15 Minutes

Years ago, a Principal told me that the AP must write things like barely satisfactory and minimally satisfactory in an observation report so that the final one could show improvement and the AP could justify his job as a teacher mentor.  I resented that at the time and thought it was a pretty crappy thing to do.

In retrospect, maybe it wasn't so bad.  No one lost their jobs or even were threatened with an ineffective or "U" rating.  The only thing bruised were egos and, in truth, many of the recommendations were right on target.  They came from a full period observation done by a person that knew curriculum and had teaching skills.

Today's 15 minute observations do nothing.  There is no insight into how the lesson was developed.  There is no way to see how it flowed from the motivation, to the meat and then to the summary.  There is no way 15 minutes can show what has gone on in the class.  Often the person doing the observing is not even a very good teacher or has expertise in the subject.  There is no way a teacher can get help or even complimented on what they have done.

The 15 minute observation allows the observer to move quickly from room to room.  After all, six observations per teacher per year takes lots of time, time not available if a full period was spent in every class being watched.

It makes me sick thinking about a union that would sign off on a policy like this, a policy that makes it easy to get rid of anyone the administration does not like, a policy that will hurt kids like the one pictured above.  It makes me embarrassed to say I am a UFT member.

No Teacher Wants Bad Teachers In The Profession



Let's get one thing straight--NO TEACHER WANTS BAD TEACHERS TEACHING.  Doing clean up, after a child has had one of these is not fun.  It is impossible to teach division if a child can't multiply and you certainly can't teach Shakespeare if the student can't read.  It is painful to listen to kids term after term complain about someone who can't teach when you know that child is correct and you can't say a word in agreement.

The schools don't need a new way to evaluate teachers.  There always was a good method in place.  It is only under the reign of Bloomberg that things like value added data has become important.  Administrators, who used to be required to teach for 10 years before they became assistant principals knew their subject and knew how to teach inexperienced teachers how to teach.  They spent more than 5 minutes in the classroom and were master teachers themselves in the subjects they were in charge of.  When, for example, a math teacher is put in charge of a special education program there is bound to be trouble because the person has no idea what good teaching should entail.  The same goes for the guy who became a principal through the leadership academy or some other back road and knows nothing of academics.

It used to be teachers that needed help were given it.  Senior teachers took newbies under their wing, shared lessons, gave guidance.  Now, it is dog eat dog as one teacher's statistics are compared to another.  The teacher with 10% failing will be in trouble when compared to the one with 6% failing although the numbers themselves can't involve more than one child and no one bothers to look at the background of the children that fail.  It used to be that teachers who gave it all, who came in early, stayed late and gave up preps in an effort to help were rewarded and thanked for this effort.  Now, it is thanks for the effort but the numbers count more.  It is more important for a data specialist to help with numbers than it is to help with students.

One of the ways the colleges evaluate their adjuncts and new teachers is with student evaluation forms at the end of each semester.  If 30 students currently in a class say the same negative things about a teacher, maybe they are right.  In contrast, if 25 say good things and 5 say otherwise, that says something as well.  In addition, the teacher is observed by a colleague, a colleague who knows the subject and knows about teaching.  BAD TEACHERS ARE NOT REHIRED.  The college doesn't need a data specialist because it knows the kids come in as a mixed bag.  The college knows the data specialist does nothing to enhance learning.  The teacher can't make students buy the text, do homework or go for help.  The teacher is required to teach and engage, plain and simple.

Plenty has been written and said about that awful idea of grading and releasing teacher numbers so I won't go into it here.  I don't know if the system can even go back to hiring qualified administrators as most of the people qualified are long gone but there has got to be a better way than releasing meaningless numbers, numbers designed to hurt, not help.