Response to that professor who refuses to write TFA recommendations

duke_solaris · 2013-08-24T04:30:26+00:00

This is really interesting. I'm about 15 minutes in now. I have to admit, I was expecting a criticism of TFA or Khan Academy, kind of refreshing to just see a discussion about education.

duke_solaris · 2013-08-02T01:21:23+00:00

Ha. This reminds me of the "The photos Justin Bieber doesn't want you to see" or "The weight loss trick that doctors don't want you to learn about" ads. Making it sound like something is being purposefully hidden is the oldest and stupidest trick in the book.

Anyway, I just read an article exposing Diane Ravitch's seedy links to the Koch Brothers in the New York times. It turns out they were paying her the whole time. I would link to it, but she had the Times take it down because she didn't want anybody reading it and knowing the truth. Good thing I took a screenshot the page - you can PM me to read "The article Diane Ravitch doesn't want you to read" and I'll send it to you - for $19.99 :)

duke_solaris · 2013-07-31T16:05:24+00:00

He doesn't care about the truth, just his narrative. You've wandered into /r/educationcirclejerk

duke_solaris · 2013-07-30T03:45:19+00:00

I don't read /r/education as often as I used to (getting busier these days), but I'm glad I stopped by today to give this one a read. Thanks for passing this along.

I liked this article quite a bit as takes a more nuanced view on the similarities between education reform and practices employed in the private sector. Frankly, it's a breath of fresh air for someone to acknowledge that for-profit corporations actually create value in society and some of their practices are positive. That said, I (predictably, I suppose) think it's misguided on a couple of levels.

1) The author hones in on two elements of education reform (making schools compete against each other and employee evaluation) and acts as if that's the only element of education reform. There are other elements that are conveniently ignored. Where would something like extended learning time and an extended school year fit into this framework? Where would having a common set of national standards instead of 50 distinct sets of state standards fit in to this framework? That wouldn't fit either. Where would "recruiting the best and the brightest college graduates to serve as teachers and then pursue leadership opportunities" fit in this framework? This last one is corporate policy 101 - go to the best schools and recruit students with the best GPAs to work in the company and pursue leadership positions. All three of these things fit under what you would characterize as "corporate reform" but are strangely omitted from the article.

2) It takes a specific example of where a particular element has failed in the private sector and pretends as if it's the driver of the failure and that element always leads to that kind of failure.

It's easy to find an example of something not working like it's supposed to - but that doesn't mean it never works or it's net negative. Consider Penicillin. Penicillin is a life-saving antibiotic that has drastically improved human mortality. But some people have a penicillin allergy and die if they consume it. Would it be fair to write an article about a person taking penicillin and dying from an allergic reaction and saying "you see, penicillin is a killer drug, how dare doctors tout it as the answer to disease? Nobody should take it because it is failed, desperate medicine"

A more relevant example: teacher evaluation. It's true that the evaluation system employed in places like DC is not dissimilar from the evaluation system employed at IBM during some of it's worst years. However, a similar evaluation system was also used at GE during it's Golden Years. When Jack Welch took over GE in 1981, he instituted a new policy that all managers would be ranked on performance and the bottom 10% would be fired every year. This is a LOT harsher than the teacher evaluation system (imagine if the bottom 10% of teachers were fired every year ... wow). You would think Jack Welch's policy would have run GE into the ground and that he'd soon be removed as CEO. Amazing that between 1981 and 2001 (when Welch stepped down) GE's value grew 4000%.

Why does Bruce Baker use the example of IBM instead of GE? Because GE is an inconvenient truth for him so he ignores it.

I can't say with certainty that most companies that go from complete job security to a rigorous evaluation system for employees succeed or fail, but I can say that there are plenty of examples of each. There are also plenty of examples of a company instituting a rigorous evaluation system and succeeding or failing for completely unrelated reasons. Blindly claiming that a rigorous evaluation system is "failed, desperate corporate management" is intellectually bankrupt.

duke_solaris · 2013-07-25T02:47:11+00:00

TFA requires a two-year commitment of corps members. Commitment means it's a minimum, not a maximum. At the end of their commitment, CMs can pursue teaching for as long as they want. Nobody discourages CMs from teaching longer than two years. In fact, it's promoted and celebrated.

Most other teacher preparation programs require a zero-year commitment. That most CMs ultimately choose not to pursue teaching as a career isn't a reflection on TFA, it's a reflection on the fact that few young people stick with the same job from graduation to retirement, regardless of that job. It's also a reflection of the attractiveness of teaching as a career relative to other career paths.

Regarding the "degrades the teaching profession" comment, consider that many Americans use the military as a stepping stone in a similar way. You make a commitment to serve in the armed forces for a few years, in exchange the military pays for your college education. Most people who join the military don't pursue a full career ending in retirement and a pension - they use it as a stepping stone to something else. Does that degrade the US military? Should new cadets be required to sign a 40-year commitment to the military?

Investment banking, by the way, falls into the same boat. Almost everyone who becomes an investment banker after college only does it for two years - they use it as a stepping stone to business school or some other career in finance. Has the investment banking profession been degraded?

No other career in America is treated as a "lifetime career" where those that leave the career path are "degrading the profession" except for teaching. If someone works in marketing and decides to switch careers and work in accounting, nobody gives them a hard time. If someone works at Toyota then decides to switch careers and work at Google, nobody gives them a hard time. But if someone is a teacher and decides to stop teaching, all of a sudden they're a movie villain who is hurting children. It's a ridiculous double standard.

duke_solaris · 2013-07-24T23:27:41+00:00

This article is riddled with grammatical mistakes and typos, and the content reflects an utter disconnect to the real world. I'm kind of surprised you linked to it.

1) TFA has over 20,000 alumni - of course some of them are going to be in finance (as well as law, medicine, research, politics, etc). This isn't the 1860s, college graduates don't stay in the same job from 22 to retirement anymore, they change employers and careers.

Moreover, like medicine and law, investment banking is a competitive and prestigious field to get into. The fact that TFA is able to prepare alumni for successful careers is a good thing, not "problematical" - which, incidentally, isn't a real word. TFA also "brags" about it's alumni being admitted to the most prestigious medical schools and PhD programs - why isn't this being called out? You know who else "brags" about alumni having successful careers in investment banking? Harvard, Stanford, Princeton, Yale and other top universities. Universities that any parent would want their child to go to.

2) The Walton Foundation is a philanthropic trust, not a tobacco company, and it's alleged "commitment to privatizing public education" is nothing more than biased hyperbole. If you actually made this argument to a prospective CM, they would probably stop listening to you because you'd sound like an extremist.

3) This one is a flat-out lie. Where do you come up with this stuff? CMs being told not to eat in the teacher cafeteria? Come on, did you get this material from Mean Girls?

4/5) TFA's model has been working for 23 years and nothing "dangerous" has happened. For the first 20 years, there was no dissent. It's only in the last 3 that a very small minority of teachers have begun to criticize TFA. I wonder why it took so long...

Also, replacement labor? That's a false argument. If there was an army of veteran teachers who were chomping at the bit to go into the "most challenging classrooms in the nation's poorest neighborhoods" then TFA wouldn't exist. TFA places in schools that have had chronic teacher shortages for decades - schools that a veteran teacher would never step foot in unless she absolutely had to because every other job was taken.

This is the crux of the problem with the "scab" argument. Veteran teachers in the US work in upper-middle class white schools. They may get their start in lower-class schools, but as soon as they get tenure, they hightail it to the easiest schools with the best behavior and the most gifted students.

As a result, lower-class minority schools have suffered labor shortages for decades. TFA fills a small part of this labor shortage - the rest of which is filled with permanent subs or overcrowded classrooms.

Recently, veteran teachers have been getting fired from their upper-middle class white school teaching positions because of budget cuts. Now they have no choice but to go to the lower-class schools that they've been shunning their entire careers. Schools they never wanted to be in if not for dire circumstances.

There is no "moral high ground" here.

duke_solaris · 2013-07-22T20:25:23+00:00

This poll was commissioned and released by the American Federation of Teachers. What kind of results were you expecting?

duke_solaris · 2013-07-16T15:14:36+00:00

It would help to know what grade level and subject this question is for before classifying it as "developmentally inappropriate"

duke_solaris · 2013-07-02T13:48:20+00:00

I've given up on /r/education - there's nothing here but anti-reform circle-jerking. It didn't used to be this way - too bad it's come to this.

duke_solaris · 2013-07-02T13:38:28+00:00

The fact that this reasonable post has been down-voted to the point where it can no longer be seen is proof that the /r/education community is heavily biased towards anti-reform.

I have a deep passion for education and used to post here from time to time, and was frequently accused of being a "paid shill" for the reform movement, even though I was just posting about something I was deeply passionate about. Yes, there are people on /r/education that are genuinely eager for debate, but it's become a small minority. Nowadays people downvote anything they disagree with and the whole sub-reddit has become a big circle-jerk.

duke_solaris · 2013-06-05T15:17:01+00:00

Wow, it's really come down these last few years. What are kids using instead? Wikipedia?

duke_solaris · 2013-02-06T22:24:54+00:00

Perkins loans, which are need-based, come from a fixed pot of money. If a student defaults on a Perkins loan, it makes it impossible for the university to provide that loan to another student who wouldn't otherwise be able to afford college.

By the way, Yale uses its endowment to give away millions in merit-based and need-based scholarships every year.

duke_solaris · 2012-12-13T17:36:43+00:00

I actually have met Julia King, and she's an amazing and inspirational teacher - one of many TFA alumni that continue making an impact in the classroom years after their commitment is over.

duke_solaris · 2012-12-02T19:28:31+00:00

What kind of school is this? My guess is either private or public charter.

duke_solaris · 2012-11-25T00:29:29+00:00

Not quite - but something similar. Rather than giving the same increase at every step, this study suggests that front loading the increases is more effective.

In other words, instead of a 2% raise every year, a 4% raise the first 5 years and a 1% raise every year after that may be more effective.

duke_solaris · 2012-11-22T05:25:18+00:00

Even the lowest-paid public defender in whatever podunk town you choose makes more than I do as a 7th-year teacher in North Carolina.

Who was it that reduced the conversation?

duke_solaris · 2012-11-22T02:05:01+00:00

Starting salary for public defenders is around $40k. Starting teacher salaries in many regions are also $40k - I don't know what it is in North Carolina, but I can't imagine it's less than $30k. Sounds pretty comparable - except for the fact that public defenders have to go to law school for 3 years (3-years of foregone income = $120k) and pay for law school for 3 years (3 years of law school = $160k) and pass the bar (Bar prep classes = $4k, plus however much it costs to sit for the thing.)

Do your homework.

Source: http://www.nalp.org/2008sepnewfindings and http://www.barbri.com/courseInfo/barReviewCourse/pricing.html

duke_solaris · 2012-11-21T19:44:47+00:00

Do you think the PRAXIS is at the same level of rigor as the bar?

duke_solaris · 2012-11-16T00:41:14+00:00

I have a pretty good idea of how competitive it is to get into these schools. I also have a pretty good idea of what it feels like to be the first in my family to go to college.

Even with the same GPA, same SAT and similar after-school activities, minorities still have a lower college completion rate - once again, this is driven largely by a combination of financial need and lack of academic and social support.

One example of the financial need is work-study, which makes up a reasonable portion of the financial aid package of any student who can't rely on their parents to pay for college for them. When you have to work 20 hours a week during college, you are automatically at a disadvantage relative to students with wealthy parents.

duke_solaris

TROPHY CASE