Jersey Jazzman read Carol Burris’s account of her “training” sessions where she was being “calibrated” by people who know how to calibrate principals.
He saw behind the smokescreen.
The goal is to create a system so “objective” that principals have no room for judgment and teachers may be fired by those allegedly objective criteria.
We must have standards! We must stack and rank our employees! Where have we heard that before?
The answer is in the link.
I don’t know Michael Weston, but I love his comment below.
He is a teacher in Hillsborough County, Florida, which received many millions of dollars from the Gates Foundation to pilot a new teacher evaluation program.
Bill and Melinda visited the district and expressed great pleasure at the compliments directed their way. They don’t seem to realize that 1) educators are very polite (as a rule), and 2) people are starstruck in the presence of billionaires.
But Michael Weston knows the score.
He decided enough is enough, and look what he is doing:
I am the Union Rep at my high school (in Hillsborough County). Just two hours ago I was explaining to some members that there was absolutely nothing (except running for School Board) I could do about:
1. High school science teachers being evaluated by a former sixth grade teacher.
2. That no consideration is given to how long you have been teaching a particular class, nor how many different class preps you have.
3. That a sleeping child will count against you, but God forbid you touch the child’s desk or anything else that may call attention to a particular kid.
4. All of the teachers being fired this year for poor evaluations are over 40.
5. Since it is a totally subjective rating, they can kill you based on your style vs their style.
etc, etc. etc.
And why is there nothing I can do as their Union rep? The Hillsborough Teacher’s Union is a full participant and support of this nonsense.
So, I filed to run for School Board. Someone has to stop this.
Carol Burris, principal of South Side High School in Rockville Center, New York, describes how New York is preparing principals and teachers for the new world order decreed by Arne Duncan and his Race to the Top.
She went to a training to learn how to evaluate teachers, something she had been doing successfully in her school for many years.
She learned which words were impermissible.
She was taught to think “out of the box” by conforming to the rules and regulations inside the box.
She was “calibrated.”
She thought she was trapped in a cheesy rendition of “Star Wars.”
She began hoping that Darth Vader would arrive and put everyone out of their misery.
And then she learned–read to the end of her piece–who started this insane process.
You may be lucky enough (or unlucky enough) to hear Jeb Bush boasting about the “Florida miracle.”
A useful contrast to his spiel is the story of this teacher in Florida, who is leaving a job she loved.
She didn’t want to leave, but it became clear to her and some of her colleagues that the politicians had taken control and squeezed the joy out of teaching and learning.
The politicians “came up with grandiose-sounding programs, such as “No Child Left Behind,” which instead dragged entire schools down. As the schools sank there were calls for more standardized testing and accountability.
“Instead they ended up forcing schools to “teach to the tests,” all but eliminating any subjects not directly on those tests.
“In Hillsborough, money from the outside was used to set up a system of teacher evaluations. That system became a punitive method of penalizing teachers with evaluations that are inconsistent, unfair and, at best, subjective.”
Hillsborough County was one of the recipients of funding from the Gates Foundation to measure its teachers and come up with a new evaluation system. Did it work? Ask this teacher. Excuse me, ask this ex-teacher.
Here is Michelle Rhee, as reviewed by Mercedes Schneider in part viii of her study of the board of the National Council of Teacher Quality.
Mercedes Schneider is a teacher in Louisiana who holds a Ph.D. In statistics and research methods.
Here she is at her best, doing a close examination of the life and work of Michelle Rhee.
An administrator in Louisiana writes about how the Jindal administration tries to strike fear in the hearts of all educators while boasting of their great success.
Dear Bridget, here is my advice: “Illegitimi non carborundum.”
Be there when their pathetic regime is toppled by the good and great citizens of Louisiana.
Bridget writes:
It definitely is getting more and more difficult for teachers to stay. As an administrator, I see the panic on their faces as the date of the state test looms closer each day. Here in Louisiana, our jobs are tied directly to their VAM score, which over-rides any evaluation score given to them by our team. As administrators, we do our best to help to empower them with information and resources, but it will never be enough. Our governor has set us up for failure. I often think about returning to my special education classroom to finish out my last five years before retiring. Then I realize there may not be a retirement system left in five years. The joke is on me. After dedicating my life to teaching, I will probably not have anything to show for it except memories and/ or nightmares. My starting salary years ago was around $13,000 a year. I definitely didn’t get into this career for the money. Thanks to this blog I stick it out. I now have a place to stay abreast of what is happening across our nation. Don’t know how long I can last… one day at a time. I agree with Jesse that it is unfair to leave in the middle of the school year.
A few days ago, I published a post on the blog of the New York Review of Books about the battle over teacher evaluation by test scores.
Unlike this blog, whose readers are mostly educators, the NYRB blog goes to hundreds of thousands of highly literate non-educators. So my challenge was to briefly explain Race to the Top and the bitter struggles over how teachers should be evaluated and by whom.
Please take the time to read this post, read the comments and–if you are so moved–add your own comment to help explicate the issues.
Diana Rogers, a regular reader of the blog, writes about her experience and her school:
I’ve worked for twenty years in a district that has a wonderful staff. There have been a few unsuitable teachers throughout the years, and the administration had no trouble identifying them and getting rid of them; a few others who just needed a bit of guidance were mentored and became better teachers.
I know I have become a better teacher each year, and I have worked hard at becoming better–taken 65 semester hours of post-graduate work, attended numerous workshops and seminars, read professional books and journals. But more important, I learned from my students and their parents, and from my colleagues. I did not “peak” after a few years, but got better and better each year at understanding my students, being able to explain material to them in ways they could grasp and retain, and at knowing how to bring parents into the teaching team as their children’s biggest supporters.
I have done everything I have been asked to do. And so have the other teachers I know. I don’t see all these “bad” teachers that are always being talked about in the media. But in recent years we have been asked to do not only the stupid, but the downright impossible, and even the harmful. Yes we are getting demoralized, attacked from all sides by non-educators who think they understand education better than professional educators. On the whole, teachers are idealistic strivers who try to do everything they can to help their students succeed. I see this every day.
And now we have to waste time on endless testing, data compilation, test preparation, and changing our curriculum to align to the Common Core.
We have to worry about our contracted pensions being taken away from us.
We have to spend enormous amounts of time assembling a portfolio of evidence to prove that we are good teachers, and are even told not to expect to be rated as excellent as we were in the past and as our administrators know we are.
This time could certainly be better spent polishing and improving our lessons, researching materials and methods, or giving feedback to students. Even though I take stacks of work home nightly and spend a huge chunk of the weekend and much of my vacation time on grading, preparation, and other school-related work, there are still only so many hours in a day, and they are not enough to do what I am required to do without adequate resources or support.
The conditions teachers work under are not the fault of school administrators any more than that of the teachers. Administrators endure the same unreasonable pressures of impossible demands, unfair evaluations and limited resources as teachers do. They are caught up in the same effort to do what is being asked of them when what is being asked is not reasonable or right.
Schools will not become better if people like me and the many fine, experienced teachers I know are driven out by impossible demands, abuse, and loss of job and retirement security.
I want to believe that sensible thinkers will prevail and that the tide in this insidious madness of false “reform” will turn.
I cannot understand why there is not recognition and enormous public outcry against the dismantling of public education in our country.
I’m hoping that the harm being done by those whose interests are not the welfare of our country and its children will finally be understood and that people of good faith in the general public and in our government (if there are any left there who are not controlled by big money) will do what is needed to save public education before it is too late.
My guest blogger today is Mike Deshotels of Louisiana.
Deshotels taught Chemistry and Physics at Zachary High School near Baton Rouge starting in 1966. He served as Research Director for the Louisiana Association of Educators and moved to the position of Executive Director for the LAE/NEA before retiring. He now writes a blog called The Louisiana Educator. The site is louisianaeducator.blogspot.com.
Here he explains how Governor Bobby Jindal is reforming the teaching profession in Louisiana.
The Truth About Teacher Reforms in Louisiana
Diane Ravitch asked me to write a guest post on education reform in Louisiana and suggested that I attempt to tell the untold story. Upon considering this, I realized that there was a major untold story about the destructive attacks on the teaching profession in Louisiana. I chose to tell this story because I fear similar efforts may soon be attempted in many other states. If you believe in teaching as a profession, be forewarned. The profession could be dismantled in your state just as we are witnessing in Louisiana.
Outsourcing of teaching jobs: I posted a story on my blog at http://louisianaeducator.blogspot.com/2012_09_16_archive.html about teaching jobs in Louisiana verses chicken processing jobs. Our governor Bobby Jindal talks a lot about attracting highly-skilled or college-trained jobs to Louisiana. He has a Department of Economic Development that uses a special taxpayer supported fund to attract high tech business to Louisiana. But contrary to his rhetoric, a couple of years ago some of his legislative allies in North Louisiana became alarmed about a chicken processing plant that may close down and ship operations and jobs to another state. The Governor’s economic development department stepped in and subsidized this company with millions of our dollars to bribe them to keep their chicken butchering operations in Louisiana. Later on, I was informed that about half of these unskilled workers are actually coming over the border from Arkansas. Soon after this Governor Jindal pushed a new law in Louisiana that will allow for outsourcing of teaching jobs to out-of-state virtual providers. (Course Choice Programs may soon be coming to your state!) So now K12 and Connections Academy and others will be allowed to recruit students from Louisiana along with their education taxes to pay for computer based virtual courses taught by persons from out of state. The new law also allows our state DOE to waive some of the certification requirements of these far away teachers. Who knows, soon our kids may be taught by teachers in India. This outsourcing was approved even though statistics show that our much maligned public schools perform much better on average than any of the virtual schools.
Teacher certification standards reduced: Now because of education reform in Louisiana, public charter schools are allowed to hire non-certified teachers. All one needs to teach any subject or grade in a charter school in Louisiana is a bachelor’s degree in any field. Just last week, the Jindal controlled state board repealed a requirement that all public schools go through periodic accreditation by an independent accrediting agency. This means that there will be no independent checking of teacher certification. In the same meeting the state board repealed requirements for staffing schools with guidance counselors and librarians and also reduced PE classes. I assume these actions are supposed to minimize distractions to test teaching and test prepping.
Teacher Evaluation Based 100% on VAM: A law was passed in 2010 requiring that all teachers in Louisiana be evaluated starting this year with a new evaluation instrument based 50% on student performance. The other 50% is supposed to be based on observations of the teacher’s classroom techniques by his/her supervisor. But contrary to the law, our state superintendent has adopted rules requiring in certain cases that value added student performance (VAM) may count for 100%. Our new state superintendent, John White, who has zero experience in teacher supervision or evaluation has mandated that when a teacher’s value added score falls in the unacceptable range, the teacher will be rated as unsatisfactory no matter how good the rating on the principal’s observation portion. In addition, DOE overseers will monitor the performance of local evaluators to see if their observation results are in line with the VAM portion. It is expected that corrective action may be considered against any evaluators who do not rate teachers similar to their VAM score. Even worse, since all the teacher observation data is entered on a state computer system, the computer can be programed to point out discrepancies between the VAM and the observer evaluations. That’s why many conclude that the teacher evaluations will be based 100% on VAM data.
Unreliable VAM data used for teacher evaluation and termination: Since VAM will be so important in a teacher’s evaluation, one would assume that the VAM is an extremely reliable system. It is not! We now have enough data from trial runs of the VAM in Louisiana that we can do analysis of the reliability or the stability of VAM data. Stability of VAM refers to the amount of variability of a teacher’s VAM score from one year to the next if the teacher teaches exactly the same way both years. Analysis by Wayne Free of the Louisiana Association of Education’s Instruction division was verified by another study conducted by independent researcher, Dr Mercedes Schneider. Dr Schneider found for example, that if a teacher is rated as highly effective one year, the chance that the same teacher will be rated as highly effective the next year is only 46% (that is without changing any teaching practices). A similar result was found with teachers scoring in other rankings of VAM. Thousands of teachers can easily drop from a satisfactory rating to an unsatisfactory rating from one year to the next even though their teaching remains exactly the same. State officials say that’s OK because a teacher is not required to be terminated based on only one year’s VAM. But only one year of an ineffective rating on VAM will automatically cancel a teacher’s tenure, which means the teacher can be fired immediately without a hearing of any kind.
Teacher evaluation program administered by a two year teacher: If teachers were a bit nervous that the new evaluation system may abruptly end their careers, they were pushed to outrage when they learned that the statewide evaluation system will be administered by a TFA corps member with only two years of teaching, no valid teaching certificate, and no experience in supervision. (http://louisianaeducator.blogspot.com/search?updated-max=2012-10-05T06:52:00-05:00&max-results=2&reverse-paginate=true) Many teachers consider this appointment by the state superintendent to be an insult to the entire teaching profession in our state.
The rigged tenure process: One of the reform laws passed in the last legislative session changes the tenure process for teachers recommended for dismissal. Now the tenure hearing panel will be composed of three hearing officers. One is to be appointed by the local superintendent, one appointed by the teacher’s principal and the third appointed by the teacher. So if the principal and the superintendent agree that the teacher should be dismissed, the hearing process begins with two out of three votes against the teacher. Unlike the previous procedure, there is no judicial appeal. Teachers may wonder why bother with such a kangaroo court?
Teacher seniority banned: The Jindal reforms have replaced seniority rights with the teacher’s most recent evaluation rank. For example, a teacher with 20 years of superior evaluations, but one year of unsatisfactory evaluation possibly because of VAM, would place the teacher at the top of the list to be laid off when the school system orders a RIF.
State Superintendent sets quota for teacher dismissals: As part of the new teacher accountability system included in the Louisiana ESEA No Child Left Behind Waiver approval, the guidelines have set a minimum of 10% of teachers to be found ineffective and placed on a track for dismissal by the new evaluation system each year. (This 10% rule only applies to teachers receiving a VAM score) I asked the state superintendent if the 10% would be applied each year or if it would be limited in some way. He responded that such a quota was to be applied each year until the State Board determined that it was no longer necessary. This idea looked so good to a local school board committee advised by a couple of TFA staffers, that the school system’s new strategic plan will require that the bottom 25% of teachers in the system based on the VAM evaluation would be fired each year!
Remove teacher union payroll deductions: For the coming legislative session, Governor Jindal and his business allies are proposing to eliminate payroll deductions for teacher union dues. But they want to specifically exempt a particular teacher organization that has gone along with all the reform efforts. Many believe the purpose of this proposal is to punish the teacher unions who along with the School Board’s Association have been successful in getting the courts to declare the method for funding the Governor’s vouchers to private schools unconstitutional.
So how are the Louisiana teacher reforms working so far? Here is a link to a recent article in the Baton Rouge Advocate (http://theadvocate.com/news/4902526-123/rate-of-teachers-retiringspikes) that describes a 27% increase in teacher retirements last year with an even greater increase expected this year. Some superintendents are reporting that these early retirements often are some of the most respected teachers in their systems who may be impossible to replace with equal talent. That’s how the teacher reforms in Louisiana are working so far.
Want to know who is pulling the stings of he corporate reform movement?
Keep your eye on ALEC, short for the American Legislative Exchange Council.
This is a secretive group of about 2,000 state legislators, major corporations and far-right think tanks.
The goal of ALEC is privatization and advancing the interests of corporations.
ALEC drafts model laws and its members introduce them in their state, sometimes verbatim.
ALEC has model was for charter schools, vouchers, online charter schools, for-profit schools, and laws to weaken or eliminate collective bargaining, teacher tenure, and certification. It wants a free market.
Recently, ALEC debated Common Core and came close to passing a resolution opposing the standards as a federal takeover. But Jeb Bush intervened and persuaded his friends to remain neutral.
Some of the corporate sponsors dropped out last year because of ALEC’s sponsorship of the “Stand Your Ground” legislation in Florida, invoked by the man who killed an unarmed black teen.
Here is a list of ALEC’s education task force members.
You may see some of your state legislators on the list.
To learn more about ALEC, read this informative article by Julie Underwood, dean of the school of education at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
ALEC Exposed is the best website to learn about ALEC’s ambitious plans to privatize and deregulate many spheres of American society while benefitting big corporations.
When I blogged at Education Week, I wrote a post about ALEC. Its policy director wrote to say that President Obama shares many of ALEC’s goals. It is a strange time we live in.
Diane Ravitch's blog 