Teacher Evaluations (Hammers & Nails)

May 1, 2021June 4, 2023 ~ Blue Cereal ~ 1 Comment

There’s a difference between caring how well you’re actually doing your job and caring how well you do on official evaluations. Ideally, the two at least overlap – like a Venn Diagram or pop and hip-hop. That’s not always a given, however. In practice, it’s often more like the relationship between reality and reality TV.

I know a teacher I’ll call Mr. Lutum. Mr. Lutum has been teaching forever – long enough that he began to fear he’d grown a bit stale. After some soul searching and a few months of crippling doubt and despair, he decided that if he were going to continue teaching, he at least needed a fresh start and a serious change of scenery.

He took a position in a high poverty, majority-minority district in the building people only work at until they have enough seniority to go elsewhere. Lutum figured he’d put his lofty rhetoric and progressive ideals to the test and see if he actually had the chops to work with kids who are nothing like himself – hopefully without becoming either cynical or patronizing. It was around this time I met Mr. Lutum at a local workshop and we began staying in touch – first just talking teacher talk, and eventually carrying on about other things.

We’re both in northern Indiana, and both of us moved here from other states. One thing we’d noticed is that in ultra-conservative states, the official solution to almost any problem is “punish them more.” If that doesn’t work, “punish them harder” or “punish those around them” pretty much exhausts the limits of legislative imaginations. None of that restorative-nurturing-touchy-feely nonsense here! All problems are nails – poverty, mental health, crime, poor schools, crumbling infrastructure, general malaise and despair. Fortunately, the state has a big hammer and uses it regularly and gleefully.

In their defense, they genuinely believe this demonstrates their concern over social ills and the like. It’s WJWD.

Local governments – right down to school boards and building administrators – have learned that, as middlemen of sorts, they have two basic options. They can become hammers themselves… or end up nails. The practical result of this is that in the local public schools, “accountability” and “high standards” have little to do with figuring out what works, and much to do with demonstrating that bent nails will not be tolerated. (Or straightened.)

The community is poor, families are broken, the economy is a mess, and relationships between parents and schools, citizens and police, business and society, are largely dysfunctional and periodically hostile. The state is criticized for not doing more to help local schools, who are in turn criticized for not doing more to revolutionize the lives and circumstances of each and every child within their boundaries via grammar worksheets and basic math skills. By way of showing their true commitment to educational progress, the schools shut down for standardized testing nearly every month for at least a few days.

In their defense, most schools are reacting to state mandates, threats, and demands. Because there are so many things they can’t control – home lives, poverty, culture, lack of interest, a global pandemic – they’ve doubled down on the things they can, which brings us to one of their favorite categories of nails – teachers in low-performing districts. “It’s time to accountability you with some high expectations, beehatch. It would take forever to get to know you and your classrooms, explore the dynamics of your interactions with kids or the systemic challenges you face which prevent you from accomplishing more. What we can do, however, is mandate this pretty impressive rubric to judge your classroom performance based on a 30-minute observation by someone desperate to stay a hammer twice a year.”

Teacher evaluation rubrics usually involve detailed sub-categories cascading for pages under ranking columns with names like “Excellent,” “Adequate,” “Could Be Better,” “My God You Suck,” and “Not Observed.” These are laid out in a giant spreadsheet or in an iPad app with descriptions of where a teacher might land on each measured characteristic.

For example, “Lesson Organization”:

EXCELLENT: Lesson is clearly laid out with pre-teaching or connection to previously learned materials, new content or skills, and formative or informative assessment to determine the extent to which students have mastered the new material. Instructor demonstrates effective differentiation and connects content and skills to students’ lives, learning styles, and future endeavors in meaningful ways throughout the lesson. Teacher has clear plans for students who excel quickly, who understand adequately, who struggle with the material, or who remain unaware or detached and implements each of these strategies with the appropriate students simultaneously.

ADEQUATE: Randomly insert the word “somewhat” into previous description so the distinction sounds quantitatively meaningful.

COULD BE BETTER: Replace “somewhat” with “rarely” but nod severely as you do to demonstrate thoughtful concern.

MY GOD YOU SUCK: Teacher is moderately conscious and may or may not have traces of drool working its way dramatically down their chin. There is little or no pre-teaching or connection to prior learning and teacher doesn’t appear to know students’ names, personal histories, family stories, emotional issues. Plus, I’d swear there were at least two kids playing on their phones which she totally ignored! Remediation consists primarily of discouraged sighs and instructions to “look, just give me something, OK?” before teacher crawls under desk and weeps in despair.

Here’s the other thing: it doesn’t matter if there’s a pandemic or if every teacher in the building is a Mr. Miyagi, Dewey Finn, or John Keating. “High expectations” means a percentage of them have to be scored harshly because “high expectations.” It’s like a college course being graded on a curve and there were going to be 3 ‘A’s, 10 ‘B’s, 12 ‘C’s, 10 ‘D’s, and 3 ‘F’s no matter how well or poorly individuals might actually do. Oh, and your grade for the entire course is based solely on page 3 of one of the 12 essays you’re required to do that semester.

Last year was Lutum’s first year at this particular school, and – as was somewhat expected – the learning curve was steep. It’s one thing to know the culture and dynamics of a building are quite different than what you’ve experienced before and another to manage those dynamics effectively. As the latest newcomer, he was an unknown quantity and thus had zero credibility in the eyes of most students. He was regularly challenged both directly and indirectly and had to up his game a bit with classroom management and personal interactions. Then came time for formal administrator observations and his first evaluation.

“I normally don’t care about that kind of thing,” he told me. “I’ve always believed that if I’m doing what I think is best for my kids, things like state tests or administrative paperwork either take care of themselves or simply have to be endured. I was a little uncomfortable this time, however, partly because I knew things weren’t going all that well in class, but also because my supervising administrator had shown little interest in getting to know me (or any of the other teachers) beyond periodically walking the halls to make sure we were on duty during passing periods and that our doors were locked during class.”

Lutum was scheduled to be observed during his 2nd period – a class of about 25 freshmen. Halfway through 1st period, an announcement came over the intercom to dismiss all band students for dress rehearsal in preparation to some contest they were attending that weekend. That meant that the 8 – 9 students most likely to participate (or to even know what was going on) were leaving. Normally, Lutum would have changed what he did in class that day to reflect the change of circumstances – try to keep it meaningful for those who remained – but the evaluation rubric doesn’t have a category for “what’s best for the kids actually present.” He’d have to plow ahead and get those boxes checked, students be damned.

It didn’t go well. He was marked down for things like insufficient connections to prior knowledge – despite the evaluating administrator arriving 10 minutes after the lesson started and the kids not actually having much in the way of applicable prior knowledge. Two kids were doing other things on their iPads which he couldn’t see but the administrator could, meaning he lacked “awareness.” Other than that, it was lots of blank stares and hostile body language. (Also, the kids didn’t seem that glad to be there either.)

He spent the next few weeks trying to assemble documentation to get him up to a score that prevented a required “plan of improvement” and vowed to do better in the Spring, knowing he’d not see or hear from his administrator before it was time to schedule the next evaluation.

Then the pandemic hit.

Evaluations last fall were based on his Canvas page, and again he was slammed for things like insufficient differentiation – meaning, I guess, that his prerecorded online lessons didn’t adapt throughout each period to the individual needs and responses of the students who weren’t doing them. He asked his evaluating administrator about this and he was at least sympathetic. “Hey, look – I have to be able to document it to give you ‘Adequate’, and I’m not seeing it. If you can show me something that qualifies, I’d love to change it.

Again he spent a few weeks trying to nudge the score up past “please don’t fire me” and began wondering why he gave up the easy gig in Michigan where everybody loved him and he had tenure.

Since Spring Break, Lutum has had 8 – 10 in person students each period (while still expected to keep up with virtual learning for the rest.) Last week was the first time this year he was scheduled to be observed in person. He made sure there were no extra band rehearsals or major sporting events scheduled and spent the two weeks beforehand trying to establish some classroom dynamics as students began wandering randomly back from virtual learning to in person school. He chose the period right before lunch when students were awake enough to participate but weren’t as hyper as they got after whatever fights broke out at lunch.

A few days beforehand, his evaluator emailed that he couldn’t make it that hour – could they do 1st period? Not wanting to seem insecure or unprepared, Lutum agreed.

The day before the visit, the building principal came on the intercom and announced that tardies were out of control and that teachers were to lock their doors when the bell rang – no exceptions. Those students would report to detention for the rest of the period. (1st period, unsurprisingly, has more tardies than any other hour.) That announcement was followed by a list of all the busses running late that day. There were always at least 3 – 4; that day Mr. Lutum estimates it was more like 7.

It had been a few weeks since they’d covered “irony” in class, but maybe that should have been the lesson he’d prepared for observations. Once again, he wasn’t going to have enough students to demonstrate anything on the checklist. Well, maybe Brittney. She’s always there early. Nice kid. Clueless, of course, but enthusiastic. Yeah, allusions and metaphors will go great with just her. The breakout groups activity would be particularly impressive, and her first chance to be group leader. Of herself.

He could have tried to reschedule, but why? Hammers need nails. They have no use for screws, widgets, duct tape, or clamps. At some point the nail has to either stop trying to pull away and accept its fate or figure out how to become a hammer – something Mr. Lutum was unwilling to do.

“Bring it on,” he told me. “I figure no one else is lined up begging for this job. Let’s get the part over with so I can get back to trying to figure out how to help the kids actually in front of me, and if they want to start a paperwork trail to fire me, so be it.”

I guess a single nail sticking up does look a bit like a middle finger. And I’m OK with that.

Postscript: It went fine. Ludum had 5 kids show up and found out later when they saw an administrator in the room most had assumed they were in trouble of some sort. They didn’t have great answers but they upped their game considerably and tried to look attentive (and not like nails). He’d forgotten to tell them what was happening that day and had no idea they’d be panicked by a principal visit. Turns out he’s still learning a few things about his new school.

RELATED POST: Teacher Tired

Lessons From Pandemic Teaching

December 7, 2020June 4, 2023 ~ Blue Cereal

We’ll soon hit a full year of trying to figure out how public education works (or doesn’t) during a pandemic. Some of the experience gained may be specific to 2020 – the social and political dynamics of which have not been even remotely encouraging (see what I did there?). I’d respectfully suggest, however, that many of the “lessons” learned along the way apply to most forms of remote, virtual, or online “education,” whatever the surrounding climate.

I’ve numbered them in order to make my observations seem more carefully weighed and thoughtfully considered. Seriously, doesn’t even the illusion of someone having a coherent plan and consistent ideology seem insanely comforting these days?

#5: States and Some Districts Are REALLY Committed to Testing and Pointless Paperwork

One of the most crippling aspects of long-distance learning is what it does to our ability to “connect” with students, individually or en masse. The thing most of us signed on for – that idealistic, touch-lives-and-help-kids stuff – has been reduced to the point of near-extinction. What remains strong, however, is the bureaucracy and nonsense we’d mostly learned to tolerate. It’s always been annoying, but it’s traditionally been overshadowed by the meaningful bits.

Not this year.

Many districts are plowing ahead with “virtual PD” and hoping that if they simply require enough documentation of, well… everything they can think of, engagement will somehow soar and distance learning will no longer be a disaster. Kids being at home will be just like them being at school, and we can think happy thoughts and click our heels together until AYP is met!

The centerpiece of this delusion is the conviction that THE TESTING MUST GO ON. Standardized state assessments, sketchy endeavors in the best of times, have long claimed their primary function is to “assess student learning and growth.” Supposedly the resulting numbers help direct instruction; as a bonus they can be twisted like balloon animals into some sort of marker of teacher ineffectiveness as well. (Why did you not learn them harder?!)

Standardized testing has never done much to account for culture, poverty, circumstances, or anything else – but its complete disregard of reality has truly reached new heights this year. WE MUST MEASURE THE GROWTH of students who are no longer coming to school, many of whom don’t have internet, others of whom lack self-discipline, stay-at-home moms, or sufficient protein, all so we can… know what, exactly? What are we even pretending to measure right now?

It’s the most cynical sort of sophistry. We might as well have them take the tests while strapped to various amusement park rides or with Tiny Tim at dangerous volumes on infinite repeat. The validity of such “testing conditions” would be far more defensible than pushing ahead this year.

#4 Bipolar Teacher Disorder

Personally, I’ve always had a soft spot for the semi-dysfunctional, over-committed educator. Sure, they’re repeatedly taken advantage of, and they often operate out of insecurity or guilt at being unable to save every last child – but they’re so sincere and adorable while they’re doing it!

Even relatively stable, well-adjusted teachers, however, are beginning to manifest what I think of as “bipolar teacher disorder.” It’s a natural result of the pendulum of thoughts and emotions inherent in trying to reach disengaged populations long-distance. The internal dialogue often goes something like this:

“I’ve got to do more to engage and challenge these kids! They deserve a quality edu—“
“CAN THEY SERIOUSLY NOT LOG IN FOR 10 MINUTES AND AT LEAST USE THE BUILT-IN MIC?!? I FEEL LIKE A DANCING BEAR REPEATEDLY PAUSING FOR THEM TO TYPE ONE-WORD RESP—“
“My poor babies. It’s not their fault this is happening. Most would rather be here! School really is the most structure and approval they’re likely to get most days, not to mention—“
“WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU CAN’T OPEN IT ON YOUR PHONE? THE SCHOOL ISSUES YOU A CHROMEBOOK! THEY’LL PICK IT UP AND FIX OR REPLACE IT FOR FREE, REPEATEDLY! I MADE 27 TRAINING VIDEOS TALKING YOU THROUGH HOW TO DO THIS! YOU WANT ME TO COME TYPE IT FOR Y—“
“My God everyone on Twitter is rocking virtual education and doing all of these cool projects and discussions and – they’re using breakout rooms? And it’s working? Yeah, I suck. I’ve failed my students when they need me most. I might as well start handing out vouchers personally…”
“YOU WANT ME TO EXPLAIN THE ASSIGNMENT TO YOU? IN AN EMAIL? WHAT AM I GOING TO SAY THAT’S NOT IN THE SLIDESHOW I POSTED, AND IN THE VIDEOS OF ME EMBEDDED IN EACH SLIDE TALKING THROUGH IT, AND IN THE EXAMPLE I DID FOR YOU TO—“

You get the idea. The ping-ponging between guilt/inadequacy and frustration/discouragement may actually produce real-life concussions.

#3 Every Teacher Is Different. Every Classroom Is Different.

This has always been true. There are strategies, lessons, and mindsets that are often far more useful or successful than others. There are things that are almost always a bad idea, no matter what the specifics. Generally speaking, however, it’s important to distinguish between “here are some things that have worked for me in such-and-such situation” and “here’s what good teachers do if they want to be effective (or at least more effective than you).”

This reality has been dramatically magnified by virtual (or blended) learning. Kudos to those of you working wonders on the small screen. Many of you had to overcome repeated struggles and frustrations to get there. That doesn’t mean those still mired in pointlessness are lazy or lack talent. It’s more likely they have different kids, different circumstances, or different strengths.

Keep sharing what’s working. Celebrate others’ successes or breakthroughs. But let’s not forget that this whole situation is stupid and not at all what we signed up for. It’s not a moral failure when we can’t make the magic happen.

#2 The “Problems” With Public Education Are Huge Advantages

We all know the litany of failures attributed to the standard 20th century public education model. Students are run through a “factory system.” There’s not enough differentiation. The rooms are too square, the schedules too rigid, and the instruction too direct. Online, self-paced, n0-walls education was supposed to free our poor, victimized children from this outdated torture.

For a handful of kids, it absolutely has. I have several students I’ve never met who are knocking this year out of the park. They love the flexibility and hate the chaos and inconvenience of in-person school. These outliers spend a few hours in the morning knocking out work and touching base with their teachers, then read or play or watch documentaries about food in other countries the rest of the afternoon. More power to them.

But most kids need that face-to-face time to flourish. You know things are bad when all the same politicians and talking heads who’ve been working diligently for years to get kids out of our rooms and in front of someone’s software eight hours a day are suddenly lamenting kids being out of our rooms and in front of the screen for eight hours a day. If we’ve learned nothing else this year, hopefully we’ve rediscovered the value of teacher interaction for actual learning to consistently occur. We’ve sorely missed proper small group discussions and kids having to learn how to deal with one another like we all live in the same world together or something.

Parents have been confronted daily with the shocking reality that their children are not naturally hungry for knowledge or motivated by where they may or may not be accepted to college in a few years. Some kids care for intrinsic reasons, and some desperately want to please their parents or compete with their friends. But many many many of our darlings learn because we woo them. We cajole them. We trick them. We engage them. We entertain them, scare them, love them, push them. It’s an art as much as it is a science. Every educator knows this.

None of us were really surprised that it’s just not the same when kids are at home working “at their own pace” and the best we can do is video in from time to time. That didn’t make it less discouraging.

#1 It’s All About Resources

In districts with lots of technology and support, the twists and turns have generally gone better than in districts without. In districts where kids already had reliable internet at home and parents with basic online communication skills (the bulk of the email goes in the BODY, not the SUBJECT LINE), etc., things have been a little easier than in districts where half the kids don’t have heat – let alone reliable wi-fi.

Sure, there are always a handful of plucky souls who overcome, and they’re absolutely worth celebrating. But there are always a handful of football players who make the NFL and a handful of musicians who win Grammys. Pointing to Patrick Mahomes or Billie Eilish as proof that “anyone willing to put out a little effort can do it” is either delusional or deceitful. Pointing to districts whose teachers and students are finding all sorts of creative ways to make it work is absolutely appropriate in terms of celebrating their success and learning from their efforts. They make poor guides for critiquing districts with whom they have little in common, however.

Your Ticket-Out-The-Blog

So, what did I leave out? What did I get wrong? More importantly, of all my wit and pith and insight, which parts made you love me the most?

Comment below and let me know what you think. If you like, you can document it and count it towards your virtual professional development.

RELATED POST: Teacher Tired

Blue Serials (2/22/20): Teacher Quality Edition

February 22, 2020June 12, 2023 ~ Blue Cereal ~ 2 Comments

We’re going to keep things simple this week, my Eleven Faithful Followers (#11FF). As much as I enjoy our time together and the hours you no doubt spend giggling over every clever phrase and admiring my poignant insights, I’m hoping you’ll take the time to actually go read and follow at least a few of this week’s featured players. Some you’re no doubt already familiar with, but others I’m happy to take credit for introducing to you.

You’re welcome.

Now, let’s get to it, shall we?

One Good Thing is a blog for math teachers, only it’s not, really. Yes, many of the posts reference math assignments or issues, but the guiding philosophy is in the site’s subheading: “every day may not be good, but there is one good thing in every day.”

One of the more prolific posters on One Good Thing is Rebecka Peterson, a math teacher from Oklahoma. Her reflections are generally brief, encouraging, and poignant – leaving many of you to no doubt wonder how the hell I can even read them without bursting into flames. But love them I do, and there are at least two recent missives you should stop and digest right now, then read again every day this week until you’ve truly got them.

Cross stitching them onto something to hang in your bedroom or bathroom wouldn’t be completely out of line.

From Piles (2/19/20):

I am swamped by grading at school. My to-do list for tomorrow realistically needs a week to attend to. And the piles and lists seem to just multiply.
But when I sit back and really evaluate this year, I am ok with those piles.
In a very weird way, I’m even happy for those piles.

I get tingly just reading it again.

From Be Less Helpful (2/20/20):

I gave my kids some not-your-mama’s-calculus problems today. I said we’re going to the gym today and working those brains for an hour…
I didn’t walk around the room for an hour like I usually do. I told them I was putting some distance between us on purpose, so they would feel that productive struggle…

I love my current students, but I miss having classes in which you could do stuff like this and have it turn out well. (Oh, um… Spoiler Alert: it turns out well.)

Follow One Good Thing on the interwebs and fall in teacher-love with Rebecka on Twitter at @RebeckaMozdeh.

Cloaking Inequity is a rather serious website and blog created by Julian Vasquez Heilig, the Dean of Educational Policy Studies and Evaluation at the University of Kentucky College of Education, where he also teaches. About the only thing his blog shares in common with One Good Thing is that the posts tend to be brief and to the point – two things I honestly had no idea it was even possible to do on a regular basis. I suppose I should try those eventually…

Not surprisingly, inequity towards students often involves issues with teacher quality.

Inequitable Opportunity to Learn: Student Access to Certified and Experienced Teachers (2/21/20) primarily gathers links to research and reports, along with an excerpt from a recent study by the Learning Policy Institute (LPI). This is from that excerpt:

Access to fully certified and experienced teachers matters for student outcomes and achievement, yet many states have hired uncertified and inexperienced teachers to fill gaps created by persistent teacher shortages. These teachers are disproportionately found in schools with high enrollments of students of color…

In other words, when states force schools to grab any warm bodies they can to fill teaching positions, guess who gets the least experienced or least qualified educators?

The day before, Heilig shared some research on teacher quality assessment. The ideas won’t be revolutionary to anyone who’s been paying attention in recent years, but they’re worth revisiting. This particular study seems to bring a touch of sanity to a system still determined to rank and score teachers in some fashion, mostly because it rejects doing so based on standardized test scores at the outset and works from there.

How Should We Evaluate Teacher Quality? (2/20/20) examines the question of – well, I guess you get the basic idea from the title…

Here, Heilig summarizes some of the research he’s compiled:

In this policy brief, Lavigne and Good argue that the most commonly used practices to evaluate teachers—statistical approaches to determine student growth like value-added measures and the observation of teachers—have not improved teaching and learning in U.S. schools. They have not done so because these approaches are problematic, including the failure to adequately account for context, complexity, and that teacher effectiveness and practice varies.
With these limitations in mind, the authors provide recommendations for policy and practice, including the elimination of high-stakes teacher evaluation and a greater emphasis on formative feedback, allowing more voice to teachers and underscoring that improving instruction should be at least as important as evaluating instruction.

It’s a bit thick on the edu-speak, but anyone who’s navigated the world of academic bureaucracy for a few years should be fine. Plus, reading big words makes us feel much good smart, don’t it? It’s NOT what makes us better teachers, however, so feel free to add it to the list of silly ideas states keep pushing.

Read Cloaking Inequity regularly and keep up with Professor Heilig on the Twitters at @ProfessorJVH. You’ll thank me.

Presumably you’re already familiar with Peter Greene at Curmudgucation. He’s arguably the most prolific and reliably source of edu-news and commentary on the web, although I suppose Diane Ravitch deserves a shot at the tiebreaker if it ever becomes important to know for sure. Greene is always worth reading, but often he almost accidentally transcends himself with moments like this, from Shoving Babies Into The Pipeline (2/19/20):

It is not a five-year-old’s job to be ready for school; it is the school’s job to be ready for the five-year-old.
This is doubly true now that we have entered an era in which too many people have decided that human development can somehow be hurried along, that we can turn kindergarten into first or second grade by just pushing the littles to sit down and study. Again, there is a germ of truth attached to this movement– children who grow up in homes that provide a richer learning environment get an extra boost in learning. I can’t help noticing, however, that these council of business types never sit down to say, “What we need to do is provide young families the kind of income and freedom that helps foster a richer environment for children.”
In short, these groups could treat young parents like humans trying to raise little humans instead of meat widgets tasked with producing little meat widgets.

I mean, you just wanna hug him and laugh-cry and have his edu-babies when you read stuff like that, don’t you? No? Perhaps I simply have some strange boundary issues?

In keeping with this week’s theme, however, Greene also offers some insight on How To Improve The Quality Of Teaching With Tools Districts Already Have At Hand (And How To Mess It Up):

Like so many things, it all sounds so obvious when he’s explaining it, and yet states and districts keep finding ways not to have the slightest clue:

There is never a shortage of ideas about how to improve the quality of teaching in U.S. classrooms. From the intrusive and convoluted (“Let’s give every student a test and then run the test through a complex mathematical formula and use it to identify the strongest and weakest teachers and then fire the weak ones and replace them with strong ones, somehow”) to the traditional and banal (“Time for a day of professional development sessions that most of you will find boring and useless”), tied to either threats (“We’ll fire you!”) or rewards (“Merit pay!”), school systems and policy makers have come up with a wide variety of approaches that don’t do a bit of good.
And yet, there is a very effective method that not only improves the quality of teaching in classrooms, but increases the chances of retaining good teachers in a district. Best of all, every district in the country already has every resource it needs to implement the technique. Some are even required to do it, though many mess it up badly. What’s the magic technique?

I’ll let you read the rest for yourself. And you totally should. Keep up with Curmudgucation at curmudgucation.blogspot.com and follow Peter on Twitter at @palan57. If you don’t, be prepared to explain what the $#@% is wrong with you as a person and an educator.

Finally, a few pieces to round out your weekend:

Aggie, I’m Sorry – Claudia Swisher at Fourth Generation Teacher wishes she’d read the book a few decades earlier and done one of her fave teachers proud.

Navigating Undergraduate Academic Writing: Guess What? It Depends on the Professor. – In this piece from Academics Write, it turns out that success on college essays is largely a matter of gaming each professor’s expectations and ability level. So, that’s depressing.

If you’re worried that students aren’t getting enough “real world” experience, there’s no need for concern in Arlington, Texas. They’re flushing toilets like crazy there – and successfully! #STEM

Dan and Dee Cain of Twinsburg, Ohio, better get serious about paying back their daughter’s student loans. They’ve already received 55,000 letters from the loan company. (I hope her degree was in math.)

You want a legit scandal? A Ukrainian textbook accidentally proves that Keanu Reeves really IS an ageless time-traveling vampire by showing him in a historical photograph from nearly a century ago.

Finally, if you needed any more proof that Big Brother is here and that he’s going to beat you up and take your lunch money every day “for your own good,” facial recognition technology is being piloted in New York schools – you know, “to keep kids safe.”

That’s it for this week, my Eleven Faithful Followers (#11FF). We have one more Month of Love edition of Blue Serials next week, so if you have something to say or someone to share, this is your last shot – at least until March. Be strong, and Happy Black History Month:

Political Issues In Public Education – A Guide For Beginners

November 2, 2018June 4, 2023 ~ Blue Cereal

It’s election time again, and – in some places, at least – education-related disputes are once again all over social media and the local news. Given that it’s rare for such a traditional, local issue to break through our current national insanity, some of you might be wondering just what it is all these teachers keep whining about and why no one can presumably fix what seem to be pretty basic concerns.

None of these are intended as comprehensive or especially detailed, nor will they apply in every local variation of every argument. My hope, however, is that you’ll find them useful as a starting place for further research if you discover you care about those specifics, or as enough information to decipher those who ARE worked up and insist on talking about this stuff over and over and over and over…

Why are so many teachers opposed to testing? What’s wrong with accountability?

It can sometimes be difficult to narrow down exactly what it is states and taxpayers want public education to accomplish (not to mention the things we intrinsically value as educators). Prepare children for college, prepare them for the workforce, prepare them to be happy, personally fulfilled adults, teach them to be useful citizens of a voting republic, teach them character and personal responsibility, teach them to read, to think, to care, to problem-solve, to adapt, and give them grit, hope, respect for authority, and a deep personal sense of security and meaning in a fallen world.

Oh, and algebra – they need to know algebra.

Of these (and there are often more, depending on who’s in the state legislature that year), very few are easy to measure objectively, let alone assess via multiple choice questions. The most important ones certainly aren’t. How does an institution scientifically measure whether or not particular kids are more or less prepared for the profession of their choice in May than they were in August, or whether or not they better grasp the importance of informed voting, or even to what extent they’ve grown in terms of taking personal responsibility or refusing to crumble in the face of adversity?

Even the more traditionally academic stuff is hard to evaluate on a mass scale. Sit a kid in front of me and have them read a passage and discuss or explain it, and in ten minutes I’ll have a pretty good idea of their reading ability, processing strengths and weaknesses, etc. A multiple choice quiz over the passage, on the other hand, might tell me how well they manage short-term recall of mundane details, but isn’t very good at measuring whether they understand those details or can explain why they matter. It certainly gives no room for alternate approaches or explanations of anything important.

But it DOES give us what looks like an objective number of “right” and “wrong” answers. And it can be tallied by a machine. It measures the stuff it can easily measure – not the stuff we’d all largely agree is WAY more essential.

We can’t measure what’s important, so we prioritize what looks measurable.

In other words, your English teacher isn’t obsessed with the minutiae of grammar because that’s what makes great literature worth reading; he’s obsessed with grammar because that’s a random slice of reading and writing that we can kind of measure via multiple choice. His job performance isn’t measured by whether or not you become a better reader (whatever that might involve in your particular case) but on how consistently you and your classmates properly identify a form of speech chosen by a testing service from Wisconsin.

There are other issues – tests tend to measure kids’ socio-economic status far more consistently than they do anything actually happening (or not) at school. Some are racially biased in subtle but critical ways. Many of them just suck. But that’s all secondary to the larger issue – very little worth learning can be evaluated by Scantron.

Why don’t schools stick to the basics – the 3 R’s of Reading, Writing, and Arithmetic? What’s with the radical liberal agenda and all the touchy-feely stuff?

Most schools certainly want their kids to learn reading, writing, and arithmetic. Beyond that, we enter into the same dilemma reference above – no one can seem to agree on just what it is they want public education to DO. The same legislators who complain about Algebra scores devote endless legislation to requirements having nothing to do with academic progress. Local employers want kids to have specific job skills or foundational knowledge beyond the 3 R’s. And even parents generally hostile towards public education see the inherent value in kids being involved in sports, band, theater, etc. (The Home Schoolers are constantly suing to get their kid on the baseball team with a school-provided uniform.)

But beyond that, the most fundamental reason schools get involved in counseling, health care, clothes closets, basic nutrition, family services, restorative justice, pregnancy prevention, anger management, or whatever is because – spoiler alert – a pretty substantial number of kids show up to school not actually caring all that much about those Algebra scores. Or grammar. Or test scores. Or history.

Yes, we could just fail them all – but that’s not the motivator you might wish it were. For every kid hyper-focused on her GPA (“That quiz brought me down to a 104%!! Can I retake it!??!”) there are two who for whatever reasons couldn’t care less – or, if they do care in theory, aren’t able to translate that concern into daily choices.

We can call home, but there’s a pretty strong correlation between parents who are unavailable or otherwise not particularly helpful in motivating their kids and kids who are unmotivated. That’s not an excuse, or an attack, or grumpy-old-teacher-excuses – it’s just a fact of the gig.

So we try to figure out why. Usually it’s because they have other things on their minds. Stuff that can only be addressed via counseling. Or health care. Or restorative justice. Or –

You get the idea.

And yes, we also often genuinely care. Some of us are a bit touchy-feely. But even the most pragmatic and least dramatic among us would agree that if we’re going to get test scores up, or get them prepared for locally available jobs, or grow informed voters, or whatever, we often have to address whatever else is in the way before they’ll actually read that chapter about the New Deal.

What’s wrong with school choice? Vouchers? Charters? Doesn’t that money belong to the parents, who should be able to use it any way they think best?

This one can get messy rather quickly. I’m not sure I can adequately cover the many layers of interwoven issues while sticking to the goal of this particular ‘guide’. What I can do, however, is share the basic arguments you’re most likely to encounter.

The first and perhaps largest problem with “school choice” is the term itself. It suggests that any concerned parent can enroll their child anywhere they like – but they can’t. Even if your state gives you a voucher for what they’d have spent on your kid in a public school, even if you’re surrounded by quality options, the final decision about your child is entirely in the hands of the chosen institution. They can take him, reject him, or take him until he has a bad week then boot him without cause.

If you’re fairly affluent, white, with a stable family background and strong academic and behavior record, you’ll probably be fine. Lots of schools want you on their rosters – and websites – and scoring summaries. For many families, this isn’t a bug so much as a feature – the primary benefit of “school choice” is that it allows kids from families “like us” to get away from kids “like them.” We can’t mandate loving your neighbor, but neither can we completely avoid their existence or influence, or somehow escape impacting them in return.

The second problem is the impact on public schools. As private institutions skim off their top choices, your local school now has less money and an increased percentage of high-needs students. Whatever economies of scale were making it possible to give the entire range of them a decent education before are reduced dramatically – it’s difficult to fire two-thirds of a bus driver or maintain a building at three-quarters what you did before. In short, the need increases while resources are diverted elsewhere.

Note that these are NOT individual resources – that’s wordplay. Public resources – tax dollars, paid by everyone for the benefit of the whole. The ‘social contract’ on which society, even red-white-and-blue society, is built. I don’t pay state and local taxes so that MY kid gets a decent education; I pay them so I can live in a society filled with people who have a decent education, obey laws agreed upon by a reasonably coherent populace, work as part of a semi-rational economy, and partake in a civilization which knows its own history, can read and write, and considers basic math and science when making major decisions.

That brings us to the third problem, which is that most of these other school “options” aren’t held to the same standards or expectations as public schools. That makes rhetoric about “competition” rather disingenuous.

In public schools, science must be treated as a real thing. History has established standards determining whether or not it’s legit. Teachers have to pass state certifications. Right-wing talking points to the contrary, we’re not all human refuse just making it up as we go because we don’t want to get real jobs.

Public schools have to at least attempt to educate students in a publically agreed-upon and legislatively mandated curriculum while observing endless protections, prohibitions, guidelines, and red tape. We have to take ALL of them, whatever their issues, whatever their needs, whatever their circumstances – including those left without a school when their charter closes mid-year or their private religious school kicks them out for getting pregnant or coming out as gay.

The final problem is that “choice” doesn’t actually improve education in any meaningful ways. Most private schools aren’t demonstrably better than public schools at anything measurable (see issues with that above) when comparing students from similar backgrounds and characteristics. Charter schools overall perform worse. Public schools don’t get “better” due to competition; the very idea suggests they aren’t really trying very hard to begin with and need something to “motivate” them to try to teach those kids up real good this time!

In short, the entire premise of school improvement via competition is a deception built on pruned statistics and rhetorical smoke and mirrors. Maybe it should work. Maybe in some circumstances it could work. But so far, taken as a whole, it doesn’t work.

Feel free to suggest other topics for the guide below, as well as linking to your favorite blog posts from around the web which dive into some of these issues in greater detail. And vote, dammit.

Marco Polo History

June 10, 2018June 4, 2023 ~ Blue Cereal

I have not told half of what I saw. (Marco Polo on his death bed, when encouraged to retract some of his crazy stories before facing judgement)
It’s unlikely that Polo actually observed firsthand everything he claimed… (Every Polo biographer since then)

I’ve been watching Marco Polo on Netflix. The series didn’t last long – it started strong, then tanked after two short seasons. Apparently Netflix took quite a loss.

It’s interested me enough so far, though, that I started a book about Polo and his travels. I picked it up used a few months ago for my classroom library, then forgot about it until packing up for the summer. Since I’m watching the series, I figured I’d bring it home.

Marco Polo is an interesting tale on several levels, not least because it’s not always easy to tell when he’s reporting hard facts (however unbelievable they must have seemed to readers), when he’s employing hyperbole or artistic license to make a larger point, or when he’s repeating legends and hearsay as firsthand experience. Further complicating matters, his account was written many years after the events it describes, and with the help of a successful romance novelist. So… take his story for what it is.

Except… I’m not actually reading Marco Polo’s account of his travels – I’m reading ABOUT Marco Polo and his account. While I don’t doubt the expertise of the author, I’m learning the parts SHE finds most significant or interesting, through HER voice and interpretation of HIS voice and interpretation. Modern commentary, facts, and expert insight into a seven hundred-year-old travelogue shamelessly mixing commentary, facts, and hearsay.

And wild lesbian orgies.

Or are those just in the Netflix version? I’m still learning as I go on this one.

Which brings me back to history according to Netflix. The series is an artistic spin on Polo’s account, itself an artistic spin, both based-on-but-not-bound-by factual history. I’m hardly an expert on the subjects involved, so I’ve developed a system for determining historical validity.

If a passage in the book connects with something in the show, and they more or less agree, I consider that information irrefutable. If I watch the series struggle through something counterintuitive in terms of accessible storylines, I internally file that information as plausible. And anything including extended lesbian orgies, I accept as artistic discretion – essential to a larger truth, whether they fit the story or not.

And oh, what artistic discretion! Here, I’ll rewind and show you again as proof…

I fear perhaps I’m modeling some rather shoddy history. It seems like I should be far more concerned with accuracy and documented facts as best they can be discerned. I used to cringe at Disney’s Pocahontas, and I still resent The Patriot and Cold Mountain. Why go soft now?

Still, the show DID get me reading the book. And much of the information I’d have otherwise had difficulty synthesizing or retaining has proven “stickier” because I enjoy the show. Events or characters which wouldn’t necessarily rouse my intellectual ya-yas on the printed page give me a bit of a rush when I recognize them from the screen. When I recently predicted the behavior of a character based on my reading, you’d have thought I’d just translated the lost languages of Mohenjo-Daro or unearthed a pristine copy of the Trump pee-tape. The circle was now complete! I was but the learner. Now, I am the Master! Step aside, David McCullough – I GOT THIS.

I had a professor at Tulsa Junior College back in the day who taught several of the required history classes most four-year universities expected as part of a well-rounded transfer student. I remember two big things about those classes.

The first was Hannibal – the only Black kid in the room. Hannibal knew a great deal more than I did about American (or any other) history. He and I had several interesting conversations about being Black in a socially “white” world, especially in the context of public schooling. Whatever clue-age I managed in my early years of teaching students who weren’t entirely like me was largely due to his patience and clarity. I wish I could thank him.

The other part I remember was the impact of Professor Burke’s stories about American history. I was particularly entranced by my first exposure to the tawdry tales of Andrew Jackson and Rachel Donelson.

Donelson was a divorced woman at a time when aspiring public figures did not associate with – let alone marry – such soiled creatures. Jackson fell in love with her and they wed, only to discover a few years later that her original divorce had never been finalized and they’d been living in bigamy. Jackson fought for her honor – sometimes literally – but his political opponents fed on the fallout and it was simply too scandalous to fully overcome.

After losing the controversial Election of 1824, Jackson finally won the Presidency in 1828, a watershed moment in the expansion of American democracy and for all practical purposes the birth of the modern Democratic Party. Rachel died before Inauguration Day of heart failure; Jackson forever blamed his political opponents.

Professor Burke’s tales of Jackson and Rachel and her ex-husband – an abusive scoundrel named Lewis Robards – were the sort of baroque melodrama cable TV and YA fiction later learned to weave into dirty gold. The stories were full of anachronisms and hyperbole and plot condensations – reduced like soup to their tastiest elements. I wasn’t the sharpest kid in the room, but even back then I was pretty sure Rachel hadn’t telephoned Jackson in distress (“Andy! Andy! He’s fulminating at me again!), nor had “Andy” hopped onto his duel-sport to Lancelot her away to the Hermitage.

But I didn’t care – I loved his stories and felt like I was learning. Years later, Professor Burke’s stories repeatedly anchored the “real” learning I did about Jackson and his world – kinda like this silly Marco Polo show.

Other times, though, the ways in which history is presented, distorted, or simply fabricated, aren’t intended to enlighten, educate, or even entertain. Sometimes people just LIE – to manipulate, to justify, to obfuscate. In recent years, I’m not even sure many of the worst perpetrators actually KNOW what’s supportable and what’s not in their bizarre renderings; they don’t even seem to care. Simply repeat the lie ad infinitum, and make its refutation personal – as if history is just another religious doctrine or political ideology to be hurled at one’s enemies or slathered like cheap gilding over your own corrupted ideologies.

Not to be too dramatic or anything. I mean, I’m not Marco Polo.

Reality matters. Oddly, this is a controversial and politically loaded statement at the moment. Facts are important, even when they’re inconvenient – sometimes BECAUSE they’re inconvenient. They don’t change based on the sheer repetition of bombastic nonsense or the lusts and machinations of the powerful.

But compiled facts aren’t usually SUFFICIENT if we’re trying to learn cohesive lessons. They can’t teach us what matters, or explain causes, effects, motivations, failures, or human nature. All history is interpretive – no matter who’s telling it or who pretends it could or should be otherwise. Events happen for reasons, they have effects, they fit into various contexts and complicate multiple lives. There’s also simply too damn many of them to present the entire record of mankind as an unbroken, sterilized anthology. And we keep learning about and creating more of all of it – daily.

How to best pick and choose, present and shape that history is a valid question and an appropriate debate. It assumes, however, that those so engaged are operating within an agreed upon range of morally defensible goals. Choosing a Black guy to play James Madison who breaks into song while engaging an Asian Aaron Burr is artistic discretion; insisting that the Civil War was about states’ rights or that most slaves were slaves by choice are damnable lies which do real damage to living people and our collective memory, no to mention our collective ideals.

Netflix, presumably, wants to make a few bucks pushing popular history. Polo likely wanted to thrill his audiences while still introducing them to an exotic world he found genuinely amazing. Professor Burke just wanted to help a bunch of clueless kids learn and remember some American History. I’ve shaped a few tales myself over the years, attempting to emphasize a lesson or better understand an era. Sometimes it works, other times I’m just… wrong.

None of which deserve the sort of condemnation earned by intentional twisting or recklessly disregarding our collective past in the service of narcissism, power, marginalization, “other-izing,” or the deification of evil.

History teaches us. It challenges us. It entertains us. Sometimes it confuses or discourages us; other times it exhorts and enlightens us. It’s bigger than our understanding and better than our application.

History may be complicated and subject to some interpretation. It may provide inspiration for some questionable artistic spins in the name of entertainment or experimentation. What it should NEVER be, however – what it MUST NOT become – is the subjective plaything of whoever’s in charge, to manipulate and discard as they whim.

Compared to that, how much harm can a few more lesbian orgies really do?

Now where’s that remote…?