NY Times Endorses Low Standards

For years I have noticed that the NY Times has the very worst education reporting in the city. I often disagree with the editorials in the News and the Post, but their reporting often contradicts what appears on their op-ed pages. Sometimes I wonder whether the editorial writers read their own reporting. Since Times reporting is so frequently timid and wishy-washy, I guess their editorial writers follow it, except the great piece that exposed the Moskowitz Academies.

Their piece today is utter nonsense of the same variety put forth by Nicholas Kristof, who bemoaned the fact that Merryl Streep and Colin Powell were unqualified to teach in public schools. The fact that they had never expressed to remotest desire to do that, let alone take the spectacular pay cut that would accompany that decision, never entered his mind. If it did, it certainly never entered his column.

The Times criticizes teacher training programs. I will admit that I took some crappy and useless courses when getting my Master's. But I also took great courses in my subject area, courses that gave me a very good understanding of language acquisition, bilingualism, and the structure of the English language. We all kind of implicity understand its structure but never really have to think about it.

The Times thinks I don't need that sort of training even though I use it absolutely every day in my work. Here's what the Times thinks:

New York’s high-performing charter schools have long complained that rules requiring them to hire state-certified teachers make it difficult to find high-quality applicants in high-demand specialties like math, science and special education. They tell of sorting through hundreds of candidates to fill a few positions, only to find that the strongest candidates have no interest in working in the low-income communities where charters are typically located.

Curiously, it's escaped the Times' notice that public school teachers work in every single one of those communities without exception. And if we take this paragraph at face value, it clearly states that the strongest candidates have no desire to teach at these charters. Why is that? Is it because of the neighborhoods they're in? Or could it possibly be that they don't wish to work under substandard conditions in Moskowitz test-prep factories? Maybe they don't feel like giving scripted lessons and wish to develop their own teacher voice.

The new rules will allow charter schools that receive SUNY approval to recruit people who have college degrees in areas other than education as well as 3.0 averages for training programs that consist of a month of instruction and a week of practice teaching. Exceptions could be made for musicians or other artists who lack degrees but have been widely recognized in their fields. 

Finally, a chance for Merryl Streep and Colin Powell to become NYC teachers. The only issue is that they've never applied. Well, you can't have everything. The Times goes on:

In its general outlines, the training regime resembles the highly successful Teaching Fellows program, under which New York City recruits college graduates and people who are changing careers to work in schools serving low-income children.

Except for the fact that Teaching Fellows eventually needed to get Master's degrees and meet state standards for certification.  Oopzie. Well, the Times doesn't always vet its sources all that closely.

Maybe the Times editorial writers followed a similar program. 30 days of reading newspapers, a month writing a few things, and who cares if your ideas are fundamentally unsound? Hey, let's stop wasting time with all that medical school, buy a few stethescopes, and let the Doctor Fellows work on NY Times editorial writers. And if it doesn't work out, the Times can always hire a Lawyer Fellow to mess around with a lawsuit. Are lawsuits two-piece or three-piece suits? Who cares?

The important thing is giving them a chance.

Reformy War on Teacher Professionalism Continues

Are you seeing a pattern here? Moskowitz and her pals don't want to bother with all that messy certification nonsense. They want to do it their way and take whoever they want. And why not? Their teachers aren't unionized and don't last anyway. When this one goes, just open another can. Reformy Bellwether Education wants to do away with pensions because they're supposedly unfair to the people who quit after five minutes. Now here's a piece saying do away with certification altogether.

This is not a new idea. Self-styled education expert Nicholas Kristof suggested this years ago. Evidently Merryl Streep and Colin Powell were unqualified to teach.The fact that neither one of them had any desire to teach was neither here nor there. New York City students were being deprived of imaginary teachers, and we needed to address this crisis immediately! The new arguments are not much better, actually.

Funding per student has been rising sharply for decades, resulting in lower class size, but such expenditures seem not to have succeeded.

I don't know what planet this guy lives on, but here in NYC, the opposite has occurred. In fact, there's a lawsuit right now trying to change it. We are the largest district in the country, with the highest class sizes in the state. The writer should be delighted to learn that maximum class size is now pretty much standard. Doubtless he'd revel in our busting-at-the-seams overcrowded school.

The key to successful education is to attract good teachers. We can try to do so by raising teachers’ salaries (as commonly advocated). But this strategy also seems to fail, partly because higher incomes go to both good teachers and bad, giving bad teachers as much incentive as good ones to become and remain teachers.

I don't remember much about economics, but there is the whole supply and demand thing. In fact, as you'll see, it's pretty much the crux of this writer's argument. But it doesn't apply, evidently, when it comes to, you know, paying teachers. The fact that half of them walk before they hit five years is neither here nor there. Then there's that bad teachers trope. Evidently they are everywhere, though there is little or no evidence to support this supposition.

And then the writer goes on to the main point--that certification is keeping out good teachers. To his credit, the writer doesn't mention Streep or Powell. Here's the point:

How can this be? Despite much research, nobody can say what skills, qualities, or training good teachers need. 

So therefore, let's drop requirements altogether.  That's what passes for logic in this piece. So, now that we've given up certification requirements, how do we weed out those bad teachers wandering the landscape like a zombie plague?

By far, the most effective way to improve teacher quality is to require administrators to selectively retain, after the first few years of experience, only the more effective teachers. The biggest barrier to improving teacher quality is therefore union contracts that block such selective retentions and, with lock step pay, eliminate success-based compensation.

Okay, let's examine that. Given the plague of zombie bad teachers, we need to address this crisis. But on the other hand, who hired these zombies? My guess it was the administrators, you know, the ones we're depending on to weed out the bad teachers. Who failed to get rid of this plague? Right again, the very same administrators. And wait, isn't there already a means of firing teachers for performance? Haven't we just enacted not one, but two laws to accomplish that in New York? And didn't Race to the Top insist on teacher certification requirements in all the states that took the money?

Let's take a look at "success-based compensation," otherwise known as merit pay. In fact, merit pay is an old, old idea that has never worked anywhere. Let me tell you something--I've outlasted many trends and one thing I can tell you is I've never made a whole lot of money. I'll also tell you I don't work for tips, and suggesting that I do, or that anyone does, will not stem the tide of teachers walking out the door.

The notion that it is difficult to get certified is pretty ridiculous. Hey, if it's too much trouble for you to get twelve education credits, maybe this isn't the job for you. The notion, propagated by this writer,  that colleges don't require certification is equally ridiculous. For me to work as an adjunct teacher of English as a second language, I needed a master's degree in applied linguistics. I didn't just grab it off a tree like an apple. If you want to work on a tenure track, for the few that are still around, you'd better have a doctorate, and not one of the ones you buy online for $169.

I don't know about you, but I'm a little concerned about who gets in front of my children, or yours. I'm not remotely comfortable with Eva Moskowitz, who keeps kids in test prep until they pee their pants, getting to decide. I'm not comfortable with abusive teachers who lack the common sense of salad vegetables.

So I'm sorry, but inconvenient as it is, I think we need standards for teachers. If the ones we have are too difficult, or not relevant enough, we can amend them. The notion of dumping them is part of a larger pattern, a pattern designed to eliminate career teachers and make us replaceable cogs.

We devote our lives to teaching American's children, and we deserve better. And for those who blather on about placing children first, our children deserve better too.

The Ever-Shifting Standard

It's fascinating to read the opinion columns in the New York Post. Yesterday they were all bent out of shape about waiving the current literacy test for incoming teachers. Evidently this test results in fewer teachers of color than white teachers passing. How good is the test? I have no idea. Now I personally think literacy is key for teachers, even though it appears unimportant in a President of the United States.To me, for example, when Donald J. Trumpp, uses the word tapp, it makes me think he's full of crapp.

But let's talk teachers. I certainly hope that we can model the use of English for our students. Let's assume, for the moment, that this test is a fair measure of literacy. Now I can't tell you exactly why we should assume that, since NY State created the NYSESLAT exam to test language acquisition, and in fact it measures no such thing. Also, the state has a history of moving cut scores to get the results it wishes. Wanna fail everyone and make teachers look bad? Raise the cut scores. Wanna pass everyone and make Bloomberg look like a genius? Lower the cut scores.

The problem is not necessarily this test. It's not impossible that this test is a precise measure that's absolutely accurate. Of course I have no reason to assume any such thing, but that doesn't make it impossible. The problem, in fact, is that this standard applies only to public school teachers. It does not apply to charter school teachers, who may be appointed despite not having teacher certification. And yes, that applies right here in good old New York State.

So my question is why doesn't the NY Post go after those substandard charter school teachers? If it's outrageous that public school teachers fail to meet this standard, isn't it equally outrageous that charters can hire people who not only don't meet it, but may fail in other areas as well?

I know people who've been banned from public schools, either temporarily or permanently. Where did these people find work? In charters, of course. Now I'm not saying these people are bad teachers. They were targeted by the lunatics at DOE, sometimes for bad reasons and other times for none I could determine. Sometimes I read about these teachers and sometimes I know firsthand that their charges are trumped-up nonsense. But you know what I never read? I never read that, oh my gosh, this charter school hired this awful teacher that isn't good enough to work in a public school.

Let's talk student teachers. I've had many, and most were great. There was one glaring exception, an ESL teacher who made fundamental usage errors on my board, errors some of my students noticed. She offered lessons I knew she couldn't have written, since she seemed not to understand them, and when I looked I was able to find them lifted in their entirely from the internet. Oddly, her college professor seemed not to notice. My student teacher also had a charming habit of trash-talking me for criticizing things like her differentiation of "might" and "may" in cases where there was none. My colleagues, none of whom liked her all that much, reported this back to me daily.

When this teacher asked me for a recommendation, I declined. I told her, truthfully, that I never wrote recommendations for student teachers. (Actually that was simply because no one had asked me.) She went and complained to my supervisor about that. I told my supervisor it was because she was incompetent, and the supervisor was happy to leave it at that. Actually there was nothing she could have done, since I'm not required to recommend anyone, even people l like.

Where did this student teacher end up after failing to score a gig at my school or any other public school? You guessed it. Last I heard she was at a charter school, saving the world from awful public school teachers like me and you.

So where's the standard? Well, to me it looks like Public School Bad, Charter School Good. When there's profit to be made from our kids, it's positive. When Eva Moskowitz can bring home a bundle of cash, somewhere around 500K a year last I checked, all is good with the editorial staff of the New York Post. I don't know whether Murdoch is losing money on this enterprise, but the important thing is to get the word out.

Whatever it is, it's our fault. I've grown fairly accustomed to such messages over the year. We've been found guilty of the awful crime of educating New York City's children, no matter where they come from, what their handicaps, or what their home lives are. And as long as the charters continue to select the students they want, dump those they don't, and hold a blatantly lower standard for the teachers they run through like chewing gum, we'll always be guitly. 

Mr. Mulgrew Writes Me a Letter About Certification

Because I'm a very important guy, Michael Mulgrew, UFT president, wrote me a letter. OK, actually he sent me the same email he sent tens of thousands of other UFT members. But that's not the point. What's the point? Well, the point is more what he didn't say than what he did.

When my students show unwillingness to get up and ask questions, or move into groups, I tell them that I'm an old man with one foot in the grave, and if I can do it, they can too. So maybe that explains why I'm in the situation I'm in.

What exactly is that situation?  I hold permanent certification, and in three areas. I used to use only one, but now that Part 154 demands dual-certified teachers, I use two. Anyway, in August I'm gonna be even older than I am now, and that means I'm gonna have to register. After all, how will NY State know that I exist unless I let them know? There are excellent reasons for this. For example, if a piano were to fall on my head this afternoon, they'd need to make sure I didn't come back as a brain-eating zombie and endanger those with whom I teach and work. But do I have to register three times? President Mulgrew didn't tell me, and no matter how important I deem myself, he can't be bothered answering my email.

Now if I were a more recent teacher, I'd also need to register. But those with more recent licenses also have to count PD hours. What we still don't know is what PD hours actually are. I mean, it's great that we can start the count from zero and not worry about the last few years. Nonetheless, we have no idea what will be counted as PD in the future. Will the school PD, the ones so adored by Carmen Fariña, the ones memorialized into the Memorandum of Agreement, count toward the 20 hours? Will some of them? Will newer teachers have to take online courses? Go to approved PDs? Write a paper on the History of Cement? Who knows?

And while we're at it, how the hell are we going to be evaluated next year? Chalkbeat NY reported that we need not even come to an agreement until December 31st. This is really troublesome. For example, who, if anyone, is going to observe classes? Will it be our supervisors? Outside observers? Will Andrew Cuomo observe the classes himself to ensure they aren't "baloney?" What if Preet gets his ducks in a row and puts Governor Andy in a cell with his pals Dean and Shelley? Will they observe us via remote? Who knows?

It's nice that Mr. Mulgrew takes his valuable time and writes us a letter. I know he's got many other important things to do. But the letter answers one question while leaving many unanswered. A defect I see all too often in UFT leadership is a fervent unwillingness to say, "I don't know." But that's actually the best answer you can give when you don't know. A lot of people have issues admitting that. Maybe it's worse with teachers, as we're expected to know everything.

But I get questions about this stuff every day. I do indeed say, "I don't know." It must be a great burden to have to pretend to know everything all the time. I'm really glad not to have that problem.

Actually, I'm a lot more impressed with people who tell me when they don't know something. While Mulgrew has simply avoided the topic, I've been at meetings with UFT employees where they seem to make stuff up. It's very inconvenient. My default mode is to trust people until they give me reason not to. Maybe I'm naive.

But once I get burned by someone, I don't make the same mistake twice. 

Who Should Teach Teachers?

Yesterday Joanne Jacobs ran a piece about how good teacher pay looks in a recession. And people have told me that during the depression, teachers did better than a whole lot of people. It's beyond pathetic that's what it takes to make this job appealing to some, but when you see how regularly we're vilified in the press, it's certainly understandable.

My attention was drawn by one of the comments, from one Obi-Wandreas, who writes:

There’s not a gorram thing you’re going to learn in an education class that will actually be of any use to you in the classroom. You still have to take a metric keesterload of them, however, to get a teaching license. This takes a significant amount of time. I was fast-tracked and it took a year before I was able to teach.

I can't really argue with that. I too had to take several courses that were total crap to become a teacher, but I also learned a lot about my subject area. Many in the "reform" crowd, including Rod Paige, ex-US Education Secretary, falsifier of the "Texas Miracle," and part-time UFT President Randi Weingarten's biggest fan, say this must be corrected, and the sooner the better. We need to make it easier for people to become teachers, and we need to ease the restrictions, because it's too hard to get certified.

Actually, folks like Rod don't give a damn who teaches kids, and want to let anybody in so as to enlarge the employee pool and keep salaries down. But many buy that line, and NY Times columnist Nicholas Christof thinks it's keeping Meryl Streep and Colin Powell from becoming teachers. That's an idiotic notion, of course. Just as implausible, but somewhat less idiotic, was a remark I read somewhere suggesting, "Just put a CPA in that classroom. Give him the book. He'll know what to do."

Actually, leaving aside the woeful cut in pay, a CPA may know math, but that doesn't remotely guarantee he can control a room full of 34 teenagers. We had a Teaching Fellow in our school who knew as much or more math than anyone, but couldn't handle the kids at all. And poor retention rates suggest (to me at least) that not everyone can do this job.

So perhaps we shouldn't have ivory tower professors who've never seen public school classrooms telling us how to run them. Perhaps we should find people who have actual experience doing the instruction. Actually, I have friends who are lawyers and nurses who tell me their education included lots of impractical nonsense. Still, you don't hear people say we should let absolutely anyone become a nurse, or a lawyer, or a doctor.

That's because, make no mistake about it, an awful lot of people have no respect whatsoever for what we do. We could certainly improve teacher education. But I think eliminating it is one of the worst ideas I've ever heard.

What do you think?

The Certification Issue

Personally, I'm horrified. Why do they toss so many hurdles in our path? The US, what with mass firings and rampant outsourcing, has become a nation of career-changers. And the American Medical Association stubbornly stands in our way--Oh, if you want to become a doctor you have to go to medical school, oh, you can't practice medicine without a license.

Picky, picky, picky.

What if some young journalist gets it in her mind to be a doctor for a year and report on it? I mean, you could become a teacher and report on it. So why on earth can't you become a physician? You never get a journalist's POV on what it's like to be a doctor.

What's more, what if truly creative folks like Meryl Streep and Colin Powell decide they want to be doctors? Wouldn't it be cool to have a really famous celebrity remove your appendix? Or whatever they happen to find when they open you up?

It's all the agenda of those medical schools--they want medicine practiced in a certain way just to fulfill their narrow agenda, and they don't want newcomers to bring a fresh outlook, which is certainly what is needed. I mean, the other day I was in a doctor's office and all there was to read was Arthritis Today. Do you honestly believe Meryl Streep would lay out a magazine like that as the sole way for her patients to pass the time?

It's time for an alternative licensing procedure, and I certainly hope that whoever becomes President uses the bully pulpit to promote this idea. America is a nation at risk, and therefore needs to take more chances on unexamined and unproven reforms. And if they're proven not to work, we need to not only expand these programs, but add even more unexamined and unproven reforms.

It's the American Way.

Isn't it?

The Truth Shall Set You Free

Well, after reading Nicholas Kristof, I momentarily despaired of encountering voices of reason anywhere. But lo and behold, Diane Ravitch went and wrote something that made perfect sense. Rather than simply dropping teacher certification and recruiting disgruntled employees from Kentucky Fried Chicken, Ms. Ravitch proposes the following:

First, let's figure out why so many students are unwilling to behave in the classroom and do the work that is assigned to them.
Second, let's review the laws and court decisions that make it difficult to maintain a culture of high expectations and good behavior in the schools.
Third, let's make sure that schools have a solid curriculum in science, history, the arts, literature, and math so that teachers know what they are expected to teach and are well prepared to teach it.
Fourth, let's ease up on the testing mania and put the emphasis where it belongs: on providing a great education.

I haven't got all the answers, but one reason kids don't behave in the classroom (far from the only one, of course) is a weak teacher who doesn't know how to control kids. I think opening up the classrooms to anyone who feels like walking in will draw many weak teachers (and many far, far worse teachers, actually).

I suggest Mr. Kristof, to demonstrate his sincerity, visit unlicensed doctors when he's not feeling well. He ought to hire unlicensed lawyers to handle his business affairs. I personally volunteer to serve as Mr. Kristof's accountant, as I am nothing if not totally unqualified.

An emailer suggested Mr. Kristoff take his next flight to Africa with an unlicensed pilot. I think that would show true commitment.

I only hope he advises his fellow passengers. Truth be told, not everyone is equally open to innovation.

The Nice Man Cometh

Mr. S. came into our school with a doctorate in mathematics. That's right. A doctorate. I haven't got one, and I'm duly impressed by those things--I kid you not.

He could make the slide rule sing. He could calculate pi to the umpteenth decimal. He understood all that trig and calculus that eluded the likes of me in high school.

Mr. S. walked into his classroom, started writing on the board, and an egg mysteriously appeared on it. Pop! Just like that. Mr. S. turned and asked who threw the egg, but received no response. It was an inauspicious beginning, particularly for someone who'd gone through NYC's most recent response to the 30-year teacher shortage, the Teaching Fellows program.

So why, his AP pondered, couldn't this fellow teach? Perhaps it was that he could not relate to the kids. Perhaps it was that he had no sense of humor. Perhaps it was because he'd never been in front of 34 kids before. Who knows? But after repeated conferences, repeated suggestions, and repeated calls from irate parents, nothing changed.

A student of mine, a Spanish speaker with a nice personality, asked if I would talk to Mr. S. Apparently, she had always been good in math, but was failing his class. I found him in the teacher's cafeteria. He apologized profusely, as though I had some sort of authority over him (I did not, nor was I pretending to).

I tried to ask how we could help this girl, my student, and he looked like he was holding back tears. In fact, I wondered whether he was going to take the fork he had in his hand and suddenly drive it into his heart. Mr. S. looked like the unhappiest human being I'd set eyes on in some time.

I thanked Mr. S., hightailed it out of there, and later discovered that all the students in his class were failing. That's too much to attribute to juvenile delinquency, and I was sure at least one of his students was trying. My efforts to get my kid transferred to another teacher were in vain, unfortunately.

Why am I telling you this? Nick Kristof, op-ed writer for the New York Times, thinks that teacher certification is preventing ($) Colin Powell and Meryl Streep from becoming teachers. While that may be true, the fact is they have not expressed the remotest interest in this pursuit. Kristof is happy that women have other options (so am I), and feels that results in a decline in quality. He's right. But despite impressions to the contrary you may have gleaned from watching Sex in the City, women are not deserting the profession because they hate kids. The only way is to lure better teachers, regardless of sex, is to pay them. It works like a charm in Nassau County.

Furthermore, it's idiotic to suggest we'll draw better teachers by lowering standards. We need to cut the nonsense, rid ourselves of self-absorbed education professors who wouldn't know an urban high school if they worked across the street from it for twenty years, offer practical instruction, and raise standards.

How on earth is lowering standards going to get us better teachers? New York City's been doing precisely that for thirty years, and during that time it's gone from one of the best systems in the world to one of the worst.

We need people who actually know how to reach kids. Without that, all the doctorates in the world won't make a difference.

Lowering standards, unfortunately, does not draw Meryl Streep, or Colin Powell, Jr.

It draws Mr. S.

Do you want him teaching your kid?