I am not sure if this is an oddity, but my father is a retired teacher, my older brother was a History Teacher and is now an Assistant Principal, one of my sisters was an English Teacher and is now a Professor at a University, and my other sister has just finished her degree to become an elementary school teacher. I suppose if I had more siblings and they also chose the field of education that our situation would become increasingly rare. Since the likelihood of me finding new siblings is unlikely, it appears as though we are just four for four in choosing the field of education as our lives’ work.
Maria (the Professor) and I often have conversations and debates about key issues facing teachers, administrators, and students in schools today. More often than not we agree and are quick to affirm one another’s beliefs in how to best go about the business of planning, teaching, assessing, and improving instruction. I think we provide each other with ideas about practices we can engage in during our workdays, and often motivate each other in working through the tough situations we are inclined to face in our work.
We often debate the merits and drawbacks of the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) – and on any given day we can agree or disagree about some part of it. In our most recent conversation I stressed my frustration with the fact that many of the statistics reported on the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education’s (DESE) website provide viewers with insignificant data about our school district. I should say, the data is accurate – my frustration is with the fact that the reported numbers are often unimportant, lead people to make assumptions about our school that simply aren’t true, and in some cases I cannot even imagine why they are reported.
Now Maria is not one to accept what I say, or what any person says for that matter without empirical evidence, so she wouldn’t let me off the hook with just some random complaint about data reporting. I tossed some statistics at her that I found little value in and she was quick to refute. She provided me with new insights on why certain demographic data is published on the DESE website, who might be interested, and assumptions that could be drawn.
I looked over the website one more time and found a report that I will use to challenge my sister. Maria, by clicking the link below you will find the Massachusetts Department of Education’s “Staffing Age Report by Full Time Equivalency 2007 – 2008” for the Ralph C. Mahar Regional School District. Can you tell me what the value is in reporting the age of a school’s faculty? Are there generalizations to be made about teachers who are under the age of 30 or over the age of 60? There are many teachers in their thirties who have been teaching longer than teachers in their fifties, so it is not reflective of teaching experience……….this one is tough to figure out.
http://profiles.doe.mass.edu/profiles/teacher.aspx?orgcode=07550000&orgtypecode=5&leftNavId=828&
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I think these data are useful. Keep in mind that I'm thinking like a researcher and so my vision is a bit more global than yours as a superintendent of one particular school district. For example, I might be interested in learning about the types of districts teachers of varying ages are finding employment; what age-bracket of teachers are more likely to find work in regional school districts; or how teachers' ages correlate with test scores (or some other data point). I might be interested that 30% of the teachers in a particular school district are between the ages of 49 and 56 and that this number is a microcosm of what's happening state or nationwide. So while I may not be able to draw generalizations from this particular set data in and of itself about your school, what is done with this information depends on me, my research questions, and the other data that I am compiling along with it that may be able to answer my questions.
ReplyDeleteAnd in case you're wondering, this question wasn't that hard to answer :)
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