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Monday, October 10, 2011
Persistently (?) Low Performing
This from Ryan Alessi @ CN/2:
7 comments:
Anonymous
said...
Oh, my God. It sounded like Stu Silberman had taken over the school. Same tired platitudes. "We want to make sure we are teaching bell to bell and aligning our curriculum with standards." This film is little more than pure propaganda.
"We'll lose our jobs," the teacher is quoted as saying. I'm waiting for the first dismissal of a group of teachers in a Kentucky school. I am wondering, to this day, how anyone can prove that student lack of achievement is soley the fault of the teacher.
October 11, 2011 7:20 AM: I had a different reaction. I thought it was a charter school ad. A heroic young principal straps uniforms on the kids and hits the hallways....
It was an argument that charters schools and traditional public schools need not differ.
Of course, it has to work or it comes to nothing.
October 11, 2011 7:23 AM: If you are still waiting for teachers to be dismissed based on test scores, I fear you may have already missed a few.
Is this a matter of public record? What does the dismissal notice say if a teacher's test scores are poor? Have teachers been fired in Fayette County for not producing test scores agreeable to the state? I'm at UK, Richard. Have we missed something in the College of Education? I recall the dismissals in New England, but I was under the assumption those teachers were dismissed because they refused to go along with a corrective action plan. And were they not rehired?
Ahh. I didn't read that very carefully. You're talking about the Rhode island deal. We haven't had anything like that in Kentucky. Actually, didn't I read that most (or all) of those teachers got hired back?
What we have had is slightly more subtle and individual. Superintendents are telling their principals that if someone is "not making it" they are to document and get rid of them. That process usually includes some estimate of their students' performance. There are some instances where district personnel have even pressured principals to get rid of certain teachers the district folks didn't think were performing well enough - even when the principal might disagree.
So far, none of this has been considered public record in Ky, as far as I know.
Not sure what firing teachers or administrators does. Seasoned educators are not going to leave positions successful or progressing schools to take the openings so that leaves you with either inexperienced teachers or ones who are not being hired for whatever reasons by other school systems. Additionally, who would want to come to a school where you knew your predessessor got fired due to low test scores and the same could very well happen to you? Talk about compromising position; KDE and district is pushing you to raise scores dramatically or lose your job, you have to push the kids hard hoping they will perform but they could respond negatively to your efforts and.... Not a good situation to be in.
By the way, in all that footage, I never saw the principal talking to a single student or teacher, what's up with that? Also, why do they introduce him as being a basketball player from MS? I understand the team theme, but wouldn't it have been better to identfied his educational experience instead of showing a picture of him playing basketball? Oh yeah, I forgot we are in KY and it is October.
7 comments:
Oh, my God. It sounded like Stu Silberman had taken over the school. Same tired platitudes. "We want to make sure we are teaching bell to bell and aligning our curriculum with standards." This film is little more than pure propaganda.
"We'll lose our jobs," the teacher is quoted as saying. I'm waiting for the first dismissal of a group of teachers in a Kentucky school. I am wondering, to this day, how anyone can prove that student lack of achievement is soley the fault of the teacher.
Are we sure teachers can't be fired if they have low test scores? We need a lawyer to weigh in on this one...
October 11, 2011 7:20 AM: I had a different reaction. I thought it was a charter school ad. A heroic young principal straps uniforms on the kids and hits the hallways....
It was an argument that charters schools and traditional public schools need not differ.
Of course, it has to work or it comes to nothing.
October 11, 2011 7:23 AM: If you are still waiting for teachers to be dismissed based on test scores, I fear you may have already missed a few.
Is this a matter of public record? What does the dismissal notice say if a teacher's test scores are poor? Have teachers been fired in Fayette County for not producing test scores agreeable to the state? I'm at UK, Richard. Have we missed something in the College of Education? I recall the dismissals in New England, but I was under the assumption those teachers were dismissed because they refused to go along with a corrective action plan. And were they not rehired?
Ahh. I didn't read that very carefully. You're talking about the Rhode island deal. We haven't had anything like that in Kentucky. Actually, didn't I read that most (or all) of those teachers got hired back?
What we have had is slightly more subtle and individual. Superintendents are telling their principals that if someone is "not making it" they are to document and get rid of them. That process usually includes some estimate of their students' performance. There are some instances where district personnel have even pressured principals to get rid of certain teachers the district folks didn't think were performing well enough - even when the principal might disagree.
So far, none of this has been considered public record in Ky, as far as I know.
Not sure what firing teachers or administrators does. Seasoned educators are not going to leave positions successful or progressing schools to take the openings so that leaves you with either inexperienced teachers or ones who are not being hired for whatever reasons by other school systems. Additionally, who would want to come to a school where you knew your predessessor got fired due to low test scores and the same could very well happen to you? Talk about compromising position; KDE and district is pushing you to raise scores dramatically or lose your job, you have to push the kids hard hoping they will perform but they could respond negatively to your efforts and....
Not a good situation to be in.
By the way, in all that footage, I never saw the principal talking to a single student or teacher, what's up with that? Also, why do they introduce him as being a basketball player from MS? I understand the team theme, but wouldn't it have been better to identfied his educational experience instead of showing a picture of him playing basketball? Oh yeah, I forgot we are in KY and it is October.
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