I was originally going to write a lengthy blog post on the Judge’s decision in the Vergara case concerning teacher tenure and job rights vs. student rights to a quality education. But June in Paris makes one less interested in lofty policy debates and more interested in trying out that new boulangerie that supposedly has the best pain tradition in the neighborhood.
I will thus make just a few observations and claims that hopefully shed more light than heat on this important ruling:
- The decision is not anti-teacher or anti-union. As the New York Times and Washington Post editorials both said – hardly right-wing papers – this decision is about student rights that are easily trumped by adult interests. Even those who opposed the decision saw the value of it for similar rights-based cases. As happened in Brown vs. Board, we need to be reminded that teacher interests and student interests do not always coincide 100%. The issue here is thus not about bashing good intentions and the hard work of teachers; the issue is about conflicting rights. Such conflicts are inevitable in a democratic society. What the Judge condemns here is the unacceptable effect of current tenure and work rules on all students, and the disproportionate effect of such policies on poor and minority students. (That’s why it is odd and a bit telling to me that many so-called liberals opposed the decision on ‘teacher rights’ grounds). He finds that current work rules impede the rights of students to have access to an “equal and quality education.” [PS: Newark Star-Ledger, also a liberal-leaning paper made the same arguments.]
- The leadership of a school matters, and a prime role of leaders is to hire, promote, demote, and dismiss on the basis of competence, not seniority. It is in the interests of students for an administration to work to keep good, less experienced teachers; and to be able to move along more experienced weaker teachers. The Judge was particularly adamant about the harm to education in a “Last hired, First Fired” policy because it hurt both students and teachers. Worse, when weaker teachers move around in an urban district, many go to schools that serve less fortunate children.
Indeed, Debbie Meier, one of my heroes and a model progressive educator, insisted on this right to hire and retain the most competent teachers before she agreed to head the Central Park East schools in Harlem. With the help of her District Superintendent, Tony Alvarado, they made a deal with the union to waive seniority rights so that veteran teachers could not jump over younger teachers in the ranked list of potential hires at CPE nor come in and bounce them from existing positions. In my first-hand experience, the powerlessness of many urban Principals to make personnel decisions is a major factor in the lack of effectiveness of urban schools.
- The time period for determining tenure in LAUSD is woefully short. It is a crucial fact in this case that in LAUSD the period in which tenure is earned amounts to a mere 18 months – far less time than in most districts in America. Even the defense acknowledged that the period was too short. [ADDED: The Judge did not eradicate tenure nor say it should be eradicated – as many critics of the ruling have suggested – in favor of student rights: See the quote from the ruling at the bottom of this post]
- Due process for teachers is not threatened by this decision. Read the decision: the Judge makes clear that there is and must be such due process, and he charged the legislature with addressing the competing rights more equitably. The problem in urban schools is that dismissal of any teacher is almost unheard of for mere teaching incompetence, given the inordinate hassle involved. A defense witness in fact agreed that it is “extremely rare” for a teacher to be dismissed over teaching ability, given the time, expense, and documentation required by current laws.
Furthermore, the Judge notes that certified school employees and civil service workers in other jobs currently have due process rights although they lack tenure (including the ability to contest decisions and go through a multi-stage appeal process). As the data reveals, the typical dismissal rate in civil services jobs and non-teacher jobs within schools is between 7 and 9% – on average for dismissal rates in private as well as other public sectors. In school faculty cases, it is under 1%. The claim that due process will be sacrificed by the end of tenure is countered by the situation in all private schools and charter schools in which there are only year-to-year contracts for every teacher, regardless of years of service. The % of teachers dismissed from such schools is in line with the figures cited above, so the fear seems misplaced.
The data from Toledo’s highly-touted peer review process suggests that this hunch is pretty solid since 7% of non-tenured teachers get dismissed, (even though there are constant complaints by parents and admins. that weak tenured teachers are not seriously reviewed.)
Truly “incompetent” teaching is indeed rare. But that’s because the definition of “incompetent” has such a low bar in education: it has come to mean not merely ineffective teaching but highly unprofessional behavior in addition. It is thus extremely rare, in my 30 years in school reform work, to hear of a merely unskilled and ineffective veteran teacher let go. I thus thought it was a bit disingenuous of David Berliner to argue for the defense that the % of inadequately competent teachers is likely between 1% and 3%. Those numbers derive from the very cultures, obstacles to dismissal, and inadequate definition of “incompetence” currently in place.
- The lack of a quality education in urban high schools is particularly egregious. I have personally worked in high schools in Trenton, Camden, Newark, Toledo, and New York over multiple days over the past 30 years. So, I have personally witnessed (and my staff have witnessed) a fair amount of unprofessional and incompetent behavior by teachers. This includes reading newspapers at their desks while students fill out worksheets, yelling sarcastically at kids for minor slip-ups, facilitating mere student read-alouds of texts in round-robin style for entire periods in English classes, lecturing for entire periods with no student interaction in History classes, never asking a higher-order question over the span of a week, etc. The situation in Trenton was so depressing, I told the then-HS Principal that some kids came to me to plead for help in getting rid of bad teachers. Her hands were of course tied. I would thus say that it is reasonable to suggest that the % of inadequately competent teachers in urban high schools is at least 10% – 15%.
The sad irony is that the kids in upper grades in urban High Schools have elected to stay in school and not drop out. Many of them are (still) there because they want an education. I was constantly puzzled by the bitter complaints about students at Trenton High School by some faculty. I was in the building once a week for a semester and sat in on a dozen or so classes regularly. I never once saw behavior that was any different than behavior in a suburban school.
Our student survey results echo the fact that most high school students want to learn but are often bored or put off by common school and teacher practices. Alas, student survey data is rarely solicited on a regular basis in urban high schools, and such data is typically the confidential property of teachers, if collected at all; not even supervisors can have access to it. Illinois is one state that has just begun obtaining (and disseminating publicly) specific data from students, parents, and teachers about climate; more states should follow Illinois’ lead.
- I have personally been beholden to absurd policies that protect union habits at the expense of kids. In one year-long intensive project in a large urban district in which we did UbD training, none of my staff was allowed to enter a classroom unannounced in many schools. None of my staff was allowed to take any notes while sitting in classes. Supervision in many schools is nonexistent, in terms of the ability to suggest and expect improvement because the union building rep. was the key decision-maker on supervision. A telling fact: the head of the union came and announced at the start of our extra UbD workshops that no teacher had to attend or remain if they didn’t wish to. (Fortunately, almost all did so). At every turn, he fought our year-long effort, in spite of the fact that many teachers greatly valued the work and the most enthusiastic ones saw test score gains at year’s end. (He claimed in public meetings with the Board that our positive survey data was rigged.)
- The issue of “incompetent” teachers and whether tenure per se is a key reform lever is thus a red herring. Students are entitled to a quality education. This implies to me that continual improvement of teaching by teachers is expected and can be demanded, not just that rules concerning placement and tenure need changing. So to negate the importance of tenure per se in improving school misses the point. Good schools get better; good teachers get better. Incentives and opportunities exist in good schools to ensure that improvement is not just limited to the self-motivated teachers.
Indeed, given the California laws and this court case, the deeper issue moving forward in protecting both student and teacher rights is our need to better define a quality education from a legal standpoint. Arguing over the % of teachers who are truly horrible misses the point. Only the most myopic union member or oblivious rah-rah defender of all teachers would claim that only a tiny number of teachers are less engaging and ineffective than they might and should be. If supervision were more robust; and if reprimands, warnings, and probation had more teeth, then merely ineffective teachers would have far more incentive to improve.
Please do not write and say I am anti-teacher, a stooge for billionaire corporatists, a naïve lackey for those who would destroy public education, a scab-like union-buster, etc., etc. I won’t even bother to publish it. Furthermore, it is detrimental to our shared interest in improving public schools to make such baseless and ad hominem attacks. Rather, if you disagree with any of these claims made above, engage with me on the ruling, the data, and the impacts of the decision – i.e. with evidence and arguments, as the Common Core Standards put it.
I guess I ended up writing more than a few observations :). Must have been that second café creme and the croissant almande.
PS: An interesting article about how tightened tenure decision-making in NY led to an increase in departures of marginal teachers bears on the issues. The article also underscores how administrators can be nudged by central office to be more assertive in marginal cases, even within current tenure decision frameworks.
PPS: A disturbing report from Jay Matthews about other ills of urban schools.
FOLLOW-UP COMMENT: Perspective is a funny thing. Every commenter who disagreed with me seemed to think I am against tenure and unions. I never said I was against tenure and I never said I am against unions. I am against what the Judge is against: policies and politics that hurt kids, sometimes the result of adults getting their way at the expense of kids.
Others who disagreed with me think the problem is all due to poor administrators and that I failed to note THAT problem. I never said administrators were great. Indeed, I hinted at the grim reality: the job of Principal in an urban school is so thankless and powerless, the quality is likely to be poorer than we might like. But oddly, many of my critics who bashed heavy-handed and idiotic Principals don’t seem to acknowledge the irony in their own reports – namely, that such Principals, by their own accounts, are often far more quickly moved or dismissed than ineffective teachers – which supports the Judge’s point. An oddity among many teachers in such settings is that they are often as disrespectful of admins as they wish others were not similarly disrespectful of them.
Urban educational reform is a systems problem: there is no villain and no single root cause. Leadership matters as does a culture of continuous improvement, backed by smart hiring, assertive supervision, and incentives and opportunities to grow and learn as an educator. Without even mentioning a robust curriculum ands assessment system combined with a highly-personalized education in which kids are known well and treated right. What this decision does is remind us that the learners comes first, and the system conditions just mentioned are necessary to support learners and learning.
FOLLOWUP Comment #2. The Judge did not abolish tenure or say that tenure should be abolished! I have now read and responded to more than a dozen comments from readers, and I have read other bloggers and writers who responded to the Vergara decision. I have to say that many of the arguments against the decision are based on a faulty premise that makes their case seem stronger than it really is. Most commenters against the decision say that the ruling is about overthrowing teacher tenure, and such a move would have terrible consequences for public education.
But the Judge nowhere says that tenure per se is against the educational right of children to equal quality educations nor does the ruling refer to tenure in general. This is specific to LAUSD. In fact, he says that the current short term and casual approach to tenure decision in LAUSD is harmful to teachers as well as students! Here is the key section of the ruling:
“The Permanent Employment Statute does not provide nearly enough time for an informed decision to be made regarding the decision of tenure (critical for both students and teachers). As a result, teachers are being reelected who would not have been had more time been provided for the process. Conversely, startling evidence was presented that in some districts, including LAUSD, the time constraint results in non-reelection based on “any doubt, thus depriving l)teachers of an adequate opportunity to establish their competence, and 2) students of potentially competent teachers. This Court finds that both students and teachers are unfairly, unnecessarily, and for no legally cognizable reason (let alone a compelling one), disadvantaged by the current Permanent Employment Statute.”
Nor does the Judge say due process is threatened here. Again it is specific to LAUSD:
State Defendants/Intervenors did not carry their burden that the procedures dictated by the Dismissal Statutes survive strict scrutiny. There is no question that teachers should be afforded reasonable due process when their dismissals are sought. However, based on the evidence before this Court, it finds the current system required by the Dismissal Statutes to be so complex, time consuming and expensive as to make an effective, efficient yet fair dismissal of a grossly ineffective teacher illusory.
Fine, we can disagree about the merits of the Judge’s reasoning and reading of relevant case law. But to consistently misrepresent the Judgment (or fail to distinguish the Judgment from one’s fears) is irresponsible.
16
61 Responses
And what do you presume is the % of incompetent principals? (as in #6).
About the same.
I am appalled by your stance on the Vergara decision. I shall no longer support you or your merchandise. In addition, I will pass the word along to my colleagues to boycott any of your products.
Donna, why are you so upset? Out schools have less-than-desirable teaching staff in them. To think otherwise is Polllyanna. I personally was jumped over as a non-tenured teacher by a tenured teacher in another building, and although I ended up being able to stay (in a different capacity), I heard more than several times over the course of my dozen years there parents who stated, “Aren’t you tired of teaching the students what they didn’t get before and what they won’t get next year?” I now work in a large urban district and Mr. Wiggins writes the truth. In the end, the conversations and the decisions have to be made with the students at the center.
So, you found out that a non-tenured teacher is manipulated and unprotected in any way and yet you do not find that it impacts your classroom teaching? I don’t get that. When I see teachers who have established classrooms and methods become the bedrock of a school with all their wonderful experience- I want that protected so that my child can benefit. A teacher who is not tenured will not necessarily be around year to year. And they know it. Teaching is impacted by that. I’ve seen it personally.
I question your assumption that principals and other school leaders care most about providing a quality education. In fact, I’ve seen plenty of evidence to suggest otherwise. When incentives are such that districts and their leaders are rewarded/punished for student learning, then I will trust that these leaders will actually make personnel decisions based on students’ best interests and not their own.
I didn’t say that Principals care most. I am happy to say that the degree of extrinsic motivation in Principals is as problematic as it is in teachers. But Principals are more easily reprimanded, moved, and dismissed than teachers. So, I frankly do not know what point you are making. The idea that you should “wait” to honor student rights until admins. are better at personnel decisions doesn’t follow.
Yes administrators are more easily “moved” – not dismissed. I have worked with many administrators who have no business anywhere near a school building let alone being in charge of it. In my 18 years of experience and observation in my district, it is far easier to fire teachers than administrators. Administrators very rarely ever get fired in my district, just moved from school to school laterally to continue their reigns of terror. And our administrators ARE also union members albeit in a different union?
Let’s look at big business. When things go wrong – who gets blamed the worker or the CEO? Usually the CEO and they are forced out. In education? Always the teacher. Sure there are some bad teachers. Just like there are some bad cops, lawyers, bankers, judges. politicians, fast food workers, etc. The irony is most teachers know who the slackers are. Most teachers speak up about slackers. Most administrators know who the slackers are and do nothing to change that. Most of those slackers are still on the job because some administrator along the way did not do their due diligence and appropriately evaluate the teachers, try to help them improve and if unsuccessful, move to have them let go. It is unfair to blame teachers for administrators not doing their jobs. Almost every single teacher in this country is an at-will employee for 2-3 years. It is within that time that it is not difficult in the slightest to fire teachers who aren’t cutting it. If administrators were doing their jobs during that time, we would have a far lower number of ineffective teachers in our classrooms to begin with at the post-probationary level. I don’t know of very many teachers who were highly effective when new and then just suddenly slack of once they are post-probationary. Post-probationary is a far more accurate description of what the media wants to call tenure at the K-12 level, because it doesn’t even remotely exist as it does at the post-secondary level.
I was berated for giving a student teacher a poor evaluation that would not allow a student teacher to get hired by our district. Berated for telling the truth, BY an administrator who told me that I “ruined that poor woman’s life”. Many more details on that story but as a department chair if I didn’t think she was worthy of hiring – why would I want to pawn her off on some other unsuspecting school with a fake evaluation? (For the record this should have been no surprise based on her on-going evaluations and conferences with her and her university supervisor – she is the only student teacher out of 8 who I have ever not recommended for hire – but I digress.) This is a situation that needs to be addressed and never is and happens far more often than it should.
When teachers are happy and safe, students benefit. When teachers do not feel safe, I can tell you morale suffers, teaching suffers and students suffer because of it because I’ve seen it happen over and over again. I almost left the profession after 15 years of success because of one administrator who harassed about half of our faculty and many parents and students in his one year at our school. After parents & students finally went directly to the district superintendent, this administrator was moved laterally to a different school to continue his reign of terror. Nobody did a thing when teachers complained about his harassment and the union was powerless to protect us even though they were well aware of the situation and did support teachers. Oh and a year later? He got a promotion and a big raise. Hence the “You f-up you move up” mantra about administration in our district. Thankfully I moved to a new school and once again work in a place where I am treated as a professional and trusted to do my job. I am happier, my students therefore are happier and benefiting from higher-quality teaching again. I was never a bad teacher, in my opinion, but without enthusiasm and always looking over your shoulder, it’s pretty hard to focus on the job at hand as one should be able.
I would also argue that “unions” (we are an association, not even a union, as we are a right-to-work state) vary widely from state to state. Generalizing from one to describe all others, is completely unfair. Administrators can come into our rooms at any time unannounced and in fact are required to do so a minimum of 3 times a year for our evaluations – they are never announced. Good administrators pop in more frequently and not just to look for what you’re doing wrong, but to create a cooperative environment and keep their finger on the pulse of the school. So surely if administrators are paying attention, they know who’s doing their jobs and who isn’t. Funny thing is that they DO and yet they continue year after year to do absolutely nothing. What we need are more instructional leaders at the administrative level – not people who couldn’t cut it in the classroom or merely want a pay raise which again, in my experience, is an appropriate description of many (obviously not all) administrators. It takes many teachers to ruin a school. It only takes one administrator. And yet somehow they never come into the public arena of discussion except by teachers and it almost always gets dismissed or ignored as a true factor in public school success or lack thereof.
If the situation is so bad in Trenton – why do you assume that it’s the same everywhere? (or in the 3 districts in which you have experience) I have taught in 3 different school districts and while I have seen bad teachers, they are by no means representative of the majority of teachers in any of those districts.
Teacher “effectiveness” is not measured by student outcomes on nationally standardized tests. Effective teachers do not fit into the proverbial box and the more teachers forced into the boxes, the less effective education in general has become. Standardized tests just serve to demonize public education, create a nation of students who can take tests but not do much more, and in the process make the likes of Bill Gates and Pearson Education rich off of the backs of our students. And with all the hubbub about Common Core Standards (of which I am not a fan but will leave that out in detail of the current conversation) – do people really think that school districts had no standards nor any sorts of accountability in place before Common Core? If so, they are very misinformed and uneducated about public schools in this country.
It is a cop out in the end to say that it’s “too hard” for administrators to fire bad teachers and not put the responsibility on the shoulders of those same administrators to follow through with due diligence.
Thanks for your thorough and heartfelt comments. But my point is not that admins. are so great or that no reforms are needed there. Nor would I ever defend the conduct you describe. But that is not what the judgment was about. (And it’s noteworthy that 1 admin was gone after 1 year, which is part of the point.) Nor did i say that bad teachers were “representative” of the system. I specifically said 10% was my best guess.
I also know at least 1 teacher personally who was gone after 1 year so again, admin are not any easier to get rid of than teachers and are far more likely to be moved laterally (or in our district promoted) than gotten rid of. And I only know of the 2 times that that admin came to school drunk – she was only caught twice, and only at my school for 2 years after being laterally moved from another school (hence makes you wonder why she was moved). That’s what I was specifically addressing – that I do not believe that it’s easier to get rid of administrators than teachers in my observational 18 years of experience. And the fact that at least in our district, support staff and administrators also have the option to belong to unions – it’s not just teachers who belong to unions. It’s harder to fire a custodian than a teacher when you get down to it in our district.
I think that this is becoming very common that people believe that there is just an over-population of bad teachers among the teaching profession. Personally I think 10% is pretty high and would guess the number at closer to 3-5%. But I feel like this is demonizing so much good that IS happening in education. There are fantastic teachers all over this nation doing wonders for children. They are the ones who stand to be hurt by decisions like this. If you do not walk lock-step these days with Common Core Standards or high-stakes standardized testing (being forced to sign documents stating that you will not say anything negative publicly about testing in some districts) – you are a target. GOOD teachers advocate for students and by doing so without any protections you put yourself at risk for doing what is RIGHT.
I am very much a believer that education revolves around the student. I am a self-described “Kohnhead”. But I also know that if I’m not happy, my students aren’t happy either. So no one stakeholder can exist successfully without the other. So in making education focus on children (which again, I’m not disagreeing with) – you can’t not make teachers a priority and expect success. Teachers AND students can both be treated well – I don’t believe that it is a mutually-exclusive proposition.
I wish that everyone would stop using the term “tenure” when discussing K-12 teachers – I would advocate that “post-probationary” is far more descriptive and what it actually states in my contract. No teacher K-12 has “tenure” only post-secondary educators are afforded that distinction and protection.
I think it’s worthy to note the political ramifications of protections for teachers. The administrator who i mentioned that went after me. The reason? Because I wanted to continue to use standards-based grading in my classroom the way that I had been for the 10 years prior. He didn’t understand it and therefore didn’t like it. He “forbade” me from using it. I appealed to the principal. I had Rick Wormeli write an email to the administrator backing up my position and trying to help the administrator understand the benefits. (And well I’m sure that just made him madder.) Along with the fact that I went “behind” his back by going to the principal. In my opinion, I should not have to be fearful of going above a supervisor’s head when I have an issue. If he had had his way, I would have been fired because I was not someone who would just “do as I am told”. In the end the principal sided with him and so I followed the directive. I was never insubordinate, but the fact that it would have endangered my position by questioning, to me is a frightening proposition. And honestly, in my educated and researched opinion, what *I* was doing for students was in their best interest, not the old-school grading method that the assistant principal wanted me to revert to.
You don’t have to read this opinion piece if you don’t want to but it came my way today and caught my eye specifically as it’s from New Jersey and I think contains some very valid points: http://www.northjersey.com/opinion/opinion-don-t-tamper-with-teacher-tenure-1.1034638
In the end I just want to see more educators involved in the decision-making processes for and about education. We ARE experts in our field as much as people somehow want to characterize us as those who couldn’t do anything else and so as a last resort became teachers. Nothing could be further from the truth for the majority of teachers. Too many politicians have their hands in public education today and are making decisions daily without any real knowledge about the ramifications of those decisions at the school-level. Mostly because teachers are most often left out of the important discussions.
Sorry this is long and a bit disjointed but obviously I’m quite passionate about these issues and unfortunately so many issues in education today are intertwined and do not stand alone from one another.
Many QUALITY teachers are leaving the profession and I see no signs of this slowing down and rather I have seen an increase of this over the last couple of years. It is a sad trend and something that will negatively affect children for generations to come if this exodus continues. We don’t have enough teachers as it is – let alone the quality ones – you can never have enough.
I stand by my belief that if administrators did their due diligence when teachers are at-will employees, then the percentage of ineffective teachers would be far lower and this would cease to be an issue. To me that’s where to make the change, not for those of us who deserve protection from the political powers that be.
Your comments are very important. Nothing I am saying should be read as a denial of your experience. Indeed, we can ill afford to lose quality teachers – on that we fully agree. Too much politics in education; – agreed. Bad Principals to worry about – agreed. Teachers left out of important decisions? Agreed, but that’s the point of having unions and lobbyists (as well as one’s own actions). The student voice isn’t being heard for more – and that was the point of the Judge’s decision. As for your last paragraph – yes BUT – the Judge found that the system prevents that from really happening in LA. And we have all seen examples of this.
And that’s one of the ironies in your comment. Administrators want the same voice as you do. Yet teachers routinely criticize admins in just the way you do here. But this I can tell you: I have NEVER seen a great school with weak leadership. I have never seen a great UbD school that didn’t have strong leaders pushing the issue in spite of staff pushback about changes of habit. This is a longstanding fact, through Lezotte’s work, Edmunds before him, and Marzano now. So, little is gained by doing to admins what you say is done to teachers. It’s a broken SYSTEM that ends up hurting students, teachers, and admins. That’s why reform is needed.
To add to the comment about admin concerns- in my district, in an effort (imho) to exert more political control over principals, they shuffle them around every couple of years. Appointments to elementary school positions are considered “punishment” for a principal (though I can’t imagine why that is). Maybe that is for ones who are high school admin and then moved (downward) to elementary? So, what results is that you have admin at a school who have very little knowledge of that school’s needs. There is very little feel of tradition and community created due to this “principal shuffle”. They do not have a knowledge of the teachers’ skills and needs. Policies such as this are in great need to be changed first. There are many things that could be done that would make a lot greater improvement in schools than worrying about seniority benefits for teachers.
It’s all of a piece; it’s a systems problem; there is no “first” here. You can see all these kinds of decisions, at all levels, instead of concentrating on what matters and in helping everyone be better – kids and teachers and admins.
The only approach that makes sense in a situation like this is to ensure that there is a 5 year plan by the Board, supported by an array of policies designed to implement a Mission-based system of priorities and a freethinking of incentives for everyone – teachers, Principals, central office folks. That was done brilliantly by Edmonton Alberta under Supt. Strembitsky and in Jefferson Cty KY with supper from Phil Schlecty and Gheens, andsby Tony Alvarado in District 4 in NY. But as long as SUpts. and Asst Supts. turn over every 2 years; as long as supervision is a joke; as long as union contracts protect incompetent teachers little will happen.
I think we all need to agree to put aside the generalizations- such as calling you a “corporate puppet”, etc. Agreed. Hopefully.
There is some concern I have with this decision-
1. First, California is different from other states. Will people see that difference. Maybe they have a problem. I don’t know. I’m from a “Right to Work” state and it is different. People need to see that this does not translate across the country.
2. Teachers need to have job protections for their teaching styles. Incompetent teachers, though, should be fired. What are these protections? Due process. There is not really teacher tenure. Tenure is: (according to “The Free Dictionary”) “The status given to an educator who has satisfactorily completed teaching for a trial period and is, therefore, protected against summary dismissal by the employer.” Teachers do not have this. They have a right to due process. I cite: http://teachertenure.procon.org/#Background . Concerns include: cost cutting by laying off of more experienced teachers, firing due to political reasons, firing due to novel teaching methods, firing due to teacher speaking out about ed mandates, etc. There are solid reasons for protections.
3. Reading article after article on this, it is clear that districts have not been prepared to negotiate on due process. If it leans too far to protections, they ought to negotiate through salary or benefits to open that up a bit.
4. Ending due process and having year to year contracts will have negative results. That includes even higher teacher turn-over. The evidence is in looking at charter schools where they have this type of contract. And my anecdotal experience at one charter is that they fire a set % of teachers annually based on test scores alone. No due process at all. Thus, they have a new set of teachers every year. The faculty cannot grow and work together with so much turnover.
5. LIFO arguments have some logic problems. So, the argument is that the Last in first out policies unfairly target poor, urban schools as more inexperienced teachers work there. One might think that the patch for that would be to then fire the experienced ones instead. That’s crazy talk. The patch would be to figure out why only the newbies are willing to go to these schools and make it so that doesn’t happen. How about more support for these teachers, more personnel to handle difficult situations/students, more counseling services, better pay for longer commutes if that is the case- in effect, make the job more pleasant for teachers and they will stay.
I don’t doubt that in some states, due process has gone too far making it impossible to fire a teacher for incompetence. However, getting rid of it doesn’t work either. And that is something that if it doesn’t work for teachers- kids will suffer from it too. Good teachers who speak out against bad policies would be fired without due process. With politically placed principals holding the keys and history telling us what happens, we are foolish to drop due process.
I think you raise a number of good points, including the variety across the states. But I think there is equivocation here concerning “due process”. The Judge made clear that there is due process in non-classified and thus non-tenured school and civil service positions already, and no complaints about such policies came before the Judge. Indeed, he made clear in his decision that a multi-step due process system with appeals would be required in any scheme proposed by the legislature. And while I used the example of year to year contracts to make the point that chaos in firing need not ensue, I was not recommending it wholesale. Rather, what I would like to see is the ability to demand that ineffective veterans need to develop a robust improvement plan, and that student data ought to be part of the mix. Finally, though the NY and NJ year-long goals policy is so far not very effective, it has promise: judging people against their own stated goals for the year is wise policy.
I agree with having teachers do self-evaluations along with goal setting. I do not agree that student data should be part of the teacher evaluation. That does not work and, in my opinion, can not work. I would enjoy hearing a model of that where students are not subjected to over testing and prep. The points in which an employee is evaluated are the points that become the “job description”. What is it we want to see a teacher do in the performance of their job? That should be the evaluation. I do not want to see teachers driving up a single year test score. I want to see a teacher create an environment of learning. There is a big difference. And certainly, as to the subject here, teachers who are unable to create a learning environment should be subject to dismissal. No one wants a bad teacher. But, how do we balance protecting teachers from political dismissals with this? As another poster on here stated, it would be nice for you to include both sides to the debate a bit more- giving those reasons tenure is needed as well as a more balanced summation. Your comment here reflects that a bit more.
Also important to bring into the discussion that the majority of public schools continue to outperform the majority of charters, private and parochial schools in this country.
Unfortunately, we teachers can be our own worst enemies. Too often we look at tenure as an excuse to stop growing. As a teacher of 29 years, I never stopped pushing, prodding, poking my practice to make to better, stronger, more compatible with the students who sat in my class that year. How can we ask students to be life-long learners if we don’t model what that looks like?
As an administrator for the last 5 years, I have worked without tenure. Has that changed the way I work? No. What I have discovered is that when we look at tenure as the end game, that becomes a huge problem.
How much of the issue of evaluators effectively evaluating is a question of people moving into administrator before they have mastered their own teaching? This could be my own bias but I don’t think a bare minimum of 5 years teaching is enough to fully understand the art and science of teaching.
Thank you for these thoughts. I totally agree: tenure, if it is to be granted, should be granted after 10 years. You cannot really understand teaching and learning or show a track record of being a learner of learning until a number of years.
Grant, I think Cathy was bringing up a different point– that often administrators are able to assume positions of judgement over teachers when they haven’t mastered the teaching art/science themselves. She pointed out that five years is all you need as a teacher before migrating into administration. If I am understaning her correctly, I think that is a very interesting point
In our district only 3 years of classroom experience are required to move into administration.
That seems pretty lame, for sure – as bad a policy as the tenure policy in LAUSD.
Grant, 18 months is too short, and union officials are often beholden to teachers instead of the students they serve.
However, we have to guard against eliminating tenure altogether. At my school, it is 3 years for experienced teachers and 4 for rookies. Principals are on the classroom a lot during that time, and feedback is ongoing. And once tenure is reached, it is still not uncommon for teachers to face measures up to and including dismissal.
Many people believe tenure means impossible to fire. Where I live, it just means you need evidence of poor performance and failure to improve. Too many schools do not put administrators in the classroom. They must be there and the union should support that.
Thanks Grant, Laissez les non temps roullez!
I agree that a quick elimination of tenure would make no sense, and I also strongly agree that instructional leadership requires a constant monitoring of classes. The best MS principal I know is in classes every day.
I agree with Grant’s approach that the issue is a conflict of competing rights between students accessing a quality education and teachers to a job. Parents, who are also teachers in the same schools their children attend, know this conflict first hand. Just look at the teachers who push to move their own children out of classes with teachers they know are marginal. We, as a profession, need to lead the charge to identify and retain competent teaches.
Well, and I think this brings up an excellent point. I think peer evaluation is important and should be a part of annual evaluation. No one should get tenure without a positive review from peers.
I was a teacher for 21 years before becoming a principal. I have made it my mission to help teachers become better teachers. Sometimes I need to have difficult conversations with teachers about whether or not they should be in the classroom at all. I feel an obligation to the students, parents, and staff to have the best school possible. Tenure should not matter but it does. Bad or ineffective teachers who receive tenure is the fault of the administrator.
While I agree with your last sentence, in urban systems it is not just a single admin. that is the cause of the problem. They are often under pressure from people above them, they are trying for stability in their school, the hiring pool is likely to be somewhat weak, and the union is likely to contest, at great hassle and expense, the proposed dismissal. That was the Judge’s point, really: the system conspires to deprive kids of the education they would get if better hiring, retention, improvement, and dismissal processes were in place.
Put in different words, often the job of urban Principal is an utterly thankless job with very limited power. It takes an unusual person to buck the system, so we cannot count on that alone to improve matters for students – in the same way that we cannot count on there being nothing but extraordinarily talented teachers filling the talent pool. We have to improve with who we have; current rules and regs make that far too difficult.
Ending tenure changes none of this I’m afraid. It just makes it easier to scapegoat the poor teacher at the bottom of the totem pole.
I never said we should end tenure.
Thank you for a clear, reasonable and cogent review of this decision. Hopefully, discussions like this one can become the bellwether as the various appeals work their way through the system.
Grant, even setting aside specific (legal) issues such as tenure and the California matter — you make certain points that I believe are crucial. You’ve made them before, as has Alfie Kohn and far too few: education is ultimately about the student, the learner. Retired for a year now, I spent nearly forty years as a teacher and an administrator, admittedly in independent/private education, at various grade levels (including college). My experience: when we believe teachers are at the center of the process, education falters and falls apart. When we believe students are at the center, education at least has the opportunity to survive, perhaps thrive. Leaders — no matter the conditions — have to emphasize that the individual learner is why a teacher makes the sacrifices s/he does…and what all those implications are. It seems simple – it’s not. Thank you for continuing to clarify, communicate, and call out loudly that learning is about the learner.
You have said it better than I did! I could not agree more. Indeed, much of my professional life has been about trying to honor the student above all other parties. And of course the student typically has no advocate when the students’ rights and needs differ from those of teachers, as in this case (and in other cases, such as grading and surveys).
The odd thing, as you well know from independent schools, is that as coaches we more easily and eagerly make the changes and take the sacrifices. Same people, different arena. That’s why I so believe in the need for more public work around learning, as in coaching; and the need for curriculum writing that isn’t about what we will deliver but to what outcomes we are committed.
I hear what you are saying; many have said it before. It’s about the learner. It’s about the students, not about the adults. This edict is often pronounced in the context of debates over tenure protections and egregious teacher demands. Alas, it should be about the student if all the teachers care about is their own self-perservation…
Yet, I hope we can all agree that we have to be very, very careful here…
Because a school IS about the adults. It is absolutely about the adults– not when it comes to protecting the bad ones through tenure, but when it comes to school leaders designing a learning atmosphere where all human beings reflect on practice and become better, a place where the administration treats the teacher — AS A LEARNER– in a way consistent with how the students are treated – AS LEARNERS– by the teachers. The learning values of the organization must be applicable to all of the human beings in that organization, period. And in many, many settings they aren’t.
I just wanted to make this point because the moment a school articulates their school’s mission/vision as conferring benefits to one segment of the population of that school (the student), a silent injustice is done to that learning community. The teachers in that school absorb the message that they are ‘pass throughs’, tools to serve somebody else and no matter how generous a spirit they have, no matter how pure their intentions, a defensive attitude takes root and boils over in time and they feel isolated, left out, treated differently. And if the adults aren’t served property, forget about the kids.
Has a mission statement ever said something like “Our school exists to serve human beings.”? I’ve never seen one..
hope this wasn’t perceived as too much of a tangent…
I believe that one day we’re going to look back at “Last hired, First Fired” and wonder what we were thinking. The ultimate question we need to ask ourselves is: who does the educational system serve, the student or the teacher? Teacher tenure speaks for itself.
I don’t believe LIFO is a bad system at all. This isn’t really about “firing” bad teachers at all. LIFO is about laying off teachers in a bad economy. When a private company does lay offs, they typically use LIFO, at least in part, to decide who goes. Lay offs are not about who is doing a poor job. Lay offs are about having to reduce the number of employees in a down economy when we do not have enough money to employ everyone. A quick way to decide is LIFO. Otherwise, districts will have to go through a time consuming process to update evaluations and test scores when time is short. Fire bad teachers when they have a poor evaluation. Use LIFO as a technique for deciding who is laid off quickly and fairly. It is fair to let the last one hired go in a down economy. If all teachers who have poor evaluations are not kept, all teachers will be equally qualified and skilled. Why are we holding on to poor teachers so that when we have lay offs, we can let them go? This makes no sense. Have LIFO for lay offs only. Have fair evaluations of teachers annually to get rid of poor teachers.
I disagree, and so did Debbie Meier and so did a young teacher who commented here. It’s simply wrong for kids. It means that seniority trumps competence in horizontal moves – which you do not address – precisely what the Judge said led to poor schools getting worse.
LIFO is not about horizontal moves. LIFO is when a teacher is laid off. I do not understand your reply. Are you saying experience is being used as the sole way of moving a teacher from one position to another school district position (hiring)? That is not LIFO. That is hiring criteria/job transfer criteria. If experience is the only basis for a teacher to be hired/transferred than I would not support that. LIFO is a term to mean lay off though. So, if people are using that term to me “job transfer” than I would amend my reply. I think semantics is important though and I’m not sure why we are saying “last in first out” for a job move. That gives everyone the wrong impression as to what this is exactly.
I objected to your article on several levels. First, it is not a balanced argument. While it addresses the potential abuses of tenure and seniority, it does not address their obvious value. On that point alone, I question the thoughtfulness of your post and your ability to consider policies that support both the right of children to get a good education and the right of adults to fair dealing and reasonable protection in the workplace. These two social goods are not only NOT mutually exclusive, they are essential to one another. The child has a right to an education that will enable them to enter the adult world prepared to succeed in it. But, the extent to which society undermines universal human rights in the workplace is the extent to which education’s great accomplishment is to prepare children for an adult life of pernicious anxiety. The attack upon tenure and seniority is not as simple as you make it. Due process, right to fair wages, protection against unjust firing, safety in economic downturns are rights that should belong to all. Instead, we can all be rightfully worried about the long term impact of increased pay upon our desirability, rightfully concerned about becoming victim of a culture that explicitly values youth over experience. Worried that we may not meet with a particular employer’s vision or have a job that someone’s niece might like. We have every reason to fear retribution for political or personal views that do not meet with our employer’s preferences and every reason to fear that we will be excessed merely for being expensive in an economic downturn. It is good to get rid of bad teachers, but tenure protects good teachers as well and seniority keeps teachers from losing jobs simply because they aged up to a decent salary. Only the most naive or disingenuous do not recognize the potential for abuse that a system of at will educators will engender.
I might start with your own characterization of what good teaching should look like. Implicit in your argument is the notion that people that don’t teach in a way that you personally recognize should be on the list to lose their jobs… perhaps when you and your team come around with your pads to write down what you see? Two of your arguments for what constitutes bad teaching really didn’t meet my criteria for bad teaching.. or shall we say did not necessarily meet it. Your argument that someone who has students read aloud in class for a period is a bad teacher is just wrong. If they did it every day, you would be right, but, in fact, reading aloud is a precursor to public speaking and is an excellent and safe way to get students speaking aloud. First speak someone else’s words, then your own. Also, it helps to identify students with decoding issues and is useful for helping students to understand punctuation and tone. It teaches articulation and the public voice. And, it teaches better writing. The public speaking of the written word is one of the primary ways in which people can identify flow or lack of flow in their own work. Similarly, they can hear what quality writing sounds like when they read it aloud. I also disagree with your characterization that lecture is inherently bad in a history class. One of the best history teachers in my public high school is a story teller and people come back after graduating to attend some of his lectures. I’m sure he does other things but his lectures are not to be missed. He’s magical. Sometimes, he’ll take students on a tour of the building and highlight the social history of our school and how it has woven into the history of America, stopping at places in the building to talk about people who have gone through the halls, the era of desegregation and so forth. He’s amazing. I mention this to say that it’s just dogmatic to assume that you will always know what good teaching should look like.
Finally, just as a point of information for you as a visitor to schools… while you may consider your research very important, it is unreasonable to expect that you or your staff should have unfettered access to any classroom at will. It disrupts learning and as valuable as you think it is, it is perhaps not so valuable that you need to be able to pop in whenever you like. Perhaps it would be better for there to be some classrooms with one way glass so that researchers could observe classes without interrupting them, but be assured that your presence in a classroom is an interruption to the regular flow of interaction. (And just an aside, you do sound somewhat hostile to teachers in your posting here. If that is evident in your interaction, no wonder you aren’t invited to just come in whenever) But, if that argument doesn’t meet with your approval, remember that you represent access for everyone who has a legitimate interest. if you should have unfettered access, then why not all the other legitimate interests? Why not a consultant, a parent, a board member, an administrator, a local non parent taxpayer, the janitor that wants to fix a window. In and out whenever they want… and why not all at once? Heck, let’s have a circus.
I think you mischaracterize my views, as suggested by many comments here. I would never standardize teaching, indeed our entire approach in UbD is to provide freedom to lesson designers within a framework. You didn’t see the kids reading: bored stiff. That is the typical thing they do in class. All lectures? Can’t achieve learning goals, even if it’s good story-telling.
Second of all, I am not hostile to ‘teachers’ I am hostile to the protection of bad teachers over kids – always have been, always will do so. My presence is not an interruption in any school that is used to visitors. I assure you that I have been in hundreds of rooms with zero fuss and no distraction to kids. Indeed, the opposite of what you say is true: visitors are only a fuss in classrooms that have been excessively private for too long. Nor am I ever a “visitor” in the sense of wandering in off the street: my presence is always announced via meetings and other communications, and in the district in question we had a full-year project known to all staff in all schools from the start of the year. It was building reps. that created the hostile atmosphere for us, and only in select buildings. Most teachers were happy to have us. Indeed, many pleaded in private for more help.
Okay. So, there are bad and mediocre teachers and you may have seen some. You aren’t the only one who is opposed to their protection. However, I also opposed to the eradication of my profession, the collapse of another middle class career path, and the destruction of public education generally under the guise of getting rid of a few bad teachers. I see no benefit to the gleefully disruptive capitalism that masks itself as child advocacy and no future for my profession coming out of hydra-headed reform with its multitude of beneficiaries (few of whom are children).
You seem to think that loss of tenure would result in little if any damage, even though due process is already under attack in New Orleans, Chicago, Philadelphia, Boston and Newark (among others) or loss of tenure would impact teacher quality even though highest performing schools are highly unionized with strong tenure and seniority protections. You mention charters and private schools who also have a low 1% removed for incompetence rate, but many charters and private schools also have a revolving door of teachers who don’t stay long anyway. It doesn’t seem like a very strong point.
You also don’t seem to think that there are reasons for tenure beyond job security. Could it be that your Palestinian house principal never told you that you could only refer to Israel as Palestine. (fact) She never told you to change a grade for a kid who didn’t do the work or give an A to an illiterate 13 year old because he could draw a cartoon of Columbus sailing to America. (fact and fact) You never were asked to take over an unrelated community newsletter because the lawyer parent who ran it didn’t want to do it anymore and thought she could foist it upon a new teacher. (fact) You never saw nepotism keep a good teacher from getting tenure. (fact) You never had a kid tell you that he was going to fail the ELA so that you’d get fired for moving his seat. (fact) You never had a parent pressure you to give a grade that was not deserved. (fact) You might be surprised at all the reasons why tenure is a good thing.
I also connect different dots on seniority. It isn’t just your 1% at risk. The problem with loss of seniority rights is that it subjects all teachers to lifelong insecurity regardless of merit. Perhaps that just puts us in the same boat with the rest of the disenfranchised workers of our declining economy, but it’s a pretty fiction to say that only bad and incompetent teachers would lose positions. Not using seniority simply means that in every economic downturn, the likely first to go would be expensive, senior teachers. The reason for this is that no matter how good you are, if you cost as much as two teachers (which will happen after 20 years), then class size can be decreased by dumping you over two new, less experienced teachers. It could reasonably be argued that since lower class size is in the interests of children, it is in the interests of children to dump hard working, high quality senior teachers. There should be protections against that arithmetic.
I find it odd that you only invoke a doomsday scenario. Why doesn’t what you describe happen in strong suburban districts that let people go in a % closer to the norms of the adult workplace? Why doesn’t what you describe happen in private schools? (It would be very easy to let go of all older private school teachers on year to year contracts; doesn’t happen. And there are NO unions. You need to explain that.)
No one writing here – me, you, the others who agree and disagree with me – has expressed an interest in dismantling of public education and fair job rules and protections. I can appreciate fear, too. But for someone who accused me of being one-sided, your comments are one long fearful slippery slope claim. In good, well-run schools the kinds of things you are describing just do not happen, and will not happen. Furthermore, no one here suggested the elimination of tenure and/or due process. The Judge’s position is crystal clear: the LAUSD system is insufficiently sensitive to student rights. Period.
I find it frustrating that you don’t address legitimate concerns raised in a more straightforward way. But, as it is happening right now in high poverty, minority schools where the population is less empowered and historically the victim of reform experimentation, the issue is at hand right there. You aren’t suggesting that I should wait to object until it hits the suburbs to decry destructive and manipulative policies or erosion of professional standing?
Huh? Worry all you wish, but worry and slippery slope reasoning is not an argument that will get you a hearing with people who differ from your perspective. That’s the part I find so frustrating: many of my liberal colleagues don’t seem to get that their ad hominem attacks and doomsday exaggeration neither wins allies or convinces critics. The Judge’s decision is perfectly reasonable and limited to LAUSD. It speaks to a conflict of rights. It’s a limited decision that will have little effect on tenure per se. How can you not see that, regardless of your fears? The fact that a bunch of right-wing fanatics want to subvert rights and freedoms has little bearing on this case. Pick your battles wisely, I say. The union response has been downright histrionic and ill-advised. The NEA response, in particular, reads like an NRA ad.
You and I may well disagree on strategy and tactics; that’s fine. But I wish people would stop demonizing those of us who take a different strategy and tactical point of view on how to improve public education while safeguarding it.
Grant:
JupiterMom wrote “teachers need to have job protections for their teaching styles.” I wonder if you think admins should look for particular teaching styles to determine effectiveness. In other words, could a teacher be a lecturer, like the history teacher you described, yet still have his students totally feel totally engaged when he breaks for discussion, or provides them with assessment options that speak to differing readiness, interests, and learning profiles? I think some teachers worry about a decision like this because they believe it emboldens their supervisors to expect a “model lesson” which fits a particular template, and determine their evaluation based on how well their lesson fits the template, rather than appreciating how the teacher’s lesson(s) may support what the students are being asked to do in performance tasks.
The issue to me is not style. At the heart of UbD is the airtight logic of “IF x is the desired outcomes THEN certain things follow for learning.” My stance is not idiosyncratic or grounded in an ideology. A steady diet of lectures simply cannot cause transfer of learning – the goal of education – just as a steady diet of lectures cannot cause soccer or music performance outcomes. The whole point of the Standards is to signal that coverage is not a viable approach to causing performance. As I said before, in my posts about the pros and cons of lecturing, the issue is not whether to lecture but when and for how long, in service of learning goals. To say that many students enjoy good lecturers is thus a red herring. Enjoyment of the lectures is not an adequate goal of a course. A course is designed to help students make meaning of and transfer their learning in the future, not just enjoy the present.
Great blog.
Let’s say case is not overturned. What then? Where do you see it going?
I assume officials would seek minimum viable compliance. Since Berliner through out “1 to 3%” and judge referred to it in his decision, officials would create a new mechanism that allows for the uber-slow termination process to become “merely slow” for 1%.
If your 10% is a reasonable number, seems like most kids trapped in these classrooms will remain trapped.
Still, need to start somewhere I suppose.
Bon appetit!
I see it going to negotiation in the Legislature, with a LOT of money spent by unions and lobbyists until some modest compromise is reached. But all bets are off in other states if/when they use the same legal reasoning. (But each state has different laws about educational and association rights, so predictions are shaky).
The discussion about using student achievement data as part of the teacher/administrator/building evaluation is fascinating, to say the least. Should student data be used as part of the evaluation of all of the above, not just teachers? I suggest yes. To what extent, and how growth data can be assimilated is the fundamental question. Just a single test score? Absolutely not! To borrow an old phrase, that is a snapshot, not a video. During the classroom part of my career, I was a band and orchestra director. On average, “every other Friday night” my students were performing in front of an audience, most of whom neither knew nor cared how many band kids were cheerleading or playing the game. But the audience all knew if we performed well or not, and were never shy in expressing their collective opinions to me and to the musicians. Was I being “evaluated” based on the performances of my students? Absolutely. Did these evaluations have any impact on a firing or retention decision? Yes, they did. Did they have any relationship to the observations/evaluations done by my building administrators based on the district criteria? Not really.
The scenario is a fact of life for teachers in any performance based assignment. I would hope that we could collectively come up with an acceptable form of accountability for student growth. We will never find the perfect model that will fit all districts and teaching assignments. But I hope we can keep a civil conversation alive.
I must ask you – what does that look like? I have yet to see a system of “accountability” that does not subject kids to unfair test prep and testing. Your example of being assessed by the audience at your band performances is much more similar to a teacher being reviewed by her students- not in being evaluated based on the student’s test performance. That would be appropriate. All who are part of the teaching experience should have a say. Using a student’s test score to evaluate a teacher in any capacity, using any crazy formula just is not good for students.
Another example I will put out there. I don’t think anyone here would say “lets evaluate teachers in part based on the students’ grades in her/his class”. It’s for the same reason. You don’t evaluate a person based on another person’s performance. It’s nonsensical. There are too many other factors that make it a poor way to evaluate.
I never suggested that student grades be used a part of evaluation, but I maintain that student performance is a viable discussion. We are trying to do a static evaluation based on a point in time in students’ careers, which is inherently flawed. Part of the definition of success is how well our students are prepared for what follows after they leave our classrooms/schools. Way too many factors are present in any student’s life to hold any individual accountable for what happens over time. I am quite intrigued, however, by the concept of also considering the performance of the school as part of every professional school employees portfolio. Some national systems have implemented variations on this model, what I have read is fascinating.
I never said you said to use student grades to evaluate teachers. That was my example to suggest using a student outcome is not a good idea. A test score is even less informative than a student semester grade. A semester grade is the culmination of many tests and papers. If you are evaluating a teacher based on student outcomes, why wouldn’t you use the student’s grade as part of that? It would actually be more informative than 1 test score.
But, I do not think any student outcome would be a good idea to use to evaluate a teacher. Here is why:
1. I have yet to see a model that does not end up increasing test prep and testing so that students spend much of their learning days being prepped for the test. This is wrong as it puts their test score as more important than anything else. I think 1 test score in the scheme of things is not the most important part of education. We lose a lot to get that score higher each year. I’d be happy to see a model that does not involve multiple diagnostic practice tests, multiple test days, weeks of activities to practice test items, etc. I have yet to see that.
2. Studies that I have read show that the students test score is not such a good indicator of the quality of the teacher. It just does not seem to capture it. I also point to FL as an example of VAM. We have some “teachers of the year” who have scored very low on VAM. As it would be predicted, many teachers who work in high poverty areas are scoring low.
3. Presently, the only way to evaluate a teacher on test scores means that you are evaluating the PE teacher based on how the kids do on the reading test. FL is moving to an end of course test for next year in every single course (new problems) so that the PE teacher can be assessed on the PE end of course test. So, now our kids in PE are focused on the end of course exam which will be practiced all year so that the PE teacher can get the best score. How is this focusing on the student?
4. We have whole school grades here in FL. It’s idiotic. Here is the outcome- poor schools get poor grades. Rich schools get good grades. Schools with good grades get bonus money. Poor schools get lots of district personnel running through their hallways trying to “intervene”. And by “intervene” this means a lot more test prep for those kids at those schools. Yeah, that puts “students first” – yikes!
5. And now you want to have teachers have on their resume whether they worked at an “A” school or not? Really? Do you want to have any good teachers at the schools in low SES neighborhoods? Or maybe you want to trap them there.
With all due respect, if you don’t think that there are very real differences between the way students behave in urban schools as compared to their peers in suburban schools, either you’re not being honest with what you’ve seen or the students in the urban classrooms you witnessed were playing nice for the guest. You seem to recognize these differences enough to acknowledge that being an administrator in an urban school can oftentimes be “thankless” and “powerless,” but I hope you understand that these same feelings of despair exist for a large chunk of TEACHERS working in urban schools, too. Quite frankly, many of the reform policies, including eliminating teacher protections and due process, are piling on and in my opinion are only going to make it more likely that the best teachers (no matter how you choose to determine this) avoid urban school environments where they’re more likely to be scapegoated for their students’ failure to “achieve.” This failure, of course, being caused by a variety of factors, which on the whole combine to be more than any effect the teacher has.
I never said that urban schools and suburban schools were the same. I said it of trenton in the upper grades. Why might that be so? The dropout rate is 50% on average in Trenton. So the kids that are left fit in 1 high school and many want an education.
I am well aware of the feelings of powerlessness in schools. Teachers, admins and students all feel it. This decision was about students not getting the attention they deserve in the face of prior decisions between adults about work rules.
The thing is, the work rules are not the reason why the students aren’t supposedly getting that attention. Until those real reasons are addressed, all you’re doing is making changes in laws that will have unintended consequences that apparently aren’t being considered.
For sure, but the work rules was what the lawsuit was about. It is now more likely that ‘quality education’ can be more aggressively pursued in the courts if schools fail to respond (as they should).
Mr. Wiggins, your article was very interesting, but what do you have to say about the connection with teachers’ working conditions? I can understand that a teacher who has 40 kids in their (high school) classroom, and has had a 3% pay cut every year for the last three years, isn’t feeling very motivated to do anything more than the absolute minimum.
And, if you get rid of seniority, teachers feel they have no job security, they are worried about making rent/mortgage payments, providing for their kids, etc, all of which are also distractions and not going to help them to do their best during the lessons.
I think teachers need stability in order to perform well.
I never suggested that we get rid of seniority nor did the Judge, The Judge ruled that the seniority process in LA was far too quick and superficial – and that it was therefore hurtful to both teachers aiming for tenure and students.
Yes, teachers need stability; yes, teachers need better working conditions. But this decision was about student rights. The union exists to press for the other issues; the kids have no union.
Grant,
You have explained the conflict of teacher tenure with student learning very well. No one wants to work with teachers who do not know how to teach, and some who really do not want to teach. Yes, we have many, many good teachers who are doing exemplary work with students. What you have discussed is the problem of removing teachers from classrooms that are not contributing to student learning.
I do not know the percentage of teachers who should be taken out of classrooms that are truly contributing to disengagement and frustration for students on a daily basis. However, in my 40 years of working as a teacher and with teachers, the percentage of teachers that represent this group and need to be removed is relatively small. At the same time, I can say that the percentage of teachers doing a phenomenal job in helping students learn is a not as large as most of us would like.
Along the same line, there are teachers that are contributing to student learning but need more support, more opportunities to learn, and time to collaborate with others. These teachers are our largest percentage and often get the least amount of the professional learning that they need. The final group of teachers are those that need individualized, intensive, and ongoing training in order for them to be teachers that contribute to learning and want to work with students.
I am not trying to offer a simplistic explanation but rather my experience in working with teachers. It is such a good feeling to be in classrooms where teachers are engaging students in their learning and obviously are well versed in their area of learning, content or grade level.
My final comment is my disappointment in the number of people, who comment on your blog and others, and do not know how to offer a well constructed argument that addresses the issues stated by the original author. Considering all the years that we have been emphasizing persuasive writing, one would expect that teachers/educators would know how to offer opposing comments in a well structured way. I cannot claim that I am skilled in the art of argument or debate but I believe I know well written argument when I see it.
P.S. With a bit of humor I add – that I know my limitations and therefore I am hesitant to present an opposing view to yours because I find them well thought out and logical.
Thanks for your great comments. Yes, it is frustrating that the argumentation is often weak. But we’ll continue to make this space available for those who feel similarly.
As for your comments in the first part of your remarks: Your sense of the numbers matches mine. There are not that many great educators; it’s a steep bell curve. Here’s my theory: as long as the quality of and access to great feedback is weak then we can expect the numbers to be3 as they are. My own view is optimistic: given quality feedback and incentives to heed it, anyone can improve should they choose. That’s my greatest frustration about failed reform: if the feedback system is poor, good intentions cannot alone get the job done.
And, please, keep writing! Never hesitate to present an opposing view. I truly welcome it if it is thought through and presented as part of a dialogue, as I think my constant responses show.
Your article is the only one I could find that had a well reasoned and balanced analysis. Thank you so much!