New York, what has gotten into you? What are you doing? Why whenever there is a problem in education do we denigrate and disgrace our teachers. Where is the school administrators in all of this? How do they get to escape the blame? What about Government? What positive vision have they offered up in the last decade?
Reading about the recent decision by a New York State Judge to release the performance ratings of thousands of New York teachers to the media, I could only shake my head in sorrow. Teachers are but one cog in a broken system, and by naming and shaming them you are doing far more damage than good.
The judge, Cynthia Kern of the Supreme Court of the state of New York, wrote in a nine-page decision that the UFT’s argument “is without merit,” adding that the court of appeals “has clearly held that there is no requirement that data be reliable for it to be disclosed.”
The data attempt to measure the progress made by students in fourth through eighth grades under specific teachers by comparing their state test scores in math and English in a given year with the previous year.
The Department of Education has such data applying to 12,000 teachers; overall, there are nearly 80,000 teachers in New York City.
Teachers are not perfect and there are a fair few substandard ones out there. but there is only one proper way of dealing with teachers that are not performing. You give them support, not disgrace them on the pages of The Wall Street Journal.
Yes, support! Why hasn’t anyone in Government thought about supporting teachers, empowering them, giving the direction and improving their confidence. If Governments nurture their key stakeholders instead of pressure them and turn them into scapegoats, you might just see improvements.
Sure, if after receiving the support, some teachers still show no sign of improvement, kindly tap said teachers on the shoulder and tell them their time is up. Even then, the media should be well out of the picture.
It is easy to lay blame and cause hysteria. It won’t work and perhaps the plan was never intended to. The plan buys Governments time. Time that will be spent doing nothing of any value for the needs of schools, teachers or students. Meanwhile, even good teachers will be fretting about performance data and the new style of invasive education.
Just the way to go about recruiting great teachers. Scare them away from the profession before they’ve even signed up.
