>>>>> "Dan" == Dan McGuire <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
>>
David> On Feb 14, 2005, at 7:33 AM, Michael Atherton wrote:
>> >> a) Nothing has been done about the problem of there
>> >> being a disproportionate number of inexperienced teachers
>> >> in minority schools. A problem that everyone acknowledges
>> >> is a contributing factor to the poor performance of
>> >> minority students.
>>
David> I agree with this. It would be good to see a district
David> official and/or School Board member tell the list what's up
David> with this.
>>
>> The obvious question is: how do we fix this problem without destroying
>> the successful functioning of schools that have teams that have worked
>> together well for years?
[...snip...]
>> Is there any way to use incentives to get more experienced teachers to
>> want to choose some of these schools?'
Dan> It's probably going to take more than just money to get
Dan> teachers to want to move to the toughest schools. After
Dan> 18 years in the business world where a lot of what I did
Dan> had to do with compensation incentives for sales people
Dan> and strategies for structuring sales organizations, I can
Dan> tell you that the incentives that work in the business
Dan> world aren't going to work the same way in schools. Money
Dan> and power are not high on the list of motivators for
Dan> teachers and all the others that work in schools.
Dan> Teachers want to be successful teachers and part of a
Dan> successful team of teachers and parents in a supportive
Dan> community. Most teachers are not entrepenuers in the way
Dan> that entrepenuers operate in the business world. There
Dan> are plenty of skills that can be transfered (I've found
Dan> that AT&T V.P. scams aren't all that different from 3rd
Dan> grade playground issues.) Good teaching, necessarily has
Dan> a much longer 'sales cycle.' It's a multi-year process
Dan> and is dependent on the efforts of many besides just the
Dan> classroom teacher, which is why the pay for performance
Dan> schemes that are modeled after business incentives don't
Dan> work well.
Dan> One idea that I've heard is for the district to incent a
Dan> whole team of successful teachers from one school to move
Dan> to a school that is struggling. It won't be cheap, but
Dan> educating our children on the cheap is not what most
Dan> people want anyway. The problem is finding not only the
Dan> money but the experience to put a turn around team in
Dan> place.
Really good points by Dan, I think, about how to incentivize
teachers. Teachers, like others, like to be parts of teams that
function well, and are demoralized when they're not. The only problem
I see with Dan's point about moving a team of successful teachers, is
what the School Board is going to tell the parents of the students
at the functioning school who are having their teaching team ripped
away. [I'm proposing that any solution to this problem should satisfy
the Hippocratic rule "do no harm."]
How about this for an alternative: recruit a group of teachers to move
into the troubled school in school year 1. That summer, pay the
teachers (and Principal) to work together to prepare for the next
school year, and in the process, build them into a team that work well
together.
That way one would have a chance at getting a functioning team
without destroying an existing functioning school.
Of course, in today's climate, the word "pay" in the above might sink
it, but perhaps some foundation funding or other external source might
be tapped.
A second problem is that there are presumably teachers already in the
disfunctioning school. What happens to them? What happens to their
contracts? What happens when the school board gets sued?
>>>>> "DJT" == Dorothy Titus <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
DJT> Allen Graetz wrote:
DJT> "I wish this were the case. BUt even this is based upon the
DJT> assumption that any of these children that move to a better
DJT> school have parents that are involved enough in their lives
DJT> to make that happen. And unfortunately in some of the
DJT> neighborhoods where this occurs, there are too many parents
DJT> who do not do this. We need to keep this in mind and make
DJT> sure that no matter how much more public or private the
DJT> education system becomes that there is a need for programs to
DJT> help children who do not have parents who are capable of
DJT> helping or simply do not care. That doesn't necessarily mean
DJT> that the government has to provide this service, but it's
DJT> needed. There are a few bad parents in this world. So it
DJT> goes"
DJT> Ahhh, but that is the beauty of keeping kids in their
DJT> neighborhood schools. Those parents who ARE willing to do
DJT> something (like move their kids to another school) must get
DJT> involved in their neighborhood schools instead to push for
DJT> change rather than abandoning them and moving their kids. It
DJT> takes the available energy for change and focuses it where it
DJT> is needed.
I'm sorry, I just don't agree with this.
The public school system is not a prison. If you imprison their
children in a school that doesn't function, you may well find that
"those parents who ARE willing to do something" will jump to the
Catholic or other private schools, or move to the suburbs. That most
emphatically does NOT take the available energy and focus it where it
is needed. It's a recipe for middle-class flight and tax-base
collapse.
If you want, you can then point fingers and say nasty things about the
people who leave the system, but a feeling of moral superiority is a
bad consolation prize, stacked up next to schools that work.
Also, what do you do if there isn't enough critical mass of "those
parents who ARE willing to do something"? What if they've already
gone, or were never there to begin with? What happens then? Isn't
this just a recipe for splitting our school system into a two-tier
system of schools that work, and schools that don't?
--
Robert P. Goldman
ECCO
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
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