Teacher Grades: Pass or Be Fired

WASHINGTON — Emily Strzelecki, a first-year science teacher here, was about as eager for a classroom visit by one of the city’s roving teacher evaluators as she would be to get a tooth drilled. “It really stressed me out because, oh my gosh, I could lose my job,” Ms. Strzelecki said.

Her fears were not unfounded: 165 Washington teachers were fired last year based on a pioneering evaluation system that places significant emphasis on classroom observations; next month, 200 to 600 of the city’s 4,200 educators are expected to get similar bad news, in the nation’s highest rate of dismissal for poor performance.

The evaluation system, known as Impact, is disliked by many unionized teachers but has become a model for many educators. Spurred by President Obama and his $5 billion Race to the Top grant competition, some 20 states, including New York, and thousands of school districts are overhauling the way they grade teachers, and many have sent people to study Impact.

Its admirers say the system, a centerpiece of the tempestuous three-year tenure of Washington’s former schools chancellor, Michelle Rhee, has brought clear teaching standards to a district that lacked them and is setting a new standard by establishing dismissal as a consequence of ineffective teaching.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/28/education/28evals.html?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=tha23

Ever since I had a memory, I remember Repukes taking swipes at public education. They hate it, and feel no one has a right to education.

Before I switched careers and became a paralegal, I taught for a while, here and in Spain.

I first taught in Spain, where the quality of life is far higher than it is here, and the kids did not arrive at school with the emotional, mental and family problems kids do here. As a result, kids in Spain arrive at school with their homework done, don't have discipline problems, are happier, don't routinely show up at school with weapons, don't drop out ahead of time, and outperform American kids in everything.

When I returned here, I taught in a public school. Right away I noticed huge differences and problems. Kids arrived unprepared, without supplies, often without lunch and no money to buy lunch (so I often paid for their lunch out of pity). Kids at the public school where I taught were constantly disruptive in the classroom, understood very little of what I explained, were unmotivated, missed school a lot, broke rules constantly, did not seem happy, and I learned that many of them didn't make it through high school.

Where kids in Spain were taken to school and later delivered home by their grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, next-door neighbors, and other very close individuals, kids here went home alone, to an empty house, and I found out that they generally got into trouble.

When I taught in Spain, parents were beyond appreciative. They brought me gifts, which I assured were unnecessary, until I found out that it was part of the culture, a culture that loves and appreciates teachers.

Here? Here all I encountered in parents was anger. Anger because their child was not learning, because their child got a 'D' or a 50 in a test, anger because they felt their child was 'entitled' and they were certain I was 'picking on' their child. Any form of discipline was met by the parents with skepticism that their child misbehaved at all. And those were the involved parents. A great deal of the time parents were not involved at all. They were too busy, or couldn't care less. I often asked parents to speak to their children to get them to do their homework, but that fell on deaf ears.

The problems American kids are having with schools, are not due to American teachers being 'inferior.' Teachers here are no better and no worse than they were in Spain. The difference is that American society is truly (pardon the French) FUCKED UP, and it's the children that suffer and end up failing, dropping out, acting up. There is no secure structure for kids, just as there is no secure structure for the adults that are raising those kids.

However, Repukes will continue to scapegoat teachers in their zeal to do away with public education. Education scares the hell out of Republicans.

The OP and your post were very good, but these two - profound, IMO - statements jumped out at me:

"There is no secure structure for kids, just as there is no secure structure for the adults that are raising those kids."

and

"Education scares the hell out of Republicans." (for lots of reasons!)

Thanks!

No one helps the parents, and so the kids are a mess.

I think we could learn a lot from Europe in general nowadays, don't you agree? =)

fired. this sucks so much I can't find words.

RV, retired and GLAD OF IT