Teachers union president on grant: Students are not widgets
Editor, Townsman:
The Andover School Committee and the local press often frame our association as group whose interest is only focused upon our own wages and benefits. Last Thursday, the executive board of our professional association voted unanimously to decline signing onto a memorandum of understanding regarding a federal grant project known as, "Race to the Top."
This decision clearly changed the frame of local discourse concerning our behavior. We are now being criticized because we turned down possible funding that may have been used to our benefit. In reality, the total amount of funding available was less than $30,000.
We decided against supporting this grant because as educators we believe that it has within it the seeds to send learning on a path toward mediocrity. Specifically, the grant indicates that "participating districts are expected to use evaluations to ... inform decisions around compensation." While in the private sector tying compensation to productivity may appear to be a solid idea, it doesn't work for education. In fact, in education, this idea actually sends learning towards a race to the bottom. In the new paradigm, teachers would be assessed through the performance of our students. The difference between the performance of students and products is compelling. When a product has a defect or doesn't sell well in the market, it is often discarded. Products are often produced in the third world to make them less expensive. Should Andover educators replicate this example and unload students who don't perform well simply because they may have a learning disability? Should we give slots in Andover to students from other districts who perform well and then send our low performing students to another location?
Clearly, students are not widgets or any other type of product. They are complex human beings, who, as individuals, learn at varied paces. Students bring to the class their unique experiences, passions and struggles. Our role as educators should not be to create dissociated automatons, but instead we should cultivate a thirst for knowledge. We should foster the creative passions of each of our students so that they can pursue rich and productive lives.
If we were to support the grant program we would be embarking upon the establishment of a structure that desires to measure each student as an assembly-line product so that a base line can be constructed to evaluate teachers. I don't believe that this is what people in Andover desire. We request that the School Committee work with us to move our system forward so that learning can be an enriching, creative experience for every student.
Tom Meyers
Lawrence
President, Andover Education Association
