A reader said he was shocked, shocked by a post that linked to an article that spoke disparagingly of Governor Bobby Jindal and State Commissioner of Education John White. He thought it was “uncivil” to refer to them in disrespectful language.
This teacher from Louisiana disagrees. Since there aren’t many places in Louisiana where his or her views may be expressed in print, I am happy to print them here.
But they are thieves, vandals, liars and profiteers here in Louisiana!
They are also people I disagree with. I disagree with them because I disagree with rating teachers on student test scores. I disagree with them on ACT 54 and value added.
I disagree with them when our Governor and education secretary intentionally ignore the facts and twist the data to spread lies about Louisiana teachers, students and schools.
I disagree with ignoring the real issues of poverty, school quality, teacher qualifications and standardized testing. I
disagree with elected public officials lying, cheating and profiting from the destruction of the lives of the children of our state.
I come here for the discussions, I come to hear people express the truth and if what is happening here is not civil discourse, (I think it is quite civil for the most part and the occasional attacks are quickly rebutted or patiently ignored) then I guess we will have to agree to disagree on what civil discourse is and should discuss if the time for statesmanship has passed in this battle and it is time to change strategy?
I sometimes feel as if teachers are prisoners of this war and need the allies to arrive; I just do not know who the allies are. I thought they would be parents, education program professors, student teachers still in school, the Wongs, NIH scientists, associations like ACSD, NSTA, NTMA, Kaplans and others who write all the books, journals, seminars we attend and buy and programs we use.
If they run an organization for professional teachers and there are no more professional teachers who do they think their membership will be? The graduate schools of education, doctoral programs and certification providers. Why are they silent? All the experts we go to listen to at conferences and national meetings, the employees in the state departments of education(surely they believe what they do is important?) school board members, PTAs, PTOs and governmental organizations like NASA, NOAA, US Geological Survey, and hundreds of other agencies whose resources and outreach we use.
What about the United States Military branches who are constantly short of qualified, educated, diploma holding troops? Does the Department of Defense intend to recruit graduates of virtual schools, students from charters taught by people who are not certified and maybe have college degrees?
Do they want to depend on the for profit companies who are even now submitting their applications for Louisiana’s Course Choice program intended to remove even more students from Louisiana public high schools. Will these programs free of accountability and totally opaque to the parents and community produce men and women with the skills and commitment for national defense?
Do they not see that the destruction of public schools will eventually make them obsolete? Do they not all have a stake in collaboratively helping teachers make our schools the best and able to meet the needs of the children we serve?
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Amen to that! We will all pay the price when this deform has come to fruition. And the damage will not easily be undone. Pay attention people…
Bridget, as we know, some people have problems taking in and being subjected to the truth. More power to the writer of the article and more power to the Louisiana teacher who wrote the above comment.
NCLB sanctioned schools that failed to make AYP were threatened by withholding Title I money to the sanctioned district.
What happens when a school or district opts out of testing in a state that has the new “flexibility” from the NCLB waiver?
If a “rich” school district or school opts out of standardized tests, warehoused data, data analytics, teacher evaluations, programs like RTI and all the other nonsense that is getting shoved down all schools’ throats, do they have anything to lose? After all, these costs are certainly far greater than any mythical benefits.
Kris,
Please be careful about lumping all of those initiatives as “nonsense.” RtI, if implemented through a lens of student learning, could really transform the way we teach, and the way students learn. I do completely agree with the fact that one reason RtI is viewed as nonsense is because, from the top down, it has been implemented poorly and has become a new way to label and marginalize students. That is not what RtI is supposed to be about, but that is what it has become.
What is RTI (L?)?
Response to Intervention
Diane
“Rethinking Learning Disabilities” admonishes (p. 2):
“…we are mindful of the complexity of translating research findings into policy and practice. Policy can have unintended outcomes. Evidence-based alternatives can have few benefits or even harmful effects if implementation strategies are not informed by a clear understanding of specific needs for capacity building at the teacher, school, and system levels.”
Click to access SpecialEd_ch12.pdf
But to the specifics on RTI because my concerns are about its large-scale implementation.
“RTI (Response to Intervention): Rethinking special education for students with reading difficulties (yet again):”
“To date, we do not possess information on what large-scale
implementation of reading interventions in the early grades looks like.
We hope the various state evaluations or the national evaluation study being conducted by Abt Associates for Institute for
Educational Sciences (2005) will shed some light on this issue,
although it is not clear that any of the evaluation teams will
disaggregate impacts of the interventions for struggling readers from
impacts of other pieces of Reading First (extensive training and
coaching in research-based principles for teaching the class, use of a
core reading series).”
http://tinyurl.com/8pe4z9b
Arne Duncan signed on to RTI, yet look to the evidence. (p. 12. http://tinyurl.com/9zpxj4e) Low, for the most part.
Where it’s strong:Tier 2 intervention
3. Provide intensive, systematic instruction on up to three foundational reading skills in small groups to students who score below the benchmark score on universal screening. Typically, these groups meet between three and five times a week, for 20 to 40 minutes.
Also see What Works Clearinghouse.
http://ies.ed.gov/ncee/wwc/PracticeGuide.aspx?sid=3
That sounds like results for SPED pull-out to me!
And yet in Oregon RTI is being scaled up for for ALL kids. CLASSROOM teachers performing “formative” standardized assessments with standardized “tiered” curriculum for all kids and doing the work of Special Education teachers.
Louisiana mandated RTI three years ago. I served as RTI coordinator for our school district for two years until budget cuts ended the position. The initiative, if implemented as originally intended, can help with appropriately identifying children with learning disabilities. The problem is that most of the time it is implemented as you described.
Tier I in the classroom helps teachers provide targeted assistance for struggling learners. Tier II as a small group intervention can provide much needed assistance for students in need. Tier III is the step to determine if the data justifies an evaluation for special ed. The real problems come when the requirements at each tier become overly burdensome and interferes with the educational environment. RTI is really just good teaching practices for struggling students. But it requires extra resources and personnel that are not funded, even when mandated.
So, so glad I left that state 27 years ago!
Hopefully, the deforms that are occurring in Louisiana do not come sweeping up the Mississippi River Valley like hurricane Isaac will be doing in the next couple of days!!
Please take a look at this Louisiana article i just posted. . . about to lose power here but thought you all could discuss this while LDOE is mostly offline and unable to spin.