The last decade has not been a good
one for education. Although standards-based education has been implemented for
the last twenty years, it has come to the forefront, especially when George W.
Bush issued No Child Left Behind. This act determined that education can be improved
by setting high standards and establishing goals that would document a child's
progress. Resultantly, assessments were made to be given mandatorily in order
to access children's growth in grades. Schools that failed to do so faced a
decrease in their budgets, making administrators and teachers accountable by
tying their livelihoods with the success of their students.
To make things worse, the Obama
administration has initiated its Race to the Top act in an effort to further
reform the public school education system. This act rewards states that comply
with federal requirements such as performance-based standards for teachers,
following nationwide standards, etc. This act can almost be deemed a copout. In
a nation that is recuperating, or more like trudging, from a recession,
individual states have very stretched budgets. There is an undeniable appeal
behind government promises to provide funding for these states. Following
California, New York is the second state to engage in this tradeoff: additional
funding for a monetarily deficit state in exchange for national integration of
education. On February 24th, New York state released the assessments of tens of
thousands of teachers, provoking an outrage among those that work in the educational
department.
These assessments are mathematical
in formula. These reports cover a span of three years and predict how well
students will do based on their ethnicity, gender, income level, etc. The
teacher's success in his or her evaluation depends mostly the test scores of students and how much they
have exceeded or failed standards. If students do well, ratings go up. If
students fail, ratings go down. Ironically, although these reports are
mathematical in nature, they have a wide range of possible imprecision.
The emphasis is on the success of
the students which determine the good/bad ratings that teachers might receive.
This is an unfair basis for teacher appraisal because there are a plethora of
outside conditions that might influence students on test days. It can be
something as simple as a bad day or something more intricately serious, such as
their home lives. Sometimes, the problems lie with the teachers. Just like
their students, teachers can be exposed to the same problems. As people, it is
normal for good and bad things to happen. Otherwise, how would we distinguish
the two? Yet, it makes no sense to mechanize and label the success of teachers
and students because such a thing depends on a mix of personal and
circumstantial factors. Teachers and students are flesh and blood, not machines.
Between both parties, relationships are bound to grow. Teachers will come to
regard some students warmly and vice-versa.
The methods of these audits must
also be looked at. How well a teacher teaches their students cannot be discerned
from the standardized tests that they take. With that said, there have been
recent administrative evaluations done personally on teachers. The basis of
these evaluations, whether a teacher can come to par with the standards that
are expected from them, are flawed. The relationships between a teacher and his
or her class is one of familiarity. For administrators to come in and attempt to
observe candidly cannot work. Their presence disrupts and distorts the mood.
Teachers and students will behave differently than they normally would in an
effort to mask their shortcomings. On the chance that teachers were informed
ahead of time, there is still a problem. One evaluation cannot be enough. For a
teacher to be effectively assessed, they must be repeatedly observed, day after
day, for an extended period of time in order to grasp some idea of their
standings. However, there is no available manpower or patience to attempt such
a task. Some sort of surveillance can be installed but that causes a whole
other controversy over the violation of human rights, especially in a classroom
environment. There has been recent rumors of student-based evaluations of
teachers. However, I cannot view that as anything short of disastrous. Students
cannot be a reliable source simply because they are so prone to following their
whims. Human bias cannot be effectively separated from indifferent criticisms.
If teachers and students get off on the wrong foot, there is no reason for the
students to grade the teachers fairly. Similarly to Daniel, I also attended a
magnet middle school. M.S. 158 is the fellow brethren of M.S. 67. The
perceptions of teachers that the magnet class had differed radically from that
of the other classes, even S.P. The teachers that we found informative and
helpful were labeled as horrid and ineffective by those classes. Perception is
power. In addition, the balance of power between the two groups will be
radically shifted. Educational authority will be severely undermined by the
constant threat of receiving an unsatisfactory assessment. There is no correct
way to evaluate how well our teachers are doing. But if there's any use these
reports have, it's that there are more than enough ways to access teachers
incorrectly.
Conclusively, This disturbing trend
of conforming to standardized testing, this process of mechanizing schools, is made
even more disturbing once one realizes how much the government is advocating
it. Where is the line between federal help and interference? The United States
has always had a problem distinguishing the boundaries between the independence
of states and the deferment to the federal government. At the rate this is
going, it seems that we might soon have our answer.
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