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If Yale Can’t Do It….
By audhill | March 9, 2008
A charter school opening in 2009 in Washington Heights has got the solution … just pay teachers more. The school is the brainchild of Yale graduate and former Teach for America middle school teacher, Zeke M. Vanderhoek.
His idea is that if teachers were paid real money (in this case $125,000 a year plus bonuses for better performance), schools would be successful. His plan (as per the NYT) is to attract the best and brightest by spending more money on them, and to make up the shortfall by taking only a $90,000 salary himself and having no assistant principals, no disciplinary deans, no attendance secretary, and only one or two social workers. He’ll have a longer school day and a longer school year. The teachers will do all the admin work themselves, and they’ll teach low performing and area students with 30 kids in a class.
Basically, his idea is that if all the teachers were as bright and ambitious as he is, schools wouldn’t need all those frills… like low class size, time to create curriculum, disciplinary deans and social workers to handle the raging, hormonal distractions that threaten to interrupt every day.
Good luck with that.
Topics: education |
4 Responses to “If Yale Can’t Do It….”
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March 9th, 2008 at 10:26 am
LOL - Oh, I may have to see if, the next time I am in NYC, I can head up and observe the school in action. Still, lol.
Gayle
March 9th, 2008 at 10:39 am
Ok, I jumped over and read the article and now I’ll make a serious comment. The idea may work for a minute. You can buy the best and the brightest for 125,000/year, no doubt. But, what will all those unionized (let me say I am not against unions or workers rights) school districts do with the very mediocre and, dare I say, piss poor teachers they have staffing their schools now? Aren’t they bound by contract and tenure? So, who will really get to emply the best and the brightest? Not my district or likely yours.
I wish Mr. Yale had figured out how to make lots more teachers good/better at their craft. Instead, if successful, his idea will add just another 1,000 or so rifts to the mountain which currently exist between districts and teachers.
Maybe Harvard can figure out how to improve education for the masses. Maybe not.
Gayle
March 9th, 2008 at 11:03 am
The problems of social inequity, parental neglect and incompetence, bureaucratic bungling, poverty, raging hormones, confused educational philosophies, lack of sufficient resources, burgeoning class size, language barriers and etcetera… are bigger than teacher training.. even the training of the best and brightest minds… especially when those minds are inexperienced. Mr. Vanderhoek’s premise doesn’t have the weight of experience. He taught for three years; that isn’t enough time to hone his own skills, never mind diagnosing the ills of an entire system.
I disagree with his assumption that class size doesn’t matter. In my experience, it does. I disagree with his belief that disciplinary deans are a luxury. There has to be a place where you can send disruptive students or your classrooms descend into chaos. I am sure that teachers need time to create curriculum and work together on it. If they are doing all the duties of guidance counselors, attendance officers, disciplinary deans, and assistant principals, they don’t have that time.
I wish him luck and maybe boldness and brains will out, but I don’t think so.
March 9th, 2008 at 7:33 pm
You are right about the list of hurdles that must be navigated by middle schools. While good teachers can’t erase those issues they can mitigate some of the effects.
I do think Mr. Vanderhoek’s idea has merit - the best and the brightest will go into teaching if they are paid for their efforts. Lower pay, by in large, means lower quality. Of course, there are teachers who enter the profession because they Love it/have a passion for their subject. Some of them might be considered the ‘best & brightest’, some might not. I do think that heart and passion trump brains when it comes to dedicating yourself to a career.
As for teacher training, I agree that what passes for training today won’t help much. But, there is learning that could make a difference:
1)Teacher orientation that really lasted 5 years and was combined with solid mentoring and coaching (not the I’m hear for you to cry on my shoulder and together we can b-tch about how bad the administration is) that was intensive in the first 2 - 3 years then tapered off.
2)Professional development that took place in the classroom as well as in the training lab so teachers are provided with support as they implement.
3)Challenging teachers to know their subjects (and for lower grades, the full curriculum) and providing ongoing professional development that supports increased content knowledge. This is especially true for math and science.
And, with all that there will be no Xanadu for American middle schools. Because the problems are far too complex for simple solutions. The notion that there is ONE answer to what plagues us is what makes the Equity Project so humorous to me. Should teachers be paid a salary that make the profession competitive with other highly skilled professions? Of course. Will increasing their salary while eliminating many essential teacher supports solve the problems of urban education? Not likely.
I suspect that the school budget will be revised more than once, over the next 5 years, to accommodate the inclusion of some of those supports.