Monday, April 25, 2010

Teachers Fired, Rehired for Less

A CNN video report by Alan Chernoff tells of the Tewksbury, Massachusetts teachers who were all laid off as full-time employees last June and then rehired at lesser salaries as part-time workers. Judge KOs injunction request in Tewksbury teacher salary dispute in the Lowell Sun relates:

A Superior Court judge has rejected the Tewksbury School Committee's request for an injunction after the Tewksbury Teachers Association argued the School Committee last year violated the contract by not going to arbitration when it slashed teachers' salaries and workloads from full time to part time.

Lowell Superior Court Judge Paul Chernoff ruled that the issue should go to arbitration, but stayed the arbitration until June 4.

It appears that the action by the school system has resulted in a shorter work day on paper only with a 5% across-the-board salary reduction for teachers.

Tenure

Jennifer Medina takes a hard look at New York City Schools Chancellor Joel Klein's efforts to overturn seniority rules in Last Teacher In, First Out? City Has Another Idea. Medina includes some typical quotes about tenure and teacher quality supplied by Klein and other reformers, but she also includes some interesting data that would seem to contradict Klein's apparent views that new teachers are better than more experienced ones.

DC Funding Mess

A couple of Bill Turque articles, A $34 million crisis of confidence in D.C. schools and Judge questions legitimacy of D.C. teacher layoffs will have you shaking your head in disbelief at the funding mess in DC. Of course, if you live there, work there, or most of all, your kids go to school there, it isn't very funny.

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Tuesday, April 26, 2010

Should Student Scores Be Used to Evaluate Teachers?

In her latest Bridging Differences blog posting, Diane Ravitch asks and answers the question, Should Student Scores Be Used To Evaluate Teachers? Ravitch tells of a comment from Dr. Harry Frank, an emeritus professor of psychology at the University of Michigan, who "wrote that the first principle for valid assessment is that 'no assessment can be used at the same time for both counseling and for administrative decisions (retention, increment, tenure, promotion)'" Dr. Frank noted that "the principle is so basic that it's often covered in the very first chapter of introductory texts on workplace performance evaluation."

Of course, using end of the year standardized tests for summative and supposedly formative assessment for students and evaluation of teachers is exactly what is currently going on or being proposed all over the nation. Ravitch relates the devastating effect of this practice and the concurrent assault on the teaching profession by "reformers:"

Wherever I go, I meet many teachers who say virtually the same thing: They have never been more demoralized in their professional lives. They feel that they are scapegoats for everything that is wrong in American education. Arne Duncan and Barack Obama, even more than Margaret Spellings and George W. Bush, are giving credibility to the idea that 100 percent of students should be proficient, that teachers are to blame when test scores are not 100 percent proficient, that teachers use students' poverty as just an excuse for their bad teaching, and that firing teachers is laudable and courageous. Teachers say that they worked hard to elect Obama, and they now feel betrayed by his negative attitudes about teachers. They say, "If only Obama or Duncan would spend a few days in my classroom..."

Bidens Host TOYs

Valerie Strauss tells in VP, Jill Biden pay respect to teachers of Jill Biden hosting the 2010 State Teachers of the Year at an afternoon tea in the vice presidential residence yesterday. Strauss writes that "a number of the guests said it was a genuine measure of respect, and a sorely needed one at that." She asked some of the teachers what they want the administration to make a top priority as it moves to rewrite the No Child Left Behind law and writes that "All of the teachers I asked said they were concerned about linking standardized tests to teacher evaluations, and they stressed the importance of helping teachers develop and work together."

While the Vice President was in attendance, Secretary of Education Arne Duncan was not. The Teachers of the Year will go to the Rose Garden at the White House on Thursday, where President Obama will name the national Teacher of the Year. I wonder if he will listen to any of the concerns of those excellent teachers. The crafting and execution of the Obama/Duncan education "reform" strategy suggests otherwise.

No Race to the Top in Indiana

Indiana Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Bennett's heavy-handed tactics reported here previously with Indiana teachers' unions have produced the predictable result of Indiana not being able to field a second round Race to the Top proposal. In State calls off race for education reform grant, the Indianapolis Star's Andy Gammill relates that Bennett announced last week "that he would stop efforts under way to write an application. Without support from teachers unions, he said, it wasn't worth the state's time to apply again." Bennett demanded teachers' unions and school districts sign on to support a proposal neither had been allowed to see in its entirety.

Teacher Turnaround

The Boston Globe's James Vaznis tells in Angst as teachers reapply for jobs of a sad scenario that may play out across the nation in the near future. He writes of 350 teachers from seven of Boston's "underperforming’" schools having to decide whether to reapply for their jobs. The teachers were dismissed under provisions of a federal school-turnaround model that requires principals at the schools to replace at least half their staff members. Vanish related that one teacher told him that some teachers were choosing to leave "because they feel so disrespected by the process. If the idea is to get the strongest teachers, they blew it."

Disney Educational Productions New Titles

eSchool News assistant editor Maya T. Prabhu relates that Disney Educational Productions "has recommitted to bringing educational multimedia into classrooms—and its latest set of videos combines Disney’s brand of educational movies with the interactivity of electronic whiteboards." In Disney turns its focus to curriculum, Prabhu writes of The American Presidents DVD series that employs "an interactive whiteboard feature that lets students play games that use video clips, photographs, and quotes to test students’ understanding of the subject material." It includes "biographies on all 44 presidents, based on national curriculum standards and complete with overviews of their eras for historical context. The DVDs also contain thematic segments featuring interviews with political commentators ranging from former Democratic presidential candidate Gen. Wesley Clarke to comedian and writer Mo Rocca."

The DVDs are available individually from Disney and Amazon for $29.99 each:

• The American Presidents: 1754-1861
• The American Presidents: 1850-1900

Friday, April 30, 2010

Teacher of the Year

Sarah Brown Wessling was honored yesterday by President Obama as the 2010 National Teacher of the Year. Wessling teaches English at Johnston High School in Johnston, Iowa. In his remarks, the President noted, "Her students don’t just write five-paragraph essays, but they write songs, public service announcements, film storyboards, even grant proposals for their own non-for-profit organizations." Wessling posted some comments in Is this where I pinch myself on the White House blog yesterday.

• The Des Moines Register: Sarah Wessling, 'product of Iowa,' named top U.S. teacher by Todd Erzen
• The Huffington Post: Sarah Brown Wessling, Teacher Of The Year by Erica Werner
  

The New Phony Consensus

Deborah Meier writes of the "new phony consensus" about education reform in her latest Bridging Differences blog posting, When Did This 'Consensus' Form? She notes that Russ Whitehurst's commentary, Did Congress Authorize Race to the Top, got her going on her rant. Meier writes:

I don't recall there ever being a discussion, so where and when did this consensus form around getting rid of "traditional" public schooling that rests on local communities? When did we have a discussion about the larger moral issues that "seniority" represents in general, not just in schools? Or due process? Why do we presume guilt, not innocence, when someone is arbitrarily sent to the so-called "rubber room"? Or, who should decide what curriculum and pedagogy to adopt—or reject? Or, how we should judge schools or teachers...not to mention kids! Who decided that algebra would be a gateway skill to possessing a high school diploma (and thus entry to almost any job)? Who decided that private, for-profit managers should take over large portions of public education—including replacing entire former public school space? Who decided that the representatives of teachers don't represent them—but are just "labor bosses"? Who decided that Ivy League-educated students fresh out of college will be better teachers of our kids than experienced graduates of the non-elite universities?

Whitehurst writes that "it is a mistake in principle—and a danger in reality—to allow any U.S. secretary of education this much policy discretion when doling out large sums of money" in exploring the wisdom and legality of Race to the Top. And Meier concludes:

If we treat our older and more experienced teachers as dispensable (not worth two new, young, would-be teachers) we are saying a lot to our youngsters about what we value; if teachers are fired without due process, we are providing a very powerful curriculum to kids. When we say that a score on a particular test is the measure of the woman, and surely more "real" than what the adults who know you might say, we are engaging in an instructional act—influencing how young people value themselves and others.

A Letter to Superintendent Bennett

Tom Rademaker sent me a copy of a letter today that had been circulating amongst Indiana teachers. Eastern High School special educator Crystal Bramel sarcastically endorses performance pay in her letter to Indiana Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Bennett. She writes that, "Since we all agree that circumstances and factors beyond our control have little to no impact on our overall effectiveness, I think you too will be proud of the gains you have made. In fact, in many categories, you have helped Indiana lead the nation." She then enumerates a long list of "gains" Bennett and Governor Mitch Daniels have achieved during their leadership. She goes on to list the sad statistics on unemployment, welfare, free/reduced lunches, and so on. While I don't have permission to reprint the letter, the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette's Karen Francisco picked up the letter in Evaluating the governor.

Odds 'n' Ends

Robert Knox's I always try it on The Boston Globe is a delightful piece I ran across yesterday about children at the Learning Circle Preschool in Canton, Massachusetts, using the Early Sprouts curriculum "to incorporate healthful eating habits by exploring vegetables from seed to table — and have fun while they’re at it."

Have a great weekend!

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