Saying It Like It Is - I Don't Think So!

Some other common euphemisms:

* Tenure reform - tenure elimination
* Pension reform - reneging on promises given to retirees (for over fifty years) by the State and raising pension and medical insurance costs to current employees
* Education reform - the State dictating what is taught, when it is taught and how it is taught
* Accountability - evaluating teachers based on student test results and observations many of which are made by people with no knowledge of the subject matter
* Core Curriculum Standards - a plan which allows government to tell schools what to teach, how to teach and when to teach it
* Charter School - a private school funded by the State many of which are run by politically connected cronies with large salaries and benefits
* Education experts - those who claim to know everything about public education even though they have had little or no first hand experience but are highly experienced in BS!

I am sure you have many more! Send them in!

Teacher Evaluations Don't Add Up

http://www.mathforamerica.org/about-us/mission-and-vision


Bloomberg EDU Radio Show - Jim Simons -Math for America (click to listen)

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I was listening to Bloomberg Radio the other day. A talk show about education called EDU with Jane Williams was playing. The guest was Jim Simons of Math for America. I immediately assumed that it would be just another teacher bashing, education "reform" proponent but I decided to listen anyway.

I'm glad I did, because I think Dr. Simons and his organization made some good points. One was “They (teachers) should know their subject with sufficient depth".  Another was "Much of the current public discourse suggests teachers are untrustworthy and need ever more stringent evaluation".

Both of these statements brought to mind something about which I have written before.  In New Jersey, any person with a Supervisor's Certificate can evaluate a teacher in any area!

This means if I had a Supervisor's Certificate, I could evaluate the performance and competence of a French teacher. I can't even read a menu in a French restaurant!

This idea of allowing people without knowledge of the subject to evaluate and suggest improvement schemes extends all the way to the State DOE. Here we have commissioners and high level staff engaged in evaluating and planning many of whom, have had little or far distant teaching experience themselves. Much of their educational "expertise" was obtained in prestigious university classrooms (book learnin'). How many have taught a significant number of years in the "war zones" or even in suburban public schools rather than sophisticated private schools four all but three or four years?

The idea that education can be improved by the plans and schemes proposed by those who are ignorant of the subjects which they evaluate and the situations which teachers face daily is beyond absurdity! 

Common Core and More

Mr. Young is wrong - but only about one thing! 
"Education IS quantifiable"! 
The quantity of public money shoveled to corporations to provide volumes of testing, new "innovative" curricula and highly paid administrative positions is quantifiable and IS in the $$$ BILLIONS !  
The end game is to create a privatized public educational system so as to extract even more taxpayer dollars from it for political buds and sycophants. 
A major problem with education today lies at the feet of the teachers themselves. They continually fail to actively  respond to the bullying and derision by politicians and opportunistic "education reformers". Instead, they cower and meekly  absorb the abuse without a whimper.
An unending parade of "innovative" educational schemes, with high sounding acronyms, is conjured up by those with no true teaching experience and foisted on them daily. Yet, they continue to voice no meaningful protest or outcry.
Until "the worm turns" it will be business as usual for those who seek to drive public education with all its potential profits into the private hands of political cronies.
 "There's gold in them there schools!"

"Smart Teachers" - A Contradiction in Terms

Just when I'm about ready to quit writing this blog another inane article about education and educational schemes appears in the paper and I can't help myself  but to comment on it !
Here the state wants only "Smart Teachers" and a GPA of 3.0  or better will insure that ?
Do we really think that a student studying Basket Weaving with a GPA or 3.0 is smarter than one studying Nuclear Engineering with a GPA of 2.9 let's say ?
How naive can you be, especially when there is a continual dearth of science and math teachers.
It looks like the state educrats in their wisdom, have  issued a blanket statement without much thought and in doing so, maybe it shows that they themselves aren't really that smart ! 
Additionally, how smart can anyone be, who would spend tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of dollar to obtain a job in a "profession" that is constantly humiliated, denigrated and disrespected.
What "smart" individual would enter a "profession" where job security has been eliminated and is now, more than ever, subject to political whim and expediency ?
Who would start a career where pension benefits and benefits in general are continually "reformed" (reduced).
Why would an intelligent person enter a "profession" filled with greedy and lazy people who are only in it for "summers off" as described by a plethora politicians and newspaper articles.
Who would want a job where they are held accountable for the performance of others over which they have little or no control and  where attempts at control can be seen as bullying or harassment?
Why would anyone enter employment where even the slightest accusation of impropriety by anyone, results in instantaneous suspension or dismissal, front page news and the immediate assumption of guilty. 
The way things have gone for the teaching "profession" during  the past ten years and are continuing to go, makes me think that anyone, even those with GPA of 4.0, who enter teaching, can't be that smart !!
It is truly unfortunate that politicians, with the cooperation of the media, have turned a noble profession into one of ridicule and detain ! 


 

Guess Who's Next !

"Hundreds of billions of dollars in federal contracts, grants, loans, concession agreements and property leases go to private companies that pay low wages, provide few benefits, and offer employees little opportunity to work their way into the middle class."

This is just the plan politicians have for public education going private. The whole thing is being set up by the constant degradation of teachers, attempts to end collective bargaining for public workers, elimination of tenure and unreasonable evaluation parameters. What are teacher unions doing about this? In my opinion, not much except whining ! It appears to me that the honchos in the unions might be more concerned about protecting their big salaries than really confronting the situation head on!

http://teachersdontsuck.blogspot.com/
http://freebooksbywalt.blogspot.com/

Testing Gone Wild !

I have added numerous captions to the above video.

 

And the point of all this testing and expense?

To help justify eliminating tenure thereby enabling the firing of the higher paid teachers.
To help set the stage for low employee pay when schools are finally privatized.
To justify the privatization of public education.
To justify the state takeover of urban schools.
To allow shoveling money to test creators and publishers.
To help in the attempts to eliminate collective bargaining for public employees.
To destroy what little power the teacher's unions did possess.
Just my humble opinion!

Deep Throat & Deep Pockets Made Deeper

I discovered this article the other day and found that if it is true, it completely substantiates my suspicions. I have posted the abstract of the article here.

For the complete article go to:

 http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/02/15/1187346/-So-why-do-hedge-funds-so-favor-charter-schools

Evaluation By the Evaluated?

   

When I taught at Middlesex County College, student evaluation forms were always issued along with the final exam.

   I thought, by enlarge, the results were a fair distribution of positive and negative remarks.

(BTW - These all were anonymous evaluations and not used by the administration to grade instructors - as far as know anyway)

   One thing I liked about the form was the section asking about the student's efforts. This too, generally resulted in a fair distribution of honest responses. Often a student indicated a serious lack of effort on his part but still didn't criticize the instructor as the reason for his poor grade. I hope that the same kinds of questions  will appear every proposed student / teacher evaluation form (but I'm not confident that they will).

  And , remember, the evaluations of which I'm speaking were written by mature adults, not children!

   Now, let me get back to the editorial.

   One of the statements reads as follows:

"Kids do know what makes a good teacher. And it's not a mystery why they'd know better than trained adults...".

   Well if this is true, than -

   Why do we need well paid administrators to observe and evaluate teachers?

   Why do we need the "Educrats" at the NJDOE to tell teachers when, what and how to teach children.

   Why to we need politicians to continually pass legislation instructing teachers when, what and how to teach children?

   Let's just leave teachers to their task and then accept the children's evaluations as the  indicator of the teacher's success. We would no longer have to spend all the time and money needed by these other evaluation methods and would get a better result than that provided by "trained adults".

   And, since we are talking about evaluations of teachers by their charges, why not have teachers evaluate their administrators and supervisors?

   While we're at it, why not have local administrators evaluate the honchos at NJDOE ?

This way we could a true picture of what's going on in NJ education and in the case of the DOE, I'm not so sure that it would be a pretty picture!

   What do you think?

A New Approach to Classroom Discipline

What Do You Think??

I have received comments about my proposal to ask for your ideas regarding educational questions in my future posts.

I am including them below and also posing a question as I suggested I would.

Here is a prelude to the question.

In Jersee (as we like to call it), we have had over the past decades,  the following educational schemes, instituted and imposed by the State:

The Renaissance Act

The Urban Hope Act

No Child Left Behind  (NCLB)

The Race to the Top

The Quality Education Act  (QEA)

Thorough and Efficient   (T&E)

High School Proficiency   (HSPT),    (HSPT9), (HSTP11)

Grade Eight Proficiency  Assessment   (GEPA)

Quality Single Accountability  Continuum   (QSAC)

Comprehensive Education Improvement and Financing Act   (CEIFA)

The School Funding Reform Act

The New Jersey Assessment of    Skills and Knowledge  (NJ ASK)

NJ ASK 3, NJ ASK 4, NJ ASK 3-8

Minimum Basic Skills testing program  (MBS)

Early Warning Test (EWT)

Alternate Proficiency Assessment (APA)

Elementary School Proficiency Assessment (ESPA)

The Open Classroom

Core Curriculum Content Standards

and

The Charter School craze!

I hope I haven't missed any. There's an allow lot to remember!  If I have, please remind me.

Question:

Which, if any of the aforementioned plans, have had any success in improving New Jersey education or education in general?

Which, if any, have proved negative for education and teaching?

And, if you could devise a plan to improve education, what would be its prime components?

Please your reply to: 

wsautter@optonline.net

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Here are some of the letters which I have received regarding my previous post:

Walt,

I stumbled upon your blog through High School Herd, through Pinterest, while looking for math ideas for my high school classroom in Ohio. I am at a career and technical center serving grades 11 and 12, teaching Intermediate Algebra/Geometry and Algebra 2. I am also the numeracy coach (for one period of the day).

Your comments and feelings are echoed here in Ohio. I assume the culture of the profession and unions is similar across the country. I think the site is a great idea and would be proud to contribute to the cause. At worst, I could occasionally share some perspective from my state.

It was surprising that your blog was only a few days old. I was expecting at least a few years worth of comments. I have been teaching since 1999 and my first full year started with an eight day strike. I have been at my current district since 2007 and have certainly noticed a shift in the mindset of communities as well as union members.

Back to teaching! Looking forward to hearing back from you.

Jeff E.

*****

Sounds great! I'm in.

Peg Nicholson
Missouri Information Coordinator



Save Our Schools March and National Call to Action

Washington, D.C. & Nationwide | July 28-31, 2011

http://www.saveourschoolsmarch.org

Follow SOS on Twitter: @SOSMarch
NEW! Connect With Other Supporters in the SOS Forums!

Save Our Schools March and National Call to Action

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Thank you Jeff and Peg for your replies.

 

The Past, The Present, and The Future of Teaching

A teenager was brought into the Principal's office to be disciplined. The Principal spoke.

"Your teacher has told me you are ignorant and  apathetic. What do you have to say for yourself?"

The teenager thought for a moment and then  replied.

"I don't know what that means and I don't care!"

Do today's teachers exhibit the same mentality?

Are they ignorant of how much effort was required of their predecessors so as to enable them to enjoy the benefits of today's teaching profession? (Benefits which are rapidly being eroded.)

Are they apathetic to the fight to maintain those benefits? Do they merely take them for granted?

I wonder!

Over the past two years I have posted close to a hundred items. They primarily dealt with my observations and experiences pertaining to education.

During my forty years of teaching, at both the secondary and college level, I witnessed tremendous improvement in the status of the profession.

When I started in 1965, bargaining and negotiations were non existent. It was pretty much we went "hat in hand" to the Board of Education and relied on their largess. 

In the years following, during the seventies, teachers worked hard to change those circumstances. Many engaged in political action, many walked picket lines and endured strikes and some even went to jail.

In the end, after much strife, the profession gained fair wages and benefits as well as renewed respect from the public, administrators and the politicians. 

It took a good twenty years of hard work but it was worth it. People gained pride in themselves and in their profession and were eager to say "Yes, I'm a teacher". It came to a point where teachers were actually invited to participate in decision making regarding education and their opinions were valued.

I retired in 2004 and since then I have seen a rapid decline in all that for which we worked so hard.

Today, when some say "Yes, I'm a teacher" he is perceived as greedy, lazy and possessing poor work ethics. All these negative stereotypes are constantly reinforced by the media and self serving politicos.

  Teachers are no longer asked to  participate or make suggestions as to the improvement of our schools. They are merely being held responsible for the poor outcomes of the plans and schemes implemented by "educational experts" and politicians.

All programs and regulations of the past, proposed and enacted by these "experts" have been abject failures as evidenced by the fact that they are continually replaced by new programs and schemes. Additionally, the State's two decade  takeover of the poorest city schools has resulted in no progress what so ever.

Now, since none of the aforementioned has worked, the only plan left seems to be, blame the teachers and then transfer the schools into private, for profit hands.

All this has occurred since 2004 and is accelerating.

You might ask me, "Why do you care? You're retired".

Here's why!

Teachers have become like abused children lacking self respect and fearful. They are constantly required to succumb to the dictates of arrogant, condescending supervisors. Rarely are they allowed to pursue their own worthwhile approaches in educating our children.  I find it depressing to see the profession in which I spent my entire life being reduced to that of an unappreciated, ridiculed field hand.

I would like to begin to use this blog as an outlet for teacher's daily frustration and anger and help the profession to regain the pride that once existed.

It pains me to see all that has been achieved over the past forty years being erased without some much as a whimper.

I've said this before. ( I am sure you know, as a teacher you say things over and over again in the classroom and the habit just follows you into your social conversation without your even realizing it.)

Ross Perot, when at Ford once said, and I paraphrase, "Unless a manager goes down to the factory floor and puts a wheel on a car once in a while, he can't be a good manager".

I would like to see the opinions and thoughts of those "on the factory floor" heeded and respected.  Those people are you who read this blog.

I am considering posing questions about education and teaching and asking for your comments and suggestions. I would then like to post them, with or without the author's name, and get a conversation going about the real problems and solutions in education.

This, hopefully, could be the start of an effective way to stem the tide of teacher bashing and disrespect. I think it could serve the cause better than just my constant diatribes and ranting.

 Having your voice heard, I believe,  will lead to greater self esteem and promote challenges to the forces that would destroy our profession.

What do you think?

A good idea or not?

Something in which you would be willing to participate?

Drop me a line and tell me what you think? Thanks.
Walt

Click here to Email

wsautter@optonline.net

PS

I really see NJEA doing little to fight back. (I don't even see their sappy ads on TV any more!)

It is disheartening to say the least when a "powerful" union as they would like to call themselves, doing little or nothing for their members. (Members who send them tons of money each and every pay day!)

My First Time!

I read about the Newark teacher's settlement today in the Ledger.

One of the statements made was "implementing a system known as merit pay for the first time in New Jersey".

 I beg to differ!

Way back in 1965 when I first began teaching I worked at New Providence High School in Union County as a chemistry teacher.

At that time there was a "merit pay" system in place. I was not part of it because it only applied to tenured staff and I was a first year teacher (just out of college) but I did see how it worked.

The highest possible "score" that could be obtained by a teacher was a five which of course yielded the largest "bonus".

All teachers were evaluated and scored by their department heads, the principal, the superintendent and I seem to remember the vice principal being involved too.

The evaluations were very subjective and to me seemed whimsical.

Those in the English department rarely if ever received a rating of five from their department head. When I asked why, I was told that it was her feeling that no one was a teacher as good as she and therefore no one could ever be rated superior. (I don't really know if that was the true reason but I do know fives were rare if ever for the English staff.)

The people in the math department by contrast, were consistently rated five by their supervisor. When I asked why, I was told that he often said that he would never have hired a less than superior teacher and therefore all were given fives.

As for the superintendent I am not sure what his rating were based on. I rarely saw him in the building and never saw or heard of him observing a class. When I asked how he could possibly rate teachers without actually seeing them perform, the answer was "he knows!"

I could never really understand that answer. I must surmise it was that he had  clairvoyance or ESP going for him.

The end result of all this was low morale (except for the people who routinely kissed up and got fives) and dissension.

 Additionally, I don't think that it improved instruction one iota. Most of the people I met were there doing the best possible job they could because of their professionalism and their concern for the kids, not for the "five".

This is my experience with the "merit pay" system. I realize it was a very limited experience and obtained many, many years ago but it has stuck with me and caused me to view any similar system with grave suspicion.

I certainly hope that which is implemented in Newark shows me that my suspicions are misplaced but I'm not so sure that will be true.

My honest opinion is that  the new Newark contract is just another step towards the privatization of public education. Again I hope I'm wrong!

PS

I don't know when the "merit pay" system was abandoned in New Providence or how long it lasted. I left the system in 1967.

However it must have been eliminated, otherwise its proponents surely would now be pointing to its success.

NJ Commissioner of Education's Report to the Governor

I've Got Lots of Questions??

I've got lots of questions for our editor. 

* How many principals and administrators have obtained their positions not by superior teaching abilities but instead through relatives and friends with political connections? 

** How naive can this editor be. How many people have you known who got on the "wrong side" of an administrator and then "paid the price"?

*** Since when has education become an athletic competition?

**** Compensation - yes! But also how about - low status, constant public criticism and degradation, being deluged with mandates and dictates by the DOE, being observed and critiqued by those with little or knowledge of the subject matter, seeing "pension reform" stealing their future, observing the cry of politicians to end seniority and any semblance of job security, being held responsible for a student's unwillingness to participate in the learning process, lack of meaningful discipline measures by the administration, confrontations with parents with little or no backup by administrators and last but not least, a bleak outlook for the teaching profession as whole?

I am sure that there is much more that I have failed to mention.  

Maybe you would like to fill the blanks? 

***** "a career ladder" - what does that mean and to whom will it be available?

Will it be attained primarily by those who follow the same "career path" as the administrators I mentioned in the first sentence?  

I'm Not At All Suprised - How About You?

I read this letter on the Internet and thought my readers might be interested too.


For the last couple of years THE BEAST (a.k.a our anger-management disordered Governor) has been going after the NJEA and public school teachers in general. Now one of the new things he has implemented was a brand new evaluation procedure that would evaluate tenured and non-tenured teachers twice to four times a year. The school districts were told that they had to chose one of 4 evaluation models and it had to be up and running by this year. Well in order to do that the districts have to order the specific software that goes with the particular evaluation procedure that they have chosen. Knowing that they have this deadline to beat, they have started looking at particular vendors and have made decisions on which vendors to choose. Now in the middle of trying to find these vendors and purchase this software, the Dept of Education, led by Christie's boy, Cerf, sent a letter to the districts stating that now the STATE dept wants them to buy this software from ONLY THE VENDORS THAT THE STATE RECOMMENDS. In fact there is no way around this. These districts have to pay the STATE recommended vendors or they will be out of compliance.

Now all of this makes me wonder. This is obviously coming from the BEAST so of course that thought evokes a few questions like:
1 Who are the vendors that are recommended?
2. What did the recommended vendors do to become recommended?
3. Are there any kickbacks coming from this decision?
AND
4. If so, who's getting them?

Of course the STATE DEPARTMENT led by the BEAST would probably NEVER answer any of those questions, but I will be thinking them anyway as I count off the last two years that HE will be in office.

- Teri

Education A Through Z

As in days of old, when the new king was crowned, his first task was to dispose of the offspring of the former king and replaces them with his own. So it seems to be in Trenton and Washington.
With every new administration a new educational scheme, with an official sounding acronym, is concocted while the old one is exiled to a dusty basement file somewhere in the state’s or nation’s capitol.
Meanwhile, teachers and administrators scurry to conform to the new set of edicts and demands. The role of the school often becomes that of a test preparatory program and the sole goal of the teacher is to be sure that the students score well.
For example, way back in the seventies, we had “T and E” (Thorough and Efficient”), QEA in the 1980s (Quality Education Act), QSAC in the 2000s (Quality Single Accountability Continuum), NCLB in the 2000s (No Child Left Behind) and CCCS in the 2000s (Core Curriculum Content Standards). Additionally, we have endured a plethora of tests, again each with its own acronym designation ESPA, GEPA, HSPT and SRA.
Oh, and let’s not forget the “Open Classroom”. Although it wasn’t a test or an official state program it was a very popular educational scheme. Also, how about the current “Educational Reforms” and the additional proposed “Educational Reforms” of the present administration? They too, I think qualify as educational schemes.
There are a few questions that should be asked about the aforementioned.
“Have any of the programs helped in the education of our children?”
“Have any made the work of teachers and the schools more productive?”
“If any of the previous plans experienced any success why then are they continually replaced with new ones?”
The real question then is, “Does all this benefit the learning of the children?
Or are they politically and PR motivated?”
I don’t really know but I do wonder – a lot?
You probably have some other questions and ideas about this. Let’s hear them!