Dayton Daily News education reporter Scott Elliott writes about schools, kids, teaching and learning.
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Monday, June 19, 2006
Teacher gifts gone too far?
There’s an interesting discussion going on over at Patti Ghezzi’s Get Schooled blog at the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. A Get Schooled reader, who was irked by the persistent requests from her child’s class mother for parent “donations,” asks if a $20 end-of-the-year gift is too much for your child’s teacher.
I’d love to hear what readers here think.
I do each year give a holiday and end-of-the-year gift to my child’s teacher, but since my daughter is in first grade, there are fewer ethical issues (some commenters at Get Schooled likened a teacher gift to a bribe). Not only that, my daughter was horrified at the idea of just giving a gift to her classroom teacher — she wouldn’t let us leave out the gym teacher, music teacher, art teacher, librarian, counselor or principal!
So at the end of the year we gave them all gift cards — $15 for her classroom teacher and $10 for everyone else, I think. And if you do the math, you can see that it cost us about $75 total! That’s a lot, I know. But heck, to me it’s a small token of gratitude to these people who care for and teach my daughter all day for 180 days a year. This year in particular, my daughter really flourished in her classwork and I was most appreciative of the efforts of her teachers.
Even so, I sympathize with the Get Schooled parent who felt like $20 was too much and that the class mother’s repeated reminders were over-the-top. For her, here is my advice:
- First of all, give what you want and what you can afford. So this one mother might think you’re a schmuck if you only send her $10 or $15 instead of $20. So what? Don’t fall victim to the pressure.
- Remember that this is for the teacher, not the pushy parent. It made me quiver a little when the Get Schooled reader said she finally decided not to give anything because of the pestering notes from the class mom. If you don’t want to give because it doesn’t feel right to you, that’s fine. But don’t not give just because the self-appointed collector is annoying.
- Know this — if you do give the teacher a gift you are probably in the minority. Earlier this year my daughter’s teacher had a baby and one of the moms took a collection for a gift. My daughter forgot to give me the solicitation until days later. When I found the note I called the mom to see if we could still get in on the gift. She was very grateful for my call and told me less than five kids in a class of 17 had contributed (she and I kicked in a little extra each so the teacher could get something nice with the gift card). I think this sort of scenario is much more common than the teacher who gets a London Fog coat with her end-of-the-year cash.
Permalink | Comments (6) | Categories: The Parent-Teacher Divide
The back door out of “emergency”
Should a school district that meets none of the state’s 25 “report card” standards be allowed to receive a better grade just because it’s made good standardized test gains?
There’s a chance this could happen in Dayton come August.
In today’s paper, I wrote about how Dayton school officials think they might get out of academic emergency, even though right now it is not a sure thing that Dayton will meet any of the state indicators.
This idea of rewarding school districts for growth is new, and it’s an idea low income urban districts like Dayton very much favor. Dayton and others have long argued that they don’t get enough credit for moving their low-scoring kids forward.
While more affluent districts with already high-scoring kids might make little or no gains, they still earn top ratings from the state. Meanwhile, districts like Dayton argue they don’t get enough credit when the take low scoring kids and make really big gains, even if they don’t meet the high thresholds the state standards require.
So the state ultimately was convinced that it’s fair to consider growth for the report card. Thus the “performance index” was born. It’s a complex calculation that seeks to estimate test score growth across several rating categories.
All the results are not yet in for Dayton and many possibilities remain. Dayton still could meet the standard in a category or two. Or it might miss on performance index after all.
But as of right now, Dayton has met no indicators, but the district’s own numbers show it has made enough gain to earn a bump up out of “academic emergency” to the next category, “academic watch.”
What do you think? Should a district be allowed out of academic emergency for growth even if it goes 0 for 25 on the state standards?
Permalink | Comments (2) | Categories: Dayton Public Schools
