Yesterday Chalkbeat published an article that showed that minority schools have less qualified teachers, suffer from high teacher turnover, lack a Masters degree, and are less likely to be certified in the core subjects. The report inferred that racism may play a part in the teacher inequality issue. However, in my opinion, its about the student discipline policies and not the color of the student's skin that affect teacher quality.
While its hard to ignore the fact that some students grow up with crime, violence, dysfunctional families, and poverty which shows up in the school as student misbehavior. It doesn't mean that all children disrespect adult authority, Most students find the school as a "safe haven" and social outlet where they can confide their problems with sympathetic adults. In fact, it's usually a few students that exhibit continuous disruptive behaviors and interfere with student learning in the classroom. Even Democratic Presidential candidate, Hillary Clinton, has in the past called Black kids "Super-predators" and refused to apologize when confronted with that statement this week. Therefore, it is important for a school to have a firm, fair, but strict discipline policy to dispel the myth of a bad kid..
Unfortunately, far too many schools don't have a consistent student discipline policy and a few have subscribed to the failed restorative justice approach that the students think is a joke. The result is a school out of control and quality teachers will either flee the school at their first opportunity, or leave the profession entirely. .
If a school is to retain and nurture quality teachers, the administration must have the back of their teachers and not stab the in the back and blame the teacher rather than discipline the student. A school with a firm, fair, and strict discipline policy and a supportive administration will retain quality teachers no matter the student population.
Restorative justice is a bad joke. Kids are openly doing drug deals. Students are being openly bullied and the victims are given the forced safety transfers, not the bullies. Most kids are carrying knives if their school has no detectors. Teachers are afraid and so are many students. How can you teach or learn if you're afraid? DeBlasio is completely nuts. Look at all the slashings. Bratton wants the media to stop reporting it. Bring back stop and frisk.
ReplyDeleteYes...well this is a PC conversation...and honesty is not allowed. Tell the truth on this Welfare State issue and you are villified...much easier to sweep under the rug...for decades...
ReplyDeleteI work in a 100% minority school. We have mostly teachers with less than 3-4 years teaching experience. Only a handful have over 5. The problem is, besides the conditions, that the school leadership is under pressure to 'look tough on those lazy teachers' and they low rate a lot of us for nothing, even though we are doing Herculean work. The 'Danielson's' rubric is a croc - more prone to abuse by admins than the old system. Your ratings depend on whether they like you or not, and that's just the way it is. At my school, most of us understand that and just keep our heads down and try to avoid the death stare of our bully administrators.
ReplyDeleteThis is the most truth telling post I have ever seen. You have precisely described my school as well. Spot-on. I have never seen a more out-to-getcha vibe in my *entire* career. *Anywhere*. These Admin's are tuned up to get heads.
DeleteIt's funny that people think DeBlasio is more teacher friendly. It doesn't matter even if that were true. Cuomo tacitly took over the schools 3 years ago with the ETA. And the anti-teacher vibe is now more intense than it ever was. De Blasio'd better find away to call off the hounds. No way in hell I'd vote for him if the election were today. Teacher turnover is through the roof. He could start firing Principals and APs who can't keep teachers. He still has control of hiring and firing. And, kids in poor neighborhoods don't deserve constant churn of inexperienced Ts.
Restorative justice will work in time if there is also an effort outside the school to fix inequality
ReplyDelete10:37,
ReplyDeleteYou mean jail?
No, I mean revolution.
ReplyDeleteI think the question is what does a school do when it's students come in behind grade level.
ReplyDeleteWhen the only two answers are 1) pass kids who have not learned the content or 2) flunk them out - then there are likely to be serious discipline issues.
Beating the drum for law and order feels good, but hearkening back to the days of 50% drop out rates might not be such a good thing.
Time to look for better answers to the real question.
Jonathan
We need to critically examine these ideas "grade level" etc etc and rethink how we educate people. For too long schools have been qualification machines for bourgeois kids and stigmatization machines for everyone else except the "talented tenth"
ReplyDeleteTo me, these changes are insignificant. Initial decisions to terminate an ATR still have to follow 3020-a process. State arbitrators still hold the power not the DOE.
ReplyDelete