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Ravitch backs NC teachers targeted by ‘reform’
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Ravitch, a historian of education, a research professor at New York University and a highly regarded author and prolific blogger on education issues, hammered Berger’s proposals from the start of her talk, sponsored by the NC Justice Center and Public Schools First NC.
“North Carolina seems determined to destroy the teaching profession and demoralize every teacher in the state,” she said.
Republicans hadn’t included that in their legislative goals, but it’s clear they’re getting there. North Carolina teacher pay ranks 46th in the nation. Now Berger proposes taking away teachers’ slender job protection – tenure. Tenured teachers – those with four or more years of service in the same district – can only be fired for causes defined by statute. Newer teachers can be dismissed for any reason.
Demoralization wasn’t Berger’s intention. His aim is to motivate good teachers and weed out those who perform poorly. But that’s the wrong aim, Ravitch said, because teachers don’t need to be threatened, prodded or inspired by bonuses. Most are already going all out. “People are not holding back. They are working their hearts out, and they’re getting a lot of grief,” she said.
And while politicians and some education officials think merit pay creates healthy competition among teachers, Ravitch said that’s not how teachers work. “Teachers do not want to compete with their colleagues,” she said. “They want to cooperate and collaborate because they’re working toward the same goal with the same children.”
She also takes a dim view of grading schools, an idea initiated by Florida Gov. Jeb Bush in 1999 and adopted in North Carolina in 2012. “The main thing that grades do to a school is to stigmatize it. It does nothing to improve schools,” she said. “It says, ‘This is a bad school. Everyone in it must be bad.’”
Read more here: http://www.newsobserver.com/2013/03/23/2774218/ravitch-backs-nc-teachers-targeted.html#storylink=cpy
Ravitch, a historian of education, a research professor at New York University and a highly regarded author and prolific blogger on education issues, hammered Berger’s proposals from the start of her talk, sponsored by the NC Justice Center and Public Schools First NC.
“North Carolina seems determined to destroy the teaching profession and demoralize every teacher in the state,” she said.
Republicans hadn’t included that in their legislative goals, but it’s clear they’re getting there. North Carolina teacher pay ranks 46th in the nation. Now Berger proposes taking away teachers’ slender job protection – tenure. Tenured teachers – those with four or more years of service in the same district – can only be fired for causes defined by statute. Newer teachers can be dismissed for any reason.
Demoralization wasn’t Berger’s intention. His aim is to motivate good teachers and weed out those who perform poorly. But that’s the wrong aim, Ravitch said, because teachers don’t need to be threatened, prodded or inspired by bonuses. Most are already going all out. “People are not holding back. They are working their hearts out, and they’re getting a lot of grief,” she said.
And while politicians and some education officials think merit pay creates healthy competition among teachers, Ravitch said that’s not how teachers work. “Teachers do not want to compete with their colleagues,” she said. “They want to cooperate and collaborate because they’re working toward the same goal with the same children.”
She also takes a dim view of grading schools, an idea initiated by Florida Gov. Jeb Bush in 1999 and adopted in North Carolina in 2012. “The main thing that grades do to a school is to stigmatize it. It does nothing to improve schools,” she said. “It says, ‘This is a bad school. Everyone in it must be bad.’”
Read more here: http://www.newsobserver.com/2013/03/23/2774218/ravitch-backs-nc-teachers-targeted.html#storylink=cpy
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