What's up with "The Experts"?

Florida is about to embark on yet another grand experiment with its state's education system. It's commonly known as Senate Bill 6 and also referred to as the "Teacher Tenure Bill".

It has passed both the Florida State Senate and State House of Representatives. Now it has been passed to the governor for his signature or veto.

I'm really shocked and disappointed that the debate surrounding this legislation has not been covered very much by the national news media. Of course I realize the big story this week has been Tiger Woods return to the Masters Golf Tournament, and we all know that celebrity news is always more newsworthy than education issues.

In a nutshell, this legislation cannot be explained in a nutshell. Supposedly it installs a merit pay system for teachers, but the "merit" pay will be based on standardized test scores as the predominant measure of a teacher's "effectiveness". But it also eliminates any kind of tenure or due process for new teachers and calls for the termination of the teaching certificate of a teacher that is deemed ineffective (based on standardized test scores) in 4 of the preceding 5 years.

Furthermore, it ignores the fact that teachers only get better as they become more experienced; the bill places them on annual contracts and prohibits recognition for years of service, advanced degrees or becoming nationally board certified.

In addition, school districts will be required to create standardized tests for courses that do not currently have them. The creation of these new tests alone will cost the Dade County School District millions of dollars for example. To add insult to injury, these costs must be absorbed by the local school districts without any new funding support from the state.

Of course educators in Florida were excluded from any discussion in the drafting of this legislation. But then why should they have been included? The federal government does not really seek the input of experienced educators who work daily "in the trenches" of our nation's classrooms.

Instead we have "experts" like Eric Hanushek at "Education Next" who maintains that "Florida legislators recognize that teacher quality is central to student outcomes. They also recognize that neither teacher experience nor graduate degrees bear any consistent relationship to student achievement. This legislation is simply putting policy where the evidence is."

Oops! It seems that Mr. Hanushek missed the report from researchers at the University of North Carolina that discovered "rookie teachers are much less effective than their more experienced colleagues". The same report goes on to say:

The study looked at student scores on end-of-grade and end-of-course tests and connected that information to their teachers, how long they'd been teaching and where they learned to teach. The focus was on teachers with less than five years experience. All school districts were included.

Rookie teachers are less effective in nine out of 11 measures. Elementary school math students in inexperienced teachers' classrooms lose the equivalent of 21 days of school, and middle school math students lose the equivalent of 47 days of school.

I try not to take things written by so-called experts personally, but for Mr. Hanushek to say that experience and advanced degrees do not make a difference in teaching is really insulting to me as a teacher of 28 years with a master's degree and National Board Certification. Perhaps Mr. Hanushek's opinion is strong evidence that the methods "experts" use to measure teacher effectiveness is flawed and highly inaccurate.

Upon a quick investigation of "Education Next" I discovered of the 16 people that make up its editorial staff, only a couple have any teaching experience in elementary or secondary schools. Mr. Hanushek background is that of an economist, and the editor-in-chief, Paul E. Peterson, has a background in political science.

In addition, Mr. Paul E. Peterson's latest book is titled: "Saving Schools: From Horace Mann to Virtual Learning". In his book, Mr. Peterson explains "we need fewer teachers, not more, and those few teachers must reach thousands of students at a time".

I'll pause a moment here for everyone who has fallen out of their chair after reading that comment from Mr. Peterson.

It is sad that our nation has such a wealth of great, experienced teachers whose input is rarely considered when developing these grand experiments otherwise known as education reform. It is really sad that our politicians instead rely on the opinions of "experts" who really don't seem to have a clue about education reform.

The stakes are high for the future of students and teachers in Florida. I fear if this legislation is signed into law by their governor, it could be disastrous not only for the schools in Florida, but for schools across the entire nation.

Food Fights on the Internet....

Ok... so it's been over a month since I last updated this blog.  Since my last post I've gotten quite addicted to posting to "reader comment forums" on various Internet news web sites.  So bad is my addiction, I'm seriously considering entering a 12 step rehab program.

Often times, I feel like the participation in these forums amounts to a Internet "Food Fight".  Regardless, I thought I'd share parts of the discussion from my latest foray.

It all began from reading a news story on the "Livingston Daily.com" news web site.  The story was regarding the contract negotiations in a school district in my county.  Keep in mind I didn't really have a dog in that fight as my son is not a student in that district and I am not a teacher in that district either.  However, being a teacher, I feel a duty to defend my fellow educators whenever I feel they are being unfairly attacked.

It all started when I read a couple of  simplistic solutions including:

Fire all the union teachers and hire in new happy to be employed teachers at 45k per year not the average 64k per year salary union teachers are making now. This would also allow for schools to hire more teachers and assistants making smaller class sizes. Problem solved. (From WOWYOUTHINK)

And...

I for one see no reason that the younger teachers should not be used as the primary and the prima donnas be given walking papers.(From julll)

To which I replied:

Sorry, but your post is another example of an uneducated, simplistic "solution".

Your "solution" mirrors the thinking of politicians and so-called experts that assumes students are mere widgets on a educational assembly line and teachers are interchangable robots.

And if I may refer back to the orginal proposal of firing the 64k "union" teachers and replacing them with 45K "new happy to be employed" teachers, why not go a step further? Why not then replace the 45K "happy" teachers with 40K "super happy" teachers? But don't stop there... let's replace those 40K teachers with 30K teachers.

After all... anyone can teach since experience and creditials mean nothing, right?

I'm still eager to hear the professions and salaries of people commenting about teachers here so I can make similar arguments and recommendations about their jobs.

That in turn garnered this response from another reader: (steeplechase1)

Your "solution" mirrors the thinking of politicians and so-called experts that assumes ... teachers are interchangable robots.
The union demands that every teacher be treated exactly the same regardless of specialty, ability or level of enthusiasm. Hence 'interchangeable' - blame the union for that.

Michigan public schools are not doing a good job compared to other states/countries, and a big part of that has to do with how they manage talent. (unions, tenure etc.)

They overpay for liberal arts and elementary teachers and then can't afford good or even average science, business or math teachers, because those skills are in high demand and cost more. Businesses pay more for certain skills and less for others. Schools should be doing the same thing.

Finally - you don't need to be a watchmaker to tell the time. Time's nearly up on this broken business model. Schools have to change, or Darwin will take over.

 Alright! Game on! So my reply to "steeplechase1" required a bit of pondering and some research but I eventually composed the following response:

Thanks for a civil reply containing logical points that have some merit.

However, (as you might predict) I take issue with your logic.

First,  I didn’t offer a solution.  I was challenging the idea of firing all the veteran teachers and replacing them with cheaper teachers as overly simplistic.

Secondly, “the union” did not create the system that treats every teacher the same regardless of their specialty, ability, etc.  This system was in place long before there were teacher unions.

Teacher unions understandably are leery of merit pay schemes after witnessing the failure for funding in such examples as the Tennessee Teacher Career Ladder and now the elimination of merit pay in many states for National Board Certified Teachers.  Those are two merit programs that did have support of teacher organizations.

However, the carrot of merit pay is one of the first to be cut during times of tight budgets.  And now the new idea of determining teacher pay with President Obama’s Race To The Top Scheme through “value
added testing” has too many flaws to mention here.

Next, I challenge your notion that Michigan Public schools are not doing a good job compared to other states.  If you examine the average ACT scores by states that require all high school juniors to take the test, Michigan ranked 2nd in the nation in 2009 and was within 0.7 points of the top state, Colorado.  In addition, if you examine the National Assessment of Educational Progress, (which is the closest thing we currently have to a national test) you will see that Michigan’s test scores are not significantly different than the average national score.

Furthermore, you really can’t make a fair comparison of an elementary teacher to a secondary math or science teacher as elementary teachers set the foundations for future learning.  I realize there are reports in the mainstream media regarding a “shortage” of math and science teachers.

However, I challenge that “shortage” notion.  If you examine the shortage patterns, they mainly exist in poor rural and problematic urban schools.  Schools that provide adequate teacher salaries, attractive facilities and minimum support systems have little trouble attracting applicants for math and science vacancies.  

What schools do have trouble with regarding math and science teachers is retaining them beyond their second or third year.  This is almost always due to a lack of classroom support for those teachers, not the lack of pay.

Finally, I take issue with the constant comparison of schools to business.  Schools are unique institutions and cannot be compared to other “business models”.  Politicians and experts keep trying to do that and they keep failing.

We do agree on one thing.  Schools do need to change. But until the policy makers really give experienced, classroom teachers that work in the trenches on a daily basis a substantial say in school policies, our society is doomed to keep repeating the same mistakes.

 Like I said... I think I need a 12 step rehab program.