There is no Superman so Stop Waiting

Sorry to beat a dead horse but I have a lot of trouble keeping my thoughts to myself.

Ted has already touched on the difficulty of evaluating a teacher see, comments on Superman Redux.

Full disclosure, I saw the documentary months ago and only had a little time to watch a few clips to remind me the gripes I had with it.

I am fine with the argument that Waiting for Superman gets the discussion going about problems in education, however this does not absolve the movie of its glaring faults.

My main beef with the pseudo-documentary (anytime there is a narrative I find it hard to be a full documentary, See Babies, Restrepo for good documentaries) is that the movie says get good teachers plus charters equals many educational problems alleviated.  Good teachers duh…get rid of bad teachers, duh…not a groundbreaking documentary (We have all seen Dead Poets Society and High School High, latter far better).  Get good teachers by eliminating unions and tenure and use the resources to improve teachers is the simply equation espoused by the movie.

So the movie wants to eliminate the bottom 5-10% of teachers even though there is, as Myk’s Hansushek papers stated, not an effective way to evaluate a teacher’s aptitude, since little correlation was found with level of education and salary awarded.  Effectiveness is found, as in the paper, on future earning of the students (not applicable until 10 years later after the bad teacher has done some damage).   So eliminate the 5-10% of teachers, even though we haven’t put in an effective evaluation system.  If we did eliminate 5-10% of teachers,  being a teacher would become a high risk work environment, a lot higher than doctors or lawyers who are at .3% and .4% a year in Illinois respectively (have no idea how the documentary came up with 1 in 57 for doctors, no way do that many inept people go $350,000 in debt).   High risk work environment need a substantial increase in pay, not sure how you do this with current resources allotted as is.  That’s why the brain surgeon gets paid the big bucks.  According to Hansushek’s paper there is no difference in effectiveness between 5 year and 25 year teachers, maybe we could boot old teachers saving money on seniority salaries thus being able to hire more good young teachers, damn unions.

Now for the hero of the movie, the shaker the mover, Michelle Rhee.  She fires some 240 teachers/principals (great way to spearhead a collaborative effort), based on 5, 30 minute evaluation a year that the teacher must hit 22 modes of teaching (chanting, rhyming, voodoo dancing).  Evaluations, which resulted in borderline teachers to construct a curriculum just for the evaluators, most master teachers evaluators quit because of the shallow format of evaluation.  Interestingly, strong teachers tended to mark poorly (sticking with their teaching style) versus weaker teachers because weak teacher catered toward the evaluations. She ignores Gist, the State Superintendent, recommendation to investigate the wrong-to-right erasure discrepancies (by a 4 standard of deviations discrepancy) found in 96 DC schools, 8 were from the 10 campuses Rhee handed out the T E A M awards.  Monetary competition Rhee championed has resulted in higher wrong-to-right erase marks.  She failed to work with the communities of DC, approval rating going from 50% among Blacks to 25%.  Her increases in test scores were the same gains made by her 2 chancellor predecessors.

The documentary was a PR awareness call, saying lets get better teachers, with a no real way to do so, thus does not bring much to the discussion.  It was just like Guggenheim’s last documentary, An Inconvenient Truth- no duh global warming is bad but turning off a light and buying a hybrid is not the solution.  Solving complex problems with simple answers is like fitting a square block into a round hole.

My other point, teachers aren’t supermen, they are human.  How do you deal with socio-economic classes that have higher incarceration rates, divorce rates (children of divorce parents fair poorer in school)? etc.  Kids that can’t afford lunch and have to study hungry.  Good teachers are not going to fix a broken home, a hungry kid, no matter how good they are. Studies have shown pointed out that social programs do not alleviate educational problems, yet you expect a 20-something to make a difference nationally (social programs do work on a case by case basis, just like class by class basis there are good teachers).  How about giving more money to hire family councilors, tutors, advisers, have after school programs to keep kids safe, have free lunches, music classes, hire competent administrators to hire good teacher, better pay for teachers, pay for studies to develop an effective evaluation system of teachers, pay for international teaching collaboration (what are they doing right now with interesting information).  Documentary says throwing money at the problem is not helpful, sure, giving every kid an kindle isn’t going to make a difference, but to ignore our under funded education and how it could use more money in an effective manner is foolhardy.  

It’s important to note that the US spends the most (tied or slightly behind Switzerland) per student.  Yet money is still an issue because we need to spend appropriately.  Other countries with high educational performance recruit top college graduate and pay more than the countries’ average college graduate salary, we don’t.  Teacher salaries are not competitive with the job sector.  According to the 2005 National Education Association (NEA) report, nearly 50 percent of new teachers leave the profession within their first five years teaching; they cite poor working conditions and low pay as the chief reasons.  How are we to retain good teachers when we view teaching as easy work with summers off and reward according to that belief?  Does working for Google or teaching draw today’s top college graduate (barring altruistic few)?  How do you draw US talent when the job market has occupations paying far more?  Most teachers in the United States must go into debt in order to prepare for an occupation that pays them, on average, 60% of the salaries earned by other college graduates. Those who work in poor districts will not only earn less than their colleagues in wealthy schools, but they will pay for many of their students’ books and supplies themselves.

Difference between America and higher achieving countries-

“The contrasts to the American attitude toward teachers and teaching could not have been more stark. Officials from countries like Finland and Singapore described how they have built a high-performing teaching profession by enabling all of their teachers to enter high-quality preparation programs, generally at the masters’ degree level, where they receive a salary while they prepare. There they learn research-based teaching strategies and train with experts in model schools attached to their universities. They enter a well-paid profession – in Singapore earning as much as beginning doctors -- where they are supported by mentor teachers and have 15 or more hours a week to work and learn together – engaging in shared planning, action research, lesson study, and observations in each other’s classrooms. And they work in schools that are equitably funded and well-resourced with the latest technology and materials.” They don't go around firing teachers.

Closer to home,

Bethel Park may lose elementary school music education and went into a hiring freeze because the federal government decided to make educational cuts.  Imagine federal cuts to non wealthy communities.    One has to ask, do you honestly think with the funds allocated toward education that our country will put together an effective method to determine good teachers while evenly spreading them throughout the national school districts?  The movie thinks so.  The movie says, get rid of the bad teachers and create competition but that doesn't change the fact our teaching talent pool is small, good teachers are rare.

Another point- evenly spreading teachers throughout school districts.  My friend wants to work in Mt Lebanon, or any of the South Hills, Bethel, St Clair etc.  because it is a great working environment. Why does Mt Lebanon get thousands of applications for one job versus a few hundred for inner city schools?  A good teacher would likely have more job options (not always the case but for argument sake).  Is it shocking that a teacher who lives in the community with a family may choose a safer neighborhood with better pay?  Incentives are needed to draw teaching talent into undesirable teaching environments, which cost money.  There is a reason more teachers apply to Propel McKeesport than McKeesport (hint- its green and it’s in your pocket and is not a shamrock shake).

Stop waiting for superman, a good teacher is a good teacher and will have a profound effect on the kids they teach; however good teachers alone will not solve the educational system especially with the scant resources available (scant resources also include the availability of good teachers).  Programs need to be put in place to cultural change the perception of teaching, increasing pay and prestige.  This will help create a larger talent pool for schools to draw their teachers.