“Having just experienced the new teacher evaluation process in my district, I’ve had my fears confirmed. It is a coercive instrument whose first purpose is not to improve teachers, but to control them. It is a negative metric which creates and seeks flaws. It is a checklist for ‘Wuzza’ teachers who have mutated into administrative hacks. It is a template for mediocrity.
“Under the grand banner of improving public education, the
pinky-ringed wizards of Springfield enacted a law that turned an essential
truth – that teachers are the most important element in schooling – on its
head. If there’s something wrong with schools, there must be
something wrong with teachers. Put another way, a simpleton’s syllogism
swayed the sages of the statehouse:
“There are problems with public education. Teachers are the
most important element in schools. Therefore, there are problems with teachers.
“Oh, the ideas that this bit of reckless reasoning
inspired. Oh, the strange bedfellows it rallied. Billionaire
dilettantes linked arms with working class mothers. Tax policy
conservatives swayed PTA parents into charter school advocates. Union
bashers recruited the voiceless and disenfranchised, the very folks that unions
protected.
“Forget inadequate funding. Forget socio-economic
factors. Forget prejudice. Ignorance and Want gave the politicos an
early Christmas present. A consensus swept the land. Fix the
teachers and we fix our schools. And so, in 2011, SB7 was born. It
went right to the heart of the teacher problem.
“We’ll make teachers better by diminishing their rights and
protections, and, it only follows, that this will improve the classrooms. Which
will improve our kids. Which will secure our futures.
Yada-Yada-Yada.
“A key to this improvement would be the state codified
Teacher Evaluation Plan, a colossal cluster of criteria adapted by each school
district. If you believe that this approach will be used to improve teachers,
then you must believe that the City of Chicago’s restaurant code is designed to
make 3 star restaurants into 4 star ones.
“The codes, standards, and regulations look good on paper,
but the devil awaits in their execution. With a surfeit of regulations,
the city can shut down any establishment it wants to. With a surfeit of
standards, an administrator can silence or remove any teacher. That’s the
beauty of a negative metric, at least for the evaluators. Flaws can be
found anywhere. Excellence can be minimized, or as is the case with most
Evaluation tools, omitted.
“Is a teacher at fault when only 20 of 25 students
participate in a 45 minute class discussion? Is this a sensible criteria
when the evaluator judges that teacher by only 1 period in an entire school
year?
“Is a teacher at fault when her Math classroom must also
double as a science room and the requisite marble topped wooden tables are not
conducive to modular desk arrangements?
“Is a teacher at fault when the theory behind a class
activity, even though it was thoroughly discussed in a post-observation
meeting, is not provided in writing?
“The list of petty applications of the plan is as long as
the plan itself. I have offered only a sample of the supposedly
constructive criticism of the teachers’ classroom management and curriculum
design. The metrics for ‘Professionalism’ would require their own
column. Let’s just leave it at this: Whatever cockamamie project
your boob of a principal wants you to do on your time had better be done.
Her ‘career’ rests on you.
“Speaking of principals or administrators or assistants,
their roles in this farce bear examination. If we account for all of the
stake-holders in a school district, who benefits from these evaluation plans?
“The students? Hardly. The major flawed
assumption of this entire mess is that they will benefit from the diminishment
of a teacher’s rights and autonomy. The teachers? This should be obvious.
The parents? They’re not getting transparency. They’re getting
diversions based upon bad data and disingenuous interpretations of student and
school performances.
“The taxpayers? They are getting the short term
benefits of a cheaper work force (out with the wise; in with the inexperienced)
at the long term costs of a morale-gutted and visionless faculty. Even if
they don’t care about the schools, they should certainly be aware of the
relationship between the schools and their property values.
“Whose left? The administrators, of course.
They’re the big winners. More power. More false measures with which
to deceive. It’s the old story of the Emperor’s new clothes, re-imagined
where the School Board is the Emperor and the managers to whom they have
entrusted the well-being of their district are ambitious charlatans, most of
whom couldn’t sharpen pencils in a good teacher’s classroom.
“What will it take to challenge the myth that administrators
were formerly the best teachers? This, too, would make another column.
“Finally, let’s not underestimate the damage being
done. There is only so much time in the day. Considering time as a
commodity, we can apply the economic principal of opportunity costs. For every
hour spent on satisfying administrative needs for forms, one hour less
will be spent on preparing thoughtful activities for students. For every
hour spent collaborating with colleagues on how best to explain to
administrators what it is we do, one hour less is being spent on getting better
at what we do. For every mediocre evaluation received, the seeds are
being planted, not for creative and risk-taking lesson planning, but for plans
that will meet the crushing and petty and gap-filled expectations of these
current instruments.
“Make no mistake. These new tools will change things. I
fear for my grandchildren.”
from Fred Klonsky’s Blog
I was there when they first started teacher evaluation how many years ago. It has been run as your first paragraph says from that first day. Also, I've seen the boss offer us a "House Painting party" for her house. The horticulture teacher was offered a chance to landscape her property. Better classroom budgets, better rooms and better schedules were the pay off for being a snitch.
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