Quality Control

Disclaimer: I'm pretty pissed right now.

I teach at Mervo, which if you have friends there know it's been going down the tubes as of late. The kids are out of control, and the teachers hate it there. We aren't supported by administration like many schools in this city. Teachers have been having issues that are common to most schools, but because we don't have an administration that can handle it thing escalate. Students are roaming the halls, smoking pot in the bathrooms, gambling/having sex in the stairwells and of course fighting constantly. It's Baltimore, it happens. I can control what happens in my classroom, I can get kids on task, get them seated, I can even break up a fight between the biggest of kids even being a small girl, but the things happening in the hallways I cannot control. That is where my administration is supposed to come in. They are supposed to support us by clearing the hallways, or at the very least implement rules that have teeth behind them so students don't feel as though nothing can touch them.

The first days of school we were told we can't suspend kids for any reason besides violent issues. We were told by our administrators, if something happens in your classroom it's your own issue. They wouldn't do anything but return the student right back to our classroom. How do you start a school year with rules like that?? If a student is disrespectful, fights with a student (but doesn't shed any blood), refuses to put away his/her iPod what are you supposed to do? They don't show up when I give them detention, they don't respond to parent phone calls, they don't respond to lowering their grades. They know, that no matter what, they can't get kicked out of school or suspended. Of course, the school is chaotic right now when you have rules with no real consequences. The teachers revolted, we all complained. We complain to our admins, to North Ave, some were ballsy enough to email Alonso himself.

North Ave has been in our building for weeks. Nothing has actually changed for the better. They put all of our admins on PIPs, which actually caused the students to riot and scream "F*ck North Ave right to their faces till they had to call in more police. Now North Ave's great solution is to have our admins put 50 out of 96 of us (Including me) on PIPs. I'm sure there are some awful teachers put on PIPs, but frankly I do not think our admins would be able to tell the difference between the good and the bad. Yes, I get the obligatory twice a semester observation but that is crap too. My department head walks in halfway through my lesson, looks around for 10 minutes, then leaves. What kind of observation is that? How can you really tell if I am a decent teacher, let a lone a teacher that needs to be put on a PIP based on that? The most frustrating part about this is that the admins know they have an awful way of evaluating us, which is why they picked the 50 teachers based solely on attendance. I have had 7 absences this school year. Some may say this is high, but then you realize I WAS HIT BY A CAR!!! Of course I took days off; I was in the hospital, my skull was exposed, and my foot was fractured. You try going back to work the very next day. This is apparently the case for many of the other teachers at my school. The teachers of Mervo haven't been the luckiest in terms of health. The teacher who took off because she has cancer= PIP, the teacher who had to take off to have bleeding cysts on her uterus removed=PIP, the teacher who was put on bed rest for a month after a painful back surgery=PIP. Thanks North Ave for not only pissing us off, but for making us feel like we are in the least supported environment possible. Where something that is already traumatic and hard to deal with makes you worry that you'll lose your job over it too.

Moral of the story...we need real quality control. We need admins who actually evaluate us appropriately, and North Ave. to stop requiring quotas for PIPs but rather have real solutions to real problems. We need the people in charge to be able to control the quality of the school and the quality of our teachers other than basing it off of an arbitrary thing such as legitimate absences.

Reorganization of City Schools

Just months ago, rising enrollment in Baltimore City schools gave cause for celebration. However, in light of dramatic budget cuts, school officials are now scrambling to find a solution to a rather desperate equation of how to educate more students with less money. The cover story of the Baltimore Sun on March 11, 2009 displays Dr. Alonso’s plan to shake up and hopefully improve Baltimore City schools.

Simply put, Dr. Alonso plans to shut down several failing schools in order to make way for new charter schools and the expansion of successful existing schools. Among the closures are Lemmel Middle School, outside which a student was stabbed and killed in November, and Thurgood Marshall High School. Other schools, like Digital Harbor High School and the National Academy Freedom High School will expand.

My initial reaction to this plan is a mixture of optimism and intrigue. Baltimore City schools are struggling (no surprise to any educator in this system) and Dr. Alonso is aiming to bolster the entire system. However, this reorganization lacks an explanation for which schools are to be closed- and a solid rationale behind the expansion of other schools. In other words, can we truly expect that successful schools can assume a failing school as is proposed with National Academy Freedom and Dunbar Middle?

As educators, we want to know what elements of “failure” are being considered when schools are closed. Low test scores, poor attendance, and a shrinking graduation rate due to the newly imposed bridge plan are not unique to any one Baltimore City school, nor is optimism or a passionate desire to see students succeed a unique attitude among educators at all of these schools. I can only hope that the schools closed and expanded are as successful as the proposal hopes.

Merit Pay for Teachers

In many professions, especially in business related fields, your pay is directly correlated with your professional performance. Salesman earn more when they increase their sales, lawyers become partners when they have consistent success, etc. This breeds competition, creativity, and pride in one’s work as individuals strive to increase the size of their paycheck. This same concept should also be applicable to teaching. Why, then, aren’t teachers paid according to their performance?

This point is raised by President Obama in a recent speech and the resulting media coverage. In this speech Obama argued that merit pay for educators should be implemented. I do believe that good teachers (those that find success in substantially raising student achievement) should be rewarded for their efforts and this is certainly a way to do it. I also believe that bad teachers should no longer teach. If they were getting paid less this would be an incentive for bad teachers to either improve their craft or leave the profession. I believe this would also improve the image and prestige of being a teacher. Too many times I have heard that teaching just doesn’t pay enough. If merit pay was implemented one could then earn a wage that was competitive to other professions, if they were effective in the classroom. I also believe that this would increase the overall quality of teachers since there would be more incentive to be an effective instructor.

Of course, though, I have some concerns. Specifically in Baltimore, would or how would the effectiveness of the school as a whole factor into an individual teacher’s merit pay? For example, a teacher could go to a well-functioning school with competent co-workers and administrators and find that they are extremely effective in increasing student achievement. That same teacher could also be employed in a school where factors outside of their classroom (school climate, poor administration, student attendance, ineffective staff, etc) are so prevalent that they greatly affect their effectiveness in a largely negative manner. Would this same teacher be paid differently in each situation? I imagine so since their effectiveness would be different. Is this fair for people in “bad” schools? Would these schools turn around once merit pay was implemented? Should principles also receive merit pay when their school is effective? How would “teacher effectiveness” be measured? Who would measure “teacher effectiveness”?

Obviously a whole host of issues arises when debating merit pay for teachers. A system-wide reform would no doubt have to occur for this to be effective and not bread corruption. None-the-less, it is certainly an enticing idea.

National Standards in Maryland Public Schools a Possibility

Every morning I read the newspaper while drinking my coffee and eating breakfast. My ritual is one way I can stay in touch with the world and doubles as morning relaxation before heading off to the chaotic classroom. As a result I tend to stay fairly up to date in terms of what is happening in Baltimore City Schools and Maryland public schools in general. I was originally going to write about the report that recently found great progress in special education in city elementary schools. However, yesterday an article caught my eye that seemed more appropriate and in tune with previous dialogue within class.

As we all know, President Obama recently passed a huge recovery plan. As part of that recovery package, $5 billion has been allotted for states that are interested in raising their academic standards. A handful of states, including Maryland, are projected to apply for grants that would give federal aid to act as guinea pigs in implementing new national standards. These standards are currently being worked on and written by a nonprofit group called Achieve. Achieve, which has been founded by governors and other business leaders, hopes to finish standards for math, reading, and writing by this coming fall.

The eventual hope is that once these national standards would be implemented, students test scores would be benchmarked against scores of international students. In addition, the idea is that students would improve their overall chance of being more competitive internationally as well as prepare students for college and careers. If Maryland were to adopt these new standards, the MSA would probably no longer be used. In its place, we would see new tests written collaboratively with other state school systems. I believe this to be an interesting prospect. While it would probably not be something that we could see instantly within the school system, I would be very interested in seeing how national standards affect student performance.

A 21st Century Kind of Civics Education

Students at my school enter the building every day decked out in Obama garb (before they are subject to the uniform code, of course!), and seeing our president as an icon for inner-city students has made me wonder about the implications of this election. Surely there is profound cultural, ideological, and historical significance surrounding the election of our first African-American president, but does the recent attention given to our government mean that our students understand the processes by which Obama was elected and functions on a daily basis? Is the newfound hope in our country translating to an increased understanding of and desire to participate in democracy?

As the product of a hands-on, experiential government class in high school, I learned the value of interacting with our elected officials and community leaders, attending important political events, and volunteering in local campaigns and service initiatives. I got to see how the Constitution and structure of our government play out in current events and what my role in those events could be. I learned first-hand that I had a voice, and that what I had to say mattered. It saddens me to think that there are few, if any, similar opportunities for the students at the high school where I work. Despite the attention that Government receives as an HSA-tested subject, I fear that there is little practical application to the material that students are drilled about. The Bridge projects give real-world examples for concepts in government, but the most recent round of these projects were returned with only a 68 percent acceptance rate – the lowest of all four subjects. I strongly believe that tying this material to interactive experiences would allow students to see the importance of government and their views about it.

A recent article about Sandra Day O’Connor’s crusade to bring civics back into the forefront of American education cements this view – students know more about TV and pop culture than they do about their chances to make a difference in their country, their communities, and their own lives. I sincerely hope that O’Connor, Obama, and others can inspire and educate our youth about the opportunities available to them, while encouraging schools to reinstate civics – a 21^st Century kind of civics – into their core curricula.