Who’s Afraid of Professional Teachers? | Daniel Katz, Ph.D.

Who’s Afraid of Professional Teachers? | Daniel Katz, Ph.D.:

Who’s Afraid of Professional Teachers?

New York’s charter school sector, apparently.

Politico reports that the charter sector has potentially won a much desired prize: permission to “certify” their own teachers.  The SUNY Charter Institute, which grants charters and oversees some of the state’s most influential charter networks, released proposed regulations that would make it far easier for charter schools to meet requirements that they have certified teachers on their faculty by allowing them to bypass traditionally prepared teachers and create their own programs leading to certification.  Under the proposed regulations, individuals with a bachelor’s degree will be able to be certified with only 30 hours of coursework:

And 100 hours of classroom practice under the supervision of an “experienced teacher”:

It is important to lay this out clearly.  The New York charter sector has long worried that requirements that they have a minimum number of certified Who’s Afraid of Professional Teachers? | Daniel Katz, Ph.D.:

How Teachers Should Respond to Guilt Trips - Teacher Habits

How Teachers Should Respond to Guilt Trips - Teacher Habits:

How Teachers Should Respond to Guilt Trips

I’m currently writing a book about teacher exhaustion. Before I started, I emailed readers of this blog and asked if they’d share their stories. I wondered what they thought contributed to their exhaustion. One teacher wrote back:

Another factor is the ‘guilt trip’ administration lays on teachers about how ‘if you care for your kids you will do this.’

Principals sometimes resort to using guilt to persuade teachers to do things they would otherwise be disinclined to do. Principals need teachers to attend after-school events, join committees, do additional work after hours, and take on other tasks that are “part of the job” but not really the job. For a parent night, they’ll say, “Parents will expect to see teachers here.” They’ll stress the importance of the committee work. They’ll claim it’s a sign of “professionalism” to take on extra duties. They’ll remind you that “teaching isn’t like other jobs.”

Why They Do It

They don’t do it because they’re jerks. Most of them are in a tough spot. State and district mandates require certain work get done, and they need manpower but lack the funds to pay for it. The school improvement plan calls for more parent involvement, so they schedule two parent nights. As the date approaches, they start begging teachers to attend. The school needs a PBIS team, but the district won’t pay for subs for teachers to meet during the day, meaning they How Teachers Should Respond to Guilt Trips - Teacher Habits:

Super-rich Will Not Save the World Vis-a-vis Vampire/Parasitic Principles - LA Progressive

Super-rich Will Not Save the World Vis-a-vis Vampire/Parasitic Principles - LA Progressive:

Super-rich Will Not Save the World Vis-a-vis Vampire/Parasitic Principles

Indeed, the young are tethered to a slumber land of no ideas or ideals. Shackled to the beasts of debt and endless consumer-rent-mortgage-fee-levy-tax-fine-surcharge-hidden add on Capitalist. They amble to the nearest Starbucks and find the plastic putrid world and shitty coffee essence safe, conformist, the place to snuggle in with Twitter-Snapchat-Instagram-Facebook-Spotify.

Add to that the general malaise of wanting nothing to do with politics, and everything to do with hipster joker-a-second crap they have downloading and meandering through their apps, and we have a country of no serious thinking. Tapped into the spine of the controllers, the brain centers microprocessing emotionless dictators.

The faces of red-white-and-blue are the hollowed-out skulls of the zombie culture of wanting-getting-having-buying-discarding-paying it down through the ka-chang of the ever-present ATM.

Not to say the oldsters in US of A aren’t the same – ambulating in the grand isles of Costco and Walmart, and, yes, juiced up on a triple-shot foamy caramel latte. The faces of red-white-and-blue are the hollowed-out skulls of the zombie culture of wanting-getting-having-buying-discarding-paying it down through the ka-chang of the ever-present ATM.

I worked hard as social worker-case manager-breeder of anarchy with old and young, now the young, kids in care, state custody, plied by the champions of bureaucracy, who have some shekels and grants here and there to help them get way past the eight ball they are behind.

Shuffled from foster home to foster home, many intersecting with the juvenile injustice system, and many bouncing from school to school, no foundations, no biological link to a put-together family, Super-rich Will Not Save the World Vis-a-vis Vampire/Parasitic Principles - LA Progressive:

TEACHER TENURE BILL ONLY ABOUT MONEY, NOT COMPETENCY - Perdaily.com

TEACHER TENURE BILL ONLY ABOUT MONEY, NOT COMPETENCY - Perdaily.com:

TEACHER TENURE BILL ONLY ABOUT MONEY, NOT COMPETENCY

San Diego Assemblywoman Shirley Weber's proposed bill to extend the present two year time necessary for attaining tenured job security actually has nothing to do with teacher competency, but rather has everything to do with the prospective bankruptcy of California school district's like LAUSD- due to their endemic corruption. The real truth is that they are on the verge of bankruptcy and seek to save an estimated $60,000 a year for every teacher they can deny tenure to- or force out- or to every already tenured teacher they can get rid of by bringing clearly fabricated charges of incompetency against to force them out of their teaching positions in favor of a fresh-out-of-college 20-something working for $35,000 a year on an emergency credential..

Until the recent corporate move to privatize American public school education, 87% of the trillion dollar annual public school budget in this country went to paying the salaries of certificated and classified public education teachers, administrators, and staff. But with the continued squandering of the multi-billion dollar budgets at districts like LAUSD, that put these districts on the verge of imminent bankruptcy within the next two years, something had to be done to save money to avoid the looming bankruptcy- and accountabiltiy- of what has been rank incompetency of public school administration by ex-teachers- now administrators- with literally no skill set to effectively operate such a massive business organization. So, the patsy of choice has become the supposedly incompetent teachers, who if the district can get rid of them, will avoid bankruptcy. And of course, the State of California finds itself looking the other way in LAUSD's fraudulent liable of teachers, because it knows that if LAUSD goes under, the State of California will be left holding the bankruptcy bag.

Before this proposed extension of the time necessary to attain tenure- which was initially TEACHER TENURE BILL ONLY ABOUT MONEY, NOT COMPETENCY - Perdaily.com:

CURMUDGUCATION: Collective Freedom

CURMUDGUCATION: Collective Freedom:

Collective Freedom

 The tension between individual freedom and collective action, between what the individual wants and what the community wants, between the needs of the many and the needs of the few-- that tension has been with us since Day One. Puritans came here to declare,"This will be a place where people are free to worship as they please-- as long as it's a form of worship we agree with." Southern colonists arrived declaring, "This will be a land in which every man's efforts can enrich him-- unless you're an indentured servant or a slave, in which case, your efforts are going to enrich me."

We have a Bill of Rights enumerating the rights possessed by every individual-- and a long and robust history of debate and case law determining where those rights actual stop in the name of the greater good (First Amendment does not cover yelling "fire" or even "elephant stampede" in a crowded theater, et al).

This, it should be noted, is not a tension limited to governance. To get married and become a part of a tiny family collective, you give up some of your personal freedom. That's how it works-- if you insist on acting as if you live in the land of Do As You Please, your little collective will fall apart (trust me on this). Membership in a group requires sacrifice of personal freedom. 

As a nation we tend to lean toward individual freedom and away from collectivism. Even when we CURMUDGUCATION: Collective Freedom:

Seattle Schools Community Forum: The Stranger vs The Seattle Times: School Board Endorsements

Seattle Schools Community Forum: The Stranger vs The Seattle Times: School Board Endorsements:

The Stranger vs The Seattle Times: School Board Endorsements

District IV:
Times - Eden Mack
The Times gave Mack their strongest endorsement for school board as compared to Chelsea Byers (tepid, both with what the Times said and what Byers said) and Alec Cooper (short).
Eden Mack is fully prepared to be on the Seattle School Board. 

The Stranger - Eden Mack
"Eden Mack is the wonkiest education wonk who ever wonked."

Me - Eden Mack 
Ditto on the comments made by the Times and The Stranger.


District V
Times - Alec Cooper
But his experience as a director at both Amazon and Microsoft, plus volunteer work as treasurer and president of the Garfield High School PTSA and his deep knowledge of district and state education policy, make Cooper uniquely qualified for the school-board position. 

The Stranger - Zachary DeWolf
Good stuff from The Stranger on DeWolf
 "Racial, gender, economic, and social justice [work] is a way of life and should be embedded within how we teach and how students learn... throughout their whole career at Seattle Public Schools," DeWolf said. "It's what makes quality public education." 
 but also this:
If we're being real, with a résumé like his, DeWolf is a little too qualified to be a school board member—the school board is where political ambitions go to die. We'd much rather be endorsing DeWolf for city council or state legislature.

This is true; Seattle School Board is no launch pad for higher office.

Me - I find Alec Cooper, Zachary DeWolf and Andre Helmstetter all to be credible candidates who each have strengths and weaknesses.  I give the nod more to Cooper and Helmstetter if only because of their deep knowledge of the district which is an absolute plus for a new director.

The other candidate - Omar Vasquez - who was rejected by both the Times and The Stranger is my sole (and loud) no for this race.  

District VIISeattle Schools Community Forum: The Stranger vs The Seattle Times: School Board Endorsements:

Tell SUNY: Every Child Deserves a Well-Prepared Teacher - Network For Public Education

Tell SUNY: Every Child Deserves a Well-Prepared Teacher - Network For Public Education:

Every Child Deserves a Well-Prepared Teacher




 Sign our letter to the SUNY Board of Trustees asking them to make sure that every New York student is taught by a professionally trained teacher.

To: SUNY Board of Trustees 
From: [Your Name]

We the undersigned New Yorkers are deeply concerned about the hastily introduced proposal​ that would allow adults with minimal training to be certified to teach in charter schools. It is deeply troubling that the SUNY charter committee believes that our state's most vulnerable students should be taught by adults who are not professionally prepared.

The two-tier system that would be created would further the already inequitable treatment of children in our state. As New York State increases its public school teacher requirements though the TEACH NY initiative supported by the SUNY Board, the lowering of standards for charter school teachers is morally troubling.

Many of our charter schools, including those approved by SUNY, have come under scrutiny for practices that are questionable at best, and discriminatory at worst. These include regimented behavioral student-management systems, public ripping up of student work that is "imperfect," "got to go" lists , exclusion of students with disabilities, extreme and cruel disciplinary practices, excessive test prep, and the pushing out of students who are non-compliant.

The thought that young teachers would experience only the above in their training and practice is truly chilling. They would not be exposed to courses in developmental psychology, multiple intelligences, educational research and the needs of students with disabilities to name just a few of the critical areas taught in university teacher training programs. Their student teaching experience would take place only in a charter school. Their understanding of what good instruction is would be limited to what they observe in their particular charter school setting.

We understand that it has become increasingly difficult for charter schools to attract and retain teachers. They already have the ability to allow 30% of their staff to be uncertified. The solution, however, is not to lower certification standards even more, but for charter schools to retain teachers by improving working conditions. In other words, it is incumbent upon charter schools to reflect on their own practices and create environments that attract teachers and inspire them to commit to the school. Such changes would be in the best interests of charter school students, as opposed to a fast-track certification of their unprepared and unqualified teachers.

We hope that you give our concerns serious thought and that you abandon this poorly conceived proposal. ALL students--especially poor students of color-- deserve qualified, professionally trained teachers.

Tell SUNY: Every Child Deserves a Well-Prepared Teacher - Network For Public Education:

Ahead of unification, Orleans school district formalizes warning system for charters | The Lens

Ahead of unification, Orleans school district formalizes warning system for charters | The Lens:

Ahead of unification, Orleans school district formalizes warning system for charters

The Orleans Parish school district has started to use a system of warning letters similar to those sent by the state Department of Education to hold charter schools accountable for breaking education law and their charter contracts.

Alice M. Harte Charter School received the first letter from the local school district for refusing to admit a student about a month before the end of last school year.

The charter group’s CEO said he wanted to save the seat for the next round of seat assignments for this fall. He noted that some siblings of Harte students had been denied a spot in that grade in the first round of OneApp, the city’s centralized enrollment system.

Dina Hasiotis, the Orleans district’s executive director of school performance, told the school board’s accountability committee in June that the new system will formalize communication with charter schools that violate district, state or federal rules.

“It’s a way for us to formally inform the schools of a violation and also help manage if additional steps need to be taken related to the concern,” Hasiotis said.

The Lens was denied an interview with Hasiotis. Spokeswoman Dominique Ellis said no district staff members are allowed to speak with the media.

ORLEANS PARISH’S TWO-LEVEL WARNING SYSTEM SIMILAR TO THE STATE’S

Charter schools are publicly funded but privately run. To retain their charters, they must meet academic, financial and organizational standards.

For years, the state has issued a “notice of concern” when a charter school under its oversight violates certain rules, such as the state’s Open Meetings Law.

The state sends a “notice of breach” for more severe incidents, like systematically disenfranchising special education students.

The state can revoke or refuse to renew a school’s charter if the violations are egregious or school officials don’t do what’s required to correct the problem.

Recovery School District schools — at one point, most of the schools in the city — are slated to return to Orleans Parish control next Ahead of unification, Orleans school district formalizes warning system for charters | The Lens:

Education Should Deliver Us from Racism and Trumpism - LA Progressive

Education Should Deliver Us from Racism and Trumpism - LA Progressive:

Education Should Deliver Us from Racism and Trumpism

9 Aug 1930, Marion, Indiana, USA — After being accused of murdering Claude Deeter, 23 and assaulting his girlfriend Mary Ball, 19 two young African-American men are taken from the Grand County Jail and lynched in the public square. Photographed by Lawrence Beitler. — Image by © Bettmann/CORBIS

In recent weeks I’ve seen three films and the first episode of Ken Burns’s The Civil War, all of which reminded me of our terrible history of racism. The films were the 2016 Birth of a Nation, depicting the slave Nat Turner’s rebellion in 1831; Loving, about the black woman and white man (the Lovings) whose right to marriage in Virginia was upheld by the Supreme Court in 1967, thereby striking down state laws banning interracial marriage: and the documentary I Am Not Your Negro, which consists mainly of scenes of James Baldwin speaking, many of his words taken from his unfinished work Remember This House, begun in 1979. The first episode of Burns’ nine-part series (available on Netflix) deals with the causes of the Civil War. In it the narrator (David McCullough) reminds us of the terrible conditions of slave quarters and the fact that only four out of 100 slaves lived to be 60.

In discussing U. S. racism over the past half century, especially with opponents of Affirmative Action (initiated in 1965) I have often heard the following words, “Slavery has been over for more than a century.” And, “I didn’t enslave black people. I can’t be held responsible for what white people did more than a century ago.” I have also often heard variations of the following statements used in the 2016 American National Election Study (ANES) to sample racial attitudes: “Irish, Italians, Jewish, and many other minorities overcame prejudice and worked their way up. Blacks should do the same without any special favors,” and “It’s really a matter of trying hard enough; if blacks would only try harder that would be as well off as whites.”

True enough that slavery has been over for a long time. But its evil effects and racism continue to live on.

True enough that slavery has been over for a long time. But its evil effects and racism continue to live on. In our own lifetimes, my wife, Nancy, and I, both children of white, blue-collar fathers, have seen plenty of it. Nancy grew up in Marion, Indiana, where in 1930, a mere Education Should Deliver Us from Racism and Trumpism - LA Progressive:

My testimony to Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction | BustED Pencils

My testimony to Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction | BustED Pencils:

My testimony to Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction

 Good afternoon.  My name is Tim Slekar and I am the Dean of the School of Education at Edgewood College. 

Let me be clear from the outset.

1. Our teacher shortage is a manufactured crisis that has resulted in an Exodus from the profession and has routed potential teachers away from teacher education.
2. Loosening, tinkering, and doing away with teacher licenses—as some have proposed—will do NOTHING except dramatically increase systemic inequity and genuinely harm the profession of teaching.

However, let’s be honest.  What’s happening here is happening all across the country. Policy makers and pundits actively push the teacher shortage narrative.  And, in the same breath advocate and put forth policies that do away with teacher licensing.  Why?

Well there are two answers.  One that rests on the teacher shortage narrative and plays into the fear of public school parents.

The other is the truth.

The fear answer. Allowing license flexibility or doing away with teaching licenses altogether will fix the shortage. and If “we” don’t do something fast children will face empty classrooms.

The TRUTH: Softening teacher license policies or doing away with the license altogether will kill the profession and turn teaching into a low wage service sector job.

It’s that simple. Yet trying to get policy makers, pundits, and media to understand this seems almost impossible.  Trust me.  I have been trying for the last 11 months.

However, other than what I have already said I do not plan on delivering a negative critique of the suggested license tampering—a tampering that only works for certain adults but fails our children, our schools and our communities.

Instead I want to propose model legislation that might have a chance of undoing the damage already done.

Today I propose the “Teachers Our Children Deserve Act.”  It is very simple. All of our children deserve a fully qualified, licensed teacher.  A teacher who is culturally competent.  A teacher with a deep understanding of linguistic plurality.  A teacher with multiple experiences in inclusive settings. These teachers must have an education rooted in critical pedagogy that exposes societal inequities and inspires a passion for social justice.

And then, if there happens to be a “shortage” this legislation will provide the funding to school districts and teacher education programs that form a mutual partnership that uses a model for teacher recruitment called “grow your own.”

What is “grow your own?” Simple. Our best and brightest future teachers are already living in the communities of our public schools or are actually attending these schools.

We must actively recruit these candidates into teaching and fully fund it.  Actually incentivize the future of the profession by requiring IHEs and districts to develop deep partnerships to address the direct needs of districts that combines the talents of all involved.  The so-called shortage will quickly die as our children finally get The TEACHERS THEY DESERVE!

Devaluing teacher licensure will create even more inequity and harm our most vulnerable children.

Rather we must incentivize and inspire a movement of future educators. Our children, our schools and our communities DEMAND “The Teachers Our Children Deserve.”

Thank you for the time to speak.My testimony to Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction | BustED Pencils:

Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg back controversial education program in East Africa - Business Insider

Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg back controversial education program in East Africa - Business Insider:

Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg are backing a controversial education program in East Africa

"Personalized learning" is one of the trendiest educational theories in Silicon Valley right now.

It involves each student learning at his or her own pace, generally through the aid of technology, and it's beloved by tech billionaires like Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg.

But both Gates and Zuckerberg, in addition to other big names in Silicon Valley, also back an education model that is taking the opposite approach: pursuing learning gains with curricula standardized to each particular country.

Bridge International Academies, the subject of a recent New York Times Magazine piece, operates in hundreds of schools around Kenya and Uganda, with dozens more of its low-cost schools scattered through Nigeria, India, and most recently Liberia.

Though it operates with the mission of providing high-quality, low-cost education for all, Bridge has drawn criticism from some education experts and teachers unions for the model it uses to make good on that mission.Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg back controversial education program in East Africa - Business Insider:

Big Education Ape: Uganda Will Close For-Profit Schools Pushed by Gates, Zuckerberg, US, UK, and World Bank | janresseger - http://bigeducationape.blogspot.com/2016/08/uganda-will-close-for-profit-schools.html

Feds Find Fewer States Meeting Special Ed Obligations - Disability Scoop

Feds Find Fewer States Meeting Special Ed Obligations - Disability Scoop:

Feds Find Fewer States Meeting Special Ed Obligations

Less than half of states are meeting their obligations to appropriately serve students with disabilities under the nation’s special education law, federal education officials say.

In an annual review, the U.S. Department of Education found that only 22 states deserved the “meets requirements” designation for the 2015-2016 school year. All other states were placed into the “needs assistance” category.

The findings issued this summer come from a mandatory assessment of state compliance with the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. The ratings are based on how well states meet their obligations to serve students with disabilities ages 3 to 21.

Federal officials look at student performance and functional outcomes for kids with disabilities as well as how well states follow through with procedural duties like completing special education evaluations.

If a state fails to achieve the “meets requirements” level for two or more consecutive years, IDEA stipulates that the Education Department take enforcement action, which can include redirecting or withholding funds, developing a corrective action plan or mandating other changes.

This year’s determinations reflect a drop in the number of states found to meet requirements. Last year, 24 states received that designation.

States receiving letters indicating that they met their obligations under IDEA include Alabama, Delaware, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New Jersey, North Carolina, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, South Dakota, Tennessee, Virginia, West Virginia, Wisconsin and Wyoming.

The remaining states were labeled “needs assistance.”

No state received the more extreme designations of “needs intervention” or “needs substantial intervention.”

More in EducationFeds Find Fewer States Meeting Special Ed Obligations - Disability Scoop:

A New Study Says Offline Bullying Is Still A Much Bigger Problem Than Cyberbullying

A New Study Says Offline Bullying Is Still A Much Bigger Problem Than Cyberbullying:

A New Study Says Offline Bullying Is Still A Much Bigger Problem Than Cyberbullying

Despite the hype, children are much more likely to be bullied offline than on, and it's very rare for cyberbullying to happen on its own, according to a new report.

Despite widespread media concerns, cyberbullying is still a relatively rare event for British children – far less common than ordinary, face-to-face bullying, according to a new study.

The report, published in the journal Lancet Child and Adolescent Health, looked at questionnaires from 120,000 15-year-olds. It asked them whether they had been bullied in any of eight different ways, including two forms of cyberbullying. About a third – 36% of girls and 24% of boys – reported having been regularly bullied, in any way, in the last two months. But just 3% reported having been the victim of cyberbullying, and the study found that the impact of cyberbullying on children's mental health and wellbeing was small.

Even more dramatically, just 406 children out of the 110,000 who gave information on bullying said that they had been regularly cyberbullied and had not been bullied in the "real" world, compared to 27% who'd been bullied offline but experienced no bullying online.

The researchers say this shows that cyberbullying is usually simply one more tactic that bullies use against already-bullied children, and is not creating a new population of bullying victims.

"It's pretty disheartening stuff," Andrew Przybylski, a psychologist at the University of Oxford and one of the authors of the study, told BuzzFeed News. "About a third of 15-year-olds report significant bullying in their lives." But cyberbullying was only a small part of the story. In terms of children's wellbeing, he said, "cyberbullying accounts for less than one-tenth of 1% of the variation" that the researchers saw.

The study looked at children who are regularly bullied, rather than those who've experienced a single incident, because that is how most studies of traditional bullying are carried out, said Przybylski. "Well-meaning charities and pressure groups have put out these reports about the dangers of cyberbullying, and you hear horror stories in the news," he said. "But we found that [the debate] was missing a lot of the nuance that traditional bullying research has.

"It's as though health researchers were asking people, 'Have you ever been sick?'"

Instead, children were asked if they had been bullied at least two or three times in the last A New Study Says Offline Bullying Is Still A Much Bigger Problem Than Cyberbullying:

Unions blast SUNY Board for ‘watered down’ charter school teacher training plan – The Legislative Gazette

Unions blast SUNY Board for ‘watered down’ charter school teacher training plan – The Legislative Gazette:

Unions blast SUNY Board for ‘watered down’ charter school teacher training plan

NYSUT and the United University Professions are blasting a SUNY Board of Trustees proposal to allow high-performing charter schools to set up their own training programs for teachers.

Both unions accused the charter school industry of trying to “bypass” state teaching certification regulations by using their own training programs and expressed concern that this would allow individuals with as little as 30 hours of experience to become teachers.

The proposal was based on legislation written by Senate Republicans which did not get passed before the end of the session. The bill, introduced by Senate Majority Leader John Flanagan, R-East Northport, would have given charter schools the ability to train and employ their own teachers for up to three years without outside certification.

The SUNY Board of Trustees decided to take the matter into their own hands and called an emergency meeting of the Charter School Committee where they proposed a plan that would allow SUNY authorized charter schools to develop their own teaching programs.

SUNY defended the proposal claiming that it would establish “certain parameters and requirements for charter schools that wish to operate alternative teacher preparation programs.”

UUP accused SUNY of directly contradicting its own Teach NY agenda with the proposal.

“SUNY’s intent appears to be a watering down of teacher certification requirements and a move to bypass traditional, college-based teacher preparation programs,” said UUP President Frederick Kowal. “That will harm SUNY’s very own teacher preparation programs and stands as an irreconcilable contradiction with the rhetoric of SUNY’s Teach NY initiative. It sends a terrible message to New Yorkers, who want the best teachers in their children’s classrooms, not educators who enter the profession by a short cut.”

On June 21, the SUNY Board Of Trustees adopted a new Teach NY policy on educator preparation which called for “a new standard of excellence for educator preparation that aligns with existing state and federal policies.”

“How can SUNY claim that it supports existing state and federal standards for teacher preparation, as stated in a TeachNY resolution adopted by the Board of Trustees, and allow its charter schools to create a new, lower tier of standards for teachers in charter schools,” asked Kowal.

UUP has joined NYSUT in creating a petition to get the Board of Trustees to vote against the proposal.

The petition is located on NYSUT’s Member Action Committee page.

Share this:Unions blast SUNY Board for ‘watered down’ charter school teacher training plan – The Legislative Gazette:

Nashville schools lose half of newest teachers within three years on the job

Nashville schools lose half of newest teachers within three years on the job:

Nashville schools lose half of newest teachers within three years on the job

Over 50 percent of the teachers leaving Metro Nashville Public Schools are within their first three years of teaching, according to district officials.

It's a concerning statistic for Nashville schools leaders, who presented retention and recruitment numbers to the school board on Tuesday.

Due to the high turnover, district leaders said they hope to expand retention initiatives in the coming year by making mandatory a new teacher introductory program, as well as ensuring all new teachers have a seasoned mentors to guide them.

The district has struggled for years to pinpoint exactly why teachers are leaving, and in the last couple of years has tried to put into place more measures to retain teachers and understand what's causing the turnover.

"Every school district has reported similar problems to us," human resources director Deborah Story said to the school board. "And every district is looking for same pool of talent and we need to get really creative in how to attract them to us."

►Related news: Nashville schools leaders address teacher hirings

District exit surveys of teachers leaving only provide a partial snapshot because so few fill out the answer sheets, said Sharon Pertiller, director of talent strategy.

"The responses need to be looked at with a grain of salt," Pertiller said. "But what they say speaks volumes."

Board member Amy Frogge said pay may be one of the big reasons why teachers are leaving.

"With a high cost of living (in Nashville), it's obviously not what teachers are making," Frogge said.

The high turnover causes a scramble every Nashville schools lose half of newest teachers within three years on the job:

Wednesday Full House Diane Ravitch's blog | A site to discuss better education for all

Diane Ravitch's blog | A site to discuss better education for all:

Wednesday Full House Diane Ravitch's blog

A site to discuss better education for all

DeVos’s New Cause: The Rights of Those Accused of Raping Women on Campus

45by dianeravitch / 2h

DeVos’ world gets stranger by the day. After hearing from rape victims, DeVos and her top civil rights official have decided to champion the rights of those accused of raping the women. The New York Times calls this “a new look” at the 

Trump Knew

2by dianeravitch / 28min

Look at this tweet. https://mobile.twitter.com/yashar/status/884900796957171712

A Teacher Who Often Criticizes His Union Says It Is Time to Stand Strong Together

4by dianeravitch / 1h

Arthur Goldstein, a high school teacher in Queens, New York, has often criticized the UFT for not taking the militant stands that Arthur prefers. But now, he says, it is time to stand together and fight. Unions are facing an existential threat to 

A Sign Once Sold in Gift Shop of the Holocaust Musem

11by dianeravitch / 40min

Sound familiar? Read it again. Think about it. Which side are you on?

Texas: Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick to Public Schools: Starve

by dianeravitch / 20min

Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick is the most powerful figure in state government. He is also the most loathsome person in the government. He had a talk show before he was elected to the State Senate. He was the Rush Limbaugh of Texas. His views are far right. He hates public schools. He has a passion for charter schools and vouchers. He doesn’t care about charter school corruption. He will not allow a

Detroit: New Superintendent Says District May Stop Authorizing Charters, Focus Instead on Public Schools

2by dianeravitch / 1h

Good news from Detroit, the lowest performing urban district in the nation. After years of outsourcing students to privately managed charter schools, the new superintendent says he is considering no longer authorizing charters but focusing instead on improving traditional public schools. Imagine asking a business to jumpstart competitors and you can see how wacky the current policy is. I am very

Mark Naison: How Charter Schools Stifle Innovation

19by dianeravitch / 2h

Mark Naison is a professor of African-American Studies at Fordham University in New York. He writes: How Charter Schools Have Stifled Educational Innovation and Fought the Opt Out Movement Although charter schools were originally promoted as a vehicle to encourage educational experimentation, their meteoric growth in influence has actually coincided with a REDUCTION in innovation in schools becau

DeVos Invested in Military Technology in May

8by dianeravitch / 3h

Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos invested in a military technology company owned by her son-in-law. Her brother Erik Prince is advising the Trump administration on military strategy. I naively assumed that once appointed to the Cabinet, all outside business dealings were suspended.

Oklahoma: Teacher Karen Gaddis Wins Surprise Victory for Legislature

40by dianeravitch / 3h

Retired teacher Karen Gaddis won a surprise victory last night for the Oklahoma legislature, flipping a seat that has been held by a Republican since the early 1990s. Congratulations, Karen! Oklahoma will have a Teacher in the House! We will take this country back, one seat at a time.

YESTERDAY

Phyllis Bush Reports on Her Trip to the Cubs Game

24by dianeravitch / 22h

As readers of the blog know, our friend Phyllis Bush is fighting cancer with humor and determination. In this post , she brings us up to date on her activities, her treatment, and the kindness of friends and strangers.

Maybe the Funniest Thread of Comments Ever on Amazon

5by dianeravitch / 23h

I heard about a product called the Amazon Alexa. I wanted to learn more, went to Amazon, and found this fabulous thread about two electronic devices, the Alexa and the Echo. “Question: I have 2 children, one named Alexa and the other named Amazon. Will this present any problems? A: My kids do not respond to voice commands, do yours?!? I am selling my kids on eBay and buying the Echo. tomh A: My d

New York: Allowing Non-Certified Teachers in Charter Schools Is Not a Done Deal!

6by dianeravitch / 23h

Correction: I posted this morning that New York would allow charter “teachers” to be ncertified. Not yet a done deal. Stay tuned.

Meet Priscilla Chan, Who Will Give Away Billions of Facebook Dollars

2by dianeravitch / 1d

Dr. Priscilla Chan sounds like a lovely young woman. She is married to Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and seems to be running the Chan-Zuckerberg Initiative, which will dispense billions of dollars. She is a graduate of Quincy Public Schools in Massachusetts so we can hope that she is not reflexively hostile to public education. Do you have any advice for her?

Are These the Schools Southerners Want? Are These the Schools Americans Want?

20by dianeravitch / 1d

This is a soul-searching article about the resegregation of schools in the South. After the passage of the Civil Rights Act in 1964, racial discrimination was prohibited in any federally funded program. But in 1964, there was very limited federal aid to schools. However, in 1965, Congress passed the Elementary and Zsecondary Education Act, and there was quite a lot of federal money for schools th

A Nashville School Board Member Warns Kentucky and Mississippi about the Charter Scams

100+by dianeravitch / 1d

Amy Frogge ran for the Metro Nashville School Board in 2012 as a concerned mom who was also a lawyer. She was unaware of the pitched battle about charters and privatization. She had the simple goal of improving public schools, which made her an enemy of the privatizers. She ran again last year and was re-elected. Both times, she faced candidates who outspent her by vast sums with out-of-state ref

New York: Charter Schools Win Power to Hire Non-Professional “Teachers”

54by dianeravitch / 1d

Blogger Peter Goodman reports that a last-minute deal was struck in the closing hours of the legislative session in New York State. Charter schools authorized by the State University of New York (which includes Eva Moskowitz’s Success 

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