Education

There's an interview she gave on the net somewhere in which she warned ( several years ago) against the abuse of her work as an evaluative "gotcha" tool. She id'd a district in NJ as being guilty of this. (It's pretty easy to find w. google).

My district adopted it (Danielson Frameworks) last year, rewrote some of the "competencies" ( Why re-write it? Why else would we have an ED bureaucracy as big as the one we have? They HAVE to do SOMETHING. Or at least APPEAR to be doing something.) and more or less *instantly* transformed it into a gotcha tool. Sounds a lot like your own district. No?

They'll deny it, but it's clear the building admins were under pressure ( or encouragement; more $$ perhaps?) from higher-ups to produce low-ratings. The reality is that any rating system can be easily twisted this way or that. "What a fool believes, he sees." ( Thanks, Doobie Bros.) Or doesn't see. Danielson makes this very easy to do. She provides *cover*.

My main problem w. Danielson is her micro-managing, nit-picking-ish idea of what "effective" classroom instruction "looks like". She attempts to quantify it by describing a sort of inventory of "evidence" --- i.e. behaviors of the teacher and/or the students in the classroom that should be observable.... essentially in every single lesson, in every little "snapshot."

Like most corporate ed reformers, ( Danielson is an economist by training) she deals w. theory at the expense of reality. There is no "one size fits all" approach to pedagogy. I had an amiable email exchange w. her last year in which she ( with some reluctance, I don't mind telling you) acknowledged this.

Yet , she goes on and on, signing big $$ contracts w. this school district and that. The districts use her Frameworks as a means of overwhelming teachers w. minutiae. No one can fulfill all of Danielson's criteria for "Highly Effective" teaching in every lesson. NOR *SHOULD* they. ( Check out "Setting up to fail" on Wikipedia. THAT'S what's really going on, imo.)

There's also the question of funny $$$. According to Ohanian.... Danielson has been the beneficiary of Gates $$. ( googleable). No shock there but it could explain why she's given a pass by the teachers' unions. They LOVE her. ( Believe me, I raised holy hell w. my union about this last year.) Of course they ALSO get Gates $$$.

I'm not saying there's necessarily collusion , or that anyone's been bought off. But I AM saying that there is a great deal re. the nationwide stampede to adopt and implement Danielson that is --- as of now--- inexplicable.

It's mighty strange.