Politics, Teacher Evaluation, and Poverty
WORDS TO THE WISE
Never try to teach a pig to sing. It wastes your time and annoys the pig.
There's been a lot going on the past few days, almost all of it relative to the big Stand4KidsNM rally yesterday. That rally is why I'm sitting here writing this, rather than Teachscaping as I should be.
ASIDE: It's really a pretty sad state of affairs when I and most of my fellow principals now consider Teachscape, our new teacher observation tool, a verb. My assistant principal went home early and Teachscaped. My wife Teachscapes every night. I should be Teachscaping right now, since I didn't make time to Teachscape during the day today; as a result, I must Teachscape tomorrow, or fall asleep at my keyboard trying.
The rally yesterday was absolutely amazing. That's the only word for it, really. I would have been amazed if 200 people showed up. News reports had 500 (relatively APS-unfriendly KOAT) to 1,000 (APS-friendlier KRQE); in any case, it was several hundred teachers, administrators, students, parents, legislators, and community members, clad in red, and bearing signs. The vibe was generally very positive, and most of the discussion centered around two things: Testing and the new teacher evaluation system. There are too many tests that stifle good teaching (I would have preferred for the discussion to center much more on student learning than on teaching, but that's a discussion for another time), and the new teacher evaluation system is poorly conceived and implemented. Not one teacher said they didn't want to be evaluated. Not one teacher said they didn't want to be held accountable. All emphasized that the system, in its current form,
ASIDE: It's really a pretty sad state of affairs when I and most of my fellow principals now consider Teachscape, our new teacher observation tool, a verb. My assistant principal went home early and Teachscaped. My wife Teachscapes every night. I should be Teachscaping right now, since I didn't make time to Teachscape during the day today; as a result, I must Teachscape tomorrow, or fall asleep at my keyboard trying.
The rally yesterday was absolutely amazing. That's the only word for it, really. I would have been amazed if 200 people showed up. News reports had 500 (relatively APS-unfriendly KOAT) to 1,000 (APS-friendlier KRQE); in any case, it was several hundred teachers, administrators, students, parents, legislators, and community members, clad in red, and bearing signs. The vibe was generally very positive, and most of the discussion centered around two things: Testing and the new teacher evaluation system. There are too many tests that stifle good teaching (I would have preferred for the discussion to center much more on student learning than on teaching, but that's a discussion for another time), and the new teacher evaluation system is poorly conceived and implemented. Not one teacher said they didn't want to be evaluated. Not one teacher said they didn't want to be held accountable. All emphasized that the system, in its current form,