A new advocacy group weighs in on the toxic efforts by John King to control teacher education and exacerbate the nation’s teacher shortage. King is acting in direct defiance of the letter and spirit of the new Every Student Succeeds Act, which specifically bars the Secretary of Education from attempting to control education.
Contact: Arnold F. Fege, President
Public Advocacy for Kids
+1 (202) 258-4044
Public-ed-afege@msn.com
Public Advocacy for Kids
Media Release
Public Advocacy for Kids Joins Broad Coalition with Major Concerns about Recent Teacher Preparation Regulations
Public Advocacy for Kids Cites Cost, Lack of Evidence, Costly Regulations as Major Problems
Washington, DC October 21, 2016: Joining over 30 organizations * including the governors, state legislators, civil rights, higher education, child advocacy and elementary and secondary education groups, Public Advocacy for Kids (PAK) cites major deficiencies of the new federal teacher-preparation regulations, despite some positive tweaks by made by the US Department of Education.
“The US Department seems not to learn,” says Arnold F. Fege, Public Advocacy for Kids president. It insists on imposing one-size fits all standards and policies on over 26,000 education institutions, this time on teacher preparation institutions. Rating schools of education effectiveness based on the standardized test scores of the student’s their graduates teach is costly, arbitrary and without evidence. This is a method not used to evaluate any other professional preparation program.”
Public Advocacy for Kids believes that with teacher shortages, the need to recruit more minority teachers reflecting the changing student demographics, challenges of increasing the number of STEM, ESL and special education teachers, and the importance of schools of education to adapt to the changing needs of students, clearly schools of education need not shy away from collecting that data leading to change and improvement. But these regulations, focusing on the same punitive test and punish measures that sunk No Child Left Behind, will actually discourage teachers from teaching in low income and special needs schools, and certainly create a major impediment to attracting minority teachers. In a nutshell, it will further the inequitable distribution of teachers which according to the US Education Office of Civil Rights is already increasing without these regulations.
But it gets worse. The cost of implementing the regulations will be borne by the state and local level institutions, many of which are already suffering from funding and resources shortages. While states are given some leeway in developing a teacher prep rating system, they have to adhere to four metrics, tying access to student financial aid, collecting the student test score data, and rating teacher prep programs on an annual basis. California has estimated that this regulation will cost them approximately $485 million dollars. Just imagine that each year, your state is required to track all of the teacher prep graduates, compile tests scores (in many cases from various states) based on standardized tests that may be different from state, and then know that all of this process does not have any evidence or research behind it?
Unfortunately, these rules are a lost opportunity to make deep, substantive and research based changes, but instead reflect a real lack of understanding by our top federal officials about how to lead sustained and systemic innovation, starting with those who are charged with the practice of teaching, parenting, supporting and caring. Parents do not want their students, nor their students teachers identified with a test score, but rather want teachers who are experienced, know how to engage their children, link home and schools, and individualize instruction. Teacher prep institutions need incentives, investment, deep teacher training such as urban residencies, mentoring, national board certification, but above all, they want to be an equal party in change and improvement, rather than being at the bottom of bureaucratic compliance. The story of the regulations are now to be found at the state level as state departments of education begin to grapple with issues of implementations and cost. Public Advocacy for Kids will continue to oppose the flawed regulations, and hopes there is a time when the regulations can be revisited, hopefully when the new Congress and Administration come into office.
*Find AACTE Coalition Statement https://secure.aacte.org/apps/rl/res_get.php?fid=3003&ref=rl
Public Advocacy for Kids is a national group devoted to federal and national education and child advocacy policy with a focus on low-income and special needs children and families. The group has deep involvement and knowledge in ESEA, IDEA, teacher preparation, parent information centers, integrated services, positive school climate, and the federal budget. You will find PAK working on the Hill, with federal agencies, school districts and community based organizations believing that policy must be shaped and crafted from the bottom-up including the community, families, and practitioners who often have no voice in the education of their children, in the United States and internationally.
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Diane Ravitch's blog 
These two lines caught my eye:
1), “The cost of implementing the regulations will be borne by the state and local level institutions, many of which are already suffering from funding and resources shortages”
2), “California has estimated that this regulation will cost them approximately $485 million dollars.”
So not only do rheephormsters want public schools to destroy themselves—those schools and districts will be required to buy the swords they are going to fall on, buy the forks with which they are going to stab themselves in the eye, buy the firearm with which they are going to shoot themselves in the foot.
And then the chief beneficiaries and leaders and enforcers of corporate education reform will lament the lack of “grit” evinced by all those crying out in pain.
But their nostrums are not for THEIR OWN CHILDREN. Only for OTHER PEOPLE’S CHILDREN.
Of course, that’s not what they say publicly as they engage in the mad dog pursuit of $tudent $ucce$$ for them and theirs.
A very old and very dead and very Greek guy knew the type all too well:
“Hateful to me as the gates of Hades is that man who hides one thing in his heart and speaks another. ”
😎
From the administration that has done nothing other than test and punish comes test and punish 2.0. We have only to look at the disastrous implementation of the Common Core and all the wasted funding on this one size fits all testing to understand how these regulations are equally ineffective and misguided. Once again the federal government is trying to overreach its authority while they leave states to waste resources to implement a failed idea totally oblivious to the reality at hand. Due to Obama’s test and measurement obsession, we have a shortage of teachers. The past eight years of education policy have been Obama’s folly. He has mandated rules and regulations in a vacuum. He and his appointees have little to no understanding of public education and its role in a democratic society. They operated from a perspective of bias and prejudice and have worked against any attempt to serve millions of the nation’s children. All the measurement in the world does not a program make. Obama’s two terms have only served to attempt to destroy a public institution that has admirably served our nation.
“But these regulations, focusing on the same punitive test and punish measures that sunk No Child Left Behind, will actually discourage teachers from teaching in low income and special needs schools, and certainly create a major impediment to attracting minority teachers.”
Nope… these regulations will discourage people from becoming teachers in the first place. And they will discourage people from becoming professional scholars in teacher preparation programs. It will be the final nail in the coffin of public education. Will the scholars and free thinkers in our universities submit to these regulations??? Will they willingly place their necks in their own noose without a fight?
The Coalition statement is clear, but late.
The regulations from USDE are intended to do shut down “underperforming” teacher education programs, especially those based in colleges and universities, using the same mindset and test-driven criteria that have produced closings of public schools.
The regulations are intended to legitmate the likes of Relay Graduate School of Education (sic). They are intended to boost residencies strictly for TFA teacher pipelines for charter friendly districts. These residency programs rely on district expertise for teacher education. No higher education institution is needed or wanted in that “teacher talent pipeline.”
The writers of ESSA and USDE regulators do not want teachers to be thinkers. They want teachers to have content knowledge and to enter schools “classroom ready” with a small subset of “high leverage skills.”
USDE wants students to have tests for currently “untested subjects.” Those scores would be used to rate teacher prep programs in the arts, world languages, and so on.
These and other fiats from USDE demonstrate a pervasive belief that know-nothing policies, and more bell-curve testing and more stack-ratings, are a cure for whatever. Just assume there are reliable, valid tests for every subject and grade level. Trust the triage available from decisions based on bell curves. g
Members of Congress and their staffs who approved ESSA, especially Title ii, should call for the firing of John King and his staffers who are re-writing the law through “regulations.”
At the same time, signers of the Coalition statement need to accept responsibility for being so willing to go along with the policies and fiats that have been damaging pre-K to 12 education… as if there would be no spillover to teacher education.
Well, here you go, test-driven evaluations of your programs based on the test score produced by your graduates.
Unfortunately, the end of the current regime at USDE does not change the requirements in ESSA and the Higher Education Act. Moreover, the foundations and think tanks that function as lobbies for USDE/HEA policies have white-papers and networks of supporters who are determined to reduce the value of teacher education, and public higher education, to short-term data points with dollar signs attached. The Coalition statement is a necessary step, but hardly sufficient for addressing the work of teaching and teacher education as a profession.
This is another non-evidence based assertion from Obama and company. I think the states are catching on, and balking because none of his proposals have improved anything for students in public schools. This is simply another level of test and punish which has repeatedly failed to produce anything of merit.
And. where are the university accrediting bodies? And, why do the the approx. 50 professors, who signed a public letter recently, which only addressed pre-K and student debt, fail to grasp that all academic disciplines will, in domino fashion, fall victim to plutocratic plotting?
Arrogance appears to give them a false sense of security.
Hmmm….Could it be the illiteracy and innumeracy rampant throughout public schools across this nation is coming full circle?
Could it be that colleges are faced with this problem in greater numbers because their pool of student applicants applying to their colleges are largely impacted by the learning struggles so many are faced with leaving secondary school?
Poverty is coming full circle. A reporter for McClatchy news service, recently exposed Janet Napolitano’s (former head of Homeland Security) deep-sixing of a report, by one of her employees, that predicted the rise of extreme right wing terrorism as a result of a faltering economy.
Really? You people need to stop blaming demographics & look at the instructional methods being used in the classrooms across this nation!
Because I know many students entering college that were lacking literacy & numeracy skills that definitely were not considered to be from impoverished families!!!!
Blaming poverty for poor instructional methods in the classroom is misplacing the blame!
Literacy & numeracy struggles are not isolated to just impoverished families.
They can be remediated early on by using proven methodologies!
And it’s not the current methods that have been used for generations now and based in LLI & Whole Language!!!!
Get with the times. The reading (and math) wars have long been over. Contrary to what the Behaviorists in charter chains and their teacher training programs lead people to believe, there is not one right way that will reach every learner. Wise teachers have a variety of tools in their toolboxes that they use to meet the needs of diverse populations and this is what they learn in traditional Teacher Ed programs.
https://dianeravitch.net/2014/08/05/why-i-dont-care-about-the-reading-wars-anymore/
The “you people” who drive education departments today are the arrogant rich, who are out to make a buck. Social impact bonds, where Goldman Sachs takes a cut of taxpayer money intended to help toddlers living in poverty, provides perfect illustration.
Don’t fall for this nonsense folks. This is the typical false narrative about failing American schools that has been promoted by education “reformers” ever since the 1983 publication of “A Nation At-Risk,” which was debunked by the Sandia Report, as well as by Berliner & Biddle in The Manufactured Crisis:
https://www.edutopia.org/landmark-education-report-nation-risk
“Reformers” like this want Americans to believe we have a unique problem with public education in this country, so that our schools can be shut down and handed over to non-educator privatizers who are eager to make a fortune running charter schools with tax payer dollars (Re: the edutopia article, charters became plan C). Their concept of teacher education is for charter school chains to train imposter teachers in their preferred model, which is as (non-union) drill sergeant temps, following scripts and implementing draconian discipline policies at military style boot camp “no excuses” charters, with mostly poor children of color attending segregated schools. (The likely result: underrepresented groups will learn their place in our society and provide a workforce consisting of obedient automatons who will accept low paying jobs and do as they are told.)
The truth is that there is an achievement gap between economically disadvantaged and advantaged students in every nation, and over time, our low income kids have been making incremental improvements: “International tests show achievement gaps in all countries, with big gains for U.S. disadvantaged students”
http://www.epi.org/blog/international-tests-achievement-gaps-gains-american-students/
Homeless Educator:
The truth is that using demographics as an excuse doesn’t hold water. Middle and upper middle class Dyslexic students still struggle and need proven, explicit instructional methods to learn how to read and write and do math with proficiency. And when it’s not provided, they fall and remain behind academically too.
And Decoding Dyslexia groups exist in every state so I’m sorry for you Homeless Educator as you are the person that’s wrong about the reading & math wars being long over and a thing of the past.
And Diane can say reading methods do not matter any longer to her, but for all of the struggling students forced to repeatedly struggle daily and yearly and for their entire time in school and into adulthood, IT MATTERS AND IT IS NOT OVER FOR THEM!!!
So keep your head buried in the sand so you can continue to ignore and fail more students and wrongfully blame their demographics and not the instructional methods being used in the classrooms across this nation thereby leaving the poor students behind along with the middle and upper class Dyslexic students because you don’t think it matters.
You can continue to ignore the problem, but you if you continue to ignore us, the families of your students impacted by Dyslexia, but if you continue to refuse to teach these students and push us out to the private sector to get the appropriate instruction, you will be hearing us roar- before, during and especially after you have PUSHED us OUT to the PRIVATE sector to OBTAIN the APPROPRIATE INSTRUCTION you have REFUSED to provide to our children!
Suddenly making this about students with learning disabilities is a straw man, and the call to ignore demographics when research demonstrates how that is a global matter is a bunch of bunk. This Special Educator is not interested in addressing such ridiculous arguments.
Do they condemn EdTPA? Does anyone in the government care what they condemn? I feel we talk ourselves here in circles. Do we feel any better after discussion? No. Today in NJ I read that Campbell Brown is going to file a seniority suit in NJ. Doesn’t she ever learn? Stop?
Off topic, but Diane, if you could post the word here, I would really appreciate it. The Utah State School Board is planning on voting on Friday to make teacher compensation based on teacher evaluations. This will be a DISASTER.
This is the quote from a newsletter that I saw from one of the members of the board: Proposed Rule Change Would Base District Compensation Primarily on Evaluations
The Utah State Board of Education gave preliminary approval to amendments to R277-531 Public Educator Evaluation Requirements (PEER) and to R277-533 District Educator Evaluation Systems that would require Utah school districts to base educator compensation systems primarily on the district’s educator evaluation system beginning in the 2018-19 school year. The changes also eliminate any provision in Board Rule that is not also required in state statute. The Board worked with the Utah School Superintendents Association to give districts enough leeway to make the rule’s implementation more feasible. Final approval will likely come during the Board’s November 4 meeting
Utah school board members MUST be contacted! Particularly in you’re in Utah, do it NOW. But we could use teachers in other states to also email and let the board know what a terrible idea this is. Thank you.
http://schoolboard.utah.gov/board-member-bios
Threatened,
Yes, I will post it.
Thank you. This is an existential threat to Utah’s public schools.
So let’s stretch these ludicrous plans for teacher evaluation to equally ludicrous ideas about parent evaluation. How about we remove all children from homes if they are not walking by 15 months? How about if they are not using two word combinations by 18 months? Why we might even catch a few regressive, reformster youngsters! Children should defintely be rehoused in more appropriate surroundings if they are not reading by the end of first grade or, if we are feeling particularly generous, if they do not pass their third grade reading test.
When did common sense become such a foreign concept?
I’m interested in seeing medical schools being judged on patient outcomes of their graduates. The same logic applies to any professional schools, be them medical, law, pharmacy, business.
And how about that last one, huh? Wharton closes because too many of their MBA graduates run companies into the ground or declare bankruptcy, or …