I am impressed with the Star Tribune and Kim McGuire, this is an excellent article. Thoughts?
Star Tribune: Like never before, teachers under scrutiny
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About Me
- John
- I am married and we have 3 adult daughters and a dog. We live in Plymouth MN. My interests are learning, communicating, home improvement projects, motorcycling, boating, and other outside activities. Thank you for reading my blog and have a great day !!!
13 comments:
Excellent as far as the Strib goes, but thoroughly biased nonetheless. It keeps harping about how difficult it is to evaluate teachers, how ineffective it is at getting rid of low performers, and how unfair it is to consider student achievement. You maybe have to read between the lines a bit, but it's there; it's the Strib.
And the solution to all those things is pretty simple. You make the evaluation meaningful by adding student achievement, and base salary increases on the evaluation. The ones with a low evaluation eventually can't live on what they make not teaching and leave. Those that improve get back on financial track and those that do really well get rewarded handsomely and I think that's great.
J. Ewing
I thought they did very well and that you must be looking pretty hard. I found these to be the most interesting quotes.
""Keillor said during the 34 years he taught school, he was evaluated twice: once on the last day of school just before the bell rang.
"What kind of world do we live in where we need a law to tell the boss to evaluate their employees?" he asked."
Keillor's comments speak volumes as to how broken the system is when these very normal things are considered abnormal. It is a very odd world they operate in. I find it hard to relate.
The article is good as far as it goes like JE says. But the focus should be at the top - the Supt and Principals. But to evaluate them fairly you must give them the freedom to hire and fire at will. No more seniority or tenure, never did make sense, even for the teachers.
I agree, however I think we also need a good Employee Opinion Survey in place to keep the Supt & Principals focused on keeping their Teachers engaged and satisfied. G2A Improvement Ideas And the Supt must be able to deal with poor Principals.
If they did these things, they may actually resemble a modern effective professional organization.
By the way, don't hold your breath on the Tenure Law making much difference. After perusing it, I am not sure what all the fuss is about. It seems to only trigger when the district shrinks to the point where layoffs are required. It does not seem to grant the Principal any additional authority for removing poor performers in normal situations.
Oh well, at least it is directionally correct.
That's what just drives me nuts. We keep nibbling at the elephant in the room-- the fact that the union-run public school system resists change and hates competition-- and meantime we condemn millions of kids to poverty and second-class citizenship.
J.
I am frustrated, however being me I am also fascinated by the psychology of the whole thing.
I truly believe that the majority of Public School personnel truly care about the students and work diligently to help the students learn and grow. Yet when the personnel face evaluations and potential layoffs or demotions, the benefit that it would provide to the students to remove the poor performers from the system seem to become insignificant in comparison to their own fears, wants and needs.
On the other side, the Conservatives act similarly yet different. They demand results for the good of the kids until it comes to writing checks. Then they are adamant that we should be able to do more with less. Though we pay only a fraction of what high end privates charge for the easy kids.
People are Crazy but ever so interesting... By the way, the link is to one of my favorite music videos.
"hey demand results for the good of the kids until it comes to writing checks."
What does the size of the check have to do with the quality of the result?
J.
That little old saying...
"You get what you pay for..."
It may not be perfect, however there definitely is a relationship.
OK, but are we paying for results, or just throwing money at the teachers, administrators and hangers-on, many of whom are simply unnecessary overhead or completely ineffective? We know the answer, and the answer is that money makes very little difference in results. In Minnesota, statistically speaking, the more money spent per pupil the poorer the result. Fact.
What I am suggesting is that we start DEMANDING to get what we pay for, and quit accepting any and all excuses or distractions, like how "hard" it is to evaluate teachers. It's utter nonsense and a smokescreen thrown up to protect union droogs from the natural consequences of their inability.
J.
My point is confirmed... Conservatives will see the problem as a public education system problem.
"We should be getting more for our money...."
Any Liberals want confirm that you think it is a funding problem?
Okay !!! Who is wrong or lying? You bloggers and your misinformation ...
I can PROVE it, but not here. I have the statistical charts. Money is not the problem and it certainly is not the solution. Quit making excuses for the teachers' union and their lobbyists; the vast majority of teachers will do just fine under a system in which merit is encouraged, recognized and rewarded.
I was surprised to see the quote that MPLS schools "dismissed 3% annually for poor performance." I'm surprised it is that high, but then according to my theory the number of ineffective teachers would be higher than that in these urban schools. Again, the system needs to change, as well as adding coaching and mentoring for struggling teachers (but with a limit).
J. Ewing
I am not making excuses, I explaining the reality of the situation. Everyone is sure they are correct and the kids are the victims.
No data but I am sure the 3% were from the non tenured probationary ranks...
That makes sense. Normal attrition rate would be about 6% per year, and they would have to hire that many to keep even. So if they count some of the normal attrition as "ineffective" they really aren't doing enough. Interesting how numbers change depending on what other numbers you have to put them in perspective.
OK, you are explaining the reality. I am saying the reality has to change. More money isn't the answer, so there must be another way to get more effective teachers in every classroom. Evaluation is a start.
J.
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