In concurrence with the launch of John Merrow's book, The Influence of Teachers, he'll be using this space as a place to discuss some central ideas explored in the book. All proceeds from the book, available on Amazon for $14.95, are being donated to Learning Matters, a 501(c)(3) organization committed to independent coverage of education. We invite you to join in the conversation by commenting on these posts or reviewing the book online!
Is the direct attack on collective bargaining for teachers in Wisconsin likely to spread around the U.S. the way the demand for democracy is spreading across the Middle East? I think it just might.
Other Republican governors, notably those in Ohio and New Jersey, have taken strong positions regarding the role of teacher unions (and in fact New Jersey Governor Chris Christie seems to be taking credit for the 'movement'). If Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker and legislature succeed in limiting or even eliminating collective bargaining, then a lot of other politicians will be emboldened.
There are a couple of points that are being overlooked or minimized in the press coverage about Wisconsin, though.
The first has to do with the hypocrisy of the governor, who is not challenging collective bargaining for the two unions that supported him: the cops and the firefighters. Why is this being reported as if it were a principled stand, when it's clearly naked politics?
And what happened to union solidarity? Do the two unions who supported the governor's election bid really believe that he won't come after their bargaining rights down the road? Is that naïve?
There have been two issues here -- pay/evaluation and collective bargaining. Wisconsin's teachers have conceded on the first, a sensible and long-overdue step. As I write in my new book, The Influence of Teachers:
It may take a hard slap upside the head, but unions are going to have to acknowledge what we all know -- that there's a relationship between teaching and learning, and therefore student learning must be part of a teacher's evaluation.
Suppose a swimming instructor told the 10-year-olds in his class to swim the length of the pool to demonstrate what he'd taught them, and half of them nearly drowned in the process? Would it be reasonable to make a judgment about his effectiveness as a swimming teacher?Or suppose that nearly all the 10-year-olds studying clarinet for the first time learned to play five or six pieces well in a semester? Would it be reasonable to consider that when deciding whether to rehire the music teacher?
Wisconsin's union has gotten that hard slap upside the head, and it has responded. Other teacher groups ought to take notice. The days of what I think of as trade union dealing are over; teachers have to bargain for more than pay and privileges. They need to be in the forefront of connecting their evaluations with student achievement. They need to be at that table, and I believe they ought to be arguing for school-wide evaluations. If it's just teacher-by-teacher, we will end up with even more bubble testing in more subjects. If it's school-wide, then everyone -- down to custodians and secretaries -- has a personal, vested interest in student success.
Finally, I see the influence of Michelle Rhee, the former chancellor in Washington, on what's happening in Wisconsin and elsewhere. Because of Washington's unique structure, she did not have to negotiate with a school board before imposing a teacher evaluation system. She would never have been able to do that in any other district in America, she told me, which is why she believes that people in her camp must go directly to state legislatures and governors and get them to take teacher evaluation and other aspects of the job off the collective bargaining table. That will, she said, make it possible to achieve her vision of real reform.
This has the potential for becoming very nasty. As a friend asked me quizzically, "When did teachers become the enemy? What on earth is happening?"
Stay tuned.
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So, to put it into context, a student could score 96% because the teacher was horrible and every other factor in the kid's life was setting him up to do well on the test. Or the student could get a 4% on the test because the teacher was fantastic, but everything else in the kid's life was dragging him down. Or somewhere in between. And pretty much anywhere the kid's score fell, we wouldn't know whether the limited influence that the school has over the test score was dragging it up or down. Yes, there's a relationship between teaching and learning, but test scores don't usually tell us anything about that relationship.
Parental factors and the student's intelligence, by contrast, account for over 60% of test score variance, according to the same book. Perhaps we're evaluating the wrong people.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/democracy-now/from-global-financial-cri_b_826823.html
I wonder how much the Koch brothers donated to the police and fireman's funds, to get their support?
As a teacher, I am more than happy to be held accountable for what I control--my mastery of the material, my ability to present clear and age-appropriate lessons, well-thought-out activities, and prompt and helpful feedback. In short, my teaching. The students have to do the learning!
You all well know that it is hard to teach what you don't know. When we get to 6th, 7th, and 8th grades, we see a lot of students start to lose interests in math and science, and guess why, because their teachers don't know math and science so it is hard to really instill passion and a love for learning if you are struggling with the content yourself.
Yes, “if you're certified elementary you have to pass the elementary test in math, reading, science, arts, and health”; but it is a single test. One can skip all the math questions, but score high on the other subjects and still pass.
Maryland and a dozen other states use the absurdly low-level Praxis II Middle School Math Content Exam as a criteria for their designating "highly qualified" Middle School Math Teachers. But, middle school Math teachers get to use calculators on this exam, so no need for "highly qualified" Middle School Math Teachers to be fluent or even knowledgeable in Arithmetic.
More on my website, www.math.umd.edu/~jnd, including
“List of Articles on Teachers' limited knowledge of Math” and “A 40+ Mathematicians public letter to U.S. Secretary of Education ... ”
There have been several parades of union firefighters supporting their union brothers.
So, while the police and firefighters got off the hook on this bill, they are standing proud.
Public schools, for all their problems, have to take everyone. Suburban schools self select their population based on economics, but it's a rare school that does not have problems. Almost every place seems to reflect a version of the Pareto Principle (80%-20%) but I would argue that in schools about 10% of the students, 10% of the teachers, and 10% of administrators are the problem. In that scenario, 90% of the population of any school are performing at C level or better. Or they would be, if left alone to flower without disturbances, interruptions, and insults from people who would not know how to manage a classroom and do not understand the job.