Archives for category: California
« Older Entries
Newer Entries »

The Vergara Trial Teachers Were Not “Grossly Ineffective”

By dianeravitch
June 11, 2014 //
112

I was curious to learn whether the plaintiffs in the Vergara trial actually had “grossly ineffective teachers.” The answer is “no, they did not.”

Not only did none of them have a “grossly ineffective” teacher, but some of the plaintiffs attended schools where there are no tenured teachers. Two of the plaintiffs attend charter schools, where there is no tenure or seniority, and as you will read below, “Beatriz and Elizabeth Vergara both attend a “Pilot School” in LAUSD that is free to let teachers go at the end of the school year for any reason, including ineffectiveness.

It turns out that the lawyers for the defense checked the records of the plaintiffs’ teachers, and this is what they found (filed as a post-trial brief in the case): (See pp. 5-6).

“Plaintiffs have not established that the statutes have ever caused them any harm or are likely to do so in the future. None of the nine named Plaintiffs established that he or she was assigned to an allegedly grossly ineffective teacher, or that he or she faces any immediate risk of future harm, as a result of the challenged statutes. The record contains no evidence that Plaintiffs Elliott, Liss, Campbell or Martinez were ever assigned a grossly ineffective teacher at all. Of the remaining five Plaintiffs, most of the teachers whom they identified as “bad” or “grossly ineffective” were excellent teachers. Because none of the five Plaintiffs are reliable evaluators of teacher performance, their testimony about the remaining purportedly ineffective teachers should not be credited. Nor could Plaintiffs link their assignment to purportedly “bad” or “grossly ineffective” teachers to the challenged statutes. Not a single witness claimed that any of Plaintiffs’ teachers were granted permanent status because of the two-year probationary period, would have been dismissed in the absence of the dismissal statutes, or would have been laid off had reverse seniority not been a factor in layoffs. Indeed, Plaintiffs did not call any administrator of any of Plaintiffs’ schools to corroborate their testimony or in any way connect the teachers they identified to the statutes they challenge. Furthermore, any threat of future harm to Plaintiffs caused by the challenged statutes is purely speculative. Plaintiffs Elliott and DeBose are high school seniors who will almost certainly graduate in spring 2014. Plaintiffs Monterroza and Martinez both attend charter schools that are not subject to the challenged statutes at all. Beatriz and Elizabeth Vergara both attend a “Pilot School” in LAUSD that is free to let teachers go at the end of the school year for any reason, including ineffectiveness. As for the remaining three Plaintiffs, there is no concrete, specific evidence supporting any claim that they will be assigned to grossly ineffective teachers due to the challenged statutes; instead, their claims are based on pure speculation.”

One of the plaintiffs (Monterroza) said that her teacher, Christine McLaughlin was a very bad teacher, but McLaughlin was Pasadena teacher of the year and has received many awards for excellent teaching (google her).

Surely, there must be “grossly ineffective” teachers in the state of California, but no evidence was presented that the plaintiffs in the case had teachers who were “grossly ineffective.”

What about turnover of teachers in high-poverty schools in California:

Betty Olson-Jones, former president of the Oakland Education Association, testified: “Oakland has an extremely difficult time retaining teachers. The statistic that I was always struck with was of the beginning teachers in 2003, there were about 300 who began in Oakland, and by 2008 about 76 percent of those left. Generally, the turnover rate is about 50 percent, even higher among some — in some schools. I feel that part of the reason is that the conditions are very difficult, very high-poverty rate in Oakland, lack of support services. Oakland has very few counselors, nurses, one librarian left, high class size, high standard of living in the bay area. Children come with a lot of needs that aren’t fulfilled, and teachers are expected to make up that difference and are agonized often by their inability to do so because they lack the support and the conditions to do so.”

What about working conditions? Anthony Mize taught at the Vergara sisters’ school. He testified: “There was a back-to-school night where there was drive-by shooting 30 to 50 yards from behind my classroom. I remember talking with a mother at the time. And I was just about to say to the mom, ‘and your son has trouble paying attention,’ and seven to nine shots rang out.”

None of this testimony impressed the judge.

Categories California, Teachers and Teaching

What Was the Evidence in the Vergara Case? Who Wins? Who Loses?

By dianeravitch
June 11, 2014 //
153

Judge Rolf M. Treu, who decided the Vergara case , declared that he was shocked, shocked to learn from Professor Raj Chetty and Professor Thomas Kane of Harvard about the enormous harm that one “grossly ineffective” teacher can do to a child’s lifetime earnings or to their academic gains.

How did he define “grossly ineffective” teacher? He didn’t. How did these dreadful teachers get tenure? Clearly, some grossly incompetent principal must have granted it to them. What was the basis–factual or theoretical–that the students would have had high scores if their teachers did not have the right to due process? He didn’t say.

The theory behind the case–as I see it–is that low test scores are caused by bad teachers. Get rid of the bad teachers, replace them with average teachers, and all students will get high test scores. You might call it the judicial version of No Child Left Behind–that is, pull the right policy levers–say, testing and accountability–and every single child in America will be proficient by 2014. Congress should hang its collective head in shame for having passed that ridiculous law, yet it still sits on the books as the scorned, ineffective, toxic law of the land.

You might also say that Judge Treu was regurgitating the unproven claims behind Race to the Top, specifically that using test scores to evaluate teachers will make it possible to weed out “bad teachers,” recruit and reward top teachers, and test scores will rise to the top. Given this theory, a concept like tenure (due process) slows down the effort to fire those “grossly ineffective” teachers and delays the day when every student is proficient.

Relying on Chetty and Kane, Judge Treu is quite certain that the theory of universal proficiency is correct. Thus, in his thinking, it becomes a matter of urgency to eliminate tenure, seniority, and any other legal protection for teachers, leaving principals free to fire them promptly, without delay or hindrance.

Set aside for the moment that this decision lacks any evidentiary basis. Another judge might have heard the same parade of witnesses and reached a different conclusion.

Bear in mind that the case will be appealed to a higher court, and will continue to be appealed until there is no higher court.

It is not unreasonable to believe that the California Teachers Association might negotiate a different tenure process with the Legislature, perhaps a requirement of three years probationary status instead of two.

The one thing that does seem certain is that, contrary to the victory claims of hedge fund managers and rightwing editorial writers, no student will gain anything as a result of this decision. Millions more dollars will be spent to litigate the issues in California and elsewhere, but what will students gain? Nothing. The poorest, neediest students will still be in schools that lack the resources to meet their needs. They will still be in schools where classes are too large. They will still be in buildings that need repairs. They will still be in schools where the arts program and nurses and counselors were eliminated by budget cuts.

If their principals fire all or most or some of their teachers, who will take their places? There is no long line of superb teachers waiting for a chance to teach in inner-city schools. Chetty and Kane blithely assume that those who are fired will be replaced by better teachers. How do they know that?

Let’s be clear. No “grossly ineffective” teacher should ever get tenure. Only a “grossly ineffective” principal would give tenure to a “grossly ineffective” teacher. Teachers do not give tenure to themselves.

Unfortunately, the Vergara decision is the latest example of the blame-shifting strategy of the privatization movement. Instead of acknowledging that test scores are highly correlated with family income, they prefer to blame teachers and the very idea of public education. If they were truly interested in supporting the needs of the children, the backers of this case would be advocating for smaller classes, for arts programs, for well-equipped and up-to-date schools, for after-school programs, for health clinics, for librarians and counselors, and for inducements to attract and retain a stable corps of experienced teachers in the schools attended by Beatriz Vergara and her co-plaintiffs.

Let us hope that a wiser judicial panel speedily overturns this bad decision and seeks a path of school reform that actually helps the plaintiffs without inflicting harm on their teachers.

Categories California, NCLB (No Child Left Behind), Race to the Top, Students, Teacher Tenure

The Text of the Vergara Decision

By dianeravitch
June 10, 2014 //
35

Here is the text of the Vergara decision, ruling the laws governing tenure and seniority unconstitutional.

Categories California, Teacher Tenure

Peter Greene: How Can the Corporate Bullies Lie with a Straight Face?

By dianeravitch
June 10, 2014 //
19

Peter Greene doesn’t understand how the corporate bullies are celebrating their victories over teachers. He can’t understand how they lie about doing it “for the kids.” They talk about equity and social justice as they attack teachers’ hard-won rights, and they know they are making it up.

He writes:

“I mean, bloody hell, guys? Do we all have “stupid” written on our foreheads? Can you not even do me the respect of telling me convincing lies?

“It’s like talking to that kid in the third row who just punched another student in the face and is now sitting there smiling, laughing and saying “I never touched him” with that fish-eating grin that says, “Go on. I’m lying straight to you, and you’re not going to do anything about it because my dad’s on the school board and– oh yeah– you don’t have tenure.”

Categories California, Teacher Evaluations, Teacher Tenure, Teachers

Peter Greene Deconstructs Arne Duncan’s Statement on Vergara Decision

By dianeravitch
June 10, 2014 //
57

Peter Greene explicates for you what Arne Duncan really meant in his statement about the Vergara decision.

He concludes:

“God, just when I think the Obama administration has found every conceivable way to signal that they consider teachers vermin to be stepped on and crushed, they find one more way to drive that point home. At this point, I think the GOP would have to run a convicted ax murderer in order for me to vote Democrat in a national election. This is a whole new level of pissing on us while telling us it’s raining. This is a whole new level of disregard for the teaching profession– no, no, that’s wrong, because this is not disregard. This is assault. This is deliberate, lying with a straight face, cheering for the dismantling of teaching as a profession.”

Categories California, Duncan, Arne, Teacher Tenure, Teachers

The Vergara Verdict: Tenure and Seniority Laws Ruled Unconstitutional in California

By dianeravitch
June 10, 2014 //
112

Here are two accounts of the decision in the Vergara trial. This one appears in politico.com. This one appears in the New York Times.

The plaintiffs argued that poor and minority children suffered because they had ineffective teachers who could not be fired. Lawyers for the teachers unions maintained that the causes of low performance were poverty and inadequate school funding. The plaintiffs prevailed and promised to take their cause to other states with strong teacher job protections, like New Jersey and New York.

There will be appeals, and the battle will spread to other states. As due process is removed, it seems to be replaced by evaluations of “effectiveness” based on test scores.

The long-range question is whether the “reformers'” efforts to remove all job protections from teachers will affect the number of people who choose teaching as a career and how they will affect the nature of the profession over time.

Here is the NEA statement on the case:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
June 10, 2014

CONTACT: Staci Maiers, NEA Communications
(202) 270-5333 cell, smaiers@nea.org

NEA PRESIDENT: CALIFORNIA RULING ALLOWS CORPORATE INTERESTS TO TRUMP STUDENTS’ NEEDS
***Deeply flawed verdict goes against research proven to enhance teacher effectiveness***

WASHINGTON— A California Superior Court judge today sided with Silicon Valley multimillionaire David Welch and his ultra-rich cronies in the meritless lawsuit of Vergara v. State of California. The lawsuit was brought by deep-pocketed corporate special interests intent on driving a corporate agenda geared toward privatizing public education and attacking educators.

NEA’s affiliate, the California Teachers Association, and the California Federation of Teachers intervened in the case to ensure schools can continue to attract and retain quality teachers in our classrooms and to give voice to systems that research and experience show are key factors in effective teaching.

The following statement can be attributed to NEA President Dennis Van Roekel:

“Just like the meritless lawsuit of Vergara v. State of California, the ruling by Superior Court Judge Rolf Treu is deeply flawed. Today’s ruling would make it harder to attract and retain quality teachers in our classrooms and ignores all research that shows experience is a key factor in effective teaching. The National Education Association supports the California Teachers Association in its appeal of today’s decision.

“Let’s be clear: This lawsuit was never about helping students, but is yet another attempt by millionaires and corporate special interests to undermine the teaching profession and push their own ideological agenda on public schools and students while working to privatize public education. Research shows experience enhances teacher effectiveness and increases student productivity at all grade levels, and that ultimately contributes to better outcomes for students. Yet, today’s ruling hurts students and serves only to undermine the ability of school districts to recruit and retain high quality teachers.

“NEA will continue to stand up for students and focus on the ingredients that are proven to help students the most—like supporting new teachers, providing ongoing training, paying teachers a decent salary, and developing reliable evaluation systems to measure teacher effectiveness.”

Here is the statement by AFT on the Case:

“WASHINGTON – Statement from American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten on today’s Vergara v. California decision.

“Today, as the Vergara decision was rendered, thousands of California classrooms were brimming with teachers teaching and students learning. They see themselves as a team, but sadly, this case now stoops to pitting students against their teachers. The other side wanted a headline that reads: “Students win, teachers lose.” This is a sad day for public education.

“While this decision is not unexpected, the rhetoric and lack of a thorough, reasoned opinion is disturbing. For example, the judge believes that due process is essential, but his objection boils down to his feeling that two years is not long enough for probation. He argues, as we do, that no one should tolerate bad teachers in the classroom. He is right on that. But in focusing on these teachers who make up a fraction of the workforce, he strips the hundreds of thousands of teachers who are doing a good job of any right to a voice. In focusing on who should be laid off in times of budget crises, he omits the larger problem at play: full and fair funding of our schools so all kids have access to the classes—like music, art and physical education—and opportunities they need.

“It’s surprising that the court, which used its bully pulpit when it came to criticizing teacher protections, did not spend one second discussing funding inequities, school segregation, high poverty or any other out-of-school or in-school factors that are proven to affect student achievement and our children. We must lift up solutions that speak to these factors—solutions like wraparound services, early childhood education and project-based learning.

“Sadly, there is nothing in this opinion that suggests a thoughtful analysis of how these statutes should work. There is very little that lays groundwork for a path forward. Other states have determined better ways—ways that don’t pit teachers against students, but lift up entire communities. Every child is entitled to a high-quality education regardless of his or her ZIP code. And no parent should have to rely on a lottery system to get his or her child into a good school.

“This will not be the last word. As this case makes it through an appeal, we will continue to do what we’ve done in state after state. We will continue to work with parents and communities to fight for safe and welcoming neighborhood public schools that value both kids and the women and men who work with them. No wealthy benefactor with an extreme agenda will detour us from our path to reclaim the promise of public education.”

Categories California, Corporate Reformers, Teacher Tenure

Anthony Cody Disagrees with Randi and Linda

By dianeravitch
June 8, 2014 //
105

Anthony Cody does not agree with Randi Weingarten and Linda Darling-Hammond. They recently published an article saying that California would be a model for the success of Common Core, because the new tests would be used to help schools, not to close them or to evaluate educators.

Cody posts a video from the Common Core website. Here is the script:

“Like it or not, life is full of measuring sticks: How smart we are, how fast we are, how we can, you know, compete. But up until now, it’s been pretty hard to tell how well kids are competing in school, and how well they’re going to do when they get out of school. We like to think that our education system does that. But when it comes to learning what they really need to be successful after graduation, is a girl in your neighborhood being taught as much as her friend over in the next one? Is a graduating senior in, say, St. Louis, as prepared to get a job as a graduate in Shanghai? Well, it turns out the answer to both of these questions is “no.” Because for years, states have been setting different standards for what students should know and be able to do at each grade level. That’s making it too hard to know if our kids are really doing well enough overall and if they can really compete for a job some day.”

The video concludes:

“The world’s getting more and more competitive every day. But now when our kids get to the top of their staircase, they can have way more options of where their life goes from there. Clear goals, confident, well-prepared students, that’s the Common Core state standard.”

Cody writes:

“So let’s unpack the assumptions built into Common Core. First, “like it or not” we are told our world is determined to measure everything. Bizarrely, we even have a picture of someone who looks like Albert Einstein measuring the circumference of his skull, as if this has any value. And these measurements are the basis for competition – and our students are in a race against one another, and against that kid in Shanghai, who may be better prepared for a job than our kids.

“The way to make our students “confident” and “well-prepared” for this race is to set up their learning as a series of steps they must climb, and every student at a given grade must mount these steps in order, and at the same age.

“This is a powerful framework for learning, and I think it is destructive.”

He adds:

“The promise of the Common Core is that we create confident students and help the under-privileged by measuring them on a set of difficult tests, which will show that those who have always been behind are further behind than ever. I just don’t see how this builds confidence. I think that in spite of the best efforts of teachers and leaders in our state, many of our students will do very poorly on these tests. And high-poverty schools will do worse than ever. We will then be obliged to use these scores as an accurate diagnosis of our problems, and in effect this will justify and reinforce inequities, rather than challenge them.”

Cody makes a powerful argument against the assumption that standards and testing will create equity or excellence. It is more NCLB, more Race to the Top, more of the same-old same-old.

Categories Accountability, California, Common Core, Standardized Testing

Heilig: NCLB Failed, What Next?

By dianeravitch
June 1, 2014 //
14

Julian Vasquez Helig says NCLB failed.. It’s time for a new paradigm. He calls it “community-based accountability.”

Categories Accountability, California, NCLB (No Child Left Behind)

The Crucial Race for State Superintendent in California

By dianeravitch
June 1, 2014 //
25

The race for State Superintendent of Education in California pits veteran educator Tom Torlakson–who has held the job since 2010–against Marshall Tuck, who is closely associated with the privatization movement. A third candidate, Lydia Gutierrez, is notable in the race for her opposition to Common Core. With the unions supporting Torlakson and the business sector behind Tuck, Gutierrez is considered a long shot.

The election will be held on June 3.

Gary Cohn, a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative reporter, profiled the two men.

Cohn writes about Marshall Tuck:

“The 40-year-old Tuck is a Harvard Business School graduate who has worked as an investment banker for Salomon Brothers and as an executive at Model N, a revenue-management software company. He is a former president of Green Dot Public Schools, a charter school operation in Los Angeles, and later served as the first head of the Partnership for Los Angeles Schools — former Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa’s controversial education nonprofit that tried to improve 17 low-performing public schools, with mixed results.

“Tuck’s candidacy is supported by the same mix of wealthy education privatizers, Silicon Valley and entertainment money, hedge fund and real estate interests that backed privatization candidates in the 2013 Los Angeles Unified School District school board election — when billionaire businessmen such as Eli Broad and Michael Bloomberg gave large campaign contributions to an unsuccessful effort to defeat board member Steve Zimmer. (The Broad Residency, an education management program operated by the Broad Foundation, lists Tuck as an alumnus.)”

Torlakson, by contrast, takes pride in his years as a teacher. “Torlakson is a veteran science teacher and track coach. Torlakson, who is still a teacher on leave from Contra Costa County’s Mount Diablo Unified School District, says he usually teaches one community college course every year. He was elected as California’s 27th State Superintendent of Public Instruction in 2010 after serving in the state legislature.”

Tuck supports the parent trigger law, which allows a simple majority of parents to seize control of their school and hand it over to a charter corporation. He also supports the plaintiffs in the Vergara case, a lawsuit that seeks to eliminate teachers’ due process rights.

Robert D. Skeels, writing in L.A. Progressive, rips Marshall Tuck for closing down ethnic studies programs and heritage language studies programs while running the Partnership for Los Angeles Schools. He reviews Tuck’s record at Green Dot charter schools and the Mayor’s Partnership and renders a scathing judgment.

.

Categories Administrators, superintendents, California

Weingarten and Darling-Hammond Call for a New Accountability

By dianeravitch
May 19, 2014 //
93

Randi Weingarten and Linda Darling-Hammond have co-authored a major new statement on accountability.

They write that:

“If we assume that the goal of accountability should be better education, the test-and-punish approach must be replaced by a support-and-improve model. A new approach should ensure that students get what they really need: 1) curriculum, teaching, and assessment focused on meaningful learning, 2) adequate resources that are spent wisely, and 3) professional capacity, so that teachers and school leaders develop the knowledge and skills they need to teach much more challenging content in much more effective ways.”

They add:

“Implementing the standards well will not be accomplished by targets and sanctions. It will require more adequate and equitable resources and greater investments in professional capacity, especially for currently underfunded schools that serve the highest-need students.

“Raising standards in ways that punish children and educators for not meeting them produces the wrong responses from schools. Evidence shows that, rather than improve learning, sanctions tend to tamp down innovation, incentivize schools to boost scores by keeping or driving out struggling students, hasten the flight of thoughtful educators from the profession, and disrupt learning for students whose local schools are shut down.”

They use Néw York as an example of how do accountability wrong, and California as an example of how to do it right.

There are some very good ideas in their statement. I would add my two cents: when some children and families live in such desperate circunstance, not even the best standards, curriculum, assessments, and professional development will be enough to create equality of opportunity. Some kids have tooany strikes against them, and that is a societal failure.

Categories Accountability, California, Common Core, New York
« Older Entries
Newer Entries »