A crisis in confidence or in the classroom? Polls and lists on education issues and challenges.
Today, the Broad Center for the Management of School Systems released 75 Examples of How Bureaucracy Stands in the Way of America’s Students and Teachers.
The interesting list follows this week’s release of the 2012 annual PDK/Gallup Poll of the Public’s Attitudes Toward the Public Schools.
There was the usual “us and them” divide in the PDK/Gallup findings; 48 percent of Americans award their own schools an A or a B, but only 19 percent feel the rest of the schools in the country merit such high grades. But 62 percent are willing to pay more in taxes in order to improve urban public schools And asked the No. 1 problem facing schools, 35 percent of respondents say lack of financial support.
The poll notes stark divisions by political party. Here are highlights from the poll:
•On providing children of illegal immigrants free public education, school lunches, and other benefits, 65 percent of Democrats versus 21 percent of Republicans said “yes.” But overall, the poll found support for providing public education to these children is increasing; 41 percent of Americans favor this, up from 28 percent in 1995.
•Charter schools: Republicans are more supportive (80 percent) than Democrats (54 percent). However, approval declined overall to 66 percent this year from a record 70 percent last year. The public is split in its support of school vouchers, with nearly half (44 percent) believing that we should allow students and parents to choose a private school to attend at public expense, up 10 percentage points from last year.
•Taxes: Ninety-seven percent of the public agreed that it is very or somewhat important to improve the nation’s urban schools, and almost two of three Americans (62 percent) said they would pay more taxes to provide funds to improve the quality of urban schools. Eighty-nine percent of Americans agree that it is very or somewhat important to close the achievement gap between white students and black and Hispanic students.
•Teacher evaluations: Americans are almost evenly split in requiring teacher evaluations to reflect student scores on standardized tests, with 52 percent in favor. But at least three of four believe that entrance requirements into teacher preparation programs need to be at least as selective as those for engineering, business, pre-law, and pre-medicine.
•Presidential race and education: The poll found that President Barack Obama holds a slight lead (49 percent) over Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney (44 percent) as the candidate who would strengthen public schools. Overall, 50 percent of Americans view the Democratic party as more interested in improving public education
“While Americans are divided on many issues regarding the direction of our education system, they stand united in agreement on some very important issues,” said William Bushaw, executive director of PDK International and co-director of the PDK/Gallup poll, in a statement. “Most important, it is reassuring to know that, despite the recognition that our schools need improvement, more than 70 percent of Americans do have trust and confidence in our public school teachers.”
With that backdrop, here are a few of the 75 examples of problematic bureaucracy from Broad. Feel free to add a few of your own:
More than one person in a central office may play the same role, meaning resources are unnecessarily duplicated.
When districts use outside vendors, the contract terms often favor the vendors, not districts, because vendors set terms, which means the district unnecessarily loses money.
Waste, fraud and abuse of district resources mean taxpayer dollars intended for classrooms end up elsewhere, sometimes outside of education entirely.
More money is spent on facilities construction and maintenance than is necessary.
Different parts of the organization that manage resources do not communicate with each other, which means that schools and classrooms receive resources like supplies and instructional support inconsistently.
Money is spent on expensive technology that is unused or underused because people aren’t sufficiently trained to use it or it is deemed not necessary after being purchased.
Across the board budget cuts (vs. strategic, targeted cost reductions), operational inefficiencies and administrative overhead mean that too few taxpayer dollars actually reach the classroom.
Teachers often don’t receive the support they need, and many talented Americans don’t even enter the profession
Teachers don’t receive the adequate instructional resources, materials and technology they need to tailor instruction to every student.
Teachers lack access to mentors, master teachers, collaborative planning time, expert lesson plans and best practices to grow professionally by working with their peers.
Teachers lack access to proven interventions for students who are struggling.
Principals often lack the time to support teachers in the classroom because of paperwork and other regulatory burdens (e.g., unnecessary paperwork for central office sign-offs on field trips).
Teachers feel assessments are not appropriately connected to what students should know and be able to do.
Test results throughout the year are provided to teachers too late for them to re-teach subjects and fill gaps in learning before students take high-stakes exams or before the end of the year, so students enter those exams without core knowledge and skills and fall behind grade level.
Teachers do not have the training and support they need to keep an entire classroom of students disciplined, focused on, and excited about learning.
Central office staff and principals are not evaluated regularly nor are they held responsible for teacher or student success.
Even though millions of American children are not able to read or do math at grade level, teachers are nearly always found “effective/satisfactory” on evaluations, because those evaluations are not meaningful, not connected to what teachers actually do and not connected to whether students learn.
Meaningless evaluations leave teachers in the dark as to how they are truly performing and provide little to no guidance on how to improve.
Top teachers are not properly recognized, rewarded or compensated, so they leave the profession.
Teachers are hired without being observed teaching a sample lesson or otherwise evaluated for their actual ability in the classroom, and are instead just screened for a criminal background check and required paper credentials.
Some teachers’ colleges do not effectively prepare future teachers to meet modern student needs.
Many teachers feel frustrated because of poor workplace conditions and have little hope that things will improve.
School boards focus on micromanaging, adult in-fighting, and complying with existing policies and procedures rather than on solving these systematic problems to create environments that support teachers and students and lead to academic achievement.
School boards and committees require district staff to spend excessive time preparing for meetings and reporting to the board, rather than spending time working to directly support teachers and students.
Many elected officials, who are not aware of the scope of hurdles facing these systems and/or whose campaigns were funded by special interests neglect this crisis altogether, or pass laws that attempt to fix one issue (e.g., class size reduction) but which inadvertently cause additional bureaucratic problems (e.g., hiring enough effective teachers to meet the class size mandate).
–From Maureen Downey, for the AJC Get Schooled blog
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79 comments Add your comment
Solutions
August 24th, 2012
8:20 am
I love teaching. I hate what it is becoming…- That is the strength of automation and computerization, the best lectures are presented uniformly to all, no room for complaints about the teacher or discrimination. Each student progresses at their own speed, as deeply as they desire or are able, again with no grounds to cry foul over “poor schools or poor teachers.” Your customization may have been more for your own benefit, and less for the class as a whole. Learning at its core is a very lonely task, it is one person struggling to understand the material, remember what they have struggled with, and apply it in solving problems. Sitting in a classroom with 30 other kids listening to a teacher ramble on is not conducive to learning, it is more like forced indoctrination. Textbooks were always my “best teacher” selection, humans need not apply. Now we have automated textbooks, fantastic!
Howard Finkelstein
August 24th, 2012
8:28 am
Too bad. The Dems wanted all this BS and they now have it. Good luck.
Solutions
August 24th, 2012
8:30 am
Here is a link to an article about free etext books shaking up higher education: http://business.time.com/2012/08/10/free-textbooks-shaking-up-higher-education/
d
August 24th, 2012
8:47 am
Here’s my ultimate concern….. My profession and the worth of what I do is coming down to 1) is the pretty stuff up on the walls and 2) can the students fill out a scantron accurately enough for someone to say ok the teacher is teaching. Scantron tests were never designed to measure teacher performance and the pretty stuff on the wall is generally ignored by the students. I did an informal survey in class yesterday – no one cared that I had a word wall up for them. No one cared that the standard, an agenda, or an essential question was posted up for them. Please remember, I teach seniors and I truly feel that part of my responsibility is to help prepare these children for what comes next – the world where if you don’t prove your worth on your own, you get fired. There are no redos. If you do go on to college, you won’t find the instructors coddling you, putting all that pretty stuff up, bowing down to the angry parents, etc. Public education has not come to this point overnight. We are raising a generation of students who will enter the world not prepared for what is really out there and I am being held back by the bureaucrats who say if I waste my time by putting stuff up on the wall, I am a good teacher.
gray dog
August 24th, 2012
9:20 am
I am all for using student performance to evaluate teachers, as soon as we come up with a parent evaluation that is a part of the equation. well fed, rested, disciplined children will learn no matter how poorly their teacher preforms. No one should evaluate a teacher who hasn’t dealt with the other students, those not well fed, rested and never disciplined.
AlreadySheared
August 24th, 2012
9:32 am
@d,
Good luck with that. The unidentified elephant in the middle of every classroom is the kids and their parents.
If you work in a school where
1) All the students come from homes where education is valued,
2) Said students come to school well-rested, fed, and academically prepared (i.e., they studied and did their homework last night), and
3) Any childish misconduct at school will ge corrected at school, with said correction reinforced at home (aka, if you get in trouble at school you are in for a LOT more trouble at home)
then voila – the maximum amount of time will be spent in class learning stuff. Teachers will teach and students will learn. Students will achieve at their highest potential, accomplished teachers will enjoy working there, and all will be right with the world.
All of the standards posting, essential questions, word walls, differentiation, etc. are a vain attempt by the system to ameliorate a lack of items 1, 2, and 3 above. Emphasis there on VAIN.
Pride and Joy
August 24th, 2012
9:44 am
Vince. you complain that parents don’t want a $80 increase in property taxes and complaiin your salary has diminished.
Vince, what do yu think has happened to the salaries of those parents?
Many have gone away by 100%. THey’ve lost their jobs. Many are working two menial jobs to scrape by.
In an economy where parents have lost their job altogether and suffered income enormous cuts themselves, it is mighty selfish of you to complain about your situation.
Pride and Joy
August 24th, 2012
9:46 am
Gray dog you write”I am all for using student performance to evaluate teachers, as soon as we come up with a parent evaluation that is a part of the equation.”
When you PAY me THEN you can evaluate me.
Evaluations are absolutely necessary and expected for anyone who is receiving a paycheck. If you don’t want an evaluation, go work for free.
Pride and Joy
August 24th, 2012
9:48 am
d, this comment breaks my heart ” I did an informal survey in class yesterday – no one cared that I had a word wall up for them. No one cared that the standard, an agenda, or an essential question was posted up for them.”
They aren’t supposed to care, d. They are not supposed to be up there for them to look at — they’re supposed to be up there for YOU to USE.
If you aren’t using those word walls, you’ve failed.
vince
August 24th, 2012
9:57 am
@Pride and Joy.. I agree with others that your logic leans toward trolling…but I cannot resist.
I do not think it is selfish to state that I have surrendered over $275,000 to this county and then am disillusioned when parents complain that they do not want to give back $40…or $80.
d
August 24th, 2012
10:02 am
@Pride and Joy – what is the purpose of a word wall for me? I know the vocabulary. If I didn’t know it, I shouldn’t be in front of the classroom. That being said, how does having it prepare students for the college level experience they will be having in less than a year? Again, what college instructor uses any of this stuff? When do we begin to transition the students from K12 to post-secondary? Is it your opinion that I should be like mother bird and just push them out of the nest and hope that they fly?
d
August 24th, 2012
10:13 am
Not to brag, @Pride…. My students do just fine on their standardized tests without paying a bit of attention to the word wall that my administrators value so much. My students understand the curriculum of the course and can actually perform after having been in my class. I have had students come back to me year after year telling me that they were better prepared for their college level courses – both economics and otherwise – because of the experience they had in my classroom. So let it break your heart all day that students aren’t using the stuff that people who make three times my salary (but cannot legally do my job) value so much. My students will be fine and they will continue to be fine until word walls and agendas take over their education. One cannot put students first when they put educators last.
ColonelJack
August 24th, 2012
10:32 am
@Mountain Man … regarding your first comment in this thread: If administrators were to evaluate teachers the way you suggest, I’d still have a job.
bootney farnsworth
August 24th, 2012
10:33 am
@ solutions
reluctant as I am to dignify your trolling….
do you have cable TV?
bootney farnsworth
August 24th, 2012
10:36 am
@ vince
so you wish to spread the pain around? you paid too much, others should, too?
I oppose any increase in funding of any kind towards education until we get our fiscal house in order
ColonelJack
August 24th, 2012
10:37 am
@Another Math Teacher: You said…
“Actual procedure for teacher evaluations:
1) Does administrator like you? If yes, sign evaluation – you passed. Repeat next year.
2) Does administrator dislike you? Get an NI on something. You better make sure they like you next year.
3) Does administrator actively dislike you or have you gotten an NI before and not kissed up enough? Get one or more U ratings. Prepare for punitive PDP. Start looking for new position.
Keep in mind, I had passed all of my evaluations. I have seen a few very good teachers driven off through bad evaluations and PDPs by vindictive administrators. Why? They had the nerve to point out bad things in the school.
THAT is why some very bad teachers stay and some very good ones do not. Bad administrators not evaluating properly. To say that they have followed rules for 40 years is a fantasy.”
That is exactly what happened to me. I was well-evaluated most of my 23 years in the classroom…but when we got a new principal who disliked me, I began getting NIs and Us in the same areas I’d gotten S ratings before. I finally had enough and retired.
A proper evaluation system – grounded in performance and ONLY in performance (which the “Class Keys” system is NOT) – is the best answer. Good luck finding one, though.
bootney farnsworth
August 24th, 2012
10:43 am
@ Colonel
I’ve been there. for years and years I was doing just fine, getting anywhere between good and excellent evaluations, then I made the mistake of standing my ground when I was told to shut up and sit down.
next thing I know, my evals plummeted and I’m being rules nitpicked to death. my work didn’t change, my commitment didn’t change, I didn’t get dumb overnight. I crossed a political line.
bad work, sloppy effort, nose picking in public – all OK. make a stand on principal, you gotta die.
why?
can’t take the chance integrity might be contagious.
ColonelJack
August 24th, 2012
10:49 am
@ Bootney: Add in the fact that my system decided to “balance its budget” by finding the most expensive teacher at several schools and zeroing in on them to find a way to get rid of them, and you have my experience. (Also that of a 35-year veteran at one of our high schools and two 30+ veterans at elementary schools, I might add … the highest-paid at each school and they were made to either retire or resign. No loss of instructional efficiency…just the fact that they have high degrees and decades of experience, which equals more money than the system wants to pay.)
William Casey
August 24th, 2012
11:07 am
@Bootney: similar experience here and I saw it happen enough to others during my 31 years.
William Casey
August 24th, 2012
11:14 am
HEY “PRIDE,” if you send me (or any other teacher) defective “raw materials,” odds are that you’ll get a defecttive “product.” If you want to use an industrial model for education and learning, there it is. Try making a Mercedes from cardboard.
William Casey
August 24th, 2012
11:43 am
“Learning at its core is a very lonely task, it is one person struggling to understand the material, remember what they have struggled with, and apply it in solving problems.”
The Medieval approach to learning is alive and well in 2012. Amazing!
Pride and Joy
August 24th, 2012
3:28 pm
William Casey, to call a child a defective raw material says much more about you than alll of your other 500 posts combined.
I love teaching. I hate what it is becoming...
August 24th, 2012
7:53 pm
@Solutions “Sitting in a classroom with 30 other kids listening to a teacher ramble on is not conducive to learning, it is more like forced indoctrination. ”
Once again, you demonstrate yourlack of understanding about what goes on in a successful classroom.
Just an aside – the kind of story that takes place in classrooms across the nation on a daily basis… One day I noticed that a student who was usually engaged and vivacious was sitting almost silent in her seat. She wasn’t participating, and wasn’t applying herself. During a group activity, she did not add anything to the discussion. She also did not do well on an important science test, which was unlike her. I sat down next to her and asked if something was wrong. At first she said no, that she was fine. I pointed out that she seemed unhappy, and told her that I was available to talk if she decided she wanted to do so. A short while later, she came up to me and told me her cat had been hit by a car the night before. She said she was sorry she did not do well on the science test, but that she did not feel like studying the night before, and she was having trouble concentrating. Then she started to cry. I gave her a tissue, a hug, and told her I understood. We talked for a while. When she was calm, I told her not to worry about the science test. That she could make it up the next week. Her mother called to thank me for talking with her. It seems she had been unwilling to open up to anyone at home and let the feelings out. A few days later she retook the test and passed with flying colors.
I would like to see how your automated, computerized, one-size fits all educational process would have responded to that child’s needs.
Parent Teacher
August 25th, 2012
4:13 pm
@I love Teaching
All of these posters who have never taught like Pride and Joy, Solutions etc… have no idea what goes on in a class. They have know idea what it takes to be a good teacher. The fact is teachers can make a difference when the child is willing to let us in. We as educators can facilitate this but often the students are too unwilling to let a good teacher in. No test or evaluation will ever measure what good teaching is. Good administrators know who the good teachers are and we should be trusted to do our job without the endless bureaucracy.
bootney farnsworth
August 25th, 2012
6:19 pm
thank you for using AT&T dial a class.
press 1 for english, 2 for espanol.
for a pre-scripted daily lesson which may or may not deal with any existing education issue you may be having, press 1
for a pre-scripted lesson which has no room for alterations reflecting the topics of the day, press 2
for a pre-scripted lesson which has no way of telling or caring if the student is understanding the topic, press 3
for a pre-scripted lesson which is unable to take into account realities of the situation the student comes from, press 4
for a 90 minute pontification by Fran Millar on the evils of teachers unions in Georgia, and why the fact they don’t exist doesn’t matter a damn, stay on the line. this presentation follows every choice in the phone tree
for instruction from a caring, trained educational professional who wants to see students be successful, hang up.
for anything resembling positive and helpful interaction from the Georgia legislature, hang up and call dial a prayer
d
August 25th, 2012
7:59 pm
@barney – I had to share your posting with my facebook friends with the question “Is this the future of public education?” I hate to admit that I fear it is.
d
August 25th, 2012
8:01 pm
or @bootney…. brain lapse here. This cold I’ve been dealing with all week has kicked my butt!
statis
August 25th, 2012
9:51 pm
teaching–very low entry barriers, easy to get an education degree, difficult to evaluate quality and therefore pay increases lag—these things will never change
CharterStarter, Too
August 30th, 2012
8:41 am
Just read this blog and am very happy to see that the issues I posted using Baker County (as just one example) have been substantiated by Broad.
It IS the Establishment’s priorities and lack of relevance and presence that impact teachers’ morale, resource allocation, addressing real issues in our schools, and improvement in our schools. The Establishment is just that – ESTABLISHED. They aren’t going to willingly change. Charters challenge the establishment and get to the root causes identified by Broad. They provide school based decision making that is relevant, timely, and supports the needs of teachers, students, parents, and the community.
If the Establishment would work WITH charters instead of constantly against them, a Commission would not be necessary and everyone would win. The districts are truly their own worse enemies.