Many teachers face a retirement savings penalty when leaving the profession - The Washington Post

Many teachers face a retirement savings penalty when leaving the profession - The Washington Post:

Many teachers face a retirement savings penalty when leaving the profession

By Andrew J. Rotherham and Chad Aldeman, Published: May 16

Andrew J. Rotherham is a co-founder and partner at Bellwether Education, a nonprofit working with education organizations. Chad Aldeman is an associate partner at Bellwether and editor of teacherpensions.org.

Americans are struggling to save for retirement at a time of still-high unemployment rates, rising college costs and stagnant wages. For many workers, individual circumstances lead to inadequate savings. But for public school teachers, poorly structured retirement policieshinder their future security.

At more than 3 million, teachers are the largest class of U.S. workers with a bachelor’s degree or higher. Unfortunately, policymakers are undermining the future retirement security of this large and important group of workers. In our recent paper, “Friends Without Benefits: How States Systematically Shortchange Teachers’ Retirement and Threaten Their Retirement Security,” we used pension-plan assumptions for all 50 states and the District of Columbia to estimate that, in the median state, more than half of all teachers won’t qualify for even a minimal pension. Fewer than one in five teachers will work a full career and reach the pension plan’s “normal retirement age.” Most will leave their public service with little retirement savings.

This story doesn’t fit with the popular perception of teacher pensions as more generous than private-sector retirement benefits. That’s because the real story of teacher pensions today involves a small number of relatively big winners and a much larger group of losers.

For instance, in Maryland if you teach for a full career you can expect to earn a pension worth about $3,297 a month, nearly $40,000 a year, plus adjustments for cost of living. But only a quarter of Maryland’s teachers will stay a full career and earn that benefit. According to Maryland’s estimates, 57 percent will leave without a pension Many teachers face a retirement savings penalty when leaving the profession - The Washington Post:

Mending School | Taking Note

Mending School | Taking Note:

Mending School

by JOHN MERROW on 19. MAY, 2014 in 2014 BLOGS

When do complaints about ‘too much’ standardized bubble testing become strong enough to bring about change?  Now that some students are spending more than 10% of their school ‘instructional’ time on test-prep and testing, have we reached the tipping point?  Now that some students are reported to be taking 20 different bubble tests during a school year, are we there?  With some students taking bubble tests in art, music and physical education, have we gone over the cliff?

Our kids are already the most tested in the world, and now the Common Core tests are on the doorstep. Is anyone in power demanding that schools swap out tests–eliminate one for every one they add?  Or eliminate two when adding one?  Or sampling a la NAEP?  Those voices are out there, but they are hard-to-hear and hardly heard.

Robert Frost is one of my favorite poets, and his “Mending Wall” inspired this effort, which I call “Mending School.”

Something there is that doesn’t love more bubble tests
And students bubbling and learning how to bubble
When they might be making robots or reading Frost.
They take test upon test in arid classrooms,
Mixing memory and guesswork, stirring
Dull anger and gnawing fear of failure.
The work of test-makers is another thing:
Teachers come after them and make repair
Where they have ground down creativity.
I let my neighbor know beyond the hill,
And on a day we meet to walk and talkMending School | Taking Note:

5-19-14 LA School Report - What's Really Going on Inside LAUSD

LA School Report - What's Really Going on Inside LAUSD (Los Angeles Unified School District):

To campaign or not? Tactics vary in LAUSD school board race

Click to view slideshow. Not all of the seven candidates vying for the vacant seat on the Los Angeles Unified school board are turning up the heat as the special election on June 3 heads to the finish line. To reach voters in South LA’s District 1, which as been without a board member since Marguerite LaMotte died in December, four of the candidates report they are campaigning by sending out direc

2 5min 

Johnson wins an eclectic array of support for school board seat

Alex Johnson District 1 School Board Candidate Among the seven candidates running for LA Unified’s District 1 board seat, Alex Johnson, a senior deputy for LA County Supervisor Mark-Ridley Thomas, is one of the most heavily endorsed candidates in the race. His long list of supporters may appear impressive, perhaps due to his boss’ powerful connections. But a closer look reveals that some of his en

by Yana Gracile / 7min 

Analysis: LA Unified still waiting for an opener from UTLA

Conspicuous by their absence from last week’s school board meeting were representatives from UTLA, the teachers union, discussing a new contract. While many of the labor partners who work with LA Unified have begin contract talks or submitted their opening proposals, UTLA has maintained radio silence. At least, that’s how it appears to the public. The only outward suggestions that union officials

2 by Michael Janofsky / 1h 

All-girls school in LAUSD struggling to escape legal limbo

New Village Girls Academy The problem for girls is boys. Several years ago Elizabeth Hicks, a counseling coordinator for LA Unified, had an idea, to open the first all-girls traditional public school in California in more than a decade. It would be a rigorous STEM academy, requiring girls to take science, math and computer classes from sixth grade through high school, and based in one of the distr

2 by Vanessa Romo / 1h 

Another week, another LA Unified school board meeting

It’s hard to believe after last week’s marathon 10-hour session, but LA Unified school board members will be meet again tomorrow with a full agenda. Most of the issues before the board are much less contentious than those addressed a week ago. They include: Board member Bennett Kayser’s effort to form a task force charged with replacing the district’s potentially asthma-triggering cleaning suppli

2 by Vanessa Romo / 12min hide  //  save

Morning Read: Dept of Justice looks at services for ESL learners

Justice Dept. investigating California’s services for English learner students The U.S. Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division is looking into whether California is adequately overseeing the education of 1.4 million students in the state who are still learning English, according to court records. The investigation began after civil rights lawyers filed a lawsuit in April 2013 alleging Californ

2 42min 

5-17-14 This Week in LA - School Report - What's Really Going on Inside LAUSD

LA School Report - What's Really Going on Inside LAUSD (Los Angeles Unified School District):LAUSD school board candidate drops out, replaced by her twinBarbara Torres is sworn into office by Local 99 Treasurer Maggie Johnson Barbara Torres, the president of SEIU 99, one of the most powerful unions in the Los Angeles school district, said today she is stepping aside in the 2015 race for school boa

by mike simpson / 42min 

5-19-14 Wait What?

Wait What?:

Wait What? 

Dannel Malloy and Arne Duncan will hold press event in Hartford Today – May 19, 2014

Governor Dannel “Dan” Malloy, who introduced the most anti-teacher, anti-public education “reform legislation” of any Democratic governor in the nation will join Arne Duncan, the anti-teacher, anti-public education United States Secretary of Education, for a joint appearance in Harford today. The press event will feature Governor Malloy and United States Secretary of Education Duncan, along […] Th

12 by jonpelto / 1h 

5-18-14 Wait What?

Wait What?:   Wait What? Wendy Lecker and Diane Ravitch on the 60th Anniversary of Brown v. Board of EducationDiane Ravitch, the nation’s leading voice for public education explains, As segregation grows worse than it has been for decades, the problems are worsened by current “reforms.” School privatization intensifies segregation, high-stakes testing creates cause for closing struggling schools i

by mike simpson / 1h

No ESEA Waiver for Wyoming Until They Toe Federal Line | Truth in American Education

No ESEA Waiver for Wyoming Until They Toe Federal Line | Truth in American Education:

No ESEA Waiver for Wyoming Until They Toe Federal Line

Filed in Common Core Assessments, Education at State Level by Shane Vander Hart on May 19, 2014 • 0 Comments

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By Shane Vander Hart

The Casper Star Tribune released a document they received indicating that Wyoming would not receive an ESEA waiver.  In a memo from the Wyoming Department of Education that was sent to local school administration they outline several of the reasons:

Several challenges prevent Wyoming’s waiver approval. One is the state’s inability to develop a method to calculate graduation rates consistent with the Wyoming Accountability in Education Act but also conforming to federal requirements. According to the Governor’s education policy advisor: “[A]bsolutely no change to the Wyoming accountability model may be undertaken in order to satisfy the feds in exchange for a (sic) NCLB waiver.”

Another significant challenge is that state statutes do not allow for the administration of a uniform assessment tool such as those being developed by SBAC and PARCC as those tools 

No ESEA Waiver for Wyoming Until They Toe Federal Line | Truth in American Education:

It's Time for a New Accountability in American Education | Randi Weingarten

It's Time for a New Accountability in American Education | Randi Weingarten:

It's Time for a New Accountability in American Education

Voices across the country are raising concerns about the new Common Core State Standards. But if you listen carefully to the conversations, the main concern is not about the standards, themselves, but about the consequences of high-stakes tests attached to the standards. And those concerns are well-placed: Trying to implement ambitious goals for deeper learning through an outmoded testing model tied to a long list of punishments for children, educators, and schools is like pouring new wine into old bottles. It will certainly turn sour. The promise of these new standards -- and excellent education for all of America's children -- cannot succeed under the old accountability system because:

• An end-of-year sit-down test cannot capture the broader aspirations embedded in the new standards for problem solving, inquiry, team building, communication, collaboration, persistence, and other challenging skills. The No Child Left Behind (NCLB) approach -- which focuses only on English language arts and mathematics scores on primarily multiple-choice tests -- has been shown to narrow curriculum to what is tested and to reduce opportunities for higher-order thinking.
• Implementing the standards well will not be accomplished by targets and sanctions. It will require more adequate and equitable resources and greater investments in professional capacity, especially for currently underfunded schools that serve the highest-need students.
• Raising standards in ways that punish children and educators for not meeting them produces the wrong responses from schools. Evidence shows that, rather than improve learning, sanctions tend to drive out struggling students in order to boost scores, tamp down innovation, hasten the flight of thoughtful educators from the profession, and disrupt learning for students whose local schools are shut down.

If we assume that the goal of accountability should be better education, the test-and-punish approach must be replaced by a support-and-improve model. A It's Time for a New Accountability in American Education | Randi Weingarten:

Segregation Nation: Recap and video from visit to @MSNBC @MHPshow #afamedchat | Cloaking Inequity

Segregation Nation: Recap and video from visit to @MSNBC @MHPshow #afamedchat | Cloaking Inequity:

Segregation Nation: Recap and video from visit to @MSNBC @MHPshow #afamedchat

From MSNBC:

Sixty years after Brown v. Board of Education, segregation remains in some public schools. ProPublica’s Nikole Hannah-Jones, The Advancement Project’s Judith Browne Dianis, Julian Vasquez Helig from the Educational Policy and Planning Program at the University of Texas, The Century Foundation’s Halley Potter and MSNBC.com’s Trymaine Lee join Melissa Harris-Perry to discuss.

The first segment of the show What’s causing racial segregation in schools? was based ProPublica’s Nikole Hannah-Jones piece on the purposeful and recent resegregation of Tuscaloosa’s schools from the view of city residents. You can read the entire ProPublica article here.

Click on the photo below for the first segment of the show.

My comment in the first segment at about 6:15 was based on our research on triple segregation of immigrant students in Texas that we conducted last year that I discussed in the posts Expansive School Segregation in Texas: Predicts Accountability Rating and Breaking News: School Segregation Study Strikes A Nerve

The second segment on the MHP show was 60 years after Brown v. Board, inequality in America’s birthplace grows.Trymaine Lee wrote:

In the six decades since the Supreme Court found that segregated schools were unconstitutional and 

Segregation Nation: Recap and video from visit to @MSNBC @MHPshow #afamedchat | Cloaking Inequity:

Douglas County principal on leave amid investigation into teacher evaluations - 7NEWS Denver TheDenverChannel.com

Douglas County principal on leave amid investigation into teacher evaluations - 7NEWS Denver TheDenverChannel.com:

Douglas County principal on leave amid investigation into teacher evaluations

Castle Rock, Colo. - 7NEWS has confirmed the principal of Douglas County's Rock Ridge Elementary School has been put on administrative leave.

Multiple sources confirmed Amber Sorg was put on leave Friday afternoon while a group of parents rallied outside the school in support of Sorg and her teachers. The rally coincided with the Douglas County School District's announcement it's reviewing pay for performance ratings at the school.

On Saturday, some parents like Jen Johnson, received an anonymous voicemail that said in part, "What the news failed to report, you may not even know yet, but Amber has been put on administrative leave for insubordination... I would let the news know the rest of the story."

"The voicemail says she's been put on leave because we brought the news [to the school]," Johnson said.

Douglas County School Board President, Kevin Larsen, said on Friday the evaluations did not match up with the final score given to some teachers. He failed to mention, however, the principal was put on leave.

"It's shady, it's shady that he didn't say that. People are shocked, teachers private messaged me, what do you mean, what's going on, are you joking," Johnson said after she posted the news to Facebook.

Larsen said he didn't know how teachers scored but multiple sources told 7NEWS the district is disciplining Sorg for scoring too many teachers too high in their evaluations.

The school district failed to return multiple calls on Saturday. Sorg's district email has been disabled and several concerned parents Douglas County principal on leave amid investigation into teacher evaluations - 7NEWS Denver TheDenverChannel.com:

5-19-14 The Whole Child Blog — Meaningful Professional Learning: One School’s Story + A Matter of Choice

A Matter of Choice — Whole Child Education:

Meaningful Professional Learning: One School’s Story

Post written by Linda Ashida and Kim Miklusak The most important aspect of professional learning is its relevance to the classroom: authentic topics and immediate usefulness to every teacher. The clearest way to make sure this is accomplished is to hand over some of the structure to the teachers themselves who can then learn from each other. At Elk Grove High School in Illinois, professional learn

by ASCD Whole Child ... / 18min 

THE WHOLE CHILD BLOG

A Matter of Choice

May 19, 2014 by Whole Child Symposium

Post written by Walter McKenzie

What if I told you the answer to all that ails public education is choice? Not dollars. Not standardization. Not test scores. Choice. Surprisingly effective in its simplicity.

The current education equation is not simple by any stretch of the imagination and it doesn't reference choice nor children:

• Education is a public enterprise funded by taxpayers.
• Government reports to taxpayers on its performance.
• Elected officials craft policy and practice in the name of accountability.

This equation shows how far we have strayed from public education's original focus: to prepare children to be responsible, contributing citizens to our democracy. Instead of modeling democratic principles, our schools have become authoritarian, prescribing standards and outcomes with one small range of right answers and one summary definition of success. We are literally training our next generation to think and lead by principles that are antithetical to the intellectual, emotional, and social skills and values essential to our democracy. If students do not embrace diversity, equity, and respect for differences, they will not be prepared to meet the challenges of our country's future.

Yet right now, as we observe the 60th anniversary of Brown v. The Board of Education, our schools are becoming resegregated. The haves continue to account for their own, and the have-nots continue to subsist on their own without access to the same resources and opportunities. We are so embedded in the current culture of accountability, we cannot get out of our own way to address the true value proposition of education:

Children receiving equal access to the resources and opportunities that help them realize their full potential and become responsible, contributing citizens to our democratic society: college, career, and citizenship ready.

The current culture of accountability completely politicizes public education. Administrators and teachers work in a climate of fear. Students are under incredible pressure to pass do-or-die assessments. And politicians keep banging the drum. Why wouldn't they? Continually calling for educational outcomes measured by business metrics is cunning. This no-win comparison of apples and oranges creates false expectations that cannot be attained. Calling for education reform because apples don't give us oranges has the feel of a cynical political ploy. As a collective citizenry, we must be smarter than to fall for this. The future apples and oranges our democracy depends on us. Because students who learn in an authoritarian education system become adults who practice authoritarian politics.

At the conclusion of ASCD's Whole Child Symposium Live event, Karen Pittman of the Forum for Youth Investment, Yong Zhao of the University of Oregon, Charles Haynes of the First Amendment Center, David Osher of the Health and Social Development Program at the American Institutes for Research, and ASCD CEO and Executive Director Dr. Gene R. Carter were asked to summarize their discussion on the challenges facing public education. The solution? Instead of holding schools accountable, hold the communities in which they exist accountable. Expect citizens to take responsibility for the performance of their schools at the local level, instead of blaming politicians and bureaucrats. Everyone is pointing fingers and passing the buck, when in reality, government officials have no power except that which we give them. Communities must exercise their will to provide equitable education to all students, and the support to local schools to make it happen. In A Matter of Choice — Whole Child Education:

5-17-14 THE WHOLE WEEK @ The Whole Child Blog — Whole Child Education

The Whole Child Blog — Whole Child Education:THE WHOLE WEEK @ The Whole Child Blog Whole Child Snapshots Provide State and National Pictures of Child Well-BeingTo thrive in today's global society, children need personalized support, safe environments, good health, and challenging learning opportunities. Adequately preparing students for their future requires a more comprehensive approach to educat

by mike simpson / 40min