the race becomes a walk

California Teachers Association (CTA) has claimed responsibility for slowing down the Race to the Top. According to them all of the emails and testimony before the legislators as well as conversations with Arne Duncan have caused the Feds to slow down the process and rewrite some of the qualification requirements. Which is funny because I have heard that is not even completely written yet. Anyway this seems like good news. I hope it is.....

The Silver Lining

OK California, there is always a silver lining in the Golden State. It has taken awhile, but I have found one. Although the whole merit pay for teachers is a horrible idea, the door is open and now we have to rely on our union to negotiate a reasonable way to handle it.

The silver lining is this:

With this issue removed we, as educators, can talk about the other problems in the Race to the Top and maybe people will listen to us. When the public hears "merit pay" I think they assume that we are protecting ourselves and they stop listening. Now, with that off of the table the other issues can be examined. The biggest problem with the Race to the Top is that we don't even know what it is yet. And what we do know is not good. The Secretary of Education (who, remember has never taught) has set out the following criteria:

1. Turn around low performing schools by firing the staff and putting in a new one. Does this sound similar to No Child Left Behind, maybe exactly like NCLB?????

2. No limit to the number of charter schools a district can have. So now parents who are involved can put their kids in a charter school (where parent involvement is required and students can be kicked out) and the neighborhood schools will be left with all of those kids whose parents don't care. Where would you rather teach? This sounds like a great way to help the disadvantaged.

3. Allow parents from low performing schools to send their children to a school of their choice. Again, No Child Left Behind. Now that low performing school is penalized monetarily for their test scores, is losing API money AND has to pay for the bus to send their best students somewhere else.

4. The money that you hear about is divided among all of the states that qualify. Half of it is mandated to set up a new data system to track those test scores and pay a person to oversee the system. The rest of the money (not much) is left for the governor to decide how to spend. You know, the one that just cut every single penny for education that he could get his hands on. Some of it by changing state laws that were voted in?????

This is what we have so far. Much of the criteria for the Race to the Top is either not even written yet, or has not been shared with legislators. So let's enter into something blindly for a few pennies..... The CTA has called it "budget dust".

merit pay is on its way

The Governor signed a bill that eliminates the state law that protects teachers against their student test scores becoming a part of their evaluation process, including the possibility of merit pay. This was done to make California eligible to enter the Federal Government's competition for funds - Race to the Top. I have given my opinion as to why California should not enter this race. Now my next couple of blogs will show what some of the experts think. In addition you should google "NEA Race to the Top" and "CTA Race to the Top" to get their statements. Things are moving fast, but it is not to late to let your representatives know how you feel. There is a special session for senate democrats this Wednesday. Tell them how you feel now!!!!

Experts comment on Race to the Top

The NRC Critiques ‘Race to the Top’

If the National Research Council issues a report pointing out the obvious flaws with Arne’s ‘Race to the Top’ initiative and no major news outlet covers it, did it really happen?

The Race to the Top initiative — a $4.35 billion grant program included in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act to encourage state-level education reforms — should require rigorous evaluations of the reform efforts it funds, says a new report from the National Research Council. The initiative should support research based on data that links student test scores with their teachers, but should not prematurely promote the use of value-added approaches — which evaluate teachers based on gains in their students’ performance — to reward or punish teachers. Too little is known about the accuracy of these methods to base high-stakes decisions on them right now, the report says.

The U.S. Department of Education is developing regulations that explain how the $4.35 billion will be awarded. The National Research Council’s report offers recommendations to help the department revise these guidelines.

The report strongly supports rigorous evaluations of programs funded by the Race to the Top initiative. Only with careful evaluations — which allow effective reforms to be identified and perhaps used elsewhere — can the initiative have a lasting impact. Without them, any benefits of this one-time expenditure on innovation are likely to end when the funding ends, the report says.

Evaluations must be appropriate to the specific program being assessed and will be easier to design if grantees provide a “theory of action” for any proposed reform — a logical chain of reasoning explaining how the innovation will lead to improved student learning. Evaluations should be designed before programs begin so baseline data can be collected; they should also provide short-term feedback to aid midcourse adjustments and long-term data to judge the program’s impact. While standardized tests are helpful in measuring a reform’s effects, evaluations should rely on multiple indicators of what students know and can do, not just a single test score, the report adds.

You see… It’s called social science. It involves a process of reason, ethics and logic in which normative goals are established and then methods are formulated to both achieve those goals and to evaluate when/whether the goals have been met. This is what the NRC is advocating, but I am afraid that this report amounts to little more than a whistle in a hurricane.

The experts comment on Race to the Top

Comments on "Race to the Top" Guidelines by Alice Foltz

8/17/09

Office of Elementary and Secondary Education
(Attention: Race to the Top Fund Comments)
US Department of Education
400 Maryland Ave., SW, Room 3W329
Washington, DC 20202

1. This special funding rewards data collection rather than the on-the-ground needs of schools that are struggling. There is little equity today in school funding, and schools with the most critical problems (generally urban and rural) will have little capacity to meet the additional reporting requirements in the "race to the top" initiative. "Race to the top" funding should go to schools that work in high-poverty communities, and should support initiatives including small classes, longer hours, summer programs, and extended family programs. Every person in education (students, administrators, teachers, parents) knows that these are the things that help, not additional testing. The grants should reward states that provide greater funding equity to districts with greatest need, and should encourage these districts to innovate and involve the community.

2. My suburban school district has placed a certified teacher in each school to serve as "testing coordinator." This takes one certified teacher out of the classroom, out of personal contact with students, and increases class size for everyone in the district. The data collection requirement of NCLB makes this a reasonable response, but not one that helps student progress. "Race-to-the-top" guidelines will strengthen the need of local schools to take qualified people out of the classroom and into test administration and data disaggregation.

3. Charter school "caps" should be lifted only after strong evaluation systems are in place, not before. The number of failed charters is approximately equal to the number of successful charters in my area, and lifting the "cap" without methods for evaluation is making the students the "guinea pigs" for various untested innovations.

4. Teacher evaluation is important, but should not be tied to test scores. Education can be strengthened by encouraging teacher evaluation that is holistic, involving self-peer-student and administrative evaluation, as well as test results. Currently, NCLB discourages teachers from working in problems schools and discourages teachers from teaching students who are behind in skills. Race-to-the-top funding guidelines exacerbate this NCLB problem.

Alice H. Foltz, teacher/department chair
15002 Tarleton Dr.,
Centreville VA 20120
(Fairfax County, Virginia)

Why California should not join the Race to the Top

The new Federal solution to the problems in education is called The Race to the Top. Apparently all of those children that were Left Behind during the Bush Era are being gathered up by Obama and Arne Duncan, sharpening their pencils and filling out a new and improved scantron in order to enter a new race where those same old test scores are going to determine whether their school has enough money to stay open and whether their favorite teachers will get to keep their jobs. Another cliché, another waste of money. Schwarzenegger is eager to enter California in the race. The California Teachers Union has serious problems with this program. The first one is that in order to qualify California must change the state law currently in place that does not allow test scores to be tied to merit pay for teachers. Another is that most of the money is required to be spent on a database of test scores and a czar to oversee this database. Because of this it will probably cost as much to monitor the program as the money that we would receive. Very little of the Federal money will make its way to students. In case you do not know an outspoken teacher who has already filled you in on why teacher merit pay is bad for education let me give you a few reasons:

1. The very idea assumes that the biggest problem in education is lazy teachers. This is so insulting. I do not know one single teacher that is not already working as hard as they can. Teachers are the only thing that is RIGHT in education. Does the Federal Government think we really know how to raise those stupid test scores and are just not doing it??????? REALLY!

2. Merit pay encourages competition instead of cooperation. The only way we are going to improve education in this country is to work together. Remember “It Takes A Village”? This is true, but if teachers are competing for merit pay they are not going to be working together.

3. Teachers who have the power will be choosing their students in order to get those who will do well on the test and moving to the schools that these students go to. So the newer, less experienced teachers will be at the lower performing schools without experienced teachers to mentor them.

4. Many teachers go into the profession because they want to work with underprivileged children. This is their calling. However, if their family income depends on their test scores, they are not going choose to work with these students and will not be using their talent or their passion.

5. These tests are badly written, inaccurate and narrow. They do not reflect how smart a student is. Actually the more gifted students do not do well on standardized tests because they cannot think outside of the box. In order to train students to do well on these tests we are training them to answer questions based on drill and practice and not critical thinking. All teachers know these tests are bad for students. The teachers who care the most about this injustice are already unhappy about this and now if you force them to teach ONLY to the test so they will not get paid less (or lose their job) they are going to leave the profession. The new teachers coming in are already leaving when they find out that they cannot use their creativity to teach what they love.

Do something for a teacher. Help those poor kids, some of whom are taking a test every two weeks. Do what you can to HELP education in California by contacting your elected officials and telling them to vote NO when Arnold asks them to support California’s entrance into the RACE TO THE TOP. It is our job to educate them. Even the good guys think they are supporting education by voting yes.