by Michael Deshotels
Destroying the teaching profession? That's a pretty sensational
pronouncement. My background as a science teacher requires me to provide
evidence when I make such a dramatic claim. Lets look at the evidence:
- Starting with Act 54 of 2010,
our State, in an effort to win Race to the Top grants from the US
Department of Education, decided to tie half of our teacher evaluations to
student performance using a system called the Value Added Model. In the
process of adopting regulations for VAM, our new State Superintendent
unilaterally (in contradiction to the law) decided to count the VAM for
100% of a teacher's evaluation in cases where a teacher scored in the
bottom 10% of the VAM ranking of teachers. Why do I consider
this as part of the destruction of the teaching profession? As the LDOE
was in the process of finalizing the VAM system, it was never revealed to
the general public that the initial testing of the VAM demonstrated that
the stability or reliability of the VAM system was totally erratic and
unreliable. Data showed that up to 74% of the teachers rated as
ineffective by VAM could have been incorrectly graded. Around that same
time the original author of Act 54, Representative Frank Hoffman
who is an experienced educator declined to endorse the VAM plan. He
was immediately removed from his position on the House Education Committee
by Jindal lieutenants. The new VAM system was implemented anyway in the
2012-13 school year with chaotic results. John White changed the rules
several times in the middle of the process and even approved exceptions
for one group of teachers based on political pressure from a Jindal
lieutenant to go easy on teachers in one of his favored schools. On the
other hand, some teachers who had reputations as excellent teachers were
crushed by the new inaccurate system.
- The next huge blow to the
teaching profession came in 2012 with the ramming through of Act 1 by the
Jindal administration. This was the new law that was intended by Jindal
and White to make every employment decision in our K-12 schools dependent
in some way on student performance. It is now well known by educational
researchers that the classroom teacher has no more than a 20% influence on
the academic performance of students. Socioeconomic factors are much more
dominant in determining student outcomes, yet Jindal sought to make 100%
of a teacher's future totally dependent on student outcomes. (That is of
course except for some teachers who were specifically exempted mainly
because they were favored by a Jindal ally) Act 1 was introduced at the
very beginning of the 2012 legislative session with instructions to Jindal
lieutenants to move the legislation through before teachers and their
unions could react effectively. Even so, with minimal notice,
thousands of teachers showed up at the capitol to oppose Jindal's
draconian legislation. At first they were locked out of the capitol while
representatives of business and industry and a fake professional
organization were let into the committee room to take all the seats. When
teachers were finally let in to testify, one of the Jindalistas demanded
to know from each teacher before they testified about what type of leave
they were taking to visit the capitol. That set the tenor for the entire
debate, and the conclusion was well known even before the debate began. In
addition to the atrocities of Act 1, Act 2 adopted in the same
session dropped the requirement that teachers in charter schools
have education degrees. Also our non-educator Superintendent, John White
announced that advanced teacher degrees made no difference in
effectiveness and that the state would stop funding the National
Board Certified Teachers. Step increases which for years had encouraged
long careers in education began to be systematically phased out by Act I
at the same time that seniority rights were dissolved and merit pay based
on the erratic VAM was added.
- It turned out that Act 1 was so
hastily drawn up that it violated the State Constitution and it also
violated the basic principles of due process. Courts have now struck down
almost all parts of the new law. Kudos to the much maligned teacher
unions (LAE and LFT) for fighting hard and winning legal battles for
the teaching profession.
- At the same time that teachers
were expected to accept their loss of seniority rights, loss of step
increases, loss of pay for advanced degrees, loss of support of NBCT, and
accept the atrocities of the erratic VAM system, they were also subjected
to a new untested COMPASS evaluation system. This new evaluation amounted
to little more than a dog and pony show. Administrators were expected to
penalize teachers if they could not demonstrate that their students showed
initiative and self direction. What about teachers who happened to be
assigned students who had very little motivation and self direction?
Competent administrators were just as frustrated as experienced teachers
by this artificial “play acting” while the new evaluation contained no
real measurement for the kinds of reliability and creativity that are so
important in the long run for effective teaching.
- Another way to destroy teaching
as a profession is to humiliate and embarrass teachers at every
opportunity and blame them for the ills of society. That is what has been
done with the way the accountability system has been implemented in
Louisiana. Originally (15 years ago) school accountability was supposed to
be equally applied to schools, teachers, parents and students.
Now our education bosses have dropped all pretense of requiring accountability
of parents and students. The relentless attempt to shame and blame
teachers and schools for factors over which they have no control is
resulting in a corruption of the entire accountability system. Read
this Crazy Crawfish blog to see how teachers in EBR are being
systematically humiliated in an effort to pass and graduate all students
without regard to actual academic achievement. Classroom discipline laws
are violated every day in a blind effort to baby all students into staying
in school. But its not just happening in EBR. The New Orleans Recovery
District has been coercing teachers to give passing grades to students who
have done nothing in class but disrupt the education of other students.
These are examples of Campbell's law which is a well know principle that
explains how pressures applied to educators to meet unrealistic goals are
corrupting and compromising the intended accountability. That's why some
administrators are systematically violating state discipline law and the
toothless joke that is called the “teacher bill of rights” initially
sponsored but never enforced by Jindal. Look at what happened
to the Baker teacher who tried to enforce school rules. How can anyone
continue teaching under these conditions?
- The final insult to teachers is
that they are now being asked to implement a new set of standards for
their students that are in many cases age inappropriate, that do not allow
for individual differences in students and that have been rushed without
field testing of any kind. Only in the field of education are reformers
who are not professional educators willing to implement major changes
without field testing. The ultimate insult to the teaching profession is
that such standards were developed by non-K-12 teachers who will never
have to demonstrate any competence as teachers. The director of the Common
Core writing committee (David Coleman) is a person that was denied a job
as a K-12 teacher because he had no teaching credentials.
- It is a demonstration of the
lack of respect for the teaching profession in Louisiana that the last two
State Superintendents of education in our state have no credentials as
educators. John White could not be hired as an assistant principal in most
Louisiana schools yet he has been given supreme authority over all
teachers and administrators in this state. Our national Secretary of
Education is also a non-educator. Is this how our country
professionalizes teaching?
So now when an
analysis by Lafayette Association of Educators president Rodolfo Espinoza
demonstrates (see
also the post on Diane Ravitch's blog) that there has been a huge increase
in the number of teacher resignations in Lafayette Parish, the State
Superintendent calmly assures us that there is no real problem in the teaching
profession. Who needs real teachers anyway? All we need are test teachers. Click here to enjoy my
favorite test teaor cher song.
Michael Deshotels is the author of the Louisiana Educator blog. He is a retired Louisiana educator who taught science at the secondary level. Mr. Deshotels also served in various positions with the Louisiana Association of Educators
culminating in the position of Executive Director prior to his retirement Article reprinted by permission.
