Why the Bad Teacher Narrative Does Not Help Our Students, But Fixing our Budget Process Will
By Tracey Iglehart
Wednesday March 03, 2010
Consistently low performing public schools can be mandated to implement 1 of 4 plans to improve the school’s performance, including the firing of an entire staff and then hiring back no more than 50% of that staff.
This is what the superintendent of Central Falls High School decided to do after teachers refused to agree to a plan that would impose the following conditions on them: add 25 minutes to the school day, require teachers to provide tutoring on a rotating schedule before and after school, require teachers to eat lunch with students once a week, have teachers submit to more rigorous evaluations, attend weekly after-school planning sessions with other teachers and participate in two weeks of training in the summer.
The teachers refused because these are conditions that should be negotiated rather than imposed on them, especially since they were being mandated to do all of this with very little compensation. They are being called things like “callous”, “lazy”, and “uncaring” because they want to retain control of their working conditions in a profession, which already demands much of them.
All too often, in the conversation about our public schools, the quick fix that reformers turn to is blaming the teacher. But this bad teacher narrative is not only harmful to those of us in the business of educating; it is also harmful to those we hope will gain an education, from pre-K students all the way up to young and old adults. By demonizing teachers, we stop looking at the complex reasons that schools are failing, thus preventing us from coming up with real solutions.
In Berkeley, our educators and public health officials have come together to create the 2020 Vision, which includes 9 goals to eliminate the achievement gap we have in our Berkeley schools. Combined, these goals look at issues of poor health; poverty; youth and parent engagement; family partnerships with schools and city services; engaging curriculum and intervention; evaluation and accountability; and early childhood programs to ensure kindergarten readiness.