Classroots.org

Newsweek cover on "Cheap Oil Forever" by nitot

Teachers, I love you. I don’t think we’re doing everything we can for kids yet. I think sometimes the system is to blame. I think sometimes we’re to blame. I think that sometimes we face challenges of our own design, and that sometimes we face challenges over which we have no control. I never think kids are to blame, though I think we can all share responsibility for learning. Teachers, I love you. Hear that. I love working with you and writing with you. I love sharing ideas with you here and at http://coopcatalyst.wordpress.com. I love you for all the help you’ve given me and challenges you’ve posed for me.

Administrators, I love you, too, for the same reasons.

Newsweek, not so much.

Here goes:

MEMO

To: Evan Thomas and Pat Wingert, c/o Newsweek
From: Chad Sansing
Re: “Why We Must Fire Bad Teachers: In no other profession are workers so insulated.”

Great article. Hey, have you seen my research lying around? I think I left it in the same place as my integrity. I know I sometimes launder my cell phone (sorry, students!). Could you check Arne Duncan’s washing machine for me?

Anyway, me am teacher, and I went to public schools and to grad school, so of course I have, like, 2014 to the little 3 reading comprehension questions about your great article which I am going to tell you about here.

Title: Do you mean, like, the evil ones or the ones with low test scores, or is there some kind of correlation? I’m getting a little correlation vibe here. Nice.

Paragraph 1: What is “the relative decline of American education?” How well does Lithuania do? How well does America do against learning benchmarks, rather than against other countries’ results? Where is the Achievement Gap? What has happened to it since Sputnik? Since the Nation At Risk report? Since we started No Child Left Behind? Since President Obama took office?

Paragraph 2: Has education failed “to achieve significant or lasting improvements” at all?  Is there no hope? Are all pedagogies failed? Should students be in charge? Are there any other common factors at play in students’ lives besides the nature and quality of their schooling? Has education given up on finding the right pedagogies and methods? Has education ceded that there can be only one right pedagogy or method?

Paragraph 3: What research? How recent is it? For how many years have we ignored teacher effectiveness? Who denied that teachers made a difference? Which graduate schools are insipid? Don’t stop blaming now! In fact, do any of them offer theorizing or pedagogy that is even quasi-semi-demi-half relevant? Don’t ask me!

Paragraph 4: How true is it that the weakest teachers are relegated to teaching the neediest students? What numbers can you cite in support of that claim? Who can you cite anecdotally on that? Why aren’t we firing administrators who make those staffing decisions? What is a strong teacher? What does it mean to excel? What does it mean to recover? If it’s true that a student who has two weak teachers in a row can never recover, can we get in line to fire pre-emptively the teacher who has them during their third year since he or she won’t be able to do a damn thing with them, you know, according to the research?

Paragraph 5: Is nothing really more important than hiring good teachers and firing bad ones? Not even ending poverty or providing adequate health coverage for uninsured children? Are you suggesting we pay teachers more or fire them here? STAY ON MESSAGE.

Paragraph 6: Is there any connection between Secretary of Education Arne Duncan and Chicago? Do you have any numbers for “Right to Work” states, or are all teacher unionized? What is your definition of accountability? By, “in no other socially significant profession are the workers so insulated from accountability,” do you mean teachers need some more ad hominem attacks in weekly “news” magazines to scare them straight? Are teachers alone in the “dance of the lemons?” Are we also firing the administrators who may or may not have “danced” with them? Does something about the way lemons smell insulate people from dancing?

Paragraph 7: Are we still blaming the teachers or is it the superintendents now? Again: message. Look at your hand.

Paragraph 8: By “don’t cherry pick,” do you mean that KIPP schools take anyone and don’t turn anyone away or kick them out after they arrive? Do you have the numbers on KIPP elementary and middle school cohorts, including educational outcome data for those students forced out of the program? By “parental involvement” are you insinuating there are other factors in student achievement outside teacher control? Isn’t that dangerous to do? Don’t you know the current administration will disappear your funding for that? By “they far outperform the local public schools” do you mean that KIPP isn’t public? How far do they outperform public schools? Do they outperform public schools or student cohorts with similar demographics and levels of parental involvement? What do you mean by “better teaching?” Is it better to publicly shame students or treat them as equals? Is it better when to punish and reward students or teach them to self-direct their learning? Can we run an experiment on that? By “longer school days and a longer school year,” do you mean to suggest, again, foolishly, that there is more to this school stuff than teachers?

Paragraph 9: What do you mean by “certain kind of teacher.” If my students can email me or leave a Google Voice message at any time, and I check those things on my cell phone, does that mean I am a KIPP teacher, or do I have to burn out, too? I was not in the Special Forces, but I work with students of exceptional needs at a public charter school: can I be one of the chosen some, or perhaps one of the not chosen last at teacher recess?

Paragraph 10: What is a “real impact?” If a teacher in the 90s heard a student say, “Man, Mr. or Mrs. So-and-so, that lesson was unreal,” should he or she be afraid for his or her job today? Does this have to do with math? Sweet 7th cup of coffee by 8 AM have mercy. How many TFAs will it take to cover Boomers’ retirements? Can we just fire everyone now, and then pre-emptively fire all the new TFA teachers before they burn out? I mean, that’s got to be easier than figuring out how the hell to keep them growing as teachers. How effective are TFA teachers anyway? By what measure? Is there no one else complicit with teachers in “the highest costs and worst results in the nation?” Are TFA alumni like the Army Reserve? Can we call them up to teach? Would they come back because of their quality? Do they have anything better to do that’s – you know – more socially significant?

Paragraph 11: By improvement, do you mean that students are learning more or that teacher performance can be measured more? What numbers do you have?

Paragraph 12: What happens to struggling students, teachers, and communities in states that won’t be funded by #RttT? Other than in New York, have any principals used student performance or feedback in evaluation – or even in coaching or mentoring – teachers? You know, like, ever?

Paragraph 13: Could we not have a louder revolution about reforming assessment so our kids can do something other than pass a test?  I like the loud noises.  It reminds me of the unruly din of a classroom. Could it be that our students are losing their collective globally competitive edge because students in other countries learn differently than ours? How do the countries in Europe ahead of us teach reading? When? What about math? Problem solving? What are their poverty rates? What percentage of their populations do they enroll in universal pre-school? In what what we consider to be college-prep secondary schools?

Paragraph 14: What they hell are we going to do with loyal, hardworking teachers who are nevertheless reasonable and educated critics of pubic education, including #RttT? How can we suppress them so as not to complicate public education? I mean, can you imagine if Donald Trump engaged in sustained civil discourse with contestants at the end of The Apprentice? Where the hell would we be then? We’d be in a little place I like to call Complicato-town, that’s where. Population: You’re fired!

Paragraph 15: By “regain its lost crown as the envy of the world,” do you mean that better test scores will reconcile the West with all forms of Islam? Or will that take problem-solving and collaboration, which are not tested in public schools because vendors tell politicians to tell teachers not to? Do Secretary Duncan and President Obama have a hotline teachers can call for help with the challenges they face at school, or would teachers who call just be fired? Is Central Falls typical of American public schools? Are we still attacking the Northeast for being a hotbed of elitist intellectualism, or have we switched to attacking the Northeast because its schools aren’t successfully replicating its intellectual elitism? <pinkie>Or are them…?</pinkie>

Paragraph 16: By “breakthrough” and “long way to go,” do you mean we should just fire all teachers at all failing schools? You’re fired! By suggesting that 4 of every 4 teachers are lecherous crooks still licensed by state bureaucrats, do you mean teachers are to blame for evil teachers, too? That would make sense, given the rest of your argument.

I really like how you end the article. It totally rings true.  I have no problem with society paying respect to athletes, celebrities, and politicians despite the number of alleged and actual felons and child-predators in their professions, but for some reason – maybe it’s because I’m a teacher – I just can’t stand teachers that prey on kids. Call me crazy.

Sincerely,
“Crazy” Chad

PS – You’re fired! ROFL ;-p