Ohio To Retest Teachers for Low Student Performance

[Modern School]

The Beatings Will Continue Until Test Scores Improve
In yet another idiotic attempt to force teachers to make poor kids excel on their exams, Ohio will start requiring teachers of core subjects at the lowest scoring 10% of schools to retake their licensing exams, according to Cincinnati.com. The move seems to be purely punitive, as the licensing exams provide almost useful no data on how well a teacher will perform on the job.

Scores on standardized tests are most strongly influenced by students’ socioeconomic backgrounds, with teachers accounting for as little as 7.5-30% of student achievement. (See here, here and here) Indeed, virtually every one of the schools in questions is located in a low income community.

Yet even if we ignore the socioeconomic factors influencing student achievement, as most politicians, pundits and administrators have done, and focus only on what the teachers contribute, forcing them to retake their licensing tests is still a waste of time and money. If a teacher truly isn’t any good at their job, it is most likely due to weaknesses in classroom management and discipline, developing positive relationships with students, designing good curriculum, or the ability to modify teaching to meet unique student needs, rather than a deficiency in content knowledge.

The teachers’ union has estimated that the testing will cost the state $2.1 million a year, money that would be much more effectively spent on professional development and peer mentoring.

Gov. John Kasich argues that retesting teachers will hold them more accountable and give districts and charter schools the ability to get rid of the ineffective ones. Yet if only teachers at the bottom 10% of schools are tested, then ineffective teachers at the other 90% of schools will remain. More importantly, most low performing schools are also low income, which means that teachers who happen to be at these schools will be much more likely to lose their jobs or face punitive and burdensome testing than their colleagues fortunate enough to work at more affluent schools.

Modern School
http://modeducation.blogspot.com/2012/03/ohio-to-retest-teachers-for-low-student.html

[Confusious]

1. I used to blame the parents

Then I realized it's not totally about the parents.

It's more about the politicians deflecting attention from their failures.

If there were jobs that gave a decent living, there would be fewer problems. The politicians have failed, and they have to find someone to blame, or else they'll get blamed.

[mopinko]

2. those 10% are the most important for public education

to reach, imho.
this is probably a stupid way to approach a serious situation. but you can't just say that test scores follow demographics and then do nothing. that is what rahm emanuel is being pilloried for.

[proud2BlibKansan]

5. Rahm is being pilloried for the dishonest and underhanded things he's doing

like hiring people to attend school closing meetings to speak out in favor of school closings.

[mopinko]

7. i was referring to a specific comment, reported by karen lewis,

with no context, that 20-something (sorry, don't recall the exact number cited.) % of the kids in the system were never going to improve.
she found it outrageous and has repeated it several times, including on the ed show. she and ed trounced rahm. i thought the lack of civility was a shame. it will cost chicago's teachers to have her as their face, imho.

and just fyi, i think that story is pretty overblown. it wasn't rahm. it was a pastor who wanted to give some of the homeless guys that are in his charge something to do. he wanted a reason to give them dinner money. i have seen it many times. it's not like someone paid hundreds of dollars for people in suits. i have no reason to believe that anyone had a nefarious purpose.

[mbperrin]

6. You're right, doing nothing is not an option. MORE resources must be poured into poor schools, not

fewer.

Let me give you an example:
In our district, "regular" students will be following a robotized curriculum called CSCOPE where every teacher of a subject will be on the same page, the same paragraph, the same word, ideally, at the same time each day. No textbooks will be issued, no deviation, no reteaching, no variation at all will be permitted.

AP and IB students will be getting new textbooks, and they will receive wireless notebooks that anyone can check out now, but not next year.

SPED students will still be getting textbooks, and all their modifications as well.

The school is 85% eligible for free/reduced lunch, and the census shows that 50% of the total population in this county does not have so much as a high school diploma.

No raises for two years, a 10% RIF, and a $15,000 raise for the superintendent and chief of staff are other ways they're "improving" the district.

No textbooks, no flexibility, no additional resources for the huge majority of poor students will result in a massive failure rate. Teachers' fault? Don't think so.

Resources are being removed from poor kids, not added. Insane, really. The kids, teachers, and the community all lose.

[mopinko]

8. i completely agree with you.

my son did a year of americorp at a charter in chicago run by university of chicago. it was a neighborhood school, no tests no lotteries, but a very poor neighborhood.
the program taught high school drop outs to tutor kids and run after school programs. the kids blossomed. their test scores jumped 2 years.
we are stupid if we know this is what it takes and we cheap out on it.

[Lifelong Protester]

3. This is such crap.

There, it's Friday and I said it.

I'm sick to death of this distraction from the issues, the REAL issues (social issues, inequitable resources, poverty) that contribute to problems in school.

Cripes, no wonder the Met Life poll says teacher morale is at a 20 year low...

[proud2BlibKansan]

4. I'm going to quote John Kuhn:

"It's POVERTY, stupid!

If they would take half the energy they've focused on the war on teachers and start a war on poverty we might be able to actually HELP our children.

Or we could just continue the war on teachers.

[Modern School]

9. Yes, its the Poverty (and the class inequity)

Social Revolution!

We shouldn't budge an inch on our working conditions, not without a big budge from the ruling class, which of course is not going to happen if we keep rolling over and accepting every take back, cut and demand that we do more with less.

[roody]

10. I can pass any damn test they

throw at me. That does not mean that I know how to teach!