This week the Common Core Standards entered the GOP primary via the premiere of ad buys in Iowa, marking yet another attempt to beat back conservative opposition to the Core.
The group behind the ads is the Collaborative for Student Success, a group that bills itself as a "grant-making organization" and which lists as its partners and supporters all of the usual suspects from Gates and Broad through Achieve and Stand for Children. As laid out by Mercedes Schneider, this group's efforts to look grass rooty are even lazier than most.
Follow their links and watch some of the videos they're produced, and you find that CFSS is closely linked to Conservatives for Higher Standards. Here's how the CFSS website explains CFHS:
While support for Common Core runs through all political spectrums, the Foundation for Excellence in Education created Conservatives for Higher Standards
to lay out the conservative arguments in favor of Common Core, and
demonstrate the strong support for the higher standards among Republican
leaders, such as Gov. Christie and former Govs. Bush and Huckabee.
Give the Jebster credit-- he knows that his Common Core support is a stumbling block on his path to the White House, but rather than make the politically expedient move of other Core-ophiles like Bobby Jindal and Arne Duncan and simply pretend he no longer likes or knows what Common Core is, Bush is going to just keep throwing money at organizations to spin Core PR.
To pave the GOP primary path, Bush and his various allies have to sell yet another narrative about the Core that will make it palatable to conservative voters. And if we take a look at the CFHS myths vs. facts page, we can get a view of this sad mess of a bedtime story.
MYTH: The standards are federally mandated.
Nosirree, say CFHS. States entered into the Core voluntarily and can check out any time they like. This story point is a fail-- the Senate committee showed they get it in their rewrite when they used the word "coerce" to describe what the feds will no longer be allowed to do when trying to impose policy. The CFHS story is a hairsplit that nobody believes.
MYTH: CCSS aren't any better than state standards.
CFHS cites that old Fordham study, which is kind of like citing a Tobacco Institute study proving smoking is not so bad. Even then, they have to hem-haw their way around Fordham's finding that CCSS is only better than some state standards.
MYTH: State standards are sufficient for today's students.
An oddly-phrased myth. Do they mean that every state had good-enough standard, or that state-level standards should be sufficient. Either way, their rebuttal is a non-sequitor, citing ACT finding that three-quarters of college freshmen weren't "adequately prepared," which is again, like citing auto industry figures proving that more people need to drive brand new cars. This college ready baloney deserves its own full discussion.
MYTH: State tests aren't broken. Common Core should not try to fix them.
Oh, man. Are you sure you guys are PR professionals? Common Core testing is the most visible, most obviously screwed up and time-wasty part of Common Core and supporters have been trying to separate the idea of the standards from the terrible standardized testing regime for a while now, claiming they're two entirely different things. They're full of it, but I would think you'd want to follow in their footsteps. They throw some baloney about NAEP in here, but it's weak sauce and nobody is listening after the confirmation that those terrible tests are part of Common Core. Fail, boys.
MYTH: Common Core dictates what texts teachers can use.
The Core actually "preserves" freedom of choice for teachers, because it's just a list of what students must know, not how it must be taught. This is disingenuous at best, but the simplest problem with this is that Common Core may not dictate what texts teachers may use, but it sure does dictate what texts are available to buy.
MYTH: Common Core includes scary science stuff.
A win-- sort of. CFHS notes that there is nothing at all in the Core about science, and they are correct. Hold your breath and wait for the follow-up question-- if CCSS is supposed to help us catch up with the rest of the world and help us keep our edge, why does it ignore science entirely, thereby encouraging schools to teach less science so they can spend more time on math and reading test prep?
MYTH: Common Core will also take control of private, charter, religious, Catholic and home schools.
A straight-up noon-answer answer. Because the standards are internationally benchmarked (which I think we could charitably call a baldfaced lie), all of those non-public school types will find Core perfectly swell. Assimilation will be painless. Also, how accountable they'll be will be up to the states. So this answer to this myth is, it's not a myth. Again, good luck trying to find major published teaching material not aligned to CCSS (although much of that alignment is also a lie, so there's that). And while I get it, it also makes me smile a little to see "religious" and "Catholic" listed as separate categories.
MYTH: Common Core will cost more by requiring training, tests, etc
CFHS short answer is, "Yes. Yes, it will." (I'm paraphrasing.) The long answer is that it will make "economic sense." Because better education will get people off welfare and keep them out of prison and the US will be competitive. The Core will save taxpayers money because no more costly remediation at college, and it will lead to competition in the education marketplace, driving down costs. That's a fascinating idea. Maybe these guys now think that charters are part of the Common Core.
MYTH: CCSS is an intrusion into student privacy.
Again, the short answer is, "Yes. Yes, it is." Also, the states are collecting a buttload of data about your child anyway, whether they Core it up or not, but it's totally not broken down by person and you can totally trust them to keep it safe. There's nothing to worry about.At least, not anything that isn't already happening and isn't already beyond your power to do anything about.
MYTH: The feds will take control of the Common Core initiative.
No. The initiative was state led and will remain so. Actually, this is a novel item on the list, because both myths are wrong. Actually, nobody is leading or in charge of the initiative. Anybody anywhere can declare themselves a Common Core spokesperson and there isn't anybody on the planet who can whip up a cease and desist letter. Not only are we building the plane in mid-air, but there is nobody piloting it.
MYTH: The feds threatened to withhold money from anyone who didn't Core it up.
Totally not true. The feds offered to give money to only those states that did adopt the Core. Totally different thing. I didn't say I wouldn't give you your allowance if you didn't do your chores-- I just said you would only get your allowance if you did do your chores.
MYTH: The reading in CCSS is 50% non-fiction, which opens the door to lots of political stuff.
Weird assumption about what is or is not political (Grapes of Wrath, anybody?) But the answer here, like many of the answers, seems to assume that conservative voters are, in fact, morons. To the "myth" that CCSS requires 50% "informational" text, CFHS respondes, "But no-- the CFHS requires 50% of reading be fiction!" Also, informational texts can include America-loving works like de Tocqueville and the Declaration and also politics-free stuff like maps.
The Collaborative for Student Success has some other points they like to make as well, like the idea that the Common Core is really great for helping military families and for making our armed forces stronger, somehow. Gone are some of the old, failed stories (remember when we still had to argue about whether or not teachers helped write the Core?).
But those are the broad outlines of what is supposed to be the conservative-friendly narrative of Common Core. Will we be pushing this in Iowa to try to force the field to support Common Core, or could it be that we are trying to prepare the ground for one particular Core-loving candidate? Next week, when the Collaborative is supposed to be moving beyond radio ads and onto Iowans' tv screens, we may get a hint. But if Jeb is basing his Presidential hopes on these weak arguments, he needs to get himself some new strategists.
Saturday, April 11, 2015
Friday, April 10, 2015
Ken-Ton Schools Yield To State Pressure
The Kennmore-Town of Tonawanda Union Free School District (generally known as the Ken-Ton district) has decided to stand down.
You may recall that about a month ago, the Ken-Ton board president decided to float a resolution to consider opting out of New York state tests as well as the state's teacher evaluation program. After a false start, the board met in front of a highly supportive public crowd, and over the objections of their superintendent, voted to pass the resolution. Push back from the state came almost immediately in the form of threats from Senior Deputy Commissioner Ken Wagner.
This week the standoff came to an end. Tuesday night the board voted to back away from the boycott proposals.
Considering the letter from the state and the gloomy predictions of Superintendent Dawn Mirand, board president Bob Dana was quoted by Joseph Spector at lohud blogs
“With all of that in mind,” School Board President Bob Dana said, “I can’t honestly sit in front of you today and push for a continuation of these proposals.”
Pete Stuhlmiller, the president of Kenmore Teachers Association, had been supportive of the threat to consider the possibility of a test boycott, but he was supportive of the backing down as well. "We realized that our board members faced incredible intimidation from the state Education Department and threats from the governor's office," he said.
There's some question about whether the Ken-Ton board ever really meant to take this fight to the wall. But by being the squeaky wheel for a month, they added to the growing chorus of objections and resistance to the Big Standardized Tests. The board reportedly plans to form a coalition of local schools to fight back, and they have now given themselves a higher profile for feistiness which may aid in those efforts, and they forced the state to show its face, to publicly show itself depending not on reason or right, but on power, intimidation and bullying.
Ken-Ton schools did not win this battle, but as with hundreds of other tiny battles being fought around the country, they made one more little chink in the reformy status quo armor. Hats off to them for that.
You may recall that about a month ago, the Ken-Ton board president decided to float a resolution to consider opting out of New York state tests as well as the state's teacher evaluation program. After a false start, the board met in front of a highly supportive public crowd, and over the objections of their superintendent, voted to pass the resolution. Push back from the state came almost immediately in the form of threats from Senior Deputy Commissioner Ken Wagner.
This week the standoff came to an end. Tuesday night the board voted to back away from the boycott proposals.
Considering the letter from the state and the gloomy predictions of Superintendent Dawn Mirand, board president Bob Dana was quoted by Joseph Spector at lohud blogs
“With all of that in mind,” School Board President Bob Dana said, “I can’t honestly sit in front of you today and push for a continuation of these proposals.”
Pete Stuhlmiller, the president of Kenmore Teachers Association, had been supportive of the threat to consider the possibility of a test boycott, but he was supportive of the backing down as well. "We realized that our board members faced incredible intimidation from the state Education Department and threats from the governor's office," he said.
There's some question about whether the Ken-Ton board ever really meant to take this fight to the wall. But by being the squeaky wheel for a month, they added to the growing chorus of objections and resistance to the Big Standardized Tests. The board reportedly plans to form a coalition of local schools to fight back, and they have now given themselves a higher profile for feistiness which may aid in those efforts, and they forced the state to show its face, to publicly show itself depending not on reason or right, but on power, intimidation and bullying.
Ken-Ton schools did not win this battle, but as with hundreds of other tiny battles being fought around the country, they made one more little chink in the reformy status quo armor. Hats off to them for that.
Thursday, April 9, 2015
Duncan Strikes Conciliatory Tone
The 50th anniversary of the passing of ESEA was an occasion for Secretary of Education Arne Duncan to speak about the bill. It was also the first big set of wordage that Duncan has issued since the Senate version of the ESEA rewrite was unveiled.
That bill contains a whole lot of "The federal government and the secretary of education shall keep their grubby hands off the operation of education in this country." It repudiated and revoked much of what the Obama/Duncan administration shoehorned into sort-of-law with Race to the Top and the NCLB waiver system.
Folks have been waiting to hear what Duncan might say in response to the bi-partisan Senatorial smackdown. But in this particular speech, he mostly said, "Please, sir, may I have some more."
Duncan opened the speech by co-opting a four-year-old as a live example of Things He Values. He rattled off a list of what he considers the successes so far, denounced NCLB as a "broken" law, and rang his notes about how every child deserves a whole raft of opportunities. Vintage Duncan.
Then he talked about the new bill and what it must have.
No portability. We shouldn't shift resources from poor schools to rich ones (no, he did not explain how he manages the cognitive dissonance involved in believing both this AND that charter schools are great and we need more of them).
Parents etc need the lush verdant jungle of information that springs forth from Big Standardized Tests, because without test scores, parents would be ignorant of their own children's development.
He rhetorically linked education to civil rights. He said that the new ESEA should support pre-K schooling. And we should get more students to graduate (and he illustrated this with a story about a Diplomas Now school, including a student who was also in the house to be a visual aid-- I know this use of humans as props is a pan-party political pastime, but it rubs me the wrong way twelve days to Tuesday).
He called for more education Research and Development (but used Tennessee as an example).
In short, he did not directly address any of the federal involvement that Alexander and Murray's committee explicitly rejected. He did not address the end of federally-mandated test-linked teacher evaluation, and he did not address the rejection of federal involvement in turning around "failing" schools, nor the department's seriously reduced role in approving state plans. He did not even whimper at the powers that the Senate proposes to strip from his department.
He did name check both Senators.
Senator Alexander and Senator Murray share a lifelong commitment to improving education. Senator Murray spent years as a preschool teacher and early learning advocate for the people of her home state of Washington. This work is in her blood, it is why she entered politics. Long before Senator Alexander was Secretary of Education, Governor and a university President—he fought to end a policy of racial discrimination at Vanderbilt when he was the editor of his college newspaper. My father is also from Tennessee and also attended Vanderbilt and he always had tremendous respect for Senator Alexander.
Both senators' commitment to this nation's children is real.
In short, if folks were hoping that Duncan would come out swinging or that we would eventually be treated to a sassy catfight, folks may commence with the disappointment. There is not so much as a veiled oblique criticism of the Senate draft in this speech. The closest to a cautionary word was the sentence "We cannot cut our way to greater opportunities for our children."
And the short summary version of what he wants to see in the bill is now broad and vague:
A new law must build a foundation for 21st century schools by investing in innovation, supporting our fantastic teachers and principals, and encouraging every student's progress so that our nation's greatest asset, our vast academic and social potential, can be fully realized.
There is not even so much as a "college and career" in the whole thing. Duncan here abandons many of the ideas that were previous must-haves. Instead this is a lot of the warm mushy platitudinous word pie that he has served up in the past while dealing lousy policy at the same time. So I'm not sure what there is to learn here, other than there's no storm brewing. At least not yet.
Perhaps Duncan is just lame-ducking it. Perhaps he wanted to stay positive for the big birthday party. Perhaps he's caught a sense that it doesn't matter if he suggests that the new bill should involve ponies and eclairs for all. But whatever his thinking was, there was not the slightest hint of confrontation with the Senate in this bill, and his advice to the House committee was to imitate the Senate's warm atmosphere of bipartisan swellness, advice that I'm sure the House will resolutely ignore. We may have to do without fireworks entirely until the bill takes its bow in front of the full Senate next week.
That bill contains a whole lot of "The federal government and the secretary of education shall keep their grubby hands off the operation of education in this country." It repudiated and revoked much of what the Obama/Duncan administration shoehorned into sort-of-law with Race to the Top and the NCLB waiver system.
Folks have been waiting to hear what Duncan might say in response to the bi-partisan Senatorial smackdown. But in this particular speech, he mostly said, "Please, sir, may I have some more."
Duncan opened the speech by co-opting a four-year-old as a live example of Things He Values. He rattled off a list of what he considers the successes so far, denounced NCLB as a "broken" law, and rang his notes about how every child deserves a whole raft of opportunities. Vintage Duncan.
Then he talked about the new bill and what it must have.
No portability. We shouldn't shift resources from poor schools to rich ones (no, he did not explain how he manages the cognitive dissonance involved in believing both this AND that charter schools are great and we need more of them).
Parents etc need the lush verdant jungle of information that springs forth from Big Standardized Tests, because without test scores, parents would be ignorant of their own children's development.
He rhetorically linked education to civil rights. He said that the new ESEA should support pre-K schooling. And we should get more students to graduate (and he illustrated this with a story about a Diplomas Now school, including a student who was also in the house to be a visual aid-- I know this use of humans as props is a pan-party political pastime, but it rubs me the wrong way twelve days to Tuesday).
He called for more education Research and Development (but used Tennessee as an example).
In short, he did not directly address any of the federal involvement that Alexander and Murray's committee explicitly rejected. He did not address the end of federally-mandated test-linked teacher evaluation, and he did not address the rejection of federal involvement in turning around "failing" schools, nor the department's seriously reduced role in approving state plans. He did not even whimper at the powers that the Senate proposes to strip from his department.
He did name check both Senators.
Senator Alexander and Senator Murray share a lifelong commitment to improving education. Senator Murray spent years as a preschool teacher and early learning advocate for the people of her home state of Washington. This work is in her blood, it is why she entered politics. Long before Senator Alexander was Secretary of Education, Governor and a university President—he fought to end a policy of racial discrimination at Vanderbilt when he was the editor of his college newspaper. My father is also from Tennessee and also attended Vanderbilt and he always had tremendous respect for Senator Alexander.
Both senators' commitment to this nation's children is real.
In short, if folks were hoping that Duncan would come out swinging or that we would eventually be treated to a sassy catfight, folks may commence with the disappointment. There is not so much as a veiled oblique criticism of the Senate draft in this speech. The closest to a cautionary word was the sentence "We cannot cut our way to greater opportunities for our children."
And the short summary version of what he wants to see in the bill is now broad and vague:
A new law must build a foundation for 21st century schools by investing in innovation, supporting our fantastic teachers and principals, and encouraging every student's progress so that our nation's greatest asset, our vast academic and social potential, can be fully realized.
There is not even so much as a "college and career" in the whole thing. Duncan here abandons many of the ideas that were previous must-haves. Instead this is a lot of the warm mushy platitudinous word pie that he has served up in the past while dealing lousy policy at the same time. So I'm not sure what there is to learn here, other than there's no storm brewing. At least not yet.
Perhaps Duncan is just lame-ducking it. Perhaps he wanted to stay positive for the big birthday party. Perhaps he's caught a sense that it doesn't matter if he suggests that the new bill should involve ponies and eclairs for all. But whatever his thinking was, there was not the slightest hint of confrontation with the Senate in this bill, and his advice to the House committee was to imitate the Senate's warm atmosphere of bipartisan swellness, advice that I'm sure the House will resolutely ignore. We may have to do without fireworks entirely until the bill takes its bow in front of the full Senate next week.
Meet Your New Cyber-Replacement
Billboard ran the news yesterday: A company is trying to get the funding to create a hologram version of the murdered Tejano singer Selena.
The company is Acrovirt, a company that is intent in creating digital versions of people. Not simply like the image of Tupac that was hologrammed at Coachella 2012, but one that could perform music-- even new music.
Granted, it's expensive as all get out and extraordinarily difficult to program. But that's now.
I have always joked to my students that I will teach until I'm ancient and die with a piece of chalk in my hand, with instructions to my estate that I be stuffed, mounted, and animatronically installed in the front of a classroom where I can just keep doing my thing. But this seems so much more.... elegant.
A hologram would be better than a robot, particularly if combined with a full-room scanning system that can watch and analyze the behavior of students. Holo-me would have eyes in the back of my head and then some. True, that could be combined with robot tech, but a hologram would have fewer moving parts to be damaged by age or aggressive spitball assault. The thought of a version of me that can automatically adjust opacity is rather entertaining. Could it be programmed so that I'm a better dancer? Will my joke delivery be improved? Could I float in mid-air for extra scary effect?
Would a teacher hologram solve the eternal teaching machine problem-- a mechanistic view of content delivery that lacks any human touch and so becomes ultimately as uncompelling as a ballpoint pen. Would it allow for adaptive and supportive learning by modulating teacher performance in response to the subtle cues like wrinkled brows and upturned answer-as-question responses? Could it be programmed with the sort of peculiar quirks that make it possible for students to do lunch-room imitations and work-book caricatures? Selena 2.0's handlers promise that she'll be able to sing new songs. Will holo-me be interesting?
It is always a little remarkable to consider how little the march of technology has affected teaching. Rocketship charter chains have reminded us once again that computers are able to transform everyday life better than they can effectively transform a classroom.
Could that be because we simply don't have the right technology yet? Is teaching such a human activity that only as tech approaches human simulation, can it hope to help? Is trying to create a teaching machine the same order of difficulty as creating a satisfactory robot spouse?
I don't know the answer to any of these questions, but the possibility of a holographic computer-driven chanteuse reminds us that the questions are there to be asked. Can it be done? Should it be done? And can we program my hologram memorial teacher-in-perpetuity to have the same amount of hair I had thirty years ago?
The company is Acrovirt, a company that is intent in creating digital versions of people. Not simply like the image of Tupac that was hologrammed at Coachella 2012, but one that could perform music-- even new music.
Granted, it's expensive as all get out and extraordinarily difficult to program. But that's now.
I have always joked to my students that I will teach until I'm ancient and die with a piece of chalk in my hand, with instructions to my estate that I be stuffed, mounted, and animatronically installed in the front of a classroom where I can just keep doing my thing. But this seems so much more.... elegant.
A hologram would be better than a robot, particularly if combined with a full-room scanning system that can watch and analyze the behavior of students. Holo-me would have eyes in the back of my head and then some. True, that could be combined with robot tech, but a hologram would have fewer moving parts to be damaged by age or aggressive spitball assault. The thought of a version of me that can automatically adjust opacity is rather entertaining. Could it be programmed so that I'm a better dancer? Will my joke delivery be improved? Could I float in mid-air for extra scary effect?
Would a teacher hologram solve the eternal teaching machine problem-- a mechanistic view of content delivery that lacks any human touch and so becomes ultimately as uncompelling as a ballpoint pen. Would it allow for adaptive and supportive learning by modulating teacher performance in response to the subtle cues like wrinkled brows and upturned answer-as-question responses? Could it be programmed with the sort of peculiar quirks that make it possible for students to do lunch-room imitations and work-book caricatures? Selena 2.0's handlers promise that she'll be able to sing new songs. Will holo-me be interesting?
It is always a little remarkable to consider how little the march of technology has affected teaching. Rocketship charter chains have reminded us once again that computers are able to transform everyday life better than they can effectively transform a classroom.
Could that be because we simply don't have the right technology yet? Is teaching such a human activity that only as tech approaches human simulation, can it hope to help? Is trying to create a teaching machine the same order of difficulty as creating a satisfactory robot spouse?
I don't know the answer to any of these questions, but the possibility of a holographic computer-driven chanteuse reminds us that the questions are there to be asked. Can it be done? Should it be done? And can we program my hologram memorial teacher-in-perpetuity to have the same amount of hair I had thirty years ago?
Charters, the Core, and the Changing Attack on Public Ed
The attack on public ed has come from many directions over the past decade, and not always with the same intensity from all sides.
For instance, remember not so long ago when one of the leading issues was data gathering? Now it's a less visible issue in the ed debate, probably for a combination of two reason-- 1) some notable public defeats (bye-bye, inBloom) and 2) because the Data Overlords have learned to go about their business more quietly (I think it's entirely possible that they did not initially realize that not everyone would share their enthusiasm for data gathering).
Attack of the Common Core
And, of course, Common Core. CCSS was the one-size-fits-all, top-down, imposed, test-driving monstrosity that looked to many folks like one of the greatest threats to public education out there. We wrote, we talked, we complained, we made uncomfortable alliances, we created facebook groups, all to battle the Biggest Edumonster of All.
But now, after a few years, the fearsome Core is starting to look like the Abominable Snow Monster of the North after Hermie the dentist-elf performs an emergency chomperectomy.
Both its defeats and victories have worked against it. The brand name (Common Core) is firmly ensconced in the public consciousness, but the brand itself is hopelessly hollowed out. People know it when they see it, but everybody sees something different. Kind of like pornography.
I've made this point at length elsewhere, but the short form is that between books and programs and local interpretations and tested versions and the general arble garble of its supporters, Common Core as a national set of standards uniting all US schools on the Same Page simply doesn't exist. And the teacher-supporters haven't helped their cause with their ridiculous attributions to the Core of everything form the discovery of critical thinking to fundamental teaching skills. Together with the loons blaming Core for Communist aggression and fluoridated water, they've shown us the way, and I wish I had seen it sooner-- whatever it is you're doing in your classroom, just nod and say, "Yes, this is totally a Common Core thing!" Nobody anywhere is on solid footing to call you a liar.
Common Core is still the one-size-fits-all product of dabbling educational amateurs. but you know what happens to a one-size-fits-all sweater when it gets worn and passed around by hundreds of human beings with hundreds of different builds? It gets all stretched out of shape until you can barely tell it's a sweater.
Common Core is a meaningless hash, and there isn't a soul in a position of real power willing to stand up and defend it at this point. It can still do real damage to the extent that state or local authorities will try to enforce one stupid piece of educational malpractice or another by hoisting it under the name of Common Core. The Core is still lurking around and doing harm, but the Core of New York State is not the Core of Arizona, which is also not the Core of the PARCC nor the Core of your Pearson textbook series. There will still be hundreds or thousands of terrible ideas ramping about the countryside with the name of CCSS, but the Core's days as The Single Most Serious Threat To Public Education are passing. Common Core has gone from being the name of a very specific large threat to being a name like "Kleenex," used generically to describe many different products.
So, Where Did the Spotlight Go?
I first noted the space opening between charter and core folks last November.
Originally, the Core was going to make a great marketing tool. The Core would be the basis for the tests that would provide the proof that public schools are failing, failing FAILING OMGZ!! and that would open the charter school floodgates. But two things happened.
One was that Core-o-philes frantically called for decoupling the Core from the Big Standardized Tests, thinking that reaction against the BS Test would hurt the Core. Turns out that the tests are pretty resilient. The opt out movement is powerful and gaining strength, but lets be honest-- in the majority of the country, it turns out that if you plunk down something and call it a standardized test, most people will roll over and have their kids take it. Only now and only in certain regions is the opt-out movement gathering real steam.
It also turned out that if you bathed the BS Tests in rosy rhetoric about making sure that students are college and career ready, you don't actually need the standards. In fact, you never needed the standards, because the tests drive instruction all by themselves.
Meanwhile, charter operators embraced a simple truth-- the Core is not necessary for creating a narrative about failing public schools. In fact, in some areas, the Core is part of the proof that public schools are failing (Get your kid into a charter and away from evil Obamacore).
The Hammer and the Broom
The national standards fans and the charter choice crowd were never natural allies. But reformsters of many stripes needed the Big Hammer of Common Core Standards to crack the hard rock shell of public education, to open up that institution to private enterprise. But once the Hammer has done its work, it's not really needed any more.
Common Core's stated purpose was to be the cement that bound together fifty-one higgledy-piggledy educational markets into what would function essentially like one national school district. The Data Overlords liked that idea. The Social Engineers liked that idea. The Profiteers used to like that idea, but it doesn't really matter any more. Corporations like Pearson now have the best of both worlds-- anything with "Common Core" on it can be sold anywhere, but what's between the covers can be any old thing and nobody can really tell the difference.
But the Charter & Choice crowd were never going to want a national school district. They just needed "proof" that Noname Local School is failing so they can rush in to save the poor children trapped in the zip code. Once the Standards Hammer had broken up the public school system into crumbly chunks, the Charter Choice Brrom could come in to sweep up the tasty crumbs.
ESEA
You can see the new emphasis reflected in the proposed Senate rewrite of ESEA.
The proposed law does less than nothing to protect the idea of a Common Core Standards-based national curriculum; in fact, it explicitly ties federal hands so that pursuing such a vision becomes nearly impossible. I suppose you could still try to sell the standards to fifty states based on the merits of common core; you could also open a facility for training unicorns.
What the proposal does do is enshrine the other reformsters True Loves-- testing and charters.
It doesn't actually enshrine testing for any real purpose, seeming to settle for the weird construction that states must continue to give the BS Test, but it's up to the states themselves to figure out exactly why they are giving the BS Test. That's okay-- that's all the legislation necessary to keep the steady revenue stream flowing toward the test manufacturing corporations.
But the Senate ESEA absolutely loves it some charter schools. Money, help with financing, federal strong-arming to get more opened-- the Senate bill is ready to make it rain buckets of cash on the charter sector. This is just one more piece of writing on the wall-- charters are coming to eat punlic schools' lunch, and they are coming hard.
How Does This Change the Debate?
First of all, don't underestimate inertia. One of the reasons that no reformsters have to spend too much juice on CCSS or testing is that inertia is now on their side. Test-and-punish accountability, measuring education in test scores, aligning to amateur-hour bad standards, operating systems intended to create public school failure, ongoing crushing of the teaching profession-- these are the status quo. They have been how US schools work for at least a decade. All those high school grads who aren't going into teaching? Their entire school experience has told them that test prep and teacher bashing and mandated malpractice and teacher-as-dontent-delivery-system-- all these things are not some temporary aberration, but the SOP of how schools function.
We have a whole generation of people who do not know how schools could be any other way.
Second, alliances are going to shift. People who fight the Core will also find themselves more and more fighting a local battle against whatever version of the Core has raised its stupid head. There are plenty of people who hate the Common Core, but they kind of hate public schools, too, and they would be perfectly happy to see traditional public ed replaced with charters and homeschools and twelve kinds of choice. There are lots of folks who think a charter choice system is the perfect antidote to federal overreach.
The whole battle for the soul of public education is going to become more diverse. more spread out across many fronts. Lots of people thought that promoting CCSS was the path to riches and power through their favorite reformy idea, but the last few years have shown that many of them can pursue a more direct path. Common Core was the flashlight that could illuminate the path to privatizing education; now lots of folks can see that path clearly without any help.
If you want another analogy, try this. Common Core was like the breach in the fortress wall, but now the wall is breached, the barbarians are inside the barricades, and they are spreading out to loot whatever castle target they'd always had their eyes on.
CCSS is still worthy of mockery, still deserving of resistance, still an impediment to actual education.
But our problems now are more direct:
* the steady financial starving of public schools to bring on failure
* the use of testing to create a narrative of failure and target schools for acquisition
* breaking down the teaching profession to make it cheaper and more compliant
* the redirecting of public tax dollars from public education to private corporations
* the steady drumbeat to redefine the definition and purpose of public education
* the creation of two systems-- one for haves, one for have-nots
If Common Core evaporated tomorrow, these issues wouldn't flinch an inch. I won't stop taking potshots at the Core, and I support those that wish to do so. But I think the heart of the debate is shifting. When it comes to the assault on public education, we have bigger fish to fry than the CCSS.
For instance, remember not so long ago when one of the leading issues was data gathering? Now it's a less visible issue in the ed debate, probably for a combination of two reason-- 1) some notable public defeats (bye-bye, inBloom) and 2) because the Data Overlords have learned to go about their business more quietly (I think it's entirely possible that they did not initially realize that not everyone would share their enthusiasm for data gathering).
Attack of the Common Core
And, of course, Common Core. CCSS was the one-size-fits-all, top-down, imposed, test-driving monstrosity that looked to many folks like one of the greatest threats to public education out there. We wrote, we talked, we complained, we made uncomfortable alliances, we created facebook groups, all to battle the Biggest Edumonster of All.
But now, after a few years, the fearsome Core is starting to look like the Abominable Snow Monster of the North after Hermie the dentist-elf performs an emergency chomperectomy.
Both its defeats and victories have worked against it. The brand name (Common Core) is firmly ensconced in the public consciousness, but the brand itself is hopelessly hollowed out. People know it when they see it, but everybody sees something different. Kind of like pornography.
I've made this point at length elsewhere, but the short form is that between books and programs and local interpretations and tested versions and the general arble garble of its supporters, Common Core as a national set of standards uniting all US schools on the Same Page simply doesn't exist. And the teacher-supporters haven't helped their cause with their ridiculous attributions to the Core of everything form the discovery of critical thinking to fundamental teaching skills. Together with the loons blaming Core for Communist aggression and fluoridated water, they've shown us the way, and I wish I had seen it sooner-- whatever it is you're doing in your classroom, just nod and say, "Yes, this is totally a Common Core thing!" Nobody anywhere is on solid footing to call you a liar.
Common Core is still the one-size-fits-all product of dabbling educational amateurs. but you know what happens to a one-size-fits-all sweater when it gets worn and passed around by hundreds of human beings with hundreds of different builds? It gets all stretched out of shape until you can barely tell it's a sweater.
Common Core is a meaningless hash, and there isn't a soul in a position of real power willing to stand up and defend it at this point. It can still do real damage to the extent that state or local authorities will try to enforce one stupid piece of educational malpractice or another by hoisting it under the name of Common Core. The Core is still lurking around and doing harm, but the Core of New York State is not the Core of Arizona, which is also not the Core of the PARCC nor the Core of your Pearson textbook series. There will still be hundreds or thousands of terrible ideas ramping about the countryside with the name of CCSS, but the Core's days as The Single Most Serious Threat To Public Education are passing. Common Core has gone from being the name of a very specific large threat to being a name like "Kleenex," used generically to describe many different products.
So, Where Did the Spotlight Go?
I first noted the space opening between charter and core folks last November.
Originally, the Core was going to make a great marketing tool. The Core would be the basis for the tests that would provide the proof that public schools are failing, failing FAILING OMGZ!! and that would open the charter school floodgates. But two things happened.
One was that Core-o-philes frantically called for decoupling the Core from the Big Standardized Tests, thinking that reaction against the BS Test would hurt the Core. Turns out that the tests are pretty resilient. The opt out movement is powerful and gaining strength, but lets be honest-- in the majority of the country, it turns out that if you plunk down something and call it a standardized test, most people will roll over and have their kids take it. Only now and only in certain regions is the opt-out movement gathering real steam.
It also turned out that if you bathed the BS Tests in rosy rhetoric about making sure that students are college and career ready, you don't actually need the standards. In fact, you never needed the standards, because the tests drive instruction all by themselves.
Meanwhile, charter operators embraced a simple truth-- the Core is not necessary for creating a narrative about failing public schools. In fact, in some areas, the Core is part of the proof that public schools are failing (Get your kid into a charter and away from evil Obamacore).
The Hammer and the Broom
The national standards fans and the charter choice crowd were never natural allies. But reformsters of many stripes needed the Big Hammer of Common Core Standards to crack the hard rock shell of public education, to open up that institution to private enterprise. But once the Hammer has done its work, it's not really needed any more.
Common Core's stated purpose was to be the cement that bound together fifty-one higgledy-piggledy educational markets into what would function essentially like one national school district. The Data Overlords liked that idea. The Social Engineers liked that idea. The Profiteers used to like that idea, but it doesn't really matter any more. Corporations like Pearson now have the best of both worlds-- anything with "Common Core" on it can be sold anywhere, but what's between the covers can be any old thing and nobody can really tell the difference.
But the Charter & Choice crowd were never going to want a national school district. They just needed "proof" that Noname Local School is failing so they can rush in to save the poor children trapped in the zip code. Once the Standards Hammer had broken up the public school system into crumbly chunks, the Charter Choice Brrom could come in to sweep up the tasty crumbs.
ESEA
You can see the new emphasis reflected in the proposed Senate rewrite of ESEA.
The proposed law does less than nothing to protect the idea of a Common Core Standards-based national curriculum; in fact, it explicitly ties federal hands so that pursuing such a vision becomes nearly impossible. I suppose you could still try to sell the standards to fifty states based on the merits of common core; you could also open a facility for training unicorns.
What the proposal does do is enshrine the other reformsters True Loves-- testing and charters.
It doesn't actually enshrine testing for any real purpose, seeming to settle for the weird construction that states must continue to give the BS Test, but it's up to the states themselves to figure out exactly why they are giving the BS Test. That's okay-- that's all the legislation necessary to keep the steady revenue stream flowing toward the test manufacturing corporations.
But the Senate ESEA absolutely loves it some charter schools. Money, help with financing, federal strong-arming to get more opened-- the Senate bill is ready to make it rain buckets of cash on the charter sector. This is just one more piece of writing on the wall-- charters are coming to eat punlic schools' lunch, and they are coming hard.
How Does This Change the Debate?
First of all, don't underestimate inertia. One of the reasons that no reformsters have to spend too much juice on CCSS or testing is that inertia is now on their side. Test-and-punish accountability, measuring education in test scores, aligning to amateur-hour bad standards, operating systems intended to create public school failure, ongoing crushing of the teaching profession-- these are the status quo. They have been how US schools work for at least a decade. All those high school grads who aren't going into teaching? Their entire school experience has told them that test prep and teacher bashing and mandated malpractice and teacher-as-dontent-delivery-system-- all these things are not some temporary aberration, but the SOP of how schools function.
We have a whole generation of people who do not know how schools could be any other way.
Second, alliances are going to shift. People who fight the Core will also find themselves more and more fighting a local battle against whatever version of the Core has raised its stupid head. There are plenty of people who hate the Common Core, but they kind of hate public schools, too, and they would be perfectly happy to see traditional public ed replaced with charters and homeschools and twelve kinds of choice. There are lots of folks who think a charter choice system is the perfect antidote to federal overreach.
The whole battle for the soul of public education is going to become more diverse. more spread out across many fronts. Lots of people thought that promoting CCSS was the path to riches and power through their favorite reformy idea, but the last few years have shown that many of them can pursue a more direct path. Common Core was the flashlight that could illuminate the path to privatizing education; now lots of folks can see that path clearly without any help.
If you want another analogy, try this. Common Core was like the breach in the fortress wall, but now the wall is breached, the barbarians are inside the barricades, and they are spreading out to loot whatever castle target they'd always had their eyes on.
CCSS is still worthy of mockery, still deserving of resistance, still an impediment to actual education.
But our problems now are more direct:
* the steady financial starving of public schools to bring on failure
* the use of testing to create a narrative of failure and target schools for acquisition
* breaking down the teaching profession to make it cheaper and more compliant
* the redirecting of public tax dollars from public education to private corporations
* the steady drumbeat to redefine the definition and purpose of public education
* the creation of two systems-- one for haves, one for have-nots
If Common Core evaporated tomorrow, these issues wouldn't flinch an inch. I won't stop taking potshots at the Core, and I support those that wish to do so. But I think the heart of the debate is shifting. When it comes to the assault on public education, we have bigger fish to fry than the CCSS.
Wednesday, April 8, 2015
Hatchet Jobs By Video
One of the achingly stupid portions of Andrew Cuomo's budgetary assault on education is the mandated use of outside evaluators.
There has been some spirited discussion of how exactly that would work, or not. Carol Burris looked at it. Daniel Katz broke down all the ways it won't work. The folks at South Bronx School put fake ads for outside evaluators on Craigslist-- and got responses. But it was realitybasededucator at Perdido Street Schools who spotted tweets from a Cuomo flack that hinted at another solution to this boldly baldfaced bowl of balderdash.
The trail of tweetage leads us to an article New York Daily News article by Thomas Kane, the Harvard Graduate School of Education professor who has carried a lot of water for Bill Gates in his day.
Kane uses a metaphor that he's been milking for quite a while now-- the idea that you can't diet successfully without a mirror and a bathroom scale. I've addressed his use of this monumentally ill-considered and mis-constructed analogy before-- it's a simple image with a whole lot of wrong packed into it, and you can follow the link for the full treatment if you like. The short answer is this: if you need a mirror and a bathroom scale to tell whether or not you're getting healthier, you are either a dope or the kind of technocratic tool who believes that machine-generated data is more valuable than human sensory input.
Kane also uses Cuomo's own talking point to call for "better" evaluations-- too many teachers were evaluated well last year. In other words, we will be ruled by data, but only data that matches our pre-concieved biases about teacher quality in NY. If the data doesn't match our biases (NY teachers mostly suck) then we will keep tweaking the system until it gives us the "right" data.
Cuomo has done his best to tweak the system by expressly forbidding input from parents, community, students, or the teacher's actual boss-- in other words, anybody who's actually familiar with how the teacher does her job. But Kane acknowledges that the outside evaluator requirement presents some logistical challenges. He has a solution.
A lot of time could be wasted as observers travel from school to school. One alternative would be to allow teachers to submit videos to external observers (and, possibly, to their principals as well).
On the one hand, there is some value in watching yourself work on camera. It takes roughly thirty seconds to spot whatever annoying tic you had carefully blocked from your own consciousness, but which your students use to mock you when you're not around.
On the other hand, handing that video over to a stranger as a means of evaluation is just stupid.
First, the camera can only cover so much of the classroom. So the video observer will only see a portion of what was going on and catch only a fraction of the teaching environment.
Because of that, and because of time lag (shoot video, send video, find time to watch video), the feedback will be less useful to the teacher. And how about that, anyway-- if the observer is going to make the trip to have a post-viewing feedback session with the teacher, how much time and hassle have we actually saved, anyway? Of course, we could save more time and hassle if the "feedback" just came in the form of written comments on a form, or a swift e-mail.
That sort of feedback would be considerably less useful. And you know what else it would do?
It would remove the need for the outside observer to look a teacher in the eye when he's scuttling her career. As an outsider, the observer already has zero skin in this game, absolutely no stake on the line at all. Add the video, and the observer doesn't even have the minimal human stake involved in talking to someone face to face.
The distance created by a video version of observation removes one more relationship from the mix. The observee and the observer remain total strangers to each other. The observer need not be concerned about whether or not he's actually helping the teacher, and the teacher has no idea whether the observer is a wise mentor educator whose advice is worth heeding, or some jackass hack who just breezed through fifty videos in a day and whose advice is no more useful than that of some shmoe off the street. Heck, it might be a shmoe off the street who's just ploughing through videos in a Pearson evaluation video sweatshop. (That is, of course, before the day arrives that Pearson announces they've got software that can analyze videos to determine teacher quality).
Video observation is an almost certain guarantee that the observation process will be even less useful, less helpful, less instrumental in helping teachers improve and grow. Of course, is the only point of your observation process is to play "gotcha" with all those awful teachers that you just know are out there, then a video system should work just fine.
Look, there's no way to implement the outside observation idea that isn't bad, and dumb. But observation by video would be the baddest, dumbest method of all. Unfortunately, it would also be the most efficiently profitable for the company that lands the contract, so I'm afraid we may be onto something here. As always, best of luck and good wishes to my brothers and sisters in New York classrooms.
There has been some spirited discussion of how exactly that would work, or not. Carol Burris looked at it. Daniel Katz broke down all the ways it won't work. The folks at South Bronx School put fake ads for outside evaluators on Craigslist-- and got responses. But it was realitybasededucator at Perdido Street Schools who spotted tweets from a Cuomo flack that hinted at another solution to this boldly baldfaced bowl of balderdash.
The trail of tweetage leads us to an article New York Daily News article by Thomas Kane, the Harvard Graduate School of Education professor who has carried a lot of water for Bill Gates in his day.
Kane uses a metaphor that he's been milking for quite a while now-- the idea that you can't diet successfully without a mirror and a bathroom scale. I've addressed his use of this monumentally ill-considered and mis-constructed analogy before-- it's a simple image with a whole lot of wrong packed into it, and you can follow the link for the full treatment if you like. The short answer is this: if you need a mirror and a bathroom scale to tell whether or not you're getting healthier, you are either a dope or the kind of technocratic tool who believes that machine-generated data is more valuable than human sensory input.
Kane also uses Cuomo's own talking point to call for "better" evaluations-- too many teachers were evaluated well last year. In other words, we will be ruled by data, but only data that matches our pre-concieved biases about teacher quality in NY. If the data doesn't match our biases (NY teachers mostly suck) then we will keep tweaking the system until it gives us the "right" data.
Cuomo has done his best to tweak the system by expressly forbidding input from parents, community, students, or the teacher's actual boss-- in other words, anybody who's actually familiar with how the teacher does her job. But Kane acknowledges that the outside evaluator requirement presents some logistical challenges. He has a solution.
A lot of time could be wasted as observers travel from school to school. One alternative would be to allow teachers to submit videos to external observers (and, possibly, to their principals as well).
On the one hand, there is some value in watching yourself work on camera. It takes roughly thirty seconds to spot whatever annoying tic you had carefully blocked from your own consciousness, but which your students use to mock you when you're not around.
On the other hand, handing that video over to a stranger as a means of evaluation is just stupid.
First, the camera can only cover so much of the classroom. So the video observer will only see a portion of what was going on and catch only a fraction of the teaching environment.
Because of that, and because of time lag (shoot video, send video, find time to watch video), the feedback will be less useful to the teacher. And how about that, anyway-- if the observer is going to make the trip to have a post-viewing feedback session with the teacher, how much time and hassle have we actually saved, anyway? Of course, we could save more time and hassle if the "feedback" just came in the form of written comments on a form, or a swift e-mail.
That sort of feedback would be considerably less useful. And you know what else it would do?
It would remove the need for the outside observer to look a teacher in the eye when he's scuttling her career. As an outsider, the observer already has zero skin in this game, absolutely no stake on the line at all. Add the video, and the observer doesn't even have the minimal human stake involved in talking to someone face to face.
The distance created by a video version of observation removes one more relationship from the mix. The observee and the observer remain total strangers to each other. The observer need not be concerned about whether or not he's actually helping the teacher, and the teacher has no idea whether the observer is a wise mentor educator whose advice is worth heeding, or some jackass hack who just breezed through fifty videos in a day and whose advice is no more useful than that of some shmoe off the street. Heck, it might be a shmoe off the street who's just ploughing through videos in a Pearson evaluation video sweatshop. (That is, of course, before the day arrives that Pearson announces they've got software that can analyze videos to determine teacher quality).
Video observation is an almost certain guarantee that the observation process will be even less useful, less helpful, less instrumental in helping teachers improve and grow. Of course, is the only point of your observation process is to play "gotcha" with all those awful teachers that you just know are out there, then a video system should work just fine.
Look, there's no way to implement the outside observation idea that isn't bad, and dumb. But observation by video would be the baddest, dumbest method of all. Unfortunately, it would also be the most efficiently profitable for the company that lands the contract, so I'm afraid we may be onto something here. As always, best of luck and good wishes to my brothers and sisters in New York classrooms.
Seniority and My Wife
From Students Matter to Campbell Brown, reformsters have been working to erode teacher job security and end the use of seniority in furlough decisions. The current system, they say, is unfairly hurting great young teachers. I have some thoughts about gifted teachers at the beginning of their careers, because I'm married to one of them. This debate, for us, is intensely personal.
My wife and I teach in two different districts in Pennsylvania, and like all districts in Pennsylvania that don't mainly serve rich folks, our districts are caught in big financial vise. Now in budgeting season, both districts are looking (once again) at some serious cuts. But my wife and I are in different situations; I am at the top of my district's seniority list, and she is at the bottom of hers. She and two co-workers have already had The Meeting-- the one where an administrator tells you that your future with the district does not look good.
My wife is good. Really good. Before she landed this full-time job, she was the go-to sub for maternity leaves, the sub always requested by teachers at all levels. She has been hugely successful with her first graders-- creative, loving, gifted, inspiring, and hugely dedicated. I know this not just because I'm married to her, but because people who work with and around her tell me, often. She does all the things you hear about dedicated elementary teachers doing-- spending tons of money on supplies, working a sixth day in the classroom every weekend, going the extra mile to get her students the support they need. If there were ever a teacher who deserved to have a job, my wife is just such a person.
Co-workers have said many things to her in attempts to be supportive. One such comment is "If only we could just find three teachers who don't deserve to be here and just fire them instead."
We've talked about this. "How would that even work," is her response to Just Fire the Worst. She wondered who would make such a decision, and how. I allowed as how lots of reformsters like the idea of doing it based on teacher ratings, but of course in a K-6 school, some of those are based on test scores and some are based on the yet-to-be-fully-explained SLOs, with a helping of school performance ratings and VAM sauce. I've yet to meet anybody in my wife's position who thinks they'd be more secure under such a system of randomly assigned test-based student-dependent numbers.
My wife also notes that the stack-rank, fire-the-bottom-5% model is for lazy managers. "They don't ever have to try to raise anybody up. They just sit in their office and wait. And if they want to get rid of somebody, they can just refuse to help make them better." How would that help a school improve?
And what about building morale. If you're competing with the teacher across the hall for a job, how do you justify lending them the great teaching idea you just came up with? My wife works at a great school, and one of the marks of its greatness is the collaboration and teamwork among the staff; how does that survive a Thunderdome fight for survival?
Morale always takes a hit from furloughs. Just the idea that they are now That School, where people can lose their job because bureaucrats and politicians can't manage finances, is depressing, stressful. My wife is living with uncertainty, sadness, strain (while still doing a kick-ass job). How would it affect a building if every budgetary crisis meant that every single teacher in the building had to live with that uncertainty?
Some PA legislators are once again trying to float anti-seniority laws that would let school districts under financial hardship handle layoffs based on teacher ratings. They would also, according to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, "permit school districts to furlough teachers based on the economic needs of the district."
This is exactly the sort of law that would conceivably save my wife's position. Ironically, it would probably end mine. For a district in economic hardship, the most attractive layoffs would be to axe the most expensive teachers. Under an "economic hardship" rule, my career would have ended a decade ago. So in state like Pennsylvania where the legislature has been systematically underfunding schools, either my wife or I are vulnerable to furlough.
I asked her what she thought about devoting herself to a career in which every step up the ladder of success would mean one step closer to being fired. She responded with some NSFW language (my wife is quite the sassmeister when she wants to be). And that's the thing about non-seniority rules. Under the current system. it's hard to get a lifelong teaching career launched and safely under way. Under anti-seniority systems, it's impossible. The world needs more teachers like my wife, and my wife is not a dope. How do you recruit and retain her by saying, "You can have a short-term job in teaching, but you will never have a career."
Look, nobody has to tell me that the way this is working sucks. Sucks with a giant suckness that could out-suck the suck of the biggest darkest suckingest black hole in the universe. But as much as this sucks, every alternative proposed by reformsters sucks even more. Pennsylvania schools should be properly funded. My wife should be in a classroom for the rest of her life, and all present and future students deserve to have a teacher of her caliber and dedication. That's the world we ought to be living in; destroying seniority gets us further away from that world, not closer.
Originally posted at View from the Cheap Seats
My wife and I teach in two different districts in Pennsylvania, and like all districts in Pennsylvania that don't mainly serve rich folks, our districts are caught in big financial vise. Now in budgeting season, both districts are looking (once again) at some serious cuts. But my wife and I are in different situations; I am at the top of my district's seniority list, and she is at the bottom of hers. She and two co-workers have already had The Meeting-- the one where an administrator tells you that your future with the district does not look good.
My wife is good. Really good. Before she landed this full-time job, she was the go-to sub for maternity leaves, the sub always requested by teachers at all levels. She has been hugely successful with her first graders-- creative, loving, gifted, inspiring, and hugely dedicated. I know this not just because I'm married to her, but because people who work with and around her tell me, often. She does all the things you hear about dedicated elementary teachers doing-- spending tons of money on supplies, working a sixth day in the classroom every weekend, going the extra mile to get her students the support they need. If there were ever a teacher who deserved to have a job, my wife is just such a person.
Co-workers have said many things to her in attempts to be supportive. One such comment is "If only we could just find three teachers who don't deserve to be here and just fire them instead."
We've talked about this. "How would that even work," is her response to Just Fire the Worst. She wondered who would make such a decision, and how. I allowed as how lots of reformsters like the idea of doing it based on teacher ratings, but of course in a K-6 school, some of those are based on test scores and some are based on the yet-to-be-fully-explained SLOs, with a helping of school performance ratings and VAM sauce. I've yet to meet anybody in my wife's position who thinks they'd be more secure under such a system of randomly assigned test-based student-dependent numbers.
My wife also notes that the stack-rank, fire-the-bottom-5% model is for lazy managers. "They don't ever have to try to raise anybody up. They just sit in their office and wait. And if they want to get rid of somebody, they can just refuse to help make them better." How would that help a school improve?
And what about building morale. If you're competing with the teacher across the hall for a job, how do you justify lending them the great teaching idea you just came up with? My wife works at a great school, and one of the marks of its greatness is the collaboration and teamwork among the staff; how does that survive a Thunderdome fight for survival?
Morale always takes a hit from furloughs. Just the idea that they are now That School, where people can lose their job because bureaucrats and politicians can't manage finances, is depressing, stressful. My wife is living with uncertainty, sadness, strain (while still doing a kick-ass job). How would it affect a building if every budgetary crisis meant that every single teacher in the building had to live with that uncertainty?
Some PA legislators are once again trying to float anti-seniority laws that would let school districts under financial hardship handle layoffs based on teacher ratings. They would also, according to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, "permit school districts to furlough teachers based on the economic needs of the district."
This is exactly the sort of law that would conceivably save my wife's position. Ironically, it would probably end mine. For a district in economic hardship, the most attractive layoffs would be to axe the most expensive teachers. Under an "economic hardship" rule, my career would have ended a decade ago. So in state like Pennsylvania where the legislature has been systematically underfunding schools, either my wife or I are vulnerable to furlough.
I asked her what she thought about devoting herself to a career in which every step up the ladder of success would mean one step closer to being fired. She responded with some NSFW language (my wife is quite the sassmeister when she wants to be). And that's the thing about non-seniority rules. Under the current system. it's hard to get a lifelong teaching career launched and safely under way. Under anti-seniority systems, it's impossible. The world needs more teachers like my wife, and my wife is not a dope. How do you recruit and retain her by saying, "You can have a short-term job in teaching, but you will never have a career."
Look, nobody has to tell me that the way this is working sucks. Sucks with a giant suckness that could out-suck the suck of the biggest darkest suckingest black hole in the universe. But as much as this sucks, every alternative proposed by reformsters sucks even more. Pennsylvania schools should be properly funded. My wife should be in a classroom for the rest of her life, and all present and future students deserve to have a teacher of her caliber and dedication. That's the world we ought to be living in; destroying seniority gets us further away from that world, not closer.
Originally posted at View from the Cheap Seats
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