First, an explanation is needed. I would like to refer readers to http://www.huffingtonpost.com/alan-singer/who-is-charlotte-danielso_b_3415034.html for an article on this new teacher evaluation system that is sweeping the nation.

Who Is Charlotte Danielson and Why Does She Decide How Teachers Are Evaluated?
Posted: 06/10/2013 3:03 pm

A New York Times editorial endorsed the state imposed teacher evaluation system for New York City as “an important and necessary step toward carrying out the rigorous new Common Core education reforms.” The system is based on the Danielson Framework for Teaching developed by Charlotte Danielson and marketed by the Danielson Group of Princeton, New Jersey.

Michael Mulgrew, the president of the city’s teachers union, and Mayor Michael Bloomberg, also announced that they are generally pleased with the plan. According to the Mayor, “Good teachers will become better ones and ineffective teachers can be removed from the classroom.” He applauded State Commissioner John King for “putting our students first and creating a system that will allow our schools to continue improving.”

Unfortunately, nobody, not the Times, the New York State Education Department, the New York City Department of Education, nor the teachers’ union have demonstrated any positive correlation between teacher assessments based on the Danielson rubrics, good teaching, and the implementation of new higher academic standards for students under Common Core.
…
Bottom line is that 40% of a teacher’s evaluation will be based on student test scores on standardized and local exams and 60% on in-class observations. In this post I am most concerned with the legitimacy of the proposed system of observations that are based on snap-shots, fifteen minute visits to partial lessons, conducted by supervisors potentially with limited or no classroom experience in the subject being observed, followed by submission of a multiple-choice rubric that will be evaluated online by an algorithm that decides whether the lesson was satisfactory or not.

Sigh. You’d have to be in the trenches to understand how threatening this framework can be when you work in a poor school district that has traditionally had low scores. You also don’t have to be a rocket scientist to see that your best chance to succeed in teaching is to work in a district with a tradition of higher scores. I expect this rubric will lead many capable young teachers to move to districts higher up the socioeconomic ladder simply because students who plan to go to college will yield much higher results on the Danielson rubric, leading to better reviews.

That said, here’s a delightful, paraphrased version of the rubric for a teacher’s evaluation that captures the essence of the rubric’s problem: It’s results are more heavily based on the behavior of students than the effort and performance of teachers.

The Danielson Guide to the Highly Effective Thanksgiving (I can’t find the original source. This turkey is all over the internet.)

Unsatisfactory: You don’t know how to cook a turkey. You serve a chicken instead. Half your family doesn’t show because they are unmotivated by your invitation, which was issued at the last minute via facebook. The other half turn on the football game and fall asleep. Your aunt tells your uncle where to stick the drumstick and a brawl erupts. Food is served on paper plates in front of the TV. You watch the game, and root for the Redskins.

Needs Improvement: You set the alarm, but don’t get up and the turkey is undercooked. 3 children are laughing while you say grace. 4 of your nephews refuse to watch the game with the rest of the family because you have failed to offer differentiated game choices. Conversation during dinner is marked by family members mumbling under their breath at your Aunt Rose, who confuses the Mayflower with the Titanic after her third Martini. Only the drunk guests thank you on the way out. Your team loses the game.

Proficient: The turkey is heated to the right temperature. All the guests, whom you have invited by formal written correspondence, arrive on time with their assigned dish to pass. Your nephew sneaks near the desert dish, but quickly walks away when you mention that it is being saved until after dinner. You share a meal in which all family members speak respectfully in turn as they share their thoughts on the meaning of Thanksgiving. All foods served at the table can be traced historically to the time of the Pilgrims. You watch the game as a family, cheer in unison for your team. They win.

Distinguished: The turkey, which has been growing free range in your back yard, comes in your house and jumps in the oven. The guests, who wrote to ask you please be invited to your house, show early with foods to fit all dietary and cultural needs. You watch the game on tape, but only as an video prompt for your family discussion of man’s inhumanity to man. Your family plays six degrees of Sir Francis Bacon and is thus able to resolve, once and for all, the issue of whether Oswald acted alone.

Eduhonesty: If I were looking for a synonym for Danielson Framework, I doubt I could find a  better one than turkey.

I am often struck by what and how much former students remember. This post is for the new teachers out there: Those quiet students who never talk in class? You might be stunned to know how much they value the time you spend helping them, how much that simple morning hello means to some of them.

Due to the Common Core curriculum, school districts are furiously trying to teach critical thinking to America’s students. I’d like to observe the following: As the country lurches in lockstep toward this goal, independent thinkers in educational administration seem to be vanishing. Is the Common Core curriculum the best plan for American education? A case can be made for and against this new focus on critical thinking, but almost nobody in educational administration is making the case against the goal — at least publicly.

Let’s start with the fact that those countries who are outscoring us on international tests are NOT doing anything like the Common Core. No one has put anything like the Common Core into widespread practice. This is a huge experiment with an already educationally-lagging population as test fodder. I submit we might be much better off studying Finland carefully and then doing what they do, since the Finnish approach seems to work very well.

Eduhonesty: Where are the voices saying what I just said? Many teachers are sounding off, but a dearth of administrators seem have joined the chorus. Is it because, in the upper echelons of American educational administration, there aren’t many critical thinkers? Maybe these pundits want to emphasize critical thinking because in some distant, vaguely aware portion of their collective consciousness, they realize they don’t seem to be able or willing to think critically.

On December 3, the Illinois General Assembly approved Senate Bill 1, a fairly comprehensive set of changes to teacher retirement benefits and to the funding of the Teachers’ Retirement System.

I honestly don’t know how I feel about this. Changes to the existing system seem unfair since people have been relying on promises made to them. They have budgeted with a certain set of expectations. After all, if you can’t trust your own state, whom can you trust?

Still, I am a fiscal realist. The state of Illinois has fallen into an abysmally deep hole and it can’t keep writing checks for which there are (or will be) insufficient funds.

Eduhonesty: Pension reform has become unavoidable. The budget numbers simply don’t work and those numbers have to be fixed somehow. That said, this post is for aspiring teachers: There are fifty states where you can teach. Don’t pick this one.

So a new student arrived. I did the perky new student introduction. Welcome to the class!

I introduced the poor guy. Then I asked those questions from MeTV shows. You’re new? Where did you come from? You’re local? Oh, but you were not here before? Were you at the local Catholic school? Where have you been in school?

Awkward moment: When your new student tells you he just got out of jail.

I felt pretty bad about maneuvering him into that public admission, needless to say.

Eduhonesty: Maybe this post should be a reminder to talk to students privately before barging into their business. I blew this one badly.

“An intellectual is a man who takes more words than necessary to tell more than he
knows.”

~ Dwight D. Eisenhower (1890 – 1969)

I’ve written this before, but it’s worth a repeat of sorts. Some days I’m really tired of big words. I have lists filled with words to use to create lesson plans. They’re not allowed to merely “review” anymore. It’s not active enough. They’re not allowed to “learn.” Learning is not specific enough.

They have to classify, generalize, illustrate, paraphrase, summarize, differentiate, discriminate, distinguish, research and demonstrate, among other action verbs. Many administrators want to see these words and I tend to oblige them. These same administrators produce erudite presentations showing their own grasp of multi-syllabic words.

Eduhonesty: Don’t get me wrong. I love big words. I play spelling games for fun. But there is a large difference between seeking the most effective word and showing off to impress the audience. We appear condescending and pretentious when we use too many polysyllabic words in a single sentence. We also appear insecure.

Let me take a stand: There’s nothing wrong with a goal such as “Students will learn the difference between a metaphor and a simile.” We can gussy this sentence up all we want, but the truth is that extra verbiage in a lesson plan won’t help students to learn any faster or better. The extra time we spend on the lesson plan may be taken away from planning actual instruction too.

Many students struggle to connect with their social studies classes. Yet the content of these classes permeates the news and daily life. We make some connections using primary and other sources from the internet.

But if we want students to understand their place in the civic scheme, why not have them attend village board meetings? Or park board meetings? Even zoning boards and planning commissions are likely to have their moments. So many towns offer a direct view into the politics. We don’t take enough advantage of outside resources.

I suggest the little nippers check out their local school board meetings.

She once said to me, “My brain just doesn’t work,” somewhat blithely but entirely sincerely as she explained away an assignment gone wrong.

Yet she’s pretty good at math. She catches on quickly.

I wonder how she came to that original belief about her abilities.

Fortunately, she seems to be realizing she her brain has more power than she once supposed.

“Education’s purpose is to replace an empty mind with an open one.”

Malcolm Forbes (1919 – 1990), in Forbes Magazine, courtesy of bob@lakesideadvisors.com.

Eduhonesty: Forbes was lucky enough not to see the current post-NCLB educational apocalypse. Currently, I sometimes think we are emptying minds as we teach students that the purpose of education is to pass tests. With this focus, the joy of learning may become utterly lost. Students hear, “You need to know this for the test,” — all the time.

How often do they hear, “Isn’t this fascinating?”

Among other considerations, curricula aligned to the test can ensure that teachers won’t get a chance to teach interesting material that they and their students will enjoy.

Example: I love geometric proofs. A small, but mathematically hardy, group of students can be expected to feel the same way. No true mathematician exists who can’t and doesn’t produce proofs. Unfortunately for students, some expert in my state determined that proofs represented such a small percentage of overall standardized test requirements that teaching proofs was a poor use of instructional time. My then-high school stopped teaching proofs, except for a brief, essentially useless introduction to the idea.