Fire Bad Teachers (But Who’s Bad?)
The great teacher gets
Along with the horrid one
The same token raise
The front page story in Newsweek is a piece by Evan Thomas and Pat Wingert. The thesis of their article is that people who are bad at their jobs ought to be fired. Okay, Evan and Pat…that sounds reasonable, but let’s slow down a bit. What sort of occupation are we talking about? Teachers? Okay. Shit…that’s an easy target. Have either of you ever been a teacher? No? Then, for starters, why do you feel particularly qualified or compelled to call for mass firings outside of your own profession?
Anyway…the following post will be designed as a dialogue between Evan and Pat on one side, and myself on the other. They will be in italics. I will be in regular script. PLEASE read their entire article in Newsweek so that you can judge for yourself whether or not I unfairly represent what they say, take things out of context, etc. I’m not a journalist, but who knows?…Maybe they want to fire me from my blog as well.
Here we go:
Mr. Teachbad: How do we even know if good teachers matter? I mean, maybe it’s the parents or poverty or not speaking English as the primary language. All that stuff really seems to impact my students.
Evan and Pat: What really makes a difference, what matters more than the class size or the textbook, the teaching method or the technology, or even the curriculum, is the quality of the teacher.
MTB: Ah-ha. Good. So, how would we know a “good teacher” or “bad teacher” if we saw one? This is important, so we need to be able to clearly distinguish between the two. I’m a little bit nervous, but I’m ready. Lay it on me.
E&P: In any case, the research shows that within about five years, you can generally tell who is a good teacher and who is not.
MTB: Okay…I mean, I think everybody would agree that good teachers are better than bad teachers and good french fries are better than bad french fries. (Should “french” be capitalized here?) But I know what a good french fry is and I know how to tell it from a bad one. A good one is warm or hot, crisp on the outside, soft on the inside, salted to taste, and leaves my finger tips shiny. Yeah…everyone sort of gets that.
A really bad one has none of these qualities.
So, again, how do we tell the good teachers from the bad ones?
E&P: Over time, inner-city schools, in particular, succumbed to a defeatist mindset. The problem is not the teachers, went the thinking—it’s the parents (or absence of parents); it’s society with all its distractions and pathologies; it’s the kids themselves. Although many teachers are caring and selfless, teaching in public schools has not always attracted the best and the brightest.
MTB: So, I’m trying to follow…sorry…I’m a public skool teecher in the sity, so probably not all that bright…I’m sorry…what were we talking about? French fries? Yum…No, wait…it’s coming back. Right…the problem is not the parents or poverty, crappy neighborhoods with crappy neighbors, crappy food in a crappy apartment with no place to study even if you wanted to, or any of that. It’s these crappy teachers. OK.
Well, shit. What should we do? If we, as teachers, have to blame ourselves, then what should we do?
E&P: Generally operating outside of school bureaucracies as charter schools, programs like KIPP (Knowledge Is Power Program) have produced inner-city schools with high graduation rates (85 percent). KIPP schools don’t cherry-pick—they take anyone who will sign a contract to play by the rules, which require some parental involvement. And they are not one-shot wonders. There are now 82 KIPP schools in 19 states and the District of Columbia, and, routinely, they far outperform the local public schools. KIPP schools are mercifully free of red tape and bureaucratic rules (their motto is “Work hard. Be nice,” which about sums up the classroom requirements). KIPP schools require longer school days and a longer school year, but their greatest advantage is better teaching.
MTB: Oh…My…God. You are such a tease. You cheeky munchkin. I mean, goddamn…are you ever going to tell us what a good teacher is or looks like or does or smells like…or how tall they are or anything. Anything at all. How do we know who to keep and who to fire. GIVE US A SIGN!
E&P: It takes a certain kind of teacher to succeed at a KIPP school or at other successful charter programs, like YES Prep. KIPP teachers carry cell phones so students can call them at any time. The dedication required makes for high burnout rates. It may be that teaching in an inner-city school is a little like going into the Special Forces in the military, a calling for only the chosen few.
MTB: Again…who are these people? How will we know them when we see them? Good teachers give student’s their cell numbers. That’s it? C’mon. That’s the most tired KIPP anecdote there is. If you have ever read one article about KIPP, you already know about the cell phones. So what? (It really took two of you to write this article?) But who’s bad?
And if you are implying that one must be a Navy Seal in order to teach in an American city, then I think you have undermined your own argument. That would seem to suggest that there is something deeply pathological with the neighborhoods, the parents, the kids, etc. such that only those who have undergone simulations of enemy capture and torture as a part of their training might be successful.
E&P: Last year the Los Angeles Times ran a long series documenting the unwillingness of the education bureaucracy to fire bad teachers (like the one who told a student who attempted suicide to “carve deeper next time” and another who kept a stash of pornography and cocaine at school; both are still teaching). The Indianapolis Star reported how Lawrence Township schools had quietly laid off—with generous cash settlements and secrecy agreements—a teacher accused of sexually assaulting a student; another accused of touching students and taking photos of female students; another accused of kissing a high-school student; and a fourth with a 20-year history of complaints about injuring and harassing students, including a 1992 rape allegation. At the time the story ran last summer, all four teachers still held active teaching licenses.
MTB: OMG…so our schools are filled with coke addict, suicide advocate, rapist, and pedophile teachers?!?! Yikes!
E&P: While these horror stories are sensational,
MTB: Hell, yes. I just about crapped my pants. For a minute there I thought you were trying to get me to associate these horrible examples with public school teachers in general. Thanks for clearing that up.
E&P: what’s also disturbing is the immunity enjoyed by the thousands of teachers who let down their students in more ordinary ways. Many more teachers are overworked, underpaid, and underappreciated. Maybe they’d get more respect if the truly bad teachers were let go.
MTB: Again, how are they let down? How can we tell? Why are you qualified to judge this?
Mr. Teachbad
F**k journalists.
Word…
Exactly. I plan on writing something for real about that bullshit article. It was hard to make it all the way through without wanting to throw up on the computer.
Sadly this article doesn’t surprise me. For starters, remember that Newsweek is linked to the Washington Post, which is one of biggest flaks for NCLB and any and all policy that blames teachers first, last and always.
Also,keep in mind that the Post/Newsweek owns Kaplan educational testing…think they’ve got a horse in this race? Maybe?
Oh I thought that if you were a teacher in a public school you were automatically bad. Especially if you had been teaching for more than 5 years – that’s when you can really tell.
Surely you are trying to find out what makes a good teacher – easy – they are not actually teaching, but they can become a teacher with only 6 weeks of training, at which point they will become a teacher, and … (see above).
I was too appauled to leave a comment on Newsweek’s page, since that would me I would have to subscribe and login to the rest of their bullshit. However, I would like to echo the sentiments of my fellow teachers- the writers are naively simplifying the faults of a system and placing the huge burden of America’s failures on the shoulders of individuals. The article focused on the bad instead of the good. The only reason America has stayed afloat is because of the tireless efforts of America’s teachers. We should be applauded, not denigrated. So here’s to you- my fellow teachers!
Wonderful Satire….
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You are FIRED!
You need to be fired, you unwashed cochino. I guaran-tee, you don’t spend as much time planning, as you do writing this juvenile blog. Anyone who despises students, despises learning as much as you do, should have a group of black-suited commandos (all of the students you have screwed-over) strap you to the white board, and beat you with the teachers’ editions of the ******** and ****** textbooks you deprived them of. All the while you’ll be babbling ” But I showed you guys ********.”
Note from Mr. Teachbad: Some text has been replaced with **** to protect the guilty.
Thank you, blueblack, for your thoughtful analysis of the things I despise, in-depth insights as to how I spend my time, personal attacks, and calls to violence. I had to look up “cochino”. I’m not sure which meaning you intended, so I included them all here for our readers, from the urban dictionary. (Jeez, adding “unwashed” was a little over the top, no?)
Cochino:
1. (SPAN “cochino”, literally meaning “pig”): A young man with questionable motivations concerning young women, usually of a lewd, erotic nature. Typically having a voracious sexual appetite and prone to constantly making advances on girls.
“Mija, I no want you talking to that boy Eric anymore, he’s a cochino!”
2. Means dirty in masculine form. Cochina is the feminine form of the word. Could refer to something with a sexual connotation, but not necesarily.
“Ewww…you ate your booger? Cochino!”
“You’re such a cochina, but I like it when you do that to me.”
dirty perverted filthy piggish feminine/ masculine dirty person
3. Adjective describing someone who wants to have sex with someone else in the butt when the poop comes out.
Manuel: Oohhhuunnngh, Mercedes, I want to have sex with you in the butt when the poop comes out.
Mercedes: Cochino!
If you don’t like my blog, one thing you could do is stop reading it, get back on your horse, and ride off.
Oh yeah, do you mind if I use your comment as a model for my students of how to engage someone you disagree with in constructive debate? You are fantastic!
Have a nice day!
Mr. Teachbad
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Hey MTB
I’ve been a teacher for 30 years because I like explaining science to kids. On the days with an attentive audience I really have a great time, other times it can be a soul-crushing experience. I have colleagues who are extremely unhappy, although they love people and they want to teach, but the way the profession( and the society from which it springs) has changed drastically.
Society needs to decide what we want education to be. I think we need a “teacher’s rights movement”, but I believe that the attacks on teachers will continue. Unfortunately the daily stress of the profession really prevents much communication and organization between individuals.
I appreciate your comments, and praise your efforts. Someone has to say these things.
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It’s really sad the way that the education system has turned. There is so much in the media against teachers. For example, the idea of pay raises only for teachers who have high achievement rates (do we pay doctors only for patients cured, or all tended to?). Another attack on education: NCLB; yeah, lets fire teachers who are dumb enough to help the dumb! Our city just laid off 650 teachers and closed 19 schools. Where do all the failures go? To the charter schools, of course, where their teachers can’t keep employment for more than a year or two. Why do we keep this system? Because it elimiates the unions and the tenure system, you know, so we can fire more teachers. What does this accomplish in the end? Dumb kids still get passed on; the one’s left behind are the teachers. Why is there such a massive migration out of teaching? Because if you teach at the same school for more than five years, you’re likely to be shut down, fired, and replaced with a new teacher who is more naive and cheaper to pay than you.
Your doctor analogy sucks. If a doctor routinely failed to do his job – that is, cure patients of their illnesses or at least do something to help them cope – they’d be fired.
The original newsweek article was filled with statistics and references to actual studies, while this article and every comment following it has been filled with responses that can be accurately reduced to a single common response: “NO U”
All I can see is people I assume are teachers vomiting up a knee jerk reaction to an attack that was neither generalised nor deliberately inflammatory (in case you didn’t notice, the article referred only to bad teachers. If you want a definition, how’s this: “bad teachers are those that routinely present sub-average test scores and grades”). They weren’t referring to all teachers. Just the ones that obviously don’t care about the students and their futures.
As a recent highschool graduate, I can promise you that if a teacher doesn’t give a shit, the students respond in kind. You can rant and rave all day about how the students need to put in the effort, and you’d be at least half right. But if all it takes is a better teacher to make students want to learn, isn’t that better than expecting 20-odd students to spontaneously change their world view?
Owen,
You make the same mistake. You don’t tell me what a good teacher is. But you seem to suggest that it is one who produces good grades and test scores. As a recent high school graduate, you must certainly know of students who did not really earn the grades they received. I could “present” all the good grades you want. We both know that. I could do it right now. As for test scores, what do you mean by average? Should low-income urban schools be compared directly with wealthy suburban schools? In that case, even if my school made huge gains next year, we would still be way below average, again. What about the grades that do not participate in NCLB tests?
And nevermind…I didn’t ask you what a good or a bad teacher is. I asked the professional journalists attacking my profession. They had no answer, and you have a lame one. So, does that move us ahead?
I take your point that if a teacher doesn’t give a shit, students will pick up on it. But the students might not always pick up on the right signal. Maybe the “I don’t give a shit” vibe you pick up is sometimes a false-positive and really just means “I’m fucking tired today” or “I’m being audited” or “I just had a fight with my wife” or “I just found out my dad is sick” or “I spent last night trying to get my son to sleep after gun shots woke him up” or “I really should have taken a dump before this block period started.”
Teachers are real people with real problems. Boring ones. Like the kind everybody else has that sometimes makes them less than their best at work. It’s hard to have a job where, no matter what, you have to be doing stand-up 3-5 hours every day.
Mr. Teachbad
as someone with a chronic illness I can tell you that many doctors out there make huge mistakes, make inaccurate diagnoses and manage to never get fired. You are an idiot.
BTW, I have never responded to a blog before (hardly ever read them), until I saw this site quoted on a teaching friend’s facebook. I’ve spent two planning periods reading your entries, and responded to quite a few (at least by my standards). Thanks for giving me a place to vent! God knows my husband is sick of hearing it!
I love how you break down the article to show that they are saying absolutely NOTHING. Kind of like all professional development we’ve had in the past decade.
I know I’m reading it a little late but the blog is HILARIOUS. Reading this on my planning time, would you call this “professional development”?, I think the teacher next door heard me laughing.
Well I am a Science teacher but I can’t find a job in this bad economy. I taught for 3 years. I went into teaching because I like kids and teaching. I had something in mind when I was in school and we used to respect teachers so much. But the society has changed completely. Kids do not respect teachers, they think they are doing a favor to the teachers by coming to school. Single mothers, no one at home to discipline them. There is no gratitude for a job well done.
Any specific tips?
I LOVE the way people with grossly dissenting opinions usually admit that they are not teachers!! I think we are all here because we give a shit about the kids, and we don’t want them, or us, flipping burgers forever. What we can’t handle, and vent about, is the dichotomy of administration, and government (especially federal-which has little constitutional claim) who tell us what to do and how to do it, when they, like the aforementioned cochino caller, have no earthly idea what we do, how much prep goes into it, why we do it, or how much pressure we are under to reach a level of quality that can’t be defined!
Couldn’t help but re-post… To blublack… It doesn’t take a whole lot of time/effort to blog when one is literate. Just thinking out loud…