AWAKENING The SLEEPING GIANT!!

Awakening the Sleeping Giant!

Some of you may know that my daughter, a product of PUBLIC schools, lives and works in Japan. She currently works in the translation department of a rather large international brokerage firm, but when she first landed in Japan she taught conversational English at one of the many English Language Schools that operate(d) in the country. Her immediate boss was an American whose wife is a Japanese native and they had a son who was just born when my daughter arrived there and almost 2 when I first visited there and now is 5 going on a very important 6.

His name is Seth and he’s a very bright young man and has been this year enrolled in Kindergarten. Just the other day his mother reported on her Facebook page that his class had put on a play of “Jack and the Beanstalk” and that the children in the class had rewritten the tale so that the ending was happy. This prompted me to reply and say “Wait, I thought the ending of Jack and the Beanstalk was already happy. Am I wrong?” Didn’t it end with Jack and his mother going from desperately poor to wildly rich? I wondered “Have I been reading a sanitized version?”

Seth’s mother replied that the kids had wanted to end the tale so that it didn’t just happen that Jack and his poor mother came out well-to-do in the end but that the Giant and Jack became actual friends too.

I thought to myself “Wow, leave it to children to have the audacity to want peace and harmony and everyone to get along and share bean paste cookies at the end of a tale!” (Incidentally, I don’t personally recommend bean paste cookies, I’ll stick with Oreos.)

At any rate, with this altered version of the Giant’s tale in mind, I started dreaming that perhaps the brave efforts of the Wisconsin 14 and the House Democrats in Indiana and all the other protesters in all the other states against the assaults on education and worker’s rights might actually have a happy ending! - An ending where the “light” is seen by all who have the fates of our children in their hands. And we will all sit down in the end, achieve some actual progress and share the wealth and some milk and cookies. Happily Ever After-like.

In my dream, I saw “us” ( the Nation’s educators and workers) as poor Jack trying to make something out of our magic beans and the Governors of Wisconsin and Indiana and New Jersey (and elsewhere) as well as Arne Duncan, as the Evil Giants trying to kick us off of their cloud. I envisioned us climbing the beanpole up into the higher atmosphere to the Giants’ castle and somehow actually having a real dialogue with them and them realizing the truth of what we were saying and saying “oh, we’re sorry, Let’s work together!”

Ah. But that’s a fairy tale, is it not? Instead we see the Governor of Wisconsin calling out the National Guard on the Wisconsin 14. We hear him call for the crushing of the “bastards.” We hear an Indiana Deputy Attorney General calling for the protesters to worker’s rights to be shot. (In all fairness, I need to report that this man was fired.) But also, we hear Indiana’s Governor calling those of us belonging to Unions “Elite” and insinuating that all we teachers care about is money. I laughed heartily when one of my colleagues spoke up and said “Yes, i live in a very elite mobile home on my teacher’s salary.” I myself contributed that I drive a very elite Ford Focus. We then heard our State Superintendent of Public Schools issues a statement calling the Indiana State Teacher’s Association “liars” for relating to us the very real effects of the proposed Senate Bill 1 will have on our pay.

All in all, It’s not exactly the lions lying down with the lambs here. It feels much more like the lambs being led to the slaughter to me. Or in continuing our “Jack in the Beanstalk” theme, it sounds a lot more like the thunder of “FE FI FO FUM” and “I’ll GRIND your bones to make my bread” on the Governors’ parts to me.

Ah. Giants, they are not exactly likeable characters, I’m thinking. But then as often happens in real life and in fairy tales, there is a twist to the whole story-line here. I open up my email and I read of a Blog Campaign entitled “Waking Up the Sleeping Giant!” And instead of the Giant being cast as the EVIL character in this play, it’s framing the Nation’s educators as Sleeping Giants! Not evil giants but POWERFUL GIANTS! POWERFUL and AWESOME ENOUGH to band together and finally be heard over the top of the sound bites and the rhetoric about educational reform as spoken through the mouths of people (such as the Governors of Wisconsin and Indiana) who actually know very little about education and children and such things as poverty and need.

I had not thought about it all this way- that we ourselves, the educators are POWERFUL if we UNITE and STAND UP TOGETHER! It is true, we have been sleeping for far too long and living in a dream world that everyone has good intent towards education. And It is time for us to WAKE UP and realize the power we have and to stand up for ourselves and our students! Here is how you can realize that GIGANTIC POWER too- Open up your browser and type in “http://www.saveourschoolsmarch.org and RISE UP with us!

And maybe the ending of the tale won’t be that we will all sit down someday with our milk and cookies on a cloud and find a way to come together. Perhaps that “happily ever after” ending is only possible in the minds of children, but we at least owe it to them to WAKE UP and RISE TO MIGHTY heights for them, do we not?

Anyone Who's Ever Had A Heart- I HEART PUBLIC EDUCATION!

This Lou Reed/Velvet Underground song performed here by the Cowboy Junkies is clearly an emotional plea. Just read the lines:

"Anyone who's ever had a heart
Wouldn't turn around and break it
And anyone who's ever played a part
Wouldn't turn around and hate it"

And I'm not gonna lie, It's Valentine's Day, so I'm really just trying to tug at your heartstrings. I'm also trying to tug at the heartstrings of our Government Leaders (Barak Obama, Mitch Daniels, etc) and Educational Leaders (Arne Duncan, Tony Bennett etc.) and our Senators and our Representaives, the media, and the public, many of whom are buying into rhetoric and lies. I'm asking them "Could you maybe? Could you maybe stop this runaway train political agenda you have regarding Public Education and for one second LISTEN?

LISTEN TO YOUR HEART? or maybe more importantly- listen to the HEARTBEATS of our children in this country? Children (rich or poor, gifted, average, or challenged) who deserve your understanding that to destroy PUBLIC education not only destroys their chances in life but their future of living in a democratic society. Do you see that those are the hearts you have in your hands?

Because really, "Anyone who's ever had a heart" and "played a part" for PUBLIC Edcuation, really wouldn't turn around and vote for charters, for vouchers, for merit pay for educators, for the end of collective bargaining for teachers etc and so on. They really wouldn't turn around and break CHILDRENS' HEARTS that way.

Now I could spend the rest of this post giving you facts, figures, statistics about why I feel the way I do and why I think those in positions of power should believe and act on those realities instead of following political agendas. I could cite for you all kinds of reputable and respectable sources who are speaking up about it all. I would write more in depth about why the survival and the health of our democracy depends on PUBLIC education. I could do that.

But today? Well, it's (almost) Valentine's Day and so I'll leave that to past and future posts and to the thousands and thousands of other people with more credentials in education than I have. Today I'm just going to tug at your heartstrings. That's all.

And I'm going to tell you about an organization that is FIGHTING against this Heartlessness going on in our country regarding PUBLIC education and I'm participating in their "I (HEART) PUBLIC EDUCATION" Blog Campaign. That organization is SAVE OUR SCHOOLS MARCH AND NATIONAL CALL TO ACTION. Their website is http://www.saveourschoolsmarch.org and here is their message for you this Valentine's Day:

"Everyone who cares about young people cares about our schools. Our best schools nurture children, make them feel safe, and able to take the risks they need in order to learn. But our schools are in danger of becoming even more narrowly focused on test preparation, while class sizes rise, and teachers are blamed for the ravages povery inflicts on their students.

We are responding. We LOVE our schools. We declare Valentine's Day. 2011, to be "I LOVE PUBLIC EDUCATION" blog day. On this day we will write our hearts ou, about why it is that public education is so important to us, our children, and our democratic society. Join us and tells us why you love public education too, send your comments and posts to saveourschoolsmarch@gmail.com. Writing will be displayed at the www.SaveOurSchoolsmarch.org website, and will be tweeted with the hashtag #LovePublicEd. We offer the march and events of July 28 to 31st in Washington, DC, as a focal point for this movement, and we ask participants to link to this event, so we can build momentum for our efforts. If your readers wish to repeat this post on their own blog, we would LOVE it."

I really feel that "Anyone Who Has a HEART" would join the cause.

Following the Yellow-Brick Road!!

2.6.11
Unlike these days of the Redbox, movies on demand, and downloading flicks instantly to your computer, unless one of the (3) networks decided to broadcast a film, you were out of luck and at the mercy of their schedule to see a movie at home in the comfort of your living room.

In a way, I suppose it made it seem just a little more special. It became a big deal to get out the cokes and the popcorn and cozy up under a blanket in front of the glowing screen when a movie was aired into your living room. It wasn’t everyday. It was a big deal.

And there was NO bigger deal than the annual showing of “The Wizard of Oz.” I think everyone of my vintage fondly remembers this yearly event: partly because the story had everything- from frightening flying monkeys to apple-throwing trees to terrifying twisters to witches (good & bad) to a wizard to munchkins; and partly because IF you had a color TV then when Dorothy’s house crashed down on the Witch, she opens the door to a wondrous and multi-colored world. I’m telling you- THAT, was SOMETHING!

Of course you know the story, “everyone” does. It’s how Dorothy (played by a tightly bound-in-gingham Judy Garland) in a concussive dream visits the land of Oz and meets up with a Scarecrow that needs brains and a Tinman that needs a heart and a Lion in dire need of some gumption and they skip off down a yellow-brick road to find the Wizard, perform some Wizard-appointed tasks, and return to claim their promised rewards from him, only to find out that the Wizard is not really a wizard, but instead a humbug- simply a Midwestern man pulling levers and throwing projections on a screen. Then in the end, the curtain is pulled back on the so-called Wizard and the truth is brought to light and everyone sees that they’ve had everything they’ve needed all along. What a WONDERFUL story!

Ah memories. I have to note that in the years before my family had a color TV, I remember being especially excited one year when taken in by the claims of the advertising, I danced around and announced “THIS YEAR it’s going to be IN COLOR!” only to be told lovingly by “Mr. Know-it-all” (aka my brother) that it didn’t matter what the commercials said- “We don’t have a color TV, you idiot.”

So yeah, I was kind of a stupid little kid. It took me years to catch on to the double casting of the characters of the Wicked Witch, the Wizard, the Lion, the Tinman, and the Scarecrow with their Kansas counterparts. I’d like to think however, that as an adult, I’ve got a few more brains.

And if you’re wondering what my little trip down the yellow-brick memory lane is about, It’s that it’s starting to appear to me that my Governor and the State Superintendent of Public Instruction here in Indiana are either glad or banking on that I am (and YOU are) still that ignorant kid who wouldn’t dare look behind a curtain to expose their lack of wizardry.

Today I went to my state’s education website to read about the new teacher evaluation rubric my Governor and State Superintendent want Indiana school boards to implement and read the following:

"Too often it’s not a lack of money or resources that keeps individuals, states and nations from achieving their goals—it’s a lack of courage. ( bolding is mine) This is the moment for Indiana to emerge as a national leader for innovative and aggressive education initiatives that put student success first. We cannot afford to keep doing what we've been doing. We must truly hold the best interest of students at heart, and we must not fail to act now."

I read those words and I’m suddenly angrier than Dorothy when the Wicked Witch takes Toto from her. If ONLY I had a bucket of water to melt the subject of my ire!

This man (Dr. Bennett) is throwing levers and projecting voices and hiding behind a curtain pretending to be a great wizard and helping the students in my state but really sending us all on wild goose chases trying to prove our worth, just as Dorothy and her friends were sent to fetch a broomstick.

Maybe you don’t see why this seemingly innocuous, supposedly inspiring passage about courage would set me off. Those of you that know me or have read this blog before will know it’s because I feel there is a different intent behind Dr. Bennett’s words. I feel that while putting in, once again, a “small” dig at the “inadequacy” of the state’s teachers, he’s trying to rally people around the implementation of proposed house and senate bills that he’s pretending will be the solutions to what he says are Indiana’s educational woes. He’s pulling levers and using his microphone diligently and furiously trying to influence public opinion to get his “reform” legislation passed. He’s trying very hard to control to obfuscate the public with erroneous propaganda, just like the Wizard in the beloved movie was trying to do to Dorothy and her friends to hide the fact that he didn’t really have the answers.

In so many words on the IDOE post, Dr. Bennett is citing that teacher resistance to his reforms are due not just to our lack of brains and heart, but also to cowardice. We educators are afraid of change. We’re cowardly. First, No heart, No brains, and NOW- No courage. Wow. That feels like quite a slam to me. Like a pelting of apples raining down on me and my colleagues.

If you follow Dr. Bennett and Mr. Daniels agendas, just like their compatriots in other states across the country, you might see that they have either insinuated or downright stated that many of us working in the PUBLIC schools are rotten- apples and incompetent. Never mind that his very own chart lists the top 10 schools in Indiana as “ISTA” schools and of the bottom 10, only ONE is.

Bennett and Daniel’s plans to remedy the supposedly dire situation is by weeding educators out- using take-over tactics with no respect to the staff or the real issues behind any failures of schools. What they really want is control so that they can more easily balance the state budget. They want to do this with no respect to the effects it will have on Indiana’s students. Under the guise of “putting students first” they plan to unleash more charter schools and implement a merit pay system with merit being based on the evaluation rubric http://www.doe.in.gov/puttingstudentsfirst/ (or one similar) that I went to look up, ignoring all unbiased research on the connection between teacher experience and education on student achievement. They plan to reduce collective bargaining rights to such innocuousness that they might as well not even exist even while the top ten schools in the state ARE what they term ISTA (Indiana State Teacher Association) schools. They to use PUBLIC education dollars for Vouchers for private interests, never-mind that this sucks away precious resources from PUBLIC schools who accept EVERYONE as surely as a tornado sucks objects up into it’s funnel.

But before you believe their pontifications, please listen to this man - Tony Lux, Superintendent of Merrillville Community School Corporation. In a guest editorial at nwitimes.com, he is standing up and calling the Governor and Tony Bennett- “Snake Oil Salesmen.” For the full text with real facts about the state’s agenda that they are trying to push through with legislation, please go to http://www.nwitimes.com/news/opinion/guest-commentary/article_7e1f20dd-08c6-5755-bb8e-fb030bea8b2b.html?mode=storyHere is a quote from his commentary: “Snake oil salesmen, like the Wizard of Oz in the Emerald City, don't want anyone looking behind the curtain to see their illusion. They also want to be out of town before the pubic realizes the illusion.”

Hmm. See how the theme of the Wizard of Oz is coming through here? And if you still don’t see it, let’s look behind that curtain a little bit. Here is a comment that was left on Mr. Lux’s commentary by a poster named Rat Region 11: said on: February 1, 2011, 6:38 am
“Heres a little data for everyone that was provided by the IDOE.
ISTEP
Per the IDOE data, 331 school corporations are listed as taking the ISTEP last year. Of the 331, 284 are Traditional Public schools and 45 are Charter Schools, 2 are State Run Schools.
Schools Scoring Greater Than or Equal to 70% Pass Rate
Charter Schools: 5 or 11.1% of total
Traditional Public: 138 or 48.6% of total
Schools Scoring 69% to 51% Pass Rate
Charter Schools: 15 or 33.3% of total
Traditional Public: 139 or 48.9% of total
Schools Scoring Less Than 50% Pass Rate
Charter Schools: 25 or 55.6% of total
Traditional Public: 7 or 2.5% of total
The numbers don’t lie. 97.5% of all Traditional Public School Corporations are scoring above a 50% Pass Rate compared to 44.4% of Charter Schools. If we need more Charter Schools to boost our scores and the education of our children shouldn’t these numbers be reversed.

End of Course Assessments

Algebra
Per the IDOE data, 1011 schools took the ECA for Algebra 1. Of the 1011, 981 were Traditional Public Schools and 30 were Charter Schools
The State Average for the ECA for Algebra 1 was 61%

Schools Scoring Greater Than or Equal to 60%
Charter Schools: 5 or 16.7% of total
Traditional Public: 602 or 61.4% of total

Schools Scoring Less Than 60% Pass Rate
Charter Schools: 19 or 63.3% of total
Traditional Public: 363 or 37.0% of total

Schools With No Scoring Due to Not Meeting Minimum Number of Participation
Charter Schools: 6 or 20.0% of total
Traditional Public: 16 or 1.6% of total

By this data for Algebra 1, you can see that the Charter Schools have in essence actually brought down the State average for the ECA in Algebra 1. I also looked at those schools scoring greater than or equal to 90% since the state likes to through that number around. Here are the results:

Schools Scoring Greater Than or Equal to 90%
Charter Schools: 1 or 3.3% of total
Traditional Public: 252 or 25.7% of total

Looks like yet again the numbers show that our Indiana Traditional Public schools, as a whole, are far out-performing our Charter School counterparts.”

Hmm. Isn’t this a horse of a different color than what Mr. Bennett and Mr. Daniels seem to be riding? Hmm. Do I see someone pulling back the curtains and opening the door to a more beautiful and multi-colored educational world?

Some other entities who are daring to look behind the curtain are the Indiana State Teacher’s Association http://www.ista-in.org/dynamic.aspx?id=304 and the Save Our Schools march and National Call to Action group at http://www.saveourschoolsmarch.org. Please join up with them and fight against the impending “reforms” if you want to follow a yellow-brick road a happy ending.

As you probably know, when the Wizard in the movie is revealed to be just a man and Dorothy chastises for being a very bad man. He corrects her and says “no, I’m a very good man, just a very bad wizard.”

Oh, if only real life were more like the movies! Then I’d truly be able to say “There is no place like home.” I might even click my heels together!

A Sunday in the Life of a Teacher

Let me tell you about my day. It's a Sunday. First I got up and answered WORK emails. Then I got dressed and I went to church to see my grandson "star" as a shepherd in the postponed Christmas pageant (The church had a fire over Christmas time.) Then I took my mother, my daughter in law, and my grandson out to lunch. (My son was ill with the flu.) While at lunch, I watch "our" five year old practice letters on the placemat. I worried (as I always worry now) that his knowing all his ABC's and being able to count to 25 and write his first name just won't be enough when he enters Kindergarten this Fall. He's right on target (perhaps even a shade advanced) developmentally, but you know- these days in Kindergarten "we" don't hold much truck with developmental appropriateness. That's not enough. That won't keep us up with Korea or China.

After we left the restaurant, I went to a local store to pick up some yarn, 4 packages of noodles and some masking tape. I paid with my own money, even while these supplies were not for me. When I came home, I mixed several concoctions of isopropyl alcohol and food coloring in large cups and then put the noodles in the cups to dye the noodles. I now have 4 freezer bags full of yellow, blue, green, and red noodles. I also have yellow, blue, green, and orange stained fingers now. These noodles will be used to string "Nine Noodle Necklaces" in honor of "N" week in a pre-school that I'm working in.

Between batches of noodles, I taped masking tape onto the ends of 25 yarn pieces I had cut so that little fingers could "thread" the noodles to make their necklaces. I also reviewed the story "Too Much Noise" by Ann McGovern. I've chosen that book to do on "N" week because obviously Noise starts with the letter "N" but also because it has great participatory opportunities and because it has some repetitive phrasing. This is important because the reason I'm working in this pre-school in the first place is because I'm teaching a little 4 year old to use an eye gaze communication system as well as voice out-put switches. I need the repetive phrases to allow her a way to take part. I'm trying to get her ready for Kindergarten. Keeping her communicating and involved and included with the "typical" peers in the classroom will make or break her future. I take my work with her (and the other students I case-manage) very seriously. I'm teaching her and I'm teaching her peers and I'm teaching her teachers. And just as I fear with my grandson, I fear what I'm doing no matter how far "we" get will not be enough.

Next up in my "leisurely" Sunday, I answered some more WORK emails while I was watching "Men in Black" re-run on TV. I also worked a bit on making some contacts with fellow bloggers regarding education issues currently at hand in our country.

Following the defeat of the evil aliens by Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones, I then entered information into our state's IEP program in preparation for a conference tomorrow afternoon. I did some student updates while I was logged in.

At 5:30 I stopped for a dinner break. (In case you are interested, I had a whole wheat tortilla filled with avocado, onion, and lettuce.) Following dinner I did an hour's worth of exercising on the wii fit system that my family gave me for Christmas. (If you are interested, I am a "fantastic runner" and a "little unbalanced." But, I do have a perfect bmi.)

After this, I worked on a report for a student that I evaluated.

Now, I'm done for the day. And I decided to post this blog. And the REASON I bored you all with the accounting of my day is to illustrate why I'm angry. Why I'm frustrated. And also why I'm incensed on this quiet Sunday.

I'm angry, frustrated and incensed at how very little respect my profession is being given by the "powers that be" these days. I've worked over 50% of my day (on my day off) as I often do, and yet "they" not only take this all for granted, "they" throw a veil of disdain right over the top of it. Never mind research. Nevermind the protests of education heavyweights such as Diane Ravitch. Nevermind that none of the "reforms" they are suggesting have ever worked before in any scalable way. Nevermind all that! "THEY" know best.

"They" know that charters and vouchers will solve the issue of "failing" schools. "They" know that firing teachers and school staff will get rid of the "losers." "They" know that following a business model of competition will bolster the strength of our schools. "They" know that merit pay based on growth models and test scores will get better teachers in the field and retain them.
I'd say "they" know all this. I'd go so far to say that "they" know it in their hearts, except for at this point I do not believe they have any hearts. Or brains for that matter.

I'm sorry for my attitude, but it's how I feel. I feel that Arne Duncan and Barak Obama are letting our children down and actually using them to bond bi-partisanly with business interests. I feel that my Governor and his Superintendent of Public Instruction are trying to destroy my state's educational system. I feel like nothing I say or any of my colleagues say matters one whit to them. I feel like even my Union is not standing up strongly enough against all this. I'm feeling more than I ever have in my entire life, the urge to retire.

It makes me sad, because I've loved this field and this career. I love children. But I am starting to feel like I won't be able to make a living at it anymore and moreover I'm starting to feel like with all the "hoops" of alleged accountability taking up my time, that not only am I always working on Sundays (and Saturdays) to keep up, that I'm beating my head against the wall. I'm starting to wonder how on earth anyone with a family still at home (My children are grown up) can possibly even get their work done without it all spilling into family time. I'm starting to believe that "they" don't care about any families or any children at all.

I feel sometimes on these lonely Sundays that I walk all alone.

I'm starting to wonder if there's any hope at all for our nation's education system. And thankfully, I do see a glimmer of hope on the horizon. I'd like to tell you about it. It's a grassroots uprising of sorts. It's called "Save Our Schools" and it's organizing what is being called the "Save our Schools march and National Call to Action." I encourage you to go to the website www.saveourschoolsmarch.org and read about it and volunteer your own blood, sweat, tears, time, and even money towards this cause of saving our PUBLIC schools. There are some wonderful and heavy-hitting people there helping and hoping to lead the way out of this terrible quagmire that I feel we are in. They are organizing a march in Washington D.C. this coming July 30th.

And so on this lonely, working Sunday I'm thinking "maybe there is hope? Maybe all together we can walk to make a difference!" Please join with us!

Again the website is - www.saveourschoolsmarch.org

I AM NOT A STEPFORD TEACHER!

This is a letter to the editor of the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette. I just finished penning it and submitting it. I'm well aware that it will be considered too long for publication but what I'm hoping is that at the very least it will provide the editor with another side of the story and will perhaps cause him or her to seek out other opinions from other teachers. I really felt that the Journal Gazette article almost inferred that by the end of our State Superintendent of Public Instruction, Bennett's talk and the discussion at Waynedale Elementary School in Fort Wayne that he'd pacified us all into being "Stepford Teachers." I just wanted to say "NOT SO!"

First, this is the article: http://www.journalgazette.net/article/20101118/LOCAL04/311189984

Here is my letter:
Dear Editor,
I would like to thank the Journal Gazette for covering State Superintendent Tony Bennett’s visit to Waynedale Elementary School. I appreciated that the article indicated that the “air” was tense and that the teachers present were leery of Dr. Bennett and his initiatives. However, I was dismayed to see that the close of the article seemed to infer that the teachers who were present were pacified after listening to Dr. Bennett. There was even a quote from a woman who stated she didn’t believe Dr. Bennett was “the bogeyman” anymore.

I can assure you that none of the other five teachers who were with me were, or are, pacified. I can assure you that all of us remain committed to opposing Dr. Bennett’s plan to sanction more charter schools, his plan to have teacher salaries based on a merit system, and for that merit system to be based primarily on student evaluations. We oppose Mitch Daniel’s plans to do away with collective bargaining and seniority rights. I do not believe that we were (or are) in the minority of those teachers who attended the Waynedale talk or in the minority amongst our colleagues who were not in attendance.

To start, we oppose charter schools because only 1 in 5 in the nation has been proven to be effective and those that are effective have had huge infusions of private capital and support, they usually only have to serve a “motivated” constituency, and they have not had to “play” by the same rules as “regular” public schools. But most importantly, we oppose them because they siphon off money from an increasingly limited pool of funds for the public schools leaving schools that are already in trouble in more of a lurch.

In a study of successful charter schools, the things that have been identified as making them successful were parent participation/interest, adequate resources, the number of motivated students enrolled, TIME in school for students and collaborative educational teams that have TIME to collaborate. All these things could already happen and often do already happen in the public schools with the teachers we have, if our educational leadership and our legislature would provide for those things to happen.

Substantiating my belief that I am not alone amongst my colleagues in my opinions on this is that a woman at Wednesday’s event got the ONLY spontaneous and resounding applause of the day for challenging Dr. Bennett about his interest in charter schools.

Secondly, we oppose merit pay. We oppose this because despite what Dr. Bennett presented on Wednesday, he still could not indicate any real definitive and fair plans to administrate such a system. He indicated that it hadn’t all been worked out and that much of it would be up to local control (except for the achievement pay factor ) and we wonder how subjective that’s going to be without the teachers having any input into the evaluation system.

Dr. Bennett spoke a good deal about how the growth model evaluations would make this type of teacher evaluation fair, yet he still has no plan in place for how he would evaluate special class (art, music, p.e. etc.) teachers or K-2 teachers (whose students are not tested) or special education teachers. When asked about special education teachers, Dr. Bennett again pointed to the growth model and he thought that these could show progress fairly and be a fair representation of a special education teacher’s effectiveness. All this, while the Economic Policy Institute (orginated by 7 prominent professional educators and associations) has issued a policy statement and petition to OPPOSE heavy reliance on test scores for teacher evaluation. The petition specifically cites that there are specific dangers in using value added or growth models to evaluate teachers.

We oppose our evaluations being based on student achievement because it would cause teacher’s rankings to be based on the particular population of students in their classrooms. What teacher is going to want to have student’s with special needs or behavioral problems or even special circumstances (such as a family going through a divorce or a death) in his or her classroom? Can we expect those children to make the predicted growth or even comparative growth against their cohorts?

We oppose eliminating collective bargaining rights and seniority based pay systems. There is much information to be found about these subjects in the media, however I will cite a Washington Post Answer sheet indicating that 9 of the 10 of the highest achieving states for highest average student rankings on the NAEP are Unionized states. Perhaps that’s a coincidence but I don’t believe so. As for a continual claim that union- backed tenure prevents bad teachers from being fired, I will answer that tenure is ONLY a guarantee of due process awarded to teachers after an initial period of employment and all it really means is that teachers cannot be fired for arbitrary reasons. A school can get rid of ANY teacher it wants to at ANY point IF they follow due process procedures.

Speaking to Dr. Bennett’s promotion of the Growth model we cite an article by Kevin Welner, (Associate Professor of education policy and director of the Education and Public Interest Center at the University of Colorado) for the American Association of School Administrators entitled “The Overselling of Growth Modeling.” In it he lists 5 limitations to growth models especially when they are used for cohort comparisons such as Dr. Bennett’s presentation indicated that Indiana’s growth model system of evaluation would do. The five limitations cited are 1. If used for cohort-comparisons, they cannot provide a true measure of individual growth. 2. Growth expectations can be just as unrealistic as the current AYP expectations. 3. Mobility of students, multiple teachers per student each year and untested subjects all introduce further confusion into the model, and there is no perfect way to adjust. 4. Any growth must be based on assumptions about the ongoing effects of a given teacher in subsequent years and about the ability of a prior year’s score to fully adjust for student, family and community resources as well as school and classroom resources. (Simply put- this is saying that you can’t determine what the outside factors or reason might be for a student’s growth or achievement or lack there-of.) 5. The switch from a proficiency-threshold system to a growth model would not address core concerns about test-based accountability, such as narrowed curriculum, teaching to the test, measurement error and reliance on one type of assessment rather than multiple factors.

To sum up, while the growth model might be better than the current AYP system of judging schools and or educators, we simply do not feel that this will be the panacea that Dr. Bennett is suggesting it will be and we certainly do not agree with him that it should have any place in the evaluation of teachers and or principals.

Dr. Bennett encouraged those of us who questioned and challenged him that instead of fighting him we should instead join with him in improving the educational system in Indiana. He indicated that if we had better ideas or plans, should have (or should) let him know of them. My answer to that is “That’s a nice sentiment, Mr. Bennett, but it’s a little late in coming especially after you shut the ISTA out of any opportunity for meaningful input into your plans when you submitted your unsuccessful Race to the Top plans and there is no confidence on my part, based on your past performance, that my opinions or those of my colleagues would have any impact on your agendas.”

At the beginning of Dr. Bennett’s talk on Wednesday he posed the question to us “Why would I want to destroy the public schools as so many of you think I do?” He said he was a father of kids who went to public schools and he indicated he would not want to leave that kind of legacy behind him. There was a ready answer in my head as to why Dr. Bennett might want to destroy public schools and that is that he would do it for political gain, his own and for Mitch Daniel’s.

Sincerely,

Cindi Pastore

Note: I am a special education teacher for the Adams Wells Specials Services Cooperative of Adams and Wells Counties.
(Also incidentally, while I did not include this in my already lengthy letter, I was sitting in the front row and I could swear that I heard Dr. Bennett to say “Many of you have came today…” rather than the correct “Many of you came…” or “Many of you have come..” That may sound trivial but wow, he’s our state superintendent of schools. Perhaps I heard wrong but if you would happen to have a recording of the event, I’d sure like to listen for that. )

Perhaps i should have added- "I AM NOT A STEPFORD TEACHER!"

Educational Steamrolling

I've been a little silent on this blog once again. Many people I've run into (people I didn't even know read this blog) have asked me why?- Why I got quiet right before the mid-term election and after the election? Why I wasn't screaming my little head off about it all?

And the only thing I can really chalk it up to is depression over being steamrolled. Really, it's hard for even a hugely opinionated person such as myself to stand up and say "PLEASE PLEASE LISTEN!" when the powers that be (aka the enemy) seem to have fixed all the races to go their way.

Sadly I just get to the point where I say to myself "What's the point of making any noise, NO ONE with any of the power listens or even cares to listen and the voting public just does NOT seem to "get it" no matter what research is shown them or what logic is put before them? What good does all my yelling do when all I'm doing is preaching to the choir?"

Adding to my depression following the elections, the other day I saw in my local newspaper that Tony Bennett (my state's Superintendent of Public Instruction) has been honored by the Indiana Chamber of Commerce as Government Leader of the Year.

And to make it worse than that, the article stated it was because he was saving the state money. He wins an award, not because his educational leadership and policies have any legitimate research behind them, or because they have been proven to be effective solutions or reform; but because he's helping to keep costs down in Indiana.

And I respectfully say that THIS is NOT his job. His job is to lead Indiana Schools, not to save the taxpayers money. And while it's wonderful if those two things can go hand in hand, but I have to tell you that none of the legitimate research I read indicate that the things he has in mind have any validity in improving schools.

What his policies seem to be about to me is saving the governor a buck and destroying the ISTA. You'll have to forgive me if I won't be sending him a note of congratulations. Closer to the truth is that I'd like to wring his neck. (But rest assured, I'm not a violent person.) But that aside, it's just another example to me of how the public schools are being steamrolled in this state.

So today when I was at church, someone again approached me and asked me why exactly I hadn't been more vocal to the local press preceeding the election while complimenting me on the one letter to the editor I wrote. And my answer to her was "I'm depressed. I'm too depressed to speak right now."

Then I came home and while sitting in front of my TV watching my beloved Colts, I noticed a tweet from "truthout" titled "Deligitimizing Public Education." When I clicked on the link it was an op-ed piece from the Washington Post. I'm going to copy/paste it in for you here. It expresses EXACTLY how I feel about what's happening nationally and in my state with public education. It will tell you why I'm so depressed. It enumerates the steamrolling that's been done to public education.

Education
Thursday 11 November 2010

by: Marion Brady | The Washington Post | Op-Ed

The quality of American education is going to get worse. Count on it. And contrary to the conventional wisdom, the main reason isn’t going to be the loss of funding accompanying economic hard times.
Follow along and I’ll explain:

Step One: Start with what was once a relatively simple educational system. (For me, it was a one-room school with 16 or so kids ranging in age from about 6 to 15, and a teacher who, it was taken for granted by the community, was a professional who knew what she was doing.)

Step Two: Close the school, build a big one, buy school buses, open a district office, and hire administrators to tell teachers what they can and can’t do.

Step Three: When problems with the new, more complicated system develop, expand the administrative pyramid, with each successive layer of authority knowing less about educating than the layer below it.

Step Four: As problems escalate, expand the bureaucracy, moving decision-making ever higher up the pyramid until state and then federal politicians make all the important calls.

Step Five: Give corporate America - the Gates, Broads, Waltons, etc. - control of the politicians who control the bureaucracy that controls the administrators who control the teachers.

Step Six: Pay no attention as the rich who, enamored of market forces, in love with the idea of privatizing schools, and attracted by the half-trillion dollars a year America spends on education, use the media to destroy confidence in public education.

Step Seven: As a confidence-destroying strategy, zero in on teachers. Say that they hate change and played a major role in the de-industrialization of America and the decline of the American Empire.

Step Eight: As the de-professionalization of teaching and the down-grading of teachers progress, point to the resultant poor school performance as proof of the need for centralized control of education. So, what’s next?

I don’t have a clue. But if I were forced to guess, I’d say that what’s next is whatever the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the Business Roundtable - eyes fixed no farther than the next quarter’s profit - want to be next. They’ve been wildly successful thus far.

It’s possible, of course, that education policy next year will be just another excuse for partisan warfare, with little or no change in the status quo. Or it may be that some small congressional caucus will stick a wrench so firmly in the legislative gears that the simplistic, reactionary education "reform" machine built by corporate America, sold to Congress, and showcased by non-educator-educators like Joel Klein and Michelle Rhee, will simply grind to a halt.

What particularly grieves me is that, whatever happens, it won’t be a consequence of any real understanding of education. Neither will it cause the education establishment itself to take seriously what Erica Goldson said in her June valedictory speech at Coxsackie-Athens High School in New York:

"We are so focused on a goal, whether it be passing a test, or graduating as first in the class. However, in this way, we do not really learn. We do whatever it takes to achieve our original objective.

"Some of you may be thinking, "Well, if you pass a test, or become valedictorian, didn't you learn something? Well, yes, you learned something, but not all that you could have. Perhaps, you only learned how to memorize names, places, and dates to later on forget in order to clear your mind for the next test. School is not all that it can be. Right now, it is a place for most people to determine that their goal is to get out as soon as possible.

"I am now accomplishing that goal. I am graduating. I should look at this as a positive experience, especially being at the top of my class. However, in retrospect, I cannot say that I am any more intelligent than my peers. I can attest that I am only the best at doing what I am told and working the system."

And whatever happens next won’t support and encourage educators to get a spine. They need to scream bloody murder at stupid policy, reject inappropriate use of market forces, point out mainstream media educational naiveté, and demand that policymakers listen before serving up dysfunctional programs like No Child Left Behind and Race to the Top.

And when they do so and are dismissed as self-serving whiners who don’t want to be held accountable, they should take to the streets in protest.

(All republished content that appears on Truthout has been obtained by permission or license.)

Now the author of the piece indicates that we educators ought to be standing up and "screaming bloody murder." And I'm thinking "Yes you're RIGHT, I need to fire up the "pen" again and start screaming again. We all need to come out of our educational funk and SPEAK UP!

A commentor on the Washington Post piece said that rather than "scream" that we educators needed to stand up and present "a better way." And all due respect to that person but I just want to say "Really? REALLY? You think that no one has? REALLY? Because it seems to me like Diane Ravitch has, a great many of our teacher leaders already have and our Unions already have and yet we are not listened to and we are continually STEAMROLLED over. So GIVE ME A BREAK!"

So where am I going to go from here? Am I going to spring up (cartoon-like) from my steamrolled flattened state and pop back into shape again? Start screaming again?

Well, here I am posting again. That's my start. What will you do?

Waiting for Clark Kent

Public Education Matters
Waiting for Clark Kent

(Disclaimer: I still have not seen the documentary “Waiting for Superman” so I don’t really even know what the analogy of the title specifically refers to. Until I have the opportunity to view it, I am only guessing at the analogy when I write this reaction to the hype that I’m hearing about it.)

When I was very young, my heart and sympathies when watching the Superman TV show were always- not with Superman or the troubled endangered citizenry, but with Clark Kent. Even while I didn’t miss that Superman and Clark Kent were the same “person” I really did view them as two distinct beings in some ways. And I felt sorry for Clark because he never got any credit for anything really. And there he was plugging along in anonymity always for purposes of good, of right, and for the American way. And no one seemed to care. Lois and all the rest just fell all over Superman.

To understand my sympathy for the “underdog” here, you would need to understand my upbringing. I was brought up in a family where hard work, integrity, commitment, steadfastness, humbleness, and modesty were valued above almost all things. I was not brought up to worship flash and glamour and wealth and fame. I also was not of the Gordon Gecko generation with the motto is “Greed is good.”

So I felt sorry for old modest Clark. As I feel sorry now for the teachers in our country. We do not get any credit for anything. We are demonized and vilified and disparaged by practically everyone. Recently, my understanding is that we have been portrayed as almost the epitome of evil in the Documentary “Waiting for Superman.”

I want to go on record here as saying that I don’t think every single person in my field is good at what they do. I don’t think that all of my colleagues are worthy of saving. However that doesn’t mean I believe the institution of PUBLIC education isn’t worth saving. That also doesn’t mean that I believe that teachers unions, collective bargaining, and tenure are not of paramount importance in preserving public education. I think actually that the institution and the unions and the rights they have fought for ARE the Clark Kents of education.

I feel strongly that weak or downright poor administration and nothing else is directly responsible for any “bad” teachers being in my field. I believe that without union protection we would have even lower pay and benefits and that will eventually cause our field to be populated only by those who can afford to do charity work or have agendas. I think that would be a very dangerous road to go down. I think that this would cause the field to be less about the public interest and the education of children and more about the private and moneyed interests. I believe it will fail to attract the best and the brightest for more than a few years of servitudeand that the constant rollover in personnel would seriously be a detriment to the education of children. There would be so little continuity and consistency in programing.

I believe that without our Clark Kents, that our Supermen who come in and save the day will cease to exist as well. And evil will prevail and the American way will not.

I listened in on NBC’s Education Nation today as they discussed all the criticisms of public education leveled at us by the documentary. (I do want to note that I was unable to hear the first part so I’m only responding to the part that I heard.) I was so dismayed to hear some of my younger colleagues (some in charter schools) express the view that they don’t need tenure and that unions only get in the way of reform. In a word, I feel these people are extremely naïve to the world as it is and to the powers that be. They have no idea of the actual evil that is actually out there if there aren’t checks and balances.

These teachers may right now be working in utopian situations with wonderful administrators and unfailing support, however, they are turning a very blind eye to the realities of our nation’s history, the history of our field, and the realities of politics and the realities of our economy. I’m sure they are well meaning, however, I can only hope that they do not learn their lessons on these realities the hard way. In the meantime, I’d personally appreciate it if they were not stepping up to claim the superhero status for themselves. In doing so, they actually become part of the problem and not part of the solution.

I’m really not much changed from that little girl watching the campy TV show on the 10 inch black and white TV so long ago. I still much more appreciate the unsung Clarks of the world over the super-flashy Supermen who come flying in to take the glory for supposedly saving the day. I think if the Clarks had more power and more appreciation in this world that there would be a whole lot less evil to fight off in the first place. But I guess that wouldn’t make for good TV or an award winning documentary.