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?