“Newton has excellent public schools.” We hear this self-congratulatory mantra time and time again. This year, like last year, the school committee update touts “Scores in each grade for NPS students are 20 or more points higher than the state.” The summary states the obvious. Low-crime, affluent communities always have high scores.
Potential new Newton residents are likely to also consider towns like Brookline, Needham, and Wellesley, and less likely to consider Fall River, Brockton, and Springfield. As such, NPS performance should be benchmarked to our peers, not to the average district in the state. I analyzed our MCAS performance relative to two peer groups–NPS’ hand-selected peer group and a more comprehensive modification. Regardless of peer group, our MCAS scores are embarrassing. Compared with 15 peers, our elementary students rank 13, 12, and 14, respectively, in English Language Arts, Math, and Science. Compared with 13 peers, our high school students rank 10 in Math and 13 (dead last) in English Language Arts. How can anyone think this is excellent? This is not a one year hiccup. This is not our kids’ fault. This is our fault. We are failing our children.
Mayor Fuller’s budget for 2020 allocates $236 million to the NPS. Are we getting our money’s worth? Are we ensuring that these resources are being used effectively to educate our children? Shouldn’t we try to emulate our peers’ success?
If you would like Excel spreadsheets with this data, please email me at [email protected].
Here are some anticipated excuses.
Our schools are more diverse than other schools. It is challenging to teach core subjects in a diverse environment. Counterpoint. 18.9% of Newton students are neither white nor Asian, compared to 26.0% for Brookline. Brookline students outperform us in every single subject in every single grade level except for 10th grade math where we tie.
We are more diverse. Our averages are lower because of gap problems with sub-groups. Counterpoint. Not only is the typical student underperforming, but subgroups are also underperforming relative to peer districts. Specifically, African American, Latino, and economically disadvantaged students in Newton all underperform their respective counterparts in the median peer district.
Kids in other cities are smarter and/or their parents are more involved. Counterpoint. There are few communities with a higher proportion of highly educated parents than Newton. Highly educated parents are more likely to be involved in their children’s education. SAT performance is a barometer of both IQ and parental involvement, while it is less reflective of school quality. Our average SAT score is higher than the median peer.
Other districts “teach to the test.” Counterpoint. I do not know of data that can assess this. That being said, this is inconsistent with conversations that I have had with parents in peer cities.
Our high schools incorporate vocational training. Our peer cities have separate vocational schools that are not reported in the analysis. Counterpoint. Our poor performance starts in elementary school so these comparisons are unaffected by the exit of vocational students.
Jeffrey, I don’t always agree with everything you have to say, but I admire your commitment to going the extra mile for our students. Many parents simply do not have the time, interest or capability to do so.
Thank you!
I’ve often wondered if Newton’s reputation of great schools is built from “the past” or “present”.
Definitely, the results should be compared to peers since we “try” to compensate the teachers relative to nearby high performing school districts..
Is overcrowding causing the issue? or just perhaps a less emphasis on teaching to the test to have more well-rounded kids.
It would be great if we had the average class sizes per ward charted over the last 20 years…
J, Pontiff,
What do MCAS scores represent to you? What can be done to improve NPS MCAS scores? Is education a business?
Jeff, it’s great that you’re looking at the data. Did you control for the proportion of students in each town who attend private school? That could confound the results.
Needless to say, I have a lot of thoughts on this topic. Unfortunately I don’t have time right now to respond, but I thank Jeffrey for putting thought and energy into this post. We often discuss NPS, with each of us coming from different perspectives and knowledge base. That being said, the conversation is always respectful.
Just two broad questions before I run: how is excellence in public schools assessed? What resources do schools need to provide for an excellent 21st education?
As a statistician/researcher, I’d also like to know if these differences in scores were large enough to be meaningful. Were they 1 point lower or 5 or 10? If the top few are all clustered near each other, rankings between them can be meaningless.
(N.B. I write this as someone with no opinion of the relative merits of the “top” school systems and lots of skepticism about the validity of the MCAS as a measure of quality.)
“NPS’ hand-selected peer group and a more comprehensive modification”
Jeffrey, can you tell us, here, which districts are included in these two groups?
To echo Meredith, I too wonder whether standardized tests are a good measure of educational quality, but even granting that, I suspect the differences in achievement in this peer group may be too small to matter.
I took a look at the spreadsheets Jeff put together. In the peer group comparison, yes, Newton ranks near the bottom, but in terms of average scaled score, every district in the peer group is between 516-524 (solidly in the meets expectations category).
For comparison, Newton ranks 6th out of 13th in this group in terms of average SAT score. This suggests to me that the differences in standardized test achievement among these districts is probably not significant.
Michael, I have not looked at private school attendance. It might affect things either way.
Jeremy, the elementary peer groups are larger since some cities share a high school. The NPS high school peer group is Acton-Boxborough, Brookline, Concord-Carlisle, Lexington, Natick, Needham, Sharon, Wayland, Wellesley, and Weston. My peer group kicks Natick out and adds Belmont, Lincoln-Sudbury, and Winchester.
Jeffery
One way to compare high schools could be to look at ivy league(and 2nd tier) acceptance levels
I think this would be better than scores as colleges account for “well rounded” individuals… and also it shows how Newton schools have grown a child through the grades to prepare for college
@bugek – I dont think that’s a terribly useful metric. How Ivy League’s opaque admissions processes map to high school quality is a mystery.
More importantly, those figures only have any bearing on how well NPS did with a very small portion of the student population and say nothing about the vast majority of the students.
I can’t agree more, especially at the elementary level.
The Mass Department of Ed. finds that Lincoln-Eliott is in the 66th percentile of elementary and middle schools, meaning that it “performs better than 65% of elementary and middle schools statewide.” Angier sits in the 73rd percentile, and Williams and Countryside at 74th. These are significantly lower than the the lowest performing elementary school in Lexington (93rd percentile), Concord-Carlisle (92nd), Wellesley (90th), Winchester (89th), Brookline (86th), Acton-Boxborough (80th), and Natick (77th).
NPS is being outspent, particularly in regards to teachers. NPS had an average salary of $82,045 in the 17-18 school year, good for 97th in the state and down from 89th the year prior. This, unsurprisingly, pales compared to our peer group of Concord-Carlisle ($102,630 for joint schools, $100,691 for Carlisle, $99,500 for Concord), Weston ($101,652), Wayland ($97,739), Wellesley ($95,371), Brookline ($95,208), Needham ($95,184), Acton-Boxborough ($84,822), and Lexington ($82,322). The age distribution of NPS teachers is pretty on par with peer districts, so NPS isn’t paying less for less experience. The new contract will help bridge some of the gap, but it’s not going to solve the problem of teachers being able to earn upwards of 10k+ more in neighboring districts.
NPS’ teacher retention rate looks good initially at 89%, but again at the elementary level retention rates plummet. Mason-Rice, Countryside, Underwood, Cabot, and Angier all had a sub-75% retention rate, while Pierce, Bowen, Franklin, Ward, Lincoln-Eliot and Williams all had a sub-80% retention rate. This means that 73% of our elementary schools have an at or below 80% retention rate.
The state calculates district and school-level retention differently, a teacher moving in-district counts as retained at the district level but not at the school level. This makes NPS more susceptible to lower retention rates at the elementary level since NPS has a wide elementary system, so I looked at elementary school-specific rates in districts with large elementary systems. Among Cambridge’s 12 elementary schools, 16% of them have a at or below 80% retention rate and among Framingham’s nine, 22% fall at or below 80% retention.
All this to say, while NPS is no doubt a strong system, there seems to be some cracks in the foundation we need to focus on.
Class size to me is a concern. My kids always had 25 kids in their elementary school class and in high school, my son has 30 kids in his Spanish Five class. Other districts have 20 kids per classroom. Build that from K to 12 th grade and Newton kids are lacking attention from the teacher.
Good analysis, Nico. The retention rate data for an entire system doesn’t provide information of much use. A more granular study of where retention rates are much lower, and asking why is an essential part of data analysis. Why are elementary level retention rates so much lower than at other levels? What positions/programs lose staff at a higher rate?
As for the test, children aren’t data points so one test (and not a high-quality test at that) isn’t a good way to analyze the quality of a school system. You can test the quality of an object every day for a week (say an iPhone) and get about the same results each time. Test a child every day for a week, and you’re likely to get scores that are statistically different.
Nor do standardized tests test creativity, artistic ability, empathy, critical thinking skills – all highly valued in NPS and reflected in the curriculum and instruction and not reflected in an MCAS score.
Are there issues in the Newton schools? Yes, if you are a talented teaching candidate with massive student loans (my son had $80,000), you’re forced to make a decision about where to teach based on the salary scale. It’s simply the reality of life in 2020. The recently negotiated contract is a major step in the right direction and I look forward to seeing the extent that we close the gap.
On another thread, a reference was made to Needham school facilities that had all the “bells and whistles”. Sorry, folks, but the “bells and whistles” are standard resources in schools that provide a 21st-century education, and with the exception of the four new schools built in the last 10 years Newton school facilities don’t measure up to facilities to comparable towns. Not close. With the exception of Brookline, each of the communities on this list has had multiple debt exclusion overrides to replace facilities that had outlived their usefulness. Newton has had two DE’s to replace 22 schools.
Does funding Newton Schools count? Of course it does. No need t say more.
Jeffrey- Your list of comparables is dated. The list has changed as income inequality has reared its ugly head in the metro-West area. Every district you include is uniformly wealthy, with Brookline and Belmont being the exceptions. Brookline has one area of one school district that’s not wealthy, but the scores even from that school aren’t a valid comparison because a major section of it is very wealthy.
We need to look at a comparison of the updated salary scales to include that information in determining who our comparables are at this point in time. That list is about 15 years old. If we’re not in their league in terms of salary, facilities, and resources, drop Wellesley, Weston, Lincoln-Sudbury, and Winchester. There’s a case to be made for dropping Lexington as well.
Add Arlington, Westwood, and Natick.
@jason colet: “Is education a business?”
Regardless of one’s answer to your question further narrowed to only public K-12 education, some critical analysis tools used in business can provide insights for public education. Here’s one: Market Share.
Setting aside the obvious and situationally inappropriate refrain that “the rich are just different”, participation — and so non-participation — in the Public Education a metric that Horace Mann thought a good measure.
In the case of NPS, what do the absolute levels and trend lines of non-participation in Newton’s Public Education mean?
Possible interpretations include:
* K-8 is the educational “product” people citizens want NPS to focus on getting more right
* NNHS and NSHS are not as competitive as some believe
* those who can afford to escape the system do, despite the significant cost to household wealth
* the needs of the many are under-serving the needs of at least some learners
* _________________________________________
I assume you’re referring to the number of students who go to public school. Strangely, that number has held steady for many years.
A potentially more valid way to assess school performance would be to compare MCAS scores for the *same cohort of kids*, in a given town, over a number of years – comparing, for example, the same cohort’s average grade 3 MCAS scores vs their average grade 8 MCAS scores (5 years later).
This analytical approach would minimize the socioeconomic variability from a straight between-town comparison and highlight what value the schools are actually adding (or subtracting) from the cohort’s performance.
Examples: A cohort in a wealthy town might score very high for grade 3, but have no change or negative change five years later when their average grade 8 scores are compared. From this example, one could conclude that the school didn’t add tremendous educational value. The high scores were perhaps a reflection of who went to the school in the first place, and not what the school did.
On the other hand, a town in a lower socioeconomic bracket might have low average scores for a grade 3 cohort, but five years later, that same cohort’s grade 8 average scores were significantly higher. One could presume that the quality of the schools in that town was very good and added a lot of educational value.
I haven’t done this analysis, just throwing it out as another analytical approach.
Mary,
Do you have intimate knowledge regarding how the MCAS tests function? If so, please elaborate on your understanding.
NewtonResident-you hit the nail on head. Comparing the scores of this year’s 3rd graders to next year’s is comparing apples to oranges. The state has never done an apples to apples comparison and appears to have no interest in doing so.
Jane. You covered a lot of territory. I will respond to the brunt of it later. I don’t agree with your assessment and I don’t think your peer group is fair.
That being said, rather than argue about the details, let’s use your less-than-spectacular peer group. Compared with 13 peers, our elementary students rank 10, 9, and 12, respectively, in English Language Arts, Math, and Science. Compared with 12 peers, our high school students rank 9 in Math and 11 in English Language Arts.
We are still at the bottom of the pack.
When one compares salary of teachers in different towns, it is important to compare whether health insurance is included or not. A higher salary without health insurance might be similar to a lower salary, if the town is paying for health insurance, in fact.
All cities/towns provide health insurance to their school employees and that’s included in the total compensation package. However, Newton has maintained local control over health coverage (negotiated with the city as opposed to joining the state program) and that’s considered a major draw and has helped us retain NPS employees through the lean years.
I suspect that this post will ruffle a few feathers, but as a parent of 3 NPS graduates (last 2 1/2 years ago) I am firmly of the opinion that the quality of teaching in the Newton Public Schools falls within a bell curve. There is a small distribution of some truly exceptional teachers. At the other end of the curve, there are some teachers who are perhaps burnt out, checked out, or simply punching the clock until retirement. Then there is the middle of the curve which contains teachers who are okay to quite good, but certainly not the teachers that a child will look back to and say “I’m so lucky I had so-and-so as my teacher.” The challenge is to find those individuals who have a passion for teaching. I know many professionals who are passionate about their work; they are motivated first not by money but by the work they will be doing. (Hence, I know a bunch of people who don’t make a ton of money but have very high work satisfaction.) So,
And before anyone begins to lecture me about the educational costs teachers carry to become teachers, yes, I’m well aware. I’m also well aware of the educational costs (much greater) for young people to become lawyers and to pursue other professional careers which require very costly post graduate education (far greater than the numbers cited here). The example I know best is law school with an average student debt of $145,000. A newly minted lawyer going into public service in Massachusetts (typical assistant attorney general or district attorney) earns about $62,000 a year. I don’t have time to research what a career prosecutor earns, but if one aspires to the pinnacle of the profession to become the Attorney General, a county District Attorney or become a member of the judiciary in Massachusetts, those salaries seem to range around $175k – $200k. And yes, professionals in the private sector can and do make far more money but we are, here, talking about individuals who have chosen a career in the public sector. So, I think it is appropriate to compare apples to apple.
Lisap,
I know this is all relative, but do you think Newton still deserves its “gold plated” school district reputation? Or is it all nostalgic?
Bugek,
I think it is somewhere in between. Gold plated – certainly not, and there’s a good dose of nostalgia for the heyday of the NPS (a time before the internet I believe) and certainly before state wide testing was in place to try to provide an external measure of student performance. Who knows – maybe the golden age was simply in the eye of the beholder. I don’t know what measures were used substantiate that claim. Student to teacher ratio? Number of students going on to college? SAT scores?
Lisap
I can’t get too upset about test scores. I don’t think they’re indicative of much. There are other big picture things that are important to me: fostering a community of diversity and inclusion and I find that Newton is leaps and bounds ahead of many other school districts. Grades, test scores, and going to college are all fine, but to me I would rather my kid come out being academically mediocre but being kind and open-minded.
Lisap – Essentially, the question at hand is how do we attract and retain the best teachers in Newton? It’s not a race to the bottom.
You could do a fill-in-the-blank for any profession. There are good/great and bad/really lousy lawyers, doctors, electricians, plumbers, etc. When I look for a lawyer, doctor, plumber, electrician, I do my research to find the best and expect to pay more for the best. That’s because I made some errors in the past and didn’t get the best results. These folks weren’t compensated at the same level as the best, but I somehow expected to receive the same level of service. Didn’t happen. Education is no different.
As for your second point, not every teacher and student are a match made in heaven. One of my sons was assigned to a teacher who according to parents on the sides of the soccer field was terrible. As it turns out, they developed a special relationship and he had a wonderful year. Which brings me back to one of my original points: children aren’t data points and public schools are notoriously difficult to assess. The “best” teacher isn’t the best for every student.
I’ve taught in two of the top systems in the country for decades (Brookline and Newton) and I can assure you the Good Old Days weren’t so great. Weren’t great for children of color, LGBT students and families, closeted teachers, Muslim students, single parents, children with disabilities or differences of any kind, and the list goes on. Take a look at the murals at NNHS if you think things were great back then. Notice who’s left out. Who’s invisible, who was important and who just didn’t even make it into the picture.
MMQC,
Call me old fashioned but if a child grows up to be a bigot and racist its because their parents did not raise them correctly (did not monitor their friends, interests, teach them to respect others)
Are there seriously any schools in MA which are ‘teaching’ kids to be hate people? They may pick up things from the bad kids in school but if their parents raised them correctly they will know to ignore it…
MMQC,
I share some of your sentiments. It is an egregious affront to kids that they have become a number, score, or a statistic. That is the antithesis of what one’s educational experience should entail.
@MMQC said is on the mark, except about the mediocrity thing! It’s important to teach kids to strive to do their best in all areas.
My last comment, as I read it now, sounds harsher to Jane than intended. I apologize. I agree with much of what Jane said, but I will just focus on differences. I already noted disagreement over peer groups.
Nothing is perfect, including test scores. That being said, they still provide valuable information. Comparing across districts washes-out the impact of a poor question.
Do I want my kids to be well educated in math, science, and English language arts? Yes. Do I want the NPS to accountable? Yes. When someone comes up with a better quantitative measure to compare the NPS to peer districts, I will embrace it. Until then, I respect the information in MCAS scores. These scores tell me the NPS has a lot of work to do. No one has given a convincing argument otherwise.
If you are a parent, Google “MCAS practice tests.” Do you want your children to be able to answer questions like this? I do.
If someone knows how to compare the NPS to peers in the areas of creativity, artistic ability, empathy, critical thinking skills, please tell me. Until then, I am not going to take it on faith that my kids’ English and Math education needs to suffer because the NPS has taught them to be more emphatic than Weston (or Brookline or Wellesley or …) kids.
@Jane-
Of course it isn’t a race to the bottom. That’s a straw man. And anecdotal stories are quaint, but unless money is really no object “the best” is almost always a reflection of “the best” within a specific market that an individual can afford. Yes, successful professionals in private industry do command more money for their time. That’s not the model of public education in Newton where teachers are paid pursuant to collective bargaining. One is an apple, another an orange. And in the private sector, if you want to maintain your position on top, it generally means you cut loose those who don’t measure up to company standards.
As for your observations about the past, I don’t disagree. But that shows Newton as a microcosm of society as a whole vis-a-vis the treatment of marginalized communities. As I said, I don’t know by what measure Newton was considered to be “the” or “a” top school system. From where I sit, and until recently sat for sixteen years as my kids went through, I would certainly not say on a whole that this district exceeds expectations. It is known for having great schools; the question presented is whether reality measures up to reputation.
What most interests me is how well-prepared the kids are for college/post-HS graduation. We know kids who receive SAT tutoring tend to boost their scores substantially upon retaking; I image teaching to the MCAS would achieve similar results. Higher SAT scores don’t translate to better performance in college. Do better MCAS scores translate to more knowledgeable and capable high school students? College students? Employees? Inquiring minds want to know.
@Marcia,
Excellent questions. From my own observations, NPS does do an excellent job teaching students at the AP level to prepare for the AP exam, which often results in college credit. (Disclaimer – my youngest started college with the maximum number of permitted credits for an incoming freshman with AP credits). With that limited and recent experience, those classes did do a solid job of preparing child #3 for college. As for the other class levels – advanced college prep and college prep if memory serves me (and please correct me if I am wrong as my memory is a tad weak), I would say clearly not so much. I found very little difference between CP and ACP (if I have the nomenclature correct). It was rather disappointing to me to be honest.
On the other hand, given the age group and what we have learned from neuroscientists about the developing adolescent, a tremendous amount of growth continues until age 25. Some students just are not developmentally ready at age 15, 16 of 17 for materials that they can master at 19, 20 and 21. I’ve seen that played out first hand as well, where the high school preparation was genuinely immaterial to the advances made when challenged with advanced college curriculum.
One area which is a gap, which I have filled in is financial literacy. However, that’s not a fault I would attribute to NPS as I believe that they do offer financial literacy as an elective to high school students, and frankly it took little more than an hour or two with each child to explain. Good luck!
As a parent, I hated the stress the MCAS put my kids through EVERY year, and multiple times (one week for English and one week for math and a few days for science). No matter how many times I told the kids when they were younger that it is a test to see how well the teacher teaches the material, the kids didn’t believe me.
However, I view my children as more than just a test score. MCAS, ACT or SAT or AP.
How well does my child interact with peers?
How well does my child work with groups during the school day and how does the group solve conflict (these are real world applications for the adult world)?
Does my child know and understand current events (not in any MCAS)?
Does my child show empathy and sympathy?
Does my child know how to ask for help and from whom?
Does my child have a trusted adult in the school?
Does my child learn music and art?
Does my child get outside to get physical activity?
These things are not measured by test scores, but should be part of their every day school life.
I don’t want my kids in high school to be sooooo overwhelmed with test scores and grades, that they forget how to interact with peers.
Lisap – Perhaps I wasn’t clear. My comment referred to the comparison of salaries, in education as well as in other professions. In public schools, you have salary scales that can be compared across districts. That’s data and it isn’t quaint – it’s the deciding factor for many top candidates who may receive several offers.
As for the MCAS, it’s a very poor quality test that provides no information about the students to the teachers who receive the scores. That’s because the printout tells you Student A answered question #12 wrong and it related to identifying the main idea. You do not get a copy of the test to analyze the answers. This level of data is of no value to the classroom teacher who should be able to use data to differentiate curriculum and instruction for individual students.
The practice questions are not typical of the real test – they are much easier except to explain the test format. Bad data is worse than no data. MCAS is bad data.
Jeffrey- no need to apologize. I figured you were writing quickly. We often disagree about education – neither of us has ever had a problem with that in our conversations.
@Jane,
I think you missed my point; if salary is the driving factor for someone’s career, then the calling of public service – which is what I consider teaching in a public school, perhaps is not the best career choice for an individual. As to whether the highest salary is the deciding factor when accepting an offer, it is a reasonable inference but you don’t know what considerations any particular individual uses when making a choice and you are assuming facts.
And as for the MCAS test, it too is data whether you find it utilitarian or not. Simply looking through the lens of whether it assists a specific teacher with a specific student on a particular question may be a bit myopic, though I do not understand why teachers are not permitted to have the actual questions. The test provides district wide information concerning the performance as well as growth of students across grade levels, as well as the percentage of students exceeding expectations per grade level tested. I think that for a golden district, we would expect a large percentage of our students to be exceeding expectations but, as but one example, in our third grade cohort, only 20 percent achieved that level while a greater percentage (21 and 26) only partially meet expectations. As for growth from 2018 to 2019, the data provides information concerning progress toward improvement targets by subgroups. If you don’t think that data concerning whether high school students in identified sub-groups exceeded target, met target or actually declined from the prior year, that’s your prerogative. I frankly find the accountability data provides a lot of information, particularly with regard to whether we see consistent improvement and in what area(s) or whether there is any decline and by how much.
Last point – at the DESE website, Newton’s data is the second most requested so one may infer that there are some folks who find that data to be useful.
Have a nice day!
Lisap- Once again you miss my point. Salary is not the driving factor in determining one’s choice of career. Salary IS a driving factor in determining which community top candidates choose to accept a position and whether talented teachers choose to remain in that system.
MCAS is a notoriously bad test developed by Pearson Education. Pearson’s problems and failings are long-standing and well documented and yet it makes billions of dollars from American students. This test is required by the state of MA and my only hope is that Newton isn’t deriving the direction of the system using the results from this poorly designed implement. My suspicion is that Pearson doesn’t want teachers to see the test because we found errors in it on a regular basis – as in every year -and reported them to DESE.
“Quaint”, “myopic” – After all these years as a teacher, I’m quite used to having my thinking described with such terms. That being said, one of the issues in American education is the lack of respect for the profession. How do we attract college students to a profession that’s not well respected? It’s a very real problem. One of my sons chose to be a teacher and that pleases me; another said he’d enjoy the work, but couldn’t put up with the lack of respect and didn’t know how I did.
@Jane,
And apparently YOU missed my several points, but it would be redundant to repeat them. For some people, salary IS the driving factor in career choice. For some people, the entirety of the job offer, whether it includes the highest paid offer, is ALSO a driving factor in their career choice. You simply cannot make such sweeping generalizations about ALL people as you do.
And here is a point where we do agree; we do need to attract top college students to become teachers. I trust you are familiar with the McKinsey Report (2010) and others that claim that “[t]he U.S. attracts most of its teachers from the bottom two-thirds of college classes, with nearly half coming from the bottom third.” And while I’m not willing to put much faith or muster into such reports, I’ve had too many experiences with NPS staff which left me sadly shaking my head as to their subject matter knowledge. You don’t get respect simply by the position you hold, but how you hold it and how you perform. If you think that an announcement that teachers will “work to contract” or be silent during meetings, or limit their interactions with parents and whether they will write college recommendations doesn’t impact whether teachers earn respect, then let me clue you in — it does. If people want to be respected as the professionals that they are, they need to work like professionals and that means doing what needs to be done to get the job done.
As for the quality of the MCAS test, it’s rather odd to say that it is poorly designed when you don’t have access to the actual test. Putting aside that not insignificant point, I fully anticipate that the district does use the test results, particularly when they show particular subgroups consistently failing to meet benchmarks and losing ground. To ignore that data would be reckless and irresponsible. What the district does with the data – that I would hope is in the hands of the many education and curriculum experts NPS has (at the taxpayer expense) to advise as to how to improve student outcomes.
Out of curiosity, is Newton prevented (union rules) from hiring teachers from overseas on H1-b visas? Can Newton attract the best teachers from around the world?
Some corrections of misinformation from your post:
1. NTA rejected out of hand the possibility of limiting interaction with parents, a refusal to write college recommendations, or “work to rule. Out of hand – rejected. I can’t control rumors, but none of that is true. None.
2. My colleagues are dedicated, highly intelligent, and well informed. I feel completely confident in making that statement.
The hiring process in the last 15 years has become a more arduous task because of the facts you point to. It’s one of the main reasons why hiring top talent has become more difficult – because every comparable community is vying for the same limited number of top candidates.
I am going to really spell out the process and problem in detail in order to help you understand:
– In making the decision to become a teacher, an individual understands that s/he will never become wealthy in this profession.
-In preparation, that individual must complete a two-year Master’s program. Excellent teacher education programs are very expensive, as expensive as law school.
-Highly qualified candidates then look for a job in communities comparable to Newton that have varying salary schedules.
-Despite making the decision to work in a lower wage profession, the candidate must pay back the loans and pay the rent (I think you get this part).
-Given that Newton is surrounded by communities with excellent schools, new school facilities, and other talented teachers, the competition for top candidates is much harder than in a profession such as law which spews out thousands of new young talent from excellent programs every year. In your profession, the pressure to land a good job is on the potential employee. In my profession, the pressure to hire an excellent teacher is on the employer.
I’m sorry you had a poor experience in NPS and I hope that you are happy/relieved to move on. Best of luck to you and your grown kids in their future endeavors.
Bugek – Good question. Candidates need to have MA certification no matter what.
Misinformation, Jane? Are you saying that the threat to refuse to write college recommendations has never been on the table. I don’t think so. I’m sure I can find some links where that threat has been floated but it’s not worth my time to do so, because it is so well known. N.B. – you say nothing about any of the other work actions I referenced — point made.
As costly as law school. Really? A three or four year program for a Juris Doctorate degree is as expensive as a 2 year Masters degree when you can complete your Masters in Education in 16 months, Jane? Links please, because your claim beggars belief.
And yes – I do get that new hires – whether they be teachers, lawyers, accountants, nurses – do have to pay to live as well as pay back their loans. That doesn’t need any citation – it’s OBVIOUS.
And yes – you are right, law schools do graduate (not spew out – tsk, tsk for someone so sensitive to any criticism of your profession) – many graduates who want to be lawyers. Many of those new lawyers work for a pittance – far less than the entry level salary for teachers in the Newton Public Schools.
Allow me to broaden your horizons while I have your attention. I’ll share some personal insight as my spouse is a career public defender who normally works a 60 hour work week. New recruits to his office are typically from the top law schools (Harvard, Yale, NYU). When on trial (which includes several weeks before trial) – he goes from working 12 hour days to regularly working 17-18 hour days, or 120 hours per week. (My figures are accurate and current as he just tried a case last week, and was in trial prep for many weeks in advance.) Now — imagine if you will, if he and his colleagues demanded Christmas, February and April vacations, time off for continuing education (typically done during personal time) and on top of that, 1/2 days for court on four court days per month (September through June) to meet with colleagues to “collaborate”. What do you think would happen to the criminal justice system? I’ll tell you – it would come to a grinding halt. Still feeling oppressed and disrespected? Oh, and I know quite a lot of lawyers who have left the profession to become teachers – because they wanted an easier life and far less stress, so there’s that. So, by all means – tell me about teachers who regularly put in 60 hour weeks, and 120 hour weeks for weeks on end — I’ll wait. After all, I know you need to have the last word.
Correction 1/2 days *from* court on four days per month.
Oh, and since it’s so late – I forgot to mention summers off too! Silly me. Christmas, February, April and the whole summer for vacation time. A 40 week year for public defenders in the trial courts. That would certainly go over well with the trial courts! Good night!
The back and forth between @Lisap and Jane is really tiresome. Your crowding out discussion and straying way off topic. You guys should share email addresses, continue your sniping offline while letting the O2 back in this thread.
Thanks
Peter-
Welcome to Village14, where dead horses are thrashed daily. And thanks for the suggestion, but I’ve no interest in continuing the discussion on my personal email . I’ve held my tongue long enough, and made my points. Frankly, this thread has outlived its purpose and general interest. Good night.
Peter – It is extremely important for the community to know that teachers NEVER considered for a moment refusing to write recommendations, communicate with parents, or considered a work to rule. She is repeating rumors and it’s offensive. We remained silent at faculty meetings – that’s it. You may not be aware but Lisap has been insulting to NPS teachers and spread misinformation on V14 about the system for years. This is the first time I’ve taken it on. I’m sorry, but it was time.
BTW, if you think this is tiresome, then try rereading the 25 or so threads (in just the last six months!) about developments in Newton. The constant rehashing of the same issues has led me to refer to Village 14 as Five Guys.
Jane, I was done with this thread till now. Many people have disagreed with me over the long years that I’ve posted but I have NEVER spread, nor been accused of spreading misinformation. You owe me an apology for that libelous remark.
I started the blog because I was frustrated that our MCAS scores were low compared to our peers and the response of public officials was to “put lipstick on a pig.”
Some of the discussion criticized the test. Test results contain signal and noise. Let’s pretend that the tests results were all noise, and the state flips a coin to determine the correct answer. In this case, you would expect Newton’s scores to be at the median. Yet, our scores are well below the median. Last year different students in Newton and different students in our peer districts took the MCAS. Last year the Newton students drastically underperformed again. This difference is not noise. This is telling us that our kids are not answering questions about math, English, and science as well as kids in other cities.
Whose fault is it? I don’t think it is the students fault or the teachers fault. It is our fault. The administration runs things, the school committee monitors the administration, and we communicate our priorities to the school committee. All three of us are culpable.
Jeffrey,
Are there any surveys given by students to provide any insights? If the students feel teachers are unmotivated or not very good at explaining difficult subjects?
Surely there must be a feedback loop to allow to tweaks and improvements as needed?
Or perhaps Math & Science have taken a back burner to teaching kids empathy and social skills. Or maybe the parents have been pushing to “lower the bar” so that everyone gets a “star”. Or perhaps Newton has become so expensive that BOTH parents must work and parents have abdicated their responsibilities 100% onto the school (different from the old days).
Its important to identify the issue and not assign blame… but to look for solutions.
Budgek. I don’t think there is problem with teacher motivation affecting teaching. This might be a question for Jane. I think there is likely to be problem with the lack of emphasis that NPS puts on the core subjects. Also, I think when it comes to English there is very little grammar until 5th grade, then it stops (or so one of my kids’ 6th grade teachers tells me). To my eyes, when it comes to writing, there is very little correction of assignments. This is very time consuming and requires the NPS making sure it happens and making sure the the teachers have the resources to spend time on it.
Perhaps parents push to lower the bar, or there are issues with both parents working, but remember these results are relative to peers. I don’t think Newton is unusual in this respect. You could tell the story that Newton recently has attracted a larger percentage of economically disadvantaged students who drive the results down. This story does not hold water because this subgroup underperforms more in Newton than in our peers–just like the typical student.
I think surveying students is won’t help. If we have excellent schools we have excellent schools because parents think so. Surveying parents will help. Over many years, I have asked school committee members to survey parents annually, and to ask them to rate their experience on a scale from 1 to 10 and to report what is good and bad. This allows the SC to methodically keep track of progress and identify problem schools. The SC members I talk to almost always initially say it is a good idea. When I follow up, and ask why they have not done it, the answer is, “we have to get the administration on board.”
If the MCAS is so lousy, how come the districts with the sterling academic reputations perform well? Newton is the one that has a great reputation, but seems to underperform on that test.