"Teachers CAN'T assign whole-class books, but CAN be held accountability for reading scores?"Teachers should run schools. Or else we should forget about schools, and just have teachers.
That sums up why I won't teach in my district now. I can either teach the kids the concepts needed for their grade OR I can follow your curriculum script in the way you want it followed.
They do not lead to the same outcomes, however. And to require the script and then say it must not have been followed assiduously enough if your scores don't go up is a no-win situation for a teacher, especially a newer teacher who hasn't had years of experience in subverting the requirements!
I'd be careful though of referring to yourself as "reform-minded" -- the word reform itself has been co-opted by larger forces than yourself (not in suburbia, but in urban areas) -- and they too are pushing policies like you want to change. Content free understanding, knowledge not something you need to impart, they can google it, etc.
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Ed and I got on the topic of temples (can't remember why), and he said he never liked temples because ... temples have boards.
ReplyDeleteWhich doesn't have a board?
Condos or coops?
When I move, I have to move some place that doesn't have boards.
Or central administrators.
They can Google it!!!!!!!
ReplyDeleteAlright, I"m going to go get in bed and Google NEGATIVE RATE OF INTEREST ON TREASURY BONDS again.
ReplyDeleteAlso TERM OUT YOUR DEBT.
I am going to Google TERM OUT YOUR DEBT and see what I come up with.
Just for the record, I did just learn that the script that was a big reason that I quit...is going away after this year for that grade.
ReplyDeleteTwo years of use (after I can't even imagine how many hours and dollars of planning), the creation of reams of pages of explanation, the purchase of a new math series, and it'll be gone.
You know what they're going back to? Connected Math/EDM.
The problem with this type of discussion is that when you say "script," most people hear "direct instruction," which of course must be BAD (after all, it's scripted!). And by "most people," I mean "people who push for progressive education" such as balanced literacy.
ReplyDeleteThere's a real disconnect in how terms like these are used and understood by different groups of people.
"Teachers should run schools. Or else we should forget about schools, and just have teachers."
ReplyDeleteTeachers would then act like adminstrators to get eveyone on the same philosophical, pedagogical, and curricular page. You can't have teachers deciding what's best for their own class. As a parent, I wouldn't stand for that. Unfortunately, our K-8 schools decided on full inclusion, differentiated instruction, and fuzzy goals over ensuring mastery of basic skills and knowledge.
You have to have a process for organization, control, and continuity. The process has to be open and visible, and there has to be input or choice by the customers. How could no choice ever be better than choice? How can no control and no organization ever be better than control and organization? Sombody might figure out how to do that, but it had better offer the feedback of choice.
Most administrators were once teachers.
ReplyDeleteI've bumped up against some excellent administrators -- at the principal level, that is. I don't know if there are really exceptional higher level administrators, though I assume they must exist at some (small) percentage of the population.
ReplyDeleteI've also run up against really horrendous principals.
Differences in principals are hard to describe -- it does feel like a "you'll know it when you see it" situation.
Good admins encourage things -- that is, they support the ideas and activities of their teachers. That's not to say that all ideas are then fully implemented. But, they are secure enough to allow innovation and change and also enough of a leader to then analyze results and reward the good and end the bad.
Going along with that -- they don't expect every teacher to look and sound and teach alike, though they do expect that all teachers will have the ability to teach and move kids toward the goals that should be set in the district/school's scope and sequence.
They are not wedded to ONE current idea about instruction/behavior/etc but are able to use the better ideas from a selection of "best practices."
Great admins are NOT loved by every employee and parent, but they do get a lot of respect and are able to deal honestly with people who disagree with them.
Bad admins are generally ONLY liked by a few employees and parents, who are thought of as their "pets" by the majority of teachers and parents.
Good admins deal directly with the people they have problems with and clearly spell out those issues and their expectations for what needs to change.
Bad admins drop hints, tell other people about the problems, do not listen to both sides of an issue before making decisions, and generally keep covering their own butts as their main goal.
I think that you could revise these attributes upwards for higher level admins -- just adding that their interactions with principals should look like a good principal's interactions with teachers and parents.
The principal at my son's K-8 school was trying desperately to get lower level teachers to buy into differentiated instruction. Full inclusion requires differentiation, but they just didn't do it. However justified the teachers were, that was no solution to the situation. Organizations should have everyone on the same page, no matter what their goal. And parents should have the ability to say "No thank you."
ReplyDeleteI'm confused at your point Steve? The teachers, if justified, should have still gone along? Or were they unjustified?
ReplyDeleteWhen is it good for parents to say, "No, thank you"? Is it ever appropriate for teachers to do so? All teachers or just "great" teachers?
All parents or just "great" parents?
I'm saying that it doesn't matter who is right and who is wrong. It's a matter of being on the same page. If teachers feel that they are justified, then there should be a process for resolving the issue. If a teacher wants to say "No, thank you", then she/he needs to find a job somewhere else. I don't want a school where teachers can do whatever they want. And parents need to be able to choose another school no matter what anyone else thinks.
ReplyDelete"Teachers CAN'T assign whole-class books, but CAN be held accountability [sic] for reading scores?"
ReplyDeleteIn an extreme version of accountability without control, I'm responsible for how well my students do on all state testing, even though I work with them only one time a week for a single hour. The homeschooling mom or dad is supposed to be the one doing the actual teaching.
There's a real disconnect in how terms like these are used and understood by different groups of people.
ReplyDeleteOh, man
you are preaching to the choir on that one!
I've spent the past 7 years (8 years?) just trying to keep one step ahead of the vocab train wreck, as Barry would say.
I was horrified to learn, here on ktm just the other day, that 'reform' now means 'not reform,' apparently.
Teachers would then act like adminstrators to get eveyone on the same philosophical, pedagogical, and curricular page. You can't have teachers deciding what's best for their own class.
ReplyDeleteI emailed with Ben C about this a few years back....
I can imagine a model that **might** work, where you would have 'teacher practices,' the same way you have medical practices. Or you might have solo 'practitioners.'
Parents would choose which teachers their children have for which subjects. (Or, if this system worked, a 'case manager' or 'consultant'-type role might develop: this would probably be a person who matches parents/kids and teachers...)
You might have this system set up on campuses like community college campuses (or regular school campuses), where the admin and payments etc are handled --- but the 'real' interaction is between parents, who do the hiring, and teachers, who provide the service they've been hired to provide.
In theory, you could have fairly large 'practices,' so the practice could buy group health insurance, etc.
I'm sure there are problems with that idea, but as I've thought about it over the years, I don't instantly see what they are.
Having parents choose teachers (and teachers choose parents) eliminates a lot of the wrangling over fuzzy math & balanced literacy. The teachers who want to teach fuzzy math would have students whose parents want them to learn fuzzy math.
I don't see this as necessarily a problem in terms of students 'nobody wants' because quite a few people enjoy working with SPED students and choose to do so.
Some people enjoy working with emotionally disturbed kids and choose to do so.
etc.
Bad admins are generally ONLY liked by a few employees and parents, who are thought of as their "pets" by the majority of teachers and parents.
ReplyDeleteWOW
I have lived that.
You probably remember that we were finally able to dislodge the superintendent here at the end of last year.
What you've described was part of her story.
Rampant insiderism and favorites, in a district that had way too much insiderism to begin with.