Teacher World

Three more positives from Arne Duncan’s speech to the Annual National PTA Conference, and I’ll be through with the issues I agreed with. Let me emphasize some vital points he made to parents.

First, he appropriately brings up the overuse of televisions, and computer and video games in our students’ homes. He basically called parents out on the fact that many of them are not limiting the number of hours their children spend mesmerized by these forms of visual stimulation. Every Monday morning we start out by sharing what we did over the weekend. And it is always true that the majority of my students regularly reported spending most of their weekends glued to their television and/or game systems. They rarely get outside and seldom do anything physical. Parents, you need to monitor and limit the use of television and game systems in your home daily and engage in activities which will benefit your children and possibly even support their learning.

Second, he talked about why it was so important to level the playing field from state to state by having national standards which all students in the United States would be expected to master. “For years, we have been actually lying to children and lying to ourselves by pretending that 50 different standards, in 50 different states, will make America competitive and help our children succeed in life. We have to stop pretending. We have to tell the truth. And we have to raise the bar for all children,” Mr. Duncan stated.  “When you play basketball, the basket is always ten feet high. In football, the field is always 100 yards long. A 3-pointer is worth 3 points, and a touchdown is worth six points. Yet until now, we have resisted leveling the playing field in education. I’ll put it plain and simple: When you tell students that they are ready for college and they are not, you are lying to children when they most need your candor and help.” I have advocated for some time now that the standards be aligned nationally. It has never been fair that some states have way more standards than others that students must master. Now that there are national standards, I will be curious to see how this affects standard-based report cards and formative assessments. Will they remain aligned to their state standards or need revising in order to reflect the national standards? It will be interesting to see how that all shakes out!

Finally, I was overjoyed to read this quote from Mr. Duncan’s speech: “Unlike in the past, our ESEA proposal also emphasizes measuring student growth, not just absolute test scores. I’m much more interested in growth and gain than in absolute test scores. I want to know how much individual students, schools, districts, and even whole states are improving each year.” Amen! This is so perfectly said that there is no need for me to belabor it other than to say. Well done, Mr. Duncan! And very well said!

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Well, it finally happened! What I have feared since the first moment I heard the words “merit pay for teachers”: the linking of merit pay to student test scores. Now that the cat is out of the bag, don’t think we have heard the last of it. Let’s look at what happened in Florida over the past two weeks.

First, the bitter: the Florida legislature voted for merit pay for their teachers. Now that may not seem so bitter until you listen to what they approved, which was that half of a teacher’s salary in Florida (according to news coverage) would be based on their students’ test scores. And if this wasn’t bad enough, teachers would only be offered one-year contracts. This would obviously allow teachers to be non-renewed if their students do not perform as expected. And forget about tenure which teachers earned by putting in years of faithful service to their profession and taking classes. Wow! I could go on for hours and bore you to death as I repeat all of the reasons why this is just crazy, but I won’t because, if you know anything about teaching, you understand a teacher’s inability to control all of the outside factors that can interfere with good test scores.

Now, the sweet: Governor Charlie Crist, Florida’s republican governor, turned his back on political prudence, and voted down the legislation after spending significant time listening to teachers express their outrage and their legitimate concerns over the ramifications of such a proposal for both teachers and students. Apparently, one of the deciding factors for him was a conversation he had with a friend from St. Petersburg who called him to ask how such a bill would impact his special needs child and his child’s teacher. And that is a huge consideration, because if this had become a law, who would want to risk their salary and possibly their career by taking on a co-teaching classroom or work with the special education population? And that is only one of the many huge reasons why merit pay linked solely to test scores is dead wrong! So, thank you Governor Crist, for bringing sanity to this highly charged issue.

Finally, the bitter again: Don’t think this is over! Now that this ugly topic has been breached, don’t think we won’t hear it again. Even though we have heard the countless assurances that merit pay would be based on a myriad of factors, politicians will continue to advocate and push for linking merit pay solely to test scores, and eventually, it will pass somewhere. When that day comes, we should all hang our heads in sorrow that what was once considered an honorable profession has been corrupted by politicians who have little to no understanding of the real issues teachers face in classrooms today, and who think they can impose business-like regulations on a profession that should never operate like a business.

Hats off to the teachers in Florida who forcefully raised their voices for teachers everywhere! We all need to take a lesson from them and start speaking up now before it is too late!

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On July 2, Education Secretary Arne Duncan spoke to members of the NEA at their national convention in San Diego exhorting them to stop fighting the idea of student achievement as a consideration for teacher pay. While he did say that test scores should never be the driving force behind teacher compensation, he also stated, “But to remove student achievement entirely from evaluation is illogical and indefensible,”

Well, the dreaded words are being spoken! Every time I hear the concept of merit pay linked in any way to state testing results it frightens me! Let me add that most of my students’ test results over the last several years have been well above passing, but I fundamentally disagree with test scores being used as the litmus test to judge teacher quality. Teachers understand the wide variety of factors that affect test results: parent involvement or lack of; parent concern or apathy for their child’s test results; the student population which covers everything from discipline problems, the number of students who are gifted, SPED, ADHD, on 504 plans, etc.; class size; home situations; and when the tests are taken to name a few. (This year, we administered the tests in our district the week students came back from Easter break!) What about teachers who work in intercity schools with the multitude of issues they face daily? These are all factors we cannot control, but they certainly impact test results.

Is there any tangible evidence to support the assumption that student test scores determine the competency of a teacher? How do we figure in all of the extraneous factors over which teachers have no control?

There are a plethora of characteristics that make an exceptional teacher, some measurable and some not. Certainly with the myriad specimens of obtainable evidence which attest to a teacher’s merit, we need not resort to test results as evidence of anything but how we were able to rise above all of the countless issues and distractions we face in education every day and still facilitate student progress.

Take a stand and get vocal! Post some comments here and on other sites on this volatile topic. This is not the time to be complacent.

Changes in Teaching, Merit Pay for Teachers, Teacher-World's Blog, state achievement tests, teacher evaluations Arne Duncan, merit pay, student achievement, teacher compensation, teacher evluation, test scores