This may seem only tangentially related to MCAS or education ‘policy’, but I firmly believe that this issue is at the heart of our education system.
Go ahead, try to measure how well I do by standardized tests. It’s failed methodology, but that train is racing down the tracks even if it smashes up the public education system (aka, education for the working and middle classes). Deval was already ordered the construction of a database on how my students do on those tests, but I want something back.
I want parents who invest as much as me.
I will not be held responsible for test scores for a student who doesn’t have an adult at their house at night.
I will not be held responsible for test scores for a student whose parents call the school clearly inebriated.
I will not be held responsible for test scores for a student whose parent moves every 8 months searching for a spouse.
I will not be held responsible for test scores for a student who has not received basic innoculations, and contracts a disease common to third world countries.
I will not be held responsible for test scores for a student whose parent looks at me in the eye and tells me they think it’s okay if their child cheats.
I will not be held responsible for test scores for a student whose parents decide to ignore doctors’ advice, and over-, under-, or simply refuse to medicate their child.
In short, I will teach these children. I will talk to them about their work in my class, their work in other classes, their social lives, their home life — whatever they need to talk about. I will care for these children and protect them as best I can. If the day comes, I wouldn’t hesitate to take a bullet for these kids.
I have accepted that in my late twenties I am the closest thing some of these kids have to a father figure. I think that’s sad, but true and I accept it. I have even gotten to the point where I accept that these kids’ actual parents (some of whom are my age) will ask me for parenting advice. My cactus is dying on the windowsill, but I should tell them how to raise their children.
But don’t any fatuous ignoramus scoring cheap points in a speech dare tell me that I am a bad teacher because I teach these kids. Any conservative stalking horse who wants to privatize education like they’ve privatized the military better not blame me for staying in a town for teaching kids who face these challenges. These parasitic blockheads who remember school as a place of “spitball fights” and “duck and cover” would be advised to lurch into a neighborhood school (provided their CORI comes back clean) and take a good look around. Oh, and bring your own pen to write with — all the staff there does as well. Half of them buy the paper you’ll be writing on.
For “Teacher Appreciation Day”, I got a new student (with 5 weeks left in the year), with an hour’s warning that she was joining my class. The parents and administration ignored the day. Fine. Not why I do the job in any place, that kind of stuff. All I want is families who care about their own kids.
To all those reading this who’ve been teachers, who were in a classroom, on a battlefield, on a sports field, in a boardroom, I say thank you.
To all the teachers that still care every day, thank you for joining me in one of the few daily battles that still count.
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I’m out of my comfort zone here but…
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It would seem to me that their purpose is to ensure proper curriculum. Should not administrator’s or department heads be responsible for gauging the success of a teacher and should not grades be the gauge of how well students are doing?
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I think Sabutai is onto something….a real discussion of the role of parents in education discussion. I don’t want to divert the thread too much to tests, but I’ll briefly respond…
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1. I think the primary purpose of standardized tests is to measure what kids have learned. These tests have been around for a while — perhaps you took an “Iowa” test when you were a kid.
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The bi-partisan push since the 1990s has been to make these standardized tests TRANSPARENT and UNIVERSAL (so the data on school performance wasn’t known only to the administrators, and so kids couldn’t be excluded from the exams). The other change has been, depending on grade and state, to have stakes attached to student performance on those tests.
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The data from these tests, then, does all 3 things you say — tries to measure student performance (main goal), tries to align curriculum, and in a few places, like Tennessee, tries to measure individual teacher performance.
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2. You ask essentially why don’t we simply trust is report card grades alone?
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There are too many kids whose grades are high enough to graduate but who can barely read. Too many kids who enter college and flunk out. There are countless cites, let me know if you want any.
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Why are report card grades alone not a good measure of learning? Many reasons.
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One is that teachers who set legitimate tough standards sometimes get berated by parents when the kids fail…and then administrators don’t back up the teacher.
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While there are other reasons, I think this one links most closely to Sabutai’s frustration — that we don’t have a legit discussion on the role of parents and parenting, because that’s such a difficult issue to tackle with public policy.
You covered all of the reasoning behind my questions.
…in the state (certainly by reputation) and we (the state of MA) has thrown tons of money at the system (OK, it’s Lawrence). And my friend made the very same point you did. My friend was asked by the principle, “How can you get the scores higher?” My friend said, “You can pay more twice as much money, get new school books and new equipment. None of that will work. The parents have to get more involved and be part of the solution and not the problem.”
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Deval (and others) have talked about breaking down the silos of government that try to address a specific problem of a person and treat the over all issues. We need to coordinate many agencies, DSS, public safety, housing and other agencies I can’t think of at this late hour, with the Dept of Education to develop solutions to a wider issue, instead of trying to address one problem among many.
I agree with nearly every point that you make about parental responsibility. However, your post seems to take offense with the concept of “teacher accountability”.
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One of the biggest problems I see with teaching is that the pay is not merit-based. Any teacher will absolutely bristle if you even bring up the subject. I once worked for a company where the philosophy was that everyone in the same position got the exact same pay. I realized how dumb it was when this guy was recognized by the company for working 80 hour weeks, weekends, etc., to get a project finished. He was given a pat on the back for it. It’s demoralizing to see someone work the bare minimum and get the same reward as you.
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Springfield went through a bitter, bitter battle with the union to introduce merit pay into the system. Honestly, I’m not even sure where it landed because both sides claimed victory. While I agree that test scores ultimately do not equate to “merit”, I disagree that it is not possible to determine a good teacher from a bad teacher. Parents who go through the system know how to tell them apart. Some teachers know when their colleagues are slackers. So why not differentiate them with pay?
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We no longer live in a society where “time in” is the sole determinant of your pay. I earn as much, if not more, than people who have 10-15 years experience on me, because my pay is tied to the job I do, not my “seniority”. My raises are based on my responsibilities and performance, not simply on my time accrued. And in my company, there are different levels of jobs with different levels of responsibility.
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I realize that not every teacher can be above-average. But if everyone is paid the same — especially across disciplines — that means that we are either overpaying some teachers or are underpaying, and therefore are attracting a lesser quality group, other teachers. Neither is acceptable.
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Honestly, I may go with a private education for my children specifically because of MCAS. I understand why MCAS came into being — it was because, in many cases, we had kids in 9th grade who weren’t doing even 4th grade work. Most of the fault lay mostly with the parents, but the system took a lot of heat because they didn’t appear too concerned with the situation. They just moved the kids along and let their failure accumulate.
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However, I think that MCAS is ultimately harmful, because the curriculum has shifted to teach kids how to pass MCAS. I don’t want my children to go to school to learn how to pass a test. I want them to learn, or to even learn how to learn. I have to wonder if person who discovers the Next Big Thing is going to be an MCAS whiz, or will be someone who learned a bit more freely.
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Not at all. I’m sorry I wasn’t clear enough that I’m for it. However, what is currently called “accountability” is largely a reflection of the socioeconomic class of the incoming students. It’s akin to judging the skill of a carpenter by asking him to build a bookshelf with whatever tools he has with him at the time, using the first couple pieces of wood he sees — whether they’re in Home Depot, on a construction site, part of anothe rproject, or in the trash.
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If you want to judge me on my teaching ability, I’m all for it. I proposed an idea here. I’m all for accountability, as long as the deck isn’t stacked for failure.
Sabutai,
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I went to private school from k – 12, and I have to say compared to my private school teachers (who wer all great) your attitude is completely different from theirs. Of course I’m just going by what I read above. But from what I see, I’m disapointed.
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You would never catch a teacher at any of my old private schools saying what you just said. Do you want me to tell you what one of my best teachers would say to you right now? Do you? Because if you don’t you better cover up the next few paragraphs with your hand.
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<————–Sabutai: cover from here ————————>
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I’m talking about Sister Georgia. She would take your “I will not be held responsible” excuse list and throw it out the door. She would then tell you to grow up. She would probably say ‘you don’t live/work in a world w/ parents that care about their kids education.’
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Some kids don’t have an adult at their house at night.
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Some kids have parents that call the school clearly inebriated.
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Some kids have a parent that moves every 8 months searching for a spouse.
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Some kids have parents that look their teacher in the eye and tell them that they think it’s okay if their child cheats.
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She would then give you the tough love treatment and say something like . . . .
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YOU WILL BE RESPONSIBLE FOR THESE KIDS TEST SCORES BECAUSE YOU’RE THE ONLY SHOT THESE KIDS HAVE!
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<————————– To Here ——————————->
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Sabutai, you should seriously think about your career as a teacher. Is it really for you? Your “I will not be held responsible” list of beefs with lazy parents may be valid…but these problems are not going anywhere anytime soon. And I’m begining to wonder if this line of work is right for you.
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…student, you may want to refrain from suggesting career paths for people, until at least you have one day experience with a career.
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Of course, I’m assuming you are being sincere in your comments. If not, then you’ve made a vile and personal attack against a long-time member of this community and you owe him an apology. And I can’t but think this attack (and I do feel it was an attack) is related to the substantive comments Sabutai made just hours before you posted this crap–on the link I provided above. And if people go over to that RMG link, they’ll see how insightful Schoolzombie can be. Many people over there are still waiting for him to respond to their comments that refute his points or questions about his logic.
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What would Sister Georgia think of this?
disapointed
Read sabutai’s post again, Zombie. He’s saying that the fact that he/she’s “the only shot these kids have” is precisely the problem, and the fact that teachers are being blamed by these same parents and by clueless legislators for their inability to be miracle workers smacks of hypocrisy. The “shut up and deal” nature of your post is offensive to the core.
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Sheesh. And I thought it was Republicans who were supposed to be for personal responsibility — unless, of course, you’re deliberately exempting the parents in question from that equation. Are you? Because if this were Red State and you tried that line of “reasoning,” they would accuse you of being a [gasp!] bleeding heart librul.
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Private schools can expel underperforming students, or simply not admit them in the first place. (I’m surprised that you don’t seem to know this basic truth, considering that you claim to be a product of that system.) Public schools don’t have that luxury. They work with the students they have. So your comparison of one set with the other is not a valid comparison at all.
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And by the way, spellcheck is your friend, Mr. Private School Education. Just saying.
As a former public middle school teacher in Massachusetts, I read with sincere empathy and sadness this posting by a clearly committed teacher, Sabutai, who is frustrated by the absence of parental support and guidance for some of the students this teacher serves.
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While I agree in principle with the policy screed against teacher testing and the pivotal role that parents must play in assuring the educational success of their children, in many urban and some suburban school districts the latter has disappeared for cultural and economic reasons, (e.g., the growth of the single-parent household, de-valuing of education at home, and the economic stresses on maintaining a reasonable standard of living in an expensive state like Massachusetts) I am afraid this teacher and others like him are fighting a losing battle against the cultural, family, economic, and political forces arrayed against those entrusted with the most important job in America–educating our kids.
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I left the teaching profession ten years ago because it became clear to me that the frustrations and shortcomings outlined by Sabutai were building up in the public education system and making it nearly impossible for creative, dedicated, and intelligent teachers to be effective. Hang in there, Sabutai, your students, parents, and the Commonwealth needs professionals like you to remain teaching in the public school system and “fighting the good fight.”
Sabutai, thanks for writing this. I have family and friends who teach in public schools in South St. Louis (MO), Springfield (MA) and South Deerfield (MA). Your frustration sounds very familiar to me. I’m embarrassed by the above commenter, SchoolZombie87, who questions your commitment to your profession. I know how teachers are the front line soldiers of the culture war over education, how they often seem caught in the crossfire, and how they are used as targets in ideological pissing matches.
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The thing is, you can have parents who are as invested as you. It’s called private school. Or, at least, a public school district where property values are high precisely because the school has a good reputation and people want to move there, or choice their kids there.
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What I hear you saying is that you don’t want to be judged a worse teacher because of the district you teach in.
I’ve thought of private school in frustrating moments, but frankly I don’t want to abandon these kids and reinforce the two-class education system I see developing. I’m not saying that I’m the end-all of teaching (I have tons, tons to learn about it) but rather “fleeing” challenging kids is something I don’t want to do.
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A couple of folks, mainly those who are clearly unfamiliar with public education, say I should go to the “private sector”…ah, the private sector. I had a cushy 2-year career-track job in the private sector, where I punched out at 5, got two weeks fixed vacation and another two weeks flex vacation, unlimited sick time. The AC worked great, I was in a chair the whole time, they never demanded nights, I didn’t need to work a second job. It was awesome. The floor creaked, so by the time anyone got to my office I had made myself look busy. I still have the running spreadsheet I used to track my completion times on online crossword puzzles.
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On the other hand, in my current job I walk out every day knowing I’ve made a positive impact. So I like this one better.
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Clearly inebriated, an oxymoron? Discuss.
But people need to hear it, a lot, to try to counter the inanity of public discourse on education. One of my favorites on this topic is Bob Somerby. He often points out that the obsession with Raising the Bar means teachers who get fourth-graders reading at a first-grade level can be forced to use fourth-grade materials that their students can’t handle, and which only cements their sense of failure.
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A contributing problem, IMHO, is the popular film genre of the Inspirational Ghetto Teacher. From Stand and Deliver through Freedom Writers, the idea etched into the collective mind is that the teacher who Really Cares can achieve miracles with the lowest-performing students. To the extent that these films are based on real stories and inspire people, that’s great. But I think they mainly offer the pleasure of imagining a romantic solution to a real problem.
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Too bad there seems no way to actually hold parents accountable. Of course, the parents are products of their upbringings, so there’s a chicken-egg problem. And it’s not limited to poor towns. I see fairly well-off families placing sports and ski vacations above school all the time and then blaming the teachers when the kids don’t achieve.
I have all the respect in the world for teachers. I agree that the biggest barrier to a child’s educational acheivement may not be the teacher, the school building, the books or the bus rides; it’s the parents.
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Unfortunatley, I don’t know how you take the blame off of the teachers and place it properly onto the parents. Realisticlly, how do you put more responsibility on the parents? How do you hold them accountable?
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Is there a way to do that, which is in ANY WAY politically feasable?
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2. Noternie,
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Some inner-city schools try to help teacher-parent relations by not putting the onus on the INDIVIDUAL TEACHER to somehow build relationships with all the individual parents.
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Instead, these schools create a policy where all teachers “chip in”, and then everyone’s rowing in the same direction.
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You do get some parents who never “play fair” or are just shockingly incompetent parents (like a few that Sabutai described), just as there are presumably always a few teachers who are negative and inconsistent in enforcing rules. But at least 80% of teachers and parents tend to buy in.
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3. This is what it looks like:
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The school says to parents: “Let us first show you that we’re going to be responsive to parent concerns. All staff will give you their cell phone numbers; call us anytime. Our teachers will pick up the phone, too, and call you up, to tell you about your kid’s successes, not just his failures. Visit anytime and see what happens in class. We’re not perfect but we welcome you and see you as partners.”
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Remember, these are mostly single black and HIspanic mothers who may have had terrible experiences themselves in school, and/or may not be confident of their language skills. They need a little love from the school first.
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Meanwhile, the teachers agree to some sort of outreach policy. For example, in the school where I work (75% low-income), each teacher makes 10 “proactive calls per week” to parents. That way the load is manageable.
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The teachers log the calls on a database, so other teachers can kind of see which parents haven’t heard from anyone in a while. If a parent only speaks Spanish or Creole, then the principal or another staff member will make the call (and sometimes the kids translate).
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So let’s say a kid was rude today to a teacher and is going to get a 3 hour Saturday detention. And the kid is probably going to go home and say “Wasn’t my fault, that teacher has it out for me.” And in some schools, the irate parent may then try to intimidate the principal, and sometimes the teacher gets hung out to dry.
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Well, when we call home, since all the teachers have made phone calls all year, since everyone has rowed in the same direction, the parent doesn’t feel like “the school is attacking their kid.” She might not know that ONE teacher very well, but she trusts the school, and backs up the school.
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Whoa I am rambling as always!
I ramble all the time, so no apology necessary.
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Let me first say I respect and like what Sabutai had to say. And I love what you lay out. I’ve heard some of this from one of my sisters who has kids in this range. And I think it’s tremendous. I’m a big time supporter of teachers for a number of reasons.
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I’m just worried that student failure resulting from parent failure–to the extent it exists in schools with poor kids or esl families–is still going to be publicly labeled teacher failure. Or failure because of a teacher’s union.
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I already believe that student failure is a result of parents not caring or scapegoating teachers, to a certain extent. But we only hear that teachers don’t care or aren’t competent when people talk about making education better. It boggles the mind to hear people say that the reason schools aren’t working is that teachers don’t care about kids.
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People like studies and numbers. Are there studies being done to use numbers taken from systems like Goldstein describes to show that if you look deeper into school success or failure, you can find parent involvement or response as a major indicator of success/failure?
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Can teachers unions throw some resources at a campaign to push the parent involvement angle back at the groups that think every teacher can be Edward James Olmos or Michelle Pfieffer?
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Major colleges and universities would seem to be a natural to both study and later advocate for the issue.
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Maybe it’s being done already. Forgive my ignorance, if so.
I wish every teacher could be the commander of the Battlestar Galactica. Every time I propose it, however, they mumble something about a budget…
It blows me away that you can go from this . . . .
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“I wouldn’t hesitate to take a bullet for these kids.”
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“I am the closest thing some of these kids have to a father figure.”
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and “thank you for joining me in one of the few daily battles that still count.”
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to this . . . .
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“I will not be held responsible for test scores.”
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So quickly. So yeah I do wonder if you will last. At least with that attitude. You say you still have a lot to learn well please don’t try to learn from the failed teachers you will be replacing. I’m a firm believer in standards and I don’t see why the hell some teachers can’t teach a third grader basic math at the 3rd grade level. I want a standardized test to see what these kids can do. Yes it’s competition. People will look bad. That’s life! There are standardized tests all through life! And we cannot relax our standards. And there are a lot of people outside of Blue Mass Group that feal the same way. I’ve seen the MCAS scores for 2006
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http://www.boston.co…
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and these schools should be ashamed! I am! I demand better and frankly your attitude doesn’t fill me with a lot of hope.
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But hey great line …… “I wouldn’t hesitate to take a bullet for these kids.”
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How did your school do on the MCAS – Sabutai?
Have you ever heard the phrase about trying to make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear?
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If so, thank a teacher. Then ask the teacher how to apply the situation to this situation.
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His frustration and point is clearly that he doesn’t want to be held “solely” responsible for the failure of students to learn.
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Do you deny the importance of the parents role in preparing and assisting in the education process all together? You seem to.
“Do you deny the importance of the parents role in preparing and assisting in the education process”
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No – parental involvement is very important. But I’m saying that Sabutai is spinning his wheels, if he thinks he is going to get these dead beat parent’s to care. They wont. Good luck waisting your energy on teaching drug addicted parents to help their kid w/ homework. Or getting some kids parent to a pto meeting when they are working their 2nd job. And everyone here is avoiding the Illegal Immigration issue, and its toll on public resources.
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We haven’t even talked about Sabutai looking down a classroom in a place like, let’s say Laurence. A classroom with friggin 6 kids that shouldn’t be in this country. These are 6 sets of parents that Sabutai will never see. They are either too afraid to come in considering their illegal status. Or they are probably working some sweat shop in New Bedford. And what the hells the diference if they do show up, if the teacher can’t speak a half dozen different launguages, they accomplish nothing.
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These are powerful forces that are completely out of his control. I think he should dedicate his summer to helping these kids pass the MCAS so they can compete with other kids. Take an MCAS cram course or 2. And push for the city to pay for it.
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Just try something different for heck sake.
But do you think it is reasonable for the state to say Sabutai is a failed teacher because he’s got six kids that can’t speak english, whose parents might be deported if they come into the classrom?
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Because that’s the status quo in our accountability system.
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Of course, in a few years, accountability goes into a higher gear, where even high performing classrooms without any subgroups will result in low assessments for the teachers and schools. But for now, the teachers singled out for failure are primarily the ones in difficult settings.
Who cares who gets called what. I don’t. I care about test scores. And yes I think we should fire teachers if they can’t produce students with passing test scores. Similar to a sales man, if you don’t produce you get dropped. Sound cold? Who cares about feelings when our 3rd graders can’t frigging count in this state.
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http://www.boston.co…
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How the heck are we already behind with these kids, in the 3rd grade and already the kid can’t add subtract multiply divide. Great.
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Do I blame the teacher? No I blame the sky, and social, cultural, economic, blah, blah, and blah. I just ask that this kid try something new. Because what I’ve seen so far smells.
It’s an issue of having a metric that reflects accurately on teachers or schools, rather than reflecting the challenge of the neighborhood and the student body.
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If you were a talented teacher who had offers from two districts, which would you take – one from a district that is two years away from a state takeover which is likely to include teacher sanctions and firings, or one from a district with good test scores and a good record of attacting and keeping talented teachers? There are enough barriers discouraging teachers from taking positions in difficult settings already, and encouraging them to look elsewhere when they have an opportunity.
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A punitive assessment system that can’t distinguish well between difficult settings and poor teacher or administrator performance doesn’t offer the kids a better opportunity. And the thing is, our current assessment system can’t distinguish well between programs that work, and programs that don’t, because the metrics for “Adequate Yearly Progress” are so blunt and flawed.
expects Sabutai to have kids that score the same thing as schools that serve higher SES populations. Or else, the state fires the superintendent or principal unless they fire the teacher. Or some other equally unproductive reform.
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The issue is that accountability isn’t based on realistic goals, and the remedies in place for “failure” were conceived by politicians and ideologues, rather than educators.
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Certainly there are some cases where shifting responsibility to a black box run by state departments of education improve accountability. But in many cases, putting faith in that black box just takes away local responsibility and control, because what the locals are asked to be responsible for, and what they’re supposed to do if they don’t meet those metrics, don’t make sense.
It’s that time of year, I know. But people don’t understand what’s going on in classrooms and schoolyards these days. It is tough for a lot of kids, and teachers have a difficult job. You get everything and anything thrown at you, and you have to deal with it. And get a masters degree. And continue to take courses to get “points.” I agree with you that teachers can not be held responsible for everything that is going on in a child’s life. At the same time, I always felt that there is too much homework, and that the parents’ positive role is not really respected by the schools. It may be two sides of the same coin. At the same time we acknowledge the negative impact parents and family life can have on a child’s ability to learn, we should also acknowledge the tremendously positive and supportive role of parents and family in fostering a love of learning and encouraging behaviors and attitudes that result in or at least lend themselves to high achievement in school. Often the ones who suffer the most in school are the students who want to learn and who want to study, but who have to put up with or wait for the kids who are disruptive and uninterested. So it is tough all around.
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Agreed on both counts. We have some great parent volunteers who are essential to what good we can do beyond lessons. And I agree on the homework — I have steadily reduced th eamount of homework assigned this year because it has little or no bearing on outcomes, and am considering eliminating the component next year.
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Those kids end up in private school if their families can at all afford it, which is why I say we’re effectively creating a two-class education system.