Teacher Ratings: True or False

That is the headline from the April 8, 2014 edition of The Indianapolis Star.  Directly below the headline it states, so many high marks and so few low raise questions about evaluation systems.  Before I go any further I need to direct a comment at the readers from the state of Michigan who might read this post.  Indiana has historically been in the bottom quartile when it comes to academic achieve.  Indiana also uses a grading system for their schools that ranges from an A to an F.  Right now there are a significant number of schools in the state with an F rating including the school where I sit in the back of the room.

Beware because this conversation may get animated and the language may be inappropriate.

The jist of this article is that nationally the students in Indiana are underachieving academically but statewide only a very small percentage of the teachers are rated as ineffective.  The bottom line here is that the evaluation system is flawed because with so many F schools in the state there should be many, many more teachers rated ineffective.  What a crock of feces.

I don't know a lot about the authors of this Indianapolis Star article but I wonder how much time they've spent in a classroom.  I suspect little if any.  Well they might not have but I have.  In fact I'm in my third school year sitting in the back of the room so I see first hand what is going on academically.  You know what I see everyday teachers busting their ass so a scholar can get an education.  The average class size is 25 scholars.  Each teacher has to prepare lesson plans for language arts, math, science and social studies.  They then assign homework for all these subjects and then have to grade the homework.  Let me repeat this there are on average 25 scholars in a classroom and they have to grade all of this homework nightly.  I'll tell you this they don't get it graded each night so in order to stay caught up on the homework and their lesson plans they come to school and Saturday and/or Sunday to get their work done.

There are two things I like to see the authors of this article do.  First of all spend a day with me and record their observations in The Indianapolis Star.  In fact today would have been a great day to do this and here is why.  The Collector decided he didn't want to do all his academic work but wanted to play games on the computer.  When he was told to stay off the computer he got angry and call the teacher a bitch.  He then walked around the room knocking items off of desks and counter tops.  Later in the day the classroom telephone rang and Straw got upset because he couldn't answer the phone.  He decided he was going to call home and tell his parental unit that the teacher was being mean and wouldn't let him answer the phone.  When the teacher told him to stay off the phone Straw turned and said to shut up you fat ass.  When the teacher told Straw that he was being disrespectful Straw said my parental unit said you are a fat ass.  Now that the writers for The Indianapolis Star have first hand knowledge of what happened in my classroom today they will be directed to the home of these two scholars so they can speak to their parental units about their scholars behavior.  With accurate information about what happened in the classroom they can publish their observations in The Indianapolis Star and the readers can decide if we have ineffective teachers or ineffective parental units.

Here is the second task for the writers from The Indianapolis Star. I'm going to write a test that I'd like the writers to administer.  The test will be created from third grade academic material.  Here are the questions.

How many lines of symmetry are there in a square?

What is the difference between an antonym and a synonym?

Is the follow statement a fact or opinion?  Mr. Schultz is to old to teach my son and he belongs in a nursing home.  By the way that is what a parental unit said to BaseG during a parent/teacher  conversation. 

Please tell me the value of X in the following equation.  4X + 4 = 24. 

Please my dear Aunt Sally is:
     A.  A story from the a tabloid magazine.          
     B.  A letter a child is writing to their aunt.
     C.  A math order of operation.

With the test in hand the writers from The Indianapolis Star will be directed to the car rider line.  As a parental unit arrives to pick up their child the writers will ask the parental unit to answer the  questions.  For every wrong answer they get they will ask the parental unit how do you help your  child with homework when they can't correctly answer test questions geared at third grade scholars.   When the writers have completed their testing assignment I will the ask the writers who is ineffective the teacher or the parental unit.

Here is my final comment on this article.  The Indianapolis Star is a for profit company.  Over the years they have discovered that what sells newspapers is articles about death, dying, destruction and criticizing the public school system.  So the next time you read an article about public schools in The  Indianapolis Star you should be on alert and carefully decide if what you are reading is fact or just  bullshit designed to sell newspapers.