California Love

In the wake of the Vergara decision regarding teacher tenure, there has been an explosion of commentary both positive and negative. Some are ready to pour dirt on the entirety of teacher tenure.  Others see the decision as a slap in the face of teachers across the country and as another “nail in the coffin” for due process.  Of course, I see it through a third lens.

Back in 2005, which seems like a long time in terms of education policy/politics, then Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger proposed on the November ballot an initiative called Proposition 74.  In short, that Proposition advanced the notion that, god forbid, teacher’s be given five years to receive tenure instead of the extremely short window of only two years.  At the time, in my own District, United Teachers of Los Angeles (UTLA), as well as the California Teachers Association all worked vehemently to defeat this proposition.  They felt it was a slap in face of, you guessed it, due process.  While at the same time people want to engage in historical amnesia concerning this Proposition, they are also failing to advance their own best interest.

If Prop. 74 had passed, both the public and the politicians would have seen the measure as a step in the right direction of teachers understanding the need for more rigor in the tenure process.  Oftentimes, both the perception and the reality is a war of attrition.  Sit in one spot for 2 years (with perhaps 2-3 walk-through's from administrators) and poof, you’re fully tenured.  I understand that there should be more to it, but oftentimes it is not. Let’s be clear, 95% or more of the teaching population is doing the right thing, but that 5% is anchoring us down.

 

I believe in acknowledging the hard work of teachers who show up for work every day, ready and able to fight the good fight and advocate for their students.  As I used to say when I was a high school classroom teacher, “its not the kids who (mess) up my day, it’s the adults.”  With that in mind let me direct my focus to the adults who insist on acting like the children they teach. Rather than engaging in the reflective discourse of what can be done to improve the profession, people have engaged in the dangerous slope of arguing in absolutes.  Either you agree with tenure or you don’t.  Of course, the “truth” lies somewhere in between both extremes.

Highlighting the FACT that there are an extremely small number of teachers who do not do right by their students is not an indictment on ALL teachers who are in the classroom.  Let me say it another way, if you do the right thing, participating in education groups on social media, grading papers, showing up to work early/leaving late, lobbying for better educational reforms, and in many cases raising your own children, no friend, I am not talking about you.  I am talking about those who languish in the darkness, or sometimes right in front of us, and insist on doing the bare minimum or worse. What is abhorrent is that we as the "good" ones do not shed light on those who need help, or assistance (see: No Snitching from 3-5-12)

It seems as if everyone has a story about a teacher - positively and negatively.  Let me highlight why I believe that teacher tenure needs significant reform.  Without going into great detail (to protect the guilty), a “colleague” of mine in South Central, earned his Ph.D online while he was supposed to be “teaching” his class.  Why does this matter?  Well for obvious reasons of doing ones job, but personally his students would come to my classroom crying begging to be in my already overcrowded class.  How could I say no? Real talk.  Is he an aberration? Absolutely.  But he's not alone. Let’s have an honest, truthful discussion. There may not be anyone as bold, or in my mind abusive, as he was, but there are folk who try to “get over” in every profession.  To deny otherwise is simply weakening our argument that this profession should be view as a top-tier profession.

So rather than continue to rant and point fingers, here are 4 things we can and should do to reclaim the tenure discourse:

1. Increase the number of years from 2 years to 4 or 5 years.
2. In addition to the administrators “observations,” there should be bi-annual meetings with a consortium of parents, teachers, students (if 6-12^th grade) and other stakeholders.  Teaching is not just what you do in the classroom, it is how you affect and interact with the school community as well.
3. There has to be some evidence of academic growth, either through Professional Development credits or attendance at academic conferences.
4. As a part of tenure, the portfolio of the evaluation should include; a written component by the teacher, 2-3 letters of recommendation (including the department chair), a written evaluation by an administrator, and some sort of statistical evidence of student growth (not just test scores).

These are just a few of the ways teachers can “take back” the narrative surrounding teacher tenure.  K-12 tenure is not as rigorous a process as the tenure process at the higher education level, nor should it be.  But these four ideas help towards alleviating the misconception that once teachers receive tenure that they become like my former colleague, inept and lazy. 

"I didn't think it was a game..."

Welcome back from summer vacation.

Right away it seems that this school year has stepped off, or perhaps into, a heap of controversy.  While good things are happening on the personal front for me academically, the blessings afforded me are not being spread through out the educational landscape.  With this said let me re-initiate my blog with a review of a previous blog post and a continuation of the discussion.

My post entitled "We Love that Basketball" (June 4, 2012) was my attempt to link sports analogies with the educational discourse.

In a "conversation" on twitter a woman engaged me in a heated discussion about educational policy which resulted in her using the line which is the title of this post.  I made the argument that the education policy landscape is a game.  I'd also argue that politics as a whole is a game - some would argue, more often than not, a zero-sum game. A zero-sum game is briefly defined as one making gains and the other side making equally similar gains and therefore the total gains are zero.  As a political science major, and policy wonk in both Washington DC and Chicago, I understand the hand to hand combat of politics - for better or worse.  I am also seeped in a deep, philosophical understanding that there are those in education who believe this divisiveness does not exist.  When speaking of education and education policy, they are the ones who generally speak in platitudes such as "all children can learn" or that "everyone deserves a fair shake."  The reality, for many of us, in particular persons of color, is that we know that the world is skewed towards "winners" and "losers."  To deny that this is, for better or worse, the current landscape, is to deny, and I believe disrespect, both the process and its participants, namely children.

We have to acknowledge that there are winners and losers in everything that takes place in the public arena. The goal shouldn't be to deny that the large chess board exists, but rather we should aim towards teaching everyone how to play the game.  The goal shouldn't be trying to espouse false platitudes or unrealistic goals or expectations, but rather fight to close gap between those who are "winning" and those who are "losing."  The most ideal situation would be one in which we are able to not only close the "achievement gap" of the nation's public school students, but also close the "political gap" which exists among many of their teachers.

I have thought long and hard about why what I call the "political gap" among teachers exists.  More to the point, I've often wondered why.  Here's a thought.  Let's look at the numbers in regards to who is teaching our children.  Between 1986 and 2011, the number of male teachers dropped from 31% to 16%.  Further, the race of those who teach our children has continuously been predominantly white 84% (down from 91% in 1986) (http://www.edweek.org/media/pot2011final-blog.pdf).  Consequentially in an increasingly "Browning" country our teaching population is predominantly white females.  For example, in Chicago, the current student population is only 9% white (which is similar to other large school districts such as LA or New York).

Let me be clear, I am not disparaging the work of these teachers, but rather I highlight this to raise a few questions.  One, what role does the teacher's gender and race play in the expectations of their students?  Two, what role does the teacher's gender and race play in their interest or engagement with the oftentimes confrontational and heated arena of politics?  It is noted by folks far more intelligent than I, that women tend to be less confrontational and less interested in politics at the school site for a multitude of reasons, not the least of them being the many other hats they wear as a teacher (mentor, role-model, advisor, counselor, etc...).  As such many teachers tend to do or listen exclusively to the leadership of their union which brings me to the next point.

As I have raised on twitter and elsewhere, this seems to be a huge case of irony. While these same teachers teach students to "challenge authority" and they themselves challenge authority, namely the School Board, the Administration and the like, they seldom seem willing or wanting to challenge their union en masse.  With the exception of large scale turnover of union leadership, which occurs rarely, teachers (regardless of gender) seem content to believe and follow their union.

While I am in favor of both teachers and unions, I do not think that teachers unions, over the past few decades, have served the needs of their rank and file as positively as they could have.  No one can argue that there is an extreme need for infrastructure repairs in many of our crumbling urban schools.  No one can argue that class size should be lower, and that teachers need more autonomy.  The questions are how do we achieve these goals while at the same time, 1) continuing to teach our students to love learning and ask critical questions 2) balancing the budgets and 3) increasing graduation rates and reducing drop out rates?

I do not have the answer, but I do know that more teachers need to examine the leadership of their unions as closely as they scrutinize the schooling choices of their Mayor's children or any of the other multitude of distractionary arguments which have been advanced since Chicago teachers went on strike Monday (9/10).  As this strike thankfully comes to a close, examining the residual effects will be something which will be under the microscope in the next few weeks and months.  It will be interesting to see what becomes of the current leadership of the Chicago Teacher's Union and how the teachers will repair their relationships at the school site.  Trust is key, but also extremely hard to build.

We love that Basketball…

In honor of the NBA Conference Finals, I wanted to think out loud about a few parallels between sports (basketball in particular), education policy/discourse, and teaching.   It seems like the sports adage, “winning isn’t everything, it’s the only thing” has permeated into the educational discourse.  We are hell bent on “winning” (all apologies to Charlie Sheen).  What does winning mean?  Who wins?  And, as I used to implore my history students to ask, who wins and at what cost?

In an earlier blog post, I lamented about teachers, it seems like everyone from Diane Ravitch, to Randi Weingarten to the local teacher doing lunch duty of helping their children cross the street, feeling as if they  are being “bashed,” “scapegoated” or worse.  Let’s examine this current political climate and discourse through the lens of sports (sorry for those of you who are sport phobic).

If schools and their stakeholders are “teams,” who is the “owner?”  Parents?  The Community?  The District?  Let’s put the ownership aside and look at the micro level.  If teachers comprise  the “team” we have to admit, as in any sporting endeavor, that there are “superstars,” “stars,” “role players,” and “has-bens.”  On a basketball team, there are 12 players. Multiply that dynamic in a school building and you have the potential for a powder keg.   While everyone wants to believe that they are either the “superstar” or the “star” most people are “role players.”

During their unlikely and improbable run to the Eastern Conference Semi Finals, the Philadelphia 76ers were the epitome of “overachievers.”  They survived the first round of the playoffs only after the reigning MVP of the NBA, Derrick Rose went down with a season ending knee injury.  They were helped even further by an injury to another important starter and one of the biggest energy guys in the league, Joakim Noah.  The Sixers not only dispatched of the Bulls in 6 games, but in the next round, took the 2008 NBA Champion Boston Celtics to 7 games before succumbing.

 

The point of mentioning the Sixers is not to whine more about my beloved Bulls being upset in the playoffs, but to make this point.  There are teams, organizations and situations which look perfect on paper but in the practical application of events, things fall apart – in other words, stuff happens.  Could have’s begin to dominate the conversation as opposed to what actually is taking place.  In the discussion surrounding public school teachers, too many pundits and especially many "leaders" in the teachers unions would like us to believe what I said above, that there are only superstars and stars.  In the discussion surrounding education reform, no one mentions the role players or worse, the has-beens. 

What this means is that ed reformers and pundits continue to present a false dichotomy.  Whereas in sports, those of us who have played the game, or are avid fans, know that in order to make a truly great team you need a mix of players and coaches who know how to bring the best out of their teams (see Phil Jackson, or more recently Greg Popovich as examples of excellence).  

In schools therefore, it is critical that we not only be more honest about the make up and composition of our teams, but also that we help attract and foster coaches (administrators) who are able to bring the best out of their teams.  Hopefully we can begin to have the tough conversation of acknowledging that not everyone is a superstar.  But that is ok.  It takes all members to not just think they are a superstar, but to strive to be one.  Not the one who scores the most points, or gets the most endorsements, but the one who knows their role and is the best in the clutch and, most importantly, helping their team win.  It goes without saying that more successful teams allow for coaches to have the ability to create, organize and manage their own teams and members, but that discussion is for another day.