teachers

Can We Effectively Evaluate Teachers?

Eduflack accountability, assessment, National Journal, teachers
“Where are we as a nation with teacher evaluations?  Are we evaluating the right things?  What role should student data play in professional development?  What about employment decisions?”
These are the questions that National Journal is asking this week on its Education Experts blog.  Following up on the Chicago Teachers Union Strike, National Journal is touting the latest discussion section under the header, “Teacher Effectiveness ‘Here to Stay.'”
Dear ol’ Eduflack weighs in on this week’s question, touting ConnCAN’s work in the development of its Measuring Teacher Effectiveness: A Look “Under the Hood” of Teacher Evaluation in 10 Sites.  Released in May by ConnCAN, Measuring Teacher Effectiveness offers a detailed look at 10 strong teacher evaluation models.
From my post:

We know there are few factors as important to student success than that of an effective educator. To ensure that every child has that effective educator, we must implement comprehensive evaluation models. Measuring Teacher Effectiveness is an important tool in understanding what teacher evaluation leaders are doing and what components must be factored into a meaningful evaluation model.

Each site we studied is working to continuously improve their evaluation systems with the belief that the challenges they encounter can be overcome. As Measuring Teacher Effectiveness reported, “None of these systems claims to have cracked the code for teacher evaluation. Nonetheless, we consistently heard that the perfect should not be the enemy of the good.”

Happy reading!

“No Way to Measure the Effectiveness of an Educator”

Eduflack accountability, AFT, Connecticut, teachers
“There is no way to measure the effectiveness of an educator.  Further, there are too many factors beyond our control which impact how well some students perform on standardized tests, such as poverty, exposure to violence, homelessness, hunger, and other social issues beyond our control.“
– Chicago Teachers Union President Karen Lewis, after failing to bring forward a vote to end the CTU strike.  Apparently, she hasn’t paid much attention to what her AFT brothers and sisters in New Haven, CT have done, when the established the Teacher Evaluation and Development system in partnership with New Haven Public Schools as part of a collective bargaining agreement.
The New Haven Federation of Teachers seemed to break new ground and establish a fair system for measuring the effectiveness of an educator.  The system has been regularly promoted by national AFT President Randi Weingarten, education leaders across the country, thought leaders and the media.  Guess the news never quite made it to Chicago, though.

Fun? Striking is Supposed to Be Fun?

Eduflack AFT, CPS, teachers
“Y’all continue to have fun.”
– Chicago Teachers Union President President Karen Lewis addressing striking teachers in the Windy City.  Approximately 400,000 students are unable to enter the classroom in Chicago, as Lewis encourages those on the picket lines to “have fun” and then complains that having to go back to the negotiating table to reach a deal on salary and benefits for more than 25,000 educators and get those 400,000 kids back to learning is “the silly part of my day.”
A 16-percent raise already secured, day three of a strike that is disrupting the lives and learning of hundreds of thousands of Chicago families, and out-of-work teachers should have “fun” and negotiating a settlement is the “silly part” of all of this?
Priorities, Ms. Lewis, priorities …

Breakfast: The New Collective Bargaining?

Eduflack AFT, NEA, Students, teachers

“Collective bargaining.  noun.  The process by which wages, hours, rules, and working conditions are negotiated and agreed upon by a union with an employer for all the employees collectively whom it represents.”

Up until now, Eduflack thought he understood the meaning of the term collective bargaining.  The grandson of a Teamster and the son of an NEA teacher who walked the picket lines to increase those wages and work conditions for her fellow teachers, collective bargaining is a concept I believe is essential to having a strong and protected workforce and middle class.
But it was a real head scratcher when Eduflack was reading the latest out of Los Angeles.  Seems LAUSD enacted a new school breakfast program that is serving 84 percent of LAUSD’s students.  The same students that many defenders of the failed status quo say can’t learn because the come to school without breakfast.
At any rate, the local union is taking issue with the breakfast program.  They weren’t consulted in its implementation.  They find the food and trash a distraction.  So they are now demanding that the new breakfast program be part of the union’s collective bargaining agreement with the district.
Over at the ConnCAN blog, I share LAUSD Superintendent John Deasy’s view that the union’s stance here is just “incomprehensible.”
From that blog post:

Incomprehensible is putting it kindly. For years now, ConnCAN has fought to ensure that the needs of students were included in any arbitration decisions involving teacher contracts. Yet it is still illegal for Connecticut to consider the interests of the child in any such decisions. After all, those status quo defenders contend, collective bargaining agreements are all about protecting the rights and interests of the adults in the system.

Fair enough. But then how can one possibly insist that contracts governing the pay and benefits for teachers should act as a forum for unions to negotiate whether or not a community can provide breakfast to its poorest children?

It is just another example of public education being all about the adults in the room, with no real concern for the children we are supposed to be serving. Such logic is indeed incomprehensible … and unconscionable.

Happy reading, and enjoy your breakfast.  A little ed reform and eggs this AM.
    

Chicago on Strike!

Eduflack accountability, AFT, CPS, teachers

This morning, 25,000 Chicago Public Schools teachers headed to the picket lines, as the Chicago Teachers Union declared a strike after failing to reach a deal on a new collective bargaining agreement with leaders of the nation’s third-largest public school district.

According to media reports, CPS negotiators have offered 20 proposals to union officials.  Agreement seemed to be reached on a 16-percent pay raise for teachers, while disagreement remained over teachers’ share of health care costs and an evaluation system that would include measures of teacher effectiveness.
CPS is now enacting contingency plans for district operations.  The city’s 118 public charter schools, though, will remain open, with teachers and students continuing the learning process that only began a week or so ago.
Today’s actions has dear ol’ Eduflack reflecting on March of 1990, when public school teachers in the State of West Virginia went on a statewide strike (80 percent of counties participated).  For two weeks, edu-Mom walked the picket lines with virtually all of her fellow teachers.  Then, the strike was over pay, with Mountaineer teachers being paid among the lowest salaries in the nation for public school educators.  Following legislative and legal interventions, the strike ended after two weeks.  Then-Gov. Gaston Caperton agreed to boost teacher pay, moving West Virginia into the center of the pack for teacher salaries.  The move transformed Caperton into the “education governor” and moved West Virginia away from competing with Mississippi for the worst teacher pay in the nation.
What was particularly interesting about that West Virginia strike was the enormous support that teachers had from citizens across the state, particularly in that first week.  Visiting my mother and her colleagues on the picket lines, I saw parents and non-parents honk in support, drop off food and drinks for the picketing teachers, and generally check in to see how the teachers were doing.  It energized the teachers on the lines, and showed the media and the politicians that there was strong public will for this exercise of their labor rights.
As the West Virginia strike headed in double-digit days, though, that public support started to wane.  Parents didn’t know what to do with their kids, and couldn’t afford to continue to take days off of work or pay for babysitters.  Public will started to shift, as local school districts filed lawsuits to get teachers back in the classroom.  After 12 days,  teachers returned to work with a pledge from the governor and legislature for better pay and better respect.
Then, it was a simple narrative.  West Virginia teachers wanted to be paid fairly.  In a state with a strong union history and a respect for public education, the strike made sense.  Pay our teachers better than 48th or 49th in the country.  After all, we all understand what it means to be underpaid and under-respected.
The Chicago experience, though, is a little more complicated.  Currently, Chicago has an unemployment rate of 10.5 percent.  According to CBS Chicago and other sources, the average Chicago school teacher is making more than $70,000 per year, while the average Chicago worker is making slightly more than $30,000 per annum.  So a 16-percent raise seems more than reasonable, and seems to be a pay increase both sides have already agreed to.
If the strike is over a teacher’s share of health care benefits, most American workers are seeing their personal health insurance costs increase.  Gone are the days when healthcare is covered 100-percent by the employer.  As costs rise, workers across the nation fortunate enough to have coverage are paying more for it.
And if the strike is over evaluation, it becomes more and more challenging to secure a 16-percent raise in tough economic times, and then say one doesn’t believe in greater accountability for those educators serving in the system and demanding those raises.
Yes, it is a complicated narrative that CTU is trying to sell.  If the media reports are correct, this is no longer about salaries and paying teachers fairly.  Instead, it is whether teachers should be treated like other professionals, bearing additional healthcare costs and being held to a greater level of accountability than in years past.  That is a narrative that is going to be very difficult to sell to Chicago families, many of whom are experiencing unemployment, reduced benefits, frozen pay, and other financial challenges.
Of course, the strike isn’t just about the salaries and benefits being negotiated as part of the a new CBA.  No, the CTU is using this strike to speak out against the needed reforms being pushed by Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel and his administration.  Since becoming mayor, Emanuel has embarked on a bold reform agenda.  He extended the school day (ridiculously, Chicago had one of the shortest school days in the nation).  He established specific efforts to drive improvement in schools across the city.  He sought to reward teachers willing to hold themselves to greater levels of accountability than the CBA called for.  And he did all that facing a sizable budget deficit in a district with needs growing by the day.
Last night, Mayor Emanuel said, “The kids of Chicago belong in the classroom.”  He is absolutely correct.  While some defenders of the status quo may take issue with the sentiment or see it as some sort of punchline to a reformer joke, the ones most hurt by this strike are the kids.  The kids are losing out on instructional days.  The kids are now being shuttled around as part of “contingency plans.”  After just returning to school, the kids are being denied their rights to a public education.
As Emanuel continued, “This is totally unnecessary.  It’s avoidable and our kids don’t deserve this … This is a strike of choice.”
The mayor is correct.  Here’s hoping that both sides figure out how to choose to end this strike quickly, and get our kids back in the classroom.
UPDATE: To further complicate the narrative here, CTU has now released a one-pager articulating what they are looking for from Chicago Public Schools.  The challenge?  Can one really address “educate the whole child,” “address inequities in our system,” “teach all children,” “partner with parents,” and “fully fund education” as part of a collective bargaining agreement intended to focus on salary, benefits, and working conditions of the adults in the system?
  

Education: Dem Convention Edition 2012

Eduflack Obama, Presidential campaign, teachers

Earlier, Eduflack highlighted the strong edu-language uttered at the Republican National Convention by folks such as Jeb Bush and Condi Rice.  Today, we look at the Democratic response, provided at this week’s Democratic National Convention in Charlotte, NC.

Interestingly, until last evening, the edu-talk just wasn’t that strong.  Most of it centered around dollars, and what would happen to everything from preK funding to Pell under a Romney/Ryan administration.  A few speakers — including San Antonio Mayor Julian Castro — spoke eloquently on the personal importance of a strong education.  But there was little policy discussion — until President Barack Obama himself spoke last evening.

You can choose a future where more Americans have the chance to gain the skills they need to compete, no matter how old they are or how much money they have. Education was the gateway to opportunity for me. It was the gateway for Michelle. And now more than ever, it is the gateway to a middle-class life.

For the first time in a generation, nearly every state has answered our call to raise their standards for teaching and learning. Some of the worst schools in the country have made real gains in math and reading. Millions of students are paying less for college today because we finally took on a system that wasted billions of taxpayer dollars on banks and lenders.

And now you have a choice_ we can gut education, or we can decide that in the United States of America, no child should have her dreams deferred because of a crowded classroom or a crumbling school. No family should have to set aside a college acceptance letter because they don’t have the money. No company should have to look for workers in China because they couldn’t find any with the right skills here at home.

Government has a role in this. But teachers must inspire; principals must lead; parents must instill a thirst for learning, and students, you’ve got to do the work. And together, I promise you_ we can out-educate and out-compete any country on Earth. Help me recruit 100,000 math and science teachers in the next ten years, and improve early childhood education. Help give 2 million workers the chance to learn skills at their community college that will lead directly to a job. Help us work with colleges and universities to cut in half the growth of tuition costs over the next 10 years. We can meet that goal together. You can choose that future for America.

And with that, the Gentleman from Illinois drops the edu-microphone …

Triggering Parents

Eduflack accountability, Achievement gap, Parents, teachers

No matter where you go in the education reform discussions, it is impossible to avoid some sort of discussion on parents and families.  Earlier this year, as Connecticut was working its way through a comprehensive reform law, we had teachers blaming parents for kids coming to school ill-prepared to learn and incapable of showing educators the respect needed in the classroom.

There was even the head of a local teachers union who declared that teaching would be much easier if it weren’t for the kids and parents involved.  Now who could disagree with that?
In return, parents voiced frustration with teachers.  Groups like the Connecticut Parents Union demanded greater oversight and accountability for teachers, calling for overhaul of tenure laws and seeking to revisit a previous legislative fight to bring a “parent trigger” to the state.
Of course, the Parents Union was talking about a law like that adopted in California (and enacted by more than a dozen other states).  The “Parent Trigger” is the ultimate form of family engagement.  When a majority of parents or guardians in a given school agree that their children’s school is in need of turnaround, they can vote to reconstitute the school and bring about the sort of school improvement so many parents think.
No surprise, then, that the coalition of the status quo is opposed to such actions.  While we want parents to make sure their kids do their homework and bring their books to school, we certainly don’t want them meddling in how a school operates, what it teaches, or what is expected of educators. 
As the power of the “Parent Trigger” continues to grow, and as more and more parents seek this sort of power, it only makes sense that that coalition is going to try and discredit the effort.  They resort to name calling (with Diane Ravitch and others taking to the Internet to call it the “parent tricker.”  Get it?)  And then going even further to suggest that the who “Parent Trigger” movement was some sinister corporate plot to fool parents and turn all of our schools into Wal-Marts and One-Hour Martinizers.
Fortunately, there are some that are seeking to set the record straight.  There are some that are speaking up to educate and inform about the real origins of the Parent Trigger and the real power of meaningful parental engagement.
Over at redefinED, former California State Sen. Gloria Romero has a terrific piece on the Parent Trigger in California.  Why is this piece so important?  Senator Romero is the actual author of the California Parent Trigger law.  Speaking directly to Ravitch and her followers about efforts to disparage the origins of the law and the people who advocated for it, Romero writes:

Diane, I’m a product of public education, from kindergarten through Ph.D. I believe in the power of education. I understood the dreams of my mother, and the recognition that it is education that lifts us out of poverty and is the gate of entry to the American Dream. I never forgot where I came from, including that I was “counseled” in high school not to attend college. Too many kids like me from “the other side of town” experienced and continue to experience the soft bigotry of low expectations.

Hollywood makes nice movies about standing and delivering on behalf of kids, who are caught simply by virtue of zip code in chronically failing schools. But even then, generation after generation of children are sent back to those same schools with the same bureaucrats running them, simply to fail yet again. I proudly represented East Los Angeles. Garfield High School was in my district – that iconic school that Hollywood later immortalized in ”Stand and Deliver,” starring Eddie Olmos as Jaime Escalante. (I knew him too, and know great teachers matter.) But once the movie left the theaters, the demand for change dissipated. I wanted to revive it. We need to revive it.

Remember, my generation learned lessons not only from the non-violent boycott of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., but also from the by-any-means-necessary view of Malcolm X. Therefore, I also believe in the urgency of now, the power of the boycott (yes, I knew Cesar Chavez too), and the courage it takes to declare that we shall overcome by any means necessary. I know firsthand that separate is not equal. I have personally experienced what it means for kids like me when teachers and principals don’t believe in us, and tell us that our educational futures do not include a path to college.

So we may never agree on the law itself. But I ask you to be honest about its origins. And about the hard work and integrity of the people, mostly women of color, who understood what this meant for our children and our communities. Please do not disrespect me, a Latina from the Eastside, by falsifying the idea of the bill, and how I took an idea, shaped it into legislation, and gave life to it by forming a coalition that took on the number one political force in California – and succeeded!

In our quest to improve public schools for all, we must, at some point, move beyond the name calling and the ascription of personal motives and focus on the quality of the idea itself.  If one doesn’t like Parent Trigger, offer an alternative path for parents to get substantively involved in the direction of their local public schools.  But insinuating that parents are easily tricked and there are shadowy figures manipulating state senators, the clergy, the civil rights community and so many others who brought the California law to existence does no one any good.

Little House on Ed Reform

Eduflack accountability, teachers

After putting the edu-kids to bed last night, I was looking forward to spending a couple of hours watching the Home Run Derby, observing as some of MLB’s best sluggers looked to knock pitch after pitch over the wall at Kauffman Stadium in Kansas City.

Instead, I came downstairs to find the edu-wife driving the remote control.  She had no interest in watching the Derby.  No, she was getting ready to settle in for a rerun of Little House on the Prairie.
The episode of choice was episode 16 of season seven.  The title?  Goodbye, Mrs. Wilder.  Season seven first broadcast in 1980 and 1981.  By this time, Laura was all grown up, now teaching in the Minnesota schoolhouse where she grew up.
Now Eduflack is not one who is typically going to get into a 30-year rerun of Little House.  But this particular episode was fascinating, showing us that the more things change in education, the more things stay the same.
Laura was being chastised by Mrs. Oleson because the school just wasn’t performing up to academic levels (or at least the levels some school board members expected).  Mrs. Oleson was desperate to win a state grant to improve the school (mostly through construction).  Teaching kids (and testing kids) on the three Rs wasn’t nearly enough.  They needed well-rounded children out there on the prairie, and Mrs. Oleson wanted to add French and art appreciation to the mix.  And since she held a teaching certificate, she knew she was correct and she convinced the school board to go along with her.  Laura disagreed, Mrs. Oleson accused her of not wanting to work that hard, so that “veteran” teacher Harriet Oleson took over the classroom to show that young know-it-all how it is supposed to be done.
We had some profiteering going on, as Mrs. Oleson insisted that all students wear school uniforms, and those uniforms could only be purchased at her mercantile.  We have parents threatening to pull their kids out of school because art appreciation amounts to pornography.  We have drill-and-kill in French.  And we have students complaining that the veteran teacher just doesn’t relate to them and doesn’t make learning “fun.”
Ultimately, the state saves the day, noting that the “new,” more balanced curriculum didn’t quite serve the students.  What farmers and wives of farmers needed to know French (outside of Louisiana)?  Who really needed to appreciate art?  And why do it at the expense of the “bushels and pecks” learning they needed to survive?
So it was back to basics.  French and art dropped from the curriculum.  The new, young teacher (think Laura Ingalls-Wilder as the precursor for today’s TFA teacher) taking back control of her classroom, refocusing the class on discipline and on reading, writing, and ‘arithmetic, and getting results on day one.  School again focused specifically on outcomes and how all kids would graduate career ready.  Balance restored to the prairie.
Not bad ed reform story telling for 30 years ago, let alone for the late 1800s.  Yep, the more things change, the more they stay the same.  
   

Showdown in Chi-Town

Eduflack accountability, Achievement gap, AFT, teachers

Just because it is summer doesn’t mean that things aren’t happening in local school districts.  In Chicago, for instance, teachers and their elected officials are headed for a showdown.  Mayor Rahm Emanuel pushes to extend the school day and school year, while stepping away from previous promises of a pay boost.  The Chicago Federation of Teachers responds in kind with the authorization for a city-wide strike.

The debate has been an interesting one to watch, and in many ways serves as a microcosm for some of the larger discussions of education reform and school improvement across the country.
Teachers unions, however, have painted themselves into a corner by insisting that spending is the best predictor of educational performance — increase financial inputs and cognitive outputs will rise. In the past 50 years, real per pupil spending nationwide has tripled and the number of pupils per teacher has declined by a third, yet educational attainments have fallen. Abundant data demonstrate that the vast majority of differences in schools’ performances can be explained by qualities of the families from which the children come to school: the amount of homework done at home, the quantity and quality of reading material in the home, the amount of television watched in the home and, the most important variable, the number of parents in the home. In Chicago, 84 percent of African American children and 57 percent of Hispanic children are born to unmarried women.
Definitely an interesting read.