth.
Saul K. Padover was the author of thirty books, six on Jefferson, that have been translated into two dozen languages. He received a doctorate degree in history from the University of Chicago. He was the Assistant Secretary of the Interior under Harold Ickes from 1939 – 1943, at which time he joined the OSS and took part in the Normandy Campaign. He was a Professor of History at the University of California and at the New School for Social Research in New York City.
This is what Jefferson said, from his writings on an educated democracy, from his “Notes on Virginia” (from Padover’s book “Jefferson,” page 109).
“In every government on earth is some trace of human weakness, some germ of corruption and degeneracy, which cunning will discover, and wickedness insensibly open, cultivate and improve. Every government degenerates when trusted to the rulers of the people alone. The people themselves therefore are its only safe depositories. And to render even them safe, their minds must be improved to a certain degree. . . . And amendment of our constitution (in Virginia) must here come in aid of public education. The influence over government must be shared among all people. If every individual. . . .participates of the ultimate authority, the government will be safe.”
And on page 109 that same Padover book are these words of Thomas Jefferson,
“On the horrors and evils of slavery”:
“And with what execrations should the statesman be loaded, who permitting one half the citizens thus to trample on the rights of the others, transforms those into desposts, and these into enemies, destroys the morals of the one part, and the amor patriae of the other. For if a slave can have a country in this world, it must be any other in preference to that in which he is born to live and labour for another. . .”
Jefferson’s slaves had great affection for him. He would not sell his slaves, even when it was not financially sound for him to keep them, to other slave owners who might have been cruel to them, nor did he want to break up slave families, who depended on him for survival in that day. Jefferson was no saint, of course, and he had weaknesses as we all do, but he was a thorough egalitarian who once had reprimanded his grandson for not greeting a slave with the same courtesy that the slave had greeted both Jefferson and his grandson, and in the same manner in which Jefferson had returned the slave’s greeting, in kind.
Dr. Monica Henson
July 14th, 2012
3:53 pm
In response to Bye-bye’s question, “Given that the population of qualified applicants for most teaching posts FAR, FAR exceeds the number of available positions … why do we grant tenure?”–the simple answer is, for at least the past 30 years, tenure has pretty much been granted “by default.” And the reason why that happened is because most “old school” administrators did not put teacher supervision, instructional leadership, and effective evaluation on the front burner.
It is a demonstrated fact in K-12 that what gets evaluated gets paid attention, and most superintendents historically have not evaluated principals on how well they lead instruction and implement best practices in supervision & evaluation of teachers. To be fair, most boards of education have not evaluated superintendents on how well they evaluated principals on evaluating teachers. I have drastically oversimplified the issue, but I hope this gives you something of an answer to your question.
EduKtr
July 14th, 2012
4:20 pm
Mary Elizabeth, do you never tire of condescension and your laughably faulty erudition on the subject of Thomas Jefferson?
The man spoke great truths in his lifetime: too many of which sadly seem to entirely elude you—despite the efforts of experts and those of us on this blog!
Yes, Thomas Jefferson favored education. But Mary Elizabeth—he had no earthly experience with the present-day public education monopoly and therefore could not possibly support you in your quest to stifle education reform.
Do please finally understand that.
The Truth
July 14th, 2012
4:23 pm
Hate the game not the players….
They are teachers not alchemists. What are you expecting from them? Be honest… You can not make gold out of lead.
You only reap what you sow. Undisciplined children from previous generations are now having their own babies. Why do you think there are so many social security disability and accident lawyer commercials on the television. We have become a nation of lawyers, leaches and losers.
But teachers can retire (to another state) at thirty years and work in another profession.
EduKtr
July 14th, 2012
4:26 pm
@The Truth
You got that right fella.
EduKtr
July 14th, 2012
4:33 pm
The above comment at 4:26 pm is from someone using my blog name rather than their own.
Angela Dean
July 14th, 2012
5:01 pm
As a friend and RCWP colleague of David’s, I am proud to see his work highlighted by Dr. Smagorinsky.
The point is that he’s a dynamic teacher who reaches kids. At the end of the day, will his work with those kids translate to successful test scores? I’m certain that it will, but that isn’t all he is or all of what his teaching is about. Unfortunately, the evaluation system that our state is rushing to put together and arguing with the federal government over, won’t show all of who David is as an educator.
The frustration for me is that it isn’t just one test, it is sometimes 30 days of testing in addition to the assessments we personally give in our rooms. Personally speaking, I want accountability. I want it, however, with valid and reliable measures. I want to have a reasonable amount of time allotted for the testing days (30 days leaves me with 150 or less for instruction, since we have shortened the school calendars for budget purposes). I want it to reflect the work I’ve actually done with the students and reflect their growth. I also want it to inform me of how to improve. When you receive test scores the last two weeks of school or the test is completely thrown out all together once scores come in because the powers that be determined the test an invalid measure, there isn’t an opportunity for the educator to use those scores to help her students.
In regards to spending on education, we spend millions ($25,000,000 quoted for 2013 here in this article http://www.empoweredga.org/Articles/Arnold/rotten-core-1.html) in paying private corporations for testing and testing development). We have spent millions to bring in outsiders to help us revamp the teacher evaluation system. The money isn’t going to classrooms and the money isn’t going toward professional development (cut completely). Search here http://www.empoweredga.org/cuts.html if you want to see how much your district has cut funding to education.
Many of us fully realize that we could go do something else, but we don’t want to. It is because of the students we work with each day, championing their achievements and supporting them in their struggles. If all of the David Ragsdales were to pack it up and take their talents elsewhere, what would our schools look like then? What would our schools look like if we had more?
Thank you for taking the time to highlight the good work we are doing on this blog.
@solutions
July 14th, 2012
5:06 pm
oh. The WSJ. Well, then it must be right. Because, you know, the tutoring I’ve done? At least at 75-point average improvement, and then some. Because, you know, you would know since you’ve dipped your own personal toe in the educational waters. What was I thinking, inserting something so easily debunked by the pantheon of educational information, The Wall Street Journal.
Mary Elizabeth
July 14th, 2012
5:21 pm
EduKtr, 4:20 pm
I will address your personal remarks to me this one last time, and then I will ignore your remarks in the future.
(1) You write: “Mary Elizabeth, do you never tire of condescension and your laughably faulty erudition on the subject of Thomas Jefferson?”
If these words of yours not the height of condescension I do not know what would be? I suspect you try to belittle my thinking simply because I am a liberal in a conservative state, which you find threatening. Get over it.
(2) You write: “The man (Jefferson) spoke great truths in his lifetime: too many of which sadly seem to entirely elude you—despite the efforts of experts and those of us on this blog!”
I give credence to Saul Padover’s thoughts and to his expertise regarding Jefferson, not to your thoughts. I have already given Padover’s credentials. You, on the other hand, indulge in insulting pettiness. You write: “Efforts of those of us on this blog.” Please. “Those of us on this blog?” Each person on this blog has a separate, and unique, thought process. This blog does not operate through a “Group Mentality,” and it certainly isn’t run through some kind of perverse popularity contest regarding the thoughts “of us on this blog.”
(3) You write: “Yes, Thomas Jefferson favored education. But Mary Elizabeth—he had no earthly experience with the present-day public education monopoly and therefore could not possibly support you in your quest to stifle education reform.”
If you had bothered to read any of my posts with any depth and understanding, as well as bothered to read the links to my personal blog on educational concerns, you would have already realized that I have been in the forefront in advocating for “educational reform” within public education through the exercise of more individualized instruction to address both the upper ends of student achievement as well as the lower ends of student achievement. I have even said that I support some degree of public charter schools, working with traditional public schools, to achieve educational reform. Not only do I presently state ways to accomplish educational reform within public education, I had practiced educational reform as an Instructional Lead Teacher working under a dynamic, innovative principal, who had been the Associate Superintendent for Instruction, within an outstanding model school for the continuous progress of EVERY student’s reaching his or her maximum potential – both high and low ends – through mastery learning. To say that I would ever “stifle educational reform” is absurd. You are correct to assume that I am attempting to keep public education from being dismantled within our state and nation. And, I believe Jefferson would applaud my doing so – for the reasons I elaborated upon in my 3:53 pm post, which I suggest you read and digest, especially regarding ALEC, public schools, and corporate interests.
It is obvious to me that you are a particular conservative who is simply threatened by my progressive views for Georgia and its educational delivery system for its students. I am finished in caring to respond to you further, although you will probably change your moniker and be back insulting me, again, using another moniker. However, I believe I will recognize your style of writing.
Do you really think that I would allow this nation to fall into the hands of those as petty and mean-spirited as you appear to be, without speaking out against what you represent? If you think I would remain silent in the face of that possibility for this nation, you do not know me in any depth – and that is obvious.
EduKtr
July 14th, 2012
6:01 pm
By all means, Mary Elizabeth, do continue in your striving to finally understand Jefferson. But also do this: put aside any later-day analysis by “experts” and read the man’s own words in the actual vernacular of his era.
And stop imagining that conservatives, any more than our Founding Fathers, have other than the very best interests of our fellow men (and women) at heart.
Cheers!
Student Advocate
July 14th, 2012
6:13 pm
David – kudos!
A scenario – How would the Clarke County community feel if budget cuts caused him to be let go, because someone else had been teaching with the school system longer? This happens all the time to great teachers. Principals need to be able to keep their very best assets, and manage their own staff in a way that is best for the students, not best for the adults.
Mary Elizabeth
July 14th, 2012
7:26 pm
EduKtr, 6:01 pm
I have frequently documented, on this blog, Jefferson’s words from his writings, which I have read – from his “Autobiography,” from his “Notes on Virginia,” and from his private letters. Even my 3:53 pm post states Jefferson’s words, as he stated them in his era, which you did not choose to address.
I have no doubt that many conservatives have the best interests of America at heart, as do many liberals. What I do not see in many conservatives is a enlightened understanding of an egalitarian vision of all humanity, as deeply as Jefferson understood that vision, as shown through his writings and through his actions.
I have had an interest in reading the thoughts of many of our Founding Fathers, especially since my retirement, including the thoughts and mental processes of Hamilton, Adams, Washington, and Franklin, as well as of Jefferson. You well know that these Founding Fathers often disagreed on issues, especially in the pull between a centralized government and states’ rights. I do not agree with Jefferson in every regard. I mention Jefferson more often than the others on this blog because of his views regarding public education and egalitarianism, of which enlightened education brings a richer understanding.
Teacher2
July 14th, 2012
8:01 pm
@Mary Elizabeth
The mere fact that Jefferson had slaves is contradictory to your utopian view of him. The comment that “Jefferson was a slave owner who stated that African-American were the equal of white Americans and that it was only the ill effects of their slave circumstances that made them appear less “equal ” is completely contradictory. How can one see African-Americans as equal yet enslave them?
The comment that “He acknowledged that slavery was wrong and he predicted (when he was elderly), that within 50 years, slaves would be made free in America (which they were through the Civil War).” This is a futile attempt to justify his ownership of slaves. Why should he be given credit that he believed slavery was wrong, yet he never freed his slaves? Could his prediction be based on the increasing slave revolts during that time rather than his vision (a vision that he failed to advocate as an abolitionist)? If Jefferson truly believed in the “evils” of slavery then he would have joined the abolitionist movement which had prominent leaders during Jefferson’s lifetime.
I believe Jefferson may have felt slavery was “wrong” but not wrong enough to stop the financial wealth that it created for him. After all, Jefferson did not free Sally Hemming. He professed that he loved her and had children with her but that was not reason to free her! In perspective, Jefferson could not free one of probably 200 slaves during his lifetime.
The comment “Jefferson’s slaves had great affection for him” was the most ridiculous statement made in your justification of Jefferson’s slave ownership. How can an enslaved person have a true affection for the slave owner? The slave owner systematically deprives the slaves of their humanity by the mere forcing of FREE labor for their ENTIRE lifetime. It is impossible to be a good slave owner. The mere act of oppressing people for monetary gain makes the slave owner inhumane by nature. I respect your opinions as an educator but I think you have placed Jefferson on a pedestal to which he does not deserve.
Dr. Proud Black Man
July 14th, 2012
8:08 pm
@EduKtr
Quit being a Richard.
Dr. Proud Black Man
July 14th, 2012
8:15 pm
@Mary Elizabeth
Take off your rose colored glasses sweetie. Jefferson was the worst kind or racist. He knew the “peculiar institution” was wrong but since he profited from it he kept his criticism only to paper. Hardly worth citing him in modern day arguments don’t you think?
EduKtr
July 14th, 2012
9:24 pm
@Black: Don’t know or particularly care what a “Richard” is.
Mary Elizabeth
July 14th, 2012
9:59 pm
Dr. Proud Black Man
You tell me that “Jefferson was the worst kind of racist.” I will try to respond to you and others tomorrow, but for the time being how do you think I feel as a woman, when you refer to me as “sweetie”? Have you considered how sexist you show yourself to be, with that one gesture, and yet you judge Jefferson? Better to look, inward, to your own evolution of enlightenment, I would say. That greeting of me was neither enlightened or justified.
Teacher2
July 14th, 2012
10:02 pm
@Mary Elizabeth
May I also include that Jefferson did not free his children that he fathered with Sally Hemming. I find it incredible that he did not free his children from the “evils” of slavey either!
Jeanine
July 14th, 2012
11:05 pm
Teachers in different types of schools have quite different challenges and cannot be easily compared or evaluated using the same criteria.
Teachers in private schools where the students are screened and tested before being admitted have students who are already at the top level on standardized tests. If their students continue to perform well on the testing “du jour”, the teachers are likely doing what is expected of them. Their job is primarily to maintain and expand the students achievement.
A teacher in a school in a less affluent area and/or with students whose first language is not English have an entirely different challenge. What we should be looking for here is PROGRESS. So far, the educrats in Ga. have not grasped that PROGRESS must be measured on the SAME group of students from before instruction and then again AFTER instruction. THE SAME STUDENTS….NOT the 7th graders of 2010 compared to the 7th graders of 2011. It is not a valid measure of progress if it is not using exactly the same students!
IF and that’s a big IF, the correct method for measuring progress were ever used , the teachers that are now abused unmercifully, would likely prove to be the systems’ SHINING STARS.
Dr. Proud Black Man
July 14th, 2012
11:05 pm
@Mary Elizabeth
So calling you sweetie puts me on the same level as a slaver? Have a blessed weekend sugar.
@ EduKtr
Try the informal version of Richard and you might see the light!
Mary Elizabeth
July 14th, 2012
11:47 pm
@Dr. Proud Black Man, 11:05 pm
“So calling you sweetie puts me on the same level as a slaver? Have a blessed weekend sugar.”
—————————————————————————
I am disappointed in you. Of course, addressing me as “sweetie” does not put you on the same level as a slave holder and I never said that it did, but using that condescending term of address to me indicates sexism – which does show a lack of enlightened thinking. I thought you might have been large enough, as an evolved human being, to apologize to me for having chosen to use such a belittling term of address, once it was pointed out to you how doing so would make a woman feel (especially a woman of almost 70, in my case). Instead, you doubled-up with the sexist remarks by calling me, “sugar.” You tell me to have a “blessed weekend,” but that statement does not ring true to me, with any authenticity, because of the way in which you have addressed me with such deliberate condescension, twice now. I have not followed your thoughts enough, in the past, to have formed a judgment of your thinking, but you have lost much credibility with me this evening because of the way in which you have chosen to address me, irrespective of our varied thoughts on Jefferson.
————————————————————————
@Teacher2, 8:01 pm and 10:02 pm
On the other hand, you were quite sincere in your questioning of my views of Jefferson and you brought up some legitimate concerns regarding him. I will attempt to answer you tomorrow. This evening I did look up documentation for you, and I found specific references, in the Padover book, that will address your concerns. It is late now so that I will write a coherent response to your thoughts, tomorrow.
Thank you for keeping your exchange with me respectful, even though our views on Jefferson may vary.
Truth in Moderation
July 14th, 2012
11:55 pm
@Teacher2
Slavery has been around since recorded history. All nations have practiced it at one time or another, in one form or another. Wars produce slavery or death to the conquered. Currently, economic slavery backed by a well equipped NATO military is popular. In the 90’s I lobbied Congress to remove China from the Most Favored Trade status because they used slave labor to produce their cheap exports. Both Dems and Republicans, Northerners and Left Coasters, ALL supported trade with China. Predictably, America’s non-slave cheap labor was not cheap enough to compete, and our manufacturing base was destroyed. Did YOU buy those cheap goods and services from China? If so, you and millions of Americans supported slavery. Our children are now debt slaves because each preceding generation allowed our Congress to borrow WITH INTEREST from the Federal Reserve to fund what we could not afford. There are now few jobs because they all went overseas to cheap/slave labor.
That said, it was rice, cotton, and tobacco slave plantation owners that initially funded the American Revolution. Remember, the King of England’s main interest in the American Colonies was financial, and they had prosperous trade with England and other countries. While some slavery did exist in England, it became more palatable when the slaves were overseas in the Colonies. Originally, indentured servants were used, but changing economics in Europe made their labor more expensive, and their use declined after the Revolutionary war. In the South, with its heat and humidity, buying African slaves to work the cotton, tobacco, and rice plantations became economically attractive. Once a slave system was set up, the attitudes and way of life for both the slave owners and slave was passed on to the next generation. Unlike indentured servants, there was no end to their subjugation to the Master. The local economics become dependent on this system, and the “master’s” attitudes of superiority were ingrained in the culture. It was a system that would ultimately collapse, only to be replaced by cheap child labor in the “new technology” factories of the North after the Civil War.
Regarding the Founding Fathers and education, my ancestor and Signer of the Declaration of Independence, Arthur Middleton, was one of the better educated. The family’s vast wealth and political influence in the South Carolina colony played a role in securing America’s independence from England. According to the Society of the Descendants of the Signers of the Declaration of Independence, “Arthur Middleton’s earliest education was provided by tutors and private schools in Charleston. As was the custom of the time, Arthur was sent to England at the age of 12 for further education. He attended the celebrated Hackney School (later Harrow) and then on to Westminster School in 1757 and graduated from Cambridge in 1760, at the age of 18. It was here that he acquired a thorough education in the Greek and Roman classic literature that he continued to enjoy throughout his life. He was a serious scholar, avoiding some of the exploits of his less dedicated American companions. Arthur went on to study law at the Middle Temple in London, and later decided to tour Europe for the next two years. During the time he was abroad, not only did Arthur become proficient in Latin and Greek but acquired a taste for music, painting, sculpture and architecture. He had become a true renaissance man.” Even with his aristocratic leanings and English education, Arthur was passionate to preserve liberty for the South Carolina colony and funded the Revolution. It cost him a year in a prison in St. Augustine, the ransacking of his plantation, hardship for his wife and children, and an early death at the age of 44.
Here’s a good overview of Arthur Middleton’s life:
http://www.dsdi1776.com/signers-by-state/arthur-middleton/
SGaTeechur
July 15th, 2012
7:52 am
To those of you, and the general public, ranting about teachers passing (and graduating) students who are not academically capable….
After teaching at all grade levels in Georgia, I have seen this happen over and over again. I am sick of it, and I am sickened by it. Those of us who will not give a passing grade to Little Johnny to keep him eligible are treated likes if we have some dread disease.
We are told students cannot be retained, in spite of failing most parts of the CRCT and math, reading, science, social studies classes, etc. There is no room for them, not enough teachers, etc.
Many of us try and try and try, only to be dismissed with the back of a hand. We are sick of it.
Pride and Joy
July 15th, 2012
8:36 am
Truth in Moderation,
Please think hard about what you said. You said “That said, it was rice, cotton, and tobacco slave plantation owners that initially funded the American Revolution.”
Slave plantation owners funded….
This isn’t true.
The forced labor of negro slaves funded the American Revolution as well as a huge loan from France that Benjamin Franklin begged at court to get.
Remember, your learned ancestor was learning Greek and learning to appreciate the finer things in life while his slaves were doing the back breaking, life-ending work of creating wealth that partially funded the war…
….and let’s not kid ourselves what Arthur Middleton was doing and why…he wanted freedom from England for himself and other white landed gentry, not for all of us and ceratinly not the black slaves whose lives your ancestor robbed.
It’s funny how a little twist of a word can change the whole meaning of it.
The money your ancestor gave was not his own. It belonged to the black slaves who your ancestor abused and robbed…and that, my friend, is not something I would be proud of.
Dr. Proud Black Man
July 15th, 2012
9:15 am
@Mary Elizabeth
Calm down, this is an ANONYMOUS, for the most part, informal blog. If my calling you sweetie or sugar upsets you perhaps some anger management tools or yoga would be beneficial. You make a lot of ASSumptions when analyzing my posts to you. I didn’t realize that along with your superior pedagogical skills you are also blessed with clairvoyance. Have a blessed Sunday boo.
bootney farnsworth
July 15th, 2012
9:21 am
this is amazing.
once upon a long time ago, Rush Limbaugh introduced the US to the concept of seminar callers. trolls who work from a predetermined script to push a specific point regardless of reality/facts.
update the concept slightly to become seminar posters, and here we are.
Pride and Joy
July 15th, 2012
9:27 am
Mary Elizabeth is right when she says “I will try to respond to you and others tomorrow, but for the time being how do you think I feel as a woman, when you refer to me as “sweetie”? ”
The degredation of women is still acceptable to many men in our society. When this degredation comes from someone who proclaims that his race causes him to be degraded…it is especially concerning.
If Dr. Proud Black Man claims that discrimination is wrong, surely he should see the folly and duplicity of calling Mary Elizabeth “Sweeetie.” To a woman, Dr. Black Man, calling us “Sweetie” is the same as calling you “boy.”
Pride and Joy
July 15th, 2012
9:37 am
Jeanine makes a valid and important point.
What we need is testing for students at the beginning of the year to determine what they know and then again at the end of the year to determine what they learned during that year from those teachers. This is the most accurate way to measure what was learned and to measure how effective the teacher is.
I just don’t understand WHY our school system doesn’t do this. It is a no-brainer, an obvious way to measure growth or lack or it for both the teacher and the student.
The thing is, I think APS isn’t really interested in measuring real learning or interested in truly evaluating teachers. I think the administration only wants what makes them look better.
My child’s sterling attendance records were altered.
That’s right, My child missed only TWO days of school last year and guess what? The end of year report card was altered to say zero absences and zero tardies.
For goodness sake, my children were late, by less than five minutes only twice last year and missed only two days of school, yet APS altered the records. To whom do I report this? Surely it is a crime to alter records.
Dr. Proud Black Man
July 15th, 2012
9:47 am
@Pride and Joy
” To a woman, Dr. Black Man, calling us “Sweetie” is the same as calling you “boy.”
Your opinion pride, BUT try a little experiment; have your husband, if you have one, refer to a woman as sweetie in casual conversation. Then have him call a black man a boy. IF its the same as you claim the reaction should be the same no? Have a blessed weekend sugar.
NWGA Teacher
July 15th, 2012
9:53 am
Jeanine: Yes. Throw out the 30 days of prep and testing, and bring on the pre- and post-tests to show progress.
I love teaching. I hate what it is becoming...
July 15th, 2012
10:29 am
@Dr Proud
Please. Don’t pretend you did not know EXACTLY what you were suggesting when you called a female poster “sweetie”. Any woman posting here knows what you were implying, and you are smart enough to know as well.
Dr. Proud Black Man
July 15th, 2012
10:35 am
@I love blah, blah, blah,becoming…
What “EXACTLY” am I suggesting??? Once again some of the posters’ claryvoiance skills never fail to amaze me!
David Graham
July 15th, 2012
11:09 am
An awe inspiring figure as a teacher, mentor, and just a good man. I am glad that someone else recognizes the talents of one David Alan Ragsdale.
homeschooler
July 15th, 2012
11:10 am
@ Solutions. Your July 14th 3:10 comment was awesome. I believe education has improved dramatically over the past several years in the lower class areas
I am so impressed when I come in contact with some of the lower socioeconomic kids. I doubt that 30 yrs ago a large percentage these kids would have learned to read in Kindergarten. These teachers are successfully teaching 5 and 6 yr olds to read. Kids whose parents may not be able to read, hispanic kids who have never even spoken English are READING at age 5 and 6. I think that is amazing and every teacher responsible for that should be rewarded with our respect.
The problem is that when only 70 percent of these kids learns to read, we give the teachers a hard time?!?! The teachers in the higher achieving school get more kudos..why? because their results are 100percent. So, they taught 25 kindergarteners to read who are from upper middle class neighborhoods. Kids who probably walked through the door already knowing thier letters, numbers. Kids who had spent hours and hours watching “edudcational television” and being read to by mom and dad. Who is the better teacher? The one who taught 20 out of 25 kids to read in the South Cobb school or the one who taught 25 kids to read in the East Cobb School. These are the thoughts that I had when I read the CRCT results. It infuriates me that we would assess these schools on an even scale when the kids are so incredible different.
Anybody remember the movie “Summer School” with Mark Harmon from the 80’s? As I remember the kids were supposed to pass some sort of test at the end of the summer. Most of them still failed but they improved so much that the teacher pointed out to them how the increase made them successful. Sometimes those improvements are what we need to look at.
My point in regards to “solutions” comment is that we need to stop judging all teachers and students on the same scale. Our schools might be very successful at educating the mass population but if wee keep lowering the bar to make sure that 100percent of the lowest of the low can succeed we are doing nothing for the above average students. They are not equal. No matter how un-politically correct that statement is. They are not equal.
Prof
July 15th, 2012
11:23 am
I just want to point out that CHATTEL slavery was/is vastly different from all other kinds of slavery, for it regarded the slave as literally property or chattel, rather than human. Now, the word “slave” seems used as a metaphor, but CHATTEL slavery was no metaphor. It was a terrible reality for millions upon millions of people abducted from their homelands and treated as things.
Dc
July 15th, 2012
11:26 am
Dr Henson…..wow, your post may be the most encouraging writeup i have ever read on public schools….what a breathe of fresh air to see a school so focused on helping students achieve and show measurable improvement in results….and so able to see past the bull of degrees, honoraries, and meaningless teacher evaluations that have so hurt our school system through the years. I hope and pray that your school is successful and can act as a shining light for schools across Georgia and the country
ColoradoTeacher
July 15th, 2012
12:38 pm
Thank you for this inspiring column. It left me energized to do more and be more as a teacher this year, in my 20th year of teaching. David Ragsdale does what those of us who have come to teaching as a mission aspire to do. He elevates lives.
As we’ve faced our own disheartening battles in my Colorado district to keep public education alive and out of the hands of ALEC inspired and funded privateers, I have counseled myself not to read the comments attached to articles like yours. Someone above wondered “who butters their bread,” but at this point I think there is very little question about that. Paid trolls spend their days highjacking comment threads across the country in an attempt to sway public opinion against public schools. They are easy to spot by the talking-points and buzz-words: monopoly, government-schools, tenure, choice, union-istas… One interesting difference: I have never seen Thomas Jefferson highjack a comment thread. Maybe that’s unique to Georgia?
Because I did read the comment thread, against my own better judgement, I’ll now re-read the column in an attempt to recapture the energy inspired by David Ragsdale.
Mary Elizabeth
July 15th, 2012
12:45 pm
@Teacher2, 8:01 and 10:02 pm, July 12, 2012
I had promised you last evening that I would, today, attempt to respond to your legitimate concerns regarding Thomas Jefferson. Again, thank you for the sincerity of your questions and underlying respectful manner with me. I view human nature as complex. I will probably give some documentation, below, which you may find issue, but please know that what I share on this blog has been, nevertheless, documented, as you will see below.
As a teacher, I seek truth for myself and for others. I am not a historian and I do not pretend to be an expert on Jefferson; however, I am open to learn truth, and I seek to learn truth about Jefferson and about how his mind, in all of its compexities and disparate parts, worked.
As I begin, I do want you to know my own views and how strongly I feel about them. I grew up as a white South Georgia girl at the very end of the Jim Crow era. I remember the separate bathrooms, separate water fountains, schools separated for blacks and whites, and I remember the racism and fears of that era of my preteen and teen years. I was appalled by it. I spoke out against it to my high school friends, contrary to the beliefs of many of them. I have never had trouble going against popular opinion. My parents were both sympathtic to the plight of African-Americans in that Jim Crow era, also. Both are now deceased. I felt so strongly about the South’s overall repression – not only against the integration of the races into its segregated system of living, but also regarding the keeping of women to subjugated roles of accepted conduct, especially in an anti-intellectualism environment, that I left Georgia with my first husband (and lifelong friend) when I was 20 years old for the Village of New York City, where I felt an affinity with my more “liberal” worldview. I came back to my Southern roots after I had graduated from college in NYC, and after my first husband and I had mutually decided to end our marriage, but remain lifelong friends. He remained in NYC. He is now deceased. I came back South because I loved – and needed – my family especially at that time in my life. I married a second time and established a family life in Atlanta. My views concerns the races, and my egalitarian vision regarding all people throughout the world, are consistent, today at age 69, with the same worldview I had held in south Georgia as an adolescent. I have always had great empathy for what African-Americans have had to endure in our nation’s histsory.
Now, to try to address your specific questions. The first question you ask is: “How can one see African-Americans as equal yet enslave them?”
I cannot justify that. I only can recognize that it was a different era and locale into which Jefferson was born. The overall accepted norm into which Jefferson was born had condoned slavery, even though, as you mention, there were abolitionists against slavery even in Jefferson’s day.
Here are are few excerpts from Saul Padover’s book (published in 1942, 1980 by Konecky & Konecky in arrangement with Harcourt, Brace & Company), entitled simply “Jefferson” which may help you to understand better Jefferson’s mind and his choices.
From pages 232-234:
“Jefferson hated and dreaded the whole institution of slavery. He felt that it degraded both the master and the man. One of his most eloquent condemnations of slavery every written is from his ‘Notes on Virginia’: ‘The whole commerce between master and slave is a perpetual exercise of the most boisterous passions, the most unremitting despotism on the one part, and degrading submissions on the other. . .” (link to this entire writing by Jefferson will be given later)
“What was equally tragic about slavery, Jefferson felt, was that it destroyed the fiber and stamina of the South by making whites lazy and shiftless: ‘With the morals of the people, their industry also is destroyed. . . .Indeed, I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just: that his justice cannot sleep forever.’
“But there was not much that an individual planter could do about it. In a slave economy the planter had little choice but to continue using slave labor or to bamkrupt himself by liberating his Negroes. Freeing the slaves, however, was no solution either, for such freedmen, unable to find free work in a slave world, would be certain to be exposed to beggary and starvation. . .
“Dominant opinion had it that the Negroes were incapable of independence and unable to take care of themselves. Many, possibly most, white people insisted that Negroes were inferior beings in every way, and hence it was ‘natural’ that they be enslaved. Jefferson had strong doubts about the ‘natural’ inferiority of Negroes. Indeed, when he met a Negro of culture and education (there were such even in those early days), he welcomed him warmly and entertained him in his home as a guest.
“Occasionally the author of the Declaration of Independence would receive letters from educated Negroes, pleading for equality. One such letter, written to him in 1791 by Benjamin Banneker, a Negro mathematician and astonomer, upbraided Jefferson for keeping slaves against his principles. . . .Jefferson’s reply was that he realized that the so-called inferiority of colored people was due to their environment, that they had not been given a chance to raise themselves above their degraded status. He hoped that everything would be done to ameliorate this condition.
(Jefferson): ‘Nobody wishes more than I do to see such proofs as you exhibit, that nature has given to our black breathren, talents equal to those of the other colors of men, and that the appearance of a want of them is owing merely to the degraded condition of their existence both in Africa & America. I can add with truth, that no body wishes more ardently to see a good system commenced for raising the condition both of their body & mind to what it ought to be, as fast as the imbecility of their present existence, and other circumstances which cannot be neglected, will admit.’ ”
===================================================
Teacher2, I will respond to your thoughts about Jefferson’s slaves having affection for him in my next post because this post is long enough, already.
Dr. Proud Black Man
July 15th, 2012
1:04 pm
Enter your comments here
Prof
July 15th, 2012
1:11 pm
@ ColoradoTeacher. Your perspective is welcome, and I think your comments about the troll-hijacking of blogs such as this one are quite accurate. Here, however, you have to read several weeks’ worth of this blog to understand the context for what you say about Georgia’s very own “Thomas Jefferson hijack.”
One frequent blogger, “Mary Elizabeth,” who has noted she’s a retired Georgia educator of about 30 years’ standing, often cites Jefferson to support her liberal position that, like yours, questions the “ALEC privateers.” Our blog-trolls have seized upon TJ as their attack-point so as to “push Mary Elizabeth’s buttons,” you might say.
However, there is a cadre of genuine educator-bloggers here who push back, and I think they’re valuable to heed. Our facilitator Maureen Downey seems to filter out the worst hijackers….who down here are also quite often racist and sometimes antisemitic. I find it all genuinely instructive about what’s going on across the country in public K-12 education.
Oh, and you can probably anticipate some nastinesses directed your way too on here. As we say down here sarcastically, bless their hearts.