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Kenneth Zeichner: What We Know (and Don’t Know) about Non-Traditional Teacher Education Programs

By dianeravitch
September 22, 2016 //
24

Kenneth Zeichner is Boeing Professor of Teacher Education at the University of Washington in Seattle. He recently reviewed five alternate routes into teaching. Here is a question-and-answer session with him about his study.

The study is here.

He said:


My examination of the research on the five programs (The Relay Graduate School of Education, Match Teacher Residency, High Tech High’s Internship, iTeach and TEACH-NOW) concludes that there is no credible evidence that supports the claims of success that are made about them, and that the continued expansion of these programs is driven by ideology rather than by empirical evidence of success.

He added:

First of all, in the U.S. we have very serious problems of an inequitable distribution of teachers and inequitable access to a high-quality education, which enables students to interact with knowledge in authentic and meaningful ways. Students living in communities highly impacted by poverty are disproportionately taught by uncertified teachers, inexperienced teachers and by teachers teaching outside of their field. Most of the teachers who graduate from independent programs teach students who live in communities that are highly impacted by poverty.

I found that two of the five programs that I studied (Relay Graduate School of Education and Match Teacher Residency) contribute to the inequitable distribution of professionally prepared teachers and to the stratification of schools according to the social class and racial composition of the student body. These two programs prepare teachers to use highly controlling pedagogical and classroom management techniques, “a pedagogy of poverty,” that are primarily used in schools serving students of color whose communities are severely impacted by poverty. Meanwhile, students in more economically advantaged areas have greater access to professionally trained and experienced teachers, less punitive and controlling management practices, and to broader and richer curriculum and teaching practices. The teaching, curriculum and management practices learned by the teachers in these two independent programs are based on a restricted definition of teaching and learning and would not be acceptable in more economically advantaged communities.

In a sense, the expansion of independent teacher education programs like Relay and Match is furthering the building of a second-class system of education for children living in poverty while middle class children continue to be taught by professionally prepared teachers and have more access to a genuine education that aims for much more than just raising standardized test scores.

Categories Education Reform, Teacher Education

Karin Klein: Why Reformers Were Wrong about Teachers

By dianeravitch
September 6, 2016 //
25

Karin Klein wrote education editorials for the Los Angeles Times for years. She now writes freelance, and she wrote this sensible article for the LA Times.

So-called reformers have advocated their view that the way to improve schools is to fire “bad” teachers. The way they would identify “bad” teachers is by whether the test scores of students went up or down or stayed flat. Reformers seldom acknowledged that test scores reflect family income far more than teacher quality.

This hunt for bad teachers has proved fruitless, as scores have misidentified good and bad teachers, good teachers are demoralized by an idiotic way of evaluating their work, and there are teacher shortages now in many districts, as good teachers leave and the pipeline of new teachers has diminishing numbers.

Linda Darling-Hammond once memorably said, “You can’t fire your way to Finland.”

Karin Klein agrees.

One day, when the current era of test-based evaluation is evaluated, reformers will be held accountable for the damage they have done to teachers, students, and public education. That day will come.

Teachers need help and support to become better teachers.

There is no waiting line of great teachers searching for a job.

School districts must work with the teachers they have, making sure they are encouraged and mentored. And paid well.

Categories Accountability, Corporate Reformers, Teacher Education, Teacher Evaluations, Teacher Pay, Teacher Shortage, Teachers and Teaching

Wendy Lecker: Here Comes the Robot Teacher in Connecticut

By dianeravitch
July 13, 2016 //
14

Wendy Lecker warns the people of Connecticut that the New Haven public schools have made a deal with the Relay “Graduate School of Education,” which trains robot teachers who value compliance and arrive with scripted lessons. Why contract with Relay, she asks, when there are highly reputable teacher education programs in the neighborhood?

When you consider that Connecticut is one of the highest achieving states in the nation on NAEP, you have to wonder how the charter industry captured the state’s political leadership.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Connecticut, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Privatization, Teacher Education, Teachers and Teaching, Testing

EduShyster: What is the Match “Graduate School of Education”?

By dianeravitch
July 9, 2016 //
52

The new federal law titled “Every Student Succeeds Act” encourages states to welcome newcomers to the field of teacher education, such as the Relay Graduate School of Education and the Match Graduate School of Education. Relay and Match have much in common. They do not have scholars or researchers on their “faculty.” At last check, neither had anyone with a doctorate in any subject on their faculty. They do not appear to teach cognitive development, child study, the history or economics of education, the uses and misuses of testing, early childhood education, or any other subject normally found in a typical graduate school of education. These “graduate schools” consist of charter teachers teaching future charter teachers how to raise test scores and how to maintain strict discipline. They might appropriately be called a “program,” but they are not “graduate schools of education,” nor should they have the right to award master’s degrees. Going to Match or Relay is akin to taking classes in computer programming or cooking or going to a trade school.

I discovered that EduShyster explained the Match “Graduate School of Education” a few years back. Read this short piece to understand what Match is and why so many of its ill-prepared teachers don’t last.

And remember, the Congress of the United States wants to promote more of these sham teacher-preparation programs.

Categories Accountability, Charter Schools, Education Industry, Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), Fraud, Teacher Education, Teacher Tenure, Teachers and Teaching

Laura Chapman: ESSA and the Degradation of Teacher Preparation

By dianeravitch
July 8, 2016 //
21

Laura Chapman, retired arts consultant, predicts that the new “Every Student Succeeds Act” is a blow against professional teacher preparation. It offers carte blanche to the new institutions created by entrepreneurs and charter operators. She posted the following comment:

The biggest player in making teacher preparation an “anything goes” job is our US Congress with the passage of ESSA.

TITLE II—PREPARING, TRAINING, AND RECRUITING HIGH-QUALITY TEACHERS, PRINCIPALS, OR OTHER SCHOOL LEADERS is not just a bad joke for a title. It is cynically misleading.

ESSA marginalizes higher education’s role in teacher preparation. Scholarship is not required to prepare teachers or to be a teachers, or principal, or other school leader. All you need to do is be a producer of test scores as measures of “academic” achievement. All you have to do is let our governors expand the charter industry to teacher education by setting up an “authorizing entity” to approve “teacher preparation academies” for prospective Teachers, Principals, and other School Leaders.

Here are a couple of sections of ESSA that show the perverse incentives for awarding a master’s degree in a chartered
TEACHER , PRINCIPAL , OR OTHER SCHOOL LEADER PREPARATION ACADEMY .—The term ‘teacher, principal, or other school leader preparation academy’ means a public or other nonprofit entity, which may be an institution of higher education or an organization affiliated with an institution of higher education, that establishes an academy that will prepare teachers, principals, or other school leaders to serve in highneeds schools (not defined) and that—
‘‘
(A) enters into an agreement with a State authorizer that specifies the goals expected of the academy, including—

‘‘(i) a requirement that prospective teachers, principals, or other school leaders who are enrolled in the academy receive a significant part of their training through clinical preparation that partners the prospective candidate with an effective teacher, principal, or other school leader, as determined by the State, respectively, with a demonstrated record of increasing student academic achievement, including for the subgroups of students…, while also receiving concurrent instruction from the academy in the content area (or areas) in which the prospective teacher, principal, or other school leader will become certified or licensed that links to the clinical preparation experience; ‘‘

(ii) the number of effective teachers, principals, or other school leaders, respectively, who will demonstrate success in increasing student academic achievement that the academy will prepare; and ‘‘

(iii) a requirement that the academy will award a certificate of completion (or degree, if the academy is affiliated with, an institution of higher education) to a teacher only after the teacher demonstrates that the teacher is an effective teacher, as determined by the State, with a demonstrated record of increasing student academic achievement either as a student teacher or teacher-of-record on an alternative certificate, license, or credential; ‘‘
(iv) a requirement that the academy will award a certificate of completion (or degree, if the academy is affiliated with an institution of higher education) to a principal or other school leader only after the principal or other school leader demonstrates a record of success in improving student performance; and

(v) timelines for producing cohorts of graduates and conferring certificates of completion (or degrees, if the academy is affiliated with, an institution of higher education) from the academy; ‘‘

(B) does not have unnecessary restrictions on the methods the academy will use to train prospective teacher, principal, or other school leader candidates, including—
‘‘(i) obligating (or prohibiting) the academy’s faculty to hold advanced degrees or conduct academic research;
‘‘(ii) restrictions related to the academy’s physical infrastructure;
‘‘(iii) restrictions related to the number of course credits required as part of the program of study;
‘‘(iv) restrictions related to the undergraduate coursework completed by teachers teaching or working on alternative certificates, licenses, or credentials, as long as such teachers have successfully passed all relevant State-approved content area examinations; or
‘‘(v) restrictions related to obtaining accreditation from an accrediting body for purposes of becoming an academy; ‘‘

(C) limits admission to its program to prospective teacher, principal, or other school leader candidates who demonstrate strong potential to improve student academic achievement, based on a rigorous selection process that reviews a candidate’s prior academic achievement or record of professional accomplishment; and
‘
(D) results in a certificate of completion or degree that the State may, after reviewing the academy’s results in producing effective teachers, or principals, or other school leaders, respectively (as determined by the State) recognize as at least the equivalent of a master’s degree in education for the purposes of hiring, retention, compensation, and promotion in the State.”

These specification appear to come from the training models offered by the recently formed “Coalition” of charter teacher prep academies and programs well-funded by foundations. These programs have token or no ties to higher education. Charter residency programs are operated primarily to offer a “pipeline of talent” for charter schools. The new “Coalition” is a functioning as a lobby to keep students’ academic test scores as the measure of effective teaching and teacher preparation programs funded by ESSA. The Coalition includes Urban Teachers, Aspire Public Schools, Blue Engine, Boston Teacher Residency, Match Teacher Residency, National Center for Teacher Residencies, Relay Graduate School of Education (a darling of Bill Gates), Teach for America, and TNTP (formerly The New Teacher Project).

In ESSA, Congress has expressed absolute contempt for professional preparation of teachers. They approved a law that insists on… “no restrictions” on faculty academic qualifications, “no restrictions” on where academies exist, “no restrictions” on course credits (including undergraduate and academy programs), and freedom to operate with no accreditation “as long as such teachers have successfully passed all relevant State-approved content area examinations.”

The law is conspicuously tilted to support high scores on academic tests as the measure of “effectiveness.” Effectiveness is not formally defined but in ESSA it is used 150 times

(5) “TEACHER RESIDENCY PROGRAM —The term ‘teacher residency program’ means a school-based teacher preparation program in which a prospective teacher— ‘‘

(A) for not less than 1 academic year, teaches alongside an effective teacher, as determined by the State or local educational agency, who is the teacher of record for the classroom;

‘‘(B) receives concurrent instruction during the residency year

‘‘(i) through courses that may be taught by local educational agency personnel or by faculty of the teacher preparation program; and

‘‘(ii) in the teaching of the content area in which the teacher will become certified or licensed; and

(C) acquires effective teaching skills, as demonstrated through completion of a residency program, or other measure determined by the State, which may include a teacher performance assessment.

As I read Part 5, the teacher residency program is ambiguous. A teacher residency is typically a paid full-time co-teacher position, with the novice having full responsibility for classes well before the end of the school year, including securing proofs of their ability to increase the academic achievement (test scores) of their students. Meanwhile most residencies also require job-specific coursework (in addition to the full-time residency) that will justify earning a master’s degree. However, Part C seems to permit a direct path into teaching by taking a state approved performance assessment such as edPTA.

I can vouch for one thing about ESSA. It is a patched together law which deserves and F for clarity, wisdom, and sound investment of tax dollars.

Title II of ESSA calls for a four-year appropriation totaling $11,079,417,150. That is a huge investment, given the estimated demand per year for about 160,000 new teachers to take the place of teachers who will retire in the next four years.

Categories Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), Teacher Education

Janice & Geoffrey Strauss: How to End the Teacher Shortage

By dianeravitch
June 29, 2016 //
100

This is one of the best articles ever on how to end the teacher shortage.

Janice and Geoffrey Strauss write:

Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s irrational vendetta against teachers and public education, aided and abetted by the state legislature and former Commissioner John King’s inept handling of Common Core, charter schools and the public education system have all led to such a toxic atmosphere in education that few candidates want to even get near public school teaching…..

We must make public school teaching attractive again, and here is a short list of what should be done:

1. Eliminate the EdTPA. This system, promoted as increasing standards for teachers, is in reality so onerous and poorly thought out that it is discouraging qualified applicants to the profession. It costs both teacher candidates and the state millions, and has resulted in teacher candidates being less prepared for teaching rather than more so.

2. Eliminate standardized testing in the public schools and for teacher candidate preparation. Research shows the best indicator of a student’s success is their GPA, not standardized test scores. Standardized testing merely adds to the coffers of the private testing industry. Reinstitute teacher-created Regent’s exams. Teacher created exams are age appropriate, more accurately test the learning of students and cost much less than corporate prepared tests.

3. Let teachers mark their own students’ tests. It’s cheaper and better.

4. Eliminate corporate “canned” teaching modules created to meet Common Core Standards, and allow teachers to create their lesson plans. Teachers are the experts; release their creativity so that they can teach students properly.

5. Make the teaching profession attractive financially. Eliminate Tiers V and VI in the teacher retirement system. One of the tradeoffs teachers had accepted for the relatively low pay for the amount of education required was a decent pension. Tiers V and VI were created to punish teachers, not reward them for their service.

6. Create a “Teacher Bar Association” to establish educational requirements for teachers for public and charter schools, thus officially recognizing that teaching is a profession. Lawyers, doctors and CPAs are experts in their fields, as are teachers in theirs.

7. Establish a program to help raise the status of teaching in the public’s consciousness. Few want to enter a profession which is constantly derided by politicians and the press.

8. Common Core has been a disaster; eliminate it. While the intent was perhaps a good one, it was created by non-educators more for political and profit motives than educational ones.

If we want more teachers, we must make the profession attractive financially and creatively. Let teachers do what they do best — teach!

Categories Accountability, Common Core, Education Reform, Teacher Education, Teacher Evaluations, Teacher Pay, Teacher Shortage, Teachers and Teaching

Mitchell Robinson: The Brave New World of Student Teacher Evaluation

By dianeravitch
June 29, 2016 //
44

Mitchell Robinson, professor of music education at Michigan State University, writes here about the frightening new direction that is on the horizon for evaluating student teachers.

Here comes NOTE (National Observational Teaching Examination), created by ETS, in which student teachers are judged by their ability to instruct cartoon characters (“avatars”).

Robinson minces no words in chastising educators who have decided to join forces with the corporatization of teacher education-evaluation.

He writes:

Now, even some of these education experts, tempted by the prospect of previously unimaginable wealth and power, have sold out their profession for a shot at cashing in on the corporate reform gravy train. Witness Dr. Deborah Ball’s stepping down as Dean of the School of Education at the University of Michigan to concentrate on her work on NOTE: National Observational Teaching Examination for ETS, the Educational Testing Service.

As I’ve written about previously here, and here, and others have written about here, NOTE is a high-stakes student teacher evaluation test that requires pre-service teachers to “instruct” avatars–yes, avatars! And if their “teaching” of these cartoon characters isn’t deemed adequate, the student teacher is denied their certification or teaching license, in spite of the fact that the student teacher in question has just completed an accredited, rigorous 4 or 5 year teacher preparation program, regardless of the student teacher’s earned GPA or demonstrated capability to teach real, live children in hundreds of hours of field experiences in local school classrooms, or the intern’s exhibited knowledge, understanding or competence in their subject area.

(And, just to rub a little salt in the wound: the persons who are remotely-operating the avatars are not teachers themselves–they are unemployed actors who have been trained to manipulate the joy sticks and computer simulations that control the avatars’ voices and movements. The designers of the avatar system found that teachers thought too much about their responses to the interns’ teaching “moves”–the actors didn’t concern themselves with matters like content correctness or developmentally-appropriate responses; they just followed the provided script, and efficiently completed the task at hand.)

Schools Matter reported on this alarming new methodology here and here, and clarifies that the new technology-driven program is funded by….(no surprise)…the Gates Foundation, which gave $7 million to “remake teacher education in a corporate high tech image, one that can be turned into deep and fast-running revenue streams by the increasingly rapacious Silicon Valley data miners and dystopian isolationists who view democratic community as a threat to unbridled corporate greed.” It seems that Bill Gates will never abandon his goal of standardizing American education.

Our reader Jack Covey supplied this video.

Do you suppose that future teachers might master teaching cartoon avatars yet lack the skills and knowledge of a well-prepared teacher?

Categories Education Industry, Gates Foundation, Bill Gates, Teacher Education, Teacher Evaluations

Peter Greene: Reform Groups Ask Congress for Help in Vamming Teacher Education Programs

By dianeravitch
June 25, 2016 //
12

Peter Greene discovered that a bunch of alternative certification/charter school groups wrote a joint letter to Congress proposing that all teacher preparation programs be judged by the test scores of their students, which they call “outcome data.” He says this is one of the “Top Ten Dumbest Reform Ideas Ever.”

Yes, it’s one of the Top Ten Dumbest Reform Ideas Ever, back for another round of zombie policy debate. The same VAM-soaked high stakes test scores that has been debunked by everyone from principals to statisticians to teachers, the same sort of system that was called arbitrary and capricious by a New York judge, the same sort of system just thrown out by Houston– let’s use that not just to judge teachers, but to judge the colleges from which those teachers graduated.

Why would we do something so glaringly dumb? The signatores of the letter say that consumers need information.

Without the presence of concrete outcome measures, local education agencies and potential teacher candidates are hard-pressed to compare the quality of teacher preparation programs. Thus, it is a gamble for aspiring educators to select a teacher training program and a gamble for principals when hiring teachers for their schools

Yes, because everyone in the universe is dumb as a rock– except reformsters. Just as parents and teachers will have no idea how students are doing until they see Big Standardized Test results, nobody has any idea which teaching programs are any good. Except that, of course, virtually every program for teaching (or anything else, for that matter) has a well-developed and well-known reputation among professionals in the field….

This is just the first of a series of letters to the feds telling them what the people in charge of the nation’s shadow network of privatized faux teacher trainers. So there’s that to look forward to.

Look, it’s not just that this is a terrible terrible terrible TERRIBLE system for evaluating teacher programs, or that it’s a bald-faced attempt to grab money and power for this collection of education-flavored private businesses. These days, I suppose it’s just good business practice to lobby the feds to write the rules that help you keep raking it in. It’s that this proposal (and the other proposals like it which, sadly, often come from the USED) is about defining down what teaching even is.

It is one more back door attempt to redefine teaching as a job with just one purpose– get kids to score high on a narrow set of Big Standardized Tests. Ask a hundred people what they mean by “good teacher.” Write down the enormous list of traits you get from “knowledgeable” to “empathetic” to “uplifts children” to “creative” and on and on and on and, now that you’ve got that whole list, cross out every single item on it except “has students who get good test scores.”

It’s the fast foodifying of education. If I redefine “beautifully cooked meal” as “two pre-made patties cooked according to instructions, dressed with prescribed condiments, and slapped on the pre-made buns” then suddenly anyone can be a “great chef” (well, almost anyone– actual great chefs may have trouble adjusting). These are organizations that specialize in cranking out what non-teachers think teachers should be, and their thinking is neither deep nor complicated, because one of the things a teachers should be is easy to train and easy to replace.

Categories Accountability, Corporate Reformers, Education Industry, Education Reform, Privatization, Teach for America, Teacher Education, Teacher Evaluations

Laura Chapman: Who Created and Owns EdTPA?

By dianeravitch
May 20, 2016 //
18

The Pearson teacher certification exam called EdTPA is e trembly controversial. Many teacher educators believe that it seeks to standardize teacher preparation and reduces the autonomy of those who know future teachers best: those who taught them.

 

Laura Chapman, retired arts educator and crack researcher, here explains the origins of EdTPA.

 

 

“Pearson is the target of criticism of the edPTA, but the real culprit is that should be given attention is the lead developer, and it is NOT Pearson.

 

“The lead developer for edPTA was The Stanford Center for Assessment, Learning and Equity (SCALE).

 

“Stanford University owns the intellectual property rights and trademark for edTPA. SCALE is responsible for all edTPA development including candidate handbooks, scoring rubrics, and the scoring training design, curriculum and materials (including benchmarks). SCALE also develops and vets edPTA support materials in the Resource Library and through the National Academy.” http://edtpa.aacte.org/faq

 

“Stanford University has an agreement with Evaluation Systems, a unit of Pearson, licensing Pearson to administer and distribute edTPA.

 

“So, if you have complaints about edTPA, the target should not just be Pearson, but SCALE at Stanford University, where the edPTA was first envisioned as comparable to tests given in the professions of law and medicine indicating “readiness” to practice as a professional.

 

“SCALE as a big fan of so-called performance assessments. The SCALE website lists these “partners.”

 

1. American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education. AACTE “coordinates overall project management and communication and provides implementation support to participating institutions of higher education (IHEs) through a website, resource library, and an online community.

 

2. Center for Collaborative Education (CCE) provides technical assistance and professional development to schools, districts, and state boards of education. CEE and SCALE are working with the Innovation Lab Network (ILN) of twelve states “taking action to identify, test, and implement student-centered approaches to learning that will transform our public education system.” The CCSSO (see below) facilitates this work, organized around “shared principles, known as the six critical attributes” for innovation: including: Fostering world-class knowledge, skills; Student agency; Performance-based learning: Anytime/anywhere opportunities: Providing comprehensive systems of learner support. In other words, anytime/anywhere online learning.

 

3. Council of the Chief State School Officers (CCSSO) and SCALE have partnered on the National Quality Assessment Project and the Teacher Performance Assessment Consortium. The CCSSO played a major role in launching the Common Core State Standards. It receives generous funding from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

 

4. Educational Policy Improvement Center (EPIC) and SCALE work on College and Career Readiness research and tools for high school/college alignment especially state-of-the-art, criterion-based, standards-referenced methods of course and document analysis.

 

5. Envision Schools/Envision Learning Partners, a charter management company in the San Francisco Bay Area, operates four Arts and Technology High Schools. SCALE helped to design, develop, and promote their College Success (Digital) Portfolio System with performance outcomes, scoring rubrics, and tasks in ELA, mathematics, science inquiry and science literacy, history-social science, foreign language, and the arts.

 

6. Evaluation Systems, a Group of Pearson, is the operational partner for edTPA. Evaluation Systems provides the infrastructure and technical platform to collect, score, and deliver edTPA results to teacher candidates and preparation programs.At last report, 18,000 teachers took the test. Each paid a minimum of $300. It is unknown what Stanford and/or SCALE may receive for this use of their intellectual property.

 

7. Literacy Design Collaborative (LDC). SCALE has created “a rigorous jurying process for LDC curriculum modules” for the Common Core; a standard, accurate process for reviewing modules and “providing teachers with actionable feedback for revision; training in this process in support of “calibration around the quality of teacher work.”

 

8. Measured Progress is a not-for-profit testing company with statewide assessment contracts in over half of the states. For the past decade and a half, Measured Progress has operated alternate assessment programs for students with moderate to severe learning disabilities, in more states than any other company. It operates a Common Core Assessment Program and conducts R& D work with SCALE on scoring performance assessments.

 

9. Performance Assessment for California Teachers (PACT) This is a consortium of 32 pre-service teacher preparation programs that contribute annually to ongoing improvements in an “alternative” for the state-mandated performance assessment needed to qualify for a preliminary teaching credential.

 

10. ShowEvidence works with SCALE on refining the practice of submitting and rating artifacts to support student and teacher assessment and evaluation.

 

11. Silicon Valley Math Initiative works with SCALE on student performance assessment projects in mathematics in Ohio and New York City. They have also worked with SCALE to design and develop performance outcomes, scoring rubrics, scoring protocols, and performance assessment tasks.

 

12. Teachscape has a contract with SCALE to develop and field test a tier II teacher licensing system in Ohio. Teachscape served as the management lead for the Gates-funded Measuring Effective Teachers project of which SCALE is a partner. (The MET Project, nothing to brag about, is critically examined here http://nepc.colorado.edu/thinktank/review-MET-final-2013)

 

13. Westat collaborates with SCALE on The Common Assignment Study, a three-year effort to promote a common methodology for teaching the college and career readiness standards in Colorado and Kentucky, with support from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Participating teachers develop and teach two units, incorporating common performance tasks for students.

 

14. WestEd and SCALE are providing professional development in multiple states to build educator assessment literacy, especially performance tasks to support instruction for college and career readiness and success. This includes project includes work to “train the trainers” for professional development.

 

“I have edited these descriptions of partnerships for length.

 

“It is clear that SCALE is functioning as an R&D lab and promoter of the Common Core, College and Career agenda along with modular curricula and assessments for so-called personalized learning.

 

“SCALE is very much a promoter of the Gates version of “reform,” and the focus on Pearson’s highly questionable edPTA should not leave SCALE and Stanford off the hook.”

Categories Education Industry, Farina, Carmen, Teacher Education

New York: State’s Top Education Officials Announce Short-Sighted Plans to Address Teacher Shortage

By dianeravitch
May 19, 2016 //
18

The New York State Commissioner of Education MaryEllen Elia and the President of the State University of New York Nancy Zimpher announced a plan to recruit more teachers. The teacher educators at SUNY immediately blasted the proposal.m as deeply flawed.

 

The elements of the plan are not especially original. Recruit more teachers of color. Internships in schools. Career ladder. Etc.

 

The problem with the plan is that it does not address the root causes of the teacher shortage. The root causes are state and federal policies that discourage and demoralize teachers.

 

Nothing was said about eliminating the edTPA or making it optional; the test has a disparate impact on teachers of color and is opposed by many who prepare teachers.

 

Nothing is said about the other tests for future teachers that have a disparate impact on teachers of color.

 

Nothing is said about the state’s teacher evaluation system, based on test scores, which is unreliable, unstable, and invalid. In the case of Sheri Lederman, decided recently, the judge tossed out her evaluation because of its inaccuracy. Many teachers are leaving the profession because of this system.

 

Nothing is said about the nonstop testing and test prep that demoralizes teachers and wastes instructional time.

 

Elia and Zimpher are trying to fix a major problem while ignoring the root causes. That won’t work.

 

The union that represents the faculty and staff of SUNY released the following statement:

 
“A report by SUNY’s TeachNY Advisory Council on teacher education is flawed, incomplete and fails to tap the experience of SUNY education professionals who teach and mentor future teachers across the state, according to United University Professions President Frederick E. Kowal, Ph.D.

 

“The report, heralded by SUNY as a “historic partnership” between SUNY and the State Education Department, glosses over glaring problems with the state’s teacher certification exams and their impact on teacher shortages and the lack of diversity in teacher ed programs. The study ignores recent changes implemented by the state Board of Regents and inappropriately cites reform groups such as the National Council on Teacher Quality as experts.

 

“Some of the report’s recommendations directly conflict with actual experiences of SUNY teacher educators. Also missing: mentions of outstanding practices and new teacher ed developments already underway in the field.

 

“TeachNY is a smoke screen that bolsters the failed policy of former Commissioner John King, which SUNY Chancellor Nancy Zimpher appears to endorse,” said Kowal. “It is insulting to SUNY’s teacher education faculty and staff, and seriously out of touch with the widespread rejection of the top-down reform agenda that has undermined the work of educators and their students.

 

“This report is pretentious and overreaches in an attempt to design standards for a profession that is highly regulated,” Kowal continued. “This report is one more misguided critique that is disconnected from reality.”
“Kowal said that UUP and NYSUT attempted to work with SUNY on the report, but pulled away when teacher education professionals were given no real voice in vetting the council’s recommendations. The report’s findings lack a “full range of input” from council meetings, he said.

 

“In March 29 and May 6 letters to Chancellor Zimpher, Kowal and NYSUT President Karen E. Magee requested that UUP and NYSUT be removed from the report.
“We cannot and will not endorse a report that is so flawed and one-sided, yet purports to be a legitimate collaboration between SUNY leadership and teacher educators,” said Kowal. “As written, this study goes out of its way to avoid the professional expertise and actual experiences of teacher educators, while thwarting attempts by our members to address real issues that need fixing.”
“UUPs’ many concerns with the study include:
A failure to acknowledge recent Board of Regents actions to extend teacher certification exam safety nets for the third year in a row and the need to address problems that led to the extensions;
Problems with SUNY’s promotion of a 3.0 GPA admission requirement for undergraduate and graduate teacher ed programs, and failure to analyze the potential barrier this requirement creates for underrepresented and disadvantaged students who have the potential to develop and excel with appropriate mentoring and support;
A failure to discuss problems with the state’s flawed teacher certification process and how the process has impacted declining teacher ed program enrollments;
The lack of focus on diversity in the teaching force and the need to recruit underrepresented groups into the teaching profession;
Legitimizing reform groups such as the NCTQ by citing them as experts when they command little respect among education professionals;
Supporting Simulating Teaching as a way to expand clinical experiences for student teachers even though there is no research to back the program’s effectiveness, while neglecting to analyze current obstacles to expansion of actual clinical experiences;
Accepting the state’s flawed Annual Professional Performance Review system without regard to recent Board of Regents implementation changes; and
Advocating for expansion of private alternatives to public education, a complex subject that requires far more extensive analysis than the TeachNY study.

 
“Hopefully, the chancellor will see the error of her ways and we can work together to produce a viable, workable report that takes a 360-degree view of this important issue,” Kowal said.”

 

 

 

 

Categories Accountability, New York, Teacher Education, Teacher Evaluations, Teacher Shortage
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