It is a beautiful day outside.
The temperature is in the mid 80’s; it’s sunny, low humidity, peaceful
with a light breeze. Most people would
probably agree that this sounds like a very pleasant day.
Most of us could agree on the key factors that make up a beautiful day,
but there would be a lot of debate on how to assign a value to each.
For what it is worth I would assign the
following values: temperature = 40%, humidity = 20%, sunny = 20%, Breeze = 10%
and Peaceful = 10%.
It is impossible to assign a value to every element that makes up a
beautiful day. Each part of the day is
important and relies on the other elements to make up the day. If just one of these elements is off (no
sunshine, high humidity, etc.) the quality of the day suffers.
As silly as it is to say that a light breeze makes up 10% of a great day
it’s equally silly to give different teachers a percent of a student’s success
or failure.
This year the state of Ohio began the process of linking student
achievement with teachers. I am one of
the biggest fans of holding people accountable.
In theory this sounds like a no-brainer, but there are a variety of
problems with Ohio’s linkage system.
If students only had one math teacher this would be very easy to
do. The problems begin when students
receive assistance from other teachers.
At my school nearly 50% of all students receive some sort of
intervention from other teachers.
In addition to the normal regular education class, our school has a
daily intervention class with two teachers, an academic assist class that meets
twice a week (also two teachers) and some tutoring provided by a non-degree
teaching assistance.
When it’s time to assign a percent of each student it can be confusing
and very inconsistent. Not only do
school districts differ, but even teachers at the same district might use
different criteria to divide up value for students.
There are many variables that can make it complicated to assign value
for student growth. The minimum a teacher
can receive is 20% credit, the values must be in multiples of 10 and
non-certified staff can't receive any credit for student growth.
For example, Roger is in my 2nd period math class with an
intervention teacher has a daily math development class (that is team taught)
and receives one period of tutoring per week.
Now we must determine who is responsible for what percent of Roger’s
academic performance. Because he was
tutored by a non-certified staff member the tutor receives 0%. The developmental class is a bit trickier
because I taught it with the other math teacher. Because the minimum a teacher can receive is
20% we each take 20% credit for Roger.
This leaves 60% to split with myself and the intervention teacher. The intervention teacher received 20% and I
received an additional 40%.
The final totals:
60% Regular Education
teacher
20% Intervention teacher
20% Other math teacher
0% Tutor
As a side note: A school 30 minutes down the road gives the
regular education teacher the full 100%.
All other teachers (intervention, gifted, etc.) receive no credit.
I love holding myself and others
accountable for productivity. I admire
Apple’s (the computer company not the bribe to a teacher) Directly Responsible
Individual (DRI) practice in which an action list is created for every task and
a person (the DRI) is listed next to it. I certainly believe Apple’s DRI Model can be
very effective when applied to education.
Linking student performance to teachers is Ohio’s attempt to incorporate
a version of the DRI Model.
Despite my admiration of the Directly
Responsible Individual Model I have some major concerns about how Ohio is
implementing Linkage.
Creating a culture of Covering Your Ass
(CYA) vs. Building Effective Teams (BETS)
As in most aspects of society teachers
will quickly learn ways to game the system.
Linkage will encourage teachers to take care of themselves instead of
making sacrifices to help the team.
Teachers will begin to study the types
of students that will give them the greatest chance to achieve growth. In most cases it will be the highest
performing students. There will then
begin a recruiting process among teachers.
If your school ability groups there will be wide spread competition for
the better groups. No teacher is going
to want to get the students that struggle to show growth.
Determining the percentage each teacher
receives will create uncomfortable situations for the teachers. At our school it is up to individual teachers
to determine who gets what percent. An
intervention teacher in 6th grade might receive 30% while the 8th
grade teacher might receive 50%. An
intervention teacher receiving only 20% might feel bitterness toward the person
they are working with.
Teachers are going to be less likely to
work with students that struggle to show growth during intervention classes or
tutoring. At our school a few students
in our developmental class were from the resource class. Even though we never had these students in
regular class our mindset was to help any kids that needed extra assistance. We knew that there was a good chance that
these student’s scores would drag down our individual performance, but we wanted
to help the 7th grade as a whole.
There are many teachers that will not want to take on additional
students with a high probability of failing the state test.
Some schools in Ohio have a financial
reward for teachers based on student growth.
In theory this sounds like a great thing, but it’s another way to create
staff friction. The teachers that work
with the weaker students will more than likely receive smaller bonuses. In
addition, teachers in subjects like social studies, science and computers will
have no opportunity to receive these bonuses.
Another source of possible friction is
teacher evaluations. A large part of a
math (and language arts) teacher’s evaluation comes from the student growth on
state test. Other subjects just make up their own assessments. These other teachers have a much greater
chance of showing growth.
Teachers are also going to become even
more reluctant to accept student teachers.
The only way for future teachers to improve is to actually teach a class
and learn from their mistakes. The more
experience the better the future teachers will become. But with teacher
evaluations, student growth and possible bonuses on the line fewer teachers are
going to be willing to give up their classroom to student teachers.
As a side note: Mount Vernon Nazarene
University in Ohio has changed their student teacher program. The students will team teach with the regular
classroom teacher, instead of going solo.
The Missing Directly Responsible
Individuals
Even though I have my concerns with
Ohio’s Linkage system I think in general it’s a step in the right
direction. I believe the more you blend
Apple’s Directly Responsible Individual (DRI) Model into education it will lead
to greater things. If it was more consistent and put a greater emphasis on
teaching teams I think it could have more success.
The two key missing components in the
whole accountability process are the parents and students. You can develop the greatest lesson plans,
care about the students, create a warm inviting environment, and be an expert
in mathematics. Ultimately, if the
parent and student don’t care there is a limit to what the teacher can do.
The student is his own personal product
manager. The student has thirteen years
of education to develop his personal product.
Along the way there are many people that will have key jobs in the students
(the product) development. But in the
end it’s the student that is the Directly Responsible Individual.
Todd
Hawk is a middle school math teacher and the co-founder of the Land of Math
website (www.landofmath.com).
You can reach him at landofmath2@gmail.com or follow him on
twitter: @landofmath2.
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