So there’s no difference between an experienced teacher and a brand-new one? Education is the only profession in which experience is considered irrelevant. And considered most irrelevant when teaching children in need. The only way there can be no difference between an experienced and brand-new teacher is if all teachers are seen as commodities, as easily-replaced cogs in a machine with no damn difference between them. Which they are not. I know because I’ve been treated as a commodity the entire time I have taught, and not just here post-Floods. Though especially here post-Floods….

Make it clear you’re not yelling at me because I fucking “support” merit pay, NCLB, privatization, and all the rest of that bullshit–because I don’t– and we’ll be fine, Cuz. Your rants are a good contribution to the discussion but don’t lump me with “indifferent parents,” “charter advocates,” or other teacher bashers. And remember your perspective isn’t the only one around here.

I don’t want it to sound like I’m being snarky or ignoring other points. But I hear about this particular point a whole lot, especially when it is used as a means to “motivate” folks who are already pulling their hair out with their general day-to-day activities, and I wanted to focus specifically on it.

Maybe it is a sore spot for me because I get to hear higher ups and other teachers in meetings (and, in turn, reading about it in media) talking about merit pay and bonuses in a room full of people who are already operating on 120%.

I mean, don’t get me wrong, bonuses are nice – but you could probably keep more effective teachers in a system if the job is more like a real profession and less like the system is doing -us- a favor by keeping us around.

And of all the teachers who will not be teaching next year – experienced, certified or otherwise – not a single one I’ve talked to is leaving because of pay or because they aren’t getting a bonus.

But, again, let me say that I didn’t want to ignore other points you have made. These days, as the school year winds down, I’m evaluating what has worked and what hasn’t. The rants just show up. I start typing and a half hour later, there they are. Please forgive me if it all comes out sounding like this.

I second that! Will pass that on.

When the district can’t adequately provide enough substitutes, no teachers get lunch breaks or planning periods (as teaching is really like having two very intense jobs: running a class and planning to run a class). New teachers vs. experienced teachers is such a straw man red herring argument. When you hear news and media and politicians talking about the new vs old teacher thing, your ears are about to hear some bullshit.

In an anemic system with no way to deal with discipline, special education, extracurricular activities or below level students: it doesn’t matter if your teachers are new or have 30 years experience; are certified or haven’t even graduated from college yet. Whoever they are, if they are in such a system, they will spend 90% of their time dealing with classroom management or playing catch up because of all the non-teaching nonsense they are mandated by the state to deal with. Their instruction will be destroyed by those students who should be in different environments, if they are able to involve themselves in instruction at all (because they’ve been covering other classes and are just doing what they can to keep control).

In such cases, it also does not matter if the school is a public school or a charter, because the charter is going to have similar problems of setting up. They don’t like to expel or suspend too many kids, because it looks bad in the press (and it looks like they can’t control their students), so they deal with the same discipline issues. Charters are also usually new and money driven, so they have not hired enough staff to handle setting up all the extracurriculars that go along with a successful school. Then they tweak schedules and staff so much that no consistency can be reached.

Ditto new public schools, or reopened public schools as staff is structured and restructured. One other problem unique to New Orleans in my experience is the lack of experienced teachers at the -same school-. There is a lot of bouncing around, and there are a lot of curriculum and instructional changes that appear (from talking to experienced teachers) to come in every few years. That lack of consistency adds up to low, low scores.

Because let’s face it, that 36% of 8th graders number is just the ones who scored -basic- and above. -Basic- is not a victory lap to be taken if we are really going to use these ridiculous exams to guage progress. I’ve got incredibly smart students running around whooping it up about being “basic” when they have the capability to be scoring “mastery” and “advanced.”

As an aside, when Rising Tide III gets going, we NEED to have an Education Panel.