According to Politico.com, the U.S. Department of Education will cut federal funding to education schools whose graduates have students who get low scores. This could incentivize education schools to direct their students away from urban districts with high poverty, or from teaching children with disabilities and English-language learners. Researchers have repeatedly warned about the danger of over reliance on test scores for high-stakes decisions. It is always wise to think about unintended consequences.
TEACHER PREP IS – FINALLY – HERE: The long-delayed rules, released by the Education Department on Tuesday, would punish low-performing programs by cutting students’ access to federal TEACH grants they could use to pay for school. And it would compel every state to collect more information and evaluate their programs by several key metrics, including how many graduates lock in jobs, how many stay in the profession and whether teachers are boosting student learning. The timeline for the proposed rule [http://politico.pro/1zrLW2e ] extends to 2021 and it would cost states and providers about $42 million over 10 years or less. I have the story here: http://politico.pro/11T4OwC
– Democrats for Education Reform Policy Director Charles Barone said the rule is a crucial first step for overhauling the way teachers are prepared and raising the bar for the teaching profession. “The U.S. Department of Education is stepping in here because unlike other fields, education has repeatedly abdicated its responsibility to set and enforce its own high standards for the teaching profession,” he said. “Once states set benchmarks that draw on newly available data we should give schools appropriate time to meet them. But instead of condoning wasteful practices indefinitely, as in the past, those responsible for overseeing federal funds must issue an ultimatum: shape up or lose subsidies.”
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Another system to be gamed: Teacher training programs will seek out cream classrooms for their student teachers.
People who believe test-driven reform produces quality place their own stupidity on display.
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Don’t you get it?
University Ed. departments and their professors need to step up and take responsibility for the job hunting activities of their students… and should be punished for any failures on that score… like all other University majors/departments never do..
They also must step up and take responsibility for the test scores of… let’s see… of the students of their students… errr… I mean… of the students that their Ed. Dept students one day teach… that is to say… the scores earned by the the students that their Ed. Dept.’s former students… you know… let me try again… take responsibility for the test scores of those students that the Ed. Dept graduates who are eventually working in teaching end up teaching… oh I give up!
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It will be interesting to see how they track and evaluate teachers who cross state lines – is it only teachers that stay local? Which proficiency guideline will they use? And what VAM will they use to synthesize the multiple state scores for all the students for each teacher for each program as not all states are subscribed to exactly the same tests?
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Are Business professors to be held responsible for the white collar criminality of their former students?
Are Accounting professors to be held accountable for the tax evasion advice of their former students?
Are Medical professors to be held liable for the death rate of the patients of their former students?
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The Gates agenda for teacher education, channeled through Arne Duncan, has among its end games, the Gates/USDE approved Consumer Reports on Education.
The planned Consumer Report for Education will prompt parents to ask for the names of the teacher education programs and the ratings these programs have been, based on their record of producing teachers who raise test scores. This information will be available along with other indicators of the Gates/USDE view of “teacher quality” –which excludes years of teaching experience and advanced degrees… just the scores please and other measurables.
Parents become the deciders on where to send their children by asking questions that Gates et al have prepared as a script. Some cherry picked answers will be offered for each question.
The answers to the scripted questions will conflate test scores with learning and achievement.
The questions and answers will refer to the culture and demographics of a school by means of an index constructed from scores from a student survey, and truancy tardiness rates, special education enrollments, students learning English, free lunch eligibility and the like.
In a nutshell, Gates/USDE approved Consumer Reports for Education are intended to function in tandem with other ratings already used by realtors and bankers to red-line schools and districts.
The Gates/USDE approved Consumer Reports on Education will include a recommendation system that can steer parents to the schools or learning centers that match their interests, values, and needs. These recommendations will not be limited to bricks and mortar schools, or those with oversight from an elected school board’
In the process of constructing ratings that transcend the taxing district, the Gates/USDE agenda can function as a scythe that makes local taxation a thing of the past, moves funding to the state level and opens doors for philanthropic funding of whatever can be marketed to parents.
Teacher education is a small part of a larger program of using metrics as a weapon of destruction. In the case of teacher education, the intent is to reduce teaching to a trade with for-hire workers who do not bring any critical thinking to their work in public education, just “skill sets” and “toolboxes” filled with the Gates/USDE approved “interventions’ and a score-card of results from state tests.
You can be sure that the crackdown on teacher education programs will not extend to the for-profit and on-line schools and short-cut certificate programs as long as these programs can conjure the evidence that Gates/USDE wants on test scores.
The intent is to reduce teaching to a trade with for-hire workers who do not bring any critical thinking to their work in public education, just “skill sets” and “toolboxes” filled with the Gates/USDE approved “interventions’ and a score-card of results from state tests.
Any higher education institution engaged in teacher education is expected to trash the concept of academic freedom, deny that teachers should think critcally about the purposes of education, question policies of this era, learn about the history of public education, and so on. Everyone engaged in teacher education should just roll over and comply, comply, comply.
Gates has bought out large swaths of intellectual talent in higher education as seen in the questionable independence of educational work being done at Harvard, Stanford, and other institutions. Many faculty in these and other universities are not independent voices but part of Gates’ portfolio of intellectual talent engaged in promoting so-called “evidence” based recommendations for schooling. Evidence means something measurable, preferably a standardized score on a national test tied to national standards, and (in the near term) with priority given to ELA and math in the CCSS.
see details at http://dataqualitycampaign.org/files/Empowering%20Parents%20and%20Communities%20Through%20Quality%20Public%20Reporting%20Federal%20Policy%20Guide.pdf
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My God; I’m no fan of ed schools, but this is idiotic. The VAMsters are on super-shaky ground judging teachers by kids’ test scores; how much shakier, then, to judge teacher prep programs on these scores!
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Let me look in my crystal ball and guess what the results will find. The teachers from undergraduate program that head to the city will be judged “deficient,” and those that head to suburbs with the higher socioeconomic levels will be declared “proficient.” The colleges that send the bulk of the graduates into urban areas will be in trouble.
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You got it.
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Any body got a magic eight ball?
http://www.shopgadgetsandgizmos.com/product/2473/?gclid=CLrLj7KmmcICFeRzMgodTgwAVg
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Is the game plan for children
of poverty to be sans teachers?
I am grateful this Thanksgiving to be old.
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Those that go to 5 weeks of TFA will be dubbed, as they are now, as far superior to everyone else. Maybe TFA and TNTP will open up a college for educators for everyone……wait a minute. Nah.
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If federal funds are ever withheld from teacher preparation programs, this outrageous action will result in a slam dunk, class action lawsuit against the USDOE. Like so many of the direct or veiled threats being made under the Obama/Duncan test-and-punish regime, this is clearly just an empty threat.
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USDE has the power to approve “acceditation systems” for teacher ed. The two major accrediting agencies for teachers have merged and re-invented themselved in order to be given a thumbs up within the architecture of USDE. Getting a thumbs up means that students can use federal scholarship money for their teacher ed programs. It also means that teacher ed programs must meet a bunch of mind-numbing and jargon-filled criteria written down– not out of any principled view of education–but to get a thumbs up from USDE.
The newly formed The Council for Accreditation of Educator Preparation (CAEP) standards are filled with the same accountability demands and jargon inflicted on public education. CAEP standards apply to any entity responsible for the preparation of educators including a nonprofit or for-profit institution of higher education, a school district, an organization, a corporation, or a governmental agency.” In effect, a traditional college degree can be bypassed.
Here are few of the standards.
1.2 Providers (of teacher education) ensure that completers use research and evidence to develop an understanding of the teaching profession and use both to measure their P-12 students’ progress and their own professional practice.
1.3 Providers ensure that completers apply content and pedagogical knowledge as reflected in outcome assessments in response to standards of Specialized Professional Associations (SPA), the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards (NBPTS), states, or other accrediting bodies (e.g., National Association of Schools of Music – NASM).
1.4 Providers ensure that completers demonstrate skills and commitment that afford all P-12 students access to rigorous college- and career-ready standards (e.g., Next Generation Science Standards, National Career Readiness Certificate, Common Core State Standards).
1.5 Providers ensure that completers model and apply technology standards as they design, implement and assess learning experiences to engage students and improve learning; and enrich professional practice.
Documentation required ( a small sample)
CAEP Standard 4.1, p. 13) “The provider documents, using multiple measures, that program completers contribute to an expected level of student-learning growth. Multiple measures shall include all available growth measures (including value-added measures, student-growth percentiles, and student learning and development objectives) required by the state for its teachers and available to educator preparation providers, other state-supported P-12 impact measures, and any other measures employed by the provider.”
From p. 27: “Measures of completer impact, including available outcome data on P-12 student growth, are summarized, externally benchmarked, analyzed, shared widely, and acted upon in decision-making related to programs, resource allocation, and future direction.
Data needed for Measures of Program Outcome and Consumer Information: A “consumer of information” is either an employer or an applicant.”
—-Impact on P-12 learning and development (data provided for component 4.1)
—-Indicators of teaching effectiveness (data provided for component 4.2)
—-Results of employer surveys, including retention and employment milestones (data provided for component 4.3)
—-Results of completer surveys (data provided for component 4.4)
—-Graduation rates
—-Ability of completers to meet licensing (certification) and any additional state requirements (e.g., through acceptable scores and pass rates on state licensure exams)
—-Ability of completers to be hired in education positions for which they were prepared
—-Student loan default rates and other consumer information
Click to access final_board_approved1.pdf
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Ah, another epistle of the HIGH Church of Metrics Madness! Numerology is thy name!
All Hail the Magic 8 Ball!
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Many highly effective teachers will leave . Sad for our experienced teachers .Hard time for new Teachers.. When will they listen and learn…
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But isn’t that consistent with their view of teachers? That we aren’t professionals but simply gatekeepers of somebody else’s content, a mouthpiece for scripted lessons?
If so, what are college prep programs for teachers needed for? You can just hire people from temp agencies to mouth scripts and click on pre-recorded videos of someone else who actually is an educator.
Those temps don’t even work for your charter, so no benefits are needed to be paid.
That I believe is the mindset of these deformers.
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That would be the case if test scores alone defined learning. However most of us got into teaching because we were inspired, and in turn want to inspire others to discover their love of learning and their passion. Most of us would rather celebrate ALL aha moments than sort and rank our students based on a quantitative test score. The sorting and ranking that high stakes testing demands neatly and narrowly simplifies a false reality of authentic learning. It also promotes prejudice, discouraging respect for collaborative and diverse thinking. Too much time and money is spent in these narrow tests.
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I think you are 100% correct about the reformers’ mindset. They do not respect teaching as a profession, and they really have no interest in the education of urban and poor students-those students are just going to be trained to read at a functional level so that they can fill orders in ‘fulfillment’ centers, answer phones at call centers and do the other prole jobs that the reformers and their corporate backers have not yet automated.
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Anne,
Most of the customer service reps in these call centers are overseas. I was attempting to make a reservation this summer and the rep was not aware of Vermont being a state.
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A federal judge in Florida actually ruled that teachers are not much more than “hired speech” and therefore cannot use their independent judgment in matters such as selecting reading for students. The case involved an optional reading list for students in high school. The list had not been approved by the board and one parent objected to one of the optional reading assignments. At my iPad so the specific reference is not handy. This was a really chilling case.
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This is unfortunate, but I can’t say I didn’t see it coming. I’ve been (facetiously) telling my pre-service teachers that the way to game the system is not to teach students who struggle the most and not to teach the students who struggle the least (due to ceiling effects). Daniel Koretz is required reading too.
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You got it, Joe.
Student growth is part of evaluations at my school. I have AP seniors (very close to their ceilings) and low-level juniors (many of whom are in vocational educational co-ops. I teach history. The voc ed kids are great. Nice group. They have little to no interest in history for obvious reasons.
I informed my administrator that my growth rates would probably be low. He is sensible enough to understand why. But I am at a huge disadvantage when comparing growth rates against anyone in my department due to the make-up of my classroom.
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You are treating the phrase “growth rates” as if this phrase has real meaning. It is jargon that refers to an increase in test scores and at a rate that someone who has no idea about human growth and development, especially teenagers.. More likely, they just don’t care. Comparing “growth rates” is what economists do when they are thinking about stocks and sectors of the economy. It is what parents do when they measure the height of their kids, or look at how often they have to buy new shoes.
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Twilight Zone or Outer Limits ? Oh sorry, excuse me – you are talking about real situations.
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New education school graduation requirement: Cheating 101. For really high-performers, Cheating 201: How Not to Get Caught.
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Chuckle
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Where can I sign up for my Doctorology in Doctoring Data???
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I am sure you can find an online degree program that will efficiently award you a PhD of DD. Talk to the charter crowd. They seem to be good at finding programs to turn out bogus “educators.”
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Suppose you had a teacher-providing program that was not an “education school” and/or not accepting TEACH grants from the Department of Education. What happens to the evaluation of the aggregate scores generated by the teachers provided by such a program?
I’m looking at several competing outcomes of the policy. One is to reduce TEACH grants to education schools that send teachers to schools where students get low test scores. One is to ferret out education schools that are perhaps in the business of defrauding the US government, like the for-profit colleges. One is to reduce the total number of teachers trained in education schools. I think this policy has one obvious outcome: reducing the number of people who enroll in education schools hoping to get trained as teachers. However, the US will still need the same number of people teaching. So where will they come from if they are deflected from education schools and/or teaching in schools where students get low test scores? And does the Department of Education care about the teaching skills of whoever is left filling the gap?
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I’m not a terribly cynical person, nor much of a pessimist but in this I tend to be both. My response above tells you how I think the deformers at the DOE view your question.
I think they want to move teaching from that of a profession to that of content-parroting babysitter, not needing to prepare any lessons of their own, just reading from scripts and clicking on pre-recorded content.
This view dehumanizes both student and instructor. The kids are viewed not as individuals, but as consumers – all the same, uniform, homogeneous. Their teachers are adult versions of them-interchangeable and easy to replace.
Outliers in both groups are discarded, or, like a human whack-a-mole game, pounded back down into the group for conformity’s sake.
I came to teaching along a non-conventional route: 20 years as a professional geologist, take some Ed courses to meet NYS certification requirements, then find a district willing to take a chance on a 40-something middle aged rookie teacher. The burning passion to teach never entered my heart until I began this last career. I’m so glad it did. I wonder how this horrible idea from the DOE would handle those like myself who come to teaching from alternate routes.
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You are close the mark. The role of the teacher is envisioned as a relic by persons who think online and so-called blended learning will take care of the shortage. Just put one person in charge of 100 students in a room full of computers with a little help form some low wage assistants .
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Ron observes–However, the US will still need the same number of people teaching. So where will they come from if they are deflected from education schools and/or teaching in schools where students get low test scores? And does the Department of Education care about the teaching skills of whoever is left filling the gap?
Ron, USDE and bunch of other people are counting on online, personalized, competency-based learning to do the job of “radical and rapid transformation of all education, pre-school to graduate, liberal arts to trade school, formal and informal, for-profit and non-profit.
Only a few “teachers” will be needed. Most instruction will be packaged as on-line playlists and modules developed by “learning agents” who are mostly designers of what works on-line. They find out what works by gathering data on how much learners will pay, the completion rates for playlists or courses and so on. The hope is that education financing by taxes will be retained and follow the student, possible with an edCard (debit card). Place-based education in “schools” will become a relic. Of course, the proliferation of entrepeneurs will allow for some of these relics to remain and serve as learning centers with day-care functions for parents.
See USDE, Office of Educational Technology, Transforming American Education: Learning Powered by Technology, Washington, D.C., 2010. http://tech.ed.gov/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/netp2010.pdf
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The “crackdown” is an assault on the very existence of teacher preparation programs. Why?
“This could incentivize education schools to direct their students away from urban districts with high poverty, or from teaching children with disabilities and English-language learners. … It is always wise to think about unintended consequences.”
But those are not unintended consequences. The intended consequence is to deprofessionalize teaching, and GROW the gap in education opportunity. Dr. Lois weiner explained it on Democracy Now, in a 2009 appearance with Karen Lewis.
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The irony is that while the government cracks down on education departments, these same hypocrites are allowing TFAers loose in a classroom with five hours of training.
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Insightful video! I absolutely agree that the consequences are intended. The 1% don’t see a problem with an even more highly stratified society than exists today.
That’s why I have to laugh at the truly unintended consequences. My schadenfreude comes from seeing all the multimillion dollar homes that languish on the market for years and don’t sell, even after repeated price reductions and even half price sales. Then the owners pull them off the market awhile, or the banks foreclose and/or real estate brokers buy them up, but even they cannot rent or sell them.
This God-awful gaudy home is a great example: It originally went on the market for $8.9M in 2009 and was finally bought by a real estate broker for $1.7M in 2013, who then put it up for rent, but there were no takers. So now it’s back up for sale at $2,75M, well below the $4.2M estimated value, and there are still no buyers: http://www.zillow.com/homedetails/985-Sheridan-Rd-Highland-Park-IL-60035/4906698_zpid/
I think it never occurred to the super rich that it would be a problem for them when there are so few people who can afford to buy the ostentatious left overs from their extravagant, self-indulgent lifestyles, or that, meanwhile, they would be stuck paying over $100K in property taxes. What a hoot!
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Geez, for that price you could get a 1,200 square-foot 2-bedroom apartment, two blocks from the highway!
http://www.corcoran.com/nyc/Listings/Display/3328121
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I guess more like 1 block from the highway.
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Places like Manhattan and LA are not good gauges on the economic pulse of America, because they have higher concentrations of wealth than the rest of the country.
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What’s “America”? I live in Manhattan, underneath a huge concentration of wealth.
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I watch the real estate shows and Selling New York is the most bizarre to me. There’s no bang for your million dollar bucks in NY. Sure it’s America, but economically it’s very different from other cities in the country –and didn’t Bloomberg intend to grow a large concentration of wealth there, too? I could never afford to live anywhere there but on the street. Even in my own city, my rent has doubled while my income has declined, so it’s not cheap to live here and I struggle. But the cost of living in Manhattan is truly outrageous and I think that’s reflective of the number of high income people living there who are willing and able to pay it.
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This week, Bill Moyers has a show on the billionaires and millionaires who are taking over NYC and the tax breaks they and developers have been getting to do it: http://billmoyers.com/
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On PBS this week, America Reframed has a similarly alarming episode about the gentrification of Brooklyn.
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Why don’t they just send all kids who want to be teachers to Teach for America or TNTP or the like? Oh, I forgot; not everyone is wealthy enough to go to Harvard, Yale, Princeton, etc. They should change the name of the USDOE to the the United States Dismantling of Education.
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And here I thought Duncan’s DOE was finally going to regulate the for-profit colleges that have been brutally ripping off poor people, veterans and the US taxpayer for Duncan’s entire tenure. No?
You guys need better-connected lobbyists. Here’s a list of the prominent DC luminaries who successfully gutted those regulations.
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Great article on what is wrong with Washington and why nothing can get done to benefit the middle class. The flow of money to our representatives has paralyzed democracy. We need to take the money out of the process, but this could never happen since these are the same corrupt sycophants that would have to pass the bill!
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Hi Retired!
Is there still a middle class?
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Meanwhile…
back at Arne’s secret behind closed doors meetings of EvilDoers (remember Chicago YouTube) TFA is >THE< STANDARD for HIGHEST teacher quality, 22yr old online Wunderkinder are eligible for charters & Harvard's endless assembly line of public policy wonks dictate best practices in Education, while Gates/Broad/Walton & Co. pay for the whole Kit-'n-kaboodle with giant strings attached.
Parents are mandated to send their innocent little ones to the daily #ToxicTesting Factory.
SpEd kids must meet all CCSS criteria or required to stay home.
University programs will no longer train teachers because TFA ONLY need a 5 week workshop, preferably at ClubMed in the Caribbean Islands.
Education has become part of the Walmart mechanization, where children work when not chained to testing computers & stocking Pearson test prep materials.
What a nightmare! Not a dream…
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I think this proposal is a bad idea that relies on an evaluation mechanism that is not accurate and will probably exacerbate the problem of attracting good teachers to the profession.
I am pretty sure, however, that the proposal includes alternative programs like TFA too.
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“. . . by several key metrics. . . ”
Yep, we are in a macrocosmic miasma of meaningless metrics whose ability to morph and malign reality is unceasing
Someone lace the koolaid so that one may enjoy the utter lunacy coming out of the Holy HIGH Church of Metronomic Mental Masturbation that is the Dunkster-led Department of (supposed) Education.
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Time to disband the DOE.
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yes!
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yesterday
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Aha. . . I see you using the term we discussed last year.
Gerbil wheel, kind of too, yes?
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Agree on DOE.
Who can make that happen? How would that happen? To whom should we write letters?
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Gerbil wheel comment for Swacker.
DOE questions for anyone who will answer.
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It won’t happen. Repubs and Dems are all on board with killing off public education.
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This is consistent with the thinking by our politicians.
It is “nice’ that they know more than educators spending their lives in researching educational principles.
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Don’t most universities already have a process called accreditation in place and external review committees? I feel like so much of this is already in place. Even if you think VAM are the best things ever (which they’re clearly not)… it sound insanely complicated and inefficient to assess a school of education based on the test scores of the students of the teachers who earned their degree there. How would they track them? What about educators who are in private schools or switch schools or get jobs like librarian or school psychologist or go into administration? The students would have to graduate, get teaching jobs and then send back their students’ scores for several years… . Also, some education schools are not focused on teacher training, I think for example most folks who graduate from Harvard Ed school go into administration or research, not teaching. It doesn’t mean it’s a crappy school — it’s just not the place to go if you want to be a Kindergarten teacher. It’s where to go if you want to be a Superintendent…or run the DOE.
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Good points.
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Thank you. A Fool’s Errand defined. Just a bunch of hollow rhetoric to further instill fear and intimidate. They don’t have the resources to pull this crap off if they tried. Duncan and the rest of his dunces will be long gone before this can happen. Good riddance to the lot of them.
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Stay out of colleges – keep out ! Arnie and pals- you have done enough damage already.
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“I feel like so much of this is already in place.” It is ! Such a huge waste of time and resources given to satisfy this reform beast !
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Just when you thought that the folks at the USDE couldn’t show themselves to be more clueless than they already have done. . . .
A little analogies question for y’all:
_________________ is to U.S. education as Robert McNamara was to U.S. defense.
Heck of a job, Dunkling.
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Arne Duncan is to US education as Joseph Stalin was to Soviet Agricultural
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As usual, it’s an incredibly insular. small set of people who all agree with one another directing this:
“Democrats for Education Reform Policy Director Charles Barone said the rule is a crucial first step for overhauling the way teachers are prepared and raising the bar for the teaching profession. “The U.S. Department of Education is stepping in here because unlike other fields, education has repeatedly abdicated its responsibility to set and enforce its own high standards for the teaching profession,” he said. “Once states set benchmarks that draw on newly available data we should give schools appropriate time to meet them. But instead of condoning wasteful practices indefinitely, as in the past, those responsible for overseeing federal funds must issue an ultimatum: shape up or lose subsidies.”
I love the stern, scolding tone from the Duncan DOE lobbying arm, DFER.
Insufferable. Is there anyone who works there who comes from OUTSIDE this cozy little ed reform club?
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By the way, Mr. Barone from DFER is poorly-informed. The Obama Administration has also put in pay for performance in health care and it’s punishing physicians who work with the poor.
It isn’t just teachers.
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I guess this is why these jobs of helping the poor have fallen to church people (like nuns) in older cultures.
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An important point to remember, too, is something that has bothered me since I entered the arena as a professor in a teacher preparation program. Holding only the schools of education is flawed thinking and assumes that education students are only taught by education faculty members. The fact is that many, if not most, of their courses are taught by faculty in other departments. So, this hyper focus on schools/colleges of education as the “preparers” of teachers ignores other departments within the university that teach them English, history, math, science, etc. How far will the scrutiny and accountability extend?
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See my extended comments in several places. The other faculty are off the hook. The role of the education faculty is to make student job-ready by the standards required for an accredited teacher prep program. See some of the standards that I have posted. The person who teaches history is out of the loop of accountability unless you put the screws on their teaching–so a by-product of the policy is to stir up all of the often suppressed animosity between arts and science faculty and those directly responsible for teacher education. In small liberal arts schools, there is often no difference in responsibility.. but those programs are on the unannounced hit-list.
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Rick Hess, too, has a plan for reforming schools of education … more conservatives and corporate free market reform “thinkers.”
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So now, perhaps, those in higher ed Education sinecures will realize that the Council on Teacher Quality (or 2 wing nut welfare hacks with laptops) is a HUGE existential threat and, perhaps, they will start treating them, their so-called ‘research’, the fact that they are always the go-to quote factory for the media, and their influence at the US DOE as TOXIC, DANGEROUS, and in need of BATTLE and not as worthy fellow academics deserving of academic courtesy? Or is that wishful thinking on my part?
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Look on the bright side of this madness. Duncan’s latest antics will likely add a 3rd wing to The Resistance:
1) Public school educators; 2) Public school parents; and soon, 3) Public and private teacher colleges/programs
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Corporate “reformers” intend for charter schools to soon dominate every urban district and they want charters to be able to use TFA temps, as well as to prepare teachers themselves. This is to be done primarily in teacher prep programs developed by privatizers, such as the charter chains that created Relay and Match which train people to be scripted drill sergeant “teachers” in military style charters, and it will be done in online programs like ABCTE.org
So, what are considered to be alternate routes to certification today are to become the primary routes for becoming a certified teacher in the future. “Reformers” are effectively doing the same thing to colleges of education that they are doing to public schools, through high-stakes testing unto death, in order to replace with their own privatized versions of schooling.
NCTQ and CAEP are in on this game, as is Duncan’s DoE, DFER, etc. http://caepnet.org/resources/building-an-evidence-based-system-for-teacher-preparation/
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And how much money will be wasted by the federal government in crunching the numbers to comply with this inane rule? For that matter, how many precious education dollars are wasted by states and the federal government in wasteful and duplicative tests as well as on crunching said numbers? For that matter, how much money is wasted by local governments on scams like Interactive Achievement that localities purchase so that they will pass said tests?
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Send your teaching graduates to high socio economic schools or loose funding!
Why didn’t I think of that?
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Just thinking this through…
Teachers in a department at a public school will vie for teaching the classes with the more successful kids. Teachers get in a fight over next year’s schedule. Teachers bribe the department head.
The sale of erasers go through the roof. Educational testing software hackers make lots of money hacking into test results to improve a school’s test scores. And yes, the test scores will be hackable. Guaranteed.
Schools located in lower-income neighborhoods are unable to attract any teachers at all, as the better teachers all move to the higher-income neighborhoods and better-paying school districts. The low-poverty school districts then have a surplus of teachers willing to teach, and those teacher’s pay goes down due to higher supply.
Great plan if you want to totally get get rid of public education and teachers.
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The Duncan/Obama Final Solution of Public Education has not introduced the last punitive measure to the public, but soon to come.
Since only TFA are allowed to teach children in public schools & charter schools (rich kids’ employment program), RealTeachers & university teacher-ed programs will whither.
Now, the FINAL THRUST…blame parents for producing a child who always wanted to teach, loves children, is creative and loves to influence children to become life-long learners, plays school with dolls and teddy bears, loves to paint & color…
Punish those behaviors immediately!
Over time, no child will have a RealTeacher they love or want to be like when they grow up.
We must trust the Obama administration, they know what we need, and they will go down in history for education reform…Gates will make sure of that.
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Reblogged this on jsheelmusic.
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http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/obama-administration-releases-plan-grade-teacher-prep-programs/
Interesting – so the revocations wouldn’t begin until 2020…where we will possibly be 2 presidents from now…unfortunately we are also 2 presidents from NCLB and we see where we thought it would fizzle and flame out way before, it has somehow been allowed to persist.
The side effect of all this is going to be far fewer teacher prep programs (which is not in and of itself a bad thing) but also a huge shortage of teachers prepared for inner city classrooms.
How do you ratchet up this level of accountability without the pay to go along with it? If a teacher (and consequently their college) are now going to be gambling with their ability to get a degree based on the imposed VAM of the DOE, who wants to place a wager with their credit rating (and an inability to lose the debt) on getting the degree for the pay and status of the job?
Again, it is already “interesting” how teacher VAM must handle inter-semester transfers, transfers of failing students, transfers of students from countries with no or little formal education for all or part of its population.
They will now apply that to individual teacher candidates….working in multiple states, with still differing tests, with students with far from complete data and accountable inputs, and apply that LONGITUDINALLY for hundreds of teacher education programs.
One simple question….How could you do this unless EVERYTHING is computerized for students and you give teachers new teacher identification numbers and then somehow get around interstate privacy laws by forcing New York to collect information from teachers/students in Rhode Island for instance…and do you penalize a school for properly preparing a teacher who suddenly decides not to be a teacher because they prepared them the way they should?
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Every teacher IS getting an ID number. The ID number establishes that teacher as the “teacher of record” for every student in a class assigned to that teacher, regardless of where the school or class is located. Every student also has an ID number. The Gates-funded Teacher Student Data Link project has been in the works since 2005.
It works in tandem with USDE’s Longitudinal Data System.
It is probable that USDE will require a teacher candidate to acquire a “teacher of record” ID with an tag to identify the teacher ed program responsible for that teacher. The teacher ed program will likewise have an ID so the test scores of students can be back-tracked and in perpetuity, or nearly so, on a national basis. Almost every state has “a teacher of record” ID system in place with specifications for the proportion of time a teacher is assigned to that student. This proportion is supposed to take care of team teaching assignments. If a student attends more than one teacher ed program, it is probable that the last one attended will be held responsible for the test scores of the graduates of that program.
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What about the teachers from TFA and other alternate certification programs, as well as all the administrators, from Duncan on down, in positions of authority but with no training in education. Is anyone accountable for those travesties?.
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This is.. In a word.. Ignorant. Is it not?
The validity of standardized test scores across the board is in not even in question… They are not valid indicators of academic, and intellectual growth, and now universities are expected to tailor their curriculum to increasing these scores?
The department of education intends to dumb down the university system. Is this not a travesty?
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The USDOE under Duncan has become a laughing stock. This attempt to police colleges and universities will go nowhere. Their federal over reach is unconstitutional and their time is running out.
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A lawsuit would have to be filed to determine the constitutionality of it. The DOE’s prior overreach hasn’t been declared unconstitutional yet. Time will tell.
I don’t think that their time is running out however. These efforts by the deformers of education can continue apace in the states. I teach in NY too. Don’t you think Cuomo wouldn’t like to do the same to the SUNY schools on his own, most of which have been the source of most of NY’s teaching force?
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Plattsburgh, New Paltz, Oswego, Geneseo and other SUNYs maybe in his sights, maybe even Saint Rose or Sienna. But his priority right now is US. I think the big reveal will come with his State of the State. A statewide APPR which may include an increase (50%?) in the value of CC state test scores, the dismantling of teacher tenure, and other goodies are probably on his holiday wish list. A doubling or tripling of our parent/student opt out could wreck his plan.
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who is Duncan? Since he has been Ed Sec SAT scores have not increased and drop out rates have not decreased and NAEP scores have decreased as well. Perhaps he needs to leave with the Sec of Def. Perhaps his school should lose all funds as well as TFA and Charter Schools since they do not produce the desired results. All med schools that have an oncology department should lose funding since most patients die.
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