From the Supervisor of Community Relations Office, Prince William County Schools:
On December 16, the Prince William County School Board approved the framework for a “Teacher Incentive Performance Award” (TIPA). This would provide a potential monetary stipend for all school-based, certificated employees included in site-based budgets at schools that meet specific eligibility requirements that will be developed later. The TIPA would be implemented beginning with the 2010-11 school year, subject to the availability of funding.
Work will now begin in developing criteria that meet the requirements set forth in the soon-to-be-released “Teacher Incentive Fund” grant program, a component of the federal American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. Receiving such a grant would be essential for Prince William County Public Schools to successfully implement this initiative.
Like the rest of the country, the majority of public schools in PWCS with high populations of economically disadvantaged, limited English proficient, and special education children have higher-than-average teacher turnover rates compared to schools without these demographics. The development of TIPA is an effort to improve student achievement by addressing the movement of teachers away from those high-needs schools, as well as encouraging other excellent teachers to consider moving there. Performance awards are not for extra hours, more mentoring, and harder-to-teach classes, but rather awards for teaching at exemplary and defined performance levels.
Once again Prince William County Schools cave in to political pressure. It appears to be a way to artifically manipulate demographics in schools, similar to the specialty programs. It is no accident that IB programs are housed in Stonewall Middle, Beville, Stonewall High School and other schools that have high populations of ESOL, free and reduced lunch, minorities and other indicators that might lower standardized and SOL scores. Bringing in high achieving students for speciality programs attempts to give these schools a bump in their scores.
On the other hand, most teachers don’t seek out low achieving students to teach. It appears the school system is attempting to lure teachers to these schools by dangling the money carrot as weel as the superior evaluation carrot. Smart teachers won’t be fooled. Hopefully, PWEA and VEA will be all over this attempt to not only fool the teachers but also the public into believing that the better teachers will be rewarded financially.
The public needs to be asking how these teachers will be evaluated without bias. They also need to be asking if this new system will produce fewer highly qualified teachers during rough times economically. It sounds to me like a good way to avoid giving teachers a raise. Just mark them down on their evaluation. It will save money.
That’s a might big bite.
Teachers deserve higher pay no matter where they teach, but I am not opposed to offering an incentive for those who have the ability and the desire to take on greater challenges. M-H, perhaps we could see this idea as not being an either/or proposition with teacher raises across the board?
As for the fairness of evaluations, yes this is important to get right. We can’t gave them teaching to the test, at least not exclusively. I would say rather than pitting teachers against each other across the board, there should simply be a higher salary for teachers who take on more challenging jobs that require more skill. Just a thought.
All you have to do is look at the manipulation of SOL scores to realize this is a horrific way to base a compensation package. We already have the lowest paid teachers in the region and this doesn’t strike me as a way to attract new talent. Who controls the make-up of the classes or classroom assignments? Could an adminstrator stack the deck against a teacher as a way to assure a particular teacher will not receive a raise? Will teachers actively recruit desirable students for next year’s class composition? In my opinion, it sounds ripe for abuse.
Your both right. The teachers union will kill this – as a public matter – for all the reasons Allanna notes, but it is to the detriment of all and to the students that really need the extra help.
The basic problem is simple. We give politicians our money to educate the children in our county, but we have very little reason to trust those politicians to spend our money wisely. Since there is no direct accountability, we cannot trust them to set up a fair system to evaluate teacher performance.
Nothing developed by men is perfect. It is a fact we cannot educate children perfectly. So let’s consider what we are trying to do. We are trying to set up a service that educates children as well as we can. How do we judge the quality of a service? Since each of us has our own viewpoint, the measurement quality must depend upon eye of the beholder.
So what is a good education? It depends. In a free market the best any service provider can do is come up with something satisfies targeted customers. Only a fool tries to please everyone.
Consider how we buy a vehicle. Some people want trucks. Others want tractor trailers. Some want smart cars. An individual child is usually satisfied with a bicycle or tricycle that has the features he or she want. Different customers can afford and need different things. So producers find their niche and serve a particular market segment.
With a government provided service, politicians become both the customer and the service provider. They both pay the bill and review the quality of service. That is, busybody politicians decide what the user of a service needs, and busybody politicians determine if that need is satisfied. You might think so what. Even , busybody politicians still have to answer to the voters, but that observation ignores the effect of organized political constituencies such as teachers unions.
The primary service provided by a politician is influence. Since public education is controlled by four different levels of government (Federal, state, county/city, and school boards), educational policy at each school is a confused mess controlled by four sets of committees. In fact, the primary source of “competition” in our school system is these different sets of committees vying with each other to deliver favors to organized constituencies such as teachers unions. From the viewpoint of politicians, this complexity has the virtue . It obfuscates the placement of responsibility.
Because of such shenanigans, the public must inevitably be confused. When we are not even sure who is responsible for setting it, how can we keep track of educational policy. Since almost the entire system is public, we also have little basis for comparison. What is a legitimate benchmark? In addition, the mass media is so partisan, much of the information we have is biased. Instead of helping us to resolve anything, the mass media fills airtime with endless controversy.
The obvious solution is school choice, some system that allows parents to choose on behalf their children (thus, incentivizing teachers), but teachers unions scream bloody murder at the very thought. Parents, supposedly, cannot be trusted to choose for their children. The irony, however, is that the current system leaves us trusting politicians. When politicians are one of the least trusted groups in the nation, how do we explain that?
Yet that may be the wrong question. Other nations have allowed such as Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin, Mao Tse-tung and so forth to run everything a dictator could possibly control. That is, other nations allowed power mad tyrants to establish totalitarian regimes. So perhaps we should ask what are doing right. I think where we have succeeded is in respecting the right of individuals to make their own choices. Unfortunately, a socialist school system works to undermine respect for individual choices.
A private economy exists when government protects the right of individuals trade goods and service. Socialism denies such individual rights and choices, and the public school system implicitly teaches that socialism has greater virtue.
Alanna, they can and they do stack the deck. It is a regular practice and has been for literally years. In fact, it is a regular educational practice.
Test scores should never be used, positively or negatively as a measure of teaching ability. Nor should how many nasty jobs one volunteers to do, or how early or late one stays.
Alanna is totally correct.
Taxpayer, you seem to mistakenly think ‘the teachers union’ has power. In the first place, there is no teachers’ union. There is a professional association. 2 actually. They have no power. Virginia teachers have no collective bargaining or strike power. So the idea that ‘the teachers’ union’ will stop it makes me laugh.
Exemplary teaching takes time, as in time to plan and prepare. The amount of planning required to teach multiple classes is more than many people are able or willing to put in. A lot of mediocre teaching happens every day because teachers don’t have the time, interest or true knowledge of what it takes. I don’t know what kind of criteria will be developed for the TIPA reward, but basically to be an exemplary teacher it’s something you have to work on 24-7.
I imagine it would be difficult to be at the top of one’s game day in and day out 24/7. I am sure there are some. Unfortunately, in most lines of work, the one who is best at self pormotion is the one who gets the accolades. I can’t see this as being any different.
I have no problem with decent teachers getting paid more for working in more challenging schools. Perhaps effect evaluations, and a willingness to make a long term commitment to working in a challenging school should be the criteria rather than the phony baloney crap most school systems come up with as tools of measure.
I can see those lining up to blow their own horns right now.
@Moon-howler
Good teaching requires proper institutional support. When parents do not have a choice, good teachers do not get the support they need. Instead, teachers must comply with arbitrary rules. Is that not why you felt you had to do this post?
Consider how the evaluation process works in small private schools. Parents decide which school they want their children to attend and how much they are willing to pay. Parents thereby rate the school. Concerned about what parents will decide, principals decide which teachers best represent the interests of the school. Teachers thus have two objectives for doing a good job. They like what they do, and they will not be allowed to do it if they do not do it well.
If we adopt the model of private enterprise, what will government have to do? For the most part government will just have to get out of the way. That means voters will not have to become expert on what it takes to run the public school system. Voters will not have to choose and trust politicians sufficiently competent to contrive a system to evaluate teachers. Voters will not have to choose and trust politicians competent to spend hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars. We will just have to provide subsidies so poor parents can send their children to school. Educational vouchers should be sufficient for that.
Educational vouchers have been used in Virginia in the past.
Parents can always home school if they don’t like what the schools offer.
I don’t think parents are the ones to best decide the curriculum. Good parents should give support to their school regardless of their choice. Since they have little choice now, does that mean they should withdraw all their support? Now just who does that hurt?
I’m voting for Citizen Tom. He articulates the right ideas very well here.
@Moon-howler
You don’t think parents are the best ones to decide the curriculum? You are the decider? Are politicians equiped to decide what is best? Who picked the politicians? What evidence is there that the politicians have any idea what they doing? Isn’t it a lot easier to choose a good school than a good politician?
Even majoritarian tyranny is still tyranny. When we force people to pay taxes, that does not give the “majority” the right to decide how parents should educate their children. Yet each day the majority abuses the privileges of rule, we take one more step towards greater tyranny. Why are we headed that way?
Did you deal with my arguments rationally or did you sidestep them? Have you ever heard of the Stockholm syndrome?
http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1919757,00.html
Another thing that needs to be considered is the fact that even within school districts, not all of the schools (even those with the same SES population) are equal. Even among schools designated as Title I, there can be differences. For instance, the delivery model for instruction differs from school to school. Some schools may have a block schedule model, and other schools may have a traditional model. Some schools may offer services such as PALS remediation and ESOL as push in, and other schools may use the pull out method. A few schools may have reading recovery and/or numerous reading specialists, and another school may not have reading recovery and one reading specialist. And class sizes differ as well. A third grade class at one school may have 19 students, and another third grade classroom at a different school may have 28 students. And the larger the class size, the more students the teacher has during “small group” instruction. And after school enrichment programs such as the lego club (engineering) may exist at one school but not another. PTA/PTO funds at each school can also determine what educational activities students may have an opportunity to participate in. In the school district that I work in, there are no funds for multiple field trips, and field trips that are scheduled cannot go outside of a five mile perimeter of the district. Fortunately, the PTA at our school funded field trips for all of the teachers with no mileage restrictions, so the students at our school got to participate in SOL focused field trips that students at the other schools missed out on.
Tom, An occassional drive-by does not mean I must respond to you or your ideas. So F on your number one premise. And small private schools won’t educate most of the country’s kids.
Why one earth would politicians devise a curriculum? How about professional educators, experts in that field and some parents together working on curriculum? Throw in a developmental psychologist or 2 to keep everyone realistic. It takes a village and all that.
Some parents feel because they can read/add/quote the Gettysburg address that it qualifies them to make all curriculum decisions. It doesn’t.
Slowpoke, you had better start saving up now so you can send Little Slowpoke to private school. It is quite expensive. And lasts for 13 years rather than the 4 in college.
I have seen some Home Schooled children excel, but I have seen many more home schooled who have received a mediocre education. For myself, I do not think I am education enough in all areas to home school, example I still have grammar issues, run on sentences, etc.
I laugh when the home schoolers (some) tell me – we can go on vacation anytime we want, we are not restricted to the school calendar (as if that is the most important thing in life)
Pat, I don’t feel I am educated enough in all areas of study to do it either. I would be hard pressed to do a decent job in high school sciences or in any foreign language. I can see myself running out of skills fairly quickly.
However, I look at home schooling much differently than the people who are dedicated to doing it. It would be a last resort for me. The school my kids were supposed to go to would have to be so horrible and there would have to be no private schools I could afford, even doing without. Truly last resort.
@Moon-howler
Drive by? Do you want me to live on your blog? You may wish to check out how Rush Limbaugh uses that expression.
My comments directly pertain to your post. You have a complaint. I have conceded that your complaint has some merit. What I have also noted is that you have yet to properly define the problem. What is the root problem? Is it about who designs the curriculum? Is it about how we evaluate teachers? Is it about letting the “experts” do their job? No. It is about who gets to choose. It is about whether parents decide or politicians decide. Who should choose who educates our nation’s children?
What is the role of parents in education? That is up to them. If they wish to design their children’s curriculum, that is their choice. Since homeschooling works as well as our expensive public schools, it does seem that parents know as much as the so-called experts. In any event, so long as parents do not abuse their children, not the even the majority has the right to usurp parental responsibilities.
Why doesn’t the current system work well? People do not love other people’s children as much as they love their own. That includes politicians. When we leave educational decisions to politicians, then factional politics decide the issue. To get elected, politicians must use their authority over such decisions to peddle their influence to organized political constituencies (such as the teachers unions you mentioned). It is just the way the system works, and that is why politics is best used sparingly.
When we leave educational decisions to parents, then we must worry that some parents will make poor decisions. No one makes perfect decisions. Nonetheless, because parents love their children, the vast majority will do the best they can for their children. Even if some parents are not competent to design a good curriculum for their children, they will do their very best to find the expert that is competent to do so. Their educational decisions will not be political decisions design to curry favor with interest groups. They will be trying to decide what they believe best for their child. That surely beats anything we can expect from most politicians.
Furthermore, it will be right. We will have put the responsibility back where it rightfully belongs.
Citizen Tom, I suggest you read the post. It is about the change in the in the evaluation process and about the implementation of pay for performance, under the guise of staffing schools with low achievement.
Let’s not build the post into something it isn’t. You are free to discuss your topic on your blog. I posted the announcement because it was a change in local procedure for our readers/contributors to discuss.
I never check out Rush Limbaugh and he certainly didn’t invent the expression ‘drive by.’
Last time you came by to start an argument for material for your blog. Things slow again?
Parents not educators have a truly vested interest in their children. Just because someone has a bachelor’s degree in elementary education does not mean that they are better equipped than a parent to determine educational matters.
@Moon-howler
I read the your post. You allow comments. When you added you own slant to the news, you implicitly invited others to do the same.
Doesn’t your complaint basically comes down to not trusting the School Board to come up with a system to evaluate teacher performance? I say the problem goes deeper than that. Your response? Because they have virtually managed to take it over, we are suppose to let the so-called experts run the system. Instead of complaining, citizens are suppose to act like they are suffering from the Stockholm syndrome.
http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1919757,00.html
Where did the political pressure on the School Board come from? Was it not from parents? Would you like to explain why caving into pressure from parents is wrong? Would that off topic?
I asked a school board member about ‘accountability’ and his response was dead on. His response was that he’s accountable to the parents of the children.
If parents abdicate control over their childrens’ education and allow educators and administrators an unquestionable authority over the educational process then parents are primarily at fault when children don’t reach their full potential.
Also, a little tidbit – Last I checked, none of the Supervisors’ children attend PW County Schools. Why is that, if it’s such a World Class School System? Hmm.
Then if the parent wants total authority over his children, he should home-school. The problem is there are over 73,000 students in PWC. I assume each of them has at least 1 parent in the picture. If each of those parents get to dictate the curriculum then the entire system would be turning in circles tap dancing to whoever was in front of them.
The school board is elected to hire people to oversee the school system and hire people to do other things like drive the buses, cook the food, clean the facility, and oh yes, teach the children. Parents should most definitely have input and they should have transparency as long as it doesn’t involve someone else’s kid. All school systems now are under the watchful eye of NCLB and of course the state of Virginia.
Schools cannot do the job without parents. There is a high correlation between schools with parent involvement and success. Schools with low parent involvement–not so much success.
Apparently the schools aren’t as world class for the supervisors kids as they are for us earthlings. And it speaks volumes.
@Alanna
In our nation’s worse school systems, many teachers either home school or send their children to private schools.
Considering how much money we spend on the public school system, it is hard to argue that it is a good buy. Keep in mind that when school administrators talk about cost per student, they speak only of the “operating budget.” They use an accounting gimmick to exclude about a third of the budget.
Because we are in the suburbs, we are blessed with a relatively good public school system. Of course, like Washington D.C., we too have sufficient funds. What is more important, however, is that we have a relatively large pool of talented people willing to take on low paying jobs such as serving on the School Board. Unfortunately, even these people have trouble making a system work that is fundamentally flawed in design.
Imagine trying to drive a car with the steering wheel in the wrong place. The brakes and the gas pedal are in the front seat, but the steering wheel is in located behind where the driver would normally sit. In order to make this child rearing car go any place, we have to put the School Board in the back seat. Why not just put the steering wheel where it belongs and let the parents drive?
Citizen Tom, I don’t recall saying the school system caved into pressure from parents on the evaluation process. Pay for performanace in schools has been batted around the past 50 years or so, to not much avail. The concept really hasn’t been particularly successful in most areas where it was tried.
Pay for performance is more of a political cave in. Publics schools and colleges have enough trouble as it is with sharing, helping each other rather than driving knives in backs without this kind of manipulation.
The biggest problem is there is no valid metric out there to measure performance. If you are a car dealer, you can measure perormance by who sells the most cars. What do you have in education? Who has the best test scores? The fallacy here is the stated intent: PWCSB wants to lure better teachers to troubled schools. Well, won’t troubled schools have lower test scores? Will there be any room for the teacher who does a good job at a school like Bull Run or Benton where most of the kids come from middle class homes?
Never fear, someone will come up with the right answer. That is why we have the portfolio kids doing better than regular ed kids on some of the sol tests. And I have a bridge for sale….
@Moon-howler
You are operating with a logical fallacy, a false dilemma. Your statement presumes that the public school system as it is is our only choice. Not true. Even now our School Board could initiate charter schools.
Our education system is working poorly. One of the reasons is that we have no good way to evaluate teacher performance. Because the task is so subjective, we are reluctant to adopt a political solution. So you complain when the School Board does offer a solution? Assuming you have a better alternative, what do you propose?
The reality is we have public schools. I deal with reality, not what if’s.
The school board policy is based on lies to start with, starting with NCLB that states ALL children will pass their benchmark tests by 2014.
I am not so sure our school systems nationwide are working all that poorly. Perhaps we are expecting too much from them when we set 100% pass rate for all children by 2014.
More parents seem to want traditional schools. They also want traditional schools at high school level. That seems to be a good place to start with the charter concept, even though they wouldn’t be charter schools.
@Moon-howler
What is real? All I know for certain is that the one constant is change. That much is the reality of everyone.
We either change for the better, or we change for the worse. Our current educational system allows busybodies to force others to adopt their preferences. That is a recipe for change for the worse. Why should we argue about how other people educate and raise their children? Any system that requires such a discussion is broken.
CT, I believe we live in parallel universes. The reality is we have public schools. We do not have charter schools.
There really isn’t much to discuss about the evaluation process. Teachers will leave because of it. The right ones? who knows. I seriously doubt if it will attract good teachers, just dying to teach in a low achieving school. If teachers wanted to do that they could head right on up the road and teach in DC and make a great deal more money than the county pays them and get some low achieving students to boot.
What assurances do those teachers have that during hard times, the number of highly effective teachers won’t diminish? Of course they will. Anyone who believes the new pay for performance plan is going to change much of anything for the good is simply kidding themselves.
@Moon-howler
In a sense we do live in parallel universes. You insist others approach this discussion as socialists, and you assume the public takeover of the education system is irreversible. So we must discuss how to run system and other people’s lives.
On the other hand, I would much prefer tending to my own business. I got dragged into such discussions because I wanted to educate my own children and did not feel the need to tell others how to educate their kids.
Consider what the view must be like from Obama’s perspective. We simplify life by breaking big problems into small problems. Sure, it is nice to be the King. That is, being the King is great until you realize everyone expects you to solve all of their problems. Of course, you cannot. Socialism does not work. Unfortunately, if you are Obama, and you promised to solve everyone’s problems, you cannot give everyone their problems back and still fulfill your campaign promises. So you have to fool them.
Eventually, however, the people who voted for Obama will realize they have been tricked. Then each of us will have to get back to solving our own problems, one little problem at a time.
I think that you and I have a very different view of what socialism is. Actually, I find what you have said to be very insulting. People who support public school are not socialists.
I can’t imagine anyone preventing you from educating your own children. It sounds like a solution that would make all concerned quite happy.
CT, I believe all politicians trick the voters. Look at how many good conservative people were tricked by George Bush and John McCain. What is the point?
@Moon-howler
In your first paragraph, you said we have different views on socialism. I agree. If we held the same views on socialism, we would not be in different universes. You also took umbrage at my assertion that you wanted to approach this discussion as a socialist. I stand by that assertion.
The public education system is a socialist institution. You clearly support the public education system. You do so to the point that you actively discriminate any reasonable alternative. You are in fact effectively promoting socialism.
Because government both owns and operates the public education system, it is without any doubt a socialist institution. Because the public education system is a socialist institution, it teaches/promotes socialism to the children it instructs. If you endorse, promote and defend the public education system, it follows that you must be a socialist.
I don’t understand your second paragraph. What were you trying to say?
Your third paragraph baffles me. How can you hold two beliefs so opposed to each other? You think all politicians trick the voters. I don’t disagree. Why do you think most of the people who voted for George Bush and John McCain voted for these guys. They loved and trusted them? No. They trusted their opponents less. Nonetheless, you still want politicians in charge of educating children, and you advocate that we should have no interest in any other alternative.
Let’s go back to your first paragraph. You found what I said insulting. What did I say that was not pertinent to the discussion? What did I say that is not true? Which should I be more concerned about, how you and other socialists feel or the welfare of children?
Have a nice day. I don’t talk to people who call me a socialist. I come from a long line of public educators. These people felt that an education population was in the best interest of their country. In fact, I feel certain that my Aunt Carrie would slap your face for calling her a socialist.
In fact, I am going to suggest that you go back to your blog rather than trolling on ours.
@Moon-howler
Trolling? What is the problem you have with explaining what you believe? Why do you blog?
I did not insult you. I said you are a socialist, and I explained why.
The term “socialist” is a political label. Some people wear it proudly. I think that foolish, and I am glad you don’t want it put on you. Nonetheless, you have yet to provide any good reason that negates my choice in applying it on you. You just walked off in a huff.
The point of debate is to test ideas and beliefs. The point of trolling is to annoy people. When we don’t like what others believe, that can be annoying, but that is our fault, not anyone else’s.
The term ”full of hot’ air probably isn’t political term–nor is ‘arrogant’ and ‘egotistical.’
As for trolling, I believe the blog master or mistress gets to be the judge of that. I prefer that people not name-call on anti. Sometimes we all fall short of that goal.
@Moon-howler
The preamble to our Constitution lists the various reasons that caused the Founders to form a national government. I imagine most people would agree the same reasons also largely apply to our state and local governments as well. What the preamble does not make clear about government, however, is that government exists to make people obey the will of whoever runs the government.
Whenever we use the power and force of government, the primary justification should be that there is no other alternative. That is because once the government is involved, we wrest from the individual the right to choose his or her preferred alternative. Yet some people see government merely as a convenient and powerful way to get what they want done. Such are indifferent to individual preferences, and that is why Conservatives tend to think of those who promote the unjustified use of government as arogant and egotistical. Merely to force their vision of Utopia upon everyone else, such would use whatever government power is required.
When we abuse power, we produce unexpected results. The public education system began when people in small communities banded together to hire a teacher. One thing lead to another and eventually excess. If they were alive today, I think it safe to say the individuals who peopled those small communities would quite surprised bywhat they started and considerably disappointed. In the long run, the consequences were certainly not what they intended.
I have a sister-in-law who taught in a tough inner city school. One day an angry student pulled out a gun and held it to her head. Did she quit? Nope. She was right back there the next day. I believe that good teachers who are willing to teach in the toughest of our schools should get extra compensation. In some places you might even call it “combat pay.”
Wolverine, I think they already do get paid more in DC.
What criteria would you use? We already have 2 indicators–‘good teacher’ and ‘tough school.’ In theory I have not a single problem with what you just said. I just want to know how we qualify and quantify.
Pay for performance isn’t going to improve any of the ills one complains about in education. Bad teachers will continue to be bad teachers. Good teachers will be good teachers and average teachers will be average. Most teachers will not willing go teach in a rough area for more money. If that is what they wanted in PW, they could resign and go make a lot more teaching in DC.
Smart school systems need to be figuring out ways to attract and retain teachers period. The baby boomers will be dropping out in droves in the next ten year. Meanwhile there is a mini boomer bump going on right now. (for whatever reason) To quote Opinion, do the math. There will be new critical shortage areas that are going to be woefully short-changed.
All I am saying, Moon-howler, is that those who DO have the guts and determination to teach in the tougher schools ought to have the extra compensation. I guess much of this depends on how you define “tougher.” The inner city schools are one thing, but there are schools now in surburbia in which demographic changes have made the profession very, very hard — in essence a swing away from teaching toward maintaining classroom discipline at manageable levels. Not quite the “Blackboard Jungle”, so to speak, but professionally tough never the less. There has to be a way to draw truly dedicated teachers to these schools and keep them there.
One problem as I perceive it is that there is sometimes not enough truly efficient and effective backing for the teachers from school administrators and others involved managerially in the system. This is purely anecdotal, but the sister-in-law to which I referred was a cracker jack English teacher who eventually became head of her department. In the classroom, she taught English like it was supposed to be taught — precise and correct. As her school fell deeper and deeper into academic problems, pressure was put on her from above to let the kids slide more so that the graduation rates would look better; eg. let the kids get away with only learning part of the curriculum and letting them slide when they continued to make errors. This was social engineering at its worst. She was an educator pure and simple and an educator with standards. She fought back hard against the directives from above, arguing that those who lost in the end would be the kids who would be fooled into thinking they had earned a diploma of value but finding unpleasantly in the outside world that they had been duped by the educational system. She was, in my view, a teacher devoted to both pressure and bluntness — pressure on the kids to give 100% and bluntness when they were not performing up to their perceived capabilities. Eventually she left — not scared off by anything like a gun pointed at her head but discouraged by the falling standards imposed on her as a proud professional.
Is it possible to agree with you 200%?