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Please Help the Providence Student Union

By dianerav
May 12, 2013 //
2

I am re-posting this appeal to help a great group of high school youth.

For their valiant, smart, witty efforts to save their schools and future generations from the blight of high-stakes testing, I name them to the honor roll as champions of public education. May they grow and flourish!

I am a huge fan of the Providence Student Union.

I just donated to them to help them continue their movement and to encourage students in other cities and states to organize against high-stakes testing.

Please consider going to their web page and supporting them. I love their energy, their idealism, their wit, and their creativity.

I share their belief that education should be engaging, exciting, and a source of inspiration and joy. They have energetically protested the soul-deadening emphasis on high-stakes testing in Rhode Island. And they have expressed their own vision for real education.

Best of all, they have mastered the art of political theater to publicize their work.

First, they held a zombie protest in front of the Rhode Island Department of Education building, protesting the state’s dead zombie policies.

Then, they persuaded accomplished professionals to take a test made up of released items from the NECAP test, which the state has inappropriately made a graduation requirement.

Just days ago, they delivered their First Annual State of the Student Address, describing their vision for real education. They timed it so that it was one hour before the State Commissioner Deborah Gist’s annual state of education address to the Legislature. Gist, you may recall, won national acclaim for threatening to fire every employee of Central Falls High School due to its low test scores.

Because of the PSU’s political theater, the Boston Globe came out against the use (mis-use) of NECAP as a graduation requirement.

The Providence Student Union represents the best of American youth. They are independent, creative, active, fearless. They are what we hope for our nation in the future. Help them thrive.

Categories Honor Roll, Students

Former Lt. Gov. Ratliff of Texas Joins the Honor Roll

By dianerav
April 17, 2013 //
5

Former Lieutenant Governor Bill Ratliff has spoken out loud and clear for the 5 million children in public schools in Texas. He knows the state cut the budget way too much. He knows that the state must put its money into improving education–not by “throwing money” at it–but by doing the right things.

And he knows that the Legislature will be moved when they start hearing from angry Mamas. They are hearing from those Mamas. And they are backing away from the strange idea that they can cut teachers and fund testing.

I place Mr. Ratliff’s name on the honor roll as a champion of public education. Read the speech below, and you will see that he is looking out for the children of Texas, who need strong protectors like him.

Here is a speech he gave a few weeks ago. I am happy to post it here:

“RAISE YOUR HAND TEXAS
03/20/13
Bill Ratliff, Former Lieutenant Governor of Texas

Abraham Lincoln once said, “Upon the subject of education … I can only say that I view it as the most important subject upon which we as a people may be engaged.”

Considering the fact the Lincoln was engaged in subjects like slavery, state secession, and civil war, that is quite a mouthful.

Year after year, decade after decade, the people of Texas, when polled, say that the most important function of state government is the education of our youth. Citizens, parents, grandparents, and even childless adults, have consistently said that education of our youth is priority number one for the state.

Virtually every candidate for state office avows, during campaign season, that education is his or her highest priority.

However, just as standing in a garage does not make one a car, talking about making education being one’s top priority does not make it so.

The Bible says that, “Where your gold is, there will your heart be also.” If one’s heart is truly committed to education, the measurement of that commitment must be measured by the gold allocated to that cause.

Over the last few months, you have heard some of our state leaders say that funding for public education was actually increased in the current budget. Folks, everyone is entitled to his or her own opinion. But everyone is not entitled to his or her own facts. Facts are facts!!

Attached you will find a copy of some actual facts regarding public education funding. The graph and the spreadsheet on the reverse side were prepared by the Legislative Budget Board – the ultimate authority on Texas budget matters. It was prepared at the request of Representative Gene Wu in an attempt to separate fact from fiction.

As you can see, this LBB graph shows that the total inflation adjusted public school funding has dropped precipitously in the last six years. In year 2009 it was $7,665 per student – in year 2013 that funding is now $5,998 per student.

Now, in all fairness, the Legislature is currently in the process of passing an additional $2 billion emergency appropriation for public education to restore funding which had been pushed back into year 2014. But that additional $2 billion would only increase the total funding by around $192 to about $6,190 per student– still almost $1,500 per student below the $7,665 of year 2009.

Well, so what? What difference does it make if Texas is in the bottom 10% in the nation in spending for our children’s education?

Believe me, I have heard all the arguments, such as “you can’t fix education by throwing money at it.” That’s true. I have never seen a problem that could be fixed by throwing money at it. But you can rest assured that we will never improve our public education system by systematically starving it.

One of the things that Judge Dietz said in his recent court opinion, when he declared the current school funding system was unconstitutionally underfunded, was that the state has, over the last 20 years, been engaged in an effort to raise standards and raise the level of our students’ readiness for higher education and the workplace. But, he said, you cannot expect to improve the outcomes without adequately funding the effort.

Let me give you just two examples of what the Judge was probably referring to:

PRE-KINDERGARTEN

The Texas Association of Business recently published a paper that referenced three widely cited studies regarding the life-long effects of high-quality Pre-Kindergarten programs:

The Carolina Abecedarian Projects, the Chicago Parent-Child Study, and the Perry Preschool Project. These studies tracked two sets of students from early childhood into adulthood. One set was made up of people who had been given a high-quality pre-K experience. The other set was people who had not had such an experience.

Among the findings of these studies were that children who had experienced high-quality Pre-Kindergarten were:

​29% More likely to graduate from high school;
​40% Less likely to be retained in grade;
​52% Less likely to be arrested 5 times by age 40;
​41% Less likely to be arrested for a violent crime by age 18.

These astounding statistics argue strongly for an increase in the number of children being offered a high quality pre-kindergarten.

But as a means of reducing the appropriation to public schools, in the current budget, the Legislature virtually eliminated state funding for pre-kindergarten in Texas.

While it is too early to discern the outcome, at least one version of the appropriations bill now restores some pre-K funding, but only a small portion of that needed to make a real difference. This is the sort of “prioritization” that will have serious detrimental impact on the state our children will inherit.

CLASS SIZE

Poll after poll of parents who make the sacrifice to send their children to private or parochial schools say, overwhelmingly, that one of the main reasons they choose to do so is the smaller classes offered by private schools.

An analysis of the 91 Dallas-Fort Worth area private schools providing an education to students in grades 1 thru 4 shows that the average class size for these private schools is 16 students – many have class sizes of only 10 to 15.

A common phrase heard from Texans is, “Why don’t we operate state government like a business?” Well, private schools are a business, and they have made the decision to keep their classes small. It seems logical to assume that private schools would only adopt such costly class size limits if they believed in the value of such smaller classes. And it is clear that the parents of these students do recognize the value.

Since the early 1980’s, the State of Texas has limited early elementary class sizes to a 22:1 student/teacher ratio. This limitation has been widely credited as one reason for the excellent scores that our 4th grade students have posted in the National Assessment of Educational Progress.

And yet, in order to reduce public school funding, our state leaders, in this last session, decided to relax these class size limits. The law was changed such that, almost without exception, a school district that seeks a waiver from the 22:1 ratio is granted a waiver.

So what has happened? Because of the impact of budget cuts on schools this year, school district officials have requested, and state officials have granted, waivers to the 22:1 limit for grades 1 thru 4 in 6,988 classrooms – subjecting some 170,000 early elementary students to a classroom with more than 22 students.

Teachers have been laid off, and will continue to be laid off, because of this dramatic decrease in state funding. If there is one thing certain about education it is that when campuses reduce the number of teachers, class sizes go up, and student learning suffers.

This is another serious degradation in the quality of our public school education brought on by shortfalls in our public education funding.

Ironically, the TEA has recently reported that 14 districts submitting applications for a waiver of the 22:1 limit were restricted in the number of classes that can exceed the 22-pupil cap. The reason given by TEA for this restriction was that these districts had received low performance ratings from the state this past summer.

Now – follow me – if larger class size does not matter, why would the TEA believe it necessary to hold these troubled districts to the lower number of students in a class? The TEA obviously knows that more effective learning occurs in a smaller class setting.

And yet, in the name of fiscal austerity, 170,000 young students will receive a less effective learning environment. And the “shell game” is that the people of Texas are being told that an increase in the number of students in a classroom doesn’t matter.

Frankly, any thinking parent or grandparent of a school-age child should be insulted that anyone would think you are foolish or gullible enough to swallow the assertion that class size doesn’t matter.

Of course, this discussion only addresses the situation in grades 1 thru 4. In addition, because of the dramatic reductions in school district funding, the TEA also recently reported, “There are also reports of larger classes in other grades, but school districts are not required to get permission to put more students in classes above grade 4.”

In other words, because of insufficient funding, we will see dramatic increases in class size in middle and high schools as well as elementary, and that will inevitably lead to students being less prepared for college and/or the workforce.

WHAT CAN YOU DO?

For much too long, the citizens of Texas have watched this state abdicate its responsibilities for adequately funding public education.

The situation reminds me of the story of two men sitting on the front porch, watching an old dog lying in the yard howling. The visitor asks the dog’s owner, “Why does that old dog just lie there and howl?” The owner of the dog says, “He’s probably lying on a cocklebur.” “Why doesn’t he get up and move?” “Oh, I reckon he would just rather howl”.

Who is this job up to? You can’t leave it to the educators – the teachers, the school administrators, and the local school board members. You see, far too many members of the Legislature and state leadership see these educators as part of the problem.

A previous chairman of the House Public Education Committee once referred to these people as “Those whiney-assed educators”. Too many state officials view pleas from educators and local school board members with suspicion – a jaundiced thought that these people are simply trying to feather their own nest.

For a few years now, I have been saying that public education will not be given the funding priority it deserves in Texas until the “Mamas” of the state get fed up with the situation. (I use “Mamas” as a euphemism for the general citizenry, but it probably will have to be led by the Mamas of the students who are being deprived of a better education.)

I was in the Senate when a handful of “Mamas” got fed up with the amount of drunken driving in Texas. It wasn’t an extremely large group that formed MADD, but they were dedicated to the task and would not take no for an answer.

Because of the dedication and hard work of these “Mamas”, we now have very stringent laws and significant punishments for DUI in Texas.

Until the “Mamas” of Texas generate the same dedication to public school funding that they had in MADD, our political leaders will feel no urgency in restoring funding where it needs to be for a quality public education system in our state, and our children’s education will continue to suffer as a result.

In Texas’ public education funding, things will change for the better when the “Mamas” of the state decide to get off their cockleburs and refuse to take no for an answer.

Categories Budget Cuts, Childhood, Pre-K, K, Class size, Honor Roll, Students, Support for public schools, Testing, Texas

Jonathan Kozol Will Be Honored by FairTest on May 9

By dianerav
April 9, 2013 //
1

If you live anywhere near Cambridge, you should plan to attend this FairTest event on May 9 when FairTest will honor Jonathan Kozol.

FairTest will present Jonathan with the Deborah W. Meier Award for Heroes in Education for his lifelong commitment to education, children, and human rights.

Jonathan is indeed a hero in education.

He is a champion for children, for teachers, and for public schools.

I am happy to add him to this blog’s honor roll for his courage, his eloquence, and his clear vision of a just, decent, and humane society.

 

Categories Childhood, Pre-K, K, Honor Roll, Standardized Testing, Students, Testing

A Dallas School Board Member Joins the Honor Roll

By dianerav
April 8, 2013 //
8

When I went to Austin for the Save Texas Schools rally, I also participated in a panel discussion about school reform at the LBJ School of Public Policy at the University of Texas. There I met Carla Ranger, a member of the Dallas school board.

As I listened to her speak, I was overwhelmed with admiration for this independent, smart, wise, courageous, and principled supporter of public education and children. At some point in the discussion, I said out loud, “Carla Ranger, I just met you and I love you..”

Dallas has a Broad-trained superintendent, who put a young TFA alum in charge of human resources. The superintendent is ex-military and is big on setting goals and giving orders. Carla has her hands full.

Today I add her to our honor roll. Please visit her website.

Categories Broad Foundation, Dallas, Honor Roll, Texas

Why I Admire Rod Rock

By dianerav
March 29, 2013 //
18

Last year, I placed Rod Rock of the Clarkston school district in Michigan on the honor roll. A member of his staff sent me his latest letter to his colleagues, and I realized I not only respect Rod Rock, I admire him. He represents the highest values of American education.

He reminds us how adults are supposed to care for young people. He is not subservient to fads or gurus or politicians. He is not intimidated by Arne Duncan or Rick Snyder.

He is an educator. Don’t you wish there were more like him?

Here is the letter he sent to his staff:

From: Rod Rock
Date: Sun, Feb 24, 2013 at 10:26 PM
Subject: Thoughts
To: All CCS Staff

Colleagues:

I know that I write often to you and I hope that you will tolerate one more rambling (at least until the next one). Also, I may have said this already to you, so I apologize if this is a repeat.

When my daughter, Haley, who is now a freshman at MSU, was in third grade, she stood one evening in our tiny, outdated kitchen, leaning against the wall next to the refrigerator and cried. When we asked her what was the matter, she said that she was certain she wouldn’t do very well on the MEAP test the next day and that she didn’t want to let anyone down.

At that moment, I said to her that no test will ever define her. I said that she is Haley Rock and that she is talented in many ways. No matter how she performs on any test at any point in her life, I stated, she will always be Haley Rock and possess many talents. No test, person, or relationship, I reiterated, will ever define who she is or what she is capable of becoming.

On Friday as I drove in to school through the snow and slush (with more winter predicted for Tuesday), I listened to a story on the radio wherein three academics from Stanford (or thereabouts) discussed America’s place in the world specific to academic achievement. One of the academics stated that achievement in America has flat-lined for 40 years. Another said that there is tremendous disparity in funding in schools, using two neighboring California districts as an example, one of which is funded at twice the level of the other. She (Linda Darling Hammond) stated that the highest achieving countries pay their teachers at the same levels as engineers. Another of the panel members said that even if we dramatically improved the levels of achievement of our African American and Hispanic students (who generally perform at the lowest levels), our students would only be in the middle of the international comparisons. The three agreed that we can do much to close opportunity gaps for America’s children.

Last week, I watched Beauty and the Beast. Last Thursday I watched our girls’ basketball team. On Monday, our boys ski team will compete for a second consecutive state championship. This week, I will enjoy watching our boys basketball team play (and they also played on Friday). Next weekend, our district will host an a cappella competition. The poetry slam is forthcoming. Talent shows are happening across the district. Kids are volunteering and making differences for others. Over 1,000 of our students sat in the high school auditorium last week and listened respectfully as a mother–who had lost her teenage daughter to a traffic accident, while the daughter talked on her phone–spoke to them about the choices they make. Many other performances of understanding will occur, under your guidance, today, tomorrow, and beyond. We currently have students who are attending colleges all over the world, competing with students from many other countries. When our students graduate from college, they go on to get jobs as engineers, doctors, teachers, plumbers, electricians, custodians, musical directors, and writers. They posses skills beyond test taking and they make contributions to their communities and the world (many of them come back to Clarkston and many of them are you).

If our students weren’t achieving in engineering school or college in general, our community would be very upset. The reason that our kids do well (one of whom is currently earning a PhD in physics at Cornell, having been inspired by one of our teachers–Mr. Ned Burdick, and the reason that Haley will be okay (and I wish she could have attended Clarkston–and so does she after watching Beauty and the Beast with me) is that she and most of our graduates posses skills beyond test taking. They posses agency which means that they believe in themselves and their abilities to overcome obstacles that stand in the way of their dreams.

You know our kids by name. You know who they are and how they are smart.

If we want to compare our students to those in other countries, why do we not use the same test as they use? Why do we assess every child every year? Why do evaluate every teacher every year? Why does a portion of our society not value teachers and other school employees at the same level as other professionals? Why is our government trying to expand instead of close the opportunity gap? If college or training beyond high school is essential for every child, why don’t we make it affordable for every child? These are not the practices of the world’s highest performing countries.

I was recently invited to a meeting to give comments on proposed administrator evaluation systems. I am not going. Robert Marzano, who is a leader in teacher evaluation, is coming to a meeting in Detroit in some weeks. I am not going. Every time I receive an e-mail that states a silver-bullet on how to improve achievement, I delete it before reading it. I am going to focus on research and not politics. We have to do what is right for our kids. We will do what is right for our kids.

Please do not allow any test score, number, grade, or moment define our children. Please see them as works in progress. Please look at their strengths and not their weaknesses. Please help them become owners of their own futures and steadfast believers in their abilities to overcome any obstacles that stand between them and their dreams.

If America didn’t posses the best educational system in the world, why would parents from other parts of the world fall over themselves to send their kids to American schools?

What messages are we sending to our kids today about learning? How coherent is our system? What do we need to change in order to ensure that our values of learning are clearly communicated and advanced? How do we respond to criticism or judgments? How do we demonstrate for our students the capacity to look at evidence and contradict it with other, more substantial evidence?

Perhaps we are not solely in the business of shaping minds. Perhaps our business is also about changing minds–including our own.

If the MEAP parent report says that a student is a 4 and needs immediate attention, provide also those parents contradicting evidence that resolutely shows that their child is much more than a 4-and-in-need-of-immediate-attention. Perhaps, you can show them, it is the test that needs immediate attention. What we say and how we say it matters.

Last words: Stress affects kids physiologically. Learning is a mind and brain endeavor. We cannot separate one from the other. I want to thank each one of you for any efforts that you make to support our kids as whole people. I want to thank you for any moments that you spend helping a child feel certain. I want to thank you for any moments that you spend convincing a child that he/she is able (or not what another child or adult said of him/her). I want to thank you for any moments that you spend giving kids something that helps them overcome an obstacle, whether this something is a pair of shoes, a pat on the back, a word of encouragement, or a sticky note. When they know truly that we care deeply, they care deeply about what we know (this is paraphrased from John C. Maxwell and perhaps others who believe in people).

Last, last words: Please don’t let anyone or any moment define a child. Please help our children discover, create, and continuously recreate their own, unique definitions of themselves. If they don’t know themselves, they’ll struggle to contribute and become.

Enjoy the week (I am going to see Haley on Tuesday, which is her 19th birthday),

Rod

–

Rod Rock, Ed.D.

Superintendent

Clarkston Community Schools: Think Beyond Possible

Follow me on Twitter: @RodRock1

Check out my Blog: http://rodrockon.blogspot.com/

Find the Clarkston Community Schools on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Clarkston-Community-Schools/164498640303901?bookmark_t=page

Cultivating thinkers, learners, and positive contributors to a global society.

Categories Honor Roll, Michigan

Louisiana Bloggers and Researchers Join the Honor Roll

By dianerav
March 20, 2013 //
4

Louisiana is the state most dedicated to wiping out public education and the teaching profession, under the leadership of Governor Bobby Jindal and state commissioner John White. Jindal and White are doing whatever they can to privatize public education with vouchers, charters, and a program to outsource as much as possible of the funding dedicated in the state constitution to the maintenance of public education.

As I have learned from many friends in that state, the governor does not like dissent. When people disagree with his policies, they risk losing their job. In conversations, I have been told again and again, “Don’t mention my name. Please.”

No matter how authoritarian or dictatorial the government may be, there are always a few brave souls who feel compelled to speak up. Some are bloggers. Some are researchers. Some are both. They are smart, they are strong, they are courageous. They can’t tolerate lies, spin, and meanness. They believe the government has an obligation to support the general well-being of the people, not to serve the corporations that fund political campaigns.

And so in this post, I want to salute the bloggers and researchers who have kept alive free speech and free inquiry and the public’s right to know what is happening in their state.

I add their names to the honor roll as champions of American public education.

In no particular order, they are:

Mike Deshotels, who blogs at Louisiana Educator. He has formed a group called Defenders of Public Education.

Research on Reforms, which has been trying to bring evidence to bear on the many false claims about a Louisiana or New Orleans “miracle.” In particular, I applaud the work of Barbara Ferguson, Charles Hatfield, and Raynard Sanders, who have maintained high standards of research in their work.

Lance Hill, who is a tireless advocate for social justice and the children and teachers of New Orleans. Lance brought me to New Orleans in 2010 to speak at Dillard University, where I met many brave researchers, parents, and teachers.

Educators for All, a group of researchers and parents who remain anonymous, but have used public information to exposé public lies about the schools.

Crazy Crawfish, a blogger who uses wit and research to exposé the manipulation of data by the State Education Department.

Mercedes Schneider, a <;;a href="http://“>;;blogger who is fearless in skewering the powerful. She has a Ph.D. In statistics but chooses to teach high school in her native state.

Tom Aswell at Louisiana Voice, a blogger who writes about “graft, lies, and politics: a monument to corruption,” in Louisiana and never runs out of material. He is an invaluable resource as Jindal finds ingenious ways to sell off or give away public assets to powerful corporations. When Tom turns to education, he sees right through Jindal’s smoke and mirrors, the same raid on the public treasury.

I feel honored to have met these brave men and women and i am privileged to post their work here. When the day comes that people of the state see how they have been hoodwinked by their elected officials, they will owe a debt of gratitude to those I honor now. And when that day arrives, no one will be fearful of speaking out and using their own names.

Categories Corporate Reformers, Honor Roll, Louisiana, New Orleans

No Surprise: Voucher Schools Teaching Creationism

By dianerav
March 19, 2013 //
16

I previously named Zack Kopplin to the honor roll for his outspoken opposition to schools teaching creationism. A native of Louisiana, Zack criticized Governor Bobby Jindal’s voucher plan for using public funds to send students to schools that teach creationism.

Zack, a student at Rice University, recently appeared on the Bill Moyers show to talk about vouchers and creationism.

The show featured an interactive map that pinpoints every school teaching creationism with public funding. Most are concentrated in Florida and Louisiana.

If Governor Haslam in Tennessee gets his way (abetted by State Commissioner Kevin Huffman [ex-TFA]), there will be many more creationist schools funded by taxpayers. Even more taxpayer dollars will flow to such schools in Alabama and Georgia, and don’t discount their spread into Indiana, Ohio, and other states.

Is this the STEM education that will propel our nation into the 21st century?

Categories Curriculum, Honor Roll, Jindal, Bobby, Louisiana, Religion, Separation of church and state, Tennessee, U.S. education, Vouchers

NASSP: The Danger of Misguided Evaluations

By dianerav
March 12, 2013 //
21

It is rare to see a high-ranking leader of a major association speak hard truths to power. For her courage and candor, Joann Bartoletti joins the honor roll as a champion of public education.

In the March 2013 issue of NASSP’s “News Leader,” Bartoletti, the executive director of the National Association of Secondary School Principals, blasted the new teacher evaluation systems that were foisted on the nation’s schools by Race to the Top and its highly prescriptive waivers.

She notes that these dubious, non-evidence-based evaluation systems are coming into use at the very time that the Common Core is being implemented. Common Core–untested, never validated, whose consequences are unknown, arriving with not enough time or money for implementation or adequate technology for the computer-based testing–is widely expected to cause test scores to fall. It would be hard, she writes, to “come up with a better plan to discredit and dismantle public education.”

What motives should one attribute to policymakers who wreak havoc on their’s nations public schools and who blithely ignore all warning signs? Bartoletti won’t speculate.

Malice or stupidity? You decide.

She writes:

• A perfect storm is brewing, and it will wreak havoc on the collaborative cultures that principals have worked so hard to build. New teacher evaluation systems have begun making their way into schools, and over the next three years, more than half of states will change the way they assess teachers’ effectiveness. The revised systems come as the result of Race to the Top and NCLB waivers. To be eligible for either, states had to commit to developing new teacher evaluation systems that use student test scores to determine a “significant proportion” of a teacher’s effectiveness. In a January survey of NASSP and NAESP members, nearly half of respondents indicated that 30% or more of their teacher evaluations are now tied to student achievement.

There is no research supporting the use of that kind of percentage, and even if the research recommended it, states don’t have data systems sophisticated enough to do value-added measurement (VAM) well. Still, the test-score proportion on evaluations will increase at a time when we predict that test scores will decrease.

These evaluation systems will be put in place just as the Common Core State Standards assessments roll out in 2014. This volatile combination could encourage many teachers and principals to leave the profession or at least plan their exit strategies. I don’t want to attribute a malicious intent to anyone, but if policymakers were going to come up with a plan to discredit and dismantle public education, it’s hard to think of a more effective one.

Identity Crisis?

One of the most troubling issues, as Jim Popham describes in this month’s Principal Leadership, is that the overhauled evaluations are being designed to serve dual purposes.

Principals want to believe that the evaluations are formative and are inclined to give constructive feedback to teachers to help them improve their instructional practice. Lawmakers, on the other hand, see the evaluations as being summative—a way to identify weaknesses and fire ineffective teachers. Principals are caught in the middle: they want to offer frank feedback but are all too aware that any criticism is a black mark that can be used to deny a teacher’s con- tract renewal or tenure. In this case, killing two birds with one stone—when those birds have about as much in common as a penguin and a pigeon—is extraordinarily ineffective.

And so, principals tread lightly. Although the days when 99% of tenured teachers earned “satisfactory” ratings are long gone, emerging data shows that even with the new evaluations in place, the majority of teachers are still being deemed “effective.” Education Week noted in a February 5 article that at least 9 out of 10 teachers in Michigan, Tennessee, and Georgia received positive reviews under the new measurements.

With little difference in outcomes, it’s hard to justify the extensive training and time com- mitment that the new systems demand. In some districts in Rhode Island, a popular off-the-shelf model requires principals to view 60 hours of video training and pass a test before administer- ing the evaluation tool. If they fail, they’ll have to wait three months to take it again. Other states are developing their own systems that dramatically increase the hours spent assessing teachers.

Tennessee principal and NASSP board member Troy Kilzer devotes nearly six hours to a single teacher’s evaluation, not counting the time spent observing that teacher in the class- room. This figure is similar to the respondents’ answers in the NASSP survey. Almost all (92%)
said they spend anywhere from 6 to 31 or more hours evaluating each teacher.

These evaluations are simply trying to accomplish too much. What’s even worse, principals must apply them across the board—66% of the survey respondents are required to use one instrument for all teachers and staff, includ- ing those in non-tested subjects. School nurses, athletic directors, and school psychologists are expected to be assessed with the same tools. Since when can a nurse’s capacity for empathy be measured by a student’s ability to factor polynomials?

High Anxiety

Although only some states have fully imple- mented the new models, exhausted teachers are showing signs of wear. The “teach-to-the- test” frenzy is compounded by the fact that their evaluations will rely on scores over which teachers have limited control. NASSP’s Breaking Ranks tells about the importance of a positive culture, yet the atmosphere that the new evalua- tion systems create is anything but positive.

Shawn DeRose, an assistant principal in Virginia, said that since the implementation of his state’s new evaluation system this past fall, many teachers in his school have indicated that they feel additional stress. It’s no wonder. Fifth-grade teacher Sarah Wysocki was fired at the end of her second year with the DC Public Schools because her students didn’t reach their expected growth rate in reading and math under the city’s new value-added model. Never mind that she received positive ratings in her observations and was encouraged to share her engaging teaching methods with other district educators. This is hardly an isolated event.

The anxiety levels raise an even more acute challenge for principals in urban, high-poverty schools. No teacher wants to teach in a school with a traditionally low-performing population. Add test scores as a part of their evaluation, and it now becomes impossible to recruit teachers for high-needs schools. But regard- less of a teacher’s placement, the onus is still on principals to ensure that evaluations are fair and meaningful—and that they improve teachers’ capacity to enhance student learning.

NASSP is regularly delivering this message to Congress and the
Department of Education. In meetings with Assistant Secretary for Elementary and Secondary Education Deb Delisle, I’ve shared NASSP’s recommendations and have reinforced that teacher evaluations should serve their intended purpose: to help teachers improve their instructional practice. NASSP is making it glaringly clear to policymakers that if they want to push out inef- fective teachers, there are other ways to go about it. Throwing the entire profession into a tailspin is not only ineffective and mis- guided, but it’s a poor way to play the long game as well.

Categories Common Core, Duncan, Arne, Education Industry, Gates Foundation, Bill Gates, Honor Roll, Principals, Race to the Top, Support for public schools, Teacher Evaluations

Sample Resolution for Equitable Funding

By dianerav
January 31, 2013 //
2

This is the resolution adopted by the Perrin-Whitt school district in Texas, where John Kuhn is superintendent. John is a fighter for children and a member of our honor roll as a champion of public education. He earns his spurs very day as he continues to inspire us.

WHEREAS, the State of Texas has established a system that funds public schools at levels that differ greatly from school district to school district, and

WHEREAS, the State holds all schools—whether high-funded or low-funded—to the exact same academic standards in its academic accountability system, and

WHEREAS, the State has chosen to let citizens mistakenly believe its accountability system compares apples to apples, and

WHEREAS, the State’s accountability system fails to forthrightly acknowledge the funding differences that exist between the school systems it purports to compare, and

WHEREAS, the Texas school accountability system effectively implies that certain schools are inferior academic institutions, and that this is due solely to the inferior practices of educators and not in any way related to state-created funding disadvantages, and

WHEREAS, lower-funded schools are forced by scarcity to invest less than their peers in student supports, teacher salaries, class size reduction, instructional materials, extracurricular programs, maintenance of facilities, and other investments that positively impact student learning, and

WHEREAS, ancient wisdom holds that “to whom much has been given, much should be required,” and

WHEREAS, schools which are higher-funded in Texas tend to achieve, on average, better passing rates on the State’s academic tests and higher state-assigned performance ratings than lower-funded schools, and

WHEREAS, students who reside in one school district are of no less value to their parents or their Maker than students who reside in another school district, and are no less deserving of nor less in need of a quality education, and

WHEREAS, as a direct consequence of its rigid academic accountability for local teachers and its lax accountability for state leaders when it comes to funding efficacy, the government of Texas has evaded true accountability for adequately and uniformly supporting the children of Texas who learn in diverse parts of this land, and

WHEREAS, Texas citizens deserve not only an honest accounting of schools’ performance but also an honest accounting of the Legislature’s fiscal support of schools as they strive toward the state’s own goals; therefore be it

RESOLVED that the ___________________ Board of Trustees calls on the Texas Legislature to tie the school funding system in Texas directly and transparently to the school accountability system in Texas; and, in so doing, to develop a shared accountability system that holds funders no less accountable for their actions than it holds teachers and students for theirs; and which does not unreasonably demand that schools with scarcer resources achieve identical levels of academic performance as schools blessed by this state with disproportionate funding.

PASSED AND APPROVED on this _____ day of _____________________, 2013.

By: ____________________ ​​By: _____________________
Name: ​​​​​Name:
Title: ​​​​​Title:

By: ____________________ ​​By: _____________________
Name:​​​​​Name:
Title: ​​​​​Title:

By: ____________________ ​​By: _____________________
Name: ​​​​​Name:
Title: ​​​​​Title:

By: ____________________
Name:
Title:

Categories Accountability, Honor Roll, Texas

Michigan Activist Joins the Honor Roll

By dianerav
January 28, 2013 //
7

Former state legislator Mary Valentine has spoken out against the privatization of public education in Muskegon Heights, Michigan. The district had a budget deficit, so the governor installed an emergency manager who turned the children and schools over to a for-profit charter corporation.

Mary Valentine joins the honor roll as a champion of public education, in a state where the governor and legislature are determined to end it.

Please read the following:

Muskegon Heights School District, in Muskegon County, Michigan, is the first school district taken over by a for-profit company. The Emergency Manager in charge of the district, Don Weatherspoon admits what we all know. “It’s like building a plane while you’re flying it.”

Here is a revealing article about it written by Lindsey Smith of Michigan Radio. There are four articles in this series, which can be found at michiganradio.org.

Students in Muskegon Heights are going through a lot of changes this year, because the entire school district was converted to a charter school system. After tackling some tough issues in the first half of the school year, the operators of the charter school system want the public to give them a full school year to put the changes in place.

Former lawmaker: school system’s fate lies in state policies

Muskegon Heights Public Schools faced such a huge budget deficit last spring, the state appointed emergency manager laid off the staff, teachers and all, and hired a charter school company to run the new school district he created.

He says the financial situation was so bad he didn’t have a choice.

But former Democratic State Representative Mary Valentine doesn’t buy that.

“There’s no other alternatives because that’s the way our legislature has worked it,” Valentine said.

Listen
1:22
Mary Valentine has become a vocal critic of the new charter school district in Muskegon Heights. She thinks state policies around schools of choice, charter schools, and school funding are impacting public school districts in negative ways.

Valentine’s been very interested and very unhappy with the changes at Muskegon Heights schools under the emergency manager.

“Anytime you put someone in charge of a school district who will fire all of the teachers and pull that safety net out, it is very clear they don’t know what they’re doing and how they’re hurting children. So why are we putting people like that in charge of our schools?” Valentine asked.

Valentine was a speech therapist in public schools for 30 years. At her home office in Norton Shores, which borders Muskegon Heights, Valentine proudly displays a signed picture of herself and President Barack Obama.

She fears that Republican state lawmakers are looking for cheap solutions to the complicated problems facing cash-strapped school districts and she’s speaking up about it. She wants to see lawmakers put forward “solid, research-backed solutions”.

“If they cost a lot of money then we should pay for them anyway, because it’s a lot cheaper to pay for good schools than it is to pay for prisons and there isn’t any way around it,” Valentine said, “Let’s bite the bullet and do what we need to do to make it a good solid school system.”

Muskegon Heights students, families keep watch on “work in progress”

A couple hundred parents and students spread out in the Muskegon Height High School auditorium for the December school board meeting.

The hot topic on the agenda was mid-year implementation of school uniforms at the high school.

A letter informing parents of the policy change went home less than two weeks before Christmas. Many parents felt that did not leave them with enough time to fit the cost of new uniforms into their budgets before January 2nd. Eventually, the board opted to delay uniforms at the high school until next school year.

“As a student I can honestly say there are bigger and better things to worry about at school right now than uniforms,” 17-year old Trevon Kitchen, a high school senior, told the charter school board.

Kitchen and other students started listing things off for the board. They don’t feel like they have any help researching or applying to colleges. Young, new, teachers can’t keep kids in class under control. Many are unhappy with their class schedules.

Kitchen wants to be a computer engineer. He says he certainly didn’t pick a class about music appreciation.

“Can I tell you what I learned in that class? No, because I didn’t learn anything. I can’t even take a pre-calculus class that I need for college,” Kitchen said.

“If we would’ve been paying attention the first time around we wouldn’t be in this situation now. So we’re trying to get better at it,” Trevon Kitchen’s dad, Roger Kitchen said, speaking in part to the parents in the room.

Listen
1:24
Roger Kitchen, the parent of a Muskegon Heights high school student, makes a heartfelt plea with parents near the end of a tense charter school board meeting December 17th.

“We’re not blaming ya’ll or pointing fingers. You’ve got your hand full,” Roger Kitchen added, pointing at the school board and administrators on stage.

He looks around at frustrated parents as he speaks. “We have to get out of this together. We can’t point fingers because it starts with us. So we got to do better – we got to be held accountable too…We can’t blame them. This starts at home,” Kitchen said.

New system needs time: “We’re building the airplane as we fly it.”

School administrators say they understand things aren’t perfect.

“People should definitely hold us accountable,” Mosaica Education Regional VP Alena Zachery-Ross said. But she cautions that the company, staff, and students need more time to adjust. “I want people to realize that it’s going to take the full year,” Zachery-Ross said.

“It takes time to build a foundation,” Zachery-Ross said, “Any house that’s built too quickly and doesn’t have a strong foundation, in the long run it falls down and it’s not secure. We are building the foundation.”

“Well remember, I said we were building an airplane as we fly it,” Muskegon Height schools’ Emergency Manager Don Weatherspoon said, “Nothing is going to be perfect in its first year.”

Weatherspoon says it’s “very easy for people to develop negative impressions” about the district and says that’s wrong. He says it’s unfair to judge the new system too soon.

He’s expected to hire an outside consultant to independently evaluate the charter companies running Muskegon Heights and Highland Park schools. He’s now managing both school districts.

Listen
0:52
Don Weatherspoon says the community has regrouped around the new school district, and it’s wrong to develop negative impressions.

He points out Mosaica is working with community groups to re-open the high school pool. The company is working on a teacher retention program, and he says student enrollment is higher than he expected.

Last year there were 1,265 students at MHPS. This year there were 1,112 on student count day in October. But Mosaica’s records show attendance had increased to 1,211 by late November. Mosaica had more than 1,400 students in their budget plan that was adopted by the charter school board in July.

Weatherspoon estimates it’ll take the old school district up to 20 years to pay off all its debt. He points to the community’s support for a property tax renewal in November as proof they’ve “regrouped” around the new school system.

“If you look at where this community has been and what it’s done for itself you’ve got to say ‘wow’, because at the beginning of this year there was total despair,” Weatherspoon said. “Now, did some things happen that were disruptive? Absolutely, and there were some hard decisions that had to be made.”

Listen
1:05
Don Weatherspoon on whether he thinks students in the new charter school system in Muskegon Heights are getting a good education.

Could this happen to other cash-strapped Michigan school districts?

Weatherspoon was appointed to run the district in April 2012 under Public Act 4, commonly known as the emergency manager law. That law allowed managers to break union contracts, in this case laying off the school staff, and forming the new charter school district, which then hired Mosaica Education.

He got all that done before Public Act 4 was put on hold and eventually repealed by voters in November. At that point, a former version of the emergency manager law took effect, a version that would not authorize an emergency manager to break union contracts.

“Yes, we were very fortunate that we got (the charter contract) done when we did,” Muskegon Heights Public Schools attorney Gary Britton said in November 2012, shortly after Public Act 4 was repealed.

Governor Rick Snyder just signed a new emergency manager law. It goes into effect later this spring.

Under the new law, the privatization of a school district could happen. Emergency managers will once again have the power to break part or all of union contracts; although there are more stipulations in the new law.

Governor Snyder on privatizing public schools: “The kids don’t care”

Enlarge image
Credit Lindsey Smith / Michigan Radio
Governor Snyder’s tour bus parked in front of a hotel in downtown Grand Rapids just before the November election. Don Weatherspoon and others supporting Public Act 4 rode along.

I got a chance to sit down with Governor Snyder shortly before the November election. He was taking a tour bus across the state to urge voters not to repeal the emergency manager law he signed. Don Weatherspoon was along for the ride.

“Bankruptcy is not a trivial act. It’s a major issue,” Snyder said. The basis for the law was that one city or school district’s bankruptcy will hurt the credit rating of not only that district, but the credit rating of surrounding communities and the state’s too. So the law gave emergency managers broad powers to avoid bankruptcy.

I asked what Snyder thought of a private, for-profit company running a whole public school district, like in Muskegon Heights school (and Highland Park schools).

Listen
0:19
In late October, Governor Rick Snyder says the concern shouldn’t be about who runs schools, but whether students are getting a great education.

“The real question isn’t ‘are they not for profit or for profit?’ It’s ‘are the kids getting a great education?” Snyder answered.

“The kids don’t care,” Snyder continued, “I’ve never had a child come up and say, you know, I need to have a for-profit or a not-for-profit. They want to get a great education, so that’s the driving consideration in this whole discussion.”

The new emergency manager law (Public Act 436) does require managers to submit an “education plan” to the state. But the conditions under which the “emergency” is triggered or resolved are financial, not academic in nature.

The new law provides more options for financially troubled school districts and municipalities up front (options besides the appointment of an emergency manager), and a more clear transition process once the finances are in order.

David Arsen is a Professor in the Department of Educational Administration at Michigan State University’s College of Education. He co-authored a study on Public Act 4 shortly before it was repealed in November that concluded the law “does not address student learning and could even hurt academic performance in high-need communities.”

Arsen says it would be “hard for the very best administrators in the state to avoid deficits” given the situations in such districts. He says state education policies, particularly funding policies, can play a big role in those districts getting into deficits in the first place.

“As much as we’d like to think so, these are problems that can’t be solved simply by changing the boss. It’s wishful thinking,” Arsen said.

Arsen says Public Act 4 didn’t have “basic provisions” for academic accountability. He noted that emergency managers were required to have expertise in business and finance, but the law says nothing about required experience in education if a manager is appointed to a school district.

A read-through of both the now repealed Public Act 4 and the new Public Act 436 shows identical requirements for those individuals considered to be emergency managers.

(a) The emergency manager shall have a minimum of 5 years’ experience and demonstrable expertise in business, financial, or local or state budgetary matters.

(b) The emergency manager may, but need not, be a resident of the local government.

(c) The emergency manager shall be an individual.

Arsen declined to comment on the new emergency manager law, since he has not had adequate time to study it yet.

Public Act 436 goes into effect March 27th, 2012.

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Categories Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, For-Profit, Honor Roll, Michigan, Privatization
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