President Obama taking on the teachers unions?
Posted by Mike Sylvester - 12/9/09 @ 9:10 pm - Filed Under Featured, State Politics
President Obama implemented a 4.4 billion dollar program that will distribute money to schools nationwide as long as states link student performance to teacher performance.
Indiana can get up to 250 million dollars in Federal stimulus money if Indiana changes its rules so that teacher performance is linked to student achievement on standardized test scores.
This is truly interesting since President Obama’s Race to the Top plan (that spends 4.4 billion dollars) comes from a Democratic President and was approved by a Democratic House and a Democratic Senate.
The teachers unions have long resisted any attempt to use student achievement to evaluate teacher performance. The teachers unions have long supported Democrats…
It will be interesting to see how this plays out.
As an Indiana taxpayer I certainly want Indiana to get 250 million dollars in Federal stimulus money and so I want to see Indiana link teacher performance to student achievement.
Mike Sylvester
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9 Responses to “President Obama taking on the teachers unions?”
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And I would like to see the teachers’ union start opposing federal grants with strings attached.
As a teacher in FWCS for thirty years, I will make two comments. First, when will the students be made accountable? What do you think would happen to 10th grade ISTEP scores if passing the test was required to get a drivers’ license? Any guesses? Second, the teachers’ unions need to be taken on. It is a fact that the agreement bargained by FWEA with FWCS protects poor teachers. Any good teacher knows that but may not say it. That said, there are many problems with evaluating teachers by using students’ test scores.
When you take the feds’ money, you sing the feds’ tune. If they weren’t taking Title I money, the public schools could tell them what to do with NCLB. But since it’s all about more money and jobs, the public schools are going to be lining up at the trough.
The teachers I’ve talked don’t want their evaluations, which are pretty much meaningless now, tied to standardized test scores in any way. But something’s going to have to give in FWCS if they’re going to get their cut of the 4.5 billion Arne Duncan has in his purse. The FEWA contract forbids tying standardized test scores to evaluations. That will have to change, although they will probably find a way to do it without giving it any real teeth.
J Holly,
I certainly feel that children and their parents should be held accountable. I have always felt they should be held accoutable.
I love your idea of tying 10th grade ISTEP scores to getting a drivers license. It is flat out brilliant!
Mike
I’m not too well versed on this, but isn’t it usual for inner city schools to have poorly performing students. Wouldn’t this shift to basing it on student performance make teachers less likely to want to teach at these schools. I’m sure most teachers already want to stay away from teaching at inner city schools. This could make it even more difficult to find good teachers at these schools. The problem continues to be, rewarding well performing schools, thus making them better and punishing poor performing schools, thus making them even worse.
Jim - It’s certainly more diffcult to teach in an inner city school. I believe it takes a special kind of teacher to get results. I also believe those teachers who can get measurably better results in urban schools should be paid more. But the majority of teachers and their unions don’t want to be objectively measured and rated. Pay is based on seniority.
Younger, talented teachers seeing little monetary incentive, will give up quickly while older teachers hang on because they don’t want to give up the salary bestowed by their seniority. Until that changes, I see little chance for improving urban schools.
Wendy has been having various meetings with teachers the last couple of weeks. When asked by a teacher of what can be done to get the parents involved with their childs education, Wendy’s reply was “Nothing”.
Really nothing can be done? I have tutored, due to poor AYP results, in student’s home. Actually, I was in one last night. Interesting, the parents were very involved in the session - sat at the table, and wanted their child to do well, and pay attention.
don’t have the severe discipline problems in EACS, due to parent involvement. If Johnny, get in trouble, it’s let call the student’s mom/dad/guardian.
As for test scores, as I tutor, I have both a pre-and-post test that I have to give my students. If
assessments such as this could be utilized for incentive pay, I’d say go for it. I think such a test is a little bit more accurate than a one shot
ISTEP-test. BTW, my average student raises their by 15 points (60 question test). That is after an estimated 20 hours of instruction - basically one week of school.
Teacher performance may be difficult to evaluate. First, I have had many good teachers and many bad teachers since grade K. I went to Harding HS where we were used as guinea pigs to determine if Independent Study would work. It does not work and if was a horrible failure. Was it the teachers fault, no! It was the school system that shoved it down our throats.
I see many problems with standardized testing. There are many people who just do not do well taking a test. They are brilliant otherwise. How do you measure their achievements? Then you have home schooling. Indiana has one of the highest rates of home schooling in the country and NE Indiana leads the way. These students are not the bottom, but middle to upper students. In addition we have private schools that also have a higher percentage of middle and upper achievers attending. This is not bad, but a fact. This means public schools have on average a higher percentage of lower achieving students. As schools get worse, more of the middle and upper achieves leave creating downward trend.
Do you measure achievement with just one grade or over time? If over time, how do you determine which teacher did their job better than the others? It is not just one teacher, but many. I know some classes get more of the tough students than others. How do you adjust for disruptive students that detract from others learning?
I think the problem comes down to what many will call heresy. Get rid of the calculators in the elementary and middle schools. There is no mathematics they learn that requires a calculator. Get rid of the computers in the elementary and middle schools and stop accepting papers that are typed. We need to stress all senses (touch, sight, hearing, etc). We need students to have to think about what they are going to write first. This will require them to think first, write second. It will require outlines which will develop logical thinking skills. We need to perfect good writing skills. This uses more senses which will develop logical skills as well. Cutting and pasting does not develop these skills.
I do believe that over time, not one year unless the teacher is really bad and it is obvious that performance based merit raises will work.
As for ISTEP it is a joke. The schools start earlier in order to review. This eliminates the ability to measure retention. Moving it to the spring now measures memorization, not retention. The test is a waste of time. Better use would be teaching the basics.
How many different classes are needed in a high school? Are we trying to teach them a career or teach them how to teach themselves? Some HS have 4-5 different economic classes. Econ is Econ. Why specialize at the high school level. The same goes for advanced math classes. Subdividing the class is nothing more than dumbing down of the education process.
For those who think class size may be important then seriously consider reducing the number of different classes offered. Indiana’s Education web site lists all the classes offered by school. The higher the number of classes, the smaller the class size for those specialized classes and the higher the class size for core classes that everyone takes. In simple terms we over stretch core classes and provide more teacher time for specialized classes that few take. ISTEP measures core classes!!
If you want better test scores, students who understand the core material and can teach themselves after high school, then get back to basics and make them work to have to understand concepts as well as they know how to breath. Practice makes perfect.