The Only Teaching Evaluation That Matters | gadflyonthewallblog

The Only Teaching Evaluation That Matters | gadflyonthewallblog:

The Only Teaching Evaluation That Matters

“Yes, my writing got a lot better than what I was, and I love writing now. And you pushed me to do better. Not a lot of teachers push their students, some teachers don’t care about their students.”

One of my 8th graders wrote that to me on the last day of school.

I had asked her class to fill out an anonymous survey about my teaching. I said that all year I get to grade THEM, but this was their chance to grade ME.

I made sure to explain that they didn’t need to put their names on it. This would not be graded. Spelling and grammar didn’t count. The only thing I wanted was honesty.

I told them I wouldn’t personally collect the surveys. They should NOT hand them to me; they should put them in a pile on the desk by the door when they leave. I promised I wouldn’t even look at what they’d written until class was over. That way they could feel free to write whatever they wanted. If I did something bad or there was some way I could improve, I wanted them to tell me. If I did something exceptionally well, they should tell me that, too.

“Please help me become a better teacher,” I said.

As an 8th grade public school educator, I get evaluated a lot. I’ve spent countless The Only Teaching Evaluation That Matters | gadflyonthewallblog:

Civil Rights and Testing: Response to Haycock and Edelman | Deborah Meier on Education

Civil Rights and Testing: Response to Haycock and Edelman | Deborah Meier on Education:

Civil Rights and Testing: Response to Haycock and Edelman

By Marc TuckerJune 10, 2015 11:00 AMFrom EdWeek blog Top Performers

Two weeks ago, I published a blog post suggesting that some leaders of the civil rights community might want to reassess their support for annual testing in the reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. Since then Kati Haycock and Jonah Edelman, two ardent supporters of annual testing, have taken issue with me. In this blog post, I respond to their comments.

Haycock says that she is astonished at my arrogance in attacking the leaders of a civil rights community that is “unified” on this issue and accuses me of “baiting” them. What she does not do is rebut any of the arguments I made or offer any evidence that would call my arguments into question.

The civil rights community is not united on these issues. A recent piece by Judith Browne Dianis, John H. Jackson and Pedro Noguera is titled “DC civil rights organizations fail to represent education civil rights agenda.” In it the authors, all respected figures in the civil rights community, take issue with the civil rights leaders who signed on to annual testing and take positions on the issue very similar to those I have taken. They are not alone. Far from being unified on this issue, the civil rights community is rather divided.

I have great respect for the leaders of the civil rights community. But I often disagree with people I admire and they often disagree with me on particular issues. The charge that I was out to “bait” the leaders is outrageous.

Haycock is certainly entitled to her own views on these issues. But I think she owes her readers more than a personal attack on me as a response to what I have written. She owes it to them to respond to the points I have made with counterarguments of her Civil Rights and Testing: Response to Haycock and Edelman | Deborah Meier on Education:

No Child Left Behind Rewrite To Face Another Showdown in House - Breitbart

No Child Left Behind Rewrite To Face Another Showdown in House - Breitbart:

NO CHILD LEFT BEHIND REWRITE TO FACE ANOTHER SHOWDOWN IN HOUSE

Another fight may be on the horizon in the House of Representatives, as Republican leaders seem poised to again try to replace the controversial No Child Left Behind law with the Student Success Act, a measure that has proven to be just as unpopular with conservatives.

The Hill reports that freshman 

Rep. Ryan Costello (R-PA)

40%

 took to the House floor Wednesday to call for a vote on the bill.

“We need to continue our work on this bill,” Costello said. “We owe it to our colleagues who have worked for months on the bill and underlying policy.”

In his May 29 memo, House Majority Leader 

Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA)

47%

noted H.R. 5 would be considered in June:

Additionally, the House is expected to resume consideration of H.R. 5 the Student Success Act (Kline) in order to restore local control in elementary and secondary education. Our education system is failing too many students who are trying hard to succeed. By reducing the federal role and increasing freedom in education, we can give our children the opportunity they deserve to achieve their dreams.

McCarthy added the timing for consideration of the measure would be relayed as soon as possible.

As Breitbart News reported in late February, GOP leadership pulled the Student Success Act from the House floor after it was determined the legislation lacked sufficient support. Grassroots conservative parent groups seeking to eliminate federal involvement in education voiced concerns that the rewrite still required excessive federal intrusion into the right of states to set their own education policies.

The Washington Examiner reports conservative House members say they will not support the measure without significant changes. GOP leaders, however, have said they have no intentions to make alterations to the bill, but will put it back on the House floor exactly as it was in February.

Republican leaders seem poised to resume attempts to convince the conservative base of their party that the bill will reduce federal involvement in education and return it to the states and localities.

“I think the votes are pretty close,” said Chairman of the House Education and the Workforce Committee 

Rep. John Kline (R-MN)

52%

. “Members have just learned more. They are much better educated.”

But House members who were against it in February say they have not changed their opinion of the bill.

Rep. Justin Amash (R-MI)

95%

’s office tells Breitbart News he has the same concerns now as he did about the bill in February. Four days before the measure was pulled from the House floor, Amash posted the following on his Facebook page:

No Child Left Behind expired on September 30, 2007, yet Congress has continued to fund it year after year. Now, there are people in Congress who want to reauthorize this big-government program.

Instead of doubling down on No Child Left Behind, Congress should stop funding it. The law expired more than seven years ago! We owe it to our children—and we have a constitutional duty as members of Congress—to return education decisions to parents and states.

Though the Student Success Act passed the House in 2013, Amash voted against it, andposted his reasons:

I voted no on H.R. 5, Student Success Act, which reauthorizes the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) and many aspects of the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) through Fiscal Year 2019. Authorization for these programs expired in 2008, so ESEA and NCLB have not been the law for nearly five years.

The Rules of the House prohibit appropriating for purposes not actually authorized by law (like ESEA/NCLB), but a loophole in the Rules for continuing resolutions (CRs)—bills that simply extend current spending levels—have allowed funding for these unauthorized programs to continue (and Congress routinely violates the rule against unauthorized appropriations, anyway). Nonetheless, under current law, these federal education programs have expired, and the federal government has no 

No Child Left Behind Rewrite To Face Another Showdown in House - Breitbart:

Rally supports laid-off teachers at charter school - Redding

Rally supports laid-off teachers at charter school - Redding:

Rally supports laid-off teachers at charter school

REDDING, California - For the second time in five months, the California Teachers Association is fighting layoffs at the Academy of Personalized Learning, a charter school in Redding.

Teachers, parents, students and CTA representatives stood in front of the school on Larkspur Avenue on Friday morning, holding signs like “No More Teacher Cuts” and “Let Our Voice Be Heard.” About 50 people showed up to support the teachers.

Wendy McBroome, president of the Academy of Personalized Learning Educators Association, said four teachers were let go Friday. She was not one of them.

The layoffs come after the school let five teachers go in December.

“We were presented with a school budget last week that shows a fiscal crisis and the need to eliminate four teachers,” said McBroome, who teaches Spanish and independent study. “But yet in the same budget, there’s an increase in every spending category except for teachers.”

Academy of Personalized Learning is a kindergarten through 12th grade charter school sponsored by the Gateway School District.

Both McBroome and Jon Halvorsen, a CTA staff consultant in Redding, are convinced the school’s administration is retaliating against the teachers because they organized in November. McBroome said the union’s vice president, secretary and treasurer were among those who lost their jobs Friday.

The Academy of Personalized Learning Educators Association was formed in November with the help of the CTA. At the school’s Dec. 18 board meeting, the board announced it would eliminate five Rally supports laid-off teachers at charter school - Redding:

Legislature passes standardized testing opt-out bill - East Oregonian

Legislature passes standardized testing opt-out bill - East Oregonian:

Legislature passes standardized testing opt-out bill

A bill heading to Governor Kate Brown's desk would make it easier for parents to opt their students out of state testing.

A bill headed to Governor Kate Brown’s desk could decrease the number of students taking state tests next year.

House Bill 2655 would allow parents to opt their student out of the Smarter Balanced tests for any reason, not just medical or religious ones, and requires school districts to mail the opt-out forms to parents with a notice explaining their ability to exempt their child from the tests.

Sen. Bill Hansell (R-Athena) voted in favor of the bill Thursday. He said he has heard concerns from constituents and lobbyists about the new tests and wanted to support parents’ rights to have a say in their child’s education.

“This will allow parents to make decisions,” he said.

In addition to making it easier to opt out of standardized testing, HB 2655 also keeps the state from penalizing schools that have less than 95 percent of their students participate in the tests.

The Oregonian reported Assistant U.S. Secretary of Education Deborah Delisle emailed Oregon school superintendent Rob Saxton that Oregon schools stood to lose their federal Title I funding if the state violated the part of its No Child Left Behind waiver requiring at least 95 percent of each student group (including racial minorities and special education students) participate in state testing.

Hansell acknowledged that was a “major concern” discussed by the Senate Thursday, but he felt the bill’s sponsors convincingly vetted the concern by arguing that the federal government wouldn’t actually pull that much money from a state’s education system, especially not with the state’s Congressional delegation in Washington, D.C., dedicated to making sure that didn’t happen.

Education is a state responsibility, Hansell said, not a federal one, and the federal government needs to let Oregon make changes to its system if it wants to see better results.

“I don’t want to be held hostage to an education policy because the federal government threatens to withhold some money,” he said. “That doesn’t seem right to me.”

School report card data shows schools where the opt-out rate is the highest are mostly concentrated in the Portland area. Umatilla and Morrow county schools’ participation rates were all over 95 percent in 2013-2014.

Laura Miltenberger, assessment coordinator for Pendleton School District, said 10 students opted out across the entire district this year. She said she didn’t know how the new legislation would affect the district’s rates, but she did know that the district works hard to have plenty of public forums and other opportunities to educate parents about the Smarter Balanced test.

“I think there were some parents who were thinking about opting out but changed their minds after we answered some of their concerns,” she said.

Miltenberger said it helps when parents understand that data from the tests is used to pinpoint where instruction needs to be improved and to measure if changes in curriculum are effective. The larger the sample size, the more accurate the picture.

Pendleton just wrapped up its first year of Smarter Balanced tests, and Miltenberger said most of the students she interviewed said they actually liked the test better than the old Oregon Assessment of Knowledge and Skills.

It was longer, true, but they found the open-ended questions more interesting than filling in bubbles and said they liked the idea that they might get partial credit for an essay question where they didn’t know the exact answer.

“They felt more successful, and more engaged,” she said.

Raymon Smith, superintendent of Echo School District, said his district only had one student not Legislature passes standardized testing opt-out bill - East Oregonian:

Where “All About the Kids” Must Lead | Raginghorseblog

Where “All About the Kids” Must Lead | Raginghorseblog:

Where “All About the Kids” Must Lead

Allow someone who is trying to hurt you to define the argument and you will be hurt. Allow the same to someone who is trying to trap you and you will be trapped.

This unwitting allowance, as much as the limitless funding of billionaires and the spinelessness of the corporate media, has been one of the reasons teachers from coast to coast have been backtracking, guilted into silence and paralyzed by their own rhetoric for years now. We have allowed ourselves to be both hurt and trapped.

I speak specifically of the endlessly repeated and utterly cynical declaration of the reformers, “it’s all about the kids.” I have heard or read this or some variation thereof ad nauseum for years now. I have read versions of it in the names of billionaire backed fronts like Students Matter and StudentsFirst, whose very appellations are themselves accusations against teachers.

I have heard it from ( yet another ) sociopathic principal who announced to the staff that conversation in the school be limited to “what’s good for the kids.” Worst of all, I have heard it from the mouths of teachers even as their students are more degraded by the day and their profession is being stolen from them by the hour by ed reformer mandates. This even as the demands on them grow exponentially; this from those who do not seem to realize that if you allow such words to define your profession, you will very soon be stripped of your professional status.

That process is well under way.

In a world full of weasels, no more-weasel worded trope exists in all of the Kingdom of the Reformers . And none is more effective. It is a rhetorical trick of the “when did you stop beating you’re wife” variety.

Once you are in you cannot get out.

Such declarations are designed to silence teachers by making them feel guilty and selfish anytime their concerns turn to feelings of self worth, of professional value, or concern for their non-Where “All About the Kids” Must Lead | Raginghorseblog:

From University Sit-Ins to Highway Blockades, the Spring Rages On | The Nation

From University Sit-Ins to Highway Blockades, the Spring Rages On | The Nation:

From University Sit-Ins to Highway Blockades, the Spring Rages On

This post is part of The Nation’s biweekly student movement dispatch. As part of the StudentNation blog, each dispatch hosts first-person updates on youth organizing. For recent dispatches, check out May 1 and May 18. Contact studentmovement@thenation.com with tips. Edited by James Cersonsky (@cersonsky).

1. #SayHerName

On May 21, Black Youth Project 100, Black Lives Matter, and Ferguson Action called for a Day of Action to End State Violence Against Black Women and Girls in an effort to complicate male-centered narratives about anti-black violence that often exclude the experiences of black women. In New York City, we called out the names of black women lost to police violence as we marched in funeral procession to City Hall where a budget proposal for 1,000 new cops was being made. Overall, more than 20 cities organized actions to advocate for black women just as we stand for black men. With #SayHerName trending nationally and attention being drawn to thehigh rates of police murder, incarceration, and sexual assault of black women, our generation’s black youth-driven movement made another strong move to bring the needs of the most marginalized of our communities to the center of our work.

—Asha Rosa

2. #BreakTheCurfew

In the Bay, we responded to the Black Youth Project’s call with a day of action: Black womenreclaimed our bodies, agency, and Afrikan tradition in a shutdown of San Francisco’s financial district in the morning; the Anti-Police Terror Project uplifted the name and life of Yuvette Henderson, a mother who was murdered by Emeryville Police on February 3, in the afternoon; and the local BYP chapter facilitated a night march, mostly comprising black women and children, through the streets of Oakland. At the march, we were met with police aggression, as the Oakland Police Department confronted us in full riot gear to enforce a previously unannounced curfew ordered by Mayor Libby Shaaf—and deemed unconstitutional by the National Lawyer’s Guild. Since then, we have taken the streets two more times in defiance of the curfew. In the process, the OPD has targeted protesters, citing 47 and arresting five, some of whom were abiding by police orders. We demand an immediate end to the curfew, the dropping of all charges and fines for #BreakTheCurfew protesters, an abandonment of Mayor Schaaf’s request for more police officers, and an end to FBI surveillance in Oakland. Until our demands are met, we will continue to take the streets that will always be ours.

—Brianna Gibson

3. Whose University?

On May 13, after being constantly rebuffed by the University of California–Santa Barbara administration in trying to set up meetings to discuss current sexual assault policies on campus, 40 students, faculty, and parents staged a sit-in in Chancellor Yang’s office. During the sit-in, students discussed how the current policies were ineffective and discussed ways to address concerns while awaiting the chancellor. After 13.5 hours, he signed all 13 of our demands, including immediate removal of perpetrators from university housing if found guilty through the campus adjudication process and agreement to publish a quarterly report aggregating data of cases reported to the university.

—Lexi Weyrick, Alejandra Melgoza, and Melissa Vasquez

4. Whose Graduation?

On Tuesday, May 19, Emma Sulkowicz and four other students carried her mattress as she walked across the stage at Columbia University’s graduation ceremony. For the past year, Emma’s Carry That Weight project has brought national attention to the epidemic of sexual violence on college campuses, and served as a powerful protest against Columbia’s mishandling of the issue. Despite the university’s pointed efforts to ban “large objects” from the ceremony, Emma’s action was a sobering reminder that Columbia’s response to sexual assault continues to be dangerously inadequate. At various commencement-week ceremonies, members of No Red Tape and the Coalition Against Sexual Violence also handed out strips of red tape for students to place on their caps to show solidarity with survivors of sexual and domestic violence. Activists at Columbia will continue to hold the administration accountable for student safety, protest the ongoing presence of rapists on campus, and work to honor the voices of the survivors so often silenced in favor of the university’s public image.

—Amber Officer-Narvasa

5. In Newark, 2,000 Walk Out

On May 22, the Newark Students Union organized a citywide walkout in protest of Superintendent Cami Anderson’s “turnaround” policy. Under turnaround status, targeted schools lose half their teachers and staff, receive budget cuts for extracurricular programs, and extend their school days. We believe that the implementation of any such process should occur with the consent of the community—and that actions by Anderson, who was appointed by the state, are an attempt to undermine public education and further the neoliberal model of privatization. Outraged by these moves, 2,000 students from more than 10 schools walked out and marched to the steps of City Hall. From there, we took over Newark’s busiest intersection and shut down McCarter Highway.

—Jose Leonardo

6. In Charleston, a Fight for the Public

On Tuesday, May 26, 40 students from Burke High School in Charleston, South Carolina, rallied outside the Charleston County school district office before delivering our thoughts to the CCSD From University Sit-Ins to Highway Blockades, the Spring Rages On | The Nation:

FOM: Post Secondary Ed: The CCSS Trojan | commoncorediva

FOM: Post Secondary Ed: The CCSS Trojan | commoncorediva:

FOM: Post Secondary Ed: The CCSS Trojan

As the push for the re-authorization of the HEA heats up, more evidence has surfaced showing how post-secondary education is an ideal set-up for the CCSS Machine.

Over the past months, we anti CCSS warriors, have learned so much in fighting Common Core. We’ve learned that Common Core has a wide array of names it can be linked to (or often times, be used in place of “Common Core”). Today’s special “Fib-o-Meter” will be devoted to the the groups/efforts and evidence concerning the often overlooked avenue of post secondary education being aligned with Common Core or it’s adult version: Career and Technical Education.

It’s Friday, you know what that means! Time to measure what’s truth, what’s fallacy/fib or what’s in between.

The Evidence:
From my archives, I have 5 pages of evidence, complete with association names, ties to Common Core and/or Career Tech Education, funding sources for some; videos, pdf files, and so much more.

If you’d like to search through the five pages for yourselves, here’s the link:
https://commoncorediva.wordpress.com/page/5/?s=community+colleges

If you’d like them broken down by topic, I’ve got a couple of suggestions to use. Feel free to use your own key words.

GEDs, SATs, and other such assessments is a vital piece of evidence of “Total Truth”because these are used to gauge competencies either in place of a diploma or a way to be admitted to college. Both are used by community colleges as proof of the students academic achievements. One assessment you may not know (and it another “Total Truth”is the the CASAS, or Comprehensive Adult and Student Assessment Systems.  I wrote about this on 10/28/14. See: https://commoncorediva.wordpress.com/2014/10/28/ftf-tuesday-align-and-mine-part-2/

Bringing the U.S. Dept. of Labor into the CCSS/CTE mix is another huge “Total Truth”FOM: Post Secondary Ed: The CCSS Trojan | commoncorediva:

MPS teachers protest against failing school takeover proposal | FOX6Now.com

MPS teachers protest against failing school takeover proposal | FOX6Now.com:

MPS teachers protest against failing school takeover proposal

MILWAUKEE — Teachers gathered Friday morning, June 12th to protest against a state proposal that could convert struggling Milwaukee Public Schools into charter or private schools. It’s happening at 82nd and Grantosa.

They’re against a republican-led proposal that would make 55 MPS schools the state grades as ‘failing to meet expectations” eligible for conversion.

This is after a rally Thursday night involving parents, teachers and clergy outside Hopkins-Lloyd School on the city’s north side. The faith-based group, Milwaukee Inner City Congregations Allied for Hope (MICAH), hosted Thursday’s protest.

The proposal would give the Milwaukee County Executive the authority to appoint a commissioner to oversee the lowest-performing schools.  That commissioner would operate independently from the school board with the power to assume control of up to five schools in the first year and directly manage them, or solicit offers from charter, private school operators.

“You can’t just try to take over a school and expect everything else to be better. You make everything else better and the schools will follow,” said Democratic State Representative, Mandela Barnes.

State Representative Mandela Barnes spoke at Thursday’s rally. His message: reform-minded republicans should focus on issues outside of schools, like poverty and crime that affect performance in central city classrooms.

“So many times when you look at education, people only look at test scores, they only look at the data but fail to look at the underlying issues and address them seriously,” said Mandela.

Darling says lawmakers can address poverty while reforming struggling schools. Those rallying against her plan say republicans should give those schools better resources as opposed to giving them to someone else.

This proposal has already passed the powerful joint finance committee, so as of now, it’s on the budget lawmakers will eventually vote on.

Representative Barnes says until that vote happens, he will push to amend the plan if not scrap it all together.MPS teachers protest against failing school takeover proposal | FOX6Now.com:

La. Education Legislation: Final Update of 2015 | deutsch29 #flipbese

La. Education Legislation: Final Update of 2015 | deutsch29:

La. Education Legislation: Final Update of 2015

On May 29, 2015, I wrote a post that was a Louisiana legislative update.

During the Louisiana legislative session, the Louisiana Federation of Teachers (LFT) issues a weekly legislative digest of education-related legislation. (Archived digests can be found here.)

In this post, I would like to offer some highlights from the June 12, 2015, LFT Digest, the final one for the session. I also add some other bill info at the end of this post.

I added links for each of the bills mentioned. The links include comprehensive information on each bill. (Note that this search engine allows one to track any bill nationwide: LegiScan Search Engine.)

Schools Get Last-minute $36 Million Bump

Just as he did two years ago, Rep. John Bel Edwards (D-Amite) found a way to increase funding for schools even after public education’s Minimum Foundation Program formula had been rejected.

As the session drew to a close, the Senate finally approved Rep. Edwards’HCR 231, which calls for an additional 1.375%, or $36 million, to be included in the budget for public education. It had been held up while waiting for the House to take a crucial vote on the controversial SAVE plan. (See more on SAVE plan below.)

Once the House approved the scheme that makes Gov. Bobby Jindal’s final budget appear to be revenue-neutral, the Senate voted unanimously to okay the resolution. Because the legislature is allowed to either accept or reject the MFP, but not change it, Rep. Edwards’ resolution calls for the additional money to be appropriated outside of the funding formula. However, it asks Board of Elementary and Secondary Education to recognize the additional funding and include it in the MFP to be adopted for the 2016-17 school year.

The additional funding increases the base student allocation from $3,961 to $4,051, and ensures that raises granted to classroom teachers last year will be continued this year.

Lawmakers Okay COLA; Jindal May Veto

Governor Bobby Jindal may poke state retirees in the eye one more time before following his presidential aspirations to Iowa, New Hampshire and 

La. Education Legislation: Final Update of 2015 | deutsch29:

FLIP THE 
LOUISIANA BOARD OF ELEMENTARY AND SECONDARY EDUCATION 
( BESE)

Click Here to Follow Flip BESE on Facebook 

Big Education Ape: FLIP THE LOUISIANA BOARD OF ELEMENTARY AND SECONDARY EDUCATION ( BESE) http://bit.ly/1JKBCtL #flipbese

CCSA, California Charter Schools Association Board of Directors

CCSA, California Charter Schools Association Board of Directors:

CCSA, California Charter Schools Association Board of Directors

Made up of charter school and charter management organization leaders, as well as education advocates and representatives of charitable foundations, the Board of Directors broadly formulates CCSA's policy and activities.

Diane Tavenner
Board Chair (term ending 6/30/2016)

Carrie Walton Penner
Board Vice-Chair (term ending 6/30/2017)

Ana Ponce
Secretary (term ending 6/30/2015)

Christopher Nelson
Treasurer (term ending 6/30/2016)

Brian Bauer
Board Member (term ending 6/30/2015)

Judy Burton
Board Member (term ending 6/30/2017)

Cameron Curry
Board Member (term ending 6/30/2016)

Margaret Fortune
Board Member (term ending 6/30/2015)

Reed Hastings
Board Member (term ending 6/30/2015)

Gregory McGinity
Board Member (term ending 6/30/2017)

Jed Wallace
President and Chief Executive Officer for California Charter Schools Association

John Walton (In Memoriam)
Board Member