For Teachers

[TN Bucknasty]

There's a bill that is expected to be passed into law here in Tennessee this week. Basically, the federal administration has offered our state 485 million dollars in non-guaranteed grants if we will jump through some hoops for them.

The plan is to base teacher jobs on value added scores from the annual standardized test. The problem with this is that those types of scores are based on how students scored compared to the previous year. In other words, if a student's score drops or stays the same as the previous year, the teacher is screwed. The only way to have a good value added score is if the student scores higher each year which is not even mathematically possible past a certain point. If students don't meet the standards, teachers could be terminated.

As a teacher, I agree that we should be held accountable for student achievement and that there are many slugs who teach school that should be pumping gas instead. However, I would like to see some sort of accountability put on the students. Right now, if they fail the standardized tests, there are 0 consequences and there are 0 rewards if they do well.

I've been around long enough to see that grants we end up with will be squandered on stupid programs and other junk that don't do anyone much good. Also, I'm sure it will result in nothing more than a big pile of paperwork that has no or very little impact in reality.

Are any of you experiencing the same thing in your state?

[wtnhunt]

Think this is another of those deals that simply will not work. Too many flaws for that type system to work. You have kids on national standardized testing who score in the upper 90's percentiles, how can they continue to improve. Perfect example, my oldest daughter, ever since she started taking those tests she scored in the mid to upper 90's on all subjects, she has maintained those averages, her not improving in rank is far from meaning any teachers are failing her, on the contrary she has been acknowledged as intellectually gifted and still continues to score in the same area percentage wise and the kid is only continuing to broaden her knowledge thanks to teachers doing a great job recognizing where she needs to focus and working with her. If the kid is measured against their own scores and margin of improvement there would have to be some other type of testing aside from a national achievement test that measures and ranks kids against each other.

Does the recent changes in the TCAP's have anything to do with this? Our 8 year old also normally was scoring in the mid to upper 90's up until last year(2nd grade), where he scores fell off quite a bit. Her teacher this year said they changed the format for some reason making the test more difficult???

[Tominator]

Our union just voted to turn down the federal "Race to the Top" grant.

http://www.ed.gov/programs/racetothetop/index.html

This grant was to possibly add a million dollars or so to our budget, however, as with any government program, you had to play by their rules.

I'll be honest, I don't know all the intricacies of the grant, but as I see it, it puts the school community/environment in a bit of a catch 22. If we elected to take the money, we would have to give up a lot of local control, but if we turned down the money then that sends a bad message to the community. It's really a win/win, lose/lose situation. I voted to take the money, but our union as a whole elected to turn it down.

As with most education programs, there's just too many unknowns. In the 16 years I've been teaching I've seen Ohio go from no standardized testing for graduates to now having to pass the OGT (Ohio Graduation Test), which will be phased out in a couple years and our seniors will have to pass the ACT in order to get a diploma. It's crazy, everytime they get a system, they change the rules. I really feel sorry for our kids sometimes. Seniors graduating this year have played no less than 3 or 4 different games to get through their schooling years. This Race to the Top grant was just another game with no clearly defined objective or goal in the end.

[stevebeilgard]

all the work is placed on the teachers and not the parents and students. unless parents start to discipline kids and care about what they do, the teachers don't have much of a chance.

[Tominator]

all the work is placed on the teachers and not the parents and students. unless parents start to discipline kids and care about what they do, the teachers don't have much of a chance.

Very true. It's been my experience, by and large, that kids that are the most difficult to teach come from broken homes or from homes where the parents don't give a darn.

[RangerClay]

When you teach to standards the kids lose their basic skills. I asked a 7th student the other day, what is 4x5 and she couldn't answer me. In words of Earl Pitts, "Wake up America!"