A few months ago a jury recommended that Randal Deviney be executed for the murder of Delores Futrell who by all accounts was never anything but kind to him. The judge has yet to pass sentence but in reality he was sentenced long ago, but he is not the only one.
With the Florida State legislature following all over itself to avoid doing the right thing by properly funding education, they have been trying to get the federal government to do it instead. They have been doing so by applying for over a billion dollars through Washington’s race to the top grants. Part of the application depends on how teachers are evaluated and as result there has been a lot of talk about how to do so. So much that the legislation has proposed and fast tracked without much discussion, that fifty percent of a teacher’s salary be tied to how their children perform on the various standardized tests. What people may be failing to recognize and I am sure that includes our myopic state government is that teacher’s evaluations have never been based on how children do on standardized tests.
Teachers all over the district have been getting their evaluations over the last few weeks, months before the results of the F-cat are known. This includes ESE teachers, history teachers, elective teachers and so many other teachers that teach subjects that don’t have standardized tests. In truth the powers-that-be have no idea how to properly evaluate teachers and this insistence that it be mostly determined by children’s gains on a test just opens a whole new can or worms.
Currently evaluations typically depend on a principal or their designee getting a snap shot of what is going on in a classroom. They come in and observe and review lesson plans, this year data notebooks were thrown into the mix as well. This year I had two thirty minute observations and two or three pop ins where the principal or a designee stayed just five minutes or so, neither of the longer visits was done by the principal. That’s it; a total of seventy-five minutes over the course of a year will determine my evaluation. Some teachers got more visits and longer observations and some teachers got less.
Duval County in the past has what’s called Map tests to determine if teachers should get merit pay. They are supposed to be given at the beginning and at the end of the school year. One of the problems is they are never given when they are supposed to. This year they arrived most unexpectedly about week eight and teachers were given a few days to give them, regardless of what they had going on in their classrooms. I saw one map test that was supposed to be given to a group of intellectually impaired children that can’t even read their names. Some kids ask is this the test “I am supposed to do bad on so you can get money later”, while others just Christmas tree it because it does not affect their grade in the class. Teachers don’t grade them they collect them and turn them in. Finally with both money and very little oversight involved I have heard other stories as well.
It gets better, say you are a teacher and do everything right. You give the map tests and have your kids take it seriously. Then at the end of the year after pouring your heart and soul into your classroom your kids make gains on the MAP tests, impressive gains, well there is still a good chance you won’t be eligible for performance pay. In order to get performance pay your principal must rate you high performing, satisfactory won’t cut it. If you are not rated HP right there the journey ends and any chance for extra pay is over.
Why might you be rated satisfactory after all that? Well in schools all over the county teachers are being told it’s because they have given to many f’s or d’s they can’t be high performing. A teacher in disbelief told me; well had I known that nobody would have failed. Sometimes bad grades can result from ineffective instruction but more often than not they result from apathy and lack of effort on a student’s part. If teachers are going to lose money or potentially their jobs because they have expectations for kids and expect their classes to be rigorous, they will lower their expectations and friends before this I would have said it would be nearly impossible to do so but as usual the district finds a way. Say the latter from above is the case and the teacher gives effective instruction, this now means the district has just told teachers not to give kids bad grades any more. They have just said student performance no longer matters.
Friends if attendance doesn’t matter because now kids can get grade recovery for any reason, behavior doesn’t matter because the district refuses to discipline and now student performance doesn’t matter, what exactly does? Please don’t say your children, because if they are pushed along without the skills and the discipline needed to be successful then the district is doing them no favors. On the contrary we have set them up for a lifetime of mediocrity at best.
I’ll tell you what matters here in Duval County, that’s appearances. The school board wants the public to believe they are doing a good job with their strategic plan and their map tests. They want us to think that discipline and attendance are improving and programs like compass odyssey are making a difference. Sadly the truth is Rome burning down around us and like Nero they are just putting out pleasant music.
There are so many great things going on here in the county and I can’t think of one that is happening at 1701 Prudential drive, instead they are the interactions between students and teachers. Even the worse schools in the toughest neighborhoods hardest hit by apathy and violence have tremendous things going on and would have more if the powers-that be would either do their job or get out of their way.
There are some things you should know about Ed Pratt-Dannals as you consider what he has written. First he makes a 100 thousand more than the mayor and has every incentive to keep things the way they are. At a salary of 270 thousand dollars there has been no mention of him taking a salary cut. Of the 33 members of the school board that make over 100k the vast majority are on his staff. Please don’t say that we need to pay for talent when all teachers make so much less.
Ed Pratt-Dannals is a politician and one that doesn’t represent teachers and doesn’t represent children, the only people he speaks for are the school board and the administration that is beholden to him. Since he has become superintendant in the district student performance isn’t important, attendance isn’t important and behavior isn’t important. The only thing that matters is if he and the school board can manipulate the data enough to make the slumbering masses believe they are doing good enough of a job to justify them keeping them.
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