President Obama wants to know who the good teachers are
Ruh-Roh!
“The state isn’t likely to see any of the $4.35 billion in competitive federal grants that will be passed out as part of the American Recovery Act if legislators don’t rescind a law that prevents teachers from being evaluated based on student test scores, say federal officials,” according to the Sacramento Bee.
“Any state that makes it unlawful to link student progress to teacher evaluation will have to change its ways if it wants to compete for a grant,” President Barack Obama said in a news conference Friday.
And check out this quote from President Obama:
“There are 300,000 teachers in California,” Obama said. “The top 10 percent are 30,000 of the best and the bottom 10 percent are 30,000 of the worst, but there is no way to tell which is which.”
Can our schools take any more budget hits? And why won’t state education officials get with the program? They appear to have plenty of excuses…
I wonder why there is a lack of teacher evaluation?? Maybe union power??
Just a few things happening in Education right now:
Novice teachers (ONLY in CA) can teach…do not need to be credentialed…
http://tiny.cc/noviceteachersherewecome
Obama says one thing….CA does another…interesting.
There was a song that I used to like in the 80s…called Out of Touch by Hall & Oates….sums Obama up well. He has no idea that CA just did this….http://tiny.cc/noviceteachersherewecome
Evaluations by green administrators are not helpful. Disorganized school districts like Santa Ana could resort to bribery, using the evaluation procedures like a career weapon (already does this!) or other misuses of trying to control teachers thru salary hits or salary incentives.
Good districts like Irvine already have good evaluation processes and they have plenty of training programs to give the teachers higher and higher quality of on-the-job practical training. Santa Ana and other disorganized districts constantly move the curriculum around, communicate poorly with teaching staff and neglect the training necessary to keep current on successful practices.
Many school districts are run like dysfunctional school yards – children who dominate other children thru various methods that may or may not make any sense at all. Who wants to be at the mercy of childish administration that may have gotten into their position by simply being someone’s friend in the organization? Who wants to have their salaries at the mercy of someone’s subjective whims?
I am sure that the union has a lot to do with the process to thwart making teachers be subject of “merit pay” determined by “performance”.
WHO is doing the evaluation of WHAT is the question that needs to be answered.
In defense of novice teachers, the Cal State Universities have made the credentialing program much tougher to enroll. Before, it required only a CBEST before enrollment. Now they require teaching prerequisite courses before applying for the program, AND they must pass the CSET (for secondary ed) or the multiple subject equivalent for elementary ed. A novice teacher today is far more qualified than a novice teacher prior to NCLB.
Yea let’s not do it we don’t need the 4.5 billion.
Oops forgot about that 25 billion dollar budget hole, maybe we could save some teachers jobs. Perhaps someone should get a clue.
The funds the state may lose out on are because the state has a law which does not permit evaluating teacher by using student data. In other words, I am not to be evaluated by using my students’ test scores. I am to be evaluated on the performance of my duties in the classroom. HOWEVER… I since I do not control all of the factors that determine student success: socio-economic status, parental support, personal motivation, cognitive ability and so on. I say that evaluating a teacher on the basis of student progress or test scores is like deciding whether a doctor is a good doctor based on the survival rate of his patients. Pity the poor gerontologist- all of his patients are old and very sick! The rate of patient survival in his specialty certainly would not be a good indicator of his proficiency. It hardly seems likely that anyone would choose that area of practice if such tight evaluation of effectiveness were applied. Same idea applies to teachers. I am sick of teacher bashing. I have a 5-year bachelor’s degree, a Masters’ degree and 3 state credentials, I am very qualified to do my job. I attend conferences, frequently at my own expense to advance my knowledge and effectiveness.My student’s scores, or yearly progress is a paltry indicator of my effectiveness. Most teachers do our jobs far beyond the requirements, spending many hours past our paid day doing school work, spending large chunks our dwindling salaries on our students.(We’ll probably have to do that even more next year. My classroom budget went from 250.00 for last year to 150.00 or possibly much less for next year.) We do it because we love our students and we feel our job is an investment in the future. If you think applying this type of evaluation of teachers is good, I suggest that it must also be applied to the politicians at state and federal levels. They should be evaluated from their effectiveness. From what we are seeing now, NONE of them are qualified.
Kathy,
Well said!
Readers – Kathy is my aunt. She is a terrific teacher and she has a point…
Great job on your blog comment Aunt Kathy!
Kathy,
Excellent points. The state wants us to make IQs of 60 …120 by the spring otherwise we are fired.
http://www.audiblox.com/iq_scores.htm
If you have a coke can. You can do interventions on a coke can, but it is STILL a coke can.