We in education banter the word equity about like it’s this golden chalice, but is trying to achieve it 100% of them time in the best interest of our students? I’m starting to think not.

After all, a teacher who wants to start a new club, pitch a program, even just work hard to keep his or her job, is disallowed from investing in themselves because we are shackled by a system set up to reward people based on their hire date, not on their achievements, ability, or effort.

As adults, our equity should be in our opportunities to show how well we can do our job. We should all be given the same chance to do our job well, to contribute to our school community, to help our students achieve.

But in this day and age, when student achievement is so vital and we so struggle to be taken seriously as a profession, I find myself perplexed by this need to be equitable.

Because this concept of neguity appears all over the place in education. I’ll share some examples from my own site:

For one thing, there’s the seniority list that is present in every district. At lunch, for instance, I peered over the shoulder of the person in front of me as she clutched the seniority list. We know there are layoffs coming and the circled names on the list are those who are threatened. Some are great teachers, hard working teachers. My two teachers who I mentored for BTSA are circled, even though one has become a Fellow of the Writing Project since her hire, and between the two of them, they’ve brought History Day, Peer Helpers, and Girls Volleyball to our school.

So we are watching great teachers be bumped from schools by possibly lesser colleagues whose only claim to fame was that they were hired a year before. It is a system that is set up to reward “good enough” with the same equity as “blood, sweat, and tears.” The resulting neguity disallows a school or district to create a staff that is made up of the best candidates it can score. Thus, this has become bad for students.

A lesser example is the fact that I cannot speak to students and pitch my elective program because a couple of teachers do not feel comfortable talking to students about theirs. The result is neguity, because now students will not be given the chance to make decisions with all the knowledge at their disposal.

There is also an issue about pullout collaboration time and professional development on my site. With limited funds, we were told that there would be no collaboration time next year because there was no way to be equitable to all departments. But many of my Language Arts teachers asked, “How is our work load equitable?” And they have a point. You cannot compare the workload of a core teacher to that of a PE teacher. You cannot compare the time it takes to grade 200 essays to the time it takes to run 200 scantrons through a machine.

So why can’t equity be a more fluid thing? The result, instead, is neguity. No support for those who really need it in the name of fair-and-balanced.

So when did education’s commitment to giving students equity, minors who cannot fend for themselves, also mean that we needed to grant it to teachers, any teachers, all teachers? When did teachers begin insisting that they get treated the same, despite different workloads, despite different efforts, and despite different outcomes?

The result is neguity: rewarding those who don’t work hard for the school community as much reward as those who do, But still many people propose we assess teachers based on test scores, a process which is hugely inequitable. As is school funding, how funds are allocated between states and districts, and the fact that some students are still not being given equal opportunities. Is this not neguity too? Or is it just inconsistent, arbitrary uses of the concept of equity?

What does it gain when a teacher who works hard is not rewarded over a teacher who doesn’t? What does this encourage? We as adults all have the right to work hard. We all have a right to have our achievement speak for itself, our efforts and our dedication speak for itself.

If civilizations cut down the contributors who aspired and reached and dreamed and pushed, all because not everyone wanted to be that level of contributor, that civilization would remain stagnant. So is it true for education.

© heather for tweenteacher.com, 2010. | Permalink | 6 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: assessment, education, equity, k12, middle school, seniority, tenure

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OK, guys.  So I got it from the horse’s mouth at CUE.  According to the ISTE Director of Governmental Affairs, No Child Left Behind is not going away.  

In the weeks leading up to the election, the Obama administration talked the talk, proving that Educational Technology was on their radar, but if you’ve been listening, the silence on Ed Tech has since become deafening.  (...)
Read the rest of How to be an Ed Tech Advocate (515 words)

© heather for tweenteacher.com, 2009. | Permalink | 2 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: achievement gap, blog, budget, CUE, Ed Tech, education policy, EETT, equity, ETAN, fundraising, internet literacy, k-12, k12, learning, lobbyist, middle school, NCLB, obama, online, school accountability, school funding, technology, Title I, tween, UCI, writing

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So I write to you today as a contrite tweenteacher.  Lesson learned.  Don’t listen to the gossip in the teacher’s lounge.

So, in an attempt to bring this post around to some actual advice for all you educators out there, I want to reiterate that point: do not waste one minute of your time this year in a toxic teacher environment.  This is different than a Toxic Teaching Environment which can be defined as anything that gets in the way of you doing your job: under-funding, lack of school wide discipline, fractured classrooms, etc…

No, I’m talking about a specific breed of pollution that is meant to choke the enthusiasm out of you: the Toxic Teacher Environment.  (...)
Read the rest of Oh, the Wells Fargo Wagon is a’comin… (419 words)

© heather for tweenteacher.com, 2008. | Permalink | One comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: 2008, blog, carnival of education, Character Education, collaboration, computers, credential, critical thinking, Curriculum, curriculum design, curriculum development, differentiation, digital immigrants, Ed Tech, ELA, employment, equity, game shows, interactive whiteboards, internet literacy, k-12, k12, middle school, new teachers, professional development, teaching, tenure, Title I, UCI, websites

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Kelly Gallagher, educator and author of Teaching Adolescent Writers, came and spoke to the UCI Writing Project on Friday and his focus of the presentation was a Golden Line: The Goal in Education is “Everybody Improves.”  

Duh, you say, isn’t improvement always the goal of education?  Actually, no. When you consider AYP scores, for instance, the goal is to hit a benchmark, not the level of improvement you made to hit it.  (...)
Read the rest of Kelly Gallagher’s Golden Line (723 words)

© heather for tweenteacher.com, 2008. | Permalink | 3 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: 100% accountability, 2008, achievement gap, critical thinking, Curriculum, differentiation, Ed Tech, education policy, ELA, electives, equity, failing, k-12, k12, Language Arts, learning, middle school, PI, research, school accountability, school funding, Title I, Writers Project

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© heather for tweenteacher.com, 2008. | Permalink | 5 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: 2008, achievement gap, assessments, blog, collaboration, computers, credential, critical thinking, CUE, Curriculum, curriculum design, curriculum development, differentiation, digital immigrants, digital natives, Ed Tech, education, education policy, ELA, equity, integration, internet literacy, jobs, k-12, k12, Language Arts, learning, matthew needleman, middle school, professional development, research, technology, test, test prep, Think Aloud, Title I, UCI, writing

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Nobody can deny that this is happening, but there is also another symptom of NCLB that has slowly passed like a plague of yore over our schools, the disappearance of electives from the schedules of the middle-ground students.  (...)
Read the rest of NCLB? How ’bout B-studentsLB (354 words)

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Post tags: 100% accountability, 2008, achievement gap, blog, competition, credential, critical thinking, education, education policy, ELA, electives, equity, fundraising, integration, Joanne Jacobs, k-12, k12, middle school, NCLB, New York Times, ny times, reform, teaching, Title I

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© heather for tweenteacher.com, 2008. | Permalink | One comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: budget, character, critical thinking, education, education policy, ELA, employment, equity, firing, honors, jobs, k-12, k12, learning, life long learners, performance pay, teaching

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For one, McCain doesn’t even mention Ed Tech as factor in his education policies.  For another, Clinton doesn’t either.  Obama mentions it, but only in regards to the maths and sciences.(...)
Read the rest of Ed Tech is the new Home Ec and Shop (596 words)

© heather for tweenteacher.com, 2008. | Permalink | One comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: achievement gap, CUE, Curriculum, data, Ed Tech, education, education policy, ELA, equity, k-12, k12, Proficiency, school accountability, school funding, teaching, technology, Title I

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