Because Having David Brooks on Staff Isn’t Annoying Enough…

… The New York Times is going to publish teacher evaluation data that have a 35%-53% margin of error.

The New York City Education Department will release the performance rankings of 18,000 teachers. The rankings are based solely on standardized tests, and are, almost everyone admits, pretty darned flawed for a myriad of reasons. I guess The New York Times has chosen to shrug off their journalistic responsibility of not publishing a bunch of hooey.

The flawed data isn’t the only thing about this that is bothersome. It reduces teachers to numbers, AND it also does it to kids. And that seems awfully narrow.

Here is a link to the article about the data. It’s worth a read if only to marvel at the fact that such an esteemed paper would bother publishing flawed numbers and preface it with an article that has a million paragraphs about how everyone says publishing said data is a terrible idea.

Helen F. Ladd Does Not Have Her Head Up Her Arse

A New York times op-ed piece acknowledges that poverty affects student achievement.

I’ve taught in Title 1 schools for 9 years. I love my students. I love the challenges I face in teaching them. But I don’t love the fact that I am never, ever, ever allowed to utter the words, “We have to think about this student’s home life.” OF COURSE my students’ socio-economic statuses can’t be used as an excuse for poor performance. But why can’t we use their poverty as a reason to organize more varied and holistic interventions? My students are MORE THAN JUST THEIR TEST SCORES. I know, you’re totally thinking, “OH NO SHE DIDN’T.” I did, people. I did. I said it.

David Sirota is Seriously My New Hero

In this article he doesn’t necessarily lay down anything new or groundbreaking, but he puts it all together in a way that smacks you in the side of your head and makes you finally GET IT.

It’s the outrageous economic inequity in which all of our institutions are grounded that has made our education system so very, very broken.

And David, if you’re out there, your wife totally should have won.

A Little More Link Love

I’ve got one of my gazillion formal observations for this school year coming up in a few days. So this article, about the shortcomings of the new evaluation system in Tennessee that combines multiple classroom observations with student test performance, seems timely to me.

When evaluation time rolls around, I also can’t help but think of the seventh-grade reading class I taught years ago in which one of my students, upon finding out I was going to be observed the next day, said, “Miss, we can make you look reeeeeeaaallll good,” while rubbing his fingers together in the universal sign for money.

And one more thought, while we’re on the subject. Teacher evaluations never include anything about how a teacher contributes positively to the climate and culture of the school. There’s never anything about whether they work tirelessly in after-school programs for free, or spend their own time before school tutoring. Or about how they do home visits on holiday weekends to get paperwork signed. Or about whether they serve on various committees in the school to try to improve the overall well-being of everyone in the building.

Strangely, those issues also never figure into discussions on teacher pay. Only test scores seem to.

And on an entirely unrelated Link Love note, my previous post about Steve Jobs selling me down the river feels slightly wrong in light of his passing. But I am still angry about the whole thing. So, in a show of respect, here is The Onion‘s tribute to the man.

Steve Jobs Tried to Sell Me Down the River

I recently killed four crucial keys on my MacBook keyboard, the result of a Lady Macbeth style cleaning frenzy. “Out damned spot!” (Note to self: Be more careful when scrubbing keyboard. Alternate note to self: Wash hands before using laptop. Note to Steve Jobs: White keyboard? Really?) This meant a trip to the Apple Store was in order. Have you been to the Apple Store recently? It is quite a production.

All hail the mighty Apple... in the giant creepy cube.

As I walked in, I was greeted with a giant multi-media display touting Apple’s new program that gives iPads to Teach for America volunteers. I haven’t posted yet about Teach for America, mostly because the entire program enrages me to the point that I don’t make sense when I talk about it. In a nutshell, I don’t understand why I hear so many complaints from politicians about bad teachers with little training, and comments from Democrats for education reform who lament the high turnover in teaching, but the same people are simultaneously promoting a program that puts untrained people in classrooms of our highest-need districts for three years. Three years: a time frame perfect for a 20-something up for a little cultural tourism (“I shall help the poor children!”); after which, resumes and consciences suitably bolstered, they can head off to their investment banking jobs where they proceed to steal the pensions of real teachers who have dedicated their lives to kids.

So obviously Steve Jobs giving iPads to this program left me incensed. I thought about smashing my MacBook in protest right there in the middle of the Apple Store. But I really needed my laptop fixed. How on Earth could I plan lessons and look at student data without it? Fortunately, it was easily fixed, for free. Which sort of made me feel like I was pulling one over on ole Mr. Jobs.

Then this article cropped up, and I found out I was not alone in my rage. Also, the program seems to be dead. Hallelujah.

We Need to Connect the Dots

…because Arne Duncan can’t.

You'd think a man who can rub his chin that thoughtfully would also be able to figure out that he's destroying public education.

According to the Secretary of Education in an editorial published in the Washington Post, the recent cheating scandals have nothing to do with our emphasis on standardized testing. Instead, the scandals are due to pressure put on teachers and administrators to achieve student growth.

Wait a second Arne, aren’t those the same thing?

Duncan also believes that “emphasiz[ing] test results and public praise to the exclusion of integrity and ethics” is “no way to motivate teachers and students.”

Wait another second Arne, isn’t that what Race to the Top did, except on a larger scale?

Until we begin to include all of our students’ needs (economic, cultural, medical, affective, to name a few) in our national dialogue, the emphasis on standardized testing will continue to be a punishment for competent teachers and administrators. We are educating whole kids out there, not just the tiny, tiny parts of kids that take tests.

Good News/Bad News

Let’s start with the bad news:

You probably know this already, unless you’ve been on an extended camping trip on a deserted island without access to news, but Michele Bachmann came in first in the Iowa Republican presidential candidate straw poll. Ron Paul came in a close second. If you have been vacationing on that deserted island, you might be wondering, “Why is that bad news?  I mean, Michele Bachmann’s foster child farm proves she’s got what it takes to lead our country!”

Maybe so, maybe so. But in the videos below we learn that Bachmann believes that because Jesus invented math, national education standards will have kids giving you the wrong change when you buy a blouse, which, according to her video co-star Michael Chapman, will somehow lead to a Holocaust. I know, I don’t really understand it either. Maybe you can figure it out.

Read more about this cinematic tour de force in this article.

And now the good news:

A Denver District Court judge granted an injunction to stop the Douglas County, Colorado school voucher program. The program’s constitutionality is being challenged in a lawsuit filed by the ACLU, Americans United for the Separation of Church and State, as well as a group of Douglas County parents. The injunction will hold until the constitutionality the of the voucher program has been decided. The issue: Can taxpayer money earmarked to provide all children a free and appropriate public education be leeched from the system so some kids can attend private/religious schools? Or should unhappy parents maybe get involved in their neighborhood schools to try to improve them and then send their kids to Jesus math camp in the summers on their own dime?

Link Love

In this post, Walt Gardner addresses the rift between new teachers and seasoned and between many teachers and their unions. It’s a well-crafted piece, and I love his final thought. If you don’t read Walt Gardner on a regular basis, I recommend him.

We Will Never Be Finland Because We Aren’t Finland

This is Finland. We are not there.

Yesterday I received my copy of The Finland Phenomenon in the mail. I was excited about this documentary; I really thought it would hold the key to everything. Everything. How to close the achievement gap, do justice to constructivist teaching, improve teacher training, and maybe even how to cheerfully steam ahead during long dark winters without a sauna. I was hopeful.

I referred to The Finland Phenomenon in an earlier post, but I hadn’t yet seen it. I researched the movie a little before buying it; after all, the $25 price tag does eat into a teacher’s budget. I wanted to make sure it would be a good investment. The movie was produced by Robert Compton, who, according to his website, is a philanthropist with a corporate background. He also supports Teach for America. Not an auspicious background to be making movies about the public school system, but I was undaunted. I ordered the movie.

Well, of course it disappointed. Robert “Call me Bob” Compton did not reveal anything new about Finland’s education system that you can’t find through a quick Google search. There was very little information on how the country reached consensus about what education should look like, what the national curriculum entails, or whether the fact that Finland’s playing field is more level than ours (due to their version of Scandinavian socialism) could have ameliorated any potential achievement gaps.

Instead, the movie focused on teacher training. Teachers in Finland must have master’s degrees. The programs are rigorous, not everyone is accepted, and student teaching seems to be much better supervised and more prolonged than it is here. These are wonderful things, for sure. But what Robert Compton (and his wingman, Dr. Tony Wagner, the film’s narrator) left out is the fact that university education in Finland is free. Teachers there are entering the workforce unencumbered by debt. I wholly support making our teacher training programs more challenging, requiring more supervised time student teaching under master teachers, and requiring our teachers to have much higher scores on their state licensing tests. I want the profession to be full of true professionals.* But the financial incentives are not in place to do this now. The only people who would be able to afford this type of training here are wealthy kids. And wealthy kids probably do not want my salary. Or my student loan payment.

I read parts of Bob Compton’s blog after I saw the movie, and saw that he supports sweeping changes in teacher education. Teachers need more rigorous training, is his basic point. Bob! How on earth do you reconcile that with your support of Teach for America?

The film fell short in other ways, too. Finland seems to have a commitment to equality across society that we entirely lack. Compton and Wagner barely glazed over that, and how that might impact the school system. Finland has a national curriculum; is that akin to the state/national standards we have? And almost entirely left out of the discussion was primary education, specifically literacy. How are kids taught to read in Finland? I was left with more questions than answers. More important, I was left with the feeling that we will never replicate this school system because we lack too many of the fundamental philosophies that define Finland.

If you want to know more about Finland’s education system, save your $25. This article is better than the movie.

*I currently teach at a school packed full of true master teachers who are infinitely professional and wise, and who are experts in their content areas. From past experience, though, I know this is not always so. (insert story about English teacher who told class the word seethe was pronounced “see-eth-ay.”)

Matt Damon Thinks We are Awesome

And according to the speech he gave this weekend at the Save our Schools March in Washington, DC, there are millions of other Matt Damons out there who also love us and who have our backs.

Here’s the speech:

Pretty good, right? I like Matt Damon, especially since he narrated Inside Job, which I highly recommend if you haven’t seen it, or if you have a lot of undirected rage. It will channel your rage toward the banks, and you will wonder to yourself, “How on earth did a bunch of jackweed bankers manage to destroy the world economy and then spin it so that everyone thinks the real problem is bad teachers?” You will be very, very angry, and you may even lose sleep over it.

I think the best point that Damon makes in this speech is that standardized tests don’t measure the important things about us. They don’t measure kindness or compassion, attitude, motivation, willingness to learn, humor, or capacity to love. They don’t measure the questions students want to ask, or the imaginations they have. They don’t measure new interests or existing passions. They don’t measure the kinds of people we are helping our students to become.

I am not a standardized test hater. I do think they have their purposes. Whether or not students are learning to read or do math or to write is vital, and it needs to be measured. It’s the overemphasis on testing, the high-stakes-ness of it all, that is problematic; although not so for corporations like CTB McGraw Hill, which has produced a seemingly infinite chain of tests for the school district where I work. If my pay were connected to my students’ test scores, the most I could hope to make is a few extra thousand dollars or so a year. But how much is CTB making by having so much riding on test scores? They’ve produced our standardized tests, as well as tests that will tell us how our students will do on standardized tests, and the aforementioned test that will tell us how well our students will do on the test that will tell us how well they will do on the standardized test. CTB McGraw Hill, my friends, is the main beneficiary of standardized tests. Not students, not teachers, not the community, and definitely not Matt Damon.

McGraw-Hill’s revenue was reported to be $4.2 billion dollars in 2000. Yes, BILLION. BILLION DOLLARS. $4.2 BILLION DOLLARS. Thirty-four percent of that is generated by CTB, its education-related wing. That is over $1.3 billion dollars. And that was in 2000, before Arne Duncan swept through with his scan-tron sheets and his corporate agenda. I wonder what it is now? CTB is one of “The Big Four” testing companies, and it is ranked number 2. I wonder how much the number one company made off of this? More than a whole nation’s worth of teachers’ bonuses, I’m sure.

Well, thank you Matt Damon. Good speech. I think you are awesome, too.