Much More Than a Numbers Game!

Early morning musings:

Just watched a short piece on the Florida teacher awards granted this year based on (wait for it northerners you will find this hard to digest) The teacher's personal  ACT/SAT scores.  This is a prime example of why educators should make the rules re: education, with appropriate legislative oversight, not interference.

How to rate teachers? This ain't it! Life in the classroom, from Pre-K to Adult Ed isn't a multiple choice "I had a good day and high guess factor" sort of thing.  The list of reasons why this us as f****d up as a soup sandwich or a football bat, follows:

1. Persons who come into teaching as a second career, as I did, or who are long time teachers at the top of their game may well have had those scores purged.  No scores before 1966 are even archived. I took the SAT in 1958 (yeah, I'm that old). So the last year I taught, at my best as a teacher, I would have been unable to qualify for the  $8,000 bonus! Scores between 1966 and 1975 cost more than $30 to retrieve , newer ones $21. The hook here, is that both ACT and College Board freely acknowledge that tests you took in High School may well be irrelevant today.

2. Those who come to teaching as a second career are frequently, as I was, motivated by the desire to do more than just communicate information. We are also frequently the repositories of working  experience in the real world which no "fresh from college" teacher can possibly have,  and will never get in a classroom. The newbie may have an ACT of 33, but be unable to relate or communicate. They could however, receive the bonus because they're "smart."

3. The person who is bright and knows it can be, and is, too frequently, your greatest liability, not your greatest asset. In the Naval Nuclear Power Program, the person most likely to get you into trouble  was the one too smart to use the book!

4. Teaching is certainly an academic endeavor, but the word "vocation" (from the Latin "vocare" - "to be called") carries an additional connotation  of sense of lifetime mission. It requires a passion and ability for interpersonal relating and, at times,  compassion. There are a lot of truly brilliant sociopaths in this world,  whose  SAT or ACT scores are off the chart, and none of whom should be allowed in, or even, near a classroom.

5. Finally, some of the best teachers and professors I have studied under and taught with were brilliant. Conversely some of the worst teachers and professors in my personal educational journey were  also brilliant. And introverted. And unimaginative. And poor communicators. And unsuited for the job they were doing.

In summary: I have struggled for years as a labor negotiator and frankly, just as an intellectual exercise, with the question  of "How do we reward superior teachers?"  In my humble (sort of) opinion, Plato had this one right. He spoke of the "Philosopher King" - the high minded, well educated person who ruled beneficently and wisely based on intellect, competence  and high moral standard. The closest fit I can I can see to that description is the "classroom experienced" on scene administrator who, based on demonstrated personal competence in the classroom and observation coupled with student success, taking into account the students involved, recommends (or doesn't) that this specific teacher be qualified for the bonus. Of course that poses the question of how do we measure and select  those administrators? It doesn't get any easier, but at least there are metrics in play other than a 30 years' earlier multiple choice test.