Here's an interesting new approach to improving public education in the U.S.:
Billionaires Start $60 Million Schools Effort
Because what we really need is a good publicity campaign.
No, really. I think their three central talking points are good:
a) Schools need a strong, consistent curriculum.
b) Schools need a longer school day and year.
c) Teachers should be paid better and paid based on how well they perform.
After working in a curriculum office for almost two years, I can tell you that some efforts toward a) are severely needed. It is almost impossible to tell, by looking at a student's high school transcript, what it actually means in terms of what they've studied. Some types of courses (Advanced Placement, International Baccalaureate) are generally considered "better" than others. This is because they have rigorous standards and a consistent curriculum no matter where they're being taught.
Random High School might offer a course that is just as good as an AP course, but because we have no idea what material they're actually covering, we can't count on it. I think the mantra of "local control" has been repeated to cover up curricular mediocrity for a long darn time. No one wants to admit that maybe we need to centralize course content to the point where state and federal standards are being met. I don't want to return to the world of Nebraska public high schools during the mid-1990's era of inclusion, where exactly 22 books were "approved" for teaching in English courses. However, I think we could build consensus that students should read at least those 22 books by the time they graduate from high school.
b) is just plain brilliant. Our schools are based on a scheduling model that assumes at least one stay-at-home parent, and an agricultural work cycle that demands students be free to work in the fields in the summer. It would be nice to have an educational model that fit today's world instead of the late 1800's when the public school system took root nationwide. Hey, my friends grew up detasselling, and even I can see this system is out of date. I'm all for year-round schooling and longer school days. As long as there are still significant breaks between terms, say, the months of December and June, so that families can take time together. (How many parents can take longer-than-three-week family vacations anymore, anyway?) Lots of good year-round models out there might be worth trying in order to improve student retention. And lots of kids end up in some kind of after-school care program until they're in their mid-teens anyway, due to the two-parent working family. Not to say everyone should be working, but the reality is that in the majority of two-parent families with children under 18, both parents work outside the home. Let's get a school system that fits today's world instead of leaving parents to put together a patchwork of care. And perhaps finally we could stop cutting the arts and the more rigorous sciences from middle and high-school curricula because "there's just not enough time to teach them well." They're important. Make the time.
c) seems like a no-brainer but proves problematic with a few moments' thought. How do you evaluate if a teacher is meritorious? You can't base it solely on her students; just imagine how poorly that would work in so-called "special education," for example. You can't base it on standardized tests, either. Right now, I know teachers who are improving their students' reading abilities by one or two grade levels over the course of a school year. Their students still end up performing "below grade level" because they began practically illiterate. The tests don't show individual student progress reliably; they only provide aggregate data for a cohort.
Plus, as many of my fellow CU employees could tell you, pay "based on merit" often disappears for political reasons. They've had a "pay for performance" system in place here in CO for a few years, and classified staff are supposed to get annual raises based on their performance. Problem is that the state doesn't fund their merit raises, so they don't get a "bonus" no matter how well they perform. The "merit" money is always taken to use elsewhere since "no one knows how many people will perform well enough to deserve any."
I don't think pay based on merit for teachers would work in practice for that reason. Let's try raising the base pay instead so that the state governments can't spend the money on anything else. Say, $40K starting and $55K with an advanced degree or five years' experience. This would make it competitive with far more jobs that you can get with a fresh bachelor's degree.
Do you have ideas on how to measure teachers' merit that are more workable that what is being done now?
4 comments:
The real problem in education are
1> retention of good teachers
2> support at home
3> not every child is the same
You can actively do things about one of these, and like most public things people don't want to pay for it but want the best. So in reality you can't do anything about all three.
OK quit now...time to rant...
A consistent curriculum will lead to the same frustration our current every child is the same approach leads to. Face it, were me and my sister, who are both dyslexic, pushed by teachers down the same path as Cyndi or Heather, I wouldn't be typing this now because I would be working at WalMart now. No the teachers I learned most from where natural teachers who just could deal with 32 different children in 32 different ways all at once (OK so maybe some of us were the same). I never read red badge of courage or moby dick...but I was doing calculus by the time I left high school at the local university. Others were learning good things in shop and auto mechanics. And face it, my calculus skills wouldn't do me any good if my car didn't work.
I used to think the German arbitur system was the way to go. I am not as sure now as it is designed on the lower part to put people into crafts in the old school way, as an understudy. Want to be a house painter, you understudy a house painter until a position opens up. That said, a system where kids can get the education that will do them good in their life IS a good thing, and the current system wants homogeny which drags down those on the top and leaves those at the bottom behind.
So how do we change the culture (thats the problem). How do we make education important to people who didn't see it as important when they did it. And how do we get people to value education enough to pay for it and hence give enough money to keep the bright and natural teachers in their positions rather than spending a few years there and moving on. And lastly, how do we get the lawyers from all the proto helocopter moms out of the principals office complaining that teacher X is doing something wrong (and sometimes illegal) just because their child is not cut out to go to Harvard.
And lastly we need to make people understand, at ALL levels, that there are 5 grades and that a C is OK. This isn't grad school. Hell I got a 60 in Latin, passing by the skin of my teeth. And I got it because our teacher saw that most of the class was doing better than any other class she had seen, and accelerated the class. Did I get left behind, no. Did that 60 kill my future, no. Did I learn more than I would have otherwise? Naturally. Its only a grade. Move on.
Just a few thoughts...(and oh, what a bonfire I'll start!)
1. How long should a school day for a child be? Should it be based on age, due to the natural attention abilities of the child at each stage? Why should a 5 year old be at school for 8 hours a day simply because Mom and Dad have to work an 8 hour ADULT day? Does it really matter where they are warehoused? What would be nice to see is more flexible hours and day shifts for parents, so that maybe they would have the time and energy left enough to support the school system and teach their own child the basics of manners, the concept of exploring the world around them, and GASP! actually sit and read to their son or daughter. Why should teachers be expected to do everything to help 32 different kids at once? No matter how caring and well-trained, one person can only so much.
2. While I believe that my son's teacher is wonderful, and deserves extra combat pay for dealing with all of the first grade boys she does, I also can look at the teaching pay issue from a business standpoint. Teachers work only part of the year,and many of them have told me they are in the profession for that reason. Whether they want to be with their kids during breaks, or are pursuing other 2nd careers(like writing), it remains that they cannot compete for equal starting pay with a 40 hour, 2 week off year like many other professions. Teaching a longer school day, or having year-round school with a two-week time off period each year may not work for either teachers or parents.
3. Number 2 said, I do believe that teachers need higher, non-merit-based pay. Either that, or more parents need to help out during school hours. Some of the more forward-thinking companies in the U.S. are allowing their employees to take the time to volunteer at their local schools and get paid for it. I would love to see this take place on a larger basis. It would allow more parents to see the working conditions of the teachers, connect with their child (and others), and help develop more of a working relationship between teachers and parents. It may even help some of the "helicopter moms" become more normal and relaxed when they see their child can really be a hellion on the playground, and will survive even if they aren't there to address every educational issue themselves. (Wow, they can raise their own hand when they have a problem!)
Jen B.
I've heard that schools have increased homework and decreased recess. If the school day gets longer, they'd better reverse that direction.
I don't have much sympathy for the so-called difficulty in rating a teacher's performance. First, from an instinctive perspective, "everyone always knows" who the good teachers are at a school, so it's not exactly a secret. If the parents can tell, there's no reason why the school bureaucracy can't as well. And, since my aunt has been a special ed teacher for 30 years, I gather from her comments that there's no problem in applying a standard to that category either. Finally, if bosses could apply ratings to us at my former job as a policy analyst at a think tank, in which job performance was based on the level of "impact" one had had each quarter (on the policy process, on getting Congressmen to see things your way and act on it), an extremely murky assessment at best, principals, superintendents etc. can divine which teacher has had the most "impact" on her students.
Post a Comment