The fifth day of school and the year seems promising in spite of the constant buzz of depressing education news. August 24 the news was that California didn’t receive Race to the Top funds. Still, as a third year teacher, I feel more confident.
State testing news hit the paper August 17, not that teachers at my school were worried. Our district does not have designated low-performing schools, and I don’t even teach at the strongest school in the district.
The day after we received student scores on the yearly California Standards Test (CST), the third grade teachers were basking in smiles. Third graders moving into fourth grade had done extremely well, 2 students were below basic, none were basic, the rest were proficient and advanced-about 80 students altogether.
I teach fourth grade, so it was lucky for me, but at the same time, I now know that my strategies for teaching must treat high-achieving students, not low performers.
The main difficulty for fourth grade students is the change from a class of 20 third graders to a class of 30 or more students and one teacher. It takes a good month before the students have learned to support each other while working. The first month is spent teaching student behaviors more than teaching curriculum.
Over the weekend I read in the August 22, 2010, San Francisco Chronicle editorial by John Diaz about teachers unions fighting with the Los Angeles Times about evaluating teachers using a statistical method called “value-added.”
From what I’ve read, the idea is to look at the effect of a year of teaching on student test scores. Of course, this statistical measure depends on students who have scores from a previous year that can be projected to continue for the current year and then see the actual score received. Teaching for the year is the “value added” and a teacher can receive a number (just like a student) to show how well he or she did.
I hear the rumble in the head of any teacher who knows all the variables that can affect scores aside from what the teacher is doing in the classroom. No wonder the teachers unions are looking askance at this statistical measure. Even the article’s discussion of the variables and how the “value-added” measure accounts for them leads to more questions than answers. Go to the latimes’ article “Grading the Teachers” to find out more.
Get real. Many Los Angeles schools are doing well. But the schools that hit the headlines are so dysfunctional that it doesn’t take the money used to disaggregate student scores by teacher, flash it around to parents who for the most part are more concerned about the behavior of students in the school rather than test scores, and then say “see.”
In time I can understand using students’ scores as one aspect of evaluation of a teacher’s work. The truth is each school community and each school district must have a defined program continuously supported by the school board. Then a teacher can be held accountable so they are fired because of a measure of student test scores.
In my small district in which parents support their students-some call it hovering-the problem is only to keep scores up. The union has been supporting the staff so that the primary grades manage to keep the 20 to 1 ratio and the district shaves off money from other budget lines. We may have furlough days, but not one teacher was laid off because of lack of money.
Who would guess that the intervention specialist at the school used DonorsChoose.org and grants to get <!– /* Style Definitions */ p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal {mso-style-parent:”"; margin:0in; margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:12.0pt; font-family:”Times New Roman”; mso-fareast-font-family:”Times New Roman”;} @page Section1 {size:8.5in 11.0in; margin:1.0in 1.25in 1.0in 1.25in; mso-header-margin:.5in; mso-footer-margin:.5in; mso-paper-source:0;} div.Section1 {page:Section1;} –> 10 iPod Touch instruments for her students? I’m going to do what she did. The applications are endless: reading fluency checks; math games from remedial to enrichment; stories not available in the library that can be read aloud to a student.
Or that our worry would be about the new principal and changes in office staff at the school-how to support the new principal and still spend time on high curriculum standards?
Tags: high-achieving, iPods, Los Angeles Times, low performing, teachers unions, value-added statistical measure