A student who was in my class last year stopped by my classroom recently, but not just to visit. She had some questions about an assignment in her new science class. Her current teacher wasn’t available, so she asked if I could help her. We spent about twenty minutes that day working through her questions.
This is a common scenario – teachers helping students who aren’t currently in their own classes. It isn’t (and shouldn’t be) noteworthy. After all, helping students is what teachers do.
But the time I spent with this student got me thinking. If Governor Brownback’s education proposals take hold; will this kind of altruism survive?
Sam Brownback wants 50% of a teacher’s evaluation to come from their students’ scores on state assessments. Never mind the fact that no such assessments exist for most grade levels and subject areas; think for a minute what this would mean for my day-to-day interactions with students.
If my student’s state assessment scores weighed heavily in my evaluation, would I still take time to help students from other classes? Or would I send them away and focus only on “my” students?
Brownback’s proposal also calls for ranking teachers into categories of “effectiveness”; and giving $5,000 bonuses to those deemed “highly effective.” Presumably, some arbitrary test-score line must define each rank; and only some pre-determined arbitrary number of teachers can be considered “highly effective”.
What if my salary depended on how my students scored compared to my colleagues’ students? Would I help another teacher’s student, knowing my efforts could earn him a raise while holding my own pay stagnant?
Today’s trendy education reformers claim we can fire our way to a quality teaching force, and Brownback’s proposal follows suit. Under his proposal, teachers rated “ineffective” for two consecutive years would be fired.
The insanity of this idea should be obvious, but since it apparently is not I will spell it out: teachers working with the neediest students would be fired every two years; regardless of their talents. If we applied Brownback’s model to medical doctors, specialties like pancreatic oncology would likewise be two-year stints. With 80% of their patients dying each year, pancreatic oncologists are obviously ineffective. Aren’t they?
Back to the point, if Brownback’s system becomes law; then helping another teacher’s student would erode my own job security. Would I risk my job to help another teacher’s student?
I’ll always want to help each and every student, regardless of who is or is not on my class roster. Teachers are altruistic by nature, but we cannot ignore our own well-being or our responsibility to provide for our families.
Brownback’s myopically-defined teacher accountability proposal is a simplistic approach to a complex issue. His free-market, “sweeter carrot and bigger stick” philosophy reveals a basic misunderstanding of how schools work.
In a successful school, the entire faculty works in concert for the benefit of all students. Classroom teachers work closely with special education teachers to accommodate individual student needs. Coaches work with teachers to inspire academic excellence in their athletes. Counselors, librarians, administration, and support staff all work towards the common goal of providing the best possible education for all students.
Brownback’s reforms would undermine all of this. His reforms are fashionable, no doubt. But before we follow them, we must ask ourselves what kind of schools we want for our kids.
Do we want schools where ALL teachers work collectively to benefit ALL students? Or do we want schools where teachers compete with one another for pay and job security; such that every teacher would tell most students “you’re not MY student. Why would I help YOU?”
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