NOTE: 7 months ago I was mugged and my laptop was stolen. Laptopless I let this blog die a quiet death. But since my response to NYCeducator turned out to be longer than his comments page would manage I figured it would be worth temporarily resurrecting the blog.
It all started here:
NYC Educator’s original derogatory post about KIPP.
Then
Eduwonk on the NYC Educator post (especially the comments page)
And then
NYC Educator taking a major swipe at me and my comments.
Below my response:
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Dear NYC Educator,
As much as I do enjoy yelling on blog comment pages, I'm actually much more interested in persuading you than I am in trading insults with you. Contrary to your impression, I did in fact read your post carefully, as well as the news article you referenced, as well as Eduwonk's post. And having re-read all 3, I stand by my argument that your position on KIPP is anti-teacher, whether you think of it in that light or not. But before launching back into that argument, perhaps a little context is important.
About my comment:
When I said, "if your school produced results like KIPP, I'd want you to be given a trip to the Bahamas also," I was not being rhetorical. It was not immediately apparent to me from your blog where you teach or even who you are. But I am not the most tech savvy person, so it's quite possible this information is readily available and I just didn't see it. If I had, I would have googled your school and its results, rather than commenting in the hypothetical. And if you tell me where I can find those results now I would be very interested to read about them.
You joke that you "don't suppose that commenter will send me an airline ticket anytime soon." I don't have much money and I can't afford to buy you a plane ticket, but send me your schools scores and an address to mail to you. If your success is what you claim, I give you my word I'll will send you a small gift that I can afford, in order to show you my appreciation of your work. Appreciation is the least we can do for those who help the needy.
To be clear, I have just as much respect for outstanding educators in district schools as I do for outstanding educators in charter schools and I want just as much to learn from their successes. I get very upset however when people look for reasons to discount other people's success, especially successes with disadvantaged students. It still seems to me (after re-reading and reflection) that this is what you are doing in regard to KIPP teachers.
So you understand where I'm coming from:
I think KIPP is both a good place to work and a tremendous success in the effort to educate poor and minority students (which is for me the most important educational issue). I don't think this based on ignorance. I teach Saturday school at a KIPP school (for free) and have done professional development for KIPP Math teachers (for money). I am very well acquainted with the students, teachers, and administrators there. The picture you paint of a sweatshop just doesn't ring true.
Instead what I see is a school where much, much more is demanded of everyone in the school: students, teachers, parents, and administrators. At the same time there is much more belief in the ability of all of those people to rise to this higher standard of performance and effort. To me expecting more of people and believing they can meet your higher expectations is the essence of respect.
So back to our disagreement, and to my position that the philosophy you expressed was anti-teacher.
You said, "Whopee! Let's spend five days in the Bahamas on the taxpayers' dime!" implying that this was either a frivolous or even corrupt use of public money. Your comparison to vouchers further implied that you felt the KIPP leaders would corruptly pocket the money if they could. And you reference more than once the issue of the disputed documentation around the source of funding for the trip, public or private. If you believed it was okay to use public money for the trip, it presumably wouldn't matter which pile of money the trip came from or whether there was documentation to prove the source.
Taken together this all seems to me to imply that you don't think sending teachers and administrators on a nice trip is an appropriate use of public money. If my inference is incorrect, please correct me. And please do so publicly as well, because I think that many other readers would have to assume that you think this is an inappropriate use of public funds. My simple question to you is "Do you think it is okay for publicly-funded schools to use some of their public funds to give teachers and administrators perks like trips to exotic locations?"
If your answer is "No" then I think you are buying into the philosophy that we should not be rewarding teachers with job perks, similar to those received by other high-performance professionals. To say that teachers shouldn't be given what other professionals routinely get is to imply that teachers are less deserving than other professionals.
I don't think you can escape this argument by saying that the trip was an ineffective use of money. Both teachers and administrators said that the trip was great for their morale, and that they returned inspired and energized. My own experience of such work-related trips has always been of the same character. Such trips energize and motivate people who work very hard and are shown little appreciation.
If the teachers at the school appreciated the trip (as the faces in the photo seem to imply) who are you to complain about it? Who exactly are you sticking up for here? It seems the only person who you could be bringing a grievance on behalf of is the taxpayer. And the only grievance a taxpayer could have is that his money was wasted or used corruptly. It is very hard for to me to believe that money spent inspiring and energizing teachers is money wasted or used corruptly.
I understand that the general drift of your argument is that KIPP teachers have bad working conditions. But your comments about the trip specifically contradict this general theme. An argument about poor working conditions would follow something like the this logic:
"KIPP teachers work more, but their extra pay is not proportional to their extra work. They get little vacation and are always on call. Even when they do get some time off it gets used for PD instead of time with their families. It is nice that their bosses treated them to a trip, but that is a small compensation for their otherwise poor working conditions."
But instead your logic shifts at the point when the trip comes up. Instead of making the point that the trip is good, but not enough to offset the other bad things about the working conditions, you instead imply (in all the ways I mentioned above) that the trip is itself another bad thing.
This point may seem like hair-splitting to you. But once again let me pose the question to you directly. Was the trip good or bad? If all other things at KIPP were to remain equal would you prefer that the teachers have this trip or not? If your answer is that the trip is bad, and it would be better for them not to have taken it, I have to disagree strongly.
I fear though that, you will avoid directly addressing my question (which is a question of values), because you would prefer to frame the issue in terms of alternative uses of the money (a question of priorities). I would really appreciate if you would indulge me by answering the direct question regarding values, because I think it is hard to talk about priorities if there is not mutual understanding of values. For me, all other things being equal I would prefer for those teachers to have a trip to the Bahamas. Is the same true for you?
If the answer is "Yes" (and I really hope it is), then our real disagreement is one of priorities i.e. tradeoffs. I would argue that your post characterizes it otherwise, but how the post came off is really water under the bridge if we actually agree about the values question.
Then we can discuss, what I believe is a more serious (and probably more important) disagreement between you and I regarding priorities. In short, I think spending money on perks instead of across the board salary increases is often a better way to increase a teacher's sense of job satisfaction. I think this is because, perks (much like Christmas gifts) convey a sentiment of appreciation in a way that across the board raises do not. This opinion is not the perspective of some money-hungry executive, focused only on the bottom line. I work at a non-profit and I teach, and I will likely be doing one of those two things for most of the rest of my life. But I would prefer to discuss the issue of trade-offs with you only after we have clarified whether you think such perks are good or bad in the first place. If we don't agree on that then there is little room for discussion in the first place.
-Dewey
P.S. I wasn’t being sarcastic when I suggested you send me your school's info and a mailing address. You can e-mail them to deweyblog@gmail.com. If you’ve helped children as much as you implied, I would geniunely happy to send you a Christmas gift.
