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

What Supt. John Kuhn Said at Texas Rally

By dianeravitch
February 27, 2013 //
21

John Kuhn is a superintendent of a small district in Texas. He is also one of the most eloquent champions of students, teachers, and public education. With him on our side, we can’t lose.

Why doesn’t the media give him equal time with Michelle Rhee? He actually educates children. He changes lives. He is an educator.

This was his speech at the Save Texas Schools rally on 2/23/13:

http://www.texasisd.com/article_135671.shtml
John Kuhn’s Rally Speech
By John Kuhn – Supt
Feb 27, 2013, 08:39

Are there any teachers in this crowd?

I want to say something to teachers that our lawmakers should have said long ago: Thank You! Thank you for keeping our children safe. Thank you for drying their tears when they scrape their knees, for cheering on our junior high basketball players, for going up to your room on Sundays to get ready to teach my kids on Monday. Gracias por cuidarlos! As a dad, I thank you.

Coaches, thank you for fixing little girls’ softball swings and for showing our boys how to tie their ties. Thank you for getting our children safely home on the yellow dog after late ballgames, marching contests, and one-act plays.

Thank you for buying all those raffle tickets, hams, pies, discount cards, Girl Scout cookies, insulated mugs and pumpkin rolls, for buying more playoff shirts than any one person could possibly need and on top of all that spending your own money on pencils and prizes and supplies for your classroom.

There are those poor deluded souls who say you take more than you give, and I disagree with them with everything I am. Don’t let them get you down. They wouldn’t last a day in your classroom. You are NOT a drain on this economy; you are a bubbling spring of tomorrow’s prosperity. You’re a fountain of opportunity for other people’s children. As educational attainment goes up, crime, teen pregnancy, unemployment, and prison rates all go down. Squalor and ignorance retreat. Social wounds begin to heal. Our state progresses; our tomorrow brightens. What you do, teacher, is priceless. You don’t create jobs. You create job creators.

Some people don’t understand why you do what you do. They think merit pay will make you work harder, as if you’re holding back. They don’t understand what motivates you. They think the threat of being labeled “unacceptable” will inspire you to care about the quality of your instruction, as if the knowledge that you hold the future in your hands on a daily basis is not incentive enough.

Maybe these sticks and carrots work for bad teachers, but they only demoralize the great ones, and there are thousands and thousands and thousands of great teachers in our public school classrooms today.

Some people have forgotten that good teachers actually exist. They spend so much time and effort weeding out the bad ones that they’ve forgotten to take care of the good ones. This bitter accountability pesticide is over-spraying the weeds and wilting the entire garden.

You stand on the front lines of poverty and plenty, on the front lines of our social stratification. You are the people who shove their fingers into gushing wounds of inequality that our leaders won’t even talk about, and you aren’t afraid. You’re the last of the Good Samaritans, and you aren’t afraid, even as they condemn you for trying but failing to save every last kid in your classroom. You aren’t afraid, and you keep trying, and you haven’t faltered. You deserve to be saluted, not despised. You deserve to be acclaimed. You deserve so much more than the ugly scapegoating that privatizers peddle in the media and our halls of government.

Teacher, bus driver, coach, lunch lady, custodian, maintenance man, business manager, aide, secretary, principal, and, yes, even you superintendents out there trying to hold it all together—you serve your state with skill and honor and dignity, and I’m sorry that no one in power has the guts to say that these days. History will recognize that the epithets they applied to your schools said more about leaders who refused to confront child poverty than the teachers who tried valiantly to overcome it. History will recognize that teachers in these bleak years stood in desperate need of public policy help that never came. Advocacy for hurting children was ripped from our lips with a shush of “no excuses.” These hateful labels should be hung around the necks of those who have allowed inequitable school funding to persist for decades, those who refuse to tend to the basic needs of our poorest children so that they may come to school ready to learn.

They say 100,000 kids are on a waiting list for charter schools. Let me tell you about another waiting list. There are 5 million kids waiting for this Legislature to keep our forefathers’ promises. There are 5 million children, and three of them live with me, and they’re all waiting for somebody in Austin, Texas, to stand up for them and uphold the constitution. There’s a waiting list of 5 million kids and this government says they can just keep waiting. How long must they wait?

If you support public schools I want to tell you about a new website. Go to texaskidswaiting.com and add your child’s name to the public school waiting list, the list of kids waiting for this government to provide adequate school funding. That’s Texaskidswaiting.com.

Our forefathers’ promises must be kept. We want fair and adequate resources in our kids’ schools. We want leaders who don’t have to be dragged to court to do right by our children.

It’s not okay to default on constitutional promises. It’s not okay to neglect schools until they break, to deliberately undermine our public school. These traditional institutions have honorably served their communities for generations. It’s not okay to privatize a public school system that strong and generous people built and left to us; it’s not okay for Austin to confiscate buildings built by local taxpayers and give them away to cronies and speculators.

These buildings aren’t just schools, they’re touchstones. They’re testaments to our local values. The Friday night lights that have illuminated our skies for decades, the school gyms that have echoed with play since the Greatest Generation was young—these aren’t monuments to sports. They’re monuments to community. They’re beacons of our local control, of the togetherness we cherish in our hometowns and city neighborhoods. We don’t want education fads imposed on us by Austin or, even worse, out-of-state billionaires.

What we want is simple, tried, and true. We want what this state promised in 1876. And to those who want to take away that promise, I know some moms and trustees and local businesspeople who will say what brave Texans have said before: “Come and take it.”

Two years ago I asked state leaders to come to our aid; they responded by cutting school funding by billions. But help did come: it came from you. The people of Texas are the cavalry that will save Texas schools. Two years ago may have been the Alamo; but this year may well be our San Jacinto.

I will end by saying this to the advocates who are bravely defending public education: thank you. And one more thing: do not go gently into that good night. Stand and fight, and save our schools.

Thank you.

Categories Administrators, superintendents, Students, Support for public schools, Teachers and Teaching

An Open Letter to Educators and Parents in Seattle

By dianeravitch
February 27, 2013 //
19

NBCTs, nationwide: I’m gathering signatures for this letter of support.

You name, school, district, city , state to my email at the bottom. Thanks!

An Open letter to the Seattle Educational Community

Teachers, parents, students, school board members and the administration of Seattle Public Schools owe Garfield High School teachers their gratitude for first speaking the truth about the MAP test. Any reprimand of or negative consequences imposed by Seattle Public Schools on the truth-telling teachers of Garfield, and the teachers at many other sites who have joined them, would be unjust. These teachers should be given public commendations for rightly raising their professional concerns and specific critique of our district’s choice and misuse of the Measures of Academic Progress® [MAP] testing.

An unspoken truth is that most all Seattle Public School stakeholders already knew that the MAP test was expensive and of little practical use in supporting our students’ learning, or in evaluating their classroom teachers, before the Garfield High School teachers spoke up publicly. This view is supported by research elsewhere, and we are disappointed that those who continue to uphold using the MAP test discount this research in favor of anecdotal evidence of its efficacy.

Effective teaching and learning must utilize multiple, meaningful measures to evaluate what a student knows and can do. These measures are also critical to improve teaching practice, reflect on curriculum, and evaluate school and district-wide policies. Students who are struggling and those who have mastered skills and content should be identified and offered meaningful support to succeed and excel. But the advent of the expensive MAP test precisely coincided with a shrinking of actual classroom resources to help address whatever deficits the MAP might have helped identify. Our classroom teachers need resources (instructional assistants, special education help, supply budgets) more than they need this test.

Teachers who are struggling in the classroom should be offered useful critique and professional support. If, after due process, these teachers are unable to meet the high standards to which we hold ourselves as educators, these individuals should be removed from their teaching positions. We wish to continue to improve our district, which is already rated as one of the best in the state and nation, in its ability to serve our students. To quote Garfield High School teachers, “The MAP test is not the way to do any of these things.”

Some might argue that if MAP testing for this school year is already paid for, we should finish the year’s planned MAP testing days. Since the MAP has not proven to be useful or reliable in its given tasks, we ask Superintendent Banda to reconsider his call to wait until the end of the year for a general evaluation of all Seattle Public Schools assessments. Seattle Public Schools’ annual “operating budget” for delivering 180 days of instruction to our students this year is around $566 million; it costs over $3 million per day to operate our schools. If we end MAP testing now, millions of dollars of this year’s operating budget will be spent on school days of teaching and learning instead of on days of ineffective MAP testing.

We also believe that the process employed by Seattle Public Schools administration in accepting this testing regime was flawed. An administrative and public review of the procedures related to these kinds of important adoptions needs to be established that engages all stakeholders to help prevent unworthy, expensive, MAP-like mistakes in the future.

Sincerely,

Sooz Stahl, Ballard High School
Eric Muhs, Ballard High School
Janet Woodward, Garfield High School
Heather Snookal, Garfield High School
Mark Lovre, Garfield High School
Gerardine Carroll, Center School
Kit McCormick, Garfield High School
Taryn Coe, Ballard High School
Paul Franklin-Bihary, Ingraham High School
Alison Bishop, Sacajawea Elementary
Mary E. Bannister, Whittier Elementary
Lisa DeBurle, Pathfinder K-8

Seattle Public Schools National Board Certified Teachers

Jacob Crouch, Bothell High School, Bothell, WA
Peggy McNabb, Evergreen High School, Vancouver,WA
Diane Ball, Deer Park School District, Washington
Patricia J Smith, NBCT, Chimacum S.D., Washington
Judi Goldman, Everett School District, Everett, WA
Linda Myrick, NBCT, Bellevue
Gerald Bopp, Mt Si HS, Snoqualmie, WA
Anna Nordstrom, not currently teaching, partly because of ridiculous testing requirements, Seattle, WA

Washington State NBCTs

Kathy M Xiong, Milwaukee Public Schools
Kelly Sul, NBCT-Literacy, Delano Elementary, Chicago Public Schools, Chicago, IL
Jacqueline Smith – Family School 32 – Yonkers Public Schools, Yonkers, NY
Kathy McCullen, NBCT Parkwood Elementary, Durham Public Schools, Durham, NC
Theo Bullock, Genesee Valley Central School, Belmont, NY
April Stockley, NBCT, West Ouachita High School, West Monroe, LA
John Minnick, Staley High School Kansas City, Missouri
Judy Bjorke, Minneapolis Public Schools, Mpls, MN
John Phillips, NBCT, Tarkington School, Chicago Public Schools
Nonie Kouneski, Minneapolis Public Schools, Mpls. Mn
Jocelyn Alexander Shaw, NBCT, Dr. King College Preparatory, Chicago, District 299
Sarada Weber, King College Prep, Chicago, Il
Amy Hirsbrunner, NBCT-Reading and Language Arts, United Arab Emirates
David Strom, NBCT, Chicago Public Schools
Mendy Heaps, Elizabeth Middle School, Elizabeth School District, Elizabeth, CO
Debbie Anderson, Hawaii State Department of Education, Hilo, Hawaii.
Aeriale N. Johnson,NBCT North Slope Borough School District, Kaktovik, AK
Beth Strong, NBCT Allen-Field School Milwaukee public schools Milwaukee, WI
Matt Prestbury East Baltimore Community School Baltimore,MD
Betsy Waters, NBCT, Calvary Baptist Church Preschool Director Lexington KY
Susan L. Adkins, NBCT (MC-Gen), Mi
Kate Lunz, Monarch High School, Louisville, CO

Eric Muhs
ericmuhs@comcast.net

Categories Support for public schools, Teachers and Teaching, Testing, Washington State

Forget the Oscars, Here Are the Bunkum Awards

By dianeravitch
February 27, 2013 //
11

Each year, the National Education Policy Center at the University of Colorado presents its annual Bunkum awards.

These are awards that acknowledge the very worst think tank reports of the year.

Be sure to review previous winners of this not exactly coveted dishonor.

Drum roll, please!

The “Three’s a Harm” award goes to…(open the envelope)…the Friedman Foundation!

Here is a quote from the ceremony itself:

“After being shut out of the 2010 and 2011 Bunkum Awards, four-time winner Friedman has returned in spectacular fashion. Seldom does a report hit the “trifecta:”

  • Erroneous information
  • Faulty reasoning
  • Inspired chutzpah

The problems begin with the report’s claims that test scores and dropouts have not shown any visible improvement between 1992 and 2009, during which time school staffing increased 2.3 times. Even setting aside problems with the staffing claim itself, our reviewer points out that the report’s fundamental premises asserting no improvements in test scores and an increase in the drop-out rate are flat wrong. In reality, there has been clear improvement in NAEP scores for all student subgroups, particularly students of color and younger students. And despite the change to a more stringent definition of drop-outs, graduation rates have increased, helping to raise college attendance to historic highs.

Soaring on the wings of flawed reasoning, with a strong updraft of chutzpah, the report’s author jumps from his platform of sham evidence to deliver three unsupported recommendations: a call for class size increases, a call for cuts in administrative and teaching staff and a call for increased school choice. As our reviewer points out, US public school class sizes are larger than those in our “competitor” OECD countries and are, in fact, larger than the idealized and attractive small classes in the private schools the Friedman Foundation touts. Small class sizes are apparently only bad and wasteful when they are in public schools. Similarly, there is the inconvenience that charter schools divert a higher proportion of their spending into administrative largesse.”

Accordingly, not only does the report’s call for increased school choice have no visible relation to the data, it undermines two other recommendations from the same report. It uses bogus information to draw ungrounded causal conclusions that in turn lead to an unsupported series of recommendations that are in conflict with one another. Our judges were amazed.”

 

The second Bunkum award is titled: “The ‘Trust Us, There’s a Pro-Voucher Result Hiding in Here Somewhere.”

Another drum roll! Among many contenders, the winner is: The Brookings Institution and Harvard University’s Program on Education Policy and Governance for “The Effects of School Vouchers on College Enrollment: Experimental Evidence from New York City.”

Again, to quote from the citation for the award:

“These authors wander aimlessly around a data wilderness, searching for positive evidence about school vouchers. Their report attempts to make the case that New York City partial vouchers of $1,400 per year to attend private elementary schools for three years had later positive impacts on college attendance, full-time college enrollment and attendance at selective colleges for African American students. It received lavish media attention, including a foot-stomping commentary by the report’s authors in the Wall Street Journal that scolds President Obama for what they regard as his outrageous failure to line up behind voucher policies.

To help understand the problems with this report, let’s all mentally travel to Sunnyside, Nevada, which hit a high temperature of only 14°F on January 17, 2012. Even while the world was experiencing record heat, Sunnyside posted a record cold for that date. If we wanted to distract attention from overall warming trends, we might lead with this and other cherry-picked data. It’s an old trick that often works, if nobody pays attention to the overall trends and if nobody questions the cherry-picking.

Yet this is essentially the approach used by the Bunkum-winning Brookings report, which finds positive college-related impacts for African American students (but not for other students) who had received vouchers back in elementary school. The researchers, of course, had no a priori reason to think that African Americans would benefit in this way from vouchers, when other students do not. They simply explored the data, found lots of results showing no voucher benefits and then found this one (akin to Sunnyside, Nevada) that helped support their advocacy of vouchers…Buried on p. 12 of the report is the statement that for the total sample, there was “a tiny insignificant impact.” As for the claims of a positive effect on college attendance of African Americans, there were no statistical differences between ethnic groups. Yet the authors chose to trumpet a positive effect for African Americans.”

The third award–the “Noblesse Oblige” award– went to the Public Agenda Foundation for its report “What’s Trust Got to Do With It?”

In this bizarre report, Public Agenda recognized that parents don’t like it when their local public schools are closed, but they need to be “educated” to what is best for them. Or as the award committee wrote:

“Reading this report, one learns about a problem that few of us knew existed. Apparently, there is a great deal of confusion in disadvantaged communities where wealthy strangers have arrived laden with school-turnaround gifts. The patrons of these communities are inexplicably and unjustifiably seen as patronizing—or even as destructive intruders. Fortunately, the Public Agenda Foundation has stepped up with this report which outlines ways to help members of these communities to get their minds right.

The report examines why citizens have proprietary attitudes toward their community school and why they resist external “change agents” who are intent on improving those schools for the citizens’ own good.

In the view of this report, these uninformed and parochial parent attitudes are obstacles to the re-making and improvement of community schools. According to its authors, “Many parents do not realize how brutally inadequate local schools are.” As a result of their ignorance, parents have raised irrational and unwise objections to firing teachers due to low test scores or to their school being closed, privatized, broken-up.”

The “Scary Black Straw Man” Award goes to: The Center of the American Experiment for “Our Immense Achievement Gap: Embracing Proven Remedies While Avoiding a Race-Based Recipe for Disaster.”

The Awards Committee wrote:

“The nature of this irredeemably awful report is betrayed in the title, which seeks to alert readers to the evidently toxic combination of policy ingredients that, in the fevered imagination of the authors, amounts to a “race-based recipe for disaster.” Moreover, the imagined carnage would not be confined to the kitchen. In the apocalyptic metaphorical landscape of this report, aspects of our transportation system are also at risk: A “train wreck” resulting in massive “liabilities” of “billions of dollars” is the likely result of state policymakers colluding, in their promotion of race-based school reform policies, with advocates for busing and school funding. Our judges quickly checked the acknowledgements section to see if Chicken Little was listed as an advisor.

This exercise in hysteria was precipitated by a Minnesota Department of Education report on concentrated poverty and segregation, along with three other reports published by equity-focused organizations. These reports suggest policies such as a continuation of existing pro-diversity efforts, establishment of state standards for when equity could be considered achieved, a sharper focus on existing programs, and the encouragement of voluntary fair housing and magnet school programs.”

There you have it, folks. More evidence of advocacy disguised as research.

My one disappointment in the awards ceremony was that I was hoping that the Brookings Institution would win special recognition for firing me last June because I was “inactive.” As it happened, on the same day I was fired, my latest book was #1 in social policy on amazon.com, a statistic that often shows a high level of activity.

 

 

 

 

 

Categories Education Reform, Teacher Evaluations, Teachers and Teaching, Vouchers

Heckuva Job, Reformers!

By dianeravitch
February 27, 2013 //
28

There is this motley group of people and organizations in the U.S. who call themselves “reformers.” Few of them are educators. Most are corporate leaders, pundits, think tank thinkers, or rightwing politicos.

They say they want to “fix” education but their main goals seem to be to belittle the people who actually work in schools and to close down public schools in high-poverty districts.

These self-named reformers (did GOP wordsmith Frank Luntz write their playbook?) have been in charge of federal policy since the passage of No Child Left Behind. President Barack Obama built his Race to the Top program right on top of the NCLB approach.

And what’s the result?

The MetLife Survey of the American Teacher 2013 says the troops are stressed out, demoralized, and doing their best to survive. What kind of general would go into a crucial battle with his heavy artillery pointed at his own troops?

Actually, the survey includes both teachers and principals. Both are beaten down by the Bush-Obama reforms. It seems that the non-educators and entrepreneurs decided that to impose their ideas without bothering the people who do the daily work.

Three-quarters of principals say their job has become far too complex. Half of them feel stressed out lost daily. Their job satisfaction has declined, and about one-third of them are thinking of quitting.

Despite the constant reformer sniping and whining about “bad” teachers, 98% of principals–the ones with boots on the ground–have a positive view of their teachers.

But we have all seen those Hollywood movies that tell us teachers suck, and teachers have seen them too.

The reformers’ nasty portrayal of our nation’s teachers has had the following result:

“Teacher satisfaction has declined to its lowest point in 25 years and has dropped five percentage points in the past year alone, from 44% to 39% very satisfied. This marks a continuation of a substantial decline noted in the 2011 MetLife Survey of the American Teacher; teacher satisfaction has now dropped 23 percentage points since 2008.”

Principals and teachers think they can implement the Common Core standards but only one out of five educators (or fewer) feel “very confident that the new standards will raise achievement or better prepare their students for college and careers.

Among high school principals and teachers, only 11-15% of principals and teachers are very confident that the Common Core will help their students.

Bottom line: a workforce in the schools that is increasingly demoralized, stressed out because of the demands imposed on them by politicians, and worried that they and their students are being set up to fail by clueless reformers.

When will the CEOs of the “reform” movement be held accountable for the harm they are inflicting on students, teachers, and principals?

Categories Accountability, Arts Education, Common Core, Principals, Teacher Evaluations, Teachers and Teaching

How You Can Help the Garfield Teachers

By dianeravitch
February 26, 2013 //
6

The entire teaching staff at Garfield High School in Seattle voted to boycott the MAP test, on grounds that it is a waste of time and resources.

The superintendent will soon decide whether to dock their pay as a punishment. Meanwhile, the teachers have created a fund where allies can contribute to help them spread the word about their test boycott.

If the superintendent should fine the staff for their bravery, this fund will be used to help them survive whatever financial penalty he imposes. Please give whatever you can in solidarity. I did.

Categories Teachers and Teaching, Testing

Will Teachers Take Control of Their Profession?

By dianeravitch
February 25, 2013 //
12

This is one of the most positive and optimistic posts I have read in a long time.

David Cohen, an NBCT teacher in Palo Alto, California, describes models where teacher leadership has worked and is creating new paradigms for teacher improvement and compensation, not tied to test scores.

Do yourself a favor and read about the places where teachers are remaking the profession. As David predicts, “A change is gonna come,”

Categories Teachers and Teaching

The New Teacher Is Surviving. Guess Why?

By dianeravitch
February 25, 2013 //
8

Readers may recall that I posted a desperate plea from a struggling new teacher. He posted a comment months ago, but I kept pushing it back to make way for pressing news. So I posted it a day ago and just heard from the new teacher. Here is the report:

I might be posting this for the second time…but I can’t figure out how this works. Oh well. Hello! This is the new teacher, a few months later. I had no idea that my post was reposted! Reading the responses has made me feel much less alone.

Thank you for taking the time to give me some advice and hope! To retiredbutmissesthekids, I am not in Illinois, but I’m still in the Midwest (Minnesota.)

I am happy to report that since I originally posted my thoughts on Diane’s blog, my experience has improved. As you advise in your post, I found a great mentor in the reading specialist at my school.

Although she has many responsibilities, she takes it upon herself to model and co-teach lessons with me. She checks in regularly with me and my students and helps me navigate the scary world of formal observations. I have learned so much from watching and talking with her. I feel so much calmer and more competent.

I do yearn for a kindergarten environment like the one you described. But I’m starting to feel confident that I’ll be around when the pendulum swings back (it has to, right?) Thanks again for your input.

To all new teachers out there: it’s true; finding an ally and mentor will give you the professional (and emotional) support that’s so necessary year one!

Categories Teachers and Teaching

Who Is a “Reformer”?

By dianeravitch
February 25, 2013 //
53

Gary Rubinstein wrestles with the issue of language and rhetoric of reform.

Long ago, a reformer was someone who wanted to improve the public schools.

Now, a “reformer” advocates closing them and replacing them with privately managed schools.

Once upon a time, a reformer was someone who wanted to raise standards for new teachers.

Now, a “reformer” wants to hire teachers who have only five weeks of training.

The word “reform,” he suggests, has become hopelessly tainted among educators by those who now claim it.

The question today is what to call those who object to the punitive methods of the “reformers”?

They say we are “defenders of the status quo,” when in fact we are opponents of failed ideas.

Gary says we are people who care about evidence.

But what is the one- or two-word description that positively defines those who want to improve schools and teaching, not demolish them?

Categories Corporate Reformers, Education Reform, Privatization, Teachers and Teaching

Proof: Kindergarten Teachers Know How to Fix the Schools

By dianeravitch
February 24, 2013 //
56

This is a letter from a kindergarten teacher in Las Vegas, Nevada, to her state legislators. Nevada has the lowest graduation rate in the nation, lower even than the District of Columbia. As she explains in her post, the schools of Las Vegas are underfunded, and the needs of the children are huge. Please read and remember: Everything you need about school reform may be learned from a kindergarten teacher.

The session has begun and I’m worried. What worries me?

FUNDING

Money. People say money should not matter in education but it does. Money buys stuff and staff. Bottom line: Schools are an expenditure. You get what you pay for.

There is a public school funding unfairness in the state – the Nevada Plan. Frankly, Vegas money needs to stay in Vegas. Our children and public schools need the money. I don’t want to see other schools in Nevada starve, but it’s only fair that the tax dollars made with the labor in my community come back the the families and children in my community. We are last in funding in a state last in funding. And we pay everyone else’s bills?

85% of the total state revenue comes from Vegas. 75% of Nevada’s students and teachers live in Vegas. Only 50% of the general fund comes back to Vegas schools. There is something very unfair about this formula.

Isn’t a student in Vegas worth just as much as a student in Eureaka?

REFORM

I’m worried about the scary reform movement. I have had 6 principals in 12 years, 6 reading programs, 3 math programs, taught 3 different grade levels, and taught at 3 different schools. Reform implies that teachers are not willing to change or are stuck in bad habits. Frankly, I have whiplash.

Screaming reform at 17,000+ teachers in Vegas who experience constant change is …. Ridiculous. Our community only has 50% of the teachers it had 5 years ago anyhow. In a profession with high turnover – in a community as transient as Vegas – who are you demanding reform from? The few that are left? Dumb and a waste of time.

We need security, retention, and better working conditions. Some consistency and balance would be nice. I would like to see some work to KEEP good teachers because we are driving them off.

STANDARDIZED TESTS

25 years ago … During my undergraduate studies the professor who was teaching me about tests said this: Standardized tests are racially and culturally biased. Nothing has changed.

He also said: Be careful what you assess because it will drive your instruction. When we place such high pressure on standardized test scores – we are going to force everyone to teach to the test.

What if the test will not get students ready for life or academic success? A, B, C, D multiple choice questions are not measuring authentic life skills. We all know people who test well who lack skills in other areas.

Currently, I spend 75% of my instructional time testing or preparing for testing. My students are 5 years old and I only see them 2 hours a day. It’s too much. I’m not even teaching anymore.

I’m wondering why my community that is predominantly minority insists on testing our children with biased standardized assessments? Traditionally – these tests have been unfair to minority groups.

We are basing how our students are doing based SOLELY on this kind of assessment. There is no balance in this. Teachers will be evaluated ONLY on these scores and this is fair? We will turnaround our schools, develop charters, and sell more schools to Edison because of these biased scores?

States that have been using these standardized tests for years are now moving to OUTLAW their use at all. Standardized tests do not test higher level thinking skills. Real life skill is not measured by them. Innovation, invention, synthesis, analysis, and creativty are not measured by these types of tests.

There is no balance when you place so much pressure on one type of assessment.

Something is wrong when you can tell how many schools will be privatized by test scores -and you can also predict scores based on race.

Sadly race and poverty are brothers and sisters.

POVERTY

The research says: Household income is the leading indicator of how well students will do academically.

My students are poor. I have homeless students. I have a revolving door. Four students did not come back after winter break – they just disappeared. This is normal. My school has a 75% turnover. My school has a high ELL population. My school has 85% free and reduced lunch students.

Guess what? My school has NOT qualified for TITLE funds because there are so many other schools in the district that are at 95% to 100%. I guess my school is considered normal in Vegas.

Teachers are rowing the boat as fast as we can – but the boat has a hole!

CORPORATIONS

While I’m busy tutoring, furthering my education, and working — the wolf has been in the hen house!

I’m calling out the wolf!

Charter school corporations do no better than public schools. They do not take the high needs students. They are not regulated like public schools. They are resegregating our population by race and interest – sometimes religious interest. Tax payer funds are being misused. Yep – misused. Charters are more expensive and with few exceptions no more effective than public schools. This charter experiment is failing across the nation. Nevada does not need to participate in this movement until it proves to be working someplace.

Using tax payer money to fund someone fancy smancy private school idea aka charter schools – is no good.

Now there is legislation to “empower” parents to pull the trigger and turn their neighborhood school into a charter? I can think of so many different ways to empower parents. Killing public schools is a horrible mistake.

Edison claimed it would make money and fix failing schools. It hasn’t. It won’t. Yet these corporate hybrids expand and continue to receive additional money. Someone is making money – not students or teachers. From my point of view, Edison is an investment scam. Joke on the tax payer.

Giving money to a corporation to run a school – is money that is not spent on kids.

Teach for America claims it will give our schools the best and brightest to teach at-risk for two or three years. TFA come untrained and are placed in the hardest areas and expected to know after 6 weeks of intense training what to do? What could go wrong? I guess this is why so few make it through the first year and it’s a very rare person who stays in the classroom for a career. Tourist teachers?

Inexperienced and untrained teachers – are not worth the three or four times the money it will take to hire through TFA.

Elaine Wynn spent A LOT of her own money and her friend’s money to obtain some board seats for TFA friendly board members. I would question – WHY?

The New Teacher Project is a Michelle Rhee non-profit. Michelle Rhee controlled her students with duct tape when she had her own classroom. Then she became an adminstrator who fired teachers on TV. Now she makes money telling governors how to unionbust and get rid of veteran teachers. Students First lurks around waiting for opportunities in Nevada. They invested heavily in campaigns – for extreme conservatives.

I’m not sure why people listen to this foul Rhee woman or any of her banter? She is cruel and making money. Not unlike Ann Coulter.

These privatizing vultures all have one thing in common – promises they can NOT keep because it’s quick fixes and not research based. And they are earning a lot of money. I’m not a fan of privatizing or spending money on someone or a corporation which is NOT effective.

To get at those education dollars — we need our schools and kids to appear to fail right?

FAILING

Someone explain to me please why Nevada needs a High School Math Proficiency Test that is the third hardest in the nation?

We fund last in the nation – but expect our children to test at the highest levels? Then scream because a high number drop out or do not receive a diploma?

It’s a known fact that you can graduate just fine with a Nevada education – you just need to move to another state your senior year if you can NOT pass the math proficiency. We export our seniors?

We fail most of our kids and no one is questioning the RIGOR of the test? I’m questioning the actual validity of every measurement tool I’ve seen. The tests are — BAD tests.

I’ve challenged every school board member to take the math proficiency – and pass. No takers yet.

The “math” proficiency is actually a very technical reading test – word problems. Statistics, proabability, algebra, geometry – all couched in word problems.

Why would this be a problem? 60,000 language learners? Do you think the large number of kids who are not receiving a diploma are primarily second language students who fail the so-called “math” test which is actually a reading English test? It is not adminstered in Spanish.

EARLY INTERVENTION

Speaking of failing ….

My students fail on the first day of school. Yep. Kindergarten. My students are two to three years behind the nation on the first day of their public school experience. Before the public school teacher ever sees the child – they are behind the nation.

Kindergarten is not mandatory in Nevada. Vegas still has a large number of half day Kindergarten programs. We are supposed to compete with the rest of the nation that invests in early intervention and compete with parents who are placing their children in preschool at age two?

30% of Kindergarten students fail. And go to first grade. They are behind and stay behind. At-risk kids in half day programs, class sizes between 30 to 40, racing to catch-up to the nation who began 3 years ago.

We aren’t failing them in high school; Kids fail before the public schools even know their name.

ENGLISH LANGUAGE LEARNERS

60,000 identified ELL students. “Identified” because this depends on self identifying when parents enroll their child. For whatever reason, parents may or may not check the right box on the form.

I have a Master’s degree in Teaching English as a Second Language. Research shows it takes students 5 to 10 years to develop the academic language ability to be successful. We are not supporting students so it might even be longer.

Studies show that it would take $175 million to support our language learning students in Vegas properly. $50 million would be the bare minimum.

I’ll say it — $14 million? $10 million? I guess if your name is Sandoval you don’t want to be the only Governor with a significant number of ELL students and give them NOTHING.

Our kids have real needs that are not being met.

MISSION STATEMENT

The reason the business model fails public schools is — mission statement.

Business is about making money – the mission statement is about the bottom line.

Public schools are about helping citizens – all people, the mission statement is about a literate democracy.

Public schools are always going to be an expenditure and investment.

When we try to use only data and scores from a biased measuring tool to evaluate our students and teachers like a business – we will get a privatizing business result.

My students are more than a test score. I am more than a collection of their test scores. My craft is an art more than a science. Hard to measure but still valuable. Learning will still take place in my classroom – even if I never give another test.

POWER

Teachers have very little power. All I have is e-mail. I have worked non-stop since the last legislative session to get to know as many legislators as I could and educate my community. I’m the alarm in my own frenzied way

I’m worried.

I see too much willingness to sell our public schools instead of invest in them. We are giving money to snake oil salesmen instead of getting it to the classroom and kids. It’s wasting our precious limited funds.

I believe we are damaging our kids with excessive data collection and testing. We are failing everyone and I’m questioning this – WHY?

I’m worried about disadvantaged kids.

I’m worried about money. I don’t understand why I live in a state that is so rich in money and gold — and we can’t even fund our schools? What does this say about my state?

And I’m worried about Democrats. Yep. It was Democrats last session who did the damage. Why do Democrats follow the extreme right wing logic when it comes to public schools? Stand Up. We believe in a free public education for everyone. It’s worth protecting and fighting for.

We aren’t here to collect money for our next election by selling public schools down the river in a canoe with a hole and a frantic screaming kindergarten teacher!

Do what is right this time around.

Angie Sullivan

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

Finland’s “Culture of Trust” and Our Culture of Testing

By dianeravitch
February 22, 2013 //
26

As the Hechinger Report explains, Finland doesn’t give standardized tests, yet its students excel on the international standardized tests. Finland has this idea deeply grounded in its education system: it trusts its teachers to make their own tests and to decide how well students are doing.

By contrast, we trust no one and test everyone.

We waste billions of dollars on testing even as budgets are cut, teachers are laid off and class sizes grow. Worse, we waste a large number of weeks of instruction on testing and preparing to take tests. Kids are practicing to satisfy Pearson instead of learning new skills and knowledge.

Will our leaders ever come to their senses? Probably not until millions of parents withhold their child from the testing machine. Probably not until thousands of superintendents and principals speak out. Probably not until thousands of school boards say no.

Probably not until entire school districts refuse to give the tests or refuse to send the results to the state.

Categories International, Teachers and Teaching, Testing
« Older Entries
Newer Entries »