The Frustrated Teacher

Dump Arne Duncan Petition

2012-02-13T12:27:00.000-08:00

Petition Text

Dear President Obama,

We, the undersigned, a cross section of the nation’s teachers and their supporters, wish to express our extreme displeasure with the policies implemented during your administration by Secretary of Education Arne Duncan. Although many of us campaigned enthusiastically for you in 2008, it is unlikely that you will receive continued support unless the following three dimensions of your administration’s education initiatives are changed:

The exclusion of teachers from policy discussions in the US Department of Education and from Education Summits called under your leadership.

The use of rhetoric which blames failing schools on “bad teachers” rather than poverty and neighborhood distress.

The use of federal funds to compel states and municipalities to use student test scores in the evaluation of teachers and as the basis for closing low performing schools.

Because of these policies, teachers throughout the nation have become discouraged and demoralized, undermining your own stated goals of improving teacher quality, upgrading the nation’s educational performance, and encouraging creative pedagogy rather than “teaching to the test.”

We therefore submit the following measures to put your administration’s education policy back on the right track and to bring teachers in as full partners in this effort:

The removal of Arne Duncan as Secretary of Education and his replacement by a lifetime educator who has the confidence of the nation’s teachers.

The incorporation of parents, teachers, and school administrators in all policy discussion taking place in your administration, inside and outside the Department of Education.

An immediate end to the use of incentives or penalties to compel states and municipalities to use student test scores as a basis for evaluating teachers, preferring charter schools to existing public schools, and requiring closure of low performing schools.

Create a National Commission, in which teachers and parent representatives play a primary role, which explores how to best improve the quality of America’s schools.

We believe such policies will create an outpouring of good will on the part of teachers, parents and students which will promote creative teaching and educational innovation, leading to far greater improvements in the nation’s schools than policies which encourage a proliferation of student testing could ever hope to do.

Sincerely,

The Undersigned

Sign here.

You Burn Me Out

2012-02-12T12:48:00.000-08:00

Education 2011: A case study in seniority—and burn-out

Bruce Adams

Graduating from Buffalo State College in 1987 with a bachelor’s degree in math, Sara has a burning desire to teach. She’s grateful to land a position fresh out of college, even in a troubled high school at low starting pay. It’s been four years since the task report A Nation at Risk sounded the rallying call for change, and Sara is ready for the challenge. Unmarried, childless, and full of youthful vigor, she devotes lots of extra time to her job, even as she pursues her master’s degree during the evenings. Students identify with Sara, who is young and cute, and Principal Bell makes sure the new teacher isn’t assigned many “problem” kids. He urges Sara to take on extra volunteer work: chaperoning dances, serving on committees. For untenured teachers, these are offers you can’t refuse.

In her first year, Sara is introduced to Madeline Hunter’s Instructional Theory into Practice, a highly touted teaching model the ambitious neophyte welcomes. Sara’s eagerness is noted, and the following year, she’s asked to join a massive shared decision-making team developing a district-wide ten-year strategic plan. It takes two arduous years, but the committee is justifiably proud of its work, and mission statements are posted in all schools with great fanfare.

Sara can’t help but notice that many older teachers show little interest in the new initiative, but she’s committed to developing the alternative and authentic assessments called for in the plan. Subsequently the staff is required to create “assessment rubrics,” and they’re introduced to “cooperative learning,” both vital in addressing the upcoming new state assessments. Sara’s head spins sometimes with information overload. Most of her energy is focused on day-to-day survival—preparing lesson plans, covering course material, avoiding politics, completing paperwork, and grading stacks of student papers—but she also works hard at incorporating new educational ideas into her teaching. Her glowing evaluations pave an easy path to tenure.

Sara reads letters to the editor in the local paper attacking teachers for various perceived offences, so she isn’t surprised when parents blame her when their children misbehave. She is surprised, however, when Principal Bell takes an impartial position in such matters, labeling the behavior “personality conflicts” between teacher and student. Eight years into teaching, the strategic plan and the related initiatives Sara worked so hard on are now gathering dust in a drawer somewhere. Despite everyone’s efforts, student achievement has not improved. Sara joins the new school-based management team—part of Albany’s Compact for Learning—though the open joke among the staff is that shared decision-making is when the principal makes decisions and shares them with the team.

A new superintendent arrives, bringing with him a revolutionary new reform movement—Mastery Learning—as the district prepares for the new learning standards from Albany that will replace the performance indicators Sara and others agonizingly developed two summers earlier. It’s becoming harder for Sara to process all the new reform movements, all of which—multiple intelligences, learning styles, critical thinking—are heralded as critical advancements. Outcomes-based education (renamed “standards-based education” after Rush Limbaugh attacks the word “outcomes”) is the widely adopted response to the new Educate America Act (Goals 2000). Superintendent Tucker announces that the district requires a mission statement, and Sara wonders aloud what happened to the one her committee wrote years ago. “It’s in a drawer with Madeline Hunter,” another teacher quips sardonically. Principal Bell leaves for greener pastures. Sara begins Lamaze classes.

Principal Power announces her plan to make hers a Quality School. “William Glasser is revolutionizing education,” she says. When Power asks for volunteers to lead the Total Quality Education program, Sara is quiet. She wants to spend more time with her own children, attend their school’s open house, help with their homework. She invested so much time and energy already on programs that were later discarded. The high school is lambasted in Business First’s annual school ranking, further demoralizing Sara who has tried everything to improve student achievement without success. “Data” is the new buzzword and Robert Marzano’s Classroom Instruction That Works is a data-driven program. Sara gets another workbook. This time she waits until she’s instructed to read it.

A seasoned teacher now, Sara gets many of the school’s “problem” kids. No longer the perky young teacher students once identified with, Sara cracks down on the growing discipline problems, and students resent it. After one particularly difficult class she tearfully turns to the principal for help, but is rebuked for not having control of her class. Her test scores drop. Her marriage unravels.

Now the district has a major new program. The ASSETS Project identifies forty developmental characteristics students need for success. According to student surveys, the ones they most severely lack revolve around home life. But with the introduction of President Bush’s No Child Left Behind, school accountability is the new catchphrase. When Principal Power assigns Sara additional duties in blatant violation of the collective bargaining contract, she files a grievance. Administration isn’t happy.

Asked to peer-coach younger teachers, the newly single mother feels renewed optimism. This latest educational trend is the closest she will ever come to advancement. Sara commits, but the program is never properly funded and gradually dies. Assistant Superintendent Moody however, has a new program—Essential Elements of Learning—which will revolutionize education. Teachers learn to identify the essential element of a lesson and put it into a concept map. Education expert Max Thompson arrives in a concerted push to introduce his Learning Focused Schools program district-wide. A new lesson plan format with the catchy title, Understanding by Design, is adopted. All these initiatives gradually fade away.

The following year teachers are required to “map” curriculums, a long process with no apparent functional use. Teaching for Understanding and Cross Curriculum Literacy are two trendy new programs promoting the latest hot topic. Everyone reads Active Literacy before author Heidi Hayes Jacobs arrives amidst great fanfare to promote her comprehensive program, which administrators cherry-pick, then forget. By 2008 the latest buzz-phrase is Professional Learning Communities. The high school adopts this concept at considerable cost and strife. Three years later Principal Power moves on, and PLCs fizzle. With each new initiative Sara’s enthusiasm diminishes. She has twenty-two years of books, binders, and workshop folders stacked in a file drawer, representing hundreds of hours of abandoned work. Sara digs through the strata like a scientist noting geologic eras. She ponders the energy spent on each new program, technological advance, and philosophical shift, and decides the only way she’ll make it to retirement is to stop caring so much. President Obama introduces the Race to the Top Fund, and by 2010 New York has successfully secured its slice of the cash cow. Common Core Standards are developed in 2011, and a system is put into place to rate teachers based on student test scores.

Epilogue

In 2013 the anti-union movement hits NY State and teacher unions lose the right to collectively bargain. With the help of key Assembly members, New York Mayor Mike Bloomberg and Governor Andrew Cuomo push through legislation they had endorsed for years eliminating the time-honored practice of laying-off teachers by seniority—“last hired, first fired.” A new math teacher is hired at Sara’s school. Being young and unattached, Bob impresses the new principal, who sees to it that he is not assigned the “problem” kids. Sara remains a competent and dedicated teacher, but the fire is out. She is asked to mentor Bob, but feels no motivation to train the competition. Bob can’t help but notice that Sara shows little interest in the newest reform initiatives. In 2014 a math position is cut due to budget constraints. At half the pay, Bob is clearly the better choice. Sara is laid off, and at age fifty, with a son in college, she joins the unemployed.

Artist, educator, and writer Bruce Adams is Spree’s art critic. He taught in a public high school for thirty years.

Obama & Duncan Think Teachers Are Just Too Stupid

2012-02-12T11:37:00.000-08:00

When the "Best and the Brightest" Don't Have the Answers- President Obama's Approach to School Reform

“The Best And the Brightest”- President Obama’s Approach to School Reform

President Obama and Education Secretary Arne Duncan announced modifications to the No Child Left Behind program on Thursday at the White House., Pablo Martinez Monsivais / AP Photo

When Barack Obama ascended to the Presidency, he was fired up with a desire to improve America’s schools, which he felt were falling behind those of other advanced countries. He decided to bring “the best minds in the country” in to help them with this task- CEO’s of successful businesses, heads of major foundations, young executives from management consulting firms- to figure out a strategy to transform America’s schools, especially those in low performing districts. He promised them full support of his Administration when they finally came up with effective strategies including the use of federal funding to persuade, and if necessary, compel local districts to implement them.

Notably missing in this brain trust were representatives of America’s teachers and school administrators, but their absence was not accidental. Because the President and his chief education adviser, Arne Duncan, believed that a key problem in America’s schools was the low quality of the people working in them, they felt no need to include principals and teachers in the Administrations education planning, especially since those plans involved putting pressure on them to perform and then removing those who couldn’t meet the new standards.

From a management standpoint the reforms developed, which including promoting competition, universalizing teacher evaluation based on student test scores, introducing merit pay, made perfect sense. However, since none of the people developing the reforms had spent much time in a classroom, or were willing to spend a significant part of their lives performing the jobs they were reshaping, they had little idea what their reforms meant “on the ground,” and even less evidence that, when implemented, they would be effective.

Now three years later, after all of these new policies have been put into effect, from New York to Chicago, to Philadelphia to Buffalo, there is no evidence than America’s schools are performing better than when the President entered office, or that the test score gap between wealthy and poor districts is being reduced. But evidence and experience doesn’t seem to matter when you bring “the best minds in the country” together to develop a strategy. Come on, how can Bill Gates, Eli Broad, Michael Bloomberg, and the Ivy League gurus from Teach for America be wrong, and graduates of state teachers colleges and teacher education programs be right?

But reality has a way of intruding even on “the best and the brightest” when the fundamental assumptions that guide policy are wrong. This happened during the Vietnam War, when an indigenous nationalist revolution was treated as an arm of a global Communist conspiracy, and it is happening now when school failures due to poverty and inequality are being blamed on incompetent teachers and administrators.

So as in Vietnam, we will invest hundreds of billions, maybe trillions of dollars in a cause, which, at the end of the day, will turn into a Fool’s Errand, undermining the careers and demeaning the efforts of the nation’s teachers, dividing communities against themselves, while fattening the pockets of consulting form, test companies and on line learning firms.

And ten years down the road, when all the damage is done, policy makers will wake up and call America’s teachers back in to ask “What do you think we should do?” And they will say that teaching has to be a life time calling, and that when dealing with children, there are no miracles- opening minds, and changing lives, requires hard work, persistence, imagination, and a love for the young people you are working with. And those are tasks that cannot be performed by computers or “managed” by people who have never worked with children themselves.

Mark Naison
February 12, 1012

Loneliness

2012-02-12T11:05:00.001-08:00

“Loneliness does not come from having no people about one, but from being unable to communicate the things that seem important to oneself, or from holding certain views which others find inadmissible. As a child I felt myself to be alone, and I am still, because I know things and must hint at things which others apparently know nothing of, and for the most part do not want to know.”

Carl Jung

I felt this way as a kid, and often still feel this way.

Whitney Houston Could Sing. RIP

2012-02-11T20:10:00.000-08:00

Thursday Cartoon Fun: Crime & (No) Punishment Edition

2012-02-09T12:53:00.000-08:00

Wednesday Bonus Cartoon Fun: Raise Your Gun Edition

2012-02-08T22:49:00.000-08:00

Wednesday Cartoon Fun: The Water's Fine Edition

2012-02-08T21:32:00.000-08:00

Prop 8 Overturned! Humans Free To Love Each Other Again!! Updated

2012-02-07T14:51:00.000-08:00

SAN FRANCISCO — A federal appeals court on Tuesday declared California's same-sex marriage ban unconstitutional but agreed to give sponsors of the bitterly contested, voter-approved law time to appeal the ruling before ordering the state to resume allowing gay couples to wed.

Let Love Rule by Lenny Kravitz

Update: Some analysis of the ruling: (h/t DWT)

Let's be clear at the outset what the three-judge panel of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals did and didn't decide in its ruling today on the constitutionality of California's ballot-approved Proposition 8, which you'll no doubt recall had the (intended) effect of overturning the state law, already in effect, that had legalized same-sex marriage.

(1) What the panel did decide

Yes indeed, the ruling -- written by Judge Stephen Reinhardt (appointed to the court by Jimmy Carter) on behalf of himself and Judge Michael Hawkins (appointed by Bill Clinton) -- says that Proposition 8 is unconstitutional.

(2) What the panel did NOT decide

The ruling goes out of its way to make clear that the panel is not saying that it is necessarily unconstitutional to legally ban same-sex marriage.

Are we all clear on that? Anyone who says, or imagines, that the Ninth Circuit panel ruled today that banning same-sex marriage is unconstitutional doesn't know what he's talking about, or perhaps is just fibbing for reasons you'll have to ask him to explain.

SO WHAT DID THE PANEL RULE UNCONSTITUTIONAL?

Dr. Seuss Books Are Awesome

2012-02-06T16:46:00.000-08:00

Song Of The Day: Comfortably Numb

2012-02-03T16:38:00.000-08:00

Pink Floyd featuring Van Morrison and The Band from Berlin, 1990. Awesome. (Video link)

Thursday Bonus Cartoon Fun: Devastating Edition

2012-02-02T21:39:00.000-08:00

Thursday Cartoon Fun: Why Edition

2012-02-02T21:37:00.000-08:00

Education And The Business Model: Pwned. Sound The Death Knell

2012-02-01T19:33:00.000-08:00

Using the rules of economics, and assuming we must achieve universal post-secondary readiness, MN2020’s latest report, False Choices: Market-Driven Education Reform Doesn’t Work, demonstrates why free market thinking in education comes at a high price for students, parents and teachers.

The main problem, among many, is that school systems cannot function as free markets if we want to achieve universal post-secondary readiness. Free markets produce efficiency, not equity for all. Efficiency helps maximize profit, but what about students that aren’t profitable to educate?

As a result of competition-based thinking, many schools have focused on teaching-to-tests and advertising instead of broad based cognitive development that will provide students with the necessary skills to be successful in a 21st century workforce.

In moving Minnesota back toward a proven educational path, our latest report makes the following recommendations:

There is a place in education for efficiency, incentives, and innovation; however, policymakers must stop trying to achieve these competitive goals with a false, market-based approach.

Schools must adapt to achieve universal post-secondary readiness by focusing on initiatives that enhance teachers’ professional development and provide comprehensive teacher assessment and feedback.

Instead of using a false market-mentality as political cover to systematically defund schools, we must invest in education for the 21st century, using some of that investment to develop a comprehensive and fair teacher evaluation metric.

Charter schools have a place in the public education system as partners, not competitors, with traditional schools.

Michael Diedrich

Don Cornelius, R.I.P.

2012-02-01T08:44:00.000-08:00

Don Cornelius, the producer and television host who created the television dance show “Soul Train,” was found shot dead in his Los Angeles home on Wednesday morning, and detectives from the Los Angeles Police Department were trying to determine if his death was a suicide.

NYT

Song Of The Day: I'm Easy

2012-01-28T18:02:00.000-08:00

Boz Scaggs. I know, you're thinking Jojo, or What Do You Want The Girl To Do, or something.

Yeah, Slim's. Don't forget Slim's. I saw Johnny Winter there. Love that place.

But Boz goes back to the 60s. He was in Steve Miller's band when they were youths (pronounced "yoots"), and spent time in London before coming back to hippieville. He could sing and play that guitar real good, and that got him signed.

He rocks.

In fact, on his first (sort of) album from 1969, he seems to have written a rocker for Newt Gingrich called, I'm Easy:

Thursday Cartoon Fun: Job Creator Edition

2012-01-26T21:39:00.000-08:00

Thursday Bonus Cartoon Bonus Fun: 2 Party System Edition

2012-01-26T13:41:00.000-08:00

Thursday Bonus Cartoon Fun: Don't Be Evil Edition

2012-01-26T13:37:00.000-08:00

Thursday Cartoon Fun: Scrape By Edition

2012-01-26T13:35:00.001-08:00

Teaching Is An Art (So Is Lawyering). VAM Can't Work: Updated

2012-01-24T12:14:00.000-08:00

I came across a quote today from Sandra Day O'Connor:

"Attorney errors come in an infinite variety and are as likely to be
utterly harmless in a particular case as they are to be prejudicial. They
cannot be classified according to likelihood of causing prejudice. Nor can
they be defined with sufficient precision to inform defense attorneys
correctly just what conduct to avoid. Representation is an art, and an act
or omission that is unprofessional in one case may be sound or even
brilliant in another."

Yeah, teaching too. VAM can't work. It just can't.

Update: So I admit a friend and I are having an email exchange about this science vs. art thing. Here is why I say teaching --and lawyering and doctoring-- is more art than science:

Lawyers, doctors, teachers all have basic knowledge without which they
could not practice the art. These professions are art in the same way
jazz is art--it requires knowledge of music, but then you get to be
creative.

When 2 or 3 different people could perform the job differently and still
end up with a good expected outcome, that implies there is more than
science to it, there must be art.

My surgery required dumping my guts onto the table. I am sure there are
a few ways to do that and a few outcomes depending on the different
ways. I assume there is more than one good or bad way to do that.

Same with trying a case, or teaching a concept, or sewing up my gut.

Update II: Here is the rest of the email exchange. My friend, referred to below as "The Law" is a lawyer. I have summarized her emails to just the pertinent questions I am responding to.

TFT:

The science part of teaching is understanding how kids learn, not the subject matter (though in upper grades the subject matter knowledge is clearly crucial, but still it's not the sole science part). And, how kids learn varies, and science has a hard time pinning much down in this domain, leaving it to art and situational awareness that comes with practice.

Aren't the best trial lawyers performance artists as well as highly knowledgeable about precedents, torts, and whatever else you lawyers have to know about that you learn in law school and then promptly realize it wasn't all that helpful and the only way to get good at trial lawyering is to do it? And we measure trial lawyers by wins and losses, right? Not by their actual performance in the courtroom. Right? And surgeons are rated on survival rates, not on procedure, unless the outcome was bad, then procedures are looked at, right? All this sounds like teaching--we look at outcomes. Except that for teaching, like the family doctor, much of what they do is dependent on things they don't control--diet, homework, and the rest.

You can't measure art, really, can you? I mean, perhaps in the most rudimentary way--painters should use paint and understand something about form, shadow, line, and all that stuff (the science of the art), but one person's art is another person's garbage, right?

Art certainly isn't VAMable, I don't think.

Can we measure my progress by looking at (name redacted) [a middle class, white, gifted student who loved my class and was challenged, and who was tender to the Hispanic student. Sweet.]? Or should we look at (name redacted) [a Hispanic student whose father was in jail and was homeless off and on during the year and scored poorly but whose attitude towards life seemed to improve in my class], whose life was basically devastated from birth? [Middle class student] would have advanced without me. [Hispanic student] didn't advance much, but his sense of self I think got better in my class. Can we measure [Hispanic student]'s sense of self? I don't think so.

I think teaching is a lot like the 1984 case you write about--it's a judgement call reserved for those in charge--professional judgement. There is no standard we can measure against, so we have to measure against what the professionals have gleaned over their years as professionals practicing their art.

Perhaps my use of Art and Science are too broad, but I don't know how else to separate the 2 domains. I also think that there are fewer rules for teachers than other professions. It's more like a therapist than a doctor or lawyer. There are standards of care, policies about privacy and pedagogy (therapy) but each patient (class) is different and will be taught (therapized) differently. In both cases the professional is steeped in the science underpinning their profession, but the actual doing of it seems more like art--the thing the science-knowledge frees you to do.

How's that?

The Law:

Your first sentence answers one of my original questions, I wanted to know whether there was a science to the teaching, as opposed to the subject matter.

TFT:

VAM can't control for family attributes (SES). Of factors that impact a child's ability to learn (do well on a test, more accurately, which is NOT an accurate measure of the child's true ability), most knowledgeable folks say that between 10 and 30% of factors come from school, the rest come from home, as [made obvious] by [Hsp student] and [MC student], among others.

The test--the high stakes test at the end of the year--is what VAM uses. That fact alone makes VAM useless, as one test on one day does not accurately reflect much of anything about the teacher or the student. I suppose that if the whole class did incredibly well, or badly, one could generalize about the teacher. But that's obvious. It's when VAM is used to differentiate between teachers who, on the whole, are relatively similar. VAM does not have the power to do it--it's too prone to error. It is not a measure that can be used, as the variables can't be controlled like they can in industry by controlling inputs (materials/students).

Reformers would have you believe that there is a science to teaching (pedagogy) and charters have figured it out. And that's bullshit. Charters have figured out how to control inputs. There is no science of pedagogy, really. That's my argument--pedagogy is an art. Teaching is an art. Sure, it has some science behind it--brain development, motor development, some stable psychological concepts, but for the most part, it's art.

So, the reformers abuse science's power by giving it more than it deserves in this domain, and they belittle the art of teaching by scripting teachers with curricula that claim to be research based (science) when they aren't cuz there ain't no science they can actually point to, and the research is usually not actual research but a working paper from the publisher or a CMO funded meta-review. Remember, Everyday Math is "research based" but most mathematicians pillory it for its stupidity. It was pushed through after packing the board of the What Works Clearinghouse.

The actual research performed over the past 70 years shows, unequivocally, that home factors make or break a kid. Not teachers. Not schools. Not curricula. Home is where the issues are. And that is where poverty lives.

The reform movement uses bullshit disguised as science (the NYT article on that latest "study" being a perfect example). They can't acknowledge poverty because that would undercut their scheme that claims they know how to save kids with their new pedagogy that is in evidence in their charters that do well. Except few of them do, and the ones that do well control their inputs. Ask KIPP, Aspire, HCZ, HSA and the rest. They've all been in trouble for scheming the inputs.

How's that?

The Law:

Or is good teaching like pornography -- I know it when I see it?

TFT:

Yes. It's exactly like pornography--you know it when you see it. Seriously. Like your lawyer scenario. Porn, teaching, lawyering--non-VAMable.

Activists, educators and academics you should be aware of include:

Dr. Diane Ravitch
Dr. Deborah Meier
Dr. Stephen Krashen
Dr. Shaun Johnson
Anthony Cody
Leoni Haimson
Matt Damon
Jon Stewart
P.L. Thomas

Here are some links to experts. Some are a bit long, but you can and should do it!

--Richard Rothstein looks at An overemphasis on teachers

--and Rothstein again, with others:

Narrowing the Achievement Gap for Low-Income Children: A 19-Year Life Cycle Approach

By Richard Rothstein, Tamara Wilder and Whitney C. Allgood | 2008

--One and another by Jim Horn (of Cambridge College) on VAM.

Monday Cartoon Fun: OSHA Edition

2012-01-23T01:01:00.000-08:00

We Are An ARMY of Teachers

2012-01-22T22:08:00.000-08:00

By Dave Russell

I just got finished reading a post on United Opt Out National’s blog titled: “A Teacher Story: Why I’m Leaving Public Education.” It is a real story about one teacher’s experiences with abusive policies surrounding testing mania that lead to the hard decision to leave education. If you haven’t read it, do so. It is raw, brutally honest, and exposes the realities of “reform.” After reading it, I was compelled to leave the following remark:

“God Damn-it! This pisses me off so much, I am seeing red. I so understand your feelings of defeat and fully support your decision, as will so many of us who are facing or have faced this Gauntlet of emotional, professional, and spiritual beatings. Understand, I wish you nothing but the best in whatever the future may hold for you - may you land on your feet and once again find your bliss.

What has me so pissed off is that this scenario is EXACTLY what the Oligarch's are gunning for. Here is an experienced, caring teacher with SO much to give to the kids and her fellow teachers who is being so systematically scrutinized, criticized, demoralized, demonized, and a whole lot of "ized's," I haven't thought of that he/she has finally tossed in the towel and is walking away from a lifetime of service and a career born of a deeply rooted passion for kids.

This is nothing less than "teacher cleansing" where teachers are systemically targeted for professional scrutiny and punishment based on salary, political reasons, or some other arbitrary or capricious reason. As the "business model" continues to invade schools like the tentacles of a corrosive cancer, we will see more and more of this type of decimation happen among our ranks.

And don't kid yourself, as Michelle Rhee continues to successfully lobby for the removal of LIFO and tenure, we will see our most experiences (read expensive) teachers get bloodied by the very tactics our author experienced. The outcome is predictable. Toss the expensive teachers on the curb like so much trash, gather all that salary and hire short-term contract scabs and pay them gobs of bonus money for successfully teaching to the test and raising scores.

We are an ARMY of teachers fed up with this! We are a sleeping giant ready to roar, claw back the oppression and RESTORE education to a colorful world where kids are free to explore the world around them in a safe and encouraging way. Fear has us paralyzed. Tradition has us waiting. The machine is counting on our passivity. And if we don't coalesce and act NOW, before long we too will be walking the gauntlet, getting bloodied, and being tossed out on our own ear.”

This Is My Last Straw - Is It Yours Too?

2012-01-22T01:18:00.000-08:00


By Dave Russell

As a teacher, I have sat and watched our children increasingly suffer needlessly as the life of the of the school day has been systematically suffocated to the pallor of a deathly grey. The gauntlet of NCLB has morphed into the scourge of the corporate take-over model which spawned a full on attack warrior in the form of Michelle Rhee and her "resistance is futile" lobby group, StudentsFirst. My blood boils every time she rolls out a new Madison Avenue savvy propaganda smear or full court press media blitz designed to further the Oligarch's planned agenda for education takeover, uh...I mean "reform."

As my anger and frustration has grown, nothing has enraged me to the boiling point more than the recent publicity buzz flying around the paper authored by Economists Raj Chetty and John N. Friedman of Harvard and Jonah E. Rockoff of Columbia. In this 92 page report, these economic experts claim to have tracked 2.5 million students over 20 years concluding that the kids with improving test scores had lower teen-pregnancy rates and higher college-enrollment rates than their peers. They also had higher earnings, lived in better neighborhoods, and even saved more for retirement. In a front page article about the paper, The New York Times concludes “test scores help you get more education, and that more education has an earnings effect" (how's that again...test sores do what now?).

It's not too surprising that nobody was quicker to pick up on this paper and trumpet the message from this cherry bit of propaganda than Michelle Rhee and the merry Jesters at StudentsFirst! The ballyhoo from StudentsFirst is as predictable as clockwork! Some kluged report jukes the data to develop erroneous conclusions that dance right into the laps of the Rhee/Duncan/Gates Cabal of reformists and BAM! it happens; you place the stick in their hand, they will bang the drum.

This report is hogwash and StudentsFirst should be ashamed for publicizing it. The authors admit that their conclusions are extrapolated from stale data that was gathered in bulk (not for individuals as the summary leaves readers to believe), run through an analysis tool that is so fraught with statistical noise (individual and often conflicting point-source influence on outcome) that their only conclusion --there is far too much noise to disaggregate (take apart) the most reasonable conclusion-- is that teacher quality HAS to be the driving force for the very gains that they couldn't actually track because it was stale and gathered, after all, in bulk. WTF?

But honesty and integrity are not the norm, nor are they qualities valued by this Reformers' Cabal. Instead, truth is denied, facts are skewed, research (real research - not this 5 and dime tinker-toy variety) is overlooked, and professionals at all levels across the nation are ignored and besmirched.

The agenda of StudentsFirst is to use well crafted rhetoric, propaganda and deceptive practices to create false hysteria, create mythic villains in teachers and unions, project horrific consequences should the fabricated travesty be allowed to continue unchecked, and then (wait for it!) charge in like the Knights in Shining Armor they believe themselves to be, carrying their Shield of Righteous Purpose, picture perfect, jiffy-tailored solution that not only sounds good and gives that ever so needed cozy-snugly feel of good satisfaction, but is hawked and carnival barked as the only effective, critical, and urgent fix, and to not support it dooms he world as we know it to inevitable implosion. By God! reading their agenda you would think StudentsFirst is single-handedly saving every child in every classroom every day from a hideous ordeal in the slash & burn world of the indifferent, self-important, selfish, ineffective teacher!

All StudentsFirst is interested in is changing the game so the new power brokers can continue to coerce states and districts into adopting unproven agendas such that expensive teachers can be arbitrarily, capriciously, and summarily tossed onto the curb like so much rubbish only to be replaced by unproven, untrained, two-year commit-me-not ivy-league Slam-Bam-Thank You Ma'amers.

And all this hinges on some snake oil smoke & mirrors algorithm called Value Added Analysis, which in and of itself hinges on students passing a test nobody has ever seen, nobody has ever ensured is aligned to the hundreds of varied curricula and texts, and not fact checked for accuracy or cognitive appropriateness. It is taken on faith by StudentsFirst and the rest of the Rhee/Duncan/Gates Cabal of reformists that the ENTIRE machine that sets the standards, writes the curriculum, formulates the textbooks, writes the tests, scores the tests is SO seamlessly perfect that all children, regardless of socioeconomic status, family (dis)function, language abilities, learning difficulties, or desire to participate, will excel if it weren't for the incredible prevalence of those damned ineffective teachers.

The most aggravating aspect of the agenda water-boarding perpetrated by the whole Rhee/Duncan/Gates Cabal of reformists is that the American public is either too drunk on their cool-aid, too stupid to understand the realities, or too apathetic to do anything but allow their children to be willingly led to the intellectual slaughter.

Too harsh you say? Ask any child in Florida or anywhere else in America how excited they are to come to school. Ask them how relevant the curriculum is to their lives. Ask them when the last time it was that they engaged in test prep - and for how long. Ask them why they even take the test. Ask them if they feel like the institution is encouraging them to live, learn, and grow according to their (student centric) needs as 21st century learners. You want harsh? Listen to these kids rail on the Bull Shit that is the result of decade of reforms designed by a Cabal of reformists who think that the best way to solve our problems is to use a white-hot blowtorch approach to intensifying the same thinking that created the problems in the first place.

To all the members of the Rhee/Duncan/Gates Cabal of reformists and to Race to the Top as well, you can kiss my ass and the collective asses of kids all across America!

Diane Feinstein Supports PIPA. Fire The Rich Bitch.

2012-01-21T14:45:00.000-08:00

h/t bb