DC Loses Another Terrific Teacher

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:"but did he teach? His unwillingness to condesend to average kids tells me he did not"

no kidding - what else does your crystal ball tell you? Does it matter that for over a decade wilson students and parents didn't come to the same conclusion?

Actually, the article says he was teaching average kids, but because of ill health wanted to teach part time the kids he knew how to teach best. What does that tell you about him?

Wow. The article really does NOT say that. He taught average kids and got a low impact score. That's what it says.

A decade worth of AP students crowing about how great he was is not as meaningful as his ability to motivate typical or more ordinary students to really make big progress. Over and over again the anti Rhee crowd here decries the loss of a teacher or principal that only appealed to some subset group of DCPS. Usually it is a teacher or principal with a personality type that is extremely arrogant--but the teacher or principal really has an almost rabid cult like following. This is NOT the type of teacher or person you would ever want to be on the wrong side of. I would not want my kid to be taught by a teacher that had any sort of "rock star" like sense of him or herself. For the kids that a teacher like that reaches --it's great stuff. But I have graduated from a prep school, college and grad school that had more than its share of huge personality teachers and profs...

so many of them were coasting on the fumes of popularity and tenure. I trust Rhee's instincts here. The guy sounds like a loose cannon.

[Anonymous]

Teachers can't be rocks stars, but It's ok that Rhee is a rock star, right?

And I bet it's Okay for a teacher to appeal to a subset of students as long as it's the right subset -- and that would not be AP students, right?

And those of you who say it's so easy to teach bright students well -- have you ever done it? Does the opinion of the bright students themselves mean nothing to you?

If teachers are so interchangeable, does that go for other professions? lawyers? doctors? baseball players?

[Anonymous]

I don't see how Rhee had anything to do with this.

There's a new teacher evaluation in place, yes, called IMPACT and this teacher apparently scored low on it for his teaching. But according to Jaffe's article, low evaluations are nothing new to this teacher. It's just that this time, it turned out it mattered. oops! But I don't see how you can blame Rhee for that. Except for figuring out a way to make the evaluations actually count.

In the past, apparently that didn't actually have any effect, but now the calculus has changed so that low scores can actually get someone fired. And note that low scores in teaching aren't what made this man really sink -- it was low scores in "following the rules" -- he lost 20 points there, Jaffe says.

I am speculating that if these broken rules were truly inconsequential, the teacher would have how meaningless they were them in his Open Letter to share how silly the infactions were. But I am speculating that they have things to do with "Professionalism" and fulfilling job responsibilities as requested. A poster mentioned not using an online grade book; and a commenter on the Jaffe article mentioned allowing students to leave class and go home in the days after the AP exam. Don't know if these are true, but these are certainly possibilities.

The thing is, yes, as a private tutor, you may have your way of doing things; but as a school employee, sometimes you have to do things the way that you are instructed to do them.**** If you think you are too good, that your way is so much better than the school's way -- and you can't figure out a way around them, and can't challenge them and change the system -- then retirement probably is the best option for you, so you can go do things your way.



**** note to people planning to make comments relating this sentence to Nazi Germany or whistleblowers at BP ****It's really not the same thing. Yes, "I'm just following orders" is not an adequate excuse when you are murdering innocent civilians, nor is it an excuse if your boss asks you to overlook safety hazard or to carry out any morally indefensible action. But, being asked to, say, keep your kids in class when you think they are perfectly fine to be dismissed, or being asked to use an on-line grade book, when you think the better option is the way you have always done it (and you have great, pedagogically correct rationaleto support you) or being asked, perhaps, to submit your lesson plans online weekly for review-- these things are hardly in the same category.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If he was such a great teacher who cared for his "special needs" advanced students as a previous poster said, then he would have sucked it up with the administration to continue to have the privilege of teaching these few and spreading his pearls of wisdom.

Because of his stubbornness, now the needs of the more gifted students might be compromised. I call b.s. on this. Clearly his need to call the shots trumped his feeling of responsibility to his students. If all our great teachers had this prima donna attitude, there would be a greater chasm between the gifted and the rest. I'm sorry. The administration has a point. He did this to himself and to his students.

Eh, what? He specialized in AP students. The administration wanted to change his specialty and deliberately changed his schedule in such a way as to put his health, his healthcare, and his life at risk.

What if Sibley decided that it needed more neo-natologists on staff and decided Dr. Peachy-Keen would now be a Neo-natologist (despite the fact that her expertise had always been in obstetrics). Would you still think that made sense? Or is it really that opaque to you that teachers and their skills are no more interchangeable than other professionals?

Ok. Your precious AP students are not medical interns. yet. This a completely flawed analogy. He was an AP ENGLISH TEACHER. In a PUBLIC SCHOOL. He was putting his health at risk by teaching typical 11th grade English? Lol.

Gee, I wonder what the "overwhelming demographic" would be of those non-AP kids?

What was he so afraid of?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:And of course, if Fenty loses and Rhee quits in a huff, the foundation money that is supposed to fund those pay increases is in danger of disappearing.

Excellent point. Rhee should have turned down any money that foundations were willing to contribute unless it came with no strings attached. Those foundations and their ridiculous demands for accountability!

Lol. Thank you.

[jsteele]

Anonymous wrote:
Ok. Your precious AP students are not medical interns. yet. This a completely flawed analogy. He was an AP ENGLISH TEACHER. In a PUBLIC SCHOOL. He was putting his health at risk by teaching typical 11th grade English? Lol.

Gee, I wonder what the "overwhelming demographic" would be of those non-AP kids?

What was he so afraid of?

I'm afraid that your misunderstanding of the situation has made you look a bit foolish and caused you to prematurely and improperly draw the race card from the bottom of the deck.

He wasn't putting his health at risk by teaching. Rather, based on his history of low evaluation scores for teaching grade level classes, a schedule of almost all grade level classes would most certainly result in his firing. That, in turn, would cost him his health insurance and his pension. As a cancer survivor, that's what he was afraid of.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:And of course, if Fenty loses and Rhee quits in a huff, the foundation money that is supposed to fund those pay increases is in danger of disappearing.

Excellent point. Rhee should have turned down any money that foundations were willing to contribute unless it came with no strings attached. Those foundations and their ridiculous demands for accountability!

I don't fault the foundations, I fault Rhee for not thinking ahead, and for not being willing to commit to serve the children of this city.

Not being willing to commit... Have you even been paying attention at all? She is totally committed. She's working her balls off to pull this thing under control. Gray has petty much said he will FIRE her if he gets in. That's it. You're either for Fenty/Rhee or Gray. It won't be her choice to stay, you understand. She has been more committed to meaningful change in DCPS than anyone ever. Janey was on the right track but he didn't have the clout to go for the festering boil of tenured lazy/crazy teachers blighting the system.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:"but did he teach? His unwillingness to condesend to average kids tells me he did not"

no kidding - what else does your crystal ball tell you? Does it matter that for over a decade wilson students and parents didn't come to the same conclusion?

Actually, the article says he was teaching average kids, but because of ill health wanted to teach part time the kids he knew how to teach best. What does that tell you about him?

Wow. The article really does NOT say that. He taught average kids and got a low impact score. That's what it says.

A decade worth of AP students crowing about how great he was is not as meaningful as his ability to motivate typical or more ordinary students to really make big progress. Over and over again the anti Rhee crowd here decries the loss of a teacher or principal that only appealed to some subset group of DCPS. Usually it is a teacher or principal with a personality type that is extremely arrogant--but the teacher or principal really has an almost rabid cult like following. This is NOT the type of teacher or person you would ever want to be on the wrong side of. I would not want my kid to be taught by a teacher that had any sort of "rock star" like sense of him or herself. For the kids that a teacher like that reaches --it's great stuff. But I have graduated from a prep school, college and grad school that had more than its share of huge personality teachers and profs...

so many of them were coasting on the fumes of popularity and tenure. I trust Rhee's instincts here. The guy sounds like a loose cannon.

When exactly did you arrive here on the planet Earth to gather information about our public schools? It seems that enroute to Earth while passing through your worm hole you were sniffing your own fumes for too long. Unfortunately, during the trip your mind has been warped and unfortunately there is no cure, but we can help. When you you return to your home planet "Eliton" you can tell your leader that public schools on Earth do not have "rock star " teachers.

Mr. Riener is a kind and gentle man. My alien friend, you would do well to emulate such qualities.

[Anonymous]

jsteele wrote:
I'm afraid that your misunderstanding of the situation has made you look a bit foolish and caused you to prematurely and improperly draw the race card from the bottom of the deck.

He wasn't putting his health at risk by teaching. Rather, based on his history of low evaluation scores for teaching grade level classes, a schedule of almost all grade level classes would most certainly result in his firing. That, in turn, would cost him his health insurance and his pension. As a cancer survivor, that's what he was afraid of.

3 "grade level" 11th grade English classes; 2 junior AP English classes. That's 2 preps.

New teachers are often assigned 4 different preps -- and they have to teach the "developmental" (i.e. seriously remedial) classes as well -- don't know what they are called in DCPS but I assume they have them.

A long time, experienced high school English teacher should be able to teach these classes and pass a teacher evaluation. Seriously. If not, it is time to retire.If he doesn't want to, that's of course a different story.

[Anonymous]

jsteele wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Ok. Your precious AP students are not medical interns. yet. This a completely flawed analogy. He was an AP ENGLISH TEACHER. In a PUBLIC SCHOOL. He was putting his health at risk by teaching typical 11th grade English? Lol.

Gee, I wonder what the "overwhelming demographic" would be of those non-AP kids?

What was he so afraid of?

I'm afraid that your misunderstanding of the situation has made you look a bit foolish and caused you to prematurely and improperly draw the race card from the bottom of the deck.

He wasn't putting his health at risk by teaching. Rather, based on his history of low evaluation scores for teaching grade level classes, a schedule of almost all grade level classes would most certainly result in his firing. That, in turn, would cost him his health insurance and his pension. As a cancer survivor, that's what he was afraid of.

Really? I don't think it is stretch at all to think that played heavily into his decision to leave. If he truly was a good teacher he could have kept his benefits by continuing to teach. That he was afraid of being fired does not remove the racial dynamic from the equation at all.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

jsteele wrote:
I'm afraid that your misunderstanding of the situation has made you look a bit foolish and caused you to prematurely and improperly draw the race card from the bottom of the deck.

He wasn't putting his health at risk by teaching. Rather, based on his history of low evaluation scores for teaching grade level classes, a schedule of almost all grade level classes would most certainly result in his firing. That, in turn, would cost him his health insurance and his pension. As a cancer survivor, that's what he was afraid of.

3 "grade level" 11th grade English classes; 2 junior AP English classes. That's 2 preps.

New teachers are often assigned 4 different preps -- and they have to teach the "developmental" (i.e. seriously remedial) classes as well -- don't know what they are called in DCPS but I assume they have them.

A long time, experienced high school English teacher should be able to teach these classes and pass a teacher evaluation. Seriously. If not, it is time to retire.If he doesn't want to, that's of course a different story.

I'm the PP and just went to check my facts -- I don't think anywhere anyone said that these three "grade llevel" classes were all 11th grade. If they were one 9th, one 10th and one 11th, that would be a significant amount of preps for an experienced teacher (or any teacher) and I would see it as more unfair.

[Anonymous]

"Gray has petty much said he will FIRE her if he gets in. That's it. "

This is completely false. Gray has said that if he wins, he would sit down and talk with ALL fenty appointees about working in his adminstration.

It is Rhee who has made it pretty clear that she could not continue under anyone but Fenty.

This came after Fenty cancelled a mayoral debate on education at the last minute minute because he "could't make it work."

This is how much both of of them care about the kids. ANd they're counting on people like you to fall for it

[jsteele]

Anonymous wrote:
Really? I don't think it is stretch at all to think that played heavily into his decision to leave. If he truly was a good teacher he could have kept his benefits by continuing to teach. That he was afraid of being fired does not remove the racial dynamic from the equation at all.

There is no racial dynamic. Hence, no racial dynamic to remove.

If you are concerned about a racial dynamic, take a look at what Rhee is doing at Hardy.

[Anonymous]

Rhee fanatics take a break. She dismisses creative talent, artistic and experienced individuals time and time again. It's a stake toward a future of robots, data, test results, and there's no room for the bottom or the top achievers. Everyone is to be in the middle. Guess what? Even in Soviet Russia philosophizing and literature and opinions and provocative nuance was revered; in electronically addled America and Western Europe today we must cling to those who bring artistry and MEMORY to our students. Forcing a poetic passionate, OLDER teacher out the door because they wouldn't jump into the mold of her pastry is shameful. When school kids take a field trip to the Holocaust Museum in the priceless experience is compounded when the tour guide is an actual survivor, or relation of a survivor. Are they biased and too passionate about their subject? If these are indeed parents commenting in favor of Rhee/Fenty and their one-size fits all aspirations, I'm embarrassed for you. To the poster who questions what on Earth Rhee would have to do with the IMPACT evaluation -- PUH LEEZE!!! DCPS is a tiny all of the players, especially and including high profile schools like Wilson. Sure, it's the "evaluation!" SHE has nothing to DO with it! Like Betts, the Wilson principal is beyond reproach.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote: To the poster who questions what on Earth Rhee would have to do with the IMPACT evaluation -- PUH LEEZE!!! DCPS is a tiny all of the players, especially and including high profile schools like Wilson. Sure, it's the "evaluation!" SHE has nothing to DO with it! Like Betts, the Wilson principal is beyond reproach.

I didn't question what Rhee has to do with IMPACT. I questioned why you are blaming Rhee for the firing of this teacher.

The teacher got poor scores on MANY evaluations, according to the Jaffe article. Here's the paragraph:

"In teacher evaluations over the years, Riener rarely scored well. Rhee's IMPACT crew gave him low marks, but he could have survived, until Cahall dropped his score 20 points -- for not complying with school rules."

So on IMPACT evaluation this year, but also on other evaluations over the years, under different superintendents, this teacher got poor marks. So why are the poor marks Rhee's fault? Yeah she brought in IMPACT, but the teacher also scored pooly on other systems.

And IMPACT wasn't the cause of the firing.... it was that darn principal taking off 20 more points for "not complying with school rules". Why is that Rhee's fault?

Isn't it the teacher's fault, for not compling with school rules? Or the principal's fault, for not having two sets of rules, some optional for teachers who teach AP classes and do a lot of extracurricular work and are popular? What part of it is the superintendant's fault?

I am not a Rhee fanatic, but I do want to know why you think this situation is her fault.