It is essential to have time to collaborate.

In light of the news of how Michelle Rhee’s much touted success in Washington was at least partially due to cheating,1) and the catastrophic disclosures about the Atlanta school’s scandals, educators are back to the drawing board in the debate as to how to evaluate teachers and improve schools.

High stakes tests as teacher evaluations don’t work 2) and yet those who are charged with overseeing education insist on using them. As a result we are seeing schools closed because of failing scores, principals who have devoted their professional careers are having to deal with non-renewal notices because of someone’s artificial measure of success. Public education has been built upon a litany that educators know only too well: “Keep doing what you have always done and do this too. We wish we could provide the materials you need, or support for your struggling students but money is so tight.” Teachers who have labored for years while watching their classrooms increase in numbers and their paychecks shrink with each fall’s arrival are now looking at the want-ads to search for their new career.

It’s not any easier for the students.

Children are spending their precious time learning how to take tests and what to look for on the test and they are deprived of time to think, reason and develop as they should. Art, science, music and social studies are sacrificed to the altar of the all-mighty standardized test with no more thought than we used in choosing our cell phone provider — that of money: which one is cheapest, high stakes tests or real education?

But teachers must be accountable; no longer is it enough that they are willing to do the job few others want to do. Now we must validate their competence through a fabricated measure, some kind of assessment. Unfortunately no one agrees as to what that measure should be.

I think I have a simple solution.

When asked about schools and public education in general, parents often respond that schools need to be improved. But when asked about their schools, the one their children attend, they usually respond that their school is fine, they are happy with their school. 3)

Have parents evaluate their child’s teacher.

Now wait, don’t sign my commitment papers yet. Follow my reasoning on this.

One thing we know is that children need to be educated, we can’t just let them wallow in ignorance hoping they’ll get lucky and fall into some lifelong career like being elected to our legislature. If we are going to educate them we may as well do a good job of it; I think most people would agree to that premise.

But there is no panacea.

Writing in the New York Times, Jal Mehta offers one of the most damning and yet cogent arguments for what is wrong with education at this time. 4) He argues that our model is basically unchanged from the original formulated in response to the needs of the Industrial Revolution and yet our world is greatly altered. The warnings have been around for a long time:

In April 1983, a federal commission warned in a famous report, “A Nation at Risk,” that American education was a “rising tide of mediocrity.” 

Mehta continues by offering a solid solution and it is what so many of us have been advocating for years:

Teaching requires a professional model, like we have in medicine, law, engineering, accounting, architecture and many other fields. In these professions, consistency of quality is created less by holding individual practitioners accountable and more by building a body of knowledge, carefully training people in that knowledge, requiring them to show expertise before they become licensed, and then using their professions’ standards to guide their work.

Some might respond, “Don’t we already do that?” No we don’t, our system does not prepare teachers for what they actually find when they get to school each day. It prepares them for what we think they should find but reality intercedes.

We need more time spent in real teaching, more research into what works, and support, support, support. This issue is simply too important to skimp on it.

We point to Finland and cite the effectiveness of their education systems but they have already adopted this model. Their teachers actually teach fewer hours, have better training and are appropriately compensated for their efforts.We do not necessarily want to be Finland or even Japan but we do want an effective educational system that prepares students to participate in the world not to shun it. When our goal is truly to provide the best educational experience possible; administrators, parents and yes, possibly even legislators will clearly see the results and enacting the evaluation model will be easy.

I see teachers every day. I see how hard they work and what conditions they work in. And I see students struggling to focus on learning.

It is not simply a case of good schools and bad schools. Writing in the Arizona Star, Richard Gilman aptly points this out using Paradise Valley School District in Arizona as an example. 5)  He states: Some of the state’s “best” schools, judged just by test scores, are part of the same school district as some of the “worst.” That means it is not simply a matter of good teachers and bad teachers, good schools and bad schools; it comes down to support. Gilman reports:

(Paradise Valley) pulled in 14 of the 15 A’s given and 12 of the 16 B’s. . . . worse-off schools get . . . the black marks (and) Paradise Valley received seven of the district’s 10 C’s and both of the D’s. Any suggestion that the disparity is the fault of the schools is vigorously disputed by Paradise Valley Superintendent James P. Lee. He declares, “Some of our best teachers are in our ‘D’ schools. They’re laying it on the line for these kids.”

To educate a child is a worthy goal. But we can’t ask children to learn if they are hungry or sick. We can’t ask parents to help with homework if they are working three jobs only to still be living in poverty or they have to use the hospital emergency room as their family’s primary medical provider. We can’t ask teachers to make children successful if they do not have the necessary tools, support or training and we can’t expect anyone to commit to being an educator if that profession is reviled or dismissed outright.

The answers are not simple and they are not likely to be cheap but then they say you get what you pay for.

If we don’t offer what students need to learn they will still find some way to survive, though not necessarily as contributing members of a growing healthy society. If we do not provide avenues for parents to achieve a reasonable wage in a profession they value without working 60 hours a week they will give up or become a drain on our economy instead of an advantage as a contributor to that society. If we do not provide our best teachers the support they need to be effective they will leave and seek professional gratification elsewhere. And if we do not invest in our education system and those who commit their professional careers to mastering it there is no hope for our continued position as a leader in the world.

But if we do decide to turn this around, in an appropriate fashion, by committing to the whole child, and their families, I think the teacher evaluation issue will be solved.

1) http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/04/13/michelle-rhee-cheating-investigation_n_3072568.html

2) http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/post/leading-mathematician-debunks-value-added/2011/05/08/AFb999UG_blog.html

3) http://www.dc.gov/DCPS/Files/downloads/

4) http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/13/opinion/teachers-will-we-ever-learn.html

5. http://azstarnet.com/news/opinion/guest-column-state-leaders-turn-blind-eye-to-socio-economic/article_41a9f9d9-17e1-5cf6-9812-0844a09bd7a0.html

As you probably know by now, if you have been following my OpEds (again, fawningly, I say “Thank you!”), I read a lot. I make it a habit to survey as many articles and blogs in re educational issues each week as possible. In scanning the updates a report by the Huffington Post caught my eye today.

“Charter Schools Fall Short On Students With Disabilities” was the headline. 1) The author Joy Resmovits was reporting on a meeting in Minneapolis that brought together many diverse people who were celebrating the charter school movement’s 20 year anniversary. She cites some interesting data.

A recent study by the Government Accountability Office (GAC) has found that charter schools do not enroll special needs students at the same rate as public schools. 2) This is not news to teachers in the public sector, the report only serves to quantify the discrepancy. Overall the report says, charter schools enroll exceptional education students at 8% while exceptional educational students in public schools represent 11% of their populations.

Exceptional education as defined in our district includes both what has been known as Special Education and Gifted Education. If you google (when exactly did that become a verb? How does one conjugate ‘to google’?) ‘exceptional education’ you will get citations for both. I am of the opinion that Ms. Resmovits’ article refers mostly to those students with developmental delays or disabilities. I digress, there is a much bigger problem here.

The government report does not fully address the issue. In the last school year there were several students attending charter schools who accessed services from my own school. Our psychologist was responsible, upon request, for evaluations of charter school students if they lived in our school’s enrollment area. Other services were also provided by our public school district to charter school students as needed.

I am not against this. Also I see nothing wrong with the fact that charter schools are less likely to take special needs students than public schools even though by law they are supposed to take everyone.

Simply stated, charter schools do not have the base of resources that public schools have. Certain children require specific classrooms, ongoing therapy and consistent evaluation beyond the normal curriculum in order to be successful. Only our public schools have all these resources available, as they must by law. Charter schools are able to access those resources but maintenance of all the necessary specialists, resources and materials adequate to accommodate each student would be a daunting task for any charter school system, no matter how competent they are as an educational institution.

Think of that the next time you want to rail against the waste of resources in public schools. Public schools are maintained so that no matter who walks through the door they can be educated to the best of their abilities. Public schools do not cull out students who are unable to maintain normal progress, they do not refuse to serve the specific needs of any student and they do not call upon some other agency to provide the educational services that any single child might require.

Public schools take everyone, and they educate them. If I was a parent of a child with special needs for their educational growth, I would want my child to be in the best possible learning environment.

I am not an apologist. Is there waste in the public schools system? Of course there is! Way too much of it, I might add. But is there waste in our federal government, our state legislature, Tucson City Parks and Recreation, Mr. Kim’s JerryBob restaurant or my grandson’s breakfast plate this morning? Unfortunately, yes, there is. But that inherent waste does not imply that any of these institutions should cease to be supported. I will give my grandson breakfast again tomorrow no matter how much he leaves behind today.

There is waste all around us and we should be trying to limit waste of valuable resources. But our children are our MOST valuable resource and they should not be short-changed because we are concerned we might waste money. It is money. I will balance the future of my children and grandchildren against the monetary cost incurred by providing the best education possible, any day of the week.

In fact, let’s do that.

1) http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/06/19/charter-schools-disabilities-_n_1610744.html
2) http://www.scribd.com/doc/97619872/Charter-School-SWD-Highlights-June-2012

On September 30th the movie “American Teacher” will be released (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/09/24/american-teacher-takes-a-_n_979116.html). It chronicles the lives and careers of four teachers. As we sit on the edge of reauthorization of ESEA in some form or another and struggle with a continuing spiral of economic downturns it might behoove us to decide what we want the future to look like.

The film’s narrator, Matt Damon, notes that in the next years over half of the current teachers will be eligible for retirement. While that may be a source of optimism for short-sighted legislators in search of additional revenue, the potential loss of experience to the profession is staggering. Think of what would occur if half the doctors in the country were about to retire, or half the dentists or half of any necessary profession.

Meanwhile educational reform in America is floundering. The signature plan of the United States government “Race To The Top” is in trouble, money is drying up, RTT driven evaluations are under fire, every winning state has postponed the implementation of deadlines. The Obama administration has held out a carrot that offers relaxation of NCLB standards to those who buy into reforms. Everywhere there is talk that maybe “teaching to the test” is not such a good idea after all.

Educators recognize that passing a test of minimum requirements is not an indication of educational proficiency. And yet it is one of many tools teachers use to help them evaluate student’s progress. The problem is that measuring learning is not easy. The term AYP is hard to adequately define in terms that all agree on. We can set objectives and plan goals but in the end the student must consistently produce results that indicate not just the ability to answer questions but actually think.

Which leads to another issue closer to home.

Locally an icon of Tucson and Arizona education, Pima Community College is tightening entrance requirements. For some this is hard to watch. I remember back when PCC was the brunt of a jokes that truly proved anyone could go to college. But in doing so, PCC offered an opportunity for many to find a direction for their skills and unique abilities that would not be appreciated at an institution like the University of Arizona. To me it looks like Pima wants to legitimize and emphasize the college aspect of it’s campus over the community one. Yet there was outcry and anger over what is perceived as a broken promise to those who see the university education as beyond their wildest dreams and Pima as their best alternative.

Yet who cannot agree that there needs to be a minimum requirement to be accepted as college eligible? The growth of programs like JTED may help ameliorate the resulting increase in potential students who are now ineligible for the local community college. What corresponding program will be offered to offset the loss of teachers and provide the educators of tomorrow?

The loss of so many educators to retirement may represent another broken promise, that of a free and public education.