Mass Teacher Layoffs in D.C. Amount To One Hell of a Power Play by Michelle Rhee
The power plays over D.C. public schools just went into gonzo territory. This week, D.C. Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee announced a reduction in force (RIF) was imminent -- despite having just hired 900 new teachers in a system of just 3,800 teachers. Layoffs begin September 30; fear and confusion abounds.
No one knows yet who's going to go, but I wouldn't bet that the shiny new hires will be first out the door. Rhee's celebrity-- burnished by a cover story in Time Magazine-- is defined by her quixotic "battle against bad teachers." In Rhee's world, the quality of public education in D.C. has been dismal for years because of a critical mass of lazy, ineffective veteran teachers haunting classrooms.
In her mind, the solution lays in clearing out the oldies in favor of legions of rookies with prestigious degrees and two-year teaching commitments. Evidenced by her death-match negotiating tactics with the Washington Teachers' Union, Rhee would love nothing more than to eviscerate collective bargaining and make all teachers at-will employees, corporate-style, accountable only by their students' test scores.
Her latest gambit might be her wildest. How can someone hire nearly 25% of their work force over the summer and then less than a month into the school year throw up her hands and move to lay so many off?
Here's how:
Step 1: Hire a lot of Teach For America rookies and people who agree with you.
Step 2: Put in place impossible-to-meet standards for teacher performance to make anyone a target for sacking.Step 3: Announce there has been a budget shock and a reduction in force is unavoidable because of the economic downturn. Pretend you somehow didn't understand in July 2009 how bad our budget situation would be in just two months. The teachers to be reduced will be selected out of those with less than stellar "performance" (and practically everybody will be vulnerable).
Step 4: Get rid of whoever you want, sidestepping due process and remaking the teaching force in your image.
This brand of shock therapy is attractive to observers who love words like "bold" and "hard-charging" and assign them to self-styled reformers like Rhee who want fast revolutions. They dismiss voices of caution and defense of existing contracts and due process as defense of the abominable status quo.
That's disingenuous. The union ought to be open to loosening tenure provisions, but Rhee simply misses the boat by blaming DC children's academic struggles squarely on teachers. Rhee's mislaid battle of gutting the union and purging veteran teachers will leave an experience and institutional knowledge vacuum that no quantity of super-caffeinated twenty-two-year-old Yalies can remake. As with any profession, there are some teachers in D.C. who should not be there, but Rhee is moving here to throw out the baby with the bathwater.
It's a fallacy that Ivy League grads are sprinkled with the fairy dust of brilliance to waltz into a classroom and be a great teacher. I received a world class education at NYU, and got the tar kicked out of me by a class of Bronx 4th graders in my rookie year. Becoming a good teacher takes time, reflection, and support. Many of the strategies it takes to succeed are non-intuitive and reflective of each teacher's unique personality. Most of the Teach For America teachers I meet have the makings of great teachers -- but they're nowhere near great in their first two years.
Rhee's sweeping dismissal of so many experienced teachers will hurt far more than its sending a small number of truly washed-up teachers out to pasture will help. The ground-level effects of this veteran bloodletting will be immeasurable.
Since the start of her tenure, Rhee has followed New York City Schools Chancellor Joel Klein's lead by repeatedly calling herself a reformer, and trumpeting basic skills standardized test scores as the definitive word on a student's education. To achieve success in this brave new world, autocratic, corporate-style power is crucial. Too many dissenting voices could reveal that the emperor of testing isn't wearing any clothes when it comes to truly supporting students.
Rhee's mass hiring of newbies thankful to have jobs, juxtaposed with an expected mass layoff of veterans who know about how schools should run, takes cold-blooded, short-sighted "reform" to a new level.
Dan Brown is a teacher at a public charter school in Washington, D.C. and the author of The Great Expectations School: A Rookie Year in the New Blackboard Jungle. He is not a member of any teachers' union.
Follow Dan Brown on Twitter: www.twitter.com/danbrownteacher
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There are some really, really poor teachers in the DC school system that must be moved out before effective change occurs. I have witnessed some of those "teachers" teaching and it was just horrible and sad.
Go Rhee for making tough, unpopular decisions.
Dan,
I want to address your point about Chancellor Rhee simply hiring "legions of rookies with prestigious degrees and two-year teaching commitments". As Im sure you know, there are only about 400 current Teach for America teachers in DC. Factoring in the numbers teaching in Prince George's County and in DC Charter Schools, we are only talking about 150 to 200 Teach for America teachers working in DCPS. That only accounts for 5%(at most) of the teachers in DCPS. The teaching ranks in DCPS are hardly dominated by Teach for America teachers.
"we are only talking about 150 to 200 Teach for America teachers working in DCPS"
True, there may only be about 150-200 TFA teacher in DCPS. But that is not the only program. The DC Teaching Fellows (of which I am one) number at least 300 and have many alums (people in their 3rd to 4th year) and DCTF is not the only other program to send young teacher to DCPS.
"...experience and institutional knowledge vacuum that no quantity of super-caffeinated twenty-two-year-old Yalies can remake. As with any profession, there are some teachers in D.C. who should not be there, but Rhee is moving here to throw out the baby with the bathwater. "
This is by no means unique to the D.C. Public Schools. Look at any department in the Fenty administration and you will find that anyone over 40 need not apply for a leadership role. They have fired, lost, or otherwise discouraged anyone with professional knowledge in the area of expertise to voice an professional opinion contrary to the Mayor's point of view. I am not saying their are some bad and/or underperformed apples -- there are. But, the approach is to, "throw out the baby with the bathwater," because they figure they can always find more "babies" who will drink the kool-aid.
For the sake of an argument let us say that the 50% of kids in D.C. who fail to get a high school diploma are of my slow and thinking laboring class.
And also to really make it an intense argument, let us kick religion into the debate and say that it was all by intelligent design. Namely that we are all given a different ability to earn income as a test, to see if we pass our excessive wealth down to those less fortunate where it belongs.
OK, lets argue.
FACT 1: Kids in the laboring class slum schools rarely if ever compete with kids in the middleclass neighborhoods, especially hardly ever in the area of competitive sports.
FACT 2: No meaningful studies have ever been performed on the correlation between intelligence, heredity, ability to learn and ability to earn income. And as this subject is a black-out in all school text books, it is as if the ruling class thought the people should be kept in the dark on this issue.
FACT 3: Slowest learners in a class are never told that intelligence is a factor of birth, that everyone has a different level of learning ability and that low grades are normal and expectable for some students, and nothing to be ashamed of. Instead, students born most intelligent are glorified at the expense of less intelligent students by forcing students with low grades to, against their will, endure unfair competition.
FACT 4: Public school teachers are all of the fast and intelligent middleclass, and they have no conception whatsoever of what goes on in the minds of students with slow and careful thinking laboring class parents. Reason being, the ruling class fails to make such training mandatory in college courses relating to education.
ARGUMENT 1: Ambition is in direct proportion to intelligence. For example, we have a good ability to learn math and so set a goal of an engineering degree. But such ambition to achieve, this can only be sustained by visible signs of progress. For no work is more strenuous or taxing on the mind then learning a new skill, and without visible signs of progress it is absolutely impossible to continue.
ARGUMENT 2: Intelligent middleclass teachers are totally unfit, mentally and intellectually, to teach students of the slow and careful thinking laboring class.
ARGUMENT 3: Only teachers of the laboring class, such as many without a teaching degree in private schools, have the same mental limitations of laboring class students. Only they know when a child slow of thought has reached the limit of their ability to absorb knowledge. And only they know when a child is being mentally scarred for life by force-feeding knowledge that blows the mind.
ARGUMENT 4: Debate over charter schools, this is really about how to best force-feed knowledge into the minds of slow and carful thinking kids. Surely kids born of my slow and careful thinking laboring class. Funny thing, none of the slow and careful thinkers needed to resolve the problem are allowed to enter the debate.
ARGUMENT 5: Intelligence, the speed we rationalize a problem and take action, is most beneficial to itself. Whereas wisdom, the slow and careful way we rationalize a problem, this is most beneficial to society.
There's a funny post on here titled "Criticism of Obama Not About Race, Says New Poll of White People."
I think I'll write a companion piece: "Failure of Educational System Not the Fault of Teachers, Says New Poll of Professional Educators."
Of course it's not ALL about teachers. But as professionals, aren't you the least bit concerned about the non-performers in your ranks? And aren't you curious to find out what makes a great teacher? And wouldn't you like to see great teachers rewarded? And wouldn't you like to know how it is that some people manage to reach the most difficult students?
What we'd like, for a start, are apples-to-apples comparisons in your attempts at analogy. Elsewhere you point out that teachers are public servants. Fair enough. But last time I looked police and firemen were raking in the overtime pay; in L.A. it's a way of life for fireman, and can regularly mean six-figure salaries. But overtime for teachers? They do it; they just don't get paid for it.
Your lament at a supposed disinterest on the part of the teaching profession as to the causes of problem schools is a useful rhetorical stance for you, but it's a contrivance. There's plenty of curiosity about the causes of those problems, but it's not limited to easy finger pointing. Nor are the glib promises of rescue from an elite corps of Ivy League heroines persuasive. The photo of Rhee wielding her metaphorical broom only reminds us of the need for real brooms--and asbestos masks, and lead abatement, and plumbers. Will the rescue teachers also come with their own tool boxes?
Hmmm.... I was thinking of teachers as more of a white-collar profession, not a trade. And in the salaried professions, long hours go with the territory. In mine, 50 hours a week is the minimum. Overtime? Hah! Look at the bright side: you have the best benefits to be had anywhere outside of executive suites.
When I was speaking of the lack of interest, I was talking about the people who post online. I have some teachers in my family, and they're interested. And kind of curious to see what happens in D.C. for the most part. Although my kids are in college or finished, I am still involved with teachers in my community, and a number of them are passionate about improving the situation as well.
What just gripes the heck out of me is the quality of discussion on HP and various other sites. Instead of honest self-examination of the profession, instead of research (I assume there must be some teachers outside my family who read peer-reviewed research) there's an endless repetition of the same old complaints. Parents aren't involved or don't care. Kids don't get enough sleep. Come from terrible homes. Don't speak English. And so on.
I'll repeat what I said in another post, something a former boss used to say when he was giving me something impossible to do: "Some people look for reasons to fail; other people look for ways to succeed."
"aren't you the least bit concerned about the non-performers in your ranks?"
How many non-performers do you think occupy the typical public school? Judging by the incendiary pro-privatizing opinions and exaggerations I've read recently (including yours), one would imagine out of a typical staff of 30 teachers, 25 are terrible and only 5 are effective. In my experience (yes, I am a teacher), I have found the opposite to be true. Most of a typical school staff work hard, are conscientious and are doing the best they can under circumstances unimaginable to the average lay person.
There might be a few weak links in the chain and those at the school know who they are. Should they be remediated or removed? Of course, and I've seen that happen too. Throwing a blanket of blame on an entire profession for problems caused by class inequality, segregation, poverty, family dysfunction and social injustice is irrational, naive and far too simple. Blaming entire corps of teachers for the problems of poor inner-city schools is ignorant in the extreme and is buying an ugly brand of politics.
Despite the incessant teacher-bashing by such as Michelle Rhee, we are trying to educate EVERYONE. Not so in high-achieving India or China, no matter what the propagandists may say.
If Americans let education become privatized, in one or maybe two generations we will see slums as vast as those of Mumbai abutting every major urban area in this country.
Thank you for not letting the political implications of this story go unchallenged. They're there, and they're ugly.
It's a hard thing, having the best of intentions and working hard, but having poor outcomes when other people succeed. But it's a sad truth, in life, and certainly in all professions.
Why? I'm not sure. Teacher education seems to be part of the problem -- there's little evidence that "trained" teachers are any more effective than "non-trained" teachers. The teacher education machine seems to be an entrenched, self-serving and self-perpetuating bureaucracy. And it's failing teachers! So, how about a 3-week certification course for college grads who have demonstrated subject matter expertise, followed by a 6-month "internship" to determine whether the candidates have the soft skills required to teach? If the candidates pass muster, they stay. If not, they can work on their deficiencies or they choose another career.
The ratio of effective to ineffective teachers in schools varies, of course. In my local high school, I can name the 5 "A" teachers, and everyone else knows who they are, too. There are probably another 10 "B" teachers. The rest are just there, as far as I can tell, because they couldn't figure out what else to do and kind of liked high school, so, heck, why leave? Math teachers who give "extra credit" to students for bringing tissues for the classroom, or history teachers who show "Titanic" while half the class sleeps on the floor.
The focus on teachers does not address the incompetent boobs who sit on school boards (where the waste, fraud and abuse REALLY occurs) nor does it address equally doltish school administrators. Teachers are basically third on the totem pole there and end up often being hamstrung by the idiots above them. So unless the school boards and administrators issues are dealt with, you are unlikely to see any improvement in student performance.
Rhee might see herself as a kind of Queen Sejong of DC schools, but she has yet to put in place a self-perpetuating reform system that can benefit all students once she goes elsewhere. Instead, what she has resorted to is a scattershot approach and a whole lot of grandstanding while lacking a comprehensive vision. That may be great for the media image she has cultivated, but her regime is little more than a Potemkin-style gesture.
I certainly agree with the school board problem. I've lived in several cities, and the problem seems common -- grandstanding, second-string politicos with no interest in education. Not sure what the solution is. You need community oversight. But how?
As I've said in other posts, I've also lived in communities that had top-ten-in-the-state public schools. And they had highly-effective boards. I guess the bottom line is that school boards reflect community values, and where the community doesn't particularly value education and is, say, more interested in sports, then unfortunately that's where funds will be directed. And the football and basketball stars of last year will be tomorrow's Taco Bell window attendants. The community's values will be played out in the futures of the children.
I can't wait to see Rhee's obligatory "OK, let's try this..." methodology after the schools continue to perform dismally even in the wake of an entirely new roster of teachers.
"In Rhee's world, the quality of public education in D.C. has been dismal for years because of a critical mass of lazy, ineffective veteran teachers haunting classrooms. "
Amen.
Get rid of the dead weight. What they are doing to poor children is criminal. Schools should be a sanctuary for children. DCs kids must be challenged and must learn what their counterparts in DC's suburbs are learning.
The lion's share of the "dead weight" in question is fulfilled by administrators, students, and irresponsible members of the community.
Any sanctuary that teachers provide won't mean anything unless students and parents learn to accept a little responsiblity themselves.
As Kurt Vonnegut observed in Player Piano, "You can see all kinds of things on the outside that you can't see from the inside."
The dead weight aka The Elephant in the Room are the parents. If literate workaholic parents in DC have little time to minutely assess their child's development, how much better would functionally literate/illiterate ones working blue collar jobs fare raising their children in the poorer and lesser-funded wards of the city?
Parents today are not raising our children--teachers are. That's the dirty little secret. That's the third rail The Washington Post neglects to mention. Well-to-do parents (cognizant they have little time for their offspring) send their children to private or charter schools. These are the educated ones with college degrees.
The public schools are being abandoned with children whose parents can't, don't or won't attend PTA meetings. The teachers who stick it out over the years who provide supplies out of pocket, counsel students in oppressive households and teach--are being kicked out the door.
To compare DC schools to those in the suburbs is to compare Mars to Pluto. DC schools have multiple strata that regularly impedes administration organization: 1. Congress; 2. The Mayor; 3. The City Concil; 4. Superintendent/Chancellor of Schools; 5. and School Board. To these official overseers one might also add The Washington Post, now a media AND education entity, whose purpose seems to be focused on propping up the Fenty administration.
hear hear
THEY DO NOT WANT THE CHILDREN TO LEARN.
I DON'T KNOW WHO THEY ARE...
but this only sends one message.
The spell will not be broken from the outside, or the inside...
you are either laughed off or fearful of dismissal.
As with everything...they will drag the mess out as long as they can...
maybe forever...
it will only be a decade worth of children ruined anyway, right.
We are all simpletons to make fun of such things on TIME magazine covers.
Everything is a Hollywood joke...
(trust Billy Joel to have the last line)
I wish my daughter had finished school in the nineties.
You'd think they'd have learned from the failed Bloomberg policies in NYC - saying it works DOESN'T MAKE IT WORK. Changing the name of a program, tweaking it for year-after-year for six years - doesn't make a school system any better. Removing veteran teachers to recruit a parade of newbies willing to take half salary isn't helping students. (It's merely beating down the union... Welcome to the new America, which works tirelessly with the birthers, panelists and anti-gov anti-unionist folks to defeat our hard-fought battles for fair working conditions (aka unions). Veteran teachers don't make a system bad - on the contrary: they make it good. Having the accommodating newbie-teacher come in to try calming the chaos (with no real time or practical experience) is folly ! It's the product of Bad Administration which thinks education can be developed out of a boardroom. That's what it's like in the college preparation to teaching - NOT in teaching.
They throw the baby OUT with the bath water EVERY TIME (to curry favor with the likes of Teacher's College or whatever is the DC version of WHY Johnie Can't Read (and by the time it's obvious they have failed YET AGAIN, there's yet another generation who have fallen through the cracks while at the same time their (NYC) fearless leader will be breaking term limits to make sure our school system fails on his watch (using the same Bushworthy tabulations for our success).
High School Grads in England have an Education equal to a Jounior In College in the USA .
Every school district can have different standards, "Jounior".
And we're proud to have the lowest standards in the industrialized world!!
"This week, D.C. Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee announced a reduction in force (RIF) was imminent -- despite having just hired 900 new teachers in a system of just 3,800 teachers."
She seems to be trying to get around the laws for cause and due process in teacher firing and replacement by executing the actions in reverse order.
This would be fraud.
Lawsuits should follow. If this can be done then all laws on such matters are worthless.
She should as well be fired herself for being too clever by half.
Welcome to the real world. Everything's great with a union until boss man decides it's time to end the status-quo, then it's every man for himself. The teacher's union is just the last one to get the memo, that's all.
Oh, and my social studies teacher, a seasoned professional, he gave tests every Monday morning, and if Alabama didn't win on Saturday, everyone in the class got a failing grade. Now that's what I call professionalism at its best.
Um, no, it's not fraud. It might be breach of contract. It might be tough as nails. It might be brilliant. I don't know, but I know it's not fraud.
Rhee doesn't have to have cause to fire teachers or principals. Not too long ago she fired the principal of the Oyster School, which her child attends. Although the principal outpaced her peers in student performance, etc., she was let go. Presumably without cause.
Can she fire bad parents while she's at it?
No. Parents are the customers.
In the US the customer is always right.
And then the doctors can "fire" all of their unhealthy patients. Why not? And then the lawyers can fire all of their trouble-making clients. And I think the police should refuse to go to any house that's had a domestic violence call in the past.
My sister, a career teacher (and highly successful teacher of challenged kids) says that the problem with teachers is that they've never left school. They think they run the kingdom now, and don't understand that they're really public servants.
America has a 40% dropout rate. How's that working for us? We are the best in the world. That's what we have been shoving down everyone in the world's throats for years.
Sometimes dropouts are encouraged since it elevates the average scores for those left behind.
That's teh trouble with metrics. No good saying "no child left behind" if your policy measures only those in school and doesn't actually measure the children who are left behind.
I prefer not to believe that professional educators would encourage children to drop out in order to improve their metrics. That would be morally wrong and evidence of a fundamental lack of caring for the children we've entrusted to their care.
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