Dave Reid is an engineer who decided to become a public school teacher after a career of 25 years in the high-tech sector.
He has been blogging about his experiences as a new teacher of math in California.
He sent this comment to add to our discussion of whether five weeks of training is enough to be considered a “highly qualified teacher.”
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A reader states her view of Teach for America’s claim that five weeks of training is enough to make their corps members “highly qualified teachers”:
I graduated college in 1965 with a degree in education. My first two years were liberal arts and my last two years were education classes focusing on various subjects like social studies, math, reading, etc. In those days you didn’t need much in the way of classroom management because it was not a major issue. My third year in college all my education classes required me to visit different schools and observe master teachers who had agreed to allow students to observe them. We came back to class to reflect on what we saw. We collected resources. My last year of college required me to do 4 days a week of student teaching and one day a week in cohort to discuss our experiences. I worked one semester in a 4th grade class in the lower east side of manhattan and one semester in a kindergarten in park slope brooklyn. The teachers I worked with were wonderful. They were helpful and allowed me to assist and also to teach, under their direction, lessons.
None of this, however, prepared me for the experience of having my own class. It was overwhelming. It took me a very long time before I thought I was worthy to be a teacher.
There is absolutely no way in the world anyone can be considered “highly qualified” in five weeks.
The suits that don’t understand that are either smoking funny cigarettes, are on someone’s payroll to push this through, or have a complete disdain for other people’s children. Or all of the above.
I have said many times that those who would consider someone with 5 weeks training to be highly qualified should have major surgery done with someone with 5 weeks medical training.
I told that once to a TFA teacher from a charter school housed in my school building and who had been a finance major at Cornell. She told me it was different because doctors learned real skills.
I think that says it all.
Valerie Strauss of The Washington Post asks a seemingly obvious question: Should a teacher with only five weeks of training be considered “highly qualified”? The answer is obviously no..
But the question pertains to Teach for America, which has lobbied Congress to make sure that its neophytes are somehow treated as “highly qualified” under the No Child Left Behind act. The federal appeals court in California has twice said that TFA teachers are not highly qualified, and that they should not be concentrated in districts of high poverty and high disadvantage, where children actually need “highly qualified” teachers, not young college graduates with five weeks to training.
Congress is debating the issue, and TFA is exerting its muscle and lobbyists and war chest to make sure that its fresh-faced recruits are dubbed “highly qualified” by any new version of the law. As Strauss says, “Let’s see just how powerful Teach for America is with Congress.”
If you are following the saga of Dr. Camika Royal, you will remember that Gary Rubinstein posted a video of her addressing the Philadelphia summer institute of TFA, some 700 young people who will work in the Philadelphia public schools (which is laying off teachers).
Gary sent the video to me, and I wrote a post, but before I could put it online, the video mysteriously disappeared. There was some pushback, as both Gary and I get an email from someone warning us that Camika was not going to be used by “the anti-reform movement” and that she was a loyal servant of the reform movement.
Yesterday evening, I got a tweet from Camika, addressed to both me and Gary, with a new statement by Camika published on Huffington Post and including a transcript of her speech. I was mentally cheering. I posted how pleased I was and how impressed I was by her courage.
Now apparently the video is back up again. I don’t know who took it down and I don’t know who put it back.
Here is a comment that includes the video.
Some people think that TFA acts like a cult. It programs people and it expects everyone to follow the party line or be ostracized.
My advice to TFA is this: Let Camika be Camika. She’s smart, she’s articulate, she thinks for herself. Don’t muzzle her. Hear her.
| Good morning, Diane ~Every day when I open my email, I see your new blogs and a daily email from Ken Derstine, Save Our Schools Information Coordinator in Pennsylvania, He, like many of us work tirelessly and yes, I am sure the hope by the reformies is that we will ALL become reform weary, like Camika Royal talked about in her speech.Ken’s “Pennsylvania Education Crisis Updates” can be read about DAILY on his blog: Pennsylvania SOS [Save Our Schools] on this link:http://www.pa-sos.org/ . Ken does a great job keeping this updated and provides readers a model we can all follow.
He and Helen Gym, Parents United PA are dedicated to saving public schools, along with Philly Acts. The students in PA are very organized as well. They are folks to follow on Twitter: @KenDerstine @ParentsUnitedPA @PhillyActs Now, back to the topic, Camika Royal. We’re not going to play into the reformy’s hands. We’re just getting this party started and like Camika, we’re going to speak out. And when Camika was speaking out, her revolution was being televised. When I opened Ken’s email this morning, there she was on You Tube. I thought to myself, “Wait, that video was taken down! It probably won’t work. Well, give it a try. What can be hurt?” Well, low and behold: “It works!” In this modern world, “the revolution will be televised.” Here is Camika saying every word we needed to hear — in Pennsylvania where the reformies are trying to kill public education and Camika stands up and says NO! Thanks, Diane. I thought your readers would like to hear Camika’s outstanding speech! |
The other day I blogged about a TFA leader who spoke at the opening ceremonies of the TFA summer institute in Philadelphia. Before my blog was posted, the Youtube video was taken down.
Just a few hours ago, I received a tweet saying that Dr. Camika Royal had posted an article at Huffington Post. The article contained an explanation of what happened as well as the text of the video.
In the Youtube video, Dr. Camika Royal was speaking to the recruits. She said some amazing things that were distinctly out of step with the customary “charters are better than public schools” and “TFA is better than veteran teachers” lines. She spoke of humility and respect. She spoke of the resiliency of Philadelphians (she is a native of the city). She spoke disparagingly of a “governor-appointed School Reform Commission whose latest reform plan is to educate by abdicating its responsibility for the schools that have been most difficult to manage.” Sounded like me, for a minute. Be careful.
She said, “Our schools are more than the lie of successful charters and failing district. Our educators are more than the false dichotomy of good versus bad, of us and them. By and large, educators here are not bad. Educators here are tired. Educators here are reform weary. Our students are more than test scores, graduation rates, and disciplinary issues. They are the babies that parents prayed for and over and read to and work for and dream about.” Sounds like me, again. I told you to be careful.
She said, “You have come to Teach FOR America, but in Philadelphia, that will only happen to the extent that you commit yourself to serving and learning. A teacher is a servant. And you are not here to save. You are here to serve.” That’s right.
In the written introduction to the speech, Dr. Royal says the following about Philadelphia today:
“By no means do I suggest that the public education system in Philadelphia, as it exists right now, works for the majority of the students who attend them or the educators who work in them. However, I do not think the solution to this multi-faceted, multi-layered behemoth conundrum is the plan to dismantle the School District of Philadelphia (SDP), to release the education of its students to charter management organizations as is being currently touted by the mayor, the School reform commission, and the former Philadelphia gas works leader turn chief recovery officer of SDP. I realize this view is contrary to those espoused by many neo-liberal education reformers, some of whom are also TFA alumni. And perhaps earlier in my career, I would have agreed with them. But I’ve done too much research on charter schools in Philadelphia and the history and sociopolitical context of schools in Philly to think that this plan will be effective in the long-run for students, families, educators, or communities. This current plan to dismantle the District is not reform. It is refuse. It places financial concerns and constraints over the educational needs of people who need education the most, and it is, therefore, political and unacceptable.”
Oh, my heavens! This woman is great! She tells the truth. She is not afraid. She doesn’t sell the party line.
Dr. Camika Royal, you are a hero! Thank you for speaking plainly and courageously.
PS: I wonder why Philadelphia is hiring TFA in the middle of a budget crisis as they lay off career teachers?
Gary Rubinstein told me a year or so ago that the corporate reform movement was living on borrowed time.
He believes that its ideas are so destructive and ill-conceived that it is certain to implode as failure after failure drags it down and as the public realizes that its public schools are being ruined.
In this post, he tries to figure out how Teach for America might salvage its reputation as the ship goes down. He explores his own hope that the original idea of TFA—recruiting top college graduates to teach–might survive.
He suggests that there are two different TFA legacies: One is the privatization/testing group (Rhee, John White, etc.), and the other consists of realists who have joined the education profession or found other ways to be constructive. He looks to the latter group as a saving remnant when the great ship Corporate Reform founders, as it inevitably must.
I find it hard to share Gary’s sunny optimism. I agree with him that corporate reform is a disaster and that it will collapse and die, weighted down by its failures and its inability to achieve its goals. But TFA has benefited so handsomely from the “reforms” and has produced so many of the leaders, that it is hard to see how the one good idea that launched TFA gets disassociated.
But I would like to believe. Is Gary right? Will he be the one who helped save TFA?
A friend shared this post by a young member of Teach for America.
This young teacher wants to teach social studies, for which he or she feels adequate, but will be expected to teach math, for which he or she feels inadequate.
What comes through as you read the post is a sense of sheer terror.
The teacher-to-be knows that 11 days of training is not enough.
What is distressing is to realize that this ill-trained teacher might be sent to a district that is laying off experienced teachers to make room for inexperienced corps members of TFA.
You can’t read this without feeling terribly sorry for this youngster who has been told that she or he will change the world, but is being thrown into a tough classroom without the skills, knowledge or training to feel prepared.
Dr. Camika Royal, a 1999 Baltimore TFA alum, recently spoke at the opening of the TFA training institute in Philadelphia and she gave the incoming TFA corps members a dose of hard-earned reality. Philly is a hotbed of corporate reform ideas right now, with a plan drafted by Boston Consulting Group to privatize as much as 40 percent of the public schools, cheered on the the wealthy and powerful local titans.
When I wrote this post yesterday, I was able to link to a YouTube video of the speech. Gary Rubinstein, a critic of TFA and former TFA corps member, told me about the video. However, after Gary posted about it, it was mysteriously taken down and is now available only to those with “permission” to view it.
In her 7-minute speech, she told the new teachers, who were there to “make history,” to “save” the children and to “close the achievement gap,” some of what she had learned since teaching in Baltimore and earning her doctorate in urban education.
Here is a snippet of the speech, thanks to Gary Rubinstein. Gary has printed portions of the speech on his website. Originally, he had a link to the entire speech, but that is no longer available.
Dr. Royal said:
Recently, there has been a constant state of flux and reform producing lateral movement but little to lift us higher or take us forward.”
“The mayor appointed school board was disbanded and replaced with a governor appointed school reform commission whose latest reform plan is to educate by abdicating its responsibility for the schools that have been most difficult to manage.”
“It doesn’t matter what you see, or what you’ve read about schools and educators here, don’t believe the hype. Our schools are more than the lie of successful charters and failing districts. Our educators are more than the false dichotomy of good vs bad, of us vs. them.”
“By and large, educators here are not bad. Educators here are tired. Educators here are reform weary.”
“Our students are more than test scores, graduation rates, and disciplinary issues.”
“Our education is more than failure rhetoric and the achievement gap misnomer.”
It is a shame that someone felt the need to take down the video of Camika Royal’s speech. It shows a woman who thinks for herself and does not spout the party line. We all need more of that kind of independence and critical thinking.
A reader in Tennessee nominates his state as the worst in the nation in terms of implementing the usual stale ideas to “reform” the schools.
How could it not be in contention to win the race to the bottom when it was one of the first states (Delaware was the other) to win the Race to the Top? That guaranteed that Tennessee would adopt every untested and harmful policy idea that Arne Duncan’s team could think up.
Conservative Republicans control the state, and they like the Obama agenda. Go figure. Could it be because Obama’s agenda is a more muscular version of NCLB? Republicans love the tough accountability, they like cracking the whip on the teachers, and they love privatization of public services.
Where other people (like parents and teachers) look at schools and see children, the reformers in Tennessee (and elsewhere) look at schools and see entrepreneurial prospects and a steady stream of government revenue.
So naturally the state is committed to evaluating teachers based on student test scores, and those who don’t teach tested subjects get evaluated by some other teachers’ work. Makes sense, no? And surely there will be lots of new charters in Tennessee to “save” the children.
Then, to add to that state’s woes, the new state commissioner of education, Kevin Huffman, is not only Michelle Rhee’s -ex, but was formerly the PR director for TFA. That guarantees a very big foot in the door for the ill-trained novices who only Teach For Awhile. Huffman hired a charter school leader from Houston to take over the state’s lowest performing schools. Tennessee will soon be charter school paradise, or at least paradise for TFA.
And then there is all that Gates money in Tennessee, now deployed to figure out how to have an effective teacher in every single classroom in the state. Watch Tennessee overtake Massachusetts on NAEP rankings. Wait a minute, isn’t Tennessee the birthplace of value-added assessment under William Sanders, the agricultural statistician? Didn’t Tennessee start measuring value-added by teachers in the 1980s? Why aren’t they already number one?
Yes, Tennessee is a contender.
| Last year, TN and our TfA commissioner of ed and Michelle Rhee’s ex, Kevin Huffman, rushed into use a similar teacher evaluation system purchased from the Milken Foundation (the same Michael Milken of securities fraud fame) that measures teacher competence on a 1 – 5 Likert scale, aptly named TEAM. 1-5 is the same crude metric I used to rate my hotel stay and my car dealership. Sensitive to the effects of nuanced teaching practices, it’s not. If scored according to the TEAM trainer, on 15% of all teachers will gain or keep tenure protection. 85% will be subject to firing. Tied into the teacher’s average TEAM score is 40% VAM scores from the TCAP state assessments in reading in math. Teachers who do not teach reading and math were forced to use the VAMs of the school TCAP average or arbitrarily assigned either the school reading or math average score. Recommendations by an “independent” committee to improve the system suggested adding more tests to include all subject areas. With the republicans well in control of all branches of government in TN, teachers here have lost their collective voices. In 2010, Ramsey with the help of ALEC ended tenure, collective bargaining, auto deductions for TEA dues, and kicked all teacher reps off of the state retirement board. Three of the largest school systems in the state have Broad trained superintendents. The day after Walker in WI survived his recall, TN’s Lt Gov Ron Ramsey announced he’d propose vouchers in the 2013 legislative session. For profit, online teacher education is proliferating. Requirements for certification to teach are being dumbed down at the same time requirements to raise achievement are increased to levels nearly impossible. Further, state university teacher education programs are being evaluated according to their graduate’s VAM scores. Huffman posted the VAM scores on the TN website and guess which teacher ed program scored the best? Teach for America! The results were so skewed and improbable that several schools requested the raw data, only to be rebuffed, with great umbrage, by the state. TN politicians in collusion with wealthy privatizers in both the Democratic and Republican parties are using the full force of state power to crush involvement of teachers and parents in decisions about our children’s schools. God help us all in TN. |
Last spring, Louisiana held a crucial election that determined who would control the state’s Board of Elementary and Secondary Education.
Governor Bobby Jindal–the uber-conservative education reformer with a plan to replace public education with vouchers and charters–wanted to take control.
He rallied his friends and allies to win the decisive seat on the board, which was held by a local attorney, Louella Givens. Jindal’s candidate was Kira Orange Jones, the director of TFA in New Orleans.
According to Education Week, Orange Jones collected nearly $500,000 for her campaign. She raised large sums of money from the business community and from out-of-state donors, including Mayor Bloomberg, who sent a last-minute contribution of $100,000. Orange Jones also received campaign funds from Democrats for Education Reform, the pro-charter Wall Street hedge-fund managers organization.
Educators rallied to support Givens, but she raised only $9,000. In a runoff, Orange Jones won.
Now questions have been raised about the propriety of having a member of the state board who works for an organization that receives contracts from the State Department of Education. Orange Jones says there is no conflict because TFA gets its contracts from the state education department, not the state board.
The potential for conflict of interest goes well beyond the contracts that are written specifically for TFA. Every time the state board of education approves charter schools, it is implicitly expanding the number of jobs available for members of TFA. Every expansion of charters across Louisiana will benefit TFA teachers and alums who run charters.
Don’t expect Governor Jindal to launch an investigation. The question in Louisiana is whether there is anyone independent of the Jindal machine (or TFA–the state superintendent is a TFA alum).
Diane
Diane Ravitch's blog 