Friday, December 20, 2013

We Are Losing Some of Our Great Teachers





Dear Louisiana Educator Readers:

I have made a somewhat painful decision to publish excerpts of two letters from a teacher who recently retired early because of the so called education reforms in our state. She is not nearly the first to write to BESE and the State Superintendent about her legitimate concerns.  I believe that her sincere concerns and crushing disappointments with misguided reforms by Governor Jindal and Superintendent White are absolutely vital to the conversation about the future of education in Louisiana. In my opinion it is very fitting that these remarks be published in this blog before we begin a new year. We need to reflect on the mistakes of the recent past if we are to make good decisions about education in the new year.
Michael Deshotels

Terri Guillory, by every measure including the new COMPASS system (She scored "highly effective") is another true master teacher that has decided to retire early because of some of the destructive policies of our governor, our legislature, our DOE and BESE. She quite correctly felt a need to write a letter to her education bosses who pushed her into early retirement to clearly describe for them the polices and attitudes that have driven her to give up her chosen profession. I hope they have all carefully read these very thoughtful letters. The following are excerpts from her letters to BESE and Superintendent White,

To BESE members:
“You and the legislature just blindly signed on to whatever Jindal touted. You asked no questions. You believed many lies. You were willing to throw us under the bus. You watched as we begged to be heard. You ignored us. You smugly observed scores of teachers leaving the profession earlier than planned due to stress. You cared so little for the true mission of education that yours were the hands eagerly dismantling it.

“If only you had respected us enough to hear our concerns, to take into account that we are the boots on the ground, who know what teaching really consists of. If only you could have admitted that the problem is not with educators, but with society itself --- and that the programs you have put in place have no merit or worth.”

I believe these are powerful words coming from the heart of a real educator. I believe Ms Guillory is totally correct in her indictment of BESE. They should be ashamed!

Now here is what Ms Guillory had to say to John White:
On Common Core: “I can see future promise and benefits of using this curriculum. These new standards seem fuller” (Notice that Ms Guillory is not one bit taken in by the claim that these are not curricula but simply standards. There is no question in her mind that the standards and especially the PARCC absolutely dictate the curriculum. In this system, teachers are forced to teach to the test!)
Guillory continues:
“However teachers are scrambling on nights and weekends to locate sources and materials to use. This is building a curriculum from scratch----. Imagine if a surgeon had to be responsible for gathering and organizing the surgical instruments for her surgeries and do so at her expense and on her own time. Teachers do have lives other than their school lives---- In my thirty years I have NEVER put in so much time gathering and preparing as I have done this year. I have had very little guidance and questions have been answered in a conflicting manner. It is not acceptable that teachers have to spend so much time and money cobbling together lessons.

On COMPASS: “This plan pushed through against the good advice of many knowledgeable people is ludicrously full of erroneous assumptions and unattainable goals. There is no way that it is a just and fair practice to put in something that is still evolving into motion and expect immediate proficiency to the point of using it as a ranking and punitive measure.---- Additionally the rubric itself is worded so that it is near impossible to get a 4 rating, to get the huge “carrot on a stick stipend”. The very creator of the rubric has admitted that earning “highly effective” several times in a row is highly unlikely. To earn a 4, students basically have to be in charge of the classroom. ----- Can our future be more tenuous? So what exactly are we trying to achieve? We have been “rode hard and put up wet”. Victimized, faulted, humiliated, insulted, discounted as being unimportant parts of the whole process. I wonder if anyone on your staff or the BESE board realizes what is being asked of us. I wonder if anyone truly knows the full depth and breadth of being a classroom teacher today.”

On the Unspoken Issues: “Everything has been put into action to be accomplished by the teachers and the schools. The entire burden is on us.--- In all the newspapers and press releases and theories proposed, the idea touted is that if the teachers change, improve, comply, then students will progress better than ever before. First, this idea is insulting to all of us because it negates what we have accomplished in all the years we have taught. Second it is a faulty “if/then” because there is MUCH, MUCH more to the equation than just teachers teaching. The unspoken issues that no one wants to utter are these: 1. Despite our best efforts, in reality some students are simply more capable than others, as is true and has been true for time and eternity in every place on this earth. 2. Many, many students have unconcerned parents who have, by the very nature of their faulty parenting handicapped their children long before they enter school. If I remember my educational psychology, the first three years of a child's life are pivotal ----- Many children are not being spoken to, read to, introduced to concepts and ideas in those years. Their learning only begins when they enter school, and at that point, a large deficit already exists. Even than, many parents don't concern themselves about homework, tests, projects or valuing school. I am weary of hearing “Every child deserves a great teacher”. How about “Every child deserves a great parent?” Yet we are expected to reach and teach children, to get them to score well on tests, to get them to achieve, despite every roadblock imaginable. These issues are unspoken because you all can't make policies for those matters, but you have many policies in place to control, demean, and blame us.”

Ms Guillory wraps up with the following:
“Teachers are extremely capable, talented, intelligent, organized, energetic, and devoted. But NO ONE has the magic to do all that is being asked of us. It is an impossible task. We are sitting ducks, being set up to fail. We know this and yet sill we fearfully and wearily forge ahead. That's what we do. But your policies and attitudes toward teachers are killing us and killing the future of education. The best teachers are opting to get out. It isn't that they are lazy or ineffective. It is that they realize the impossibility of the situation. They (we) realize how little faith you have in us and our desire to be individual, creative, unique teachers who don't need to be scored according to an unrealistic recipe that takes away our ability to teach as we deem fit for particular days and lessons. I still have a lot of enthusiasm within and I love to teach, but I can't fight this fight. I am defeated. This is what this year has done.

If you were truly concerned about improving Louisiana education, you would have not bombarded schools with so many enormous changes at once. I have not even mentioned all the day to day regular elements of the job of being a teacher. Please come and teach for a week. Gather, plan, show up, teach, assist, differentiate, pull duty, complete paperwork, trouble shoot, discipline, counsel, evaluate, be evaluated, tutor, monitor, contact parents, grade papers. Then do it all again the next day. Walk in the shoes of those you judge so harshly.”

Yours truly,
Terri Guillory

My holiday wish: That in the new year, our teachers, school administrators, and other education professionals will be recognized and treated as the wonderful, creative and dedicated professionals they have always been.

Michael Deshotels