And I guess Obama is not the only dumbass on the issue:
http://www.newsweek.com/id/234590
Newsweek had a cover story on teacher firings too, but missed the big picture. I was disappointed by the writers' narrow perspective. Bad teachers are a problem for US education, but not the only problem. What about bloated school district bureaucracies, ineffective and overpaid administrators (who are also rarely fired), declining of family time, and sociopolitical apathy to explore more sophisticated remedies than standardized testing?
The Obama administration and Newsweek praised the mass firings at Central Falls, RI. The teachers were being unreasonable, but it is not "bold" and "courageous" leadership for Superintendant Gallo to just give up and fire them. That is terribly traumatic for students, erodes community trust, and destroys the morale of good teachers with decades of professional wisdom. The finger-pointers should first remodel crumbling classrooms, help overwhelmed families, reduce poverty, and develop smarter ways to measure and enhance teaching performance. Then if learning doesn't improve, go ahead and fire the teachers.
Newsweek praised the European model where teachers are cherry-picked from top college grads, paid better vs. other professions, and more culturally respected. They say that many US teachers come from the bottom third of college-bound high schoolers, and once they reach tenure (fought for by unions in the past), they are virtually immune to firing regardless of performance. Yes this could be a problem. Well how do they propose changing our culture and economics to pay teachers more and celebrate the profession so our top people want to join? If our brightest stars hear in the media about mass teacher layoffs/firings (either due to NCLB or bankrupt governments), horrible teaching conditions (including school shootings), and now possiblying doing away with tenure and pension, then why would all but the most masochistic/saintly/both of them want to sign up? Blaming teachers is like blaming the fireman for a burning building. The fireman may have failed to save the kitten inside, but they didn't start the fire either.
So Europe has it all figured out, and our system is broken just because tenured teachers can't be fired. But Newsweek failed to consider that teacher firings in Europe are also probably very low. I couldn't find data on it, but in general it's a lot harder to get fired in Western Europe than the US. You can argue that the average European teacher is better anyway, so it's less likely that he or she would be in danger of termination. But because of job security, resources, and social support, European teachers are more likely to succeed. If you've spoken to anyone who grew up in a European education system, they will tell you that most students were well behaved and it was easy to enforce discipline. The thought of talking back to authority figures or goofing off never crossed their minds, and if they did, they knew punishment would be severe. That's like the polar opposite of many US schools, especially poor urban ones. So it's a positive feedback loop: European teachers start good, are well taken care of, and work with polite kids. So that makes it easy for them to succeed and make their students learn better, which precludes the need to fire anyone. US teachers in poor schools may be inferior, but they also have shit to work with, and are now one test score away from a pink slip. They're set up for failure. You can't chop off a marathon runner's leg and then scold him for not finishing the race.
And then Newsweek hailed the Teach for America (TFA, which I just found out is co-sponsored by Goldman Sachs - BIG RED FLAG) program for showing that top college grads sent to the worst schools can do better than their tenured underperforming peers, and some of them decide to pursue a career in education. But it's not all wine and roses; many drop out or leave the program jaded about education. Others join for their own benefit, gaining "skills and experience" to distinguish themselves from other qualified job applicants:
Looking back, I’m so glad I chose to teach before embarking on this next phase of my career. I developed skills that empowered me to excel beyond my peers in business school: organization, effective time management, dexterity in communication and public speaking, and the ability to think on my feet. The responsibilities I shouldered in the classroom prepared me like nothing else could for the challenges of management, communication, and intense focus that characterize my current position, where I conduct industry research, create financial models, identify industry trends, and explain their implications.
-Scott, an analyst at Lehman Brothers (taken from the TFA website)
Wow, I guess dealing with punk kids helped him navigate the shark-infested waters of Wall Street. The sad irony of TFA is that they accept applicants with no teaching background, throw them in the worst teaching situations possible, and for the ones who survive and succeed, their program ends just as they start to learn the skills to become good career teachers. Then they're off to their next gig, leaving their kids behind for a new idealistic greenhorn. TFA doesn't require or help alums to pursue a Master's in Education after they finish, which is required to teach in most states. So is this helpful to kids? A lot of TFA teachers went to New Orleans after Katrina and performed better than local teachers. But this created resentment, because people knew the TFAs would be gone in a few years, while the permanent local teachers were losing morale playing second fiddle. In fact, the local veterans helped teach the TFAs, and gained nothing from them, except a bunch of competitors with different life situations making it impossible to work as hard as them. One view of the TFAs is that they're actually young, underpaid, ambitious union busters disguised by philanthropy. Throwing TFAs into disaster schools is no better than throwing sacks of rice to Haiti quake victims. A temporary helpful relief, but no lasting impact. This is from a very well-written New York City Teaching Fellow's blog (a program similar to TFA):
At my school, a small public high school in Brooklyn, New York, well over half of the teachers at the school are Teaching Fellows, and, at least in the three years I have been at the school, the longest any of us has stayed (yet) is three years. A few of us are starting our fourth.
And this sucks for our students. I mean, it really, really sucks. It sucks to come back to school and have to have yet another first-year-teacher as a teacher. It sucks to have six different advisory teachers in four years (the case with my old advisory). It sucks to have no continuity from year to year. It sucks for the ninth grade math teacher you really liked to disappear by the time you are in eleventh grade and wanted to ask for some extra help before the PSATs. It sucks to slowly get the impression that teaching anywhere else, or doing anything else for a job is better than staying here and working with you. It sucks to get abandoned year after year after year by young, enthusiastic teachers who saw teaching in the inner city as something great to put on that law school application.
If you’re thinking of applying to Teach for America because you want to be a career teacher, don’t. There are many other alternative-certification programs that will help you get a masters degree (and will help you pay for it). And if you’re thinking of applying to Teach for America because you are interested in doing a service project for two years before starting a different career, don’t. There are many other Americorp-type programs that lend themselves better to that time of time-frame.
And a TFA participant's response to her blog:
Right on, and well said... TFA brings young, often incredibly privileged, enthusiastic teachers to come into schools feeling a self-righteous sense of martyrdom. We often end up fostering an expectation in our schools that a) all teachers should be able and willing to, for example, work for 15 hour days without demanding pay (which is fundamentally union busting, in the sense that many teachers who are veterans may have families or second jobs that prevent them from being able to put in that much time without pay), b) essentially “price out” veteran teachers, because new teachers come in being paid less than veteran teachers – which public schools and the public education system loves, and c) often end up becoming principals after only 2 or 3 years in teaching, over far more qualified veteran teachers who didn’t go through such “prestigious” programs.
If TFA is truly trying to eradicate educational inequality, then you would think that the goal of TFA would be to phase out, or not be necessary anymore, at some point in the future. But think about it this way: does Goldman-Sachs usually partner with or invest in something that is going to go away anytime soon? Hell no.
http://www.feministe.us/blog/archives/2008/08/23/why-i-hate-teach-for-america/
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/diane-ravitch/first-lets-fire-all-the-t_b_483074.html
