A Few Ideas on School Reform and a Response to the Comments of Jeb Bush on MSNBC

This morning on MSNBC's Morning Joe and its Education Nation series Jeb Bush was interviewed. According to Jeb Bush, it is the teachers' unions which are resisting reform. The implication is that teachers fear a loss of tenure and the competition of merit pay initiatives.

Having been a teacher, naturally I have strong opinions on this subject.

• First, what about the study released last week that stated that there was no link between bonus or merit pay and teacher effectiveness?
• Second, how many teachers have worked for reform the majority of their careers only to see politicians change their minds midstream and cancel reform programs before any meaningful progress can be made?
• Third, why shouldn't teachers expect job security? They are employed staff, not missionaries? Yes, teaching is a calling. But not a religion.
• Fourth, why are all decisions taken out of the hands of the educational professionals and placed in the hands of politicians, anyway? (Actually, I know the reasons, but the rationale doesn't doesn't soothe the frustration of swinging in the wind.)


• Fifth, why is everyone so upset about tenure? It represents job security for those teachers who proved themselves to be capable and professional during the first few years of teaching when each was evaluated several times each year for effective classroom performance. If you want to improve teaching, make the release of ineffective teachers during these first few years a priority. Then continue with workshops and professional development for experienced teachers, as is done today. Make the reforms meaningful to experienced teachers by supporting their efforts to implement them, not by criticizing the professionals for their doubts based in the expertise of experience. Teachers are as much a professional as nurses and doctors and engineers. Do politicians treat the other lisenced professionals with the same contempt with which they are treating teachers today? Do they insist on pushing reform on other professions? NO, they pass regulations that are expected to solve problems. Then they let the profession work out the kinks.


• Sixth, why are we so concerned with being #1? Other countries are just as capable as we are. Isn't that a sign of global progress? Ok, so one day we might not be the primary world leader (I fear that day, myself.) but if we work at it we can stay in the top few and remain influential. How did we get so influential? Be retaining a strong economy and a powerful military--and by being the first to assist other nations in need. Because they know we can and will help, other nations tend to want to stay on our good side.


• Seventh, Jeb Bush made the point that other nations ranked higher than the US in student test scores made education of their young a highly valued social ethic and regarded teachers as important professionals. It does no good to verbally trash teh teaching profession and then expect students to respect the teacher in the classroom. Yet for decades, the news media and politicians have talked as if public education was run by incompetent fools and that teachers merely came to work to collect a paycheck. The hours spent planning lessons, worrying over student outcomes, staying overtime (salaried teachers do not get paid overtime) to assist students, prodding and cajoling students to learn, and being treated with disrespect by students who know they can only be suspended so many times before the school gets in trouble for attempting to discipline him. The only tool of control a teacher has over students are the force of personality, high expectations, and the phone call home. Students collect demerits. After a number of demerits, the parents are called. After the parent is called, the student can be sent to the office. But the count of demerits reflects poorly on the teacher, not the student in the mind of many. It is the teacher's fault when a student misbehaves, not the student's. (Yeah, I know, discipline is a skill. Some teachers are better than others. But students should be made responsible for their behavior, not so closely controlled and micromanaged that they never learn such control. Today, micromanagement of student behavior is the policy. Students are not given the sense of personal responsibility for their own behavior and choices. They are not allowed to fail, either with behavior or academics, and then made to face real consequences for that failure.)


• Eighth, why aren't parents responsible for their child's behavior and achievement? Why aren't politicians demanding that parents insist that children learn and do right or face consequences themselves? Why are so many kids bringing packs of gum to school when they--and their parents--know that students are not allowed to chew gum in school. IT is written in the student handbook that every student takes home and shows to his parents and gets a parent signature to prove that he did so. Yet kids continue to bring packs of gum to school; they bring electronic equipment, including cell phones, that are likewise forbidden; they bring snack food and candy to eat in class, another forbidden practice--but they are sneaky. They break pencils as part of a game and throw paper balls around in a waste of parent's money, then borrow from friends or do not do assignments because they have no supplies (to solve that problem, parents are informed that one's child did not have school supplies and teachers buy extra paper and pencils to pass out from their own pockets.) Yeah, kids will be kids, but these practices require money that comes from somewhere. IF the money doesn't come from the home, then from where? If the cell phones and mp3 players do not come from home, then from where? Parents are complicit in this misbehavior or totally either clueless about the activities of their children. Yet the teacher is the one who held accountable.


• Ninth, why not hire hall monitors and bathroom monitors so teachers can spend time preparing for class, consulting with students, and teaching rather than being the first to the door at the end of class and the last to enter the room at the beginning of class for hall duty. Transitioning from one lesson to another for each class must be done during classtime and cannot be done between classes because hall duty comes first. Students play the emergency need to go to the bathroom during class game because they know that going to the bathroom will require the teacher to disrupt the lesson and deal with the student's need rather than continue teaching. With a hall monitor, a quick handoff of student to another adult would stop that game. And using students for these monitor positions in this day and age is not acceptable for a score of reasons. The community will save money currently spend on replacing vandalized toilets, sinks and bathroom mirrors if the local politicians would fund the salary of two bathroom monitor/hall monitor for each hall per school. Or even if kids were allowed to go to the bathroom during a scheduled break morning and afternoon in addition to lunch and PE. Kids are so closely confined and bathrooms so scarce that there is no time or resources for the kids to take care of business--except where there is time, then the bullies take over the bathroom and...USE ADULT MONITORS.


• Tenth, why aren't private school test scores subject to the required inclusion in the national test score results? If the majority of students in the South are in private schools and homeschools and these student scores are not included in the tally of achievement, then how do we know for sure that our nation is behind other nations in test score achievement? And why are dropout rates not tallied on the national level using one standard of definition for drop-out? And why are educational standards not implemented? Time after time, standards are stated then a loophole voted in that allows students that did not meet the standards to be given another set of chances as they are passed on to a higher level where teachers spend extra classtime remediating and advancing simultaneously. This takes the responsibility of learning from the student, who again is not allowed to fail, and from parents who are not forced to arrange private tutoring and family pressure to make the student learn (SPED kids are a special case and not considered in this problem analysis.)

I suggest that elementary and middle schools be revamped into modules where subject matter is planned per 6-9 week modules and students are allowed to advance through the modules at their own pace. Any student who has not accomplished the modules for that grade level can take additional work online for that or repeat a module. Give students a 2-4 week break between modules and offer computer labs and remedial classes during that time.

Repeating an entire year for the lack of preparation of a set of core concepts is a waste of time for a student who gets behind at the beginning of the school year and never catches up. Repeating an entire school year is damaging to the ego.

I suggest that semesters be the modular unit for high schools, with credits given per semester. A student who finds that he is not ready for chemistry, can take the 2 semesters of chemistry after he has accomplished an additional physical science semester and/or math course. Students who do not complete the set of required modules do not get a diploma.

After the age of 19, students should pay to be allowed to continue in high school, taking the classes on a community college campus Or getting a GED. GED's should be offered as adult education services provided free by the local school boards and no student under the age of 16 should be allowed into the classes. Online classes may be taken with a computer lab available and a teacher on staff as a computer/learning assistance coach.

Private, non-profit, religious and other community organizations can sponsor a computer lab for online classes and can provide a computer/learning assistance coach. The couch should be a certified teacher. Standardized testing should be monitored for all groups by certified teachers under the same security rules that govern public school standardized test administration. Groups that test other than public schools should be responsible for hiring and paying the teachers who monitor the tests. The extra burden of testing students not in the public schools should not fall on the public schools. The monitoring of standards compliance should be a government function and all testing groups should be held to the same standards. Students who study and test through online courses under the frequent supervision and test monitoring of certified teachers should receive credit for online classes that match the objectives of a module.

Graduation and class credit can be subject to standardized testing of expressed objectives. Teaching should accomplish the expressed objectives, but should also teach other materials. There should also be elective modules that are required, but not subject to standardized testing. These elective modules should be in each subject area to cover those areas of the subject matter not be subject to standardized testing, but important for subject area mastery, understanding, college prep, job prep, community interest, or just the desire for a deeper, more well-rounded education.

The required number of modules should closely match the number of modules needed for graduation. There is little reason for students to be forced to attend a school day in which he takes classes that he does not need for graduation IF he doesn't actually want to take the classes. The goal should not be to keep kids in school all day, but to offer actual learning opportunities.

And all lunches and breakfasts should be free--paid for by local taxes subsidized by federal lunch program monies, of course. Think of the reduction in bullying that will result in the lack of lunch money to steal and the additional class time the teacher will have if not collecting lunch money.

Students should bring their own water bottles to school so they do not get dehydrated. Parents should be responsible for anything not water placed into the bottles. Maybe students should be watched as they fill the bottles at school. Or bottled water could be distributed--free--at school, again paid with taxes. Broken water fountains, long lines at the water fountain, and 1c milk do not hydrate children. Nor does buying a cola solve the problem. Kids need to drink fluids. What's wrong with water?

I also suggest that past the age of 16, all kids should learn a skill. This can be done with college classes taken through the local community college, vo tech programs, technical schools, community internships, and school/business partnerships, and public school programs. College prep students work on the school paper, announce at ball games, and do other services. They can also plant gardens, breed animals, cook, design and assist in community projects, whatever. A Projects module set could be part of the graduation requirements. In this way the extra-curricular stuff and special class projects that some teachers accomplish can be more standardized and taught to more students. The 4-H projects, the FFA and FHA types of projects, the science fair projects, the student jobs: all will be given accademic purpose and prominence. And more students will reap the benefits. Also, students may collect college credits with classes taken at junior colleges. By the time a student graduates, one should be already started on a path to getting the needed education for a job or career. This should make education more meaningful to the student, not just a way to spend time until one can make more meaningful decisions about one's own life.

Communities can band together to offer opportunities. Then bus students to the opportunities. Modular classes can allow for travel time and expanded opportunities. An all day or 1/2 day set of modules that schedules for a short time only provides more flexibility than a locked-in, year-long schedule. If a choice doesn't work out, the student can attend study hall for the rest of the few weeks left in that module. During that time, he can take an online class--for credit to make up for the credit he didn't complete, saving him from having to take a credit during the 2-4 week interim. The modules can be planned to offer credit towards a technical certification and should be rigorous enough that the credit is transferable to the technical college or community college or state college that offers the technical training.

For instance, if Word is taught, or MS Office, the student should be able to get a Word certificate or some credit towards an MS Office certification. Maybe credit for the first few classes in a paid curriculum towards that certification if the course is that complex. In 2 modules, a student should be able to develop a web page in XHTML and CSS, for example. Maybe using Dreamweaver, and so have experience that can be placed on a resume that one can code a basic web page using Dreamweaver or other Wysiswyg web developer and, using code view, can locate and correct a problem on the page.

Such skills will be needed by many, but need not be required for all to accomplish during high school. Let students develop the skills that interest them now and take the others as adults, when they should be more willing to learn for the sake of the job those skills they do not personally care about.

Enough said for today. Tell me what you think.

A Teacher's Day: Why Teachers Might not Want to Teach all Year Long

I listened to an educational expert on some news channel discuss the firing of the teachers of a Pennsylvania Rhode Island [corrected 3/5/10: my apologies] school this week. I was floored by his listing of the hours a teacher works: 7 hours a day. He was upset that the teachers would not be willing to work more days of such an easy schedule for the same pay--or to volunteer more time to work with students at the end of the school day.

He must not know much about the work of teaching.

1. First: Let's say that a school day extends from 8-3 (or 7:30-2:30). That is a 7 hour school day.

2. Tack on the 15 minutes before and after school that teachers are required to actively working each day, and the teacher's day is now a minimum of 7.5 hours.

3. Subtract the lunch .3-.5 hour and the required work period is 7.0-7.2 hrs each day. Add back in the lunch duty and the requirement to supervise students during the teacher's lunch hour, and you are back to a 7.5 hour day.
  * When teachers rotate lunchroom duty, the teacher off duty still has the responsibility to fill the time with phone calls to parents, paperwork, classroom prep work, hands-on activity prep work, meeting with other teachers, gathering supplies, delivering items to the office, and keeping an eye on the activities of any student in the vicinity. Lunch is eaten on the run unless the teacher can use his/her own time after or before school to accomplish these tasks. Some of these tasks can only be done during the lunch time. I'll be generous and say that on average most teachers manage to get a .25 hour to eat and take a bathroom break most days.  The second bathroom break is taken during the planning period.
  *Planning periods last a class period: 45-55 minutes. During this time the teacher takes a short break that can include water, coffee, coke or some snack. The activities of lunch are accomplished now, too, with the addition of grading papers, lesson planning, writing tests, copying tests and worksheets, and whatever else needs to be done. When substitutes are short, the teachers even rotate through to take care of an absent teacher's class. Any time taken for oneself means the work is usually deferred to after school hours because the work itself must get done.
 *Today, teachers are discouraged from using class time to grade papers, lesson plan, record grades, write tests, develop worksheets and develop computer lessons. Class time is to be devoted to students. All the listed activities that must be done are to be accomplished on the "teacher's own time."
    **Say a worksheet requires a minimum of .10 hr to grade, and 4 of the 6 classes taught have a worksheet/written lesson to be graded, then .4 hr per day is devoted to just grading a lesson. Few teachers assign only one short written lesson per day.  And few teachers have a whole day of the same subject.  So usually the .4 hr expands to 1.5 hr most days, and is often done after school hours.
    **Teachers today are discouraged from using grading assistants. When a lesson involves student evaluation of other student's work, as encouraged with group work techniques, the teacher must still spend time looking over the work to assess the success of the lesson and the effectiveness of the peer review of the work.

4. Lesson planning takes hours each week.
  *Just writing down what is planned takes time.
  *Add to that the study of the state framework by which teachers know what to teach, the textbook, the available activity instructions, and the available prepared worksheets and tests that must be done before the teacher can conceptualize and write down the plan, the teacher usually needs some uninterrupted time to pull the plan together.
  *Often this work is done after school hours.
  *Once the plan is down, the teacher gathers the references, prepared worksheets and tests, writes the worksheet items and test questions needed to complete the set, and makes student copies. This work can be spread out during the teaching week, as long as it is completed in advance of when the papers are needed by the student.
  *Add the hands-on activity prep and clean-up that must usually be done during the lunch, planning period, before-after school minutes, and minutes the teachers stays on campus after the assigned school day and the time devoted to the tasks after the teacher leaves the school campus; the purchase of immediate supplies (done with the teacher's own money if not planned weeks in advance so a purchase order could have been obtained--if the money is there--which required the advance shopping or catalog search to price the item); the planning and ordering of future suppliles needed for such activities; any teacher of a project, art or science class must spend 1-3 hrs weekly in addition to the paperwork required.
    **Science teachers in the upper grades often plan and prep for 2-3 distinctly different hands-on activities and labs each week.

6.  Additionally, today's teachers are required to add information to the school and class network, plan and chaparone extracurricular programs, field trips, and "work the ball game" either as staff working as security, staff working the concession stand, staff working the clock/scoreboard, or staff selling tickets. Always supervising student behavior is understood to be part of a teacher's responsibility.
    **A minimal ballgame assignment is .5 hrs. Most are 1.5hrs or more. Small schools can require a teacher to work a game at least once every month and more often during some busy weeks.
    **Band instructors work every game during which the band plays and every parade during which the school participates and every band camp and after-school practice the band plays.
    **Coaches--well, we all know that coaches work from mid-summer through the competitive season with most practice sessions being after school most days of the week.
    **Each coach and band instructor must also teach a regular school day, too.

7.  Add to each teacher the functions of club sponsors, class sponsors, fundraisers, professional development, after-school tutoring, student requests for additional assistance and make-up assignments; and the teacher's day extends past the 7.5 hr scheduled school day for which the teacher is paid.

As you can see, many teachers who are not coaches or band instructors or cheerleader sponsors work at least an extra hour each day, often at home. Personally, I worked 1-2.5 extra hours daily, more on some days and an additional 3 hours on planning that I preferred to do on the weekends. Of course, I taught sciences so I had labs to plan and prep, but the English teachers had term papers and essays to grade frequently enough that they worked an equal amount of time. Any teacher that used discussion questions--important question types to use since these teach students to write and to analyze information--on a test or worksheet required the minimum .10 hr per class just to grade that one question.

Few teachers are not overworked.  Add family responsibilities and the expectations of teachers to be all things to every student--solving all emotional, performance and morality problems of the community's children--it is no wonder that teachers are stressed and that few want to extend the school year or the school day.

Few teachers devote less than 9-10 hrs each weekday and 2-4 hrs each weekend to school work of some type. Even free time is spent with ideas for lessons floating through the imagination and spotting and collecting items that can be repurposed for a lesson. Many spend summers in professional development and university classes because renewal of each teacher's certificate/license requires documented workshop attendance and college hours collected over a given time span, every 5 years in my state.

In conclusion, a teacher that is paid for a 7 hrs a day for a 5 day work-week actually works a minimum of 50 hrs a week and often more. But teachers are salaried, so although pay can be cut by the hour, extra hours of work are not compensated. The same people who say teachers should work more efficiently to get the paperwork and prep accomplished during the allotted time refuse to let the teachers use more than the .8 hr planning period, the .3 hr lunch period and the .25 hr before or after school (one of these is normally devoted to duty consisting of student supervision) for this work since all other time must be devoted to students. These same people add duties and activities to these "free times."

Why would teachers volunteer their time to take on additional tasks? Yet they do, all the time. They find the time to do these additional tasks by depriving their families of their attention during this time. A teacher will tell you that cleaning house slides until the weekend and sometimes until the next school holiday. To demand that a teacher devote more unpaid time to school responsibilities--pay often needed to hire the babysitter for these additional hours--is a slap in the face these professionals.

Why do people resent the pay for teachers? A teacher making a decent salary often has a graduate degree; all have graduated from college. Why should they not expect to be paid as much as any other college graduate?  Why should they not expect to be paid a professional wage?  Why should they not expect the respect given to other professionals?

[Folks, many errors of the original post, mostly spelling, one glaring fact, were corrected 3/5/2010. I apologize for these errors. Part of the kneejerk process is a rush to express an idea when there is little time to check details. Look for future instances where corrections will be necessary, as sometimes the rough draft is all that I have time for. Do comment on the errors and then look for corrections. The basic idea and outlook will most likely be accurate until I change my mind--another aspect of the kneejerk process. Do read the rules and enter the dialogue in the spirit of the idea of self-expression bar dishonest political correctness.]