In response to the ALEC-inspired legislation to allow uncertified, unlicensed people to teach, Paul Lauter–Emeritus Distinguished Professor of English at Trinity College–poses a simple question:
I think we should propose doing away with dental licenses. After all, there’s nothing that can’t be fixed with a piece of string and a door knob.
Why not?
Why do doctors need to be licensed? Why do lawyers have to pass the bar exam? Why do airplane pilots need a license? Why do drivers need a license?
Tim Slekar followed up his earlier post with an announcement that the war against the teaching profession in Wisconsin has reached a new low.
He declared a victory for the far-right ALEC (American Legislative Exchange Council, which writes most of the “model laws” to privatize schools and eliminate the teaching profession).
Well today “they” did it. “They” opened the door to deprofesssionalization and authorized the use of emergency licenses to address the “shortage” and placed our most vulnerable children in a defenseless position.
Instead of truly addressing the EXODUS of teachers and the miserable conditions driving teachers out of the profession “they” simply created a pathway into our classrooms for unlicensed and unqualified personnel.
Of course “they” won’t admit this. In fact, “they” already have “talking points” in case someone dare question the integrity of devaluing the teaching profession.
Now let’s be very clear about how these emergency license rules will really play out in schools across the state.
The most qualified teachers will end up in the most affluent areas.
Emergency licensed teachers will end up in high poverty areas.
School districts with money will hire licensed teachers and require specialized licenses for teachers in fields such as special education.
School districts without money will hire emergency certified people and use the new emergency rules to get around the specialized license requirements for fields such as special education.
ALEC will have won another victory because the cost for teachers will be significantly reduced.
And over time, more and more license reductions will eventually result in a deprofessionalized field and our children will suffer as novices with no sense of the professional, ethical, social, and moral obligations required to be a teacher take over our classrooms.
Can we let this happen?
Does anyone seriously believe that we can have a better education system by hiring unlicensed teachers?
Ralph Ratto teaches fifth grade in New York. The state math tests are ending today. His students spent nine (9) hours being tested about math and reading. This is child abuse. Why should students spend more than an hour on a math test or a reading test?
The tests, he says, are ridiculously hard for fifth graders. He thinks that most members of Congress could not pass the tests.
He can’t post any of the actual questions but he offers a question comparable to those on the test:
Here is a general idea of what one of these questions looks like.
A factory produces 4,861 items in 30 days. They then package them in crates hold 8 each. These crates are delivered to 26 distributers daily. How many are delivered each week to each distributer?
Ten year old children must be able to answer this question correctly, otherwise their teacher may be labeled ineffective.
A group of internationally renowned educators are meeting in Rotterdam starting today, and they are building an organization of educators to resist the test-driven, compliance-driven culture that has enveloped many nations. They are resisting the movement to privatize schooling and to turn children into data points.
It is an international rebellion against corporate reform.
Join.
They call themselves “We the Educators.”
You can join the conversation at wetheeducators.com
Here is the link to their Facebook page.
I will occasionally post material they produce.
You can download the report here.
Valerie Strauss describes the scene as Trump met with the teachers of the year in the Oval Office and invited them to sing “Happy Birthday” to Melania.
Nothing was said about his plans to cut the education budget.
Dr. Betty Rosa, Chancellor of the New York Board of Regents, responded to a critical article by Robert Pondiscio of the conservative Thomas B. Fordham Institute in this post on the TBF website.
Pondiscio expressed disappointment that the Regents did not award an early renewal to several charter applicants. And he criticized the Regents for agreeing to drop the Academic Literacy Skills Test (ALST). I previously posted about the ALST, which was one of four tests that future teachers in New York must take and is redundant. Critics said that the Regents were backing away from literacy, which is absurd, since applicants must take three other tests that cover the same subject.
Dr. Rosa wrote (please open the link to see her many links):
In his April 5 commentary (“Education Reform in New York? Fuhgeddaboutit.”), Robert Pondiscio writes that “the era of high standards and accountability for schools, teachers, and those who train them…[is] over” in New York. I could not disagree more. The Board of Regents and I are forging ahead with our work to ensure that all students have access to high-quality teachers in high-quality schools led by high-quality principals. We simply have a different view of how to best deliver those things to our students.
To frame his argument that New York has lost its way, Mr. Pondiscio begins and ends his piece by pointing to two recent decisions by the Board of Regents—first, our decision to return to the SUNY Trustees ten applications seeking the early renewal of charter schools in New York City; second, our decision to drop one of the exams needed to become a certified teacher in New York State.
Let’s look first at the charter school decision. In making its decision to return the applications to the SUNY Trustees, the Board of Regents did not comment in any way on the efficacy of the schools seeking early renewal of their charters. Rather, the Board based its decision on the Charter Schools Act, which does not allow this kind of early renewal. It has long been the practice of all authorizers to renew charter schools in the academic year in which their charter term expires to ensure the most recent data is used in the renewal evaluation. Granting early renewals to the ten applicants would circumvent this accountability protection and result in charter terms ending many years from the conclusion of the current academic year—in some cases, the new charter terms would run all the way until 2025.
But there are bigger issues at stake here. As a senior advisor to a network of New York City-based charter schools, Mr. Pondiscio naturally has a vested interest in promoting the growth of that sector. As Chancellor of the Board of Regents, however, I have a very different outlook and a very different set of obligations. The Regents are responsible for the education of more than three million New York State children who attend traditional public schools, charter schools, nonpublic schools, and those who are homeschooled. As a Board, we are obligated to ensure that all those children have access, on an equal basis, to excellent schools and teachers. That responsibility extends to students with physical, intellectual, and emotional disabilities, students who speak little or no English, students who are desperately poor and homeless, and students who exhibit severe behavioral problems.
The Board of Regents will approve only those charter school applications that clearly demonstrate a strong capacity for establishing and operating a high-quality school. This standard requires a strong educational program, organizational plan and financial plan, as well as clear evidence of the capacity of the founding group to implement the proposal and operate the school effectively. The Board and I carefully consider those factors in deciding whether to open or renew a charter school. And we will consider those factors only at the time the law intends for us to make such determinations; we do not and we will not act prematurely to advance anyone’s political agenda.
Let’s also examine the Board’s recent decision to drop the Academic Literacy Skills Test (ALST) as a certification requirement in New York. Mr. Pondiscio described that decision as a vote “to make teaching a ‘literacy optional’ profession in New York.” A literate person might well use the word “hyperbole” to describe that over-the-top description of this change in certification requirements.
Here are the facts. Students in New York’s teacher preparation programs already take many courses that require them to read and write at a high, college level. Let’s not forget that teaching candidates must also take and pass four years of college courses to even reach the point of taking the certification exams—so they have already demonstrated that they possess the literacy skills needed to get through college.
The Regents took this action based on the recommendations of the EdTPA Task Force, comprised of college deans and professors, and after gathering extensive public feedback. These experts were concerned that the test is flawed, with many of the questions appearing to have more than one correct answer. In a recent interview, Charles Sahm, director of education policy at the conservative Manhattan Institute (Mr. Sahm was not a member of the Task Force that recommended the changes) noted that he took the ALST test; here’s what he said about it, “You can take it for $20 online. And I have to say, I only got 21 out of 40 questions right on the reading comprehension.” In short, the test is a flawed measure of literacy skills.
Even with this change, New York’s teaching certification requirements remain among the most rigorous in the country, requiring the vast majority of teaching candidates to pass three other assessments before earning certification; those assessments also require students to demonstrate literacy skills. We simply eliminated a costly and unnecessary testing requirement that created an unfair obstacle for too many applicants.
But let’s get to the crux of Mr. Pondiscio’s argument. He believes that education in New York is heading in the wrong direction. Again, I could not disagree more. The Regents are moving forward to bring greater equity to students in all our schools. And nowhere is this more evident than in the deliberative, transparent, and inclusive approach the Regents and Commissioner Elia are taking to develop our Every Student Succeeds Act state plan. Our goal is straightforward—we will submit to the U.S. Department of Education (USDOE) a plan that supports the development of highly effective schools and encourages and enables all schools to become or remain highly effective.
Critical to the success of our State plan is the way we approach the issue of accountability. In a recent post on the Brookings Institution’s “Brown Center Chalkboard” blog, Brian Gill nailed it when he wrote, “It is time for accountability in education to be liberated from its narrow association with high-stakes testing. A single-minded focus on one form of accountability overlooks opportunities to create a rich system of incentives and supports that employs multiple accountability tools to promote improved practice.” That single-minded focus on test scores did not help children in poor, low-performing schools. We will change that.
The ESSA state plan ultimately adopted by the Board of Regents will improve teaching and learning, and it will promote greater equity for New York’s schoolchildren. By improving teaching and learning, we seek to increase teacher effectiveness in providing high-quality instruction aligned with state standards while fostering a positive learning environment for all students. By promoting equity, we seek to reduce the gaps in achievement that currently separate whole groups of students.
One final note about accountability. I have said repeatedly that, ultimately, it is a parent’s decision whether to have his or her child take the state assessments. I have also said that no school and no child should ever be punished because of a school’s low test participation rate. At the same time, I believe that assessments can be useful tools—provided they are diagnostic, valid, reliable, and provided they yield practical and timely information to teachers, administrators, and parents. So our goal is to continue to improve our tests; when we do, participation rates will improve as a natural consequence.
For too long, New York has neglected the needs of too many students. I am proud to head a Board that is dedicated to changing that paradigm.
For what is worth, I would be happy to see New York state lead the way in abandoning the pointless quest for the right combination of standards and tests.
After twenty years of trying, we should have learned by now that what matters most is having expert professional teachers and giving them the autonomy to do their job with out interference by the governor or legislature. The belief that kids learn more if they are tested more has been a huge benefit to the testing industry, but it has done immense damage to public education. We should eliminate annual testing from federal and state law. My favorite model remains Finland, where schools are free of standardized testing, teachers are highly educated, teaching is a high-status profession, and politicians and think tanks don’t have the nerve to tell teachers how to teach.
Mitchell Robinson, professor of music education at Michigan State, writes a very sad story here about a dedicated teacher who was threatened with firing if she refused to name names.
“Rachel [a pseudonym] is one of those teachers who has devoted herself, personally and professionally, to her career. The kind of teacher who arrives at school early, leaves late, takes her work home with her at night, creates new projects over the weekend–and purchases the materials out of her own pocket, arranges field trips and brings in guest artists and speakers for her students, organizes birthday parties, and wedding showers, and baby showers for her colleagues, hosts student teachers from the local university, serves as a teacher leader in her school district, attends her students’ concerts, and soccer games, and piano recitals, and dance recitals, and graduation ceremonies, pursues professional development opportunities on the weekends, takes graduate classes and workshops over the summer, has little to no idea how much she makes in her yearly salary, and puts her students’ needs above her own.
“In short, a teacher.
“In addition to her job as a classroom teacher, Rachel had also volunteered to serve as her district’s compliance officer for the state’s review of their status as a PLA (Persistently Low Achieving) school district.”
Rachel mentioned to her principal that she had heard some opt out discussion and thought the staff needed a reminder that the school could be closed if it didn’t have a 95% participation rate. In short order, the superintendent called her in and demanded that she name names. She refused. She got legal counsel from the Michigan Education Association.
Nothing availed. It was her job or her integrity. Why should any teacher be forced to make that choice?
The legislature in North Carolina never tires of finding new ways to mess up their state’s once-greatly admired public schools.
By mandating class size reduction across the state without providing additional funds, districts will be required to send pink slips to thousands of teachers of music, arts, physical education, and teacher assistants.
“We’re not dealing with widgets. We’re dealing with people’s lives and their livelihoods,” says Katherine Joyce, executive director of the N.C. Association of School Administrators (NCASA), an organization that reps public school district leaders at the legislature.
The uncertainty puts at least 5,500 teaching jobs statewide in jeopardy as districts scramble to reallocate resources, according to the NCASA.
That doesn’t include teacher assistant positions, particularly crucial jobs in low-performing schools and districts jettisoned by the thousands in cash-starved districts since 2008. Without major legislative concessions in the coming weeks, K-12 leaders expect many more T.A. jobs will be on the chopping block this year.
One bipartisan-supported reprieve to the looming class size order, House Bill 13, gained unanimous approval in the state House in February, but despite advocates’ calls for urgent action this spring, the legislation has lingered in the Senate Rules Committee with little indication it will be taken up soon.
Sen. Bill Rabon, the influential eastern North Carolina Republican who chairs the committee, did not respond to Policy Watch interview requests, but his legislative assistant said this week that Rabon’s committee will not consider any House bills until the General Assembly’s April 27 crossover deadline….
Regardless, public school leaders say the state’s drive to reduce class sizes comes at a particularly arduous time for districts. With North Carolina teacher pay mired among the lowest in the nation, K-12 experts are reporting major teaching shortages and plummeting interest in teaching degrees in the UNC system.
The legislature, dominated by a super-majority of ultra-conservative Republicans in both houses, is doing its level best to harass teachers and drive students to charter schools and vouchers. Under the guise of “reform,” more teachers and programs will be cut.
Tim Slekar is dean of education at Edgewood College in Wisconsin and a veteran teacher educator. He has watched and fumed and protested and spoken out as Governor Scott Walker and his puppet legislature wage war on public education and on teachers.
He wrote an angry letter protesting their latest plan to introduce “flexibility” into the credentials of teachers. He says they are using Naomi Klein’s “Shock Doctrine” to create a crisis, then step in and impose solutions that make the problems worse. They are both creating a teacher shortage and establishing the conditions to ruin teaching as a profession. What the legislature and the governor really want is to cut the cost of education by driving away professional teachers.
Here is a part of his letter; read it all.
Dear Teacher Education Colleagues,
I cannot support any license changes until the conditions causing teachers to leave the classroom and the conditions discouraging young people from entering the profession drive the policy discussions.
There is absolutely no evidence that changing license developmental ranges will do anything to stop the exodus of teachers or make teaching more attractive to our students. This situation is a perfect example of Naomi Klein’s Shock Doctrine and allowing the so called “shortage” narrative to drive policy in this manner is shortsighted and, ultimately, harmful – and it must stop!
We (teacher educators) must advocate for what’s BEST for our children and our communities. Changes in certification and license structures is a distraction at best, but much more likely it is a deliberate move to deprofessionalize teacher education.
We should not be complicit in this action despite the urging of some K-12 administrators and their desire for license “flexibility.” In fact we should remind our K-12 administrative colleagues that school principal licenses and superintendent licenses are under siege in other states. Pennsylvania has already created a “pipeline” into the superintendency that allows lawyers and MBAs to bypass state administrative license requirements (ALEC inspired).
Also, as academics we also have an obligation to use evidence and research to drive decision making and the evidence is clear: creating a deregulated pathway to the classrooms of our most vulnerable children will create even more inequity then we have now.
We should also revisit our friends over at ALEC to understand that deprofessionalizing teaching is model legislation being pushed across the country in an effort to weaken our public schools.
http://www.prwatch.org/news/2016/03/13054/cashing-kids-172-alec-education-bills-2015
Attacking Teacher Credentials and Teachers Unions
In addition to directing money away from public schools to private and non-union institutions, ALEC’s efforts also make running those schools a lot cheaper for the corporations and private entities involved. ALEC has been engaged in a relentless attack on teachers, their credentials, and the organized voice of teachers–unions.
Anna Allanbrook is principal of the Brooklyn New School in Brooklyn, New York. She explains here how her elementary school became “the Opt Out School.” Very few children in New York City opt out. Some are afraid they won’t get into a good middle school or a good high schools if they don’t have scores. Some are afraid the Immigration Police will come for them. Some are intimidated by administrators who want to play it safe. Read what happened at BNS.
Dear Families:
Tomorrow on April 4, 2017, fifty years after Martin Luther King Jr delivered his famous speech, Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence, at Riverside Church and forty nine years after he was shot and killed, we will join with communities across the country, by reciting a few excerpts from those words. This reading is an initiative organized by the The National Council of Elders. Just as Martin Luther King saw a need to condemn silence in 1967, so too does the National Council of Elders see that need today. They have asked schools, churches, civil rights groups, labor organizations, museums, community organizations, and others to join in the building of a movement to break silence, promote dialogue and engage in nonviolent direct action.
In that speech, Martin Luther King said, “When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, materialism, and militarism are incapable of being conquered.”
As the daughter of someone born in Vienna, Austria in 1924, I can’t help but remember his story when grappling with recent times. When we think of that big fifth grade curriculum question: What Are You Willing to Stand Up For?, I am reminded of Martin Niemöller’s famous quote:
First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Socialist.
Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Trade Unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.
Educators in the public schools are told not to talk about anything political. This puts us in somewhat of a bind as in the last twenty years, politicians have made school performance a political issue. But there is hope and that hope is reflected in the story of the Opt Out Movement.
At BNS the idea of not taking a state test started with one child and one mom, a mom who said, “No, my child would not be taking the citywide tests.” Within just a few years, BNS became known as the “Opt Out” school. Lots of folks ask how this happened and the answer is very simple. The staff in our school came together around our thinking about the tests. We did this because of what we saw happen when kids took these new tests. We did this by meeting and sharing ideas, first amongst ourselves and then with others. Simultaneously, parents were mobilizing and talking to parents in and outside of the school community. Teachers and parents held meetings to talk about assessment in general, and to talk about the Pearson tests, the specific tests that led to such a major revolt. Teachers described what they saw when kids were testing: children banging their heads, children throwing up, children crying.
Opting Out gave Brooklyn New School the freedom to not teach to the test. In fact our third to fifth grade teachers met again and decided as an entire school not to do any test prep. This became BNS policy. That in a nutshell was the result of one family initially saying no to the test.
This year, the opt out movement may not seem that important. Somehow what has happened nationally is more frightening and certainly more destructive than six days of standardized testing.
There is a sense of urgency today in the United States of America.
We must frame our actions in our commitment to our children, knowing that a big part of our work is the development of the citizens of tomorrow, people who are thoughtful, who read, who think, and who have the skill set to distinguish between facts and alternative facts.
The reality is that many of our New York City public schools are already doing that, offering rich curriculum and programming, which invites learning and encourages inquiry and reflection. As a part of our work, just as social media has made protest visible, we need to make public education visible and we need to work with our colleagues to embrace the possible.
All too often, folks come into our school and marvel at our projects, our trips, the art, the music, the science, saying, “I didn’t know this was happening in public schools.” It is happening in public schools and it could happen even more. The potential is unlimited. Schools that have the freedom to determine what it is they are teaching and how they are teaching, are working in remarkable ways.
If we reframe the conversation to be about kids, if we remove the stigma of low test scores and focus not on bad schools and good schools, but rather on giving our children what they need, we have the power to effect change.
We have no idea how the new administration is going to affect us, although we know that the decisions of prior Secretaries of Education have had tremendous impact. And we know that decisions made at the national level can hurt us locally unless we stay focused on our vision.
At BNS, we took away the impact of standardized tests by reminding parents of their rights. In the next days, weeks, months, we need to be attentive and vigilant, never tiring, being active citizens, and always staying true to the children.
It is not the nineteen thirties, but it is worth remembering the years of my dad’s childhood when it was decided that he and other Jewish children would no longer be allowed to go to school with the Gentiles. That was not normal, and resistance did happen. As policies that are not normal are implemented today, we need to stand together as educators to do what is right for our kids.
All for now,
Anna
Quote of the Week:
Anonymous, as told by the ELA testing proctor: “I think two answers are right. Where should I explain (in writing) my thinking?”
Diane Ravitch's blog 