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
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
Posts
