Rotten Apples

ROWE, ROWE, ROWE your boat…at work but not at school. ROWE stands for Results Only Work Environment. Long story short: let people work how they want, when they want. Only measure the results. Performance and morale improve.

There workers can come in at four or leave at noon, or head for the movies in the middle of the day, or not even show up at all. It’s the work that matters, not the method. And, not incidentally, both output and job satisfaction have jumped wherever ROWE is tried.  -NY Times

Full article here.

How can we use Results-Only to get our kids to perform?

The bottom line for teachers and parents is that they need to get cooperation from 1-150 kids on tasks that, lets be honest, often aren’t interesting to them. If the child has ADD or a Learning Disability, the challenge is even greater.

Are our schools results oriented?

With few exceptions, in my opinion, No. This does vary from school to school and teacher to teacher, but overall I think that the atmosphere in America’s classrooms (big generalization here) is one in which students are evaluated on a mixed curriculum of education and discipline. In other words, the student’s grade is determined by both his or her mastery of the material and by how well he or she fits into the stereotypical pigeon-hole of a “good student”.

It is not enough for a student to learn the curriculum. He or she must also meet the teacher’s expectations of behavior and discipline or their grades will suffer. Which means that their collegiate futures are at risk. Which means their behavior in and around the classroom will in part determine their future.

Why is this bad? In my opinion, it is appropriate to evaluate behaviors, rule-following, conscientiousness and sociability. However, this evaluation needs to be made separate from an academic evaluation. Not merely out of fairness but because a student’s behavior does not reflect his or her mastery of the material. If the student has mastered the curriculum, and demonstrates that mastery on assessments, then his or her grade should reflect that mastery.

Further, teachers evaluate behavior based on their biased backgrounds. Students with different backgrounds are unfairly penalized. Since most teachers are middle-class, poor students suffer.

What do I mean? I mean that the student should not be penalized because he or she did not complete a non-assessment assignment (busy-work) or was disruptive in the classroom, or had a poor attendance record. Notice that each of these items are strongly correlated with poverty and a low socio-economic status. They also fit the profile of kids with Learning Disabilities.

In my opinion, when teachers mix assessment grades with behavior grades, they are doing these kids a major disservice. I am especially thinking of my LD students. These kids’ futures are already at risk. If they are graduating on a regular diploma, and most are, then they need every point they can get on their GPA. When I go into an Individualized Education Planning (IEP) meeting for a student, and I see that his assessment grades are A’s, B’s and C’s but his report card is full of C’s, D’s and F’s I conclude that the student’s needs are not being met. Isn’t it obvious? He can ace the exam, but has seven zeros for homework assignments…he’s learned the material. Even more, he did it without doing the homework. For him, the homework was really just busy work.

The goal of our schools should not be to pump out mass-produced cookie-cutter worker.

Corporate America is realizing that if you let good people make choices about how and when to work, everybody wins. Lets take that lesson home and into the classroom. Recognize that people have different learning styles and preferences and that the goal of our schools should not be to pump out mass-produced cookie-cutter workers.

Teachers: create multiple routes to success. Keep behavior and academic evaluations separate.

Parents: realize that your kid needs breaks. LD and ADD kids need LOTS of breaks. Split their homework session in two. Have a physical activity planned for in between.

One last quick story: a student of mine often comes in completely brain-fried. You know, that horrible feeling that you can’t even spell your own name right…for no reason! Once I realize we are up against the wall we go for a ten-minute walk and talk about video games. This lifts the mind-fog and learning can begin again.

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“We’re the most vacation-starved country in the industrialized world. By far. Small business employees, the majority of us, get an average of eight days off ….”

-Joe Robinson of www.worktolive.info
From http://www.accuracy.org/newsrelease.php?articleId=858

Prior to transitioning to teaching, I left the house at 8:30AM and was home by about 6:30PM. An hour for lunch or the gym squeezed its way in there on most days, but due to the nature of the business, I couldn’t skip lunch to come home early. The schedule prohibited me from taking care of just about anything that required business hours such as banking. Once home I dove into dinner, vegged out for about thirty minutes of quality time, then had to get ready for bed to do it all again the next day. Not the hardest work or schedule, but certainly worse than my wife’s as a public school teacher.

Teachers never get a real break during the day.

She would leave at 6:30AM and come home by 3:30PM. Occasionally her day lasted longer due to meetings. Yes, she sometimes brought home papers to grade. Yes, her lunch lasted a mere ½ hour and let’s be honest: teachers never really get a good break during the day.

There’s a five hour difference there. But then we come to vacations. Any time I wanted a vacation, I could take one (in theory). All I had to do was forgo getting paid. Sure, the office closed for certain holidays…all unpaid.

Compare that with the teachers’ lot: two weeks automatically at X-Mas, the most in-demand vacation time of the year…and the time when everyone in retail is required to work at least a portion of that time, if not overtime. 1-2 weeks for Spring Break. Two months for the summer. Every summer! Then, they actually get paid sick days and paid personal days, and can take additional unpaid time off as needed.

Do the math and I worked 680 hours per year more than she did. That’s 17 full-time work weeks!

So how do teachers get off crying that they are overworked?

Is it an issue of sliding standards? Are they just used to having the time off, and so any changes feel oppressive? Is there something to the claim that working with kids is exhausting—more so than most other jobs—and therefore teachers *need* an extended break to both catch their wind and brush up on their skills (and continuing professional education)?

I don’t have all the answers, I just act like I do. What I have observed in my wife is the following:

1. From day one she complained a lot and I had the impression that her department did her a disservice in that they seemed to foster a negative attitude.
2. She came home completely wiped out almost every weekday in her first two years teaching. In some cases, she would eat something and go directly to bed!
3. Her third year, she seemed to have the “system” down and rarely brought home any kind of papers to grade or projects to work on.
4. She lavishly enjoys her summers. During the school year, work is everything. Our schedule revolves around getting to bed on time.
5. Her normally robust immune system gets put down at least twice a year.
6. When she coaches, she gets home 2-6 hours later than usual, depending on practice and game schedules.

I’m interested in seeing for myself exactly how exhausting public-school teaching really is. There’s a solid chance that I’ll find myself overwhelmed, especially that first year. I do know that when I do spend time in the classroom (at other programs), it is draining. But is it draining enough to justify a two-month recovery?

Is teaching draining enough to justify a two-month recovery?

In Florida, many schools shuffle schedules to match the hurricane season. When several days are lost after a big storm, the school year gets extended and people get a little more used to the idea of a permanently longer year. Maybe year-round school! Why not? It isn’t like the students are learning the material in the time they have now (they aren’t).

I think many teachers suffer mini-strokes whenever the idea of year-round school is pulled from its dusty shelf for another look-see. I know I do. Three months of paid vacation lured me away from private sector work. Without it, at current pay, teaching is a chump’s game. With a raise proportionate to the additional time worked…its still a sour deal, but at least it enables more teachers to afford their own home…maybe mobile home.

Here are a few tidbits that make teachers crazy. These requirements eat up a great deal of time, are poorly organized, and deliver shoddy results.

1. Open House – Exactly what I want after a long day. Run home, eat, shower, run back to work for the three parents who give a shot.
2. Half-Days – Also known as “why bother to come to school” days by many students. Why not have a half-day when there is open house?
3. Imbecile Theatre – This is the mandatory meeting after school that is of no interest or impact on 90% of the faculty, but which allows some Imbecile to be ignored by the entire staff at one time.
4. Assemblies, Standardized Testing Assemblies and Standardized Testing Administration – Cut into teaching time many times during the year.
5. Playing the System – Get rid of the bottom 10% of the student body and your school grade goes up. Cha-ching! Bonus time — for the administration, usually. Screw those whiny kids!
6. Duty (Doodie) Periods – Who says teachers need planning periods? They can do that kind of work at home! Make ‘em stand duty, instead. Teachers love nothing more than guarding precious hallways instead of doing something important like grading papers and prepping labs.
7. Incompetent Administrators – A teacher can’t teach? Its too hard to fire ‘em, so make him an admin! We need more to meet Equal Opportunity quotas? Better hire this guy—don’t worry, he’ll learn English as he goes!

This is an issue with no easy answers, but lots of opinions. I’d like to hear yours. Send it to snoop at whyschoolsux dot com.

-Snoop

Additional sources:
http://www.commondreams.org/views01/0728-02.htm
http://www.libraryspot.com/know/workweek.htm

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