Making Myself Useful (and other items)
by teachbad
(I’m a bit rushed…driving to Indiana in…36 minutes. More on that in a minute.)
Churn ‘n’ Burn and Spin Me to the Door
There are two short things I read this week that I believe are connected. The first was an article in Education Week from early in April called When Teachers Are Treated Like Widgets, Education Suffers. It was written by academics who are tired of all their studies getting messed up because they can’t get stable control and experimental groups of teachers to measure anything for even a couple of years. In one multi-year study to test improvements in science curriculum, 42% of participating teachers had moved within or outside the school in the first year.
The authors note that churn in urban schools (teachers moving to different positions within schools, to another school, or out of teaching) is just background noise for most concerned parties. In other words, the parties are not concerned. The authors recognize that churn is not only bad for hem and their studies but that it is not good for kids either. “…teachers are shifted around so often that they can’t develop mastery of a grade and subject, or develop sta
