Teacher Job Satisfaction Low- So What?

Teacher friendly bloggers and websites are all writing this week about the MetLife Survey of the American Teacher.  (See Ed Week , Huffington Post , The Answer Sheet , Larry Ferlazzo for more)  The take away headline is this "Teacher Job Satisfaction At A Low Point."  Interesting headlines usually provide some bit of surprising information.  Not this one.

Look at what is happening across the country: reduced funding, larger class sizes, more initiatives and mandates with less support, legislation to weaken the status of teachers, accountability movements that are detrimental to student learning, the list could go on.

While the headline about teacher satisfaction may fall on a few sympathetic ears, teachers in public education should realize that for many this finding will fall under the category of "who cares?"  Our salaries are paid by the public.  A public which has largely dealt with economic problems for nearly half a decade.  This same public cringes at the gas pump, worries about mortgages going under water, faces uncertainty with employment, and otherwise lives in doubt about the economic future of their household and nation.

To this public, a likely response to the headline may be "Welcome to the club!"  Our current economic situation is not an excuse for teachers to roll over and watch the systematic dismantling of public education, but general surveys of the working public show the same trend.

What is the appropriate reaction to this survey?  Should teachers shout out for change and demand better conditions or is it time we realized that times are hard all around?

The Teaching Underground on Virginia's State of the Commonwealth

Virginia Governor, Bob McDonnell, delivered his "State of the Commonwealth Address" this evening, part of which includes highlights of his education plans for the next two year cycle.  Below are highlights from his speech with the Teaching Underground comments in italics.

States are competing against each other, and the world, for job-creating businesses.

When deciding where to move or expand, businesses look for a well-educated and well-trained workforce. We owe every student the opportunity to be career-ready or college-ready when they graduate from high school. A good education means a good job.

This is how McDonnell begins his comments on education.  It is unfortunate that economics is quickly becoming the only measure of value in American society. 

 

I have proposed an increase in funding for K-12 education of $438 million over this biennium to strengthen the Virginia Retirement System for teachers and school employees, increase dollars going to the classroom, hire more teachers in science, technology and math, improve financial literacy, and strengthen Virginia’s diploma requirements.

I appreciate the contribution to VRS, but it doesn't cover increases enough to keep from impacting local budgets.  I know this is an area where public employees are often compared to the private sector.  I won't complain about the benefits, but I know from friends in the private sector that I'm not getting any significant retirement benefits over them.  

I haven't seen any indication that the new budget really adds dollars directly to the classroom.

STEM is certainly important, but I think it is quite over-stated as of late.  We should stay competitive, but not so much that we sacrifice and devalue HEAR (History, English, Arts, and Recess).  O.K.- lame attempt at humor.

As for financial literacy, perhaps there should be a remedial effort aimed toward adults who make public policy considering they demonstrate such a deficiency in this area. 

We will also provide new funding for the successful Communities in Schools program, as well as funding for all 10th graders to take the PSAT, and for the start up of new health science academies.

Thank goodness we're making another standardized test possible for students.  It's about time.

However, while we will put more funding into K-12 in this budget, more funding alone does not guarantee greater results.

Of course not, we need to stick it to the bad teachers.

Over the past decade, total funding for public education increased 41 percent, while enrollment only went up 6 percent. This budget will provide new funding, but we will also seek more accountability, choice, rigor and innovation.

Is the increase any wonder?  How much more do we spend on testing, data collection, and reporting?  Federal and State mandates and partially funded programs and policies just like what you're proposing tonight have bloated local expenses.

Providing flexibility to local school divisions is important. It is time to repeal the state mandate that school divisions begin their school term after Labor Day unless they receive a waiver. Already, 77 of the 132 school divisions have these waivers, so that the exceptions have become the rule.

DoubleSpeak- If providing flexibility to local school divisions is important, then provide flexibility to local school divisions.  You meant to say 'even though our tourism industry is against it, repealing the Kings' Dominion law is a great leverage point for me to get folks on board with my less popular points like continuing contracts for teachers.'
 

Local communities can best balance their teaching and calendar needs with the important concerns of local tourism and business. They know their situations far better than Richmond.

And our next big initiative can be longer school years since that obstacle is out of the way.
 

Our teachers are well educated and motivated professionals who deserve to be treated as such.

Then do it.
 

Just like workers in most other jobs get reviewed every year, and are therefore able to be more accurately promoted and rewarded for their success, so too should our teachers.

When is your annual review Gov. McDonnell?  Oh, that's right, it's a four year term.

I am asking that we remove the continuing contract status from teachers and principals and provide an annual contract in its place. This will allow us to implement an improved evaluation system that really works and give principals a new tool to utilize in managing their schools. Along with the merit pay pilot program we approved last year, we will provide more incentives and accountability to attract and retain the best and brightest teachers.

Can you REALLY ignore the mountains of research that show incentives and merit pay don't improve student learning?  Data-driven, huh?  Dan Pink save us please.

We’ve got so many great teachers in Virginia, teachers like Stacy Hoeflich, a fourth grade teacher at John Adams Elementary School in Alexandria, who was recently named the National History Teacher of the Year.

I happen to think my sister Nancy, a public school teacher in Amherst County, is a great teacher.

Your House Majority Leader, Kirk Cox, is a great teacher.

We all know strong teachers who deserve to be better recognized for the invaluable roles they play in the development and learning of our students.

Yes, and we all know racists who say "I've got lots of (fill in the group) friends."  Picking a handful of teachers to praise doesn't excuse the disrespect toward all teachers communicated by your proposal. 

We will also fund policies to ensure all young people can read proficiently by third grade, so they are ready to become lifelong learners. Social promotions are not acceptable. When we pass a student who cannot read well and is not ready for the next grade, we have failed them.

But we won't invest more in pre-school and real early intervention.  I guess they have to be officially tested before we can justify intervention.

Our public education system must also embrace multiple learning venues and opportunities.

I agree with President Obama that we need to expand charter schools in our nation. I am proposing that we make our laws stronger by requiring a portion of the state and local share of SOQ student funding to follow the child to an approved charter school, and to make it easier for new charters to be approved and acquire property.

A Republican governor evoking the name of Barak Obama-- bad education policy knows no party.  But why can't we give greater flexibility to traditional public schools and let them innovate and provide choice.  In our county, we already do this with a Math, Engineering, and Science Academy and will add a Health Sciences Academy next year.  Charters have no proven track record of out performing public schools.

We need a fair funding formula for the fast growing virtual school sector. I will propose that a portion of the state and local share of SOQ student funding should follow the student in this area as well, and that we implement new regulations for accrediting virtual schools and teachers.

i.e., reduce barriers and make it easier.  While clamping down on teacher tenure and accountability for traditional public schools, you're going to make it easier to operate virtual schools.  I bet K12 loves this.

We should also create effective choices for low-income students, so I’m asking you to provide a tax credit for companies that contribute to an educational scholarship fund to help more of our young people, and I thank Delegates Jimmie Massie and Algie Howell, and Senators Walter Stosch and Mark Obenshain for their leadership on this issue. A child’s educational opportunities should be determined by her intellect and work ethic, not by her neighborhood or zip code.

CREATE A TAX CREDIT FOR COMPANIES!!! Forget the public responsibility to provide equal opportunity regardless of economic status, let's add incentives and trust the goodwill of the private sector.

We will also propose innovations to promote greater dual enrollment in high school and community college, so motivated students can get a head start on their college educations.

The goal of all of these proposals is simple: at high school graduation, every student who receives a diploma must be college- or career-ready.

And there you have it.  At least we have a simple goal. 

Me, Us and Them

Populations are made up of individuals.  The wise teacher figures out quickly each class is full of individual kids.  Likewise schools are composed of individual teachers. When you start treating individual teachers as unimportant, then ultimately schools will become unimportant. I can't escape the reality that such an Orwellian reality has arrived when a parent goes online and looks me up deciding if I am a good teacher before meeting me or talking to anyone who has kids I've taught. Or a reformer looks at data and makes a determination without even speaking to anyone in a school.

For the unlearned out there here's a little wikipedia help: ORWELLIAN-describes the situation, idea, or societal condition that George Orwell identified as being destructive to the welfare of a free society. It connotes an attitude and a policy of control by propaganda, surveillance, misinformation, denial of truth, and manipulation of the past. I can think of a few things I deal with daily that fit that mold. The most immediate is how schools and teachers are being treated across the nation.

Essentially at their root many of the ideas I think are ill conceived seem to erode my ability to operate with autonomy. Should I have a completely free hand to do what I want? Of course not. But one concept that seems to echo with me is that those shaping teaching view it as a science that can be adjusted in such a way to produce a definite outcome. Where decisions are made by those who operate in a data first environment.  Many teaching see the world differently.  We  know teaching is an art.  Imagine a concert where all the solos were scripted.  A museum that only featured paint by number artwork.  A football team where players ran plays from a script based solely on down and distance unconcerned with score or field position.    Those things might be functional and generate predictable outcomes but they would also be very limiting.   As a teacher I need to be able to have freedom and play to my strengths on a daily basis.  One big thing impeding this is the smothering amount of demands being placed on me.

Already this year I have struggled to become quickly familiar with all my students.  I know that a positive relationship is often key to their success.  I am struggling to give and grade rigorous assignments in a timely fashion. While chalking it up to age at first I realized I have 142 kids. That alone is enough to bury me in grading if I let it. (1 essay, 5 mins each x 140 = 11 hours)   Couple it with the push to standardize curriculum and all the other adjustments I've made over the past  3 years and those I make daily and kids could start to slowly slip to just a name and number on a page and simply part of a larger whole. Sure some of that is the compulsory teacher griping.  It is also a red flag.  Nowhere am I hearing this on the news or even in discussions about our division.   These issues are veiled by clips of new computers, talks of budgets and a Newsweek ranking.

Now hard work never killed anyone.  Countless people work hard every day.  I suspect many teachers think they work too hard when they actually don't.  But too much work will in fact kill my ability to teach well.  Some of the most successful and competitive companies in the world recognize this fact and build in "free" time for their employees to innovate.  In that sense the private sector has realized the value of their workers.  I am getting to the point where I literally can't do a good job with my kids. Yet I am being held more accountable.  I am losing the ability to practice my craft...and it is not my fault.  I can cover content, collect data, assign a grade...but in no way can I maintain much of what I do that matters so much. All this stuff we've been talking about on this blog over the past months is starting to prevent me from being as good of a teacher as I am capable.

My concerns about student load and class size would be dismissed by folks who would point to data and studies about successful schools. They say it matters little in terms of affecting student success. They are wrong. Efforts to replicate the famous STAR study on class size from Tennessee are a classic example of wayward policy when people forget the importance of individuals. Probably a result of paying people to sit and analyze data far removed from the people the information represents.  This is in my opinion a useless enterprise.   That is after all what computers are for. 

Claims that changes are needed to standardize curriculum intending to give all students access to quality teaching and instruction who currently do not have it drive a disproportionate number of decisions. The basic premise is to fix the SYSTEM without regard to the impact it has on the people within it.  Thus revealing the absence of any appreciation for the individual teacher and what they accomplish every day.  Big mistake. You can't on one hand claim quality teachers are among the biggest factor in student growth and then ignore what they say and what makes each of them unique.  And yes I feel ignored. 

There are certainly bad teachers. Heck maybe I'm among them by some measures that are used.  But who in their right mind would make efforts to identify bad teachers using methods that adversely affect all those that are not. You cannot simply look at what one teacher does well and finds as effective and then ask other teachers to replicate that same thing. Certain patterns and skills may easily transfer but there are way too many variables to begin to think that it makes any sense whatsoever to just make that idea bigger.

Average Class Size affects the quality of what kids can get from me while they are in the classroom. Total Student Load affects what I the teacher can do. The greatest flaw with any research on teaching is that researchers don't seem to talk to real teachers during their research. The mountains of data keep them from seeing that all those kids I have prevent me from realizing my potential as a teacher, no matter how many methods or techniques I have access to.  The same is true for students who are increasingly being asked to take on a greater academic  load.  Sure the numbers look good from far away but get closer and you'll see what the unintended impact is on individual kids and families.  While all this unfolds the term accountability is thrown about as a buzz word like it has any meaning to anyone making decisions.    Now this is not a developing nation's classroom lacking basic necessities, but I can affect more positive change with fewer kids.  I am drowning in work.

So classes are made up of individual kids and the fact I might now be unaware that one of them was having a bad day matters a lot. The fact I didn't ask how they were doing and engage them in potentially the only real conversation they'll have all day matters.  The fact I now teach 142 separate people matters.  No Child Left Behind actually has meant more kids in my classes making it harder to identify and focus on ones that need more help.  Shame that teachers were and continue to be left out of the loop and simply treated as the group causing the problems and not potential solutions.  No doubt we might offer quite a few good ideas that would affect immediate change for the better.  Because we are plugged into what is happening.  I know these issues are present elsewhere but they never emerge from behind the newest and latest drive for innovation and reform.  Truth is I can hardly tell where we are headed by looking back at the track we are following.  That's scary and might mean all these efforts aren't really getting us anywhere.

As we prepare to tighten our belts once again as our division faces budget shortfalls I cannot help but expect that means my job will again get harder.   That affects me.  I have concerns on what changes and cuts mean to all of us in this building every day.  I can only hope that decision makers will recognize how the easy course is not always the better course and think first of us and not of them as they chart a course and navigate our course.  Be forewarned though that an unappreciative view of the significance and talents of individuals will simply contribute to more ideas not worthy of the term reform.

The Digital Bandwagon

Tim exits his mom's car and flips open his phone to begin textting. His Ipod blaring as he weaves his way through the halls barely avoiding collisions with others whose eyes are also glued to tiny screens. He rounds the corner and enters my room. He puts his phone away and removes his ear buds and plops into his seat. He takes out his Netbook and frantically checks his E-mail and Facebook before the bell.  He next logs in to begin the lesson for the day using Edmodo and begins working pausing occasionally to check twitter feeds. So Tim has done a lot this morning but he hasn't done one thing, spoken directly with anyone.  Is Tim your son in my class? Probably not as things aren't that bad but we better keep an eye on Tim and his classmates.

Nothing is as attractive or as marketable for schools as digital technology. My neighboring local district is spending more than $2 million to provide each student in 6th-12th grade with Windows based tablets. The adoption accompanied by a flashy new acronym, the Blended Learning to Advance Student Thinking(BLAST). Most schools are increasingly investing in technology as a key improvement strategy.  One to one is coming. 

One to one is the educational jargon meaning that each student has his or her own computer. School divisions, and thus public taxpayers, are pouring funds into equipping students with the latest and greatest digital resources. Smartboards, Promethean Boards, LCD projectors, laptops, Ipads, Computer Labs, Instant Poll Clickers, Software Applications and Information Management Systems and the dizzying amount of unseen infrastructure needed to make them function are sucking up cash like a vacuum. But as decision makers barely pause to reflect on these investments it might be prudent to consider them a bit more.

I think having access to such tools is great for both kids and teachers. Where would I be if in the 1980's Apple IIe hadn't appeared and allowed me to learn LOGO?   (Probably in the same place)  Technology is a great asset in education.  I love computers and what they allow schools to do.    What they are not is a guarantee that learning and education will improve. Soldiers in the military can be more effective with the best weapons. Teachers too can multiply their impact with new tools. But both must know how to integrate them to do their job. Another way of thinking about it is you don't just pass out bazookas. (OK a bit of a stretch but I liked the phrasing) Schools should both pilot technology and also prepare the majority of teachers to utilize such tools. If they don't then they are eye candy and do little to substantively improve what's already happening.   

Technology adoption is more complex that it appears. Worth remembering is that these tools don't stay "new" for very long and as an example that little Apple IIe far outlasted its usefulness.  Equal access across divisions with disparities in funding might expand gaps in resources. The big business side of the adoption process shows when company salespeople court officials and saturate them with information like a DC lobbyist.

Contracts have become big money, and often cut out of the loop are the ground level educators. We (in our division) experienced this firsthand last year with a little disaster called Gradespeed.  Another complicating factor important to remember is that in addition to large up front costs there are also a continuing expenses as long as the school supports a product. Wear and tear, maintenance, infrastructure upgrades, required support personnel all can be unseen costs. What happens 3 years down the road when kids complain that computers are too slow because they take .3 seconds longer to connect?

Technology constantly changes how we operate.  It can motivate some kids in ways other approaches seemingly cannot.   Many are pushing hard for state of the art technology to completely transform our classroom.  As it does we might be wise to remember we can pay in other ways for this blind faith in technology.  A recent NY Times article stated "Even as students are getting more access to computers here, they are getting less access to teachers."  Not a good thing.  

There is a reason we still drive our own cars instead of using onboard computers.  There are social consequences since these things that are meant to connect us can isolate us as well.   Within the classroom, I know once a kid has a computer on their desk nothing you say matters. With the young sometimes technology contributes to a decline in civility.    Many wonderful teachers in the classroom struggle to keep pace with the changes and I pride myself on integrating the newest technology into my instruction, sometimes not pausing to consider the unintended consequences.

• Am I spending more time on the computer and less time interacting face to face with students?
• Are kids disconnecting from each other?
• Are we blurring the line between real engagement and entertainment?
• Does the outcome justify the expense?

There's much to consider with this panacea.

With this in mind it might be interesting to watch this story unfold and think a little more deeply about all that it affects.