Teach For America: From Service Group to Industry

in

One of the best articles written on Teach for America

Although Teach For America began twenty years ago as a well-intentioned band-aid, it has morphed into what is essentially a jobs program for the privileged, funded by taxpayers and wealthy individuals. TFA was originally designed it to serve a specific need: fill positions in high-poverty schools where there are teacher shortages.

A non-profit organization that recruits college seniors primarily from elite institutions to teach for two-year stints in high-poverty schools, preceded by five weeks of training. TFA has grown from 500 teachers to more than 8,000 teachers in thirty-nine rural and urban areas.

As TFA is expanding, it is no longer just filling positions in shortage areas; rather, it’s replacing experienced and traditionally educated teachers. To justify this encroachment, TFA claims that their teachers are more effective than more experienced and qualified teachers, and that training and experience are not factors in effective teaching. TFA supporters also defend the explosive growth of TFA as an indication that TFA is elevating the status of the teaching profession for ambitious high-achieving college students.

Unfortunately, while Teach for America has been very effective at elevating the status of Teach for America, it has not had a similar impact on the status of teaching as a profession.

[readon2 url="http://allthingsedu.blogspot.com/2011/05/teach-for-america-from-service-group-to.html"]Continue reading...[/readon2]

Bringing Out the Me in Team

in

A great first person account of how high stakes test based evaluations destroys team work in schools

Test scores are the new epicenter for the war over education. On one side are politicians and reformers advocating test scores to evaluate teachers. On the other side are teachers and unions arguing for more comprehensive evaluations rather than relying on scores alone. In a society that values results, reformers are gaining the upper hand. In report after report, districts and states have adopted evaluations primarily based on student achievement on end of grade tests. The results, the reformers argue, will retain the best teachers while removing the bad ones. It is a system that has worked in the private sector and could revolutionize our schools.

Despite the mountain of evidence against using test scores in this way (a nice summary here), I have to admit, there seems to be a bit of logic to the argument. A talented teacher like my wife would be rewarded in a system like this, while lesser teachers would soon be removed. In theory, it seems reasonable. . . until I saw it in action.

[readon2 url="http://killingclarkkent.wordpress.com/2011/05/31/bringing-out-the-me-in-team/"]Continue reading...[/readon2]

SB5 Supporters go live with their astroturf campaign

in

The corporate backers of SB5 have an official organization, with a not-so-originally named website.

Gov. John Kasich, Senate President Tom Niehaus, R-New Richmond, and House Speaker William G. Batchelder, R-Medina, also will be involved with the group, which filed its paperwork with the secretary of state this morning.

The group's website, www.betterohio.org, says, "It's a grassroots coalition of Ohioans who support the effort to reform Ohio and to restore fairness and flexibility to middle class taxpayers, while getting the cost of government under control."

Plunderbund has already dispelled most of the untruths this astorturf organization has published. But let's take a look at their other claim - that of being a grass roots organization in favor of SB5. Let's ask a simple question. Is there any real grassroots support for SB5?

Back in February, the leading Pro-SB5 facebook group had 373 likes, today that same group still only has 1,530 likes. Compared to the leading Anti SB5 facebook group which has grown from 11,008 in February to over 17,075. The Anti-SB5 group is 10 times as large and growing 10 times as fast. And "Bulding a Better Ohio"? - it has a meagre 59 friends on the day of its launch.

Corporate backers might be able to provide the millions of dollars to be spent on attack ads, but they can't buy genuine grassroots citizen support. The kind of support that has over 10,000 on the ground volunteers who have colected over 200,000 signature in just 1 month. If further proof were needed of where the true majority opinion lies on this bill that attacks the middle class, we need look no further than poll after poll

Time is running out to act on the budget

in

As May draws to a close, we are only a short time away from having the state's biennium budget set in stone. The Senate finance committee will spend most of this week discussing their amendments, with committee and full Senate votes expected next week. From there a likely conference committee with the house will happen.

That leaves precious little time to act to make changes. Contacting law makers is having an effect, as this report indicates

Senators also are working on the teacher merit-pay language, which is similar to parts of Senate Bill 5, the new law that weakens collective bargaining for public workers and likely will be challenged on the November ballot.

Bacon said he has heard some legitimate concerns from area teachers, and there is a focus on altering how to evaluate teachers based on student progress in a given year.

"We have to make sure we're creating teacher incentives without penalizing them for things that are out of their control," he said.

Sen. Timothy J. Grendell, R-Chesterland, who voted against Senate Bill 5, said the merit-pay language should come out while the attempt to overturn the law is ongoing.

"If there is any hope of getting beyond 17 votes, I think that and the prevailing wage are going to be pivotal issues," he said.

You should contact your state senator, either by email or phone. When doing so, address one issue at a time. Correspondence should be brief but contain specific and personalized information on merit pay, school funding or the SB5 provisions in the budget. You should also reference HB153 as the particular piece of legislation.

The best information we have says that we are just 1 vote away in the Senate from removing these onerous provisions from the budget that would harm public education and the teaching profession.

Act now.

DAS misled about having SB5 documents

in

We posted an article a few weeks ago, concerned that the administration was hiding key facts from the public. We were also concerned that the SB5 analysis generated by the Department of Administrative Services was compromised and error ridden. We wrote to the DAS chief legal counsel

Can you provide me with a list of employees who provided the analysis and generated this report, a copy of all emails, spreadsheets, memos, and documents from said employees regarding this report.
Thanks

We received the following response

I do not believe there is a list responsive to your request. The report came from the Office of Collective Bargaining.

Your request for emails, spreadsheets, memos, documents from "said" employees is vague and overbroad. Therefore, it is denied.
However, you are welcome to amend your request so that it is more specific.
Thank you,

Lisa Iannotta
Chief Legal Counsel
Department of Administrative Services
30 E. Broad Street, 40th Floor
Columbus, Ohio 43215
(614) 728-3475 Direct Dial

Well it turns out that was a lie. Not only is the Office of Collective Bargaining part of DAS, but Plunderbund now has in its possession the proof. What they have more than explains the reluctance of the administration to turn over documents relating to their flawed SB5 analysis

From: Duco, Michael
To: Blair, Robert; Menedis, Nicholas; Wykoff, Pieter
Cc: Trackler, Julie; Colson, Harry
Subject: Columbus
Date: Wednesday, February 23, 2011 9:20:31 AM

I left a message for Jan Campbell for the same information that I asked Toledo for. I am not sure that they will cooperate. I am walking over to SERB to see what kind of data they may have. I know that you want an aggregate number but there may be no way to give you it with any amount of precision.

Maybe what they should do is show what the savings to the State, a city (Toledo) and a school district and a county. If you all provide me with a school district that would work with us and a county we can work on these snapshots. While an aggregate number is big I am worried that it will be challenged and we will not be able to defend. My only solution is to use the savings garnered in Toledo and the state divided by the number of employees to come up with an average savings multiple that by the number of public employees and use a factor of 5% either way. I chose 5% because the elimination of five sick days is approximately 2% savings which Toledo and State workforce would not capture and say 3% for potential pick up coverage. Let me know your ideas or whether you think this formula is defensible.

A number of the people cc'ed in this single email work for DAS and were involved in some manner in the creation of the SB5 analysis that we know some had reservations about. The administration is getting dangerously close to serious lawsuits with their constant disregard for public records law.