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Jerry Moore (Admin)
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Username: Admin
Post Number: 26042
Registered: 01-2000
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Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Monday, August 30, 2010 - 11:08 pm: | 
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The high cost of parting ways
A White Plains (NY) Journal News Letter to the Editor
August 29, 2010
Re "Byram Hills pays $1.1M but can't fire official," Aug. 17 article:
Kudos to The Journal News for shining a much-needed light on public education's arduous disciplinary hearing system. I doubt your readers were pleased to learn, on average, it costs over $216,000 for districts to proceed against teachers who are either incompetent or who pose a danger to students, and that such hearings go on for an average of 502 days.
As you noted, the New York State School Boards Association continues to call on state lawmakers to reform the 3020-a process. Progress, however, has been slow. For example, it took until 2008 for the state to allow school districts to terminate teachers convicted of a sex offense without having to spend taxpayer dollars on a disciplinary hearing.
I'm afraid such changes, while necessary, are too narrow and will do little to help drive down the real cost and time associated with this process. Instead, lawmakers should look to enact these common-sense reforms:
• To expedite the process, establish a state hearing panel to decide 3020-a cases;
• Authorize districts to terminate a tenured teacher without a 3020-a hearing if their teaching certificate has been revoked by the state;
• Require that teachers cooperate in the district investigation of 3020-a charges and to disclose the nature of their defense prior to the hearing;
• Eliminate paid suspension for staff awaiting 3020-a proceedings or cap the length of time they are paid.
Although the vast majority of educators in New York state perform well, our schools can't afford, educationally or financially, to have inept — or worse — staff lingering on the payroll.
Timothy G. Kremer
The writer is executive director, New York State School Boards Association, Latham
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Jerry Moore (Admin)
Board Administrator
Username: Admin
Post Number: 25891
Registered: 01-2000
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Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Sunday, July 25, 2010 - 9:58 pm: |
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The problem with how Rhee fired teachers
By Valerie Strauss / Washington Post The Answer Sheet blog
July 23, 2010
D.C. Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee was entirely correct when she said that “every child in a District of Columbia public school has a right to a highly effective teacher” in every classroom.
But if Rhee really thinks that her IMPACT evaluation system of teachers is going to get the system there, then she is fooling herself, and everybody else who agrees with her.
And this is a problem not only for 165 teachers she fired Friday after they received poor appraisals under the system, but for the rest of the teaching corps in D.C. public schools who have yet to go under the IMPACT scalpel.
Rhee, tough as ever, fired a total of 241 teachers; the others were let go because they did not have the proper licensing, as required by the federal No Child Left Behind law, my colleague Bill Turque wrote in a Washington Post story Saturday.
It may well be that all 165 teachers fired because of bad evaluations under IMPACT were bad at their jobs, but IMPACT isn’t designed well enough to tell, according to a number of teachers and other educators.
According to Turque, about 20 percent of the District’s classroom teachers -- all of them reading and math instructors in grades 4 through 8 -- were evaluated on student improvement in scores on the District of Columbia Comprehensive Assessment System, or DC CAS. Those were the only grades and subjects for which there is annual test score data from DC CAS. “Value-added” -- a misnomer that ranks with the best of them -- will constitute 50 percent of their evaluation.
Judging teachers on the test scores of their students is all the rage in school reform these days -- thanks so much, Education Secretary Arne Duncan -- but, frankly, this is unconscionable for several reasons, not the least of which is that DC CAS wasn’t designed to evaluate teachers. That’s a basic violation of testing law. Ask any evaluation expert.
Think back to an important test you bombed because you were tired, sick or just got brain freeze. How would you like your pay linked to the results?
But there’s more to the evaluation system than mere test scores, and this makes almost as much or, rather, little sense.
Under IMPACT, all teachers are supposed to receive five 30-minute classroom observations during the school year, three by a school administrator and two by an outside "master educator" with a background in the instructor’s subject.
They are scored against a "teaching and learning framework" with 22 different measures in nine categories. Among the criteria are classroom presence, time management, clarity in presenting the objectives of a lesson and ensuring that students across all levels of learning ability understand the material.
A number of teachers never got the full five evaluations, apparently because a number of master teachers hired to do the jobs quit, according to sources in the school system.
But even if they all were, let’s look closely at this: In 30 minutes, a teacher is supposed to demonstrate all 22 different teaching elements. What teacher demonstrates 22 teaching elements -- some of which are not particularly related -- in 30 minutes? Suppose a teacher takes 30 minutes to introduce new material and doesn’t have time to show. ... Oh well. Bad evaluation.
In a 2009 story, Turque wrote: “IMPACT documents suggest that no nuance will be left unexamined in the 30-minute classroom visits. Observers are expected to check every five minutes for the fraction of students paying attention. Teachers are supposed to show that they can tailor instruction to at least three 'learning styles' (auditory, visual or tactile, for example). They can lower their scores by 'using sarcasm that visibly hurts or decreases the comfort of one or more students.' Among the ways instructors can demonstrate that they are instilling student belief in success is through 'affirmation chants, poems and cheers.' "
And there’s more, which you can see for yourself here.
IMPACT is actually a collection of 20 different evaluation systems for teachers in different capacities and other school personnel. One thing teachers say it does not do is provide enough support for teachers found wanting to improve.
The overall impact of IMPACT is not only unfair but not likely to do the job it is supposed to do: Root out bad teachers. Some great teachers are likely to be tossed out, and others, who know how to play along when the observers come in but don’t do much when they aren’t, could get a pass.
Of course, every school system should fire bad teachers. But they need a sophisticated and fair system to do that, and so far, D.C. doesn’t have one.
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Jerry Moore (Admin)
Board Administrator
Username: Admin
Post Number: 25884
Registered: 01-2000
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Saturday, July 24, 2010 - 12:41 pm: |
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Teachers Lose Jobs Over Test Scores
By STEPHANIE BANCHERO / WALL STREET JOURNAL with over 100 comments and nominations to be the U.S. Education Secretary and the next President of the U.S.A.
JULY 24, 2010
Washington, D.C., Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee fired 241 teachers Friday under a new evaluation system that holds teachers accountable for student test scores.
She also put an additional 17% on notice that if they don't improve next year, they could lose their jobs.
The move to oust 6% of the system's 4,300 teachers is the most drastic step yet in Ms. Rhee's aggressive bid to overhaul the work force of one of the nation's most troubled school systems. The district has been at the forefront of a national effort to rid classrooms of low-performing teachers. Of the 241 teachers fired, 165 were let go because of poor performance; the remainder didn't have proper teaching credentials.
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Teachers are ranked into four categories. This year, 16% reached the highest ranking, compared with 45% in past years. Some 20% landed in the bottom rating, compared with 4% in years past.
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Jerry Moore (Admin)
Board Administrator
Username: Admin
Post Number: 25714
Registered: 01-2000
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Monday, June 28, 2010 - 12:27 am: |
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No changes planned in Vermont teacher-sanction postings
Burlington (VT) Free Press Staff Report
June 25, 2010
The Vermont Education Department will continue to post educator license suspensions and revocations on its website but has no plans to expand the postings to include reprimands of teachers for professional misconduct.
That's the upshot of a discussion Thursday at a Montpelier meeting of the Vermont Standards Board for Professional Educators. The board reviewed current practices and decided to take steps to formalize them as rules, said Mark Oettinger, general counsel for the Vermont Education Department.
The rule process could take eight or nine months if there is no opposition. The board discussed but decided not to add reprimands to the sorts of disciplinary actions that are posted.
Reprimands tend to be made for less serious misconduct, and the consensus was that "the somewhat extreme step of posting on a public website" should be reserved for the more serious violations, Oettinger said.
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Jerry Moore (Admin)
Board Administrator
Username: Admin
Post Number: 25697
Registered: 01-2000
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, June 25, 2010 - 12:22 am: |
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Union blasts Chicago Public Schools' tenure attack
Layoffs of worst-rated teachers OKd despite seniority
BY ROSALIND ROSSI / CST-NWS-tenure24.article,Chicago Sun-Times Education Reporter
June 24, 2010
Chicago School Board members Wednesday went on the attack against teacher tenure, agreeing to lay off the worst-rated teachers first -- regardless of seniority -- amid moves to raise class size and shrink a record budget deficit.
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Chicago Public Schools CEO Ron Huberman said the new policy, approved by a unanimous vote Wednesday, affects about 200 teachers, both tenured and untenured, rated "unsatisfactory'' by their principals. It allows CPS to lay off even the most senior, tenured teachers with more than four years of experience who are rated as "unsatisfactory'' before dropping newer, higher-rated teachers.
The policy would be invoked if CPS raises class size to 35 to fill its budget hole. Officials also hope to use it during annual layoffs of teachers because of decreases in student enrollment, said Rachel Resnick, head of CPS labor relations.
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Jerry Moore (Admin)
Board Administrator
Username: Admin
Post Number: 25597
Registered: 01-2000
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Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, June 09, 2010 - 10:49 pm: |
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Ex-teacher learns the hard way: Watch what you put online
By Dan Hardy / Philadelphia Inquirer staff writer with lots of comments and a poll
Jun. 9, 2010
Elizabeth Collins has blogged for more than two years about her personal life and experiences as a teacher.
One Saturday in February, she posted her thoughts about a student's presentation in her English class at the Academy of Notre Dame de Namur, an all-girls private school in Villanova. She criticized its tone and political outlook.
The student's parents took quick exception to that post, telling the school that even though the blog did not identify their daughter by name, it was aimed at her and was an "attack on a child."
The exchange triggered a chain of events that ended with the academy's dismissing Collins in late April. "You have demonstrated a willingness to engage in inflammatory actions and have made a problematic situation worse," her termination letter said.
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 Lots more to this story at the link, above. In my opinion, whether educators identify students or not, they should not be writing about any student's behavior, speech or academic work without explicit consent from students (18 or older) or their parents (for those under 18). If people can figure out who the teacher is writing about--and some generally can--then the writing likely violates student privacy laws. The article states, "[T]the Pennsylvania State Education Association says on its website that teachers should not blog about their 'job duties, colleagues, supervisors, or students.'" That's sound advice which educators should heed.
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Jerry Moore (Admin)
Board Administrator
Username: Admin
Post Number: 25583
Registered: 01-2000
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Tuesday, June 08, 2010 - 12:04 am: |
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Court: Teacher Firing Over English Fluency Was Improper
By Mark Walsh / School Law blog
May 5, 2010
The highest court in Massachusetts has sided with a Cambodian refugee teacher in a dispute with her school district over whether she had sufficient fluency in English.
Phanna Kem Robishaw, who fled the deadly Khmer Rouge regime in Cambodia in the 1970's, begain teaching in the Lowell, Mass., school district in 1992. She taught first grade at a school where about half the enrollment was Cambodian.
In 2002, Massachusetts voters adopted a ballot inititiative aimed at eliminating bilingual education programs and requiring that schools show that teachers were fluent in English. Robishaw ran into problems when, before the law took effect, a new principal at her school expressed concerns about the teacher's English fluency and later gave her an unsatisfactoriy performance rating. Robishaw was dismissed in 2005, with the superintendent saying she was insufficiently fluent in English.
Robishaw sought review by an arbitrator, who ruled that the school district's reasons for dismissing the teacher were invalid. The arbitrator further held that retaining Robishaw was in students' best interest because of the her life story as a survivor of the Khmer Rouge and as a role model, according to court papers.
The school district took the matter to court, and a trial judge ruled that the arbitrator exceeded his authority. The judge based his ruling in part on listening to the test audiotape of Robishaw and concluding that "i find her ability to speak comprehensible English almost completely non-existent."
But in a May 4 decision in School Committee of Lowell v. Robishaw, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court ordered that the arbitrator's ruling be restored. (No direct link is available, but the opinion can be found from the court's opinion page.)
The state high court ruled unanimously that the arbitrator properly based his decision on the fact that the teacher's scores on two tests of English fluency were not valid indicators because Robishaw was on medical leave for post-traumatic stress disorder at the time she took the tests. And the court said the trial judge should not have undertaken his own, indepedent review of the evidence that was before the arbitrator.
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Jerry Moore (Admin)
Board Administrator
Username: Admin
Post Number: 25503
Registered: 01-2000
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Sunday, May 23, 2010 - 11:53 pm: |
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After signing of teacher-evaluation measure, factions dig into law's details
By Jeremy P. Meyer / The Denver Post
05/21/2010
A controversial teacher effectiveness bill that fractured the Democratic Party, made some lawmakers weep and led union members to protest on the Capitol steps is now law.
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Specifically, student academic growth based on their work, tests or annual assessments will be used to determine half of the annual assessments of teachers and principals. It has been touted nationally as a significant education reform.
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Yet teachers, parents and students won't see the effects of Senate Bill 191 until it is implemented statewide in the fall of 2013.
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By March 1, the council must define what makes an effective teacher and principal, develop a high-quality statewide evaluation system for both teachers and principals, and create performance standards for each category of licensed educator — among a host of other duties.
Can you predict what will happen? What happened with performance standards for students? Educators talked about how high they were. They reported escalating test scores reflecting high, steady improvement. All the while, student performance on national exams remained flat. I predict that in 13 years, this law will be deemed a failure because almost no one improved enough to make a difference in student performance and damn few educators will be fired under it. Another generation of students will have come and gone suffering the same shortcomings as their predecessors from the 1980s. Educators will do what they always do. They'll learn to game the system, quite likely to the detriment of your children's education. And while we're wasting time tinkering with a 19th century education model, in 13 years the US will be even further behind other countries than it is today. I simply can't fathom the stagnant minds that make education policy. If they spent a few hours on this website they'd understand the wide array of problems that contribute to poor outcomes and they'd realize that no amount of tinkering is any part of the solution to dramatically improving education outcomes. We need schools for The 21st Century Student.
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Details of new system
Evaluations: Beginning in the fall of 2013, teachers will be rated "highly effective," "effective" or "ineffective."
Young teachers: "Probationary" teachers, currently those in their first three years, who earn three consecutive "effective" ratings become "nonprobationary."
Veteran teachers: "Nonprobationary" teachers who get two consecutive "ineffective" ratings return to "probationary" status and will have a year to improve or face termination. Lawmakers estimate only 3 percent of teachers would lose their "nonprobationary" status under the new system. Teachers displaced from jobs would have 12 months, or two hiring cycles, to find a position before being cut from district payrolls.
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Jerry Moore (Admin)
Board Administrator
Username: Admin
Post Number: 25383
Registered: 01-2000
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Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Tuesday, May 11, 2010 - 6:29 pm: |
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Teacher Grades Tied To Pupil Performance
State, Union Reach a Landmark Deal
By BARBARA MARTINEZ / WALL STREET JOURNAL
May 11, 2010: Printed in The Wall Street Journal, page A23
Here's another educator scam like the one that would have raised the charter school cap but given State Ed the sole discretion to decide whether new schools would open. Since State Ed's primary responsibility is to maintain the health of the public school system, that would pretty much end the authorization of new charter schools. Educators wanted to do this to make it appear that the state supports charter schools so it could win federal Race to The Top money.
Here, the feds want salaries tied to performance. Educators want to make it appear that they support this by tying evaluations to performance. Evaluations are completely meaningless. They have nothing to do with pay. Nothing to do with retention. Since teachers are almost never fired, the acclamation that evaluations tied to student performance will make it easier to fire teachers is a hoax. The rules make it easier in theory to fire teachers, but it will never happen. I can even tell you what educators will say when it doesn't happen. They'll say that the teachers voluntarily left. Then, you'll check the data and find the same teachers in other schools, with no more leaving the profession than leave now. Above all, absolutely NONE OF THIS WILL HELP THE STUDENTS. We need schools for The 21st Century Student, not more hype and spin.
More on this issue at EdVANTAGE Blog and Gotham Schools. And from this story we read, "The new system would be phased in, starting in the 2011-12 school year. In the first year, it would apply to teachers in English/language arts and math in grades 4 to 8." Do you know what that means? There's an escape hatch. Whether we get RTT money or not, in a few years, this law will be repealed because, "We couldn't make it work," or something else.
State and union officials will announce Tuesday a sweeping overhaul of the way teachers are evaluated in New York that for the first time ties instructors' grades to student performance and makes it easier to fire failing educators.
* * *
The new system, which needs legislative approval, calls for 40% of a teacher's evaluation to be based on student growth beginning in September 2011, said state Education Commissioner David Steiner. That would be measured in a formula that gives equal weight to state tests and local assessments.
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Spurred by a nationwide competition for hundreds of millions of dollars in federal grants, the plan would also create four new ratings—"highly effective," "effective," "developing" and "ineffective"—that would replace a two-tier system of "satisfactory" and "unsatisfactory." The current system has been widely criticized. In New York City, for instance, fewer than 2% of teachers were given unsatisfactory ratings last year. In one of the costliest cases, the city and state spent $324,284 to dismiss a teacher, including her salary for two years during the process.
The new system would set in place consequences for teachers rated ineffective for two years in a row, leading to their potential removal within 60 days—something that now can take years and tens of thousands of dollars.
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The state's 40% weighting for student achievement is less aggressive than the 50% many other states are instituting.
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Jerry Moore (Admin)
Board Administrator
Username: Admin
Post Number: 25354
Registered: 01-2000
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, May 07, 2010 - 12:03 am: |
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Saving the Teachers
A New York Times Editorial
May 5, 2010
Last year’s $100 billion education stimulus plan insulated the public schools from the worst of the recession and saved an estimated 300,000 jobs. With the economy still lagging and states forced to slash their budgets, Congress must act again to prevent a wave of teacher layoffs that could damage the fragile recovery and hobble the school reform effort for years to come.
No more money for educators until they agree to salary and benefit concessions. Welfare for the middle class has to end.
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Jerry Moore (Admin)
Board Administrator
Username: Admin
Post Number: 25317
Registered: 01-2000
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Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, April 30, 2010 - 12:09 am: |
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Colorado's crawl to mediocrity
By Mike Rosen / Denver Post
04/29/2010
It's no surprise the Colorado Education Association (CEA) is fighting the latest legislative attempt to reform tenure. Unions, by their nature, are foes of accountability and productivity. Their aversion to competition among their rank and file drives them to protect their least competent members from their most competent.
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Teacher tenure is an idea whose time has passed. Originally, it was justified to safeguard free expression and protect against cronyism and politics in firing. That was before the era of powerful teacher unions. Now tenure protection is redundant. The unions ensure that. Lifetime job security breeds complacency.
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Jerry Moore (Admin)
Board Administrator
Username: Admin
Post Number: 25315
Registered: 01-2000
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, April 30, 2010 - 12:00 am: |
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Is Teacher Tenure Still Necessary?
by Alan Greenblatt / NPR
April 29, 2010
Most professionals are at-will employees who can be fired for any or no reason. Since educators claim to be professionals, why not make them at-will employees?
Tenure is under attack. The century-old system of protecting experienced teachers from arbitrary dismissal — long viewed as sacred — has triggered hot political debates in several states.
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"What's become so problematic about tenure is that it's awarded almost automatically, without regard to performance in student learning," says Sandi Jacobs, vice president of the National Council on Teacher Quality, which advocates changes to the teaching profession.
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For his part, Daly doesn't advocate the abolition of tenure, but he does believe it needs to be changed. Dismissals should be job related, he says. But the problem he sees is that there are so many legal and managerial hurdles involved in dismissing a teacher that tenure has become a de facto shield against firing even the worst teachers.
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Jerry Moore (Admin)
Board Administrator
Username: Admin
Post Number: 25216
Registered: 01-2000
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Sunday, April 18, 2010 - 10:05 pm: |
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Crist Vetoes Education Bill, Bucking GOP
WALL STREET JOURNAL with over 60 comments
APRIL 16, 2010
See, also, Retribution begins: Crist loses Cannon endorsement because of teacher pay veto and Online uprising by teachers, parents turns to joy after Crist vetoes teacher-pay legislation.
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The legislation—one of the most sweeping of its kind in the nation—would have eliminated tenure for new teachers and required merit-pay plans linking salaries to student learning progress. Unions opposed the measure, saying it would make it harder for Florida to hire good teachers, and that it violated collective bargaining rights.
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The governor, who once supported the bill, denied that his veto was tied to his plans for the U.S. Senate race. He said he opposed the measure following an outcry of opposition from teachers, parents and local school officials, according to the Associated Press.
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Jerry Moore (Admin)
Board Administrator
Username: Admin
Post Number: 25187
Registered: 01-2000
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Tuesday, April 13, 2010 - 10:49 pm: |
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Bill Would Allow Layoffs of Teachers With Seniority
By JENNIFER MEDINA / NEW YORK TIMES
April 12, 2010
When the Bloomberg administration raised the prospect of teacher layoffs this year, administration officials complained that they would be forced to get rid of the youngest newest teachers, and called on legislators to rewrite the seniority rules.
That wish may be one step closer. Two Democratic state lawmakers have sponsored a bill that would give principals in New York City the power to choose who should lose their jobs if the city needs to lay off teachers because of budget cuts.
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Jerry Moore (Admin)
Board Administrator
Username: Admin
Post Number: 25150
Registered: 01-2000
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, April 07, 2010 - 9:54 pm: |
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States Strive to Overhaul Teacher Tenure
By Stephen Sawchuk / Education Week
April 5, 2010: Published in Print: April 7, 2010, as States Strive To Overhaul Teacher Tenure
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Unions have been less successful in winning concessions in Florida, where a Republican-controlled legislature is poised to approve a plan that would all but dismantle teacher tenure for new hires.
The bill [pdf], which has passed the Senate, would do away with the current system of offering continuing contracts to teachers who have completed three years of service. All teachers would be placed on annual contracts. Those reaching their fifth year in the district would also lose employment unless they earned several successive ratings in the top-two performance tiers on a new evaluation instrument.
The bill also would require Florida districts to base teacher evaluations and compensation largely on student test scores.
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