Posts Tagged ‘evaluation’

Think Long

Wednesday, November 30th, 2011

Another committee report has hit the newspapers in California. This group, made up of big names in Democratic and Republican politics and business, were charged with developing proposals to overcome the issues in California that have led to nagging dysfunction. Officially known as The Think Long Committee, it was brought together by the Nicolas Berggruen Institute to make “structural and constitutional changes that will break the present gridlock, make government more responsive and efficient while at the same time putting in place the incentives and Institutions vital for California’s long-term future.”

The committee’s main function was to design a “blueprint” for the state budget and taxes. In addition, the group has addressed education, noting the past high quality of education and the loss of funds to sustain the quality.

Anything that will help education in California is welcome. So far the main principle is to raise the funds spent on K-12 and community colleges and more funds for the University of California (UC) and California State Universities (CSU). Also, proposals for teacher and principal evaluation are prominent in the plan. See bullets for meaningful evaluation, non-seniority based lay-offs, earned tenure over 5 years, equitable distribution of teacher talent, and data analysis in the report. The generalizations seem a lot like the proposals put forward by the U.S. Department of Education but also represent thinking by people outside of the education field. How much did the new state superintendent contribute? And, until teachers are included in the deliberations, the proposals will remain generalizations. Neither the superintendent’s name nor the names of any teachers were listed in the report. The president of CTA and the superintendent of Los Angeles Unified School district were listed.

Looking again at the design for the California state budget and taxes, it includes best practices, and includes a new tax rate initiative for voters to approve in November 2012. The new tax rate is supposed to generate revenue to support schools. Also, a citizen’s watchdog group, which is supposed to make sure all the recommendations occur, is a proposed initiative for November 2012. Right now, there are organizations, California AAUW for example, examining the Initiative Process itself and recommending changes. So initiatives are currently up in the air.

However, if there are no changes, there will be no benefit for schools. The big obstacle in the room is Proposition 13, of course. Until brave souls are willing to make further revisions to that insidious legislation will money ever appear for schools?

Finally, it is a shame that university and city administrators can’t see the value in letting the Occupiers demonstrate, like UC students did at the UC regents’ meetings on Monday, November 28, 2012. Over time, the majority of those people will be working and paying taxes, so what does it say when the sites they occupy are public property, but the occupiers are treated as criminals? All of the members of the Think Long Committee are well-to-do and hold sway in the state. What will the occupiers think of the committee’s proposals if speech is cut off?

See the editorial “A solid set of reforms” in the San Francisco Chronicle, November 27, 2012. For a look at the detail of the report go to www.berggruen.org/thinklongcommittee.

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Posted in California Teachers Association, California budget crisis, public schools |
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Waiting for the Teachers Unions

Wednesday, September 8th, 2010

When the Puritans settled on the East coast, in spite of many beliefs people nowadays find, well, puritanical, those men and women did believe in education for all members of the community.  They arose against the idea that only children from wealthy families who could afford tutors and governesses would be educated.

It’s also true that by the 19th century the number of teachers graduating from normal schools and accepting positions in small mid-western towns put up with poor wages and behavior rules we citizens would still find puritanical.

Things weren’t equal for children, of course.  Think of slave children, poor rural children hidden in Appalachian mountain valleys and deep in the French Louisiana bayous, immigrant children who didn’t speak English crowded into urban schools.

No wonder joining together to put pressure on the powers that be to improve conditions became a choice many shared.  For teachers, as well as miners, train conductors, factory and construction workers, the changes came by supporting each other.

Eventually heroic efforts gained job security, improved salaries, safe conditions for school buildings, and health benefits.  Can anyone discount the improvements for teachers and students? The National Education Association (NEA) locals and American Federation of Teachers (AFT) affiliates are proud of solidarity, mutual assistance, and well-established worker’s rights.

Today, however, schools are at another precarious stage and trouble is brewing.  Today the monumental concern is not over salaries or benefits for teachers, but how to improve the curriculum for students so they achieve academically and succeed in the 21st century.  Why are unions still standing on the achievements for teachers’ rights gained 50-60 years ago?

It is hard to grasp why the teachers unions have not taken the upper hand in the current debate.  After all, the overarching purpose of the teachers unions is to set conditions so students succeed.

Teacher evaluation is the highest priority of most states and the bane of teachers unions.  Since the 1980’s numerous proposals have appeared in the education world to evaluate teachers: Teacher Incentive Fund (TIF) programs, “value-added” models, point scales of performance to name three.  Why don’t teachers unions with all their resources take on the job of designing a fair evaluation system, including pay?  A change in evaluation procedures will not help every teacher.  Some will have to go and part of the teachers union expertise would be better used to help teachers make the transition.

The Common Core Standards Initiative (CCSI) has already developed and state departments of education have voted on Core Curriculum Standards to help teachers design their curriculum.  Teachers, countrywide, should be happy.  Now texts will actually be organized to help set up pertinent lessons, not be arranged to support purchase by 50 different states with 50 different curriculums.  And one day tests will actually assess what students have learned so teachers can spend their time and effort helping low-performing students achieve.  Unions should be advocates for such testing changes, setting forth guidelines for the tests, offering personnel to help design the tests.  Don’t fight with Education Testing Service (ETS), join them to make sure the tests reflect what teachers want.

Last, as teachers unions represent a professional group, it would seem better for NEA and AFT newsletters to address the best-researched curricula; highest assessment successes; fairest evaluation models; strongest plans for infrastructure; most professional school boards.  No longer write articles and press releases only about how a local has stood up against some stupid school district regulation.  Good to know, but the thrust should be to ensure the schools supported by teachers unions are the best schools that have turned around.

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Posted in American Federation of Teachers, California Teachers Association, Colorado Education Association, National Education Association, public schools |
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Teach, Teacher, Teachers Union

Wednesday, September 1st, 2010

Newspapers have stopped writing about Race to the Top (RTTT) “winners and losers.”  TV news has been showing off New Orleans schools resurrected from the water-logged marshes.

Only Newsweek, August 23/30, 2010, p. 25 talked about the Achievement Gap, reminding readers of what works not only in the U.S. but in Europe, South America, and Singapore.  Anyone in the education world who teaches can name the first factor-family circumstances.  Those not fortunate enough to have a family that makes sure of mastery in reading and math skills by age 10 are most likely to fail in school from then on.

Most in the education world can name the strategies to overcome those factors which affect low-performing students.  That’s right.  Pre-schools galore.  Rigorous standards followed through with tutoring from the early grades on.  More time in school-the number of hours and days.  Effort in teacher training in college and during the school year, i.e. don’t cut professional development in order to balance the school district budget.

Of course, in California instead of balancing a state budget so there are enough funds for student education which is the California Teachers Association (CTA) position no matter what the issue, the legislature sits back and lets the teachers unions fight it out with school districts about teacher evaluation, seniority, and layoffs that still are looming for some.

Along came President Pro Tem Darrel Steinberg to propose SB1285 which assures that urban schools with the newest teachers “would not lose a greater proportion of teachers than the districtwide average in layoff.” San Francisco Chronicle, “Seniority vs. civil rights” August 31, 2010.  Sounds like a good change, teachers having struggled with the idea of seniority vs. students’ rights to have strong teachers for a long while.

Few are happy with CTA on the issue of evaluation and seniority, but doesn’t this bill throw one more stone at the wall, given the lack of a balanced state budget and funds from RTTT.  Who is the bad guy and who is the good guy in this standoff?

Now a radio program produced by American Radio Works examined how Chattanooga Public Schools in 2000, well before No Child Left Behind (NCLB) and RTTT was available, looked at achievement in reading and math and took steps.

Be aware, from the start the school district was lucky to have the Benwood Foundation and The Public Education Foundation with lots of money to support steps taken.  The school district was fortunate to have an abundance of test data from the Tennessee Value-Added Assessment System to answer why 9 of 20 Chattanooga public schools were so low on the achievement scale.  Yes, it is similar to the system used by the Los Angeles Times recently that is causing a huge ruckus and that is analyzed on the front page of The New York Times, September 1, 2010, “Formula to Grade Teachers’ Skill Gains Acceptance, and Critics” by Sam Dillon.

To make change happen, there was a long fight with the teachers union, but eventually it came out that firing poor teachers didn’t help students do better, increasing the professional development and standards for good teachers did help.  In the documentary the strategies that improved student success were learned right away, e.g. pacing of lessons, knowing the material and how to teach it; and long term, e.g. working as a team, analyzing what helps students learn, teaching each other, using mentors.

Though not as strong as the Chattanooga Public Schools on the hill where family circumstances help, student success continues to improve in the valley, the whole point of “turn around.”

Which tells anyone in the education world to beware of the cost of resistance to change.

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Posted in American Radio Works, No Child Left Behind Act, Race to Top, public schools |
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ACLU and CSBA Throw Down Gloves

Wednesday, June 2nd, 2010

School districts are doing what they always do as a way out of financial crises.  They look to the source of money generated by laying off personnel to solve the problem, never mind the issue of “last in, first out.”

up-scale suburban elementary school

up-scale suburban elementary school

As an example, in the up-scale suburban district of Los Altos, California, about 100 teachers are scheduled to be laid off, making class sizes rise even though the district has long touted its small classes.

All in spite of research showing how layoffs make things worse.  See this blog’s post on February 24, 2010, titled “Short Term, Long Term.”  The May 20, 2010, article “Teachers Facing Weakest Market for Jobs in Years” by Winnie Hu, New York Times, says “the recession seems to have penetrated a profession long seen as recession-proof.”  No kidding!

Not only are lay offs imminent-an estimate of 150,000 or more personnel nationwide, but jobs are not being offered.  One presumes class size increases are the answer.  Students aren’t going away.  Who’s going to teach them?

In this day and age, the layoff idea gets mixed up with the controversy about poor-performing teachers.  The ACLU-Southern California press release for its suit filed in Superior Court February 24, 2010, against lay offs in 3 lowest-performing middle schools in Los Angeles areas of Watts and Pico Union explains that lay offs seeming to be “a budget-related issue, underneath that is the teacher tenure policy that is under attack” by superintendent Cortines, Governor Schwarzeneggar et al.

To others, lay offs take on the quality of a civil rights issue.  Why should LIFO-”last in, first out”-be the school district’s policy when research shows that high-need schools in a district like Los Angeles have the newest teachers.  Whether they are fabulous or poor-performing, the teachers are gone each year a district faces a financial imbalance.  How can those schools establish a stable core of teachers, use resources to increase test performance, and train high-quality teachers–all of which is guaranteed in the state Constitution?

ACLU/SC won an injunction May 13, 2010.

Which leads to the suit filed May 20, 2010, in Alameda County Superior Court, by the California School Boards Association (CSBA), the California State PTA, and the Association of California School Administrators (ACSA) as well as nine school districts up and down the state and 60 students.  The suit seeks to overhaul the finances for school funding to “provide the resources to actually deliver” on the mandate of what schools must teach and what students must learn.

Over the past 40 years there have been several decisions and initiatives, Proposition13 (1978) being the most well-known, and Serrano vs. Priest (1976) and Proposition 98 (1988) being influential, that have set California’s untenable education budget.  The plaintiff’s argument is that “school funding is unstable, unreliable, irrational, and overly restrictive,” according to Jill Tucker and Marisa Lagos in “Suit could force major changes in school funding” San Francisco Chronicle, May 21, 2010.  About 70% of similar “adequacy lawsuits” have succeeded, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.

In California, this suit will take years to work its way out of the courts, and one can only hope the legislature will resolve this systemic problem before the court decides for them.  One can expect that lay offs will continue to the detriment of schools and students, tenure-evaluation-compensation will keep being fought over, and stop-gap measures will be found to keep schools going, until the economy perks up and state money, that is taxes, rises to “normal.”

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Posted in highly qualified teachers, layoff notices, low-performing schools, public schools, school finance reform |
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Truancy’s Many Minutes

Wednesday, April 21st, 2010

Today teacher layoffs for 2010-2011 hit the front page of the New York Times, “Revenue Cut, Schools Warn of Huge Teacher Layoffs Across U.S.” by Tamar Lewin and Sam Dillon.  The news (with photo of 21, 000 plus in California) finally comes to the attention of the nation.

mixed neighborhood school in Silicon Valley

mixed neighborhood school in Silicon Valley

Most media minutes this past week were devoted to the teacher evaluation-tenure-compensation conundrum.  Last week’s post reported on Colorado’s SB 10-191 legislative bill.  End of the week Florida’s governor finally vetoed the state’s bill after the entire school community flushed out the legislation’s inadequacies.

Still, how are teachers going to address the evaluation-tenure-compensation issue next year when they’re all laid off?  In fact, a long list of school-wide problems must be addressed to establish a fair playing field on which teachers and schools will be evaluated, a playing field with a timer ticking off minutes of instruction.

Truancy is at the top of the list of insidious problems for persistently low-performing schools.

How can students learn when they don’t arrive on time and every day?  When a child arrives tardy by 20 minutes once a week, it doesn’t seem like much.  When he misses 3 days in the month, it doesn’t seem like much.  Right now there are on average 36 weeks of actual learning time.  Take away about 720 minutes or 2 days a school year for tardiness, 27 more whole days of unexcused absence, and the student misses four weeks-a month-of learning time in a school year.  Now that’s many minutes!

Let’s hope more stimulus money is legislated by Congress soon, as in the next month, so teachers remain.  On Monday this week the TV news mentioned the coming distribution of millions of dollars to districts with identified persistently low-performing schools. You can bet those teachers and principals will assert ‘you want to see improvement from the beginning to the end of the year, it stands to reason that the school board better have plans to improve truancy data.’

It certainly must be in place before any new teacher accountability plan for tenure and compensation takes effect.

Severe truancy problems can be reversed.  For example, at Success for All elementary schools student attendance (arrival on time every day) is one of the first problems addressed–so students can take advantage of the learning strategies being put in place.

How do minutes of truancy decrease?  Before school a rousing Sousa march is played on the PA system,  students line up in a circle, and the principal announces birthdays, events, classes with the best attendance, and so on which are applauded.  The children go to class where a game is played to spell words, one letter each day everyone is present.  The word completed, a small reward is provided and the class is congratulated by the principal.  The attendance clerk contacts absent students’ families daily and information is sent to the district that keeps computer records of attendance with the goal of 96% each month.  The school counselor is on the phone immediately with the parents of tardy students.  A plan is set up to call, pick up, attend the morning Sunshine Club (where students sit in a group for breakfast).

If that isn’t enough, the counselor contacts the county truancy court and proceedings are initiated.  In an elementary school, one court appearance per family is usually enough, other younger children are kept track of before the problem stands out again.  See San Francisco Chronicle article “Oakland truancy court for parents” by Matthai Kuruvila (April 17, 2010) for more information about California education laws on truancy.

Be ready.  It takes relentless, unending time and effort in neighborhoods with single mothers, families working several jobs, older siblings who baby sit and don’t set good examples.  Such oversight must be funded substantially and not pulled away when the chips are down.  Like laying off teachers, cuts saves money but at what cost to the long run across the playing field?

It takes no more than a minute to agree, truancy reduction is one major procedure that will ensure many more minutes  of effective learning time on task, the entire goal of U. S. public schools.

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Posted in layoff notices, low-performing schools, program improvement, public schools, school accountability |
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