What educators want: To be heard, empowered

Diane Ravitch's columns are like B-12 shots; they give educators such a boost of spirit.

This week's note is no different. Ravitch compares the data from two recent surveys of educators nationwide, one funded by the Gates Foundation in collaboration with Scholastic Inc., the other conducted by MetLife. In some areas, the data showed widely divergent findings, and Ravitch tries to make sense of it.

We heard a lot last month about the MetLife Survey of the American Teacher. It showed that teachers across the nation are demoralized and that their job satisfaction has dropped precipitously since 2009. The proportion thinking of leaving teaching has gone from 17 percent to 29 percent, a 70 percent increase in only two years. If this is accurate, it would mean the exit of one million teachers. I hope it is not true.

What has happened in the past two years?

Let's see: Race to the Top promoted the idea that teachers should be evaluated by the test scores of their students; "Waiting for 'Superman'" portrayed teachers as the singular cause of low student test scores; many states, including Wisconsin, Florida, Louisiana, Michigan, Indiana, and Ohio have passed anti-teacher legislation, reducing or eliminating teachers' rights to due process and their right to bargain collectively; the Obama administration insists that schools can be "turned around" by firing some or all of the staff. These events have combined to produce a rising tide of public hostility to educators, as well as the unfounded beliefs that schools alone can end poverty and can produce 100 percent proficiency and 100 percent graduation rates if only "failing schools" are closed, "bad" educators are dismissed, and "effective" teachers get bonuses.

Is it any wonder that teachers and principals are demoralized?

Wow. Ravitch encapsulates a biennial perfect storm, raining hail on the heads of educators from all angles: economic, political, ideological, social, moral. What a hellish ride the past few years have been.

Another survey, released about the same time, has not gotten the attention it deserves. This one conducted by Scholastic and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is called Primary Sources: 2012. It contains valuable information about what teachers think.

Among other things, the survey asked teachers what they believe will have the greatest impact on improving academic achievement.

This is what teachers said were the most important factors:

1. Family involvement and support (84 percent said it would have a "very strong impact");
2. High expectations for all students (71 percent said it would have a "very strong impact");
3. Fewer students in each class (62 percent said it would have a "very strong impact");
4. Effective and engaged principals and building-level leaders (57 percent said it would have a "very strong impact").

These were the factors that teachers said were least important in improving academic achievement:

1. A longer school day (6 percent);
2. Monetary rewards for teachers based on the performance of the entire school (8 percent);
3. Monetary rewards for teachers based on their individual performance (9 percent);
4. A longer school year (10 percent).

Other factors that teachers thought were relatively less important: common assessments across all states (20 percent thought these would have a "very strong impact" on academic achievement); and common standards across all states (29 percent).

Teachers believe that families are crucial for improving student academic performance, but about half of the teachers surveyed say that parent participation in their school has declined, and only about 10 percent said that parent participation had increased.

Sixty-two percent of teachers say that the best measures of student performance are ongoing, formative assessments, the kinds that are integrated into daily instruction and give the teacher immediate feedback. Fifty-five percent of teachers say that class participation is "absolutely essential" as a measure of student performance. Performance on class assignments" is viewed as "absolutely essential" by 47 percent of teachers.

The least valuable measures of student academic achievement, according to teachers, are: tests from textbooks (4 percent); district-required tests (6 percent); state-required standardized tests (7 percent); and final exams (10 percent).

When teachers were asked whether the state standardized tests were "meaningful benchmarks" to measure students' progress or to compare schools, only 5 percent agreed strongly.

It is interesting that the least useful measures, in the eyes of teachers, are the state-required standardized tests that policymakers use to punish and reward students, teachers, principals, and schools. Only 7 percent of teachers consider them to be "absolutely essential" measures of their students' academic performance. Yet, to policymakers, this same measure is the only one that matters.

Here in South Carolina, what's the flavor-of-the-month proposal to change how educators are paid? To eliminate credentials and experience as determining factors, and go to a system that pays educators according to student test scores; it's called merit pay.

Always choosing the unwise option, that's us.

Teachers are quite willing to be evaluated, contrary to popular myth spread by politicians. But they want to be evaluated in a professional manner, by principal observation and review, by formal self-evaluation, by peer observation and review, by their department chair's observation and review, and by assessment of their content-area knowledge.

When asked about the challenges they face, 62 percent of teachers say they have more students "with behavioral problems that interfere with teaching" than in the past; 56 percent say they have more students living in poverty; 50 percent say they have more English-language learners; 49 percent say they have more students who arrive at school hungry; and 36 percent say they have more students who are homeless. Policymakers tend to dismiss all these social and economic issues as unimportant. Teachers don't, because they see them every day in real time.

Our policymakers often say that merit pay will lead to the retention of the best teachers. Teachers don't agree. They say that the factors that are "absolutely essential" to keeping them in the classroom are "supportive leadership" (68 percent); "more family involvement in students' education" (63 percent); "more help for students who have behavioral or other problems that interfere with learning" (53 percent); and "time for teachers to collaborate" (50 percent).

By contrast, teachers rank the following factors as least important in keeping them in the classroom: "pay tied to teachers' performance" (4 percent); "in-school teaching mentors/coaches for first 3 years of teaching" (15 percent); "opportunities for additional responsibility and advancement while staying in the classroom" (15 percent).

This bit of text is worth clipping and circulating to friends, family, colleagues, neighbors, church leaders, school board members, and everyone else in your email account.

So is the next bit:

What do teachers want?

They want to spend less time on discipline and more time collaborating with their colleagues and preparing lessons. They want more resources for the students with the greatest needs. They want more training to reach every student in their care.

Unlike the MetLife survey, the Scholastic-Gates survey found that 51 percent of teachers plan to teach "as long as I am able," even past retirement age, and another 32 percent expect to teach until they reach retirement age. So while MetLife concluded that 29 percent were ready to quit, Scholastic-Gates tallied this group as 16-17 percent.

To the policymakers who seem to think that teaching is an easy job, and to those who write letters to the editor asserting that teachers don't work hard enough or long enough, consider this: The Scholastic-Gates survey says in its conclusion that "On average, teachers work about 11 hours and 25 minutes a day." (Although on Page 13 of the report, the survey says that "teachers work an average of 10 hours and 40 minutes a day, three hours and 20 minutes beyond the average required work day in public schools nationwide.") Whether it is one or the other doesn't really matter. This is a demanding job that requires enormous dedication and gets inadequate support from families, from policymakers, from elected officials, and from the public.

The teacher comments that accompany each page of the report are illuminating. One teacher says, "In my school, we are feeding the children, clothing the children, and keeping many of them from 7:30 a.m.-6:00 p.m." Another says, "I am a general education teacher, but at least 50 percent of my class each year has special needs. At least 25 percent of these students have extreme behavior problems which interfere with teaching the other students to learn."

The goal of the survey "is to place teachers' voices at the center of the conversation on education reform by sharing their thoughts and opinions with the public, the media, and education leaders." Is anyone listening?

EOC asks for more teacher loan funds

Let's see: South Carolina sponsors a student-loan program that specifically targets students who intend to become teachers. The program's default rate is miniscule: only one percent.

Its annual allocation is $4 million hasn't been increased in the past four years, despite the fact that nearly 300 applicants have been denied loans because the program lacked funding -- a paltry $1.3 million, out of multi-billion-dollar budget.

Two weeks ago, South Carolina's House adopted a plan that represents a foot-in-the-door to dismantle public education through funding starvation.

So today, the state's Education Oversight Commission issued a report that requests additional funding to this tremendously valuable student-loan program.

Question: What are the chances that our anti-public education lawmakers and governor will approve an increase in appropriations to help worthy and qualified students attend and afford college to become education professionals?

That's a tough one, isn't it?

Reporter Seanna Adcox explains the history of the program and the EOC's report here:

A state education committee wants legislators to put more money into a teacher loan program meant to encourage students to stay in South Carolina and teach in needy public schools.

The Education Oversight Committee also recommends redefining such schools amid climbing poverty rates and believes students should be better informed about the program.

The loan program created in 1984 provides a maximum of $20,000 toward a student's college degree in education — up to $2,500 yearly for college freshmen and sophomores, and up to $5,000 for juniors, seniors and graduate students. The amount is forgiven within five years of teaching in a needy school or a hard-to-fill subject — sooner if both definitions apply. Students must pay the money back, with interest, if they don't do so after graduation.

Last school year, the state Student Loan Corp. doled out nearly $4.7 million in loans, averaging $4,182 each, to 1,114 education majors. The program used money from repaid loans to add to the Legislature's $4 million allotment, which hasn't changed since 2009-10, according to an annual report the oversight committee approved Monday.

More than 300 applicants were denied loans because of a lack of funding. An additional $1.3 million would have covered all eligible applicants.

The independent, nonpartisan committee made up of business leaders, educators and legislators chose to recommend in its 2013-14 budget recommendations to legislators that they increase funding to cover all of those eligible.

"We're turning down so many students we don't have funds for," said committee member Dennis Drew of Isle of Palms, a former teacher and founder of The Sunshine House early childhood centers.

Dennis Drew was one of former Governor Mark Sanford's several consecutive education advisors, so it's refreshing to hear him advocating for students who want to become educators.

The House's budget plan for 2012-13 put no additional money into the program. The Senate is working on its plan, which will be debated on that chamber's floor in May.

Nearly two-thirds of all public schools are deemed in critical need. Under state law, schools meet that definition if at least 70 percent of their students live in poverty, teacher turnover averages at least 20 percent, or their state report card scores are in the bottom two tiers. Of the 785 schools in critical need last school year, 669 qualified based solely on the poverty rate.

The committee recommends legislators increase the poverty threshold to 80 percent of students qualifying for free- or reduced-price meals. That helps focus the program on schools most in need, said Melanie Barton, the committee's executive director.

Rep. Joe Neal, a committee member, said he supports targeting schools most at risk, but he worries about the consequences.

"Schools failing most dramatically in the state are also those with high levels of poverty. Those schools tend not to do well, even though there are some exceptions," Neal, D-Hopkins, said after the meeting. "My only concern is what will that do to the marginal schools? Do we deprive them of that resource?"

The overall number of applicants has plummeted 56 percent in the three school years since 2008. Officials speculate that fewer students could be choosing a career in education following the Great Recession and resulting budget cuts, which led to thousands of teacher layoffs across the state.

A third recommendation from the committee is to put a state agency in charge of the program, which can set goals, communicate with colleges and market the program to students. Many students simply don't know the option exists, Barton said.

That could improve the program's diversity, she said.

Last school year, 77 percent of applicants were women and 80 percent were white. The number of loan recipients attending South Carolina's historically black colleges continues to decline, to just nine at South Carolina State, down from 42 students at that school and three others in 2007-08.

A diverse teaching force plays a role in motivating some students, Neal said.

"They need to see teachers who look like them," he said. "Clearly if we're going to have a teaching force that reflects South Carolina, we need a loan program that enables people from different groups in this state, particularly minorities, to actually do so."

The default rate on the program — those who didn't teach and didn't pay back the money — has been 1 percent. Last school year, more than 6,500 teachers employed in South Carolina's public schools were loan recipients, according to the report.

If the EOC continues to issue reports and requests of this sort, noble and necessary as they are, the commission may find itself written out of the budget altogether. It has happened before -- though its funding was always restored at the last minute, thanks to pro-public education members of the state Senate.

Come to think of it, the Senate is due to take up its own budget debate in the coming weeks, so maybe we'll hear more about this loan program before the session ends in June.

Solidarity among educators, workers is imperative

Mark Naison, professor of African and African American Studies at Fordham University in New York and chair of the department of African and African-American Studies, authored a great column I found over the weekend. Given what's happening in our legislature, funded by out-of-state contributors, I thought it appropriate to feature Naison's thoughts here.

All over the nation, teachers are under attack. Politicians of both parties, in every state, have blamed teachers and their unions for the nation’s low standing on international tests and our nation’s inability to create the educated labor force our economy needs.

Mass firings of teachers in so-called failing schools have taken place in municipalities throughout the nation and some states have made a public ritual of humiliating teachers. In Los Angeles and New York, teacher ratings based on student standardized test scores — said by many to be inaccurate — have been published by the press. As a result, great teachers have been labeled as incompetent and some are leaving the profession. A new study showed that teachers’ job satisfaction has plummeted in recent years.

Big budget films such as "Bad Teacher" and... "Waiting for Superman" popularize the idea that public school teachers prevent poor children of color from getting a good education, while corporate funded organizations perpetuate the idea that the only way for children to excel is if their teachers lose their job security and bargaining rights.

Why has this campaign attracted such strong bipartisan support and why has the public failed to speak out loudly against it?

Attacks on teachers have occurred in the midst of a broad-based attack on the bargaining rights and benefits of all public workers — but even by that standard, teachers have been singled out.

In New York State, where teacher evaluations were just released to the press, the state Legislature just passed — and the governor signed — a bill that exempted police and firefighters from having their evaluations released to the public. What better symbolizes the way teachers have become “fair game” for public demonization?

There are huge profits to be made in the testing industry, in educational technologies that replace teachers, and in constructing and managing charter schools, so it is not hard to see why some people in the corporate world would benefit from attacking public education and teachers unions.

Sooner or later, it all comes back to money, doesn't it? And not little money, but massive corporate profits.

But why are so many parents and the general public buying into this campaign? Certainly politicians wouldn’t be voting to take away teachers’ rights if they didn’t think it would get votes.

Let’s look at the way many in America’s shrinking middle class and battered working class view the teachers in their midst.

Large numbers of people are losing their jobs and homes, earning sub-standard wages and taking in their children who can’t find jobs. All the while, they see teachers, 80 percent of them women, who make better salaries than they do, have better health plans and pensions, and get two or three months off in the summer!

Many say to themselves: “Who do teachers think they are? Why should they live so well on my tax dollars when I can barely keep my head above water? At the very least, they should feel some of the insecurity I feel every day and face the kind of performance assessments workers in the private sector deal with all the time.”

That is the same sentiment that America’s unionized blue collar workers faced in the ‘70’s and ‘80’s and ‘90’s when big corporations started closing factories and slashing wages and benefits. The non-unionized work force in big industrial states refused to rally to the defense of their unionized counterparts, and industrial unions lost battles to maintain their wage and benefit levels that allowed them to live a middle-class life style or prevent plants from relocating.

That posture is short-sighted for two reasons.

First the same policies that create an insecure, deeply resentful teaching force will end up harming children.

Not only will excessive standardized tests — now used to evaluate teachers — make children hate school, but the whole test-based accountability movement has served to narrow the curriculum and turn many classrooms into test-prep factories. Parents are discovering that their children are not only unhappy at school but not well prepared for higher education or challenging careers.

There is another more insidious consequence of the attack on teaching. Every time you undermine the job security, working conditions, and wages of one group of workers, it makes it easier for employers to undermine them for all workers. This is why, during the Depression, many unemployed people organized in support of workers on strike, even though anybody with a job in that era was relatively privileged. They believed in the concept of solidarity — the idea that working people could only progress if they did so together, and if one group of workers improved their conditions, it would ultimately improve conditions for all.

This is an important point, I think. Demean a worker over here, and it sends a signal to the worker over there. Demean a whole class of workers in this industry, and it sends a signal to the workers in other industries.

Remember that Ronald Reagan fired air traffic controllers rather than address their concerns in 1981, less than two years after the film "Norma Rae" highlighted the value of solidarity among America's working class. One impact of Reagan's action was a chill on American workers. Consider, further, that the decade is now represented in popular culture by Oliver Stone's "Wall Street," a film about corporate raiders destroying companies and stealing their workers' pensions.

For two generations now, we've suffered from an organized effort to demean one and all who derive their livelihoods from work rather than from wealth.

But the converse is true too: Battle for the rights of workers here, and you battle for the rights of others there, too. Progress spreads. Solidarity empowers everyone.

That kind of solidarity, for the most part, is gone now. If American workers are ever going to regain their fair share of national income and win back respect on and off the jobs, it is something they are going to have to re-learn. The Occupy Movement has brought back the idea of solidarity with its image of “the 99 percent fighting the 1 Percent,” but this idea has not yet spread fast enough to stop the war on teachers.

There are, though, signs of hope. In Chicago and New York, Occupy groups are uniting with teachers, parents and students to fight school closings; in New York, parents groups have rallied to the defense of teachers stigmatized by the publication of outrageously inaccurate teacher ratings; in Florida, a pernicious “parent trigger” law favoring charter schools was just defeated in the legislature with a big push from parents.

These actions are, hopefully, just the beginning of a transformation of public consciousness that will lead to an end of the war on teachers.

Columnist pays tribute to teacher Mildred Almond

Just a reminder: Have you reached out to thank the teachers who helped you become who you are? Columnist Stephanie Harvin of the Charleston Post & Courier does in today's edition.

In every school, there are teachers who inspire us long after we have graduated. When we were seniors, in that final flurry of classes, exams, proms and graduation, we didn't think too hard about them.

They were our social studies teachers, our math teachers, our French teachers, our coaches. They were fixtures in our lives and we were ready to move on. It was only later that we discovered some of their lessons went far beyond the classroom.

Mildred Almond was one such teacher. She taught social studies, public speaking, economics and drama at Middleton High School for 21 years. But for many, she also was an example of how to live your life. She was someone who never took no for an answer, who didn't listen to excuses, who demanded the best of everyone in her classrooms and who helped those who were struggling, whether she taught them or not.

She taught history, and made it relevant to what was happening in the world. She taught public speaking, and was patient enough to wait until a nervous student got up the courage to start their prepared remarks.

And she was honest about the results, saying "You can do better next time" with a stern look and then a smile.

She passed away on Christmas Day at age 77 after a short illness. It's hard to think of the world without her. She was a tireless member of Cherokee Place United Methodist Church, and was a volunteer at the Naval Weapons Station pharmacy.

After she retired, she became a driving force in the Charleston County Retired Educators' Association. They had their February meeting at the church, one that Mildred had already planned. It turned into a celebration of her life.

The Culinary Arts students from the Garrett Academy of Technology came up with the menu, and then served it to the filled fellowship hall.

Then the chorus from the School of the Arts filed in to sing.

Mildred was a big supporter of the school's singers after she retired. And she would have been so proud of them. Robin Rogers directed them in a favorite from "A Chorus Line" that described Mildred perfectly:

"One singular sensation
Every little step she takes
One thrilling combination
Every move that she makes
One smile and suddenly nobody else will do
You know you'll never be lonely with you know who ..."

To end the program, Sabrina McIntyre, a senior this year, and former Middleton High School 1982 graduate Ann Marie Spearman Fairchild sang "The Prayer," an operatic duet, that made hearts in the room soar.

In his introduction, Rogers repeated what a friend had said of Mildred at her passing: "God needs a break so Mildred can be in charge for awhile."

I had to laugh when I heard that because it was so true. Mildred also never minced words and she taught all of us important skills, like how to form a clear idea, and how to project a voice so a large crowd can hear and how to research details on a story until it is accurate.

Every person that day had a special Mildred Almond story to tell, so I'm passing on one of my own.

Years after I graduated from college, I started writing for The Post and Courier. A few months later, I ran into Mildred again, and couldn't resist asking what she thought of my writing.

She was as straightforward as ever, and her response was typical "It will get better. Just keep on writing."

So for all the teachers out there who have moments when they pull their hair out over students, remember that some of the best lessons are the ones you are teaching about how to live life.

"Standing ovation" for teacher's perspective at Sumter meeting

Early feedback from tonight's Sumter Board of Trustees meeting reports that Jackie Hicks, president of the SCEA, carried the perspective of Sumter's classroom professionals to the table, a perspective that earned applause and a standing ovation from approximately 200 parents, educators and others. Writes one commenter tonight,

THANK YOU JACKIE HICKS for coming to our board meeting to say what we can't. The applause and STANDING OVATION tells you all you need to know about what's happening. Please stick with us through this, I think it takes a teacher to understand what teachers suffer. I don't know many of us who can afford to represent ourselves and risk losing our job. Thank you to the SCEA for representing us all.

But it's also clear that many more speakers like Hicks are necessary to continue bringing attention to educators' concerns.

Only one speaker on the public participation list spoke in favor of "Sweet 16," the complex new teacher evaluation instrument. Others reportedly drew attention to expenses on the district's credit card, including one "at a truck stop in Manning on New Year's Eve." Though the questions were raised, no answers were offered in response.

And one parent delivered copies of the educators' comments left at Educating South Carolina's blog posts on "Sweet 16" for board members.

Still, there's no indication that the board will respond publicly to what it heard. If the Sumter Item reports on the event, it'll be recapped here.

In the meantime, feel free to post your own feedback to what was said and heard, what you'd like the board to take into consideration, and what action you hope to see the board take.

UPDATE:

I attended tonight and was amazed at the indifference given to obviously conerned parents - who, I might add, showed the patience and restraint of Saints. When we leave this earth, our lasting legacy will be the children we raise and leave to run this country. Granted, education MUST start in the home, but educators see, interact with, and mentor our children when we cannot. How can they gain parental assistance if they cannot even gain the respect or trust of the administration? Dishonest, unethical, and narcisitic attitudes will not solve our problems. We collectively must forge on to win the day. National attention (Oh, say Bill O'reilly) might be able to cut through the spin zone to make an impartial observation. Here, however, I believe that will be hard to do.

Teaching: The most important job in America

Yet again, New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof knocks one out of the ballpark. This time, it's the discovery of a successful businessman named Olly Neal, who was well on his way to becoming a juvenile delinquent with no future in the segregated South, but whose meanness to a teacher was repaid with a secret favor that led to Neal's own success and the success of his own children.

The only regrettable note in the story is that Neal's English teacher, Mildred Grady -- a women he had tormented and who was the greatest catalyst in his life -- is no longer alive to see her legacy memorialized in the New York Times.

THIS is the power of a single great teacher, illustrated:

In the late 1950s, Olly Neal was a poor black kid with an attitude. He was one of 13 brothers and sisters in a house with no electricity, and his father was a farmer with a second-grade education. Neal attended a small school for black children — this was in the segregated South — and was always mouthing off. He remembers reducing his English teacher, Mildred Grady, to tears.

“I was not a nice kid,” he recalls. “I had a reputation. I was the only one who made her cry.”

Neal adds: “She would have had good reason to say, ‘this boy is incorrigible.’ ”

A regular shoplifter back then, Neal was caught stealing from the store where he worked part time. He seemed headed for a life in trouble.
...
One day in 1957, in the fall of his senior year, Neal cut...class and wandered in the library, set up by Grady, the English teacher whom he had tormented. Neal wasn’t a reader, but he spotted a book with a risqué cover of a sexy woman.

Called “The Treasure of Pleasant Valley,” it was by Frank Yerby, a black author, and it looked appealing. Neal says he thought of checking it out, but he didn’t want word to get out to any of his classmates that he was reading a novel. That would have been humiliating.

“So I stole it.”

Neal tucked the book under his jacket and took it home — and loved it. After finishing the book, he sneaked it back into the library. And there, on the shelf, he noticed another novel by Yerby. He stole that one as well.

This book was also terrific. And, to Neal’s surprise, when he returned it to the shelf after finishing it, he found yet another by Yerby.

Four times this happened, and he caught the book bug. “Reading got to be a thing I liked,” he says. His trajectory changed, and he later graduated to harder novels, including those by Albert Camus, and he turned to newspapers and magazines as well. He went to college and later to law school.

In 1991, Neal was appointed the first black district prosecuting attorney in Arkansas. A few years later, he became a judge, and then an appellate court judge.

But there’s more.

At a high school reunion, Grady stunned Neal by confiding to him that she had spotted him stealing that first book. Her impulse was to confront him, but then, in a flash of understanding, she realized his embarrassment at being seen checking out a book.

So Grady kept quiet. The next Saturday, she told him, she drove 70 miles to Memphis to search the bookshops for another novel by Yerby. Finally, she found one, bought it and put it on the library bookshelf.

Twice more, Grady told Neal, she spent her Saturdays trekking to Memphis to buy books by Yerby — all in hopes of turning around a rude adolescent who had made her cry. She paid for the books out of her own pocket.

How can one measure Grady’s impact? Not only in Neal, but in the lives of those around him. His daughter, Karama, earned a doctorate in genetics, taught bioethics at Emory University, and now runs a community development program in Arkansas.

The big-hearted Grady, now dead, is a reminder that teachers may have the most important job in America. By all accounts, Grady transformed many other children as well, through more mundane methods.

This is not an isolated case. This is common. This is what happens in schools all over South Carolina, every day, when sometimes, the acts of teachers stick and the lives of otherwise neglected children are transformed, moment by moment.

It is not a teacher, or a workforce of teachers, who fails a child in South Carolina; it is a system that subjects teachers to professional disrespect and degradation as it subjects those children to lives without opportunity. Systems that support public education and education professionals also support success.

Kristof concludes,

The implication is that we need rigorous teacher evaluations, more pay for good teachers and more training and weeding-out of poor teachers.

This is an error in his perspective, but a correctable one: He begins at the end of the process, when beginning at the beginning is sounder policy. There should be no need to "weed out" "poor teachers," as he puts it, there should only be a process of teacher preparation that ensure every professional who enters the classroom is caring, qualified and capable.

That won't happen without changing our system, returning the profession to a position of highest respect, making its compensation and benefits the object of intense competition, and investing the resources in every classroom necessary to keep the state's best and brightest educators on the job for as long as they will work.

The need for more pay is simple. In the 1950s, outstanding women like Grady didn’t have many alternatives, and they became teachers. Grady was black, so she didn’t have many options other than teaching black children in a segregated school.

Today, women like Grady often become doctors, lawyers or bankers — professions with far higher salaries. If we want to recruit and retain the best teachers, we simply have to pay more — while also more aggressively thinning out those who don’t succeed. It’s worth it.

Rather than insist on being first and best in misguided priorities and perpetuating old and discarded prejudices, South Carolina can and should insist on being first and best at preparing educators to teach, children to learn, and our state to lead.

Teachers, pamper your feet: Some tips

It's not easy being on your feet most of a school day.

This note is a couple of years old, from NEA Member Benefits, but it still offers good advice:

When you’re on your feet all day, it’s not uncommon to experience pain, strain and muscle weakness. Your back aches, your dogs are barking and all you want to do is sit down! Before you take a load off, it’s important to realize that these symptoms are telling you that your body is weak and off balance. But there is some good news: Experts say with a little common sense, proper alignment and muscle toning, you can train your body to stand all day—without pain. To get started, try these 4 strategies:

1. Choose proper footwear. High heels, flip-flops, strappy sandals and even unsupportive flats (think ballet slippers) wreak havoc on the body. When you wear shoes that force you to transfer weight toward the toe and away from the heel (like pumps and high heels), your gait dramatically shifts. Similarly, if you wear shoes with only of a thin strap of plastic, you alter the way you walk, shortening your stride and scrunching your toes, which increases the angle of the ankle. “Your best bet is to choose comfortable footwear that supports your feet,” says Karen Jacobs, Ed.D., OTR/L, program director of Distance Education Post-Professional Occupational Therapy Programs and clinical professor at Boston University College of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences. For added comfort, Jacob recommends wearing insoles to provide extra cushioning.

2. Stand tall. Watch most educators stand and you’ll see why so many of them suffer from pain in the neck, back and shoulders. Poor posture runs rampant in our culture, particularly an imbalance known as “forward head,” where your head extends from beyond your shoulders. Unfortunately, when you have a forward center of mass, pressure increases on the arch of the foot and the muscles that support it causing them to work harder and eventually strain. To correct this default position, focus on keeping your ears over shoulders and shoulders over hips. “If you can envision a little string that travels through your midline, that’s good posture,” says Jacobs. Another tip: During your off time, flex your feet toward your shins to strengthen the muscles in front of the lower leg. That helps support the arch of the foot.

3. Move around. “Look at yourself as an athlete,” suggests Jacobs. “Before you start your work day, do some stretching and, at the end of the day, cool down (with more stretching).” You can even walk to work to get your muscles warmed up, or consider incorporating activities that require movement into the classroom. Build in a stretching or moving break every 20-30 minutes, for example. “That will really help reduce fatigue for both you and your students,” she says, “and it instills good habits at the same time.” During your off hours, build exercise into your daily routine, especially stretching activities like yoga.

4. Build strength. The human head weighs 10-15 pounds—about the same as a bowling ball. Imagine holding a bowling ball in front of you all day and you’ll get a sense of what happens with poor posture. To support this weight, you need to build strength in your abdominals, glutes, hamstrings and hip flexors. Building muscle increases your functional capacity. “Since most people stand slightly hunched forward, their skeletons are not in a position to support them so their muscles have to kick in,” says Mitchell Yass, Doctor of Physical Therapy and owner of P2Therapy in Farmingdale, New York. “Ultimately you have to strengthen the muscles that help you stand upright.” The result: less strain and less pain. Yass recommends performing the following 2 exercises, twice a week for 15 minutes to strengthen your target muscles—and thus minimize the toll standing takes on the body.

Deadlifts: Deadlifts work both your glutes and hamstrings. Stand up and make a fist like you’re holding a dumbbell. Your palms should be facing your thighs. Unlock your knees, keep your back straight, and slide your hands down your thighs until they reach half-way down your shins (make sure to keep the weight in your heels so you’re not leaning forward). When you feel a tightness in the back of your thigh, you’ve exhausted full range of motion. Return to standing and repeat. As you get stronger, do the exercise with dumbbells, gradually increasing the weight as you improve. Do 3 sets of 10 repetitions, resting for 2 minutes between sets.

Side-lying Hip Abduction: Lie down on your side and bend the leg that you’re lying on. Straighten your top leg so it lines up with your torso. Then raise your leg up until it’s parallel to the ground or hip height (never go above hip height). As you get stronger with this exercise, add a cuff weight around your ankles. Try 3 sets of 10 repetitions, resting for 2 minutes between sets.

Keep in mind that schools are mandated to have occupational practitioners available to teachers. “They’re in every school throughout the United States,” says Jacobs. “So you don’t have to do this alone. Occupational therapy practitioners will come to your teachers’ meetings and they’ll give you strategies for things you can do both inside and outside the classroom.” So what are you waiting for? It’s time to get through your day without pain!

Moses Waddel: Teacher who shaped South Carolina, America

Moses Waddel is a perfect example of how much one teacher can matter.

Good teachers and great teachers matter surely to the lives of the children they teach, but their influence can and, I believe, absolutely does shape the entire community, a state and a nation. That's what Moses Waddel did.

Don't go looking for any historical markers erected by the state of South Carolina for any notice of Waddel's influence, though. Thanks in part to our state culture's do-it-yourself, individualist mythologizing -- which asserts that great people got to be great entirely on their own -- and thanks in part to the state's refusal to honor teachers for any of the good they've done, there is no state marker to indicate where Waddel taught or why he's important.

Thankfully, the McCormick Lions Club in 1962 took matters into their own hands and created a dignified granite marker on the site of Waddel's Willington Academy.

The text of the marker speaks volumes, literally: Hundreds of scholarly works have been written by and about the names contained in this brief note.

Site of Willington Academy
Established 1804 by Moses Waddel D.D.

Men who influenced the destiny of our country were educated here - The Calhouns, Crawfords, Legare, McDuffie, Longstreet, Simkins, Martin, Covan, Gilmer, Carey, Walker, Collier, Noble, Butlers, Brooks, Grayson, Wardlaws, Cobb, Harper, Dawson, Hunter, Petigru, Morrow, et. al.

Erected by McCormick Lions Club 1962

No, to find a state marker honoring Waddel, you must travel to Athens, Georgia, where presumably state leaders have slightly more respect for the profession and its professionals. There, a beautiful bronze sign erected by the Georgia Historical Commission honors the "educator and minister" who began teaching children at the age of 14 near his home. He taught in Willington, South Carolina, until 1819, when Georgians lured him away and installed him as president of Franklin College -- now better known as the University of Georgia.

Why is Waddel so important to us as South Carolinians and Americans?

From Wikipedia:

Waddel's Willington Academy was... often called "Eton in the woods', as a comparison to Eton College in the UK that produced the leadership of Britain. Students were required to memorize, translate, and recite 250 lines of classic Greek or Latin every night – and they did, often several times more. Later SC Governor George McDuffie, who once recited 2,212 lines of Horace, held the record.
...
This 'Cromwell of the Classroom' produced a generation of Southern leaders including William H. Crawford, Madison’s Secretary of the Treasury and 1824 US Presidential candidate; Hugh S. Legaré, editor of the Southern Review; Governor and U.S. Senator George McDuffie of South Carolina; Judge James L. Petigru, the Unionist who famously stated that South Carolina was too small to be a nation and too large for an insane asylum; Governor George Rockingham Gilmer of Georgia; Judge Augustus Baldwin Longstreet, author of Georgia Scenes and president of two universities, and John C. Calhoun.

According to Dr James McLeod's book 'The Great Doctor Waddell' (page 8) the list of students from all of Waddell's schools includes: two Vice-Presidents, three Secretaries of State, three Secretaries of War, one Assistant Secretary of War, one US Attorney-general, Ministers to France, Spain and Russia, one US Supreme Court Justice, eleven governors, seven US Senators, thirty two members of the US House of Representatives, twenty two judges, eight college presidents, seventeen editors of newspapers or authors, five members of the Confederate Congress, two bishops, three Brigadier-generals, and one authentic Christian martyr.

At one time, five South Carolina governors in a row had been his pupils.

In the presidential election of 1824, three of the five candidates had been his pupils -- and the men who won the presidency and vice presidency had studied under him, President Andrew Jackson and Vice President John C. Calhoun.

That's influence.

Could you imagine if Nikki Haley, Mark Sanford, Jim Hodges, David Beasley and Carroll Campbell had all been the students of a single instructor, who had also been the instructor of President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden? If that instructor were a South Carolinian, do you imagine that the state of South Carolina might want to recognize the amazing influence of this man or woman on our state and nation?

That we continue to ignore and disregard the influence of good and great teachers in our lives and our children's lives today boggles the mind.

Former students, others remember R.P. Dawkins of Spartanburg

Longtime educator R.P. Dawkins of Spartanburg passed away last week at age 98. Originally from Union County, his prominence in the Spartanburg community through the turbulent times of the last century earned him the honor of having R.P. Dawkins Middle School named for him. But as Kevin Alexander Gray reflects in a fine remembrance, Dawkins's greatest legacy is seen in the generations of children he taught and led.

It is true of all teachers that they build palaces out of minds, one lesson at a time. Gray, a Columbia-based author and activist, demonstrates that Dawkins leaves behind a city of such construction.

When one considers the history of Spartanburg County, Dawkins, who began his career as an educator in 1939, guiding three or more generations of black kids through Jim Crow and “agricultural training” to “separate but equal” to “choice, not chance” to court-ordered desegregation, is a real unsung hero.

He was beloved by thousands. Especially those of us now in our 50s, 60s and 70s who were Lincoln High School “Bearcats” during the days of racial segregation in the public schools. Lincoln was our safe harbor. Teachers lived in the neighborhoods among the kids they taught and had a huge place in community leadership.
...
I'm sure many, like me, remember sitting outside Fessor Dawkins' office. The wait wasn't about fear or making you sweat it out, although fear and sweat were often evident. Fess wasn't a mean man. What you feared the most was losing his respect and confidence. So you had to get your story right. You had to go in and tell him what you had done. Sometimes you might have a note from the teacher. On occasion, the teacher might personally march you to the office. Maybe a witness or two if you were fighting. But most often you went into his office alone and you had to tell him why you were there.

Fess always gave you a choice.

“The best possible outcome,” said Curtis Nash, one of Dawkins' many students, “was that Fess would tell you to take a walk with him. Then as you'd walk down the hall he'd put his arm around your shoulder and say, ‘Let me explain something to you … .' "
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There are very few of those educators still alive from the era of the “consolidated” all-black school where a student would attend from the first grade to the 12th. Schools like Carver, Mays, New Bethel and Foster's Grove in Spartanburg County, Sterling and Bryson over in Greenville, and Booker T. Washington and C.A. Johnson in Columbia, just to name a few, were the heartbeat of a segregated black community. They were led by the likes of C.C. Woodson, Leonard Patton, Stonewall Richburg, H.B. Rutherford, Maceo Anderson and many others.

And when segregation by law ended, it was Dawkins, along with my parents, who made the call that my sister and I leave Lincoln to go over to then all-white Fairforest Elementary in 1969. And when desegregation took full effect, for many of those black principals, it became their job to transition kids to a new environment, where they were denied the opportunity to serve as principals at the newly integrated schools.

Living to be 98, R.P. Dawkins did and saw more than most. He was a living piece of history when he was among us. Now his life's tale and those of many others like him deserve to be recorded in our history books.

In a separate item on Dawkins's passing, the Spartanburg Herald-Journal last week spoke with others of Dawkins's students and colleagues for similar reflections.

In June 1995, the original R.P. Dawkins Middle was closed, and the school was moved to the building that once housed Blackstock Elementary. The building now in use was renovated, with the addition of an eighth grade and fine arts wing. The school opened at its present location in 1995.

“It was a foregone conclusion that the new location would retain the name R.P. Dawkins Middle School,” said David Eubanks, then-superintendent of District 6. “There was never any consideration for it not to be. But he was so humble about it. He was one of those guys that if it did or it didn't, he wouldn't have complained about it.”

Though Dawkins was already retired when Eubanks, who retired in 2002, served as superintendent, Dawkins remained a fixture at the school named after him, attending awards days and donating money to the school. Sometimes he stopped by Eubanks' office to give him an encouraging word.

“Mr. Dawkins was an encourager,” Eubanks said. “He had a great manner about him with people. He was one of those guys who quietly did an awful lot for a lot of people. I've kept up with him over the years and I'm saddened to hear of his passing. He leaves a legacy that will be unmatched.”

Dawkins and his wife continued to give after they retired as educators, said Donna Mayes, who remembers Dawkins as her principal and attended Forest Chapel CME Church with him. They donated scholarship funds to the Spartanburg County Foundation for Dorman High School students who attended

“He didn't have children of his own,” Mayes said. “But yet, he had more children than anyone could imagine.”
...
As her principal, Mayes, now an English teacher at Dorman High, remembers Dawkins as strict.

“But he wanted us to excel,” she said. “He wanted the children to get a good education. We were expected to learn. That's what he cared so much about. Do your best — he was always so encouraging.”

Dawkins helped the school district through integration, smoothing the rough edges, as Mayes puts it, of blacks and whites attending school together in Spartanburg County for the first time.

“He made things good for us,” Mayes said. “He did everything he could for all of us. I appreciate the opportunity I had for him to touch my life. My heart is just broken — he was just a father figure to so many people.”

On a day when America honors a man who taught the nation by his example, it's fitting to remember the teachers in our own communities who do the same, day after day.

God bless and protect our teachers in South Carolina.

Got a job, an income, a home? Thank some teachers.

In today's edition, New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof highlights in today's edition a "landmark new research paper" that concludes "the difference between a strong teacher and a weak teacher lasts a lifetime."

Having a good fourth-grade teacher makes a student 1.25 percent more likely to go to college, the research suggests, and 1.25 percent less likely to get pregnant as a teenager. Each of the students will go on as an adult to earn, on average, $25,000 more over a lifetime — or about $700,000 in gains for an average size class — all attributable to that ace teacher back in the fourth grade. That’s right: A great teacher is worth hundreds of thousands of dollars to each year’s students, just in the extra income they will earn.

No matter who you ask, everyone can identify at least one teacher who provided the spark that led to one's vocations, avocations, deep personal interests or even lifelong career paths. I'm lucky -- I attended public schools in both urban and rural settings, and I can make a long list of the great teachers I had who influenced the positive directions I've taken.

Every small gesture a great teacher makes accumulate to become major influences. We are who we are because of who taught us, and what they imparted -- their knowledge, their manner, their character, their style, their humanity.

I bet fewer than a tenth of one percent of South Carolinians -- a paltry, sad number -- know the significance of Moses Waddel on our state's and nation's history, and he never served a day in public office. Reward yourself and Google his name.

Let's say that a legislature cuts education funding, and that forces teacher layoffs. What should a community do? As Krisof writes, the study has a recommended:

The study, by economists at Harvard and Columbia universities, finds that if a great teacher is leaving, parents should hold bake sales or pass the hat around in hopes of collectively offering the teacher as much as a $100,000 bonus to stay for an extra year. Sure, that’s implausible — but their children would gain a benefit that far exceeds even that sum.

Ask yourself: Would you be willing to hold fundraisers to keep great teachers on the job in your schools, if it meant your children might earn thousands more dollars over their lifetimes? Funny how your kids' earning potential puts things in perspective, isn't it?

While we're at it, ask yourself this, too: Would you be willing to vote for candidates who would make public education funding the highest priority of the state budget, if it meant your children might earn thousands more dollars over their lifetimes?

Even if that meant tossing out a legislative majority that enacts deep cuts to public schools and that celebrates its stinginess?

Hmmm...

Our faltering education system may be the most important long-term threat to America’s economy and national well-being, so it’s frustrating that the presidential campaign is mostly ignoring the issue. Candidates are bloviating about all kinds of imaginary or exaggerated threats, while ignoring the most crucial one.

Mitt Romney, who after his victory in New Hampshire on Tuesday seems increasingly likely to be the Republican nominee, refers to education only in passing on his Web site. The topic receives no substantive discussion in his 160-page “Believe in America” economic plan.

Perhaps we need a candidate who offers a "Believe in Great Teachers" plan.

Some Republicans worry that a federal role in education smacks of socialism. On the contrary, schools represent a tough-minded business investment in our economic future. And, increasingly, we’re getting solid evidence of what reforms may help: teacher evaluations based on student performance, higher pay and prestige for good teachers, dismissals for weak teachers.

That, and not most of the fireworks that passes for politics these days, is the debate we should be having on a national stage.

Congratulations, music teacher/band director George Wenger

This weekend, the Spartanburg Herald-Journal reported that two area students, Andrew Fierova and Taylor Peterson, have been selected to attend Juilliard School, a private conservatory for the performing arts, in New York City.

Peterson, 18, will enter the freshman class in September, and Fierova, who turns 22 Monday, was admitted to the graduate school.

Applicants to this school have a six percent acceptance rate, so to have two students from the same area be accepted at the same time is rare. Rarer still, both had attended Dorman High School in Roebuck for at least part of their high school education. And rarer again, both were students of music instructor and band director George Wenger.

What sweet vindication of a long and storied career as a public school instructor, and what tremendous reward for mastery of craft, to have two students accepted at the same time to the nation's premier school for the performing arts.

Wenger, now retired from teaching in public schools, is band director at Converse College.

Mr. Wenger taught in the public schools for 44 years before his retirement in June 2010, after 6 years at Dawkins Middle School. He taught one year in Carlisle, PA, 19 years at Tennessee High School in Bristol, TN., and was the band director of Dorman High School and the District Six Band Coordinator for 18 years. Under his leadership, both Tennessee High School and Dorman High School were highly successful in state and national competitions. The concert bands had years of consecutive superior ratings. On several occasions, Mr. Wenger received the Citation of Excellence Award from the National Band Association. His latest award was presented on March 12, 2011 when he was inducted into the International School Bandmaster Fraternity Hall of Fame. He is currently the director of the Lawson Band at Converse College, and teaches some 40 private brass lessons each week.

In 1996 Mr. Wenger was chosen teacher of the year at Dorman High School and Wal-Mart Teacher of the Year. In 1997 he was chosen as an Honored Teacher by The Huntington Learning Center in recognition of dedication to the teaching profession and contributions that went beyond the call of duty. Through the years he has served as both a clinician and adjudicator of bands in South Carolina, Virginia, Arizona, Tennessee, Georgia and North Carolina. He is a member of Phi Beta Mu, an honorary band directors association, the South Carolina Education Association, South Carolina Band Director’s Association, and the MENC.

Mr. Wenger was named the director of the Spartanburg Community Band in July of 2004 and retired in July 2011.

In its item on Wenger's students and their acceptance to Juilliard, the Herald-Journal wrote:

Both students said they are grateful for the instructors who have spent countless hours providing guidance and instruction. They said George Wenger, a retired band director at Dorman High School, gave them with private lessons and was instrumental in helping them achieve their goals.

“There is good instruction to be had if you want it,” Fierova said. “We got a lot of instruction outside of Spartanburg but also some good instruction here.”

Wenger said he is proud and flattered that his formal pupils were accepted to such a prestigious school.

“They were great students,” Wenger said. “I am very proud of them.”

Wenger said his advice to his former students would be to work hard and try out for all the professional organizations they can.

“They will be in a place where they can make a good living with their instruments, so I encourage them to do all they can,” he said.

To have prepared two students to gain acceptance to Juilliard in no small feat.

On its website, Juilliard said its mission “is to provide the highest caliber of artistic education for gifted musicians, dancers and actors from around the world, so that they may achieve their fullest potential as artists, leaders, and global citizens.”

More than 800 artists from 44 states and 46 foreign countries attend Juilliard.

Mr. Wenger, congratulations on a terrific achievement. You're a great example to educators across South Carolina and beyond.

Teachers facing uphill battles as school year begins

National Public Radio did a service last week by highlighting the mood of teachers as they return to the classroom this month. And thank goodness for NPR; when was the last time your local newspaper surveyed the mood of teachers, asked them to comment on what's happening to them, published much more than a political cartoon at their expense?

As students prepare to begin another school year, their teachers are hopping mad. They're facing layoffs and deep budget cuts and many say they're tired of being blamed unfairly for just about everything that's wrong in public education. They're so mad that many are bypassing their unions and mounting a campaign of their own to restore the public's faith in their profession.

Betsy Leis, a middle school teacher in Florida, is one of these angry teachers.

"I give my heart and my soul to every single student in my classroom and all I see on the news is that we aren't doing our job. We're constantly beat down. That's why I'm angry," Leis says. "I don't make any money and part of me is OK with that because I don't do it for the money."

And it's not enough that people don't appreciate teachers, they've become punching bags, says Claudia Rueda-Alvarez, a high school counselor in Chicago.

She says if people believe this country is going down the tubes, why don't they single out the people on Wall Street who are still getting million dollar bonuses?

"But everybody seems to be talking about a teacher making $50,000 to 60,000 a year — 'Oh my God, greedy teachers!' — so that passion that I feel for my profession will not be taken away by fear. If anything, it energizes me more," Rueda says.

This energy and need among teachers to speak out is not just in a few places. It's all over the country.
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The consensus though is that the Obama administration's education policies are no less prescriptive or punitive than the much maligned No Child Left Behind law. And high stakes tests are undermining quality instruction and good teachers, especially if test results are used to evaluate teachers or decide how much they should be paid.

"Testing is a more of a means of addressing the accountability issue despite the way it's been portrayed," says Joe Williams, who heads the Democrats For Education Reform, a liberal lobbying group that focuses on teacher quality issues.

Williams says no one is trying to punish teachers or make testing more important than children. The problem is that this discussion is taking place in a very polarized political climate.

"The notion that education reform could get wrapped up so closely with attempts to eliminate collective bargaining has made it very difficult to have this conversation all over the country," Williams say.

But it's not just about politics, says Mike Petrilli of the conservative Fordham Institute.

"The reason that these debates are happening now is because of the economy. You see policymakers seeing that this crisis is an opportunity to fix some things that have been broken for a long time," Petrilli says.

Petrilli says tenure and seniority policies are good examples. With teacher layoffs on the horizon, how do you decide who to let go?

"It has never made sense to say that when layoffs are necessary, we're going to get rid of the youngest teachers, regardless of effectiveness. How that could possibly be good for kids? That's crazy," Petrilli says.

And yet, at the beginning of the year, Petrilli says, 14 states mandated that layoffs be based on seniority, not effectiveness. The other huge issue that doesn't get nearly as much attention is the teacher pension crisis.

"Many teachers teach for 30 years and then retire for 30 years and for those 30 years, they're making 60 or 70 or 80 percent of their salary indexed to inflation. This is like the Social Security debate. At some point the numbers just don't add up," Petrilli says.

That's why state lawmakers are asking teachers to put more of their own pay into their pensions and health care benefits, which teachers view as attack on their profession.

As for the broader education debate, Petrilli and others agree that Washington will remain in gridlock and the big education battles on the horizon are going to play out in the states.

"This is where teachers unions are at their strongest and this is where you've got some of these bold Republican governors who are ready for a fight," Petrilli says.

Just in time for the 2012 election.

Barkan on "the grand coalition against teachers"

Researcher Joanne Barkan has published a powerful and important new study, found in a recent edition of Dissent magazine, on the influences brought to bear on public education during the past generation and, specifically, the massive, well-funded and coordinated attack on America's education professionals.

In her own words, her study investigates

the fix-the-teachers campaign of today’s “education reformers.” It’s not their only project. They also want public schools run with the top-down, data-driven, accountability methods used in private businesses; they aim to replace as many regular public schools as possible with publicly funded, privately managed charter schools; some are trying to expand voucher programs to allow parents to take their per-child public-education funding to private schools. All this will reshape who controls the $540 billion that taxpayers spend on K-12 schools every year. It endangers the democratic nature of public education as well. But nothing affects children more directly in the classroom than what the reform movement is doing to teachers.

The attack on teachers, she states, is blatant, straightforward and purposeful:

In a nation as politically and ideologically riven as ours, it’s remarkable to see so broad an agreement on what ails public schools. It’s the teachers. Democrats from various wings of the party, virtually all Republicans, most think tanks that deal with education, progressive and conservative foundations, a proliferation of nonprofit advocacy organizations, right-wing anti-union groups, hedge fund managers, writers from right leftward, and editorialists in most mainstream media —- all concur that teachers, protected by their unions, deserve primary blame for the failure of 15.6 million poor children to excel academically. They also bear much responsibility for the decline of K-12 education overall (about 85 percent of all children attend public schools), to the point that the United States is floundering in the global economy.

In the last few years, attention to the role of public school teachers has escalated into a high-profile, well-financed, and seriously misguided campaign to transform the profession based on this reasoning: if we can place a great teacher in every classroom, the achievement gap between middle-class white students and poor and minority students will close; all students will be prepared to earn a four-year college degree, find a “twenty-first-century job” at a good salary, and help to restore U.S. preeminence in the world economy.

A synopsis of her lengthy article doesn't do it justice. But she focuses on the role of administrators in the assault:

Everyone who supports public education believes that only effective teachers should be in the classroom; ineffective teachers who can’t improve should lose their jobs. Accomplishing this requires a sound method for evaluating teachers and a fair process for firing. In the current system, school principals have the responsibility to assess teachers’ performance and dismiss ineffective ones. Making sure that principals do this well is the district superintendent’s responsibility (not the teachers’). The system works if administrators at all levels and school boards do their jobs.

She draws attention to the language of the so-called education reformers and the several targets of their derision:

The ed reformers have a formula for producing an outstanding teaching force: identify and dismiss all bad teachers, replace them with excellent ones, keep the latter on staff by paying them more, and evaluate everyone regularly to make sure no teacher is slipping. Private schools have the freedom to do this. But public schools, according to the credo, are hamstrung by protections for teachers -— due process (imprecisely called tenure), seniority, and set salary scales -— which are written into state laws and union contracts.* Because of due process, the reformers claim, it’s too difficult to get rid of bad teachers; because of seniority, they aren’t necessarily the first laid off; because of salary scales, they get paid as much as better teachers. The reformers want the quality of teaching alone to determine if a public school teacher stays employed or gets a raise.

But how do you measure quality accurately? The reformers promote relying heavily on students’ standardized test scores: students who do well on these tests have clearly learned something, the argument goes. Therefore if you track the test scores of each teacher’s students every year, you can measure how much students have learned and use that number to make personnel decisions. The traditional protections can go, the unions will be weaker (a boon to reformers who consider them roadblocks to change), and, voilà, public schools will improve.

Due process, seniority, and salary scales predate unionization; they grew out of state and local civil service reforms in the early twentieth century when political machines thrived in large part by controlling jobs. Civil service laws protected teachers against the graft, cronyism, and favoritism that plagued public school systems under the thumb of political bosses and run by patronage. The laws benefited children by aiming for a meritocracy: teaching jobs would go to those who had training and skills. Since the 1960s when public employees in many states won the right to bargain collectively, teachers’ contracts have included the same protections.

The traditional protections are just that—protections against corruption and favoritism; they have nothing to do with evaluating teachers. Even if an ideal evaluation system existed, teachers would still need recourse when administrators and politicians ignored regulations. Yet the reformers have misleadingly conflated the two issues: we can’t get proper evaluations, they claim, without eliminating protections. Since state laws can be written to take precedence over teachers’ contracts, the most effective way to eliminate protections is to get state laws changed. This is what the reform campaign is doing around the country.

And she examines the role of billionaire ideologues and their charitable foundations in buying off the public debate in state legislatures:

For most ed reformers, better a train wreck than no reform. They want as much change as possible as fast as possible in order to take advantage of momentum and the favorable political climate. The rush to pass state laws has provided their greatest opportunity so far. In response, they’ve skillfully built state campaigns, spending millions on organizers who advise lawmakers and legislative staffs, generate grassroots support, and run ad campaigns. A pipeline of private money—most of it from large private foundations—funds their state operations just as it funds almost all the ed reform movement’s activities. Two groups in particular—Stand for Children [14](headquartered in Portland) and Democrats for Education Reform [15] (DFER, headquartered in New York City)—have played substantial roles by setting up branches in legislative battle states. Stand has a long list of contributors, including the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation [16], which donated $5.2 million between 2005 and 2010. DFER gets most of its money from financiers, especially hedge fund managers.

It’s difficult to overstate the role of the mega-rich private funders: look into any ed reform project—even those that appear to be individual or small local efforts—and you’ll likely come across the large foundations and financiers. This is typical: a small group of Indiana teachers campaigned successfully for their legislature to abolish seniority-based layoffs. They received media coverage but neglected to say that they had been recruited by Teach Plus, a Cambridge, Massachusetts-based group that operates on a $4 million grant given to them in 2009 by the Gates Foundation (New York Times, May 21, 2011 [17]).

Finally, she addresses the negative impacts that these "reform" campaigns have had on the profession, particularly in dissuading young people from entering the profession.

With the zealots’ mix of certainty and fervor, ed reformers have made this a wretched time to be a public school teacher. Indeed, fewer and fewer people are interested in trying. In the last seven years, the number of Californians seeking to become teachers dropped 45 percent (California Watch [22], December 14, 2010 [22]). In 2011, due to declining interest, Yale ended both its undergraduate teacher preparation and certification program and its Urban Teaching Initiative, a tuition-free M.A. program for students committed to teaching in New Haven’s public schools. Teachers all over the country—in affluent districts as well as high-poverty schools—are dispirited. In New York City, 50 percent of all new hires leave after five years in the classroom.

Barkan's study is worth much more than the cursory summary I've offered here. Read the full text, and share with others, at Dissent's website.

Governor, welcome to educators' worlds

Governor Nikki Haley is the victim, she says, of a hostile media. All together now: Awwww.

If there's a victim here, besides South Carolina's working class and unemployed, it's Commerce Secretary Bobby Hitt, who was sent by Haley to take the blame, issue symbolic mea culpas, and invite the bus to back over him.

Gov. Nikki Haley’s Commerce Department chief took the blame Tuesday for providing information that led to a recent report that the first-term Republican is overstating her success at job creation.

Bobby Hitt, director of the state Commerce Department, told Haley that he apologized for a jobs list released to the press last week that included jobs that were not yet announced, others that were recruited by former Gov. Mark Sanford and his administration, and 750 for Amazon.com, which Haley did not want to give a tax break to for locating a facility in the state.

Hitt said he regrets the breakdown of jobs on the list overshadowed Haley’s economic development work.

The Associated Press published a report Sunday that found Haley was inflating the 10,000-job figure she widely touted in recent weeks. Eventually, the AP found the governor’s economic development efforts have led to about 9,000 jobs since January, including 4,000 from Wal-Mart.

The focus should be on the accomplishments, Hitt said at Haley’s Cabinet meeting Tuesday.

“There is plenty to be proud of right now,” he said.

But deflecting blame onto Hitt wasn't sufficient for Her Excellency. She did her best to play the victim, but victimhood doesn't suit her well.

Haley accused the media of not giving her a break.

“The press will never want to say anything positive about us,” Haley said. “So, that is OK. If it’s 8,000 jobs or 9,000 jobs, any of my governor colleagues would love to have those numbers. One day the press will understand that being positive is a good thing.”

After the meeting, Haley told reporters that she is after one thing.

“What I want so desperately is, I want the people of this state to feel good about the things we’re doing right,” she said. “It makes me laugh that the press is so determined to talk about the negatives. All I am saying is make sure we talk about the great things.”

What's startling is that Haley has unwittingly entered the world of public school educators -- perhaps one day she will understand that this is a good thing -- and finds it an awful place.

Consider, if you will, how realistic it sounds if we take Haley's brief comments at yesterday's meeting, change the speaker to any public school educator in South Carolina, and replace a key word here and there:

"The [governor/state superintendent] will never want to say anything positive about us."

"If it’s 8,000 [successful students] or 9,000 [successful students], any of my [principal/teacher] colleagues would love to have those numbers."

"One day the [governor/state superintendent] will understand that being positive is a good thing."

"What I want so desperately is, I want the people of this state to feel good about the things we’re doing right." (Hey, no change needed at all.)

"It makes me laugh that the [governor/state superintendent] is so determined to talk about the negatives."

"All I am saying is make sure we talk about the great things." (No change needed here, either.)

For good measure, let's throw in one of Hitt's comments to the educato-mator and see if the comment can be transmuted to sounds realistically like a public school educator:

"The focus should be on the accomplishments."

"There is plenty to be proud of right now."

See, it works perfectly.

Governor, welcome to our world.

Now that you've gotten a taste of it, maybe you'll understand why most educators won't fall to worshipping after you berate them, misrepresent their intentions, discount their efforts, minimize their achievements and generally undermine their professional choices in the future.

And Governor, come back when you can.

WSJ: American teachers most productive, work most hours

The only thing surprising about this news is that it was published by the Wall Street Journal, no friend of America's education professionals.

In its "Number of the Week" blog feature, the Journal reported that American teachers spend an average -- an average, mind you -- of 1,097 hours per year on instruction, though the average school year is 36 weeks.

American teachers are the most productive among major developed countries, according to Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development data from 2008 — the most recent available.

Among 27 member nations tracked by the OECD, U.S. primary-school educators spent 1,097 hours a year teaching despite only spending 36 weeks a year in the classroom — among the lowest among the countries tracked. That was more than 100 hours more than New Zealand, in second place at 985 hours, despite students in that country going to school for 39 weeks. The OECD average is 786 hours.

And that’s just the time teachers spend on instruction. Including hours teachers spend on work at home and outside the classroom, American primary-school educators spend 1,913 working in a year. According to data from the comparable year in a Labor Department survey, an average full-time employee works 1,932 hours a year spread out over 48 weeks (excluding two weeks vacation and federal holidays).

Any teacher who carries bagsful of math papers to grade in the bleachers at middle-school basketball games will recognize herself here.

And it puts the lie to the charge that teachers enjoy short hours, short months and long breaks, doesn't it?