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Life as a public school teacher in the San Francisco Bay Area in 2021

adamcadre.ac

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Re: Life as a public school teacher in the San Francisco Bay Area in 2021

#71

Post by treis »

nerdponx wrote: post #32
fallingknife wrote: post #25

> Another initiative headed for mandate status is a school policy that no assignment can receive a grade of less than 50% > And my direct supervisor repeatedly demanded that I pace my classes for the benefit of the single student in each section who was struggling the most I don't understand school. Why do they do things like this? Who actually thinks this is a good idea? I've never met anyone who does. How have we g…

I don't get it either. People have learning and thinking differences, we know that and have known it for years. Accommodating those differences is important. Living out a real-life version of Harrison Bergeron is not the only way to do it.

It's not mandating everyone be equal. It's allocating resources to those that need them most. Which is how I think we all do our jobs. You spend your time on the systems that perform poorly, not the ones that are working fine.

Re: Life as a public school teacher in the San Francisco Bay Area in 2021

#72

Post by Wistar »

underseacables wrote: post #23
brandmeyer wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's an incentive alignment problem. It is the responsibility of management (state and district admin) to ensure that what is best for the teacher's career is also what is best for student education.

But which comes first, the teachers career, or the students education? I would contend that in the available evidence it is the former.

Teacher's choice of curriculum and how, and when, subjects are taught are ever more regimented and regulated.

Re: Life as a public school teacher in the San Francisco Bay Area in 2021

#74

Post by antihero »

brianwawok wrote: post #37
fallingknife wrote: post #25

> Another initiative headed for mandate status is a school policy that no assignment can receive a grade of less than 50% > And my direct supervisor repeatedly demanded that I pace my classes for the benefit of the single student in each section who was struggling the most I don't understand school. Why do they do things like this? Who actually thinks this is a good idea? I've never met anyone who does. How have we g…

No child left behind. It’s been ruled that it’s better that all students get to 20-80% knowledge then some get 100% and some get 0%. Which is why many people choose to go to private schools if you want to not be limited by this.

Surely this can be solved by streaming? Here in the UK we had bottom sets for the kids that were struggling, and top sets for kids who excelled. This meant that the learning pace could be tailored for each group.

Still probably didn't stretch the top set kids as much as private schools could, which is why I am in favour of abolishing all private and grammar schools and making the resources available to those schools available to top set comprehensive school kids.

It is wrong that children get educations that don't really make the most of their brains because they have parents that couldn't afford it.

Also, I think the sociological benefits of having pupils from all backgrounds occupying the same space and learning from each other as opposed to being segregated is extremely important.

So many of the rich people in charge of the country have absolutely no understanding of poverty because they have not had the opportunity to grow up around it.

Re: Life as a public school teacher in the San Francisco Bay Area in 2021

#75

Post by pjscott »

fallingknife wrote: post #38
astrange wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

California can't fund any of its public schools properly because of Prop 13. None of the wealthy homeowners care about this, because they're all too old to have kids in school.

It's not clear to me how SF, the richest city in the country with the lowest percentage of children, and that charges an income tax on residents, doesn't have hands down the best public schools in the country.

They certainly have money, but money doesn't seem to be the problem here. None of the things that the article talks about have any obvious connection with school funding, but with the culture of the school and how it's run. If the school's budget doubled tomorrow, for example, they still wouldn't be able to give a grade less than 50% because they would still have a policy forbidding it.

(I went to a tiny rural elementary school located between a tractor supply store and a goat pen. Three teachers taught six grades, two grades per classroom. Compared to the SF schools, it was incredibly under-resourced -- and yet it was a Good School, academically much higher-performing. I think about this sometimes when people point at money as obviously the reason why Johnny can't read.)

Re: Life as a public school teacher in the San Francisco Bay Area in 2021

#76

Post by rrss »

mindvirus wrote: post #64

One of the most radical beliefs I have is we should get rid of private schools, because it lets the people most capable of forcing change to opt out of an increasingly broken system, and so it doesn't get fixed. Of course I say this as I seriously consider sending my kids to a private school because of articles like this.

FYI private schools are not immune to these problems. The administration of some private schools choose to have similar policies (accept late work indefinitely, minimum grade of 50%, etc) at their school.

Re: Life as a public school teacher in the San Francisco Bay Area in 2021

#77

Post by yaitsyaboi »

fallingknife wrote: post #25

> Another initiative headed for mandate status is a school policy that no assignment can receive a grade of less than 50% > And my direct supervisor repeatedly demanded that I pace my classes for the benefit of the single student in each section who was struggling the most I don't understand school. Why do they do things like this? Who actually thinks this is a good idea? I've never met anyone who does. How have we g…

I think the 50% rule is okay. I get that it's annoying for the students who tried and got a 55%. But I suspect that the kids who would get score much less than a 50 are probably the least engaged and most disruptive.

If a 50 can keep them statistically in the game, with a chance of turning it around and passing, that might be worth it. It's similar logic to not giving life sentences. People with no hope of a good outcome are harder to deal with. A kid with a 22% average that you have to deal with for 12 more weeks must be a nightmare. They have no incentive to try at all, or to let the class proceed in an orderly wat.

Re: Life as a public school teacher in the San Francisco Bay Area in 2021

#78

Post by pacbard »

jessriedel wrote: post #35
pacbard wrote: post #11

> With half the term remaining, teachers of seniors received a notification that they would not be allowed to fail students unless they filled out a form right then and there declaring that the student was certain to receive an F. I think that OP is misconstruing the reasons behind this notification requirement. This notification has to do more with a "cover your ass" policy than lowering expectations for seniors. Th…

> This form is required to be in compliance with the CA ed code as parents have the right to appeal failing grades and not being notified is probably an enough reason for the district to change a failing grade to a passing one in case of a lawsuit/complaint. If this were the reason for the new forms, why would the school only have teachers fill out the form if the student were guaranteed to fail? I'd think the school…

I dug up SFUSD board policy [1] around failing notifications. The policy reads:

"Whenever it becomes evident to a teacher that a student is in danger of failing a course, the teacher shall arrange a conference with the student's parent/guardian or send the parent/guardian a written report. The refusal of the parent to attend the conference, or to respond to the written report, shall not preclude failing the pupil at the end of the grading period. (Education Code 49067)"

The policy clearly states that the student has to be "in danger of failing a course" and not "guaranteed to fail a course". But, if a teacher knows that they might fail a student, they must notify parents by some reasonable deadline (again, it seems that OP's school sets it by week 9 of the semester or by the mid-semester mark). Without this notification, they might not be able to fail a student because they weren't in compliance with the CA ed code and district policy. This becomes even more of an issue when HS graduation is concerned.

I don't know if the forms are new or not. The policy was last updated in 2017 so they are at least 4 years old. What what is worth, I filled out similar forms when I was a teacher 10 years ago in another part of CA, so I suspect that they have been around for longer than that (and the forms were mass produced on carbon paper slips that seemed printed in the 70s). I am also wondering if the word "guaranteed" came up in response to COVID-related changes to grading policies and the district having implemented a credit/no credit grading system.

Links:

[1] Board policy 5121 cf. 6154 para. 4: https://go.boarddocs.com/ca/sfusd/Board.nsf/goto?open&id=AKG...

Re: Life as a public school teacher in the San Francisco Bay Area in 2021

#79

Post by spangry »

fallingknife wrote: post #25

> Another initiative headed for mandate status is a school policy that no assignment can receive a grade of less than 50% > And my direct supervisor repeatedly demanded that I pace my classes for the benefit of the single student in each section who was struggling the most I don't understand school. Why do they do things like this? Who actually thinks this is a good idea? I've never met anyone who does. How have we g…

Because standards would hinder "equity" in educational outcomes. The SF Board of Education recently voted to end selective admissions for Lowell High School in favour of a lottery, citing lack of diversity and "pervasive systemic racism".

The board positions are elected so these sorts of policies are presumably what the people of San Francisco want.

Re: Life as a public school teacher in the San Francisco Bay Area in 2021

#80

Post by unishark »

astrange wrote: post #12
P0l83q4p1Hw3Ul wrote: post #5

Not quite as good as this one: https://www.amren.com/features/2020/05/after-twenty-years-wo... I'm a bit surprised that the Bay Area, one of the wealthiest places in the world, has problems with public schools too. "Public schooling is child abuse" gains more steam every day.

California can't fund any of its public schools properly because of Prop 13. None of the wealthy homeowners care about this, because they're all too old to have kids in school.

Prop 13 protects people who got in early. Median house prices in SF have been over a million for close to a decade. I'd think they have plenty enough suckers by now paying five-figures in property taxes.
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