Archives for the month of: August, 2012
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The Future of National Board Certification of Teachers

By dianeravitch
August 7, 2012 //
52

Nancy Flanagan is a nationally known teacher and teacher-advocate. I am honored to post her comment here because she has deep authority. And what she has to say is alarming. Pearson has taken over the National Board Certification process! Will they align it with their tests and the Common Core, where they are funded by Gates to develop online resources?

I am a National Board Certified Teacher. I also worked for the National Board as a certificate developer, assessor, and in their teacher leadership and policy outreach divisions, then returned to the classroom. I have seen National Board Certification from all sides.

First–there have been well over 200 studies done on NB Certification, and nearly all show that NBC Teachers are highly effective. The studies have been done by major research institutions as well as university-based critics of national certification for teachers, and have examined all aspects of the process. The National Research Council published a federally funded, well-respected meta-analysis of the major studies in 2008, during the Bush admin: http://www8.nationalacademies.org/onpinews/newsitem.aspx?RecordID=12224

One more–here is a report written by actual teachers, analyzing the impact of National Board Certification on their practice, as well as a couple dozen major research reports. It addresses some of the familiar objections and remarks found in the comments on this blog:http://www.nbpts.org/userfiles/File/CTQ_Report_FINAL.pdf

In short, research has convincingly demonstrated that NBCTs are effective. Not “better” than other teachers–effective. And especially effective in low-performing schools–which supports state policies that provide stipends for NBCTs.

There are many candidates, like Teacher from the West, who find that they’re already reflecting daily, planning carefully, delivering instruction using multiple paths to learning, and assessing carefully– and that going through the process is simply an exercise in exhaustively documenting that practice. Others see NB Cert as professional development, learning to do things they weren’t doing before–and either experience is beneficial to kids and learning.

Yes, the NB experience feels annoyingly nit-picky. But that’s about psychometric integrity, not the NB being overly rule-bound. In order for scores to be psychometrically valid and reliable, teachers have to follow explicit assessment rules. It’s annoying–but clean assessment procedures are what yield useable data.

Here’s what I worry about: NBPTS has now been taken over by Pearson. The teacher-led, teacher-developed goals of the original founders’ mission–using teacher expertise to shape education reform–are so far from what we’re doing now it’s frightening. And–the US Dept Of Ed decided not to put the National Board in their last budget. They gave $$ to Teach for America instead.

Perhaps–as a profession–we need to be worried about the one major national attempt to set professional standards of practice. That fact that many states are dismantling their NBC programs (since they’re not getting federal money) is a harbinger of more de-skilling and de-professionalizing to come.
Categories Accountability, Pearson, Teacher Evaluations, Testing

How Charters Prosper

By dianeravitch
August 7, 2012 //
5

This is a good one. Florida charter chain Charter USA is expanding into Indiana, where it will run three charter schools. It is a for-profit operator. The states where it operates don’t require it to spend any minimum on educating kids. So it has enough money left over in its profits to make political contributions. According to our friend Coach Sikes, Charter USA contributed to the political campaign of state superintendent Tony Bennett, who in turn will be real friendly in granting more charters so they will have more profits to contribute to more political campaigns. Florida taxpayers are subsidizing Indiana’s race for state superintendent.

Remember education reform? Oh, that.

Categories Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Florida, For-Profit, Indiana

Who Is Really an Irreplaceable Teacher?

By dianeravitch
August 7, 2012 //
11

We have lately heard that certain teachers are “irreplaceable.” So was the conclusion of a report by The New Teacher Project, an organization founded by Michelle Rhee to place new teachers in the classroom. TNTP always thinks big ideas that will push out experienced teachers and make room for the new teachers they recruit. TNPT is enamored with test scores as the bottom-line measure of good teaching because they are convinced their new teachers will raise test scores faster and higher than veteran teachers. Whether this is so, it is hard to say because the new teachers have never taught before and one year of data doesn’t mean much. So maybe after three or four years, it is possible to test their claims. The larger question, which TNTP never addresses or considers unimportant, is whether the ability to raise test scores is the very best way to measure who is a good teacher, who is irreplaceable.

Here is the tip-off to their self-interest: “In fact, in these districts, 40 percent of teachers with more than seven years of experience are less effective at advancing academic progress than the average first-year teacher.” Imagine that! The average first-year teachers (that is, the ones you can get if you work with TNTP) are far more effective that 40 percent of teachers with more than seven years experience! You can see where this is leading: experience is irrelevant because those great first-year teachers are better than 40 percent of the veterans. Why not ditch tenure and seniority and get rid of 40 percent of anyone who has taught for more than seven years? Unfortunately, the report laments, those ineffective experienced teachers were making more money than the average first-year teacher, which struck TNTP as blatantly unfair! Why not pay the highly effective, irreplaceable first-year teachers even more than the seven-year veterans and fire the veterans? I’m not clear about how they know first-year teachers are irreplaceable when they have no data until they are in their second year or third or fourth or fifth year. And maybe they are just good test-drill instructors. But since I don’t understand why anyone would think the way TNTP thinks, I can’t explain their thinking. Read it for yourself.

When the New York Times wrote its editorial advocating carrots and sticks, it was responding to the TNTP report, taking it as fact and truth.

Here is a different point of view about who is irreplaceable:

I was a good teacher before I went through National Boards. It was a grueling process–I had three episodes of shingles during that year, and cried the entire month of January. But I came out the other end a much better teacher, and I can document the impact I’ve had on student learning and student lives. If you’re NBCT, you’re highly effective–one might even say you’re one of the “irreplaceable” teachers that are beginning to make the news. BUT…you can’t use test scores to show student learning–it’s a much more complex and subtle process of actually looking at students as individuals and measuring learning in many ways. This is not comprehensible to anal-retentive number-crunching business-type reformers, who see the world in black and white–their world is binary. Research has shown that NBCTs are highly effective teachers. Several of my fellow NBCTs are leaving teaching for the private sector, and many others are retiring early, because of the “reforms” in education. So not only are the reformers destroying a program that increases teacher effectiveness, they’re driving effective teachers out of the classroom. I’m sad for our students, because they’re the ones that are getting the raw deal.
Categories Corporate Reformers, Education Reform, Rhee, Michelle, Teacher Evaluations, Teacher Tenure, Teachers and Teaching, Testing

When Merit Pay Went Wrong

By dianeravitch
August 7, 2012 //
1

A thought-provoking comment by Jere Hochman, the remarkable superintendent of the Bedford, New York, school district:

Merit pay existed well before the corporate interest in the ’80s / ’90s, the Governors’ attention in the ’90s, the Federal Intrusion in ’01, and the recent corporate takeover of politicians and state education. (Hopefully an unintended consequence of RTTT).

Several school districts had “merit” pay plans in place in the ’70s and ’80s with at least two presumptions: 1) Motivate and provide incentives (not just monetary) for leadership development, innovation, action-research, and professional growth in areas of interest and school direction. 2) Distinguish compensation for those who “seem” (no data used then) to be teaching at higher levels of proficiency but mostly expertise. Early research was clear on the development of novice vs. expert professionals so in lieu of or complementing the traditional step schedule, raises for continued growth and expertise that gets results.

Sadly, the politicians and state education / corporations have co-opted the model as a fixed pay-for-learning-to-follow-scripts-that-get-results model while stripping the schools of creativity, innovation, and intrinsic motivation. But let’s not throw the baby out with the bathwater (the way we have with just about everything else in education). Teachers are eager. They are on a mission. In spite of the rhetoric, they are not all about unions and raises, and clock-punching – the good ones just depend on the outspoken unions to protect them from unfair practices of the past. (Yes – it’s gone too far in counting minutes and pay-for-everything but there are millions of remarkable teachers in this for children and, yes, a fair wage, benefit, and protection). Teachers are motivated to continue learning and reaching every student – and those who pursue leadership and continued innovation and growth toward expertise should be compensated (again, not for sit-and-get credit workshops and poor online courses).

There was/is/can be great value (and return-on-investments for those who follow that) in “merit pay” but not the way the politicians and corporate quick-fixers are defining it. It’s time to take it all back: curriculum, pedagogy, innovation, bona-fide authentic evaluation, minimal standardized testing and more local authentic assessment, and professional development.

Categories Merit pay, Teachers and Teaching

What Charters Do to Public Schools

By dianeravitch
August 7, 2012 //
5

There is a growing danger in the expansion of charter schools. Propelled by the Obama administration’s Race to the Top, charters are increasing wherever they are legal (they are not authorized in nine states). They are supposed to be fonts of innovation, but most are just focused on test scores, to prove they are better than public schools.

But the danger is that when students leave for charter schools, those left behind are disproportionately ELL, special ed, and struggling students. This threatens the future of public education, which enrolls most students in America.

Competition was supposed to make schools better, but it doesn’t work that way. The charters are siphoning off the top students and weakening the whole system. What is odd is that charters on average do no better than public schools, and many are far worse, even with the skimming.

This teacher tells what is happening in her school:

Enlisting parents is no easy task.  At least not in my school.  Every year more than half my students opt for charter schools.  Charters don’t allow pre-k yet so parents have no choice.
Many parents see charters as a magic bullet and those children who are compliant do well.
As a result, my school continues to have more and more high needs students; students whose parents already know that the charters won’t take their child and students who are been “counseled out of a charter” and are back in my school.  It’s a downward spiral.

 

Categories Charter Schools

But He Didn’t Mention His Test Scores

By dianeravitch
August 7, 2012 //
4

An amazing exchange took place on this blog.

I posted a comment by a reader who gratefully remembered four teachers in the Chicago public schools who literally changed his life.

One of the four teachers responded.

And the original writer wrote back:

Wow! Thank you, Miss Schwartz!Of the teachers that I mentioned, you actually impacted my life the most. At the time, I was primarily into writing, but I learned from you that, in order to improve one’s writing, one must read. At that point, I had not enjoyed reading and actually avoided it, and I was a rather rebellious adolescent… However, you were patient and inspiring… After exploring different genres and concepts with you, I discovered that there were many books I wanted to read, as well as many things in the world that I wanted to read about. Ever since, I’ve been interested in learning about virtually everything and my library has been my prized possession.

You also alerted me to my first two teaching jobs, working with preschoolers in Head Start and tutoring primary aged kids who were struggling readers. I had never planned to become a teacher, but that resulted in my 44 year long teaching career. (And, yes, I know what it’s like to have students return to touch base years later, too…!)

Thank you ever so much for appreciating my strengths, opening up the world to me (and me to it), and setting me on such an intrinsically rewarding path! Forever grateful (and sorry that I was not an easy kid)–
Categories Education Reform, Teachers and Teaching

Why Governor Christie Can’t Wait

By dianeravitch
August 7, 2012 //
9

As this article shows, Governor Chris Christie of New Jersey has decided that the state needs charter schools so badly that he can’t wait for the Legislature to act. He plans to do by regulation what the Legislature has thus far failed to do: To allow more charter schools and possibly an online charter school as well.

What’s the hurry?

The evidence is clear that charters don’t get different results from public schools when they enroll the same children. And the evidence is equally clear that online charters get worse results than public schools. There is no miracle in calling a school a charter, although it is true that nearly 90% of charters are non-union. Maybe that’s the point of having more charters: to get rid of union jobs.

There may be another reason for the governor’s impatience. As an article in the Star-Ledger showed last April, many of Christie’s bills are closely aligned with the ALEC model legislation. ALEC calls for charters that receive the same funding as public schools, and for for-profit online schools.

The Legislature is dragging its feet.

But Governor Christie can’t let Bobby Jindal and other rightwing governors outdo him in putting the ALEC plans into action.

Categories ALEC, Charter Schools, Education Reform, New Jersey

Teachers, Join with Parents

By dianeravitch
August 7, 2012 //
5

A reader writes–and I agree with him. A good place to start is to go to the website of Parents Across America. This is a national organization of activist parents who understand what is happening. They oppose high-stakes testing and privatization and they support teachers and professionalism. They are smart and they are fearless. Learn about PAA and reach out to the parents you know. You have interests in common: You both care about the same kids.

It is important to enlist parents in the fight. Easier said than done, I know, but we are toast if parents blithely accept the “value” being imparted on their kids.

As a group, we teachers have contributed to our relatively weak position by leaving parents out or worse. School policy should be driven by students, parents and teachers. Were we a collective, people who aren’t paying particular attention now would see who is actually deciding what schools should be and what their interests are.
Categories Parent Groups, Parents

Note to New York Times: What Motivates Teachers

By dianeravitch
August 7, 2012 //
2

In response to our discussion about merit pay, this teacher writes:

We become teachers for the rewarding feeling we get from touching childrens lives, not for the money. If that feeling is stripped from us, what or who will be left?

 

Categories Merit pay, Teachers and Teaching

The Ten Elements of Digital Learning

By dianeravitch
August 7, 2012 //
14

Doing some research on for-profit virtual schools, I come across study after study about their poor performance, high attrition rates, and low graduation rates.

But then I discovered a document produced by Jeb Bush’s Foundation for Excellent Education and Bob Wise’s Alliance for Excellent Education. It is called “the Ten Elements of Digital Learning” and it is a rallying cry for deregulation and proliferation of every manner of virtual education, including for-profit virtual charters.

Among other recommendations, it says that teachers should not be certified, as that would hamper innovation and diminish quality. It claims that digital learning will transform education, close the achievement gaps, and narrow the income divide in American society. It promises the world, in short. Digital learning is the magic bullet, so it says.

It does not take note of the studies that say that digital schools underperform brick-and-mortar schools.

The report was funded by–no surprise–the Gates Foundation, the Broad Foundation, and the Walton Foundation.

Maybe it is the Magna Carta of virtual schooling. But the gap between promise and reality is a giant canyon.

Categories Broad Foundation, Bush, Jeb, Charter Schools, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, For-Profit, Gates Foundation, Bill Gates, On-Line Education, Technology, Computers
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