That’s a Wrap, Folks!

Posted on August 29, 2019 by mrsdebbiekeller

That’s a little misleading. The title of this blog post, I mean. It sounds like I’m done with something. I’m not really. I am, however, starting my last year of teaching. Yep. My 33rd year of teaching will be my last.

This is me in my first year of teaching (1987).

Look at that face. No wrinkles. No worries. No problems. Ready to take on the world and be……. A TEACHER.

Here’s my school picture from 2019.

Look at that face. Wrinkles. Worries. Problems. Still a teacher.

When I look at those 2 pictures, I see the same person. I feel like the last 32 years have flown by. In that time, I’ve gotten married, built a house, had and raised 2 children, and had decades of experiences in the classroom. I don’t even know how that happened. It seems like a few years ago I started my teaching career at River Falls Junior High (now Meyer Middle School).

Pretty sure I’ll be experiencing lots of “lasts” this year. Take Back to School Night, for example. As I was walking to my car, I was just enjoying the beautiful evening and the cool breeze and the smell of freshly-mowed grass (my attempt at mindfulness and appreciating the moment) when suddenly I heard from behind me, “Mrs. Keller!” I turned around and there was Matt Shipp. One of the students I had somewhere near the beginning of my career. I think it would have been 1990 when he was in 8th grade.

We had a great talk about what middle school was like back then and how much fun it was. I met his wife and his 6th grade daughter. He told me that he worked in the St. Paul School District helping special education students find jobs. He’s also an expert on something called tenkara, which is traditional Japanese fishing. You can read more about that here:

Tenkara, traditional Japanese fishing, catches a new fan

This is my favorite part of being a teacher and one I will miss immensely – talking to my former students. It makes me sad that I won’t be gaining any new relationships like that once I leave the classroom. I mean, I’ll always have my former students. But I won’t be gaining any more of them.

My mom was a 3rd grade teacher in Ellsworth. I remember being annoyed when I was a kid/teenager/college student when we’d be somewhere together and people would come up and say, “Mrs. Deiss!” and then proceed to chat with her about their lives, jobs, children, etc., etc. Couldn’t just run into the grocery store ever. Had to stop and talk to several people and she probably even had the cashier in class, so we had to stop there and talk. She’d hug each one and happily chat with each one for what seemed like hours while I stood there looking at the sky (probably rolling my eyes).

Since becoming a teacher myself, I know what that feels like. Everywhere we go, I run into former students. I swear about 10 of them work at Target in Hudson and another 10 work at Menard’s. I went to a restaurant in Minneapolis once, and one of them waited on me (and gave me a free glass of wine!). They are EVERYWHERE. And I absolutely LOVE catching up with them – while my family sits patiently (probably rolling their eyes). Like I said, it’s the BEST part of being a teacher.

And it’s the part I’ll miss the most. At least I’ll still always have those former students to talk to, so there’s that. But all the way home last night, after my talk with Matt Shipp, I thought about how much I will miss gaining new former students.

So my “last” Back to School Night was very meaningful for me. Seems appropriate since it was really my last.

Differentiation? What’s That? Does It Work? Not Really

Posted on October 20, 2017 by mrsdebbiekeller

I recently ran across an article in Education Week that claims differentiation doesn’t work.

Those of you who are teachers are not surprised. Those of you who are not teachers are probably wondering what differentiation is. In my eyes, it’s another fad that someone who has never taught in a classroom came up with that became a bandwagon onto which we all jumped.

For our working definition, let’s go with this: Differentiated instruction means that a teacher meets all of her students’ needs by modifying what is being taught, how it is taught, and/or how students demonstrated that they’ve mastered what was taught.

Doesn’t sound like much until you understand that there are 30 kids in my classroom, each with their own way of learning best. I believe this cartoon. I totally agree with its meaning.

I just don’t know if I can have a store that would provide what all of these creatures needed. It’s impossible, much like differentiating instruction.

Since I’m not sure who started the whole “differentiation is great” bandwagon or who drove the horse, I’m sure I’m not being fair here. So I decided to do some research.

I found an article that I think does an effective job of describing the history of differentiation in a nutshell. I’ll summarize it for you, but if you want to read the whole article, you can find it here.

So what happened is one-room schoolhouses had this stuff down pat. I mean, that’s totally understandable because they had to. They had one teacher with several kids of different ages in the room. The teacher HAD to differentiate. He/She wasn’t going to teach the 6-year-olds the same thing as the 12-year-olds.

Then our country moved toward “grading schools” as they’re called in the above mentioned article. I guess that we figured all kids would learn at the same rate if they were around the same age. Well, we found out that’s not the case necessarily. So I’m sure some kids fell behind. I’m not sure many people cared. Nobody cared if kids wore helmets or seatbelts at that time either! Kids were probably told they weren’t working hard enough or they needed to “toughen up” or whatever. I’m just speaking from what happened in my childhood, so I guess I don’t really know.

So in the late 1880’s along came a guy from Colorado named Preston Search. He must have been an administrator or something. I’m not sure. Anyway, he pushed his teachers to come up with ways to individualize instruction to reach all of their students no matter what their ability. So I guess you could call him the Father of Differentiation. I’d put a image of him here for you, but having the last name of “Search” when I’m doing a search leads to all kinds of weird stuff coming up.

Just when people thought this was going to work and were going full steam ahead on it, along came a guy named William H. Kirkpatrick. I did find a picture of someone with that name, and he looks like a guy who would study educational methods, so I’m putting it here:

Mr. Kirkpatrick and his “Project Method” derailed all of the differentiation that was going on by claiming that differentiation “divorced the mechanics of learning from motivating social experience.” So people didn’t like the sound of that. And we went right back to the old way of doing things.

When I started teaching (some 30 years ago), people weren’t talking a lot about differentiated instruction. Kids entered your room. You taught your lesson. You helped kids who needed help. Sounds pretty simple, right?

Those simple days are over. When differentiation reared its head again about 20 years into my career, teachers were suddenly expected to provide instruction for all of their students at all of their levels. I’m here to tell you that most teachers love the idea of this. Who wouldn’t want to provide an individualized instructional plan to each of their students? Who doesn’t want each of their students to learn at their own pace? The problem is that it’s extremely hard to do. So hard that most teachers either work themselves into an early exit from the profession or just give up and hate themselves for it.

When you think of it, it’s kind of ridiculous to expect this much from one teacher. We don’t expect this from any other profession. The following paragraph from the Education Week article sums up how I feel about this:

“Do we expect an oncologist to be able to treat glaucoma? Do we expect a criminal prosecutor to be able to decipher patent law? Do we expect a concert pianist to be able to play the clarinet equally well? No, no, no. However, when the education of our nation’s young people is at stake, we toss together into one classroom every possible learning strength and disability and expect a single teacher to be able to work academic miracles with every kid … as long as said teacher is willing to differentiate, of course.”

It is somewhat crazy to expect a single teacher to differentiate instruction every day for all of his/her students.

If you check out this article you will find information about an interesting study done at the University of Virginia. Teachers were provided all kinds of professional development on how to implement differentiated instruction effectively. They were also give tons of support over three years to help them do it well. After three years, the university wanted to check to see how the differentiated instruction impacted student learning. They couldn’t complete the study because nobody was doing it. You heard that right. Even with all kinds of training and support, teachers could not do it. I don’t think these teachers just gave up. I think they tried and found it impossible. I also think they questioned their ability as teachers, which I would do.

Differentiation is a good idea. It’s extremely difficult (if not impossible) to implement fully and to do it at a level at which the teacher will feel successful. Sure we all want our classrooms to look like this:

We need to recognize how difficult this is to do and stop insisting that our teachers aren’t doing their jobs unless they can meet each child at his/her level and teach him/her at that level. I know plenty of excellent teachers in this country are attempting exactly that.

The reality is that a lot of us look like this:

Not really. Most of us have desks that are way messier than that.

What’s important is that people realize the difficulties involved in differentiating instruction and the work load it demands from our teachers.

We WANT to do it. We just may not be able to.

Test Scores Are Up!!!

Posted on August 21, 2017 by mrsdebbiekeller

So if you’re not familiar with the whole concept of school report cards, you maybe don’t know that schools nowadays are “graded” like students and their “grades” are put online for everyone to see.

If you go to the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction website, you can look up any district’s report card. So if you’re a family looking to move into the area, you would be able to compare “grades” of neighboring districts to help you decide where you want your kids to go to school.

If you’ve read my blog before, you already know I’m going to have problems with this. My biggest problem is with the criteria for the grading.

The Department of Public Instruction (DPI) creates report cards for every district in the state. In these report cards is data. That’s right. Data, data, and more data. And there’s where my problem starts. Data is just data. It’s numbers. I get that data can provide some information about a school and/or a district. It needs to be used wisely and in conjunction with other factors to get a full picture of the school and/or district.

I’ll give you an example. My school is a National School of Character. We have Bully Preventions Agents – students who are trained in how to stop bullying – and wear lanyards in order for other students to be able to easily identify them if needed. That doesn’t show up on the school report cards.

There are so many things that happen every day in schools that don’t show up on the school report card. I know so many teachers who work so hard to help kids be successful at my school. I wrote a blog post once that lists all of the things I do for kids. You can find it here. I’m not alone. I know most of the teachers in my building are doing these things and more. None of those things show up on the school report card.

I know teachers pay for students’ yearbooks. I’m the yearbook adviser. I see it every year. Over and over. That’s not on the school report card.

I know teachers who pay for students’ lunches when their accounts run low. That’s not on the school report card.

I could go on and on, but you get my drift, right?

Anyway, so the school report card is maybe one tool you can use to judge a school district – if you believe test scores are an effective way to judge a school’s effectiveness.

So here’s what goes into determining a school’s report card. (Check out the link above to the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction if you want to know more).

Performance on the state reading and math tests
Improvement over time on the state reading and math tests
Progress of student subgroups in closing gaps in reading and math performance
Performance on key indicators of readiness for graduation and/or postsecondary pursuits
Absenteeism rate
Dropout rate

I could spend time commenting on the fact that Social Studies and Science test scores do not count for anything regarding the school report card, but I’m afraid my head would explode. So on we go…….

Each school is then put in one of the 5 following categories:

Significantly exceeds expectations
Exceeds expectations
Meets expectations
Meets few expectations
Fails to meet expectations

I’ll give you one guess where every school would like to be…….you guessed it.

So here’s where my school ended up for the 2015-16 school year:

I know my school is better than that. I know it. We all knew it. Unfortunately, people looking at our score wouldn’t know that.

So we needed to improve.

I knew our kids were better than that score. I knew they could do the work required to do well on the test.

So after a lot of observation and questioning of students, I realized that they didn’t know how to answer test questions effectively. They didn’t read the question carefully enough to figure out what the people who wrote the test were asking for.

Once I taught them how to do that, they did way better on the test.

Our scores went up. A lot. We prepared our kids better. We made them better test takers.

Is that what I really want to do? Teach my students how to take tests better?

No, it’s not.

Do I feel better now that our test scores are higher and our school report card will be higher? Absolutely.

And therein lies the frustration of being a teacher nowadays. I don’t think test scores alone accurately reflect the effectiveness of a school or a district. But they’re the most important thing when it comes to what the public sees regarding our school. So I guess they’re important to me now too.

Teaching to the Test

Posted on December 8, 2016 by mrsdebbiekeller

So the school report card here at my school is not as good as we’d like it to be. There has been a lot of hand wringing, discussion, questioning of our philosophy, etc., going on here the last few days. It doesn’t feel good. (If you’re not sure what the school report card is or how it’s calculated, click here.)

Over the last few days, I have been questioning how my teaching helps my students perform better on the state standardized test that we take in the spring. Believe me, I hate even asking myself that question. But that’s the truth of public education nowadays. Our effectiveness is judged by our school report card score. It really doesn’t matter anymore that I vehemently disagree with that. I don’t have a say in it. I mean, why would anyone care what a 30-year veteran of the public school classroom would think about that? Bill Gates has lot of money, so obviously he’d know more than I would about how to be an effective teacher, right? But I digress.

Over the last few days, I have found myself questioning how I am helping my school get a higher score. I love my school, and I want to help. That’s what it comes down to.

So I’ve decided to start using a website (kindly created by people who saw this coming and knew teachers would need resources to use with their students) called Common Lit. It’s a great website to help your students prepare for the test. And it’s killing me to use it.

I had one of my worst days of teaching today. The kids were bored. I was bored. But my students learned something about how to get a better score on the test. Wow. Great.

So I have to learn to live in this new world while a little bit of my soul dies every time I teach my students how to get a better score on the test.

It wasn’t a good day. So I decided to make it better by thinking about all the things we do at my school that is not on the test:

Our National School of Character Award is not on the test.

All the colleagues I have who routinely put in 12 hour days (or more) planning, teaching, grading, coaching, running clubs, etc. That’s not on the test.

All the students who move here from other districts and tell me that our school “is way better” than the one they came from. That’s not on the test.

Our rock solid Social Studies and Science test scores. Those aren’t on the test.

The gains our struggling kids have made in the areas of reading and math with the implementation of interventions. That’s not on the test.

All the kids who go running with staff members after school twice a week. That’s not on the test.

Our Gentlemen and Scholars group which is helping young men be better leaders. That’s not on the test.

My rock star administrators who work so hard to provide teachers with respect and treat us like professionals. That’s not on the test.

I could go on and on and on. Now I feel better. Until next week, when I teach to the test again.

MMS Named 2016 National School of Character!

Posted on October 17, 2016 by mrsdebbiekeller

You heard that right, people! Meyer Middle School was one of 63 schools in the nation to be given the National School of Character Award.

Here’s a shot of my colleagues accepting the award in Washington, DC:

If you want read more about it, click here.

This award is given out every year by Character.org, which is “an organization of passionate people advocating for integrity, honesty, respect, and other core ethical values to be fused into education for the betterment of our nation.”

Character.org focuses on and promotes 11 Principles of Character Education. The application process to receive the award is quite extensive and involves a lot of reflection by the staff at the school applying on how they are teaching strong character in their schools and what they can do to improve on that. We even had a visit from people from Washington, DC who walked around our building for the day and even interviewed students, staff, and parents.

The 11 Principles of Character Education (for those of you who are really into this post and want to know EVERYTHING) are right here:

The school community promotes core ethical and performance values as the foundation of good character.
The school defines “character” comprehensively to include thinking, feeling, and doing.
The school uses a comprehensive, intentional, and proactive approach to character development.
The school creates a caring community.
The school provides students with opportunities for moral action.
The school offers a meaningful and challenging academic curriculum that respects all learners, develops their character, and helps them to succeed.
The school fosters students’ self-motivation.
The school staff is an ethical learning community that shares responsibility for character education and adheres to the same core values that guide the students.
The school fosters shared leadership and long-range support of the character education initiative.
The school engages families and community members as partners in the character-building effort.
The school regularly assesses its culture and climate, the functioning of its staff as character educators, and the extent to which its students manifest good character.

Here’s a video produced by Wisconsin Character Education showing why our school won the award:

WCEP – 2016 State School of Character – Meyer Middle School from Wisconsin Character Education on Vimeo.

I can’t tell you how proud I am of all of the people on the school’s character committee as well as all of my colleagues, administrators, and students who have all had a part in us winning this award.

Well done, Meyer Middle School!

It’s Getting Closer

Posted on August 19, 2016 by mrsdebbiekeller

Fall is my favorite time of the year. I love pumpkin lattes, leaves falling off the trees, the smell of bonfires, cozy sweaters, etc., etc. I love everything about fall. I’m pretty sure that the beginning of the school year coming in the fall is no coincidence.

Ever since I was a kid (and it wasn’t THAT long ago), I remember being really excited when school started. I’d hit up Target and get all of the stuff I needed. I’d get all my notebooks and folders ready and labeled ahead of time. I loved the first day of school! I haven’t changed. Having been a teacher for the last 30 years, I’ve never been on any other schedule than one having the school year start in the fall. I really don’t know if I could function adequately on another schedule (like the one most of my friends who aren’t teachers function on).

So as the nights get cooler and the Back to School stuff hits the shelves at Target (BTW – will someone please explain to me why that has to happen BEFORE the 4th of July?! Way to wreck summer, for God’s sake!), I get all my stuff ready and get really excited about school starting. Now I just need the dewpoint to drop into the 50’s for everything to fall into place.

As my planned retirement date grows closer (I’m thinking the spring of 2020 right now, but we’ll see), I’m starting to think about other stuff I might want to do when I’m not teaching anymore. I’m not sure if other professions are like this, but being a teacher becomes such a huge part of who you are, that thinking about living a life without it is pretty weird. I’m excited about my future and the next phase of my life, but I’m not really sure how I’ll handle not being a “teacher” anymore. I’ve considered subbing – you get to experience hanging with the kids and your colleagues (some of the best parts of the job) without having to lug a ton of work home at night or plan for the next day – but I’m not sure if that’s what I want to do yet.

I even have a list of retirement ideas on my phone that I add to whenever I find something else that sounds interesting. Here are some of my ideas:

Volunteering for Halos of St. Croix (support families who have lost children)
Volunteering for the Gary Sinise Foundation (helping veterans, first responders, and their families)
Volunteering for the Pat Tillman Foundation (named after former NFL player who became a Army Ranger after the 9/11 attacks and died serving his country in Afghanistan – they give academic scholarships to veterans and their spouses)
Volunteering for Coco’s Heart Dog Rescue
Personal shopper (I LOVE to shop! And to spend someone else’s money while doing it – BINGO!)
Supervise student teachers
Usher at The Orpheum Theater in Minneapolis (got this idea from a RFSD bus driver who told me he and his wife do it)

Some of these are paid and some of them aren’t. I think I’m going to do a bit of both – paid jobs and volunteering.

It will be a few years before I’m in my “last year” of teaching, so I’ve got some time to think about it.

Until then, I’m going to enjoy another beginning of the school year and my favorite season.

And yes, I do love pumpkin spice lattes.

Last Post About edTPA (Maybe)

Posted on March 31, 2016 by mrsdebbiekeller

I recently talked to the Dean of Education at the University of Wisconsin – River Falls, Larry Solberg, about my quest to get more information on the implementation of the edTPA in Wisconsin.

You can read my earlier posts about the edTPA here and here.

I set up a phone call with Mr. Solberg because I wanted to learn more about how the edTPA was implemented in Wisconsin and what would make people believe it was a good idea. Mr. Solberg very generously gave me generous amounts of his time to answer some of my questions.

First of all, he gave me some history on the beginnings of the edTPA and how it came to be used in our state. Mr. Solberg told me that, in past years, the DPI (Department of Public Instruction) would evaluate a university’s teacher education program every 5 years. A team of people from the DPI would show up at UWRF and look at the program to make sure it was preparing its teacher candidates effectively.

With the push for accountability and the implementation of Educator Effectiveness in this state (which I have lots to say about, but won’t do so at this point), universities were also put under more scrutiny to hold them accountable for the effectiveness of their programs. Hence the DPI began evaluating teacher education programs every year.

There was a committee formed of 6 public university deans and 6 private university deans who looked for a more standardized way to evaluate teacher education programs more effectively. They recommended using the edTPA to the state superintendent, and that’s how Wisconsin came to use this instrument.

Mr. Solberg and I talked about my concern that students in the teacher education programs around the state are being charged hundreds of dollars for the edTPA, and they are required to pay more money if they “fail” a section in order to retake it. We also talked about my concern about the fact that scorers of the edTPA are hired by the same company that makes money off of students “failing” the edTPA.

I found out that we share a concern about the drop in students enrolling in teacher education at UWRF, and I imagine it’s a problem at many universities around the state (and around the country). I told him that I could not, in good conscience, recommend teaching as a profession to anyone. We talked about how it’s not surprising that people don’t want to go into a profession that has been demonized, demoralized, had job protections diminished, and gets blamed for all of society’s problems. Nobody I know is going to raise his or her hand and say, “I’ll do that job!”

We also talked about my concern about corporations making money off of our students and how the edTPA just seems like another way they can do that, along with reducing teacher education students to a standardized “score.” These are the same concerns I have with my own students.

It was a very informative discussion for me. I can’t say that I feel any better about what’s happening with the edTPA, but I do understand more about it.

I still worry about public education and the greed of corporations.

I don’t think that will ever change.

Update on My Quest to Learn More About edTPA

Posted on January 13, 2016 by mrsdebbiekeller

If you read my post from November (The edTPA Rip-Off), you learned that I recently became aware of a newly-added requirement for students graduating from Wisconsin universities who are coming out of their teacher education programs. It’s called the edTPA.

You can read my previous post if you want the background, but suffice it to say that it was upsetting to hear that college graduates in teacher preparation programs are now required to pay hundreds of dollars to Pearson in order for someone who has never seen the person teach or even met the person determine if the person will be an effective teacher.

I couldn’t quite just let this go, so I emailed my two state representatives (Sen. Sheila Harsdorf and Rep. Dean Knudson), asking them for help determining to whom I should write to find out how something like this got implemented and who actually thought it was a good idea. Luckily, Matt Rossetto from Rep. Knudson’s forwarded my email to the Department of Public Instruction and I received a response from Tammy Huth (Director of Teacher Education, Professional Development & Licensing).

In her response, Ms. Huth says that “in 2012 our educator preparation programs recommended and the state superintendent approved the inclusion of a common pedagogical teacher performance assessment. This would ensure candidates were teacher ready and able to enter our school districts into the educator effectiveness system of teacher performance.” I had so many questions about that statement, I had no idea where to begin.

First of all, programs don’t recommend anything. People do. So I replied to her email and asked her to explain that. I wanted to know if she was claiming that the directors of teacher preparation programs at universities in Wisconsin suddenly decided that their programs were not successfully molding candidates who would be effective teachers and needed someone how has never seen the candidate teach to decide that for them (and all for the price of a few hundred bucks!). I really had a hard time believing that’s what happened. I’ve taught my students to question the credibility of claims and arguments they read, see, and hear, etc., so I thought it was good idea to apply those same skills myself here.

Ms. Huth also said in her email that “candidate outcome data is used as a measure in the program approval process” to explain how it is determined if a university’s teacher education program will be approved by the state and allowed to offer teacher licensing to college students. I asked her to explain where that “data” comes from because I wasn’t really sure what “candidate outcome data” is.

I have yet to receive a reply to my questions from Ms. Huth. I sent it on December 16th. A few days ago, I sent her another email asking if she had received my questions. I have yet to hear back from her.

I guess I don’t blame her much since I did include some points about Pearson being the only one who benefits from this requirement and how a cooperating teacher who has worked with a teacher candidate for weeks would have a much better idea of how effective a teacher the candidate was going to be than someone who has never met the young man or lady, etc., but I’m still angry that I haven’t gotten a response.

I’m not going to let this go.

The edTPA Rip Off

Posted on November 16, 2015 by mrsdebbiekeller

I was recently at a family event and had a chance to chat with my nephew’s fiancee who is student teaching now and is set to graduate from Winona State University in Winona, Minnesota soon. She informed me about the rip-off that is the edTPA. I hadn’t even heard of it before. Weird. I read a lot of stuff about public education online, and this one slipped right by me.

From what I can tell, it’s an online portfolio type thingy that prospective educators in Minnesota (and probably other places) have to create and submit to…wait for it…..wait for it…. PEARSON…..so that someone who has probably either never been a teacher or hasn’t been in the classroom for years can judge whether or not the prospective educator has what it takes to be an “effective” teacher. And you too can submit an edTPA for the low, low price of $300! You heard that right. They charge these kids $300 for someone give them a score that somehow reflects that kid’s ability as a teacher without ever having actually seen the kid teach!!! I cannot for the life of me imagine what persuasive abilities Pearson salespeople must have to convince the state of Minnesota that they need to do this to these kids. Especially since, according to my favorite education blogger Mr. Peter Greene, the edTPA can be “gamed.” Check out what he has to say on his blog Curmudgucation.

College students also have to pay for the privilege of taking the Minnesota Teacher Licensure Examinations, which are also created by (you guessed it!)….Pearson. That’s another $300. And I don’t believe those do an effective job of predicting who will or will not be a good teacher either. That’s $600 for kids coming out of college who are probably already subsisting on a diet of Ramen and Kraft mac and cheese (when it’s on sale). That’s $600 for every kid in the state of Minnesota who is graduating from college and wanting to get licensed as a teacher (and the license costs another $100). Just think. That’s $600 per kid graduating from college who wants to be a teacher. Unbelievable.

I think the #pearsonisthedevil that I use whenever I tweet Pearson applies more than ever.

Quiet, Mr. Gates

Posted on October 16, 2015 by mrsdebbiekeller

Okay, I’ve had it with people who have never been teachers telling us how to do our jobs. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again…..and again…..and again.

Here’s Bill Gates again telling people how teachers proceed slowly “up the learning line.” He’s saying that teachers are “dying” for “useful feedback and tools that will help them improve their work in the classroom.”

Here’s a link to the entire article if you want to read it: Give Teachers What They Deserve.

Here’s the big problem I have with that. It’s people like Gates who think they know what feedback and tools teachers need. And I would bet they want to sell every district a program that will give them that “useful feedback” they’ve determined I need.

And I know for a fact that most teachers do not proceed slowly up the learning line. That statement is condescending. Most teachers spend tons of their own time on weekends and in the evenings learning all they can about how to improve their craft. Most of them do not need Mr. Gates or any of his “education partners” determining what feedback we need or how to get it to us. Professional educators are actively searching for the feedback they need every day, and they make adjustments to their teaching afterwards all by themselves.

Mr. Gates goes on to say “the evidence shows that having an effective teacher is the single most important in-school factor in student achievement.” I think this is misleading and leads to the demonization of teachers and the expectation that a good teacher can solve all the problems in a kid’s life, allowing him/her suddenly to become successful in school. I do understand the importance of putting an effective teacher in every classroom. I see teachers work miracles all the time with struggling students. Trust. I know what a fabulous teacher can do for kids. But I also know that, according to Richard Rothstein of the Economic Policy Institute “decades of social science research have demonstrated that differences in the quality of schools can explain about one-third of the variation in student achievement. But the other two-thirds is attributable to non-school factors.”

Yes, an effective teacher may be the most important factor in a student’s in-school achievement (I’m not even sure I agree with that because a building that’s falling down and has holes in the ceiling and no technology, etc., may override any fabulous teacher’s ability), but the impact a teacher can have on any student is limited by non-school factors.

It’s time we quit asking teachers to erase the impact of non-school factors on our kids and start fixing those non-school factors so the kid has every opportunity to succeed. It’s time we treated teachers like the professionals they are and assume that they know a little something about their craft.

It’s time we quit listening to people like Bill Gates when it comes to education reform.