My guest blogger today is Mike Deshotels of Louisiana.
Deshotels taught Chemistry and Physics at Zachary High School near Baton Rouge starting in 1966. He served as Research Director for the Louisiana Association of Educators and moved to the position of Executive Director for the LAE/NEA before retiring. He now writes a blog called The Louisiana Educator. The site is louisianaeducator.blogspot.com.
Here he explains how Governor Bobby Jindal is reforming the teaching profession in Louisiana.
The Truth About Teacher Reforms in Louisiana
Diane Ravitch asked me to write a guest post on education reform in Louisiana and suggested that I attempt to tell the untold story. Upon considering this, I realized that there was a major untold story about the destructive attacks on the teaching profession in Louisiana. I chose to tell this story because I fear similar efforts may soon be attempted in many other states. If you believe in teaching as a profession, be forewarned. The profession could be dismantled in your state just as we are witnessing in Louisiana.
Outsourcing of teaching jobs: I posted a story on my blog at http://louisianaeducator.blogspot.com/2012_09_16_archive.html about teaching jobs in Louisiana verses chicken processing jobs. Our governor Bobby Jindal talks a lot about attracting highly-skilled or college-trained jobs to Louisiana. He has a Department of Economic Development that uses a special taxpayer supported fund to attract high tech business to Louisiana. But contrary to his rhetoric, a couple of years ago some of his legislative allies in North Louisiana became alarmed about a chicken processing plant that may close down and ship operations and jobs to another state. The Governor’s economic development department stepped in and subsidized this company with millions of our dollars to bribe them to keep their chicken butchering operations in Louisiana. Later on, I was informed that about half of these unskilled workers are actually coming over the border from Arkansas. Soon after this Governor Jindal pushed a new law in Louisiana that will allow for outsourcing of teaching jobs to out-of-state virtual providers. (Course Choice Programs may soon be coming to your state!) So now K12 and Connections Academy and others will be allowed to recruit students from Louisiana along with their education taxes to pay for computer based virtual courses taught by persons from out of state. The new law also allows our state DOE to waive some of the certification requirements of these far away teachers. Who knows, soon our kids may be taught by teachers in India. This outsourcing was approved even though statistics show that our much maligned public schools perform much better on average than any of the virtual schools.
Teacher certification standards reduced: Now because of education reform in Louisiana, public charter schools are allowed to hire non-certified teachers. All one needs to teach any subject or grade in a charter school in Louisiana is a bachelor’s degree in any field. Just last week, the Jindal controlled state board repealed a requirement that all public schools go through periodic accreditation by an independent accrediting agency. This means that there will be no independent checking of teacher certification. In the same meeting the state board repealed requirements for staffing schools with guidance counselors and librarians and also reduced PE classes. I assume these actions are supposed to minimize distractions to test teaching and test prepping.
Teacher Evaluation Based 100% on VAM: A law was passed in 2010 requiring that all teachers in Louisiana be evaluated starting this year with a new evaluation instrument based 50% on student performance. The other 50% is supposed to be based on observations of the teacher’s classroom techniques by his/her supervisor. But contrary to the law, our state superintendent has adopted rules requiring in certain cases that value added student performance (VAM) may count for 100%. Our new state superintendent, John White, who has zero experience in teacher supervision or evaluation has mandated that when a teacher’s value added score falls in the unacceptable range, the teacher will be rated as unsatisfactory no matter how good the rating on the principal’s observation portion. In addition, DOE overseers will monitor the performance of local evaluators to see if their observation results are in line with the VAM portion. It is expected that corrective action may be considered against any evaluators who do not rate teachers similar to their VAM score. Even worse, since all the teacher observation data is entered on a state computer system, the computer can be programed to point out discrepancies between the VAM and the observer evaluations. That’s why many conclude that the teacher evaluations will be based 100% on VAM data.
Unreliable VAM data used for teacher evaluation and termination: Since VAM will be so important in a teacher’s evaluation, one would assume that the VAM is an extremely reliable system. It is not! We now have enough data from trial runs of the VAM in Louisiana that we can do analysis of the reliability or the stability of VAM data. Stability of VAM refers to the amount of variability of a teacher’s VAM score from one year to the next if the teacher teaches exactly the same way both years. Analysis by Wayne Free of the Louisiana Association of Education’s Instruction division was verified by another study conducted by independent researcher, Dr Mercedes Schneider. Dr Schneider found for example, that if a teacher is rated as highly effective one year, the chance that the same teacher will be rated as highly effective the next year is only 46% (that is without changing any teaching practices). A similar result was found with teachers scoring in other rankings of VAM. Thousands of teachers can easily drop from a satisfactory rating to an unsatisfactory rating from one year to the next even though their teaching remains exactly the same. State officials say that’s OK because a teacher is not required to be terminated based on only one year’s VAM. But only one year of an ineffective rating on VAM will automatically cancel a teacher’s tenure, which means the teacher can be fired immediately without a hearing of any kind.
Teacher evaluation program administered by a two year teacher: If teachers were a bit nervous that the new evaluation system may abruptly end their careers, they were pushed to outrage when they learned that the statewide evaluation system will be administered by a TFA corps member with only two years of teaching, no valid teaching certificate, and no experience in supervision. (http://louisianaeducator.blogspot.com/search?updated-max=2012-10-05T06:52:00-05:00&max-results=2&reverse-paginate=true) Many teachers consider this appointment by the state superintendent to be an insult to the entire teaching profession in our state.
The rigged tenure process: One of the reform laws passed in the last legislative session changes the tenure process for teachers recommended for dismissal. Now the tenure hearing panel will be composed of three hearing officers. One is to be appointed by the local superintendent, one appointed by the teacher’s principal and the third appointed by the teacher. So if the principal and the superintendent agree that the teacher should be dismissed, the hearing process begins with two out of three votes against the teacher. Unlike the previous procedure, there is no judicial appeal. Teachers may wonder why bother with such a kangaroo court?
Teacher seniority banned: The Jindal reforms have replaced seniority rights with the teacher’s most recent evaluation rank. For example, a teacher with 20 years of superior evaluations, but one year of unsatisfactory evaluation possibly because of VAM, would place the teacher at the top of the list to be laid off when the school system orders a RIF.
State Superintendent sets quota for teacher dismissals: As part of the new teacher accountability system included in the Louisiana ESEA No Child Left Behind Waiver approval, the guidelines have set a minimum of 10% of teachers to be found ineffective and placed on a track for dismissal by the new evaluation system each year. (This 10% rule only applies to teachers receiving a VAM score) I asked the state superintendent if the 10% would be applied each year or if it would be limited in some way. He responded that such a quota was to be applied each year until the State Board determined that it was no longer necessary. This idea looked so good to a local school board committee advised by a couple of TFA staffers, that the school system’s new strategic plan will require that the bottom 25% of teachers in the system based on the VAM evaluation would be fired each year!
Remove teacher union payroll deductions: For the coming legislative session, Governor Jindal and his business allies are proposing to eliminate payroll deductions for teacher union dues. But they want to specifically exempt a particular teacher organization that has gone along with all the reform efforts. Many believe the purpose of this proposal is to punish the teacher unions who along with the School Board’s Association have been successful in getting the courts to declare the method for funding the Governor’s vouchers to private schools unconstitutional.
So how are the Louisiana teacher reforms working so far? Here is a link to a recent article in the Baton Rouge Advocate (http://theadvocate.com/news/4902526-123/rate-of-teachers-retiringspikes) that describes a 27% increase in teacher retirements last year with an even greater increase expected this year. Some superintendents are reporting that these early retirements often are some of the most respected teachers in their systems who may be impossible to replace with equal talent. That’s how the teacher reforms in Louisiana are working so far.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Diane, You must ask for a guest blog post to be written about what is happening in education in Ontario. We’re going through the same problems here with education, austerity and the teaching profession being systematically devalued.
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“I fear similar efforts may soon be attempted in many other states.”
You’re a little late to that party. Louisiana may be ahead of the curve, but similar efforts have already started in many, if not most, other states.
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Dienne, you are correct. Many states are clearly and boldly not abiding by the suggestions of the latest researcher – even by reformers themselves. The psychometricians and econometricians, that have more to do with the evaluation of teachers than any other person or party, have clearly suggested that VAM not be used for high-stakes purposes.
Many states are counting VAM as virtually 100% of a teacher’s evaluation by automatically labeling them as “ineffective” or “in needs of improvement” if their VAM outcome labels them as such, regardless of the classroom observation piece. This obviously means that a principal may love a teacher’s work in the classroom, and rate the teacher with high regard, only to see the teacher labeled “ineffective” or “in needs of improvement”. Of course many administrators, as has been observed in HISD TX, will simply rate teachers in line with VAM outcomes.
This is such a bold, incompetent move, I can only conclude that those in charge at the state departments, of such states that are taking this approach, are purposefully attacking the teaching profession in hopes many of us leave or get fired.
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I teach at a college in Texas who is closing its teacher education program because of lack of students. Who would go into the teaching profession with this type of tyranny and stupidity? No one.
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What college is this and has it been reported in a newspaper?
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Here is the big take away.
“The guidelines have set a minimum of 10% of teachers to be found ineffective and placed on a track for dismissal by the new evaluation system each year. ”
So, no matter how great the teachers are, no matter how hard they work, no matter how much ground they covered with struggling students…. There WILL BE a bottom 10%.
Great system, right?
Please check out the article from Vanity Fair on the stack ranking system used to evaluate employees at…
wait for it,
wait for it,
Microsoft.
It will sound very familiar.
http://www.vanityfair.com/online/daily/2012/07/microsoft-downfall-emails-steve-ballmer
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O.K., so how do we get that message out to the public? The deformers are using Gates’ failed management style to dismantle public schools with invalid metrics. Why are people listening to this man?
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I wish I knew why anyone listens to this man!
As for getting the message out….
Suggestions?
Anyone?
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Look how far we have come — ten years ago I was shocked (well almost) because a rumor was going around my school in the Bronx that higher up administrators had imposed a quota of ‘unsatisfactory’ teacher ratings. The rumor was that my Assistant Principal — let’s call him Mr.Tuncan–, with at least one other, had refused to go along, refused to give unsatisfactory rankings he felt were unjustified and was, in turn, himself given an unsatisfactory ranking. He placed himself between the mechanisms of assessment and the desire of administrators to cull the ranks.
Both APs later confirmed this is what had happened.
One left the district, when to a suburb, but the other, Mr. Tuncan, my AP, stayed. He will always be a bit of a hero to me. He was nearing retirement, the cost to him was substantial — no raise and a lower salary on which to base his pension. My guess — about $50,000, maybe $80,000 in lost salary and pension benefits.
I thought this was a great scandal. Now i know it is the law in Louisiana. Not only there, however, but soon to be elsewhere because of the deals the US DOE is making with people to get waivers for NCLB — the program Arne Duncan says is busted, flawed and broken (those are his talking points) — are destroying teaching. So, as for heroes, Mr. Tuncan yes, Arne Duncan, no. One of them is a man of whom his children should be proud.
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Stll can’t get over it. I guess I should have expected something like this, but not so blatant as the Louisiana quota for teacher dismissals:
“As part of the new teacher accountability system included in the Louisiana ESEA No Child Left Behind Waiver approval, the guidelines have set a minimum of 10% of teachers to be found ineffective and placed on a track for dismissal by the new evaluation system each year.”
Let’s keep in mind that this was the deal that Arne Duncan accepted –likely encouraged– when using the waivers on NCLB as a stick to get states to comply with his program to turn teaching into piece work. They are crazed.
And Louisiana has accepted the Jack Welch policy of firing 10% of the work force every year. Even Eric Hanushek, quoted incessantly by Gates and the New Teacher project, of Stanford and the Hoover Institution, who writes in the Wall Street journal about how we need to fire 5 to 8% of teachers — the man who coined the term ‘deselection’ — yes, even Hanuschek is against this.
Hanuschek does say 5 to 10%, but NOT every year.
Indeed, his figures on annual ‘deselection,’ once a one time adjustment has been made, are less than 1%.
His argument
“does not say that we need to replace an additional 5-10 percent each year. If we once got the stock of teachers up to par, we need only worry about the small percentage of new teachers each year that fall below the acceptable range. We are talking about trimming out just the new teachers who prove to be ineffective.” (This is word for word from Eduwonk, 31 Oct 2011)
So, even if one is left to believe otherwise, by Gates, Rhee and the New Teacher Project, Hanuschek’s proposal is not Jack Welch replacing the bottom 5-10 percent of all workers every year – it is a one shot followed by replacing the bottom 5 to 10 percent of new teachers, something along the line of 0.35 to 0.7 percent of all teachers, in subsequent years.
Thought you should know.
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One last thing, I noticed Mr. Deshotels used
the phrase “Public Charter Schools”
that is really unhelpful.
Please don’t say “Public Charter Schools”
The phrase is an oxymoron.
Charter Schools are not public schools —
they are schools which are privately run,
but receive public monies.
Ten years ago I was not against charters, but right
now they are being used as way to cut costs and
provide a lesser education to our young.
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True that!
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The lie that charter schools are public schools must be exposed. They are private schools created in order to rip taxpayers off of public monies that should belong to public schools.
Charter schools were promoted by the likes of the Bradley Foundation after vouchers to private schools proved totally unpopular with voters.
I am amazed people still fall for the “charter schools are public schools” nonsense.
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Michael Deshotels does a great job of outlining the horrible truth about the so-called education “reforms” in Louisiana. The details get worse and worse. Today in The Advocate, the largest newspaper in Louisiana and one that has taken a public position in support of “reform efforts” based, in large part on a failure to understand the relation of “education” to “schooling,” there is a wonderful article http://bit.ly/UyUTYq pointing out that all sides in the education discussions are totally dissatisfied with the destruction and removal of historical educational data from the Louisiana Department of Education Website. As is often the case in The Advocate, a better story exists in a reading of the comments than in the article itself. Many of us who follow education reform in Louisiana believe this is a blatant attempt to prevent criticism of the reforms based on actual data. In addition, a recent article that Deshotels referenced about teacher retirements was supposedly “challenged” by a follow up article http://bit.ly/falseclaim based on a totally bogus (depending on one’s view of intellectual honesty) or at least patently misdirected piece of propaganda from the Louisiana Department of Education designed to obfuscate the truth about the effects on the “reforms” on our experienced teachers in Louisiana. In this “report” put out by the Department of Education, which specifically DID NOT EVEN FOCUS ON RETIREMENTS, the administration tried a bait and switch to say that the “attrition” was actually improving education. The report failed to note that a higher percentage of teachers were leaving with “highly effective” ratings than with “ineffective” ratings on VAM, it also failed to address the actual article it was designed to counter. That is, it had NO DATA to suggest that the increases in teacher retirements (of experienced teachers eligible for retirement) was inaccurate. It remains to local school districts in Louisiana to now pay all future health care costs for a larger retiree pool along with the health care costs for new hires. In Louisiana, local districts are responsible for retiree health care costs, not the state. So, as is always the case, the local districts, cash strapped by the policies of the “reformers” are now bearing even more of the burdens. And of course, the reformers claim to be focused on students, and not “the adults in the building.” Now the students have fewer experienced teachers and fewer dollars available for their education, all based on the predicted outcomes of the reformers actions.
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I’ve been saying that education in Louisiana is like the Twilight Zone taking place in the Bermuda Triangle, but the more I hear, the more I think that may be too generous a comparison. I just hope I’m not sued by the Bermuda Triangle for defamation.
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“They” are saying that the observation data that has been input so far shows ratings that are way too high. That is why they decided to allow for tweaking the eval scores of the teachers who fall in the middle range. This too will be manipulated.
A note- there is nothing in law that says teachers who are dismissed for ineffective ratings cannot be rehired, so if the stupid legislators don’t pass another stupid law, it might turn out OK. There is nothing in law that says teachers have to be licensed, so if they take away licenses from teachers, they should be OK too.
They are getting ready to outsource teacher certification so no one will be able to know how many teachers are uncertified.
You have no idea of the depth of the deceit.
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