Dr. David Hopson
I have to give the ‘educational reformers’ credit for a broader approach to changing the doctrine of teaching than has been evident in prior attempts. From the original federal “No Child Left Behind” Act to the new ‘waivers’ that so many states—including Massachusetts—have gotten, we’ve seen many initiatives put into place through federal and state mandates. Despite the state’s promise of no more unfunded mandates, the schools that opted out of the “Race to the Top” (RT3) funding will all be required to meet the mandates of RT3 legislation, but will not receive any additional funds from the state or federal government to do so. You may recall that Gateway did not join RT3, as we would have received less money than we would have needed to meet the RT3 requirements. To name just a few items, this includes determining how to use measures of student performance (MCAS covers only a few teachers) as part of evaluating staff, using assessments that are somehow standardized.
Of course, student achievement is only one measure in the new evaluation process. The process includes scoring staff on their progress in meeting specific goals using a performance rubric, and requires both formal and informal observations. In some ways, the new process is an improvement on past models; the problem is that it requires significant additional paperwork, time, and resources from both teachers and administrators. Not only is no additional funding tied to this effort, but districts like Gateway are now operating with significantly fewer administrators than in previous years. In other ways, the new model is regressive as it still relies on data from state tests in English language arts, mathematics, and science, using only multiple choice, short answer, and open response questions. Despite all of the research, and the demonstrated “real-life” need for students to acquire the ability to apply knowledge to solve problems in a collaborative setting and communicate their findings to others, the required tests don’t assess any of these skills.
Having no choice, we’ll move forward with meeting these changes in educational practice and policy. Some of the changes (requiring more collaborative efforts on the part of educators, and more emphasis on informal classroom observations) will be positive. Others (such as statistically manipulating MCAS data and using basic questions to measure student performance) will not move the educational profession forward. As if the work to develop the new evaluation system weren’t enough, consider the additional work schools are doing to incorporate the new National Core standards into existing curriculum, which is certainly a costly and time-consuming process. Negotiating this along with the changes in evaluation, the numerous additional reports the government wants so they can measure success, and the other countless policies and procedures we’re required to put into place and you’ll see that every district has to set aside significant resources to meet the basic requirements for compliance. These changes are at least somewhat tied together, i.e., collecting more data to measure how everyone is doing, requiring even more assessments, linking student and staff performance, and even tying this to college teacher preparation programs.
Everyone knows, however, that this is only part of the solution because if we haven’t addressed school funding inequities, student hunger, broken families, poverty, homelessness, and the many other issues beyond the control of schools, then how can schools—which have students less than 10% of their lives from birth to graduation—be expected to resolve all of the problems that impact student performance? Especially if we’re only assessing this through written questions? Furthermore, the countries held up as models of education (most recently the Scandinavian countries), do not have the same level of rigidness in teacher evaluations, or the large number of standardized written assessments used as measures of student ‘progress’. I can only hope that all of these changes in the United States will yield some knowledge about what works and what doesn’t work and that, in the end, the powers that be are once again willing to admit to the things that don’t work, as they did in allowing states to apply for waivers to the failed law known as “No Child Left Behind.”
