LA Times on VAM in LA; Rhee as Clueless Teacher (at best)

Firstly, you should take a look at the Los Angeles Times article where they print the results of their own analysis of VAM in Los Angeles Public Schools over the past 6 years, pillorying teachers who don’t seem to measure up, and praising others. In some cases, they seem to indicate that teachers that have high progress, actually do have good teaching methods, and that those with low progress have poor teaching methods. But there are those who have great numbers, but poor methods, and the other way around, as well.

Jay Mathews actually has a decent article on this as well.

There are a couple of other blogs on the LA Times expose, which raise a lot of very valid questions:

http://www.edpolicythoughts.com/

and

http://larryferlazzo.edublogs.org/category/school-reform/

With abuse like this from the LA Times directed at individual teachers, why would anybody ever want to go into teaching in the public schools? Particularly in the ‘inner city’? No wonder about half of the new teachers in such schools, these days, quit after just a few years.

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Secondly, there is an article by Bill Turque in the Washington Post’s Schools Insider blog where he quotes two stories that Michelle Rhee told new DCPS teachers, a few days ago, about her own teaching career. If you read these stories, you realize that – at best – Rhee was as clueless as they come regarding her duties as a  teacher.

If I were to tape the lips of every student in my class, then I am reasonably certain that under the laws of the District of Columbia for the past 15 years or so,  I would be investigated, and then either be suspended without pay or be fired for corporal punishment. If I were to take a handful of students on a trip in my own personal car without written, signed permission slips from the parents of each and every single student (including, of course, home phone numbers and addresses), I would either be severely reprimanded, or suspended, or fired. And called an idiot, to boot.

Maryland banned corporal punishment in schools in 1993. (code)

But if I were Michelle Rhee, then I could get to quit my job at the end of the year (because she couldn’t be bothered to get certified, and because anybody of her Ivy League worth doesn’t belong in the classroom trenches) – after making up pleasing stories about my imaginary classroom successes – and go on to bigger and better things. Like destroying public education in the Nation’s capital.

Please, Michelle, keep your promise! When Gray wins the primary, make sure you quit! After all, it’s not really about the kids in DCPS. It’s really about your own super-stardom. There are plenty of right-wing think-tanks and book deals out there waiting for you. Can you say Heritage, Walton or Gates Foundation?

Unlike the saying, I don’t care if the door DOES hit you on your way out. Just leave.