<p>I have found that most teachers want a fair transparent system of evaluation and merit pay but that no one has proposed such a system. They are almost uniformly against basing anything on standardized tests. On another board I read an ex-teacher now corporate manager posted something I found interesting in discussing teacher evaluation based on tests. What do you think?</p>
<p>Here’s a rough parallel for standardized testing being the only measure of “merit”, if it were applied to the corporate world.</p>
<hr>
<p>Bob is a manager who has 125 direct reports. He inherited the team, so none of them were hired by him - and several of the team members do not have the basic skills necessary to perform their jobs. He is tasked with making sure that everyone on the team performs a set of defined job functions well.</p>
<p>He can’t fire any employee, nor are any allowed to quit. They’re required to work for him by law. The worst performers and least motivated (or actively disruptive) are forced to show up every day, and he isn’t allowed to let them go. Approximately 1 in 6 of the team members have some sort of learning/developmental disability. He can’t replace team members who aren’t pulling their weight, can’t affect their salaries/bonus, and can’t force them to work overtime to catch up.</p>
<p>At the end of the year, the team is given a single skills assessment that Bob is not allowed to see. This assessment is not part of their usual job role, and the employees are advised that it has no bearing on their future. Their near-guaranteed promotion to a new team is based on the work they’d done during the year, not the assessment. If anything, it is wasted time for them that offers no benefit or penalty based on their performance.</p>
<p>Bob’s performance, however, is based solely on the team’s performance on this one data point - a data point that the employees have no incentive to value in any way. His day to day efforts for the rest of the year aren’t relevant. The improvements of the team in their day-to-day job functions aren’t relevant. No other metrics maintained by Bob are relevant.</p>
<hr>
<p>There’s a disconnect there. Bob isn’t being measured on the work he does, or even on the work his team does. What will end up happening is that Bob will focus his energy on what really matters to him - getting his employees to succeed on that single annual assessment - rather than on the actual job he was hired to do.</p>
<p>It is a law that a child attend school.
It is a right for a child to get an education.
Right?</p>
<p>So I see what you are getting at.</p>
<p>Teacher:Check with the disruptive student’s other teachers- same issues? what is working?
Check with his/her parents.Other adults in his/her life. Alert them with respect. Ask about behaviors at home. Set some goals. Pull in the student for same.
Ask other teachers for ideas on what has worked for them with similar students.
Discuss with HEAD, GC, etc.</p>
<p>Earlier in this thread I posted about a teacher that told a parent her child was exhibiting bizarre behavior, That parent if powerful enough would have had the teacher fired and in fact had the student removed from the class. Her darling has now been found to have sodomized a special ed student. He will be sooner or later be transferred to another school within the district. There so many greater problems within the schools than tenure and some limited number of poor teachers. Fix dangerous kids, disruptive kids and uncaring parents first.</p>
<p>performersmom- if you like switch the word trained for managed. Would you like your record of how well you trained your staff based on one test under the conditions outlined?</p>
<p>I never said that. I said that using tenure and other due process systems as an excuse not to remove bad teachers is nonsense. I also said as a public sector manager I am glad you give me a built in excuse not to do my job.</p>
<p>No Deborah- I said those are more pressing issues in fixing education in my pov. No where did I say bad teachers should stay in teaching. Document they are a poor teacher and removed them but do not just say it prove it.</p>
<p>So what other solution is there. Some principal who apparently can not document performance evaluations just tells certain teachers to leave the building?</p>
<p>Yes, teachers are dealt a hand, their students and their parents.
And a defined set of resources.
I get that.
Take it as a challenge and stop the blame game. It is a basic attitude change.</p>
<p>Believe that when you do encounter challenges in disruptive students, uninvolved/selfish parents, not enough pencils, believe that the whole school KNOWS this, supports you, and will NOT blame you when you have problems resulting from that.
A well-managed school would be built on this premise.</p>
<p>In a way, it seems that having unions and outside systems to “defend” teachers, enforce “rules”, it sets up a defensive posture. And a me vs. them attitude within the school between teachers and administrators, and between parents and teachers. It seems to take the focus off the reason why teachers teach.</p>
<p>Obviously, the lack of resources and poor management of the public schools may have paved the way to a need for all these extra external tools.</p>
<p>To me a big appeal of a private school is the fact that it is an entity that is accountable to itself, how it is run, how well the students do, how issues are handled for the school to survive and thrive.</p>
<p>Yes, the students pay to come. [But the teachers do not choose their students (or parents.)] So these are not available to the general US population, I realize.
And not all privates are necessarily well-run or fair or filled with good teachers, but they probably cannot go on for too long with a very sick culture… They actually pay the teachers less because much of tuitions have to spend resources on the school facilities, but many teachers prefer their culture, and like the teacher appreciation and enrichment often present at privates.</p>
<p>A more internally generated culture of excellence and pride and team-work can be a good model.</p>
<p>I’ll throw out a few things I’ve pondered from time to time. Y’all can laugh and go, yeah right! lol When I think about what would be better, I think somehow it seems like things might be better if there were a lot more choice, kind of like college (empowerment). Kids/families choosing what the kid studies along the way. Colleges like both well-rounded and lopsided students. Why do we pretend there is a perfect set of knowledge for everyone? n/a Some of the alternative school options function more like college, why couldn’t regular schools? More of a menu of class options than a set “you must” even from earlier on in school.</p>
<p>deborahT,
It is good to throw out stuff like this!</p>
<p>Most educational systems in other parts of the world do have multiple tracks (academic, vocational, linse vs degree, etc.) Some chose, but most are tested onto tracks.
One size fits all is probably an incorrect belief system.
But it is an ingrained belief-system in the US that the highest degreed citizens are the most productive and most entitled in our country! And we have laws saying that education should be available equally to all…
Yet, the quality of that education “available to all” does vary so much and is overall not that satisfactory- SIGH!
And, as you suggest, not all US citizens may be best served to be educated along the same path.
However, ironically, without a very standardized education in the early years, and possibly without a quite homogenous (across all dimensions) populations, it is hard to judge which students are best suited for what. </p>
<p>Also, Americans like freedom and choice. They are not so hot on responsibility and respect and team-work.
American value individualism. Not so hot on institutionalism.</p>
<p>It is hard to know how to create a system which accurately directs students to the type of education they are best suited for,
while giving parents and students the choice.</p>
<p>Awesome discussion! So many great points and ideas that are being made. This is exactly the kind of discussion that I was hoping to have when I started the thread.
Deborah,
Your last post hits the nail on the head in so many ways and you know what? It may soon be more of a reality than you think. I am currently getting my master’s degree and in one of my courses, we had a lengthy discussion about changes in the educational system. My professor, who is also a superintendent at a local school system told us that a new model for high school is being considered where children get to choose a “track” to follow taht allows for more individualized learning.<br>
Trying to get all kids to excel at the same things does a disservice to both the children and the teachers. Kids are as unique as snowflakes and attempting to get them all to “proficient” on a test that is based on generalized standards is, in my opinion, the biggest problem we face in schools today.</p>
<p>I would also like to speak to the issue of merit based pay for teachers. I teach art. We don’t have a formal assessment of learning in my area of curriculum. How would i qualify for merit pay? And how do you base an evaluation for merit on test scores, even partially, when the class distributions (kids on IEPs and 504 plans, etc) are uneven and inequitable?</p>
<p>And, just to circle back to the original question, is there a way for parents or students or both to have input in the evaluation of teachers with integrity and fairness?</p>