In 2002 the Las Cruces School Board members looked surprised when New Mexico Teacher of the Year Jim Smith made the above statement. It never occurred to them that the central problem in public education was administrators. In the years since Smith’s statement administrators have gotten worse, not better.
I do know some good administrators who fight to let teachers teach but it seems the system works to throw those administrators out and replace them with administrators who “Play the game” the way their superiors demand. Today, it is never ever about the students, it is always about adults.
This year the New Mexico teacher evaluations make no sense and are not uniformly applied. More so, it is obvious no one in a position of leadership in the schools has the faintest idea or interest in good teaching. They think great teachers excel at filling out accountability forms and administering tests.
Many teachers this last year said they were no longer teachers; instead, all they did was administrator tests. All administration, no teachers. They spent the entire year on something to which the students have absolutely no interest whatsoever: taking tests. The good teachers are beaten down for suggesting that students do something other than prepare for tests, take tests, review tests and prepare for more tests.
Having taught in the New Mexico State University College of Education I have many former students who are now teaching in New Mexico and a couple other states. I keep in touch and it is heartbreaking the way our society has turned education over to the top-down approach of complete control by administrators.
A quarter century ago I was hired by a large school district to plan for computers in the classrooms. At that time the ratio of teachers to non-teachers was heavily on the side of teachers. Make no mistake, teachers ran the schools and administrators made sure there was toilet paper in the bathrooms. That has changed to where administrators command all teaching practices including the current constant testing of students.
Over the years more and more administrators have been hired so that we now have the assistant to the assistant to the assistant supernumerary administrator. And each administrator has to command something so as each comes onboard there are more rules and regulations on the teachers. Some teachers have tried to ignore as much as possible all of the administrator interference but it is getting impossible.
When I taught at Albuquerque High (Gerald Ford was president) the administrator stupidity was “Quarter-hour lesson plans.” For every hour taught (six hours for me) there needed to be four in-depth lesson plans completed and handed in. That was 120 pieces of paper each week. My hand still hurts from filling all of them out before the era of computers. So I took a better paying job at the University.
What former students are really uncomfortable with, according to the email and conversations this last year is the cheating that has taken over the public schools. While there is hue and cry for test integrity, there is a demand by administrators that teachers make sure their students do well by hook or crook since the administrator jobs are on the line and therefore so are the teacher jobs.
This is second-hand information, I have not seen it myself, but in some school districts teachers are given the tests to practice and then they walk around the test indicating to students they have gotten things wrong. Students do what it takes to get to recess.
One message talked about how teachers in this former student’s district start the year with say thirty percent proficiency students and in a couple of weeks these students are now at a hundred percent proficiency. Obviously, that is impossible in the real world but it is demanded by administrators.
And no one is going to go look since everyone in the command structure wants success. Administrators think the best teachers are the ones bright enough to cheat on the tests so their schools look good. Meanwhile students more and more hate every moment in school.
Dr. Michael Swickard hosts the syndicated radio talk show News New Mexico six to nine a.m. Monday - Friday on a number of New Mexico radio stations and through streaming. Email: michael@swickard.com
Having taught in the New Mexico State University College of Education I have many former students who are now teaching in New Mexico and a couple other states. I keep in touch and it is heartbreaking the way our society has turned education over to the top-down approach of complete control by administrators.
A quarter century ago I was hired by a large school district to plan for computers in the classrooms. At that time the ratio of teachers to non-teachers was heavily on the side of teachers. Make no mistake, teachers ran the schools and administrators made sure there was toilet paper in the bathrooms. That has changed to where administrators command all teaching practices including the current constant testing of students.
Over the years more and more administrators have been hired so that we now have the assistant to the assistant to the assistant supernumerary administrator. And each administrator has to command something so as each comes onboard there are more rules and regulations on the teachers. Some teachers have tried to ignore as much as possible all of the administrator interference but it is getting impossible.
When I taught at Albuquerque High (Gerald Ford was president) the administrator stupidity was “Quarter-hour lesson plans.” For every hour taught (six hours for me) there needed to be four in-depth lesson plans completed and handed in. That was 120 pieces of paper each week. My hand still hurts from filling all of them out before the era of computers. So I took a better paying job at the University.
What former students are really uncomfortable with, according to the email and conversations this last year is the cheating that has taken over the public schools. While there is hue and cry for test integrity, there is a demand by administrators that teachers make sure their students do well by hook or crook since the administrator jobs are on the line and therefore so are the teacher jobs.
This is second-hand information, I have not seen it myself, but in some school districts teachers are given the tests to practice and then they walk around the test indicating to students they have gotten things wrong. Students do what it takes to get to recess.
One message talked about how teachers in this former student’s district start the year with say thirty percent proficiency students and in a couple of weeks these students are now at a hundred percent proficiency. Obviously, that is impossible in the real world but it is demanded by administrators.
And no one is going to go look since everyone in the command structure wants success. Administrators think the best teachers are the ones bright enough to cheat on the tests so their schools look good. Meanwhile students more and more hate every moment in school.
Dr. Michael Swickard hosts the syndicated radio talk show News New Mexico six to nine a.m. Monday - Friday on a number of New Mexico radio stations and through streaming. Email: michael@swickard.com
