Scapegoats

Consider this job-related scenario:  The CEO of your company hires some consultants and creates with them a brand-new way of assessing employee performance.  Employees are now going to be evaluated, in part, on 22 separate measures spanning 9 categories.

But there is more.  The nature of your business is such that projects take years to complete; each year they are handed off to a new worker.  So depending on where you've been assigned in the process, you might have a relatively fresh project or one that's been worked on by many of your colleagues.  Under the new system, your assessment (22 measures in 9 categories) is based in large part on how well those colleagues who worked on the project before you did, and how well the system as a whole is doing.

In order to complete their assessments, your supervisors observe you for roughly 2.7% of the time you spend on the job - actually, that's an inflated figure, since it's the number of days on which they are required to observe you divided by the number of days you work in one year; nothing in the assessment system requires your supervisor to spend and entire day with you to observe.  In terms of hours, then, the percentage of time they spend with you is even lower.

Sound like fun?  It certainly hasn't been for the 165 teachers in the Washington, DC school district who were just fired because of low marks received during their assessment last year (another 76 were fired for licensing problems, which is a wholly different matter).  And it's certainly not fun for the 737 others who have one school year to bring their performance in line with the metrics established by Michelle Rhee, the school district's Chancellor.

Any educator - but especially a public school teacher - is given somewhere between 15-30 students for around 186 days of instruction each year.  Some of the students will have emotional disorders, others will have learning disabilities.  Multiple learning styles have been discovered, and some of the kids will do better at verbal processing while others excel visually.  Some students will have a form of dyslexia.  Some of them will be chronically hungry.  Some of them are being physically, emotionally and/or sexually abused by family members.  Some of the kids in any given public school classroom were sent to pre-kindergarten or Head Start and started learning their letters and numbers at 3 or 4 years old.  Some of them have been set in front of a TV since birth and never looked at a book until kindergarten - and still only look at books in a school setting.  And of course some of the kids are cared-for, are bright and well-fed and healthy.

It is the teacher's job to take in these children, all of them, and attempt to teach them things like math, reading, spelling, proper manners, hygiene, healthy eating, how to take care of their teeth, what it means to be honest, to have confidence, social studies, science, how to exercise, and much, much more.

A reasonable assessment system would take all of these issues into account and would work closely with teachers to see how well each child is progressing given the particular context the child is in.  Perhaps little Johnny is still having trouble reading, but he doesn't wet his pants anymore.  I'd say that's a damn good educational outcome, because I remember kids in 2nd and 3rd grade who had problems with that.  Maybe little Sally is behind in math, but because of her teacher's intervention she's in a foster home now instead of being abused by her parents every night.

But we don't have a reasonable assessment system in DC, because almost everyone - right, left or in-between - has decided that if our schools are in trouble it must be due to lazy, dumb, greedy teachers and corrupt teachers' unions.  Across the USA teachers have become scapegoats for what is yet another  ginned-up faux crisis the right wing is pushing on us in order to meet one of their despicable goals - this one being the complete abolition of public education.  The best way to create economic mobility is to educate everyone regardless of their socioeconomic background, and that is simply unacceptable to conservatives.

Michelle Rhee is wrong.  She's creating a system that makes it easier for her to pigeonhole teachers, force them to conform to what she wants and fire them if they fail to conform.  Just like with salaries in public education, that's exactly backwards from the way it should be.  Teachers already have hard enough jobs.  Instead of cheering on administrators like Rhee who are hell-bent on making teachers' jobs even more difficult, we should be forcing them to take on more responsibility themselves.  If Rhee wants better teacher evaluations, then she and her administrators should be willing to take on the hard work of actually evaluating the teachers according to criteria that teachers face in the real world, not artificial metrics thought up at mahogany conference tables.

Some teachers are bad at their jobs, and they should be made to get better or get fired.  But when 23% of your total workforce is either fired or put on probation the first year you implement your new system, it means your system doesn't work.  That Michelle Rhee and anyone else responsible for such a colossal failure still has a job is a testament to the Right-wing Noise Machine and its ability to set the terms of almost any debate. If this assessment system is the best Rhee can do, she's at best totally incompetent and more likely a danger to the DC school district's ability to function at all.

But a few years from now, after Rhee has fired thousands of teachers, the DC schools will still be 'in trouble,' the right-wing will still have everyone in the country convinced that our entire educational system is 'in crisis,' and very serious people from all across the political spectrum will stroke their chins and nod when the solution they're given is to fire more teachers.

Comments

[minstrel hussain boy]

that's all true stephen, yet, it's not even the most disgusting part of our education system under the bullshit of "no child left behind."

after talking with my sister who is a high school teacher about the real possiblity of her school and district being placed into "failed" status and therefore implementing many of the facets of bush's bullshit i spent less than five minutes to find out what the real point of that legislation was.

when a district and school are put into failure status, one of the first things that happens is that they are able to do wholesale firings, which has the main result of weakening or breaking the teacher's unions. outside consultants can be brought in to "restructure" the districts and schools. the biggest, and most connected consulting firm is run by neil "i didn't know she was a hooker, she just showed up at my hotel room door and fucked me" bush. another change that happens is that the curriculumn is restructed to better comform with the standards and guidelines. this requires new textbooks, like those published by barbara bush.

the bush family, and their well connected friends were absolutely willing to dismantle and destroy the system of public education that used to be the envy of the world in order to enrich themselves.

they. make. me. want. to. fucking. puke.

[Davis X. Machina]

Very popular scapegoats, too.

J. Random Worker thinks...

Those damned teachers have defined-benefit pensions, mostly -- all I have is an empty 401(k)
They've got decent health insurance -- which I used to have.
They're protected against arbitrary dismissal -- and I'm not.
They've got things like that thanks to a union and collective bargaining -- if I even think about a union, they'll fire me.

They're off when the kids are off, and all I have after thirty years is two lousy weeks.

Half of them will add:

They're disproportionately female, disproportionately Democrat-voting, and (in a lot of places) disproportionately minority.

Highly-paid civil service drones. Screw 'em.

I don't envy the job of people like Sir Charles who work in the labor movement, when that movement is based in a country where the answer to "My job sucks" is always "Quick, find someone whose job doesn't suck, and make his job suck too.

[Joe]

The sad thing about this as well is that Chancellor Rhee will soon get a lower percentage of good teachers sticking around or applying in the first place. Lots of young teachers work in a district like DC for a few years and then head off to a wealthy, higher paying district with the appropriate experience. By eliminating job security, you're almost guaranteeing that lots of these teachers are going to be sure to leave the moment a better opportunity appears. DC schools will be a place where you work for a couple of years and then move up or move out.

[litbrit]

What an excellent, fresh way of examining the bullshit approach they're taking with education, Stephen. It's so true.

They need scapegoats--scapegoats for the problems kids have that stem from myriad societal and fiscal woes. Don't punch the assholes on Wall Street. Don't punch the assholes who want to extend tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans. Don't punch the common sense conservative governors who slash education budgets so teachers have forty and fifty kids in a class and have to buy them pencils and paper a lot of the time. Don't punch the morons who literally re-write history books so our kids get dumber and dumber with every passing year.

No, punch the hippies who went to college and instead of getting MBA's, studied things like literature, Latin, and sociology; who then, instead of interning with politicians so as to pad their resumés, backpacked across the poorest countries in the world and volunteered with various NGO's; and who ultimately, once ready to settle into a career, did not trade bundled mortgage securities or work with hedge funds or lobby senators, but rather, devoted their lives not to the pursuit of fat paychecks and flashy cars, but to bettering the lives of the most vulnerable Americans: children. Teachers.

Punch those hippies.

[Prup (aka Jim Benton)]

Sir Charles: While not disagreeing at all with what you say, I think you have to start the discussion at the other end. What does make a good teacher? How do you recognize one? (Both of which most of us might be able to answer.) But the sticker is how do you create some form of objective measurement of teachers that will equate to our subjective judgment?

Because, unfortunately, that is the main problem that all the various ideas are -- at least theoretically -- trying to answer. If you go by 'cross-District' tests, teachers will 'teach the tests' and this will show nothing at all about what their students know -- unless the tests are entirely essay questions or verbal exams. If you leave it to the purely subjective judgment of principals or administrators, or even students, the possible prejudices and misjudgments are obvious.

And do you give parents any input? If the parents are like the ones here, then great, their opinion is invaluable. But what about the parents whose attitude is "How dare that teacher give my son a low mark when his whole college career that we've been planning on since he was three is threatened?" Or, just as deadly, "How dare that teacher teach my boy (or girl) things I don't want him to learn, like about evilootion, or lies like there's something called 'separation of Church and State' or all the other stuff David Barton warned me about."

So, while it is useful to discuss what is wrong with this current system, and why parents don't jump to the defense of teachers (DavisX -- simply brilliant, sad but brilliant), I would like to see some suggestions for what positive steps, in teaching, in curriculum, in teacher judging can be taken. (And can we take it as given that any seriously intelligent ideas will in some way piss off parents, politicians, administratoers and teachers' unions, and that all of them will need to accept being pissed off?)

Anybod want to get the discussion going?

[Stephen]

Prup,

You're correct that it's hard to define what a good teacher is. And I'm also willing to concede that many of the people doing what I consider to be the most damage through all their assessments and tests are doing so out of genuine concern for education.

The real problem, though, is that we need to take a step back even further from what you propose and ask, "Is there really an education crisis in this country?"

The answer is a resounding NO, except for the artificial crises being intentionally created by conservatives so that they can do away with public education in this country.

If you want to know what a good teacher looks like, go walk into any public school in the country and pick a classroom at random. Chances are extremely good that what you will find in there is a dedicated, caring professional working herself to death for the sake of her kids.

I'm not saying there are no criteria. But I am saying that the criteria can and should be different for every single school and probably every single classroom. Classroom teachers go into their jobs knowing that it will be extremely difficult work. It's time we expect the same level of dedication to such hard work from their principals and administrators. If people like Michelle Rhee don't want to put in the work, they can go do something else.

[kathy a.]

the saddest thing is that the kids who most need good, hands-on teachers -- kids who most need extra support because they are less gifted or have extra challenges of various sorts; or their families and/or communities are in chaos; or their families are impoverished; or whose parents cannot for whatever reason provide help at home -- those kids will not score well, and the teachers who try valiently to help them will be punished.

it is idiotic to compare public school teachers in poor areas [with few resources, and with many challenged kids] to teachers in wealthy areas where the parents can hire outside help if necessary, and can fund all the extracurricular activities that kids need.

[Davis X. Machina]

Punishing children for their choice of parents is an old American tradition.

[Sir Charles]

The continuing bashing of teachers just drives me crazy.

Interestingly, I think Rhee acted at this time because Mayor Fenty is extremely vulnerable in the Democratic primary that will occur here in September. He is facing the DC Council Chairman, Vincent Grey, and strikes me as slightly more likely to lose than not. If that happens, Rhee's days are numbered.

I actually have mixed feelings about Fenty losing. He has accomplished a great deal here and been, in my mind, a very effective executive. I am even somewhat admiring of his decision to tackle the schools, which have been a mess here for so long, while not embracing Rhee's approach to things. Rhee, like Fenty, is very young and arrogant, and I think she has been quite unfair in her treatment of the teachers.

Anyway, Fenty has managed to offend large swaths of the city's activist base -- for no reason really -- and I would not be shocked if he finds himself a one-termer.

[Joe]

There is a strong opposition to unionization in public administration and educational administration which, in may ways, bled over from the the schools of business administration.

In part as well, public sector managers often blame their inability to get results on the lack of freedom in dealing with employees that private sector managers have (that lack of freedom arises from either civil service rules or collective bargaining agreements).

Rhee has brought this prejudice to her reform efforts. Unfortunately, the prejudice is largely misplaced. The big problems in the public sector arise from an inability to determine if employees are doing a good job. This problem arises from a difficulty in measuring favorable outcomes in the public sector as opposed to the private sector (e.g. its very easy to determine if Coca-Cola employees are doing a good job- they produce soda which people want to buy according to a formula management gives them). Its very hard to determine if public sector employees (in many areas) are doing a good job. What outcome do you want from a school- what kind of student do you want; and how do you go about getting there).

Teach For America (where Rhee came from) has mixed a very good idea with a very bad one. The good idea is: they have been using observation and measurement to find out how low-income kids can be taught most effectively. The bad idea is: people with some raw ability (Harvard grads who want to teach for year) can simply pick up these skills rapidly and do the job. To gain expertise, you need about 10 thousand hours of experience regardless of your ability. That means, you need 5-10 years on the job to get really good at it.

Thus, the only way to really use TFA's good idea (the results obtained from observation and experimentation) is to get buy-in from the professional teachers (and, by extension, their unions).

[kathy a.]

here we go: some teachers' aid .