From today's PG:
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/09241/994196-100.stm
- As a starting point, it would be interesting to know if institutions like Pitt's School of Education have looked into improving teacher effectiveness, what was done and when, and what the results were.
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12 comments:
With the teachers' contract due to expire at the end of this school year, it will be very interesting to see what consessions the PFT makes for the Gates' money. The Board and the PFT have always been in bed together, but now they will be even cosier. Teachers beware!
Bellefield and the PFT want $85 million - $50 million from Gates.
Where is the other $35 million supposed to come from? As far as an "Academy" for teachers, they already tried that back in the 1980s. They called it the "Teachers' Center" and Dr. Judy Johnson (now with Pitt) was in charge. It was like a vacation for teachers. What academic good came out of it?
Not much... It was somebody's brainstorm then and it's being proposed again with a new name.
It would be good to know exactly what the Teachers' Center did and didn't do, what the results were, and how the new program will be different.
There would be some dispute from me about the 'vacation' part of the 'teachers center.' But, those are fair questions. However, I am biased. My dad was a teacher for PPS in the Teachers Center back in the day.
We would welcome his thoughts on what went well and no so well with the program!
Updated article:
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/09242/994255-298.stm
Given the outrageously poor job that Pitt has done with curriculum in the district, one can only imagine what lies ahead for teachers. To say that these folks are incredibly out of touch with the realities of urban education would be putting it mildly. And as far as the teachers center idea of the late 80's and early 90's, with all due respect to Mark's father, it was a joke--a nice vacation for the teachers going into the "center" and a nice vacation for the students who had subs for a few weeks.
One of the main ideas behind the teachers' center was to teach Madelyn Hunter's behaviorist teaching model. This was so the entire school system would use the same lesson plan language and teaching model. Teachers would attend for an entire grade period. Substitutes "taught" your classes while you were gone. More often than not, one had to regain control of your classes when you returned.
To Mark Rauterkus,
By his "vacation" remark, I'm sure Anonymous of Aug 29 12:31 was faulting the program, not Schenley's teachers.
I was a visiting teacher at the Teacher Center. The Schenley teachers were supposed to guide us through the Hunter teaching model, and they did a fine job.
In fact the Hunter model (called PRISM in PPS jargon) was the only district initiative that I've dealt with that really made sense. I still use many of its down-to-earth principles in my teaching today.
But I still must agree with Anonymous's characterization of the Teacher Center program as a "vacation".
It was a nine week program. Two weeks worth of real quality training were intertwined with seven weeks worth of nonsense.
I forgot it was called PRISM. We jokingly called it "prison". "Monitor and adjust" is the term I recall the most. I agree that the model made sense. Unfortunately, like so many ideas that PPS came up with, use of the model died/was replaced by some other idea. Also, some teachers started abusing the system by taking long "lunches" at the local tavern/leaving Schenley early for the day.
For the record, my father was in Brookline, working at the teacher's center for Elementary Education, not Schenley.
This entry from another blog, reviewing a book by a teacher leaving the profession, touches on a number of the issues raised by the Gates plan to improve teacher effectiveness:
http://schoolsmatter.blogspot.com/2009/08/teacher-explains-why-she-is-leaving.html
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