PREP Act: The good doesn’t outweigh the bad

By Scott Buttram

publisher

Commentary

TRUSSVILLE –As a new education bill, labeled the PREP Act, makes it’s way through the legislative process in Montgomery, teachers and administrators in Alabama are up in arms over portions of the bill.

They should be. Because, portions – not all – of the proposed legislation is simply a bad idea. It may look good on paper, but in practice, it falls apart.

The bill in question, SB 316, is sponsored by state senator Del Marsh. His history in education reform measures and his staunch support of the state board of education have made Marsh a hero for those who value serious progress in Alabama public schools.

Personally, I have vocally and vehemently supported the Alabama Accountability Act, which gave students from poor families to first real school choice opportunity and the charter school bill pushed through by Marsh. These two measures will go down in state education history as the boldest moves since integration to give all children and fighting chance, in my opinion.

Both measures also sent the public school status quo crowd into a head spinning tizzy, but that was just a bonus.

Scott Buttram, publisher of The Trussville Tribune.
Photo by Kevin Holley

The PREP Act has a lot of good, to be sure.

For one thing, it increases the tenure process from three years to five, giving schools longer to evaluate teachers before offering what equates to a lifetime contract. Tenure reform is needed. Standing alone, that element of the bill would pass overwhelmingly and, I believe, it would be supported by most veteran educators.

Another strength of the bill includes paying bonuses to teachers willing to go into under-performing schools and is a good idea. Recruitment can be difficult in some of Alabama’s poorest communities and students suffer when good teachers can’t be drawn to the area.

But then comes trumping of new evaluation methods that will revolutionize public school education in Alabama. But probably not. Probably not at all.

Let’s consider these “new” evaluation methods.

SB 316 calls for two teacher evaluations per year. We’re already doing that.

It calls for those evaluations to be performed by officials trained to conduct them. We’re already doing that.

It calls for the teachers to receive feedback from the evaluations. We’re already doing that.

In addition, teachers already have multiple observations throughout the year. If their evaluation dictates, those observations are increased to provide additional guidance to the teacher and make sure they are following the previously received feedback.

So, what’s new in this bill as far as evaluations go?

This bill ties teachers’ evaluations to student achievement. Sounds good, right? Not so fast.

While it does sound good to say ‘tie teacher evaluation to student performance,’ it’s full of holes.

More importantly, it’s terrible for the most underpaid and overworked  people in education, the classroom teacher. If I thought for one minute that this would improve education, I would support it. But not only do I not believe it will help, I think it will hurt.

This morning, a friend and supporter of the bill, said, “If a child does not have the support or the encouragement from their families–they are not going to excel like a student who does.”

I agree with my friend on that statement, yet, this bill not only makes a teacher’s professional future dependent on factors they can’t control, but it makes their ability to retain tenure dependent on factors they can’t control.

Is a teacher going to be excited about teaching a child that may cost them their career through no fault of their on? Teachers would be forced to avoid children from poor quality homes as a survival practice.

But the bad news doesn’t stop there. If a student is a high performer with a skill level of 100 coming into a class, and the teacher teaches them all of the content to help them end the class with a 100, the teacher gets zero.

Also new in this bill, student evaluations of their teachers beginning in 3rd grade. While I do believe teachers can benefit from feedback of their students, it should not be tied in any way, shape, or form to the teacher’s professional future.

When I sit down at my dinner table, I have a 21-year veteran of the classroom with more degrees, professional development and real world educational experience than I can calculate, sitting on one side of me. I have a 9-year-old third grader on the other side.

I can assure you that my daughter, arguably brilliant and mature beyond her years, is in no way qualified to determine my wife’s professional future. Her evaluation of a teacher may provide the teacher with real insight. It also may be heavily influenced on whether she received a “smiley face” or a “frowny face” that day.

That should not be 25 percent of a teacher’s evaluation. It should be a tool for a teacher to use, but it should not count at all to judge their classroom ability.

The evaluation element of this bill is not an improvement to the current evaluation process.

The “new” evaluation appears to be smoke and mirrors to make the public believe that tying teacher pay to student performance and tenure reform comes with some revolutionary new teacher improvement system.

It doesn’t. It comes with more bureaucracy.

This bill should be broken down into specific elements to be voted on separately. Let the good pass and kill the crap.

We ask our teachers to not only teach, but to be social workers, law enforcement officers, guidance counselors, healthcare workers, bodyguards, substitute parents, and role models. Often, they do this with one hand tied behind their back by laws that remove common sense and logic from the equation. They must do all of this in a “Susie & Johnny can-do-no-wrong” society.

Now, we’re going to make their professional future dependent on student performance  that most agree sometimes can’t be controlled by a teacher due to a failing family support system? Or whether the student votes a teacher up or down?

I certainly hope not.

Scott Buttram is the publisher of The Trussville Tribune. Let him know your thoughts at Scott.Buttram@TrussvilleTribune.com or follow him on Twitter @ScottButtram