Walton County School Budget -- report from Sen Gaetz

[30ashopper]

What a conundrum. I give up! Maybe public education systems could let private biz "take them to school" about how to attract top talent (hint -- PAY well, give them an objective, and then let them show their stuff, get out of their way with the red tape and paperwork) and how to jettison dead weight (do not renew contract for underperforming employees--a lesson certain banks, insurance companies and mortgage firms need to learn yesterday).

When a dysfunctional bureaucracy rewards mediocrity in those who know how to keep their heads down and turn in the right paperwork on time, while punishing those who aren't so good at paperwork but are really good at their job, guess what kind of folks leave the system in favor of employment that gives them room to apply their strengths?

I think that brings up another sticky subject, teacher evaluations, and related issues such as tenure and job security. Perhaps job security is a thing of the past, and we need to be shifting our workforce toward -- and our educational system preparing the next generations of workforce for -- greater adaptability to our constantly changing global economy/job market.

Van Jones has some interesting things to say about a lot of these issues, though it's more from an environmental and economic development perspective than an educational one. I think you can read articles and excerpts at Yes! Magazine's website if interested.

Big business has nothing over our education system at preventing such a thing. ;-)

But I like your original suggestions. I wouldn't mind paying teachers more if I new it was going to those that deserve it. Myabe Obama will bring some much needed reform to the system. Reps certainly run into a lot of resistance trying new things so maybe a reform oriented dem like Obama can make some head way. Charter schools certainly hold some promise. I would also like to see more control over who is hired and fired placed in the hands of parents, they after all have have thier kids futures invested in the system.

Most importantly we should be paying attention to what works - not numbers like most invested per kid. Test scores and the like have their flaws but they are the best tool we have for judging performance. I would love to see teachers tied in with these statistics, broken down carefully based on the types of students they teach. Good luck getting that past the unions though.

 

[Susan Horn]

Big business has nothing over our education system at preventing such a thing. ;-)

But I like your original suggestions. I wouldn't mind paying teachers more if I new it was going to those that deserve it. Myabe Obama will bring some much needed reform to the system. Reps certainly run into a lot of resistance trying new things so maybe a reform oriented dem like Obama can make some head way. Charter schools certainly hold some promise. I would also like to see more control over who is hired and fired placed in the hands of parents, they after all have have thier kids futures invested in the system.

Most importantly we should be paying attention to what works - not numbers like most invested per kid. Test scores and the like have their flaws but they are the best tool we have for judging performance. I would love to see teachers tied in with these statistics, broken down carefully based on the types of students they teach. Good luck getting that past the unions though.

All good points! And as much as I like the concept of across-the-board performance-based accountability for teachers, I have to keep in mind what I saw and experienced firsthand right here in SoWal some years ago. Bay School was tiny, rural, and generlly treated like the "redheaded stepchild" school for the county. At least, that's how it seemed to us here. (When it was the only school in Sowal).

The population here was even more transient than now, and poverty was much more prevalent among the families of students there. (Most of them rode the bus, and there was no long line of very nice, clean vehicles every morning and afternoon at drop-off and pick-up times). I think more than half the school was on reduced or free lunches, and the Title I program was substantial as well.

So we had these wonderful, loving, skilled, dedicated teachers and aides, a terrific PTO, as well as enormous community support. But we didn't have strong support from a lot of the families, and we would have kids coming in who had lived in three different towns in as many years, and Mom and Dad were so busy making ends meet, they couldn't help with homework. Some kids didn't even have electric lights to do their reading at home. I won't mention the even sadder situations of neglect, broken homes and abuse, b/c even though we could spot kids likely coming from such situations, we were powerless to help get them into better situations b/c of all kinds of laws that I still don't understand.

The point of all this being, even though there is much less of the transience and debilitating poverty than before, I know these conditions exist in other places, and I know it's not fair to penalize good teachers who go into impossible situations every day. Just take the transience alone: when 50% or more of a school's student population changes from one year to the next, there is no reasonable way teachers can be held accountable for whatever shortcomings there may be on the scores. Say you've got a 6th grader who arrives at your school reading at 2nd grade level and doing 3rd grade math, with some emotional issues and perhaps a bit of ADD veering towards OCD and ODD. By the time you can get the child referred, tested, and an IEP in place, at best you have only half a school year left with accommodations in place to bring the child up to grade level. How realistic is it to expect teachers to do that with a significant number of students year after year?

So. Maybe there is some way to factor in those sorts of variables into the performance accountability? I am SO not clever enough to figure that one out. Anyone?


As for "what works" It is already known what works in lots of ways: small neighborhood schools instead of megaschools located far from where the teachers and students live; teaching to right and left brained learning styles; unit studies; engaging as many of the senses as possible in any given lesson to address auditory, verbal, visual, tactile and kinesthetic learners; teach to each child's strengths and cultivate those, rather than hammering on the weaknesses, etc.; apply Gardner's theory of multiple intelligences to curriculum, I could go on and on. For some reason, very little of this is done with any consistency or prevalence in public schools I know of. For that matter, it's lacking in private schools as well. Maybe b/c the teachers are too busy "teaching to the tests" and making sure they document everything in triplicate to keep from getting sued or fired?

Definitely we are stuck with an education system that was designed to teach farmers how to be urban-dwelling factory workers (and later, cubicle farm workers), when what we need is a system that will prepare our children and grandchildren for a future we cannot even imagine due to the rapidity of changes in global markets, technology, and on and on.

 

[30ashopper]

All good points! And as much as I like the concept of across-the-board performance-based accountability for teachers, I have to keep in mind what I saw and experienced firsthand right here in SoWal some years ago. Bay School was tiny, rural, and generlly treated like the "redheaded stepchild" school for the county. At least, that's how it seemed to us here. (When it was the only school in Sowal).

The population here was even more transient than now, and poverty was much more prevalent among the families of students there. (Most of them rode the bus, and there was no long line of very nice, clean vehicles every morning and afternoon at drop-off and pick-up times). I think more than half the school was on reduced or free lunches, and the Title I program was substantial as well.

So we had these wonderful, loving, skilled, dedicated teachers and aides, a terrific PTO, as well as enormous community support. But we didn't have strong support from a lot of the families, and we would have kids coming in who had lived in three different towns in as many years, and Mom and Dad were so busy making ends meet, they couldn't help with homework. Some kids didn't even have electric lights to do their reading at home. I won't mention the even sadder situations of neglect, broken homes and abuse, b/c even though we could spot kids likely coming from such situations, we were powerless to help get them into better situations b/c of all kinds of laws that I still don't understand.

The point of all this being, even though there is much less of the transience and debilitating poverty than before, I know these conditions exist in other places, and I know it's not fair to penalize good teachers who go into impossible situations every day. Just take the transience alone: when 50% or more of a school's student population changes from one year to the next, there is no reasonable way teachers can be held accountable for whatever shortcomings there may be on the scores. Say you've got a 6th grader who arrives at your school reading at 2nd grade level and doing 3rd grade math, with some emotional issues and perhaps a bit of ADD veering towards OCD and ODD. By the time you can get the child referred, tested, and an IEP in place, at best you have only half a school year left with accommodations in place to bring the child up to grade level. How realistic is it to expect teachers to do that with a significant number of students year after year?

So. Maybe there is some way to factor in those sorts of variables into the performance accountability? I am SO not clever enough to figure that one out. Anyone?


As for "what works" It is already known what works in lots of ways: small neighborhood schools instead of megaschools located far from where the teachers and students live; teaching to right and left brained learning styles; unit studies; engaging as many of the senses as possible in any given lesson to address auditory, verbal, visual, tactile and kinesthetic learners; teach to each child's strengths and cultivate those, rather than hammering on the weaknesses, etc.; apply Gardner's theory of multiple intelligences to curriculum, I could go on and on. For some reason, very little of this is done with any consistency or prevalence in public schools I know of. For that matter, it's lacking in private schools as well. Maybe b/c the teachers are too busy "teaching to the tests" and making sure they document everything in triplicate to keep from getting sued or fired?

Definitely we are stuck with an education system that was designed to teach farmers how to be urban-dwelling factory workers (and later, cubicle farm workers), when what we need is a system that will prepare our children and grandchildren for a future we cannot even imagine due to the rapidity of changes in global markets, technology, and on and on.

Sure, since the school and students have a base level of performance before a teacher enters into employment. Improvement or loss could be tracked.

The point here would not so much be to penalize teachers who do not perform and reward those that do because I doubt teachers take on the job with the intent of performing poorly. The idea would be to find the teachers that do produce better results and study what they practice so those skills can be taught to other teachers. Administrators as well could be researched. We have this amazingly diverse school system with millions of students and teachers and admins, the idea would be to treat the entire system as a petri dish for research. Freeing up red tape and getting unions / educators to be less paranoid of research like this would be a good first step.

 

[Bob Wells]

30a, seems we are no longer talking about merit raises. As for your idea about teaching those successful methods are a good idea, but do you feel as though there is cycle as students change and leadership changes overtime. I personally don't think there is a consistent base from year to year.

 

[30ashopper]

30a, seems we are no longer talking about merit raises. As for your idea about teaching those successful methods are a good idea, but do you feel as though there is cycle as students change and leadership changes overtime. I personally don't think there is a consistent base from year to year.

Sure, you can do some amazing things with statistics. I think the bigger road blocks are those that want to protect the status quo, which is typical of any large organization with entrenched interests. I just think we need to get people in there who can bring about change. Time will tell I guess.

 

[Susan Horn]

The idea would be to find the teachers that do produce better results and study what they practice so those skills can be taught to other teachers.

Indeed! I think I read an article in the NY Times recently about just such an approach, and it made me wonder, DOH! Why haven't we been doing that all along?

One of the things they noted about the master teachers was that they interacted very frequently to individual students in individualized ways, i.e. to that child's learning style or whatever. They were moving around, engaging with the kids at the kids' eye level, not standing in front of the room the whole time. I have seen teachers who do this -- some are natural born to it, but others have learned it through experience and observation. So clearly it's something that can be learned.....

One of my favorite natural-born teachers to watch in action was Beverly Johnson. I've seen her with a group of 15-20 kids, from age 5 to 12 or more, all different learning styles, and in one day a week of classes, teach the whole group more -- and they all had a blast learning -- than most kids probably learn in a week or a month of "regular" school. She managed to incorporate all subjects into unit studies around science themes, individually tailored as needed on the spot to each student's level.

Side lessons included kids learning to get along with all ages instead of just their age peers (a big shortcoming of public school IMHO); everyone has gifts and talents worthy of honoring; difference is good, interesting, cause for investigation and celebration -- not just okay; and most important of all, that learning is FUN. I'm forever grateful my boys were able to participate in that amazing class.

(Thank you, Beverly!)

 

[GoodWitch58]

The idea would be to find the teachers that do produce better results and study what they practice so those skills can be taught to other teachers.

Indeed! I think I read an article in the NY Times recently about just such an approach, and it made me wonder, DOH! Why haven't we been doing that all along?

One of the things they noted about the master teachers was that they interacted very frequently to individual students in individualized ways, i.e. to that child's learning style or whatever. They were moving around, engaging with the kids at the kids' eye level, not standing in front of the room the whole time. I have seen teachers who do this -- some are natural born to it, but others have learned it through experience and observation. So clearly it's something that can be learned.....

One of my favorite natural-born teachers to watch in action was Beverly Johnson. I've seen her with a group of 15-20 kids, from age 5 to 12 or more, all different learning styles, and in one day a week of classes, teach the whole group more -- and they all had a blast learning -- than most kids probably learn in a week or a month of "regular" school. She managed to incorporate all subjects into unit studies around science themes, individually tailored as needed on the spot to each student's level.

Side lessons included kids learning to get along with all ages instead of just their age peers (a big shortcoming of public school IMHO); everyone has gifts and talents worthy of honoring; difference is good, interesting, cause for investigation and celebration -- not just okay; and most important of all, that learning is FUN. I'm forever grateful my boys were able to participate in that amazing class.

(Thank you, Beverly!)

Grayt discussion everyone.

I just returned from an educational conference and one of the presentations I attended was given by a woman who is doing her research at Columbia and is the head of a developmental educaton program at a community college in NJ.

She is studying "best practices" of teachers who teach reading and writing to college students who need remedial work. After following a group of teachers around for a year, she found just what you read in the article, Susan.

The Master Teachers who are successful have a personal relationship with the student--they use whatever it takes to reach that student--these days that is often pop culture and technology-- and they are for the most part, the "renegade" teacher--the one who ignores the red tape, the one who puts the students first; and the one who often either leaves or is asked to leave because "they are not following the rules". Their students are successful, but the teachers methods are 'suspect" so the administration loses the good teacher and the students lose the good teacher. It is insane!

I also wonder about the time for school. All the research shows that teenagers need more sleep and that they do not function as well early in the morning as they do later...so, why are we having public high schools schools start so early and end so early?

I think it has more to do with the transportation schedules than it does with any learning research.

We desperately need to change our education system.

 

[North Lake]

The idea would be to find the teachers that do produce better results and study what they practice so those skills can be taught to other teachers.

Indeed! I think I read an article in the NY Times recently about just such an approach, and it made me wonder, DOH! Why haven't we been doing that all along?

One of the things they noted about the master teachers was that they interacted very frequently to individual students in individualized ways, i.e. to that child's learning style or whatever. They were moving around, engaging with the kids at the kids' eye level, not standing in front of the room the whole time. I have seen teachers who do this -- some are natural born to it, but others have learned it through experience and observation. So clearly it's something that can be learned.....

One of my favorite natural-born teachers to watch in action was Beverly Johnson. I've seen her with a group of 15-20 kids, from age 5 to 12 or more, all different learning styles, and in one day a week of classes, teach the whole group more -- and they all had a blast learning -- than most kids probably learn in a week or a month of "regular" school. She managed to incorporate all subjects into unit studies around science themes, individually tailored as needed on the spot to each student's level.

Side lessons included kids learning to get along with all ages instead of just their age peers (a big shortcoming of public school IMHO); everyone has gifts and talents worthy of honoring; difference is good, interesting, cause for investigation and celebration -- not just okay; and most important of all, that learning is FUN. I'm forever grateful my boys were able to participate in that amazing class.

(Thank you, Beverly!)

We too were very fond of Beverly when she taught our son James in 6th grade science at (then) Bay Middle ... the couple of years it was a middle school. She was fantastic, and really connected with all the kids in the room.

 

[Susan Horn]

Grayt discussion everyone.

I just returned from an educational conference and one of the presentations I attended was given by a woman who is doing her research at Columbia and is the head of a developmental educaton program at a community college in NJ.

She is studying "best practices" of teachers who teach reading and writing to college students who need remedial work. After following a group of teachers around for a year, she found just what you read in the article, Susan.

The Master Teachers who are successful have a personal relationship with the student--they use whatever it takes to reach that student--these days that is often pop culture and technology-- and they are for the most part, the "renegade" teacher--the one who ignores the red tape, the one who puts the students first; and the one who often either leaves or is asked to leave because "they are not following the rules". Their students are successful, but the teachers methods are 'suspect" so the administration loses the good teacher and the students lose the good teacher. It is insane!

I also wonder about the time for school. All the research shows that teenagers need more sleep and that they do not function as well early in the morning as they do later...so, why are we having public high schools schools start so early and end so early?

I think it has more to do with the transportation schedules than it does with any learning research.

We desperately need to change our education system.

I've been wondering the same thing about teens and sleep and school times. IMHO it has something to do with school as warehouse/babysitting service for workforce, largely composedof families who must have two incomes to make it.

We homeschooled for many years, for all kinds of reasons (and I feel very grateful we were able to). There was no schedule! Hardly a curriculum. Just unit studies and following interests, using every opportunity to learn in the moment. Lots of hands on. Very demanding for the teacher, and I didn't get paid much. In fact, I put my earning career on hold for a LONG time and we're still recovering $$-wise. There oughtta be a tax break or something for filies who choose this route, IMHO. We tried to do the public school approach but the schools here at the time were unwilling or unable to meet the needs of our sons, and were basically leading them to a place of hating learning and hating school.

Even the private schools (and now college) our sons attended after middle school aren't up to my (admittedly high) standards for schools, and we're still having to advocate for both to make sure they don't get punished for independent thinking, critical thinking skills, broad views, etc., that they developed in homeschool (and of course under Beverly's tutelage).

Every person is different, yet our education system -- public and private, K-12 and beyond -- still wants to run them all down the same chute. Great for those who fit that modelor adapt easily; disaster for everyone else and sadly, for our cocommunities and our country, all falling behind in the global scene largely b/c of a seriously dysfunctional system. We're all paying double or triple the price of the tax dollars funding it all.

 

[Smiling JOe]

how do we expect kids to sit still long enough to learn if we don't feed them brain food? Hot Fries and Dr Pepper, along with a hot dog, don't make much of a nutritious lunch and the sodium, bleached flour, and sugars, not only cause health problems, it also makes the kids all jacked up, followed by complete exhaustion. If you want to teach kids, put good food into their bodies as a start, so the teachers have a chance.