The New Administrative Position-Educator Evaluater and Support Provider

The administrative position that I suggest is the Educator Evaluater and Support Provider. This position's sole purpose is to evaluate and support teachers (duh). If I were to set this position up, I would separate it into two semesters. The first semester would be spent helping teachers and supporting them, just as those support providers (through the BTSA program) helped new teachers through the first two years. The second semester would focus on evaluating the teachers using all of the information gathered from steps I through V mentioned in the previous blogs.

This new administration position would keep track of teaching practices and previous evaluations in order to make consistent and better informed decisions. The second semester would probably be the harder of the two due to the research that must be done for each teacher. One option would be to have each teacher evaluated this deeply every other year. This would cut down on the amount of admins needed and would allow more time to focus on the teachers being evaluated. The evaluation system that is currently around allows a longer break between evals. the longer you teach, but this is part of the problem. Plus the fact that the way they evaluate is so limited and based on one or two classroom visits per year for an hour at a time. Not to mention, even if you suck at that eval. if you are tenured, you keep your job and get no help for improvement.

Okay, moving on.
For those teachers who are given a poor evaluation, in order to protect their jobs, the union could allow a one-semester pass (for lack of a better word) in order for that teacher to get the support needed to improve on whatever they did poorly on. The admins would need to teach them how to improve, rather than say, "you sucked, you're fired!" This means that the admin. position would require a good amount (more than three!) of teaching experience at the grade level (elementary, middle, or high school) that they are responsible for evaluating.
I propose that almost everyday of the second semester those new admins. are in a classroom. The more time they spend there, the more they can see how the students' respond and how the teacher teaches. Otherwise, it's just a guessing game based on grades and test scores.

I hope I didn't leave anything out. If so, I will probably add it to the comments section like I have before.

More Money

I have been trying to find other ways that schools can raise money without putting more and more of the burden on the parents/students. Although the registration amount that I proposed wouldn't break the bank, there are other ways to add to that money. Apparently (I have never taught at private schools, so I have little knowledge of how they work), private schools do a good amount of fundraising. This is a great idea, even if you aren't paying $30,000 to have your child go there. I found an article on ways that schools have done fundraising at Education World
There are many examples in the article of how to raise money. If public schools could take just some of these ideas and run with them, then that would be extremely helpful!

Money

I may get some grief about the following post, but I hope you hear me out.
I have been seeing many angry blog posts about our education system and how we should privatize all schools. I know that many people are saying that they would rather have their students home schooled or in private schools. The problem with private schools is that they cost a lot of money. The point of our public schools is to educate everyone, regardless, for free. However, that doesn't seem to be working. The problem with homeschooling is that the student does not benefit from social interactions and there could be major discrepancies between what is taught at home and what skills are necessary at the college level. Public schools need to get more money without raising the cost of an education so high that the less fortunate cannot attend.

You may be wondering how we would pay for this plan of mine. The cost of running a more efficient, self-aware, accountable school district shouldn't be too much. The only cost that I can imagine would be for more administrators. I will address those administrator jobs in another post. In this post, I would like to focus on how we would pay for those few extra positions in order to better our schools, without the assistance of the government. I would imagine that if the government tried to help, we would be looking at raising taxes to pay for our shortcomings. Instead of raising taxes, I propose a minimal registration fee for all students in the public schools. If the districts could charge a small non-refundable fee per student, per year, that money would help tremendously. Of course, there would have to be some stipulations about how much and how high it could legally go. I don’t really recommend it be more than forty dollars, but I believe it would depend on the district’s size. In Murrieta, California, there are about 8500 students in the high school district alone. Imagine if they each had to pay a mere ten dollars per year to register for school. That would earn the district 85,000 dollars each year. That money would have to be designated for the new administrator positions for this to work. Perhaps for smaller districts, the fee may be more, however, the fewer teachers, the fewer additional administrators needed.

Okay, why would we want to ask more of the general population to help fund our schools? Because they place their kids in these schools and if they knew that the money would help create better teachers for their students, then I believe they would have no problem complying. Maybe I am wrong, but I do have a feeling that something like a registration fee of ten to twenty bucks would go over much better with the public than another hike in taxes. Can’t the districts try to help themselves? I don’t know.
Parents, does this sound like something you could get behind? I would love to hear what you think about this.

FYI

In order to help you understand my position, I have been thinking solely of our public middle and high schools in California. I have no idea what it would look like in other states or at the elementary level—although I know they need help too.

Student Feedback—Point V.

V. Visit the classroom more often
The group of students recommended that administrators visit the classrooms more often--say once every other month. I realize that their jobs require a lot from them, but something like this is too important to shrug off. They also suggested that these visits should be unannounced and should last throughout the entire class period.
I absolutely agree with this suggestion.
Reason one: I was told by school administrators that the best thing to do before a visit from an evaluator/observer is to prep the class. I was given tips on how to bribe my students to behave well in front of guests. I was also told that even those who evaluate/observe you are aware that this is just a dog and pony show. How sad I was to know these things!
Reason two: The teacher will not prepare a fantastic lesson plan specifically for this day—all their lessons should be great!
Reason three: the students will become used to the visitors and will be able to see how concerned the administrators are that the teachers are doing their jobs well. As it is now, students have this idea that their administrators don’t care and would never take their suggestions seriously. It is unfortunate that some students think of their principal as one who stays in their office and never interacts with faculty and students.
Besides visitng more often, the students also thought that it would be best if administrators from other campuses came to evaluate teachers in order to stay clear of any bias. The administrators could rotate campuses each year in order to see new teachers and be more aware of all the schools in their district and surrounding areas.

Summer School

Before I went into eighth grade, I took a summer math course so that I would be better prepared for the following year. I don't recall whether that was my mom's idea or my own, but I took the class. The idea of taking summer courses in order to prepare for the next year's course is no longer popular; maybe it never was. Now, summer school is mostly used to make up for failed courses. Obviously, summer school can be very important for students who could not quite "get" a subject or for those students who want to get ahead. But, what about those students who deliberately fail their regular classes in order to take it in the summer where it is "easier"? Too many times I have heard this as an excuse to not try. As a teacher, it has become easy to differentiate between the students who are trying and those who are not. One quick way to tell if they tried is by looking at their grade percentages. When a student has a 17% in your class, they are not trying. If they have a 57%, they probably tried, but did not fully understand the material. What is my point? Sometimes I think we should do away with summer school altogether. However, the ones who would suffer would be those who tried but failed anyway and those who want to excel by taking courses ahead of their scheduled time.
Instead of getting rid of summer school completely, I think there should be some change regarding who we allow to take summer school. Let me explain before your head explodes. I don't mean to say that all those students who don't try can never redeem themselves. Instead, I suggest that they redeem themselves at night school in whatever adult education center their district has available to them. Why? Not only could this cut down on that lousy excuse to just take the easy way out in summer, but it could save money. The fewer students who take summer school, the fewer teachers needed to teach it, which means less expenditure at the district level. Summer school is an option for some teachers, and while some teach it every year, others avoid it in order to not get burned out on teaching. The fact that almost half of all teachers leave their job within the first five years says a lot about teaching as a profession. It is a hard job!
I suggest that the teachers of these students be consulted as to whether or not summer school is the right choice--much like teachers do when students want to take an honors class. Teachers know whether a student has been putting forth effort in their work, therefore, they should have a say. Imagine if that poor excuse could be taken away! Imagine how much their effort could grow!

Student Feedback—Point III

Please forgive my poor writing on this blog post. I am not feeling well and this topic really gets to me.


III. Look at class grades and test scores


This proposal could be useful as long as the following things were taken into consideration.
--Previous grades and test scores
--Incongruity between grades and test scores
--ESL population
--Random bouts of failure
--Extra credit
--Evaluation Process/Teacher Expectations

1. In order to see whether a student has improved, we must look at their previous scores. Some students progress slower than others, therefore it is important to discover if that is the case. If that is the case, then progress, however slow, is a plus. Schools/Districts cannot just look at a grade or test scores to determine whether a student is trying or knows enough, therefore it is risky to look solely at these things.

2. Sometimes there is a huge discrepancy between a class grade and a test score. Personally, I used to be a horrible test taker. I was too anxious about my score to take my time and read carefully. I was not what you call a “test-taker.” In high school I would get A’s and B’s in all my classes, but when I took the SAT, I scored very low. I have seen similar things happen with my own students. When I taught sophomores, 98% of then passed the CAHSEE on the first try, while 50% failed my class. This suggests that they knew the material, but were not willing to do work when they were out of my sight. I had many students choose to not do their work because they said that it would be easier for them to just take the class in the Summer session (which I will get to later!). Because I knew my students knew the material, I knew it wouldn’t be right to base their knowledge on just grades or test scores.

3. Another important factor in determining whether a teacher is good or not based on grades and test scores is how big an ESL (English as a Second Language) population they have. These things do matter. If one teacher has 60% ESL students and another has 10%, then their scores and grades would be like comparing apples to kiwi. In that sophomore class that I taught where almost all my students passed, the two that didn’t were both ESL students. Yes, that could just be a coincidence, or it could mean a lot. The thought of weighing a teacher’s abilities on these things is scary if it were to be done blindly. I mean, if we are to expect the same progress from all students at the same time, regardless of former education or nationality, then we would have major problems.

4. Random bouts of failure are bound to happen throughout your high school years. It turns out that things that happen outside of school also affect what goes on inside as well. It has happened many times where I have had a student suddenly stop trying or seem distant. Usually what I found was that something was going on at home and they did not know how to handle it. In some cases, the “not caring” routine lasts a full year or two. There are those cases where students think school is a joke and they don’t realize until later that it’s important. I know of one student who did just that—failed his first two years and then committed himself to graduate on time by going to night school after regular school just to catch up. He spoke to his fellow classmates about it, trying to help them realize sooner than he did. He may not have been able to convince all those he spoke to, but that’s kind of the point. Some students need to decide for themselves when it is right to start living the way we think they should. It’s like being an addict and then one day, poof, you just realize that you need help. These bouts of failure happen and cannot all be taken care of by the magical teacher. Sometimes the teacher has nothing to do with it. Sometimes the bouts of failure even happen on testing days!

5. The topic of extra credit really irks me. Yes, I was one of those mean teachers who only gave extra credit to those who fought for their grades. I was so mean, I had them do extra assignments that were educational and connected to what we were learning in class. These extra credits assignments had deadlines and expectations and came few and far between, if at all. The part that gets me is that I know that there are teachers out there who give extra credit for the most ridiculous things, like school supplies. Students would always complain to me about the fact that they could bring in tissues for extra points. I would respond to them by asking, what was the educational value of such a task. Look, I know that sometimes extra credit is given for silly things in order to get supplies and let the student feel like they are helping themselves. If teachers do this, then it is okay if they were giving 5 points per box at a limit of three boxes per student, ONLY when the total amount of points in is so high that the tissues probably won’t even affect their grade. If bringing in tissues can take you from a D+ to a C, something is very wrong. Extra credit can be okay in moderation, but it makes looking at grades and test scores to judge a teachers’ worth a bad idea.

6. Imagine a world where the only thing that keep teachers hired are grades and test scores. What would that teacher teach? The test. How might that teacher grade? Easy. This can be as bad for the education system as tenure. Students have this ability to figure out which teacher they would rather have due to their expectations of student work. I have heard students suggest that other students take or transfer into other classes just to get an “easy A”. It sickens me to hear such things. Being a teacher, I have no idea what goes on in other people’s classrooms. All I know is what the students say. Yes, the students could be full of it, or they could be right. I once was a long-term substitute at a school for a semester. When the semester ended, I had to be let go because I was not yet credentialed and No Child Left Behind had kicked in. Even though the woman who took my position was not yet credentialed either, she was “closer to getting her credential” than I had been. What an awful way to choose a teacher for our students. After about a month of no longer teaching these students, I went back to the school as a substitute for another class. I had time to stop by and say hello and see how the classes were doing. As I talked to these former students, I kept hearing the same complaint; “We don’t learn anything. All we do is watch movies”. First of all, it made me happy to hear that these students were hungry to learn. Second, it made me sad that they were put in that situation due to the idiotic notion that the one closest to the credential is the better one for the job, and second. Again, the students could have been full of it, or they could have had real concerns about their school experience and what it would mean for the next year.
The way a teacher evaluates students is also very important. Sometimes students expect credit for assignments just because they turned them in. I was never one for giving credit just because you wrote your name. I realize that what I teach may be hard for some students, but I need to see you try in order to give you credit. Administrators can look at the way that teachers evaluate their assignments from essays, worksheets, random quizzes, etc. if the teacher makes their evaluation methods clear (which I am suggesting!).

Perhaps it doesn’t sound like I am helping at all, but am bringing up points to not look at grades and test scores. This is not my intention. What I want to explain is that looking at such things requires a lot more than people think. How can we deal with this type of thing? Well, we can keep clean, clear records of our grades, grading scales, expectations, etc. Basically, I think that if students and teachers kept daily track of what they did in the classroom, that would help others see what actually goes on. As far as expectations, that one is a little more tricky. Expectations, however, can also show in daily assignment. If one teacher writes that in an hour and a half all they will do is vocabulary words and read from a book, while another teacher adds that they will also do grammar and notes, then we can see a difference there. Now, just because one teacher goes over many things in a day, doesn’t mean that the students grasp all of them, but more practice on more things on a regular basis is very beneficial to students. Perhaps teachers could have more time to spend discussing such things with the other teachers in their subject.