Appreciation

4 Replies to “Appreciation”

1. How can you claim to love teachers and hate teaching? If we adopt the agenda of Daly and the others who are pushing all of these standardized tests, when will there be time for any teaching? who will stand up for teachers who still try to teach in this age of “reform?”

2. I think the Post’s editorial was not balanced; Instead, it was very anti-teacher. Although the editorial board professes to like teachers (but simply dislike unions of teachers), they crossed the line in this editorial. This is what I wrote on the Post’s website in response to this piece:

   Wow, the Post has really gone overboard in trashing (in a very underhanded way) our nation’s teachers. What’s up with all their ire toward the profession? Is it due to the fact that the Post is owned by Kaplan and that Kaplan benefits from more testing?

   The article says, “What the unions seem to see as blaming teachers is the suggestion that teachers should be retained or not, promoted or not, rewarded more or less, based in part on whether their students learn.” Not True: Teachers object to the use of statistically unreliable assessments (with high variability from year to year) to make high stakes decisions about their jobs. Wouldn’t anyone?

3. Well, the edit on the Post was from Michelle Rhee’s arch defender, Jo-Ann Armao, who didn’t like being criticized for keeping inofrmation from the Post reporters.
   In addition, she wanted to blame teachers for the potholes in Montgomery County after the winter storms of 2010.
   The teachers didn’t give up enough.

   As for Mr. Daly, he finds it impossible that Michelle Rhee would lie.

4. John Thompson:

   ***”How can you claim to love teachers and hate teaching?”

   Who claimed the latter?

   ***”If we adopt the agenda of Daly and the others who are pushing all of these standardized tests, when will there be time for any teaching? ”

   Who is asserting that test-taking and test-prep should/will consume a majority of a teacher’s time?

   ***”who will stand up for teachers who still try to teach in this age of “reform?””

   Who is berating teachers and how are they doing this?

   _______________________________

   Attorney DC:

   ***”I think the Post’s editorial was not balanced; Instead, it was very anti-teacher.”

   Why do you, an attorney, consider this decent argumentation? What, exactly, is anti-teacher about the column? And why do you continue to attack the motivations of those you disagree with?

   ***”Not True: Teachers object to the use of statistically unreliable assessments (with high variability from year to year) to make high stakes decisions about their jobs. Wouldn’t anyone?”

   This has been addressed no fewer than 3 separate times to you in different threads. The last time (which you ignored) was here:

   eduwonk . com/2011/03/must-reads-3.html#comment-219095

   And here’s a shorter version:

   The reliability in the statistical methods of, say, value-added, is good enough to allow for some discernment of very effective and ineffective teachers, and coupled to other methods of assessment, like observations, makes it as reliable (or more so) than accountability measures in other professions.