Chicago Teachers Strike Highlights A Real Problem In Education

Chicago area teachers are out on strike and have made quite a bit of news this week, protesting their latest contract offer from the local school board.  What is astonishing are the numbers.  In a recessive economy, I don't know of too many public employee sectors who would strike over the numbers involved here.  Honestly, I think these teachers are making the profession look less than stellar.  Thankfully, they are not the norm as you will soon see when you peer at the actual numbers.

Chicago area teachers make an average salary of $76,000.  The average Chicago household only averages $49,000 (the national average for teachers is in the $45-48K range).  They were offered a contract with a 16% pay increase over the next four years.  The sticking point seems to be over the accountability and evaluation portion of the contract.  Before you jump to any conclusions, please read on a bit more.

So what does a $76K average teacher salary, spending over $13,000 per student and a 16-to-1 ratio of teachers to students get the people of Chicago?  Only a 60% graduation rate (the national average is 75%).  Not to worry.  It's not just the high schools dragging Chicago down.  The 4th and 8th graders are also performing well below the national averages in reading and math.

Even still, the statistic which shines the spotlight on the real issue in this case is this: 94% of the Chicago teachers were rated superior or excellent.  Wow.  Congratulations Chicago.  You must have some of the dumbest children on earth.  With such a great ratio of teachers to students, such an overwhelming percentage of superior teachers, and with an amount of money rivaling college tuition per student, it simply must be the kids fault.  Or could it be the evaluation system has become yet another entitlement?

This story drew my attention from the public employee union perspective and because it highlights the true dilemma facing education today in a nutshell.  I am a public employee.  I know what it is like to work for the faceless, thankless taskmaster that is the government.  We don't do it for the great salary, we enjoy providing for our fellow citizens, and it gives us an opportunity to enjoy some good benefits.  Personally, my earnings have gone nowhere but down since 2007.  Five years I would have loved to have been offered a 4% raise.

Now I wholeheartedly agree teachers on the whole in this country are underpaid and under-appreciated, and this strike is not going to help one bit in getting that oversight fixed.  And for that, I wonder if teachers in the rest of the country might be a tad sickened at the union's behavior here.

But, rather than just indicate my distaste with the Chicago area teachers union, I do think a further discussion of the entire "how to evaluate teachers" debate is something worth exploring.  All states and counties are struggling with this issue in one form or another.

Here it comes.  I might actually have a similar belief to a Chicago area union teacher.  Maybe. I do agree with the belief teacher evaluations solely on test scores are contributing greatly to ruining education in the United States.   There I said it. 

In Florida, much debate has raged about the difficult proposition of how to evaluate teachers.  It might be one the hardest things to do fairly and objectively.  I have talked to a few that are friends and family.  They are some of the best people I know, who truly want to provide the best education possible for their students.  So, for the less than two cents of worth my opinion is worth, here are my few suggestions on the matter.

Before diving in too far, let me state clearly, education is an area this country seriously needs to completely revamp.  School spending has mushroomed and results have plummeted.  The fault for this does not lie in the classroom, it lies in the county offices and with those who we elected to oversee our school systems.  This blog is not intended to address that belief, that will come later, in another blog.  Instead, all I intend to offer in the remainder of this blog is a simple parent's idea of how we can perhaps start the evaluation discussion.  Okay, with that out of the way, on to the ideas.

Most teachers deserve to get good raises and keep their jobs, however like all professions, some of them need to go.  The hard question nearly every school district continues to struggle with is how to decide this in as reasonable and fair way as possible.

My starting suggestion: 5 different areas or points of view. I am not going to suggest each count for 20% of the overall final result, the real discussions would be deciding how much to weight each.  This is just the mere rough draft of one parent's idea.

One, a portion of the overall evaluation should come from the school administration AND from fellow teacher evaluations.  Honestly, I might even suggest staff and other teachers rank each teacher in the school in order.  This really makes some thought need to take place.  I would hope the entire process could remain anonymous, but let teachers see what their peers opinions are as well.  I venture to guess most teachers know who the best and worst are at their schools.  Let them have a voice.

Two, solicit parent feedback.  Let part of the evaluation come from parent surveys and feedback.  Yes, I know many parents are completely clueless about their kids and their school work, but some of us are quite engaged with our kids schooling and we try to communicate and work with the teachers.  Donna and I have had some teachers who were great, communicated with us, had great parent-teacher conferences and were helpful to our children.  We have also had some who never answered emails, did little more than meet with groups of parents and show a power point, etc.  And working with parents effectively is a way to increase the students chances of success as well.  Sure some parents won't care or bother, but again this is only a part of the process.

Three, let a very small part of the evaluation come from the students.  This will be tough to do I am sure, but I can honestly tell you from experience; I knew who the great teachers were.  They made education fun, they made me want to learn the subject and I still appreciate all of them today.  I also know who some of the worst, unmotivated, I am only here for a paycheck teachers were.  Why not allow for at least the opportunity to let students provide some feedback?  I am sure some are afraid it might be a popularity contest, but doesn't it stand to reason that students learn more from teachers they like rather than some they loathe?  Sure some students will hold a grudge, but again, it is only a part of the process.

Four, now look, I think the sole reliance on test scores for budgets, raises and the like are destroying our education system.  Teachers are nearly forced to not teach the material as much as they are forced to teach to the test.  I hate this!!  With one of our kids, the grade school teacher actually told us she had no time help teach handwriting to our child, because she had too many other skills to teach before the test.  What?!  Writing is one of the most basic fundamentals of communication, a foundation from which a lifetime will be built, and you don't have time to teach that?  You can only imagine the tongue biting that took place that day.  From that day forward I swore to be an enemy of teaching to the test.  That teacher still ranks in the bottom 5 of our children's entire education experience.  I understood why she felt compelled to do so, but to me is was giving up and simply buying into the lie.  Okay, I digress.  Listen, we have to keep some kind of standardized test.  We just need to eliminate it as the sole measurement of performance .  We need to derive some kind of test to measure results, but quit making it the educational equivalent of the Bible, and make it more of a tool to be used, not an object to be worshiped and our children's (better and well-rounded) education the sacrifice.

Five, this is where I think some real progress can possibly be made: make bonuses get tied to how well the entire school does in INCREASING their overall performance from the previous year.  Use test scores, the school's state grade, etc.  Make the bonus not based on whether the school hit a certain threshold, make it based on how much the school improved from last year.  This way, if teachers who take on the additional challenge of teaching at a failing or underachieving school succeed, they get a bigger bonus.  If a teacher wants to remain at an already top-performing school, that is certainly okay, they just don't get the "bonus" dollars for helping to raise those lagging schools to become more successful.

Now look, these are just some thoughts.  I simply put them on virtual paper so they can be read and commented on.  Some things I am quite certain of: there are better ideas out there, there are many obstacles to solving the whole evaluation issue, and there are smarter people than me to help figure this out.  I am just fairly confident, the Chicago teachers union isn't one of them.  If anyone actually reads and comments on this, it will be interesting.  For the kids of Chicago, I will simply pray for you.  It seems as though you have quite the deck stacked against you.