Article in the Seattle Times
Hello
I know many of you are involved with this. I was wondering if we could get some clarity about who is involved with who and what each group is trying to accomplish. I know there was a post about this acouple of weeks ago, but it is time for an update.
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/education/2011532748_schoolscoalition06m.html
I know many of you are involved with this. I was wondering if we could get some clarity about who is involved with who and what each group is trying to accomplish. I know there was a post about this acouple of weeks ago, but it is time for an update.
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/education/2011532748_schoolscoalition06m.html
Comments
International Reading Association (IRA)
The IRA seeks to promote high levels of literacy for all by improving the quality of reading instruction through studying the reading processes and teaching techniques; serving as a clearinghouse for the dissemination of reading research through conferences, journals, and other publications; and actively encouraging the lifetime reading habit.
http://www.reading.org
National Alliance of Black School Educators (NABSE)
NABSE is the nation's largest network of African American educators. NABSE is dedicated to improving the educational accomplishments of African American youth through the development and deployment of instructional and motivational methods that increase levels of inspiration, attendance, and overall achievement.
http://www.nabse.org
National Association of Elementary School Principals (NAESP)
NAESP has a mission to lead in the advocacy and support for elementary and middle level principals and other education leaders in their commitment to all children.
http://www.naesp.org
National Association of School Psychologists (NASP)
NASP represents and supports school psychology through leadership to enhance the mental health and educational competence of all children.
http://www.nasponline.org
National Association of State Directors of Special Education (NASDSE)
NASDSE provides support to all states and territories in the delivery of quality education to children and youth with disabilities through training, technical assistance, research, policy development and the development and modeling of powerful collaborative relationships with other organizations and all constituencies.
http://www.nasdse.org
National Center for Learning Disabilities (NCLD)
NCLD increases opportunities for all individuals with learning disabilities to achieve their potential.
http://www.ncld.org
National Education Association (NEA)
NEA is the nation's leading organization committed to advancing the cause of public education. The mission statement reads: "To fulfill the promise of a democratic society, the National Education Association shall promote the cause of quality public education and advance the profession of education; expand the rights and further the interest of educational employees; and advocate human, civil, and economic rights for all."
http:// www.nea.org
Regional Resource and Federal Centers Network
The Federal Resource Center for Special Education offers contact information for all the Office of Special Education Programs technical assistance and dissemination projects. The regional resource centers (RCCs) provide technical assistance to state education associations (SEAs), state departments of education, and state departments of special education.
http://www.rrfcnetwork.org/component/option,com_frontpage/Itemid,1/
Self Reliance Foundation ~ Acceso Hispano
The Self Reliance Foundation works to empower disadvantaged minorities by disseminating practical information and facilitating access to community-based services.
http://www.selfreliancefoundation.org
Urban Special Education Leadership Collaborative (USELC)
USELC is a network of special education leaders from urban school districts around the country that gives its members unique opportunities to share research, information, and ideas about what works and why in urban school districts. The collaborative accomplishes its leadership development mission by providing training, personalized technical assistance, policy-sharing, and distance-learning opportunities.
http://www.urbancollaborative
If the district were to take responsibility, then it would do a much better job a making sure kids didn't fall behind in the first place, wouldn't it?
I will share with the parent I quoted the informatino about the distinction between the different types of testing. Good point there.
Seattle Citizen asked me about "The story of a teacher transferring "north" and not having the same high level of expectation ...Did that teacher experience a whole culture of low expectations in a building, or did just that teacher have them?"
Answer: My sense was that it was the building culture that the teacher came.
Of the kids that don't get IEP's, are they more successful students?
Are you familiar with Title 1 Targetted Assistance? I am wondering if SPS would see low-income at-risk students doing much better if all of the Title 1 money was used for targetted assistance instead of school-wide programs? Do you have any opinion on that?
Also, can you elaborate on why it is that the resource room teacher has no accountability? I have heard a couple anecdotes from parents whose children go to resource room that explain to me how the RR teachers can push blame for student's failure to may AYP onto the student themselves. It is disturbing.
"I looked into KIPP, and found out they the graduates of their program do indeed do very well. But it turns out the kids that are successful are the kids that have strong support at home. The kids without the strong support appear to drop out. KIPP won't publish their drop out data. Also, many of the kids that enroll in KIPP have heard about it from their teacher. The teachers tend to refer kids that have the factors that are important for success in KIPP."
This seems to me to be the heart of charter schools: they intend to skim off kids who can handle the work well and who have supportive family structure in the first place. Those kids would thrive in ANY school. But kids who are difficult, or struggling, or have little or no support at home, can be conveniently found to have violated the charter, and so are dropped, or are STRONGLY ENCOURAGED to leave the school.
Geez, if you cherry-pick all the kids who are easy to teach and who have supportive families, you had damn well BETTER have fantastic results -- and yet charter schools do no better than non-charter schools.
It all looks to me a lot like when I make my kids help clean up after dinner: everyone wants the easy jobs that look good with little effort. Nobody wants to scrub the roasting pan. But the public schools have to not only wipe the table, but scrub the pans, and everything in between. Anyone who doesn't understand the magnitude of that task should sit down and be quiet, and yes, Seattle Times, I'm talking to you.
WHY is there low expecations? Are teaches lazy? Unprepared? Unsupported?
Because as long is there is a place or a reason to pass the buck, people do so. If you can pawn some kids off for some reason on somebody else, or blame somebody else for a problem you will do exactly that. That is human nature. If there is somewhere that will handle your problems, you will use it.
So, if there's a place called "special education" or "ELL", that's where you will send your struggling students rather than try to figure out how to improve yourself or your teaching. So, you will work hard to identify the students as the problem...rather than reflect inwardly. And if students are already identified as "special ed" so much the better, you can use that as an excuse for low expectations, even without knowing it. It is a lot harder to presume competency than to have low standards.
And that type of system sets up a culture of low expectations. A system that allows teachers to give up on certain students.
Yes it is a district-wide problem. The finding is a "culture of low expectations".. and a culture is systemic, not limited to 1 or a few.
Great line!
There have been s o many meetings and s o many recommendations. If a principal or better yet, if ALL the district's coaches went from middle school classroom to middle school classroom and they brought along our supt, and they asked kids to read aloud and posed some comprehension questions, they'd see that many kids are coming from elementary school unable to read at grade level. If those coaches looked each other in the eye after listening to struggling learners, they'd have to feel more responsible (accountable?) to make a change. If you can't read, you can't do Connected Math.
What happened to the work of Courageous Conversations? What happened to the findings of the Task Force on Disproportionality?
If the wealthy people who supported the head-nodders on our Board read any of these findings and required the supt to act on the suggestions, our kids and their families would be making news for making progress and the number of kids referred to special ed would be reduced.
Which would be more- as I pointed out than for example a Boeing worker- who is paid per year of service- regardless of how much salary they earned, rather than 60% of their end of career salary.
They also can't be hired back after they retire and retain their pension and their working salary.
Still Boeing workers in this area are still better off than many other private companies, as pension benefits were cut long ago.
Like was pointed out earlier, teachers in Seattle (or any public school in Washington) do NOT have tenure,
If it teachers aren't getting laid off after two years- because they can bump someone else, isn't that tenure?
I also was wondering, if this is inaccurately stated in the media- perhaps you can link the SEA clarification?
In the 2008-2009 school year, when inflation was flat, Seattle teachers were still awarded a sizeable 9.7 percent COLA raise.
These “COLA” raises are either decided when districts negotiate a new multi-year contract or they are negotiated separately for each year. The COLA is often the only portion of teacher raises reported by the media, but it isn’t the only raise teachers receive.
In addition to COLA raises, public school teachers generally earn additional raises each year for gaining experience, moving up a “step” on the salary schedule typically with each year of service.
In 2008-2009, step increases in Seattle averaged $1,554 or a 1.6 percent increase in salary. However, added to the 9.7 percent COLA raise, teachers received overall an 11.2 percent increase that year.
I think that 10% cola in 2008 was a result of a state initiative by the voters which gave teachers 4.5 percent, plus the contract that expired last year (teachers are on a one-year contract this year) was predicated on Seattle being one of the top five pay rates of eleven districts in the area. So when Bellevue went on strike two years ago and won a large increase, Seattle was forced to give an increase which put it above Bellevue to make it number five. I think that part of the raise was another 4.5 percent or so.
So Seattle teachers got a raise of ten percent or so based on
a) citizen initiative; and
b) it had to be in #5, so it had to be better than Bellevue.
Half the raise was in response to citizen desire to give teachers more money statewide; half was a strange contract anomaloy (I mean, who set THAT clause in the contract five years before?)
Teachers do also get step increases, which reflects years of service. This is state-wide: If a teacher leaves Seattle and goes to Spokane, their pay will be predicated on years of service in the state. Out of state newcomers do not get this.
I think the step increases are fair. It's a public institution, and a teacher can't work their way up the ranks like one could in a private company, so the steps serve to recognize experience while the job ostensible stays the same (no movement up management ladder, but some teachers DO go into "management," AP or P, and get about $20,000 per year more than an average teacher. I think APs and Ps start at around 70g, partly because they have large time commitments (games, activities, etc) that they have to attend to.
Some might argue that we should do away with steps and replace them with merit (there's no other system I can think of; as noted, there's no way to become "higher levels" of teacher) But I think that's a bad idea. As has been discussed, merit pay has numerous pitfalls for students - teachers game the system, teach to the test, don't argue against bad pedagogy that comes from on high...It just seems ripe for abuse and favoritism, and furthermore it seems studies over many, many years have shown no benefit for merit pay.
So barring merit pay, yes, teachers get step increases. I wouldn't consider these COLAs, but rather monetary increases to recognize experience and service, just as in the private sector we give people raises who have been around awhile, have proven capable, and who we would rather keep than let go due to inability to pay a market rate.
WV would rather play ackyball with Bill the Cat on this sunny day...
I was comparing a public sector union job, to a private sector union job.
I think it is hard to argue that 60% of your highest two years of pay is an inadaquate amount for pension, especially considering that often private sector workers do not receive same benefits.
Especially when you consider this whole retire- rehire thing.
This is a veeery long thread, so maybe I lost track, but was someone arguing that 60% retirement isn't much or enough?
Someone here thinks that 60% of the last two years of pay (rough average - say 60% of $65K = $39,000 per annum) is excessive remibursement for 20+ years service helping nurture young minds and bodies into well-adjusted adults?
What do you want - that retirees ought to have to work further years to support themselves?
And I dont think its fair to have a go at teachers just because their collective bargaining power has enabled them to negotiate favourable(?) benefits...
Dont blame the teachers - blame the system. Put your energy into helping other workers (public or private) band together to demand and get better working conditions and benefits... lets see the "Trickle Down" effect in action - let the corporations share the profits with those who make them happen by the sweat of their brow or their intellectual endeavours...
http://www.smh.com.au/national/teachers-ban-basic-tests-in-protest-at-my-school-site-20100412-s2uc.html
Teachers ban basic tests in protest at My School site
ANNA PATTY
April 12, 2010 - 1:52PM
Teachers have voted unanimously for a national ban on national literacy and numeracy tests in public schools in protest against the federal government's My School website.
The Australian Education Union federal executive said today that teachers would not supervise the national tests scheduled for next month unless the federal government addressed teacher concerns about use of the data on the website.
The union's federal president, Angelo Gavrielatos, said teachers would not administer the tests until the federal government stopped the results being used to "publicly brand students and schools as failures in league tables".
"That is damaging for students and school communities," he said.
"No other test, student assessment or report will be affected by this decision.
"The primary concern of teachers is the fact that nothing has been done to stop test data being taken from the My School website to create damaging league tables in which schools are ranked on test results alone.
"We also have serious concerns that the NAPLAN results are being used on the My School website in a way that is misleading for parents."
The federal government has made it clear that it will not cave in to the union's demands.
The Federal Minister for Education, Julia Gillard, suggested parents help supervise the NAPLAN tests if teachers proceeded with their ban.
However, the parents and citizens association said it would not co-operate with that plan.
Ms Gillard yesterday told the ABC TV Insiders program that she would continue to make NAPLAN test results available for all schools on the My School website.
"What the Australian Education Union is asking me to do is to gut My School and I just won't do it," she said.
"My School is all about putting more power into the hands of parents than they've ever had before by giving them more information about their child's school than they've ever had before."
I was under the impression that the person citing that teachers only made 60% of their retirement income ( I thought only Microsoftees could afford to retire after twenty years), believed that to be a low figure, and I wanted to compare that figure to pensions from private corporations ( also unionized), which gives a dollars per year of service figure for company pension , regardless of salary.
I think teachers should have a choice- be unionized and have regular pay increases, or be treated as professionals, undergo performance assessment and have the opportunity for additional compensation.
Without TRI or benefits- the 5th grade teacher that my daughter had made $70,000 in 2007 with a bachelors degree.
GIven that she announced that she wasn't going to teach much math that year, that she spent more time out of the building that year than in, and that she didn't seem to be cognizant of the harm she was doing to the children , I am eager to find a way to encourage excellence in teaching, because collective bargaining ain't it.
"Without TRI or benefits- the 5th grade teacher that my daughter had made $70,000 in 2007 with a bachelors degree."
Imposssible. NO teacher makes 70g without TRI.
A BA+90 credits (but no masters degree) WITH TRI tops out at just over 70g after 15 years.
Most people who have a BA but no masters are in the BA+45 lane, which means they top out, with TRI, at 61g after 12 years.
I think national tests would provide better info than each state's experimental state tests. Tests can be explained and examined and more variables analyzed when parents get involved. We now have disaggregated data in the US and that's fairly recent. Schools need to make that info available in a clear way to the public. Why keep it from the parents?
Trends from Australia travel quickly to the US. Remember Whole Language?
"GIven that she announced that she wasn't going to teach much math that year, that she spent more time out of the building that year than in, and that she didn't seem to be cognizant of the harm she was doing to the children , I am eager to find a way to encourage excellence in teaching"
I dont know about yearly testing now - been away too long; when I grew up in New Zealand and then when my kids went to school there was some testing but it was used merely to measure progress for individual children; those test results were not aggregated and used to decide what schools were failing and which were succeeding, and there certainly was not an administrative control/financial factor/threat involved...
There been a national three-tier school exit exam process in place for more than a hundred years...
Children could leave school at 15 (later changed to 16, I think) and many did that and went into trade apprenticeships or technical training institutes...
The rest sat School Certificate examinations at the end of the third year of high school (proficiency in core subjects plus one or two electives), University Entrance.Sixth Form Certificate at the end of the 4th year (internally assessed in the first round with minimum of 5 subjects, maximum of 7, although you could retake the exam and add subjects the next year...If you did not do well in the internal assessment, you could take the public exam and hope to improve your results. This qualification was necessary to be accepted into a university, otherwise you had to wait until you were 20 to gain automatic adult entry), and Scholarship/Bursary at the end of the 5th year (full or partial tertiary education tuition funding, depending on your results)...
the system changed over the years, with a major shift in 2002....
http://www.nzqa.govt.nz/qualifications/ssq/prevqual.html
I do know there is now much more emphasis on gaining credits for successfully completing individual subjects
http://www.nzqa.govt.nz/ncea/for-students/ue/ue-review.html
http://www.nzqa.govt.nz/qualifications/ssq/statistics/commentary07.html#cohort
I don't entirely understand the way NZ schools work, but aren't they even worse than high-stakes testing in that if a student doesn't score well enough in the various "forms", they don't just get to "choose" to leave at 15, they are REQUIRED to do so? And also, isn't it true that if a student picks a career at whatever year they're required to and then do not score well enough according to the state requirements, they can't even HOPE to study that field?
I had a friend in NZ whose son's hopes were crushed because his test scores forbade him from attempting a career he'd always wanted. He simply wasn't allowed to go to the college of his choice-and it wasn't the college's decision, it was all based on this one test. The way I understood her, he HAD to take teaching courses because that's what his testing indicated he SHOULD study.
Seems far worse than anything we have here. At least if you fail the WASL you can still get a GED and find a college somewhere to meet your needs. And you're not just kicked out at 15 if you don't make the cut.
agibean - that's all rubbish... no disrespect intended... there's no forcing anyone out of school, there's no forcing anyone in or out of career paths, you can stay at school and resit exams if you dont get appropriate marks the first time around...
its not all based on the exam mark - NZ high schools have had internal assessment for years and years.
I got University Entrance/Sixth Form Certificate in 1976 - it was accredited, which means that I received that qualification based on an analysis of my entire year's work in each subject (like a portfolio - examples of work, periodic in-class tests, teacher reports)...
State education inspectors would come to each school and assess the level of work being done there by going through a randomised selection of students' work in each class/year...
If the school 'met the grade' the internal assessments would stand, if the school did not, children sat the external exams... and if your internal assessment was not a good one, you could still get the qualification by sitting the public exam...
And if you bombed out that year, you stayed in school and repeated the year... some people who bombed in only one subject went on to the next year's work while repeating that one subject....
A huge amount of flexibility and definitely not a case of only having one chance...
I suggest you go to the New Zealand Qualifications Authority website and see for yourself....
INTERESTINGLY, while the NZQA makes public stats relating to different schools, universities and technical institutes etc, IT WARNS THAT PEOPLE OUGHT NOT TO USE THOSE STATS TO COMPARE THE 'SUCCESS OR FAILURE' OF THOSE INSTITUTIONS/PROGRAMMES. It points out that each programme is different and is influenced by a number of factors (what it calls deciles), which include race, socio-economic status etc...
WV= 'filited' = which is exactly what the reformers are doing to the US education system - filleting it and leaving our most vulnerable kids with the scraps...
Isn't this org a member of the Schools Now Coalition?
partnership4learning in turn appears to be the creaters of http://www.collegeworkready.org/
"Washington state imports talent from elsewhere because our students graduate underprepared. The education gaps start at birth and continue through K-12 and college. The College and Work Ready Agenda is a coalition formed to address these gaps by advocating for a set of focused reforms."