To Sir: Where are you?

The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics' 2011 Population Survey indicates that men make up 18.3 percent of elementary and middle school teachers and 2.3 percent of preschool and kindergarten instructors, down from 2007 pre-recession proportions of 19.1 percent for grades 1 to 8, and 2.7 percent for preschool and kindergarten, reports Sarah Sparks in Education Week.

High school educators are more evenly divided: 42 percent in 2011 were men, down from 43.1 percent in 2007. The diminishing status of teachers generally, coupled with continuing sexism against men working with children, may be discouraging men from entering the field. Chanté Chambers, who recruits at historically black colleges and universities for Teach For America, sees the trend play out among high-achieving college students. Education's low status is "a major barrier" to bringing more men, particularly black men, into the field. "They're coming from communities that are not necessarily affluent, so it adds to pressure to be that breadwinner, to have financial stability," she explains.

According to Shaun Johnson, a former D.C. teacher and now a professor at Towson University, "Teacher-bashing is a new national pastime ... and [one] which you could argue is highly gendered. [Teaching's] status as a profession isn't going to improve in this climate; it's only going to get worse."

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In the news: retesting teachers

Sparked by the recent revelations of the impact of Ohio's new teacher retesting law, and our call for it to be repealed, a number of media outlets followed up with some mainstream stories

NBC4i ran a short segment

The Columbus Dispatch also ran a good article

The law says teachers can’t be made to pay, but it doesn’t say who will. Ohio uses the Praxis series of exams to test teachers’ knowledge of the subjects they teach. The cost per test ranges from $50 to more than $100, depending on the subject.

“It’s your tax dollars at work,” said Rhonda Johnson, president of the Columbus Education Association.

Teachers groups have been critical of the retesting idea since Gov. John Kasich pitched it. Johnson said the tests won’t measure teacher effectiveness, and they won’t help anyone improve. The real beneficiary of the retesting law will be the testing company, she said.

“Keep weighing the pig. Let’s not feed him anymore. Let’s not do anything but weigh the pig and see if anything changes,” Johnson said.

Robert Sommers, Kasich’s education adviser, has said that retesting is necessary to ensure educators who work in struggling schools are competent in the subjects they teach.

Mark Hill, president of the Worthington Education Association, said the retesting program “ creates a disincentive for teachers to go and take the toughest jobs. We’re punishing them. Why would they ever take that chance?”

As you know, according to the Ohio Department of Education, which Heffner heads, these tests should NOT be used in this manner

Successful completion of required tests is designed to ensure that candidates for licensure have acquired the minimal knowledge necessary for entry-level positions.
The Praxis II tests are not designed to predict performance on the job nor can passing the licensure examination(s) guarantee good teaching.

Can Superintendent Heffner really be clueless about his own department's expert view?

There is no basis for this law, and we maintain that the legislature must act swiftly to repeal it.

SB5 solves exactly zero problems, creates many more

Simple:

Ohio's teachers unions are fighting the proposal, arguing that by 2014, all schools will implement some type of new evaluation system through Race to the Top or the federal Teacher Incentive Fund grants.

"Everything they want to get out of an evaluation system that is linked to student performance will come out of the two federal programs," said Darold Johnson, an Ohio Federation of Teachers lobbyist. "If you are talking about pay, compensation and evaluations, that is all going to happen in the time frame. We don't need Senate Bill 5 for that. We don't need it in the budget."

If the system is developed locally, with teachers and administrators working together, it will be easier to implement, Johnson said.

It only gets hard once you have decided to go down a path that doesn't involve broad consultation, not listening to classroom teachers, and relies on eliminating collective bargaining in order to pursue corporate reform solutions that don't work.

SB5 and its companion provisions in the budget were never designed to solve education problems, they were designed to address a partisan political agenda - with public education, and classroom teachers, the victim of that fight.

News for March 10th, 2011

After news that the Wisconsin legislature steam-rolled through their assault on collective barainging, steam appears to be building for an even more radical effort in Ohio, as the Dispatch reports

House Speaker William G. Batchelder now says he hopes to bring the collective-bargaining bill to the floor for a vote next week, after indicating for the past several days that he wanted to hold three weeks' worth of hearings.

Asked whether the timetable had suddenly been moved up, the Medina Republican said it will be the "equivalent" of three weeks of hearings "because they're going to meet every day."

Teacher Ms. Johnson took the message to Washington

Facing a full Congressional hearing panel, in front of a packed house, Ohio teacher Courtney Johnson took a seat Tuesday and methodically laid out how attacks on workers’ rights and cuts to education will affect her students.

“Ever-deepening cuts to our public schools send the dual messages to our kids that, one, it is not a priority that they get educated; and two, that we have given up on finding better solutions to our problems,” Johnson told the 23 members of Congress. “Many of us are not willing to send those messages, and I know that we are not alone. Just watch the news and you will see Americans are not ready to give up on our kids.”

Clad in red as part of the national Wear Red for Public Ed on Tuesday movement, Johnson spoke eloquently and passionately about how teachers’ working conditions are students’ learning conditions. The English teacher at Fort Hayes Arts and Academic High School in Columbus, Ohio, is a member of the Ohio Education Association.

It's widely reported that on the day of the budget the Govenor will be holding a downhill style meeting

Gov. John R. Kasich announced today that on the day he sends his budget proposal to the General Assembly he will also hold an Ohio town hall meeting to discuss the state's budget challenges and his proposed solutions to them. The meeting will be held on the evening of Tuesday, March 15 at the Capitol Theater in Columbus and will be broadcast live on the internet and via satellite to Ohio television stations. After presenting the budget plan Kasich and his cabinet will take questions from the theater and online audiences.

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