With considerable zeal, Boston teacher Molly Sangalang delved into one of the more difficult math lessons for fifth-graders: multiplying decimals without a calculator.
She demonstrated examples several times on a dry-erase board, repeatedly asked students questions to gauge their understanding. Many were stumped — not the result Sangaland was looking for this particular afternoon, as her supervisor sat in the back of the Blackstone Elementary School classroom, watching her every move.
Comments
I'm a retired teacher. We always had to worry who the "administrater" was who did the evaluation. Principals are fine. Hopefully, they earned their position by coming up through the ranks. However, over the course of 35 years, I saw a parade of "Department Heads" and "Assistant Supers" who had never taught in a classroom. What a bunch of lulus. It's the old story of "who watches the watchers?"
Let's add other realities. Where I taught, my fellow high school teachers would laugh among themselves when the school committee people, none of whom were educators, would vote mostly for a politically connected candidate, usually a townie, friend, kin or whatever to one or more of the committee members. "Five votes" we would say and that's all the candidate needed while other more qualified candiates for principal or headmaster were shunned. Question: Should not the teachers be given some say in who gets elected for these important positions? I guess not and never. So incompetency and imperfection march on.
But who evaluates the evaluator? Is it that her/his ideas are to be adopted rather than the teacher’s? The evaluator can be helpful, yes, but as long as he/she comes from that helpful attitude, this kind of evaluation can be useful. But, ultimately, it should be the teacher who finally decides what is best for his/her students. The teacher is with the students day in and day out and is in a better position than the occasional evaluator to know what is best. Nay, you say, the evaluator knows best but then, I repeat, who evaluates the evaluator? How can we say that the evaluator’s suggestions are always correct? And if so, then you have taken away from the teacher the right to teach his/her class in the way they think best. And how can a teacher be deemed unsatisfactory unless he/she does little or nothing?
All these ideas concerning evaluation seem to come from the top down. I ask, have the teachers been consulted for their ideas on the evaluation issue? And do they have the right to disagree with the evaluators or must they kiss their rings.? But all teachers must have degrees in order to teach. Is not their opinions of any value? Look, I am not talking about teachers who have thrown in the towel or regularly come into class with a hangover.
As for measuring a teacher’s performance, based only on test scores, you have to understand that even if Jesus Christ were the teacher, if the students are slow learners for one reason or another, or are not understandably interested, say, in multiplying decimals, (a practice most of them will never use anyway later in their lives) Jesus would have difficult water to walk on and would probably sink.
Oops: Correction: "Are not the opinions............"
I would like the to know how many teachers. who received "needs improvement" and "unsatisfactory" evaluations, and who participated in the interventions negotiated between the BPS & BTU, actually made it to "proficient" on the follow-up evaluations. I also want to know the ages of these teachers and the ages and experience of the people evaluating them. Court Street hasn’t been forthcoming with this information and I’ve asked around.
I have known several teachers, some middle aged, some older, some close to retirement, and a couple who even took retirement early because they were targeted by administration. These administrators had a personal agenda, or had a perceived Court Street agenda, which included shafting teachers so they could keep their positions. Look what happened at English High School if you need an example. How can you be a "golden apple teacher" one day and a "does not meet expectations" teacher the next! What's happening to veteran teachers in the Boston Public Schools is just ugly.
Using test scores to rate the performance of educators is going to be problematic. Unless Court Street will be assigning students to classrooms, using the algorithm they use for assigning schools to students, or administrators are willing to publically pull student names out of a hat, student assignment to classes is not going to be fair. Favored teachers are going to get better classes. Inclusion classes and dumping ground classes, will be taught by teachers that administrators want to evaluate out. BPS is going to have real difficulty in finding teachers willing to work at underperforming schools.
I have good classroom control and usually offer to take that difficult class with all the behavior problems. Not next year, if my performance evaluation is going to based on their test scores! I’ll leave that challenge to the innovative and creative Boston Teacher Residency (BTR) and Teach for America (TFA) people. I’m here for the long haul, they only plan on spending a year or two in the teaching profession.