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Community Corner

Putting Students First?

On the same day a 12-year-old opened fire on his classmates with a sawed-off shotgun in a New Mexico middle school gymnasium, I received an email announcing California's grade of D-, with a state ranking of 43, on the annual StudentsFirst Education Policy Report Card. The coupling of these two breaking news stories struck me as ironic. Allowing kids easy access to guns is hardly putting students first. Nor is trashing the quality of their schools. The two issues met in the selfless act of a social studies teacher who put his life at risk persuading the shooter to put down his gun. John Masterson did, indeed, put his students first that morning.

StudentsFirst is described by its founder, Michelle Rhee, as "a bi-partisan grassroots movement to improve America's schools." I joined the group after reading her book, Radical: Fighting to Put Students First. I was impressed by her goal: to "bring great teachers to all classrooms in America." Unfortunately, there's little evidence her national report card advances that goal.

Not one state earns an A grade. The report's rating criteria are based on the notion a free-enterprise model is the only key to better schools. Louisiana gets top ranking, but still manages to earn only a grade of B-. The state gets praise for teacher evaluations that "base all personnel decisions, as well as compensation structures, on classroom effectiveness." Another policy "provides parents with useful and easy-to-understand information regarding school performance in the form of an A-F school report card. In addition to their traditional neighborhood schools, parents can choose from a robust network of public charter schools."   

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Rhee's group gives New Mexico school policies only a D+, but the state ranks in the nation's top 24. The report card says New Mexico could improve by "requiring districts to use performance as the driving factor in key personnel decisions like compensation, promotion, and layoffs"

The StudentsFirst policy for evaluating teachers raises a question for me of how John Masterson would be rated and ranked among his fellow teachers when it comes to compensation and layoffs. How would his heroic act that morning be factored in as a measure of his "classroom effectiveness?" I think that's the trouble with the StudentsFirst recommendation for teacher evaluations. Its narrow focus on test scores and classroom observations may deprive students of the greatest teachers of all: those who inspire us with life lessons learned between classes.

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And lest you get too depressed over California's dismal report card from StudentsFirst, compare our test scores for 8th grade proficiency in math and reading. They may be less than impressive, but they're better than both Louisiana's and New Mexico's. In my opinion that's the other problem with the SF report card. Test scores have always been more reflective of family income than school quality.

email me at richard_riehl@yahoo.com
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