You get what you pay for — Good news from Washington

President Obama has it right on merit pay for teachers.  Business knows that rewarding achievement leads to more of the same. Teachers, on the other hand, get the state’s published wages no matter what. Smart?  Savvy? Current? Engaging communication skills? Interesting lessons? High student achievement?

So? You get what the guy down the hall gets even though he spends much time on the web and phone for personal business, doesn’t prepare, can’t or won’t work hard in the classroom, and can’t point to significant student achievement. 

Crazy.

What is the psychology of paying someone what he is worth based on performance? Hard-working teachers have been who they are while wages remained standardized. Will they be even more motivated with the extra pay? They will certainly have that pat on the back, the sense that somebody cares and notices AND the knowledge that they have been distinguished from others. And cash beats a certificate for folks whose pay is already not what it should be.  And if the sky’s the limit, schools will reap the benefits, one of which may be slackers leaving in shame.

Two problems have to be addressed: achievement guidelines and administrator subjectivity.

First, what will school systems reward?  It will certainly include good standardized test scores and completed lesson plans based on a check list. These are concrete and easily documented. But sometimes a teacher’s class gets the windfall from the previous teacher’s work. And any teacher can write out (or now simply print from the web) an impressive lesson plan. Some principals simply don’t know how to evaluate intelluctual development beyond the easily quantifiable form or basic skill.

Intangibles will be harder to grade: changes that occur as a student is enlightened in his thinking about the world and its complex subtleties, the progress, even if limited, of moving from sentence to paragraph to argument — compete with logic. I could go on about the real work of a teacher — it’s not an exact science and it requires  je ne sais quoi.  No doubt there will be a “standard” about the teacher’s ability to “control the classroom.” But how is that quiet environment sustained and does the silence quarantee learning? No, but it makes principals look good.

The second challenge will be personal and subjective. School administrators favor those that support them and make their life easier. And those that they just happen to like.  Hopefully deserving teachers will not be penalized because of petty jealousy, simple antipathy,  or the administrator’s lack of evaluative skills. Hopefully less brilliant, but generally satisfactory teachers will be not be rewarded and therefore encouraged to maintain their status quo based on their neat, correct forms, finishing the text, subdued environments or, God forbid, their snazzy bulletin boards!

Education: It’s all personnel

In one of NYC’s school districts, one principal with vision and a refusal to accept business as usual has achieved a reading test score improvement from 37% of 3rd graders who can read at grade level to 90% . One of his strategies is the firing of imcompetent teachers — he’s rid the school of 1/3 of the teaching staff.

Many variables affect education. We all know of success stories of kids that have received a quality education in public or private schools, large or smal classes, rural or urban settings, northern or southern locales, humanities program or none. Then there’s home school — its stats are the best in many areas. 

Today Slate has an article that supports my belief and Anthony Lombardi’s, the PS 49 principal, that “it’s all personnel.” Or much of it.  It’s the individual in a particular classroom that makes the difference. A gifted teacher has a unique communication style that makes others want to “pick up on” what she’s saying. It’s tone, it’s inflection, it’s passion, it’s expertise, it’s personality. Actually, it’s hard to define. But Lonbardi says he knows it when he sees it happening. And when it isn’t happening, he takes action. Imagine the injustice to a child who has had a string of bad teachers. 

The good news is that personnel is an element we can control.

Fighting teachers’ unions (they labeled Lombardi a “tyrant”) and firing substandard teachers isn’t easy. And that matters why?

Read the article for all the research data which indicates that predicting good teaching abilities is nearly impossible. Teaching creds, advanced degrees, and other resume items aren’t factors. A supervised internship followed by a do or die performance test is the most commonly suggested plan.

California Appeals Court and Homeschooling

Homeschooling families in California and thus all across the nation may be affected by the disheartening decision by the Second District Court of Appeal (“Feb. 28) that in order to teach a child at home, a parent must hold teaching credentials or risk criminal complaint. Around 166,000 children are homeschooled in California. The reasons vary, but many of the parents object to concepts such as “alternative lifestyles” that are frequently taught in state-run schools.

Why would the government object to a parent’s opting out of its system? Such parents still pay state taxes plus any costs involved in homeschooling. The children are tested and studies show that they usually surpass students educated in traditiional schools.  Do state schools really believe they are offering a product that engenders loyalty and affection? Statistics are dismal.

Now thousands of homeschooling parents who hold degrees or valuable experience in science, English, or math will not be qualified to teach their own children at home. But Johnny Sue is. Johnny Sue took the 12 hours of education courses and did a stint as a practice teacher to earn the state’s stamp of approval. She had to maintain a C average.

I hold these critical credentials — a teaching certificate issued by the State Department of Education.  I have it and I’m not sorry that I have it because it opens doors. But the point is that the courses required for certification were generally insignificant, poorly taught, and self-serving. For my master’s degree I eschewed grad courses in education and earned the pure master’s in English.

As far as teaching goes, many of the English classes were helpful, but my own reading, research, and planning, along with leadership and a good teaching environment were paramount — far above the easily dismissed fluff from ed courses.  Good teachers in any school are never judged by whether they hold the paper; they all do if it’s public. (In their defense, many state boards allow for “emergency certificates” for highly qualified individuals to cover shortages or in other special circumstances. Maybe this will be the out for parents.)

This need not be difficult. Children belong to parents, not the state. Parents bear the responsibility for educating their children. From there leave in place the exit testing that public school students take. Parents, like schools, are aware that college entrance testing looms before them; they want to succeed. And homeschooling parents, those that I know or have read about, are unselfishly dedicated to their children’s education. And they’re trustworthy.

In an article from the AP, the unnamed reporter states that “the appeals court said, the trial court had found that “keeping the children at home deprived them of situations where (1) they could interact with people outside the family, (2) there are people who could provide help if something is amiss in the children’s lives, and (3) they could develop emotionally in a broader world than the parents’ ‘cloistered’ setting.”

These statements are disturbing. They come from the government. Objections abound: for number 1 — Parents must decide with whom their children should interact and those that should be avoided. 2 — Define “amiss.” This language is too vague. Could amiss be a spanking or a church? 3 — The choice of a word with the religious connotation of “cloistered” is troublesome. Again, who defines the broader world for the family?

It’s too bad that many of our citizenry don’t know the role of government because that’s the real issue here. It’s an election year. Education issues don’t seem to be on the front burner, but they make a good place to test a candidate’s philosophy.

Getting Them to Read

Yet another study indicates that we aren’t reading. Many, 27%, didn’t read any book last year.  Students are reading less, and they aren’t reading as well as they should.

When I taught high schoolers, I could easily tell the non-readers from the readers in any class. Usually after the first written assignment, I would ask those who had distinguished themselves, “You’re a reader, aren’t you?” Invariably the response was positive. “What have you read?” And then their eyes would light up, and they’d begin talking about books. In addition, after inquiry, I’d learn that they had been long-time readers, since early childhood. I could teach them where to put commas and when to paragraph, but the essentials skills of communication were already in place. The “ear” for language had been developed in a childhood spent with books. The non-readers were truly and noticeably handicapped. (This speaks to parental responsibility.) 

What makes people read? Why do you read? You’re reading this. Why?

People read for a variety of reasons. I’d say blog readers read for pleasure — the love of what reading is, the sharing of the mind. Some are looking for information, some for affirmation maybe. But how did you get to this place?

This progression works: Begin reading to babies throughout the first year. Keep reading to them. Keep quality reading materials in the home and let kids touch them and mimic reading. Limit television and other electronically-controlled activities. Put your children in  a school with a reading list of quality, interesting, useful texts. No one will be enthusiastic about poor texts! The taste for quality reading materials is partly acquired. Discuss writing and authors often, being the model of literacy yourself. Re-read classics to rethink them (we’ve probably grown and will have new insight into familiar reads — the older I get, the less I like Heathcliff), and read book reviews for new picks.

A book you might have missed

Having taken more than my share of English classes means that I’ve read a lot of books I could have done without. Thomas Mann’s Death in Venice is an example. I should like it, but I don’t and don’t mind saying so. Add Moll Flanders, To Kill a Mockingbird, and nearly anything by Mark Twain.  (I actually like Moby Dick.)

 In a contemporary American literature class, I was introduced to the so-called Jewish School: Bellow, Roth, Malamud. Here were some writers I could read into the night. They have suffered; they know. Malamud is my least favorite in general, but his novel A New Life is probably my favorite non-classic book.

Ad copy gets it right when it declares the novel’s theme to be “once a loser, always a loser.”

Seymour Levin is a reformed drunk who becomes an English professor and takes a job across the country and figurative universe from New York — a midwestern, ultra-conservative liberal arts college. The farm kids don’t get him and neither does the faculty. But he is dedicated, painfully sincere, and doomed to failure.

When Levin arrives at the airport, the department head looks askance at Levin’s full beard and it’s downhill from there. The biggest crime is that Levin doesn’t want to use the good professor’s Fundamentals of English Grammar — a tome destined to kill any college course. And worse, the prof’s wife gets a crush on the young “radical.” Funny stuff.

 Office politics, disappointed love, and the end of a new career leave the quizzical Levin scratching his head as he drives away from the once-promising, lush, thoroughly American environs still the failure he was when he arrived. He’s not sure what happened, and neither are we. No enlightenment has occured. No epiphany. Only deja vu.  

Except the reader, for about 3oo pages,  has held in his heart sympathy and warmth for a far less-than-perfect, well-meaning, but doomed fellow human being who probably deserves what he got.