WHO'S AFRAID OF THE BIG BAD TEACHER?

Corey Bower asks a lot of questions about bad teachers in his unpretentiously titled blog, Thoughts on Education Policy. Mr. Bower, a doctoral student in Ed Policy at Vanderbilt, has been pumping out an assortment of blogs on a wide array of policy issues. I started reading him when he asserted that many policy wonks and economists use sophisticated statistical data as screens to obfuscate and then advocate for pet issues. 

He also spends a lot of time and verbiage just musing (as opposed to arguing or pontificating) – definitely meritorious behavior for a grad student in education policy. You have to root for someone who doesn’t come into a social science field cocksure that his experience (in Bower’s case, two years of teaching) makes him a fully qualified policy expert.

So I was intrigued to read this in a recent Bower post:

One problem in schools is that there are bad teachers who continue to harm students year after year. What do we do about these teachers? Well, fire them of course -- that's the easy answer. How many bad teachers are there? What qualifies a teacher as "bad?" Are teachers bad because they have no talent, put forth no effort, or because they attempt to harm students?  

That’s a lot of questions. In Bad Teachers: the Essential Guide for Concerned Parents, Guy Strickland says that approximately 5 to 15% of teachers are bad—or bad enough that they need axing. I have no idea where Strickland pulls this number from (and there is nary an equation-with-sigmas to be found), but the figure strikes me as about right—somewhere between 85 and 95% of practicing teachers are doing work on a spectrum from “good enough” to “outstanding.” I have no doubt that most principals could cheerfully pick out a handful of their staff for the boot, although the duds they select may not be the bad teachers identified by parents or colleagues. Teachers are perceived as good or bad in context, and one principal’s creative teaching virtuoso might be another parent’s weirdo with a pony tail.

Lately, there’s been a move toward ranking teacher effectiveness based on their students’ standardized test scores, with the proposed corresponding action step of lopping off the bottom tier. I am thinking about a high school math teacher I knew, whose two AP classes had a near-perfect pass rate, but who also had a reputation for failing upwards of half his Algebra I students. He was a brilliant mathematician, but disastrous at teaching goofy, unfocused freshmen. Was he a good teacher or a bad teacher? His students’ standardized achievement data would give you distinctly bifurcated results.

Bower again:

Why are there so many bad teachers? Are the unions protecting them? Are principals failing to evaluate thoroughly? Do teachers tend to burn out? Are there no good teachers to replace them? How should we deal with the problem? Create better evaluation systems? Outlaw unions? Put more pressure on principals to evaluate teachers? Put more pressure on bad teachers? Give bad teachers more training?

These are the bigger and more critical questions: why and how teachers become bad, and what to do when teaching practice is identifiably substandard. The talking ed-heads would have us believe that the gene pool for teachers is shallow—that teachers come into the profession as dim bulbs looking for a light load, generous vacations and job security. Their prototypical weak teacher exemplifies all of Bower’s indicators: no talent, little effort and, eventually, malfeasance toward students. There are a lot of blog-jockeys who would lay the entire problem of bad teachers at the feet of the teachers’ unions, as well. 

I think that the entire system is set up to turn a blind eye toward teachers who can’t sustain consistently good teaching practice. Few schools provide quality induction, mentoring or early, intensive professional development—or regular constructive critical assessments of practice. Many principals hope that a mediocre teacher will get better after the window of opportunity to deny tenure passes—and there is considerable evidence that high-needs schools recruit and hire haphazardly, making the decision to keep a marginal teacher a better solution than using scarce resources to start over. Unions provide due process for egregiously bad teachers for the same reason defense attorneys represent the accused: because they paid their dues and are entitled to the assistance. 

I don’t think any of Bower’s potential solutions—more comprehensive evaluations, external pressures, mandated additional training for identified burnouts or incompetents, outlawing unions—is the one-shot answer. What we need is a different approach to the problem: rather than spending energy trying to ferret out the inadequate teachers, we might focus on producing, and retaining, genuinely excellent educators, creating a culture of teaching expertise—which could impact many teachers, the rising tide lifting second-rate boats.

And that’s not as disingenuous as it sounds. Our teacher training, recruitment, induction and development programs were created to put warm bodies in classrooms during the baby boom years. We can’t afford run of the mill teachers in this new century, nor can we afford to waste time trying to draw a bright line between still-useful and bad teachers. Let’s go for the gold.

Thanks to Corey Bower and his provocative questions.

Comments

[The Science Goddess]

There are likely "hidden" issues, too. I can think of one school where everyone who works there knows a particular peer is terrible...but they also know that there are significant health issues in the family and she is the sole member with job benefits. Is that a sufficient enough reason to let children suffer in her classroom year after year? It shouldn't be...but that human factor of not tossing a veteran out on her ear is enough. I also think that we are in the business of helping people reach their potential. We are loathe to give up on students or on adults within the school.

[eduwonkette]

Thank you for this post, Nancy, and for redirecting the conversation to this issue:

What we need is a different approach to the problem: rather than spending energy trying to ferret out the inadequate teachers, we might focus on producing, and retaining, genuinely excellent educators, creating a culture of teaching expertise—which could impact many teachers, the rising tide lifting second-rate boats.

[Corey]

You're welcome? You should have linked to this post on my blog -- I needed an ego boost after fighting with my econ of ed take home quiz all weekend.

Seriously though, I couldn't help but arrive at the same conclusion as eduwonkette while reading your post -- we're told that encouraging good behavior is the best way to manage students, so maybe it's also the best way to deal with teaching staffs.

[Nancy Flanagan]

Science Goddess, you're exactly right. For several years, I taught next to a man whose teaching was devastated by his alcoholism. It was really bad--his room smelled like a brewery and he spent most days nursing a headache, writing an assignment on the board for students to do and self-correct in class, then dozing off.

The man was once the head football coach, and his wife (a fine teacher) also taught in the system. They kept him on, even though absolutely everyone knew he was seriously ill, out of loyalty and possibly embarrassment. He finally became too sick to teach, and died of cirrhosis.

The superintendent (who made the decision to keep him on, when the union suggested furloughing him) rationalized that it was no different than keeping on a teacher battling cancer.

[John Holland]

Great points all around Nancy.

Especially "What we need is a different approach to the problem: rather than spending energy trying to ferret out the inadequate teachers, we might focus on producing, and retaining, genuinely excellent educators, creating a culture of teaching expertise—which could impact many teachers, the rising tide lifting second-rate boats."

I have another part of the solution straight from my statistics professor, also officially a wonk with Acheive, Inc. "Pay teachers more."

Now wait a minute you say, how do we get rid of bad teachers with higher pay? (a Seussian response will come for sure) I say, if we pay them more the best will come, unlike some other "professions" that people wouldn't do at all, not the short or the tall.
That is unless those jobs didn't pay so much. How many kids have you heard confess," I want to be an accountant when I grow up." I guess not many but, we have plenty enough.

If we paid them more they would come, at least the smart and not so many dumb. Turning the pay scale on its head, paying more to the best or so I've read, "Make us accountable as a teaching team", TLN said. Would bring up the middle, and the change would last, the top would be rewarded and there would be less good teachers covering the bad teacher's ... You see if I don't make bonus because you don't teach then we've got a whole different different kind of Sneetch. The long arm of the law won't have to reach. Because I'll help the bad teacher teach instead of keeping mum, and that will be enough to get rid of some.

[David Cohen]

Nancy - I so appreciate your point about the teacher who's better with one type of student than another. I see that too, and struggle with it myself. I'm hardly as good a teacher as I'd like to be. I know my strengths and weaknesses and do my best to nurture the former and remediate the latter. I'm sure many teachers would be stronger all around if there were more time and money for professional development that is consistent, sustained, and focused on peer assistance and practice.

[jim]

Wow, so much to say and so little time. I truely enjoy reading your posts. They are witty, intelligent, and right on.

Please, don't stop writing.

Jim

[XTeacher]

Many schools could do better in support systems for beginning or new teachers. While nearly all schools claim to have mentoring programs, in many cases they are nonexistent.

[JStern]

I really enjoyed reading this. I found it interesting that sometimes that 'odd" teacher is actually very effective with a certain type of student. This means that the administration needs to know how to best utilize that person so that the whole school benefits from their ability instead of suffers from their obvious weakness. I also agree that the new teachers have to be better trained, which will help challenge those "mediocre" teachers to meet the new standard or push them on to another career where they will be more successful. I also think there is too much pressure on teachers with the standardized test scores. Some teachers are being punished for their creativity and their refusal to "teach to the test". I guess we as a nation have to decide what is the most important to us.

[Susan]

I've been teaching 4 years now and have 3 teenaged children. Between my 3 (gifted) kids we've had a teacher who slept through the CRCT, told her kids who to date, one who was literally psychotic and mumbled and ranted incoherently in class, one science teacher who put my child on detention for telling him an egg yolk was a single cell (thus contradicting him), one AP Lit teacher who had to leave for electroshock therapy and came back totally addled and now has to be reminded what class she is in. When I check their grades online I see the teachers do not know how to use the online grading system and haven't assigned weights to the grades... it's horrifying. Now that I teach I have a guy on my team who has missed 40 days of school this year - none turn in the required lesson or unit plans, most don't attend staff meetings - I feel like the only fool working in the building. I would say that percentage is more like 50% or more. Why are so many losers in this profession!!

[Nancy Flanagan]

Hey, Susan. Thanks for posting. I threw the 5 to 15% figure out there for discussion--I don't see a lot of science behind it. But in my experience, weak and uncaring teaching seems to be located in clusters. There are high-needs schools with world-class leadership where every teacher is performing well, and advantaged schools loaded with the kinds of folks you described. It is possible to build and run a school where all teachers love to work and do a great job--but certain factors need to be in place to sustain a culture like that.

Re: your examples. Teachers who have had electroshock therapy and are clearly "addled" as a result, or those diagnosed as psychotic, are not necessarily "losers," but may well need to be removed from their teaching positions by competent school leaders--why hasn't that been done? Teachers who don't know how to use an on-line grading system haven't been adequately trained (something I've seen numerous times). Teachers who are chronically absent or don't perform assigned duties are obviously pushing back against something. Is this the result of systemic dysfunction--or because the profession attracts "losers?"

Why do any of us become teachers? Because we like kids, are passionate about a subject discipline, or think we can make a difference? If so--does it help the problem (and there *are* problems) to repeat the mantra that teachers are losers? Or might we be looking for good teaching and finding out what causes it and sustains it?

[Susan]

Does it help the problem to point out that many teachers are "losers" (pardon the term)? Well, you asked in your response why competent leaders hadn't done anything to address these problems and one reason is that no one dares name the problem. We don't even have a union in my state, but bad teachers simply cannot be fired. I don't really understand why. The fellow who mumbled and grunted in class and talked to invisible people was in his position for a decade while numerous complaints piled up around him, but the principal always laughed off his "eccentric" ways. He was finally removed after groping not one, but two young girls after his disease progressed. I wish I could say these are isolated incidents, but I find the incompetence to be rampant. One of the last professional development seminars I attended required English teachers to create 10 sample standardized test questions to share. Out of the 100 or so questions generated, it probably half were grammatically flawed. Almost none of them could correctly identify phrases versus clauses or identify complex versus compound sentences. I'm just wondering why that should be. I think the way the system is set up is a serious problem. Some of the colleagues I work with would not have been able to hold a job at the farm where I got my first employment packing tomatoes, and yet they are retained year after year as teachers. I think a more corporate atmosphere would help a great deal. I personally would once like to hear someone say, "You didn't miss a single day of work, you made the highest marks on your professional licensing exam, you submitted every Unit Plan on time (with thoughtful, student-centered and differentiated lessons), you came to work on time and prepared, you attended staff meetings, and you chaired several committees. Here is your big raise!" Instead I work with people who make about double my salary because they have been employed for ten years. Their absences don't matter, their lack of effort doesn't matter, even their lack of content mastery doesn't matter. I feel less incentive every day to continue to achieve, because the only thing I will ever be paid for is doing time - like prison. There is no incentive. I don't know the solution, but I know that the system is truly poison.

[Nancy Flanagan]

Dear Susan,

So what are you going to do?

How can you (and all the teacher-readers of this blog) start to push for higher entry standards and more professional behavior?

I'm serious. I don't think your system is the norm, but I certainly believe that the only way we will professionalize teaching is through the efforts of teachers themselves.

What's the first step?