Best post election analysis I've seen

[Anonymous]

Did Rhee completely revamp Janey's curriculum reform or just change a few words and get the credit in the minds of Ward 3 parents?

[Anonymous]

Dorrie wrote:

Anonymous wrote:2140 is exactly why DCPS will never be reformed. First, it is not TFA versus DCPS teachers. Second, no one is saying that firing teachers is the only solution. The impression left by 2140, however, is that no teachers should be fired. Given the lousy state of DCPS, 2140 must be saying that there are no bad teachers within DCPS and that teachers bear none of the blame for the current state of DCPS. That position is untenable.

That there are no bad teachers is indeed an untenable position. However, it's not what 21:40 said.

Actually, 2140 is saying, in substance, that Rhee's plan to fire teachers is her only solution. Rhee has never said that firing bad teachers is The Solution. But it is a Key Part of the Solution. DCPS will never reach its potential, if a substantial portion of the teachers are below grade, whether that portion be 5%, 10% or 25%. Curriculm reform, training, accountability procedures, textbooks, plant improvements are important too.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Rhee fired about 250 teachers out of approximately 4000 in the DCPS. About 700-800 additional teachers were given warnings. Rhee also fired some other personnel. Since DCPS has been so lousy for so long, the idea that DCPS has a fair number of borderline teachers should not be a surprise. The foregoing, of course, does NOT mean that DCPS lacks good teachers. It simply needs more of them. A PP raised the need for curriculm reform. Why hasn't that happened before? Teachers are not the enemy, of course. But teachers who resist reform, accountability and change are counter-productive.

And if I was a good DCPS teacher, I would be secretly relieved that the bad apples were being weeded out. When one teacher doesn't do his/her job at a competent level, the next teacher(s) are hurt by this as well as the student.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The truth is that Rhee had one trick in her book and that one trick has already been played. You cannot fire your way to excellence. At some point you have to start investing in your workforce: training, mentoring, and supporting it. You have to invest in a curriculum instead of thinking you can drill, kill, and test your way to a superior education. Rhee has done all she can for DCPS. It needs a new vision.

You know, I've heard this a lot. Do you even know what percentage of teachers were fired? Care to take a guess? This is after the past 4-5 years in which *no* teachers were ever fired. Meanwhile, 16% of DCPS teachers are getting massive raises because they were rated "highly effective."

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The truth is that Rhee had one trick in her book and that one trick has already been played. You cannot fire your way to excellence. At some point you have to start investing in your workforce: training, mentoring, and supporting it. You have to invest in a curriculum instead of thinking you can drill, kill, and test your way to a superior education. Rhee has done all she can for DCPS. It needs a new vision.

You know, I've heard this a lot. Do you even know what percentage of teachers were fired? Care to take a guess? This is after the past 4-5 years in which *no* teachers were ever fired. Meanwhile, 16% of DCPS teachers are getting massive raises because they were rated "highly effective."

I don't begrudge them that. Do you?

[Anonymous]

No, not in the least. My point was there are very good teachers. Then there are quite competent teachers. Then there are not-so-good teachers. Then there are teachers that can't hack it. They're doing the kids a disservice by keeping their jobs. There aren't many of them (I think it was something on the order of 6%). But they should be let go.

PP describes this as "firing your way to excellence." In fact it's symptomatic of a healthy, functioning organization. Sometimes you hire people. Sometimes they don't work out. So they need to be fired them. This is only controversial to someone who's never held either a real job, or managed more than two other people.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:No, not in the least. My point was there are very good teachers. Then there are quite competent teachers. Then there are not-so-good teachers. Then there are teachers that can't hack it. They're doing the kids a disservice by keeping their jobs. There aren't many of them (I think it was something on the order of 6%). But they should be let go.

PP describes this as "firing your way to excellence." In fact it's symptomatic of a healthy, functioning organization. Sometimes you hire people. Sometimes they don't work out. So they need to be fired them. This is only controversial to someone who's never held either a real job, or managed more than two other people.

Nobody's disputing that bad teachers need to be fired. I have yet to meet anyone who wants bad teachers in the classroom. Morale is low among teachers in some schools, good teachers with Masters degrees are tired of being talked down to and insulted. Other than firing, what is the strategy to improve the schools?

When your only tool is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Rhee fired about 250 teachers out of approximately 4000 in the DCPS. About 700-800 additional teachers were given warnings. Rhee also fired some other personnel. Since DCPS has been so lousy for so long, the idea that DCPS has a fair number of borderline teachers should not be a surprise. The foregoing, of course, does NOT mean that DCPS lacks good teachers. It simply needs more of them. A PP raised the need for curriculm reform. Why hasn't that happened before? Teachers are not the enemy, of course. But teachers who resist reform, accountability and change are counter-productive.

So based on what you wrote, she gave warnings to the bottom 20%. That's at little high. I'd say corporate HR usually gives the bottom 5-10% a "below acceptable" rating, which is usually a warning to straighten up over the next review period. But given that they hadn't really had a decent performance based system in place, you would expect that there would be some catching up to do. So overall, it's not that far off IMO.

As for the 250 firings, that would be 6% of the teacher staff. According to the below article, it appears that 110 of them were fired because they would not get licensed. That leaves 140 that got fired for poor performance (were previously on probation/ improvement plans and they didn't improve). 140 out of 4000 is 3.5% of the teachers.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/06/18/AR2009061803844.html

So net net, they gave warnings to 20% for poor performance and fired the bottom 3.5% or so plus another 3% just didn't get licensed by the deadline. I'd say that the number fired is very reasonable and the number given warning is somewhat high but maybe indicative of problems in the teacher pool, so it's not horrible comparing it to the private sector.

[jsteele]

Anonymous wrote:
As for the 250 firings, that would be 6% of the teacher staff. According to the below article, it appears that 110 of them were fired because they would not get licensed. That leaves 140 that got fired for poor performance (were previously on probation/ improvement plans and they didn't improve). 140 out of 4000 is 3.5% of the teachers.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/06/18/AR2009061803844.html

So net net, they gave warnings to 20% for poor performance and fired the bottom 3.5% or so plus another 3% just didn't get licensed by the deadline. I'd say that the number fired is very reasonable and the number given warning is somewhat high but maybe indicative of problems in the teacher pool, so it's not horrible comparing it to the private sector.

You are leaving out the 266 teachers who were laid off in October. Layoffs are supposed to be purely budgetary-based, but Rhee's supporters assured us back then that all of those let go were poor performers. Rhee herself claimed they beat and slept with children (or missed an inordinate amount of work). It also turned out the budget shortfall was imaginary, so I'm not sure how those cuts should be accounted for.

[Anonymous]

I didn't know about that. I don't have a position on her cuts. I was just tying to work throughthe numbers.

So that would be a layoff of about 7%. That would be reasonable as a corporate layoff but if it wasn't really a layoff, them she has cleated out 10.5% of poor performers plus another 3% due to licensing. That sounds pretty gutsy. You could not do that in one year at a bog company except in a layoff. No wonder people are upset. A good CEO would probably work those people plus some of the other 7-800 over several years and by using Mayotte and divestitures. They would gave a hard time facing the employees if it was an immediate firing. Also it would probably trigger a lot of eeo action. Thanks for adding the other 266.

[Anonymous]

Damn iPhone spelling correction. You get my meaning.

[Anonymous]

Laying off 10% of the work force is not unheard of in the business world, especially when there have been minimal firings for years. When it does happen, however, it means the business has some serious issues, like the DCPS. A serious corporate restructuring frequently must reduce its workforce by this amount. So, I see nothing wrong with what DCPS is doing, but I do assume these percentages will go down over the next few years.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Laying off 10% of the work force is not unheard of in the business world, especially when there have been minimal firings for years. When it does happen, however, it means the business has some serious issues, like the DCPS. A serious corporate restructuring frequently must reduce its workforce by this amount. So, I see nothing wrong with what DCPS is doing, but I do assume these percentages will go down over the next few years.

Sure, but apparently she laid off a bunch of people and then it turned out according to 18:45 that the budget shortfall was a mistake. So really they were just firings, and it's rare to fire 10% of your workforcein a short period of time.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Sure, but apparently she laid off a bunch of people and then it turned out according to 18:45 that the budget shortfall was a mistake. So really they were just firings, and it's rare to fire 10% of your workforcein a short period of time.

And we were left with the question of whether that mistake indicated incompetence for which those teachers suffered, or a convenient oversight that allowed her to get rid of those whom she might not otherwise have been able to jettison. Either way, it left anyone who was not a true believer with a sour aftertaste.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Sure, but apparently she laid off a bunch of people and then it turned out according to 18:45 that the budget shortfall was a mistake. So really they were just firings, and it's rare to fire 10% of your workforcein a short period of time.

And we were left with the question of whether that mistake indicated incompetence for which those teachers suffered, or a convenient oversight that allowed her to get rid of those whom she might not otherwise have been able to jettison. Either way, it left anyone who was not a true believer with a sour aftertaste.

I have no idea whether the layoffed teachers were real layoffs or firings. But I am relatively sure that, if any of them were really good, they would have been encouraged to reapply or a way would have been found not to lay off them. In the real world at least, small layoffs are sometimes used as a means to weed out lower performing personnel. Layoff rather than fire. For some of the affected, that may be a better outcome. Easier to find another job, etc. So, I do not care whether they were real or not, because I am very very confident that, at the end, DCPS lost very very few top notch teachers, if any. The idea that DCPS with a history of few firings, layoffs was going to undergo radical change without teacher turnover (whether voluntarily or not) is a pipe dream. So, you either accept the big picture goal and accept the process imperfections or keep pushing the process issues which results in delays if not permanent barriers to real change. I fundamentally favor the first approach.