Today's Lead NY Times Editorial: Teachers Suck

[Smarmie Doofus]

Basically a rehash of the usual corporate reform cliches, know-nothing analysis, and dubious "science".
I post it here mostly for the 261 comments that follow the "stupid". Some good stuff there. Times editors got taken to school today.
Not that it'll do 'em much good.


Carrots and Sticks for School Systems
Published: August 5, 2012 261 Comments


Education Secretary Arne Duncan has been pushing the states to create rigorous teacher evaluation systems that not only judge teachers by how well their students perform but also — when the results are in — reward good teachers while easing chronic low performers out of the system. More than half the states have agreed to adopt new evaluation systems in exchange for competitive grants from the federal Race to the Top program or greater flexibility under the No Child Left Behind law.



These incentives are long overdue. As things stand now, according to a study by the New Teacher Project, a Brooklyn-based policy group, many school managers make no distinction between high-performing and low-performing teachers. The result is that poor teachers stick around while good teachers go elsewhere or leave the profession, frustrated because they are not promoted, rewarded with better pay, or even simply acknowledged.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/06/opinion/carrots-and-sticks-for-school-systems.html?hp

[MichiganVote]

1. Just keep blaming the teachers folks...you'll see one day how pathetic this is

[roody]

2. Not reading the link. How

Ignorant. Of course teachers do not get promoted. We are teachers.

[LWolf]

3. I can't bear to read the whole thing.

Who else is evaluated on how someone else performs?

[sulphurdunn]

4. The New Teacher Project

is a Michelle Rhee front organization. The so called "reports" it publishes are self-serving bullshit. The most comical implication proffered by this one is that good teachers get out of teaching because they are not appreciated (given merit pay) and by default only bad teachers remain in the profession. The only people who buy this sort of drivel are privatization sociopaths, bought politicians and simpletons.

[Igel]

5. Rhee or not, people listen.

I've been in the field for a short time. I've known a lot of decent teachers that left. Some moved to other fields; others, to other districts. My own school has so many good, experienced teachers from other districts.

Those who left teaching often left for better pay, or because they had high-paid husbands and didn't need to work. Seldom did "I wasn't appreciated" leave their lips. Of course they're not appreciated by those who matter--their students. Money's nice, but it's not everything. (It can, at times, make up for things like low student appreciation.)

Most of those who came from other districts did so because of bad administration or, more often, poor students.

Where I've taught, bad teachers vanish. The truly bad vanish during the school year: They lose their classes. Others are just told to push off come June, their contracts not renewed. More than a few know they're a mismatch for the classroom. But there's a real effort to make tolerable, but below average teachers into good teachers.

As for the scapegoating, it's necessary. You can't blame the parents if you want to be elected. Or keep on teaching.

[sulphurdunn]

6. Almost

every new teacher is tolerable but below average. That's about true for any profession. Teachers in American public schools are currently being purged, especially the oldest and most experienced. Whether they get fired, laid off or move on serves the same purpose. They are slowly being replaced by less experienced and less costly teachers who are expected to move on after a few years. If the Michelle Rees of the world have their way, public education will be little different than a variant of Americorps or the Peace Corps (I served in the Peace Corps and was proud to do so). I consider the so-called education reform movement to be a tacit though hypocritical acceptance of the fact that the poorest of Americans already live under third world conditions and are to be exploited accordingly. They become just another resource to be mined for profit at public expense.

[HiPointDem]

8. well that's pretty blunt.

[sulphurdunn]

9. Yes, it happens

sometimes when one realizes that monied interests and their media propagandists have turned the dissemination of information in ones country into a kind of Mad Hatter's tea party in Wonderland.

[HiPointDem]

11. i'm not complaining. i'm tired of mealy-mouthed types myself.

[sulphurdunn]

12. Yea.

Personally, I'm through arguing with "educational reformists." As far as I'm concerned they all fall into one of two categories: genuinely evil or inexcusably stupid .

[Vanwinkle10]

7. Analogies on Work Performance Criteria

As for evaluating teachers on the basis of their success rate of students passing standardized tests that are already dumbed down, let's stretch the analogy a little farther. For example, how about evaluating physicians on the basis of the number of successful patient treatments and improved prognoses? Oh, whoops, I forgot, medical care is privatized and the HMO's impose a ceiling on the costs allotted per patient so the physician is restricted in ordering liberal treatment options. I wonder what happened to the variables of accountability of the student and his/her parents in this whole scheme of educating the individual?! No wonder this generation enters college classes with a sense of entitlement and a lack of literacy. Anyone who has taken courses in learning and motivation knows that a student's success is determined by his/her own sense of self-responsibility and determination to learn. With respect to ESL students who often come to the U.S. with huge cognitive gaps, they are already left behind and to expect teachers to enjoy a high success rate among such a population of learners struggling to learn the language defies logic and an understanding of language acquisition. I am appalled at the lack of perception and common sense among those who criticize teachers and extol the virtues of evaluating their performance on the basis of student evals of teachers and SOL scores. Anyone who pursued Foundations of Education learned the fallacies of standardized testing. This is all Psychology 101! The more teachers are bashed and disrespected, the more they will become disheartened and everyone knows what that does to inspiration! Critics need to recognize the true source of the problem and stop blaming teachers for the woes of the pathetic educational system in our country. Who will aspire to become a teacher in the next generation, I wonder? Will any of those college graduates be able to read or write?

[AnneD]

10. This is the planned ...

Dumbing down of the middle class by corperate America. They want us just smart enough to run the machines but not smart enough to realize we are being fucked over.