What Me Worry?

Let's get rid of the bad teachers.  It can't hurt can it?  Honestly, who can argue with a plan to recognize excellence and eliminate roadblocks for getting rid of incompetence.  After all, if you're a good teacher, you've got nothing to worry about.  Right?

Current legislation in the Virginia General Assembly (HB 576 and SB 438) seeks to enact such a law.  Here is a summary of what it will do:

1- any teacher during their probationary period may be dismissed without notice or reason; this includes any teacher, regardless of experience, in their first year in a new district.

How it's different from today- currently, probationary teachers have the right to "notice" and "hearing" if dismissed during the current school year.  It is already possible to "non-renew" a probationary teacher.

2- all teachers will work on an "annual contract" and "continuing contracts" will be eliminated.

How it's different from today- essentially, new teachers have "annual contracts."  This means that dismissal during the year requires documentation and good reason for dismissal.  "Continuing contract" teachers may be dismissed, but even a non-renewal requires "notice" and "hearing" and cannot occur without a justified reason.  On the annual contract, as long as a teacher is notified by June 15, they can be refused a contract for the following year.

3- evaluations must follow the Guidelines for Uniform Performance Standards and Evaluation. These standards are new as of 2011 and call for teacher evaluations to be tied to student growth.  Measurements for student growth are not clearly defined and differences in testing, or lack of testing in some areas make this provision very different from teacher to teacher.  All teachers must be evaluated yearly, new teachers twice a year.

How it is different from today- local school boards must create a system to address student academic progress and the instructional skills and knowledge of teachers.  Furthermore, local boards decide the frequency and type of evaluation for experienced teachers.

This is just a brief summary.  I encourage you to read the entire bill, or at least a better summary found here.

I consider myself a pretty good teacher.  Not the best, probably in the top half.  Should I worry?  I remember my first year.  An administrator (not my direct supervisor) had heard from students that students were out of control in my class.  The administrator couldn't offer any specifics, but required me to complete a discipline plan and come back for follow up in three weeks.  I never heard another thing about it, and the follow up didn't happen.  I wonder if that happened after this law passed whether this nebulous assumption that my classroom lacked discipline could have led to dismissal.

In my fourth year, a new chair was appointed to our department.  In our initial meeting, he said, "I'm sure that you're aware of the concern about your teaching, so we'll continue to work on that."  He was shocked that I was shocked at this statement.  I hadn't heard a thing.  Luckily, he was willing to observe my class and try to discover the problem.  A former department chair really had it in for me.  Apparently the administration was aware of these supposed problems, but rather than investigate, they assumed it was true.  I was able to request several evaluations to show that I was doing my job, but if that happened today, perhaps it would be easier to wait until June 15 to let me know I don't have a job in September.

Most of this proposed legislation simply ups the stakes of the system without providing the additional training or input to make it work appropriately.  To borrow from the gun lobby, we don't need new laws, we need better enforcement of the laws we have.  Bad teachers can be dismissed under current law.  It is just a matter of providing the support to schools and administrators to effectively use current systems of evaluation and applying them appropriately. 

This proposed legislation will not result in removing bad teachers and recognizing good ones.  Even if it did, will better teachers magically appear to replace them.  I spoke directly with my principal and the division assistant Superintendent about this proposal.  Both of them said that as administrators, they wouldn't likely use the law so much to get rid of teachers as much as they would use it to encourage existing teachers to step up their performance.

In the end, as a teacher, it is a demoralizing message.  It says I don't have the motivation to do my job well, so with a little incentive and threat of punishment maybe things will get better.  In reality, with proper training and oversight, the current system would function better-- without proper training and oversight, the proposed system will be worse.  It just isn't good policy.  If you agree, let someone know.

HB 576 will be heard in the House Education Subcommittee on Teachers and Administrative Action on February 2 at 5 p.m. The committee members are as follows (all phone numbers are in 804):

LeMunyon (Chair) 698-1067, DelJLeMunyon@house.virgnia.gov
Cole 698-1088, DelMCole@house.virginia.gov
Robinson 698-1027, DelRRobinson@house.virginia.gov
Yost 698-1-12, DelJYost@house.virginia.gov
Yancey 698-1094, DelDYancey@house.virginia.gov
McClellan 698-1171, DelJMcClellan@house.virginia.gov
Morrissey 698-1074, DelJMorrissey@house.virginia.gov
Keam 698-1035, DelMKeam@house.virginia.gov


SB 438 will be heard by the Education Subcommittee of the Senate Committee on Education and Health. The committee members are as follows:
Blevins (Chair) 698-7514, district14@senate.virginia.gov
Howell 698-7532, district32@senate.virginia.gov
Locke 698-7502, district02@senate.virginia.gov
Black 698-7513, district13@senate.viginia.gov
Carrico 698-7540, district40@senate.virginia.gov 

*this information was copied from the VEA Daily Reports 

Apples to Apples?

K12 Inc., the country's largest provider of online k-12 education has come under fire from several sources recently for it's attempts to turn a profit by drawing students away from traditional public education classrooms.  Just last week, the New York Times ran an article subtitled Online Schools Score Better on Wall Street than in the Classroom.  Sounds like a pretty bold claim, but we've argued before, with the dot.com decline and housing market bubble burst, education may be the last safe refuge for Wall Street in the 21st century.

Ron Packard, CEO of K12 Inc, issued a reply to this article yesterday in the Fordam Education Institute's Flypaper.  I'm not completely opposed to Virtual Education.  I believe that responsible virtual education within the framework of existing educational structures is vital for 21st century learning.  I do have reservations about a complete package of online education outsourced to a distant and nebulous institution whose primary purpose is maximizing profit.  This description may not fairly characterize K12 Inc., but Packard's defense of the company in response to the NY Times articles is less than convincing.  Of the several arguments presented by Ron Packard, I found number one most lacking.  I've pasted the text of his argument below:

Academic performance of virtual schools: K12 data shows that a large and growing number of students coming into virtual schools are below grade level. The high growth rate of virtual schools means that a large portion of students taking the state tests are in their first year. This makes static test scores poor measures of a school’s overall performance because students perform better on state tests the longer they are enrolled. To measure academic growth, K12 administers third party norm-referenced tests.  Data from these tests show students are making positive academic gains relative to national norms.

 This is not the first time that I've heard this argument to defend poor results of online learning or even charter schools.  So, let's look closely at this argument.  First, Mr. Packard argues that students coming into his schools are below grade level.  It stands to reason that their performance will fall below that of on-grade level students.  Does that mean it's the student's fault and not the school?  I'm o.k. with that as long as we let our "traditional" public schools put forth the same argument.  Do students matter or not?  We have to be careful not to allow student ability or circumstances to provide an excuse for poor service.  If online schools and charters are given a pass because of the population they're dealing with then let's not apply a different standard to public schools dealing with the same students in order to label them as failing.

Second, it looks like the tests are getting blamed.  In the world of public education, again this argument doesn't fly.  The tests are the tests and if you can't perform then you're not performing.  Have you noticed any of the value-added or growth model laws passing across the nation?  It doesn't matter whether students are transferring, adding, dropping, repeating, or not even in your class in some states.  If the test scores aren't good enough, you're not good enough.  That applies to schools and increasingly to teachers as well.  If the tests aren't good enough to judge online education and charters then why do we assume they're good enough to judge traditional public schools.

I suppose if you can be identified by initials and your stock is publicly traded a different set of standards apply.  That shouldn't be a surprise, we've known for a while that Wall Street standards don't apply to the rest of us.

Diane Ravitch at NCSS 2011

“If enough people care, the public may learn the course is not wise, not reform and backed by no evidence.  Public Education is a precious resource that must be preserved and improved for future generations.” 

-Diane Ravitch, NCSS 2011

Diane Ravitch is a voice of reason and sanity in the politically charged and reckless world of education policy and so-called reform.  The Teaching Underground had the privilege of hearing a lecture from Dr. Ravitch at the NCSS national convention this weekend in Washington, D.C.

Conventional wisdom might brand her “anti-reform,” but in reality the term educational reform has been high-jacked and turned into “testing, accountability, and choice” at the exclusion of meaningful reform seeking appropriate ways to “develop qualities of heart and mind and character to sustain our democracy for future generations.”  The Teaching Underground is ready to steal the term back and label Diane Ravitch as the voice of true reform in American education.

After hearing Ravitch’s talk we jokingly said to each other, “she stole all of her material from the Underground.”  Since our arrival in the blogging world in October 2010, we’ve learned that every challenge we’ve faced at the local level is rooted in the national education landscape.  Like Ravitch, our primary hope is that people would care, and by caring, the public will learn that our present course of educational policy in the United States often guised as reform is really no reform at all.

Ravitch’s lecture at the NCSS Convention centered around a dozen or so questions.  (I was typing fast, if you were there and see that we missed a question let us know.)  Below are the questions Ravitch addressed.  We've included a few links to related posts on the Teaching Underground.  Feel free to offer your reactions to the questions, and if you were at the talk, let us know what you thought.  We'll post about some of these topics in the months to come.

Are we in crisis?
-one of the very first posts on TU: Are We Failing?

Should public schools be turned over to private management?

Why not have a free market of choices for parents and students?
-these two questions were addressed in our post Breaking the Public Schools

Should public funded schools be allowed to make a profit?
-in April we discussed The Education Marketplace

Should teachers get a bonus for higher test scores?

Will test scores go up if teacher evaluations are tied to them?

Should student test scores ever be a part of teacher evaluation?
-each of these three questions remind me of the post Why You Should Care

Should NCLB be reauthorized?
-among other posts addressing NCLB, here is 2012 or 2014

Will Race to the Top transform?
-it will certainly transform something, here's a post on NCLB Waivers and Race to the Top

Should teachers and principals have professional training?

Will competition improve schools?

Are We Really Going There?

D.C. Schools Prepare for Nation's First Sex-Education Standardized Testing

Go ahead, click the link.  That title's not a joke.  Our capital's school system plans to use multiple choice standardized testing to gauge student knowledge in 5th, 8th, and 10th grades on a number of health related topics.  Officials created the test to comply with a recent policy enacted by the D.C. City Council.

Officials said that the test, which will also include questions on nutrition, mental health and drug use, is based on a provision of the Healthy Schools Act of 2010, which the D.C. Council passed to address health issues in the 75,000-student system.

But the legislation’s sponsor, council member Mary Cheh (D-Ward 3), said the law requires only that the District produce an annual report describing progress on student health concerns. It does not mandate creation of another standardized test.

As silly as this sounds, every time the citizens of our nation sit back and allow passage of what appears to be reasonable education policy our schools take one more step down the slippery slope of insanity.  Did you hear about the 52 new standardized tests last year in Charlotte-Mecklenburg?  To implement the new Pay for Performance systems students took standardized tests in nearly every subject, including Yearbook!

Now, Virginia is among the bandwagon states that want to link teacher evaluation to student "growth and performance."  Here's the catch.  Can anyone argue that teachers should be rewarded for promoting student growth or assissted when they don't/can't?  Not at all.  Whether you refer to "growth models" or "value added", the idea that teachers should be judged on how much a student learns in a given year can't be refuted.  So no one pushes back against legislation that tries to enable this.

We're beginning to learn this year in Albemarle County about our new Teacher Performance Appraisal system.  We've started changing the system to comply with state requirements that at least forty percent of a teacher's evaluation is based on "student growth."  So far we haven't fallen prey to the testing craze, we don't have to specifically link all of our "growth goals" to standardized testing.  It's going to be hard.  Administrators will have to ensure that teachers set reasonable and rigorous enough goals.  They will have to make sure that standards are applied equally across the division.  Some teachers will have specific data to include (with SOL testing) while others can be more creative (music, art, Psychology, etc.)  In the end, it might look easier to just give the kids a test see how they do.

Standardized testing for Sex ed?  Really?  Wake up America.  Republican or Democrat, education policy isn't working, and until more people stand up and expose the consequences of current education policy we're likely to see more of the same until we finally break this system and start over from scratch.  That idea might sound good to some, but for the millions of students who are being broken down along with the system that is supposed to support them, that is not good enough.