A Year's Worth of Progress

Beginning next year teachers will be evaluated on whether or not their students make “a year’s worth of progress” in a given subject area. (So far, it seems this type of evaluation will apply only to math, science, English, and reading teachers.) Of course, this raises some major questions for both teachers and students. First, what does a year’s worth of progress look like? How will it be measured? How can one prove the specific amount of progress that has been made? Second, if students don’t make a year’s worth of progress, does that mean they fail or don’t get credit for the class? Next, what happens to teachers who have kids who don’t make a year’s worth of progress? (Current talk is that every teacher will have his/her name published in the newspaper with a grade that denotes how well the students did.) What about the kids who don’t come to school regularly? What about the kids who change schools every couple of months? What about special needs kids? What about English language learners? What about teachers who have remedial versus average versus advanced students? What about all the levels of skill within each class? As you can see, this has more tangles than a cat in yarn store.

I’m not sure how I feel about this turn of events. On one hand, I am happy that teachers who currently skate by – spending little time and effort on tougher writing skills – will have to come up to par. On the other hand, I don’t know many teachers like this. The teachers I know spend countless hours writing lesson plans, creating assignments, and grading essays. Like any job, some teachers have more skill than others. We are human and come with our various strengths and weaknesses. I know a couple of teachers who can put together the most amazing literature units that help kids connect all kinds of themes and ideas with their lives, while others can teach kids to produce fabulous essays. The high school English curriculum is so varied – ranging from content, style, and process in writing to analysis of myriad literary genres – I’m just not sure how anyone could do everything at such an outstanding level that an outsider could tell all students made a year’s worth of growth.

In addition, I’m worried about how we will handle kids who have no support, no family, no home. Some of our kids spend each morning trying to figure out where they’re going to sleep that night and just don’t care about making a year’s worth of progress in academic writing. It is enough for them to get a couple of free meals at school and find friends who will let them crash on their couches for the week. These kids’ needs extend far beyond the help I can give them. According to Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs (basic education for all teachers), people must have their physiological and safety-related needs met before all others. We as a society must make sure kids have clean clothes, safe havens, and good food before we can even ask them to do well in school.

Ultimately, I know I will deal with whatever evaluation system is placed before me, but I’m still worried. I’m worried that many good teachers will quit because they can’t be everything to everyone. Somehow, in 50 minutes a day, for 180 days, I will have to be mother, coach, teacher, counselor, and friend to 150 kids who don’t think that being able to write a great essay or understand a great book is important. Pray for me; I’ll need it.