Teacher's Dirty Little Secret

Every year, the politicians, the school boards, and the administrators always introduce some new policy that is urgent that teachers implement in their classrooms. We are told about this new policy at the beginning of the school year, we have a plethora of meetings about its implementation, and we go to workshops to be trained in the new policy. We as teachers all go along with this, we sit in the meetings, we nod our heads, and then we go back to our classroom and teach the way we’ve always taught.

I remember one year we had a new teacher who was sitting at one of these meetings. The designated guppy for the day was at the front of the room, running the workshop, with her slides showing us all the new information. Then, all of a sudden, the new teacher starts yelling, “this is bullshit! This is all bullshit! Can’t you all see this is bullshit?” She started looking around for someone to back her up, but all she met were the cold stares of the administrators, whom promptly scheduled a “meeting” with her down in the office. I remember sitting back in my chair, thinking to myself, “she must be new”, but at the same time, feeling a great amount of respect for her. She had the balls to shout what we were all thinking. Except, when you’ve been in the system long enough, you have the general understanding that there is no need to stir the water. For the most part, you throw some documentation at them from time to time, and you can do your job in peace.

At least, that’s the way it used to be. Lately, more and more of the academic freedom has been taken away from the teachers, and as the old teachers begin to retire and new teachers are brought in, it’s getting harder and harder to be an independent thinker in this system whose aim is to create carbon copy teachers in every classroom. We are all told to do things in a specific way, and we must show proof that we are doing it that way. Gone are the days when one could walk into a school and say, “yeah, I know science. Let me teach it.” The latest trend in education is “Data driven instruction”, and every student has also lost their identity as individuals, and instead has now become just a standardized test number.

Recently, I went to a meeting where I was told to bring three different color highlighters; specifically pink, yellow, and green. Not really being a highlighter type person, I found the one highlighter I had in my drawer (pink) and went. Some teachers at the meeting had brought three highlighters, but not of the required colors. We were all told that our color choices were unacceptable, and that we must have the three specific colors mentioned, because in future faculty meetings, we would all be required to sit with our students test scores in front of us, and the administrators would be referring to green students (Above grade level), yellow students (at grade level), and pink students (below grade level), and to avoid confusion, we all had to have the same colors.

A few days later, the principal sends a mass email detailing a specific time she wants to meet with each teacher, and attached were some discussion questions we might want to look over before we attend the meeting. Included were the questions “How will differentiated instruction be implemented in your classes for” levels 1-2, levels 3, and levels 4-5? In other words, what are we doing different within each class period for students of those specific levels.

In my school, students are already segregated into different classrooms based on whether they are gifted, advanced, regular, or students with disabilities. I teach some classes that are regular, and some that are advanced. The curriculum is basically the same, except that with the advanced kids you can move faster, because they get if faster, and they are capable of doing some higher level thinking activities that regular students might have a difficult time with. That’s the extent of my differentiated instruction. But to suggest that within each of those classes, I should identify the standardized test level of each student, then teach them differently based on whether they are low, middle, or high, is not only ludicrous, but well nigh impossible. Also, by doing that, the students just become their test scores. We might as well give them pink, yellow, and green t-shirts to wear, and then establish different school rules based on which color they are. And by doing so, we won’t be helping them either. Those wearing the pink shirt (those who have been labeled stupid) will just continue down that path, because they believe that is what is expected of them. Those that are wearing green will gain a superiority complex, and stop associating with the other students altogether. Those who are yellow will be so anxious to not fall into the pink category, that they would probably do worse overall.

It’s true that students perform at different levels, but the current system is missing the mark. They are treating students as if they are robots. The robots who are rusty, or outdated, just need to be repaired or be upgraded. The robots who are performing will just need a small amount of maintenance. It seems logical to want to think this way. But students are not robots. If a student is not performing well, there is a myriad of factors that goes into that, and simply giving them extra work, or emphasizing those areas where they are doing poorly on, isn’t always going to work. We are going under the assumption that every student loves school, they all want to learn, they all try their best, but some of them just aren’t getting it. I wish that were true too. But some students have no parents. Some students are abused. Some students have parents that are bad influences on them. Some students do drugs. Some students just don’t care. Some students want to grow up to be athletes, and spend all day in the park disregarding their homework. Some students see school as a social place, and the work is an annoying byproduct. There are so many different attitudes and viewpoints out there. Students are not robots or computer programs or math problems where you input something and then always get the same output. As teachers, as long as we put our heart into the teaching, try various methods to get through to the kids, know our material well, and treat students with respect, then everything else is just politics and needs to be kept out of the classroom.

Teacher Evaluations

The way that teachers are evaluated changes constantly. Every time I see a new evaluation system hauled into place, I cross my fingers that this time they finally got it right, but alas, each new one seems more flawed than the one before it.

Our current (I hesitate to use the word. As of this writing, the only one I could find online was the guide to the 2011-2012 school year, which has already been updated twice, but teachers are still in the dark as to what the exact changes are) evaluation system has teachers scored on a combination of performance standards and test scores. Fifty percent of the score is based on these standards, and the other fifty percent is based on student test scores in reading and math, regardless of what kind of teacher you are. (Even if you are a science, social studies, music, P. E. teacher etc., half you score is based on reading or math)

Let’s ignore the unfairness of being evaluated on test scores of a subject you don’t teach for now and look at the other performance standards. They are:

2) Knowledge of Learners

3) Instructional Planning

4) Instructional Delivery and Engagement

5) Assessment

6) Communication

7) Professionalism

8) Learning Environment

Standards 2, 3, 4, and 8 are considered observable standards, while standards 5, 6, and 7 the teachers need to provide evidence for. According to the terms of the evaluation system, the administrators must come into your classroom once per year before the end of the third grading period for a span of twenty consecutive minutes, and determine you score for those four observable standards. The scores, from highest to lowest, are Highly Effective, Effective, Developing/Needs Improvement, and Unsatisfactory.

My biggest complaint about this system is that the whole process is highly subjective. Any administrator with a preconceived notion of you can enter your classroom and already have your scores determined in their mind before they even see your lesson. An effective evaluation system would define something very specific that the teacher has actual control over and can demonstrate.

For example, what constitutes good “communication” score, enough to merit a score of “Highly Effective”? The wording of the standard according to the IPEGS handbook is as follows; “The teacher communicates effectively with students, their parents or families, staff, and other members of the learning community.” What I want to know is, what is the exact number of phone calls, or parent meetings, or emails that I have to have to merit a score of “Highly Effective”? Again, according to the handbook, a score of “Highly Effective” is defined as “The teacher consistently uses a variety of communication techniques to inform, collaborate with, and/or respond to students and other stakeholders in a highly effective manner.” What does a variety include? What does it mean by consistent? Does that mean that if I text, use hand written letters, and verbally communicate (three forms of communication), then I have demonstrated a variety? Does that mean that I have to do this everyday, every week, twice a week? What is considered consistent? Also, if I personally speak to my colleagues every day, how do I prove that? Do I have to record my conversations on a log?

Because none of these things are defined, administrators assign scores on their own personal bias, for or against a teacher, without regard to any evidence submitted or displayed. If you are the apple of the principal’s eye because you ran that workshop that nobody wanted to do, or because you stayed after school that one time to help with the school improvement plan, then you have an automatic pass. If for whatever reason the principal or assistant principal has something against you, even if it is for something trivial, then they could score you however they like.

The difference in terminology between “effective” and “highly effective” scores is that for the latter the teacher does whatever applies to that specific standard “consistently”. How can anyone in one twenty minute observation determine whether a teacher is doing something consistently or not? For example, standard 8 asks that the teacher “create and maintain a safe learning environment while encouraging fairness, respect, and enthusiasm.” How in the world do you distinguish between someone who does that for a class period vs. someone who does that consistently, in one twenty minute observation? The simple answer is, as an administrator, you determine that by whether you personally like the teacher or not. That’s the sad truth.

Teaching Methods in the Classroom

Ultimately, there is only so many different techniques you can use to teach students in the classroom. As a former student myself, I found that I learned best when the teacher lectured. I have always had a gift for what I call “deep listening”. Often I can’t even turn it off. Basically, my brain is really good at absorbing information that is spoken in a clear manner. I excelled in college because of this. Looking back at high school from the vantage point of college, it all seemed like a giant waste of time. But, I digress

I found that as a teacher, what had worked for me as a student does not work on the average student of today. As a side note, it is very difficult for someone who has always loved learning and excelled at school to relate to the average student at all. Whereas a good student reads the textbook, even if the teacher does not ask them to, a bad student will avoid it at all cost. Whereas a good student always tries to complete their homework and stresses if they do not, a bad student does not even register that they have homework, but instead goes home and it never crosses their mind again. Whereas a good student is a copious note taker in class, a bad student can’t be bothered to take out a pencil. I could go on, but the point is that as a teacher who was a good student, you come into the profession assuming that most students are like you, when in reality, most students are the latter.

So, how do you teach those students who resist learning with all their might? I wish I could say that there is one foolproof way of doing so, but the most important quality that you need as a teacher is; patience.

Needless to say, you can’t come into a class of average students and just begin talking about the Roman Empire and expect them to listen, to care, or to learn anything from you pedantic lecture. Instead, what is important is procedure. You have to have a customary procedure that students are used to. A pattern if you will of the way things run in your class. For example, your pattern may consist of copying objectives, followed by a five minute introduction to a topic, followed by reading, and wrapped up with an activity that assesses the students about the topic that was covered in class that day. Another example would be fifteen minutes of journal writing, followed by grading of the previous nights homework, followed by a quick lesson covering a new topic, ending with student practice of new skill that was just taught. The point is, you create a pattern that students become accustomed to, and so they come to learn what to expect in your classroom.

For me personally, I like to create a lesson that presents the same information in multiple ways, so that even if students miss the concept the first time, and even the second time, they might get it the third time. Whenever I begin a new section or topic, I give them objectives that tells them what they can expect to learn that day. Then, I give them a brief introduction about the major concepts they can expect to hear that day. Then I like to have them read out loud, so that they get the books perspective of the topic. Often this is followed by notes, which has them writing the main points of what they just read. Then I like to end with an activity that asks the kids to basically restate what they just learned, either in journal form, or question and answer form, or by filling in a chart, or any other method that gets them to review the information. After having done all that, they have been exposed to every concept verbally, visually, audibly, and in such a way that their brain has to process the information to come up with answers to an assessment.

You might think that after all that, all students make straight “A’s” in my class, but sadly, for most students, even this is not enough. In fact, I usually have only 2-3 “A’s” per period at the end of a grading period.

The Baseline Tests

Here is a concept. At the very beginning of the year, we should test the students in each and every subject they take. Language arts gives reading and grammar tests, math gives grade level math tests, and social studies gives tests on their subject matter, etc. The scores that the students receive will represent a baseline; it’s made up solely of any prior knowledge they have, or lucky guesses they have made. Then, periodically, ideally at the beginning of every grading period, we give them either the same test or an exam that tests the same concepts, so that we could track their learning progress. Presumably, they should all score very low at the beginning of the year, and their scores should improve as the year progresses. The teacher can even gauge which specific topics are giving the students trouble, and so emphasize their teaching with the aim of addressing those specific deficiencies. By the end of the year, once the students have learned the material and have been studying it for 180 days, the scores should all be significantly higher. Of course if they are not higher, then obviously that teacher is ineffective and should be replaced.

I would agree with the above paragraph too, as an intelligent, logical human being. However, as a teacher, I find that this does not work, for several reasons. I would like to go over some of them in detail.

Principally, students react very negatively to baseline tests. A teacher I know who teaches the ESE classes at my school told me that for the first two weeks of school she had kept her classes pretty well behaved. The day she had scheduled to give the baseline test, just at the mere mention of it, she immediately had severe discipline issues in her classroom, and had to make several parent phone calls. The students resent taking a test that is designed for them to fail. The result is that even when given the assessment, a majority of students do not even bother to read the questions and so bubble in answers randomly. Only the most dedicated and achievement driven of students (I estimate about 20%) bother with the test at all.

Because of this phenomenon, it leads to skewed results. We take these tests, we analyze the scores, we convert the data into bar graphs and charts, that are meant to show the strengths and weaknesses of each student per standard or benchmark that the test was assessing. Of course, because the majority of students just randomly guessed, the data is all meaningless. It’s not showing us strengths and weaknesses at all, but just random information that is of no use to drive instruction (which was the stated purpose).

As you are reading this, you may already have also realized that the whole initial test is somewhat pointless as well. The students have never taken the class, hence they shouldn’t know anything. If I have never studied world history, obviously I don’t know anything about it. If I have never taken algebra, then obviously I will fail an Algebra test. What are we really gaining by giving students these tests? In the end, the test only confirms what we already knew; the students at the beginning of the year don’t know anything. By giving them a test that they will fail, more harm is done than good by causing them to feel inadequate. I remember one year I gave this baseline test in Civics, and I had one girl who scored a forty two percent, the highest score in the class. I told her enthusiastically, “hey, guess what, you scored a forty two!” I was trying to compliment her. She said in response, “Yeah, I have always been bad at social studies.” The fact that it was the highest score in the class didn’t matter to her. In fact, a forty two percent is a failing grade, which just confirmed her mistaken notion that she was bad at the subject.

Another interesting thing happens at the end of the year. Despite what common sense might dictate, at the end of the year scores tend not to increase by that much. Of course, there are exceptions to this. In math courses, where the material is skill based, scores do tend to rise more that the average in other courses. In language arts, because many high level students are already proficient in reading, scores tend to plateau or in many cases go down. In social studies, my personal experience is an increase of ten to twenty percent on average. Social studies is not skill based, instead it is content based. Mostly it’s information that must be learned and memorized. Some students who are genuinely interested in the subject make large gains. Most students, who couldn’t care less what Congress does or what contributions the Sumerians made to posterity, gain very little at all from social studies.

Also, the frequent amount of testing takes time away from teaching. Sometimes it takes up to two days of class time to administer these tests. If given four times a year, that’s already eight days of class time lost. Also, these tests are supposed to be followed up by “data chats”, where we sit down with each individual student and talk about their results, and how they can improve. The notion that any teacher who has 120 students on average can sit down with each and every one of them four times a year is ridiculous. Second, halfway through a course, the students have only been exposed to half the curriculum, so what can you possibly say during these data chats. “Well, you did very poorly on the economics section of the test, but of course we don’t learn that until the fourth nine weeks. Also, you did very poorly on the Law section of the test, but, again, we learn that in the third nine weeks.” As a student, how are you supposed to even answer to this, or feel about this?

The most criminal thing of all is that there is an attempt to tie teacher evaluations and even salaries to these baseline tests. Besides the fact that not all teachers teach the same level students (some teach gifted, some teach honors, some teach regular, and some teach learning deficient students) and the other reasons mentioned, nobody should be evaluated on somebody else’s performance. There are lazy students, there are students who refuse to do homework, there are students who refuse to read the book, there are students who are frequently absent from school, there are students who don’t take the exams seriously. There are too many factors outside of the teacher’s control that also determine scores on these tests.

I understand the need to evaluate teachers, to find effective teachers and root out the bad ones, but teachers should be evaluated based on things they have full control over. More on that in a separate post.

The Plight of the American Teacher

This post is created by a teacher who is fed up with all the bullshit in education today that makes teaching nearly impossible. Ironically enough, although the title of this blog is "The Administration", I am not an administrator, but feel that in the administration lies the bulk of our problems, hence the title.

I remember a time when teaching involved two things; an extensive knowledge of the subject matter, and a willingness to share that knowledge with students. Today instead we have endless meetings about things like "best practices" and "common core". We have a computer program called edusoft that requires copious amounts of time to create answer sheets, constantly loses whole classes worth of results, is often so slow as to become useless, and is so difficult to navigate that most teachers opt out of using it altogether. We have large binders where we are supposed to keep track of Rti students (Response to Intervention, where teachers identify low performing students and attempt to get them back on track), we are supposed to keep track of differentiated instruction (within the same classroom, we identify the strengths and weaknesses of students, and use different strategies with each identified group to teach them according to their skill levels). We have several students in each class that have 504 plans and special accommodations such as, "sit this student in the front of the class" and "repeat directions to this student one on one after having said them to the class" and "allow this student extended time on tests." We have constant mandates from above about things that we must infuse into our curriculum, such as Constitution Day and Patriot Day, that take us away from what we are supposed to be teaching on a regular basis. We have pacing guides that are full of standards that are listed off as a checklist, which were originally meant to be used as guides, but now we get penalized if our lesson plans don't specifically refer to those standards.

The worst part of it all is that the general public can never understand out plight. All of the above makes perfect sense to them, just like it would seem to make perfect sense to anyone not sitting in a classroom. They see teachers as lazy whiners who don't want to be held accountable for their performance. The opposite is true. Most teachers are hard working individuals who have to put up with a lot from administrators, students, and parents who are all quick to blame them for everything. In this blog I hope to reveal a truer picture of what it's really like behind the closed doors of our school system.