How Should I Be Judged?

Readers, I apologize for being away for so long.  Just after school let out for summer, I left town for an extended vacation with my wife’s family in Colorado, with a quick jaunt to Seattle thrown in.  As any good teacher will tell you, it is essential for teachers to stop thinking about teaching and re-charge our batteries from time to time, so please forgive my absence.  The rest was good for me, and now I’m ready to start thinking and talking again!

For those of you who follow education news, you may have heard that the District of Columbia Public Schools (DCPS) fired 206 teachers last Friday (http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/dc-schools-insider/post/more-than-200-dc-teachers-fired/2011/07/15/gIQADnTLGI_blog.html).  These teachers were allegedly dismissed for poor performance, as measured by DCPS’s controversial and closely-watched evaluation system called IMPACT.  IMPACT rates teachers in many categories centered around planning, delivery, and professionalism.  For some teachers (currently math and reading teachers in grades 4 through 8, but soon to expand to other grades and subjects as soon as they can roll out new tests), 50% of their rating comes from how much students improve on standardized tests while in their class.  Read more about IMPACT here: http://www.dc.gov/DCPS/In+the+Classroom/Ensuring+Teacher+Success/IMPACT+(Performance+Assessment)/IMPACT+Guidebooks/IMPACT+Guidebooks. 

This story really caught my attention not just because I follow education issues closely, but also because I have slowly come to believe that evaluating teachers based on test results is simply unfair.  No one is more surprised than I am about my opinion, because I entered the profession believing wholeheartedly that teachers should be held accountable for student achievement.  After spending a long time being frustrated with how narrowly and arbitrarily we currently define “student achievement” in the No Child Left Behind era, I’ve now come to the conclusion that the whole focus is misguided.  Teachers should only be judged on what they do. 

I currently teach English 10, which is the year that students in Maryland take their high-stakes English test (the HSA).  The test is a few hours long, divided into three sessions, contains between 90 and 100 multiple choice questions, and purports to test student mastery of “indicators” that teachers were required to teach, per the curriculum.  For a look at these indicators and how they are tested, please go here: http://mdk12.org/instruction/clg/english/goal1.html.  The indicators are essentially reading, writing, and thinking skills, not content (with the exception of definitions of terms that students must know in order to answer questions correctly).  The English HSA is not a horrible test, but it certainly has its flaws, which I will discuss in detail in the near future.  For now, I will just say that I would be uncomfortable having half of my evaluation tied to how my students ultimately perform on this test or others like it, and this trend is very dangerous to our schools.  A far better idea is to evaluate teachers on our level of professionalism and how well we execute our craft, much like the other true professions.  Our bipoloar identity as one-part white collar professional, one-part unionized assembly line worker is hurting us.

Ironically enough, DCPS gets it almost right for the teachers who aren’t yet *fortunate* enough to teach a tested subject (a dwindling group, sadly).  There, teachers are graded on their mastery of the teaching/learning framework (75%), teacher-assessed student achievement data (10%), commitment to school community (10%), and school value-added achievement data (5%).  I like this model because the emphasis is where it should be: on how well teachers plan and deliver instruction.  That is the essence of teaching; it is why we are called “teachers.”  While I now have a general distaste for testing data being used as any part of teacher evaluations, if it must be used, I like the approach used here—the school’s degree of improvement.  School-wide improvement as a factor for teacher evaluations would encourage collaboration and sharing among the staff, and it would also stimulate a healthy dose of peer pressure and support for those teachers who everyone knows aren’t working very hard.  However, those benefits aside, I still think this factor should only amount to a small percentage of the total evaluation, if any.  Too bad DCPS is trying to phase out this model.

I know that it might sound unrealistic, but I can’t help but wonder what our schools would look like if teaching were really a true profession, much like the lawyer crowd, which I also know a little bit about.  What if teaching certification programs were elite graduate programs with tough admission, coursework, and fieldwork requirements?  What if the government allowed full loan forgiveness or other enticements to attract smart and ambitious people to the programs (since the taxpayers will probably never agree to pay us what we’re really worth)?  What if all of these smart, ambitious people got to make their own rules and requirements for teaching licensure?  What if teachers who met all of these requirements were trusted to use their intelligence, demonstrated expertise, and professional judgment to design and deliver instruction that best met their students’ needs?  What if teachers were evaluated, by other teachers, on how careful and diligent they were in planning and delivering the best instruction possible, and on their contributions to the profession?  What if teachers could be sued for malpractice for not using the care and diligence expected from the professional community?  What if the teachers who were the real innovators and leaders got paid more for their efforts?  I bet our schools would be bursting with innovation and student achievement.  If we all think back to our own best teachers, it’s likely evident that the best teachers have always been the ones who are smart enough, hard-working enough, brave enough, charismatic enough, and free enough to do what they know is right for their students.  It seems to me that we should be implementing policies that foster this kind of ingenuity instead of stifling it.    

As you can see, testing (the end result) has nothing to do with this evaluation framework.  The state bar does not evaluate lawyers on how many cases they win or how many deals work out in their clients’ favor (although the market might indeed compensate them accordingly); instead, we evaluate lawyers on how careful they are and the zeal with which they represent their clients.  They get in trouble when they drop the ball, not when things don’t end up the way they planned and desired.  Somewhere along the way, lawyers decided that the process was more important than the result, and that, since there will always be winners and losers, it isn’t fair to penalize lawyers for results that they don’t ultimately control. 

In education, as much as we hate to admit it, there will always be winners and losers until we figure out a way to conquer the root causes of low academic achievement: poverty, poor health care, disinterested families, apathy, varying academic inclinations and aptitudes, and, yes, dysfunctional school bureaucracies, in many instances.  Yes, all teachers must have student learning (notice I didn’t say “standardized test achievement”) as their first and foremost priority, and we must relentlessly pursue high levels of achievement for all students, especially those who schools have traditionally ignored.  However, until we have cured all of society’s ills and can reasonably expect that every child can be a high achiever, it is not fair to hold teachers accountable for the end result when so much of it is out of our control.  Besides, I have a feeling that if we had the right people in the classrooms, with the right amount of respect and autonomy, learning would improve dramatically anyway.  Isn't that really the goal?

We Must Do Better

The last thing the teaching profession needs is more bashing, especially from an insider like me.  As the school year comes to a close, I've been thinking more and more about why it seems that so many teachers have such low standards for themselves.  In a typical day filled with encounters with fellow teachers, I go from feeling inspired and humbled by some of their wisdom and herculean efforts for students, to being thoroughly disgusted with others’ lack of integrity and professionalism. 

Maybe I’m not the best person to judge the professional standards of teachers.  Before becoming a teacher, all of my “real” jobs had been in law firms, where I was immersed in one of the most hyper-professional work environments imaginable.  For better or worse, lawyers are simply more serious and exacting than most people.  For example, if a meeting was set for 10:00 a.m., everyone would be assembled around the table by 9:55 a.m with their notepads and pens (or laptops) ready to go.  People would have already thought at least a little bit about the issues to be discussed, and the whole thing would be as efficient as possible because wasted time is wasted money.  No one would dare take a chance on others believing that they were the weakest link. 

In contrast, I'll never forget my very first faculty meeting at my current school, where I witnessed several teachers strolling in late, others text messaging the whole time, several others carrying on audible conversations during the presentations, and—my favorite—one teacher revealing to the person next to me that she was going to leave the meeting early by faking a coughing spell and leaving the room, never to return.  And this particular meeting wasn’t even that boring!

I have witnessed or heard about many other shocking examples of blatant unprofessionalism in my building: the teachers who leave their classes unattended for long stretches of time to talk on their cell phones, the teachers who brag about how little preparation they do, the teachers who never read or respond to their emails, the teachers who never attend department or faculty meetings, the teachers who dress like they are going to the basketball court or the club, the teachers who encourage students to fight other students, the teachers who work under the influence of drugs or alcohol, the teachers who talk badly about other teachers in front of students, the teachers who let students enter their own grades, the teachers who encourage anti-intellectualism and anti-patriotism, the teachers who have inappropriate personal relationships with students, the teachers who haven’t revised their lesson plans in years, the teachers who don’t write lesson plans at all, the teachers who can’t actually explain how their lessons make sense or how they fit into the larger unit they are teaching, the teachers who never assign work because they don’t want to have to grade it, the teachers who leave work hours (!) early, the teachers who never follow through with their promises or contribute to the professional community in any way, and on and on and on. 

For the sake of argument, I could make many excuses for this bad behavior.  I could talk about how some teachers lower their personal standards because they have been slowly demoralized by all of the insulting, counter-productive bureaucratic nonsense we deal with on a daily basis.  I could talk about how teachers aren’t paid nearly enough to do all of the things we are asked to do, so doing less makes things seem more fair.  I could talk about how some teachers feel that it is okay to “cheat” the system because they already pour so many of their personal resources into the job.  I could talk about how teachers may not feel true loyalty and obligation to the profession because we aren’t self-regulating like doctors and lawyers.  I could talk about how, due to the low pay and low prestige associated with teaching, ambitious college grads seek other careers while most teachers come from the bottom half of their college classes, which means that they may have never actually mastered the habits, attitudes, and intellectual skills required to be high achievers.  I could talk about how some teachers, especially in schools like mine, feel justified in taking the “teaching” part of their jobs lightly because we are so busy parenting our students in so many ways.  I could talk about how experience has taught some teachers that hard work is futile because so much of what happens to students is outside of our control anyway.  But I won’t let us off that easy.

As teachers, we must never forget that we owe our students our very best efforts every day, no matter how justified we may feel in cutting corners.  As employed college graduates (at least), we are already on the right side of the opportunity gap, and we must do everything we can to ensure that our students have the same opportunity.  At the very minimum, we must not block their chances simply because we aren’t up to the job.  I hope I never become so jaded that I forget this simple admonishment.

Teaching and Reaching Tyrone

Today I had one of those breakthroughs that teachers love.  I have a student we’ll call Tyrone (remember, I said I wouldn’t use real names).  Let me describe Tyrone to you.  He looks and carries himself a lot like Biggie Smalls (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Notorious_B.I.G.).  He is good natured, clever, and extremely funny, although I have heard that he can be disrespectful in other classes (I haven’t seen this side of him).  On the academic side, he tends to speak and write with the rhythmic flow of the aspiring rapper that he is, shunning Standard English at all costs, even on formal assignments.  He rarely brings basic supplies and materials to class (even a pen is a rarity); he balls up or folds important papers and leaves them everywhere except for in his binder; his writing is sometimes illegible and always full of phonetic or alternative spellings of words (I suspect he has an undiagnosed learning disability); he admits to hating books; he has zero academic support at home (he has said that his mother hated school just as much as he does and that she avoids teachers); and the list of problems goes on and on.  In short, this is the kind of kid who really makes us earn our pay. 

Tyrone and I have always had a good rapport, despite his academic problems.  I tease him relentlessly, and he returns the favor.  I make it a point to encourage him often and celebrate his successes whenever I can.  I also try to think of ways to make the material accessible to him and allow his creativity to shine.  For his part, he always comes to class (even though he is seldom prepared) and he says that mine is the only English class he’s ever learned anything in, even though he has managed to fail every quarter so far for not turning in work.  All in all, I enjoy teaching him even as he frustrates me to no end, and he and I both know that we are in each other’s corner.  

For the last few weeks of the year, I am teaching my students how to be trial lawyers as a way of reviewing persuasion techniques.  Using materials from a trial practice course I took in law school, we are conducting a full blown murder trial. The students have been given a complete case file, complete with police report, hearing transcripts, diagrams, medical reports, etc., and they will write and deliver opening statements, direct and cross examinations of witnesses, and closing arguments.  All students will do the work of lawyers leading up to the mock trial, at which point students will be assigned various roles to play.  I wanted to end the year on a challenging note, and this stuff is pretty sophisticated.  It is also engaging enough to keep the kids fairly together in these final moments of the year.

Well, Tyrone blew me away today.  This kid, who NEVER does any work at home, showed up in my classroom this morning bragging about how he has already figured out the whole case and that he plans on destroying the other side at trial.  I was skeptical until he whipped out his marked up file, organized and detailed notes (color-coded, no less), and accurate recall of minute facts that even I had overlooked.  His level of preparation reminded me of the way that my classmates and I prepared in LAW SCHOOL!  The students shared some of their work orally, and some students actually clapped for Tyrone after he shared his thoughts.  Believe me: he’s not used to that.  At the end of class, he told me that he was going to be the next Johnny Cochran.  It took almost 10 months, but the boy is finally giving a damn.  At times like this, all I can do is shake my head and smile. 

Pomp and Circumstance

Graduation season is now upon us.  For those of us in the education field, it's easy to forget how special graduation really is for the individuals walking across that stage and their families because we see it year in and year out.  Even though I still think of myself as a newcomer to the teaching game, I can already sense that there isn't much of a difference from one graduating class to the next--they have similar distributions of personalities, problems, and aspirations.  It's funny how both everything and nothing changes.  However, I am also aware of what an exciting and emotional time this is for the kids--full of a sense of nostalgia, aaccomplishment, and hope.  Indeed, I can still vividly remember each of my graduations, and I don't think I'll ever forget them for as long as I live.  I'll try to keep these thoughts in mind as I sit through hundreds of names being called ... while the audience rudely chatters the whole time ... only stopping to scream hysterically for their own friends and children ... okay, I'm getting off track.     

The faculty advisor for my school's student newspaper asked me yesterday if I could write up a short message (no more than 350 words) for seniors to be published in the final edition of the year.  I was honored that he would trust me with such a weighty task, even though I'm still not sure that I'm old or wise enough to offer up anything extremely profound.  In the end, I decided to forego being "deep" and just speak the truth to these 18 year olds.  Below is what I submitted:

"Congratulations, Class of 2011!  You have finally reached the end of your journey through mandatory education, where other people (adults) have told you what to learn, when to learn it, and, usually, how to learn it.  You have met all of these requirements, and all of us salute you.

Now, here’s where it gets fun.  Instead of listening to adults, you now get to be an adult.  Being an adult means taking personal responsibility for your decisions and their consequences.  You are no longer allowed to blame anyone or anything for things that don’t go your way.  Conversely, you get to take the credit when things go smoothly.  You now get to own your future, good and bad, and the ball is always in your court.     

Next, being an adult means taking responsibility for your community and for our planet.  You are now joining us other adults as the keepers of this world, and the younger generation depends on your responsible actions and leadership.  Always think about the impact that your actions will have on others and on our environment, and never forget that you—as important as you are—are a part of a larger, more important community. 

Finally, and most importantly, being an adult means being an original version of you.  Starting now, no one will really care much about what your reputation in high school was like (adults who still live in their high school past are generally considered pathetic), so this is a great opportunity to create a fresh, authentic, and completely unique identity for yourself.  You—not your peers, the media, or even your family—get to decide who you are.  As you figure it out, take risks, try new things, visit new places, make new friends, eat new foods, and keep track of how all of it makes you feel.  Your conscience will let you know if you’re on to something or not.  And the best part?  Things that people regard as “weird” or “nerdy” in high school are eventually regarded as “quirky” or “interesting” in adulthood.  Embrace your idiosyncrasies, because they will eventually be seen as assets.

Best of luck to you, Class of 2011, and welcome to the adult world!"

What would YOU say to the Class of 2011? 

Can Hollywood Close the Achievement Gap?

“Mr. Ray, that’s so white!”  “Mr. Ray, we’re BLACK; we don’t do that!”  These exclamations usually come on the heels of me using a big word, telling a story about an adventure I have had, or—perhaps most disturbingly—advising my students about health and fitness habits.  The exclamation is almost always followed by me saying something along the lines of “Well, I’m black, and I did it, so … ,” which is most often met with blank stares.

There is an identity crisis with underprivileged black American teenagers, and I will be writing much about it as this blog grows.  It's been on my mind a lot lately.  Based on what I hear from my students, to be black means to be unsophisticated, unhealthy, lazy, violent, mischievous, involved in dysfunctional relationships, and generally not as well off as everyone else.  One student even told me once that black children are born not as innocent as white children.  Heart-breaking, huh? 

The whole thing confuses me because I’ve never been afraid to create my own image and be an authentic version of myself—I’ve wholeheartedly embraced the “no limits” mantra, and it has served me well.  Why, I often wonder, do my kids let their “blackness” confine them?  How can they get excited about academic or professional achievement if the color of their skin subconsciously (and sometimes consciously) limits them in such negative ways?  All of the education reforms in the world won’t make much of a difference if students don’t buy-in to their own abilities and self worth.

I have an idea.  My kids spend an awful lot of time absorbing media, particularly television and movies.  Studies have shown that black kids spend more time watching television than other groups, and my students can certainly quote movies and television shows endlessly, even when they can’t seem to remember what they read in class days ago (!).  Since parents don’t seem all that interested in curbing this trend, I wonder what would happen if Hollywood decided to bombard black kids with positive and varied images of themselves.  I long for the day when a black child could turn on the TV, go to the movies, or flip on the radio at any time and be exposed to diverse representations of blackness—black characters with lifestyles, occupations, love lives, habits, values, pleasures, and sorrows that run the full gamut of American life—kind of like the diverse representations that other groups take for granted.  Would it make our work as teachers easier?

Maybe if the kids had a lot of representations to choose from, they would be more likely to choose one that lends itself to academic and professional achievement.  And eventually, if all goes well, maybe they would find the confidence to abandon the media’s formulaic creations completely and create their own identities.  Ahh, I can already see that achievement gap narrowing.

Hollywood, are you up to the challenge?

About this Blog

One of the hardest things about starting a blog about teaching is deciding what its limits will be.  Teaching is so complex and multifaceted that a person could dedicate an entire blog to just one aspect of it—curriculum and instruction, school climate, education reforms, relationships with students, relationships with the school community, the state of the teaching profession, and on and on.  There are many, many good education blogs in the blogosphere, some of which I will eventually share with you here.  With that said, I owe it to you, my readers, to let you know what to expect from my blog, so you can decide at the outset if this is a place where you want to spend your time.

What You Should Expect

1.         Stories from my classroom that demonstrate the special joys and challenges in teaching underserved black and Latino students—the ones on the wrong side of the “achievement gap”

2.         Reflections on the effects of racial identity on teaching and learning

3.         Ideas about what it means to be a good teacher in general, and in an urban school particularly (along with occasional instructional advice)

4.         Analysis of problems (and potential solutions) with public education policies

5.         Comments about current events and social trends that affect teaching and learning

What You Should Not Expect

1.         Excessive educational and legal jargon—some will pop up every now and then, but I’ll do my best to write this thing in plain English

2.         Real names or other obvious invasions of privacy of students and colleagues

I hope you’ll find this blog informative, engaging, and motivating, and that you will be generous with your comments so that we can contribute something valuable to the much-needed conversation about urban education today.  Thanks for stopping by, and I hope you come back often!

About Me

First, the vitals: black male, 30 years old, born, raised, and educated in Maryland and Washington, D.C., married with no children, and generally happy. I’ve never been one to keep a journal/diary/blog of any sort—I’m far too lazy and unimportant for that. I never thought I had much to say that would be interesting enough for others to read about, and my insignificant private thoughts and observations were safely stored away in my head, where they rightfully belonged. Then I became an activist disguised as a teacher, and suddenly things changed.

I started this teaching journey a few months after finishing law school (with no legal job offers in hand despite applying to over 150 jobs) back in 2008. What started out as a substitute teaching gig at a progressive and inspiring law-themed charter school in the poorest section of Washington, D.C. quickly turned into a permanent position teaching special education to 11th and 12th graders. That challenging but rewarding experience led me to apply for, and get accepted into, an alternative teacher certification program in Prince George’s County, MD, which landed me where I am now, finishing my second year teaching English to 10th graders at an under-served, comprehensive high school close to home.

Now let me back up for a moment. Let me admit that I have always wanted to be a teacher. My first major in college was Music Education, followed by English Education, which I eventually cut down to plain old English. I always knew that teaching was more important than just about any other job—and I also suspected that I would be good at it and really enjoy it—but I didn’t have the guts to really commit to such an “average” job. I had always imagined my future with beautiful cars (!), an impressive home with a deep front lawn in a leafy neighborhood, a pampered wife with the option to stay at home if she wanted to, the finest goods and services, and extra money to write checks for all of my close relatives if they needed me to—kind of like Cliff Huxtable from The Cosby Show, or Uncle Phil from The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. Being a teacher—a middle class profession if ever there was one—just didn’t seem to fit with that vision. Besides, I had enough brains, curiosity, and a solid enough academic foundation to pursue just about any career I wanted, so why settle for a job that would resign me to be financially “average” forever? These ideas are part of the reason why I ended up in law school.

In my law school application essay, I wrote something eloquent about social responsibility and social engineering, and I really believed at the time that law school would afford me the best chance of combining my talents (reading/writing/critical thinking), with my desire to do socially responsible work and make a good living, too. I imagined myself “providing a voice for those who don’t have one” or something similarly idealistic. Unfortunately, no one tells you going in that the legal jobs that people like me would actually want don’t pay much money (unless you’re from a very elite law school and extremely lucky). They also don’t talk much about the huge debt you will have to manage upon graduation, which prevents most of us from taking the low-paying public service jobs we might have otherwise pursued. For us average law students from average law schools, the only way we might make big money is to be an unusually entrepreneurial plaintiff’s lawyer, work for big business clients at a large firm, or do a very large volume of really boring work that has little to do with “social engineering” (insurance company defense, anyone?). Since this blog is about teaching, I won’t dwell too much on law school, other than to say that it simultaneously beat me down and built me up in ways that I could never have predicted—and that the only class I truly loved was Education Law (go figure). Oh, and I’m in a lot of debt. A lot.

So how did I end up teaching? Honestly, I ended up teaching because I always wanted to, because it practically fell into my lap, and because my then-girlfriend and now-wife encouraged me to give it a serious try. She made me aware that I always talked about it (which I hadn’t realized), and she let me know that she was more in love with me than she was with my identity as a powerful, highly-paid lawyer. I had also decided by then that the battle for justice and equality is better fought in the classroom than in the courtroom, because the disadvantaged minorities (particularly blacks) that I imagined working for were usually on the wrong side of the opportunity curve by the time they needed a lawyer. So, with this newfound encouragement and conviction, I decided to jump directly into urban education, focusing on predominantly black schools, in order to gain firsthand exposure to the contributors and solutions to the much-hyped “achievement gap” between black and Hispanic students and their white and Asian counterparts. (For the record, I made this decision before school reform became the hot topic that it is today in the wake of films like Waiting for Superman!) I figured that closing the achievement gap is the last major civil rights struggle for blacks, and I see myself as a civil rights activist as well as a teacher.

One day I may take what I have learned in the classroom and use my legal credentials to change the face of education from a policy standpoint. In the meantime, I am a teacher. And I have a lot to say.