Power vs. knowledge in St. Louis; Professionalism under fire

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The New York Times, Sunday,

October 26,

1986

WHERE WE STAND
By Albert Shanker, President American Federation of Teachers

Power Vs. Knowledge in St. Louis

∑

Professionalism Under W

Fire

hat should be the response of educators when one of their number . does something that is foolish, unprofessional or outrageous? School superintendents have great power under state law, but they have this power not just because someone has∑ to be∑ in charge but because they are supposed to know more about what works in education and how to manage and organize schools in accordance with an accepted knowledge base. In St. Louis, Superintendent Jerome B. Jones last year announced that teachers in the district would be rated unsatisfactory and lose their jobs unless their students reached specific levels of achievement or im provement on standardized achievement tests. According to the experts, these tests cannot be used to measure whether teachers are competent or∑not or whether they should be retained or dismissed. The issues involved are technical, but they can be compared to what, happens in other professions. If a large percentage of patients do not, improve after visting a given doctor, or even take a turn for the worse, what does this tell us about the quality of the doctor? Not much. Before we could answer that question we would need a good deal of additional information. Did the patient suffer from a disease that a doctor could do something about or was the disease, incurable? What course of action did the doctor prescribe? Was it the same that most others would pre scribe on the basis of medical knowledge? Or was it unorthodox? Did the patient purchase and take the medicine? Did he rest, stop smoking and . follow the special diet?

No one would want to deprive a doctor of the right o practice merly because his patients did not fae well. W.e would shll hae to answer the question: Was it the doctor s fault? Did he do 7verythmg a good doctor could be expected to do even though the patIent was ot cured? Similarly in law, there are cases whre !he l!lwyer on the losmg side did a better job than the lawyer on the wmmng Side. Should. a lawyer who loses a certain nur.lber in a row or a given percentage be dIsbarred? Suh a proposal, if it were acted on WOUld b.e vied as folish , un . professional or outrageous. In law, as m r;nedlcme, It IS poslble for a professional to do everything that can pOSSibly be done and still lose the case for reasons beyond his control. . In St. Louis, Superintendent Jones Just looks at the test scores of the . students in a teacher's class. Either the numbers are good or out With the teacher. No one bothers to ask if the teacher did everything possible to help the students. Did the stuents fail in spi. te of wat the teacher did because they didn't pay attentIOn or do outSide readmg or homework? Or did a particular teacher just happen to get a group of students who always scored poorly and made very little progress no matter who the teacher or what the educational program was? And what about the home life of the students? Do they have the right kind of supervision by their . parts or the appropriate environment for stud nd homework? Unlike most leaders in the field of law and medlcme, Mr. Jones IS not only a professional educator, but, since he has to be elected by the school board to the superintendency, he is also a politician. He will undoubted ly get some cheers and votes for playing to. the gran.dsta!ld. with !Iis "Off with their heads!" approach and for pushmg the simphstic notIOn that only results count, ' . . But where is the rest of the profeSSIon? Why should the teachers and the teachers' union be left to fight this issue as though it were merely a labor-management dispute? Thousnds of'principals, sperintend.ents, college professors, researchers, testmg eperts nd theIr professlo!1al organizations should be out on the front hne takmg a stand and tellmg the world: "Maybe som7 of thos teachers should b fied. But we need more information, partIcularly smce 0!1 all other !nd!ces the teachrs involved were rated satisfactory by theIr school pnncipals. But .the m formation that we do have raises grave doubts about the effectIveness of a school administrator who is either unaware of the relevant scholarly knowledge or for some reason chooses to ignore it. In either case, we publicly condmn the St. Lc;>uis teac::he eva ?ation procedure as a violation of all accepted profeSSIonal pnncipies. . . Such an action would do much to enhance the legItImacy of school. management and also help to attract teachers into a profession in which knowledge counts as against the old-fashioned factory model. school system in which all that matters is pure power:

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