On the surface, it makes a great deal of sense. Today's general population public education student is judged almost entirely by their scores on yearly standardized tests, so it seems rational to establish a teacher pay system based upon how successful students are on those tests.
Teachers whose students perform exceedingly well on the tests are obviously doing a great job, and deserve to have a raise to go along with that job. After all, executives in corporate America get performance-based pay, why shouldn't teachers, whose job is so much more important?
All things being equal, that seems perfectly fair.
But all things are NOT equal. In fact, things are anything BUT equal.
I recently volunteered at a Dallas ISD high school, where I've been doing some work to help administration deal with their most challenging students. I got to know a few of the "bad kids," and really there weren't too many surprises. Basically, once a student has been labeled as a "bad kid" we find that teachers tend to look for ways to keep them out of their classrooms, even to the extent of causing an altercation in the hall before class as an excuse to send the student to the office rather than welcome them into the class.
There are bad eggs in every profession, and teaching is absolutely not an exception.
This "bad kid" scenario has taken a nasty turn for the worse now, however, in the light of test scores being used as a primary means of evaluating teacher performance.
One of the students I was working with was so polite, so eager to learn and so responsible that I pulled the principal aside between activities to ask what on earth got the young man labeled a "bad kid." He said the teacher who sent him out of class that day does so every day, and the primary reason why is because this student doesn't do well on the standardized test.
In my day teachers spent EXTRA time with students who were struggling with the material, they didn't send them to office on some bogus discipline charge to avoid having the student in class at all.
Welcome to the age of test-based pay.
Standardized test are a poor excuse for good teaching, and a standardized curriculum is a poor substitute for education. These methods are driving good teachers away from the field, and what's left are either unimaginative, lazy people who just want the time off, and the dwindling number of incredibly committed teachers who refuse to abandon their posts even in the light of more and more ridiculous educational programs.
Basing teacher pay on test scores may seem like a good idea, but when you're out there in the classroom, where national and even state level administration types dare not go, you see that it's undermining a public education system that was already in steep decline.
If we're going to rescue education in America we're going to have to ask teachers to think outside of the box, not keep stuffing them inside the tired old box that never fit to begin with.
Tuesday, March 20, 2012
Should Every Kid Get A Trophy?
There's an interesting trend in the relm of competition among kids, something that seems positive at first, but could actually be having a definite negative impact on society.
It sounds great to say that every kid should get a trophy. Whether it's a scouting event, a junior sports event or some other kind of competition, these days the thinking seems to be that win, lose or draw every participant should receive a trophy.
Sounds good, right? I'm sure adult leaders all over the country pat themselves on that back every time they hand a "Great Attitude" trophy to a kid who just came in last. Congratulations for finding a way to raise the self esteem of children everywhere!
Or not.
You see, there's a fine line between helping build a child's self esteem and sabotaging their work ethic and spirit of competition. Giving every participant a trophy may maintain a certain level of self esteem, but it also undermines a child's inherent drive to succeed.
Ask any teacher, especially in an inner city situation, and you'll find that one of the biggest challenges they face on a daily basis is the sense of entitlement that has taken over the student population. From a very early age they are taught that grades are gifts, not something they earn, that showing up for school is optional, as is following directions from adults once they get there. Parents often side with their children against school personnel, even when the child is clearly in the wrong, which completely undermines the authority of the adults who are charged with, among other things, teaching students to respect authority.
I'm not sure what has brought about this radical change in thinking since I was a kid, some 30 years ago. Motivation was king in those days, and my parents always set goals and incentives for me. It wasn't just about school, either. If I mowed the lawn or washed the family cars there were rewards. If I had a particular number of A's on my report card there was a reward. There was also a strong disincentive if there happened to be a "C" on my report card, and disincentives are every bit as important as incentives.
The primary objective in parenting and teaching is to prepare our young people to survive in the real world, where competition is still very much king and nothing worth having is ever given away for free. Knowing this, who came up with the idea that every child should have a trophy?
The real world simply doesn't work like that.
In the real world, the most committed and qualified applicant gets the job. If they show up late, dress inappropriately, or choose not to show, they get fired. There are no second chances and there is no reward. There is no trophy for second place, and instilling that sense of competition and pride in accomplishments from an early age is supremely important as we look to prepare our kids to be successful adults.
Giving every child a trophy might sound good on the surface, but the truth is that rewarding mediocrity and even failure actually handicaps our the very children we are looking to build up.
It sounds great to say that every kid should get a trophy. Whether it's a scouting event, a junior sports event or some other kind of competition, these days the thinking seems to be that win, lose or draw every participant should receive a trophy.
Sounds good, right? I'm sure adult leaders all over the country pat themselves on that back every time they hand a "Great Attitude" trophy to a kid who just came in last. Congratulations for finding a way to raise the self esteem of children everywhere!
Or not.
You see, there's a fine line between helping build a child's self esteem and sabotaging their work ethic and spirit of competition. Giving every participant a trophy may maintain a certain level of self esteem, but it also undermines a child's inherent drive to succeed.
Ask any teacher, especially in an inner city situation, and you'll find that one of the biggest challenges they face on a daily basis is the sense of entitlement that has taken over the student population. From a very early age they are taught that grades are gifts, not something they earn, that showing up for school is optional, as is following directions from adults once they get there. Parents often side with their children against school personnel, even when the child is clearly in the wrong, which completely undermines the authority of the adults who are charged with, among other things, teaching students to respect authority.
I'm not sure what has brought about this radical change in thinking since I was a kid, some 30 years ago. Motivation was king in those days, and my parents always set goals and incentives for me. It wasn't just about school, either. If I mowed the lawn or washed the family cars there were rewards. If I had a particular number of A's on my report card there was a reward. There was also a strong disincentive if there happened to be a "C" on my report card, and disincentives are every bit as important as incentives.
The primary objective in parenting and teaching is to prepare our young people to survive in the real world, where competition is still very much king and nothing worth having is ever given away for free. Knowing this, who came up with the idea that every child should have a trophy?
The real world simply doesn't work like that.
In the real world, the most committed and qualified applicant gets the job. If they show up late, dress inappropriately, or choose not to show, they get fired. There are no second chances and there is no reward. There is no trophy for second place, and instilling that sense of competition and pride in accomplishments from an early age is supremely important as we look to prepare our kids to be successful adults.
Giving every child a trophy might sound good on the surface, but the truth is that rewarding mediocrity and even failure actually handicaps our the very children we are looking to build up.
Friday, February 24, 2012
Failure SHOULD BE An Option
Any given motivational speaker, military commander, coach or public school teacher is likely to utter the words "failure is not an option," but No Child Left Behind took the meaning of the statement to new extremes.
Literally . . .failure is NOT an option.
While I was building my basketball brand I spent more than a decade working in and around public schools, specifically as a special education teacher. I had the "bad" kids, which really just means I had the kids everyone had given up on. They were the ones carrying labels like ADD (Attention Deficit Disorder), ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder) or even the dreaded ODD (Oppositional Defiant Disorder), and essentially it was my job to just keep them out of sight and out of the office.
Ironically, it wasn't my kids who were having the real problems . . .it was the "normal" kids.
A big part of my job was to help the behaviorally-challenged students try to integrate into mainstream classes, and as such I spent a great deal of time in regular high school classrooms with the regular high school kids. I saw the way teachers were being forced to teach to the end-of-the-year test, and I heard stories about how they weren't allowed to fail students except under extreme circumstances.
That's right - no matter how poorly a student performed (or how seldom they showed up to class), failure was simply not allowed. I even had one friend, a very good Algebra teacher, who was ultimately fired because she refused to pass a group of students who didn't deserve to pass. And trust me, they didn't deserve to pass.
Something has happened to public school kids since the time I was in school. Back in my day - which really wasn't THAT long ago - the very idea of calling a teacher a name or even threatening a teacher was absolutely unheard of. What's more, if I had ever dared to do such a thing my parents would have put me so far under ground I would never have been heard from again. Disrespecting teachers simply was not something I could have ever gotten away with.
Now it's practically commonplace. And don't bother send the offending student to the office because they'll be right back in your classroom 10 minutes later with a satisfied smirk on his/her face, ready to repeat the offense because there really was no consequence for doing it the first time.
But attitude problems are really only the beginning of the issue. Many of today's students simply won't do the work, to an extent that the principal of the school where I worked actually made a rule that teachers were not allowed to count homework for a grade. You see, so few kids were doing their homework that it was bringing down the school's collective GPA.
One might think that the solution was a stricter homework policy, but no, in today's public schools we take the path of least resistance. All homework should be considered optional, and never taken for a grade.
Truancy is also a growing problem, with kids often missing so many days of class that they couldn't even be gifted a passing grade. Still, failure is not an option. No, to deal with that little issue our school district came up with a little thing called Credit Recovery, where students can pay $10 per class at the end of the semester and sit in the cafeteria after school for three hours and have their missing credits magically restored. What's really great is that they are not allowed to talk, interact with anyone, or even work on the classwork they missed during that time. It was a great money-maker for the school, but had absolutely no redemptive quality as far as recovering the information that was lost.
So Joe Truant skips boring old Algebra I for a semester, shows up at the end and pays his $10, and now he has credit for first semester Algebra I. He is now assigned second semester Algebra II . . .and you can see where we're going. Math builds on itself, so a student who didn't bother to show up for Algebra I has no prayer of passing Algebra II, but don't worry - the teacher will either be required to pass the student anyway or, if enough classes are missed, he can always show up and pay for credit recovery again in the Spring.
And the cycle repeats.
So my question is this: At what point did failure become a bad thing?
When I was in second grade there was a girl in my class who was supposed to be in third grade, but she had failed and was sentenced to repeat. That made an impression on me, I can tell you. I was never allowed to get a failing grade, mind you, or even a C, really, but if my parents weren't motivation enough seeing that girl get held back was more than enough for me to get the picture. I didn't want to see all my friends move on while I sat back in the dunce chair.
That failure taught my friend a lesson, but it also taught everyone around her a lesson. She never failed again, and wound up graduating the same year I did. Lesson learned.
No one wants to see a child fail a grade. It's embarrassing, as much as anything else. But it's a far worse offense to pass a child who hasn't earned the passing grades, as doing so creates a permanent welfare case for the public schools. Why work when you have figured out that it's not necessary?
Where's the logic behind this change in public education? What is the end result? At no time in Joe Truant's life is he going to get something for nothing. If he is late for work, he gets fired. If he goes to college, no professor is going to give a passing grade to a student who never does the work. In short, we're handicapping kids . . .possibly for life.
Failure should never be encouraged, and everyone involved - students, teachers, parents and even administrators - should work hard to try and avoid that outcome. Still, if, at the end of the day, despite everyone's best efforts, a student simply earns a failing grade . . .the only outcome that's in the best interest of the student is to receive the grade they have earned.
Failure should be an option once again.
Literally . . .failure is NOT an option.
While I was building my basketball brand I spent more than a decade working in and around public schools, specifically as a special education teacher. I had the "bad" kids, which really just means I had the kids everyone had given up on. They were the ones carrying labels like ADD (Attention Deficit Disorder), ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder) or even the dreaded ODD (Oppositional Defiant Disorder), and essentially it was my job to just keep them out of sight and out of the office.
Ironically, it wasn't my kids who were having the real problems . . .it was the "normal" kids.
A big part of my job was to help the behaviorally-challenged students try to integrate into mainstream classes, and as such I spent a great deal of time in regular high school classrooms with the regular high school kids. I saw the way teachers were being forced to teach to the end-of-the-year test, and I heard stories about how they weren't allowed to fail students except under extreme circumstances.
That's right - no matter how poorly a student performed (or how seldom they showed up to class), failure was simply not allowed. I even had one friend, a very good Algebra teacher, who was ultimately fired because she refused to pass a group of students who didn't deserve to pass. And trust me, they didn't deserve to pass.
Something has happened to public school kids since the time I was in school. Back in my day - which really wasn't THAT long ago - the very idea of calling a teacher a name or even threatening a teacher was absolutely unheard of. What's more, if I had ever dared to do such a thing my parents would have put me so far under ground I would never have been heard from again. Disrespecting teachers simply was not something I could have ever gotten away with.
Now it's practically commonplace. And don't bother send the offending student to the office because they'll be right back in your classroom 10 minutes later with a satisfied smirk on his/her face, ready to repeat the offense because there really was no consequence for doing it the first time.
But attitude problems are really only the beginning of the issue. Many of today's students simply won't do the work, to an extent that the principal of the school where I worked actually made a rule that teachers were not allowed to count homework for a grade. You see, so few kids were doing their homework that it was bringing down the school's collective GPA.
One might think that the solution was a stricter homework policy, but no, in today's public schools we take the path of least resistance. All homework should be considered optional, and never taken for a grade.
Truancy is also a growing problem, with kids often missing so many days of class that they couldn't even be gifted a passing grade. Still, failure is not an option. No, to deal with that little issue our school district came up with a little thing called Credit Recovery, where students can pay $10 per class at the end of the semester and sit in the cafeteria after school for three hours and have their missing credits magically restored. What's really great is that they are not allowed to talk, interact with anyone, or even work on the classwork they missed during that time. It was a great money-maker for the school, but had absolutely no redemptive quality as far as recovering the information that was lost.
So Joe Truant skips boring old Algebra I for a semester, shows up at the end and pays his $10, and now he has credit for first semester Algebra I. He is now assigned second semester Algebra II . . .and you can see where we're going. Math builds on itself, so a student who didn't bother to show up for Algebra I has no prayer of passing Algebra II, but don't worry - the teacher will either be required to pass the student anyway or, if enough classes are missed, he can always show up and pay for credit recovery again in the Spring.
And the cycle repeats.
So my question is this: At what point did failure become a bad thing?
When I was in second grade there was a girl in my class who was supposed to be in third grade, but she had failed and was sentenced to repeat. That made an impression on me, I can tell you. I was never allowed to get a failing grade, mind you, or even a C, really, but if my parents weren't motivation enough seeing that girl get held back was more than enough for me to get the picture. I didn't want to see all my friends move on while I sat back in the dunce chair.
That failure taught my friend a lesson, but it also taught everyone around her a lesson. She never failed again, and wound up graduating the same year I did. Lesson learned.
No one wants to see a child fail a grade. It's embarrassing, as much as anything else. But it's a far worse offense to pass a child who hasn't earned the passing grades, as doing so creates a permanent welfare case for the public schools. Why work when you have figured out that it's not necessary?
Where's the logic behind this change in public education? What is the end result? At no time in Joe Truant's life is he going to get something for nothing. If he is late for work, he gets fired. If he goes to college, no professor is going to give a passing grade to a student who never does the work. In short, we're handicapping kids . . .possibly for life.
Failure should never be encouraged, and everyone involved - students, teachers, parents and even administrators - should work hard to try and avoid that outcome. Still, if, at the end of the day, despite everyone's best efforts, a student simply earns a failing grade . . .the only outcome that's in the best interest of the student is to receive the grade they have earned.
Failure should be an option once again.
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