Top 10 education issues facing Georgia
This is my live account from the Georgia Partnership on Excellence in Education daylong media symposium Friday featuring education movers and shakers
First up is Dr. Dana Rickman, policy and research director for the partnership, on the Top Ten Education Issues to Watch in 2013.
Please note that all these comments are from the speakers today, not from me. (I did add a few comments, but I clearly designate them as mine.) I am writing as folks speak and may miss a typo but will go back during the breaks and clean this up.
Top 10 issues, says Rickman:
Race to the Top: Halfway through implementing grant. Where do we stand?
Elevating low performing schools. Will require high performing teachers and leaders.
How do we pay for k-12 eduction? (”I don’t know,” says Rickman. “That really is the answer to that question.”)
Help wanted: Hiring 250,000 new graduates. Where are they? Only 42 percent has a college degree; State needs 250,000 more graduates.
Early learning: What this issue focuses on is high quality learning from the zero to age 3 population.
Stem: Promoting the sciences and math for both workforce and economic development. Fastest growing job fields in state and nation. What is Georgia doing to promote STEM learning?
Waiver from No Child and what it means.
Technology; the next generation of learning. How is technology being used in classroom?
Flexibility and choice.
Final issue: Demographics; Changing face of Georgia public schools. Tremendous demographic shift within Georgia. For all these reforms to be successful and for education continue to improve from birth through work, we need to pay attention to those demographic shifts, says Rickman.
Rickman says her major concern is the growth of children living in poverty in Georgia. The key to economic development is a strong education system. Children in poverty undermine a strong education system as they are harder to educate, need more resources.
Rickman is now delving into a few of these issues, starting with the state’s waiver from No Child Left Behind. (Georgia is among 33 states that earned already earned waivers. Seven more state waivers are pending.)
Under AYP, proficiency goal was all students proficient by 2014. No longer under that mandate. Now, the goal for Georgia is to reduce the number of non-proficient student within six years.
There are four performance categories of schools, three of which only apply to Title 1 schools. The categories include reward schools, which are high performing or show the greatest gains among cohorts. Second category is priority, which means the school falls in bottom five percent and has one of these three liabilities: low graduation rates, lack of progress or received a school improvement grant. A focus school is also only Title 1. Schools have to be in bottom 10 percent and either suffer low grad rates or a wide achievement gap
The last category is alert and applies to all schools: This is calculated by grad rates and test scores lower than the stage average.
Rickman also went through the state’s new career ready performance index, which has many moving parts.
The state has a complex, holistic formula to rank schools that includes student achievement, progress, an achievement gap closing score, an exceeding the bar score. The states also assigns ratings for financial efficiency and the school climate.
“It is very complicated but what the state was trying to do is get away from good school, bad school, pass, fail,” says Rickman, “and use this as a learning tool for the districts and the schools.”
Jumping in is Dorie Turner Nolt, the assistant director of communications for the state Department of Education. (She is the former education reporter for the Associated Press and covered Arne Duncan and Race to the Top.)
Nolt said the complexity and shadings within theses ratings will be channeled into an easier-to-understand format for parents.
Morris News Service reporter Walter Jones just asked Rickman what parents can do if they are not happy with their school. She says she recommends parents join the PTA and get involved and try to push change. Another reporter asked now what parents can do if they have gotten involved and are still unhappy. (These reporters come across the state so I don’t know all of them.)
Rickman says parents can choose another option for their child. She says there are choice options now in Georgia.
Now, she is being asked what the penalties are if schools don’t make the grade. Are there punishments?
Rickman said the response will not be punishment, but intervention by the state for schools in trouble, whether Title 1 or not.
My former AJC colleague Maria Saporta just asked about the impact of kids in poverty.
Rickman warms to this topic as she says it is pivotal to the future of education in Georgia.
–60 percent of our kids in public schools qualify for free and reduced lunch, a 10 percent increase since 2007. That is going to have a big impact because of the resources required to bring poor kids up to speed.
–56 percent of students in k-12 are non-white. “We have a diverse, increasingly poor population that our schools are trying to educate.” She says investing in early education for low-income kids brings a $7 return for every dollar spent. She says schools need more bilingual teachers.
Overall, Rickman says she is pleased with policies that the state has put in place. But says we have to keep an eye on the shifting demographics, as these kids present greater needs and we have to see what teachers ought to have to address these students. She is now done speaking.
Now up is Race to the Top update, presented by Dr. Susan Andrews, Georgia Department of Education.
She is talking about the online resources for teachers, including standards and student performance.
She is explaining that the DOE Office for School Turnaround was created to provide concentrated effort at the school level to help priority schools, which are those identified as lowest achieving – defined as the lowest 5 percent in state in achievement or having less than a 60 percent high school graduation rates.
On how to create great teachers and leaders: “We expect more authentic assessments, more project-based learning. We expect teachers to differentiate because of the differences in ability and achievement levels of their students. We have to train them to do this. This is a new way to teach school.”
State intends to measure how much a student grows while in a teacher’s classroom. Based on student growth and observations, teachers will be rated exemplary, proficient, needs development or ineffective. (See earlier blog on problems with this teacher evaluation measure.) Once they are evaluated, top performing teachers will receive bonuses through Race to the Top.
Principals will do two 30 minute observation sessions of each teacher. There are also four 10-minute walk-throughs where principals are looking at one or two standards in action. If principal does not see enough evidence when he or she visits the classroom, then the teachers will have an opportunity to provide documentation that they are meeting the standard.
For first time: Value-added piece will be added to teacher evaluations. If teacher teaches tested subject, CRCT or EOCT, then they will have a student growth percentile that says “Here is where that student scored on prior test and here is where that student scored today.”
For teacher teaching in non-tested subjects — 70 percent of courses in a school , including art music, AP class, IB classes, foreign language are in the non-tests category — state is now developing pre and post tests for those courses. They are called SLOs, Student learning objectives.
State is dealing with findings from pilot information on teacher evaluations. This year will be a hold-harmless year for value-added measures. In 2013-2014, state will have student surveys and value-added impact. In 2013-2014, state will have that whole piece. The following year, the bonuses will begin.
Now Andrews is talking about the companion evaluation system to measure leader effectiveness.
This is for building-level leadership. Principals will be rated on eight standards. They must meet all eight of those standards. They also have to develop two unique goals tied to their own school improvement plan. Every staff member, including cafeteria, custodians, completes a climate survey on the principal. Principal will choose which groups will rate assistant principal. Principal evaluations will look at student attendance. Also, look at how effective principals are in retaining effective teachers.
“We know that teachers leave leaders first. So, we want to see how effective principals are in retaining those effective teachers.”
Also, state will look at student performance piece for principals. Looking at how the achievement gap between bottom 25 percent and rest of students in the schools is being closed.
So, now, we have both teacher and leader effectiveness measures.
“Race to the Top is not driving the work. The work is driving Race to the Top. These are initiatives we wanted to do. We didn’t have the money to do them. Race to the Top gave us the money.”
Greatest challenge with Race to the Top is moving from piloting, refining, implementing to sustaining.
In the Q&A, I asked Andrews about the Gates Foundation report released this week advising that outsiders do some of the classroom observations to prevent bias, and that districts, pressed for time, consider video reviews of teachers in the classrooms.
My main question: Do principals really have the time to do these observations?
Her answer: It make take a culture shift but principals have to realize that their top priority, along with ensuring their school buildings are safe, is instruction, and they must make time for these teacher observations. No, DOE has not considered bringing in outsiders to observe teachers or using videos of teachers. But DOE is still discussing how best to do this.
Now up: Education Policy – Kristin Bernhard, Governor’s Education Adviser
Bernhard is full of good news only about education and her boss.
Gov. Nathan Deal is restoring 10 days of pre-k, which she casts as a raise for those teachers. (Me: Those teachers may feel it is a restoration of some of the salary they lost when Deal cut pre-k by 20 days.)
“We are interested in improving student achievement in STEM fields.” She cites a speech by Gov. Perdue where he noted that Georgia only graduated one physics teacher that year.
She cites the UTeach Programs under way in some Georgia colleges to identify and direct science majors to teaching. “We are a long way from those days. I think we have over 100 students enrolled in those programs,” she says.
She says high-definition networks are enabling college professors to teach science classes to rural students through the Innovative Fund.
Bernhard says she has every reason to believe that the new charter schools commission, restored by the November constitutional amendment, will be up and running by March.
She says we have seamless articulation from technical colleges and four-year schools as part of Deal’s Complete College Initiative. She said Deal was inspired by Florida’s Take Stock in Children program, and has replicated it here. Kids selected in middle school are asked to sign contracts that they will work hard. If they have satisfied the contract and worked hard by the end of high school, they are given $2,500 from the state to attend college.(You can read about the program here.)
Deal has set higher goals for college completion rates to get those 250,000 more college graduates needed to fill the jobs of the future in the state, most of which will require education beyond high school.
Deal’s Higher Education Funding Commission has recommended fundamental changes in how public campuses are funded. Now, college funding will depend in large part on how many students finish rather than how many enroll.
HOPE: Deal is adding 3 percent to HOPE Scholarship awards this year. But tuition has gone up more than 3 percent. “What a student got last year will increase by 3 percent in terms of this year,” says Bernhard.
NOTE from me: My AJC colleague Nancy Badertscher has asked a series of tough questions, attempting to find news in what thus far has been pretty surface and pretty news-free. She pressed Bernhard as the governor’s budget and his funding plans for k-12, but Bernhard said that Deal would be the one to unveil his budget
Now up, Education Funding – Herb Garrett, Executive Director, Georgia School Superintendents’ Assn.
Garrett is the anti Bernhard speaker. He is sharing the bad news.
Cuts thus far to k-12: $6.6 billion. “It is like the national budget deficit. Those numbers are so big that they don’t mean anything to anybody anymore.”
One pressure on the state budget will be the $28 million needed to fund state charter schools, those charter schools that the state has adopted and agreed to fund.
Garrett raised the issue of the new title fee for cars that replaces the ad valorem taxes, part of which went to fund schools. “There is supposed to be enough money to give back the money school systems lost on ad valorem taxes. That should be a wash. But I will promise you that the individuals that trade cars under the oak trees, those casual sales going on in Georgia for a million years that we haven’t taxed, aren’t going to be happy. When that person goes to get that title, then they have to pay the fee on the fair market value of that car.”
Garrett predicts that angry car buyers — it is a pretty hefty title fee buyers will now have to pay for any car purchase, even from private owners — will be calling their legislators, and some lawmakers may get cold feed and back off the fee. If so, school systems could lose out.
Garrett said the private school tax credit — taking $50 million a year from the state coffers — will be an issue this year as some lawmakers are seeking to double it. Garrett wishes there was more sunshine as to who gets this tax credit.
Since 2008, individuals and corporations have claimed about $170 million in tax credits through the program. The program had a $51.5 million cap this year, but the program was so popular that the money ran out in mid-August.
He is talking about the PARCC testing consortium, which is developing the test that Georgia will use to measure the Common Core.
“One of the things that nobody is talking about is the anticipated cost of that test. Last number I heard is $15 per student. We’ve got legislators who already think we spend way too much on testing and I can promise you that is nowhere close to $15.”
Also, Garrett says the $100 per child given to charter systems may be a problem now that bigger systems — including Fulton — are becoming charter systems. With Fulton, that $100 per child turns into an extra $10 million a year for the state.
One of the elephants in the room, he says, is raises. State employees and teachers haven’t had raises for years.
State vs. local in school funding:
“It’s fact that responsibility for paying for the cost for public education has been shift dramatically from the state to local systems The numbers don’t lie.”
Prior to 2003, the overall split in school funding between state and local dollars was 60/40 on average, 60 percent state dollars and 40 local dollars raised through property taxes.
(Garrett: That ratio varies from system to system depending on how much local money districts put into their schools. State money represents only 33 percent of what Fulton spends, while Ben Hill County’s state share represents about 80 percent of its school spending.)
Now, that ratio has shifted, with local money slightly outpacing the state share of education funding. To understand why that matters, Garrett said each school funding percentage point shifted from the state to the locals represents more than $100 million dollars.
That is why districts have raised school taxes. Average school millage rate across state was 15. Now, it is 16.1.
(From state web site: The tax rate, or millage, in each county is set annually by the board of county commissioners, or other governing authority of the taxing jurisdiction, and by the Board of Education. A tax rate of one mill represents a tax liability of one dollar per $1,000 of assessed value. The average county and municipal millage rate is 30 mills; the state millage rate in each county is 0.25 mills.)
But 41 school systems levy 18 mils or more. Of those 41 systems, 11 levy 19 mills or more; 11 others levy 20 mils or more. There is a 20 mil cap except for a handful of systems that got their voters to approve a 25 mil cap.
Questions: What does Garrett think of Law proposing to arm principals in schools?
Qualifies that he is answering for himself and not for the Georgia Superintendents Association:
“Having a person in school with a gun and minimal training, what could go wrong? I would never recommend that to a board of education.” As he listened to the proposals to arm administrators, Garrett says he went back to his own days as a principal and school chief and started putting names and people to the idea.
“Even with training, I just can’t see some folks ever being in that position to be able to do that.”
Police have said that if there is an armed school administrator and officers come roaring, how do they know if that person is on their side? Garrett says the situation could be confusing and dangerous.
“Unless it is a uniform officer that nobody has enough money to pay for, I am not sure how to do that,” says Garrett.
Now up, Georgia’s 2013 Teacher of the Year Lauren Eckman:
Her theme is the changing classroom and changing schools. She has a prepared and passionate speech, which essentially says the old ways won’t work with students. Content is no longer delivered as much as it is discovered. There is an app for everything.
“Education is no longer one size fits all, which, if we are honest, is really one size fits none.”
In answering questions, she says she is excited about Common Core; “I like the clarity of them. I like the depth of them. They really get into the nitty-gritty and into the good stuff in each of our subjects.”
Asked about the new teacher evaluation system, Eckman says she like the new system better than Class Keys which “told us so much, it told us nothing.” The new method gives teachers more feedback, more meaningful insights in what they must improve.
She also says that in her travels she has met many teachers who are positive and committed. She has not seen low morale.
Eckman says that the state is about to graduate its first class of high school school students who are truly digital natives, raised with all the new technologies and at ease with them. When these digital natives go to college and become teachers, they will bring their expertise to the classroom and be able to share it with veteran teachers, she says.
Dr. John Barge, State Superintendent of Schools, could not make it as he had to go to Washington. Chief Academic Officer Mike Buck stepped in and went through all the trend lines showing Georgia schools are improving. He stressed that Georgia is not where it should be, but is headed in the right direction.
He was elaborating on the career pathways, in which kids pick a high school concentration in 8th grade. (Me: That seems awfully early to me for children to declare that they want a health concentration. Public school students will pick a potential job to pursue in one of 17 broad career categories, known as career pathway clusters. Teachers would start talking to students about potential career opportunities, starting as early as fifth grade. I think focusing on a career option in 8th grade narrows children’s perspective. It is still unclear based on what Buck said here that who will serve as the kids’ career advisers. Apparently, it will be teachers who will have to carve out time.)
What’s Ahead for Education in the 2013 Legislative Session – Rep. Stacey Abrams and Rep. Ed Lindsey:
Abrams: My goal is make certain education doesn’t suffer in the budget. We have never funded education fully.
“Too often, we concentrate so fixedly on a single measure that we ignore the comprehensive needs. The fact is that charter schools, while a good option, are not a panacea. They overall serve students as well as traditional public schools. We should not get so caught up in the over-hyped nature of the debate that we ignore the fundamental responsibility we have to educate children.
Other concern: The tax credit to attend private schools, which she called a pseudo voucher program, is now viewed as an entitlement by the public.
“It would be hard to get rid of it, but we need transparency so we are making certain those dollars aren’t being used to discriminate against students. Because of the way law was constructed, can’t get data we need on those dollars,” she says.
Lindsey:
Charter school vote was really a vote on status of public education in Georgia. “With a 67 percent statewide graduation rate, the status quo is both morally and economically unacceptable. I agree charter schools drowned out all other discussions in the recent political election, but I never believed charter schools are a panacea or a silver bullet.”
Pre-k is important. Need a vigorous curriculum in pre-k programs. Many others just serve as daycare centers.
Lawmakers are taking questions.
Lindsey and Abrams are disagreeing on whether Legislature has cut education. Lindsey says the money per student was actually higher, but delivered in targeted programs rather than block grants.
Parent Trigger:
Lindsey addresses why his bill allows even a high performing school to convert to a charter school by parental will
“It creates an additional avenue of communication directly from the parents to the school board, which I think is critically important.”
Lindsey also wants teachers to be able to initiate a takeover of a school and a charter conversion.
He says there is a check and balance in his bill as the school board has the discretion to accept or reject the parental petition.
Why include high performing schools in the bill?
“Every parent ought to be encouraged in their child’s education. I find it interesting that parents may actually spend more time talking to their school board about the quality of their child’s education.”
Abrams: We don’t have adequate structures in place to manage our charter schools. Florida faced issues with its for-profit charters. If we are going to make it easier to do this, we have to make certain that we create adequate protections the day after.
Lindsey: Warns about the forces of the status quo throwing up roadblocks to innovation.
Q: Couldn’t the parent trigger bill divide schools?
If parents are not happy with the conversion to a charter school, their child would be able to move to a different school under the bill.
Bottom line, Lindsey says his bill fosters parent involvement.
Would Lindsey support doubling the private tax credit?
Lindsey says he shares both Abrams’ concerns about the lack of data and transparency around the tax credit and her questions about whether safeguards are in place to ensure the tax credit is truly helping poor kids go to private schools. “Certainly, before I would vote to increase the threshold, I would like to see those additional things put in place.”
Abrams: Doesn’t imbue the November charter school vote with the same significance as Lindsey does. “We can’t over-read that election. That said, there is not a member of the Georgia General Assembly who can say we do our best by the children of Georgia, that education in Georgia is where it should be.”
Lindsey: Disagrees that people didn’t understand the ballot question on charter schools. “If it fooled the voters, it should have fooled all the voters around the state. If you start drilling down, it wasn’t logical that a 58 percent vote in favor of this amendment was because voters were fooled…we had a full and robust debate around this.”
Guns in school:
Lindsey says it should be a local decision. Many schools already have armed officers.
–From Maureen Downey, for the AJC Get Schooled blog
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164 comments Add your comment
Georgia Dad
January 11th, 2013
11:05 am
People talk a good game about education.It’s just talk. Most parents are more interested in their kids being football stars and cheerleaders than actually being good students. Schools only want to “graduate” their students. How can so many schools not offer basic physics classes when technology is the key to our future? There would be an uproar if a school cut back on its football budget yet nobody complains when science classes can’t do experiments because there are no supplies.
catlady
January 11th, 2013
11:08 am
Anyone talking about the systematic diversion of tax monies to private schools and schools you have to “apply to?” (charters)???
Anyone talking about mission creep?
Anyone talking about behavior-related issues?
Georgia Dad
January 11th, 2013
11:08 am
If a highschool does not have enough students to fill 1 physics class, then that school system from elementary school to highschool has failed.
Teacher-Parent
January 11th, 2013
11:19 am
I don’t see anyone discussing the latest teacher evaluations that showed most teachers ARE effective. Instead of celebrating this fact the article states that the evaluation system must somehow be flawed for so many teachers to be rated as effective. WHAT??? Could it be that maybe the teachers ARE effective and it is a different side of the equation that is not? Hmmm.
Complete waste of time
January 11th, 2013
11:21 am
I have been a teacher for 17 years and all of this is a waste of time and effort. Fund education, leave us alone and we will teach. This constant obsession with buzzwords; differentiation, etc…. is just ridiculous. In 52 minutes with class of 32, “who because of inclusion are on about 10 different levels” I am going to be able to be all things to all students and increase everyone’s test score? This is where the money in education is wasted, on one program after another. The money spent on consultants, and all these administrative positions created to run them are the problem.
Isolated Pockets of Excellence
January 11th, 2013
11:37 am
“Looking at how the achievement gap between bottom 25 percent and rest of student is being closed.”
So, does this mean that principals will be punished if teachers teach the better students well, and will be rewarded if the teachers hold the higher performing students back?
paulo977
January 11th, 2013
11:50 am
Teacher-Parent…” Instead of celebrating this fact the article states that the evaluation system must somehow be flawed ”
_____________________________________________________
Amazing isn’t it? We are just hopeless!!!
over it last year but still here
January 11th, 2013
11:55 am
No one’s talking teacher retention at all. Teachers are leaving in droves (good and bad teachers) because of the crazy requirements placed on them. It makes no sense to me how teachers are required to be educators, book keepers, parents, social workers, life coaches and baby sitters. The respect is gone and the pay is deplorable. To top that, most parents have blown so much smoke up their kids butts making them think they’re better than they actually are which causes sooo many problems when that child does finally fail.
Georgia Dad
January 11th, 2013
12:02 pm
How is it possible that so many highschools do not offer drafting and physics. Sad part is that the parents do not know that their kids are getting a second rate education. They offer anatomy “so you can be a nurse”, if you want to be an engineer your out of luck.
Fred in DeKalb
January 11th, 2013
12:10 pm
**Rickman says her major concern is the growth of children living in poverty in Georgia. Key to economic development is a strong education system. Children in poverty undermine a strong education system. They are harder to educate.**
While I question what she meant by saying that poor children undermine a strong education system, I wholeheartedly agree that they can be harder to educate, especially if there is not parental involvement from the home. I tried explaining this to Dekalbite many times yet they would never acknowledge the truth about this reality. Add to that, wanting to evaluate teachers partially based on the standardized test scores of these students should also raise questions.
Please ask Dr. Barge about his thoughts of efforts like those in North DeKalb who want to take commercial rich property to create their own school district. It’s ludicrous to think that citizens that had little to do with years of investment in that infrastructure believe they should be able to take it from those that have invested in it along while starving the rest of the county of those tax revenues. I guess they don’t care about the impact of this initiative on educating poor children in the rest of the county.
Michael Moore
January 11th, 2013
12:19 pm
Another study early this new year in Educational Researcher, that has received no press to my knowledge, studied 5,553 Minneapolis public school children regarding socioeconomic status and entering literacy and math scores. This study also looked at how entry-level scores and socio- economic status predicted later achievement. There is really nothing new here that already hasn’t been ignored by our state leadership, but it is not something our state leadership wants to hear. Poverty clearly affects school success. Blaming teachers is a lot easier to do than to blame the kind of society we’ve created in our state.
Waste of time
January 11th, 2013
12:33 pm
Maureen, why was post deleted?
Waste of time
January 11th, 2013
12:34 pm
Sorry, I didn’t see it.
Private Citizen
January 11th, 2013
12:37 pm
Dr. Susan Andrews, Georgia Department of Education.
She is talking about the online resources for teachers, including standards and student performance.
To create great teachers and leaders: Way we expect more authentic assessments, more project-based learning, Expect teacher to differentiate because of differences in ability and achievement levels of their students. We have to train them to do this. This is a new way to teach schools….
Principals: Will go in and do two 30 minute observation sessions. There are also four 10-minute walk-throughs where principals are looking at one or two standards. If principal does not see enough evidence when he or she goes in, then teacher as opportunity to provide documentation that he or she is meeting the standard.
Reading this is making my crazy-in-the-head. So the Dr. from the State thinks that “online resources” are their state standards? And the pressure on principals for attention on teacher evaluations?
I think they left out the part about eyeglasses for kids and books and software for the classes. They left out the part about teachers spending their own money to provide curriculum materials to students that the state or district should be providing in a sequential organised manner. But the state isn’t doing this. They still want to ramp up pressure on evaluating teachers and talk this lingo about “a new way to teach.” The nerve of these people.
Private Citizen
January 11th, 2013
12:44 pm
Repost with italics for quotes. This denial of resources and the state and districts basically refusing to do their own due diligence providing course materials, combined with their continued “serious” “harassment” of teachers who have to work overtime on their own to make materials to teach with, it makes me very upset.
Dr. Susan Andrews, Georgia Department of Education.
She is talking about the online resources for teachers, including standards and student performance.
To create great teachers and leaders: Way we expect more authentic assessments, more project-based learning, Expect teacher to differentiate because of differences in ability and achievement levels of their students. We have to train them to do this. This is a new way to teach schools….
Principals: Will go in and do two 30 minute observation sessions. There are also four 10-minute walk-throughs where principals are looking at one or two standards. If principal does not see enough evidence when he or she goes in, then teacher as opportunity to provide documentation that he or she is meeting the standard.
Reading this is making my crazy-in-the-head. So the Dr. from the State thinks that “online resources” are their state standards? And the pressure on principals for attention on teacher evaluations?
I think they left out the part about eyeglasses for kids and books and software for the classes. They left out the part about teachers spending their own money to provide curriculum materials to students that the state or district should be providing in a sequential organised manner. But the state isn’t doing this. They still want to ramp up pressure on evaluating teachers and talk this lingo about “a new way to teach.” The nerve of these people.
Message to Dr. Andrews: “Standards” are not online resource materials. Unless you think a recipe = providing groceries. There is a difference and you need to get real about your duty to coordinate resource materials per course and stop leaving teachers hung out on a clothes line having to spend their own money and cheesy pay-websites like “edhelper” just to be able to survive. Dr. Andrews, you’re playing a role in the Doll House, just like in the Heinrik Ibsen story. But in the story, the person breaks free and sees the light of day.
HS Math Teacher
January 11th, 2013
1:04 pm
Relating to the speaker whose topic was the poorly performing schools in rural Georgia:
If a child in grades 3 through 8 fails a math or language arts class, AND does not pass the CRCT, then he/she should not be placed into the next grade level for those particular classes, unless there are extr-ordinary circumstances that affected the child’s progress, such as a death of a parent, or divorce.
Differentiated learning takes on a broader meaning at these poorly performing schools. As there are different types of learning styles, there are different levels of competency in a single classroom due to social promotion of children in lower grades. To me, it’s obvious that this is the most significant problems schools in rural Georgia have. Social promotion ends up hurting the more talented kids, and the ones who struggling to succeed beyond their grade level.
HS Math Teacher
January 11th, 2013
1:06 pm
correction: “the most significant problem & “and the ones struggling to succeed…”
Private Citizen
January 11th, 2013
1:09 pm
How do we pay for k-12 eduction? (”I don’t know,” says Rickman. “That really is the answer to that question.”)
I can answer that. It’s called EFFICIENCY and relevant decision making. To quote a post here: This is where the money in education is wasted, on one program after another. The money spent on consultants, and all these administrative positions created to run them are the problem.
That and using teacher time and wearing down teachers with indoctrination sessions / training on these trendy programs that seem to change every year. Brilliant and concise! Leave teachers alone and provide them materials!!! Right now you are harassing teachers and denying materials. Stop signing onto federal initiatives that come with conditions. Turn down this money, this fake-named “award.” It’s poison@! Oh yes, the latest has given you the tools to thin the work force and move-off the higher paid master teachers and replace them with fresh graduates. Well them, stop making yearly step increases and have the same teacher salary for everybody and stop removing your master teachers and setting up new hires for the same treatment, having career cancelled when you become an experienced teacher. The time is now. Make relevant policy that actually serve teachers and economic efficiency. I’d rather have a career than elevated pay and then the rug pulled out from under me, like what has happened to so many professionals in Georgia.
sissyuga
January 11th, 2013
1:11 pm
I’ll help you with the fifth issue. How about approving a cost of living increase by our “lovely” General Assembly and restore full funding to school systems so I can get a step increase? Why would a man or woman major in education with all of the teacher bashing and lack of funding? There are so many more lucrative fields of work to major in.
Private Citizen
January 11th, 2013
1:16 pm
the most significant problems schools in rural Georgia have. Social promotion
I think the single important factor for rural (or urban?) poor kids is having eyeglasses. I would support an easy to access voucher program covering the kids for eye exam and provision of eyeglasses. Maybe it could be done partnering with WalMart or a collective of vision treatment providers, @ negotiated rate.
Colonel Jack
January 11th, 2013
1:20 pm
@Private Citizen … “Oh yes, the latest has given you the tools to thin the work force and move-off the higher paid master teachers and replace them with fresh graduates. Well them, stop making yearly step increases and have the same teacher salary for everybody and stop removing your master teachers and setting up new hires for the same treatment, having career cancelled when you become an experienced teacher.”
Say it loud, my friend. That’s what happened to me. I didn’t suddenly become an “unsatisfactory” teacher. I became a statistic, a rather high-paid one, that had to be eliminated from my system’s payroll.
Come on, Georgia DOE. In all this claptrap you’re spouting … where is the incentive to become a teacher? Who would voluntarily sign up for this foolishness?
Georgia
January 11th, 2013
1:32 pm
You cant expect teachers to fix the structural problems of education. They’re too close to it all. Nobody wants to let the students fix anything either, so that leaves the cafeteria ladies and the janitors. Has anyone bothered to ask them how to fix what’s broken? Lets use the resources we have.
Decaturite
January 11th, 2013
1:34 pm
“Content is no longer delivered as much as it is discovered.” As a parent, I feel that this approach is resulting in a lot of lazy or flawed teaching. Good rhetoric, poor practice. The teachers don’t know what it means, the kids don’t know what they are supposed to do, and the parents have no idea how to help. I realize that rote learning alone is not sufficient for an education but at least some information is being transmitted. That’s more than I can say for the discovery method of teaching the state math curriculum. Smart kids who used to love math are floundering. Creativity is for art; exploration is for research. The kids want to do math.
Private Citizen
January 11th, 2013
1:34 pm
Colonel Jack, THANK YOU. We need to speak up. THANK YOU.
Who would voluntarily sign up for this..? The unknowing! Someone needs to warn the new hires. We need to speak up to a system that is moving master teachers off the payroll and out the door, ruining people mid-career for no other reason than to pay someone else less to fill the post. The need to fix their system and stop railroading dedicated workers. I’d be fine with a standard pay grade and occasional cost of living increases to track inflation. I’d rather have that than get flack myself and watch the best real-teachers around me get hassled and harassed by efficiency technicians (best description I’ve seen for Michelle Rhee) who also have the nerve to do things like use the Danielson “framework” to actually invade people’s professional work and micro-manage them on “how to teach” and write official demerits and demand for retraining because someone knows better and has better skills and integrity than to act like a zombie and do this North Korea role playing being demanded by our very own people here in Georgia.
Old timer
January 11th, 2013
1:50 pm
@ a complete waste of time….wait till you’ve been there 30 to 35 years….it all just gets worse.
Ole Guy
January 11th, 2013
2:31 pm
Remember those “mornings after” when, head in the porceilean god, one swears off booze forever and everafter, only to belly up to the bar that evening. Ah, we 20-something hotshots had all the answers!
These “concerns”, like the aches an’pains of that morning after, are all of your own making; the only answers lie in recognizing your faux pas(s) (polite talk for screw ups) and aggressively addressing those issues.
1) is it no wonder that you are seeking so many teachers? For far too many years, you have done nothing to develop the teacher corps…nothing but wee wee and poo poo upon the very profession whose ranks you now find thining. The teacher of the day/month/year accolades you have cast among the teacher corps are nothing but an embarrasement and an insult to an otherwise highly skilled force. Is it no wonder that those kids who manage to stick it out for four years choose just about any field to start their careers in earnest…any field EXCEPT the education field. WHONHELL IN THEIR RIGHT MINDS WOULD WANT IT? YOU, the educational leadership, are squarely responsible for any and all problems in this area.
2) Your over-reliance on technology, particularly at the earlier ages, has only led to a generation which does not have to think…technology has done all the thinking for them. The very teachers who, under the pressures of following the guidlines of the clueless, are supposed to mold young minds have only been able to wire em up, plug em’in and flip the switches of ignorance. They have been all but forbiden to actually teach; they have been only obliged to follow the cookbook one-size-fits-all approach to educating kids. Not to wonder, however, that these very teachers are, themselves, products of the early years of this feel-good approach to education.
So many of these issues…which are nothing new…are so easily addressed. However, the ways of addressing them are neither pleasant nor politically acceptable. The problems which are crossed the pages of these blog topics are ALL solvable, but not by the laadeedaa snake oil approaches which only cost too much and yield little-to-nothing.
3) Poverty does, indeed, impact on the quality of education which one receives. However, the answers do not lie, simply, in more money. They lie in demanding more out of the kid; they lie in NOT placing, in the kids’ mind, they he/she is somehow of less ability than the well to do/the so-called affluent. The only reason poverty has become such a major stumbling block in education is because YOU have allowed it to become so. In tossing more resources at the issue of poverty, YOU have solidified poverty as a brick wall in the path to education.
All these issues, of course, will never…that’s NEVER…be successfully addressed for one simple reason. THERE IS NO MONEY IN SIMPLY GOING BACK TO THE TRIED AN’PROVEN. THE MONEY LIES IN EDUCATIONAL SNAKEOIL. So good gd luck.
Private Citizen
January 11th, 2013
2:44 pm
“Content is no longer delivered as much as it is discovered.” As a parent, I feel that this approach is resulting in a lot of lazy or flawed teaching. Good rhetoric, poor practice. The teachers don’t know what it means
I know what it means: Official undermining and redirection from solid teaching. Telling kids to “access prior knowledge” instead of teaching them fundamentals. It’s like state-mandated child abuse and a teacher is punished who does not go along with it. Shameful times. People, confront the state and stand up for the profession. Those who know better, do not remain silent! Keep your professional integrity and demand to stop being indoctrinated in methods to undermine your content delivery to the next generation of young adults, disabling young people and substituting fluff and confusion for solid foundation and skills.
kwanza fisher
January 11th, 2013
2:48 pm
Here’s an idea:
Adopt the public boarding schools model.
Dennis
January 11th, 2013
3:12 pm
I want to see our critics in our state legislature and chambers of commerce, including Gov. Deal get into our public school classrooms and teach (or try to).
Dennis
January 11th, 2013
3:16 pm
“Your over-reliance on technology, particularly at the earlier ages, has only led to a generation which does not have to think…technology has done all the thinking for them.”
Not sure I agree with Ole Guy on everything he says, but this one is dead on target.
Anybody can be taught to use a machine, but what can you do in your head?
cris
January 11th, 2013
3:20 pm
@Private Citizen….A-to-the-men…you are spot on today.
Beverly Fraud
January 11th, 2013
3:27 pm
If you can’t explain why you honor Beverly Hall, do you really have anything of integrity to contribute?
In a word, no
Mikey D.
January 11th, 2013
3:35 pm
Ed Lindsey is lying when he says he doesn’t know how people could say that the charter ammendment could fool people. It was deliberately written to be confusing and vague, specifically so people would vote for it without completely understanding exactly what they were voting for. Reminds me of the old joke… “How do you know if a politician is lying? His lips are moving.”
CJae of EAV
January 11th, 2013
3:51 pm
A Parent Trigger bill is not needed in this state. Existing Charter School law already has sufficient provision for conversion of traditional public schools to a Charter form of goverance if that in fact is the prevailing desire of the collective stakeholders (i.e. Parents & School Faculty in collaboration).
Spedteacher
January 11th, 2013
4:16 pm
I see where Deal wants to get pre-k back to 180 day, what about the public school systems that have four or more furlough days that affect students, not to mention the furlough days that used to be work days for teachers? Furlough are a pay cut for teachers and a loss of instruction for students!
Dennis
January 11th, 2013
4:17 pm
@CJae of EAV; What will happen is this; the charter corporations will send representatives knocking on doors and convencing parents that public schools are bad, the child’s needs aren’t being met, and if the parent will just sign up for turning their local school into a charter school, everything will be just great; the parents will control the school, the kids will become a genius and everything will be hunkadore.
Reality is, the corporate principal’s first required duty will be to turn a profit to the charter corporation. Parents will need to be controlled or removed from the operation of the school.
The kid is second in importance.
Another comment
January 11th, 2013
4:43 pm
@ private Citizen your name is a joke, you are a teacher.
let me ask you why should I the tax payer pay for glasses for these kids who are already eligible for Medicaid, Peachcare and Free lunch. Now we hear that one person got 31 free cell phones issued to himself. These are the same kids who show up with $300 basketball shoes. They belong to the parents who should be jumping for joy for school uniform policies since it keeps your school clothing cost low. But no they want to be have their kids decked out in designer duds.
Make the parents provide the glasses, when the student can’t pass the school nurse administered eye test.
most of us not eligible for Medicaid, Peachcare who buy our own health insurance through ourselves or our employer don’t have coverage for eyeglasses through our health insurance. We don’t have but meager coverage for dental. Medicaid and Peachcare cover far more than my dental does. I have insurance through the biggest employer in the country, that everyone else thinks is gold plated. Well it covered zero on two filing for cavities for my 12 year old in December. So I owe the Dentist $700, which I have two months to pay off. When my child caught pinkeye at school, the school nurse sent her home and would not allow her to come back to school until an Eye Doctor said she could. I asked why not just a Peditrician, schools have allowed that in the past. So I took my daughter to the eye doctor like the school insisted, and she said that she didn’t believe in antibiotics and my child could just be out of school for two weeks. I said the school won’t like that. I finally said just give us a note that we came here. my regular eye doctor was on vacation. But my insurance would not cover this $120 waste of a visit. I had to pay and I am sure the school did not want her to miss 10 days of school.
Parents need to pay for their own children. if they can not take care of them they need to be put up for adoption. We need to stop this culture of I, can keep any child I get pregnant with, I will just get a check. That didn’t occur before the ’70’s people even married couples put children up for adoption because they could not afford them. I know of a couple of different women one who grew up in Georgia and one from West Va; their biological parents gave up for adoption several children as they had them, because they couldn’t afford them. Either they or their siblings were adopted and are greatful that they got a chance at a middle class educated life because parents choice to give them up, instead of keeping them stuck in Poverty.
Attentive Parent/Invisible Serfs Collar
January 11th, 2013
4:46 pm
Decaturite-Common Core and education theory generally are pushing the idea that only what is directly experienced by a student or a classmate is permissable. It actually puts most of the focus on social interaction instead of content.
They hate textbooks which are supposedly based on the activities of other people and lectures which are not experiential. Paul Ehrlich has written that all of this is designed to gain “new kinds of minds’ which is quite similar to what former NYC Chancellor Joel Klein said here at a Chamber of Commerce luncheon a few months ago.
The performance assessments being used are likewise about action and not mental activity.
All this emphasis on the physical actually tracks back to Uncle Karl and his desire to have “being” alter consciousness.
http://www.invisibleserfscollar.com/political-primer-101-what-is-the-marxist-theory-of-the-mind-and-why-does-it-matter-in-2012/
It’s about to really matter in 2013. Tragically all these attempts to limit the abstract mind will simply further hamper students who lack access to parents who can remediate or pay for private instruction.
Brandy
January 11th, 2013
4:49 pm
@Maureen,
Have we ever had a teacher of the year who didn’t just spew the party line in regards to education?
I was terribly disappointed by Lauren Eckman’s commentary–they seem to just be a straight regurgitation of the state DOE’s playbook. Does she really believe what she said? Was her speech written for her? Is she even allowed to publicly disagree?
Brandy
January 11th, 2013
4:56 pm
Mary Elizabeth, looking forward to reading your thoughts on all of this commentary.
Attentive Parent–I’m with you and I would still love an answer on why even the high performing schools (the ones getting it “right” and producing successful students by all measures) have to also throw everything they’ve been doing—doing right—out the window in favor of an untested education model.
rural juror
January 11th, 2013
5:03 pm
follow the money
William Casey
January 11th, 2013
5:12 pm
“Once they are evaluated, top performing teachers will receive bonuses through Race to the Top.”
How much will these bonuses be? $500 is my guess, get real. Will the bonuses be yanked as they were with those “super certified” guys? (Can’t remember the real name of the program.)
My son will graduate in May with two degrees (BS in Mathematics, AB in Philosophy/Logic, 3.7 GPA.) Georgia Southern has employed him as a math tutor since his soph year. He’s developed a cult following among students needing help in math. What are the public schools going to do to recruit a guy like him? He’s watched the system disrespect even great teachers. I think that the bonus would have to be substantial. Ain’t gonna happen. Just keep on floating out the rhetoric de jure and see how that works.
Private Citizen
January 11th, 2013
5:22 pm
Another comment, stay tuned for reply. I’m reading / processing your post. Thank you for keeping it real. THANK YOU. Will check in with you in a little bit.
Grob Hahn
January 11th, 2013
6:47 pm
Saying that MOST parents want thier kids to be athletes and cheerleaders is a complete crock. There are nowhere near enough athletic slots open for such a claim. Most schools can only afford to have a small percentage of students involved in athletics. So this claim is based entirely in BS.
However, I understand where this idea comes from, and it’s not just the parents of student athletes who drive it. The biggest drivers are the people who rely on these programs for a living and administrators who see athletics as a primary source of pride and attention for the school.
Wouldn’t it be amazing if schools promoted their science profile equally? Imagine if a school had a robotics team that was held in the same regard as the football team. With technology getting cheaper by the day this issue is a basic failure on the part of our schools, not the parents. I for one have tried for years just to get schools to consider this discussion. Most seem to shun the idea or just ignore my suggestions.
Sometimes it is very difficult to be involved with schools. So many act like parents just don’t belong, like they just aren’t part of the club unless they’re a football booster. I saw a principal completely reject a middle school model rocketry program because she was afraid the children would learn to make bombs instead. And you wonder why our faith in schools is waning? Welcome to Georgia.
Grobbbbbbbbb
Beverly Fraud
January 11th, 2013
6:51 pm
Her answer: We make pretense about “researched based best practices”, but then when in requires us to do something that actually respects the rights of a classroom teacher (bring in neutral observers) we just decide to make a mockery of our words, much like we’ve made a mockery of the education process.
That’s her real answer. Now what would have been nice is some real</questions like:
How can you talk about everything under the sun except discipline?
And this from the teacher of the year:
“Her theme is the changing classroom and changing schools. She has a set speech, which essentially says the old ways won’t work with students. Content is no longer delivered as much as it is discovered. There is an app for everything.”
The old ways won’t work, or we are no longer willing to work the old way? Have children been genetically modified over the last few years so that their ears don’t work? And if “the old ways don’t work” why is she giving a speech? Why aren’t these “experts” giving hands on activities so Maureen can understand what’s going on? How on Earth can Maria Soporta (sp?) discover any knowledge just listening to content?
Atlanta Mom
January 11th, 2013
6:51 pm
“Content is no longer delivered as much as it is discovered.”
What that really means is my smart kid is reaching a lot of not so smart kids. And they get tired of that after a while, find another two or three smart kids and sit in a corner and amuse themselves.
Maureen Downey
January 11th, 2013
7:03 pm
@Brandy, Actually, the prior teacher of the year was very candid.
At this same event last year, Jadun McCarthy said:
bootney farnsworth
January 11th, 2013
7:26 pm
the top 10 primary education issues facing Georgia this year and for the next several
1-Fran Millar,
2-the state seems to think we’re an unnecessary burden they wish to be rid of
3-we don’t trust the state
4-impossibly low morale
5-good ole boy administrations at BOEs
6-bloated admin types
7-stagnant wages
8-public distrust
9-low information parents
10-politicized curriculum
bootney farnsworth
January 11th, 2013
7:32 pm
the top 10 higher education issues facing Georgia this year and for the next several
1-Fran Millar
2-the legislatures’ obsession with all things UGA
3-UGA football is more important than education et al.
4-BOR loaded with political toadies who have little understanding of how education works
5-skyrocketing tuition & textbooks
6-HOPE implosion
7-out of control admin types who can hire and create pet projects without accountability.
8-grade inflated students who are not ready for college
9-politicized curriculum
10-we don’t trust the state,
bootney farnsworth
January 11th, 2013
7:36 pm
issue # 11 for both
the lack of a real, genuine, advocate for faculty and staff as a buttress against the excesses (often illegal) of administrations, and the defacto state endorsed tools of harassment against anyone who attempts to rock the boat.
living in an outdated ed system
January 11th, 2013
7:40 pm
My goodness! So much stuff is loaded into this post. Let me point out a few things:
1. Totally agree with Rickman on RTTT progress reporting. It is abysmal. It is almost impossible to find it. You have to go to the ed.gov site to find it. Bottom line is that with only 26 school districts participating, it would appear to me we have misled the DOE on our grant application. I think they need to be transparent and communicate EXACTLY how we are faring. I don’t think we’re faring well. I know we delayed implementation of certain teacher evaluation programs.
2. Herb has to stop harping on funding. That is NOT the problem. There is countless research showing ZERO CORRELATION between more funding and academic achievement. Better for us to spend the money on a system that’s working, and on programs that are working, as opposed to wasting more taxpayer dollars.
3. We need to look at the QBE. Some great research has been done on simplifying the formula and ensuring the $ follow the child, and are aligned with innovation. In addition, more funding should go towards urban districts, and we should hold rural districts “harmless” during a soft economy (like now) when revenue is low.
4. Parent trigger: it astounds me that Lindsey has “demonized” the intent. If you look at the legislation that passed in CA, i) districts must show “pain”; ii) if a petition receives a majority of parent votes, they have OPTIONS on what to do, one which is a conversion to a charter school; and iii) they cap the number of petitions that can be filed. As part of comprehensive legislation around school board governance and when a governor or mayor can “intervene” on a failing school, we should also allow a parent trigger option if a school is failing and the school board is not doing its job. As Lindsey currently articulates his intent for the legislation, it is DOA.
5. We need to look closely at the Gates Foundation report on effective teaching. It was “interesting” to me that Randi Weingarten did not lambast it. I feel there is hope we are finally seeing a “balanced” teacher evaluation system that does not overly emphasize standardized test scores.
I can write a lot more, but I will leave the rest of the banter to all of you.
Political Mongrel
January 11th, 2013
8:22 pm
Meh. Problem #1 is a butt-ignorant state legislature that wants to do the right thing but has no idea what the right thing is. So winging it, listening to disgruntled special interests, and cutting the budged again and again is what we get. Every year the entire state’s education system waits in fear to find out what the latest bad idea will be and how schools are going to accommodate the latest idiocy that they’re inflicted with. And every so often someone with a raft of horrible ideas comes along, proclaims that his program is the only true educational “reform”, refuses to listen to what anyone who actually has an idea of what’s going on tries to tell him, and pushes the state ten steps backward.
Attentive Parent/Invisible Serfs Collar
January 11th, 2013
8:42 pm
Bootney–
I think I am as close to an advocate for that as exists right now. Just by telling the real story before it is fully implemented and the consequences start to really bite.
Private Citizen
January 11th, 2013
10:00 pm
11. politicized methods
12. walked off the job / did not renew. ha.
Who’s keeping track of turn-over? Tired of admin treating teachers like they’re the enemy, like management is some spooky psyop unless you’re a son/daughter/childhood friend/cousin of somebody.
Private Citizen
January 11th, 2013
10:07 pm
Mongrel, oh please. you’re doing that “government is incompetent” thing. Was it George Carlin who said the reason education is is because that is exactly how they want it? Georgia didn’t “want to do the right thing.” They took outside money (their own federal tax money handed back to them and called an “award”) and implemented an expensive completely time and emotion-suck over evaluation fetish designed to thin the work force and put more on whoever is left and then play-act it is something other than economic squeezing, which may even be necessary, but they continue the same step-increase pay policies that they are using to get of people at the higher pay grades. That’s not too cool. It’s like workers are disposable trash to them. I’ve seen it too much, really good people being treated like they’re not humans. It’s a management culture, this disembodies treat-the-teacher like they’re a block of wood or a disposable consumable.
Private Citizen
January 11th, 2013
10:40 pm
Another comment, Here’s the deal. You and I have a different set of referents – the information that we refer to. I have nothing but admiration for how you are responsible and look after you kids. You have my highest respect.
Anyway, and this is not easy to voice, you seem to think the outrageous medical / dental / eye doctor fees are somehow acceptable. I do not. Maybe you hint otherwise, but after reading your post and realities, I thought that’s a Georgia thing – respect your personal suffering and accept the system and seek more suffering and get some bizarre fulfilment from it like a South American religious ceremony where people parade while striking themselves in the back so that they show penance, to be penitent.
Here’s the deal. You think kids without eyeglasses are from free-loader homes and wear $100. athletic shoes. My experience is otherwise. I’ll just leave it at that. I can tell you that for many kids, the nurse letter goes home “Your child needs eyeglasses” and then nothing happens. You say “make them get / pay for eyeglasses.” Well, in order to do that you’re going to have to write a law for it, because it is not happening with the parents who pay for cell phone once a month and the number is on for three weeks and off for a week and if you want to talk to the parent via phone, call at the beginning of the month.
Let me share some anecdotes with you. Recently on that Dave Ram-sey radio show, someone called in for advice and said they had health insurance but it did not cover pregnancy / birth and they had $80,000. medical for the birth of two children, the bill in part because mom had spent three days in the ICU after one of the births. Ram-sey was just speechless. It really caught him off guard, this type of billing abuse. Point is the USA is so completely messed up with this medical-industrial complex. If you want to learn about where the USA stands on medical fees, go to read the reports at OECD (d– o– t) o– r– g. I suggest that you do so. Someone also sent me a link to “physicians for single payer health care.” There are some U. S. doctors who can see the light of day on this, but it seems there is little unity or uptake within their profession in the United States, rife with these “business doctors” and their culture of running people banktrupt and seizing homes for medical fees.
Anyway, I have a photo for you and it is from Brazil. The police officer was immediately removed from service, but I think the photo says a lot (that’s pepper spray) http://postimage.org/image/wtehc0f39/
Hey if you were a citizen in Germany, your dentistry would be covered by the government health system. Same thing in Austria. But they’re a little richer than the United States. I think it is better to firmly state these realities and stick with the facts. I’m not one to play dumb and say “Georgia is cool.” There’s a reason there’s so many poor people in Georgia and it’s not because people do not go to work every day, or 40+ hours a week.
Private Citizen
January 11th, 2013
10:42 pm
Another comment, Here’s the deal. You and I have a different set of referents – the information that we refer to. I have nothing but admiration for how you are responsible and look after you kids. You have my highest respect.
Anyway, and this is not easy to voice, you seem to think the outrageous medical / dental / eye doctor fees are somehow acceptable. I do not. Maybe you hint otherwise, but after reading your post and realities, I thought that’s a Georgia thing – respect your personal suffering and accept the system and seek more suffering and get some bizarre fulfilment from it like a South American religious ceremony where people parade while striking themselves in the back so that they show penance, to be penitent.
Here’s the deal. You think kids without eyeglasses are from free-loader homes and wear $100. athletic shoes. My experience is otherwise. I’ll just leave it at that. I can tell you that for many kids, the nurse letter goes home “Your child needs eyeglasses” and then nothing happens. You say “make them get / pay for eyeglasses.” Well, in order to do that you’re going to have to write a law for it, because it is not happening with the parents who pay for cell phone once a month and the number is on for three weeks and off for a week and if you want to talk to the parent via phone, call at the beginning of the month.
Let me share some anecdotes with you. Recently on that Dave Ramsey radio show, someone called in for advice and said they had health insurance but it did not cover pregnancy / birth and they had $80,000. medical for the birth of two children, the bill in part because mom had spent three days in the ICU after one of the births. Ramsey was just speechless. It really caught him off guard, this type of billing abuse. Point is the USA is so completely messed up with this medical-industrial complex. If you want to learn about where the USA stands on medical fees, go to read the reports at OECD. I suggest that you do so. Someone also sent me a link to “physicians for single payer health care.” There are some U. S. doctors who can see the light of day on this, but it seems there is little unity or uptake within their profession in the United States, rife with these “business doctors” and their culture of running people bankrupt and seizing homes for medical fees.
Anyway, I have a photo for you and it is from Brazil. The police officer was immediately removed from service, but I think the photo says a lot http://postimage.org/image/wtehc0f39/
Hey if you were a citizen in Germany, your dentistry would be covered by the government health system. Same thing in Austria. But they’re a little richer than the United States. I think it is better to firmly state these realities and stick with the facts. I’m not one to play dumb and say “Georgia is cool.” There’s a reason there’s so many poor people in Georgia and it’s not because people do not go to work every day, or 40+ hours a week.
Private Citizen
January 11th, 2013
10:50 pm
Another comment, oh, something else. At the school I was at, the social worker was from out of state, they had been at the school for at least a year (I do not remember exactly), anyway, I asked them about it and they had never heard of Peach Care. Kind of mind boggling, isn’t it?
I think it’s a crisis when basic human / health care needs of children are not being met, and this is certainly the case with vision care for children in Georgia.
Truth in Moderation
January 11th, 2013
11:33 pm
“Dr. John Barge, State Superintendent of Schools, could not make it as he had to go to Washington.”
This says it all. The undermining of the public schools came from the top down. Originally, local public schools were to be self-supporting. They could be if the unfunded and down-dumbing Federal mandates were thrown out. Those with the means and motivation should home school. That would free up tax money to educate the less fortunate. The criminals use the government education cartel to bleed the taxpayers dry and leave a path of destruction in their wake. Return to personal accountability and solid education of our children will follow.
Private Citizen
January 11th, 2013
11:34 pm
Truth, I’ve got the soundtrack for your post. http://soundcloud.com/slamboree/slamboree-28-brains-later-free
Truth in Moderation
January 11th, 2013
11:53 pm
This one’s for you.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FgvfRSzmMoU
Truth in Moderation
January 12th, 2013
12:11 am
Company song for the Ga. DOE:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Joo90ZWrUkU&feature=endscreen&NR=1
Truth in Moderation
January 12th, 2013
12:48 am
The rewards of an Ivy League education:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ndc2U2M_6k
Moderation
January 12th, 2013
12:59 am
Too many people try to use SACS as a method of intervening into
local school board decisions as a result of not having their agenda
accepted by elected educational leaders.
Michelle-Middle School
January 12th, 2013
8:07 am
It is amazing how often the comment is made that we need to differentiate in schools while in fact the current system does just the opposite. Cookie-cutter testing, cookie cutter teaching, and never any flexibility for the well trained and dedicated teacher to teach to their strengths to meet the overall goals of education. I believe in Common Core, but it needs to be used with teachers in mind. Every teacher should have the flexibility to adapt their teaching to the way they teach the best and to the way they feel the students best respond. While I was a teacher, for over 20 years, I taught the way I wanted to. I never gave a practice CRCT, I never had a CRCT review in my classes, and I never handed out fill in the blank reviews for any test. I just taught to the absolutely best of my ability and I personally motivated every student. The result was that my students always scored best on the standardized tests. I taught the required material to match my students’ needs. I retired because I could no longer do what I do best.
dcb
January 12th, 2013
8:19 am
Great column, Maureen. But too much to process at one time. Of one thing, though, I am sure. Lauren Eckman, Georgia teacher of the year is right on target: “Her theme is the changing classroom and changing schools. She has a set speech, which essentially says the old ways won’t work with students. Her theme is the changing classroom and changing schools. She has a set speech, which essentially says the old ways won’t work with students. “Education is no longer one size fits all, which, if we are honest, is really one size fits none. Content is no longer delivered as much as it is discovered. There is an app for everything.”
Which really only points to one place seldom discussed in print – the issue with teacher training institutions. Until we see an acceptance and change in the teaching of teaching techniques in our University Schools of Education, our graduating teachers will not have the tools necessary for delivery and/or presentation in the most effective of ways. And change is tough for the old guard – both those already in the classroom and those teaching aspiring teachers in the college classroom. Especially if personal experiences that always shape thinking are the culprit to begin with.
Colonel Jack
January 12th, 2013
8:30 am
@Michelle … I hear you! I did the same thing … taught to my strengths, ensured the students learned what they were there to learn. My students did very well on the standardized tests. Then came this new-fangled “This is the way to teach!” movement, and everyone in our building was required to follow a prescribed teaching method (one that clashed with mine). I did the best I could … but being horribly uncomfortable in that method, my students’ scores suffered. Add to that the fact (as Private Citizen has pointed out) school systems – including mine – began making concerted efforts to weed out the most experienced teachers (also known as the highest paid teachers) and you have the formula which led to my early retirement from teaching.
It’s a sad state of affairs, especially when you consider the fact that most of the people who create these abysmal “new” teaching methods are the ones who couldn’t handle being in the classroom themselves. If they could, why aren’t they still there, doing the job they were supposedly trained to do?
indigo
January 12th, 2013
8:35 am
Take race and politicial correctness out of teaching.
Make the playing field level.
Let the good teachers teach the basics of math, science and the humanities.
Pay no attention to skin color. Let the grades fall where they will.
Then, wake up, yawn, and feel sad this good dream will never happen.
Maureen Downey
January 12th, 2013
8:57 am
@indigo, But how do you level the playing field?
Maureen
No Dog in the Fight
January 12th, 2013
9:28 am
Maureen u missed a point…there are 11 issues. Number 11 (drum roll)…..the new football stadium. I LOVE the Falcons and am a native Atlantan…….we do NOT need this stadium. Legislators CAN/SHOULD pass laws diverting money into the deplorable systems of APS/Dekalb/Clayton…
Brandy
January 12th, 2013
11:10 am
@Maureen–Thanks, I had forgotten about him. I think we need more candor coming from those teachers we hold up as paragons of the field—and less regurgitation of the party line. The teachers I know all have different opinions and ideas, so shouldn’t our TotY? Good to see one who did say what he really believed.
indigo
January 12th, 2013
11:11 am
Maureen – 8:57
By instigating many Govt. programs to ensure that EVERY American child has adequate nutrition, healthcare, housing, safe environments and good schools.
Since this would involve a large financial and moral commitment from our lawmakers, it is, and alway wii be, just a dream.
Beverly Fraud
January 12th, 2013
11:32 am
5. We need to look closely at the Gates Foundation report on effective teaching. It was “interesting” to me that Randi Weingarten did not lambast it. I feel there is hope we are finally seeing a “balanced” teacher evaluation system that does not overly emphasize standardized test scores.
@outdated, look at the Framework of Teaching, Charlotte Danielson. It deserves to be seriously questioned if not out and out lambasted. If we are going to hold teachers “accountable” they certainly have every right to question the instruments. That Weingarten didn’t, show once again the lack of integrity that may be the single biggest problem in education today.
Fred in DeKalb
January 12th, 2013
1:05 pm
Private Citizen, bravo on your comments at 10:40pm! You presented sound rationale for why a relatively small investment such as glasses could make the difference in impacting the lives of many. Where and how we make our investments can make a difference in the opportunities a child might realize.
I think there are too many like another comment that take small sample sets and attempt to extrapolate their personal experiences and encounters across an entire community.
Beverly Fraud
January 12th, 2013
1:47 pm
How can we have honest debate if we aren’t willing to confront the dumbfoundingly stupid?
Using the Chalotte Danielson Framework for Teaching, the following can occur:
A child, of crack addicted parents, diagnosed with a behavior disorder, coming to class after being beaten and unfed, can have a meltdown. A teacher can use all appropriate, by any measure techniques to calm the child and reduce was could be an hour long episode to one lasting 10 seconds. Anybody with an honest clue knows that would be extraordinary.
As a result: The teacher can be downgraded, yes DOWNGRADED!, because she had to do more than walk by the child!!!!!!!!! They spent $45 million on something with implications this dumbfoundingly stupid?
I challenge anybody out there to explain why a teacher should be downgraded in the above scenario.
If we can’t ask those types of questions, can we please stop pretending we are interested in education reform?
Dr. Monica Henson
January 12th, 2013
2:26 pm
@William Casey, please ask your son to email his resume to me at monica.henson@ga.provostacademy.com. My staff is working on creating an innovative salary structure (NOT longevity-based) that will enable us to pay our teachers substantially more than they can earn in the public school districts. We are growing exponentially and have increased our enrollment nearly tenfold since opening in August. I need great teachers and someone who’s worked at the collegiate level in math would be a good strategic addition to our faculty. Let’s talk offline.
Beverly Fraud
January 12th, 2013
2:28 pm
“My AJC colleague Nancy Badertscher has asked a series of tough questions, attempting to find news in what thus far has been pretty surface and pretty news-free…”
Tough questions??? Has she asked why we should take anybody who continues to honor Beverly Hall seriously? Has she asked why we shouldn’t seriously question their integrity?
Has she asked why a teacher would be downgraded in the new teacher evaluation instrument for effectively by any rational standard redirected a child who had a complete, total meltdown for no other reason that the teacher had to (as you would want the teacher to do) redirect the child?
Tough questions? Do we even have a clue what tough questions are?
Dr. Monica Henson
January 12th, 2013
2:30 pm
Beverly Fraud, I am extremely familiar with Charlotte Danielson’s Framework and what you just described is both illogical and inaccurate. How would that teacher be “marked down” in the Framework?
Beverly Fraud
January 12th, 2013
2:37 pm
@William Casey, please ask your son to email his resume to me at monica.henson@ga.provostacademy.com.
And I’m sure this goes without saying for you William Casey, but for any other parents out there.
Please for the love of God do not encourage your child to send their resume to any of The Four Horsemen of the Incompetence
Smash their hard drive and Internet modem if you have to. Have them committed to a sanatorium for their own protection until the madness passes if you have to. Just do it.
Dr. Monica Henson
January 12th, 2013
2:43 pm
Maureen posted, “Do principals really have the time to do these observations?”
Dr. Andrews’s response was excellent. The majority of building administrators put teacher supervision & evaluation far down their priority lists and get caught up in operational issues. Safety is priority #1 for any building leader; teacher S & E is priority #2 for any EFFECTIVE building leader.
I attended a feedback session yesterday at Georgia Tech, hosted by GaDOE, for district leaders to talk about the Teacher Keys Effectiveness System (TKES) and Leader Keys Effectiveness System (LKES) by those of us in the current cohort of systems piloting full implementation. A common theme on some of the posters where we wrote our comments was administrators’ supposed lack of sufficient time to conduct the observations.
The excellent suggestion was made during the group discussion by one district leader that perhaps teachers who are ranked Exemplary in the TKES framework could conduct peer observations of teachers who are ranked Ineffective and Needs Improvement. I’d go even further and recommend that Exemplary teachers need to be directing the work of Ineffective & Needs Improvement teachers. Why allow a struggling teacher to flounder and continue to write his/her own lesson plans, perhaps selecting poor strategies & methods, when it’s become obvious that the teacher isn’t effective (yet), and wait for the administrator to correct the errors after an observation? Instead, we should tap the talent and skill of our best teachers and empower them to work directly with peers who need strong support. Free up those Exemplary teachers with some extra time during the school day to spend with struggling colleagues, and empower them with the authority to direct their work, and you’ll see some real, measurable improvement in the quality of teaching overall.
Incidentally, my fellow administrators and I at Provost Academy Georgia find TKES and LKES to be an outstanding framework. Even with the current technology glitches in the launch of the new electronic platform, we find the system to be easy to navigate and simple to use. I can’t say enough about what a tremendous improvement it is.
Beverly Fraud
January 12th, 2013
2:44 pm
Dr. Henson, I referred to this in an earlier post-let me try to find it.
Beverly Fraud
January 12th, 2013
2:50 pm
Dr. Henson here it is:
To move from “effective” to “highly effective”
In addition to the characteristics of “Effective”:
· Student behavior is entirely appropriate; no evidence of student misbehavior.
· The teacher monitors student behavior without speaking – just moving about.
· Students respectfully intervene as appropriate with classmates to ensure compliance with standards of conduct.
By logical implication If a student who was beaten at 7am, unfed, was awoken at 3am by a noise only to watch his mother engage in intercourse with a total stranger in order to get hit of crack, comes into a classroom at 8am has a total meltdown (who wouldn’t?) which a teacher handles brilliantly that teacher according to the above rubric would be downgraded from highly effective to effective for no other reason than she had to speak to intervene!
Does this make any sense to you Dr. Henson?
kwanza f
January 12th, 2013
2:59 pm
I really hope everyone looks at the public coarding school model as a viable solution to closing the achievmeent gap and ameliorating the affects of poverty. Why do we insits on ruining the teaching profession by putting all the blame on teachers and schools? 2/3 of a child’s time is spent out of school, and for many at-risk youth their home environment is not conducive to academic success.
So–why not look at public barding schools where we can control for that variable?
Dr. Monica Henson
January 12th, 2013
3:10 pm
Not at all, Beverly. You’re taking an item out of context and going to the (illogical) extreme. Any teacher who simply walks past a child having a meltdown is negligent, and you know it as well as every reader on this blog does.
Rubrics are not meant to be checklists, nor are they meant to provide items to be taken out of context and applied in a manner that renders them illogical.
Are there administrators out there who would do so? You bet. But the fact that there are a few (comparatively speaking) idiots out there who are able to secure an administrator position due to a good old boy network or family connection, and who proceed to bastardize the education system they have infected, doesn’t make the instrument itself problematic. I’m not arguing with the underlying ax you’re grinding–there are administrators out there who don’t execute teacher evaluation and supervision correctly–because I happen to agree with it. My argument is with your application of the instrument. Fighting the instrument itself doesn’t advance your cause, because it’s not the instrument that’s the problem.
I’m not going to engage in further discussion on this particular issue you’ve raised. It’s clear what your position is, and what mine is, and the readers can decide from our posts with whom they agree.
Dr. Monica Henson
January 12th, 2013
3:25 pm
Beverly, the example you provide requires that the administrator takes one item in the rubric (which is, by definition, a guideline and not an exhaustive checklist) and apply it completely out of context and without regard to common sense.
That does not render the Danielson Framework invalid, any more than a teacher giving a student an “A” grade for non-academic behaviors, such as bringing in Box Tops for Education, renders the entire grading system in a school invalid.
The ax that you’re really grinding is that there are administrators out there who will apply any evaluation instrument in a way to damage teachers they don’t like or want in their schools, regardless of how effective the teacher actually is. I happen to agree with that ax, by the way. There are idiots out there who are able to leverage their family relationships, good old boy networks, etc., into administrator jobs. That’s a systemic issue that needs to be addressed, but it doesn’t make the evaluation instrument they use invalid or problematic.
The beauty of the TKES instrument is that the default assumption is always that the teacher is “Proficient.” Any assessment by the administrator that puts the performance on a standard either higher or lower than Proficient MUST be supported by evidence. This puts the burden on the evaluator to produce evidence. That’s the reason why, in this first year of piloting, most teachers were rated Proficient—not because 99% of Georgia teachers ARE effective, but because nearly 100% of administrators using the instrument in its pilot year chose to use the default rating because it doesn’t require the submission of evidence by the administrator to support it.
A recommendation for GaDOE is to consider requiring the submission of evidence by the administrator in order to support any rating, not just those outside the Proficient rating. This removes the temptation to default to Proficient in order to save time.
Dr. Monica Henson
January 12th, 2013
3:28 pm
In the Danielson Framework, by the way, the administrator writes a description of the classroom, and notation of events that occur during the observation, which in your example would require (if properly executed) that the administrator describe the student’s outburst and the teacher’s response to it. If the teacher responded brilliantly, then the administrator should record that the teacher’s application of the classroom management standard in that instance was “Highly effective.”
Dr. Monica Henson
January 12th, 2013
3:31 pm
In my description of the TKES rating system, I meant to note that the beauty of the instrument–the default to Proficient until evidence is produced to justify a higher or lower rating–is also its flaw. It has produced an unintended outcome, which is that administrators are defaulting to it for a reason unrelated to teacher performance, which is the administrators’ desire to save time on producing evaluation reports.
Private Citizen
January 12th, 2013
3:43 pm
I think the internet market in Georgia is a significant factor re: resources / quality of education. This article pretty well describes the situation: http://bgr.com/2013/01/12/cable-industry-criticism-susan-crawford-289586/ I encourage people to take an interest in this subject or condition of things. Political awareness of the topic will certainly help to better conditions / value / cost / delivery of services.
Private Citizen
January 12th, 2013
3:49 pm
Fred in Dekalb, hey, Thanks. I just think it is a basic right that kids should have eyeglasses, and without family drama when they break or lose them and need replacement. Kids break / lose eyeglasses, too. It is so hard on some of these kids, how it is a sacred cow. Poor households can not readily pay out $200. for a child to have eyeglasses. It is a terrible and very real situation. I’m a little block-headed about it, like Captain Ahab chasing the whale. Thank you for your support. Maybe there is a way to be organised to address this issue. The way things are now, I would expect it to be no different in a decade unless someone like you or me makes it known.
Private Citizen
January 12th, 2013
3:50 pm
If you’re in a poor household, before eyeglasses money will go to: parole officer, hotel room, groceries, car and car insurance, electric bill, cell phone minutes.
Beverly Fraud
January 12th, 2013
3:53 pm
“Beverly, the example you provide requires that the administrator takes one item in the rubric (which is, by definition, a guideline and not an exhaustive checklist) and apply it completely out of context and without regard to common sense.”
Bingo! But you have to understand, what you call “requires…to apply completely out of context and with out regard to common sense” is shockingly common in places like The Four Horsemen of the Incompetence In fact ask MACE if places like APS will actually claim an evaluation can’t be appealed even if can be proven information therein was falsified!
“That’s a systemic issue that needs to be addressed, but it doesn’t make the evaluation instrument they use invalid or problematic.”
Yes it does need to be addressed. And if we are going to seriously hold teachers “accountable” why are we not just as serious about the times of administrative retaliation?
You’re right, that one thing doesn’t render it “invalid” but it does render it problematic that it can open the door for an administrator to abuse it to the point that is INDEED completely invalid.
Would you allow outside evaluators (as the study suggested) to come in to your school to evaluate teachers as a legitimate protection to counter any bias? My guess (correct me if I’m wrong) you would be open to that, because a competent unbiased observer would probably not come up with anything that directly contradicts your observations. Elsewhere? Not on your life (they’d whine about “costs” while buying $2100 office chairs)
But a shocking number of status quo administrators aren’t like that. So we need to be willing to ask the tough questions rather than just readily accept something because an “expert” wrote it or Bill Gates spent $45 million helping implement it.
Private Citizen
January 12th, 2013
3:55 pm
Here’s a great man with the right idea. Support! http://bgr.com/2013/01/09/vint-cerf-internet-competition-evaporated-286519/ And I’ve gotten an email from him thanking me for signing his initiative. (me and how many other thousand people) Yippee! He’s the most progressive voice protecting the internet.
indigo
January 12th, 2013
4:07 pm
private citizen – 3:50
Don’t forget beer, wine, liquor and cigarets.
Dekalbite
January 12th, 2013
4:10 pm
The problem with observing how a teacher instructs is that teachers have different styles of teaching just like students have different learning styles. When I was young in the early 70s, I used group work, individualized learning packets, learning contracts, etc. and was really into hands-on learning in the low income school I worked in. I was arrogant and thought I was a real hotshot. I taught next door to a woman in her 50s named Mrs. Virginia Burke. She depended to a great deal on lectures. Over time I came to realize Mrs. Burke had forgotten more about teaching than I would ever learn. The students loved her, they always paid attention to everything she had to say, and as the rest of us newbies (most of us were new since the school was pretty rough) had a difficult time with classroom management (also called discipline). Open Mrs. Burke’s door and they were always quiet and on task. Ask a student and they would tell you how interesting her lectures were and how much they liked her. She just knew kids. She didn’t teach at all like me, but she was just as effective – who am I kidding – she was so much better than I.
Teaching next door to Mrs. Burke took me down a peg and showed me that there are many different teaching styles and hemming teachers into a set of “observable behaviors” is the wrong way to go if you are serious about attracting and retaining good teachers.
That idea of different teaching styles working well for different teachers and their students was proven time and again as I worked with literally thousands of teachers as a support person. That’s my problem with an observation tool to rate teacher behaviors.
Beverly Fraud
January 12th, 2013
4:25 pm
@indigo, add to that hair…Nike shoes…nails (I was with a friend who picked up a mutual friend. Tried to borrow money for groceries to feed her family. The problem? My friend picked her up from a nail salon!
Not all the poor have values like that of course; but the dynamic does exists.
Fred in DeKalb
January 12th, 2013
5:09 pm
DeKalbite, good to see you posting! The point you raised in your first sentence above is what we discussed at length earlier. How does one come up with an effective instrument to measure teacher effectiveness with the students in each classroom have different needs. Compound that with a principal that may not have had much time in the classroom, how would they know what good instruction is. I recognize this is all together a separate issue but can admit it happens more than it should.
I like the idea of having retired teachers (that have gone through some type of training and qualification process) being a part of the evaluation (and perhaps coaching) process. I believe this could provide more objectivity to the process along with ultimately provide greater value to the teacher being evaluated.
Private Citizen
January 12th, 2013
5:11 pm
Indigo, are you trying to send me to the store? One of the great burdens of the U. S. is that you have to travel outside the U. S. to get a Cuban cigar. I don’t smoke cigars as a habit, blessed as I am with moderation, but I can tell you those Cubans have that cigar thing figured out.Why alcohol is good for you: http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2010/09/why-alcohol-is-good-for-you/ I’ll have you know when my vet did a surgery and extended the life of my super-old cat (may she rest in peace, oh great and loyal cat) I bought him a bottle of Veuve Clicquot. Meanwhile he has stopped consuming caffeine so that his hands are steady for surgery. ‘Better man than I. He liked the gift, though.
Fred in DeKalb
January 12th, 2013
5:14 pm
**Not all the poor have values like that of course; but the dynamic does exists.**
Unfortunately Beverly Fraud, some would rather use a broad brush and prejudge some based on the side of the tracks they happen to live on. I see many poor families attempt to move their children out of environments that focus more on remediation rather than instruction, especially if are actively involved in their child’s life. These are the kind of parents that recognize that a good education can provide a pathway out of poverty.
Private Citizen
January 12th, 2013
5:19 pm
add to that hair…Nike shoes…nails BF, I find your comment to be bigoted. We could just go to a 75% tax rate and deny you your pedicure and Buckhead salon. Anyway, we’re talking about kids and the one’s I’ve taught who needed vision care did not exhibit consumer lifestyle. Many kids are lucky if anyone buys them decent shoes of any kind. There may be a subculture of no eyeglasses and no belt and denial of civiliation and live like an animal aside from lots of tv time. I’ve also met adults who have an aversion to eyeglasses as a culture thing, get called out when they try and take the driver’s license exam and can’t pass the vision screening. It is very very strange. But to make things better, we have to take the high road. You know those $10. dime store / pharmacy “reading glasses?” There are adults who need eyeglasses who buy those instead of getting an eye exam and prescription lenses. It’s way backwards and there’s probably more of this than you know.
Private Citizen
January 12th, 2013
5:37 pm
BF, I guess you’ve never met any parents who are nervous wrecks because they’ve had four addresses within two years and still can’t keep a working phone number, despite trying to keep it together and with evidence of vice that I can see. Methinks you talk of things of which you do not know. As a society, how we support those in need says a lot. We sure spend enough money prosecuting people. Guy I know said he met somebody in jail serving six months for riding bicycle without a tail-light. This is after I drove across town noon today and saw two police cars (different location) side of road, lights going. One of them had pulled over a person on a bicycle. In my opinion, there is a lot of police over-activity. I can tell you when I drove a funky car I got tickets all the time. When I drive a premium car, nary a ticket for years. It is that marked. Georgia law enforcement is just predatory as can be. We spend TONS of money harassing people, putting people in court and jail. and if you’re a school teacher you’re supposed to act like a little mouse and drive a Kia and go “squeak squeak” or better just never say anything. Role playing Role playing… Role playing.
Hmmm what is a cool car? Don’t drive one of these to work, for two reasons: It’s not on the Danielson Framework that owns you, and you will not appear penitent enough for public service. Maybe it could be countered by asking “What did I do wrong?” every day, therefore demonstrating that you are a politically reliable “reflective teacher.” Make grovelling an artform, school teacher training EM (education methods) 202 seminar.
Private Citizen
January 12th, 2013
5:38 pm
whoa. the link. http://www.teslamotors.com/
Colonel Jack
January 12th, 2013
8:01 pm
@Dekalbite … Your Mrs. Burke would today be deemed an unsatisfactory teacher. She used lecture, which for some ungodly reason is a bad word in education today, as a regular method of instruction. Her students were quiet, and not moving around and “discovering,” and she was being a teacher, not a “facilitator.” (I wish to Heaven I was making this up. The system I last taught in gave me those exact same failing grades on my last two evaluations.)
Was Mrs. Burke a great teacher? From everything you said, I can only conclude that she was a first-rate educator. But in the world the morons who run things have created, she’d be just like me…out on her ear.
Just A Teacher
January 12th, 2013
8:06 pm
“How do we pay for k-12 education? (”I don’t know,” says Rickman. “That really is the answer to that question.”)
How is that not issue #1? You can make all kinds of rules and recommendations but if you can’t pay for anything, you’re just spouting hot air!
dekalbcountymom
January 12th, 2013
8:43 pm
The real problems are the over-emphasis on sports and the anti-intellectual climate in Georgia. Please remember that not too long ago our erstwhile state school superintendent, Kathy Cox, tried to have the word “evolution” stricken from science textbooks, saying the concept was “controversial.” Add to that the lack of any mechanism for parents, students and other stakeholders to hold central administrations or school boards accountable for their actions. People hesitate to call these charlatans out for fear that the few good schools in their district will be punished. Yes, DeKalb County School System, I’m talking about you.
Beverly Fraud
January 12th, 2013
8:55 pm
“BF, I guess you’ve never met any parents who are nervous wrecks because they’ve had four addresses within two years and still can’t keep a working phone number, despite trying to keep it together and with evidence of vice that I can see.”
Yes I have. Poor parents who struggled, yet in their struggle instilled enough values that their children earned scholarship to college, hopefully to break a generational cycle of poverty.
And I’ve met parents, in similar surroundings, who chose to let their children sit on milk crates instead of furniture. Chose? Yes, when your 54 inch widescreen TV costs more than the rest of your furniture combined you are making a choice.
Let’s not smear everyone, but let’s not, under the guise of political correctness, pretend these dynamics, these values, these behavior choices don’t exist.
Truth in Moderation
January 12th, 2013
9:11 pm
By definition, home educators do not deal in statistics, they just do what is best for THEIR children. One advantage is the DNA connection. One’s children are biologically related, and therefore there is a greater chance that they will have your or your spouse’s same strengths, weaknesses, and interests. Being aware of this is a great advantage in choosing appropriate curriculum and guiding one’s child into a compatible career. Because of their academic freedom, home educators are free to use whatever curriculum and teaching style works best. With few exceptions, home school teachers use a variety of curricula. Personally, I have used many methods, and have found that some work better for certain kinds of learners AT CERTAIN AGES. For example, the “discovery method” is best used judiciously after certain rote mastery of facts has laid a solid foundation. Currently, we are using a unit study to explore Geometry through hands-on origami projects. My children are already expert origamists, so this has a high interest level for them. They are being challenged to think logically and discover math patterns and relationships through the folding exercises. Afterwards, they will return to more formal instruction in writing geometric proofs. However, they will now be able to visualize and understand the logic used with greater depth of understanding. This is the ART of teaching. The public school factory model will always come up short….by design.
bootney farnsworth
January 12th, 2013
9:38 pm
@ Attentive,
the sort of advocate I have in mind is someone who actually could tell the system to behave, stand down, and prove their points.
starting about three years ago at GPC, it became obvious Tricoli was empire building, and those who
supported him were able to flex muscles disproportionate to their alleged station at the school. very quickly those people began settling scores and destroying careers of people they didn’t like.
many of us tried to get HR to deal with it, only to find HR served as the hit team. some of us went to GAE, who basically said you got a point but nothing we can do. a few even went so far as to file ethics complaints only to find the system self investigates and -surprise- found nothing amiss.
a desperate/determined few even tried to take the issues downtown only to be told the BOR – run by Erroll Davis, mind you – would look into it.
we knew what was going on, that money was being spent recklessly, that careers were being destroyed, that a strong possibility of fiscal misdeeds was going on, but the system both didn’t care and didn’t want to hear it.
had there been someone at the state level who’s job it was to investigate claims made by staff, under the assumption the staff MIGHT be right…..who knows how many jobs and how many millions might have been saved.
bootney farnsworth
January 12th, 2013
9:49 pm
@ beverly,
I’m with you 10,000 %
after 1000 years at GPC, I get really annoyed with people who reflexively start beating the drum about how the poor -and lets be honest, in this context it is code for black- have so much stacked against them they can’t do much about education.
I’ve seen countless poor -ie, black- kids come through GPC from really bad situations. but they and their parents made the decision education was more important than many short term gratification issues.
race and income is nowhere near the issue. priorities are.
Proud Teacher
January 12th, 2013
9:53 pm
I find this national Stepford teaching technique fascinating. In what world does one size fit all? My school is in no way, K-12, even close to being ready to moving into the common core standards fiasco. Oh, the board thinks they are because the administration has reported all of the right spin on the curriculum and the faculty, for the most part, are playing the right games for the photo ops for the media, but it’s going to be a sad day when the ill-prepared graduates meet the real world. Some would say the sad day will be when the school’s numbers start falling; I disagree. I care more about my students than the ridiculous games played by people who call themselves educators but know nothing of real teaching.
bootney farnsworth
January 12th, 2013
9:54 pm
@ maureen,
there really is no way to make everything equal, too many variables. can’t legislate competence, commitment, parental involvement, ect
the only way I can think to genuinely attempt to level the field is to make sure every school, every system starts with the identical infastructure (books, technology, ect). make everything uniform at the start.
after that, its gonna be what the parents and community make out of it.
kwanzaf
January 12th, 2013
10:42 pm
@maureen
@bootney farnsworth
Public boarding schools would be able to control for those variable
Private Citizen
January 12th, 2013
11:03 pm
French teacher has figured out how to obey, sings the song. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yOD5mcMnfmI
Beverly Fraud
January 13th, 2013
5:26 am
To piggy back on what bootney says, you can’t improve teaching until you empower teachers.
We at a fundamental level are not honest enough to admit too many don’t want to empower teachers, because they are afraid they will lose their own power.
So we have “respected” people like Herb Garrett who with their actions say I hold teachers in complete, utter, total contempt and I HONOR those who do so as well
Not so you say? Then tell us, what other message we should take from Herb Garrett continuing to honor Beverly Hall? For that matter, what other message should we take from a newspaper that won’t even make a single inquiry as to why?
It’s a real, simple question It would take less than one minute to pose it. Is the AJC saying that those teachers whose careers were destroyed, those children whose educations were destroyed, are of so little value to our society, that the AJC can’t even take one minute to ask why those responsible are still being honored by Herb Garrett?
Because if we are that bereft of integrity in education, and education reporting, what does that say about ourselves?
bootney farnsworth
January 13th, 2013
6:00 am
@ beverly
far as I can tell, its a case of follow the money. no different than Michelle Rhee’s situation.
that or Herb is seriously crushing on her and has his love goggles on.
it could also be possible both Herb and GAEL are political whores
bootney farnsworth
January 13th, 2013
6:03 am
“Because if we are that bereft of integrity in education, and education reporting, what does that say about ourselves?”
talk about a Pandora’s box …..
I try not to think about the answer. too depressing
HoneyFern School
January 13th, 2013
8:41 am
No one addresses the two main issues: student engagement and relevance of curriculum to their lives.
In the Quality Counts 2013 report, GA gets 100% on implementing standards but a 73% on “chance for student success.”
A recent Gallup poll revealed the following: student engagement goes from 8 in 10 kids saying they are interested and engaged in school in elementary grades to just 3 in 10 saying the same thing by the time they reach high school.
Until we remove money and politics from schools and address the real lissues, putting students front and center, this nation’s schools will continue its steady trudge to the bottom.
Dr. Monica Henson
January 13th, 2013
9:33 am
Beverly Fraud extends the discussion on TKES/LKES and administrator bias with some great comments!
“But you have to understand, what you call “requires…to apply completely out of context and with out regard to ‘common sense’ is shockingly common in places like The Four Horsemen of the Incompetence.”
Well-understood on my part. As I’ve mentioned previously, I wrote my dissertation on teacher supervision & evaluation and the problems of administrators not executing it the way it’s intended. I also have worked in two different metropolitan Atlanta districts.
“…[I]f we are going to seriously hold teachers “accountable” why are we not just as serious about the times of administrative retaliation?”
I am of the opinion that LKES will do this, but ONLY IF leaders hold their direct report leaders accountable. The only way to ensure that this occurs is for boards of education and independent charter boards to evaluate superintendents & charter directors specifically accountable for the frequency and quality of how they evaluate principals (and how principals evaluate APs) on their implementation of TKES & LKES with fidelity to the model. That’s the way to achieve true accountability–what gets evaluated specifically gets paid attention to.
Most BOEs and charter boards aren’t composed of large percentages of folks capable of that aspect of superintendent/charter director evaluation. It could easily be contracted out to GaDOE and GCSA. I have recommended to GaDOE that they reach out to those organizations and provide awareness training, and I’ve been told that they are doing so.
“Would you allow outside evaluators (as the study suggested) to come in to your school to evaluate teachers as a legitimate protection to counter any bias? My guess (correct me if I’m wrong) you would be open to that, because a competent unbiased observer would probably not come up with anything that directly contradicts your observations.”
GaDOE’s Divison of Teacher & Leader Effectiveness has already reached out to pilot districts to request that they be permitted to send external evaluators (GaDOE evaluation specialists) in order to test inter-rater reliability. We enthusiastically responded and look forward to seeing how it works. Our current inter-rater reliability within our administration is extremely high.
“But a shocking number of status quo administrators aren’t like that. ”
Unfortunately, not shocking to me at all.
“So we need to be willing to ask the tough questions rather than just readily accept something because an ‘expert’ wrote it or Bill Gates spent $45 million helping implement it.”
Actually, I’ve read the research extensively on this subject, and Dr. Stronge is an authority in the field with a strong background. I wasn’t going to sign my organization up for something without checking it out first. The TKES standards are right in line with National Board Standards, and the LKES standards coincide with those of ISSLC. However, it’s the instruments themselves, as well as the electronic platform, that convinced me to request to join the pilot. TKES/LKES is truly a way to offer teachers meaningful evaluation, acknowledge their value addes (with extensive opportunity for teacher contribution of artifacts & evidence themselves), and it offers the best protections I’ve ever seen against administrator misuse of the instrument. You’re correct that there is always room for abuse, but I believe that the conversations being initiated by GaDOE with boards and district leaders are candid in addressing the inherent fears of the new system.
Dr. Monica Henson
January 13th, 2013
9:44 am
Dekalbite posted, “…[T]here are many different teaching styles and hemming teachers into a set of “observable behaviors” is the wrong way to go if you are serious about attracting and retaining good teachers.”
TKES doesn’t hem teachers into “a set of ‘observable behaviors’” at all. It focuses on the outcomes of the teacher’s behaviors, which is what you did when you realized that although Mrs. Burke’s behaviors were quite different from your own, the end result was a well-managed classroom with kids who were engaged in learning–in large part because they had a positive relationship with Mrs. Burke, respected her, and therefore were listening and responding to what she taught them.
There is no checklist in TKES–the emphasis is on whether students are learning, which is measured in a broad variety of ways, most of which are teacher-identified assessment means and objective data generated within the classroom, not just looking at state test scores.
Dr. Monica Henson
January 13th, 2013
9:55 am
Colonel Jack posted, “Your Mrs. Burke would today be deemed an unsatisfactory teacher. She used lecture, which for some ungodly reason is a bad word in education today, as a regular method of instruction. Her students were quiet, and not moving around and ‘discovering,’ and she was being a teacher, not a ‘facilitator.’”
Not necessarily true. Lecture, in and of itself, is not a “bad” or “ineffective” instructional strategy. However, and that’s a BIG qualifier, there are extremely few individuals, at any level K-12 (and beyond), capable of relying solely on lecture to engage students in substantive learning. By substantive learning, I mean learning that leads to verifiable outcomes, not just the teacher’s opinion, “Well I taught it, so if they don’t perform well on the CRCT/EOCT/GHSWT/SAT/ACT/AP Exam, that’s their own fault.”
I would argue that it’s damn near impossible to teach any middle grades classroom in a public school purely by lecture, and pretty close to damn near impossible to do it at the high school level. I can verify in 25 years of working in education that I’ve seen two individuals who could do it at the high school level, and they were incredibly dynamic and charismatic personalities. Interestingly, they did not rely solely on lecture, but it was in fact their primary strategy, probably 70 to 80% of their instruction. Their students produced outstanding achievement on state and other external measures, so it wasn’t just their own opinion or mine that they were outstanding teachers. I didn’t “mark them down” on their evaluations because that would have been unfair and inaccurate. They were both ranked among the highest-scoring teachers in the building (they worked in the same school).
‘ve never seen a middle grades teacher able to do it, although I’ve seen huge numbers of of them try, back in the day, with the predictable outcomes of bored, misbehaving, and/or sleeping kids, with commensurate external achievement outcome measures.
Dr. Monica Henson
January 13th, 2013
10:08 am
bootney farnsworth posted, “[R]ace and income is nowhere near the issue. priorities are.”
This is true in the reverse of the examples cited in this discussion thread. I’ve seen white parents who are solidly upper middle-class that didn’t give a damn about whether their kids came to a school dance drunk, danced with each other in simulations of sexual activity (which our headmaster at this school didn’t prohibit because of the outcry by parents when their kids were deprived of the opportunity to “just be kids”), their daughters dressed more like they were going to an adult cocktail party than to a high school algebra class, etc.
I’ve seen them refuse to attend disciplinary meetings to deal with their children’s verbal abuse against teachers. I’ve seen them refuse to impose any home-based discipline that would have been effective in dealing with academic issues (such as withdrawal of cell phone privileges until tardiness ceased and assignments were handed in). Permitting them to attend football games and go to the movies with their friends even though they were failing most of their classes. But then, when you impose home discipline, you need to be willing to put up with some whining and upset from your little darlings when you enforce it. Lord knows I heard some out of my own kids when I did what needed to be done to make sure they were doing what they needed to do at school.
Crappy parenting knows no color or income level. There’s plenty of it going around at all economic levels of society.
Dr. Monica Henson
January 13th, 2013
10:10 am
Bootney Farnsworth posted, “[R]ace and income is nowhere near the issue. [P]riorities are.”
Truer words were never spoken. Some of the worst parents I’ve ever dealt with were white, suburban, and upper-middle class.
Crappy parenting knows no racial or economic boundaries. There’s plenty of it going around at all levels of society.
Private Citizen
January 13th, 2013
10:18 am
I am going to try and make sense of this as a whole. It is an ambitious task, in two sections.
I. Excepts, followed by brief opinion commentary.
II. Interpretation
A. What is being emphasised
B, What is not being emphasised, in other words, what is left out.
III. Remaining / abstract questions
EXCERPTS
1. Race to the Top: Halfway through implementing grant. Where do we stand?
- You have run off a lot of good people who do not wish to role play and be over-evaluated according to a formula.
2. Elevating low performing schools. Will require high performing teachers and leaders.
-Continued and unremitting emphasis on HR, with zero attention to linear curriculum and resources.
3. How do we pay for k-12 eduction? (”I don’t know,” says Rickman. “That really is the answer to that question.”)
Very little attention to efficiency, real information, or examining effective models from elsewhere (outside of the United States). Political Subtext “We are helpless… we do not know what to do.”
4. Help wanted: Hiring 250,000 new graduates. Where are they? Only 42 percent has a college degree; State needs 250,000 more graduates.
Blunt numbers talk, denying identity to people. Maybe there are students, like teachers, who want “away” from your system.
5. Early learning: What this issue focuses on is high quality learning from the zero to age 3 population.
This sounds crazy and irrelevant to the main. Example of poor boundaries. Age 0-3? Must be nice for you to enjoy being abstract while mandating the actions of every one else.
6. Stem: Promoting the sciences and math for both workforce and economic development. Fastest growing job fields in state and nation. What is Georgia doing to promote STEM learning?
Linear curriculum is how you teach math and science. This seems to be lost on you. Why are the “leaders” asking so many questions, instead of hammering nails (answers and action) into the lumber (real management.) Why are the leaders depowered? Are they waiting on Mr. Barge to return and bring the orders from Duncan / Gates? Seems to be the case. Meanwhile, everyone plays helpless and “seeking.”
7. Waiver from No Child and what it means.
It doesn’t mean anything. It’s obsolete, just like ill-named “Race to the Top” is going to be obsolete.
8. Technology; the next generation of learning. How is technology being used in classroom?
Because you do not equitably distribute resources and linear curriculum, this is a meaningless question. Every district has different textbooks, resources, it is completely patch-work and that is the answer to your question. Null and void due to denial of standardization and support resources.
9. Final issue: Demographics; Changing face of Georgia public schools. Tremendous demographic shift within Georgia. For all these reforms to be successful and for education continue to improve from birth through work, we need to pay attention to those demographic shifts, says Rickman.
10. Rickman says her major concern is the growth of children living in poverty in Georgia. The key to economic development is a strong education system. Children in poverty undermine a strong education system as they are harder to educate, need more resources.
11. “It is very complicated but what the state was trying to do is get away from good school, bad school, pass, fail,” says Rickman, “and use this as a learning tool for the districts and the schools.”
12. Nolt said the complexity and shadings within theses ratings will be channeled into an easier-to-understand format for parents.
13. Morris News Service reporter Walter Jones just asked Rickman what parents can do if they are not happy with their school. She says she recommends parents join the PTA and get involved and try to push change. Another reporter asked now what parents can do if they have gotten involved and are still unhappy. (These reporters come across the state so I don’t know all of them.)
14. Rickman says parents can choose another option for their child. She says there are choice options now in Georgia.
15. Principals will do two 30 minute observation sessions of each teacher. There are also four 10-minute walk-throughs where principals are looking at one or two standards in action. If principal does not see enough evidence when he or she visits the classroom, then the teachers will have an opportunity to provide documentation that they are meeting the standard.
16. For teacher teaching in non-tested subjects — 70 percent of courses in a school , including art music, AP class, IB classes, foreign language are in the non-tests category — state is now developing pre and post tests for those courses. They are called SLOs, Student learning objectives.
17. State is dealing with findings from pilot information on teacher evluations. This year will be a hold-harmless year for value-added measures.
Now Andrews is talking about the companion evaluation system to measure leader effectiveness.
18. This is for building-level leadership. Principals will be rated on eight standards. They must meet all eight of those standards. They also have to develop two unique goals tied to their own school improvement plan. Every staff member, including cafeteria, custodians, completes a climate survey on the principal. Principal will choose which groups will rate assistant principal. Principal evaluations will look at student attendance. Also, look at how effective principals are in retaining effective teachers.
19. “We know that teachers… leaders first. So, we want to see how effective principals are in retaining those effective teachers.”
20. Also, state will look at student performance piece for principals. Looking at how the achievement gap between bottom 25 percent and rest of student is being closed.
21. So, now, we have both teacher and leader effectiveness measures.
22. “Race to the Top is not driving the work. The work is driving Race to the Top. These are initiatives we wanted to do. We didn’t have the money to do them. Race to the Top gave us the money.”
23. Greatest challenge with Race to the Top is moving from piloting, refining, implementing to sustaining.
24. Gates Foundation… consider video reviews of teachers in the classrooms.
25. Her answer: It make take a culture shift but principals have to realize that their top priority (is doing work review of teachers)
26. She says we have seamless articulation from technical colleges and four-year schools as part of Deal’s Complete College Initiative. She said Deal was inspired by Florida’s Take Stock in Children program, and has replicated it here. Kids selected in middle school are asked to sign contracts that they will work hard. If they have satisfied the contract and worked hard by the end of high school, they are given $2,500 from the state to attend college.(You can read about the program here.)
27. HOPE: Deal is adding 3 percent to HOPE Scholarship awards this year. But tuition has gone up more than 3 percent. “What a student got last year will increase by 3 percent in terms of this year,” says Bernhard.
28. Her theme is the changing classroom and changing schools. She has a prepared and passionate speech, which essentially says the old ways won’t work with students. Content is no longer delivered as much as it is discovered. There is an app for everything.
29. “Education is no longer one size fits all, which, if we are honest, is really one size fits none.”
30. Asked about the new teacher evaluation system, Eckman says she like the new system better than Class Keys which “told us so much, it told us nothing.” The new method gives teachers more feedback, more meaningful insights in what they must improve.
31. Eckman says that the state is about to graduate its first class of high school school students who are truly digital natives, raised with all the new technologies and at ease with them. When these digital natives go to college and become teachers, they will bring their expertise to the classroom and be able to share it with veteran teachers, she says.
_____________________
INTERPRETATION
What is being emphasised:
Private Citizen
January 13th, 2013
10:25 am
(Note: I was in the middle of posting and my internet connection “reset the connection” and erased the browser screen, therefore, this post will have to be in more than one part. I am fortunate to have been able to retrieve the existent post from my browser cache – close call.) to continue…
Beverly Fraud
January 13th, 2013
10:45 am
“Beverly Fraud extends the discussion on TKES/LKES and administrator bias with some great comments!”
Dr. Henson be careful; I get the feeling from the response of unnamed others on this blog, if they had their way, saying anything that could be construed as validating Beverly Fraud, on any level, might show up on a rubric to automatically downgrade administrators LOL
I will say, though I still consider it a Deal with the Devil™ it is posts like yours that make the case to pass Amendment 1. There just has to be options for those who can be fair and competent outside the education monolith, without fear that having those attributes will be actively discouraged in the name of protecting the monolith.
Of course the down side is the very good chance there will be a “Science Academy” somewhere in Georgia in the near future, that guides students in the study of ancient history using “accurate maps” based on aerial views of cavemen riding pterodactyls back when the world was first created 6,000 years ago.
I trust you have no maps like that as an online resource Dr. Henson…but no worries, I’m sure they will soon be readily available.
leslie
January 13th, 2013
10:47 am
I have been teaching for 17 years,and I am calling it quits without a future job. I can’t take this job anymore. I have not had any type of raise in seven years, but I’m supposed to do more work. The children are having more mental issues I have ever seen in my years of teaching. Who is to blame for that? You can not teach Common Core Standards because you are dealing with so many children with so many issues! Then you have unsupported administrators and parents. They think you are going to bodily harm to students who already have major issues that you don’ t know how to deal with because you are not a psychiatrist.
Then administrators want you to work for free. How can you work for months and don’t get paid until months later? Who treat their employees like that? How can you expect me to come to work and be elated under these conditions? How can you still have the audacity to pay teachers once a month in this century? But I’m suppose to be worried about students taking physics while I’m trying to make ends meet until 31 days to get a half of a decent check.If people want to bash education/teachers, I am going to bash it too but from a teacher’ s pov. Teachers rather good or bad help make the world go around in every aspect. If it was not for teachers, most of Americans would not be able to go work or just have some me time. We help shape the present and future. We keep people working while we babysit their children.
How can entertainers make more than a teacher? We have to entertain everyday but without the pay. Yes, we know we were not going to be rich like entertainers , but I did not know my salary was going to be cut by 8,000 a year while they are still making millions. On that note, who would ever want to be a teacher in today’ s society? Nobody!!!!!!
leslie
January 13th, 2013
10:47 am
I have been teaching for 17 years,and I am calling it quits without a future job. I can’t take this job anymore. I have not had any type of raise in seven years, but I’m supposed to do more work. The children are having more mental issues I have ever seen in my years of teaching. Who is to blame for that? You can not teach Common Core Standards because you are dealing with so many children with so many issues! Then you have unsupported administrators and parents. They think you are going to bodily harm to students who already have major issues that you don’ t know how to deal with because you are not a psychiatrist.
Then administrators want you to work for free. How can you work for months and don’t get paid until months later? Who treat their employees like that? How can you expect me to come to work and be elated under these conditions? How can you still have the audacity to pay teachers once a month in this century? But I’m suppose to be worried about students taking physics while I’m trying to make ends meet until 31 days to get a half of a decent check.If people want to bash education/teachers, I am going to bash it too but from a teacher’ s pov. Teachers rather good or bad help make the world go around in every aspect. If it was not for teachers, most of Americans would not be able to go work or just have some me time. We help shape the present and future. We keep people working while we babysit their children.
How can entertainers make more than a teacher? We have to entertain everyday but without the pay. Yes, we know we were not going to be rich like entertainers , but I did not know my salary was going to be cut by 8,000 a year while they are still making millions. On that note, who would ever want to be a teacher in today’ s society? Nobody!!!!!!
Private Citizen
January 13th, 2013
11:24 am
9. Final issue: Demographics; Changing face of Georgia public schools. Tremendous demographic shift within Georgia. For all these reforms to be successful and for education continue to improve from birth through work, we need to pay attention to those demographic shifts, says Rickman.
- Ms. Rickman, You do not have the right to appropriate people from “birth through work.” This is neither the function or purpose of education.
10. Rickman says her major concern is the growth of children living in poverty in Georgia. The key to economic development is a strong education system. Children in poverty undermine a strong education system as they are harder to educate, need more resources.
-The answer to this is a separate division concerning social wellbeing of constituents. It does not belong as a part of the core education function, however, like internet connectivity, there should be a separate division to at least document what is occuring with public health of students.
11. “It is very complicated but what the state was trying to do is get away from good school, bad school, pass, fail,” says Rickman, “and use this as a learning tool for the districts and the schools.”
Anything bureaucratic that is “very complicated” is not being performed in a direct manner.
12. Nolt said the complexity and shadings within theses ratings will be channeled into an easier-to-understand format for parents.
-Complexity and shadings? No thanks. Completely irrelevant fog-speak.
13. Morris News Service reporter Walter Jones just asked Rickman what parents can do if they are not happy with their school. She says she recommends parents join the PTA and get involved and try to push change. Another reporter asked now what parents can do if they have gotten involved and are still unhappy. (These reporters come across the state so I don’t know all of them.)
“PTA doctrine” is a redirect. The best schools in the nation do not have “PTA” and do not want one. Parents want work and home, not to play-act like they have something to do with school management that is the job someone else is being paid to do. There is no teacher anywhere that wants anything to do with a PTA meeting. This is a nice idea for eco-recycling and the like, rightfully should have nothing to do with school administration.
14. Rickman says parents can choose another option for their child. She says there are choice options now in Georgia.
-Many sane persons who know how to produce want nothing to do with schooling that lacks linear curriculum and resources and instead occupies itself with overt authority as an end in itself (birth to work, peasant).
15. Principals will do two 30 minute observation sessions of each teacher. There are also four 10-minute walk-throughs where principals are looking at one or two standards in action. If principal does not see enough evidence when he or she visits the classroom, then the teachers will have an opportunity to provide documentation that they are meeting the standard.
- Principals are now force co-opted into enforcing scripted worker mono-culture. The only educators who want to work in this type environment are opportunistic fakes seeking to max out the government system for personal gain.
16. For teacher teaching in non-tested subjects — 70 percent of courses in a school , including art music, AP class, IB classes, foreign language are in the non-tests category — state is now developing pre and post tests for those courses. They are called SLOs, Student learning objectives.
- If you are focusing on testing prior to putting into place linear curriculum and standardised support materials, you have a major dysfunction on your hands.
17. State is dealing with findings from pilot information on teacher evaluations. This year will be a hold-harmless year for value-added measures. Now Andrews is talking about the companion evaluation system to measure leader effectiveness.
-Therefore, when fully activated, evaluation system will contain “harm.” That’s what it says.
18. This is for building-level leadership. Principals will be rated on eight standards. They must meet all eight of those standards. They also have to develop two unique goals tied to their own school improvement plan. Every staff member, including cafeteria, custodians, completes a climate survey on the principal. Principal will choose which groups will rate assistant principal. Principal evaluations will look at student attendance. Also, look at how effective principals are in retaining effective teachers.
- This is like a dreamscape for running off good people and “retaining” politically pleasant folk. It has turned work review into fetish, huge emphasis on finding something wrong. It is said in a country of many laws, everyone is guilty of something. So school effectiveness is now a popularity contest, and has nothing to do with whether or not there is linear curriculum and standardised support materials? This is a sad situation when codified into law. The authority people have built themselves a doll house and are calling it education. No one is building doctors and engineers, but school emotional “climate” is the priority upon which people’s careers are determined.
19. “We know that teachers… leaders first. So, we want to see how effective principals are in retaining those effective teachers.”
-Where did principals suddenly become so “powerful?” Who are you kidding. Central run off and route principals just like they do with good teachers who are not brother / sister / cousin of these bizarre school board folk. If you think otherwise, you’re not looking very much. Nice move- shift the whole mess onto the principal’s head. It is like they have maxed out tight-control on teachers, and are now moving up the food chain. Something tells me none of this “evaluation” method will extend outside of the school house. Okay, do your thing, but don’t tell us that a principal is the determinant of who wants to work where. If that’s the case, you’ve got a political problem with who has the power. Effective teacher should be able to work anywhere without some gorilla principal on their neck for good, bad, or worse. You’re taking basic functioning and turning it into politically loaded gamesmanship. And the people doing this don’t even know it because they do not know anything else and have not studied public administration and are rolling their own dope handed to them by Gates and Duncan, making “politically charged” environment where there should be none. Run for your life from this amatuer-hour substitute for principled management according to rules for public administration.
20. Also, state will look at student performance piece for principals. Looking at how the achievement gap between bottom 25 percent and rest of student is being closed.
- more authority fetish simultaneous to a void in linear curriculum and support materials. The state bosses have taken a left turn and the easy way out. Now to blame the principals for student achievement, meanwhile the state is not doing their job making sure you’ve got quality math, science, language books and software, whether you are in Valdosta, Brunwick, Macon, Atlanta, of just south of Chattanooga. But you’re going to blame the teachers and principals for not sprinkling around enough pixie dust and “inventing” effective “methods.” Meanwhile resources are all over the place, some have them and some do not.
21. So, now, we have both teacher and leader effectiveness measures.
-Yes, we are informed, ad infinitum, for it is all that you do.
22. “Race to the Top is not driving the work. The work is driving Race to the Top. These are initiatives we wanted to do. We didn’t have the money to do them. Race to the Top gave us the money.”
- Be glad when this thing is done and put to bed like a mad cow.
23. Greatest challenge with Race to the Top is moving from piloting, refining, implementing to sustaining.
- This is the language of an agenda of self-important incoherence. Fine for a weekend party, but that’s not what you do. You code it into law and force people to role play to the point that those who know better have no choice but to get away from you, for your priorities do not match your mission. You think education is appropriating people and telling them what to do as an end in itself.
24. Gates Foundation… consider video reviews of teachers in the classrooms.
- wow. just wow. Do you not think the “Computer man” Gates would be concerned that everyone has curriculum materials and books and software before he pushed an agenda of his emphasis on evaluating other people. This is completely bizarre. I do not want to work in a school without books and software and then have the emphasis be videotaping me teaching the materials I have been forced to author myself because there are no official resources. Maybe Bill just wants to steal the creative work of teachers. You latest lesson plan will end up being packaged and sold by a division of Disney, coodinated by Bill Gates’ consortium. (It could happen, Walt Disney is dead and gone. They’re a big company now that has stolen IP from creative people and used it to produce / sell media)
25. Her answer: It make take a culture shift but principals have to realize that their top priority (is doing work review of teachers)
- Head meet desk. Head meet wall. Beat head against wall, will feel better. “Georgia” seems to have some basic issues about “what is education” and what are duties and “priorities” and how the intellectual food chain works that transfers knowledge and ability.
26. She says we have seamless articulation from technical colleges and four-year schools as part of Deal’s Complete College Initiative. She said Deal was inspired by Florida’s Take Stock in Children program, and has replicated it here. Kids selected in middle school are asked to sign contracts that they will work hard. If they have satisfied the contract and worked hard by the end of high school, they are given $2,500 from the state to attend college.(You can read about the program here.)
- Seamless say what? This is political double speak. Okay, so the capable kids from good homes are each going to get $2500.? yerrrhhh o-kay. This is like putting a bouquet of flowers on the table and then serving oatmeal for dinner (without sugar on the oatmeal.)
27. HOPE: Deal is adding 3 percent to HOPE Scholarship awards this year. But tuition has gone up more than 3 percent. “What a student got last year will increase by 3 percent in terms of this year,” says Bernhard.
– Know a lot of people getting benefit of “Hope” scholarship. They tend to be professional level families who exploit this system. Personally, I think the state should not be in the gaming / gambling business. To my view, “Hope Scholarship” is like when people know how to exploit certain tax loopholes. The rest of us who are less crafty both pay tuition and also know what it is like to pay your way and not exploit other people for your own gain.
28. Her theme is the changing classroom and changing schools. She has a prepared and passionate speech, which essentially says the old ways won’t work with students. Content is no longer delivered as much as it is discovered. There is an app for everything.
29. “Education is no longer one size fits all, which, if we are honest, is really one size fits none.”
- More smoke and mirrors double-speak. If you’re training doctors and engineers, you either do it or you don’t. Hey – welcome to the rest of the world. (Nobody gives two faxes about your multi-methods, especially when it is a cover for not having equitable linear curriculum and books/software supplies for all students.)
30. Asked about the new teacher evaluation system, Eckman says she like the new system better than Class Keys which “told us so much, it told us nothing.” The new method gives teachers more feedback, more meaningful insights in what they must improve.
- Who thinks this evaluation festish is productive? It is like grading Burger King workers on counter skills, meanwhile the food’ll kill you if you eat too much of it. Nice technique for avoiding the food-stuffs, make a fetish out of focusing on labor – ad infinitum. Then, think up a new way to do it and do it again.
31. Eckman says that the state is about to graduate its first class of high school school students who are truly digital natives, raised with all the new technologies and at ease with them. When these digital natives go to college and become teachers, they will bring their expertise to the classroom and be able to share it with veteran teachers, she says.
- In the 1970s, we had “bell bottomed natives” and “incense natives.” But the state did not use them as props. Math, Science, and language were taught at career level, before the great federal emotion indoctrination began combined with mixing it up in the math book and putting algebra and geometry together like an incomprehensible salad.
_____________________
INTERPRETATION
What is being emphasised: Hey, if you keep people dumb, you can rob them blind.
I’d like to thank Steve Hackett and his artist collective for keeping me company while I typed this response.
Private Citizen
January 13th, 2013
11:46 am
I’ve seen them refuse to impose any home-based discipline that would have been effective in dealing with academic issues (such as withdrawal of cell phone privileges until tardiness ceased and assignments were handed in). Permitting them to attend football games and go to the movies with their friends even though they were failing most of their classes. But then, when you impose home discipline, you need to be willing to put up with some whining and upset from your little darlings when you enforce it.
This is a boundary issue. There are limits educator’s duty or ability to “raise kids” and the kids and families legitimately have the right to act like trash or rich kids or tarts or whatever. Truly, it is their business. The school house should govern behavior on the premises and fail kids who do not do the work, or at least exhibit appropriate moderate effort. School administrators and teachers must be regarded to govern their environment and professional work. If the situation is otherwise, and admin. and teachers are treated as a doormat by entitled parents, then like Reagan told Gorbachev, (adapted) “Leave this environment now. Do not work there.” Corrupted environments only get worse, too. They do not self-cure.
Fred in DeKalb
January 13th, 2013
11:49 am
**Some of the worst parents I’ve ever dealt with were white, suburban, and upper-middle class.**
Truer words could not have been blogged! What some have been doing in DeKalb for years would not be tolerated by Alvin Wilbanks in Gwinnett.
Fred in DeKalb
January 13th, 2013
11:52 am
Private Citizen, you are on a roll with your posts!! Keep up the good work as you are telling it like it is.
Colonel Jack
January 13th, 2013
1:17 pm
@Dr. Henson … I agree with you 100% that lecture is not solely a good instructional method. But the current climate (at least in the system I just left) is that lecture is NEVER a good instructional method, and anyone who uses it even occasionally is violating some form of protocol regarding being an effective teacher. I consider myself one of those who can use lecture perhaps 50% of the time, because I have also been a professional entertainer and can indeed gain and hold the attention of my middle school students. I use a variety of other instructional techniques as well, but for some reason my administrators focused on the fact that I do lecture … and that turned into a major downcheck for me.
You see, as much as we would prefer it not be so, many (if not most) administrators simply use a checklist for their evaluations. Is the teacher doing this? Does the teacher have this, that, and the other on the wall or on the board? Are the students talking? Is the teacher “facilitating”? (And before anyone says otherwise, save your breath. I’ve seen the checklist. I have copies of the checklist. It exists and administrators use it to the exclusion of actually evaluating.) As long as administrators evaluate teachers on a yes/no checklist, the evaluations aren’t worth the paper they’re going to be printed on.
I’ll tell you what kind of evaluation caught my attention. A few years ago, one of my former students was selected STAR student for his high school (and for the system). Rather than choose any of his teachers from high school, he went back to middle school and selected me as his STAR teacher. That kind of evaluation spoke volumes, in my view.
Dr. Henson, from all I’ve read, I wish I’d worked in your school. I’d still be teaching. And most likely enjoying every minute of it.
Phil Brown
January 13th, 2013
2:48 pm
#1 is administration…Teachers should be private practitioners like doctors practice medicine. They should be licensed and governed by a board of ethics. There is no need for principals, boards of education or superintendents. They are complete wastes of money and time. The state needs to stop legislatively micromanaging (emotional abuse) and allow teachers to diagnose student problems and prescibe treatment plans. Parents should be held completely accountable for following teacher prescriptions. If the parent fails to follow the plan they should be charged with educational neglect ans investigated for child abuse.
Dr. Monica Henson
January 13th, 2013
4:58 pm
Colonel Jack, the kind of evaluation you describe (a STAR Student choosing you as his STAR Teacher) says it all, and quite eloquently.
Competent administrators don’t attempt to force competent teachers to fit a mold. I do argue, however, that teachers who do not exhibit proficiency need to have their work directed until they do. The key is to train administrators to distinguish accurately among the levels of competence in any evaluation instrument.
On the topic of “the checklist” (”I’ve seen the checklist. I have copies of the checklist. It exists and administrators use it to the exclusion of actually evaluating.”), are you making reference to TKES? During credentialing training, administrators are repeatedly reminded that the rubrics are not checklists and are not to be used as such.
Dr. Monica Henson
January 13th, 2013
4:59 pm
Phil Brown, you are aware, are you not, that physicians in private practice operate their own businesses? Are you suggesting that each teacher become an independent contractor and run his/her own school?
Physicians who work in hospitals are subject to administration by the hospital authority.
ColonelJack
January 13th, 2013
5:23 pm
Dr. Henson … TKES is precisely what I’m referring to. And while administrators may indeed be told not to use them as checklists…at least in my building for the last two years I was there, that’s exactly how they were used. During my final year I wasn’t even actually evaluated (timed visit by the principal) at all. Just videotaped … and the results of that videotape were never discussed with me. By that time, the decision about my future had already been made, and as I noted, it was primarily payroll driven (the only Ed.S. holder on the school’s teaching staff, I made too much money).
You said it all in your words, “Competent administrators…” At my school, we did not have competent administrators. (I happen to know that our principal just received her leadership certificate last year — her SECOND year on the job.)
bob
January 13th, 2013
9:41 pm
If all the ills of society are based on teachers and teaching. Who get paid so much. Why be one?
Phil Brown
January 13th, 2013
9:55 pm
Dr. Henson, I am aware of what you are saying. Unless teachers demand respect they are never going to get it. I am suggesting teachers have their own private classroom. The state could give vouchers to families and let them choose their own teacher. They fund things like this all the time such as mandated court decisions for mental health treatment. They are also funding private charter schools…Imagine education without political agendas where parents and children are held accountable for their own progress. Currenlty, administrators hold teachers accountable for outcomes they can never control. This is emotional abuse and an enabling factor leading children to be irresponsible. This filters down to the children not unlike an abusive family.
I know my philosophy must seem extreme to you…I respect your philosophy. However, think of all the road blocks standing in the way of success. Get rid of them and rely on the individuals trained to educate our children. We rely on doctors and attourneys all the time…why not give the same respect and prestige to teachers? Stop abusing them with constant change and buzz agendas such as STEM learning and making kids choose a creer in 8th grade…We’re using our children as a social experiement instead of being a steady and consistent tool for cvreating our future.
Cassidy
January 13th, 2013
10:53 pm
Dr. Henson – you seem like an excellent administrator and I think you probably do use these evaluation tools in the appropriate manner, but you seem so intent on defending them that you might be missing the point from the other commenters. Maybe the tool isn’t the problem, but the problem is the people using the tools. You seem to be taking your perception of the evaluation system and how it is used in your area and assuming it is used that way in every district. I think this is the big problem here because I don’t really feel that you are HEARING what is being said. You keep repeating training and how the evaluators have been told not to do XYZ, but what the people who are in the schools are telling you is that it is still being misused regardless of training. You must hear this and really take that point in. How it should be used is not how it is being used. This seems to be running off the good teachers and it doesn’t appear to be improving education.
I’m just an objective party in this and I don’t really have any skin whatsoever in this game. I am not from the Atlanta area and am just here working for a government agency to pay off my student loans from my Masters program. I don’t have any children and am no longer buying a house here because I don’t feel comfortable making any investment in the area based on the level of corruption and the problems with schools (probation, accreditation, out of control BOEs) because the schools have such a great impact on communities and housing prices. I lived in the Atlanta area ten years ago before I decided to change careers and return to school and this needs to be heard, too: the metro Atlanta area has fallen apart and is a ghost of what it was just a decade ago. Atlanta will not make a comeback until people put away pc speak and start addressing the real problems and the real root cause of those problems. Teachers are NOT (and make sure you really hear this) the problem. Are there bad teachers? Probably, but not so many that it would explain the decline of the area. This is a cultural problem (not a race problem, but a cultural problem).
Understand what I am saying here. I lived in Atlanta before, but left for career reasons. I wanted to come back to Atlanta and was excited to do so. I am leaving Atlanta as soon as I can because of the corruption and cronyism that has led to the decline of the metro area. This is a systemic problem due to the inability of the voters to vote in quality people at all levels of government both Democrat and Republican. Much of this inability is cultural. If I see this then others will see it, as well, and that could have a negative effect on any economic recovery. Additionally, it doesn’t help that an armored truck has to patrol neighborhoods in South Fulton. Seriously, any time an armored truck has to patrol an area within 50 miles of your home you have to really consider if you really want that to be your home.
Dr. Monica Henson
January 13th, 2013
11:56 pm
Phil Brown, I actually like parts of your idea quite a lot. I wouldn’t be opposed to a much freer marketplace for education, where the money truly follows the child. I was just asking clarifying questions to see if that’s what you were getting at. I think for most teachers it would be unmanageable to try to operate a classroom as a business, though, the same way that doctors operate private practices.
One important clarification–there is no such thing as a state-funded “private” charter school, despite some of the misinformation tossed about on this blog. Read the statutes.
Dr. Monica Henson
January 14th, 2013
12:03 am
Cassidy posted, “You keep repeating training and how the evaluators have been told not to do XYZ, but what the people who are in the schools are telling you is that it is still being misused regardless of training. You must hear this and really take that point in. How it should be used is not how it is being used.”
I do understand what the participants are saying, and I’ve witnessed it myself with other evaluation instruments. The research on teacher supervision & evaluation is really clear on the problems with any instrument–it’s not the instrument itself, but whether the people in charge of applying it are actually using it the way it was designed to be used.
TKES and LKES should not be dismissed out of hand by teachers, however, based on the fact that so many administrators don’t apply it correctly. That’s a classic case of throwing out the baby with the bathwater. What needs to happen in this state is a frank, honest, and open conversation, at the superintendent, BOE/charter board, and GaDOE levels, of the simple fact that teacher supervision & evaluation is generally not valued highly or practiced correctly. If it were, we’d have a lot less complaining and attrition of our teacher corps, not to mention improved student outcomes. But that’s not a problem created by TKES/LKES–it’s a systemic defect in the public education system, and it can be remedied.
Dr. Monica Henson
January 14th, 2013
12:06 am
Look for Mr. Garrett & GSSA to fan the flames of discontent among PAGE & GAE members on this issue. It’s in the establishment’s interest to stir up the rank & file in opposition to reform that might lead to increased accountability at the administrator level.
ColonelJack
January 14th, 2013
8:06 am
Dr. Henson … I agree with you that the evaluation system itself is not the issue; it’s how the system is implemented. And your suggestions to remedy the situation are sound.
But, to quote Judge Judy, “Shoulda, woulda, coulda.” (No disrespect intended.) As long as the people responsible for evaluating teachers choose to do it the “easy” way, it doesn’t matter how valuable a tool the evaluation system is. Unless (and until) that systemic defect in the public education system is remedied, and that honest, frank, and open conversation takes place, what happened to me and to God knows how many other long-time educators will continue to happen.
What we need is more people like you in these positions, and not folks who got their administrative positions because of who they know (or what they know about whom).
Private Citizen
January 14th, 2013
8:13 am
1. Thought: WIth the advent of the TKES and LKES, the political class has basically invented an activity to give themselves something to do. It’s like they’re having a party for themselves and the teachers have to deal with it and those who do not want to be used as objects for this sort of indulgence will get away from them, the political caste.
2. There is also the aspect that through this emphasis, Gates / Duncan have bought-off the political caste, who then will implement whatever it is that Gates / Duncan (appointed to power by an investment banker, father is a University of Chicago psychology professor) are up to, whatever social engineering, testing, behavior databases, and continuation of caste system, for the up/down performance gradients are based on situational condition. One district has the golden spoon and fork and another district has the sack of potatoes and plastic-ware.
3. There are at least four classroom education environments: private school, charter school, public school district approved membership academy school, and public general education populace school, yet this TKES / LKES seems designed to use only one of these are objects: public general education. Therefore it is not an “education” philosophy, it is something else. Let’s call it an attention-seeking attention-consuming, money-consuming exploit, for central all of those appropriated administrators hours and teach hours attending indoctrination meetings cost money, and emotional energy.
4. Continuing with the concept of looking at teachers as doctors, is there any doctor where a manager comes in with a checklist to evaluate their medical work based on patient interaction, emotional climate, etc.? Are teachers independent practitioners? When you have twenty teachers each teaching the same subject and grade level and each doing something different because they must design and furnish their own teaching materials? Yes, they are independent practitioners. Usually doctors, yes also work alone, and are telling other people what to do, and would not put up with a manager who is not a doctor coming into their treatment room and evaluating them based on a checklist or “1 hour observation.” It’s just foul is what it is. Fortunately for doctors, they are in a little higher demand that to have to suffer such treatment as wage labor from efficiency experts. This is a whole-study section in study of labor management, when the people with the clipboards decide they are going to get more production out of the assembly line workers. hey teachers, don’t be dumb about it, even if Gates and Duncan are so morally bankrupt as to misrepresent their activities.
5. One reason I am lacking some unreserved respect for management, a work review with the very powerful principal who is evaluating, summing up my professional work and giving me advice, on the work review the title of the work I am teaching out of the text book is misspelled on the work review where it describes what I am doing. But I’m university trained in my application field, not seminar trained in “psychological operations as management.”
Private Citizen
January 14th, 2013
8:24 am
Conservative Think Tank Ranks Countries With Government-Run Health Care As The Freest In World
http://thinkprogress.org/health/2013/01/11/1429241/conservative-think-tank-ranks-government-run-health-care-as-compatible-with-freedom/
Private Citizen
January 14th, 2013
9:27 am
Point is doctors working in hospital have a pretty good idea of the tools they will have to work with. Teachers in government school do not. Why are Gates / Duncan vacant on this, and insist on emphasising process and method?
Private Citizen
January 14th, 2013
9:37 am
increased accountability at the administrator level
The term “administrator” has different meanings. Maybe we need more terms. To Gates / Duncan / LKES, “administrator” means either principal or assistant principal inside the school house. To many teacher, “administrator” means people in the main office and peripheral to the main office, a different caste from teachers in both activity and pay. Even increased attention on “administrators” will likely not address the pay / caste difference, where many teachers are paid $40k and it is typical / standard for main office staff and periphery to be paid $100k even in smaller districts. And especially considering the type of extended and personal-time hours teachers have to put it, I think it would be sensible to normalise pay scales and put some attention to what I call the “cult of executive compensation.” I am keen to do an international comparison to see how the rest of the rich world does pay for teachers / administrators. It seems in the U. S., over time, this arrangement has become leveraged to favor the “administrators.” It is also meritous to evaluate what are expected credentials for management positions. To me, it means accounting license for accounting, and public administration degree for public administration. When you have people with “advanced degrees” from for-profit distance learning schools and they are governing over persons with brick and mortar degrees from substantial university, there is a problem as there is a different set of ethics associated with each, a different culture. The distance learning for-profit managers can and do alienate and displace teachers who are there to do professional work, not work the government system for a $100k+/ year pay rate. There is quite a lot of this.
Just A Teacher
January 14th, 2013
11:06 am
@Colonel Jack . . . I am sorry that you lost your job due to discriminatory practices. I would never have believed that could happen until recently. The school system for which I work has been undergoing some of the most drastic cuts in local supplements, furloughs, and benefits supplements of all the school systems in Georgia, so I have been trying to move to another school system. the problem is that I have been a good teacher with an advanced degree and a loyal employee for a long time. Therefore, I have moved up near the top of the salary structure. I haven’t even been able to get an interview for the past 2 years because school systems are less interested in the quality of instruction the students receive than they are in how much it costs to provide it. The difference between hiring an experienced teacher with a master’s or doctoral degree and a couple of decades of experience and hiring a beginning teacher with a bachelor’s degree can be tens of thousands of dollars per year. Both teachers would be listed as highly qualified according to Georgia’s standards, so the school systems are going for the cheaper option.
Private Citizen
January 14th, 2013
11:22 am
The difference between hiring an experienced teacher with a master’s or doctoral degree and a couple of decades of experience and hiring a beginning teacher with a bachelor’s degree can be tens of thousands of dollars per year
Problem is no one seems to have the nerve to address this and to equalise pay. At least then, people who love to teach could work instead of being run off. I think the years / seniority teacher pay is a problem and should be address. I’d be fine working at moderate pay without the political harassment. Another factor is that as money is tight-tight-tightened, the deeply connected survive the cuts. I made it through three rounds of budget cuts. When the fourth round came, I did not want to be a classroom warrior with a heavy work load combined with kids evaluating me (I think it is morally reprehensible / inappropriate) combined with working with what is left of the survival-tribe. A heavy work load is one thing. A heavy work load with lots of political indoctrination and required meetings where they glorify this stuff is another thing. I guess I am just cut from a different block of wood. I also felt some conscience that I can survive “out here” and maybe I made a little room for someone else who might get less harassment. One thing is for sure, when I did the heavy work and delivered results, it seemed that no one cared in the least. And this is the same management that does everything in the name of “performance.” Strange times.
Private Citizen
January 14th, 2013
11:29 am
The Orwellian present in the United States: Department of Homeland Security has decided to invade academic programs:
________________________
To maximize DHS’ return on investment (???) in university-based research and education, the OUP (Office of University Programs) will:
Build a stable community of homeland security researchers and educators at U.S. colleges and universities.
Foster a homeland security culture within the academic community through research and educational programs.
http://www.dhs.gov/st-office-university-programs
Private Citizen
January 14th, 2013
11:31 am
Looks like we’ve got a new term for the lexicon:
homeland security researchers and educators
___________
Dr. Monica Henson
January 14th, 2013
1:05 pm
Wow! some very cool topics, and me with no time to address them today.
Back-to-back meetings until 5, then a speaking engagement. I’ll try to jump online tonight late and offer my thoughts. Private Citizen raises some fascinating issues that I really would like to chew on, because they mirror (in part) some of my own thinking.
Jim Rago
January 14th, 2013
3:10 pm
Our Education system is being overwhelmed due to the fact that people having larger families than they can afford to provide for…..The State of Georgia needs to limit the number of children people are having…..I wanted four children, but after our second child we realize how expensive it is raising children…so we stopped because we wanted to provide a certain standard for are children…… Today you have people who are currently on government subsidies struggling to feed and clothe their children and they’ll go around and have more children. Because it’s Uncle Sam’s responsibility to raise their family this is BS. During tough economic times yes Uncle Sam’s should assist but it’s now the standard thinking that Uncle Sam’s responsible for raising my family. Look at the idiot in Kentucky that had 33 children by 11 different women. Do the math and see how much it’s going to cost tax payers to pay for his family until they reach the age to 18 or better and you’re wondering why our system is broke…….
Private Citizen
January 14th, 2013
7:01 pm
Dr. Henson, Thank you for the affirmation. It will interesting to hear your commentary on what you think is resonant / relevant.
N. GA Teacher
January 15th, 2013
12:10 am
Notice that these “top ten concerns” types aren’t teachers. The “observations of the standards being taught” carries an implicit, insulting implication that teachers are NOT teaching what is “supposed” to be taught, and carries the same petty reek as “wanting to see student work posted”, “pretests and posttests” (which are unreliable due to student motivation at the moment) and rating teachers as “emergent, efficient, etc.” If you take a survey of teachers, you will get the “real” top ten concerns. First, restore teachers to the professional status they had in the 1950s-1980s. Nobody micromanages accountants, lawyers, nurses, engineers and other professionals. Believe me, teachers KNOW what and how they are supposed to be teaching. Principals, by all means visit the classes to express positive support and gratitude towards your staff, to see innovation, to send the kids the message that the administration is always watching for misbehaviors. By all means make suggestions for improvement to teachers, especially if you taught the same material for years prior to your admin job. Second, why aren’t DISCIPLINE and CONSEQUENCES mentioned? The reason we all look back at the 50s-70s as a sort of golden age is largely due to the fact that the great majority of our students were firmly disciplined at home and school. Those few who disrupted classrooms and disrespected teachers and property were EXPELLED. (Not given “ISS”, a stupid invention of the last 10-20 years, probably because overly liberal courts stopped expulsions). The judge, ironically, doubtless sends his kids to a private school that DOES expel troublemakers. Along with behavioral discipline comes academic discipline, meaning that we should expect kids to MAKE AN EFFORT in class and on homework. A lot of well-meaning people will say “well, the home lives are too chaotic, unsupportive, too poor, etc.). Yeah, maybe, but there were an awful lot of really wretched home lives in the depression, and during the second world war, and in the Jim Crow era, and during the great rust belt layoffs of the 70s. Yet those families and kids sucked it up if they wanted to stay in school. Why do private schools, many magnet schools, and many charter school work, as well as many places of business? The ultimate threat of expulsion/firing!! Third, funding is a problem, but a lot of the problem is allocation and ridiculous rules that limit allocations and revenue sources. Last, “technology” is a great buzzword for educrats, but students equate technology with entertainment (texting) from iphones and using facebook. Once they discover that REAL technology (calculations, spreadsheets, programming, CAD/CAM, surveying, physics and chemistry experiments and analyses, technical writing and editing, etc.) requires serious effort and study, then that turns us back to the discipline issues.
Private Citizen
January 15th, 2013
1:34 am
“pretests and posttests” (which are unreliable due to student motivation at the moment)
No, silly. They’re unreliable because individual teachers are expected to write or furnish the pre-tests and post-tests, just like they author or locate their own teaching materials. Therefore, there is less that zero statistical relevance to this disorganised mess / mandating pre-test and post-test, more time to make teachers “do things” per micromanaging while denying organization or source materials. I realised this quick during the go-’rounds of emphasis on “pre-test” / “post-test” and the bosses role playing play-acting that they are going to assemble the resultant “data” for some kind of result, meanwhile each teacher is inventing their own pre-tests and post-tests. Seriously, when this was happening, I was immediately, like, “Wth, Are the bosses complete idiots with swiss cheese in place of brains?” That’s how Georgia is set-up, with these literally idiotic mandates from the bosses and in this case, it is so bald faced in not computing, it just leaves a person speechless. There are definitely some externalities created by this sort of thing: ulcers and depression for the workers. And yes, I’ve taken 4 graduate level statistics courses and I’ve got complete frickin’ idiots in both the main district office and then their lackies in the school house telling me what to do.
Private Citizen
January 15th, 2013
1:41 am
Unsupported mandates are one thing. Claiming you are going to make “data” out of unsupported mandates without coordination of materials is pure fantasy. When applied to a professional environment, someone should walk down to the courthouse and pay the fifty bucks and put them in court for forcing people to do things that makes no sense. It is like these visionary bosses plant tadpoles and tell everybody we’re going to be eating tomato sandwiches. It’s friggin’ ridiculous.
Dr. Monica Henson
January 15th, 2013
9:05 pm
“Continuing with the concept of looking at teachers as doctors, is there any doctor where a manager comes in with a checklist to evaluate their medical work based on patient interaction, emotional climate, etc.?”
I happen to very much like the metaphor of teachers as doctors, because I like the concept of the teaching hospital, where practicing physicians instruct and guide the next generation, inducting them into the practice of medicine. I also would like to see teachers be much better educated & prepared before they are permitted to run their own classrooms without substantial oversight. Physicians must complete a bachelor’s degree, several years’ graduate school, internship, and residency before they are certified as practicing doctors. HUGE difference between that and what a typical K12 teacher is required to do. To answer your question: yes, there are environments where physicians are in fact subjected to managerial oversight–hospitals and franchise operations. In hospitals that receive federal reimbursement, the Affordable Care Act now requires patient surveys to be administered and the results reported to the federal government. Hospitals that don’t meet minimum patient satisfaction standards risk losing federal reimbursement.
“Are teachers independent practitioners? When you have twenty teachers each teaching the same subject and grade level and each doing something different because they must design and furnish their own teaching materials? Yes, they are independent practitioners. Usually doctors, yes also work alone, and are telling other people what to do, and would not put up with a manager who is not a doctor coming into their treatment room and evaluating them based on a checklist or ‘1 hour observation.’”
Physicians who practice medicine alone or in groups with other physicians are responsible for the operation of a business, which is quite complex, even for a lone practitioner in a rural area. It is highly unlikely that a typical teacher would be able to operate a classroom as an independent business while simultaneously doing all the duties required to teach well. In order to earn enough income to be able to survive financially, the teacher would need to attract enough students who can pay tuition in order to cover the expenses of doing business.
Most families could not afford to pay a per pupil tuition equivalent to what the state QBE allotment is. Therefore, to afford to stay in business, the teacher would need to set up an arrangement where the state would fund the students’ tuition. In return for doing this (if it ever became legal, which would be a pure voucher system), the state would require the teacher to meet certain government guidelines, such as square feet per student for instructional space, safety equipment, food service, etc. To generate federal funding for low-income students, the teacher would have to comply with paperwork requirements for Title I, which can be quite oppressive. The state would also impose standardized testing requirements on the teacher’s instructional practice in order to demonstrate that the students can meet state standards.
The alternative to avoiding all the state regulation & paperwork would be to operate a private practice–and then the teacher would have to find families with enough disposable income to cover tuition.
Private Citizen
January 15th, 2013
9:44 pm
I happen to very much like the metaphor of teachers as doctors
Dr. Henson, It appears that you and I have independently arrived at this basic operational view. I think of it as the intellectual as physician. This may even go back to Socrates or Aristotle, although I need to learn more about these particular foundations of formal philosophy. There is certainly something to it, and I think more than metaphor.
Private Citizen
January 15th, 2013
9:46 pm
stay tuned, will make some additional commentary / response, even though this thread is getting calendar pushed off the main.
Private Citizen
January 15th, 2013
10:17 pm
“Another especially fortunate comparison is that of the mind to an aviary which is gradually occupied by different kinds of birds, which correspond to the varieties of knowledge. When we were children the aviary was empty, and as we grow up we go about “catching” the various kinds of knowledge.”
“Plato recognized, in the Timæus, two kinds of mental disease, to wit, madness and ignorance. He has the notion advocated by advanced psychologists today, that much of the prevalent vice is due to an ill disposition of the body, and is involuntary; “for no man is voluntarily bad; but the bad become bad by reason of ill disposition of the body and bad education, things which are hateful to every man and happen to him against his will.”
http://www.asksam.com/cgi-bin/as_web6.exe?Command=DocName&File=Osleriana&Name=Physic%20and%20Physicians%20as%20Depicted%20by%20Plato
Private Citizen
January 15th, 2013
10:35 pm
Here’s a couple physicians at work. http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=endscreen&v=x84m3YyO2oU
Private Citizen
January 15th, 2013
11:15 pm
Dr. Henson,
Hospitals that don’t meet minimum patient satisfaction standards risk losing federal reimbursement.
But you’re basically talking about adults receiving services, little different than rating the mechanics at a car dealership. I dare say that working with K-12 is a different parameter than customer satisfaction surveys. Let me put it this way, in the history of the world. across the world, this concept is an outlier as a means of evaluating integrity, an I do not mean it is a good outlier. It is worth noting, that if this is an outlier as a means of evaluating production, there is a pretty serious here with management and use of resources. Mandating activities must be view seriously as these consume resources – time = money, and also displace other activity, also called creating externalities. When a kid throws a rock threw a window, they have created an externality, a cost. Someone else has to fix the externality. This is the problem about punk culture and ending up in the ER due to self-destruction. Play the anarchist, knowing that there is a hospital with starched sheets and attentive staff waiting for you. The point is relevant application of resources. It is a serious matter, the amount of time/ energy / focus resources being consumed by the evaluation and testing mandates.
Physicians who practice medicine alone or in groups with other physicians are responsible for the operation of a business, which is quite complex,
You’re applying the metaphor to an American medical partnership. I am not. When I think of work environment of “physician,” I think of something close to a Hong Kong public hospital. Real administrators are supposed to pay the bills, manage efficiency and HR placement, not tell doctors what to do in their procedures or speciality. I am guessing in a Hong Kong or British, or French government hospital, the doctors are not involved in financial management, which is a specialty for people trained in facility or operational management and done under the umbrella of a greater management concept. No one is working alone. The U. S. “business doctor” is also an anomaly, an outlier, and the reason they spend thought time and supervising energies over running a business is because there concept is to make $300k or $500k, or $800k a year in income. The two highest pay rates for U. S. doctors are radiology and brain surgery, at least I recall this from twenty years ago or somesuch. We’ll have to see beyond the U. S. system if we’re going to philosophise about educator as physician.
In order to earn enough income to be able to survive financially, the teacher would need to attract enough students who can pay tuition in order to cover the expenses of doing business.
I am guessing this sounds like what you are dealing with at present. hey, good luck with it. I think your efforts can provide a needed service for out of age students. That may be a subtext of our communication, you are providing innovation and services for out of age students, and as a teacher in Georgia I have had several students in the general education classroom as many as three years out of grade level, and I was the sole person in the building who asked the building representative who attended the superintendent meeting to ask, “Hey, what is the deal with so many out of age students? They need to be in a different environment, they have different needs.” Let me tell, I didn’t earn any gold stars pointing this out to the head bosses. I may have done some marketing for you. I hope so. Yes, maybe this is yet another area we need some real public data on, age of students per grade level. Real information. Per school. Per grade level. Made public. The district managers perpetuate a lot of this putting out-of-grade-level kids in classrooms without the public being aware of it.
Most families could not afford to pay a per pupil tuition equivalent to what the state QBE allotment is. Therefore, to afford to stay in business, the teacher would need to set up an arrangement where the state would fund the students’ tuition.
I’m having trouble following this. I think the topic has changed to voucher-concept. I’m going to take a pause for a minute.
Private Citizen
January 15th, 2013
11:49 pm
To generate federal funding for low-income students, the teacher would have to comply with paperwork requirements for Title I, which can be quite oppressive.
To be honest, my work experience is as an applications working in a super-structure where someone else had the greater connections and also responsibilities for paperwork. I’ve owned a business but stopped it due to not wanting to manage financial reporting, for example, depreciation schedules for tax purposes. I’ve done my best working for someone else who had the mantle of communicating with the accountant. As far as paperwork requirements outside of the traditional public system, I am guessing there are at least 20 parts to it. I have an Indian friend who owns a gas station, and I note one thing they are real keen on is that while running the counter, they also are constantly writing down and tabulating, and it is organized and documented. They could probably pull of documentation and tell you how many crackers, candy bars, fuel, or lottery tickets they have sold on any week since they have been in business. Maybe it is facilitated by Hindu language or culture, but they clearly have an incredible ability for doing this “paperwork” all day every day, it seems. Let me tell you, these folks do not fear an audit and are strong business people. They have invests all over the place. It is really fascinating. For example, a guy who owns a restaurant in one town will open up a recreational water park in another town, and have other local business persons as investors to fund the start of the venture. And too, they tend to have the elders or various family parents around, who are also experienced in business, keeping a supervising eye on things. It is really fascinating. I guess my point is that there is a strong and direct way to run “business.”
The state would also impose standardized testing requirements on the teacher’s instructional practice in order to demonstrate that the students can meet state standards.
If charter schools are required to do the same amount of testing additional to one annual test, and are required to do TKES and LKES evaluations, I think there is a problem with autonomy, and I was going to say “I’d put them in court over it” but that is part of the problem, in a political system if you start using a court to hold people to account, it will mal-effect contracting from the government structure, especially for a developing business. This is one reason why we need uninvolved intellectuals and academics (university) doing scholarship on these systems. That’s another puzzle, graduate schools of education are doing Gates-hockum and not doing critical work of the same. At least a lot of people are fearful to because of big power spraying so much money around. Even Gatto says those who stand up to big power are then gone. It’s happened with tv people. British scientist David Kelly lost his life when started getting critical of chemical weapons and talking to the public about it. They found him dead in the woods and then a Parliament head sealed the case and said there will be no inquiry. Foul thing. I think his family sued, and just now a decade later it is coming out into the light. Anyway, that’s the problem with clearances. You talk and you’re dead. Even the lowly teacher, every system email has a confidentiality paragraph at the bottom of it. (!)
The alternative to avoiding all the state regulation & paperwork would be to operate a private practice–and then the teacher would have to find families with enough disposable income to cover tuition.
Historically, independent teachers have worked as tutors. This follows the home school model, with the requirement for teacher provided sq. footage, emergency care, food, etc. The teacher operating as independent with their own school house is actually probably pretty rare, historically (a guess).
As far as “state regulation” I think the real issue is that a lot of this is not from the state, it is from outside of the state, foundation initiatives at a federal level and then the states are co-opted. RTTT is clearly a buying-off of the states that go along with it. It is the opposite of state regulation. One way to address is to do scholarship on what is effective / resource appropriate management and either the state or the fed should support productivity in place of causing externalities, using numerous and arbitrary power, and then marketing this use of power as “contemporary” or in a context of legitimacy where there is no foundation to support it and it is purely political, doing one thing for the reason of something else entirely. Yes, there is much dragon slaying to be done if one wishes to improve the status quo.
Private Citizen
January 16th, 2013
10:51 am
NEW THOUGHT
By all means have an independent school house, and inform / include teachers in financial “map” / distribution / cost and responsibilities of running school. In the current district system, this is incomprehensible, as teachers seem to be the ants on the bottom of a huge system. For example, Dekalb County has a budget of a billion dollars or something? This could be made comprehendable to teachers, but it is not the current management approach.
The one thing I keep returning to, like auto-reset, is a teacher walking into a teaching job, what expectation of provision and source materials do they have? I am continually left speechless by this national management system of putting all this weight on evaluating teachers, combined with no organised attention on what curriculum materials they have to work with. The current mode is to play-act that “standards” and “guidelines” are teaching source materials. One of the persons in the featured article even refers to “standards” as teachers “resources.” That is such a lie, it is unbearable, it is so part way, 25% in place of complete. And they go home and go play golf, meanwhile teachers have to deal with it, spending their out-of-classroom time assembling materials, writing “power points” just to have something to teach from.