Teacher Quality
First, Jeff Lebow on Ed Tech Talk, pointed me to this YouTube – Taylor Mali on what teachers make. That led to this video, YouTube – WHY TEACHERS SUCK!!!, which brought me back to this post The NEA Mission: No Lousy Teacher Left Behind « The Elementary Educator. Folks like eduwonk, and Scott McLeod cite the lower academic/intellectual qualities of teachers as influencing who goes into and stays in the profession.
My thoughts…
I have seen a lot of teacher quit, leave, and some even asked to leave this profession. I look at this as an enormous waste of resources, since many of them were or could have done a fine job at this profession. I have never heard anyone leave because their co-workers being morons, or incompetent. I’ve heard them occasionally complain about a co-worker (heck, I’ve complained myself), but the reasons they quit are usually these:
1. They didn’t have the skills set to manage teaching a class full of children. They either couldn’t manage the teaching, or couldn’t manage the kids (usually the first leading to the later). They recognized this, or were brought to recognize this during the two-year probationary period teachers in my state go through where they can be non-re-elected (asked not to return the following year) for any reason that is not discriminatory or retaliatory. They technically do not have to give a reason.
2. They did not like the families/children they had to deal with and did not feel it was worth the time and effort to do so. They wanted more respect and more time teaching, less time dealing with behavior issues, and family issues with their students. They didn’t like the lack of support on discipline from families, or being second-guessed by parents.
3. They felt their administrator was either not supportive, or was directly undermining them, or was trying to drive them out of the profession because of issues of personality, not competence.
I will share that at a training put on by my union local I learned something interesting, most attempts to terminate tenured teachers are not based on competence, but instead they are cited for “insubordination” (reason #3). In other words, most teachers who do get to the point of being fired for cause, are not being cited for incompetence, but for not following orders. I found that interesting. Now perhaps it’s because they really were insubordinate trouble makers. Maybe it’s because administrators have an easier time making the case for termination for that reason. Frankly, I think the issue of competence is a smokescreen. Let me share a story of someone being “fired” for insubordination…
A one-time teacher who was in her second year of probation questioned the principal at a staff meeting. They were due to start assessments based on math texts that had not yet arrived. She asked how they could be expected to do these assessments without the materials. The following week she was summarily terminated and asked to vacate her class (which you can do to a probationary teacher who is insubordinate). After intervention from the union, it was agreed that she would not re-elect to return to the district, but would get a letter of recommendation from the Vice Principal, and would finish out the school year teaching her class. She never returned to teaching, wasting 18 months of a teacher credentialing program at a state university, which means that it was subsidized by the taxpayers.
In a school like that, is the problem teachers? If teachers are being treated like that, how are the children being treated? Is this a quality environment for anyone involved? I see more of this situation than I’m comfortable with, and when these former teachers talk about their experiences, it doesn’t make any of their friends and acquaintances join our profession.
Whoa, whoa, whoa. I didn’t cite anything. I just threw out Rotherham’s points for discussion…
You’re right , I think “noted” would have been better. I don’t think I intended it to read as cite in the academic sense so I apologize. I did ask for citations at that time, which you’ve added in Mediocrity in Analysis.
I think you’ve proved that teacher intellect is important for students (which is a major consideration), but Rothman’s point (and I believe yours) that poor quality is driving out higher quality candidates and professionals is still not shown. Maybe it can’t be, it’s a theory or conjecture based on the data.
Since my own points are based on personal experience (and not data) I’m hardly in a house where I should throw stones, but do you have any thoughts on the issue of teacher’s being forced out by being labeled “trouble makers”, and what that does for school quality? What does that say about the leadership skills of those principals, and the skills being rewarded by system?
Alice, I’m not making any points and I am not proving anything. I simply posted Rotherham’s quotes and asked for others’ opinions. Don’t overgeneralize to me, please. =)
Now, that said, others have studied the desirability of teaching as a profession. See, for example:
http://www.rand.org/pubs/reports/R3472
http://www.ed.gov/pubs/SumItUp/chapter5.html
(see Table 12 and commentary below it)
http://www.pdkintl.org/research/tpoll84b.htm
Rotherham’s belief is that talented individuals want to be around other talented individuals, want to be respected for what they do, and want to be financially rewarded for their skills and talents (see also Dr. Richard Florida, Rise of the Creative Class). He, like many others, believe that our ‘best and brightest’ are fairly unlikely to see teaching as a career that does that. Since they have other options (after all, they’re talented), they pursue them. Some go into teaching, but most don’t. Thus the average teacher has lower scores on cognitive / intellectual / aptitude / achievement tests than most other professionals. Since we have lots of research that kids benefit from being exposed to smarter teachers, he and others think this is a problem. Of course, no one’s come up with any great solutions yet.
No one’s saying teachers are dummies. Most have lots of other skills that their non-teaching peers do not.
I will say that I think Rotherham’s right when he says that there is a lack of emphasis on ‘effectiveness and performance’ at every step along a teacher’s value chain. We don’t screen/look for effectiveness or performance when we prepare, recruit, hire, induct, mentor, etc. You know we don’t. Lots of reasons why, but the bottom line is we don’t.
On another note, here is my thought on the ‘trouble-maker teacher’ issue: how are we defining ‘trouble-maker?’ Someone like you, me, or Dan Meyer who likes to push the envelope with an end goal always being children’s benefit, or someone who’s just a pain in the rear? I’ll take the former anyday, regardless of how uncomfortable they make me as a leader, because in the end we’re all working to move forward. The latter? Dump ’em.
Sorry for putting words in your mouth…
Well, this is the problem Scott with the troublemakers, you and I are not defining them, principals are, and some have very little tolerance for dissent. That example up above was a Summa Cum Laude graduate from UCLA leaving teaching. Is that who we want to lose? You say no, but her story gets told to her acquaintances, and they look at teaching as an impossible profession. What kind of publicity is that. This is not the whole problem, as you say, the solution to the quality issue is complex, but in my opinion it does need to be addressed.
Maybe it’s too obvious to state but certainly the lack of pay that’s comparable to similarly educated individuals outside of teaching leads some to quit.
Your point about most firings being due to trouble-making is a good one.