Every year our children are given standardized tests. These tests, in many cases, decide the fate of our kids. All too often we are finding that by using one test, our kids–Black and Latino, the majority of students in the system–are the least likely to get the best opportunities.
Is this fair? And do we want to use the same type of process to judge our teachers?
Finding an appropriate assessment methodology is always a complicated process, whether you are talking about teachers or students.
But the Bloomberg administration and its allies would like you to think that, with their charts and computer runs, they have it all figured out. And when it comes to teachers it is simple in their minds; old is bad and young is good. But hold on–we cannot use the tenure system as the poster child for bad teaching. We have thousands of teachers who have been in the school system for years, who have worked tirelessly so that our children have some possible future. These teachers–paid less, in some cases, than garbage men–have changed the courses of children’s lives. Idealistic at 28, and seasoned and powerful at 48, or 58, or even 62, these teachers have made and continue to make a difference.
That being said, there are those teachers who have been in the system for years and are tired, racist, uncaring and just going along, doing the minimum to get by. They didn’t particularly care about our kids when they were 24 or 28, and they certainly don’t care about our kids in their later years–for them it was always about the paycheck. But this is by all means not the majority.
The majority of our teachers care for the kids. Let’s face it; most don’t go into education for the money. And we have to keep in mind that not everyone is cut out to be a teacher–some folks just don’t have the temperament for it, and they can’t manage a class or much of anything else. And even if they did do well in school and are very smart people, some just can’t communicate information to other people.
We all had that math teacher or English teacher or science teacher who made us say: “What the hell was he or she talking about?” And hopefully we also had those wonderful teachers who opened up the world of learning for us.
Recently, my family lost my Aunt Lea (Kohn). She taught for decades. At a recent memorial service for her, her closest friend, Donna Lee, talked about their relationship and how, when she first started teaching, Lea took her under her wing and mentored her. They became best friends despite the fact that Lea was in her 40s when they met and Donna was only 21. Through the years Lea helped guide Donna and taught her how to be a good teacher as well.
As we consider all these issues we have to remember that, at the end of the day, we have to look at what is best for the students.
The “last in, first out” model (LIFO) is in place for a reason. It stops the wholesale firing of the most experienced and expensive teachers for inexpensive new teachers. While this model is not ideal, it is the one that safeguards the most.
The fact is that a bad teacher is a bad teacher, and those are the ones who need to go first. Then layoffs need to be made based on seniority.
We as a collective society need to articulate what qualities and skills make a successful teacher in the classroom. We know that we need experienced teachers like my Aunt Lea to mentor and guide the younger folks. And we know that having a great teacher really can be one of the most memorable experiences in life.
I can remember one of my teachers; Marie Rhone, a Black woman who taught me thirty years ago at Hunter College Elementary School. She just retired a few years ago. She was the ideal, the best of the best. Kids were terrified of her, but they learned, and learned well. It would have been a shame if she had been let go because she was too expensive because she changed lives.
Good teachers come in all shapes, styles, colors and ages. We need our teachers to care and understand the circumstances that our children come from. They must be empathetic and sometimes stern, they must be great communicators who are able to engage our young. We need the best teachers to stay and the worst ones to go. Let’s have that be the real determination. And we need to understand that these decisions are not the same as one of the billionaire mayor’s corporate restructurings where cheaper is better. Any loss of teachers should be thought of as one of our potentially great societal losses, because any of those we lose could be one of the good or even great ones.