In the current upside-down world of education policy, there's one foolproof strategy for being taken seriously as a reformer: Make sure you're not an educator.
Urban districts nationwide, with Chicago leading the way, have hired those with business or legal backgrounds to head their school systems. Major voices in the reform conversation, such as former Florida Governor Jeb Bush and philanthropist Eli Broad, have never been teachers. And when Oprah wants to talk about schools, she invites Bill Gates or Facebook founder Mark Zuckerburg -- all the while reminding her audience how much she loves teachers.
So it probably shouldn't come as a huge surprise that Performance Counts, a proposal that zoomed to the top of the legislative agenda in Illinois last week promising to "promote great teaching," boasts a roster of local supporters who aren't exactly known for their educational expertise: the Civic Committee of the Commercial Club of Chicago, the Illinois Chamber of Commerce and the Illinois Business Roundtable.
Backers of Performance Counts say it's pro-student, not anti-teacher or anti-union, but the wide-ranging changes it proposes are nearly all aimed at the state's teachers. The legislation would link tenure decisions to performance evaluations, make it easier to fire teachers, prohibit them from negotiating on issues like class size and make it virtually impossible for them to go on strike.
It's also no shock that the proposal has gained traction among corporate-minded reformers. It fits nicely within a narrative that's been gathering momentum since early last year, when both President Obama and Education Secretary Arne Duncan publicly applauded the mass firing of teachers at a Rhode Island high school: Our public schools are woeful and teachers are a big part of the problem.
Shortly after the firings, Newsweek accompanied its cover story, "The key to saving American education," with a photo of the phrase "We must fire bad teachers" written repeatedly on a chalkboard. More recently, the much-discussed film Waiting for Superman hammered home the same theme, depicting teachers as dozing mopes in New York City's infamous "rubber room" or screaming lunatics manipulated by out-of-touch unions.
Focusing on getting rid of weak teachers as a cornerstone of school reform, however, is a distraction from the kinds of changes we should be pursuing.
But what kinds of changes?
Karen Lewis, president of the Chicago Teachers Union, said in response to Performance Counts:
"How do you improve schools? Lower class sizes, limit instructional time spent on standardized testing, fund schools based on need, not clout and be sure that all children receive a full diet of art, music, physical education and foreign languages."That'd be a good start. And it's what affluent parents -- including the Duncans and the Obamas -- demand for their own kids.
But the mainstream discussion about schools has a decidedly different character. An underlying assumption of almost every utterance is that standardized tests are an essential tool and are here to stay. Poverty's not on the radar. And the arts? What arts?
A big part of the problem is that the conversation has been hijacked by corporate leaders who think they know best how to improve our schools. I'll concede that some of these "new reformers" may have good intentions, but their arrogance is astounding and their lack of interest in the wisdom of those who spend their days in classrooms speaks volumes.
The thing is that it's tough to understand the complexity of teaching if you've never done it. Sure, it's possible to come up with catchy slogans like "performance counts." But what exactly is teacher performance? For most of the business-minded reformers, it means raising student test scores. They may nod toward multiple measures of assessing teachers, but they're really looking at "the data," the bottom line.
During the decade I spent teaching in Chicago, I came to understand that being a good teacher is about far more than that. It's taking time after school hours to get to know the community in which you teach. It's figuring out how to create a learning opportunity when one of your students uses racist or homophobic language in class. It's effectively planning research projects even when your classroom has just two computers for 31 kids. How does "performance count" in situations like these?
I'm not trying to dodge the issues raised by the proposed legislation. And I would agree, as would many teachers I know, that tenure and evaluation processes need to be revisited and improved. But if we're serious about making schools places where meaningful learning happens, not just test prep, then directing our energies toward further disempowering and firing teachers is a horribly misguided approach. What's really strangling the life out of classrooms across this country are the myopic, test-crazy policies of the past ten years.
Then again, I'm an education professor, so what do I know about schools? Maybe only this: If you really want to understand what's going on in them and the direction we need to be headed, don't ask Bill Gates or the Business Roundtable. Ask a teacher.
If administration doesn't have control of the campus, how can a teacher be in charge of a classroom? Leadership and training at all levels. Teachers deserve a classroom assistant when necessary, and strong management leadership.
And it's easy to compare. Most education cirriculum have classes such as "Adolescent Psychology" and mickey mouse science courses. When compared with even PSYCH 101 or MATH 101, it's still simpler. I even skipped undergrad and went straight to the Masters program and it was STILL Middle School all over again. Name another major where you can SKIP Undergrad.
This is all in an effort to convince people to become teachers. If our standards were high, we would only be left with the good teachers- but how many of them would there be?
So now you've graduated. Is it difficult to BE a teacher? Oh you better believe it.
The only way to fully reform our schools is to better prepare our teachers. You're sending men and women fresh out of the academy into the field of battle, unarmed. Those who succeed are heroes. Medal of Honor worthy. But even the best of teachers would do even better with a bigger arsenal of knowledge at their disposal.
Weapons that Businessmen/women and those with experience on the battlefield have at their disposal. But we shouldn't let them take the jobs of our Educators. We should train our Educators how to do their jobs.
If you approached a teacher and asked them.... Lose your job, or these 10 kids will not graduate. They will not attend college.
It's unfair, granted. But life is unfair. If you were that teacher who lost her job... and those 10 kids ended up becoming the scientists of tomorrow, how would you feel about it?
this has to be the joke of the day. what is the chamber of commerce for?????
low wages even third world workers, less benefits, pay for performance based on individualism and average mentality, massive CEO benefits and wages and bonuses, oursourcing, corp tax and business tax breaks, nonunion big time, tenure no way the dont want you to have any job security none at all. you can be fired at will.
the sad part americans will fall for it because they dont know where to turn.
if you think the chamber of commerce cares about american society and the middle class you are probably a member of the chamber of commerce.
teachers hang on to your hats you are about to experience up front and personal what is wrong with wall street, big three and american business in general. ie the chamber of commerce workers as warm body tactics.
it wont be pretty but now you will know what it feels like to be a factory worker in corp america and treated like a second class citizen. the chamber of commerce cant wait to get their hands on your wages, benefits and pensions and most of all your job security must at all cost be eliminated.
bet many of you voted repub and the chamber of commerce loves the repubs as they control them inch by inch; term after term; dollar and more dollars.
http://classroom2point0.wordpress.com/
When smart people seem to be making unsupportable decisions, there is a reason.
Reform advice of professional educators is not important but that of a business tycoon is.
We do not consider the effect of poverty on school performance and focus solely on teachers.
In my 10-year experience I have seen one teacher that was not working hard. By contrast in my experience in corporate America, it seemed like at least half of my co-workers were featherbedding. My observation of several hundred teachers has leads me to conclude that as a profession, teachers are the most dedicated and hardest working profession in America. So, political leaders from the POTUS to the mayor of New York and on and on attack teachers and teachers unions.
Why? I think it is in order to open that $700 billion dollars spent nationally on education to corporate America, people must be convinced that the American Public education system is failing. So, I disagree. I do not think these “new reformers” have even good intentions. From the beginning the standards movement with its objective test, junk science, seemed to be about privatizing the world’s greatest education system for cynical profit motive.
I've also seen a LOT of kids from poor, troubled homes graduate with a decent education because their teachers worked hard. Their parents worked hard too, some of them, but I've seen others that came from toxic homes that still turned into decent adults. Part of that is to the kid's credit. But the schools had something to do with it, too.
Even "failing" schools do a lot of good. "Failing" schools are like the emergency room. People come in with gunshot wounds, losing blood fast (metaphorically speaking). At the affluent suburban schools, you see the equivalent of a sniffle. And people berate inner city schools in a way they'd never berate emergency rooms, for not saving everybody. Could they do better? You'd best believe they'd love to do better. But the fact is, they DO save a lot of kids.
And all I see in the news is blame put on teachers for the ones that were too far gone to save.
We need to start thinking of learning outside of the realm of the buildings that we have built. There are so many options when you let go of the mandatory attendance, offer options, look at how we can teach in the best manner, but it has to be flexible. Talking with private, homeschoolers and businesses is needed. Each local school has to make their own decisions. Rural and manufacturing environments have different needs. And the local people need to hold their school accountable. Why is a federal government holding your school accountable?
On one hand the public believes in and admires teachers and on the other hand these teachers are often viewed and inferior in ability and education and knowledge to the average member of the public.
Michelle Rhee taught only three years, and was asked to leave because she became startlingly abusive to children, even taping the mouths shut of 8 year olds... EIGHT YEAR OLDS!!!
Geoffrey Canada has done ONE good thing at his Harlem Project -- providing WRAPAROUND services for kids in poverty, but these services include foster care for kids whose parents' major fault is just being poor... He also draws a HALF A MILLION in salary to run TWO SCHOOLS with fewer than 450 kids -- and then there's the issue of 'firing' an entire 9th grade of students because they didn't boost test scores as he backed off of his promise to get them into college...
And even Arne Duncan's charterization programs in Chicago have failed MISERABLY...
We need to start listening to Diane Ravitch and Valerie Strauss and others who have actually TAUGHT and who have informed about the MYTHOLOGY of CHARTERS...
http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/152/forget-100-million-michelle-rhee-wants-to-spend-a-billion.html