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ALEC's Report Card Receives Failing Marks

May 10, 2013 in Article

EAST LANSING, Mich. (May 9, 2013) – Ranking states is a popular tool for education advocacy groups, with the goal of advancing a policy agenda based on ideologically driven pre-packaged reforms. These report cards receive considerable media attention, although few reflect research-based evidence on the efficacy of particular polices. The 18th edition of the American Legislative Exchange Council's (ALEC) Report Card on American Education: Ranking State K-12 Performance, Progress, and Reform is no different according to an academic review.

Christopher Lubienski, associate professor of education policy and Director of the Forum on the Future of Public Education at the University of Illinois, and T. Jameson Brewer, a doctoral student at the University of Illinois, reviewed ALEC's Report Card for the Think Twice think tank review project. The review was produced by the National Education Policy Center (NEPC), with funding from the Great Lakes Center for Education Research and Practice.

Lubienski and Brewer find that ALEC draws its grades exclusively not from research organizations, but from like-minded market-orientated advocacy organizations.

"Furthermore, when studies are highlighted in this report, they do not represent the peer-reviewed research on a given issue, are often of extremely poor quality, and generally unsuited for supporting their claim."

In their review, Lubienski and Brewer provide two key areas – alternative teacher certification and school choice – to highlight gaps between ALEC's agenda and empirical evidence. Despite multiple claims that a "growing body of research indicates…" – the report offers absolutely no supporting evidence. Math results, which have a lower pass rate, were used to compare traditionally-certified teachers to alternatively-certified teachers. Meanwhile alternatively-certified teachers were portrayed using their reading results.

"Many of the grades given to states reflect the level to which pro-market policies have been implemented while the grades systematically ignore meaningful measurements of equality and outcomes" according to the review.

Readers of ALEC's Report Card should consider it a statement of policy preferences and not an overview of research on education reforms.

The reviewers conclude, "At best, the report serves as an amalgamation of other like-minded think tanks' assessments of states' adoption of pro-market policies, and thus offers nothing new … it provides little or no usefulness to policymakers."

Find the report by Lubienski and Brewer on the Great Lakes Center website: www.greatlakescenter.org

Stongsville Strike Primer

March 08, 2013 in Article

What's going on in Strongsville? Here's a good primer, via Diane Ravitch's blog.

My name is Christina Potter and I have taught in the Strongsville City Schools in Strongsville, Ohio for the last eight years.

When I was hired in Strongsville, a great community with excellent schools, many other teachers said I was lucky, and they were jealous of my new job, and during the first two years, they were right; things were great with all sides working together,and we earned Ohio’s highest ranking, Excellent with Distinction.

As time went on a division started to occur between the administration and the teachers. During our 2010 contract negotiations the school stated that times were difficult and they needed the teachers to make concessions. In good faith, and promise of a levy, we agreed to an additional two year pay freeze on top of the three years we had already taken. We also increased our medical expenses, took on an additional duty period, and agreed to work two days unpaid. Times were tough, but everyone was striving to make Strongsville great.

Then, everything went haywire. With the ink still drying on our contract, the Board tried to take the levy off the ballot but failed, so instead, they informed the community to vote the levy down. Then we learned that while the district cried broke in 2010, it spent $500,000 to hire an attorney who publicizes himself as a union breaker. Every school district in this area that has hired him has either gone on strike or threatened to. Needless to say, the teachers, who negotiated in good faith, were outraged.

When our contract ended in June 2012, the district asked for extra time before negotiating to get its finances in order, so on July 19th, the first negotiation session took place. Upon walking in, their attorney put a contract down on the table and told us it was a take it or leave it offer and refused to negotiate one item at a time. After months of failing to negotiate a contract, our Education Association declared an impasse, and a Federal Mediator came in to oversee negotiations. Here is the timeline of recent events:

1. On February 15th, 2013 the teachers of the Strongsville Education Association (SEA) overwhelmingly passed a strike authorization.

2. On February 22nd, SEA submitted a 10-day notice of our intent to strike.

3. On March 1st, I had to hand in my I.D. badge and keys and have all of my personal belongings out of the building by 3:15 p.m. After 3:15, the doors would be locked, and anyone still on school property would be arrested even though we had not taken a final strike vote; we also had another negotiation session scheduled for Saturday morning. For all intense purposes we were not on strike yet but we were being locked out of the buildings, our email accounts and our grade books.

4. On March 2nd, both negotiating teams and the School Board members met with the federal negotiator. At that time the school gave its final offer which was only slightly different than their original.

And that takes us to where we are today, on strike. Many of my fellow teachers are also Strongsville residents, who have children in the system. They fear we are destroying our great public schools by trashing the teaching profession within them, instead of working toward a settlement. They feel the Board has chosen to waste tax payer money and painted teachers as greedy; meanwhile, it has forked over another $500,000, for a total of $1 million, to an attorney instead of using the money for books and technology.

Why are we striking in the cold, wind, and snow from 5:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. We, the Strongsville teachers, feel we are not just standing for the SEA, but for all of our fellow public school teachers in the Ohio and across the nation during this statewide/national epidemic of privatizing our public schools. If this contract goes through other school districts may soon go after their teachers, and we cannot in good conscience allow that to happen. As a teacher and a parent of two, I believe in public education and its hard working teachers, who too often are the brunt of undeserved bashing.

The teachers of Strongsville will hold a rally this afternoon at 4 pm in the center of Strongsville, at the gazebo, at the corners of Pearl Rd. and Rt 82.

Survey shows disturbing patterns

February 27, 2013 in Article

The latest Metlife survey, conducted annually since 1984, shows educators under incredible stress as they cope with large budget cuts coupled with increased demands.

The whole survey is worth a read, but we've pulled out some of the most important findings.

Principals and Teachers Give Positive Ratings to the Job Teachers Are Doing

Nearly all principals (98%) give positive ratings to the classroom teachers in their school. This level is similar to the ratings provided by principals in 1986 (95%). The majority of principals (63%) say that their teachers are doing an excellent job and an additional 35% describe the job teachers are doing as pretty good.

In contrast to teachers’ ratings of their principals, the most experienced principals are most likely to rate their teachers highly. Principals with more than 10 years’ experience as a principal are more likely than those with six to 10 years’ experience or those with five years’ or less experience to rate the classroom teachers in their school as excellent (72% vs. 56% vs. 59%).

Of course corporate education reformers will continue to claim too many teachers are not performing in the classroom, despite all the available evidence.

As a consequence of the relentless teacher bashing, and budget cuts, politicians are causing serious moral problems with the workforce, as is evidenced in the next two findings

Teacher Job Satisfaction Continues to Decline

Teacher satisfaction has declined to its lowest point in 25 years and has dropped five percentage points in the past year alone, from 44% to 39% very satisfied. This marks a continuation of a substantial decline noted in the 2011 MetLife Survey of the American Teacher; teacher satisfaction has now dropped 23 percentage points since 2008.

Stress among teachers has increased since 1985

In 1985—the last time this question was asked and when job satisfaction was also low—more than one-third (36%) of teachers said they felt under great stress at least several days a week. Today, that number has increased; half (51%) of teachers feel under great stress at least several days a week. Elementary school teachers experience stress more frequently.

They are more likely than middle school or high school teachers to say they feel under great stress at least several days a week (59% vs. 44% vs. 42%). The increase since 1985 in the number of elementary school teachers who experience great stress at least several days a week is also noteworthy—59% today compared to 35% in 1985

Corporate reformers are also having negative impacts on Principals too

Most principals say that their responsibilities today have changed compared to five years ago and that the job has increased in complexity

Moreover, three-quarters (75%) of principals agree that the job of the principal has become too complex, a view shared by principals regardless of demographic characteristics such as school level, school location, the proportion of low-income or minority students, or the proportion of students performing at or above grade level in English language arts and math.

Half (48%) of principals feel under great stress several days a week or more. This finding is perhaps not surprising given the previously cited results that most principals feel their jobs are too complex, their responsibilities have changed during the past five years, and that they have a high degree of accountability with varying levels of control over decisions

The ever increasing Rube Goldberg machines being constructed by corporate education reformers is making the job of principal all but impossible. The survey notes

It is important to note that as educators begin to implement new, higher standards, many face other competing mandates related to teacher and student assessment as well as decreasing teacher morale,and reductions in budgets and other resources such as staff, professional learning opportunities, and time for collaboration.

When asked about limited resources and what would help them most in addressing the needs of diverse learners, majorities of teachers consistently say other teachers. In 2009, nine in 10 teachers agreed that other teachers contribute to their success in the classroom, including 51% who strongly agreed. Most teachers and principals also said that greater collaboration among teachers and school leaders would have a major impact on improving student achievement.

Given limited resources, teachers believed opportunities for collaborative teaching would have a major impact on their ability to address different learning needs of individual students.

Yet most teachers continued to report that their time to work with other teachers remained the same or had been reduced.

On top of these strains being faced by teachers, the strains being felt by principals is leading to teachers taking on additional leadership roles

As the job of the principal has become more complex with the need to balance instructional leadership, high-stakes accountability, and non-academic management, the survey has documented the emergence of teachers more prominently as leaders in their schools, districts and beyond. The voice of the teacher as an educator has also become a voice of leadership in education.
[…]
Teachers Are School Leaders; Many Have a Formal Leadership Role in Their School Half (51%) of teachers currently have a formal leadership role in their school, such as department chair, instructional resource, teacher mentor, or leadership team member. Teachers who have a formal leadership role are more experienced; they are more likely than other teachers to have at least six years of teaching experience (86% vs. 73%). These teacher leaders are also more likely to report that their school’s budget has decreased during the past 12 months (60% vs. 51%), perhaps reflecting a greater need among these schools to have teachers take on more responsibilities.
[…]
In the context of additional challenges for leading schools toward greater improvement, the continuing decline in teacher morale identifies itself as an urgent priority. During a time when expectations and standards are increasing for effective teaching and learning, teacher morale is yet another declining resource, one that is associated with schools with diminished budgets and other resources, fewer students meeting standards and fewer colleagues highly rated for how well they are doing their job. Teacher leadership emerges as a potential resource for translating big challenges into opportunities, served by hybrid roles for teachers as leaders and as a method for addressing professional growth and satisfaction.

It's time that politicians began to properly value and respect their most valuable asset the education system has - the educators who work in it.

Correlation? What correlation?

February 04, 2013 in Article

Dublin teacher, Kevin Griffin, brings to our attention this graph, which he describes thusly

The chart plots the Value-Added scores of teachers who teach the same subject to two different grade levels in the same school year. (ex. Ms. Smith teaches 7th Math and 8th Math, and Mr. Richards 4th Grade Reading and 5th Grade Reading.) The X-axis represents the teachers VA score for one grade level and the Y-axis represents the VA score from the other grade level taught.

If the theory behind evaluating teachers based on value-added is valid then a “great” 7th grade math teacher should also be a “great” 8th grade math teacher (upper right corner) and a “bad” 7th grade math teacher should also be a “bad” 8th grade math teacher (lower left corner). There should, in theory, be a straight line (or at least close) showing a direct correlation between 7th grade VA scores and 8th grade VA scores since those students, despite being a grade apart, have the same teacher.

Here's the graph

Looks morel ike a random number generator to us. Would you like your career to hinge on a random number generator?

Working together for effective reform in America's public schools

January 24, 2013 in Article

Organized Parents, Organized Teachers - Working together for effective reform in America's public schools. Current national and local education policies often pit teachers and parents against each other, trapping them in a cycle of blame and mistrust. But in one Minneapolis community, parents and teachers decided to work together to make their schools better – with great results. This is their story.