Changing The Classroom

I have mentioned Khan Academy before. Wired Magazine has a very good article on how some classrooms are using the Khan system to improve education. It's an interesting read which you can find by clicking here.

Who Pays a Bigger Portion of Income For State Taxes?

Types of Students

Rock Hill School Board Releases Statement on Superintendent's Evaluation

PUBLIC STATEMENT

In evaluating the Superintendent's 2010-11 performance, the Board acknowledges and appreciates Dr. Moody's continued extraordinary effort and dedication and awards an overall rating of excellent.

The Board and the Superintendent recognize that the District continues to face formidable challenges in the future—the necessity of improved academic achievement by all students in the face of the severe financial limitations facing our nation and state, as well as the need to continue to justify to our community the benefits and costs of an outstanding 21st century school system.

The Board and Superintendent will announce publicly the District's goals and objectives for the 2011-12 school year in the near future.

In light of the excellent evaluation and the Board's desire to maintain the continuity of quality leadership, the Board has extended the Superintendent's contract for an additional year or until 2016.

As with all of the District's dedicated and hardworking employees, the Board wishes it could award additional compensation for a job well done, but just as the District's teachers and other employees have received no pay increase, Dr. Moody will not receive an increase in pay next year.

______________________________

Bob Norwood, Board Chair

July 15, 2011  

Should Principals Be Tech Savy?

Should Principals be Technology Savy? If they are to be instructional leaders, could they fill that role if they were not? That's a discussion in the Powerful Learning Practice blog. I'll let you go there and check out some of the references they mention.

My sister-in-law's Principal just retired. The Tryon Daily Bulletin had an article about his retirement and professional career. They didn't mention his technology skills, but did have a lot of other fine comments:

TES Principal Williams retires

Published 9:17am Friday, July 1, 2011

Email  Comments

Holden, Isabella, Malakhi and Sydney… outgoing Tryon Elementary School (TES) Principal Walker Williams knows each student’s first name as they are etched on his heart.

Walker Williams

Walker made his retirement from TES official at the Polk County Board of Education meeting June 27. His last day was Thursday, June 30.
“I am thankful and feel blessed to have had this opportunity,” Williams told BOE members. “The students have been a joy in my life and the faculty and staff have been a great group to work with over my years at the school. I know the future will be bright for the school and I leave with much love in my heart for the students past and present.”
Teacher Ann Sellers said there would never be another like 78-year-old Williams.
“He was always on top of things and always wanted what was best for the kids,” said Sellers, who began her own teaching career under Williams 24 years ago. “He was in the cafeteria, he was in car lines, he was listening to the buses – he was Tryon Elementary.”
Teacher Pam Vining recalled how Williams’ face would light up when he saw the kids walking into school each morning or when he greeted those who ate breakfast at school.
“It makes his day to see those kids walk into that school. He really wants the best for these kids and wants them to get a good education,” Vining said. “He was just a beloved principal and principals like that don’t come around a lot.”
Though he often arrived at school at 6 a.m., wouldn’t leave until after 6 p.m. and showed up regularly on the weekends for community programs, Williams remained quiet about his accomplishments.
“He never wanted credit given to him, he always wanted his teachers to stand out and he wanted people to know the teachers and students were doing the work,” Vining said.
Sellers said Williams was one of the first people to say that after-school programs were important, long before everyone else caught on. She said Williams pulled that program together for TES even when they had to use nothing but local funds to support it.
Williams also initiated a program to take fifth-graders on college tours so they would become exposed to college environments and see that it was something that could be in their future, Vining said.
“He runs a really good school and we have really good test scores but the reason we have really good tests scores is because everyone works as a team,” Sellers said. “He trusts every teacher to do what they should do but if you need something you can ask him.”
Under Williams, TES has been named a School of Excellence every year since the award was established in 1999.
“He’s very effective, but he doesn’t toot his own horn,” Sellers said. “Even the way he announced his retirement, was just the way he was. He made an all-call, ‘This is Walker Williams, Tryon Elementary; it’s official, I’m retired.’ That’s all he said.”
Vining said she wishes Williams good health in retirement and she said she hopes he can find something to keep him occupied and happy.
“To me, for the kids of Tryon Elementary School, he’s just given so many years to us and we’re just thankful for what he’s given to us,” Vining said. “I’m letting him leave with a lot of grateful thoughts. He’s given just about his whole life to Tryon Elementary.”
Williams served a total of 45 years in public education in both South Carolina and North Carolina. Twenty of those total years were spent at Tryon Elementary.
“Mr. Williams will be greatly missed by Polk County Schools and Tryon Elementary School in particular. He has always had high expectations for himself, his teachers and his students,” said Superintendent Bill Miller. “I believe his contributions to public education are far reaching and I will miss him and his unwavering love for students.”

Teacher Merit Pay - A NC Teacher Speaks Out

The Tempered Radical has an interesting post about Teacher Merit pay:

The Truth About Teacher Merit Pay Plans

As I explained more than once, I’m a firm believer that the way we pay teachers has got to change.  Our “give ‘em the same paycheck no matter who they are or where they are working” approach is simply ridiculous. 

But please understand that my support for changing the way we pay teachers doesn’t mean that I’m in favor of the ridiculously simple “pay ‘em for test scores” plans that Bam, Arne, Bill and Michelle believe in.

In fact, I’d go as far as to say that teacher merit pay plans built around standardized test results are the WORST #edpolicies that we’ve seen in my 18 years of teaching—and that includes anything that Curious George dreamed up between starting wars and clinking scotch glasses at Haliburton shindigs.

Here’s why:

Less than 50% of teachers are working in tested subjects. 

I’m constantly amazed by merit pay plans built around standardized test scores simply because so few educators are working in tested subjects.

In my North Carolina middle school, for example, kids are tested in language arts, math and eighth grade science. 

There’s no tests for ANYONE else.

How exactly would a merit pay plan built around standardized test scores work in our school? 

Would teachers working in social studies, drama, band, PE, foreign language, and the computer labs be ineligible for any kind of bonuses?

If so, how would that impact their levels of commitment to advancing the work of our school and to improving the academic performance of our students?

Or—worse yet—would bonuses for teachers in those untested positions be determined based on the observations and evaluations of principals?

Think about the consequences of evaluating and rewarding teachers differently for a minute.

If I’m judged by nothing other than the numbers generated on multiple choice tests that cover less than 1/3 of the curriculum while my peers are judged by actual observations of students in action, I’m going to be more than a little hacked off.

As a guy who knows first-hand just how bad the standardized tests are that we give to students, I’d rather be evaluated based on observations any day. 

I know what my kids can do in action—and I know that for a variety of reasons, their scores on multiple choice tests aren’t always indicative of their actual abilities.

I also know that when my principals come into my classroom to observe, they pick up all kinds of additional evidence of what my students are learning. 

They can ask probing questions when kids give wrong answers.  They can look at additional student work samples connected to the content that we’re studying.  They can see me in action and make judgments about the content and skills that I’m teaching. 

Lesson for policymakers:  When you tie cash to evaluation systems, you’d better have a system of evaluations that treats everyone equally. 

Otherwise, no matter what choices you make, you’ll have more dissent and open resentment in the schoolhouse than you know what to do with!

Learning results for individual students—especially in middle and high schools—are dependent on teams of teachers.

I’m also amazed by merit pay plans built around standardized test scores simply because they suggest that the learning gains of individual students are the result of teachers working alone.

That’s just not true.

Take my learning team for example.  I’m a highly skilled language arts teacher who has spent the better part of my career showing students how to be better readers and writers.

I’m teaching science this year, though—and I’m successfully incorporating TONS of nonfiction reading and writing lessons into my work with students.

Now, what are the chances that these efforts are going to help my students on their language arts exams this year?

Right.  The odds are pretty high that at least a few of my students will do better on their reading exams because of me. 

But under merit pay plans built around standardized test scores, the credit for that work will go to the language arts teacher on our team.

That presents a ton of problems for merit pay proponents:

(1). I now have no real motivation to integrate reading and language arts skills into my classroom instruction.

(2). My school will have a flawed picture of just how successful my language arts colleague really is because her scores will be supported by my work.

(3). Other language arts teachers will be at a competitive disadvantage only because their science teachers haven’t got the same experiences and skills with language arts as I do.

Suggesting that the scores of individual students—especially in middle and high school—are dependent on JUST the work of the teachers in tested subjects in foolish, y’all.

We’ll never be able to financially sustain meaningful merit pay programs.

As a taxpayer, merit pay plans make me laugh simply because there’s NO chance that we’ll be able to support higher salaries for long.

Y’all do realize that we’re in the middle of some seriously tight budget times, right? 

Given those circumstances, how in the world are we supposed to sustain programs that pay teachers substantially more for helping students to earn higher scores on tests.

Right.  We can’t.

And as pretty much every expert on incentives has ever written, if you can’t sustain an incentive program, you’ll do more harm than you do good. 

There are cheaper incentives that matter more to teachers.

What frustrates me even more as a taxpayer is that there are cheaper ways to motivate teachers than merit pay programs built around test scores.

As my friend Dave Orphal points out in this hilariously sarcastic comment, while everyone wants to be paid a fair salary for the work that they’re doing, few people actually enter teaching because they’re driven by cash.

Look carefully at the kinds of incentives that the National Board Certified teachers here in North Carolina are motivated by and you’ll see that cash bonuses are not a priority for us.

Instead, we want to work for accomplished principals.  We want to work with accomplished peers.  We’d like additional credits towards retirement.  We’d like stipends for our children to attend public universities for a reduced cost.

None of these incentives aligns with the incentive programs that policymakers keep dreaming up.

And none of them would cost nearly as much to implement and to sustain. 

In the end, I find merit pay plans built around standardized test scores to be insulting as both a teacher and a taxpayer.

Not only do they suggest that teachers aren’t working as hard as they could be, they are evidence of a flawed understanding of what teachers really care about AND of how schools really  produce gains in student achievement.

But I guess I shouldn’t be surprised by such miserably planned policies.  After all, no one making decisions spends any time consulting the people who are on the receiving end of those decisions. 

#failure

_______________________________

Related Radical Reads:

Merit Pay Plans for Teachers a Poor Idea

Why Performance Pay Will Kill Our Schools

More on Performance Pay

Evaluating White Space Educators

Ed Reform