It is the eve of the first day of school in Texas, I go to bed early, and then I awake thinking that the Republican Convention is postponed tomorrow due to Isaac, but many of that state’s surrounding public schools are open. I think that is telling. I think that is symbolic. The Republican Party is delayed a day, their platform is delayed by a century, and the schools go on.
So, let this be the first day of school, the first day of learning. Thunder is caused by lightning which super heats air. As the air contracts it creates a partial vacuum filled with expanding air that creates a resonant crack or a rumble. It is not caused by anybody up there bowling. Got it? Perhaps not. The point is that we have advanced our knowledge through all the sciences (and I include sociology, psychology, archeology, etc.) to the extent that we really, really know a lot. Each day I am amazed that people hold ideas that are not grounded in truth, not grounded in knowledge, not grounded in fact. One of the truly remarkable attributes of our species of life is to believe something so strongly that reality has no chance. The only chance reality has is an education. So, let’s go to school tomorrow and hope everyone on the Gulf Coast escapes the storm unharmed.
We might learn that life on this 4.5 billion year old planet emerged about 3 billion years ago in single cell simple forms and gradually escalated and grew more sophisticated, (yes, Victoria, I’m talking evolution,) to become one of several species of humans about 2.5 million years ago. By about 500,000 years ago we were down to only a couple of species of humans, and 200,000 years ago those species apparently merged to become modern humans. The earth is not 6,000 years old. Humans did not spring overnight from dust in the hands of a supernatural being. We emerged and evolved.
There are a host of human holy books including the Torah, the Bible, the Qur’an, the Tipitaka, the Rig Veda, and the Kojiki. None of these books were written by deities. They were all written by human hands. Our knowledge has exploded since each of these books were written, though there are those who continue to believe in literal statements in each one of them rather than learning the true tenants of the belief. The central message in each is believe in the supernatural, love your neighbor, forgive your neighbor, and go forth and do good works.
Where were we? Oh yes, what we know vs. believe. We know trickle down economics, supply side economics, has never worked. Never. It did not work for Reagan, or either Bush both of whom incurred massive debt. We have seen what Europe has gone through with its austerity budgets. That did not work either. Supply side/trickle down/balanced budgets are Medieval, proposed by lords who want peasants to fend for themselves. It is proposed by people who have something to trickle down and do not want to. They missed the point of all the books listed above. We know that the grand story of humanity is the spread of liberal thinking vs. the defensiveness of those who would conserve things as they are now or were in the past. Forever, governments were formed based on birth right, a truly scary notion, or by the physical defeat of one king at the hands of a stronger king, an even scarier notion. Then somewhere around the mid 1700’s some philosophers who were so out in left field in their day they were persecuted, proposed that perhaps the government could be of the people, by the people, for the people. These were extreme left-wingers! They had to fight to have their chance to set up such a government. They won. Welcome to America, home of liberal thought on planet earth.
We have always been a nation of immigrants. The people we call Native Americans immigrated here. The founding fathers immigrated here. Welcome to the land of immigrants.
We have been struggling for 200 years to expand the notion of civil liberties, that is the rights of all humans, not just a select few. At first, it only belonged to white male property owners. Lincoln, a Republican, gave rights to Black Americans to be declared people not property, and black males got to vote in the USA before white women. Finally in the early 1900’s women were given the right to vote. There are groups who would prefer to return to some day where people are declared illegal immigrants so they cannot vote, sorta like Native Americans and our Founding Fathers who entered the country without documentation. I know a few husbands who would prefer their wives not vote and are scared to death their daughters will. I know men who believe women should not have decision making authority over their own reproductive systems because they find a line in one of the holy books mentioned above that seems to make conception a miracle. Sexual reproduction on this planet existed millions of years before humans appeared. Process is pretty simple if you ask any kid in FFA. The female bears the young. If, in fact, there is a deity that created all the life on this planet then surely we should refer to the deity as feminine, so as not to insult Her Holiness.
It is also very interesting to me that those who learned great truths (Galileo, Newton, etc.) were punished, and persecuted by those who were belief-based. That trend continues today.
So, simple truths: learn economics, learn biology, learn anthropology, learn chemistry, learn math, learn astronomy, and absolutely learn the language to learn those areas listed above, and you will become educated. You will have great potential based on knowledge, not belief.
Wonder why on the first day of school there is a political party hell bent on keeping the masses from learning truth in the public schools, would like to see it dismantled, would like to see it face less funding, would like to see it become an institution of faith based learning, would like to shift funds from public schools to private and/or competitive schools. Wonder why?
God bless all the children going to school tomorrow to learn the truth.
Amen.
Sunday, August 26, 2012
Wednesday, August 8, 2012
The American Idol Model of Professional Evaluation
Have you ever wanted to evaluate teachers or principals or superintendents? Want to know what it takes to do so? Here’s what you need to qualify by state law in Texas.
To evaluate a teacher, you must first be one. That means completing a college degree. To become an elementary teacher you will major in elementary education. To become a secondary teacher you will have to major in a teachable subject like math, history, biology or the like. After you complete your subject area major you must take education courses and complete student teaching. It takes almost a full year longer to become an elementary or secondary teacher than it does any other major. Once you have finished college you must pass two state competency standardized tests to become certified to teach. Once you are certified to teach you get a job. (I have ranted before on the idiocy of the state requirements to become a teacher, and shall not vent on that topic again here. Might want to check an earlier post entitled “Certification”)
After you have taught for five years you can get a masters degree in either administration or supervision. (Some folks work on this while they are in their first few years of teaching, but those are very demanding years, so many wait until much later. I waited 10 years.) While you are at it, you must also get another certificate as an administrator. So yes, a master’s degree in education requires more course work than other masters. Once you complete your masters you must pass another state competency standardized test to become certified to be an administrator. Once you have done that, you must take training in the state process of evaluating teachers and pass the test at the end, and you must take training in instructional leadership and pass the test at the end. At that point, you are certified and trained to evaluate teachers. And only then. Most administrators will tell you that even once you have your master’s degree and are trained and certified it takes several years of actually doing teacher evaluations to get good at it.
OK, so to evaluate teachers legally in Texas you must be degreed and certified to teach, must have taught, must get a masters degree, must become certified to be an administrator and must get training in teacher evaluation and instructional leadership. The qualifications, education, time and money invested in higher education and educational training to legally evaluate teachers is pretty steep. Bill Gates is not qualified. Nor is the legislature (who made these rules in the first place), nor are governors, nor are parents, mayors, good ole boys, or school board members. But once you have all those credentials and have a job and have several years experience working with teachers on a daily basis, you are qualified and can legally say this teacher is a keeper and this teacher is not.
Evaluating teachers is tough work. Some teachers teach disabled kids for whom learning how to use a spoon or go the bathroom is a major accomplishment. Some teachers teach poor kids who come from a home environment that is actually hostile to learning. Some teachers teach the really bright kids of Tiger Moms or Bear Moms and compete to get great grades. Almost all teachers show up and do the best job they can each day. They take roll, enforce dress codes, do duties, stand in the hallway, write lesson plans, master Xerox machines, iPads, grading software, attendance software, and interact with a 100 kids or more each day and are expected to teach. Teachers are held accountable for all those things. No untrained person could. No untrained person can evaluate them. Surely, there is no way to use a questionable standardized test score administered once a year to measure them. That’s like applying the mortality rate to oncologists and plastic surgeons. And surely, no lay person can assess them.
Want to evaluate administrators? First, you have to do all the above to get to the point you can evaluate teachers. Then it is back to school to get post masters hours. Then you must pass another state test to get a superintendent's certificate. Then you must get trained in one of several administrator assessment models. I am trained in three and am certified to be a trainer for all three. I have done all the above and am certified to evaluate teachers and administrators. Thank God I'm retired! If you have not done all this, it is illegal for you evaluate administrators.
Administrators not only run herd on kids, they run herd on teachers and paraprofessionals. They are responsible for custodians and cafeterias and budgets and accountability and PTO and keeping the supe happy and out of the frying pan. They are responsible for so much more than just the instruction in their buildings and none of them would ever want to protect an incompetent teacher. It is just not worth it given all the damage that can be done. They will also go to the wall for teachers to protect them from some lay person's perceived malfeasance. That’s what good administrators do, support teaching.
Don’t get me started on superintendents. They are all crazy. The worst of them are manipulative, ambitious, political animals more prone to pander to American Idol than good instruction. The best of them are grounded in ethics, kids, teaching and support. Funny that we allow only school boards to evaluate these folks and those board members are really not required to have much training at all. Many board members have no education beyond high school. School boards cannot legally evaluate teachers or administrators, but are legally required to evaluate superintendents. Hence the frequent clash between boards and supes, and hence the annual average tenure rate of 2.5 years for superintendents in Texas
I recognize that teachers and administrators are evaluated all over town in coffee shops, barber shops, church and back yards. I also know that the kind of perception held by parents and others is always defensive for their loved ones enrolled in school. I have always found it amazing that many of the teachers with the highest expectations and highest standards for their kids are the ones least popular with the public. Sometimes the teachers kids like the most are teaching the least. Sometimes it is the other way around. Teaching is a venture in changing the future and one never really knows how powerful a teacher is for years yet to come. (I am still getting emails from kids I taught 30 years ago thanking me for the influence in their lives. Geeze, I thought they hated my class.)
Teaching and administrating are professions practiced by professionals and evaluated by professionals. If you do not have the credentials you are not qualified to judge. We should never approve contracts or move teachers or administrators around based on the phone calls from the lay public or a school board perception. If you are not a pro, get out of the business of passing judgment or evaluating teachers or administrators. This is public education delivered and evaluated by pros.
This is not American Idol.
To evaluate a teacher, you must first be one. That means completing a college degree. To become an elementary teacher you will major in elementary education. To become a secondary teacher you will have to major in a teachable subject like math, history, biology or the like. After you complete your subject area major you must take education courses and complete student teaching. It takes almost a full year longer to become an elementary or secondary teacher than it does any other major. Once you have finished college you must pass two state competency standardized tests to become certified to teach. Once you are certified to teach you get a job. (I have ranted before on the idiocy of the state requirements to become a teacher, and shall not vent on that topic again here. Might want to check an earlier post entitled “Certification”)
After you have taught for five years you can get a masters degree in either administration or supervision. (Some folks work on this while they are in their first few years of teaching, but those are very demanding years, so many wait until much later. I waited 10 years.) While you are at it, you must also get another certificate as an administrator. So yes, a master’s degree in education requires more course work than other masters. Once you complete your masters you must pass another state competency standardized test to become certified to be an administrator. Once you have done that, you must take training in the state process of evaluating teachers and pass the test at the end, and you must take training in instructional leadership and pass the test at the end. At that point, you are certified and trained to evaluate teachers. And only then. Most administrators will tell you that even once you have your master’s degree and are trained and certified it takes several years of actually doing teacher evaluations to get good at it.
OK, so to evaluate teachers legally in Texas you must be degreed and certified to teach, must have taught, must get a masters degree, must become certified to be an administrator and must get training in teacher evaluation and instructional leadership. The qualifications, education, time and money invested in higher education and educational training to legally evaluate teachers is pretty steep. Bill Gates is not qualified. Nor is the legislature (who made these rules in the first place), nor are governors, nor are parents, mayors, good ole boys, or school board members. But once you have all those credentials and have a job and have several years experience working with teachers on a daily basis, you are qualified and can legally say this teacher is a keeper and this teacher is not.
Evaluating teachers is tough work. Some teachers teach disabled kids for whom learning how to use a spoon or go the bathroom is a major accomplishment. Some teachers teach poor kids who come from a home environment that is actually hostile to learning. Some teachers teach the really bright kids of Tiger Moms or Bear Moms and compete to get great grades. Almost all teachers show up and do the best job they can each day. They take roll, enforce dress codes, do duties, stand in the hallway, write lesson plans, master Xerox machines, iPads, grading software, attendance software, and interact with a 100 kids or more each day and are expected to teach. Teachers are held accountable for all those things. No untrained person could. No untrained person can evaluate them. Surely, there is no way to use a questionable standardized test score administered once a year to measure them. That’s like applying the mortality rate to oncologists and plastic surgeons. And surely, no lay person can assess them.
Want to evaluate administrators? First, you have to do all the above to get to the point you can evaluate teachers. Then it is back to school to get post masters hours. Then you must pass another state test to get a superintendent's certificate. Then you must get trained in one of several administrator assessment models. I am trained in three and am certified to be a trainer for all three. I have done all the above and am certified to evaluate teachers and administrators. Thank God I'm retired! If you have not done all this, it is illegal for you evaluate administrators.
Administrators not only run herd on kids, they run herd on teachers and paraprofessionals. They are responsible for custodians and cafeterias and budgets and accountability and PTO and keeping the supe happy and out of the frying pan. They are responsible for so much more than just the instruction in their buildings and none of them would ever want to protect an incompetent teacher. It is just not worth it given all the damage that can be done. They will also go to the wall for teachers to protect them from some lay person's perceived malfeasance. That’s what good administrators do, support teaching.
Don’t get me started on superintendents. They are all crazy. The worst of them are manipulative, ambitious, political animals more prone to pander to American Idol than good instruction. The best of them are grounded in ethics, kids, teaching and support. Funny that we allow only school boards to evaluate these folks and those board members are really not required to have much training at all. Many board members have no education beyond high school. School boards cannot legally evaluate teachers or administrators, but are legally required to evaluate superintendents. Hence the frequent clash between boards and supes, and hence the annual average tenure rate of 2.5 years for superintendents in Texas
I recognize that teachers and administrators are evaluated all over town in coffee shops, barber shops, church and back yards. I also know that the kind of perception held by parents and others is always defensive for their loved ones enrolled in school. I have always found it amazing that many of the teachers with the highest expectations and highest standards for their kids are the ones least popular with the public. Sometimes the teachers kids like the most are teaching the least. Sometimes it is the other way around. Teaching is a venture in changing the future and one never really knows how powerful a teacher is for years yet to come. (I am still getting emails from kids I taught 30 years ago thanking me for the influence in their lives. Geeze, I thought they hated my class.)
Teaching and administrating are professions practiced by professionals and evaluated by professionals. If you do not have the credentials you are not qualified to judge. We should never approve contracts or move teachers or administrators around based on the phone calls from the lay public or a school board perception. If you are not a pro, get out of the business of passing judgment or evaluating teachers or administrators. This is public education delivered and evaluated by pros.
This is not American Idol.
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