Almost No Teachers In District's Low-Performing Schools Considered 'Ineffective'

Two out of 2,382.

 

I've just found a new definition of insanity.

 

So what? There's an under-performing school in a district where half of the people live in poverty and somehow the teachers are the problem?

When are the thieves who call themselves reformers going to focus on the real problem of poverty instead of trying to demonize public education so that they can grow the non-union, government-subsidized private school industry?

 

Part of it, unquestionably.

 

I agree if by "part of it" you mean 90 percent of it.

Some additional smaller but important parts of the problem: Equal funding for districts, better training and better evaluation systems.

Not part of the problem: Teachers' rights to negotiate job security and due process provisions into their contracts.

Not part of the solution: handing over tax dollars to private education companies in which hedge funds are placing big bets.

 

I think that the bad teachers currently teaching in a place like Lansing is a red herring, though. I think the biggest challenge is how you recruit good teachers there to begin with, outside of YF's plan to replace them all with previously shut-out corner office partners at Goldman Sachs.

 

You think the teachers are 90 percent of the problem? Really? I grew up in the Lansing area. I've seen what the Lansing schools are like in terms of resources and population compared with places like East Lansing, Okemos and Haslett. And as a teacher in an affluent district in another part of the country that does have a few students from poor, unstable family situations, I see firsthand how much a student's home situation impacts the ability to learn. I also see how much of my time is taken up trying to give these kids the kind of support they need so they can perform at a level close to comparable with their peers from economically stable homes (with educated, English-speaking parents who know how to -- and aren't timid about -- advocating for their kids). In an urban district like Lansing, that's almost your entire population. Pretty overwhelming task. I don't believe for a minute that only 2 teachers in the entire district are "ineffective" -- that sounds more like a product of lazy administrators. But teachers as 90 percent of the problem? Really?

 

I think he meant 10 percent.

 

Exacerbating the problem in some districts is that the poverty rate flew up so quickly in the wake of Wall Street's implosion. My kids' districts went from 33 percent of students eligible for free and reduced-price lunches before the recession to 50 percent within two years, and that rate isn't budging. That's not atypical -- even districts that have a fairly well-off base of students saw similar increases, by growth if not by total population.

 

Many of you are getting tripped up on a unit-of-analysis issue here: Schools and teachers are evaluated differently. Per the link from Bob Cook, only a portion of the teacher evaluation scheme rests on student performance. The bulk rests on student progress. You can have ineffective teachers in high-performing schools and highly effective teachers in low-performing ones.

 

I would think in some ways you have an advantage if you're a teacher at a "low-performing" school. If you're measured on student progress, and achievement is already high, students (and you as a teacher) have a much lower ceiling for improvement, at least on a percentage basis.

 

The economic implosion has led to larger class sizes. I teach 5 sections of HS social studies. Pre 2008, I rarely had more than 25 kids in an honors section and my college prep (standard) sections were about 12-15. My elective ranged from 12-20. And they had a "key" program for kids that needed more academic support -- sections were about 8-10 kids and were taught by a teacher certified in both social studies and special education. After the economic implosion, they eliminated key and put all the key kids into college prep sections, which ballooned. Now you'll have 25-30 kids, many on IEPs, many who are ELLs, and no dedicated aide. Classroom management is a LOT harder and there's just no time to give the needy kids the necessary support when you have to spend so much time giving it to the neediest. Also much harder to give adequate written feedback on work. Also, in the wake of the economic implosion, we've lost positions in our department and have a smaller staff while the student population has grown 5 years in a row. And the town won't pass a tax override to enable level funding.

So now my rosters for the upcoming school year are 5 sections of 29 kids each. That's 20 kids more than the contractual maximum of 125. I will do all I can to give them all the support they need. But there's only so many hours in a day. Fortunately in a community like this, lots of kids come ready to learn. And if they need support beyond what they school can provide, they have have the resources for outside tutors and they have educated parents who provide a lot of support at home. Still, there's a small but significant minority of kids who present the same issues as those in the inner city and it's much much tougher to give them what they need than it was a few years ago. I can't even imagine what it's like where that's the vast majority of the student population.

Of course most education reformers don't get all that because they think like management consultants and have no concept of what teachers do.