Another article that echoes many of the sentiments expressed.
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And some more food for thought.
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Good article. This one ( # 5)âŠ
We know that grades, not learning, are the outcomes that students and parents are most interested in. On New Yearâs Day of this year, high school sophomore Emily Mitchum published an op-ed in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette where she wrote,
This systemâŠhas caused my generation to develop an unhealthy obsession over grades instead of learning, in my opinion. The harsh reality is that we really arenât learning as much as we could be. We study because we have tests, and the day after the test we forget all of the information we studied.
âŠreminds me a lot of Wall Street.
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I understand where you are going with this, but the primary problem is that almost ALL academic research is publicly funded. So while I sympathize with your end goal it simply isnât going to happen this way unless Iâm missing something. NSF and NIH grants along with other govât grants are the lifeblood of the research communities. I believe it is unfair that most colleges take 50% of what grant money a researcher is awarded, but there is no realistic way to stop this.
yup. Could also be that yâall are pretty civil and well balanced all-around. And also none of you are Zep style conspiracy nuts!
Sounds 100% midwesternâŠlike my home state. You know the old jokeâwhatâs the definition of eternity? 4 Kansans at a 4 way stop.
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That must be a bummer around prom time
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Wasnât that badâsome of those guys were pretty good dancers.
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I spend the weekend visiting family, one who is a counsler at a middle school. Had some interesting discussions, but I want to hear some other peopleâs thoughts related to tenure.
I was shocked that it took only 3 years to get tenure. Once a teacher has been in the same district for 3 years there job is locked. It previously was not possible to fire a teacher after that was acheived, but now it can be done after a 2 year probation period where the principal sits in the classroom 1 hour a week, has a meeting once a week with the teacher, and provides mentorship for the teacher. Such a painful process would mean only a teacher who was ungodly horrible would ever have a chance at being let go, even if the school closes. If the school closes a tenured teacher is âowedâ a full-time job by the district.
3 years seemed a ridiculously short time for such a policy. I have personally experienced teachers who were checked out, but knew their job was safe so it didnât matter. During the discussion my relative mentioned she knew a handful of teachers who were terrible but the school couldnât do anything about it.
@The_Myth what is your experience related to tenure? Do you have a different view on how it is a good/bad policy? Obviously the conversation I had was based on local laws, is it different elsewhere?
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I feel like Tenure is one of those things that sounds great in theory, and at one point was created for a very legitimate reason, but since then has become much too easy to attain/abuse.
The concept of tenure feels silly to me. To any more knowledgeable about this than me, whatâre the current day reasons for tenure âexisting.â
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Fucking awful. 3 years is a damn sight too shortânot even long enough to see 1 class of students from 9th grade out the door to graduation.
Tenure is a privilege meant to reward the BEST teachers and the hardest working teachers. The tenure process for professors is typically longer, close to 10 years depending. Nominally yes it is shorter, but that is the real time, and meant for professors who have produced a lot of quality research. 3 years is ridiculous.
Tenure was originally meant for University professors as a way to reduce the amount of strain and promote lines of thought or research that might not be immediately fundable via grantâor that might upset authority. In other words, Tenure was originally designed to foster academic freedom to pursue long term innovations or philosophies by reducing the worry that a professor had of losing funding and/or their job.
It was a reward for a life of fruitful research and teaching (ideally).
In my opinion it was NEVER meant for primary or secondary school teachers. I can understand why the practice moved into the primary/secondary schools, in order to allow great, long serving teachers not to be summarily dismissed by budget woes or angering the board or someone else.
Those are goals I share, but tenure is absolutely misapplied in such policies as you describe.
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Agreed. Seems silly to implement a concept like tenure into a subsection of teachers that donât need itâs benefits more than the school needs the ability to weed out bad teachers.
College level I have no problem with tenure. Big money spends a lot of time in education and itâd be a huge problem if teachers could be influenced so easily.
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I agree with you, and could shrug at the policy if tenure was 15 or 20 years. 3 years is nothing, you could be mid-20âs and be a tenured teacher for life. 3 years of experience at the companies I have worked for still make you the jr. kid on the team.
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Good essay by Arthur C Brooks - has to do with education and the general work force climate.
TENURE
Originally intended to foster academic inquiry and the freedom to explore controversial topics free from administrative reprisals, as I understand it, and touched on above.
Developed for K-12 teachers as a means to protect teachers from the capricious whims of new administrators when a district has a revolving door in administration.
Iâve been in my school for nine years. In that time, there have been eight different Assistant Principals, six Assistant Superintendents, and two Superintendents. New administrators arenât familiar with the culture of a school, or may want to change the culture, which can put teachers at their mercy if not for tenure.
Personally, I think three years is plenty of time to determine the quality of a teacher, and districts have always had the option of extending the process to a fourth year if needed. I feel like five classes a day for 183 days with a roster of 150 students will show who is and who is not a quality teacher over the course of three years. Itâs just that sometimes, more often than not, the administration is asleep at the wheel and not actively monitoring new teachers and that can allow some to slip by that are not a good fit.
However, the job for life aspect, while slightly exaggerated, is problematic. Iâve seen several tenured teachers forced out at my school and, FWIW, we have a very strong union that didnât object (one had become addicted to opiates following a car accident, I believe she went out on disability). But, hereâs the problem as I see it. Letâs say I get a new principal and he wants to bring in new people. Iâm okay with that, but Iâm a quality teacher - should I just be terminated? Itâs a problem because of tenure - thereâs really very little movement among teachers because itâs not worth risking our tenure.
Letâs say Iâm an awesome teacher and I want to go to an under-performing district altruistically, to give back. Why should I when I am risking my tenure?
Now, hereâs a suggestion somebody much smarter than I made - make teachers State Employees and their tenure portable. Now, I can change jobs and principals have more more leeway to leave a footprint on their building.
Finally, a suggestion I would make is to make tenure more like a contract that can, or cannot be rolled over. In other words, I suck but have tenure. The district decides not to roll my contract over. Now, I either have to step up my game or go find a new job in two years.
Maybe not the best ideas, but just some thoughts.
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Fantastic article. Thanks, Polo. Iâd love to do a service mission in a community like that when we retire. I ran into a registration wall at Foreign Affairs, but itâs also here.
Related to poverty and education, I always think of this.
From your favorite school psychologist. Wink. For you guys who still have really little kids, narrate everything youâre doing, even when they seem too small to understand. Name everything.
Read to them as much as you can, even when they can read for themselves. If your kid can read, but youâre still reading aloud with them, youâre doing it right. Many parents stop reading to their kids when they can read independently. Itâs too soon. Eight in 10 children ages 6 to 17 said they loved or liked being read aloud to because itâs a special time together with their parents. They wish their parentâs hadnât stopped.
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When I taught in Sacramento, reading aloud to my kids was the magic bullet - it turned 14 year old wannabe gangsters into little kids - the room got silent, eyes got big, almost all of them were engaged.
Itâs the greatest gift you can give a kid.
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I love doing this (granted itâs mostly because Iâm a weird guy). I have 2 still young daughters and Iâm constantly blow away at how much theyâre able to absorb. I have a bad habit of talking to myself anyway so it turns into a win win.
Iâm super inclined to blindly believe this stat, as my oldest daughter is starting to read now but sheâll constantly ask me to read things to her even when itâs at her level. Sample size of 1, but goddamn the feeeeelz
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@anon71262119 and @The_Myth good points.
From the age of 13-18, I assisted students in a 5th grade class become more proficient readers. I remember one kid specifically who was your typical athletic-future-deuche-currenlty-a-bully-kid. He actually couldnât read faster than sounding out each syllable, but never gave any indication. After four months of reading with him, he was the fastest reader (horrible metric, but I was told by the teacher that his grades improved drastically) in the class. Part of what I found, while working with him, was that he needed 1. one-one time, where he wasnât embarrassed and 2. part of the program we used was me reading a story to him, then him reading it, then him reading it out loud.
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New Pew poll shows how the US is doing in reading, math, and science. It could be a lot better.
U.S. academic achievement lags that of many other countries | Pew Research Center
What to you guys think about teaching foreign languages? Kids in Europe usually start by the time theyâre nine. In our district, it doesnât become an option until 8th grade.
In my district, we have a private foundation that funds most of the art and music programs. Kids have mandatory music 4-6 grades. They choose between choir, band, or orchestra. I believe thatâs mostly funded through private funds. We have itinerant art teachers at the elementary level, but the private money also funds a monthly art program called Art Masters, thatâs mostly run by parent volunteers. An art teacher gives a lecture and shows slides about a famous artist, then spends about an hour training the parents to teach an art lesson in their childâs class based on the style of the artist for the month.