Yesterday John Fensterwald published his take on the Gates-funded proposal for improving LAUSD. However, he called it a United Way study (which it was), but didn’t bother to mention Gate’s funding until the very end. Nevertheless, United Way is nothing more than a moralizing poverty pimp mill, so we should be suspicious of their proposals, too.
I will list some of Fensterwald’s summaries below in italics, with my takes in bold.
Teacher Placement:
Sacramento: Allow performance to be used as a factor in determining which teachers will be laid off. California is one of only a dozen states mandating layoffs by seniority.
There is no accurate and unbiased way to measure “performance,” and virtually all evaluation systems are subject to manipulation by administrators. Thus, administrators will be able to (and will) find ways to get rid of higher salaried veteran teachers, as well as union activists and anyone who is critical of their policies. This might be different if well-trained nonpartisan evaluators were hired and evaluated teachers “blindly,” something that will never happen, especially with education budgets being slashed (or held at anemic levels).
Ultimate Consequence: Districts will lose many high quality veteran teachers AND have trouble maintaining sufficient staffing because novice teachers have such high attrition.
To read my entire analysis, please see
http://modeducation.blogspot.com/2011/06/destroying-education-teacher-by-teacher.html
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