Caution: Hope Street Group and "Teacher Leaders"

A good friend told me I should look at the want ads on Sunday, that there was a job posted that would be perfect for me.

Here it is:

Hawaii Mobilization and Education Program Director

Hope Street Group

Hawaii United States

04/17/2014

Education

Position Summary

As a rapidly growing, entrepreneurial organization that aims to achieve extraordinary goals, Hope Street Group seeks a dynamic individual to become our Hawaii Mobilization and Education Program Director. The Hawaii Mobilization and Education Program Director will report to the Vice President of Education and work with all Hope Street Group staff to implement Hope Street Group’s Hawaii Program.

The Hawaii Mobilization and Education Program Director will be directly accountable for implementing Hope Street Group’s state work in Hawaii by: building, collecting and  aggregating teacher opinion and perspectives; serving as Hope Street Group’s state spokesperson; and ensuring that teachers serve as spokespeople for reform changes

Right? I'm a dynamic individual. I can organize and mobilize. I qualify.  Who wouldn't want to ensure that "teachers serve as spokespeople for reform changes? " So, as I go looking for how to apply, I also go scratching below the surface. At first you are seduced by their grand-sounding rhetoric, then you are enticed by the possibility of traveling to Washington DC once in a while for meetings.  But as I went scratching, I found that a major component of their reform efforts is teacher evaluation, and this is number one on their list of recommendations.

"Objective measures of student achievement gains must be a major component of teacher evaluation." 

That was a huge red flag. I can just imagine if I got past my conflicts about this and managed to bluff my way through, and actually get the job, having to convince teachers that this is number one, the most important thing, número uno. I just wouldn't have the words. Or the gall. There is no "objective measure" of student achievement that can reliably be tied to teacher evaluation. There are so many variables that go into any so-called objective measure. There are so many ways that the system can be gamed. There is no way to know if test scores are tied to lasting learning or the influence of an inspiring teacher who may have planted a seed that took a while to blossom. 

I am not saying there is no way to evaluate a teacher. Just as in other professions, you have a job, nd your boss determines how well you are doing your job. That's their job. But tying it to student test scores is problematic in so many ways. Would law enforcement be evaluated based on the crime rates of their beats? If the crime was high, then would they be considered ineffective? If their evaluation was based on how much the crime rate was reduced, then would they find ways to "juke the stats," as was portrayed in the HBO series, The Wire. One season made thematic links between the Baltimore school system and the corruption in the police department. 

A stated principle for this Hope Street Group is that "EVALUATIONS WORK WHEN TEACHERS GET INVOLVED." This would lead you to believe that this is different, that this is respectful of the teacher point of view. But with already defined policies, using "research" that has been debunked by respected scholars, how much room for teacher feedback is there? 

When I go scratching around their website even more, I find that the corporate version of education reform, like support for the Common Core, is evident. Look at their funders (Gates, Walmart), advisors and network  (Joel Klein, John Deasy, Thomas Friedman) and the writing is on the wall. They don't want teacher voice, or teacher feedback. They want teachers to be on board with their agenda. 

As I allowed this blog piece to percolate this week, I started to see this effort of "involving" teachers to be "leaders" in education reform in various ways. Just heard that there is a new licensing category for Teacher Leaders, there is the Teacher Leader Academy that several of my friends have been involved in, there is the Instructional Leadership Team which our District Superintendent has pushed forward in all schools under his domain. 

On the surface, it seems all good, and perhaps it is that, not nefarious as I am implying. In my school, the ILT folks seem sincere in wanting to help. But just saying that there is a trend, and this trend has been seen historically when a greater power wanted to control the masses. Think of plantation days, when lunas were culled from the ranks of the workers and used to keep the workers in line. Think of colonialism, when natives were used by the masters to subdue their own people. Developers recruit locals to help promote their project all the time. It is a strategy. 

Before you dismiss me and this theory, just consider for a second. Is there or is there not an agenda? If, for example, the stated goal of being a "leader" is to raise student achievement (read test scores), then it may be the corporate reform agenda. If the stated goal is implementation of the Common Core, then it is definitely the corporate reform agenda. If the stated goal is teacher evaluation based on student test scores, then it is the corporate reform agenda. 

What true teacher leaders could be doing instead of promoting the corporate reform agenda is promoting a positive, well-rounded education for all public school students. The reformers don't care about that, they don't care about preschool education unless somehow they can make money off of it, they don't care about art, music, or getting kids close to nature. They don't care about social and emotional development, or even decent facilities. We need to get back to what is good for the children, what strengthens and empowers them, not what feeds the corporate monster.