Somebody call the police. Davis Guggenheim was robbed. This week the Oscar nominations were announced and “Waiting for Superman” was noticeably absent from the documentary film category. Perhaps it was just too hot to handle, but education was THE social issue of 2010 and rages on here in the new year with the President calling it “the Sputnik of our generation,” in the SOTU the other night. (A turn of phrase Sarah Palin apparently doesn’t understand.) “Superman” took on many of the sacred cows in education including some of the issues that are playing out here in Washington, teacher assignments, how staff layoffs are decided, and what passes for evaluations and feedback to teachers and principals.
We’ve all heard that change is hard. But sometimes, what makes it hard is that we hold on to old – some might say antiquated – notions of how to do things. Such is the case with education.
This past week, in Olympia, legislators in both chambers introduced bills to create more flexibility in decisions about layoffs (RIFFING), to require mutual agreement regarding teacher placement and to better define the criteria by which principals are evaluated. The RIFFING piece of this legislation is a sticky wicket for many. These decisions have been made almost entirely based on seniority or a “last in first out” (LIFO) basis. The issue has received vast national attention, from “Superman,” to studies to a recent court decision in Los Angeles. It is a huge change in thinking for a workforce that has operated on seniority rules – you go into a work force expecting that your time on the job is crucial and a change like this is bound to cause discomfort. Locally there is skepticism about whether this kind of change can be implemented well if at all. The new evaluation systems are still being built and need time for implementation, refinement, training.
But these aren’t reasons for not doing it. They are good reasons to make sure the evaluation system works for teachers and principals, and that it’s fair and reflective of the vast talents that teachers bring to their classrooms, and that they give good feedback for meaningful professional development. Sticking to a system because it’s the system we know isn’t an effective way to get more done with less. And this is precisely what we’re asking of our schools. We are going about getting more with less by doing the same old things the same old way.
Is change hard? Yes. Often times change is damn hard. Should we run away from it – even though the evidence suggests we might at least try it, if not embrace it – because it’s hard? That’s not the way we got to the moon. It’s not the way we became a world powerhouse and arguably the richest nation on the planet. And it’s not the way to the other side of the biggest challenge in a generation. If this is our Sputnik moment, we’re going to have to do some hard work to get there.
But it can be done.
Waiting for Superman was passed over for an Oscar nomination because, as a documentary, it just wasn’t very good. The presentation was so biased as to challenge the presumption that it was factual. Other documentary filmmakers decide who gets the nomination and they know what a documentary should be.
As for using evaluations to set the order for layoffs, why don’t we just use the evaluations to remove ineffective teachers without waiting for a lay-off? Then people can start a career in teaching with some assurance that they won’t be laid off during their prime earning years so the district can hire a novice teacher at half the pay.
You have put the cart before the horse when you want to use evaluations as the basis for lay-offs before you fix the broken evaluation system.
And there are evaluation systems already starting. The biggest thing in the Seattle teachers’ contract IS evaluation (and the district says that). That the district (and the Board) agreed to using seniority first; well, why aren’t you taking that up with them?
So why more churn via these misplaced bills? It’s not going to help and will only confuse the situation.
Get over the Oscar nomination for Superman – it just wasn’t good enough. Funny how even Roger Ebert, the noted film critic, said that if he had clearly understood the situation, he would have taken back his thumbs up for Superman.