Archives for category: Teachers and Teaching
« Older Entries
Newer Entries »

Christine Langhoff: The Corporate Reformers Are in Control of Massachusetts Public Schools

By dianeravitch
May 1, 2017 //
11

Christine Langhoff teaches in Massachusetts and is a member of the Network for Public Education.

She writes:


Massachusetts public education is being run by a cabal of reformsters, many of them affiliated with a local thinkster tank, The Pioneer Institute. Jim Peyser, state Secretary of Education, is a former director of The NewSchools Venture Fund, having run the Pioneer Institute from 1993-2000. Gov. Weld named him as undersecretary of education in 1995, shortly after the introduction of charters to the state, for which Peyser was – and is – an advocate. In charge of higher education is perennial gadfly Chris Gabrieli, failed gubernatorial candidate, who has developed no fewer than three reformy edu-businesses. (Time on Learning – extended day and year no extra pay; TransformEd – measuring grit and feelings; and Empower Schools, which seeks to destroy union contracts and impose a “third way” in urban districts – so far 3 and counting). So, to use the local dialect, all of them are wicked reformy.

Things have not been going so well for Chester. He signed on as chairman of PARCC, but that boat sank under the weight of the Common Core. This past November, when he thought the charter cap would be lifted and privatization could proceed apace, that too went down to an ignominious 2-1 defeat, in the process awakening parents and taxpayers to the charter scam. He has lately signed on to be a Chief for Change. Reformsters, unlike teachers, don’t need tenure because they have sinecures.

I think this latest peevish salvo stems from Chester’s frustration at being unable to simply sign executive orders and command the world as he would have it. Recently, after testimony from Lisa Guisbond of Citizens for Public Schools, he was forced to revise a punitive policy for students opting out:

“On the related issue of state testing, I thought you should know that some teachers are being given these instructions for handling students whose parents have chosen to opt them out:

‘When a student opts out they will remain in the classroom, listen as the test directions are being read and given the test. If after 15 minutes the student doesn’t write anything down, then, and only then, may the teacher remove the test.’

A 4th grade teacher shared her reaction:

‘This is public shaming, will cause emotional harm, and is a travesty to the precious relationship between teachers and students. Remember we cannot say anything except the scripted words on the test document or we are threatened with job termination, legal and or criminal action.’

So we have a fourth grader embarrassed and crying and a teacher who could lose his or her job for consoling the child. The teacher must ignore this child in need and say nothing.

I trust that these instructions are in error, and that your humane instructions from last year, Commissioner Chester, that students should not be pressured or punished for opting out, remain in place. I urge you to communicate this to the field.”

Delay and Revise MA ESSA Plan to Help, Not Harm, Struggling Schools

At the April 18 board meeting, one of the topics under discussion was the use of the scores from this year’s round of testing. Chester proposed to have 2017 scores included in the average for determining school levels. That was nearly unanimously rejected by the Board due to the use of several variants of tests in the past three years. Previously, it had been agreed that schools would be “held harmless” during the transition to a new test.

A recess was called, during which time Secretary Peyser expressed his belief that if the 2017 scores were not included, teachers would deliberately have students tank the exams so that they could increase scores in future years. In other words,he believes teachers across the state would INTENTIONALLY have thousands of children do poorly on tests in order to create a low baseline. NB: At the time of the discussion, we were already halfway through the testing period.

These people have no respect for the work teachers do. They do not believe we have any integrity. They do not treat us as professionals. It is indeed shameful.

Categories Accountability, Administrators, superintendents, Charter Schools, Corporate Reform, Corporate Reformers, Education Reform, Massachusetts, Students, Teachers and Teaching

Ohio: Kasich’s Proposal to Require Teachers to “Job Shadow” a Business Dies

By dianeravitch
April 25, 2017 //
18

Well, this is good news!

Ohio Governor John Kasich’s proposal that teachers should be required to “job shadow” a business to learn about “the real world” has been shot down (thanks to Ohio Algebra Teacher for sharing!).

Democrats’ counterproposal that Kasich be required to spend 40 hours annually job shadowing people who work in public schools. That won’t pass either, but it was a nice response.

Categories Ohio, Teachers and Teaching

Massachusetts: Commissioner Seeks Power to Remove Teachers Unilaterally

By dianeravitch
April 23, 2017 //
29

This letter came by email from a teacher in Massachusetts. Evidently, the Commissioner of Education believes there are some bad, bad teachers in his state, and he wants the power to remove them quickly. Bear in mind that by every current metric, Massachusetts is the highest performing state in the nation. It must have many excellent teachers. Why does Commissioner Mitchell Chester need a whip in his hand. This kind of power play is threatening and demoraling, as well as unprofessional.

For trying to intimidate teachers, for failing to congratulate them for their dedication, by demonizing them with actions such as those described here, Mitchell Chester now joins this blog’s Wall of Shame.

“Mitchell Chester is the MA Dept of Ed Commissioner who also had the serious conflict of interest as Chair of the PARCC Governing Board. He pushed for MCAS 2.0, which is 90% PARCC. He still has a job.

“MESSAGE SENT TO MA TEACHERS [apparently by the Massachusetts Teachers Association]:

“Below you will find some very disturbing information about DESE’s intentions around licensure changes that I have recently been made aware of.

“Back on March 10, the Massachusetts Board of Elementary and Secondary Education released some proposed changes to the regulations around educator licensure…

“The concerning regulation changes are about how DESE can suspend, limit or revoke an educator’s license. In the current regulations, the Commissioner of Education can suspend or revoke a license if it is found that the “holder of the license is unfit to perform the duties for which the license was granted.” As you may have experienced, there are times when a member may have been investigated for some reason and DESE will also investigate to determine if the license should be suspended. In my experience, this happens in only the worst case scenarios.

“The proposed changes to the regulation give the Commissioner of Education, currently Mitchell Chester, much more flexibility in determining if an educator’s license should be suspended or revoked. The new regulations contain the following language changes: “The holder of the license is unfit to perform the duties for which the license was granted, or engaged in misconduct that, in the opinion of the Commissioner, discredits the profession, brings the license into disrepute, compromises student safety or the integrity of the student-educator relationship;” (the new language is in bold).

“As you can see, the new pieces of language have far-reaching implications and since it is determined based upon the “opinion of the Commissioner” our ability to contest these claims would be severely hindered.

“Some of the questions that come out of this are the effects on one’s First Amendment Rights by the broad nature of the statements: “discredits the profession” and “integrity of the student-educator relationship”. Do these statements mean:

*If you promote opt-out information, you could be subject to an investigation.

*If you state displeasure with any policies coming down from the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education or the Federal government, you could be investigated

*If you participate in a work action as part of a contract campaign, you could be subject to an investigation

“These are questions that have yet to be answered, but the MTA legal division has expressed to me and all the other field reps in the state that we should be concerned about this.

“Here is a general timeline that I know of at this point:

“The public comment continues until Monday May 1. In the coming days, I will have more information on MTA sponsored feedback on these regulations. If you are interested in giving feedback sooner, the website is:http://www.doe.mass.edu/news/news.aspx?id=24232.

“On May 20th, the MTA is co-sponsoring a rally at the Boston Common. Initially, this rally was to bring attention to the general concerns around education in the state, but I believe this proposal will become a focal point of this event. I have fliers that will be distributed early next week for this.

“On June 27, the BESE is expected to vote on these proposed regulatory changes. While no firm plans have been made for a presence at the meeting, I am almost certain that, if the Board moves forward with the changes, we will be asking if people would like to attend the BESE Meeting.”

Any questions please let me know. Also, if you want to forward this email to members, please feel free. Please read the attachment for further information.

Categories Accountability, Massachusetts, Shame, Teachers and Teaching, Unions, Wall of Shame

David Greene: The Erosion of American Education Has Turned into a DeVostating Mudslide

By dianeravitch
April 17, 2017 //
24

David Greene is a teacher, mentor, coach, the whole 100 yards. He also blogs about education, and in this post he describes what great teaching is, and gives us hope that it may survive even the current tsunami of bad ideas.

David reluctantly saw a video about High Tech High, which he was floored by, because so many “reformers” love it but never replicate it. It is a project-based school of the kind he admires.

He writes:

I learned how to teach when I was in second grade. I have often written and spoken about my second grade teacher, Rita Stafford, who taught us astronomy by allowing us to build a solar system that hung on our classroom ceiling. We learned about civil rights in 1956-7 not only by reading newspapers and learning about Birmingham and Little Rock, but by writing letters to President Eisenhower, as concerned citizens.

We learned to love learning because of her passion and creativity, so often lost in today’s “Reform World.” Learning is best done “in the company of a passionate adult who is rigorously perusing inquiry in the area of their subject matter and is inviting students along as peers in that discourse.”

“We know a good teacher by the sophistication of that teacher’s kid’s work. If a teacher’s work is worth doing, has lasting value…. and learning that is worth learning…he or she is a good teacher.” Ms. Stafford was. So, I hope, was I because of what I did following those models.

She, Mr. Rosenstock and I all want kids behaving like scientists, artists, and historians: not just studying the content, and doing only restrictive work that allows for success on multiple choice tests. What better way is there than though actually doing the work rather than learning about it. What better way is there than project learning or learning through internship programs, especially in high school? After all, “what is adolescence but trying on new roles and sampling identities? We must just give them the chance.”

Categories Teachers and Teaching

Larry Lee: The Stories that Data Never Tell

By dianeravitch
April 14, 2017 //
14

Larry Lee, blogger and education activist in Alabama, posted this moving account by a teacher of the difference that art makes in the life of a child.

This is a story told by veteran elementary educator Wendy Lang about one of her students.

It begins like this:

He was small for his age. He was immature and yet showed signs of struggles of which only adults are aware. Skinny with two constantly skinned knees, academics didn’t come easy to him; neither did the ability to sit still. His pale complexion only accented the dirt crusted on his face and hands each day. He often wore shorts in the dead of winter and his shirts were always torn and tattered. He was in desperate need of a ‘touch,’ yet I was unaware of just what I could do to give him the encouragement that he needed to establish the self-confidence necessary to find one brief, rare ray of light in the darkened tunnel of his life.

At five, he appeared to have already given up. There were times when I felt the same.

He couldn’t write his first name, couldn’t count to ten or recognize the letters of the alphabet. A severe speech impediment kept him from being easily understood. Lunch was the only subject where he seemed to excel but that was because he appeared hungry and I wonder if it ever crossed his mind just where his next meal might come from.
He did enjoy his art class when it was available. Our school shared an art teacher with two other schools and he looked forward to his time with Mrs. Young. During the spring, students were chosen to participate in an art contest at the Carnegie Visual Art Center. Every school in Decatur and Morgan County was represented by their stellar art students.

It was quite the honor.

But his mother didn’t want to go to the art show where the child’s work would be featured. She didn’t think it was all that important.

Read on to see what happened next.

Categories Alabama, Arts Education, Childhood, Teachers and Teaching

New Study: Why Teachers Created a New Genre: The “I Quit” Letters

By dianeravitch
April 12, 2017 //
34

There is a photograph circulating on Twitter of a teacher recruitment fair in Michigan, in a large room with many tables staffed and ready for recruits. But the room is empty. It is a sad picture, dramatizing the effect of the current policy atmosphere on the profession.

Please note that the empty job fair was held in Michigan. That is Betsy DeVos’s home state. Apparently in her dream school of the future, computers will replace teachers. That has long been the gospel of Jeb Bush. If you harass teachers enough, they will go away and everyone can go digital.

A new study was just released by two professors at Michigan State University analyzing what they call a new genre: the teacher resignation letter.

I have posted many resignation letters on this site. They are usually anguished, sometimes angry, always sorrowful. They come from people who had a calling to teach, but could not stand the demands on them by administrators nor the frequency of high-stakes testing. Working in a climate that requires compliance and subservience, one that expects you to abandon your professional ethics, is not appealing for most professionals.

I have posted many such letters. The one that got the most overwhelming response was written by North Carolina teacher Kris Neilsen. It was published October 27, 2012, and received 165,000 views. Nearly 900 people commented on it. It went worldwide.

Here is the report on the teacher resignation letter as a genre:

In a trio of studies, Michigan State University education expert Alyssa Hadley Dunn and colleagues examined the relatively new phenomenon of teachers posting their resignation letters online. Their findings, which come as many teachers are signing next year’s contracts, suggest educators at all grade and experience levels are frustrated and disheartened by a nationwide focus on standardized tests, scripted curriculum and punitive teacher-evaluation systems.

Teacher turnover costs more than $2.2 billion in the U.S. each year and has been shown to decrease student achievement in the form of reading and math test scores.

“The reasons teachers are leaving the profession has little to do with the reasons most frequently touted by education reformers, such as pay or student behavior,” said Dunn, assistant professor of teacher education. “Rather, teachers are leaving largely because oppressive policies and practices are affecting their working conditions and beliefs about themselves and education.”

Consider, for example, the open resignation letter of Boston elementary school teacher Suzi Sluyter, which was posted on a Washington Post blog:

“In this disturbing era of testing and data collection in the public schools,” she wrote in part, “I have seen my career transformed into a job that no longer fits my understanding of how children learn and what a teacher ought to do in a classroom to build a healthy, safe, developmentally appropriate environment for learning for each of our children.”

Sluyter, who had taught for more than 25 years, concluded the missive: “I did not feel I was leaving my job. I felt then and feel now that my job left me. It is with deep love and a broken heart that I write this letter.”

Such feelings of abandonment were common in the resignation letters, the researchers said in one of the studies. That paper, published in the April issue of the journal Linguistics and Education, is titled “With regret: The genre of teachers’ public resignation letters.” Dunn’s co-authors were Jennifer VanDerHeide, MSU assistant professor of teacher education, and MSU doctoral student Matthew Deroo.

Another study indicates that by posting their resignation letters online, educators are gaining a voice in the public sphere they didn’t have before. That paper, which will appear in the May issue of the journal Teaching and Teacher Education, was co-authored by MSU doctoral students Scott Farver, Amy Guenther and Lindsay Wexler.

“All of the teachers’ resignation letters and their later interviews [with researchers] attested to the lack of voice and agency that teachers felt in policymaking and implementation,” the study says.

Dunn said administrators must allow teachers to engage in the development of curriculum and educational policies so they do not feel like they have no choice but to resign (and then publicly declare it) in order to get their voices heard.

The third study, forthcoming in Teachers College Record, suggests the public resignation letters combat the “teacher blame game” and the prevalent narrative of the “bad” teacher. These are common claims – whereby teachers are blamed for school and societal failures – used by conservative education reformers to advance accountability measures to evaluate teachers, Dunn said.

But the resignation letters, rather than painting educators as disinterested and lazy, illustrate their intense emotion. “The letters are filled with emotion, with regret, and with an overarching personal and professional commitment to the best needs of the children,” the study says.

Ultimately, Dunn said, policymakers should heed teachers’ testimonies and support a move away from efforts to “marketize, capitalize, incentivize and privatize public education, in order to do what is best for children, not for the bottom line.”

“In the absence of such moves, teachers’ working conditions, and thus students’ learning conditions, are likely to remain in jeopardy.”

Here’s the paper to which the Michigan State article refers:
(accessible for free if you qualify in certain categories, or if you
pony up $35 if you don’t):

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0898589817300487

Categories Accountability, Education Industry, Privatization, Teacher Shortage, Teachers and Teaching, Testing

Ira David Socol: Why “Instructional Tolerance” Matters

By dianeravitch
April 9, 2017 //
8

Ira David Socol wrote a provocative post that ties together how we educate children on a daily basis with how we live in a democracy. At heart, he argues against the adult authority structure that imposes control over children. His argument echoes John Dewey, the progressive education movement, and the free-school reformers of the 1960s.

Categories Childhood, Students, Teachers and Teaching

Arthur Goldstein: I Will Be Rated as a Teacher Based on a Test My Students Don’t Take

By dianeravitch
April 8, 2017 //
12

Arthur Goldstein has been teaching for more than 30 years in the New York City public schools.

He has a terrific blog about teaching in New York City.

Here, he describes how he will be rated as a teacher by an insane system.

He begins here:

NY City’s brilliant and infallible Engage system has mandated that I be rated on a test the overwhelming majority of my students will not be taking. As far as I can determine, this is a side effect of the rather awful regulation called CR Part 154. You see, I’m an ESL teacher, but teaching ESL isn’t real teaching. That’s because under Part 154 anything not regarded as “core content” is utterly without value. After all, if it can’t be measured with a standardized test, what proof is there that it even exists?

And yet, in fact, there is a standardized test to measure ESL progress. Sure it’s a stinking piece of garbage, but it exists. This test is called the NYSESLAT. It used to test language acquisition, albeit poorly, but it’s been redesigned to measure just how Common Corey our students are. For the last few years I’ve lost weeks of instruction so I could sit in the auditorium and ask newcomers endless questions about Hammurabi’s Code. I’m not sure what effect this had on non-English speaking students, but I know more about Hammurabi’s code than I ever have.

You may have read me lamenting the fact that I’d be measured on such a poor test once or twice. Last year, in fact, I must have done OK with it since I got an effective rating. I have no idea how exactly I did this. I don’t teach to that test nor do I go out of my way to learn what’s on it. With the oral part is so outlandish and invalid it doesn’t seem worth my while to study the written part. So why the hell aren’t I rated on this test?

It’s complicated, and I can only guess. But Part 154 largely couples ESL with another subject area. In my school, that area is English. It’s kind of a natural pairing, until you realize the high likelihood of ELL newcomers sitting around trying to read To Kill a Mockingbird when they can’t yet tell you what their names are. After all, when English teachers take the magical 12 credits that render them dual-licensed, how can we be sure part of that training entails instruction to NOT give ELLs materials they CANNOT READ? Maybe the focus is on making stuff more Common Corey. Who knows?

Categories New York City, Teacher Evaluations, Teachers and Teaching, Testing

What if Governor Kasich Were to Spend a Day or a Week in the Classroom?

By dianeravitch
March 27, 2017 //
25

A while back, Ohio Governor John Kasich proposed that teachers should be required for recertification to spend time in a business so they could understand the real world.

Sarah Guinn of The Athens “Messenger” reported that:

“Some legislators responded by proposing the Get REALS Act (Governor’s Externship for Training of Realistic Expectations of Academic Leadership in Schools) which would require Kasich to spend 40 hours of on-site observations inside a public school. The Messenger decided to do the externship for a day at Athens High School.”

Guinn took on the challenge that Kasich has so far ducked. She learned a lot. The teachers wish that Kasich would try it. He would stop loading up the schools with mandates and unnecessary tests. He might learn a lot too.

She writes:

“Natalie Bobo’s classroom is replete with a tennis shoe-filled box for anyone who may need them, a griddle she uses a few times during the year to make breakfast for students and a myriad of basic school supplies and materials — a number of which are paid for from her own pocket.

“So what else might Kasich see if he were to venture to Athens High School?

“For this psuedo-Kasich who hasn’t spent a full day at high school in almost a decade, the experience was eye-opening in a number of ways.

“Bobo, an intervention specialist, changes gears many times throughout the day. She spends three periods in her own classroom providing instruction to students who need a slower-paced class than what’s typical for their grade level, and three outside of her classroom co-teaching. Two other periods are dedicated to academic coaching and planning.

“For the periods outside her classroom, Bobo teams up with Molly Roach to co-teach two freshman English classes; one for students at a typical level, and another at college-prep. She also co-teaches social studies with Paul Kaiser.

“This is a typical day for Bobo from 7:30 a.m. to 3 p.m., but her true hours reach far beyond what’s contractually agreed upon, as is the case with many teachers.

“Teaching is physically and mentally exhausting,” Roach said. “I am on my feet all day, lecturing, monitoring group work, jumping from student to student to give individual help. I have to attend meetings. I have to plan and write tests. I have to grade the work of 132 students. I have one 43-minute planning period during which I am supposed to accomplish all my grading and planning, make copies, enter my grades, check and answer my emails, make parent phone calls, and Heaven forbid use the restroom or call home to check on my own children.”

“She eats and works at her desk during her 30-minute lunch break, she said, and takes home folders of ungraded papers each night.”

“When you are a teacher, you get no rest. There is always someone needing something from you,” she said. “You’re never finished with your work. It feels like a treadmill on high speed sometimes.”

Take this idea and run with it. Invite elected officials to be a teaching assistant for a day. Target state legislators. They have no idea what happens in schools.

Categories Ohio, Teachers and Teaching

Mercedes Schneider: My Most Difficult Students End Up Loving Me the Most

By dianeravitch
March 19, 2017 //
8

Mercedes Schneider shares her wonderful bonds with her most challenging students:

Many of My Most Difficult Students End Up Loving Me

“Just thought I’d share one lesson I have learned from my public school students:

“The ones who tend to push me the most and require the toughest discipline usually end up loving me the most.

“They also learn to respect authority in the process– an indispensable life lesson.

“I have seen this reality come to pass numerous times over the years. The student challenges me, pushes the limits and is disciplined, pushes again and again and is disciplined–

“–and expects me to retaliate, to hate, to criticize, to refuse to help when assistance with classwork is needed.

“But no hate comes. No grudge. No refusal to help.

“Then one day, breakthrough.

“It might be sooner than later. Sometimes it is later than sooner.

“What happens is that a trust is established and a relationship is forged. That doesn’t mean there is no longer a need for discipline. What it means is that the student trusts me and understands (and even comes to value) the discipline when it must come.

“These moments I consider the gems of teaching and learning.

“These moments defy capture on any standardized test or school grading rubric.”

Categories Education Reform, Teachers and Teaching
« Older Entries
Newer Entries »