First, I apologize for not having been around, but Tuesday morning my hard disk entered its death throes. Since it had been replaced once while still under warranty, and the machine was no longer under warranty, the time had come to replace my computer. I did not want to risk a total crash before the data could be transferred. Thus until Apple completed the transfer and I got the new machine this evening, I was very limited in computer access. I have read some diary (without commenting) during my free time at school (on a school machine) and a few more via my I-Phone. It is good to be fully back on line.
I am now up to 196 students on the roles of my six classes. I have had a few withdrawn, but it seems for each withdrawn I get two more. Five have not yet shown up, but we are still registering more students, and will be doing so for at least another couple of weeks.
So far, with the exception of two students in one class, the kids are great, and as for those two - both their administrators and counselors are aware of them, and are ready for my having them removed for misbehavior if it continues.
So I probably should be happy. But in fact I, and a lot of the good teachers I know, are furious. Let me explain why.
Some of the very best teachers in our school have two things in common: (1) we teach Advanced Placement Courses; (2) we are nationally board certified.
AP courses are supposed to be at a college level. We have had a weighting of assignment categories that supposedly reflects that. We have explanations which we sent home to parents on the first day. And then, without prior notification to teachers or schools, we suddenly discovered that the school system had changed the weights. In my case I have three categories: assessments, assignments, class and participation. Suddenly I find out that the percentage of the overall grade that is class and participation has doubled, is more than assignments, and the percentage that is assessment has dropped. I have several problems with that. First, at a college level most if not all of the grade will come from assessment. In many semester college courses you have a midterm, a final, and one paper. If in fact we are attempting to run college level courses I do not think one third of the grade should be coming from class and participation. Of greater importance, if the weights were going to be changed, the faculty (a) should have been consulted, and (b) should have been notified in time that we are not put in the embarrassing position of having sent information home via students to parents that was inaccurate.
That is bad. What is happening with National Board Certified teachers is worse. We get an extra stipend. It has been $7,000/year, $5,000 from our school system and $2,000 from the state. When the system was arranging for budget cuts because of the financial crisis, teachers were assured that the stipends would not be cut. Had we been told last Spring that, say, the $5,000 would for the present be reduced to $3,000 because of financial pressure, or even if it had to be eliminated to save other jobs, teachers could have adjusted. Some might have then decided to go to other districts. In any case, knowing what was coming down the pike - like we knew we were going to be furloughed, originally for 5 days and by the end of the year being told 4 days, we could plan accordingly.
Yesterday the word started going around that we were going to lose the $5,000 stipend this year. Teachers have been back since August 17. People have made financial plans, such as committing to car payments, based on what they had been told would be their income. Now they are being told that might not be the case. I know teachers for whom this represents close to a 10% drop in income. Teachers in our building, and National Board teachers around the system, are furious.
IN my own case, having just had to replace my computer, I am finding it difficult to make some other purchases we had in the queue that needed to be done, including replacing our bed.
It is things like this, or reading that the Secretary of Education is going to support the idea not only of tying a portion of teacher pay to student test scores, but the public release of test scores of students of individual teachers, not identifying the students, but identifying the teachers.
This is wrong on so many levels. EVen if you take a value-added methodology, most of the psychometricians who work in the field will tell you the technique is too inaccurate to base any high stakes thereupon. Without going into technical details, if the margin of measurement error on a regular assessmennt is 5%, the margin of error on the statistical calculation of a value added score may be as high as 25%. That is only one of the problems, and quite possibly not even the most significant.
I'd rather focus on the students. The vast majority of those in my care are willing to go along with my craziness, whether it is my standing on a desk, explaining how to take a multiple choice test by thinking of Edgar Allen Process of Elimination (P-O-E) and his big black bird, and getting rid of the wrong anwers, with me making slashing motion while croaking AWK! NEVERMORE! NEVERMORE! or my dressing up as a judge while challenging to answer the question What is Justice and whatever answer they offer probing further with additional questions, also introducing them to the Socratic method.
I am already calling parents. Some thank me for calling. Some tell me their children come home talking about my class. And sometimes I learn critical information about students and their families, including one case where the family was the recent victim of a serious crime with tragic consequences. It helps to know the students, and I think they might be beginning to be willing to trust me.
Sometimes I wish I were doing nothing except focusing on them, helping them explore and learn. Yet I feel that someone has to explain what is wrong about our schools, and how it interferes with their learning. A teacher suddenly worried about not being able to make car payments is not able to concentrate on teaching. Not being able to accurately tell your students how much an assignment is really worth is also disruptive, for both teacher and student.
I am 64. At the start of the year there is so much I must do. Some is administrative, and required. Some I take upon myself, like calling the parents.
And the most important thing is ongoing - Out of the approximately 190 students who have shown up in my room at least once, I can now without looking at my seating chart only call about 40 by name. I have two days left this week. Whatever happens in class this week, I need to double that number. And by the end of next week, I need to be able to address each student by name. They are individuals, they are entitled to that recognition.
I just turned on the new computer. I have not even checked my email. I wanted to touch base with this community, lest people think I was silently disappearing, or something had happened to me.
Now if you don't mind, I will catch up with email, some from former students, some already from parents. And then I will try to catch up on sleep.
Thanks for reading.
And respond or not as you see fit. I posted this to inform, to vent a little bit, and to see how it felt to write something on my new computer.
Peace.