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July 20, 2009
More than 500 extra teachers rated “unsatisfactory” this year
City principals rated more teachers unsatisfactory this year than they have since at least 2005, suggesting that the Bloomberg administration’s efforts to escort more struggling teachers out of the system may be bearing some fruit.
Principals gave the scarlet-letter rating to 1,554 teachers this year, up from 981 in the 2005-2006 school year, data provided by the city Department of Education show. Both the number and percentage of teachers rated unsatisfactory rose during that period, and the rise occurred for both tenured and non-tenured teachers, city figures show.
Even with the rise, the percentage of teachers rated unsatisfactory remains low. About 2% of teachers, both tenured and without tenure, received what teachers call “U” ratings this year.
Ann Forte, a schools spokeswoman, sent us the figures this afternoon.
The rise follows a concerted effort by school officials to make it easier for principals to terminate poorly performing teachers, including a new group of lawyers assigned to targeting struggling teachers, called the Teacher Performance Unit. Rating a teacher unsatisfactory is often the first step toward removing him from the school system.
A recent bout of research argues that poor teaching is partly to blame for poorly performing schools, and a report by The New Teacher Project singled out poor teacher evaluation systems as part of the problem. The report specifically criticized evaluation systems that offer principals binary choices, either satisfactory or unsatisfactory, rather than encouraging more nuanced feedback. U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan endorsed the report, and his staff has urged school districts to improve their teacher evaluation systems.
New York City teachers receive either an “S” or “U” rating from their principals once a year.
Randi Weingarten, the president of the city teachers union and of the national American Federation of Teachers, has criticized the city’s efforts to target struggling teachers, decrying the Teacher Performance Unit as a “gotcha squad.”
Below is a chart showing the raw numbers of teachers receiving “U” ratings, and we’ve uploaded data from last year here.
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July 20th, 2009 7:09 pm
1) A little disappointed to see the term “bearing some fruit” applied to such a negative event as workers being rated unsatisfactory.
2) I’m jealous…I wish the public had a Politician’s Performance Unit to deal with pols who’ve overstayed their welcome due to end-arounds around the peoples’ term limits wishes.
3) Simply amazing how hard teachers take the hit in this education “reform” mania.
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July 20th, 2009 7:43 pm
I posted this on another thread but i think it holds merit to this case…
Here’s the problem with this yern for accountability. That term means only one thing.. whose to blame.. Is that whats important here? Thats what we’re debating? Who wants to take blame? WHo can we point the finger to? Its nice if someone is willing to fall on the sword but honestly since when has taking ownership of a disaster solved the problem.. It doesn’t its the honorable thing to do.. But that doesn’t mean the disaster itself gets fixed.. Truth is its a lot deeper then a mayor, a union, an admin or a socio economic group.. We should be working to solve the problems together instead of debating whose head should be on the chopping block. If we all have th best interests of the students at heart then we should realize that we are all equal shareholders in the success of the school system. The mayor as the executive should be there finding ways to fund this, the admins should be working with the teachers to collaborate ways in which to overcome the hardships they are seeing on the front lines in the classroom and the neighborhoods should be asking what they can do to help the schools. Its not about making ones self look better through countless data reports and stats on regents scores. -
July 20th, 2009 7:52 pm
You write that “the Bloomberg administration’s efforts to escort more struggling teachers out of the system may be bearing some fruit.” where’s the evidence that the teachers who were targeted were really ineffective?
I’ve heard alot of stories about good teachers who got “U” ratings for the wrong reason.
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July 20th, 2009 7:53 pm
And from the “Things That Make You Go HMMM” Dept..
The chancellor and mayor are bragging that test scores are gong up while a greater number of teachers are found to be unsatisfactory? Think about that for a moment..That seems to put a giant hole in the the New Teacher Project’s findings.. -
July 20th, 2009 8:10 pm
Our school had 2 worthless assistant principals for eight years, at close to 2 million. The scam of the decade, all they worried about were bulletin boards. No curriculum initiatives, projects, ideas…nothing, andthey were supported by principal. Figures don’t lie, liars figure.
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July 20th, 2009 8:34 pm
All the pieces of fruit that the mayor is bearing are going to end up in rubber rooms awaiting 3020A hearings. In other words, they won’t be teaching, but they will be collecting their salaries for a couple of years. Only about 10% are actually terminated. The other 90% will return to the classroom, humiliated, with their spirits broken. Does that make them better teachers?
The cost of all this to the city is enormous. Why not use that money to help truly struggling teachers improve?
In my long experience, the truly awful teachers–are there are a few–are rarely the ones who are targeted by admins. At least 7 people in my school were U rated, and only one of them may–MAY–have warranted such a rating. The others committed the unpardonable sins of having union ties, being over 45, or thinking independently.
And don’t get me started on how many incompetent APs and principals are out there. And, of course, Joel Klein.
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July 20th, 2009 10:12 pm
Everyone and I mean everyone knows that not all teachers are created equal. You have some outstanding ones and ones that just don’t belong in the profession.
Please… let’s agree on that fact. Without recognizing that – you support mediocrity and at the point there is no debating.
I just tried to find the total number of teachers in the system, since I couldn’t I recall it being about 10,000. So you have have about 5-8% getting unsatisfactory ratings… I say that is about what you would expect any large company to have.
Also with that in mind, 90 -95% of teachers have full careers without ever receiving an unsatisfactory rating or even an unsat observation. You see, these are what you call professionals. They do their job, they hone their craft and they commit to the children of this great city.
Here is the deal, and let’s be honest under the anonymity of the internet.
You see a lazy, incompetent person sitting at their desk while children sleep, going wild, or are simply are bored and aren’t learning. What would you as parent do if your child was sitting in that classroom and you looked into the window and saw that?
Administrators are required… REQUIRED, to support, document and hopefully inspire teachers to do what our children need, teach effectively. So you try, and nothing, you try nicely - no effect. You try the ol’ letter in the file trick… nothing. Folks… that person has got to go! It is inherent upon us to advocate on the behalf of parents and their children.
And that is exactly where accountability comes in.
Kids aren’t learning - no one should do anything? If so, what do you do? Kindly ask for someone to do their job? They don’t have the skills or resources - so you try to give them to this person. Still is doing a poor job… sit back and let kids suffer?
Some one has to be held accountable! Someone, everyone who allowed children to get cheated of an education has to be held accountable. Especially, if you receive a paycheck every two weeks that has the word “Education” on it.Who is to blame if no one does anything?
Should the teacher be blamed if students aren’t learning? Should the principals or a.p.s be blamed for doing nothing? Should the parent be blamed?Hell… I would like to blame the chancellor and the mayor to blame (excuse me – accountable.)
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July 20th, 2009 10:28 pm
I know no other profession where firing people is so vehemently reported and celebrated. Certainly there are those who aren’t getting it done as well as others. Currently, the DOE is a poorly run system that sugarcoats all its faults with lies, smoke, mirrors, and data. Very little of what it states or does, I trust. As Mr. A said, what are the circumstances surrounding all the U’s? We have to accept it because the DOE “says so”? Absolutely not. End Mayoral Control.
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July 20th, 2009 10:54 pm
edu-scientist back from vacation I see. Well instead of sparring on the same issue read my first post to this thread.. I feel like its a fair proposal.. i could not agree more that bad teachers need to go.. As a teacher I can tell you that among the staff bad teachers are widely unpopular with their colleagues. However, the people doing the observing leave a lot to be desired in a lot of cases. The system of evaluatin is flawed but it is wrong to publicize the loss of someones job.. These are people with bills and mouths to feed too.. Funny this country went through a financial crisis where a whole sector of the economy robbed the american public blind and there is far less outcry for their heads then for the heads of people who go into some of the roughest neighborhoods and schools to try to help kids learn.
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July 20th, 2009 11:03 pm
ok… I think we are getting somewhere. I think the frequent posters on Gotham Schools can turn the NYC Educational System Around.
I say Elizabeth Green for Chancellor and all of us move into Tweed.
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July 21st, 2009 12:17 am
Do you think that maybe principals are now being judged on showing they found people to U rate and the less scrupulous ones target someone – not their favorite lap dogs, of course?
When even one good teacher is railroaded for political or economic reasons, the entire process of trying to remove a teacher that should be removed is tainted. We have so many cases that nothing can be believed. Check out the carnage of Bronx High School of Science where there is not failure on the part of the kids and the admin is engage in a reign of terror, focusing on the math department. When elected UFT reps with impeccable teaching credentials are targetted, the entire system of judging teachers is called into question. An independent, impartial system must be put in place that is separated from political and economic influences.
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July 21st, 2009 12:37 am
I’ve known weaker teachers to be excessed, but the ones who receive U’s generally are the ones who anger the principal. edu_scientist, let’s not forget that about half of our teachers leave the system within 5 years. So it’s really maybe 45% who have full careers without receiving a U.
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July 21st, 2009 7:39 am
I believe edu-scientist is being sarcastic, but the fact is… many of the commenters on this site ARE professional educators — which most of Klein and co are NOT — and Tweed has been sorely lacking in parent input.
Besides, what’s the scientific thing to do with quacks who cook the lab results?
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July 21st, 2009 8:31 am
I also think you’ll find more probationary teachers being denied tenure or having their probationary period extended. In the Bloomberg/Klein DOE you spell accountability: T-E-A-C-H-E-R. In fact, teachers are the only ones being held accountable, not the mayor and not the Chancellor.
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July 21st, 2009 9:02 am
I’m sure many of us have stories we could tell of unfair treatment of teachers. This year I know of a tenured teacher - older of course and at the top of the pay scale - who was summoned to a disciplinary hearing because of her absences. The principal asked for a $30,000 fine from the teacher because of excessive absences. The teacher had had a major health issue and was indeed absent a lot. She had banked enough days to take them as she needed them. She had doctors notes for every absence which she had submitted to the principal. She was told by a NYSUT lawyer that she should use the Family Leave Act to avoid this kind of harassment that is commonplace at DOE. The principal wasted a lot of time and tax-payer money trying to fire an employee who had a legitimate health concern. It is open season on teachers in every way and it’s greatly encouraged and allowed by Bloomberg, Klein and Weingarten.
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July 21st, 2009 9:51 am
edu-scientist,
There are approximately 80,000 teachers in the NYC school system.
http://schools.nyc.gov/AboutUs/default.htm
I’m curious as to how this alters your assessment.
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July 21st, 2009 10:53 am
Only 1,500 teachers out of 80,000 are unsatisfactory in New York City? Please!
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July 21st, 2009 11:14 am
In the mid 90’s 17% of teachers were uncertified and there were fewer applicants than jobs … I remember speaking w/ a principal in a very hard to staff school and asked for his definition of a satisfactory teacher … he responded, “Comes to school every day and blood doesn’t seep from under the door.”
A decade later we have many, many applicants for every job, and many of these applicants come from highly screened programs.
What does the increase in U ratings mean? Since the DOE is hiring more qualified teachers why are the U rating rates increasing?
All teachers are hired by the principal at the school site … are principals making poor hiring decisions? Why are senior teachers, after years of service and S ratings receiving U ratings? Have the standards increased? Are their skills eroding? Are principals, as some claim, using U ratings to “punish” teachers with whom the principal disagrees?
Do the increases in U ratings mean principals are doing a better job in evaluating performance or a poorer job in staff development and support?
I suspect that principals are poorly prepared to improve instruction … most simply conduct observations in a mechanical process … how many can actually demonstrate excellence in a classroom?
The increased U ratings may be a negative rather than a positive sign.
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July 21st, 2009 11:25 am
“suggesting that the Bloomberg administration’s efforts to escort more struggling teachers out of the system may be bearing some fruit.”
Suggesting to whom? How?
More U’s suggest that more U’s were given out. Nothing more. Nothing less. For the reasons, and the meaning, the reader needs to dig beyond the Chancellor’s press office.
Let’s talk about Joan Alexander.
Joan taught mathematics for 32 years, all at the Bronx High School of Science. She was rated satisfactory for the first 31.
This year, two days before retirement, she was given a U, for absences due to religious observance, and due to (documented) medical needs.
This is fruit?
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July 21st, 2009 11:26 am
Can someone give us the figures as to how many doctors, lawyers, policemen, politicians would be U-rated? And principals. And Chancellors. Puleeeeze!
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July 21st, 2009 11:57 am
I personally witnessed a new principal playing favorites. Teachers who were from the same minority group as the new principal were given a free pass, and one first year teacher from that group got an “S” without one single observation! (She was young and pretty and the principal was weak in this regard.) White teachers were kept at arm’s length and harassed. The Asian teachers - omg - this principal had something against Asians because he was ripping on them all the time. One Indian teacher had 26 formal observations (all surprise) by this guy who wanted to harass him out of there. This new principal was an obvious affirmative action promotion. (He boasted how he was in a gang as a kid.) He had been a special ed teacher for 3 years in resource rooms, and lo and behold, is a minted graduate of the principal’s academy. I mean, this guy would OFTEN trip on words that were more than two syllables long, and he knew very little about teaching and best practices. (He replaced another principal, who was a social justice type, who was fired because of incompetence.) All this talk of “more “U” ratings, Hooray!” just makes me think of how many principals are incompetent at leadership, full of corruption and human failings, yet who have their jobs because of twisted notions of ‘diversity is more important than ability.’ I wonder when we will lower the bar for doctor licenses, airline pilots, firefighters - oh wait, it’s already being done.
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July 21st, 2009 11:59 am
No one wants incompetent teachers out of the NYC public schools more than competent teachers do. They bring down the tone of the whole school and make teaching tougher for the rest of us.
Edu-scientist (whatever the hell that means)–do you really have any idea what goes on inside a classroom? Do you really think it’s possible for a teacher to just sit there, feet upon the desk, reading a newspaper, while the students dutifully work? Any such teacher, if they existed, would have a riot on their hands within a matter of hours. I’ve seen a few subs try this, but they didn’t last more than a day and were never asked back. I have never–NEVER–seen an experienced teacher do what you’re claiming.
So instead of engaging in histrionics, let’s look at the reality. Most teachers are pretty damn good. Some are mediocre. A few are hopeless. The hopeless ones should have been fired before they achieved tenure. The mediocre ones should be helped. And the pretty damn good ones should be given the latitude to do their jobs properly without the interference of a bunch of non-teacher bureaucrats who think they understand education because it seemed pretty easy to them back when they were in prep school.
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July 21st, 2009 2:21 pm
Dissenter why is that number so hard for you to believe? Would you be happy if 50% were U rated? Why do you have a blood lust for teachers.. What do you do for a living? How many people in your line of work are unsaisfactory. From my own perosnal experience in both the private and public sector there are about 5-6 people in any given building that really need to go.. You’re going to complain about a mediocre teacher? Thats life pal in everything.. No organization is an all star team top to bottom..
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July 21st, 2009 2:28 pm
“No organization is an all star team top to bottom..”
General Motors?
Bear Sterns?
The NY State legislature?
The Bush White House? -
July 21st, 2009 4:23 pm
“Most teachers are pretty damn good. Some are mediocre. A few are hopeless. The hopeless ones should have been fired before they achieved tenure. The mediocre ones should be helped. And the pretty damn good ones should be given the latitude to do their jobs properly without the interference of a bunch of non-teacher bureaucrats who think they understand education…”
I am not sure what you would consider “damn good” but by NYCDOE/BOE standards most teachers are satisfactory or high satisfactory. I said that in my initial post. Actually, I agree with everything you said you in your post. I have been in the DOE/BOE for 18 years. And I have ever seen a good teacher put their feet up & read the newspaper - NEVER. Any good educator has too much respect for children and their profession to do such a thing. We all know that.
I am not even talking about the mediocre teacher who tries their hardest but just doesn’t have the intangibles that makes someone from good to great. As long as they try and are willing to grow, they will be fine & and satisfactory.
I am talking about the whack jobs! The ones who are late to their classes repeatedly. The ones that are disheveled. The ones who don’t know how to talk to children, use profanity. The ones who put more effort into UFT meetings than they do their lessons. The ones who make no effort to grow professionally. The ones who sneak out when they think no one is watching. The ones who could care less about supporting their colleagues.
Certainly… you have seen that person in your career. Their is usually 1 - 5 in each building.
1 X 1500 schools would give you 1500 Unsatisfactory ratings. Finally people are doing their job.
However, it is a sad story about the U in someone’s 32nd year. It is sad to hear the U rating given out as punishment. I am sorry to say… I have seen that as well.
None of this would change under any administration. I think if we had message boards going back 50 years we would see the same type of posts.
I have come to the conclusion that this is simply the way it is always going to be. Unfortunately/fortunately it differs from school to school. Some schools get it… well run schools are partnerships between every member of the school community. Administrators don’t play “gotcha” and teachers understand that being a professional means growing. So when you introduce something like ARIS at a PD, they see the value and not sit back and gripe.
The education scientist stands up and starts singing at this point…
We are the world
We are the children
We are the ones who make a brighter day
So let’s start giving
There’s a choice we’re making
We’re saving our own lives
It’s true we’ll make a better day
Just you and meSend them your heart
So they’ll know that someone cares
And their lives will be stronger and free
As God has shown us by turning stone to bread
So we all must lend a helping hand -
July 21st, 2009 4:50 pm
Just because 1,500 sounds like a good number to some does not mean it’s the appropriate 1,500.
In addition to above commenters’ individual anecdotes, note that the main post cites the questionable quality of teacher evaluation SYSTEMS, of which I would suggest “binary” ones be included if not already.
I would also note the potential adverse effects on recruiting ANY teachers into a system perceived as capricious or arbitrary, let alone spiteful.
I am also struck by the shape of the graph: For three years, the “gap” stayed constant; in the fourth, big divergence.
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July 21st, 2009 5:09 pm
The reality is that Principals have a performance-based contract and they are holding staff accountable for their performance. More and more Principals and Assistant Principals are being rated U or forced to resign too.
Sara, Principals love their Progress Report and Quality Review scores more than young pretty teachers. -
July 21st, 2009 6:07 pm
Edu–seems we agree on a lot of points. I especially agree with the “gotchas”. Teachers who come to school prepared, willing to teach, and able to handle discipline should have nothing to fear. Unfortunately, they do.
I consider myself a good teacher by just about any criteria you’d care to mention. I know a lot of other teachers at my previous school who were equally good, if not better. Some of us were targeted because we we involved in union activity, and others because we had committed the unpardonable crime of climbing the salary scale. All of those teachers are now gone from that school. The ones who could retire, did. Lucky ones like me found jobs at better schools. Some lost their jobs. In the end, there were no really good teachers at that school–just a bunch of young people putting in their two years before they went off to Long Island or Yonkers. An environment of fear permeated the walls of that school. I hope never to teach in such a place again. But I know there are many such places around NYC, where principals rule by intimidation and U ratings are used to squash union activity and save money.
I do believe that most experienced teachers are quite good, by which I mean I’d have no objection to having my child taught by them. I would hate for my child to be taught by a TFA or a Fellow, because experience matters and I wouldn’t want services from any professional who wanted to put just two years in and bolt.
I’d support a system in which teachers evaluate each other, although I don’t think they should evaluate teachers in their own schools (too many opportunities for bias). If that happened, you might find an even higher rate of U’s given out, but they would be given out for the right reasons.
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July 21st, 2009 6:31 pm
Alim,
Principals may be forced to love their Progress Reports, but may have more reason to fear them — they are high stakes random letter generators.
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July 21st, 2009 6:31 pm
The reality is that Principals have a performance-based contract and they are holding staff accountable for their performance. More and more Principals and Assistant Principals are being rated U or forced to resign too.
First of all, I don’t think any teacher would object to being held accountable for their performance. How you measure performance is an ongoing dilemma. A/Ps have tenure while Principals don’t. In my experience, a principal is hard to get rid of even when the parents of the children in that school find the principal unacceptable. I have seen remarkably incompetent administrators hold on to their jobs year after year. I agree with Laromana, the only people really being held accountable are teachers - not administrators. The current zeitgeist is anit-teacher pro-management.
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July 21st, 2009 8:42 pm
I agree with Norm regarding “No organization is an all star team top to bottom..”
General Motors?
Bear Sterns?
The NY State legislature?
The Bush White House?I would also like to add Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, Lehman Bros., AIG, etc.
Every organization has to deal with people who lack competence. However, the education system is different where we are a “people entity” and not a “product entity”. Teachers have the opportunity to excel in this professional if provided with the best support from experienced administrators who were supposedly master teachers at one time. When I came into the system over 20 years ago, I was fortunate to have a retired, 36-year veteran as my mentor. She stayed with me for an entire year. Once a week she came in armed with teaching strategies material and with an open-arm to listen to my fears and that each week’s struggle. She also modeled lessons which today’s administrators will not do because of their lack of experience or no experience in the classroom. I feel that the union should provide a breakdown of reason behind the U’s. How many U’s were given to 1st, 2nd and 3rd year teachers? How many are from the TFA or NYCTF programs? How many received extensive support from administration? How many were mentored through the New Teacher Mentoring Program? How many full-period formal observations were done on these the U-rating teachers? How many of these teachers feel they were u-rated because their passing rates were too low? Or refused to be involved in these “credit-recovery” programs? How many of the tenured teachers received a u-rating because their educational philosophy clashed with the principal’s vision? How many chapter leaders received u-ratings?
I feel that a comprehensive report must be done to assess the reason for the increase of u-ratings. By the BoE flaunting this increase as “a concerted effort by school officials to make it easier for principals to terminate poorly performing teachers”, stated by Ann Forte, they are creating an environment of scare-tactics. Every probationary teacher will teach in fear, work in fear, collaborate in fear, and submit grades in fear! Teaching has always been a noble profession of people caring for the future of other people. I never thought that I would see the day where an incompetent, inexperienced administrator is given so much power to destroy the livelihood and career of an individual who is being deemed incompetent by an administrator who had probably watched a 5-hour video on how to be an effective leader! How do you destroy a large organization? Place fear in everyone’s heart, start with administrators losing their jobs where the fear will trickle down to the most vulnerable, untenured teachers! -
July 21st, 2009 9:03 pm
[...] 22, 2009 · Leave a Comment As reported in Gotham Schools the number/percent of unsatisfactory ratings handed out to teachers has increased, a little. [...]
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July 21st, 2009 9:27 pm
I know a first year teacher who was given a “U” this year. She worked hard and was not given any notice about her “U” until the middle of May. Up to this point she thought she was doing well. She taught in a bad neighborhood. Her students loved her. Her student’s ELA grades went up. However, the principal told her in June, to her surprise, that there was bad blood between them and therefore he gave a “U” and discontinued her from the Dept of Ed system. She usually had little to do with him, so she did not understand why he said that there was bad blood between them. She is fully certified and was due a bonus from the Dept of Ed. It seems to me being from a corporate background that perhaps her principal did not want to have to pay out that bonus. Whatever the case, I have never seem anything so deplorable in the Corporate world. There is a total lack of integrity in what this principal did to this young teacher. He totally broke the UFT contract and her spirit. The power of the principals needs to be limited because they have more power than many Senior Vice President’s that I have known and less integrity.
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September 22nd, 2009 4:20 am
I was a probationary teacher whose tenure was extended an extra year only to find myself receiving a U-rating at the end of the following year. When receiving this news I didn’t even know how great the damage would be. I had been teaching for 3 years always receiving an S on my observations but around April of my 4th year when I was expecting to finally receive my tenure i had an issue withba parent complaining that i didn’t call him enough to notify him on how his son was doing. This must have angered the principal who then began to harass me with letters and a final observation where she gave me a U, my only one along with my U rating and discontinued me. I have filed for an appeal to this decision only to find out that this system is unjust. I have been labeled as an Unsatisfactory teacher in DOE and since June i have been unable to find another job teaching, being informed that all principals see my U rating. I have been waiting four months now to plead my case and try to save a career i love. How can a system be fair when they are so quick to label a teacher incompetent no questions asked and make them feel and appear guilty until months later they get a chance to prove themselves innocent? I was harassed the whole month of June after knowing I’d be terminated in may and now I find myself unemployed with my hands tied unable to make a living in a career i’ve worked so hard to earn. My spirit has been broken by all this injustice and find myself desperate for someone to help.
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September 22nd, 2009 10:19 am
Broken Spirit,
The SYSTEM is BS.
You hint at the tenure timing. Perhaps there more cause-and-effect than coinkidink?GS,
Thank you for featuring the above teacher’s plight in “Chalk It Up.” -
September 22nd, 2009 4:51 pm
As a teacher, I’d be the last one to minimize our (potential) importance in the lives of students, but as others have pointed out, “Why the obsessive focus on incompetent teachers, to the complete exclusion of other professions and fields?”
The US has a shamefully high infant and maternal death rate: why aren’t OB-GYNs being targeted with the same passion?
The US has lower life expectancy than other developed nations: where are the witchhunts against primary care doctors and other health care professionals (let alone the real “death panels,” the insurers)?
The US incarcerates more people than any other nation on earth, most of them minority, and many of them warehoused in private, for-profit prisons, providing a structural incentive for continuing incarceration: where are the corporate think tanks, foundations and PR firms making noise about this “Civil Rights Issue of Our Time?”
The reason those debates have so little “juice” is because these fields have already been privatized, with free reign given to those who would count, measure, control and commodify and market everything. Public education, along with Social Security, is the last major universal, public good left to be taken over by the hedge funds, private equity parasites and venture capitalists. Thus, this unending campaign against teachers and their unions, and this absurd debate about teacher quality.
I’m not proposing witchhunts. My point is that this very discussion proves the success of corporate ed deform in framing the issue of education solely as one of teacher quality. Even the unions have allowed themselves to be suckered into this twisted, unfair discourse, which they can only lose.
Do you want to improve the lives of poor and minority students? Then improve the lives of poor and minority students: provide their parents with living-wage jobs, adequate housing, medical, dental and mental health care and, yes, adequately funded schools with committed (sorry, TFA) and qualified teachers. Until we open up that debate, teachers will be shouted into a corner by arrogant know-nothings with thick wallets, pursuing their own interests in the name of “The Underprivileged.”
As for edu-scientist (now that’s a hot one), I’d like to quote Norbert Wiener, a mathematician and early computer scientist, and coiner of the term “cyber:”
“The success of mathematical physics led the social scientist to be jealous of its power without quite understanding the intellectual attitudes that had contributed to this power. The use of mathematical formulae had accompanied the development of the natural sciences and became the mode in the social sciences… so the economists (MF: and “psychometricians” as well the overwhelming majority of ideologically-subsidized “education researchers”) have developed the habit of dressing up their rather imprecise ideas in the language of the infinitesimal calculus.”
Norbert Wiener, “God and Golem, Inc.”
I know this dates me, but every time I hear a DOE/Ed Deform mouthpiece say “Research shows that…”, while pulling some self-serving nonsense out of their butt, I think of the old Trident gum ad:”Four out of five dentists surveyed recommend Trident to their patients who chew gum.”
Yeah, that’s the ticket.
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September 23rd, 2009 2:28 pm
A friendly amendment to M. Fiorillo’s comments:
Do you want to improve SCHOOL PERFORMANCE of poor and minority students? Then improve their lives: Provide their parents with living-wage jobs, adequate housing, medical, dental and mental health care and, yes, adequately funded schools with committed (sorry, TFA) and qualified teachers.
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January 19th, 2010 5:14 pm
Broken Spirit, your not the only one in that situation. It shows total corruption.
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Mapping the Budget Cuts
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