It was the bumping list, a record of the chain of shifts being proposed as one teacher bumped another from their classrooms. Occasionally, the lawyer’s drone was punctuated by a murmuring or audible shaking of a head as someone read the name of the person who was bumping them or who realized that their name was the final one on a series of bumps that lead to the word “Laid-Off” in one of the boxes.

It was 90 minutes into the meeting when the lawyer, realizing the crowd was getting ugly, said she at least had some good news, that 4 of us had been rescinded already, that we should take heart, and that there was hope for some of us after all. My name was read along with 3 other teachers. There was a cursory pat on my back by a young gifted teacher who was not so lucky, her name still in the drawing for expulsion. And I realized that while I was grateful, I was living a part in The Hunger Games.

For with every year in teaching, every spring, comes our Harvesting. Our newer teachers sit in wait with their names on a list based not on a lottery, but on a hire date, waiting to be sacrificed for the good of our budget. Their new blood being let in order to save those higher on the seniority list who luckily made it through during more flush times.

It’s a typical story, one that we’ve seen in mythology with the young teens awaiting to meet the Minotaur, in the cinema with the 80’s movie Dragonslayer where the young group of girls with flowers in their hair wait to see who will be culled from the village and given to the dragon. In literature, it’s an evil device most recently seen in The Hunger Games, as Katniss, the cunning hunter, the provider for her family, the brave heroine is sent out to kill other sacrificial lambs so that others in her district may live.

And so too is it with education’s yearly pink slip plague. It is a time every year when teachers are roped off into a corner to wait to hear their fate. A time when they are permitted into courtrooms to argue why they should bump others off the list rather than be bumped themselves. A time when we are Harvested.

I am grateful that my name was not called this season. But at what cost?

How many teachers are being released into the air? How many will begin to pull in unemployment, their talents being wasted as the new school year begins?

There is a bleeding of potential going on in our schools. A hemorrhage of talent that is not being staunched by the system.

The expulsion of some of these teachers is not in the best interest of our students. The bumping process into a new classroom after learning so much about a grade level or curriculum is not in the best interest of our students. The pressure and tension that is yearly for many teachers, the spring threat that challenges a person to emotionally commit to the profession, is not in the best interest of our students. The inability to retain new teachers who show promise and dedication is not in the best interest of innovation in our schools. The seasonal fear is not the best interest for recruiting new talent. The system of retention based solely on seniority is not in the best interest of our profession or our students.

It is a system set up to expel the new blood, and any profession needs new blood as well as the experienced veteran in order to survive. There is a slaughter going on, and the system is set up to produce it year after year. Sure, some pink slips are rescinded, and I am grateful as a new mom and a dedicated educator that I am not forced to look for work for another year. But what of the next Harvesting?

The fact is, that after this year’s culling, I and others like me, will be even lower on the seniority list next year. At what point do we leave this profession that we have invested in, and make for higher ground in order to avoid the Harvesting again? It looms in the background of our job, year after year. And that threat is not in the best interests of education.

I wish everyone well while they await their own verdict. May each and every one of us who wishes so, find a classroom one day to call home.

© heather for tweenteacher.com, 2011. | Permalink | 7 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: education, pink slip, rescinding, RIF, school district, seniority list, tenure, The Hunger Games, union

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So here I sit, in bed rest, waiting for the birth of son #2 (I can’t tell you the name yet or my husband will freak out that I let the cat out of the bag before telling his own folks.) It hasn’t been the smoothest of pregnancies, and I can’t wait to meet the little guy, which will be tomorrow because we’ll be inducing at that time.

In addition, I’m awaiting the metaphorical birth of my first book. It’s title is, drumroll please, ‘Tween Crayons and Curfews: Tips for Middle School Teachers, and it’s due out March 1 courtesy of Eye On Education Publishing. It has been a very interesting process from beginning to end, and they’ve proven to be a great publishing house, very nurturing of a new author, permitting me input every step of the way.

I’ll be publishing some excerpts from the book over the course of the next few weeks over here at Tweenteacher, on my Edutopia blog, and my column at The Huffington Post- nothing too weighty, but just enough to give my readers a taste of the book and truncated advice from some of its different chapters.

Meanwhile, back at my school site, it seems that they are gearing up for more possible lay-offs. I received a scary letter in the mail earlier this week with a checklist of criteria to break ties in the event of seniority list conflicts. The checklist itself is missing so many pieces, I can’t help but wonder who had a hand in its creation. Were there teachers involved, just admin, or is it perhaps from a state template of some kind? Anyway, I dutifully checked, documented, sent it off, and will now focus on the more pressing matters at hand until there’s a more concrete bridge to cross later this semester. Besides, I spent time examining tenure and the seniority list in my 2010 Teacher Magazine article, “Does Last Hired, First Fired Really Make Sense,” so I’m not looking to spend more time and energy on it now.

Nevertheless, the issue of my number on the seniority list won’t be far from my thoughts. Last year, after lay-offs, I was left at only 3 from the bottom, so we’ll see where this all shakes down in the end. Hopefully, due to my years as a teacher and in my current district, I will have a position to return to in the fall after my maternity leave of absence.

In the meantime, I’m off to the hospital to begin a new chapter as a mom of two sons, and I’m off on a journey as a first time author. I’ll be back on the blogging horse in no time, as well, with new news, new perspectives, and new information about the educational world at large.

I’ll be in touch soon, everyone, and update you as things progress on all fronts!

Sincerely,

Heather

© heather for tweenteacher.com, 2011. | Permalink | 2 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: author, blogging, edutopia, eye on education publishing, huffington post, k12, middle school, public school, seniority list, tenure

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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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“Hey, I got tenure.”

“Cool, pass the mustard.”

When, in fact, it should be:

“Hey, I got tenure!”

“Are you kidding? That’s fantastic! Holy %^$#@, you must be great at what you do!”

It’s true. How can our current system be effective if just about anyone can receive a reward as incredible as the equivalent of a job shield? Heck, even in World of Warcraft you have to be at a certain level, and prove a certain amount of ability, before being awarded the shiny plate armor. So how is it that any teacher who merely makes it past level 2 without running, screaming from the job, gets the grand prize?

Right now, we don’t get raises that meet even a fraction of COLA, but somehow after year 2, we get the grand Poo-bah of all rewards: job protection regardless of job effectiveness? That’s quite a leap.

So in today’s post I’m toying with an idea for tenure reform. Notice I’m not saying tenure termination. I believe in the reasons we have tenure, but I also believe it is being over-used and taken for granted.

After all, seniority does not a great teacher guarantee, just as being green does not equal being expendable. And let’s face it, when faced with our recent wave of budget cuts, tenure protects many who’ve just managed to fly under the radar for their first two years, while forcing out newer teachers who may have the potential to glow with calling, if only given the opportunity.

But it’s not as cut-and-dry an issue as those outside of education would have us believe.

Why We Need Tenure

I’m grateful to tenure for protecting a very dedicated and self-sacrificing group of professionals. We teachers give our blood and sweat to helping other people’s children, even if those other people don’t help their own kids. We are underpaid and overworked. We are taken advantage of and taken for granted.

Without tenure, a 30-year teacher who has proven himself able under 6 school administrations can be fired under the 7th simply because of a conflict of learning styles.

Without tenure, the most experienced and proven educator, someone who has put in years on a district pay scale, could be fired simply to cut costs in order to hire a newer, unproven teacher.

Without tenure you would not be able to read the truths or opinions from teachers in the trenches. You wouldn’t be able to read this post for example.

Without tenure, a teacher would be less likely to try a new book or lesson that strayed from the district vision, even if that vision was flawed, and even if that supplemental material was exactly what that teacher needed to reach the kids in her classroom.

Without tenure we could not use criticism to improve our profession.

Without tenure, our vulnerability might drive our choices, allowing our fear of standardized test scores to drive our curriculum, rather then adding the critical thinking skills into our lessons that we know our students truly need.

Tenure is not so much a perk as a shield that allows us to teach through the ebb and flow of trends and fads brought in by oft-times nomadic administrators. It gives us the ability to have an unthreatened voice to stand up against the grain, supporting students nobody stands up for. It allows us to retain our positions through our own pregnancies or mournings, to stand up against lawyers pitted against us by litigious-eyed parents, or by the occasional student with lying on their tongue.

Why Tenure is Frustrating

But on the other hand, tenure also protects those who should be more easily let go. It allows some teachers to coast, doing a mediocre job without threat of losing their job. It allows some teachers to speak with smog in their voice, bringing down the spirit of a school, without worrying it will bring themselves down as well. It allows some teachers to be shackles on a district, bouncing from site to site. It allows some teachers to forget they have a boss, that they are beholden to update their curriculum or update their philosophies.

Mind you, most of the time, tenure doesn’t save the criminally bad teacher. No, the fact is that there is a due process to rid the system of those few teachers, and not enough districts choose to go through that long, pricey, and arduous process. (For that matter, not enough credential programs serve as initial gatekeepers either. But that’s for another post.) Instead, tenure as it exists now, protects a far greater majority of teachers, those who are (or who choose to remain) mediocre.

These teachers are neither here nor there. They show up to do their job, but are not interested in being great at their job. There’s nothing in their record that can justify getting rid of them; but does that teacher really deserve the greatest reward this profession has to offer?  This is the picture of the teacher tenure typically ends up protecting.

After all, what this can mean is that once teachers have achieved tenure, there’s no carrot in front of them to encourage self-improvement save for their own intrinsic motivation.  And for many, it seems, that’s a lot to ask.

So I remain torn. Tenure is a tragedy in some cases and a savior in others. My confusion lies in the existence of such a black-and-white rule in a world of gray.

How is it that education seems like the only profession where you can only evaluate someone as Satisfactory or Unsatisfactory? What kind of rubric is that? Where is the, dare I say the word, differentiation?  Where are the gradations of judgment? And, as a result, where are the gradations of reward?

Aye, here’s the rub…

What This Battle Really Is About

Just as we differentiate our lessons and our assessments, I’m thinking that there should be gradations of reward for a job well done starting with a competitive base pay. And these rewards should be judged by a series of multiple measures…with tenure as the Holy Grail for being great at the job, regardless of one’s seniority.

But who decides what a teacher has earned, and how does that person decide it?

It is undeniable that the heart of this tenure battle is really in how we evaluate teachers. For if we had better ways to gauge the gradations of talent in the classroom, we could better sculpt the teaching force that we need in our schools. If we had more effective ways to pay and reward teachers that better reflected the abilities of the individuals being evaluated, we could better develop members of our force who remain dedicated to their own professional evolution as educators.

Currently, there are great, talented educators out there working hard to propose solutions to issues involving teacher evaluations. Teachers like David Cohen and Anthony Cody of the ACT ning (Accomplished California Teachers) who are busily working on proposals to help guide our industry in how we evaluate teachers formatively with the purpose of appropriate reward, using “good evaluation as a system that improves teaching.” Teachers like Renee Moore who makes sure there are teacher voices at the most important of tables, disallowing politicos and lobbyists to make major decisions without educator experience being heard.

I’m not sure how they feel about this particular issue of tenure, but I know that the work they are doing will have a direct effect on improving how we are rewarded for our efforts in this difficult profession.

The fact is, I believe a great, new teacher should be given the respect of being wooed with everything in education’s power to retain that teacher. I believe that veteran teachers who are still awe-inspiring in their ability to reach out to generation after generation of students should also be given whatever we can to reward their ongoing efforts. I believe that experienced teachers willing to train those new to our profession, passing on their knowledge and experience, and helping to prepare our next generation of educators, should also be offered whatever we can to reward and encourage their continued support.

But I believe too that teachers, regardless of their years in this profession, who still struggle to prove their effectiveness, should still feel the pressure of having to improve their craft.

And, bear with me here, I believe that those who have tenure should have to continue to prove they deserve it in order to maintain it.

The bottom line is this: tenure should be a precious thing. There should be a process to receive it. It shouldn’t be granted just because you made it through the first two years without offending anyone.

It should exist. It needs to exist. But it should be awarded to those who have earned the shiny plate armor.

© heather for tweenteacher.com, 2009. | Permalink | 5 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: base pay, professional pay, teacher assessments, teacher evaluations, tenure, tenure pros and cons

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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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© heather for tweenteacher.com, 2008. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: 2008, achievement gap, assessments, blog, book review, btsa, budget, Careers, carnival of education, character, Character Education, classroom library, collaboration, computers, concrete, contract, CORE, credential, critical thinking, CUE, Curriculum, curriculum design, curriculum development, differentiation, Ed Tech, education policy, ELA, electives, essay, essay starters, jobs, k-12, k12, Language Arts, life long learners, merit pay, metacognition, middle school, NCLB, new teachers, online, peer teaching, performance pay, PI, podcasting, powerpoint, professional development, Proficiency, school accountability, school funding, speeches, standardized testing, technology, tenure, Title I, TLN, top 10, union, voice, websites, Writers Project, writing

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© heather for tweenteacher.com, 2008. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: carnival of education, credential, education policy, new teachers, performance pay, PI, school funding, technology, tenure

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Now, while I would be totally devastated if I had to uproot and move my middle school life into another school in the district, the fact is that the union needs to have some flexibility here in giving administrators a modicum of power over their staff positions, even those with tenure.(...)
Read the rest of Make an Offer They Can’t Refuse (407 words)

© heather for tweenteacher.com, 2008. | Permalink | 4 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: 2008, achievement gap, competition, credential, differentiation, education policy, ELA, employment, learning, Math, middle school, performance pay, school accountability, school funding, standardized testing, teaching, tenure, Title I, Washington Post

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© heather for tweenteacher.com, 2008. | Permalink | 3 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: achievement gap, Character Education, credential, education, middle school, physical education, PI, teaching, tenure, Title I

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But it did get me thinking about an incident that happened last year at my school where the union was brought in to protect a teacher from being observed beyond the allowed contracted hours after complaints had been waged against the teacher.  (...)
Read the rest of Teacher Observations: Principals vs. the Union (333 words)

© heather for tweenteacher.com, 2008. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: credential, cta, data, education, employment, firing, k-12, k12, merit pay, new teachers, performance pay, reform, tenure, union

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