Part 3: Ravitch vs. Rhee -- Who's the real idealist?

Here's the final installment of my critique of Diane Ravitch's CNN article on Michelle Rhee and ed reform in general. Part 1 is here. Part 2 is here. 

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Ravitch:

Rhee believes in merit pay but she is unaware that merit pay has been tried again and again for nearly a century. It has never worked. It failed recently in New York City, Chicago, and Nashville. In Nashville, teachers were offered a $15,000 bonus to raise test scores. It didn’t make a difference. 

Merit pay comes in a lot of shapes and sizes. In this particular interview, Rhee talked about differentiated merit pay: paying high-performing teachers what they're worth, much in the same what that the best players on pro sports teams command the highest salaries. She -- and I -- think it's absurd that we have a system that treats all teachers the same and rewards seniority rather than competence and willingness to teach the toughest classrooms and most difficult subjects. 

The merit pay studies Ravitch cites were "after the fact" -- like giving an NFL player a bonus for having an excellent season. The differentiated pay Rhee talks about are "before the fact" -- like when a proven star signs a high-dollar free agent contract. 

Merit pay fails, as does evaluation by test scores, because they both compel teachers to teach to the test and ignore whatever is not tested, like the arts and physical education. Such policies harm the quality of education. No elite school—not Andover or Exeter or Sidwell Friends—evaluates its teachers by the scores of their students on standardized tests. Nor do any of the high-performing nations.

Is Ravitch saying that because I teach English I, a tested subject, I'll somehow force my students to neglect art and P.E.? How on earth could I do that? Other teachers teach those subjects. 

Also, Andover, Exeter, and Sidwell Friends don't look at the standardized test scores of their students? Is she joking? What are the SAT and ACT but standardized tests? Those schools examine those scores with a magnifying glass (and promote their results). Their ability to produce graduates who score highly on standardized tests is what keeps those at the top of the heap. There's tremendous pressure on those schools and teachers to teach a rigorous curriculum that translates to high standardized test scores. Does Ravitch somehow believe a rich parent is going to drop $40 grand on tuition and not expect their child to score in the 99th percentile?  

Ravitch:

Merit pay fails because teachers are doing the best they can with or without a bonus. Merit pay destroys teamwork and collaboration in the school. Teachers work together; they are not in an individual sport, trying to be first.

It's absolutely true that teaching is a team sport. It's also true that when another teacher does well, I benefit. I'm not sure why Ravitch believes that because the algebra teacher down the hall gets high test scores, that would somehow destroy my ability to collaborate with her. On the contrary, when students are receiving excellent instruction in all of their other classes, it makes my job easier.  

Ravitch:

Rhee and the corporate reform movement rely on the outdated behaviorist theories of the early 20th century. Modern cognitive psychology recognizes that intrinsic rewards are far more powerful than extrinsic rewards. People do their best when motivated by idealism and by their freedom to exercise their professional judgment.

Again, I'm confused. Why is Ravitch treating intrinsic and extrinsic rewards as mutually exclusive? I teach because it's rewarding to work with kids. I also have to make a living. All things equal, I'd prefer to make more money than less.

Her embrace of idealism here is ironic because Ravitch is among the chief critics of "idealistic" Teach for America teachers like myself (Philly '05!). From her article, "How, and How Not, to Improve the the Schools," published in the New York Review of Books:

Each year,TFA selects several thousand idealistic young people, gives them five weeks of training, and sends them out to teach.

Ravitch seems to believe there are two types of idealism. Her idea of bad idealism seems to be when elite college students join the teaching profession instead of choosing easier and/or higher-paying jobs. Given what she wrote for CNN, I guess her definition of good idealism is when all teachers are treated the same, regardless of competence or track record.

Personally, I lose some idealism when people who've never worked as a classroom teacher -- like Ravitch -- claim to know how teachers work best together.

Back to Ravitch's CNN article: 

The best organizations today recognize the importance of building a strong culture in the workplace—not with carrots and sticks—but with respect and collaboration. Andrea Gabor, the Bloomberg Professor of Business Journalism at Baruch College in New York City, recently wrote on my blog: “As W. Edwards Deming, a leading management expert and critic of merit pay, once put it: ‘The only reason an organization has dead wood is that management either hired dead wood or it hired live wood and killed it. Merit pay, by dividing and demoralizing employees, is a good way to erode initiative and overall quality.’”

As I wrote above, I'm not sure how other teachers doing well enough to earn a bonus is going negatively affect my morale. This isn't Goldman Sachs; if a teacher earns a bonus because they've done a great job, good for them. 

Speaking of deadwood employees, here's what really divides and demoralizes a teaching staff -- seeing incompetence compensated as well as excellence. I remember my first year in the classroom. One of the worst teachers with whom I worked had a doctorate and earned twice as much as the best teacher I knew, who had just a bachelor's degree. Tolerating teachers who don't do their job is what kills a positive teaching culture, not people who legitimately earn bonuses.

Ravitch:  

Our teachers need our support. Let’s put an end to the war on teachers in general and on experienced teachers in particular. No profession can exist without experienced practitioners. Teachers need tenure so they have academic freedom to teach controversial issues.

I loathe this sort of overstatement. Did Michelle Rhee shoot a teacher? Has she tossed a grenade into a school? No? Then can we please put an end to attaching the phrase "war on..." to every political disagreement we have? 

Of course teachers need to be supported. For me, that means that I've got colleagues who are committed and work hard. It means a principal who makes sure that everyone is focused on the same goal. It means that we work together to make sure students are held to a consistent expectation every moment they are in the school building. It means schools are properly equipped so teachers can focus on delivering the best lessons we can. 

As for tenure protecting teachers' ability to address controversial issues...well, when I taught in a district school in Philly, academic freedom wasn't the worry; it was having the freedom to teach in a school that wasn't in utter chaos. Tenure isn't necessary to keeping me in the classroom; it's working in a functional school that makes me want to stay. The ironic thing is that the best schools in which I've worked had no tenured teachers. 

I'm not sure how strong of a correlation there is between not having tenure and achievement. (Nearly no public schools in my home state of Mississippi have tenure, yet they aren't exactly celebrated for excellence.) It is logical, though, to expect some people to not consistently give their best when they know it's practically impossible for them to lose their jobs. It reminds me of a euphemism for a teacher who runs a classroom that's out of control: a "consequence-free environment." 

Ravitch seems to think that's a good way to run a school, though.

Ravitch:

Parents must be involved in helping their kids succeed. Research is clear that what parents do matters even more than what teachers do.  Parents affect their children’s attitudes, behavior, and willingness to study and learn.

I totally agree with this -- the problem is that kids don't choose their parents and there's little teachers can do to help parents be better caregivers. (The parents who need the most help are also the ones least likely to ask for it.) 

What teachers can do is make sure that a child gets a great education. For me, that means involving parents whenever possible and making do when I can't. This is the reality of teaching children who live in poverty. Education, though, the only hope if the cycle of poverty is going to be broken. Therefore, schools who serve children in poverty must answer the challenge. We must be advocates for the children who have no others. 

Ravitch: 

Our students and families and communities need support too. If reformers really cared about children, they would build a health clinic in every school. That would do more to improve test scores than all the teacher evaluation schemes and merit pay plans that the reformers are now imposing, without a shred of evidence.

I'd love to have a health clinic in every school and wish we had universal health care in this country. However, I'm not a doctor or a nurse. Metro Nashville Public Schools has no say over the funding of health care in this country. All I can do is do the best job I can teaching the children in my classroom each day and working with my colleagues to run a safe, supportive, academically-focused school. 

Addressing a different point, Tennessee implemented a revised teacher evaluation system that included student achievement scores as a part of the overall evaluation. While no one thinks the system is perfect and doesn't need some fixes, student proficiency levels rose in 23 out of 24 categories. This would constitute "a shred of evidence" that having meaningful evaluations for teachers would, in fact, improve test scores.

Ravitch, in conclusion:

We can improve our schools. We can improve our society. We must work on both at the same time.

I agree. Rhee and I just think our schools will be the agent that changes our society. Given Ravitch's proposed solutions, she seems to believe the opposite. 

Ravitch criticizes people like Rhee and me as "idealistic", but I think our plan is more pragmatic than defending the status quo in schools while wishing the symptoms of poverty away.