Want to know how well “reform” is working in Houston? Read this. I wish Superintendent Terry Grier would read it too. I would love to get a comment from him in response to this letter.
This letter is about a teacher awakening to the grim political reality of what is deceptively called “education reform.” Her letter should go viral.
She writes:
“This is the sick process education reform has created in big city districts. They just churn through teachers, especially new ones, as fast as they can with no regard to the person’s life, skill set, or qualifications. The harm they do to the students by destabilizing their neighborhood schools cannot be measured. They don’t care if you are a blazing success in the classroom; your teaching certificate is basically meaningless to the administration.
She goes on to add:
” In the student’s mind, a standard classroom teacher is a disposable throwaway. They see no reason to follow the rules, do their homework, or take the exams seriously. They know the teacher will probably get fired, possibly in the middle of the year. They have no respect for their teacher, and no reason to believe their teacher has any ability to discipline or instruct.
“This is the message inner city students have been receiving for over a decade. This is the message reformers convey to the students, the parents, and the taxpayer.
“At new teacher orientation you are led to believe something much different; at the job fair, and in the media, you are told that working for HISD is wonderful, with a fair evaluation system, great pay, and fabulous bonuses.
“Working at HISD is the biggest mistake I have ever made.
“I was warned about education reform. I was told not to do this, and I didn’t listen.
“Honestly, I didn’t even know what “education reform” meant…I thought it was a bunch of talented people swapping ideas about how to best educate the children of poverty. I thought it would be fun, challenging, and engaging. In my ridiculous mind, I could see a group of teachers sharing ideas, lesson plans, and stories. I really believed I was going to learn something positive about public school. I didn’t know it was a scam engineered to deprofessionalize the teaching business, and hand the jobs off to cash strapped ivy leaguers that couldn’t find positions in their fields of study.
“Now I know that people like Michelle Rhee made millions off the backs of the teachers she fired. I know that most of these people have cheated, including some in my own Apollo program. The Atlanta Journal Constitution even did a nationwide study, and can prove mathematically that these districts have failed to educate these students in spite of their “so-called” reforms. This wrong-to-right erasure math is indisputable…
“As for me, I don’t need a study; I can tell everyone about the chaos, the achievement gap, the poverty, the filth, the lies, and the smokescreen.
“It is funny that Arne Duncan (Obama’s Secretary of Education #erasetothetop) came out here and toured Lee HS with my SIO, and he listened to a few talented students, and the police cracked down on the school before his arrival, and they managed to sign up all of the students to some kind of college (mostly 2 year institutions) and convince Arnie that it is a “turnaround success.” But you only have to look at him closely to see he is a Walmart kind of guy. And now we have the privatization of the public trust…we have the Walton Foundation, The Broad Foundation, The Gates Foundation, and countless other vultures, and venture capitalists, including Pearson (the great testing empire), all throwing money to this “teacher witch hunt” fully engaged in the age-old philosophy of “you gotta spend a buck to make a buck.” So, they are making the bucks off of me and my students, and I am helpless to stop them.”
Diane Ravitch's blog 
We are a quick fix, make a buck, capitalize on a crisis, screw your neighbor, stab a teacher in the back, throw the kids under the bus, make a name for yourself, throwaway society.
Every child deserves an honest, decent, trustworthy president and secretary of education, but that isn’t going to happen. The fish rots from the head down.
The description above IS the national crisis, not the one fabricated by Condoleezza and Joel.
“Every child deserves an honest, decent, trustworthy president and secretary of education….”
We need to voice that as loudly as possible. Our kids and country deserve leaders who put kids first. Yes, it is a national crisis.
Linda, might I amend: “capitalize on a manufactured (or made up) crisis.” Like the boo-hoo-we-have-no-money-CPS-Philadelpia-NY-so we-have-to-close-schools-fire-teachers-move-students…open more charter $chool$!!
Too bad every state can’t have a Katrina, right, Arnie?
Yes, thank you and good point…maybe something supernatural can hover over Arne’s house…wicked bad ass teachers on brooms casting a spell on the edumoron.
Your man Terry??
http://greensboro.rhinotimes.com/Articles-Articles-c-2013-04-17-215475.112113-Principal-Resignation-Tied-To-Fraud.html
The hits keep coming. what a world.
I followed the link and read her letter on her blog. It starts with this statement:
“Read this email from my union rep. This morning we also received an email that states the principals are being told they are not firing enough teachers.”
Hard to know how to respond. Anger? astonishment? outrage? pity? Leadership starts at the top. Where is Obama?
Still in search of his comfortable shoes, so he can walk on the picket lines with us while also wining and dining with Eli and Bill, the owners of the USDOE:
http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=SA9KC8SMu3o
Obama is still trying to figure out how to get the Republicans to agree to his Social Security and Medicare cuts, while Arne helps open the door to monetizing student data.
first grade teacher: “Read this email from my union rep. This morning we also received an email that states the principals are being told they are not firing enough teachers.”
Click on the link provided in Diane’s posting and viewers of this posting will understand why self-styled education reformers despise and fear unions. That’s why I call them “edubullies.” That’s why Linda has labeled them “edufrauds.” They’re nothing but immoral cowards hiding behind their VAManiacal Holy Metrics that they wield as clubs.
Don’t let yourselves be sucker punched.
Don’t agonize, organize.
🙂
Obama has been bought by the billionaires. He went with the money to get into the presidency. He dines with rich people and appoints them to high office. He has been AWOL since the beginning. Look at the worthless Sec. of Ed.
That post and the emails linked in it are chilling.
They put someone from White Hat Management in as a principal!!! You should read about what happened in Ohio regarding White Hat. How low can you go??? Also, the TFA didn’t even have to teach in his area of study!! Wow, thank you Sec. of Ed. for strengthening the teaching profession. I think all of the teachers of every state should sue the state for fraud for requiring them to have a certificate to teach. It costs money to take classes and tests for certification. Shouldn’t the union spearhead this idea with the dues money?? If you don’t need credentials then shouldn’t the teachers get their money back???
Wait…it gets better…read this excerpt and the full article. One course, a few papers, a lunch meeting and less than $3,000 and Vallas competed an 093 certificate to be a superintendent in CT….a program he didn’t even quality to be enrolled in.
This is educronyism on steroids orchestrated by our governor, Dannel Malloy, and the Yale lawyer/ (with no prior teaching experience) commissioner and charter chain founder, Stefan Pryor.
The red carpet is rolled out for the disaster as opportunity creator, Paul Vallas…check out his destruction taking place now in NOLA, Philly and Chicago.
The circus reform train is now in Bridgeport, CT.
Drive by school chief gets an “A”
“In each case it was high quality work,” Villanova said.
Vallas, who testified he never took any graduate courses in education, under questioning by Deputy City Attorney Arthur Laske III, ran through a list of achievements he has made since taking the helm of the Bridgeport school system, including balancing the budget and modernizing the curriculum.
Of the UConn course Vallas said: “I’d like to believe I exceeded expectations.”
Under cross examination by Pattis, Vallas said he paid $2,148 to take the course and didn’t know if he filled out the application forms normally required of prospective university students.
“I paid what I was instructed to pay,” he said.
Final arguments in the case are being presented before the judge Tuesday morning.
http://www.ctpost.com/local/article/Drive-by-schools-chief-gets-an-A-4619498.php
Read here, too…Pelto blog:
Vallas didn’t attend UConn’s Educational Leadership Program because he didn’t have the credentials to get into the program. Instead he took a single three-credit independent study course, which Commissioner Stefan Pryor has been attempting to call a “program” in order to meet the certification law.
But Vallas never applied to go to a UConn program
And Vallas never was accepted to UConn a program
Vallas didn’t pay the UConn application Fee of $75.00
Vallas didn’t pay the General University Fee of $1,368
Vallas didn’t pay the Infrastructure Maintenance Fee of $468
Vallas didn’t pay for Graduate Matriculation Fee of $48
Vallas didn’t pay the Transit Fee of $110
Vallas didn’t pay for the Technology Fee of $150.
What Vallas did pay for was the in-state rate for a three-credit course —- a course his friend, Commissioner Stefan Pryor, is now calling a “program” … A program that Pryor then used to waive Vallas’ need for state certification.
The closing arguments in the lawsuit against Vallas are today.
http://jonathanpelto.com/2013/06/25/pitiful-vallas-and-pryor-performance-on-the-witness-stand-in-the-bridgeport-superintendent-case/
When my sons were in elementary school in Akron, OH in the late 80s-early 90s, we had the misfortune of having Terry Grier as the superintendent at that school district. He is a smooth talking big shot and always has been. He usually skips around from district to district, being bought out because they don’t like him once they see what he is all about. He went to NC and CA and we stopped following him except to see occasional news reports about him throughout the years. He is an opportunist and not respectful of the teaching profession or of parents. I feel pity for Houston. I don’t care how many awards he has received, he has pulled the wool over too many eyes for over 20 years. Sad. Sad. Sad.
Ahh, Terry Grier. He promotes the corporate=style of education “reform” relentlessly. In Houston, superintendent Grier has expanded charters and alternative teacher training (think Teach for America). And,, like many of his compatriot corporate “reformers, Grier keeps promoting the College Board and its products, like Advanced Placement (AP). And he’s brought in money (lots of it) from organizations like the Broad and Gates and Dell Foundations. Despite the voluminous research debunking merit pay, Grier embraces it.
You can read an interview with Grier here:
http://www.scholastic.com/browse/article.jsp?id=3757837
Grier is one of the staunchest supporters of the College Board and its products, from the PSAT to the SAT to the Advanced Placement program. He went around touting (for a long time) the College Board “study” that said PSAT scores predict AP test scores. But the “study” was seriously flawed. A seemingly innocuous statement undermined its validity. The authors noted that “the students included in this study are of somewhat higher ability than…test-takers” in the population to which they are generalized.
That “somewhat higher ability” actually meant students in the sample were a full standard deviation above those 9th and 10th graders who took the PSAT. Even then, the basic conclusion was that students who scored well on the PSAT had about a 50-50 chance of getting a “3” on an AP test (the most common score).
Grier kept talking about the “study,” but he’d never actually read it.
Fairfax County, one of the biggest and “best” suburban school systems in the country recently hired Karen Garza as its new superintendent. Garza was most recently superintendent in Lubbock, Texas. But prior to that she was the Chief Academic Officer for Houston Independent School District. She was a top deputy to Terry Grier.
When Garza left Houston to become superintendent in Lubbock, the Houston district’s news release noted this:
“Dr. Garza led the development of HISD’s ASPIRE program, the school improvement effort that paid more than 18,000 teachers and instructional staff more than $70 million in performance bonuses over the last three years based on the academic improvement of children.”
Houston’s ASPIRE program was developed through a “quick and relatively noncollaborative planning process” that was not transparent and that relied on “a complex formula” that teachers did not understand. Worse, teachers “were not allowed access to the data that formed the basis of their performance awards.” The ASPIRE merit pay plan was funded (in part) by the Broad, Gates and Dell foundations, some of the top supporters of corporate-style education “reform.”
See, for example: http://www.cecr.ed.gov/guides/summaries/HoustonCaseSummary.pdf
Researchers and test experts caution against the use of value-added models to evaluate teachers. They note that “value-add models of teacher effectiveness are highly unstable,” and that “Teachers’ value-added ratings are significantly affected by differences in the students who are assigned to them.” Testing expert Jim Popham says that the use of student test scores to evaluate teachers “runs counter to the most important commandment of educational testing — the need for sufficient validity evidence.”
But Garza called value-added models “proven methodology” that are both “valid and reliable.” She said they offer up “increased accountability for schools, teachers and students.” Researchers say that “Value-added ratings cannot disentangle the many influences on student progress.” The National Research Council concluded that value-added models “should not used to make operational decisions because such estimates are far too unstable to be considered fair or reliable.” Yet Karen Garza said they can be used for “recognizing excellence,” for “informing practice,” and for “improving teaching and learning.” And while value-added models “use complex mathematics” that most educators – most people – do not understand to arrive at teacher evaluation scores, Garza said that value-added “reports are easy to interpret.”
Apparently she knows something that the experts do not. The Lubbock school board president said, in reference to Garza, that “you can’t outthink her.”
News reports note that Garza “focused attention of student test scores” and had a “laser-focus” on those scores. The Post says that under her direction the number of students in Houston passing Advanced Placement tests “set new records.” But Houston had a system that paid both students and teachers for those scores, the most common of which is a “3,” the equivalent of a C-. Worse, research on Advanced Placement courses and tests shows that they are grossly over-hyped and “are frequently inconsistent with the results of the research on cognition and learning.”
Apparently, her work in Houston was a primary reason why Fairfax hired her. The Fairfax school board chair said she wowed the board with “the things she has been able to achieve in various school districts, it’s her vision in leadership.” And Republican board member Elizabeth Schultz said Garza’s arrival represents “the beginning of a sea change in Fairfax.”
You really have to wonder. Why is doing more of the inane considered to be “sea-changing?” Why is attaching school systems to “reforms” that lack a basis in research considered to be “visionary?”
And why are “leaders” like Terry Grier and Karen Garza so often the faces of public education “reform?”
Democracy, I laughed the whole way through the interview. What a big bunch of reform BS. This man is totally out for himself. (The district is a finalist for the Broad award) That is not an award, it is a punishment. This man is what is wrong with education is America today. It is being run by a bunch of sleazy, bought out incompetent people.
This letter could have been written by any teacher in a large inner-city school district. As I enter my 30th year of teaching it makes me want to cry. I grew up in and taught in such a district for my first seven years of teaching. I know it’s hard but teachers with all levels of experience need to be the collective voice of public education. We need to make our voices heard. Contact your state legislatures and go talk to them. And I think we need to move towards local control of schools. The idea of funding “trickling” down for the federal government with so many strings attached is not a good thing. Local communities know what is needed to educate their children.
The writing just doesn’t work. The teachers need to go into action and people need to hear their stories. The union leaders are worthless. What plan have they had? The reforms have been in place and have been proven to be failures. Now is the time for action since the proof is there. They can’t say teachers don’t want change. The change came and it is a total failure except for the wallets of the money grubbers like Grier and other reformers. They have made a fortune. They are totally incompetent yet keep lining their pockets full of tax dollars.
This is exactly why I left HISD, and why so many more teachers I know havve faced early retirement or switching districts rather than stay at a school we loved with kidss we believed in. So many at my school were on meds for stress, hypertension, and anxiety. Not just for VAM and scoring mania, but for being railroaded by all levels of administration, despite passing scores of 100%. It didn’t seem to matter how well we did. I heard this year that a first year teacher won teacher of the year because everyone else declined it, and that she is often touted as a model of success to 30the year veterans. She was also hired under the objections of the dept. Chair, who wanted a man with over ten years’ experience. It saddens me that Ii had to leave that school. I wanted to make my career there.
I busted Arne Duncan hard when he was here in Pico Rivera. He tried to walk out on us in 15 minutes to go fund raising when he was late to the audience with a fund raiser at the school in private from his helicopter. He told us to bring everyone we could as he wanted to talk with us. We did just that. Embarrassed him good for those antics. 1/2 of the people walked out in disgust with him. I also have Duncan lying to the California Legislature pushing mayoral control which we all know is a giant mess. You cannot let them get away with lying. I certainly will not as Steven Brill has also found out. He literally ran from the building as the onslaught on his statements hit him at his book signing after they kicked me out for challenging him in question and answer. Who said we all had to be true believers.
Teachers leave your personal lives at home. Teach the curriculum without whining. Quit yelling in the classroom. Quit singling out the kid you don’t like to bully him/her. Quit thinking all your title 1(poor) kids will grow up to be trash. Please go back to the Midwest. Please try to be fair minded. Please think before you say something that will haunt a kid his entire school life. It’s hard to think that most of our teachers are red neck peckerwoods that are totally unfit to be humans much less teachers.
Nailed it