Have we not brought this on ourselves? Truly, it’s our own fault we are mired in this whole “measuring teacher’s effectiveness” mess anyway.

And why? Because we, as teachers, have run amok.

We had a chance to police ourselves, we had a chance to be our brother’s keeper, we had a chance to self-regulate in a way that resembled sensibility.

We had decades to do so. But we got ahold of too much rope and now we have hung ourselves. Our negative fringes need to be reigned in, our performance needs to be recognized as something that is not above improvement nor reproach, our sense of team is being torn asunder by the “I’s” who think they are above having to be a part of a team, and we need to do a better job at our job — like all aspects of American education do.

We can point the figure at every other quadrant of public schooling: parents, community, societal values, administration, the federal government, the budget and on and on… and be right about the blame we lay!

Yet still, that does not change the fact that we must take ownership over our own shortcomings and figure out a way we, as teachers, can better serve the needs of the next generation of student.

And if it comes with some professional uncomfortableness, so effin’ be it!

Teaching is NOT about us, the teachers; first and foremost it’s about the students. In our field we know this, we see this, we bleed this.

We live this.

But not all of us of do. And a small cancer has spread to the point where it’s no longer small.

Clearly, the campus duds must be de-dudded and we gotta start bringing better game to the table. All of us do.

(BTW, NCLB is not even worth mentioning to counter this argument because NCLB has been a farce and you’re not gonna find any love from me for the calamity that this exercise in folly has wrought for us all.)

Now the thing is, people get uproarious about feeling accused. Chill out because if you are reading this, you probably are not one of the people at whom I am pointing the finger. Those folks rarely, if ever, read blogs on nings seeking out answers on their own time as to how to improve their craft or stay up to date on the latest policy measures (much less looking for a means whereby they can improve a lesson plan).

But if we can’t acknowledge that something is rotten in the state of Denmark then we have absolutely no chance in hell of ever improving it.

It begins with us taking a look in the mirror and being humble (and realistic) about the fact that we can get better.

We all seem to believe, as teachers, that good assessment is an asset to improving our ability to elevate student learning in our classrooms. How do I know what a kid knows unless I assess what it is I am seeking for them to be able to prove they understand and can do?

And once I assess and reflect on the student’s performance, I can chart a new path for extended growth.

Because growth never stops in education. There is no end line to any of this.

However, if you take away my ability to assess my kids (no formal measurements at all) I believe I will be a lesser teacher. By a lot! Nope, I am not Socrates. Or Jesus or Buddha or whatever other person you can think of that was able to turn student water into wine without formal feedback. (Unless Socrates actually gave 5 paragraphs essays that I didn’t know about. Wouldn’t that be the ultimate egg on our face — Socrates assigned hamburger essays on truth, beauty and nobility — the documents were just misfiled amongst the ruins. Yikes!)

No, I am just a high school English teacher in Los Angeles, California and I use multiple measures to gain insight into the knowledge and performance of the kids in my class.

Why can’t the same be applied to us as teachers on the whole?

No one measurement in my class ever gives the whole story to me as to a kid’s learning anyway. (Which is why high stakes tests don’t really strike me as the cat’s meow.)

I use multiple measures. From quizzes to personal contact to project-based learning projects to traditional summative assessment tools, I use multiple approaches to gain the knowledge I seek.

And I find that knowledge valuable because it better enables me to figure out ways to teach my students.

And giving an F is always the last resort. (As firing would be in the plan I envision.) But i do give some F’s. (And we do need to fire some folks.)

But I give a lot more A’s and I work exceedingly hard to recognize good work much more so than I do at demonizing poor work.

Why can’t we transpose these ideas to our own profession? We certainly have, in my estimation, proven the need to do it.

And if we want to point fingers at who has demonstrated this need, collectively, it is us. We have proven the need for our effectiveness/job performance/professional impact to be measured/assessed/evaluated/judged – choose whatever language you want – ourselves.

Individually, you may not feel you need it but holistically, when it comes to American education at large, this need is glaring.

The only real question left for me is, why do I feel so alone when I type this?

Not so sure I buy into the “objective measure” argument in regards to student test scores being an inarguable method of insight into teacher performance. I mean just because all kids take the same test well, does it really mean that their performance on those tests translate so flawlessly to “windows on the teacher at the front of the room”?.

For example, just the other day a teacher in 11th grade showed me his grade book for his 5th period class.

It looked like it had been shot up by gunfire. Zero, zero, zero… bullet holes everywhere.

He showed me a kid who had perfect attendance and yet had 17 doughnut holes (i.e. “did not turn in work”, scores of zero) in a row.

The kid came.
The kid showed up.
The kid did nothing.

The kid has issues. He is short a zillion credits, doesn’t even bring a backpack to school and certainly doesn’t look like he has much of a chance of graduating.

Conversely, another kid in that same class has terrible attendance… but shows up just often enough so that the school has not yet bounced him off the roster.

Bullet holes in the grade book – for both of them. It’s an entire class like that.

Are either of these kids going to reflect test scores that 1) favor this teacher or 2) prove anything about this teacher’s merit?

Cause this is a good teacher. A guy who tries. A guy who shows up and takes the “lowest kids” because he feels he can reach them.

And he likes to reach them. It’s his life’s work. But nope, he doesn’t reach all of them. Not even close.

Aren’t these kids actually illuminating shortcomings of…
-parents?
-community?
-truant officers?
-administration?
-politicians?
…as much as they are illuminating the shortcomings of educators?

Does this man deserve to be demonized? Who is going to want to take on our most challenging kids, the ones that need the most help, if there are draconian punishments waiting for those who do not “deliver measurable performance”?

Perhaps he reaches all those kids… when they are 22 years old and finally decide that they are gonna stop being a screw-up and listen to Mr. _______’s words — the ones that have been hauntingly careening through their head for the past seven years?

Now, take a guess at what an AP Calculus teacher’s grade book looks like. There might not be straight A’s for everyone but it certainly isn’t bullet holes all around either.

Those kids work. They show up, turn in assignments and even do extra credit assignments when they already have an A in the course.

Whaddya think his scores are going to reflect on the state tests? (Especially since they barely touch on Algebra II in their most challenging form.)

Doesn’t the actual teaching assignment you get directly have a correlation to the test scores your students deliver? At least in a measure that deserves some real weight?

And is any weight given?

BZZZPP!!

No, it is not.

(Because that’s just liberal coddling and buying into having low expectations for our children, I assume. After all, it’s No Child Left Behind by 2014… even if they are leaving themselves behind.)

Just not sure about how apples equal oranges on this front. And I am HUGELY skeptical of the word “objectivity”.

What percentage of F’s in a class is it reasonable for a teacher to give? I mean what’s the dividing point between a teacher firmly drawing the line at demanding minimum competency and rigor, and a teacher who is simply not reaching their kids and flunking so many students that we clearly see that the educator is actually ineffective at their job?

If 80% of the kids in a class are failing a class, is the teacher not a part of the problem for the immense amount of failure in the room?

What about a teacher with a 12% failure rate?

A 45.6% failure rate?

Heck, NCLB takes graduation rate into account when it assigns us our AYP and API scores in California so if we do not graduate 100% of our kids, we, by nature, are penalizing ourselves.

Makes a nice case for grade inflation doesn’t it? Or going after teachers who flunk too many kids.

But some teachers are flunking too many kids. Or, I should say, “have too many kids flunking their class”.

So what’s the acceptable number? Is it zero? That seems unreasonable. Is it 79.9%? That seems excessive.

Is there anyone who can provide guidance on this type of thing?

A Bell Curve with 10% A’s, 15% B’s, 40% C’s, 15% D’s and 10% F’s is how they drew it up in the theory class I took once upon a time. But my own classes NEVER balance out like that. Not even close. (And seldom do any of the theory classes offer things that truly measure up where the rubber meets the road.)

So if we want to raise our AYP and API score, the method is simple — flunk less kids.

And don’t think that teachers aren’t having the screws turned to do so by admins who care more about “school ranking and scores” than student learning.

Because in the world of our current educational dysfunction right now, student learning and higher AYP and API scores are often at odds.

So, I ask again, how many F’s is a teacher allowed to reasonably give?