Homework Grades and Teachers-as-Entertainers

A few things on my mind today after reading the student newspaper:

Our school newspaper is one of the most unprofessional and terrible ones I’ve read.  Every article serves to voice the authors’ opinion, even factual articles, and there are numerous grammatical mistakes in ever edition.  On top of that, the “reporters” make up quotes, attribute them to wrong people or tell you want they want you to say.  And, I save this for last, the teacher is just a horrendous [insert bad word].  If she doesn’t like you, and she doesn’t like me for whatever reason, she will openly talk badly about you to her students.  Now that’s a professional!

Anyway, there was an article about the rules on cell phone use in school.  The student is trying to make the case that cell phone use should be allowed in school (even though the article is about cell phone laws) and here is one pertinent quote (emphasis mine): “While the long, drawn-out days go by, students have to find some source of entertainment to keep them awake in classes.”  They have to find sources of entertainment?  I’m sorry, I didn’t realize my job was to entertain teenagers.  I’m pretty sure I get paid to teach them.  What did all us poor students do prior to 2002?  Sure, we doodled, we daydreamed, we tried to sleep, but mostly we took notes and did the work we were asked to do.  Why?  Because that’s what school is there for.
I completely agree that teachers should find creative and interesting ways to convey their subject to the students.  But sometimes you just have to get through some material.  Or sometimes you have to learn the mirror equation and practice it.  School, like work and life, can’t always been fun.  I’m also of the mind that the reason these kids have such short attention spans is because they’ve been fed snipets of information their whole lives and have never needed to concentrate for more than five minutes at a time.  That needs to change!

Second topic:

There is a new trend in education (I don’t know if it’s in the area or the whole country) that says teachers should not grade anything that isn’t done in the classroom.  No graded homework.  Also, no zeroes if a kid doesn’t hand in an assignment because that doesn’t reflect what he/she knows.  So no effort grades.  What a bunch of crap!  I’m sorry, but there’s really no good way to get a good grade in most classes if you don’t do your homework.  I know some kids pull it off.  But ALL of my kids who get C’s and below skip the homework.  Or they copy the homework from a friend so they get the credit.  I’m happy to give those kids small HW grades, because they invariably BOMB the tests and quizzes.  Now they want to take away those HW grades.  Fine.  So all those C and D students will be F students.  What world do we live in that HW is too much work.  I’ve tried ungraded homework…all of last year in fact.  Maybe 3 students in each class did their homework.  The rest did not.  Then they wonder why they fail tests.  What a disaster.  This is the reason that American students don’t compare to other countries.  We are actively trying to remove their work ethic.

Let’s end on a good note:

I was showing my honors students how to make an image with a curved mirror, in the process creating a reflection of the outside on a piece of paper.  “Mr. _______, tell us again why this class is called ‘physics’ and not ‘magic’?”

Music: “New Slang” by The Shins on Oh, Inverted World

Teacherconfessional’s Job Search

It happened just like I figured it would.  My ghost of an assistant principal appeared in my classroom after school yesterday wanting to talk.  He hasn’t spoken to me since October, even though I’m under evaluation (for being a new teacher, not a bad one) and he’s supposed to be observing my classes regularly.  I was told that, because of the numbers, among other factors, I “probably wouldn’t have a job here next year.”  I think probably translates to 90% in this case.  Now, I’m not being fired, so that’s a good thing.  I just need to find another teaching gig within the school system.  Or, I can look outside the school system.  I’ve already e-mailed a department chair that I know and plan on e-mailing another tomorrow.  My own department chair will look for me as well.  This isn’t the worst news, just a hassle.  I have to go through interviews and update my resume.  Then I have to start all over at a new school after spending the last three years working with other physics teachers on refining our curriculum and creating labs and tests.  Things I may not be able to use in a new school.  At least it’s something to blog about.

In other random news, I was told by a student today, “Don’t take this the wrong way, but every time I hear the song Use Somebody by Kings of Leon, I think of you.”  I love the opening “don’t take this the wrong way” because it implies I’m about to hear something potentially embarrassing or inappropriate.  Or a female student is about to compliment me.  “Mr. _______, have you been going to the gym?” followed by an intense blush.  It’s like saying, “no offense, but…”  I guess it’s better than, “Don’t take this the wrong way but you really suck at teaching.”  That wouldn’t bring a smile to my face.  With the other kind, I just have to pretend that it’s inappropriate until the student leaves.  Then I can smile about it.

It hasn’t hit me yet, but I’m going to be really bummed that I won’t see these kids graduate.

How Do Teachers Get Paid?

The answer to this question is pretty straight forward.  For example, if you wanted to know how much a teacher makes in, let’s say, Seattle, you go here: http://www.seattleschools.org/area/hr/sal.xml (it’s a pdf).  How about Boise, Idaho?  http://www.boiseschools.org/jobs/payscales.html

How’d I find that information?  It was easy, I searched for the city’s school website and went to the HR page.  Did you know you could find out exactly how much a teacher makes?  It’s public information.  So what’s the point?  Teachers get paid by their level of education and the number of years they’ve worked.  That’s it.  No matter how good or how bad a teacher is, they get paid by these two criteria.  There’s an upside and a downside to this, as a teacher.  The upside is that I do not have to improve or do a good job at all to get a raise.  In fact, I could decide that next year, I’m going to teach physics through movies.  And no tests.  If they show up they get an A.  If not, a C (because too many kids failing would trigger people asking questions).  I could conceivably do that and still get a raise.  (As a slightly long aside to this, my raise depends on the school system having a big enough budget to support raises.  This is not usually a problem, but in the currently economic climate, none of the teachers in my district are getting any kind of raise next year.  And, unlike private businesses, if the economy picks up by the end of the year, we won’t be getting bonuses either.  In fact, since I’m currently doing a project that pays me extra money, I stand to get a pay cut next year.  This is not good for a young person trying to pay off student loan and other debt.)  The downside, as a teacher, runs along the same lines.  There is absolutely no reward or benefit to being a good teacher.  No need to go above and beyond.  No need to stay after to help students.  No need to plan elaborate and interesting lesson plans.  Why should I put in the time?  I already spend hours grading and planning.  Why would I do more?  Every teacher gets the number on the pay scale, end of story.

Before I get into the debate of whether this is a good idea or not, let me add this one thing.  We do get evaluated by the administration.  I believe the process has much more to do with not being able to randomly fire teachers more than rewarding them.  Ours goes something like this:  Every few years we are on evaluation, and we have to meet certain criteria.  We either do not meet, meet, or exceed on each of the 2o something ways to measure us.  As long as we meet, we get a continuing contract.  If we do not meet, they have to come up with a performance plan to help improvement, and then if there isn’t improvement, you can get fired.  The joke is that there’s no benefit to getting exceeds.  In fact, they say you have to show proof of exceeding to mark it down.  Therefore, I can get “meets” and not have to do anything, or “exceeds” and go through and document things I do.  Again, why do extra work for no reason?  They don’t even decide which teachers to keep based on their evaluations.  If they have to make a cut, the newest teacher goes.  I could have all “exceeds” and another teacher could have all “meets” but if that teacher was hired even 1 day before me, I get fired.  I could go on about this but I want to make my main point.

Shouldn’t there be a system that rewards good teachers?  It’s called merit pay.  Here’s the gist of merit pay:  Teachers whose students perform better get higher pay raises than other teachers.  Sounds great on the surface, right?  I mean, here’s a way to guarantee that teachers will try harder, and even get rewarded for their hard work!  I’m here to tell you it’s a bad idea.  These are the reasons:

I survived my first year because nice, experienced teachers basically gave me their worksheets and tests.  They showed me what to teach and when.  Teacher retention is low to begin with and I don’t think many would make it through the first year without help.  What does this have to do with merit pay?  Why would an experienced teacher help a new teacher, or any teacher, if their great ideas were going to get them more money?  If I have a method for getting students to achieve, why would I share it?  I’d get more money for keeping it to myself.  This hurts students in other classes.  Teacher collaboration would stop because no teacher would be willing to give up their plans.

On top of that, if my pay was tied to my students’ performance on a standardized test, why wouldn’t I cheat for them?  I know that’s not ethical, but if $5,000 was on the line, I’d have to think about it.  It doesn’t mean outright telling the answers, but I could subtely shake my head, you know, try again kid.  Maybe I wouldn’t do it, but your damn sure there are teachers who would.  In fact, in places where merit pay existed, so did teacher cheating.

Lastly, student performance is highly dependent on your students.  Let me rephrase.  At the beginning of the year, you don’t know who’s walking into that class.  You may have a great group of students who are motivated and, sorry to say it, smarter than the group another teacher has.  That puts that other teacher at an immediate disadvantage.  Even this year, I have one class that has consistently been 4-5% below my other classes.  Part of that is my fault certainly, but part of it is the class I have.  I would not want to have my salary tied to this group.  Just like it wouldn’t be fair if another teacher had all honors and AP classes and I was stuck with lower level classes.  It’s just easier for that other teacher.

Without saying too much else, since this is really long already, I don’t know what the answer is.  My suggestion is to raise teacher salaries so that they are comparable to other professions.  That way there will be more competition for teaching jobs and the bad teachers will be fired and replaced by better teachers.  So instead of teacher shortages where they’ll take anybody off the street and put them in front of a class, there will be a number of qualified people vying for the job.

Music: “I Can’t Stay” by The Killers off of Day & Age