The House That Gates Built

When I taught in the primary grades, I loved to read aloud to children cumulative story books like There was an Old Woman Who Swallowed a Fly, The Napping House, and The House that Jack Built. Here is a reformy version of that last title. If you want to read the original you can find it here.

The House that Gates Built

This is the house that Gates built.

This is the money that lay in the house that Gates built.

These are core standards that were bought with the money that lay in the house that Gates built.

These are the tests standard and uniform

That measure growth on core standards

That were bought with the money

That lay in the house that Gates built.

These are the children all forlorn

Who take the tests standard and uniform

That measure growth on core standards

That were bought with the money

That lay in the house that Gates built.

These are the teachers all tattered and torn

Who are judged by test scores of children forlorn

Who take the tests standard and uniform

That measure growth on core standards

That were bought with the money

That lay in the house that Gates built.

These are the TFAs newly shaven and shorn

Who replace the teachers all tattered and torn

Who are judged by test scores of children forlorn

Who take the tests standard and uniform

That measure growth on core standards

That were bought with the money

That lay in the house that Gates built.

These are the reformers smearing teachers with scorn

Who hire the TFAs newly shaven and shorn

Who replace the teachers all tattered and torn

Who are judged by test scores of children forlorn

Who take the tests standard and uniform

That measure growth on core standards

That were bought with the money

That lay in the house that Gates built.

This is the Secretary, apparently sworn

To defend reformers smearing teachers with scorn

Who hire TFAs newly shaven and shorn

Who replace the teachers tattered and torn

Who are judged by test scores of children forlorn

Who take the tests standard and uniform

That measure growth on core standards

That were bought with the money

That lay in the house that Gates built.

This is the President, champion of reform,

Who appointed the Secretary, apparently sworn        

To defend the reformers heaping teachers with scorn

Who hire the TFAs newly shaven and shorn

Who replace the teachers tattered and torn

Who are judged by test scores of children forlorn

Who take the tests standard and uniform

That measure growth on core standards

That were bought with the money

That lay in the house that Gates built.

Pushing Aside Certified, Committed Young Teachers for Teach for America Wannabees

Two weeks ago I posted a blog entry asking the question, Does Teacher Certification Matter? You can find that post here. Just as training and licensing matter for other professionals like doctors, nurses, lawyers and certified public accountants, it seems a no brainer that training and licensure matters for teachers. In case you think this is not a major issue, I would call your attention to this report from Jonathan Pelto on what is happening in Connecticut. Here is a piece of his report.

Last Monday night, Paul Vallas, Bridgeport’s faux superintendent of schools, revealed that he had hired another 31 Teach for America recruits to staff Bridgeport’s schools this year.   Few, if any of the recruits come from Connecticut and none went to a Ccollege or university to become a teacher.

The TFA recruits come courtesy of a March 2013 deal between Vallas and Nate Snow, the Executive Director for the Connecticut Chapter of Teach for America.  Snow is also   the President of Excel Bridgeport, Inc. the corporate funded lobbying and advocacy group that has been Vallas’ strongest supporter…

Not only are TFA recruits paid at regular teacher salary levels, but in return for supplying the Teach for America recruits, Vallas committed the City of Bridgeport to pay TFA a “fee” of “$3,000 per year for the first two years a teacher is employed.  According to the contract, the annual fee goes up next year to $3,105 a year and then to $3,214 the year after that.

In total, the Vallas/TFA contract calls for the City to hire 125 TFA teachers.  That number would provide Nate Snow’s organization with a finder’s fee in excess of  $750,000.

Vallas you will remember is the same unqualified school leader who brought ruin to the Philadelphia schools, among other urban school districts. Please note that this is $750,000 dollars in finder’s fees for finding and providing 5 weeks of training to unqualified neophytes to man the challenging Bridgeport classrooms. Could you think of other ways to spend that money? Perhaps reducing class size? Repairing crumbling infrastructure? Providing important professional development for current Bridgeport teachers? Hiring a real superintendent?

Pelto rightly points out that these TFA positions deny jobs to fully certified, committed graduates of Connecticut universities who have trained to be teachers. Wouldn’t the Bridgeport schools want to hire some of these folks? We cannot know because these positions were never even advertised to education graduates. The jobs were simply given to Teach for America wannabees.

It is a cautionary tale for all members of a profession under siege. We must all be sure to support the hiring and continued professional development of certified teachers who have shown a commitment to teaching and will not be moving on to an executive position with some hedge fund in two years.

Wendy Kopp Goes to the Doctor (or Does Certification Matter?)

I have a recurring dream. In my dream Wendy Kopp, founder and chair of the board for Teach for America (TFA), is visiting a remote part of the country preaching the TFA gospel, when she is stricken with a mysterious ailment causing severe headaches. Rushed to the nearest clinic, she is greeted by a young man who asks a few questions, takes her blood pressure, examines her eyes, ears and throat and declares that Wendy is suffering from a brain tumor and must schedule immediate surgery. Alarmed, Wendy asks the young man, “Are you a doctor?”

“Well, no, not technically, but I did graduate from an Ivy League school and I took a five week training course this past summer. One of the lectures was on brain tumors. I am here to make up for the doctor shortage in this rural area.”

The next scene shows Wendy running away screaming while googling “Board Certified Neurologist” on her smart phone.

In professional fields other than teaching, few would question the need for proper credentialing. In the profession of teaching, however, questions about the need for certified teachers in the classroom have been raised for the last two decades. If you read the research, as I have been doing for many years, and more intensively lately, you might get confused. Not surprisingly, the reform types have found lots of research that supports their concept that teaching preparation is not a predictor of teacher quality. Perhaps the most important of these was produced for the Abell Foundation by noted reformer Kate Walsh (no relation, thank goodness). Walsh concludes that the certification process is “neither an efficient nor an effective means by which to ensure a competent teaching force. Worse, it is often counterproductive.”( http://www.abell.org/pubsitems/ed_cert_1101.pdf)

Just as many, if not more, studies demonstrate that teacher certification does indeed matter. Here the most important voice has been Stanford professor, Linda Darling-Hammond. In her landmark 2002 study, she and her co-researchers posit that “teacher  effectiveness appears strongly related to the preparation they have received for teaching.”  (Darling-Hammond, L. et al. Does Teacher Preparation Matter? Evidence about teacher certification, Teach for America and teacher effectiveness)

As a proud possessor of teaching certificates from two states, I would like to think that certification does matter. I know other things matter, too: intellectual ability, content knowledge, experience. But if I am hiring a new teacher, as I did in my last position as Director of Human Resources in a suburban school district, I am going to hire the certified candidate over the non-certified candidate every time. Why? Certainly not because I was required to in these days of alternate routes to teaching, but because I knew that I was reasonably sure of some critical qualifications when I hired a certified teacher. I was assured that the candidate had some understanding of child development, had the ability to translate content knowledge into lessons that would help children learn, and had the knowledge and ability to adapt instruction to different learners' needs. I also had some confidence that the candidate understood how to manage a classroom.

Most importantly, however, I knew that the certified candidate was likely to still be teaching in the district 3, 5 even 10 years from the hire date. Candidates who commit themselves to a teacher certification program have committed themselves to the profession. With experience and professional development, they will get better at what they do, and the district’s investment in them in recruiting, training and retention will be rewarded.

Are there outstanding teachers coming out of programs like Teach for America? Undoubtedly. Is every certified teacher coming out of a teacher training program destined to be an outstanding teacher? Of course not. But ultimately, our schools, our parents and our children are better off with a committed, well-prepared, professional educator in the classroom.

And Wendy Kopp is better off with a certified physician.