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

John Merrow on Vergara: The California Laws Are Indefensible

By dianeravitch
June 13, 2014 //
95

John Merrow says that the laws struck down by the Vergara decision are indefensible.

 

Teachers get tenure after 18 months, but in most states it takes three or four years.

 

Seniority, he says, discourages young teachers, who are first fired.

 

The process of removing an ineffective teacher is far too complex, requiring some 70 steps.

 

My view: The legislature should promptly remedy these defects in the fairest way possible to assure that it is not easy to fire teachers, but that teachers who face charges get a fair and timely hearing. I agree with Merrow that it should take 3-4 years to get tenure, not 18 months. As to seniority, I defer to the wisdom of David B. Cohen, who explained why seniority matters and how it can be improved.

 

All that said, the decision did not prove that these laws, whatever their defects, discriminate against minority children.

 

In a footnote, Merrow notes that California spends less on public education than almost every other state, at least 30% less than the national average. Let us see if Students Matter fights for adequate funding of the state’s public schools. I doubt it.

 

If we seek to remedy the needs of minority children, abolishing tenure outright is not a logical starting point.

 

Categories Budget Cuts, California, Education Reform, Teacher Tenure, Teachers and Teaching

Professional Staff Congress at CUNY Opposes edTPA

By dianeravitch
June 13, 2014 //
50

This morning I posted a statement by a group of professors at City University of New York in support of the edPTA, which assesses the performance of those who seek certification to enter teaching.

 

Let me make clear that I am not supporting or endorsing either side of this debate but am watching carefully, as I tend to be suspicious of all high-stakes testing.

 

Soon after the post appeared this morning, I received an email from a CUNY professor pointing out that the professors’ union–the Professional Staff Congress– at CUNY opposes edTPA and that those who signed the earlier statement are a minority of the faculty.

 

Due to the opposition of PSC, UUP (United University Professors of State University of New York), and NYSUT (the New York State Union of Teachers), implementation of edTPA has been delayed until June 2015.

 

PSC said this on its website:

 

The Teachers Performance Assessment (edTPA), is a high-stakes assessment for student teachers that includes filmed classroom observations. It has been opposed by PSC, UUP and NYSUT. (NYSUT edTPA resolution.) The State Education Department rushed to implement the controversial teacher certification exam, which was set to be a requirement for teacher certification after May 1, 2015. But education faculty, teachers and their unions pushed back and the implementation of the assessment has been pushed back until June 2015.

Categories Teacher Evaluations, Teachers and Teaching, Testing

Teacher Educators at CUNY: Why We Support edTPA

By dianeravitch
June 13, 2014 //
52

In Support of a Performance Assessment of Teaching
June, 2014

Beverly Falk, Professor and Director, Graduate Program in Early Childhood Education, The ​City College of New York

Jeanne Angus, Assistant Professor and Program Director, Graduate Program in Special Education, Brooklyn College

Greg Borman, Lecturer, Secondary Science Education, The City College of New York

Nancy Cardwell, Assistant Professor, Graduate Program in Early Childhood Education, The City ​College of New York

Joni Kolman, Assistant Professor, Department of Teaching, Learning, and Culture, The City College of New York

Geraldine Faria, Assistant Dean, School of Education, Brooklyn College

Christy Folsom, Associate Professor, Childhood Education, Lehman College

Nancy Martin, Adjunct instructor, Childhood Science Education, Brooklyn College

Andrew Ratner, Assistant Professor, Secondary English Language Arts Education, The City College of New York

Deborah Shanley, Professor, Special Education/English, Secondary Education and Dean, School of Education, Brooklyn College

Jacqueline D. Shannon, Associate Professor and Chair
, Department of Early Childhood Education/Art Education
, Brooklyn College

Beverly Smith, Associate Professor, Secondary Mathematics Education, The City College of New York

Christina Taharally, Associate Professor and Director, Graduate Programs in Early Childhood Education, Hunter College

The media and the blogosphere have been filled as of late with discussions about teacher education. Think tanks, states, and the federal government have questioned the efficacy of teacher preparation programs and are proposing accountability measures for them that resemble the high stakes testing in p-12 schools. Many have responded to these problematic policies, which emphasize targets and sanctions rather than supports to improve, with critiques of the dysfunctional consequences they generate: an over-emphasis on tests that narrow the curriculum and the use of value-added measures (such as students’ test scores to evaluate teachers and graduates of teacher education programs) that do not account for all of the complex factors influencing learning. Critics rightly point to these policies as creating disincentives to teach students who traditionally do not score well on tests (those who are poor, new immigrants, who are English language learners, or who have special needs).

Ironically, however, some who are reacting to these negative effects of the test and punish approach are including in their attack an initiative specifically designed to push back against it. They target a performance assessment for teachers designed by the profession for the profession – the edTPA – which calls on prospective teachers to demonstrate through performance (not multiple choice tests) that they have professionally-agreed upon skills and knowledge to enter a classroom ready to teach. The opposers of edTPA make inaccurate claims about it – that it is tied to a high-stakes testing regime and outsourcing evaluations to a private corporation – Pearson; that it demands a single approach to teaching and teacher education; that it usurps academic freedom and faculty control of curriculum; and that it has no research base to evaluate good teaching. Alan Singer’s recent blog post, an example of this opposition, also
claims that edTPA “distracts student teachers from the learning they must do on how to connect ideas to young people and undermines their preparation as teachers.”

We, teacher educators who have used the edTPA, write here to offer a different perspective – to share how it has supported our teaching, our program development, and our students’ learning.

Who we are:

We are teacher educators from the City University of New York, a university comprised of many campuses across NYC that serve a socioeconomically, culturally, racially, and linguistically diverse population of students. We are advocates for equity and access in education. We support culturally-responsive teaching and assessment practices that focus on deep understanding, critical thinking, and analysis of complex issues. We believe assessment should examine what learners know and can do in authentic contexts and that assessment results should be used to support and improve, not target and sanction. Additionally, we support national efforts to make educator preparation more clinically based so that graduates of educator preparation programs are supported in the context of real-life teaching to combine theoretical with practical knowledge so that they can enter their classrooms ready for the incredibly difficult realities of teaching.

Because of these values we welcome the teacher performance assessment (edTPA) –
a performance assessment of teaching developed by hundreds of teachers and teacher educators across the country, in a process led by Stanford University’s Center for Assessment, Learning, and Equity (SCALE), with support from the American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education (AACTE). Based on 25 years of research and practice, this assessment is currently being used in over 500 institutions in 34 states across the United States. In New York State, it is newly required for certification. As result of our first years of experience using it, we find the edTPA to be a tool for our improvement and a valuable guide to effective teaching.

edTPA: A performance assessment of commonly-agreed upon foundational skills
For those who are not familiar with edTPA, here is a brief outline of what it requires. It is a performance assessment that consists of 3 tasks that call on prospective teachers to demonstrate and explain their ability to carry out universally-accepted essentials of good teaching:

• 1) plan 3-5 inter-related learning experiences, taking into consideration the cultural, linguistic, and learning backgrounds of students;

• 2) teach what they have planned, demonstrating through video a segment of a learning experience that is accompanied by a reflective commentary; and

• 3) assess students’ work – examining artifacts of students’ work, including students with learning and language differences needs, for the purpose of using what has been learned from the students’ work to inform future teaching.

Alan Singer and other opponents of edTPA claim that the developers of edTPA (which he inaccurately refers to as including Pearson and New York State) “are trying to sell the public that you learn to teach, not by teaching, but by writing about it. They also want you to believe that they have perfected a magical algorithm that allows them to quickly, easily, and cheaply assess the writing package and accompanying video and instantly determine who is qualified to teach our children.”

Contrary to these claims, we do not see the edTPA as simply a tedious writing exercise.
Indeed the requirements of the edTPA are teaching: planning a curriculum, teaching it for several days, adjusting the plans based on what students are learning, assigning and evaluating student work to shape future teaching is, in fact, what teachers do. In addition to actually teaching, we have experienced edTPA as a useful opportunity to reflect on teaching strategies and students’ needs. We believe, as do the many representatives of professional associations and experienced educators who participated in the development of edTPA, that an essential part of teaching professionalism is being able to explain what we do and why we do it. Only educators who can articulate and defend their practices can uphold the professionalism needed to strengthen our field. Furthermore, we do not agree with the claim that the edTPA demands only one way to demonstrate what is good teaching. The lessons candidates plan are developed by them; the materials they use are chosen by them; the strategies they employ are their choice. The assessment offers a frame that has room for many different approaches. We do not think it takes the artistry out of teaching but instead, by sharpening the focus of our preparation on commonly-agreed upon foundational skills, it enables not only the artistry but also the joy of teaching to take place.

edTPA is controlled and scored by the profession, not the Pearson corporation
Contrary to the claims of Alan Singer and others, the edTPA is not a Pearson assessment. The facts are that Pearson is an operational partner (much like the publisher of a text), responsible for creating and managing the online platform that collects portfolios and delivers them to the teachers and teacher educators who score them. This capacity enables the assessment to be used on a national basis.

Neither is edTPA scored by Pearson. Singer inaccurately claims that “student teachers are not being evaluated by trained field supervisors or cooperating teachers, but by temporary evaluators of questionable qualifications ….who are hired by Pearson.” This is not true. The facts are that edTPA is scored by experienced teachers and teacher educators who are rigorously selected through a process developed by the national consortium of educators who designed edTPA and then taught to examine prospective teachers’ work in relation to commonly-agreed-upon descriptors of exemplary practice (also a process designed by the edTPA consortium).

In our experience, using the edTPA has not taken the development and evaluation of our students out of the hands of our faculty, trained field supervisors, or cooperating teachers. Rather, it has been a helpful complement to our coursework and to the feedback we offer in clinical experiences. In fact, as a result of working with edTPA, not only have we been prompted to develop more coherence in our courses and across our programs, but we have also found that edTPA has prompted our prospective teachers to demonstrate a more intentional and reflective approach to their teaching. Overall, we believe that the edTPA is helping us to better prepare our graduates.

Prospective teachers’ perspectives

The perspectives of prospective teachers who have taken edTPA confirm what we have experienced. In a recent state pilot of edTPA, for example, researchers found that 96% of teacher candidates reported that the edTPA was a positive influence on their learning, pointing especially to how it made them more self-aware and focused them on student learning. More than 90% of teacher educators reported the experience of supporting the edTPA enabled them to reflect on and improve their program design and instruction. For more evidence about the effects of this assessment on candidate learning and teacher education improvement, see http://edtpa.aacte.org/resources.

These research findings are reflected in the remarks of Peter Turner, a graduate of The City College of New York’s School of Education, who noted in a recent interview:

[Although I had student taught already], for me [edTPA] was the first time that I considered every aspect of what it means to be an effective teacher…. The edTPA is a good test because it scaffolds every aspect of what a teacher needs to do. It was a wonderfully educative experience for me.
— Peter Turner, City College of New York

Lehman College graduate, Roshawna Cooper, adds:

Looking at my lesson plans when I was doing edTPA and looking at my older lesson plans when I did methods courses without edTPA, I missed a whole chunk. There was a lot missing. I am so much more mindful of my students now when I am teaching and the effectiveness of my different lessons. I am more mindful about how to build on each lesson to support my students’ skills. And that is really big. ( See http://edtpa.aacte.org/resources/candidate-to-candidate-reflections-on-taking-edtpa)

Safe to practice/ready to teach: Accountability by the profession for the profession
All professions have external certification exams and a commonly-agreed upon set of foundational knowledge. In fact, professions that are responsible for the safety and well-being of humans all require that their certification processes demonstrate not only that new entrants to the profession have knowledge and skills but that they know how to apply these knowledge and skills and are safe to practice with those entrusted to their care. We believe that the edTPA, by asking new teachers to demonstrate that they know how to teach before they are given the privilege of taking responsibility for children’s lives, is a genuine and valid measure of our work. Because edTPA’s rich descriptions and analyses of teaching are aligned with critical commonly-agreed upon elements of effective practice while allowing for individuality and flexibility in content and style, we believe it serves as a useful tool and guide for teaching and is a positive step forward for us as a profession.

Although there is no such thing as a perfect assessment, especially for something as complex as teaching, we believe that edTPA vastly improves the process by which teachers are certified in New York State. It is a mechanism for us as teacher educators to demonstrate the outcomes of our work and to hold ourselves, as a profession, accountable for what we do. It stands as a viable genuine accountability measure for graduates of teacher education as opposed to sole reliance on standardized tests. While its implementation has posed challenges and calls out for changes in “business as usual” in teacher education, we believe these changes are well worth the while because edTPA reflects our aspirations, celebrating what it means to be a teacher and putting into practice the educative aspect of what high quality assessment should be.

Categories Teacher Evaluations, Teachers and Teaching, Testing

Mercedes Schneider on That Union-Hating Ad in USA Today

By dianeravitch
June 12, 2014 //
14

Mercedes Schneider did the research last year to expose the hack work of the so-called Center for Union Facts.

 

This is a PR firm for corporate America that has no credentials regarding education. Its agenda is union-busting,

 

Here is her post about the full-page ad in today’s USA Today, brought to you by the same folks who do not know that the highest-scoring states in the nation (on NAEP) have unions, and the lowest-scoring states do not.

Categories Teachers and Teaching, Unions

Dana Goldstein: What Will the Vergara Decision Change?

By dianeravitch
June 12, 2014 //
56

In an article in The Atlantic, Dana Goldstein explains the reasons for tenure–mainly to protect against politically motivated hiring and firing–and she assesses the likely effects of the decision.

She agrees that California’s current timeframe for tenure decisions is far too brief. Teachers need at least three years to demonstrate that they are qualified for the protection of tenure.

But “Is the premise of Treu’s ruling correct? Will axing tenure and seniority lead directly to better test scores and higher lifetime earnings for poor kids?”

She concludes that: “Getting rid of these bad laws may do little to systemically raise student achievement. For high-poverty schools, hiring is at least as big of a challenge as firing, and the Vergara decision does nothing to make it easier for the most struggling schools to attract or retain the best teacher candidates.”

And she nails her argument here:

“The lesson here is that California’s tenure policies may be insensible, but they aren’t the only, or even the primary, driver of the teacher-quality gap between the state’s middle-class and low-income schools. The larger problem is that too few of the best teachers are willing to work long-term in the country’s most racially isolated and poorest neighborhoods. There are lots of reasons why, ranging from plain old racism and classism to the higher principal turnover that turns poor schools into chaotic workplaces that mature teachers avoid. The schools with the most poverty are also more likely to focus on standardized test prep, which teachers dislike. Plus, teachers tend to live in middle-class neighborhoods and may not want a long commute.

“Educational equality is about more than teacher-seniority rules: It is about making the schools that serve poor children more attractive places for the smartest, most ambitious people to spend their careers. To do that, those schools need excellent, stable principals who inspire confidence in great teachers. They need rich curricula that stimulate both adults and children. And ideally, their student bodies should be more socioeconomically integrated so schools are less overwhelmed by the social challenges of poverty. Of course, all that is a tall policy order; much more difficult, it turns out, than overturning tenure laws.”

Categories California, Teacher Tenure, Teachers and Teaching

David B. Cohen: A Thoughtful Analysis of Vergara Decision

By dianeravitch
June 11, 2014 //
17

David B. Cohen is a teacher who is a leader in the teaching profession in California. In this post, he offers a calm, thoughtful appraisal of the Vergara decision. While not agreeing with the decision, he points out ways in which the issues can be resolved in the future.

He acknowledges his outrage towards the group that brought the case, which dared to call itself “Students Matter”::

“I’m suspicious of wealthy and powerful individuals and groups whose advocacy for children leads to “reforms” that won’t cost a cent, but will weaken labor.

“Students matter – but apparently, California’s shamefully inadequate funding levels don’t. That’s the status quo they accept; teacher protections are apparently the status quo to fight. In many funding categories, California is at or near the bottom of the state rankings. Students Matter has done nothing that will put a needed book or computer in a school. Not one wifi hotspot. Not one more librarian, nurse, or counselor. Not one more paintbrush or musical instrument. Not one hour of instructional aide support for students or professional development for teachers. They don’t have any apparent interest in the more glaring inadequacies that their considerable wealth and PR savvy could help. But forming a non-profit organization for litigation purposes and calling it “Lawsuits Matter” wouldn’t be as catchy. Their arguments regarding education problems and policy were flawed and unconvincing. Their standing in the case may be legal, but has the look of opportunism, with some incredible wealth and some powerful connections to education “reform” and charter school interests permeating the organization.”

He goes on to analyze the decision with care. On the subject of the time frame for tenure, he notes that he and other teachers had previously proposed that the probationary period should be extended to three years. He gives a spirited defense of seniority, saying it is the fairest way to handle the pain of layoffs.

He concludes with an appeal for calm:

“Judge Treu’s ruling closes by invoking Alexander Hamilton on the topic of separation of powers; he reminds us that judging and legislating are separate functions, and that the legislature must remedy what the court finds unconstitutional. Therefore, with years of appeals ahead, and then a legislative process to follow, I think it’s too soon for teachers or unions to begin talk of disaster. Mine is an admittedly amateur reading, but it would seem possible to under this ruling to pass constitutional muster with laws that make the following changes:

“Permanent status awarded in third year rather than second year
Streamlined (not eliminated) due process laws
Seniority used as one factor rather than the sole factor in layoffs

“Don’t get me wrong: just on principle, I’d rather see the whole case rejected on appeal. But if the ruling, or parts of it, should stand several years from now, then teachers still have room to advocate for a strong profession. Let’s stay informed and engaged. Stay vigilant, even adversarial as necessary – but calm.”

Categories California, Teacher Tenure, Teachers and Teaching

The Vergara Trial Teachers Were Not “Grossly Ineffective”

By dianeravitch
June 11, 2014 //
112

I was curious to learn whether the plaintiffs in the Vergara trial actually had “grossly ineffective teachers.” The answer is “no, they did not.”

Not only did none of them have a “grossly ineffective” teacher, but some of the plaintiffs attended schools where there are no tenured teachers. Two of the plaintiffs attend charter schools, where there is no tenure or seniority, and as you will read below, “Beatriz and Elizabeth Vergara both attend a “Pilot School” in LAUSD that is free to let teachers go at the end of the school year for any reason, including ineffectiveness.

It turns out that the lawyers for the defense checked the records of the plaintiffs’ teachers, and this is what they found (filed as a post-trial brief in the case): (See pp. 5-6).

“Plaintiffs have not established that the statutes have ever caused them any harm or are likely to do so in the future. None of the nine named Plaintiffs established that he or she was assigned to an allegedly grossly ineffective teacher, or that he or she faces any immediate risk of future harm, as a result of the challenged statutes. The record contains no evidence that Plaintiffs Elliott, Liss, Campbell or Martinez were ever assigned a grossly ineffective teacher at all. Of the remaining five Plaintiffs, most of the teachers whom they identified as “bad” or “grossly ineffective” were excellent teachers. Because none of the five Plaintiffs are reliable evaluators of teacher performance, their testimony about the remaining purportedly ineffective teachers should not be credited. Nor could Plaintiffs link their assignment to purportedly “bad” or “grossly ineffective” teachers to the challenged statutes. Not a single witness claimed that any of Plaintiffs’ teachers were granted permanent status because of the two-year probationary period, would have been dismissed in the absence of the dismissal statutes, or would have been laid off had reverse seniority not been a factor in layoffs. Indeed, Plaintiffs did not call any administrator of any of Plaintiffs’ schools to corroborate their testimony or in any way connect the teachers they identified to the statutes they challenge. Furthermore, any threat of future harm to Plaintiffs caused by the challenged statutes is purely speculative. Plaintiffs Elliott and DeBose are high school seniors who will almost certainly graduate in spring 2014. Plaintiffs Monterroza and Martinez both attend charter schools that are not subject to the challenged statutes at all. Beatriz and Elizabeth Vergara both attend a “Pilot School” in LAUSD that is free to let teachers go at the end of the school year for any reason, including ineffectiveness. As for the remaining three Plaintiffs, there is no concrete, specific evidence supporting any claim that they will be assigned to grossly ineffective teachers due to the challenged statutes; instead, their claims are based on pure speculation.”

One of the plaintiffs (Monterroza) said that her teacher, Christine McLaughlin was a very bad teacher, but McLaughlin was Pasadena teacher of the year and has received many awards for excellent teaching (google her).

Surely, there must be “grossly ineffective” teachers in the state of California, but no evidence was presented that the plaintiffs in the case had teachers who were “grossly ineffective.”

What about turnover of teachers in high-poverty schools in California:

Betty Olson-Jones, former president of the Oakland Education Association, testified: “Oakland has an extremely difficult time retaining teachers. The statistic that I was always struck with was of the beginning teachers in 2003, there were about 300 who began in Oakland, and by 2008 about 76 percent of those left. Generally, the turnover rate is about 50 percent, even higher among some — in some schools. I feel that part of the reason is that the conditions are very difficult, very high-poverty rate in Oakland, lack of support services. Oakland has very few counselors, nurses, one librarian left, high class size, high standard of living in the bay area. Children come with a lot of needs that aren’t fulfilled, and teachers are expected to make up that difference and are agonized often by their inability to do so because they lack the support and the conditions to do so.”

What about working conditions? Anthony Mize taught at the Vergara sisters’ school. He testified: “There was a back-to-school night where there was drive-by shooting 30 to 50 yards from behind my classroom. I remember talking with a mother at the time. And I was just about to say to the mom, ‘and your son has trouble paying attention,’ and seven to nine shots rang out.”

None of this testimony impressed the judge.

Categories California, Teachers and Teaching

Josh Waldron Explains Why He Is Leaving

By dianeravitch
June 7, 2014 //
71

Josh Waldron has repeatedly been honored by the local Rotary Club as high school teacher of the year. He loves teaching. He planned a career as a teacher. But he is leaving. He explains why he is leaving here.

You probably know why. It is always the same story. Budget cuts. Frozen salary. Every year, the district or the state invents new goals, new hoops to jump through. A parade of new ideas, the latest thing, new mandates.

What are the district’s priorities?

“I don’t fault our district for a worldwide economic downturn. I do fault it for how it’s handled it. For six years in a row, we’ve cut, cut, cut. And for six years in a row, students and teachers have paid the biggest price.

“When times are tough, human beings and institutions have the rare opportunity to reflect and refocus, to think differently and creatively. But instead of seizing the opportunity and gathering stakeholders for collective conversations and solution building, we’ve wandered around aimlessly hoping to make ends meet.

“We should have a clear plan for sustainability. Instead, we’re really just worried about balancing the budget.

“When we have a desperate need like football bleachers that have to be replaced, or turfgrass that isn’t up to par, we somehow find the money. We — through public or private avenues — meet those needs. Why can’t we find funds to address the areas that seem more pertinent to our primary mission?”

The pressure to get higher s ores every year has warped the classroom and the school:

“I’ve seen teachers cry over Standards of Learning scores. I’ve seen students cry over SOL scores. I’ve seen newspaper and TV reports sensationalize SOL scores. These are all indications of an unhealthy obsession with flawed standardized tests.

“SOL tests are inherently unfair, but we continue to invest countless hours and resources in our quest for our school to score well.

“This leads me to the following questions:

“Do we care more about student progress or our appearance?

“Why can’t we start a movement to walk away from these tests?

“Why can’t we shift our focus to critical thinking and relevant educational experiences?

“It’s tough to acknowledge that people in Washington, D.C., and Richmond (and sometimes decision makers in Waynesboro) develop systems and policies that affect my students and me negatively. But as they retire and sail off into the sunset, we’re the ones left with the consequences of ineffective measurements and strategies.

“Our new teacher evaluations focus heavily on test scores. But while teachers are continually under pressure to be held accountable, there seems to be very little accountability for parents, the community, or district offices.”

Josh concludes that until the community cares about education and respects educators, nothing will change. And he is leaving.

When will wake up to the fact that test-based accountability and other fake reforms is ruining education?

We can’t afford to lose our committed, idealistic teachers like Josh.

Categories Budget Cuts, Teachers and Teaching

George Joseph: Exposé of Trafficking in Teachers

By dianeravitch
June 7, 2014 //
46

This is an amazing story, written by investigative reporter George Joseph. It seems there are recruitment agencies that go to other nations, the Philippines especially, hire good teachers, charge outrageous placement fees, and send them to work in American schools.

He writes:

“Between 2007 and 2009, 350 Filipino teachers arrived in Louisiana, excited for the opportunity to teach math and science in public schools throughout the state. They’d been recruited through a company called Universal Placement International Inc., which professes on its website to “successfully place teachers in different schools thru out [sic] the United States.” As a lawsuit later revealed, however, their journey through the American public school system was fraught with abuse.

“According to court documents, Lourdes Navarro, chief recruiter and head of Universal Placement, made applicants pay a whopping $12,550 in interview and “processing fees” before they’d even left the Philippines. But the exploitation didn’t stop there. Immediately after the teachers landed in LAX, Navarro coerced them into signing a contract paying her 10 percent of their first and second years’ salaries; she threatened those who refused with instant deportation. Even after they started at their schools, Navarro kept the teachers dependent on her by only obtaining them one-year visas before exorbitantly charging them for an annual renewal fee. She also confiscated their passports.

“We were herded into a path, a slowly constricting path,” said Ingrid Cruz, one of the teachers, during the trial, “where the moment you feel the suspicion that something is not right, you’re already way past the point of no return.” Eventually, a Los Angeles jury awarded the teachers $4.5 million.

“Similar horror stories have abounded across the country for years. Starting in 2001, the private contractor Omni Consortium promised 273 Filipino teachers jobs within the Houston, Texas school district—in reality, there were only 100 spots open. Once they arrived, the teachers were crammed into groups of 10 to 15 in unfinished housing properties. Omni Consortium kept all their documents, did not allow them their own transportation, and threatened them with deportation if they complained about their unemployment status or looked for another job.”

In a cruel twist of fate, the recruiting agencies strip the Philippines of good teachers and at the same time, Teach for America’s international division sends in ill-trained recruits to overcrowded classrooms in the Philippines:

“Launched last year, Teach for the Philippines presents itself as “the solution” to this lack of quality teachers in the country. The Teach for Philippines promo video begins with black and white shots of multitudes of young Filipino schoolchildren packed into crowded classrooms, bored and on the verge of tears. A cover version of a Killers song proclaims, “When there’s nowhere else to run … If you can hold on, hold on” as the video shifts to the students’ inevitable fates: scenes of tattooed gang kids smoking, an isolated girl and even a desperate man behind bars. In the midst of this grotesquely Orientalizing imagery, text declares, “Our Country Needs Guidance,” “Our Country Needs Inspiration,” and finally “Our Country Needs Teachers.”

“Teach for the Philippines, though relatively small now with 53 teachers in 10 schools, presents a disturbing vision for the future of teaching in the context of a global workforce. While the Filipino teachers imported to America are not necessarily ideal fits, given their inability to remain as long-term contributors to a school community, at least they are for the most part trained, experienced instructors. Within the Teach for the Philippines paradigm, however, Filipino students, robbed of their best instructors, are forced to study under recruits, who may lack a strong understanding of the communities they are joining and have often have never even had any actual classroom experience.”

A strange labor market indeed.

Categories International, Teach for America, Teachers and Teaching

Pasi Sahlberg: How Are Finnish National Standards Different from CCSS?

By dianeravitch
June 3, 2014 //
90

I invited Pasi Sahlberg, the eminent scholar of Finnish education, to write a brief description of how the Finnish national standards function. The key differences, as you will see, between the Finnish national standards and the Common Core standards is first, the role of teachers in writing and revising them, and second, that Finland has no external national testing of the standards

Sahlberg, who is currently a visiting professor at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, wrote the following:

“Are there common core standards in Finland?

“One thing that is common to successful education systems is that teaching and learning are guided or steered by system-level expectations that all schools must follow. But there are significant differences in how these expectations are technically employed. Many Canadian provinces, for example, set specific learning targets for most of the school subjects that all teachers and schools must respect. East Asian countries also set common standards that are often integrated into learning materials and teaching methods. Many other education systems have recently developed new standards for schools that aim at raising the expectations for all schools. Common Core State Standards (CCSS) in the U.S. is an example of that development.

“American educators make sometimes references to Finnish school system in expressing their support to and doubts of CCSS. Those in favor claim that Finland has national standards similar to CCSS. Those with more critical views maintain that the Finnish system of steering teaching and learning is fundamentally different relying more on schools’ role in setting the actual learning goals. I will highlight how Finland’s curriculum system is similar or different to that of the U.S. through three points.

“First, formally each district (or municipality) in Finland is responsible to craft its own curriculum that guarantees that national laws and educational directives are adequately employed. In practice, however, districts have allocated this responsibility to schools after making sure that some critical aspects of curriculum are locally in harmony. This includes foreign language teaching, special education, pupil welfare issues and in many places the organization of schooling for immigrant children. It is therefore fair to say that Finnish schools have the right and the responsibility to design their own curriculum within the national frameworks and local requirements.

“Second, national curriculum frameworks serve as coordination of these school curricula. There are four binding national documents that provide guidelines for pre-school, basic school (nine years), and upper secondary schools (separate documents for general and vocational schools). These documents describe general objectives and core content that are the basis for school curricula. The bylaw on education stipulates subjects and general time allocation that direct municipalities to provide education in equal ways to all pupils in different parts of the country. For example national curriculum framework specifies general objectives and core content in mathematics separately for grades 1-2, 3-5 and 6-9 in Finnish basic school. What the schools do then is to decide detailed learning outcomes (or standards), syllabi and teaching methods for each grade level in every subject. Since there are no census-based standardized tests in Finland, the national curriculum framework documents includes common assessment criteria for a grade B (or grade 8 in Finland). Schools are relatively free to decide the form and style of their own curriculum. Time allocation and national framework curriculum for Finland’s basic school are available here: http://www.oph.fi/english/curricula_and_qualifications/basic_education.

“Third, teachers have a central role in designing the national framework curricula. Finnish government is at the moment revising the national framework curriculum for basic school. Working groups that prepare the renewed national frameworks for different subjects consist of mostly experienced teachers from all around the country. These new curricula elements are also often field tested and evaluated by teachers in order to guarantee that they are sensible and implementable in all schools. Teachers have also key role in writing textbooks that private publishers make available to all teachers. Finally, absence of national standardized tests allows teachers to teach what they think is important for pupils, and it also requires that student assessment practices must be described in detail in each school’s curriculum.

“The question remains: Does Finland have anything like the Common Core State Standards in the U.S.? On one hand, there are common national level regulations and guidelines that all districts and schools must comply. Law and its bylaws also set a common educational frame in terms of subjects and time allocation that must be respected nationwide. But these national directives serve as loose standards and strategic guidelines rather than prescribed targets that every teacher must try to accomplish.

“On the other hand, Finnish national curriculum framework doesn’t specify learning standards but only broad objectives and core content that help teachers in pedagogical architecture in their own schools. Perhaps the main difference between the CCSS and Finnish curriculum system is the central role that Finnish teachers and school principals have in both preparing the national curriculum frameworks and design actual curricula at the level of schools. Finnish authorities and parents trust the professionalism of principals and teachers than their peers do in the U.S. In other words, schools in Finland therefore much more autonomy in setting learning standards and crafting optimal learning environment for their children than schools elsewhere.

“Perhaps the main difference in the Finnish way of national steering of teaching and learning is that national curriculum frameworks don’t come with external student testing and assessment conditions. Curriculum planning at the school level is purely a question of what is best for pupils rather than how to get the most out of the attached standardized tests. When Finnish teachers don’t need to worry about external test scores and their possible affects on their work, curriculum planning can also serve as a powerful means to collegial professional development in school.

Pasi Sahlberg
June 1, 2014

Categories Common Core, International, Teachers and Teaching
« Older Entries
Newer Entries »