Equity funding 12-20-07
Click above for archived editions of Educate!, the community journal on education in Charlotte-Mecklenburg published by the Fellowship between September 2000 and September 2005.
Do students have the answer on teacher quality?
Jan. 23, 2012
We have a small task for you to perform in the name of school reform.
Below this article is a set of statements titled "Student Survey."
Imagine yourself back in high school. Pick one of your teachers. Read the statements and think about how you would have answered each one about each teacher. You don't have to keep score; that's not the point.
The point is this: Today, now that you are somewhat removed from the age you were when you were in high school, do you think that the answers you would have provided if you had been given this survey in high school would have been fair to the teacher? Do you think your answers would, when combined with other students' answers, have identified the best teachers, the teachers who needed coaching, the teachers who should not have been in the classroom?
This survey was included in a recent report from the Measures for Effective Teaching (MET) Project, which is funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. The report (click the picture below to download the report) used the survey in more than 2,500 classrooms. There were safeguards in place to reassure students that their teachers could not trace their answers back to them.
If we understand the MET report, the investigators found that the students' perceptions of quality teaching matched up rather well with the so-called "value added" testing results that aim to quantify if a teacher's students are learning a year's worth of material in a year's time.
The MET report's suggestion is that student surveys be a part of the body of information used in assessing teacher quality. The authors say that the more information that goes into such assessments, the better.
The report's endorsement of student surveys – and particularly its conclusion that student survey results nearly mirror the results of all the testing behind "value-added" rubrics – might lead a few test-weary parents and students to ask a different question:
Could student surveys yield the same fundamental data about teacher competence that these batteries of pre-tests and post-tests yield?
Could we do a pilot program, with students using the survey instrument not just once a year but perhaps quarterly, and see what happens, and at what cost compared to the costs of the testing programs?
Just a thought.
If you have thoughts after taking the survey and would be willing to share on these pages your thoughts and your name with the public, there is a place below the survey to click.
– Steve Johnston
Student Survey
CARE
●
I like the way my teacher treats me when I need help.
●
My teacher is nice to me when I ask questions.
●
My teacher in this class makes me feel that he/she really cares about me.
●
If I am sad or angry, my teacher helps me feel better.
●
The teacher in this class encourages me to do my best.
●
My teacher seems to know if something is bothering me.
●
My teacher gives us time to explain our ideas.
CONTROL
●
My classmates behave the way my teacher wants them to.
●
Our class stays busy and does not waste time.
●
Students behave so badly in this class that it slows down our learning.
●
Everybody knows what they should be doing and learning in this class.
CLARIFY
●
My teacher explains things in very orderly ways.
●
In this class, we learn to correct our mistakes.
●
My teacher explains difficult things clearly.
●
My teacher has several good ways to explain each topic that we cover in this class.
●
I understand what I am supposed to be learning in this class.
●
My teacher knows when the class understands, and when we do not.
●
This class is neat – everything has a place and things are easy to find.
●
If you don't understand something, my teacher explains it another way.
CHALLENGE
●
My teacher pushes us to think hard about things we read.
●
My teacher pushes everybody to work hard.
●
In this class we have to think hard about the writing we do.
●
In this class, my teacher accepts nothing less than our full effort.
CAPTIVATE
●
School work is interesting.
●
We have interesting homework.
●
Homework helps me learn.
●
School work is not very enjoyable. (Do you agree?)
CONFER
●
When he/she is teaching us, my teacher asks us whether we understand.
●
My teacher asks questions to be sure we are following along when he/she is teaching.
●
My teacher checks to make sure we understand what he/she is teaching us.
●
My teacher tells us what we are learning and why.
●
My teacher wants us to share our thoughts.
●
Students speak up and share their ideas about class work.
●
My teacher wants me to explain my answers –why I think what I think.
CONSOLIDATE
●
My teacher takes the time to summarize what we learn each day.
●
When my teacher marks my work, he/she writes on my papers to help me understand.
Please include your name and a phone number where we can reach you for verification purposes.
Click the graph to download a PDF file of the budget presentation.
We've set wrong criteria in superintendent search
Steve:
I saw the results of the Superintendent Search survey. They had surveyed three groups, teachers, high-school students and the public at large.
What I find most interesting is the relatively low priority each group gave to:
"Makes recommendations
based upon reliable
information"
To me, this well represents the disconnect between the current way the board and community think and my own lonely way of thinking.
Actually, each group rated the following higher:
"Relates with people of all
cultures, races and
socioeconomic levels"
Personally, I think that is important too, but I don't think anything other than 'don't commit felonies at work' comes in front of giving advice based on reliable information. The opposite to me is "just being stupid and making s... up" (which I don't think is validated just because it seemed to work for the last Presidential administration). Making s... up* in the name of improving education seems especially bad.
(*Picking and choosing information to support a pre-determined result is just as
bad too. However when a school is failing, designing and testing something
different that you just think is likely to work is not the same as making up
information; it's called, "That isn't working; let's figure out why not and do
something different.")
To me it would be good to see the board and administration rapidly dispense with the ideological conflict, cut the management theories and bureaucrat-speak, adopt a realistic moderate reliance on a moderate amount of testing, and figure out how to motivate and teach children and then reward the people who succeed at it.
Meanwhile, my ideal candidate would come in with a track record of successful education of high poverty children and a mouth full of expletives. (I would ask each candidate if he or she uses expletives, and not consider any who say "no.")
Instead, they are going to hire a team player with the forcefulness and system-reshaping skills of a dishrag.
I want a system that measures performance on a kid-by-kid basis, expects teachers and principals to achieve it by motivating and teaching in whatever way (short of physical violence) works, highly rewards the ones who make big gains (which means the ones who go where there are big gains to be had will be the ones most eligible for rewards), shares successful methods and strategies, empowers principals and teachers to get it done and moves out ones that don't.
I want a school board and superintendent who are focused on education at the delivery point, i.e., the people who get it done at that point of interaction with each student, and then about whatever methods, training, resources and flexibility they need to get it done. I think all the other decisions they make should work backwards from that delivery point.
To do that, you have to push aside: over-glorification of educator credentials, standard teaching methods, people who want equivalent allocation of resources between poor and affluent schools, people who think throwing money at poor schools is a solution in itself, people who are philosophically opposed to testing, people who are philosophically opposed to result-based teacher incentives and people who think truly great teachers should be compensated in the same range as junior bank tellers.
I also think we need to eliminate CMS's compulsion to prescribe every facet and moment of existence at a school, its over-blown fear of liability and criticism, and its pathological aversion to subjectivity in measuring performance (but not at the expense of allowing room for subjective criteria to cover up objectively poor results).
I could design a system that uses metrics that CMS has available right now that would reward teachers and principals who succeed in struggling schools, allow for differentials in student capability and prior preparation, allow for other extenuating circumstances, entail less testing than currently imposed, not incent "teaching to tests" to the exclusion of non-core subjects, not disregard high-performing students who could do even better and make for a better morale in the teaching cadre.
I could design it, but I don't think they can, and I don't think they can import a "product" from any consulting group or educational vendor that will do it for them. It is doable, but I am going to watch the CMS board and administration once again not get it done.
Show me the person that can get it done.
The writer is a CMS parent, Charlotte lawyer and board member of the Swann Fellowship.
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New CMS Board of Education
CMS video, website
Dec. 14, 2011
Tuesday’s Board of Education meeting marked the installation of new members and the beginning of a new chapter in the board's work.
We congratulate Ericka Ellis-Stewart, lower left, who was elected chairperson of the board, and Mary McCray, lower right, who was elected vice chairperson.
One member is missing from the top photo: In January, the board is scheduled to appoint a ninth member to fill the District 6 term of Tim Morgan. Morgan, Ellis-Stewart and McCray were elected to at-large seats in November.
Members are, from left in top photo, Eric Davis, District 5; Ellis-Stewart; Joyce Waddell, District 3; Morgan; McCray; Richard McElrath, District 2; Rhonda Lennon, District 1; and Tom Tate, District 4.
The entire board faces a difficult road reuniting the community behind the task of educating all students. Chairperson Ellis-Stewart's role will be particularly challenging and time-consuming. We wish every one of these public servants well.
