Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums GT Research Ignore ACT Reading and Science scores?

But what I'm saying is that if teaching was regarded more as a profession, then better people would go into teaching. And let's not judge the value of an educator (especially for the primary/elementary grades) simply by their smarts! Intelligence is important, but certainly not the only thing! When I write of treating educators as professionals, it's really not all about pay. Teachers are notoriously under the thumb of controlling administrators and forced to comply with school rules regarding what and how subjects are taught. They are treated as if their opinions do not matter.

Okay, my MEd. program does not have any of these "fluffy" requirements. If I had to describe my program is would be that it is "easy but a lot of work", meaning that good grades are not hard to come by, but everyone must put a lot of effort into it. It's not busy work - it's very thoughtful work. For instance, I wrote about 150 pages of papers for 3 classes last semester (one was a 40-pager that was set up just like a traditional Master's thesis without the carrying out of the research), plus had 2 math classes that had demanding assignments regularly. And don't forget that as I future high school math teacher, I am required to already have my Bachelor's in Math before entering this program. The purpose of the MEd. is to provide ALL of my teacher training.

I personally don't think that merit pay is the answer. I think that administrators need to step up and actually DO the evaluations that they are supposed to be doing, and go through the steps to fire truly bad teachers. I think that what we would find if a MEANINGFUL evaluation system was ever put into place if that we have generally great teachers and very few poor ones. This is why we will probably never have a meaningful evaluation system - because then we would have to find someone else to blame for our educational failings.

This IS relevant to the discussion when you describe classes in diversity, and to some extent, even social justice, as fluff. When teachers don't understand the lives of their students, they can't teach them effectively. Period. Only in a very homogenous, well educated community can a teacher effectively meet the needs of students without some solid understanding of cultural relevance and social barriers to acheivement. I completely agree that it is neither appropriate nor acceptable to close the acheivement gap by allowing gifted students and other high achievers to stagnate. However, I also think that gifted students from low socio-economic backgrounds (particularly when they are also second language language learners or students of color) get routinely overlooked, dismissed and/or mid-identified as students with ADHD or EBD issues *because* white, middle class teachers too often view students through the filter or their own cultural expectations and experiences. I find that underidentification and misidentification horrifying, and as much a product of a cultural differences between staff and students as of the actual barriers these students might bring with them to school.
And I would argue that it is short-sighted to sacrifice collaboration and mentoring of new teachers for an idea that appeals to some. Teaching is a non-profit, tax-payer funded profession. When you start talking about merit-pay you are talking about making teachers compete for a very limited piece of the pie--a pie that will not increase no matter how hard everyone works. There is no additional profit to generate if everyone works harder, there are no billable hours, there is no client base to expand. Finding what works in our classrooms is not about subject knowledge, it is about figuring out how to effectively instruct students from many different backgrounds and experiences in subject knowledge. Collaboration and idea sharing is critical to the progress we are able to make. In the last couple of years I've worked hard to develop a more effective way to meet the needs of students with strong literacy skills. Should I have kept those innovations to myself to make sure that I get the "credit"? I didn't. I love to share ideas with my colleagues. Not only do I find it exciting to have someone else react positively to something I have developed, but I also appreciate the opportunity to improve and refine my work based on their feedback and reactions.
I have worked with adults who carefully guard their successes and who put their name on everything they generate. Often, what they have generated is a refinement of an idea shaped by multiple people in the field, but they are quite willing to claim credit for themselves. Most likely they are the people who will be "rewarded" in a merit system, but often they are not the best teachers, just the best at marketing themselves.
Yes, there needs to be a certain level of competency and knowledge in the classroom, but there is a big difference between knowing and teaching. I've always found the old adage that "those who can't do, teach" to be absurd at the K-8 level. While very strong subject knowledge may be almost enough at the highschool level, and fully enough when teaching high ability, motivated students, my history degree means very little when I am trying to teach a student how to be a learner at the K-5 level.
Neither brilliance nor subject mastery equate to an ability to teach. In the program I went through, students had to have a top GPA to be admitted. While it allowed me into sail into the program, I have found it to be a poor tool for selecting effective teaching candidates at the elementary and early middle level. I am not suggesting that teachers don't need a base level of intelligence and subject knowledge, but I do not find it at all alarming that they aren't top scorers on GREs. There has been a lot of sifting and winnowing before adults even get to a point where they would take a GRE, and I doubt very much that overall GRE scores would be a strong indicator of teacher effectiveness, at least at the K-8 level. The GRE does not measure many of the skills that make a teacher great.
Actually, I had posted in response to that earlier in the thread, but somehow my response vanished into the ether (I hate that). I would say this:
For most students, a teacher at the K-8 level with reasonable but not stellar GRE scores is not going to create a problem. However, I do believe that we often have the wrong people assessing students for giftedness in specific subjects, and I believe that when it comes to recognizing early giftedness in specific areas, we need to find a way to bring subject masters into the process--not master educators necessarily, but people who understand the subject with the kind of depth that allows them to recognize brilliance even where there are "gaps". I believe that it takes someone with enough understanding of the subject to really get at the depth of a student's thinking, especially since that thinking is likely to be somewhere outside of the box. I'm not sure how that would work in practice, but I am not impressed with our current assessment methods and think that most educators are better equipped/trained to recognize bright high achievers than they are to recognize gifted learners.

It�s not that what you�ve said is controversial. I will acknowledge that my response was emotional, but it was also based in my beliefs and experiences, and I stand by what I've said. While your response suggests that you were looking for meaningful debate, your initial post did not raise questions for discussion. Instead, it contained a number of blanket statements that maligned teachers "as a group" as being not intelligent enough for their jobs; as being afraid of evaluation; and of demanding something you feel they do not deserve.
If you are looking for honest discussion and debate about our education system, I am more than willing to have that discussion. I am both a fierce advocate and a fierce critic of K-12 education in this country, and I do not shy away from discussions that challenge educational systems, methods or practices. Both in and out of my workplace, I am frequently one of the people raising those challenges (which nets me more than my fair share of both positive responses and eye rolls when my hand goes up at a staff or committee meeting). I will, however, acknowledge that my final comment was unnecessarily snarky. For that I apologize.

I, too, want to apologize if my earlier comment about the level of MEd candidates in the grad school I attended was offensive. Maybe it was a slow bunch !

I totally agree with the above comment, on another topic. I've generally found that this is where high intelligence in teachers is relevant. Yes, I've seen some very good teachers who are not likely well, well above average in terms of intelligence. It doesn't take genius to understand elementary school subjects, as you said, and someone of average intelligence should be able to understand with enough depth at least elementary work to be able to teach it. Having a knack for teaching and an average IQ is probably better for most kids in terms of a teacher than a brilliant person who doesn't have a real touch for teaching.

However, when dealing with gifted kids, having a very intelligent teacher increases the odds of the child being more accurately ided and understood, at least from what I've seen. Perhaps those who are seeking MEds in gifted education ought to be held to a higher standard in terms of grad school admission so they can truly understand their future students. I, too, have seen artistry overlooked in favor of technicians when the average teacher is trying to determine who is gifted or who is really good at a subject.

Not sure what you mean here.

If mean that mentoring and collaboration are substitutes for objective assessment, I disagree. They have their place, but not in assessment. And I never said that mentoring and collaboration should be disallowed.

I agree that merit pay shouldn't be based only on test scores. If a teacher does an incredible job on some random project, s/he should get some kind of appropriate bonus. If a teacher consistently takes on extra work and does it well, s/he should be rewarded (such as with a promotion to a higher pay grade). I don't understand why there's so much resistance to this idea.


People in the military are rewarded for doing their jobs well. So are people at the FBI, the forest service, scientists at federally funded labs, tenure-track scientists and technicians at state-funded universities...the list goes on. Why is this practice okay in these places but not okay for teachers?

Banning merit-based bonuses, promotions, and other rewards is extremist and protects mediocre people while providing disincentives for going beyond the call of duty. When there's no reward for doing a really good job, many talented people will seek employers who recognize their talents --- just like the parents of many gifted kids opt out of public schools in favor of educational environments that recognize the talents of their children.

There's nothing wrong with wanting to be recognized for doing good work. Appropriate recognition is healthy. Yet you implied that the only two choices are taking no credit or narcissism. This is close to a straw man argument, as I never said anything like this.


"Aren't top scorers?" They're the bottom scorers! That bothers me. And given that the GRE is measuring pretty basic stuff, it really bothers me that they don't know this stuff.


So you're using this as an excuse for not knowing subject matter? It's wonderful if Miss Smith relates well to her 8th graders, but if they don't learn much from her because she doesn't really understand algebra, what's the point?

I get frustrated when discussions about teachers are framed along the lines of "it's better to have someone who's good at teaching than a subject matter expert."

Teachers don't have to be experts, but they have to be competent. A person simply cannot teach something effectively without knowing how to do it very well. The average GRE and SAT results among future teachers are too low to imply competence.

Anyone teaching fourth grade math and up should know algebra and geometry very well (and both are tested on both the SAT and GRE). Really, they all should. You have to know a lot more than your students in order to really understand their mistakes.

(Note that I have teaching experience and am not just making all this up based on some theory I have).

I sent you a PM, Dottie

I agree, but instead of expecting all elementary school teachers to be generalists who can teach all subjects well, I think there ought to be some specialization, as there is in middle school and high school. Hire math teachers for elementary schools (maybe they could teach science as well), and pay them more than other teachers if necessary. The teachers' unions would oppose this, which is yet another reason they are part of the problem.

There is a lot of talk about "diversity" and "role models" in education, but almost all elementary school teachers are female. Emphasizing math skills in math teachers and paying them well could attract more men to K-6 teaching. This would be a side benefit. (I'm not saying that all or even most such math teachers would be male, just that a higher fraction of math specialists rather than generalists would likely be male.)

Yes, I agree on both counts. You make good points.

My younger son will have a male teacher next year in 4th grade. He will be his first male teacher ever.

Val

I wasn't suggesting that mentoring and collaboration are a substitute, or that they would be disallowed, more that I think merit pay in a field like education would discourage collaboration and mentoring, which I think would be a significant loss. I'm glad to hear that you don't see test scores as an adequate measure. Specifically, what do you see as good measures?


I agree that there is nothing wrong with wanting to be recognized for doing good work, I just don't see merit pay as the way to do that. Promotions are something I could support, although I don't have a clear picture in my head as to how that would work. One of the problems I see in the field currently is that the only "promotion" opportunities involve leaving the classroom to become a teacher leader or an administrator. Every time a particularly talented colleague leaves the classroom to lead other adults I think that more has been lost than gained.

I did not intend to imply that the only possibilities when it comes to recognition are no recognition or narcissism. In fact, I wasn't implying narcissism at all. I do not, however, think that it is necessarily the "best" who get top recognition. Yes, they are usually noticed in some way, but I too often see people who are good at self-promotion getting far more credit than appropriate, and ending up in positions they shouldn't be in at all.




Do I think it's ok for Miss Smith who is teaching 8th grade not to have command of algebra? Of course not, and that's not what I said. However, I believe in a generalist model in elementary school and would not want to see it go to a middle or highschool model. I'm pretty sure that in my previous post I distinguished between what an elementary vs. a middle or high school instructor needs. I agree that a math teacher at middle/high school should have a solid command of their subject, but I do not think that a fourth grade math teacher needs to have that same level of proficiency. If they are teaching students who are working on algebra, then yes. However, that speaks to how staff are assigned which is a somewhat different topic.

I wonder about the GRE scores you mention. The lowest compared to math and science masters? Or also compared to english, language, fine arts, etc. masters? I would expect math and science masters to have higher scores because they would be consistently making use of that math either in practice or--as is often the case--because they have just finished their undergraduate degrees and classes are fresh in their minds. While some teachers combine certification and masters to begin with, or do their masters fresh on the tail of their BA or BS, in my neck of the woods it is far more common for people to do masters work after a few years of teaching. Math seems to be a "use it or lose it" subject for many people, so I would expect that to impact scores as well. I guess what I'm wondering is, what happens when the data is disaggregated by criteria other than type of masters--e.g. amount of time between undergraduate degree and GRE; relationship of major to skills on the GRE; time spent preparing to take the GRE; etc.

Look, I have no objection to filling schools with teachers who can earn top GRE scores in every subject as long as they have the other requisite skills to teach effectively across the learning spectrum. I don't think districts would turn these teachers away either. However, I highly doubt that the American public is anywhere near paying teachers enough to compete with what other fields would offer these same people. I also don't believe that lack of opportunities to be promoted is what drives most teachers from the field. In my experience, most teachers leave the field either due to burnout or because their idea of what teaching would be was not a match for the reality of what teaching is. Increasingly, teachers are also leaving because the costs are beginning to outweigh the benefits: the heated rhetoric has made them feel dumped on and unappreciated; they are being expected to do significantly more with significantly less; and the love they have for teaching is being overshadowed by the stress of that combination.

I do believe that children on the "tails" need a more specialized type of instruction and I have no objection to separate or additional requirements to teach or co-teach those students. However, I would point out that not all gifted children are gifted in math and science; and not all adults with great math and science skills have the love of writing and literature that children who are gifted in those areas need, so I would want to be careful in overemphasizing one type of knowledge over another for an entire profession or subset of a profession.

I support merit pay and oppose tenure, but the systems used reward and terminate teachers should be realistic. An NYT story about the Washington D.C. public schools describes a system that appears unrealistic in some respects.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/28/education/28evals.html
Teacher Grades: Pass or Be Fired
By SAM DILLON
June 27, 2011

'But some educators say it is better at sorting and firing teachers than at helping struggling ones; they note that the system does not consider socioeconomic factors in most cases and that last year 35 percent of the teachers in the city�s wealthiest area, Ward 3, were rated highly effective, compared with 5 percent in Ward 8, the poorest.

�Teachers have to be parents, priests, lawyers, clothes washers, babysitters and a bunch of other things� if they work with low-income children, said Nathan Saunders, president of the Washington Teachers Union. �Impact takes none of those roles into account, so it can penalize you just for teaching in a high-needs school.�

Jason Kamras, the architect of the system, said �it�s too early to answer� whether Impact makes it easier for teachers in well-off neighborhoods to do well, but pointed out that Washington�s compensation system offers bigger bonuses ($25,000 versus $12,500) and salary enhancements in high-poverty schools.

�We take very seriously the distribution of high-quality teachers across the system,� he said.'

<end of excerpt>

The notion that the achievement gap will be closed by having only great teachers in poor schools is unrealistic. There will be average teachers, just as there are average people in other professions.

To make sure we're talking about the same idea, by "merit pay," I mean a reward for a job well done. This approach is used in most organizations employing merit pay. It doesn't typically inhibit collaboration. In fact, it often encourages teamwork --- most organizations put a premium on the ability to work in a team.

Examples of meritorious work that should earn someone a bonus, a raise, or a promotion:

• Taking on extra work and doing a good job of it. Someone could help ensure that the way stuff in the storeroom is organized meets OSHA regulations, or could help assess a new reading program.
• Lead an effort to assess some program at school, such as PE (e.g. examine programs elsewhere with the program at home.
• Increase test scores in a target group. Test scores shouldn't be the only measure, but they're still a valid measure.
• Implement a new program, such as a way to provide acceleration.
• Get some grant money.
• Etc. Just use your imagination.

As for promotions: a while back, the software industry realized that some people who deserved promotions didn't want to be managers and were far more valuable doing technical work anyway. So the companies changed their systems. At many companies nowadays, management isn't the only road of promotion. Many people can now climb very high in the corporate hierarchy without having to become line managers.

Schools could (should) establish a hierarchy of teaching ranks. Titles could include, for example, Teacher I, Teacher II, Teacher III, Senior Teacher, etc. etc. Just look to industry for how to do this kind of thing. And people should get promoted based on merit, not on seniority.

At the same time, I also think it's important for some of those very talented people to be setting policies. They can have a greater positive effect when they influence the system instead of just a single classroom.

Bottom line: the schools are going to have to change.


Compared to everybody. See Table 2.


Why? What's better about it?