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Education
Social
Problems Georgia's
Economy Governance-
How We Are Governed
Accountability and Student Performance
- Student performance and testing. Expectations need to be
elevated. There seems to be too much testing for the purpose of
statistical comparison instead of a management tool to improve
educational performance. I am not an advocate of the extent of
testing presently conducted and here is why.
- We needed to know where we were. We accomplished that. Years
of testing told us what we needed to know. Elementary schools
are getting the job done. Middle schools are suspect and high
schools need work.
- We also know that ACT and SAT scores are abysmal. To a great
extent, that is because students not enrolled in college
preparatory programs are taking the tests. They are inadequately
prepared to do so. We also know that these are the kids that
will require remedial classes before being able to take college
credited courses and will eventually become our college
drop-outs.
- We know that children from households with educated and
affluent parents involved in the education of their children
will succeed.
- We also know that children of socio-economically depressed
families, households of uneducated parent(s) and, particularly,
uneducated single heads of household environments are forever
behind grade level. We know who they are. Teachers know how to
identify them. We know they will need help. We know their test
scores will pull down the average. We also know that these are
the kids with low self-esteem who have had stigma causing social
"labels" affixed to them early in life. They will not
participate in extra-curricular activities. They will hang with
the wrong crowd. They will be discipline, tardiness and absentee
problems. Finally, we know that these children represent 99% of
our high school drop-outs.
What more do we need to know?
We spent years modifying curriculum to conform to years of
testing. We spent millions buying textbooks to conform to that
curriculum. We require teachers to prepare lesson plans and teach
that curriculum. Why aren't curriculum driven CRCTs and a
teacher's recommendation sufficient to determine pass/fail of a
student? In the same vein, why can't overall students' performance
on CRCTs be sufficient as a mechanism to determine teachers'
performance in teaching the material?
All other tests seem
to be overkill. Wouldn't a better measure of success of our public
school system be how well our kids do in post-secondary education,
life and the work force? Wouldn't it be easy to track former
students that remain in Georgia? Aren't these more valid
"tests"? "Tracking" doesn't need to be an
administrative nightmare. It can be realized by re-directing
administrative efforts presently dedicated to test administration
and requiring employers to submit annual surveys about the
performance of new hires up to a specified age.
I would
like to open debate on this subject before the entire generation
of educators that were brought up under the "old" way passes on
and their methods die off with them.
- Parents. In every conversation I've had with
every teacher or parent of a student, sooner or later, the subject
of parental involvement arises. Unfortunately, "parental
involvement" is interpreted differently. What is too much? What is
too little? What is appropriate? What is inappropriate?
At
the governor's "Community Meeting" in January '05, I addressed the
definition at the Ridgeland High School satellite I attended. My
comments reflected my definition of parental involvement from my
own experience with my four children. When our kids were young, my
wife, Dianne, took the lead through the 6th grade. Then, I assumed
the responsibility. Here's what I did. The second week of school I
visited each teacher. I had a note pad. I asked two questions.
What material will you cover? What are your expectations of my
child? After a half hour of taking notes, I had a good idea of how
to follow up with my kids at home. At home I kept their feet to
the fire. Also, I invoked "the teacher is always right"
approach. If one of my children approached me about an
incident in which they thought they had been treated unfairly, I
listened. When I thought the matter had serious consequences and
without their knowledge, I visited the teacher or
called one of the administrators for an explanation. Otherwise, I
just gave a sympathetic ear. That approach always worked well.
Additionally, I supported everything the schools did. I spent time
and money, doing what I was asked to do. I also became involved as
a member, officer or leader of every parent support group of
extra-curricular activity in which my children were involved.
After offering this definition, one of the gentlemen in
attendance sprang to his feet and exclaimed, "Yes sir! That's
exactly what it is!" (Later, I learned he was a member of the
local board of education and a retired educator.)
Here's
the point. We need to provide a clear definition to parents and
educators. It should be guidelines, not the Holy Grail. And,
Juvenile and Superior Court judges should also have copies.
Additionally, teachers and principals spend too much time
defending themselves to parents that are predisposed with the
attitude their child is never wrong. That needs to end. In that
regard, an ounce of prevention can go a long way. I would like to
see systems conduct "parent orientations" prior to the beginning
of each school year and strongly encourage, if not require,
parents to attend. Enlist the support of the PTA. Discuss and
distribute the pamphlet at those meetings.
As for school
fund-raisers, I have a problem. There are too many. There are too
many for the wrong reasons. One of the solutions is to provide
adequate funding for classroom needs. That said, I am aware this
will be a sensitive issue. Nonetheless, it needs to be on the
table. Parents shouldn't be "dinged" every week for "whatever".
Nor, should teachers have to resort to incessant "dinging".
Teachers are employed to teach, not serve as de facto tax
collectors!
- Teachers. Teachers are on the bottom of the
education hierarchy, but are the only class of educator
personally held accountable by existing
accountability measures. Isn't that remarkable? It is and it is
also unwise. Accountability (that is, responsibility for achieving
expectations) will shift to its rightful place- the
management/leadership element, the principals and superintendents!
And as it does, I expect teacher performance and retention rates
will improve!
As for accountability, teachers should be
accountable for student success. I just don't think their
success/failure should be solely based on standards set forth by
the federal or state government. In their professional capacity as
an employee, I believe they should be accountable to their
principals, their students, parents of their students, their
peers, their community, their profession and their conscience.
That's enough accountability for anyone.
Nonetheless,
teachers should have some universal performance expectations:
- Know the material they teach.
- Possess good teaching skills.
- Eliminate grade inflation.
- Increase academic expectation.
- Do not retain undeserving students.
- Eliminate "extra credit" points for failures on tests. (Kids
either learned the material, or they didn't. If too many of them
didn't learn it, the problem is the teacher. "Extra credit" does
not teach them the material. Furthermore, if they didn't need to
learn the material, it shouldn't have been part of the
curriculum.)
- Report ALL incidents of conduct problems.
- Be professional. Set a good example in conduct and
appearance.
- Ask for help when it is needed.
Teachers also have
some expectations from their leaders. One of them is to be held
accountable as individuals, not as a group. People refer to that
as "fairness". I just call it leadership.
- Principals. Principals are the unit manager
of their schools. Their primary responsibility is to staff the
school with good quality people. They do so through hiring
practices and assessment, development and dismissal of their
staff. When they perform this all important set of functions well,
their students succeed. When they fail to perform this set of
responsibilities well, only exceptional teachers will achieve
student success. It is due to this responsibility principals are
the highest paid employee in their school. We should also be
mindful that principals are principals because they wanted to be
principals. No one forced them to take the job. When the
application for a principalship was submitted, the applicant fully
understood the expectations of the job. They are no longer
responsible solely for their own actions or inactions, but
responsible for the collective performance of every individual on
their staff. It is further understood that as the leader of the
school, the principal is responsible for everything that happens
and everything that fails to happen within their schools. Period.
If the school performs well, the principal is credited as being an
effective leader and an effective manager.
Likewise, if the school does not meet expectations, every
principal realizes they are assumed to be an
ineffective leader and an ineffective manager? In
that regard, they should expect to accept responsibility.
Accepting responsibility means being accountable. Accountability
means anticipating discipline for under-achieving. Discipline
could and should include dismissal. That's the business approach.
That's what educators talk about. That's what they say is the
missing ingredient. They are correct. Furthermore, as in business,
when an effective superintendent begins dismissing principals for
ineffectiveness, capable principals will perform better and only
capable people will apply for principal positions. The "good ole
boy" system will meet its demise. Educational improvement will
happen and it will be lasting. The cost of education will go down.
Performance will go up. Student success will improve. All
stakeholders will be happy. Taxpayers will pay whatever it takes
to keep it that way and will be happy to do so!
- Superintendents. With exception of the
increased scope of their responsibilities, ditto all of the above.
Aside from hiring principals, the most important responsibility of
a superintendent is to identify and dismiss ineffective
principals. Dismissal does not mean "firing them into the central
office." Voters should be aware that superintendents that do not
fulfill their responsibilities by dismissing ineffective
principals are passing the punishment for their shortcomings onto
taxpayers.
- Local Boards of Education. The most important
action a board takes is hiring a superintendent. If system
leaders, principals and the superintendent, are getting the job
done, they should be supported. If they aren't, they should be
replaced. If the school system is not performing, voters should
elect boards that will hire a superintendent that will get the job
done!
- Georgia Public Education System. There are
two more issues that concern me: re-accreditation of schools and
Annual Yearly Progress (AYP) standards imposed by NCLB.
- Re-accreditation Process. Admittedly it's
been years since I experienced the re-accreditation exercise of
our local school system. But, the impression was lasting. It
appeared to me to be a major paper exercise that totally
consumed administrative staffs and leadership of the school
system for one entire year. Not only did it appear to be a waste
of local resources, if my memory serves me correctly, the team
that conducted the re-accreditation was comprised of 120
educators from around the state. When I thought of the benefit
versus the cost and effort, I thought it to be a tremendous
waste of time and money and a duplication of effort.
Re-accreditation examines preparation to teach on the front end
of the process. Accountability criteria we presently have
measure performance at the back end. Isn't the back end
performance a clearer and more meaningful measurement for the
determination of accreditation? Therefore, re-accreditations
seem to be an out-moded, "that's the way it's always been done"
dinosaur that distracts far too much of our educational
resources from the classroom. (Georgia has 181 school systems.
Ten re-accreditations are conducted each year.) Despite the fact
that this is a nationwide dictum, I will put it on the table for
discussion with other governors. We are all searching for ways
to save money, or get more money into our classrooms without
raising taxes.
- AYP. I was under the false assumption that
AYP standards were an apples-to-apples comparison of schools
throughout the state and even the country. It isn't. There is a
"menu" of choices for school systems and individual schools. I
favor one model, or none.
Teacher Retention
Teachers are the working class in our public education system. As
such, they are employees. They are also people. Years of experience
working with people of every conceivable background and education
level in a wide variety of environments, lends me to a time-tested
and time-proven conclusion: employees that like to come to work are
happy, content and stay with you. The question is, what makes them
happy and content? Properly prepare them. Define reasonable
expectations. Give them what they need to do their jobs. Monitor
their performance. Monitor and communicate with new people more
closely. Give them honest, fair and timely assessments. Provide them
meaningful help when they need it or ask for it. Make mechanisms for
professional development available. Compensate them fairly. Keep
them informed. Maintain an open line of communication. Listen to
their ideas. Give them opportunities for advancement. Apply
consistency and fairness in accountability measures on individual
and group bases. Support them when they are right. Correct them when
they are wrong. Always, always, preserve their personal dignity.
Then, get out of their way and let them do their jobs! All
are a product of effective leadership. Unfortunately, we
aren't where we need to be on the leadership issue. It will take
time. But, it won't take "years". This approach works in every other
environment. There is no reason it won't work in
education.
New teachers require a little
more TLC. All are not psychologically prepared to assume the
responsibility of the classroom. They must be monitored, mentored,
and encouraged. Principals and assistant principals should perform
these responsibilities. Done well, retention will not be a problem,
except for those that discover they simply don't like teaching or
are not suited for it. I do not favor Governor Perdue's "Master
Teacher" program. Teachers need to be in the classroom teaching, not
performing responsibilities of the principal or assistant principal.
Mentoring outside of the classroom is one of the uses for Georgia
Education Communications Network (GECN).
Classroom Size
This issue has become a hot political football. I can't argue the
merit one way, or the other. But, I do know the following.
- In the Senate hearings on Teacher Morale, "classroom size" was
not an issue. (Most of the important issues are addressed under
"Accountability and "Development/Retention" already presented.)
- Georgia's student/teacher ratio is 15.6 to 1. Granted, Special
Ed Classes may skew the average downward, but it is a topic that
needs to be fully re-evaluated.
- Present guidelines are too strict. For example, under present
guidelines when a school has four classes of 20 fourth grade
classes but has 81 students, the school must have a 5th fourth
grade class. Common sense dictates one of the classes should have
21 students. This needs to be relaxed and give local systems more
flexibility. However, there also must be upper limits.
- Effective teachers will succeed regardless of class size.
- Ineffective teachers will have difficulty regardless of class
size.
- Implementing classroom size guidelines of the Barnes
administration will be a very expensive endeavor. Quite frankly, I
think it is unaffordable at this time. I must be convinced that it
is one of those situations wherein "you can't afford not to". I am
inclined to create more "para pro" positions as an interim
measure.
- My final point should probably be filed under the "whatever
it's worth" column, but I'd be remiss if I didn't make it. Until I
was placed in the Advanced Academic Program (the first year of a
pilot program in the Maryland public school system) in the 9th
grade, I always had 30 or more classmates in every grade and every
class, except drafting. My class has had reunions every five years
since we graduated. Reunions are well-attended. I attended my 40th
this summer. There were a lot of socio-economically depressed
classmates. I was one of them. We graduated 150, the largest class
in the history of the school. Among my classmates are doctors,
dentists, nurses, lawyers, judges, bank examiners, realtors,
scientists, mathematicians, business people, entrepreneurs,
teachers (lots of teachers), principals, and a long list of very
successful people. Many married right after high school or
college, remained married and have lots of kids and grandchildren.
There were only a few that failed in life. Classroom size didn't
seem to matter. Why? What is the difference between then and now?
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