So since I am in the mood to offer up so many thoughts as of late about how to re-shape K-12 education (heck, who isn’t doing it these days) I thought I’d chime in on the silliness of the manner by which we choose to pink slip 194 teachers in a district with about 900 educators.

We did it by seniority. Merit played no role. (Don’t worry, this is not a post about the budget cuts… though they will certainly see some action, I am sure, going forward.)

I repeat, quality of service played absolutely no factor in the decision making process of who got to keep their job and who got to canned. It all came down to one simple question: when were you hired.

And these are the deepest staff cuts I’ve ever seen.

No one asked, how well did you work? No one asked, to what degree did you serve the needs of the students? No one took into consideration things like work ethic, degree of content knowledge, extra-curricular duties, ability to differentiate for various learning styles, and on and on and on.

Chronology slapped down worthiness.

Add it all up and it means that this past week I had a chat with an ELA teacher I greatly admire, one who is but a few years into her career – and is a real dynamo with a bright future – and told her I’d be happy to write her a smoking letter of rec if ever she wanted one.

Best I could really do.

I mean this is a teacher we should be fighting to hold on to. I know it. The principal knows it. Heck, even the folks in the district offices might know it.

But rules are rules and length of service in public education trumps quality of service.

It’s folly. Plain and simple. No one lets a better employee go so that they can keep an older employee.

BTW, this is not ageism at play. Some of the best educators I know have multiple decades under their belt. Matter of fact, the leading ELA teacher on our campus (in my opinion) is a lady right across the hall from me and she’s at year 32 in our district.

Do you know what I was doing 32 years ago? Lemme tell, ya, it wouldn’t make momma proud.

Just think about what would happen to an institution’s degree of impact if they sustained such a silly policy over the long haul. I tell ya what would happen, it would inevitably crumble over the course of time due to erosion as a result of such poor decision making. (Anyone ever hear of a small industry once based in Detroit?)

Essentially, okay, I get that we are going through a fiscal crisis that is pretty much unprecedented in our lifetimes. But at least make the most intelligent moves you can make. We are compounding the impact of the budget cuts by not better adapting our policies to meet the needs of the current times. Truly, these types of decisions are handcuffing us from being able to do the best job we can possibly do at one of the most important jobs that there is to do in our country.

Society is counting on us to do it well.

And these are the rules by which we determine who gets laid off?

If merit plays no role in determining who stays and who goes, at some point the institution of public education will crumble.

This week, a few stones in the edifice fell. And it’s a sad thing to watch.

As I discussed yesterday, when it comes to measuring teacher effectiveness (it’s all the rage in national education policy these days), I, as an educator, want multiple measures to be used.

Yesterday I conceded the use of student test scores via bubble tests to measure my effectiveness because I know that this is a deal breaker for the policy makers in D.C. On this point they are intractable and if politics is the art of compromise, then fine — I’d rather accept multiple measures that include test scores than have no seat at the decision making table and have a host of ridiculous other stuff rammed down my throat.

And ram they will.

So what measures do I want? Yesterday, I said I wanted peer evaluations to count. Today I am going to ask for administrative evaluations.

Yep, I want them. But, the quid pro quo is that I want my administrators to be evaluated by the teaching staff as well. And I want the federal government to use whatever stick they will use to punish me for not meeting their targets to be the same stick they use to admonish admins who do not meet their targets.

Let’s level the playing field. Teacher effectiveness is related to administrative effectiveness so while we are re-inventing the “assess our school professionals wheel” let’s do it properly, huh?

We need to implement an administrative effectiveness tool side-by-side with this new teacher effectiveness tool.

It’s not biting off more than we can chew. It’s called doing it properly one time instead of perpetually re-doing it over and over and over again.

Truly, I repeat, it makes no sense not to do all of this at the same time. (Or else, let me guess, eight years from now some genius is going to look up and say, “Ya know, teacher effectiveness is related to administrative effectiveness. Maybe we should measure them, as well?”)

Suddenly, that cantankerous VP who makes every teacher’s life hell but sucks up to the Assistant Superintendent like a lap dog will not have a place to hide. Conversely, the principal that really goes to bat for their staff yet takes it on the chin from the Assistant Superintendent will have a means of not being forced into the role of subservient lap dog.

Let the admins measure my effectiveness. But theirs must be assessed as well.

And then we get to the juicy stuff… the district level measurements of effectiveness.

Why should they not also have to answer to the assessment and accountability God? I am not joking, either. A great Supe gets a lotta love from the peeps in the district. I know, I have seen it many, many times. And a bad Supe operates almost with impunity nowadays.

Tyrants in a fiefdom, unchecked and protected only by mammoth buy-out clauses.

Look, there are basically three levels to classroom education that are being funded by the state and nation: the classroom level, the administrative level and the district level. (The state level already has to answer in part to the Federal level and the state’s voters — plus, that realm of accountability is only growing these days so I don’t want to tread into that muck too much).

Admins, please feel free to measure my effectiveness. But know that your own effectiveness will be measured by me as well and whatever consequences can be meted out for my underperformance will apply to you as well should your measurements not measure up.

Justice is blind, no one is above the law, and take that, Mo Fo!

Fair is fair.

The VP who comes at 5:30 a.m., leaves at 7:45 p.m. and does the work of three distict level employees… give ‘em some love.

The bonehead principal who only has two more years to retirement and is playing out the string trying just not to cause any waves nor expend too much effort.

Meet your maker!

This game is gettin’ fun now, huh? Suddenly, everyone is accountable and teachers can’t be the only ones demonized with data.

Multiples measures for measuring teacher effectiveness will continue tomorrow… post is growing too long.

The Ugly Truth is that my number one goal for my students right now has to be to raise their 2010 standardized test scores.

I find it disturbing, off-base, heart-wrenching, and almost something shameful to admit. However, NCLB has my entire school’s back up against the wall right now. The state is on the doorstep of taking over the district. The district has already informed us that if we sink to the next level of NCLB probation status, tenure for everyone on campus will be voided and jobs will be eviscerated. (Keep in mind that more budget cuts are going to hammer us from the other side, too.)

Essentially, we will be measured by one stat and one stat only in the most high stakes of manners this year. Our standardized test scores will determine our future (individually and collectively, I assume) and people will lose jobs based on the results.

Actually, lots of people will already be losing their jobs. That’s a given. The question is not “if” but “how many” and “who”. (The “when” question is easy to answer: NOW!)

Obviously, much more will be written about this by me over the next few months so I won’t bother to write a 900 page post about all the aspects at this juncture. However, these are the cards we are being dealt: Earn higher standardized test scores and you will be judged favorably. Do not earn sufficiently high enough test scores and you will be chopped.

It’s now that black and white for my English department at Lynwood High School.

More to come…

My school district has already let us know that there are more cuts coming. Big ones. To personnel.

And it’s not just my school district that plans on breaking out the hatchet. More teachers are going to lose their jobs and I’ve even heard that some districts are talking about a 10-12% pay cut on top of drastic personnel cuts.

10-12%!?

At what point does the public refuse to accept this?
At what point do we refuse?

At my school, we took a 3% pay cut this year, furlough days, and lost a heck of a lot of teachers. Forget the lesser resources, no school nurse or librarian, an unfilled AP position, and more impacted classrooms.

BTW, lots of schools did likewise.

Question: Would you come back to work next year for 12% less pay, even less resources, and an even greater workload that is comprised of higher expectations with even less support? Are we powerless because they have the ability to hold our livelihoods over us or are we able to stand up and say no more?

Across the country, the web (this ning) allows us the opportunity to mobilize in a manner unlike any we have ever before seen.

Therefore, at what point do we refuse to accept the terms that are becoming more and more and more unacceptable?

Is a Tornado Sized National Teacher Strike Brewing? How Far can Teachers Be Pushed?

It could be done, ya know. And it would be historical.

Is push about to come to shove in 2010?

BTW, we could simply stop testing for 3 years and allow those billions to remain in the system to fund the actual “teaching” that the schools are supposed to do. Anyone notice how testing has not been cut while everything else has? Hmmm… I wonder who is making a financial killing off of that right now?

Is there such a thing as an English class that doesn’t read a single, real, whole book over the course of the year? I mean I know there is. Some places — WAY TOO MANY in fact — have the The Lords of District Oversight that Ban the Reading of Novels in English Class

That’s right, they mandate that NO NOVELS be taught.

It’s all excerpts, pieces taken from anthologies, worksheets, scripted programming and… biggest of all, practice tests to prepare for the real tests.

Am I the only one who thinks this is nuts?

Every good English teacher I know uses real books in the classroom. From Crime and Punishment to The Outsiders to The Skin I’m In to Old Yeller to Hatchet to The Great Gatsby to The Pearl to The Lord of the Flies to Animal Farm to To Kill a Mockingbird and on and on and on, real books are part of the fabric of what makes for, in my estimation, the essential, core constitution of a real and effective and meaningful ELA class.

When exactly did that stop? (Don’t worry, I know. It’s rhetorical.)

So the question is, forgetting even my own prejudice towards the use of real books (prejudice because 1) I love them and 2) years and years of experience tell me that they work as my BEST tool for accomplishing all the literacy goals both I and my school district have for our students) am I the only one who believes we need to re-double our efforts to start fighting for primary source authentic literature (i.e. real books) in the classroom?

Because real books are under assault from the bean/bubble counters.

Could you teach an entire year as an ELA educator without being able to use one real novel? And if so, do you think that by doing so this would be a methodology that best serve the needs of your kids?

The Lords of District Oversight that Ban the Reading of Novels in English Class are a menace to the very fabric of our discipline… and isn’t it time that someone stood up to them and explained how the emperor has no clothes?

And a tiny wanker, too.

Sorry, just had to get that last “little one” in. Get it? Little one?

Time to be spooked. Parents should be spooked. Teachers should be spooked. The national workforce should be spooked. And kids (who are going to be on the wrong end of this stuff) ought to be very, very very spooked.

I mean, is this the wave that is inevitably going to wash over us all?

Really, how long before all of us — and by all of us, I mean ALL of us — are being mandated to teach this type of curriculum?

Essentially, it’s a curse of study — oops, I mean a course of study — explicitly designed to teach to the test. As the news article points out, all 29 elementary schools in one district are now being mandated to use the same literacy materials. (What a sale for the publisher of these materials though, huh? Betchya the commissions on that purchase order set a few heels to clicking!) And what literacy materials, you ask? Well, as the article says — and this is a direct quote — Reading Street (catchy name, I’ll give them that) uses, “workbooks” by means of “prescribing set amounts of time for different activities”.

As if Timmy at one school, Johnny in another, Sara in yet a third, Joe and Jackie in another and Paul in yet another school (I am too lazy to type up the names of 29 different kids) are all going to benefit equally from being fed the same mental nutrients as served up by a corporate behemoth who hasn’t even met Timmy, Johnny, Sara, Joe, Jackie and so on.

In the search for equity, are we not being unfair to almost everyone? If you are going to try and pull this off with every student in all 29 elementary schools in one district, will not the top get slowed down, the bottom get passed up and administrators concentrate most heavily on working towards the great, glorious movement to the middle where everyone understands the same concepts at the same time in an equal and measurable fashion?

And though I have not seen Reading Street in person (their website has lots of good buzzwords though with lots of fancy sounding near guarantees for success) I guess this also means if the test doesn’t test it then the question will inevitably arises as to why a teacher might teach certain content? (Forget the fact that their professional experience tells them it is of value… I mean, this is exactly how the test makers are shaping the direction of America’s schooling. He who makes the tests, makes the rules. (The new Golden Rule of Education.)

Good way to manage the widgets, that’s for sure? The folks in North Carolina are nervous… and in my opinion, rightfully so. Yet like I said, I have not seen Reading Street, haven’t touched it, haven’t used it, hadn’t ever heard of it til this week… thankfully!! But when I read this quote from a parent of a child at the magnet school in the district (and aren’t magnet schools supposed to be our shining lights in this haze of mediocrity we call U.S. public education?) I get spooked.

“I don’t feel that a top-down, corporate, admin-heavy approach is what’s going to improve learning for our children. I feel that our children learn from qualified, inspired teachers,” said Julie Maxwell, a Club Boulevard parent.

Really, who is going to argue with that? Other than the top, down, corporate, admin-heavy supporters of course… of which there are few — but they have power… a frightening amount.

Like I said, He who makes the tests, makes the rules!

Be spooked!!