Why ‘Mr. Dumbhead’ deserves respect

At a conference last year, social studies teacher Jonathan Keiler showed a series of slides contrasting the high Advanced Placement passing rates of Mr. Smarthead’s government class with the woeful results from Mr. Dumbhead’s world history class.

“Who is Mr. Dumbhead?” Keiler’s next slide asked.

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“ME,” he revealed.

Keiler wasn’t ashamed, just annoyed. He thought his students did well when the difficulty of the course and their previous records were taken into account. Yet his principal had demanded better results. At Bowie High School in Prince George’s County, he was told 50 percent passing was the goal for AP. His 40 percent looked bad next to Mr. Smarthead’s 60 percent.

“I don’t like the policy, because it is arbitrary and not well thought out,” said Keiler, a former lawyer and one of the rare teachers with National Board Certification.

His complaint exposes an overlooked facet of the national debate on using student test scores to rate teachers. There is no written rule that AP teachers have to reach a certain passing rate. The College Board, which runs AP, would not stand for that. But since principals usually have the power to say who teaches the courses and who does not, AP teachers sometimes worry they might lose the coveted assignments if their numbers slip.

AP exams usually provide the most difficult academic challenge in our schools. Teachers cannot cover up inadequate preparation with easy exams, because the AP exams are written and graded by outside experts. If an AP teacher has a strong class of students in an affluent school and few pass the final exam, the principal knows she has a problem. She needs to help the teacher improve. If that doesn’t work, she must find someone else to teach that course.

As Keiler says, it depends on the situation. He says Mr. Smarthead is an excellent teacher and his friend. His argument is with the principal — no longer at the school — who did not recognize that his class was unlikely to do as well because, unlike Mr. Smarthead’s students, his class was not selected for their good records, had less time to learn (Mr. Smarthead’s class met every day, Keiler’s every other day) and took an AP exam with a lower national passing rate.

Keiler says his students made good progress. Many got 2s on the 5-point exam, just below the passing mark of 3. At least one study indicates that students with 2s do better in college than similar students who don’t take AP. Prince George’s schools spokesman Briant Coleman defended the AP target. “Without a goal,” he said, “what incentive does a school, department or teacher have to significantly change structures for better performance?”

Different teachers get different mixes of students. The new teacher evaluation systems try to allow for that by measuring not how high their passing rates are but how much students improve.

That value-added approach makes sense — except for one unfortunate habit of us parents, taxpayers and voters. We, like Keiler’s principal, still care about the overall passing rate.

If you teach in an affluent school where the passing rate is routinely 90 percent because of the favored backgrounds of the students, we consider you a good teacher. If you are in a low-income school where the passing rate is 20 percent, we often assume you are not as good as the teacher with the 90 percent passing rate, no matter how much your students improve.

I don’t think we should stop using tests as one of the ways we assess performance, but we should recognize that a high passing rate doesn’t tell us much. Unfortunately, that is against our instincts. We still see some teachers as Mr. Dumbhead no matter how good they are.