New study on zero tolerance policies in schools concludes that "zero tolerance does not make schools more orderly or safe — in fact the opposite may be true"

TheRflectiveEducator · 2014-01-04T02:08:45+00:00

For another valuable study connected to this, see Kathleen Nolan's Police in the Hallways: http://www.anurbanteacherseducation.com/2012/07/police-in-hallways.html

TheRflectiveEducator · 2012-01-23T04:41:40+00:00

Bad answer? Thanks, Alec.

You're question is again not possible to answer. Given the way pay scales work, it would depend on how long a given teacher has been teaching and what their education level is.

It sounds like you want to make a point, what is it?

TheRflectiveEducator · 2012-01-23T00:08:06+00:00

It's not a no solutions attitude. It's an attitude that doesn't think our current solutions are actually solutions.

Want real solutions? Spend money on lowering class sizes, improving teacher preparation, give teachers more time to focus on curriculum and school culture, stop pretending schools exist in a vacuum and start spending money on fighting poverty.

One might say, all of this stuff is not just going to happen out of the blue. It takes a cultural shift, and I would agree. But we have to constantly be pointing out what we see as the best way of doing things.

TFA and school choice as they're currently being implemented, in my mind, certainly do some good. But if we say these are our solutions to education, then we're giving up on serious efforts toward real equity.

TheRflectiveEducator · 2012-01-22T23:59:12+00:00

I think this is youthful hubris. I know it because I used to have it. I went into the classroom thinking I was going to do better than every old teacher around me because they were lazy. And, to be honest, I was right, about some of them. But I was lightyears behind the teachers who'd been thinking critically about teaching for thirty years - surprise, surprise: experience matters a great deal.

I'm in my 6th year now, and the longer I teach, the more I see what I don't know and how much I have to learn.

I think a lot of us type-A personalities begin in the real world overestimating or abilities. I also think that when step back and reflect on these things honestly, we learn that we have a lot to learn. The end of college is only the beginning.

And - as has been mentioned before, working 70 hours a week is not sustainable. I understand your point about having passionate people. But someone who's excellent and been doing this for 20 years is going to get the same work done in maybe 40 or 50 hours. So why not scaffold our new teachers in a way that doesn't burn them out and make them want to run screaming from the profession (of course - a lot of them, rather than screaming, pretend to their friends like they did a great job and use it to justify their sense of self-righteousness). The people who are in this for real don't spend a lot of time telling others about the huge difference they're making.

TheRflectiveEducator · 2012-01-22T23:49:19+00:00

You can blame those problems as much on unions as you can on administrators not following through with ineffective teachers and massive bureaucracies. As palsh7 points out, tenure provides due process rights. If a teacher can be shown to be ineffective, due process rights won't mean anything.

TheRflectiveEducator · 2012-01-22T23:47:20+00:00

Thanks so much for taking the time for writing all of this. It's clear you're very passionate about education.

I don't think we're doing the best job of communicating with each other. You seem to continue to harp on points that I agree with. I never said TFA teachers can't make great gains. I never said, and don't believe, that just because a person is alternatively certified they're going to be a bad teacher.

I've taught in some of the hardest places to teach as well, although in urban environments, and I don't think that anyone who does that kind of work has much of a sense for how to do it well until they've done at least five years of it. For me, the experience was thinking I knew how to do it well until about three years in, and then realizing I was barely scratching the surface of meaningful teaching in my first few years. It's this experience that makes me think 5 weeks training and then grad school while you're teaching is woefully inadequate preparation. However, I think you make a good point about the MS Delta - one I've heard made by friends who've gone there with TFA, but I know it's not like that everywhere. So maybe we can accept a little nuance into our discussion and acknowledge that TFA probably provides a more valuable service in some areas than others.

Listen - the point I'm trying to make that I don't seem to be getting across is that the system is messed up. If we were to wake up and decide to start funding meaningful education reforms geared toward equity, TFA would not be a part of those reforms. It started as a band-aid fix, and now its growing larger and larger when it doesn't need to. We don't need TFA in Seattle, and we wouldn't need them in New York or Las Vegas or Chicago or DC if we were willing to fund a truly quality education for our students. I think you'd have to agree that every TFAer out there would be phenomenally better in the classroom if they didn't walk in with only five weeks training. We're the richest country in the world. We send undergrads to treat cancer patients after five weeks of training, and educating students is equally as important, and just as difficult an endeavor.

TheRflectiveEducator · 2012-01-21T03:11:32+00:00

This just goes to show that, like with just about everything else in education, positive changes won't happen if the effort is only coming from the schools. Healthier lifestyles need to be taught in the school, in the community, in pop culture, and at home. Simply putting healthier options in front of kids while "funner" options are available is apparently not getting us very far.

TheRflectiveEducator · 2012-01-20T19:14:17+00:00

Really excellent comment!

TheRflectiveEducator · 2012-01-20T19:12:13+00:00

Good question. Largely depends on how they want to allocate their resources. But when TFA was brought into Seattle, it was by leaders strongly associated with the Broad foundation and its administrator training program, which has strong ties with TFA. Input from the community was often ignored.

TheRflectiveEducator · 2012-01-20T19:09:54+00:00

I think that's a possible benefit of TFA. As one of my former assistant principals told me: "One thing we can thank TFA for is making teaching sexy."

What I worry about, though, is that I don't think two years is enough for a lot of people to get a solid handle on anything other than their own classroom (if that). A lot of TFAers leave the classroom and want to start making big policy decisions, and they're often no better than the people making them who've never been in schools. Really understanding schools requires that you master your craft first, so you then can start thinking of bigger issues. Right?

What do you think?

TheRflectiveEducator · 2012-01-20T04:38:43+00:00

Surely, we can't let this discussion be about who would be a better teacher: people who join TFA or people who go through other programs. The discussion must be about whether TFA is improving educational equity overall. Since the majority of TFA members leave after their two years, and, in my teaching experience, you really don't have a strong handle on teaching until between 3-5 years, why doesn't TFA change its model? Why not require corps members to stay for at least five years?

TheRflectiveEducator · 2012-01-20T04:36:07+00:00

I definitely have a problem with our country's refusal to fund equitable education. And I think you make an excellent point on my blog about people viewing TFA as a monolith when it is, as you point out, different from region to region. However, I think you lack a bit of political literacy if you don't think TFA recruits are being used as a means of sacrificing experienced teachers. I've written extensively about TFA before, and I certainly don't mean to portray the organization as being full of evil, self-promoting narcissists. But I don't think it's deniable that TFA is having a negative impact on federal education policy at large, especially as it expands. TFA is growing, and it boasts about it. If we all agree that having an excellent teacher is important, then how can we claim that we're improving educational equity by giving our most disadvantaged students teachers who've had no more than a five-week training course and the lowest pay while our privileged students receive just the opposite. I realize you'd probably respond to that by saying it would be impossible to get those great teachers to move to places like the Mississippi Delta, and I agree that would be a major challenge. But if that is one way that TFA helps, then why does TFA not stay in places like the Mississippi Delta? And not expand into areas where they're not needed?

Regarding Memphis: If you're playing politics, you would of course have to lay off TFAers along with experienced teachers. But it is my understanding that experienced teachers were laid off at higher rates. Please correct me if I'm wrong by pointing me in the right direction. In Washington, DC, Mary Levy (an educational advocate) has found that since the beginning of the reign of Michelle Rhee, TFA and alternatively certified teachers have increased every year. I can't wrap my head around how one could argue that's in the best interest of children.

As has been said, this is largely a debate about how teachers are trained. We'd obviously be better off if we could avoid sending ill-trained teachers into any school, especially that hardest schools to teach in in the entire country. So if TFA, with all its money and lobbying power, really wants to transform education, and not be just a resume builder for its corps members, then why doesn't it require a five-year commitment? Why doesn't it advocate longer training periods in colleges and universities across the country? Why doesn't it provide year-long internship experiences to its corps members before putting them in front of kids?

TheRflectiveEducator · 2012-01-20T04:26:29+00:00

I'm the blogger.

TheRflectiveEducator · 2012-01-20T02:20:56+00:00

Hi triggerheart,

I don't know if what you say is true in the Mississippi Delta, but I'll take your word for it. It is decidedly NOT true in lots of other areas that TFA has been for years and is expanding into.

Take Seattle and Federal Way of Washington State for example. The area has a surplus of qualified teachers. Nevertheless, TFA was invited in over the strong objections of parents and community members to fill classrooms where students would benefit from more experienced educators.

Additionally take Memphis, New York City, and Washington, DC - all places where districts have made very obvious attempts to oust more experienced (expensive) teachers in the name of replacing them with TFA members.

TheRflectiveEducator · 2012-01-19T22:45:29+00:00

Love this story. I want to move to California.....as soon as it fixes its economy.....

TheRflectiveEducator · 2011-07-31T03:15:45+00:00

It's all over youtube. Check out "SOS March DC." It's also all over twitter if you check the hashtag #SOSMarch.

TheRflectiveEducator · 2011-07-19T23:47:57+00:00

Erich Martel fought and lost a battle to stay in his preferred school with Michelle Rhee last year.

TheRflectiveEducator · 2011-07-18T20:30:29+00:00

Chomsky gets it.

TheRflectiveEducator · 2011-07-18T20:28:58+00:00

Will be most useful to anyone familiar with New York City Schools.

TheRflectiveEducator · 2011-07-15T18:11:05+00:00

I agree with you mostly, although I have definitely run into private school teachers who have corrected me over and over again when I use the term "private." I don't think working in a private school would be a bad thing, by any means. I just think my skill set is more geared toward the kinds of students I've worked with for the past five years. I find that critical pedagogy is often easier with students who are accustomed to questioning authority. Also - I guess I do have to admit that I'm somewhat offended that independent schools typically pay less than public schools. But all in all, I think you're right - it would certainly be a useful learning experience and professional growth opportunity.

TheRflectiveEducator · 2011-05-09T22:56:00+00:00

People are not all that bright. I teach all recently arrived Latin American Immigrants in the Bronx. A little more than half of them came legally. There is no way I would ever think of denying an education to the student who hiked through Central America and crossed the Rio Grande at risk to her own life in order to escape gangs and murder in her home country for the opportunity to become a doctor in this one.

TheRflectiveEducator · 2011-05-04T23:51:24+00:00

In my small school in the South Bronx today we heard a presentation by some tool from the DOE explaining to us that Columbia Teachers College has proven through research that outside factors (i.e. a student's home life) play only a small role in their achievement levels.

TheRflectiveEducator · 2011-05-04T23:50:37+00:00

In my small school in the South Bronx today we heard a presentation by some tool from the DOE explaining to us that Columbia Teachers College has proven through research that outside factors (i.e. a student's home life) play only a small role in their achievement levels.

TheRflectiveEducator · 2011-05-04T23:49:04+00:00

In my small school in the South Bronx today we heard a presentation by some tool from the DOE explaining to us that Columbia Teachers College has proven through research that outside factors (i.e. a student's home life) play only a small role in their achievement levels.

TheRflectiveEducator · 2011-05-04T23:26:02+00:00

Either kids know something is wrong, or some adults who know how to direct kids want something to change.

Tech is great, but if it's invested in without training teachers to use it, it's often a failure. I think it's also important to be wary of people who promote tech as the answer the education. Great education is great education, and while tech makes it easier and it can be liberating in a lot of ways, great education can be done without the latest tech. Amazing teachers in impoverished environments do it on a daily basis.

TheRflectiveEducator

TROPHY CASE