The SUNY charter institute oversees 167 charter schools, which it authorized. It doesn’t believe that charter teachers need a traditional certification, the one that other schools in New state must get.
As it happens, SUNY campuses offered teacher education preparing future teachers for their chosen profession and for certification.
The SUNY charter committee is sending a message to its teacher educators that their classes are a waste of time.
Is it wrong to create a shortcut for charter teachers? Shouldn’t all teachers be well prepared? Doesn’t every child deserve a well prepared teacher? If you agree, send an email.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
When one starts with the incorrect assumption that teachers have significant influence over the scores students get on annual state tests, everything goes foul. It’s a test of what the students can do, not a test of what the teacher taught. This is ridiculous. Charter schools in NY are going to need warning labels.
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Good one, LeftCoastTeacher. It’s more than INSANE.
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It’s not a test of ANYTHING! It doesn’t show “what a student can do,” or anything else, except to highlight the students’ and schools’ poverty levels.
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“It’s a test of what the students can do, not a test of what the teacher taught.”
The second part of the statement is correct. However, the first part needs a little tweaking. Standardized tests do not show “what the students can do”, the results are only can be interpreted as a statement of how a particular student interacted with a particular test at a particular time and place. The results are a statement of the “interaction” not of the student’s supposed abilities. The confusing and conflating of those different interpretations are just one of Wilson’s thirteen errors that serve to invalidate any interpretation of the results of standardized tests.
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Right. Sorry, I meant it’s more of an IQ test than an achievement test. It’s a wildly inaccurate, volatile IQ test at that. The charter schools claiming to be high achievers because the students got high scores do not have better teachers; they have selected students who get high scores. They also narrow the curriculum, weed out students with life struggles, and sometimes cheat. Assuming a charter scam can certify teachers because of test scores is just plain dumb. Test obsession is nonsense obsession.
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For an understanding of SUNY’s reasoning, here’s a long post about the “allternative” to university teacher training that the corporate ed. reform world is trying to replace university training with. This alternative, corporate ed. reformers claim, is actually better for training teachers who serve kids from minority or low socio-economic backgrounds — i.e. the kids in the SUNY-authorized charter schools.
It’s long, but worth reading for its insight into the corporate ed. reform mindset:
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Low socio-economic kids “need a different type of teacher”… i.e. a graduate of the Relay G.S.E. (Graduate School of Education)… according to one of the proponent of Relay. In fact, Relay G.S.E. is not, in fact, a Graduate School.” Instead, it is a totally unlicensed, unaccredited school taught by unaccredited, unlicensed, pseudo-teachers, where, after this short crash course, earn bogus “degrees” that are not recognized as degrees by any licensing authority in education anywhere.
Sometimes it is within an article’s COMMENTS section that corporate ed. reformers reveal themselves “not wisely but too well,” to quote The Bard.
(In one COMMENTS section, Dmitry Melhorn owned up to the fact that, yeah, we ARE, IN FACT, out to wipe out all traditional public schools .. something denied repeatedly by corporate reformers such as Secretary Devos, who instead lie their heads off and claim that they seek an idyllic “family of schools” — private, traditional public, public charter — all co-existing in peace and harmony. Yeah, right. You mean like they have in New Orleans?)
For example, a Relay G.S.E. supporter got into it with Denver’s Jeanne Kaplan — and one other person calling himself “CONCERNED EDUCATOR” — in the COMMENTS section of an article covering Relay’s expansion into Denver. Alas, this Relay person deleted all of his/her COMMENTS before I arrived at the article and its COMMENTS section.
This article included quotes from both Relay G.S.E. supporters and opponents:
http://www.chalkbeat.org/posts/co/2016/09/13/new-teacher-training-favored-by-charters-comes-to-denver-as-critics-sound-off/
First of all, in the COMMENTS section, this “Relay Proponent” kind of let some cats out of the bag with what he/she posted, then deleted everything that he or she posted (with quote remnants present in the Comments responding to him or her. I’m calling this poster “Relay Proponent” as her or she deleted her on-line handle along with his/her posts.)
Check out this doozy (an actual quote) that includes Relay Proponent’s claim that Relay pedagogy should only be used in poor communities, not in wealthy communities:
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RELAY PROPONENT:
“Kids from less affluent areas are typically raised in a much different household than those in affluent households. Moreover, those kids raised in affluent households in most cases need less teaching and structure and more flexibility.
“If they’re in an affluent family, they likely have educated parents, and are being afforded opportunities in their family life to learn.
“Kids from impoverished areas? Not so much. They need structure in their classroom. They need to be reminded to track and listen to the teacher most likely.
“They need a DIFFERENT type of teacher.”
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Oh boy, this got a Relay critic named CONCERNED EDUCATOR riled up:
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CONCERNED EDUCATOR:
“I want to just point out that, by placing students of low socio-economic status in this light, you have highlighted a very important gap that we are perpetuating by allowing the language of Relay (G.S.E) to continue.
“Yes, students who grow in homes with severe trauma need specific psychological structures and interventions in place, because their brains function differently, and have been altered by the toxic stress.
“However, NOT ALL STUDENTS IN POVERTY HAVE GROWN UP IN TOXIC STRESS ENVIRONMENTS. Making this assumption lowers our expectations, and devalues those students. You are making assumptions that devalue children, and Relay perpetuates that.
“We can value the culture of our students without assuming that culture is negative.
“In addition, assuming that our impoverished children ‘need’ a negative, controlling structure creates prison-like environments, where we do not teach critical thinking skills or self-awareness, but lock children into negative patterns of thought and behavior.
“We also perpetuate the opportunity gap, because we are denying students the opportunity to have the education that wealthy white students have, simply by making the assumption that ‘those students need structure.’
“ALL CHILDREN NEED STRUCTURE. ALL children also deserve the opportunity to have an education that prepares them to excel to their greatest potential, which does not mean treating them like prisoners.
“Relay perpetuates this cycle of creating sub-par education for students, based on the excuse of ‘those kids’ (always meaning children in poverty and non-white children) needing more ‘structure’. SOME students with trauma need more specific interventions, but ALL children deserve the chance to be a child.”
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RELAY PROPONENT, in another deleted COMMENT of his/hers, then incorrectly claims that Relay students attend Relay G.S.E. “to earn their Master’s Degrees.”
Jeanne Kaplan’s replies that Relay G.S.E. most certainly does NOT award accredited “Master’s Degrees.”
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JEANNE KAPLAN:
” ‘To earn their master’s degrees…’
“Teachers attending Relay G.S.E. cannot acquire a Master’s Degree because the ‘Relay Graduate School of Education’ is not a certified Graduate Program.
“The (Relay G.S.E.) ‘degree’ is bogus.
“Students are being taught by unlicensed people.”
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In another deleted comment (which I’m reconstructing, using inferences drawn from Jeanne Kaplan’s reply to her … sorry no exact quotes this time) RELAY PROPONENT replies to Kaplan’s accurate statement — Relay G.S.E. is not accredited, and thus can issue not legitimate “degreets” — by saying that traditional teaching programs are all failures according to the data, and that research proves that Relay alone works with low income children. RELAY PROPONENT claimed that Kaplan has “no research” proving the efficacy of traditional teaching programs, and that any data that Kaplan could offer to the contrary comes from “biased resources”, again, according to RELAY PROPONENT.
Again, from Kaplan’s response, it can be inferred that, in making his/her point, “RELAY PROPONENT also called Kaplan names, and insulted Kaplan (again, no quotes, just reasonable inferences from what Kaplan replied … I’d love to know exactly what “names” that RELAY PROPONENT called Kaplan… if you’re reading this, Jeanne, please chime in.)
At this point, Jeanne Kaplan simply ain’t havin’ it.
Kaplan also wants to know if Relay is paying rent at the Denver public school building where it holds it courses:
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JEANNE KAPLAN: (to RELAY PROPONENT)
“Who are you?
“Identify yourself, at least. I could say the same about you. I could also call you names. That is the M,O, of most ‘debates’ in America today.
” ‘Biased resources.’ Only you ignore data that shows repeated failure.
“As for no research — I beg to differ. I have actually talked to people who have undergone the Relay (G.S.E.) indoctrination. Some have quit. Many have ended up
in great debt.
“I ask again: is Relay paying rent?
“And please don’t take the chicken way out and not identify yourself. Transparency is another trait lost in ‘education reform.’ ”
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Relay Proponent didn’t just “take the chicken way out”* and not identify himself/herself. He/she deleted everything which he/she had earlier posted.
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I have taught many poor students that were also ELLs. I believe it is unfair to apply the one size fits all to poor students. While it is important to have a set of classroom rules, how a teacher deals with individual students may vary based on the child’s situation and his or her issues. Teachers must have a great deal of social-emotional intelligence so the teacher understands how to, not only handle problems, but students and their needs that can vary despite the fact that students may have poverty in common. I have taught the meek and traumatized as well as junior “jailbirds.” A skilled teacher knows when to be authoritarian and when to be sympathetic.
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Ever wonder what goes on in a closed-to-the-public meeting of the SUNY Board of Trustees — the group that authorizes NYC charter schools such as Eva Moskowitz Success Academy Charter Schools?
Well, hey, now’s your chance!
Somebody secretly videotaped a meeting of the SUNY Board of Trustees meeting — a meeting where the controversial measure to allow uncertified teachers to work in SUNY-authorized charters was discussed.
It’s now on YouTube.
Included in this meeting was a community leader not happy with the new regulations — one Maria Bautista.
This is truly explosive stuff, and should be posted on your blog ASAP, and please feel free to use the TRANSCRIPT I just made.
SUNY Board Chairman Joseph Belluck claims that he is livid at the tweets and overall “smear campaign” that has been portraying him as “racist.”
In response to this, Afro-Puerto Rican activist Maria Bautista of the Alliance for Quality Education is not buying Belluck’s attempt to fabricate victimhood for himself. She then proceeds to unload on Belluck, saying that his new policy is most certainly “racist” in its effect, if not intent.
Would you want YOUR OWN kids taught by these uncertified teachers? Bautista asks him, and this sets Belluck off. Unfortunately, this is when the video cuts out.
Enjoy!
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TRANSCRIPT
( 0:13 – )
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2c-DGC1L0jc
( 0:13 – )
MARIA BAUTISTA: “Well, I just want to clarify that this ISN’T a smear campaign against you. Right?”
JOSEPH BELLUCK: “Okay.”
MARIA BAUTISTA: “That this has EVERYTHING to do with black and brown children – ”
JOSEPH BELLUCK: “Right.”
MARIA BAUTISTA: ” – and THEIR access to high quality education, and second of all, if the teachers’ union wanted to be here and talk for themselves, they WOULD be.”
JOSEPH BELLUCK: “Okay.”
MARIA BAUTISTA: “So I’m here to talk about the Alliance for Quality Education.”
JOSEPH BELLUCK: “Well, I’ll just … I’ll just say to you that, when I look at my phone, and someone tweets the following:
” ‘ @JoeBelluck is willing to allow this RACIST policy to persist.’ ”
MARIA BAUTISTA: “That’s RIGHT!”
JOSEPH BELLUCK: “I take – ”
MARIA BAUTISTA: “Cause you ARE!”
JOSEPH BELLUCK: “I take umbrage at it.”
MARIA BAUTISTA: “‘Cause you ARE!”
JOSEPH BELLUCK: “Okay?”
MARIA BAUTISTA: ” ‘YOU”RE the Chair – ”
JOSEPH BELLUCK: “I take umbrage at it.”
MARIA BAUTISTA: ” ‘YOU”RE the Chair, and you’re allowing it to proceed – ”
JOSEPH BELLUCK: “Well -”
MARIA BAUTISTA: ” – so that’s NOT a smear campaign. It’s ACTUALLY WHAT’S HAPPENING, and whether or not you feel defensive about that – ”
JOSEPH BELLUCK: “I’m NOT defensive about it.”
MARIA BAUTISTA: ” – but this is YOUR responsibility.”
JOSEPH BELLUCK: “I’m NOT defensive about it.”
MARIA BAUTISTA: “Exactly. You ARE defensive about it. You’re saying that this is a SMEAR campaign, and it’s NOT. We’re calling … we’re calling the cards for what they ARE.”
JOSEPH BELLUCK: “What I’m suggesting to you is that – ”
MARIA BAUTISTA: “THIS is the card that YOU are ALLOWING to move forward — THIS idea …THESE regulations for people to give comments on, when we know that they (classes taught by uncertified teachers) are going disproportionately impact black and brown children.
“You would NEVER have uncertified teachers teach YOUR children, so WHY is it okay for black and brown children? Why is THAT okay?”
JOSEPH BELLUCK: “Okay – ”
MARIA BAUTISTA: “It is NOT okay!”
JOSEPH BELLUCK: “What I’m suggest – ”
MARIA BAUTISTA: “That is the point.”
JOSEPH BELLUCK: “What I’m saying to you – ”
MARIA BAUTISTA: “This is NOT a smear campaign.”
JOSEPH BELLUCK: ” “What I’m suggesting to you is that the things that are going to MOVE this committee to ACT are going to be the SUBSTANCE of the regulations, and WHETHER OR NOT they are the BEST for educating the kids who are in our schools.”
MARIA BAUTISTA: “Would you want THIS for YOUR children? No.”
JOSEPH BELLUCK: (angry) “I’m not going to speak to you about MY children -”
MARIA BAUTISTA: “I would love that -”
JOSEPH BELLUCK: ” – because frankly .. because frankly – ”
MARIA BAUTISTA: ” – because what you would want for YOUR children is what you should want for EVERY child in this city.”
MALE SUNY BOARD MEMBER: “Alright. Can I just say – ?)
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Video CUTS OUT
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Letter to SUNY Charter Institute: Don’t Denigrate the Teaching Profession
Charter Schools Institute
State University of New York
41 State Street, Suite 700
Albany, NY 12207
TO: Committee Chair: Joseph W. Belluck
RE: Memorandum in Opposition to Regulations Governing the Certification of Teachers in SUNY Authorized Charter Schools (Namely, Subchapter E – Regulations of the Board of Trustees Charter School Committee – Section 700. 1-7)
I urge the members of the Charter School Committee to withdraw the ill-conceived regulations governing the certification of SUNY charter school teachers.
New York State has been among the leaders across the nation in the licensing of the professions. The Office of the Professions licenses almost a million professionals in the state. From acupuncturists, dentists, doctors, nurses to pharmacists, psychologists and veterinarians – over 60 professions fall under the Office of the Professions (See total list here), an arm of the New York State Department of Education. The Office works with national associations to assure that all licensed professionals meet the highest standards of their profession (See list of national associations here).
Currently prospective teachers in New York State must complete an approved course of study, approved by the State Education Department, pass three examinations, and serve a four year probationary period. In “shortage areas” the state provides a number of alternative pathways. Additionally, college programs must pass scrutiny by CAEP (Council on the Accreditation of Education Programs); the state also “tracks” graduates and reports on teacher effectiveness by college program. If grades on certification examinations are below standard or student performance of program graduates is inadequate the programs are in jeopardy.
The State Education Department licensure/certification requirements make every attempt to assure that new teachers are well prepared before they step foot into a classroom as teachers.
The supporters of the proposal argue that it is difficult to find certified teachers and exempting teachers from the long established teacher certification rules is required.
A weak argument.
There are a host of professions in which licensed professionals are in short supply, for example, nurses, doctors and dentists in rural areas, should we reduce requirements for these professions?
Of course not.
Should we allow prospective attorneys to skip law school and the bar exams and simply serve as an intern into a law office for 100 hours? Are teachers less important than attorneys?
Charter schools face a serious staffing problem – the problem is caused by extremely high rates of teacher attrition. The turnover rate is troubling, it takes three to five years for a teacher to fully learn their job – if teachers are leaving after one or two years students are constantly faced with new and inexperienced teachers.
Why are teachers leaving charter schools?
I suggest the Charter School Institute withdraw the resolution referenced supra and instead require charter schools to develop teacher retention plans with retention targets, and, reaching or surpassing the targets become part of the charter reauthorization process.
Teacher certification is not limited to colleges, the state has approved other institutions to certify teachers – the Museum of Natural History provides a teacher certification program in Earth Science, a shortage area subject. Teacher residency programs (See I-Start here) allows not-for-profits to partner with school districts and colleges to provide intensive teacher preparation programs approved by the State Education Department.
All of the alternative pathways to teaching appropriately fall under the State Education Department.
The proposed regulation which removes the state from the process denigrates teaching as a profession and only encourages the canard that anyone can teach.
Mr. Belluck I am sure that you want(ed) the best possible teachers for your children and/or grandchild. The current teacher certification procedures sets both high standards for teacher training institutions and for prospective teachers. Your proposed regulations simply undermine decades of efforts to raise standards for teachers and outcomes for students.
I am certain that Chancellor Rosa and Commissioner Elia are more than willing to work with the Institute to explore and develop plans to reduce teacher attrition and explore alternative certification pathways in shortage certification areas.
Peter Goodman
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The irony of the SUNY effort to permit charter teachers to self-certify is that it is insulting all the teacher educators at SUNY!
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The notion that low income children of color require teachers with a different skill set is racist beyond belief. Relay specializes in unqualified professors training unqualified teachers. No billionaire would place his own children anywhere near the schools being imposed on the neediest children.
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This reminds me of the years leading up to the NYS legislature’s abolition of the NYC Board of Examiners in 1990, which was created in 1898 to base hiring decisions on merit and fitness. At the time the argument was made that the BOX was an impediment to staffing the NYC schools–and why did you have a city teacher licensing agency anyway, when earning a state teaching certificate was sufficient as a credential everywhere else. I remember the question of the day being: Why do we need a two-track system?
Of course many critics of the BOX argued it was slow-moving, made it harder to staff the schools and posed obstacles to teacher employment at a time of short supply–exacerbating the problem. There was also concern that that licensing exams had an adverse impact on protected classes (i.e., minorities).
So, to me, in some interconnected way, the current dispute over two standards of teacher certification is a variation on some of those issues. I believe the BOX was created to serve a useful quality control function. It created what were deemed to be job-related exams.
It may have been duplicative, but it did not lower standards. I do not support the current push by the legislature and SUNY trustees to create alternate (watered down?) standards for charter schools. [Full disclosure: I worked in test research and development for the Board of Examiners from 1978-1985–when the Office of Civil rights was active in monitoring employment procedures and decisions.]
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Thanks to the Network for Public Education for providing a template letter to send.
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