Well, you've heard me throw a lot of love out for my school administrators and occassionally my school district, but lest you think I am wearing rosey glasses, read on read on.
I went to the board meeting tonight. (I know, it always gets me riled up.) The strange thing is that usually there are only a few teachers at the board meeting, but tonight, tonight there was a lot of teachers at the board meeting. A lot...
Why was there a lot of teachers at the board meeting? Well, remember the "rif rubric" that I might have been a little upset about. (Didn't I hide it well?) Anyway, part of the wonderful "rif rubric" said that teachers get 1 point per board meeting attended. This was the only eligible board meeting between the announcement of the "rif rubric" and it's impending due date. Suddenly, the board meeting looked like a sold out Radiohead concert.
This all seemed pretty reasonable to me, because what else are you going to do sitting through a board meeting means a better chance of keeping your job.
I was sitting near the front with some other teachers from my school because I was early--like always. We were sitting where we could hear the conversation of upper level administration in the district. A particular administrator, I am going to call Administrator Antoinette, was clearly angry. She was angrily repeating, "their only here to get a point!"
(Ummmm. Yeah, we are only there to get a point. What on earth else do you expect when you dangle people's livelihoods in front of their faces and make them compete with a lengthy rubric based on points?!)
It irritates me because Administrator Antoinette probably makes the salary of at least three teachers, but she doesn't have to fill out a rubric to get points to determine how worthy she is to keep her job. She doesn't have to worry about if she will be able to pay her bills next year in the event of a rif. She doesn't have to get up and go to a school at 5:30 tomorrow and deal with a room full of kids all day. She doesn't have these worries, but she has no problem judging people who want to come to a board meeting because it might mean keeping their jobs. It's just not right.
1 comment:
You get what they measure; that's such a fundamental idea, across industries, that it's sad the administrator didn't know it. If they're measuring how many times teachers attend board meetings, of course that's what they'll get.
Now, if only we would try to measure student success after graduation...
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