Come with me down the rabbit hole of teacher evaluation, where if you eat one side of the cake all your teachers are great, and if you eat the other side, all are incompetent.

It really is an Alice in Wonderland effect, as shown by even a brief foray into one corner of a complex and hotly debated topic. Today's teacher magazine update includes a story titled "Upending the negative teacher stereotype." Author John Norton is listed as "co-founder and moderator of the Teacher Leaders Network," and he takes to task Newsweek Columnist Jonathan Alter for a piece titled "Peanut-Butter Politics." The title comes from Alter's analogy for government spending: "Congress likes to see money spread like peanut butter across the country. It makes members look like they're 'doing something for education'."

Alter refers to a recent report from the "New Teacher Project" titled "The Widget Effect," which said report defines as "the tendency of school districts to assume classroom effectiveness is the same from teacher to teacher." The report boasts that it "is the product of an extensive research effort spanning 12 districts and four states," but I'm thinking four out of 50 states and 12 districts out of 14,556 (2007, schooldatadirect.org) doesn't really sound "extensive."

Still, let's unwind from there. The Widget Effect report claims it found that, in systems that evaluated teachers ad "satisfactory" or "not satisfactory," more than 99 percent received the satisfactory rating. Put another way, "all teachers are rated good or great" the report says. Which, it argues, means excellent teachers go unrecognized, novices don't get special attention, and poor performance is ignored.

Alter uses this as a springboard to argue - rather glibly, I thought - that teacher unions are the problem, as they fight endlessly to keep a wall between student evaluations and teacher evaluations. That is, teacher performance should not be based on student test scores. (My opinion: There are valid reasons to be wary of judging teachers by student test performance, but those reasons are getting increasingly thinner as more sophisticated tests and test analyses evolve).

Alter argues that President Barack Obama has a golden opportunity to shatter the wall with the financial club created by federal stimulus spending, which put a big chunk of money in education, including about $10 billion in a  "race to the top" competition intended to be doled out based on student performance. In a nutshell, he suggests the feds stop spreading money like peanut butter and use it reward district for student success, creating (I presume) a competition that lifts all schools.

Norton, in the Teacher Magazine piece, grants that Alter is "politically insightful," then latches on to one of the Newsweek pundit's earliest and briefest comments, that teachers "are born, not made." Actually, Alter was quoting Jacques Barzun in a 1945 book "Teacher in America," and I'm not sure it's fair for Norton to hold that up as the lynchpin of Alter's piece, but you can be the judge. Norton cites a Dan Brown blog on the Huffington Post, and by now you must have a solid idea of how this is spinning out of control. If you want to follow the rabbit further, just go to the links I've put in and click inward to cyberspace's referential infinity.

In all this, Norton offered by far the most pragmatic advice, though I'd argue he did it under a somewhat false premise, painting journalists with the same broad brush Alter is accused of using in painting teachers. Norton notes that Brown asked "how do we get the punditocracy to embrace, not scapegoat teachers." He then cites many sharp ideas provided in response to Brown's challenge.

The best suggestions, from my seat, were summed up by a person Norton calls "Heather, a higly visible blogger" (a bit of an oxymoron, since you are generally highly invisible in the Web ether, but I nitpick). To quote Norton's quote of Heather:

"We have allowed our profession's reputation to be spoiled because we taught with our doors closed, complained that people don't know what's really going on, and allowed districts to handle any publicity of our accomplishements. ... Classroom teachers need to take control ... and to develop closer relationships with the press."

The best stories I've ever written on the education beat came when teachers granted access, invited us in, let us see what unusual and successful things they are doing, and most importantly, let us see the students revel in it. Presumptions and fears of media bias prevent stories like that from getting in the paper. Failure to work with us and tell us when you think we went wrong, and how we went wrong, perpetuate the problem. Approaching us with a bias of your own that sees anything we do as negative pretty much kills communication completely.

The idea that all teachers are lazy, ovrepaid hacks biding time to an early retirement is as utterly inane as the belief that all reporters are blood-gulping ogres obsessed with tearing apart anyone in an effort to make eye-gripping headlines. The more educators and journalists work together, the better informed the public will be.

Cooperation, honesty, and the resultant slow process of building trust all provide the surest way out of this rabbit hole.

A college tragedy allowed to go on for decades finally ends with the new Web-site, "Boat U.S.," the self-proclaimed "Guide to the boatiest colleges in America."

Sadly, a press release tells me, "for young scholars with a passion for the water, heading off to college often means a four-year hiatus from boating. But not anymore with a new on line resource ... which helps students find the top marine programs and extracurricular boating activities offered by four-year schools."

The new site comes courtesy of the Boat Owners Association of the United States, and Boat U.S. Consulting Editor Bernadette Bernon says in the press release that "This is the information our adult members tell us they wish they had when they were headed off for college."

Well, wish no more, the info you need is now free and on line. The site includes a link to "The boat lover's guide to American colleges, a pdf file that conveniently comes with passages already highlighted in yellow, as though someone went through and marked the most interesting parts so you don't have to. What a time saver!

The article includes several lists of top schools for things like sailing, water skiing and bass fishing, as well as "the 25 boatiest schools in America." None from PA. made that list, but the site includes a list of boatier schools in Pa. Penn State appears multiple times, though I was a bit curious to see Lancaster Bible College listed for Bass Fishing. I picture a lot of net casting and an occasional attempt to walk on water ...

I guess a list of boatiest schools was as inevitable in an age of endless cyberspace to serve every interest, but "boatiest?" Really?

I would have gone for "Boatalicioius," or "Boatiful." Maybe Boat-acious.

"Boatiest" sounds like the list is compiled by Elmo for Sesame Street visitors.

Today's Chronicle of Higher Ed offers some hope to the sartorially hopeless college prof, especially if he or she keeps a few Madisons in their pockets (Madisons as in the portrait on the no-longer-produced $5,000 bill).

One report says a study showed students don't really care what you wear in the long run. More exactly, it showed that while a professor was perceived as slightly more competent when dressed professionally on the first day of class - compared to casual dress - the perception was about the same after a couple weeks regardless of what the prof wore.

The study seems to have been in one college with one prof, so extrapolating the results into widespread judgment would likely be unwise, but it sounds kind of "duh" to me. Professional clothing will usually elevate an initial impression but mean little or nothing after you actually get to know a person? What a shock!

A second article - a commentary by associate English prof Bob Kunzinger at Tidewater College - notes the deplorable writing the average college student produces, then proposes the culprit is not innate talent, training or time. It's this: "Students know that professors must read their papers, no matter how poorly they might be written, how irrelevant their cited examples, or how 'uncollegiate' their content."

In short, college kids write crap because they know they can get away with it.

Kunzinger tried a verbal experiment, and asked if students would write better papers if they knew he would only skim most and completely read the five that caught his attention in the first graphs, flunking the rest. Students admitted that, under such circumstances, they would work harder to produce better papers.

Kunzinger then started asking students how they would react if he promised to reward "the writer whose introduction most caught my attention, who most effectively made me want to continue because of a solid and clear thesis." The prize: $5,000.

He didn't actually give away any money, he just asked what they would do if he did. They told him their introductions would improve .

"Then you always could do it," He says he told them, "You just couldn't be bothered."

So there you have it. Leave the tweed jacket with leather sleeves at home, along with the bent pipe and elegant reading glasses. No need to look professorial.After a few weeks, the kids don't care.

Instead, bring a few checks for $5,000, and make the offer: one check doled out per class, per semester. Students will work much harder for you.

Kunzinger's proposal may have been hypothetical, but with the huge number of students taking remedial classes as college sophomores, one has to wonder if his scheme wouldn't prove to be the more economical one.

In what I thought was one of the more compelling legal documents I've read in years, the Supreme Court of the United States Thursday upheld a lower court ruling that a strip search of a 13-year-old student in Arizona was unconstitutional.

This is not, as some proponents might suggest, a blanket ban on student strip searches. It is, rather, a narrowing of the situations in which such a search can be justified. In this case, the administration had reason to believe the student had prescription ibuprofen on her, which violated school policy. They searched her belongings and her outer clothing, all of which SCOTUS deemed acceptable considering the situation, then told her to strip to her underwear and to pull her bra and panties away from her skin and shake a bit to show there was nothing hidden there.

Too far, the court majority ruled, with a substantial amount of nuanced reasoning. Not so far, mind you, as to make the school principal and others involved prosecutable. The court decided that case law had not been sufficiently clear on the matter, and granted them qualified immunity.

It really is best to read the opinion for yourself. It's rich in detail - the student had reportedly hosted a party that included alcohol, she had been in a crowd considered "rowdy," her daily planner had weapons and other things not allowed on school grounds tucked inside. And those details show how hard it can be to make judgment calls in a school. Who do you believe when a student tells you someone else did it?

In short, SCOTUS said the administration had ample cause to conduct a search, particularly after another student had been caught with the ibuprofen and claimed the girl in question had supplied it (The girl in question had, incidentally, said the paraphernalia in her daily planner must have been put there by the girl accusing her, who had borrowed it). But considering the lack of evidence, the failure to investigate the allegations further before conducting the search, and the fact that nothing was found while looking through the student's stuff and outer garments, the justices decided a strip search was over the top.

Justice Clarence Thomas wrote a lengthy dissent, arguing (among other things) that the majority was straying too far from hard facts as well as from both black letter and case law. He also points out that the ruling tells students exactly where to hide their contraband to keep it secret. From my seat, Thomas seems to argue that school administrators should have near carte blanche control because courts are not privy to all the events leading up to the decisions they make, but that sounds like a recipe for potential disaster ... or at least, for a flurry of lawsuits.

As I read it, the majority simply decided you need a little more evidence and reason to force a teen to their skivvies. It seemed like a mostly reasonable response to the situation.

The case is important because, contrary to common claims by understandably concerned but misinformed parents, students do not get full Constitutional protections inside a school. This ruling confirms that, but also attempts to sharpen the very blurry line where Constitutional rights kick in.

In that regard, its a useful read for parents and educators alike.

The Chronicle of Higher Education Web-site has an article today about clashes between local bishops and Catholic colleges within their purview, offering some ideas on how to prevent or mitigate them.

The article only makes brief reference to our local controversy by noting "the bishop of Scranton, Pa., asked colleges in his diocese to assure him that they were not providing birth control."  it also cites the archbishop of New Orleans boycotting of Xavier University's commencement because the speaker supports abortion rights, and the national debate sparked when Notre Dame invited Barack Obama to speak at its commencement this spring.

 You have to pay to read the article on line, but I think it's safe to say the common thread among those interviewed is "ongoing dialog," as in making sure college presidents and their bishops talk on a regular basis - something that, by all accounts, has not happened locally since Bishop Joseph Martino was installed.

According to the article the apparent lack of communication locally bucks a national trend that developed after Pope John Paul II issued Ex corde Ecclesiae in 1990, detailing the relationship between the church and Catholic institutions of higher ed. Catholic University of America President the Very Rev. David M. O'Connell is quoted as saying: "Because of more focus and attention on Catholic identity since Ex corde, since 1990 there actually have been more conversations between presidents and bishops."

Well, maybe elsewhere. School presidents here have asked to meet with Martino to discuss his concerns, and he has countered that no meeting will take place until they answer his questions. In some cases, Martino has issued public statements putting a spotlight on local schools without first contacting the presidents of those schools, though in other instances he has sent letters to the president(s) before releasing them publicly.

As a bit of an aside, the article notes that the Association of Catholic Colleges and Universities has asked the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops to withdraw a statement issued in 2004 called "Catholics in Political Life." The statement focuses on the Catholic opposition to abortion and how that tenet plays out between bishops and politicians. The Association argues that the statement "has led to confusion over who should be invited to speak at Catholic College Commencements," according to the article. That controversy hit home this year when King's College invited Senator Casey to speak and Martino issued a statement expressing concern about the choice in light of recent Casey votes on abortion -related issues.

The Chronicle article tries to answer the obvious question; "How do presidents navigate this important and sometimes tricky relationship?"

One no-brainer: "When potential conflicts arise, it's imperative for the president to contact the bishop as soon as possible." The article quotes the Rev. Thomas J. Reese from the Woodstock Theological Center at Georgetown University. "What the bishops don't like is reading about things in the newspaper." Of course, that's true for college presidents seeing something in the media before it's in their mailbox. Reese continues: "If they have a good relationship before the crisis happens it tends to keep the rhetoric under control."

The article is peppered with similar comments from officials at other schools, as well as from the archbishop of Baltimore. It's a lot of variaton on the theme: College presidents and bishops are both best served by developing and maintaining a relationship from the get go.

That relationship does not seem to exist between Martino and our Catholic institutions of higher learning.

The article notes that some college professors believe it wise to contact a new bishop to initiate the dialog and foster the relationship. Some bishops make it a point to assign a liaison (an assistant bishop say) to keep communications open with colleges.  Bishops may also visit colleges themselves, or sit on college boards of trustees.

All good advice. Here's hoping the parties involved can use it to smooth out what has become a bit of a rough patch.

About the Author

A West Hazleton native, I worked as a service technician repairing electronic mailing and shipping systems, a bike shop owner and an Emergency Medical Technician (among other jobs) before landing a reporter job at the Times Leader Hazleton Bureau in 1995. I started by covering primarily politics in Hazleton City and outlying municipalities, eventually became "social issues" team leader in the Wilkes-Barre office with the accent on education, and headed the Hazleton Bureau for a spell before returning to full-time reporting, my preferred position. I'm an avid cyclist and rode across the country in 1990, a trip of more than 5,000 miles from New Jersey to Seattle and down the coast to San Francisco. Years in the Boy Scouts made me a life long backpacker and camper, and I've yet to find a better way to enjoy the quiet lure of winter snow than cross country skiing.

Mark also writes a regular blog for timesleader.com.

Categories

• News
• Education

Archives

• July 2009
• June 2009
• May 2009
• April 2009
• March 2009
• February 2009
• January 2009
• December 2008
• November 2008
• October 2008
• September 2008
• August 2008
• July 2008
• June 2008
• May 2008
• April 2008
• March 2008
• February 2008
• January 2008
• December 2007
• November 2007
• October 2007
• September 2007
• August 2007