It is impossible to open up a magazine, click on a website, or listen to talk radio without hearing about the issue of education reform. As citizens, it frightens us to hear that out the Chinese are overtaking our place as top test takers, or that the state of public schools is so dismal that only a superhero can save it.
How much of this talk is accurate? How much is just a faulty interpretation of facts which then get repeated ad nauseum?
One of the major stories we are hearing here in California (and across the nation) is the issue of teacher quality, and how some say it is the number one determinant in student academic outcomes. On this issue hinges key decisions that will be decided this year such as seniority-based layoffs vs. performance-based layoffs, merit pay, and teacher evaluation based on test scores (also known as value-added measure). It is an important issue, and some of the leading figures in education reform today will tell you the entire future of America's education system rests on making a fundamental change in how we define teacher quality.
Does the viability of our public school system truly rest on the shoulders of America's classroom teachers?
I got to thinking about schools labeled as failing, as mine was a few months ago, and how the label contains the implicit belief that were it not for such low teacher quality, my school would not be failing. But all public schools in California are under the umbrella of the teachers' union, and no teacher is (yet) assigned to teach at a public school based on value added scores. "Bad" teachers then, should appear on the radar all over the state. They must exist in wealthy public schools too because forced teaching assignments are not the norm in this state. If bad teachers are everywhere, then failing schools must be everywhere too. Thus I began my search for affluent, failing schools with the information available on the world wide web.
My methodology was to research the 10 wealthiest communities in California based on per capita income. They were:
Using the greatschools.net website, I located all the public schools located within the attendance boundaries of these areas, and double checked their free and reduced price population, a national measure of economic status, to verify that they did indeed serve an affluent population.
Finding: there was not a single, failing, public school located in the wealthiest communities. In fact, the wealthiest communities produced schools with the highest possible score, a 10, in the GreatSchools rating system.
The charts below show the scores on a scale of 1-10, with 10 representing the highest academic achievement score, of the public schools located in these affluent areas.
Elementary Schools
Middle Schools
High Schools
All of these schools, with the exception of Menlo-Atherton High School, had a free or reduced lunch rate of less than 10 percent. Not coincidentally, the average class size was below 20 for most of these schools (how are they affording this during the recession?)
Now skeptics will say that the wealthier schools' parents would not tolerate the presence of an ineffective teacher. They would pressure the principal for their removal, pull their child out of the school, etc. But if that is the case, we are saying that parent education level does matter and that parental participation in school does make a difference in the academic achievement of students. Most likely families in wealthy schools have had experiences with lackluster teachers but the effect was mitigated because Johnny has grown up in an environment filled with all the resources he needs to be successful in school, with or without a stellar teacher.
While the correlation between family income levels and student achievement is not news to educators and those in the education field, the American public, by and large, does not keep up with the minutiae of education reform. They do not have the luxury to be connected to Twitter for hours at a time, to interpret the academic papers published by universities and think tanks, to fact check movies like Waiting for "Superman". Who is telling the truth, who is twisting it, and what's their motivation? Sometimes it is easier to just watch a movie that turns a complicated issue into a simple good guys vs. bad guys narrative, with the solution neatly presented to the audience in a bow-tied box.
But I believe that the general, inquisitive reader who has stumbled upon this education page wants to dig a little deeper, wants to make up his or her own mind about what is really happening in schools. Does teacher quality matter? According to several studies teacher quality is the most important in-school factor that impacts student performance. But the most important factor overall is socioeconomic class, and this trumps even the most spectacular teachers on any given day. Any classroom will tell you that it is more difficult (but not impossible) to teach students who are not well fed, have not had a good night's sleep. It is hard to concentrate on the lesson when your toothache is so painful you just want to put your head down and cry. And more frequently today, many of our students do not even have the simple comfort of having a roof over their head and must travel from place to place each night, looking for shelter. Even the greatest of teachers cannot teach a child, who for reasons like these, is unable to even make it to the classroom.
Does knowledge of the impact of poverty mean teachers have given up on high expectations for students who live in it? Absolutely not. In fact, it is the knowledge of these inequalities that drives many teachers who work in impacted communities to go above and beyond what their colleagues in Beverly Hills and Malibu do, out of necessity. They have made a conscious decision to teach in communities that struggle with the issue of poverty, crime, and violence expecting no praise, fame, or acknowledgment for it. They don't let students use their hard knocks as a crutch.
Are there ineffective teachers that exist in these schools? Yes, there are ineffective workers everywhere. But common sense will tell you that firing all of them, and they should be fired, will still not put food on a child's table, will not pay the rent at the end of the month.
Today, it is controversial to state obvious truths such as these. It is easier to blame the very teachers who have committed to working in impacted schools for the achievement gap that exists across the country. The federal government has instituted policies that in some cases call for the firing of entire faculties when a school does not make the appropriate gains in schoolwide test scores, and has labeled calls to heed socioeconomic factors as "making excuses."
There is no denying that public schools have been neglected for too long, and have much room left for improvement. Instead of hunkering down to do the hard work of educating students, states argue with each other over the standard of proficiency in exams, parcel taxes allow affluent communities to raise more funds for their school than others, and unions and management have made contentious contract negotiations a way of life. Additionally, in California, schools are reeling from over $21 billion dollars in education cuts over the last two years. As we begin 2011 with a renewed commitment to improving public schools, let us hope that the people who are most charged with this task will fulfill it based on solid, logical truths and not on political ideologies.
Follow Martha Infante on Twitter: www.twitter.com/avalonsensei
Decision Time for Governor Brown
Counting down: The top education stories of the decade
We focus on outcomes in every area but education
New head of NYC schools launches 5-borough tour
Yes, teachers & administrators have an important role to play. However, we are not miracle workers and can only work with what is given to us. If parents are saying at home that education is not important, or whose actions show that they do not care, then we are fighting a battle that the system cannot win. Give me a homeless kid who wants to work and whose parents want him to be successful, and I can lead him to be successful.
www.thebusinessofeducating.com
While I'm certain that many schools need more funding and teachers certainly deserve great pay for their important work, giving the schools more money is not going to be what helps students in homes with disinterested parents. We as a community are going to have to offer solutions for those children that involve time and caring... piously hoping that politicians are going to make some magical funding decision to take away these problems is as irresponsible as simply pulling our kids, moving to an affluent district and burying our head in the sand.
"Throwing more money at schools" is an intentionally loaded description, designed to end the argument about increasing school funding before it begins. But given that teacher pay right now is not what any sane person would call generous, how do we lower class sizes to allow teachers to better address their students' personal needs WITHOUT "throwing more money at schools."
What baffles me is this: if China seems to be doing better on the education front, why is no one asking what they are doing differently. How does the education of students in other countries (that test better than ours) differ from our system? Has anyone even asked? We may not be able to adopt things that work better in another culture/form of government, but does it hurt to simply ask the question: why do their students seem to perform better than ours?
Sadly, even for unionized public school employees, the profession is getting less secure and more fearful. This hasn't worked in the past, and it's unlikely to cause anything but a drop in performance in the future.
Note that this should not be taken as a criticism of teachers in affluent districts. Those I've known who went from that sort of school to a low-income school did, eventually, adjust. But there was definitely a period of adjustment.
I care deeply about my students and work with many other teachers who feel the same way, however, here are just a handful of the obstacles I've encountered.
1) Ineffective Teachers: Due to the strength of the union and the protection that teachers receive under tenure it's nearly impossible to remove ineffective teachers.
2) Ineffective Administrators: School Principals are unionized employees themselves and often lack the experience to be effective managers.
3) Absenteeism: It's impossible to educate a student who isn't in class.
4) Inaccurate Data: Personally, I have no problem with the school system looking at "value added" data. However, many teachers are concerned about the validity of this data. The average school administrator is not a statistician. Unless you control for student population and other factors it creates a system where teachers are afraid to work with struggling students.
4) Student and/or Parent Apathy: Many students and parents are simply apathetic towards their education.
5) A Culture of Failure: To many of my students "working the system" is the norm. They freely admit to engaging in welfare and other forms of fraud. i've come to believe that many of these safety net programs are actually keeping people in poverty.
I am a teacher myself and certainly support teachers. I work with a number of incredibly smart and dedicated people who go above and beyond the call of duty everyday to help high needs kids. However, there are teachers who are only interested in collecting a paycheck with as little output as possible. Few principals are willing to tackle this issue.
As a whole, blaming teachers for failing schools is scapegoating and fails to acknowledge the layers of other issues involved. However, there are bad teachers, and I don't understand why so many in the profession refuse to acknowledge this.
The original article was great, along with Juntila's post and many other posts here!
Are we supposed to read your research and then throw up our hands and walk away? Teachers are still required to teach -- regardless of how poor the students are. A low family income does not let you off the hook. Teach, teacher. If it's too difficult -- please leave and we'll find someone who can get the job done. There are plenty of teachers who find a way to teach poor people.
We're not asking for miracle workers to turn every kid into a genius Einstein. We're simply asking for delivery of the basic skills of reading and writing. Forget high test scores and excellence -- obviously our current teacher workforce is not going to get us there. Can you improve upon the basic literacy rate? Teachers have failed to even deliver the most basic skills.
The problem -- and I'll say it again and again, every time I read one of these BS articles -- the problem is culturally incompetent teachers.
Any teacher who believes poor kids cannot learn, needs to find work elsewhere.
Go sell shoes.
The problem is that some children come to school without any knowledge of how to learn because their parents, who may love and support them in other ways, have devoted no time to teaching them basic skills. (One reason I know this is because that is how my parents were, they loved us, feed us, taught us about God, and there they stopped.)
Every study of early childhood will tell you that the ages 5 and under are a key factor in a child’s learning. This means that parents are a child’s first teacher. Parents form the child’s educational foundation. If a parent is unwilling, or unable to provide a learning environment for their young children, teachers can only play catch up. A teacher will have the responsibility to teach your child for less then six hours a day, five days a week, for 36 weeks in a year. During the school day the teacher will be responsible for a total of 20 to 40 children. Your child is your’s for eternity.
Parenting is the biggest responsibility that anyone can undertake. People should enter into it with their eyes, hearts, and minds open.
Your comment is an example of the lack of civil discourse that has marked the onset of education reform, but it will not stop educators from correcting the mistruths circulated in cyberspace about the teaching profession. Socioeconomic status is the most important determinant of academic success, not teacher quality. If we really wanted to help students of poverty, we would be redirecting the massive amount of philanthropic funding to the social service arena because what my students need most is food, counseling, and health care.
As a Latina educator from East Los Angeles who teaches in South Central Los Angeles, I find blanket statements about the problem with education being the "culturally incompetent" teachers perplexing. Frankly, that statement rings hollow. The reality is that with the escalating attacks on the teaching profession, less students are aspiring to be teachers. That is a fact. There is no magical line of superior teachers waiting to replace us should we choose to leave to "sell shoes.' It is short-sighted to attack the very people who have stood by students long before education reform ever started, and who are doing the only work that will ever help our them overcome poverty: becoming educated.
visit us @ Perdaily.com. We need you to lend your voice to ours. This is an amazing article and serendipitous! I am beginning to think we need to the show the world. Tell won't cut it-- least not first. If people could see what we do--they'd have face it: discrimination is blatant in this city. Those who work in inner city schools should work with those who work in affluent hoods, have kids make a documentary comparing and contrasting students' educational experience.
It could be powerful.. LAUSD would blow a gasket; no doubt--Nothing is recorded. Why is that? Clandestine operations? Expoiting students perhaps?. . .
Education is not a business, but LAUSD has been lucrative for decades. Our failure is profitable thus qualified teachers are being driven out, replaced with newer, cheaper models.scapegoated by propoganda. the tests. unions. corporate models. rampant teacher abuse.
yes, it is cruel, cold to treat professionals this way. but what can it all mean to academic freedom? the integrity of education? equality?
Noam Chomsky is worried about Democracy. And with good reason.
We have to take our schools away from these profiteers; teach parents and students how to be heard. If we don't?
EducRAT$will have us reading scripted lessons from Scholastic to 100 kids chained to desks. No matter how much money feds throw at white chalk criminals, they want more but teachers and students will get less.
Please visit Perdaily.com
Don't expect to see WAITING FOR SUPERMAN II to be set in Winnetka, Illinois or Rye, NY.
The detractors ignore that inconvenient fact that the achievement gap is already deep and wide by age 5. It is largely the result of the extent to which the child is stimulated and challenged in the home. Homes that deliver this send well-prepared children to our public schools; children who have a broad knowledge base and strong oral language skills that includes many concepts. Homes where this kind of stimulation is going on tend to continue to deliver this kind of stimulation throughout the child's youth.
Homes that do not deliver the nurturing, the stimulation, the broad background of experience... tend to continue to deliver the same paucity of stimulation, language and experience throughout the child's youth.
Children spend the overwhelming majority of their childhoods in their homes under the care of their families (of their assigned caregivers) rather than in school. The circumstances that create the achievement gap are perpetuated throughout childhood.
Should the schools with hold instruction from the "haves" until they are able to catch the "have nots" up? By 5, it is too late.
I know my child is tested relentlessly at school; why are those results not available to me?
Let me paint a broad picture: Basically for the post-WWII period we have been coasting on our successes. We have let our politicians convince us they and thus we are helpless. We have let those same politicians wreck what was once a world class secondary school system. We are insular; we could afford to be then, we can no longer afford this luxury. Don't lose confidence; America is still the greatest country in the world, we just need to work hard at it again. I have hope that we haven't forgotten how.
Yes, as you point out it is the most important factor within the school and of the factors public schools have any control over at all. How quickly and easily public school detractors have seized this fact and spun it to be the singularly most important factor. All they had to do was simply remove the phrase "inschool factor." Two words gone and the entire meaning is changed. I have read this distorted and false statement in articles right here on Huffington Post, and elsewhere. It is rampant.
This is how spin works and it is so very easy to accomplish.
The students are in school 8 hours a day 5 days a week!
So let's do this math. 14 waking hours per day times 365 days per year = 5110 hours. Of this, at my school, 1215 hours is spent in school (about 200 of these hours include eating lunch and passing from one class to the other, where they are not under teacher direction, per se).
Now let's create a simple fraction. Of a conservative estimate that each child spends about 5110 waking hours per year, 1215 of these hours are spent at school, or 1215/5110. A conservative estimate reveals that a typical youth spends about 24% of his or her time in school each year. If I deduct the 65 minutes per day that students spend at lunch and passing periods, the percentage drops even a little lower.
Are you suggesting that this roughly 24% (less for high school students who probably sleep about 8-9 hours per night, not 10) spent in school can, should and does exert a more powerful influence on the child than the 76% (or more) of his/her waking hours under the influence of family and peer group in the community? What do you think, really?
I am aware of the financial contributions that are asked of parents in wealthier neighborhoods. The parents in my neighborhood are unable to raise funds to counteract the devastating budget cuts of the last few years. Yet when our schools get labeled as underperforming or as "failures", no one acknowledges the funding disparities between Marin County and South Central Los Angeles. We are measured by the same standard, NCLB, and are not given the tools to counteract the effects of poverty. I don't see how labels or sanctions is helping my students.
In affluent San Marino where the AYP is a source of pride, high school students have PTA not a Parole Officer influencing the school's mission. The white/Asian kids enjoy nutritous food on an open state of the art campus while free lunch students on the wrong side of the tracks are forced to eat the cheapest most unhealthy food money can buy. No wonder they climb fences and flee from lessons, which drug sniffing dogs interrupt and remediation forces teachers to compromise. This kind of racism betrays the insidous fraud and malice of the district practices, reason enough to fill those new prisons with EducRAT$ instead of students who have to sling nickle bags of weed just to help mom make ends meet. Between the wage slaves the broken system churns out and the escalating threat to Democracy discrimination in public schools present, I'd say our culture is in grave danger of becoming a Plutocracy. Without academic freedom and teachers with experience who are adequately paid and respected, the working poor demographic will grow, the business of education will not be the numinous, socially progressive effort it has to be for ALL our children's sake.