Cartoon by Ellen Weiss
Teachers are losing ground in the fight to control their classrooms in the wake of the announcement of Gov. Sam Brownback’s new school finance proposal, which handicaps teachers to an archaic “effective-ineffective” scale. Two years of an “ineffective” score warrants a teacher’s termination, according to the new proposal.
It echoes the nation-wide adoption of No Child Left Behind as a benchmark for juvenile achievement. The Bulletin staff believes this is a grave misunderstanding of what successful education looks like.
The work required to maintain a public education system is enormous. Adequate staffing and curriculum, proper facilities and accessibility are the most visible factors. The quality of our teachers is a function of these factors. No Child Left Behind’s test-centered approach cements teachers into a particular kind of education, even though other successful methods of teaching exist.
Surely if Gov. Brownback knew the implications of his new proposal, he would reverse it. Wouldn’t anybody who themselves benefited from public education?
There is little value in a test, especially if the student only retains information long enough to pass with at least an average score. What creates lifelong learning are teachers who imbed in their students a sense of responsibility and wonder about their own education, which is virtually impossible when the bottom line is a test rather than the student’s future.
Waiting for education to get better is a dangerous game. Statistics about America’s decline in science and mathematics have scared people into a reactionary stance, willing to try anything to meet the standard set by the rest of the world.
What we trade in the process is innovation – what once made this country thrive. It is time for the Brownback administration to put faith in Kansas educators instead of punishing them.
As a university with one of the most prestigious teacher’s colleges in the country, our graduates face not only a dwindling market, but now laws and regulations to make teaching increasingly more difficult. It is shameful to think that we are sending our graduates to the professional slaughter house.
If they really think this will solve problems, boy are they wrong. Punishing an educator for the performance of students based on an assessment test is absolutely insane.
This absolutely unfocused ideology is of a simple-minded politician whom is literally painting the pictures of educational professionals as simply people who are not qualified for their job. This is complete bologna.
To strike fear into an educator to lose their job because their students “may fail” or not meet “the requirements” set by the state is ludicrous. Do they really think the “No Child Left Behind” law is going to make a difference in the lives of students. Do they seriously think that by raising a “standard” they are going to achieve perfection. There will always be children that will fail, or drop-out, or not do as well as they could.
I’ve got a bright idea. Lets require a policeman to arrest a certain number of people and if he doesn’t do so, lets fire him in 2 years. Lets require firemen to put out a certain number of fires, and “fire” him in two years if he doesn’t do so. An educator is a lot like a policeman or fireman. The point I’m trying to make is that there is always going to be crime somewhere, there is always going to be a fire somewhere, and there will always be a student somewhere. There is absolutely no way that putting this pressure on educators is going to fix the problems we face today.
If we all need to become robots… so be it. Is that the goal?
A little something I learned in business… When you have a small company built upon good ideas, innovation, creativity, blood and sweat, then attract large investors and expand… In many cases, it goes from a place of fluidity and advancement to a place of Corpo-cracy, Bureaucracy and numbers.
The general point is, keep the power in the teachers not the “Mr. Know-it-all politicians. Don’t put all the extra crap in it. It does not mix well.