AP Photo/Oxford Eagle, Bruce Newman
Earlier this month, Oxford (Miss.) Elementary student Jabari Turner walks into school for the start of the new school year.
Ed. note: One of our new features, which we started last week, is our "And another thing..." posts from our guests. Since there's never enough time in a segment to hit all of the points, each one of these posts will follow up a conversation Melissa had with them in an earlier show.
This week's edition is a timely one, given President Obama's recent re-emphasis on education policy (see his new ad here), and what challenger Mitt Romney had to say last week (see the top of our discussion, embedded below). Below is a follow-up on that discussion from our guest Lila Leff, education reform advocate, co-chair of the Chicago Consortium on School Research, and founder of the UMOJA Student Development Corporation.
Don’t we need to start by agreeing on the purpose of an education, and the elements of an effective one, before we can determine how we measure the success of students and teachers? I would like to think we can find something true but decidedly uncontroversial, something that forges a path through the polarities. How about saying that the goal of education is to prepare citizens to engage in our democracy as self-sustaining members of society? Can we also then acknowledge that our educational system is currently tasked with a more complex job than ever before in the history of public education? Teachers, schools and districts are being asked to prepare students for a whirling world of change; jobs that don’t yet exist and an economy where educational attainment is necessary but not sufficient.
And, if we find ourselves on the stable ground of agreement so far, let’s just examine one more premise: Are there really any among us who don’t agree that student and teacher performance matter and need to be measured?
The conversation on testing is one that seems to take place most often in the land of extremes or generalities -- “No, we shouldn’t” and “Yes, we should.” Let me give you a brief summary: No Child Left Behind (NLCB) said we need to get clear about what teachers are teaching and students are really learning and how well they are learning it. NLCB determined that the best way to do that would be by asking states to make up their own high stakes tests and then tell the rest of us if they are doing well or poorly. If the states were crazy enough to make up tests where their students did not appear to be doing better than they actually were, then the next step was to punish those states, districts, schools and teachers for not doing well enough.
The intervention strategy was simple and straightforward: states will do better because we will punish them for doing badly. This will encourage them to improve -- or least they will be encouraged to look at states who have figured out how to make easier tests so their students show improvement. Thing is, dysfunctional systems or people rarely get punished into improvement. As a general rule, we don’t see real and lasting improvements until we get under the rock, poke around, figure out what’s really going on and how to build supports, skills, incentives and consequences that concretely address the issues that have led to dysfunction and failure in the first place.
As more states accept the Common Core Standards and move toward designing tests to measure universally agreed upon academic standards, questions remain. The right question is not should we have tests, or shouldn’t we. The right questions are more textured and nuanced. Examples:
- What is a financially reasonable way of meaningfully measuring and reporting on student learning?
- How do we ensure that we are measuring meaningful things that can be impacted by good teaching and that ultimately matter for students’ lifetime success?
Let’s be clear: many of us do not agree that all tests are created equally. Furthermore, we don’t all agree that high-stakes standardized testing is either the cheapest or the most objective way to measure student learning. Good tests (or assessments) measure learning, not simply to punish or reward those who have or haven’t learned, but rather as part of an information loop that allows for reflection, redirection, re-teaching and strategic forward movement based on real-time and instructive data. Real life, which place education is designed to get us ready for, requires that adults take content knowledge and skills and apply them to a variety of very different contexts. Students need the opportunity to apply their skills, their knowledge, and their creativity to new and real life situations.
If we are to produce students who are ready to enter our democracy as global citizens, they must spend time writing, communicating, developing original thought and collaborating with their peers. If we are to successfully prepare the next generation to enter the fast-paced ever changing job market of the future, they must receive meaningful and regular feedback on their growth as navigators of a complex world. We cannot get there by testing alone and the fact that we continue to try to speaks, in large part, to our unwillingness as a society to reinvent education based on the needs and opportunities of the world in which it currently exists.
You can view our entire education discussion below, and after the jump. You may want to also check out Mother Jones' encouraging look at a "low-performing" school, published today.
Melissa Harris-Perry and her guests - including University of Pennsylvania professor Anthea Butler; Derrell Bradford of Better Education for Kids; Lila Leff of the Chicago Consortium on School Research; and high school teacher Ileana Jimenez - talk about what education would look like under Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan's plans.
Melissa Harris-Perry catches up with Jim Dorrell, a teacher in Marshall High School on the west side of Chicago; and Marcus Prewitt, a counselor at Harper High School in Engelwood; to talk about what public school teachers have to deal with on a daily basis.
Melissa Harris-Perry lays out the statistics on the number of education jobs that have been lost, and not due to a teacher's poor performance.
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I am a retired teacher with a wide variety of teaching experiences from k-12. I also was president of my union for a couple of years. I was very concerned watching the discussion your panel had on education matters on Sunday because no one challenged two topics that one of your guests brought up. The first issue is merit pay. Paying teachers different amounts is ridiculous. I suppose the theory behind merit pay is that competition among teachers should improve the learning experience for the students. Nothing could be further from the truth. Teaching is a collaborative endeavor. High performing schools have the most collaborative staffs. How do you measure excellence? I have always hated such labels such as teacher of the year. Why pit one teacher against another? Ranking teachers based on testing leads to teaching to the test, cheating and fraud. It has been my experience that often teachers would rather have smaller class sizes, adequate resources, safe schools, and so on before they want higher pay. Mind you in Canada teachers are paid a living wage. We often would look to our neighbours to the south with pity. Most teachers who remain in the field of teaching and excel have a higher purpose than just the pay rate. So if you want excellent teachers you should pay them a living wage, have high standards for entering the profession and provide professional development throughout their careers. Excellent teachers are rewarded on a daily basis because they know that they are being successful and that is the goal for most teachers. Now the real problem is what to do with bad teachers not how to reward good teachers. As a union leader I witnessed first hand my fair share of bad teaching. Let me tell you no one hates bad teachers more than their colleagues. Getting rid of a bad teacher should be difficult but not impossible. Teachers are vulnerable because they could be punished for being critical of the system, or for their political views, or for being outspoken advocates for their students. So there needs to be protections for teachers. However, to get rid of bad teachers the administration needs the time and skills to supervise his/her staff actively. Great principals are in every classroom and know their staffs well. They are not shut in their offices bogged down with paper work and other menial tasks mandated by school boards and the state. Bad teachers need to given support and then if there is no improvement then they need to be fired. I was often horrified at the sloppiness of teacher supervision. Merit pay does not work.Students are not widgets in a production line. One of the finest teachers I ever knew was a very unassuming woman who would not stand out in a crowd. She quietly went about her job and every year her students were the best behaved and turned out excellent work year after year. She worked in an inner city school and was the most dedicated teacher and was extremely generous in sharing her ideas with her colleagues. I would imagine that she might not win merit pay because what she accomplished would be hard to quantify and quite frankly it was almost magical. Teaching is part science and part art and how to evaluate excellence is a tricky endeavour.
The second issue that was discussed was seniority. Again we don't want teachers competing with one another. When it comes to layoffs seniority is the only fair way to accomplice the task. If you get rid of seniority then younger, cheaper teachers might be more appealing. When I was a young teacher I did so many more extra curricular activities than when I got older. However, I was a far better classroom teacher in my later years than when I was young and more enthusiastic. Of course the best solution for the seniority issue is to quit laying off teachers. If teachers had strong contracts that had clear language on class size and class composition layoffs would only be necessary if the student populations declined. I could go on and on about charter schools, vouchers, contracting out and other such initiatives that are direct attacks on public education. When I hear the debate I cringe because I know that ideas like merit pay and getting rid of seniority appeals to people who have no understanding about what teaching is all about. Unfortunately because everyone has been a student they think that they are an expert on teaching. Good luck America. If the Republicans win the next election it will only get worse for your teachers and most importantly your students.
Lila Leff - YES! Can I have permission to
readyell this from the roof tops? I have been trying to articulate these exact thoughts for months now.Why are people just now finding out, after 30 years of Reagonomics, that the Republicans intend to destroy the middle class of America?
For 30 years, the good jobs have been exported to low labor nations abroad. For 30 years Americas infrastructure has been crumbling because Reagon decided to give 'all the tax revenue' back to the rich, instead of the federal government building bridges, sewers, roads, etc.
Everyone on every news channel 25 times a day references how Americas infrastructure has 'been crumbling' for 30 years. But they don't finish the comment by saying then; 'after the election of Ronald Reagon.
Nafta and free trade agreements, were first introduced, by Reagon, and Bush (Sr). Not Clinton! To Clinton's shame, he did finally get congress to ratify it; but not until after several tries by Republican presidents.
Rich people paid 90% top marginal tax rate; under the Eisenhower (a Republican) administration. No rich people got poor! No rich people left the country! No rich people 'didn't create jobs' (a farcifal lie, that they are 'jobs creators'). No rich people gave speeches complaining about unfair taxes.
They knew; that they got rich because of America. Not the other way around. That only came in 1981, after the election of Reagon.
Where is the Bill Gates highway? Were is the Steve Jobs (from Apple) lock and dam system? Where is the Mitt Romney Dam giving clean water to many? Only the federal government (all of us) through taxation and collective giving, can do these things, for the betterment of us all. Not just the ONE percenters.
Bill Gates did not build one mile of highway, to ship his MIcrosoft products to market, for us to buy. We did. We built it, we taxpayer, we Americans, we working people (our fathers and grandfathers). Bill Gates (and the 1%'s) have not built one single mile of highway, or lock and dam, or air runway. We did !!!
People wonder why President Obama cannot seem to 'fix' the economy that is in the worst recession (started in 2007 under Bush) since the Great Depression. Have not you seen and heard the republican politicians stating openly that they intend to destroy the democrat presidency at any cost, since the day of his election and taking office in January of 2009???
But the bigger truth is this. In the old days, physicians only knew to 'bleed' someone who was sick. They literally cut their arm, a vein, and drained blood out of someone sick, thinking that getting the 'bad blood' out, would make them well again. This of course, never ever worked!!!
President Obama, inherited a country (America) which has been 'bled' for 30 years, the US Treasury starved and bled, by Reagonomics.
Reagon, in 1981 inherited a country, which HAD NOT just endured 30 years of reagonomics, had NOT bee 'bled' by too low taxation to the treasury. And he was fortunate to oversee the rebirth of America economy: with the help of the democrats in Congress, of course. And then, we had 8 years of peace and prosperity, under President Clinton....
Then, george Bush gave a 're-birth of Reagonomics in the year 2000. Tax cuts to the rich which were 'un funded'. Two wars fought 'off budget'. Not one dime of expense to Iraq and Afghanistan wars accounted to the budget. He cut taxes during war time, something no president, or ruler of any country ever in history, ever did..... Created the un funded medicare part B. Again, un funded; just passing the debt on, to the next administration.
The republicans were like a bunch of 'drunken sailors' (with apologies to real sailors) for the entire Bush admisistration !!!
The debt of America sky rocketed. Bush turned a budget surplus he inherited from Clinton, into the largest deficit, ever. And then his 'de-regulated' friends on Wall Street raped America in the worst way (forcible rape, to be sure). And then the bubble burst in the fall of 2007. And we're in the mess we're in.
But, the 1%'ers are still fine ! Don't worry about them.
Unions used to get good contracts, until Reagon started 'busting' unions immediately after taking office. Remember PATCO!!!
Right to Work (for less) States have average lower working wages for people, than Union friendly states. Just a fact!!!
Republicans have 'ALL' stated that 'if we'd only let them get rid of the minimum wage, they'll create millions and millions of jobs. Yes, they have all the $4.00 an hour jobs we can handle !!!
For all the thousands of years of human history of recorded civilization, there were only two kinds of people. The rich, royalty; and the poor. NO middle class! And the poor, through all the ages had one thing in common. They were illiterate, uneducated, and would not stand up for a piece of the wealth, through collective bargaining (Unions).
Then, Franklin Roosevelt, through taxation, created the middle class, in America. It's that simple. Eight decades or so, is all that the middle class has really existed, in comparison to thousands of years of history, with only the 1%'s, and the illiterate peasants.
Democrats are imperfect to be sure. But, they have stood beside working class middle class people like us, through it all !!!
And now, for 30 years, the Republicans, representing the Rich, the 1%, is intending to 'TAKE THEIR MONEY BACK' !!!
Take note of the attack on education, of all the Republican governors elected in 2010. Walker in Wisconsin, and all the rest. Breaking the teacher unions, putting 60 kids in every classroom, and on and on. How are you going to get good teachers? Who thinks kids will learn better with 60 kids in the classroom, with one underpaid teacher (with no pension or healthcare)?
This is the republicans 'dumbing down' the people, so they 'won't notice' that the rich are taking all the wealth, they historically had back. They, the rich, consider all the money, all the wealth of America, as their own personal property. And they want it back!!!
Illiterate peasants, no unions or collective bargaining standing up for workers rights, a decent living fair wage, safety in the workplace, pensions, healthcare, and on and on. Done. The end of the middle class in America is right before us. this is it, do you not see it?
It's that simple !!!
They (republicans) will bust the unions, destroy collective bargaining, 'dumb-down' the people; and these are the final nails in the coffin of the 'middle class' in America, and in deed the world. But make no mistake, the middle class, started here in this country, about 8 decades ago.
And some are still voting for politicians, the Republicans, who are openly, brazenly, and overtly intending to 'give ALL the wealth back to the rich and powerful'.
Who doesn't understand this? If you vote republican, hug your children, and grand-children; kiss their cheeks, and then tell them that you are intending to elect politicians who will take away ANY chance they ever had, of living a nice middle class life, in the future. No pensions, No healthcare, No clean air or water to drink (deregulation by the GOP), no good Union wages, and on and on.
But don't worry about the Gates, the Jobs, and the Romneys. They'll be just fine.......
Go ahead, vote for these people, and then go tell your children and grand children what you did 'to them' !!!
Don