Archives for category: Teacher Education
« Older Entries
Newer Entries »

William Doyle: Please, Mr. Trump, Put Betsy DeVos on a Plane to Finland ASAP

By dianeravitch
December 9, 2016 //
21

William Doyle is living in Finland as a scholar-in-residence at the University of Eastern Finland.

 

In this post, he describes what Betsy DeVos would learn if she visited Finland.

 

He writes:

 

Donald Trump is promoting “school choice” as he vows to improve the American education system. To achieve this vision, he should start by putting his incoming Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos on a plane to world education superpower Finland to see what school choice means in its most powerful form — the choice from among numerous, great, neighborhood schools anywhere in the country.
Just ranked by the World Economic Forum as the No. 1 primary school system globally Finland shows us, that true educational choice means holding politicians accountable to provide families the choice between safe, well-resourced, high-quality local schools, especially in high-poverty areas, schools run by teachers trained at the highest levels of professionalism and supported by a national culture of teacher and school collaboration and respect for families and teachers.
We need to make the teaching profession respected enough to attract and retain the most highly qualified, motivated and passionate young people…and many of the teachers already in America’s schools.

 

The classroom scene in Finland is strikingly different from prevailing atmosphere reported in many classrooms in America, the U.K. and elsewhere, where teachers are routinely under-trained, micro-managed, surveilled, data-shamed, punished, overworked, disrespected and stressed to the breaking point by politicians, bureaucrats and non-educators….

 

We must not base our entire system of education on the staggeringly expensive, relentless standardized testing of children by faceless data collectors – make test design, administration and evaluation the job of the real experts – the classroom teachers who know our children best….

 

For example, Finland has discovered a crucial secret of education: Instead of flooding classrooms with graduates of unaccredited “alternative certifications” or six-week summer training courses as we do in the United States, teaching should be treated much more seriously, like an actual profession that’s critical to our nation’s future. Teaching requires rigorous, graduate-level training in both research and classroom practice.
It is a fantasy to believe, as the newly enacted federal Every Student Succeeds Act proposes, that we can improve our schools by requiring America’s teacher training universities to be evaluated by the standardized test scores of the children who are taught by their graduates. No high-performing school system does things this way.

Categories International, Teacher Education, Teacher Evaluations, Teachers and Teaching

Rachel Klein: Don’t Blame Teachers for the Achievement Gap

By dianeravitch
November 12, 2016 //
24

Rachel Klein, the education editor of Huffington Post, reports on a recent study by Mathematica Policy Research that found that teachers and low-income and in upper-income schools are no different in effectiveness.

This study is very important because a central tenet of the corporate reform movement is that “bad teachers” cause low test scores, and that low-scoring schools are overrun by “bad teachers.” We have heard this claim from the mouths of Bill Gates, Arne Duncan, Michelle Rhee, Joel Klein, and every other corporate reformer. This is why Race to the Top required every state applying for a share of $4.35 billion in federal funds had to agree to evaluate teachers based in large part on the test scores of their students. Think tanks, states, and the U.S. Department of Education have poured time and energy into the pursuit of the best way to find and fire those “bad teachers.” Another of Arne Duncan’s bad ideas was the “turnaround” model, which involved firing half, or most, or all of the school staff, since in his mind the staff caused low scores.

The study used the “reformers'” favorite methodology–value-added measurement–to look for differences in teacher effectiveness.

Klein writes:

Teachers shouldn’t be held responsible for the big gap in the achievement levels of rich and poor students, new data suggests.

By looking at the effectiveness ratings of teachers who work with students from varying socioeconomic classes, Mathematica Policy Research determined that rich and poor children generally have access to equally impressive educators. The research, which was sponsored by the U.S. Department of Education, stands in the face of arguments that a more equitable distribution of teachers could substantially move metrics of educational attainment.

Affluent students outperform their low-income peers on meaningful educational benchmarks. They have higher high school graduation rates and higher standardized test scores. Policymakers have said in the past that teachers might influence this gap. Indeed, previous data shows that low-income students tend to have less access to experienced teachers.

“We know from past research that there is a very large gap in achievement between high- and low-income kids, and we also know some teachers are quite a bit more effective than others,” said Eric Isenberg, senior researcher for Mathematica. “So we were interested in exploring whether there’s a link between those two things ― if achievement gaps could be explained by low-income kids having less effective teacher than high income kids.” .

The study looked at effectiveness ratings for English language arts and math teachers in 26 districts over the course of five years. These teachers worked with students in the fourth through eighth grades.

Researchers used a value-added model to measure the effectiveness of a teacher. This statistical model is controversial in the education world ― Isenberg called it an “imperfect measure,” but he said it’s the best available option. This statistical technique is used to isolate how students’ test scores change from year to year, and how much a teacher is contributing to these changes.

Although researchers did not work with a nationally representative sample of school districts, “the study districts were chosen to be geographically diverse, with at least three districts from each of the four U.S. Census regions,” the report says. About 63 percent of the students in the studied districts qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, and the districts’ achievement gaps tend to reflect those at the national level.

Overall, researchers only found small differences in the average effectiveness ratings given to teachers working with low-income and affluent students. The average teacher of a low-income student rates around the 50th percentile, while the average teacher of a more wealthy student rates around the 51st percentile.

As Linda Darling-Hammond once wrote: “You can’t fire your way to Finland.”

In Finland, teaching is a highly prestigious profession. Entry into teachers’ colleges is very competitive. Teachers must have five years of education before they can teach. Once they are professionals, they have broad autonomy, and they collaborate with their peers to make school wide decisions. There is no standardized testing until the end of high school. There is an emphasis on the arts, play, technology, and collaborate learning. Children have a recess after every class. Teachers are professionals. They are not judged by test scores because there are no test scores.

The policies of the Bush-Obama era have failed and failed and failed. It is time to think anew.

Categories Accountability, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Education Reform, Teacher Education, Teacher Evaluations, Teachers and Teaching, Testing, VAM (value-added modeling)

Yay! Deans for Justice and Equity Organize to Counter Reformer-Funded “Deans for Impact”

By dianeravitch
November 8, 2016 //
11

Last year, a small group of education school deans organized as “Deans for Impact,” signing on to the corporate reform agenda and agreeing to comply with the data-driven approach to education. Paul Thomas and Mercedes Schneider wrote about this new group and its corporate reform funder.

Now a group of 20 education deans formed their own group, “Education Deans for Justice and Equity.”

The new group was initiated by Dean Kevin Kumashiro of the University of San Francisco School of Education. Note here the letter that he wrote to the New York Times opposing John King’s terrible regulations for ed schools.

It is heartening to see education leaders fighting back against the bad ideas of corporate reform, which would destroy the teaching profession if left to its own agenda.

Categories Resistance, Teacher Education, Teachers and Teaching

Connecticut: Malloy Administration Approves Phony “Relay Graduate School of Education”

By dianeravitch
November 3, 2016 //
10

The Relay “Graduate School of Education” is a hoax, as the article below argues. It is not a graduate school at all. Its location is a post office box. It has no scholars, no researchers, no faculty other than charter teachers. It is a trade school for teaching tricks of test-taking and how to control black and brown children and teach them to obey orders without questioning.

Despite the opposition of legitimate teacher education professionals, the Malloy administration in Connecticut has approved the Relay “Graduate School of Education” to offer faux degrees. This undermines the teaching profession and demeans legitimate degrees and certification.

Before the decision was announced by the Malloy administration, Jonathan Pelto cited a recent article by Professor Lauren Anderson, chair of the Education Department at the prestigious Connecticut College.

Anderson warns the public and state officials not to approve the “Relay Graduate School of Education,” which is a program that trains teachers how to raise test scores and maintain no-excuses discipline. Its Bible is Doug Lemov’s “Teach Like a Champion.” Relay is selling itself as an answer to the shortage of well-prepared teachers of color, but its rigid and limited methods do not deliver on that promise, nor do they produce well-prepared teachers of any color.

She wrote that the Relay proposal

is being framed as a solution to minority teacher recruitment and an engine for ameliorating educational inequities. In fact, Relay is no panacea for our pipeline problems, and instead represents the tip of an approaching iceberg that threatens the education of the state’s most under-served students and sells short the very teachers to whom we owe the best preparation, support, working conditions, and compensation available.

WHAT IS RELAY GRADUATE SCHOOL OF EDUCATION?

First, it is not a graduate school in any recognizable sense. It is a charter-style network of independent teacher preparation programs created by the leaders of three prominent charter school chains (Uncommon Schools, KIPP, and Achievement First), primarily as a means to bypass traditional teacher education. Relay has recently set up shop in New Haven, where it has reportedly enrolled a cohort of candidates who will finish its one-year program this academic year, despite the fact that it has not received approval as a preparation provider.

Its “campus” address is a PO Box; its offices are co-located in a partner charter school; its faculty are unnamed and not required to hold degrees comparable to teacher educators elsewhere; and its nationwide curriculum has been critiqued for emphasizing methods that are reductive and control-oriented, rather than research-based and conducive to critical thinking.

In short, Relay would lower the bar for teacher preparation in Connecticut, increasing the likelihood that students in districts such as Hartford, Bridgeport, and New Haven would receive teachers who have not met the same standards of preparation as those in more affluent districts.

WHAT IS THE HARM IN APPROVING RELAY?

For candidates in targeted districts, the harm would come from providing a program that doesn’t honor their potential as professionals and would not be deemed acceptable preparation for those certified and employed elsewhere in the state.

For students in targeted districts, the harm would come from providing their teachers with preparation that is based on a reductive, behaviorist view of teaching and learning, and that emphasizes the kind of techniques shown to narrow the curriculum and adversely affect students’ socio-emotional development. For targeted districts and the communities they serve, the harm would come from partnering with a provider that has no credible research base to support its claims to effectiveness or to indicate that it will improve minority teachers’ retention in urban schools. For the public, the harm would come from establishing a pathway into teaching that is not accountable to the profession or state in ways that most other programs are.

To call Relay a “graduate school of education” is an insult to legitimate graduate schools of education. It is a hoax. It has no campus; it has no research; it has no scholars; it has no library. Its methods are behaviorist and limited. It should be sold as a trade school for future charter teachers, not a “graduate school of education.” It undermines the education profession by giving fake credentials to ill-trained “teachers” and sending them to high-needs schools where children deserve well-qualified, well-prepared teachers.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Connecticut, Corporate Reform, Education Industry, Equity, Hoax, Teacher Education

New Advocacy Group Condemns Federal Teacher Prep Regulations as Costly and Harmful

By dianeravitch
November 1, 2016 //
20

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.

21more

Categories Education Industry, Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), John King, Teacher Education, Teachers and Teaching, Testing

Sarah Blaine Explains Why John King’s Regulations on Grading Teacher Education Are Wrong

By dianeravitch
October 21, 2016 //
17

John King inherited a lot of very bad ideas from his predecessor Arne Duncan. One of them is the belief that teacher education programs can be judged by the test scores of the students taught by their graduates. King recently issued regulations cementing the regulations that Duncan began fashioning a few years back. It would be asking too much to expect anyone at the U.S. Department of Education to rethink their failed policies of the past 7 1/2 years.

Fortunately we have a commentary from lawyer Sarah Blaine that explains why the King-Duncan regulations are nonsense. They will increase the nation’s teacher shortage and demoralize those who spend their days trying to teach children.

In the original post, I called this “Arne’s Worst Idea Yet.” Now it is John King’s “worst idea yet.”

It has no validity. It will worsen the problems it is intended to solve.

Sarah Blaine called this proposal “asinine.” Read her entire post.

Here is an excerpt:

“Now, please bear with me. Out here in lawyer-land, there’s a slippery concept that every first year law student must wrap her head around: it’s the idea of distinguishing between actual (or “but for”) causation and proximate (or “legal”) causation. Actual causation is any one of a vast link in the chain of events from the world was created to Harold injured me by hitting me, that, at some level, whether direct or attenuated, “caused” my injury. For instance, Harold couldn’t have hit me if the world hadn’t been created, because if the world hadn’t been created, Harold wouldn’t exist (nor would I), and therefore I never would have been hit by Harold. So, if actual or “but for” causation was legally sufficient to hold someone responsible for an injury, I could try suing “the Creator,” as if the Creator is somehow at fault for Harold’s decision to hit me.

Well, that’s preposterous, even by lawyer standards, right?

The law agrees with you: the Creator is too far removed from the injury, and therefore cannot be held legally responsible for it.

So to commit a tort (legal wrong) against someone else, it isn’t sufficient that the wrong allegedly committed actually — at some attenuated level — caused the injured’s injury (i.e., that the injury would not have happened “but for” some cause). Instead, the wrong must also be proximally related to that injury: that is, there must be a close enough tie between the allegedly negligent or otherwise wrongful act and the injury that results. So while it would be silly to hold “the Creator” legally responsible for Harold hitting me, it would not be similarly silly to hold Harold responsible for hitting me. Harold’s act was not only an actual or “but for” cause of my injury, it was also an act closely enough related to my injury to confer legally liability onto Harold. This is what we lawyers call proximate (or legal) causation: that is, proximate causation is an act that is a close enough cause of the injury that it’s fair — at a basic, fundamental level — to hold the person who committed that injurious act legally responsible (i.e., liable to pay damages or otherwise make reparations) for his act. [As an aside to my aside, if this sort of reasoning makes your head explode, law school probably isn’t a great option for you.]

Well, it appears that Arne Duncan would have failed his torts class. You see, Arne didn’t get the memo regarding the distinction between actual causation and proximate causation. Instead, what Arne proposes is to hold teacher prep programs responsible for the performance of their alumni’s K-12 students (and to punish them if their alumni’s students don’t measure up). Never mind the myriad chains in the causation link between the program’s coursework and the performance of its graduates’ students (presumably on standardized tests). Arne Duncan somehow thinks that he can proximally — fairly — link these kids’ performance not just to their teachers (a dicey proposition on its own), but to their teachers’ prep programs. Apparently Arne can magically tease out all other factors, such as where an alumna teaches, what her students’ home lives are like, how her students’ socio-economic status affects their academic performance, the level of her students’ intrinsic motivation, as well as any issues in the new alumna’s personal life that might affect her performance in the classroom, and, of course, the level of support provided to the new alumna as a new teacher by her department and administration, and so forth. As any first year law student can tell you, Arne’s proposal is asinine, as the alumna’s student’s test results will be so far removed from her teaching program’s performance that ascribing proximate causation from the program to the children’s performance offends a reasonable person’s sense of justice. [Not to mention the perverse incentives this would create for teaching programs’ career advising centers — what teaching program would ever encourage a new teacher to take on a challenging teaching assignment?]”

Categories Accountability, Education Industry, Education Reform, Teacher Education, Teacher Evaluations, Teacher Shortage, Testing

John Merrow: Why John King and the NY Times Are Wrong About Teacher Education

By dianeravitch
October 17, 2016 //
25

Perhaps you read the editorial in the New York Times a few days ago, blasting teacher education programs and approving John King’s new regulations to judge them by the test scores of the students who graduate from them. The editorial cites the Gates-funded National Council on Teacher Quality’s claim that 90% of teacher education institutions stink. NCTQ, you may recall, publishes rankings of teacher education programs without ever actually visiting any of them. It just reads the catalogues and decides which are the best and which are the worst, based in part on their adherence to the Common Core and scripted reading programs.

I agree that the entry standards for teacher education programs must be higher, and I would love to see online teaching degree programs shut down. But King’s new rules don’t address entry standards or crummy online programs. Their main goal is to judge teacher education programs by the test scores of the students who studied under the graduates of the programs. They will discourage teachers from teaching in high-needs districts. They will allow the U.S. Department of Education to extend its test-crazed control into yet another sector of American education. This is federal overreach at its dumbest.

John Merrow, who knows much more than the Times’ editorial writer on education (the same person for the past 20 years or more), has a different and better informed perspective.

He writes that the problem is not teacher education but the underpaid, under-respected profession.

The federal government thinks that tighter regulation of these institutions is the answer. After all, cars that come out of an automobile plant can be monitored for quality and dependability, thus allowing judgments about the plant. Why not monitor the teachers who graduate from particular schools of education and draw conclusions about the quality of their training programs?

That’s the heart of the new regulations issued by the U.S. Department of Education this week: monitor the standardized test scores of students and analyze the institutions their teachers graduated from. Over time, the logic goes, we’ll discover that teachers from Teacher Tech or Acme State Teachers College generally don’t move the needle on test scores. Eventually, those institutions will lose access to federal money and be forced out of business. Problem solved!

Education Secretary John B. King, Jr., announced the new regulations in Los Angeles. “As a nation, there is so much more we can do to help prepare our teachers and create a diverse educator workforce. Prospective teachers need good information to select the right program; school districts need access to the best trained professionals for every opening in every school; and preparation programs need feedback about their graduates’ experiences in schools to refine their programs (emphasis added). These regulations will help strengthen teacher preparation so that prospective teachers get off to the best start they can, and preparation programs can meet the needs of students and schools for great educators.”

Work on the regulations began five years ago and reflect former Secretary Arne Duncan’s views.

John Merrow says that the Department is trying to solve a problem by issuing regulations that will make the problem worse. Teacher churn and attrition are at extraordinary high levels. The regulations will not encourage anyone to improve teaching.

He writes:

Strengthen training, increase starting pay and improve working conditions, and teaching might attract more of the so-called ‘best and brightest,’ whereas right now it’s having trouble attracting anyone, according to the Learning Policy Institute, which reported that

“Between 2009 and 2014, the most recent years of data available, teacher education enrollments dropped from 691,000 to 451,000, a 35% reduction. This amounts to a decrease of almost 240,000 professionals on their way to the classroom in the year 2014, as compared to 2009.”

Merrow writes, in the voice of wisdom, a voice that has been non-existent in Washington, D.C., for the past 15 years:

I am a firm believer in the adage, “Harder to Become, Easier to Be.” We need to raise the bar for entry into the field and at the same time make it easier for teachers to succeed. This approach will do the opposite; it will make teaching more test-centric and less rewarding.

This latest attempt to influence teaching and learning is classic School Reform stuff. It worships at the altar of test scores and grows out of an unwillingness to face the real issues in education (and in society). While it may be well-meaning, it’s misguided and, at the end of the day, harmful.

Listen up, New York Times editorial writer!

Categories Accountability, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Education Reform, National Council on Teacher Quality (NCTQ), Teacher Education, Teacher Evaluations, Teachers and Teaching, Testing

Laura Chapman’s Review of John King’s Teacher Ed Regulations

By dianeravitch
October 12, 2016 //
20

Our reader Laura Chapman reviewed the regulations for teacher education issued by John King’s Department of Education today.

She writes:

“I downloaded the regulations. They are final, include some discussion of comments, but the parts that matter are concentrated in “definitions.” Here you go on the definition of “student growth.”

“Student growth: The change in student achievement between two or more points in time, using a student’s scores on the State’s assessments under section 1111(b)(2) of the ESEA or other measures of student learning and performance, such as

“student results on pre-tests and end- of-course tests;

“objective performance-based assessments;

“student learning objectives;

“student performance on English language proficiency assessments; and

“other measures that are rigorous, comparable across schools, and consistent with State guidelines.

“Teacher evaluation measure: A teacher’s performance level based on an LEA’s teacher evaluation system that differentiates teachers on a regular basis using at least three performance levels and multiple valid measures in assessing teacher performance.

“For purposes of this definition, multiple valid measures must include data on

“student growth for all students (including English learners and students with disabilities) and

“other measures of professional practice (such as observations based on rigorous teacher performance standards, teacher portfolios, and student and parent surveys).

“There is no real difference between ESSA as interpreted by these regulations and the last iteration of regulations in NCLB.

“The persistent reference to student learning objectives (SLOs) and gains between pretests and same year end-of-course tests reflect a profound misunderstanding of teaching, learning, curriculum organization across and within a year, the difference between what may be explored but individuals and subgroups or the whole class and what may be treated as a matter of “mastery” (especially of easy to test content/skill-sets).

“The explicit and implicit assumptions about education are wrong from the get go. The process can be followed but it will mean more of the same invalid stack ratings that have prevailed since 2001.

“Student Learning Objectives–SLOs–are not valid. Recent research from the American Institutes of Research confirms that there is no evidence of gains in student achievement or basis for claims of validity for every grade and subject where those convoluted writing exercises are required.”

Categories Accountability, Standardized Testing, Teacher Education, Teacher Evaluations

Randi Slams John King for His Teacher Education Regulations

By dianeravitch
October 12, 2016 //
21

Secretary of Education John King refuses to believe that the new federal law restricts his ability to control U.S. education. Today he released regulations that would threaten the federal funding of teacher education programs if their graduates teach low-scoring students.

Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, blasted King’s overreach and poor judgment

AFT’s Weingarten on Teacher Preparation Programs Regulations

“WASHINGTON—Statement from American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten on the Department of Education’s final regulations for teacher preparation programs.

“It is, quite simply, ludicrous to propose evaluating teacher preparation programs based on the performance of the students taught by a program’s graduates. Frankly, the only conceivable reason the department would release regulations so out of sync with the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) and President Obama’s own call to reduce high-stakes testing is that they are simply checking off their bucket list of outstanding issues before the end of their term.

“The final regulations could harm students who would benefit the most from consistent, high-quality standards for teacher preparation programs. The regulations will create enormous difficulty for teacher prep programs and place an unnecessary burden on institutions and states, which are also in the process of implementing ESSA.

“Instead of designing a system to support and improve teacher prep programs, the regulations build on the now-rejected high-stakes testing system established under NCLB and greatly expanded under this administration’s Race to the Top and waiver programs. It’s stunning that the department would evaluate teaching colleges based on the academic performance of the students of their graduates when ESSA—enacted by large bipartisan majorities in both the House and Senate last December—prohibited the department from requiring school districts to do that kind of teacher evaluation.

“Teacher prep programs need to help ensure that teachers are ready to engage their students in powerful learning and creating an environment that is conducive to learning. These regulations will not help achieve that goal. These regulations do not address ways to help the current status of the teaching profession: the shortages, the lack of diversity or the high turnover.

“While the department has made minor tweaks, the flawed framework remains the same. The regulations will punish teacher prep programs whose graduates go on to teach in our highest-needs schools, most often those with high concentrations of students who live in poverty and English language learners—the exact opposite strategy of what we need. As we brought up in January 2015—in our comments to the department’s proposal— if programs are rated as the department proposes, teacher prep schools will have incentive to steer graduates away from assignments in our toughest schools, and that will only make matters worse.

“If we want to get it right, we should look to countries like Finland, where prospective teachers receive extensive training in their subject matter and teaching strategies combined with clinical training. Finland has no alternative prep programs. Programs are highly selective and free of cost; their graduates go on to work in supportive, professional environments with strong unions, fair pay and benefits, and without high-stakes testing.”

###

Categories Accountability, Teacher Education, Teacher Evaluations, U.S. Department of Education

John King Doubles Down on Importance of Standardized Tests; “Reformers” Cheer

By dianeravitch
October 12, 2016 //
25

Standardized tests produce results normed on a bell curve. The students who cluster in the bottom half of the bell curves are predominantly poor, children with disabilities, and children of color. The bell curve, by design, never closes. That is why it is fundamentally wrong to rank students, teachers, and schools by a measure that favors the most affluent.

Secretary of Education John King is releasing regulations that will punish education programs if their graduates teach students whose scores are low. “Reformers” are supposed to be aware of the power of incentives, but not Secretary King. He thinks he can scare education programs to focus more on raising test scores. More likely is that teachers will get the message to avoid teaching in schools that enroll students who are impoverished, and that their preparation programs will encourage them to steer clear of the neediest children.

This is the report that appeared this morning in politico education (http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=70112e1be3cf7964cb8f83700178acc6d2452a022573f96620522e9d5cbe9274):

TEACHER PREP RULES OUT TODAY: The Obama administration unveiled its long-delayed final regulations governing teacher preparation programs today. The rule preserves much of the administration’s original proposal from 2014, and requires states to develop a rating system for teacher-preparation programs.

– The rule will also eventually punish low-performing programs by cutting off their access to federal TEACH grants that help students pay for teacher training.

– The final rule retains a particularly-controversial component, which holds teacher-preparation programs accountable, in part, for how their graduates perform as teachers, based upon their students’ academic success. However, states will have flexibility in determining how to measure student learning.

– Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, sharply criticized the regulations, saying in a statement that although the department “has made minor tweaks, the flawed framework remains the same.”

– Weingarten said it was “ludicrous to propose evaluating teacher preparation programs based on the performance of the students taught by a program’s graduates.” And she said the rules ultimately punish teacher prep programs that send graduates into the highest-need schools.

– Chris Minnich, executive director of the Council of Chief State School Officers, said in a statement that the group was “pleased the department listened to feedback and made these regulations stronger.”

– Kate Walsh, president of the National Council on Teacher Quality, said she’s impressed with how much the department kept with its original intent, “which was to insert far greater accountability for program quality.” She added that the effectiveness of the rule “very much depends on states doing their bit to hold programs accountable for quality.”

– “I told people they would never see the light of day,” Walsh said of the rules. “I’m happy to be wrong.”

– Education Secretary John B. King Jr. will be speaking about teacher preparation at the University of Southern California’s Rossier School of Education today. Watch the USC event live, starting at 1 p.m. ET, here.

– Read the regulations here

Click to access teacher-prep-final-regs.pdf

Categories Accountability, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, John King, Teacher Education, Teacher Evaluations, Testing
« Older Entries
Newer Entries »