Top 10 education issues facing Georgia
This is my live account from the Georgia Partnership on Excellence in Education daylong media symposium Friday featuring education movers and shakers
First up is Dr. Dana Rickman, policy and research director for the partnership, on the Top Ten Education Issues to Watch in 2013.
Please note that all these comments are from the speakers today, not from me. (I did add a few comments, but I clearly designate them as mine.) I am writing as folks speak and may miss a typo but will go back during the breaks and clean this up.
Top 10 issues, says Rickman:
Race to the Top: Halfway through implementing grant. Where do we stand?
Elevating low performing schools. Will require high performing teachers and leaders.
How do we pay for k-12 eduction? (”I don’t know,” says Rickman. “That really is the answer to that question.”)
Help wanted: Hiring 250,000 new graduates. Where are they? Only 42 percent has a college degree; State needs 250,000 more graduates.
Early learning: What this issue focuses on is high quality learning from the zero to age 3 population.
Stem: Promoting the sciences and math for both workforce and economic development. Fastest growing job fields in state and nation. What is Georgia doing to promote STEM learning?
Waiver from No Child and what it means.
Technology; the next generation of learning. How is technology being used in classroom?
Flexibility and choice.
Final issue: Demographics; Changing face of Georgia public schools. Tremendous demographic shift within Georgia. For all these reforms to be successful and for education continue to improve from birth through work, we need to pay attention to those demographic shifts, says Rickman.
Rickman says her major concern is the growth of children living in poverty in Georgia. The key to economic development is a strong education system. Children in poverty undermine a strong education system as they are harder to educate, need more resources.
Rickman is now delving into a few of these issues, starting with the state’s waiver from No Child Left Behind. (Georgia is among 33 states that earned already earned waivers. Seven more state waivers are pending.)
Under AYP, proficiency goal was all students proficient by 2014. No longer under that mandate. Now, the goal for Georgia is to reduce the number of non-proficient student within six years.
There are four performance categories of schools, three of which only apply to Title 1 schools. The categories include reward schools, which are high performing or show the greatest gains among cohorts. Second category is priority, which means the school falls in bottom five percent and has one of these three liabilities: low graduation rates, lack of progress or received a school improvement grant. A focus school is also only Title 1. Schools have to be in bottom 10 percent and either suffer low grad rates or a wide achievement gap
The last category is alert and applies to all schools: This is calculated by grad rates and test scores lower than the stage average.
Rickman also went through the state’s new career ready performance index, which has many moving parts.
The state has a complex, holistic formula to rank schools that includes student achievement, progress, an achievement gap closing score, an exceeding the bar score. The states also assigns ratings for financial efficiency and the school climate.
“It is very complicated but what the state was trying to do is get away from good school, bad school, pass, fail,” says Rickman, “and use this as a learning tool for the districts and the schools.”
Jumping in is Dorie Turner Nolt, the assistant director of communications for the state Department of Education. (She is the former education reporter for the Associated Press and covered Arne Duncan and Race to the Top.)
Nolt said the complexity and shadings within theses ratings will be channeled into an easier-to-understand format for parents.
Morris News Service reporter Walter Jones just asked Rickman what parents can do if they are not happy with their school. She says she recommends parents join the PTA and get involved and try to push change. Another reporter asked now what parents can do if they have gotten involved and are still unhappy. (These reporters come across the state so I don’t know all of them.)
Rickman says parents can choose another option for their child. She says there are choice options now in Georgia.
Now, she is being asked what the penalties are if schools don’t make the grade. Are there punishments?
Rickman said the response will not be punishment, but intervention by the state for schools in trouble, whether Title 1 or not.
My former AJC colleague Maria Saporta just asked about the impact of kids in poverty.
Rickman warms to this topic as she says it is pivotal to the future of education in Georgia.
–60 percent of our kids in public schools qualify for free and reduced lunch, a 10 percent increase since 2007. That is going to have a big impact because of the resources required to bring poor kids up to speed.
–56 percent of students in k-12 are non-white. “We have a diverse, increasingly poor population that our schools are trying to educate.” She says investing in early education for low-income kids brings a $7 return for every dollar spent. She says schools need more bilingual teachers.
Overall, Rickman says she is pleased with policies that the state has put in place. But says we have to keep an eye on the shifting demographics, as these kids present greater needs and we have to see what teachers ought to have to address these students. She is now done speaking.
Now up is Race to the Top update, presented by Dr. Susan Andrews, Georgia Department of Education.
She is talking about the online resources for teachers, including standards and student performance.
She is explaining that the DOE Office for School Turnaround was created to provide concentrated effort at the school level to help priority schools, which are those identified as lowest achieving – defined as the lowest 5 percent in state in achievement or having less than a 60 percent high school graduation rates.
On how to create great teachers and leaders: “We expect more authentic assessments, more project-based learning. We expect teachers to differentiate because of the differences in ability and achievement levels of their students. We have to train them to do this. This is a new way to teach school.”
State intends to measure how much a student grows while in a teacher’s classroom. Based on student growth and observations, teachers will be rated exemplary, proficient, needs development or ineffective. (See earlier blog on problems with this teacher evaluation measure.) Once they are evaluated, top performing teachers will receive bonuses through Race to the Top.
Principals will do two 30 minute observation sessions of each teacher. There are also four 10-minute walk-throughs where principals are looking at one or two standards in action. If principal does not see enough evidence when he or she visits the classroom, then the teachers will have an opportunity to provide documentation that they are meeting the standard.
For first time: Value-added piece will be added to teacher evaluations. If teacher teaches tested subject, CRCT or EOCT, then they will have a student growth percentile that says “Here is where that student scored on prior test and here is where that student scored today.”
For teacher teaching in non-tested subjects — 70 percent of courses in a school , including art music, AP class, IB classes, foreign language are in the non-tests category — state is now developing pre and post tests for those courses. They are called SLOs, Student learning objectives.
State is dealing with findings from pilot information on teacher evaluations. This year will be a hold-harmless year for value-added measures. In 2013-2014, state will have student surveys and value-added impact. In 2013-2014, state will have that whole piece. The following year, the bonuses will begin.
Now Andrews is talking about the companion evaluation system to measure leader effectiveness.
This is for building-level leadership. Principals will be rated on eight standards. They must meet all eight of those standards. They also have to develop two unique goals tied to their own school improvement plan. Every staff member, including cafeteria, custodians, completes a climate survey on the principal. Principal will choose which groups will rate assistant principal. Principal evaluations will look at student attendance. Also, look at how effective principals are in retaining effective teachers.
“We know that teachers leave leaders first. So, we want to see how effective principals are in retaining those effective teachers.”
Also, state will look at student performance piece for principals. Looking at how the achievement gap between bottom 25 percent and rest of students in the schools is being closed.
So, now, we have both teacher and leader effectiveness measures.
“Race to the Top is not driving the work. The work is driving Race to the Top. These are initiatives we wanted to do. We didn’t have the money to do them. Race to the Top gave us the money.”
Greatest challenge with Race to the Top is moving from piloting, refining, implementing to sustaining.
In the Q&A, I asked Andrews about the Gates Foundation report released this week advising that outsiders do some of the classroom observations to prevent bias, and that districts, pressed for time, consider video reviews of teachers in the classrooms.
My main question: Do principals really have the time to do these observations?
Her answer: It make take a culture shift but principals have to realize that their top priority, along with ensuring their school buildings are safe, is instruction, and they must make time for these teacher observations. No, DOE has not considered bringing in outsiders to observe teachers or using videos of teachers. But DOE is still discussing how best to do this.
Now up: Education Policy – Kristin Bernhard, Governor’s Education Adviser
Bernhard is full of good news only about education and her boss.
Gov. Nathan Deal is restoring 10 days of pre-k, which she casts as a raise for those teachers. (Me: Those teachers may feel it is a restoration of some of the salary they lost when Deal cut pre-k by 20 days.)
“We are interested in improving student achievement in STEM fields.” She cites a speech by Gov. Perdue where he noted that Georgia only graduated one physics teacher that year.
She cites the UTeach Programs under way in some Georgia colleges to identify and direct science majors to teaching. “We are a long way from those days. I think we have over 100 students enrolled in those programs,” she says.
She says high-definition networks are enabling college professors to teach science classes to rural students through the Innovative Fund.
Bernhard says she has every reason to believe that the new charter schools commission, restored by the November constitutional amendment, will be up and running by March.
She says we have seamless articulation from technical colleges and four-year schools as part of Deal’s Complete College Initiative. She said Deal was inspired by Florida’s Take Stock in Children program, and has replicated it here. Kids selected in middle school are asked to sign contracts that they will work hard. If they have satisfied the contract and worked hard by the end of high school, they are given $2,500 from the state to attend college.(You can read about the program here.)
Deal has set higher goals for college completion rates to get those 250,000 more college graduates needed to fill the jobs of the future in the state, most of which will require education beyond high school.
Deal’s Higher Education Funding Commission has recommended fundamental changes in how public campuses are funded. Now, college funding will depend in large part on how many students finish rather than how many enroll.
HOPE: Deal is adding 3 percent to HOPE Scholarship awards this year. But tuition has gone up more than 3 percent. “What a student got last year will increase by 3 percent in terms of this year,” says Bernhard.
NOTE from me: My AJC colleague Nancy Badertscher has asked a series of tough questions, attempting to find news in what thus far has been pretty surface and pretty news-free. She pressed Bernhard as the governor’s budget and his funding plans for k-12, but Bernhard said that Deal would be the one to unveil his budget
Now up, Education Funding – Herb Garrett, Executive Director, Georgia School Superintendents’ Assn.
Garrett is the anti Bernhard speaker. He is sharing the bad news.
Cuts thus far to k-12: $6.6 billion. “It is like the national budget deficit. Those numbers are so big that they don’t mean anything to anybody anymore.”
One pressure on the state budget will be the $28 million needed to fund state charter schools, those charter schools that the state has adopted and agreed to fund.
Garrett raised the issue of the new title fee for cars that replaces the ad valorem taxes, part of which went to fund schools. “There is supposed to be enough money to give back the money school systems lost on ad valorem taxes. That should be a wash. But I will promise you that the individuals that trade cars under the oak trees, those casual sales going on in Georgia for a million years that we haven’t taxed, aren’t going to be happy. When that person goes to get that title, then they have to pay the fee on the fair market value of that car.”
Garrett predicts that angry car buyers — it is a pretty hefty title fee buyers will now have to pay for any car purchase, even from private owners — will be calling their legislators, and some lawmakers may get cold feed and back off the fee. If so, school systems could lose out.
Garrett said the private school tax credit — taking $50 million a year from the state coffers — will be an issue this year as some lawmakers are seeking to double it. Garrett wishes there was more sunshine as to who gets this tax credit.
Since 2008, individuals and corporations have claimed about $170 million in tax credits through the program. The program had a $51.5 million cap this year, but the program was so popular that the money ran out in mid-August.
He is talking about the PARCC testing consortium, which is developing the test that Georgia will use to measure the Common Core.
“One of the things that nobody is talking about is the anticipated cost of that test. Last number I heard is $15 per student. We’ve got legislators who already think we spend way too much on testing and I can promise you that is nowhere close to $15.”
Also, Garrett says the $100 per child given to charter systems may be a problem now that bigger systems — including Fulton — are becoming charter systems. With Fulton, that $100 per child turns into an extra $10 million a year for the state.
One of the elephants in the room, he says, is raises. State employees and teachers haven’t had raises for years.
State vs. local in school funding:
“It’s fact that responsibility for paying for the cost for public education has been shift dramatically from the state to local systems The numbers don’t lie.”
Prior to 2003, the overall split in school funding between state and local dollars was 60/40 on average, 60 percent state dollars and 40 local dollars raised through property taxes.
(Garrett: That ratio varies from system to system depending on how much local money districts put into their schools. State money represents only 33 percent of what Fulton spends, while Ben Hill County’s state share represents about 80 percent of its school spending.)
Now, that ratio has shifted, with local money slightly outpacing the state share of education funding. To understand why that matters, Garrett said each school funding percentage point shifted from the state to the locals represents more than $100 million dollars.
That is why districts have raised school taxes. Average school millage rate across state was 15. Now, it is 16.1.
(From state web site: The tax rate, or millage, in each county is set annually by the board of county commissioners, or other governing authority of the taxing jurisdiction, and by the Board of Education. A tax rate of one mill represents a tax liability of one dollar per $1,000 of assessed value. The average county and municipal millage rate is 30 mills; the state millage rate in each county is 0.25 mills.)
But 41 school systems levy 18 mils or more. Of those 41 systems, 11 levy 19 mills or more; 11 others levy 20 mils or more. There is a 20 mil cap except for a handful of systems that got their voters to approve a 25 mil cap.
Questions: What does Garrett think of Law proposing to arm principals in schools?
Qualifies that he is answering for himself and not for the Georgia Superintendents Association:
“Having a person in school with a gun and minimal training, what could go wrong? I would never recommend that to a board of education.” As he listened to the proposals to arm administrators, Garrett says he went back to his own days as a principal and school chief and started putting names and people to the idea.
“Even with training, I just can’t see some folks ever being in that position to be able to do that.”
Police have said that if there is an armed school administrator and officers come roaring, how do they know if that person is on their side? Garrett says the situation could be confusing and dangerous.
“Unless it is a uniform officer that nobody has enough money to pay for, I am not sure how to do that,” says Garrett.
Now up, Georgia’s 2013 Teacher of the Year Lauren Eckman:
Her theme is the changing classroom and changing schools. She has a prepared and passionate speech, which essentially says the old ways won’t work with students. Content is no longer delivered as much as it is discovered. There is an app for everything.
“Education is no longer one size fits all, which, if we are honest, is really one size fits none.”
In answering questions, she says she is excited about Common Core; “I like the clarity of them. I like the depth of them. They really get into the nitty-gritty and into the good stuff in each of our subjects.”
Asked about the new teacher evaluation system, Eckman says she like the new system better than Class Keys which “told us so much, it told us nothing.” The new method gives teachers more feedback, more meaningful insights in what they must improve.
She also says that in her travels she has met many teachers who are positive and committed. She has not seen low morale.
Eckman says that the state is about to graduate its first class of high school school students who are truly digital natives, raised with all the new technologies and at ease with them. When these digital natives go to college and become teachers, they will bring their expertise to the classroom and be able to share it with veteran teachers, she says.
Dr. John Barge, State Superintendent of Schools, could not make it as he had to go to Washington. Chief Academic Officer Mike Buck stepped in and went through all the trend lines showing Georgia schools are improving. He stressed that Georgia is not where it should be, but is headed in the right direction.
He was elaborating on the career pathways, in which kids pick a high school concentration in 8th grade. (Me: That seems awfully early to me for children to declare that they want a health concentration. Public school students will pick a potential job to pursue in one of 17 broad career categories, known as career pathway clusters. Teachers would start talking to students about potential career opportunities, starting as early as fifth grade. I think focusing on a career option in 8th grade narrows children’s perspective. It is still unclear based on what Buck said here that who will serve as the kids’ career advisers. Apparently, it will be teachers who will have to carve out time.)
What’s Ahead for Education in the 2013 Legislative Session – Rep. Stacey Abrams and Rep. Ed Lindsey:
Abrams: My goal is make certain education doesn’t suffer in the budget. We have never funded education fully.
“Too often, we concentrate so fixedly on a single measure that we ignore the comprehensive needs. The fact is that charter schools, while a good option, are not a panacea. They overall serve students as well as traditional public schools. We should not get so caught up in the over-hyped nature of the debate that we ignore the fundamental responsibility we have to educate children.
Other concern: The tax credit to attend private schools, which she called a pseudo voucher program, is now viewed as an entitlement by the public.
“It would be hard to get rid of it, but we need transparency so we are making certain those dollars aren’t being used to discriminate against students. Because of the way law was constructed, can’t get data we need on those dollars,” she says.
Lindsey:
Charter school vote was really a vote on status of public education in Georgia. “With a 67 percent statewide graduation rate, the status quo is both morally and economically unacceptable. I agree charter schools drowned out all other discussions in the recent political election, but I never believed charter schools are a panacea or a silver bullet.”
Pre-k is important. Need a vigorous curriculum in pre-k programs. Many others just serve as daycare centers.
Lawmakers are taking questions.
Lindsey and Abrams are disagreeing on whether Legislature has cut education. Lindsey says the money per student was actually higher, but delivered in targeted programs rather than block grants.
Parent Trigger:
Lindsey addresses why his bill allows even a high performing school to convert to a charter school by parental will
“It creates an additional avenue of communication directly from the parents to the school board, which I think is critically important.”
Lindsey also wants teachers to be able to initiate a takeover of a school and a charter conversion.
He says there is a check and balance in his bill as the school board has the discretion to accept or reject the parental petition.
Why include high performing schools in the bill?
“Every parent ought to be encouraged in their child’s education. I find it interesting that parents may actually spend more time talking to their school board about the quality of their child’s education.”
Abrams: We don’t have adequate structures in place to manage our charter schools. Florida faced issues with its for-profit charters. If we are going to make it easier to do this, we have to make certain that we create adequate protections the day after.
Lindsey: Warns about the forces of the status quo throwing up roadblocks to innovation.
Q: Couldn’t the parent trigger bill divide schools?
If parents are not happy with the conversion to a charter school, their child would be able to move to a different school under the bill.
Bottom line, Lindsey says his bill fosters parent involvement.
Would Lindsey support doubling the private tax credit?
Lindsey says he shares both Abrams’ concerns about the lack of data and transparency around the tax credit and her questions about whether safeguards are in place to ensure the tax credit is truly helping poor kids go to private schools. “Certainly, before I would vote to increase the threshold, I would like to see those additional things put in place.”
Abrams: Doesn’t imbue the November charter school vote with the same significance as Lindsey does. “We can’t over-read that election. That said, there is not a member of the Georgia General Assembly who can say we do our best by the children of Georgia, that education in Georgia is where it should be.”
Lindsey: Disagrees that people didn’t understand the ballot question on charter schools. “If it fooled the voters, it should have fooled all the voters around the state. If you start drilling down, it wasn’t logical that a 58 percent vote in favor of this amendment was because voters were fooled…we had a full and robust debate around this.”
Guns in school:
Lindsey says it should be a local decision. Many schools already have armed officers.
–From Maureen Downey, for the AJC Get Schooled blog
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164 comments Add your comment
Private Citizen
January 12th, 2013
5:38 pm
whoa. the link. http://www.teslamotors.com/
Colonel Jack
January 12th, 2013
8:01 pm
@Dekalbite … Your Mrs. Burke would today be deemed an unsatisfactory teacher. She used lecture, which for some ungodly reason is a bad word in education today, as a regular method of instruction. Her students were quiet, and not moving around and “discovering,” and she was being a teacher, not a “facilitator.” (I wish to Heaven I was making this up. The system I last taught in gave me those exact same failing grades on my last two evaluations.)
Was Mrs. Burke a great teacher? From everything you said, I can only conclude that she was a first-rate educator. But in the world the morons who run things have created, she’d be just like me…out on her ear.
Just A Teacher
January 12th, 2013
8:06 pm
“How do we pay for k-12 education? (”I don’t know,” says Rickman. “That really is the answer to that question.”)
How is that not issue #1? You can make all kinds of rules and recommendations but if you can’t pay for anything, you’re just spouting hot air!
dekalbcountymom
January 12th, 2013
8:43 pm
The real problems are the over-emphasis on sports and the anti-intellectual climate in Georgia. Please remember that not too long ago our erstwhile state school superintendent, Kathy Cox, tried to have the word “evolution” stricken from science textbooks, saying the concept was “controversial.” Add to that the lack of any mechanism for parents, students and other stakeholders to hold central administrations or school boards accountable for their actions. People hesitate to call these charlatans out for fear that the few good schools in their district will be punished. Yes, DeKalb County School System, I’m talking about you.
Beverly Fraud
January 12th, 2013
8:55 pm
“BF, I guess you’ve never met any parents who are nervous wrecks because they’ve had four addresses within two years and still can’t keep a working phone number, despite trying to keep it together and with evidence of vice that I can see.”
Yes I have. Poor parents who struggled, yet in their struggle instilled enough values that their children earned scholarship to college, hopefully to break a generational cycle of poverty.
And I’ve met parents, in similar surroundings, who chose to let their children sit on milk crates instead of furniture. Chose? Yes, when your 54 inch widescreen TV costs more than the rest of your furniture combined you are making a choice.
Let’s not smear everyone, but let’s not, under the guise of political correctness, pretend these dynamics, these values, these behavior choices don’t exist.
Truth in Moderation
January 12th, 2013
9:11 pm
By definition, home educators do not deal in statistics, they just do what is best for THEIR children. One advantage is the DNA connection. One’s children are biologically related, and therefore there is a greater chance that they will have your or your spouse’s same strengths, weaknesses, and interests. Being aware of this is a great advantage in choosing appropriate curriculum and guiding one’s child into a compatible career. Because of their academic freedom, home educators are free to use whatever curriculum and teaching style works best. With few exceptions, home school teachers use a variety of curricula. Personally, I have used many methods, and have found that some work better for certain kinds of learners AT CERTAIN AGES. For example, the “discovery method” is best used judiciously after certain rote mastery of facts has laid a solid foundation. Currently, we are using a unit study to explore Geometry through hands-on origami projects. My children are already expert origamists, so this has a high interest level for them. They are being challenged to think logically and discover math patterns and relationships through the folding exercises. Afterwards, they will return to more formal instruction in writing geometric proofs. However, they will now be able to visualize and understand the logic used with greater depth of understanding. This is the ART of teaching. The public school factory model will always come up short….by design.
bootney farnsworth
January 12th, 2013
9:38 pm
@ Attentive,
the sort of advocate I have in mind is someone who actually could tell the system to behave, stand down, and prove their points.
starting about three years ago at GPC, it became obvious Tricoli was empire building, and those who
supported him were able to flex muscles disproportionate to their alleged station at the school. very quickly those people began settling scores and destroying careers of people they didn’t like.
many of us tried to get HR to deal with it, only to find HR served as the hit team. some of us went to GAE, who basically said you got a point but nothing we can do. a few even went so far as to file ethics complaints only to find the system self investigates and -surprise- found nothing amiss.
a desperate/determined few even tried to take the issues downtown only to be told the BOR – run by Erroll Davis, mind you – would look into it.
we knew what was going on, that money was being spent recklessly, that careers were being destroyed, that a strong possibility of fiscal misdeeds was going on, but the system both didn’t care and didn’t want to hear it.
had there been someone at the state level who’s job it was to investigate claims made by staff, under the assumption the staff MIGHT be right…..who knows how many jobs and how many millions might have been saved.
bootney farnsworth
January 12th, 2013
9:49 pm
@ beverly,
I’m with you 10,000 %
after 1000 years at GPC, I get really annoyed with people who reflexively start beating the drum about how the poor -and lets be honest, in this context it is code for black- have so much stacked against them they can’t do much about education.
I’ve seen countless poor -ie, black- kids come through GPC from really bad situations. but they and their parents made the decision education was more important than many short term gratification issues.
race and income is nowhere near the issue. priorities are.
Proud Teacher
January 12th, 2013
9:53 pm
I find this national Stepford teaching technique fascinating. In what world does one size fit all? My school is in no way, K-12, even close to being ready to moving into the common core standards fiasco. Oh, the board thinks they are because the administration has reported all of the right spin on the curriculum and the faculty, for the most part, are playing the right games for the photo ops for the media, but it’s going to be a sad day when the ill-prepared graduates meet the real world. Some would say the sad day will be when the school’s numbers start falling; I disagree. I care more about my students than the ridiculous games played by people who call themselves educators but know nothing of real teaching.
bootney farnsworth
January 12th, 2013
9:54 pm
@ maureen,
there really is no way to make everything equal, too many variables. can’t legislate competence, commitment, parental involvement, ect
the only way I can think to genuinely attempt to level the field is to make sure every school, every system starts with the identical infastructure (books, technology, ect). make everything uniform at the start.
after that, its gonna be what the parents and community make out of it.
kwanzaf
January 12th, 2013
10:42 pm
@maureen
@bootney farnsworth
Public boarding schools would be able to control for those variable
Private Citizen
January 12th, 2013
11:03 pm
French teacher has figured out how to obey, sings the song. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yOD5mcMnfmI
Beverly Fraud
January 13th, 2013
5:26 am
To piggy back on what bootney says, you can’t improve teaching until you empower teachers.
We at a fundamental level are not honest enough to admit too many don’t want to empower teachers, because they are afraid they will lose their own power.
So we have “respected” people like Herb Garrett who with their actions say I hold teachers in complete, utter, total contempt and I HONOR those who do so as well
Not so you say? Then tell us, what other message we should take from Herb Garrett continuing to honor Beverly Hall? For that matter, what other message should we take from a newspaper that won’t even make a single inquiry as to why?
It’s a real, simple question It would take less than one minute to pose it. Is the AJC saying that those teachers whose careers were destroyed, those children whose educations were destroyed, are of so little value to our society, that the AJC can’t even take one minute to ask why those responsible are still being honored by Herb Garrett?
Because if we are that bereft of integrity in education, and education reporting, what does that say about ourselves?
bootney farnsworth
January 13th, 2013
6:00 am
@ beverly
far as I can tell, its a case of follow the money. no different than Michelle Rhee’s situation.
that or Herb is seriously crushing on her and has his love goggles on.
it could also be possible both Herb and GAEL are political whores
bootney farnsworth
January 13th, 2013
6:03 am
“Because if we are that bereft of integrity in education, and education reporting, what does that say about ourselves?”
talk about a Pandora’s box …..
I try not to think about the answer. too depressing
HoneyFern School
January 13th, 2013
8:41 am
No one addresses the two main issues: student engagement and relevance of curriculum to their lives.
In the Quality Counts 2013 report, GA gets 100% on implementing standards but a 73% on “chance for student success.”
A recent Gallup poll revealed the following: student engagement goes from 8 in 10 kids saying they are interested and engaged in school in elementary grades to just 3 in 10 saying the same thing by the time they reach high school.
Until we remove money and politics from schools and address the real lissues, putting students front and center, this nation’s schools will continue its steady trudge to the bottom.
Dr. Monica Henson
January 13th, 2013
9:33 am
Beverly Fraud extends the discussion on TKES/LKES and administrator bias with some great comments!
“But you have to understand, what you call “requires…to apply completely out of context and with out regard to ‘common sense’ is shockingly common in places like The Four Horsemen of the Incompetence.”
Well-understood on my part. As I’ve mentioned previously, I wrote my dissertation on teacher supervision & evaluation and the problems of administrators not executing it the way it’s intended. I also have worked in two different metropolitan Atlanta districts.
“…[I]f we are going to seriously hold teachers “accountable” why are we not just as serious about the times of administrative retaliation?”
I am of the opinion that LKES will do this, but ONLY IF leaders hold their direct report leaders accountable. The only way to ensure that this occurs is for boards of education and independent charter boards to evaluate superintendents & charter directors specifically accountable for the frequency and quality of how they evaluate principals (and how principals evaluate APs) on their implementation of TKES & LKES with fidelity to the model. That’s the way to achieve true accountability–what gets evaluated specifically gets paid attention to.
Most BOEs and charter boards aren’t composed of large percentages of folks capable of that aspect of superintendent/charter director evaluation. It could easily be contracted out to GaDOE and GCSA. I have recommended to GaDOE that they reach out to those organizations and provide awareness training, and I’ve been told that they are doing so.
“Would you allow outside evaluators (as the study suggested) to come in to your school to evaluate teachers as a legitimate protection to counter any bias? My guess (correct me if I’m wrong) you would be open to that, because a competent unbiased observer would probably not come up with anything that directly contradicts your observations.”
GaDOE’s Divison of Teacher & Leader Effectiveness has already reached out to pilot districts to request that they be permitted to send external evaluators (GaDOE evaluation specialists) in order to test inter-rater reliability. We enthusiastically responded and look forward to seeing how it works. Our current inter-rater reliability within our administration is extremely high.
“But a shocking number of status quo administrators aren’t like that. ”
Unfortunately, not shocking to me at all.
“So we need to be willing to ask the tough questions rather than just readily accept something because an ‘expert’ wrote it or Bill Gates spent $45 million helping implement it.”
Actually, I’ve read the research extensively on this subject, and Dr. Stronge is an authority in the field with a strong background. I wasn’t going to sign my organization up for something without checking it out first. The TKES standards are right in line with National Board Standards, and the LKES standards coincide with those of ISSLC. However, it’s the instruments themselves, as well as the electronic platform, that convinced me to request to join the pilot. TKES/LKES is truly a way to offer teachers meaningful evaluation, acknowledge their value addes (with extensive opportunity for teacher contribution of artifacts & evidence themselves), and it offers the best protections I’ve ever seen against administrator misuse of the instrument. You’re correct that there is always room for abuse, but I believe that the conversations being initiated by GaDOE with boards and district leaders are candid in addressing the inherent fears of the new system.
Dr. Monica Henson
January 13th, 2013
9:44 am
Dekalbite posted, “…[T]here are many different teaching styles and hemming teachers into a set of “observable behaviors” is the wrong way to go if you are serious about attracting and retaining good teachers.”
TKES doesn’t hem teachers into “a set of ‘observable behaviors’” at all. It focuses on the outcomes of the teacher’s behaviors, which is what you did when you realized that although Mrs. Burke’s behaviors were quite different from your own, the end result was a well-managed classroom with kids who were engaged in learning–in large part because they had a positive relationship with Mrs. Burke, respected her, and therefore were listening and responding to what she taught them.
There is no checklist in TKES–the emphasis is on whether students are learning, which is measured in a broad variety of ways, most of which are teacher-identified assessment means and objective data generated within the classroom, not just looking at state test scores.
Dr. Monica Henson
January 13th, 2013
9:55 am
Colonel Jack posted, “Your Mrs. Burke would today be deemed an unsatisfactory teacher. She used lecture, which for some ungodly reason is a bad word in education today, as a regular method of instruction. Her students were quiet, and not moving around and ‘discovering,’ and she was being a teacher, not a ‘facilitator.’”
Not necessarily true. Lecture, in and of itself, is not a “bad” or “ineffective” instructional strategy. However, and that’s a BIG qualifier, there are extremely few individuals, at any level K-12 (and beyond), capable of relying solely on lecture to engage students in substantive learning. By substantive learning, I mean learning that leads to verifiable outcomes, not just the teacher’s opinion, “Well I taught it, so if they don’t perform well on the CRCT/EOCT/GHSWT/SAT/ACT/AP Exam, that’s their own fault.”
I would argue that it’s damn near impossible to teach any middle grades classroom in a public school purely by lecture, and pretty close to damn near impossible to do it at the high school level. I can verify in 25 years of working in education that I’ve seen two individuals who could do it at the high school level, and they were incredibly dynamic and charismatic personalities. Interestingly, they did not rely solely on lecture, but it was in fact their primary strategy, probably 70 to 80% of their instruction. Their students produced outstanding achievement on state and other external measures, so it wasn’t just their own opinion or mine that they were outstanding teachers. I didn’t “mark them down” on their evaluations because that would have been unfair and inaccurate. They were both ranked among the highest-scoring teachers in the building (they worked in the same school).
‘ve never seen a middle grades teacher able to do it, although I’ve seen huge numbers of of them try, back in the day, with the predictable outcomes of bored, misbehaving, and/or sleeping kids, with commensurate external achievement outcome measures.
Dr. Monica Henson
January 13th, 2013
10:08 am
bootney farnsworth posted, “[R]ace and income is nowhere near the issue. priorities are.”
This is true in the reverse of the examples cited in this discussion thread. I’ve seen white parents who are solidly upper middle-class that didn’t give a damn about whether their kids came to a school dance drunk, danced with each other in simulations of sexual activity (which our headmaster at this school didn’t prohibit because of the outcry by parents when their kids were deprived of the opportunity to “just be kids”), their daughters dressed more like they were going to an adult cocktail party than to a high school algebra class, etc.
I’ve seen them refuse to attend disciplinary meetings to deal with their children’s verbal abuse against teachers. I’ve seen them refuse to impose any home-based discipline that would have been effective in dealing with academic issues (such as withdrawal of cell phone privileges until tardiness ceased and assignments were handed in). Permitting them to attend football games and go to the movies with their friends even though they were failing most of their classes. But then, when you impose home discipline, you need to be willing to put up with some whining and upset from your little darlings when you enforce it. Lord knows I heard some out of my own kids when I did what needed to be done to make sure they were doing what they needed to do at school.
Crappy parenting knows no color or income level. There’s plenty of it going around at all economic levels of society.
Dr. Monica Henson
January 13th, 2013
10:10 am
Bootney Farnsworth posted, “[R]ace and income is nowhere near the issue. [P]riorities are.”
Truer words were never spoken. Some of the worst parents I’ve ever dealt with were white, suburban, and upper-middle class.
Crappy parenting knows no racial or economic boundaries. There’s plenty of it going around at all levels of society.
Private Citizen
January 13th, 2013
10:18 am
I am going to try and make sense of this as a whole. It is an ambitious task, in two sections.
I. Excepts, followed by brief opinion commentary.
II. Interpretation
A. What is being emphasised
B, What is not being emphasised, in other words, what is left out.
III. Remaining / abstract questions
EXCERPTS
1. Race to the Top: Halfway through implementing grant. Where do we stand?
- You have run off a lot of good people who do not wish to role play and be over-evaluated according to a formula.
2. Elevating low performing schools. Will require high performing teachers and leaders.
-Continued and unremitting emphasis on HR, with zero attention to linear curriculum and resources.
3. How do we pay for k-12 eduction? (”I don’t know,” says Rickman. “That really is the answer to that question.”)
Very little attention to efficiency, real information, or examining effective models from elsewhere (outside of the United States). Political Subtext “We are helpless… we do not know what to do.”
4. Help wanted: Hiring 250,000 new graduates. Where are they? Only 42 percent has a college degree; State needs 250,000 more graduates.
Blunt numbers talk, denying identity to people. Maybe there are students, like teachers, who want “away” from your system.
5. Early learning: What this issue focuses on is high quality learning from the zero to age 3 population.
This sounds crazy and irrelevant to the main. Example of poor boundaries. Age 0-3? Must be nice for you to enjoy being abstract while mandating the actions of every one else.
6. Stem: Promoting the sciences and math for both workforce and economic development. Fastest growing job fields in state and nation. What is Georgia doing to promote STEM learning?
Linear curriculum is how you teach math and science. This seems to be lost on you. Why are the “leaders” asking so many questions, instead of hammering nails (answers and action) into the lumber (real management.) Why are the leaders depowered? Are they waiting on Mr. Barge to return and bring the orders from Duncan / Gates? Seems to be the case. Meanwhile, everyone plays helpless and “seeking.”
7. Waiver from No Child and what it means.
It doesn’t mean anything. It’s obsolete, just like ill-named “Race to the Top” is going to be obsolete.
8. Technology; the next generation of learning. How is technology being used in classroom?
Because you do not equitably distribute resources and linear curriculum, this is a meaningless question. Every district has different textbooks, resources, it is completely patch-work and that is the answer to your question. Null and void due to denial of standardization and support resources.
9. Final issue: Demographics; Changing face of Georgia public schools. Tremendous demographic shift within Georgia. For all these reforms to be successful and for education continue to improve from birth through work, we need to pay attention to those demographic shifts, says Rickman.
10. Rickman says her major concern is the growth of children living in poverty in Georgia. The key to economic development is a strong education system. Children in poverty undermine a strong education system as they are harder to educate, need more resources.
11. “It is very complicated but what the state was trying to do is get away from good school, bad school, pass, fail,” says Rickman, “and use this as a learning tool for the districts and the schools.”
12. Nolt said the complexity and shadings within theses ratings will be channeled into an easier-to-understand format for parents.
13. Morris News Service reporter Walter Jones just asked Rickman what parents can do if they are not happy with their school. She says she recommends parents join the PTA and get involved and try to push change. Another reporter asked now what parents can do if they have gotten involved and are still unhappy. (These reporters come across the state so I don’t know all of them.)
14. Rickman says parents can choose another option for their child. She says there are choice options now in Georgia.
15. Principals will do two 30 minute observation sessions of each teacher. There are also four 10-minute walk-throughs where principals are looking at one or two standards in action. If principal does not see enough evidence when he or she visits the classroom, then the teachers will have an opportunity to provide documentation that they are meeting the standard.
16. For teacher teaching in non-tested subjects — 70 percent of courses in a school , including art music, AP class, IB classes, foreign language are in the non-tests category — state is now developing pre and post tests for those courses. They are called SLOs, Student learning objectives.
17. State is dealing with findings from pilot information on teacher evluations. This year will be a hold-harmless year for value-added measures.
Now Andrews is talking about the companion evaluation system to measure leader effectiveness.
18. This is for building-level leadership. Principals will be rated on eight standards. They must meet all eight of those standards. They also have to develop two unique goals tied to their own school improvement plan. Every staff member, including cafeteria, custodians, completes a climate survey on the principal. Principal will choose which groups will rate assistant principal. Principal evaluations will look at student attendance. Also, look at how effective principals are in retaining effective teachers.
19. “We know that teachers… leaders first. So, we want to see how effective principals are in retaining those effective teachers.”
20. Also, state will look at student performance piece for principals. Looking at how the achievement gap between bottom 25 percent and rest of student is being closed.
21. So, now, we have both teacher and leader effectiveness measures.
22. “Race to the Top is not driving the work. The work is driving Race to the Top. These are initiatives we wanted to do. We didn’t have the money to do them. Race to the Top gave us the money.”
23. Greatest challenge with Race to the Top is moving from piloting, refining, implementing to sustaining.
24. Gates Foundation… consider video reviews of teachers in the classrooms.
25. Her answer: It make take a culture shift but principals have to realize that their top priority (is doing work review of teachers)
26. She says we have seamless articulation from technical colleges and four-year schools as part of Deal’s Complete College Initiative. She said Deal was inspired by Florida’s Take Stock in Children program, and has replicated it here. Kids selected in middle school are asked to sign contracts that they will work hard. If they have satisfied the contract and worked hard by the end of high school, they are given $2,500 from the state to attend college.(You can read about the program here.)
27. HOPE: Deal is adding 3 percent to HOPE Scholarship awards this year. But tuition has gone up more than 3 percent. “What a student got last year will increase by 3 percent in terms of this year,” says Bernhard.
28. Her theme is the changing classroom and changing schools. She has a prepared and passionate speech, which essentially says the old ways won’t work with students. Content is no longer delivered as much as it is discovered. There is an app for everything.
29. “Education is no longer one size fits all, which, if we are honest, is really one size fits none.”
30. Asked about the new teacher evaluation system, Eckman says she like the new system better than Class Keys which “told us so much, it told us nothing.” The new method gives teachers more feedback, more meaningful insights in what they must improve.
31. Eckman says that the state is about to graduate its first class of high school school students who are truly digital natives, raised with all the new technologies and at ease with them. When these digital natives go to college and become teachers, they will bring their expertise to the classroom and be able to share it with veteran teachers, she says.
_____________________
INTERPRETATION
What is being emphasised:
Private Citizen
January 13th, 2013
10:25 am
(Note: I was in the middle of posting and my internet connection “reset the connection” and erased the browser screen, therefore, this post will have to be in more than one part. I am fortunate to have been able to retrieve the existent post from my browser cache – close call.) to continue…
Beverly Fraud
January 13th, 2013
10:45 am
“Beverly Fraud extends the discussion on TKES/LKES and administrator bias with some great comments!”
Dr. Henson be careful; I get the feeling from the response of unnamed others on this blog, if they had their way, saying anything that could be construed as validating Beverly Fraud, on any level, might show up on a rubric to automatically downgrade administrators LOL
I will say, though I still consider it a Deal with the Devil™ it is posts like yours that make the case to pass Amendment 1. There just has to be options for those who can be fair and competent outside the education monolith, without fear that having those attributes will be actively discouraged in the name of protecting the monolith.
Of course the down side is the very good chance there will be a “Science Academy” somewhere in Georgia in the near future, that guides students in the study of ancient history using “accurate maps” based on aerial views of cavemen riding pterodactyls back when the world was first created 6,000 years ago.
I trust you have no maps like that as an online resource Dr. Henson…but no worries, I’m sure they will soon be readily available.
leslie
January 13th, 2013
10:47 am
I have been teaching for 17 years,and I am calling it quits without a future job. I can’t take this job anymore. I have not had any type of raise in seven years, but I’m supposed to do more work. The children are having more mental issues I have ever seen in my years of teaching. Who is to blame for that? You can not teach Common Core Standards because you are dealing with so many children with so many issues! Then you have unsupported administrators and parents. They think you are going to bodily harm to students who already have major issues that you don’ t know how to deal with because you are not a psychiatrist.
Then administrators want you to work for free. How can you work for months and don’t get paid until months later? Who treat their employees like that? How can you expect me to come to work and be elated under these conditions? How can you still have the audacity to pay teachers once a month in this century? But I’m suppose to be worried about students taking physics while I’m trying to make ends meet until 31 days to get a half of a decent check.If people want to bash education/teachers, I am going to bash it too but from a teacher’ s pov. Teachers rather good or bad help make the world go around in every aspect. If it was not for teachers, most of Americans would not be able to go work or just have some me time. We help shape the present and future. We keep people working while we babysit their children.
How can entertainers make more than a teacher? We have to entertain everyday but without the pay. Yes, we know we were not going to be rich like entertainers , but I did not know my salary was going to be cut by 8,000 a year while they are still making millions. On that note, who would ever want to be a teacher in today’ s society? Nobody!!!!!!
leslie
January 13th, 2013
10:47 am
I have been teaching for 17 years,and I am calling it quits without a future job. I can’t take this job anymore. I have not had any type of raise in seven years, but I’m supposed to do more work. The children are having more mental issues I have ever seen in my years of teaching. Who is to blame for that? You can not teach Common Core Standards because you are dealing with so many children with so many issues! Then you have unsupported administrators and parents. They think you are going to bodily harm to students who already have major issues that you don’ t know how to deal with because you are not a psychiatrist.
Then administrators want you to work for free. How can you work for months and don’t get paid until months later? Who treat their employees like that? How can you expect me to come to work and be elated under these conditions? How can you still have the audacity to pay teachers once a month in this century? But I’m suppose to be worried about students taking physics while I’m trying to make ends meet until 31 days to get a half of a decent check.If people want to bash education/teachers, I am going to bash it too but from a teacher’ s pov. Teachers rather good or bad help make the world go around in every aspect. If it was not for teachers, most of Americans would not be able to go work or just have some me time. We help shape the present and future. We keep people working while we babysit their children.
How can entertainers make more than a teacher? We have to entertain everyday but without the pay. Yes, we know we were not going to be rich like entertainers , but I did not know my salary was going to be cut by 8,000 a year while they are still making millions. On that note, who would ever want to be a teacher in today’ s society? Nobody!!!!!!
Private Citizen
January 13th, 2013
11:24 am
9. Final issue: Demographics; Changing face of Georgia public schools. Tremendous demographic shift within Georgia. For all these reforms to be successful and for education continue to improve from birth through work, we need to pay attention to those demographic shifts, says Rickman.
- Ms. Rickman, You do not have the right to appropriate people from “birth through work.” This is neither the function or purpose of education.
10. Rickman says her major concern is the growth of children living in poverty in Georgia. The key to economic development is a strong education system. Children in poverty undermine a strong education system as they are harder to educate, need more resources.
-The answer to this is a separate division concerning social wellbeing of constituents. It does not belong as a part of the core education function, however, like internet connectivity, there should be a separate division to at least document what is occuring with public health of students.
11. “It is very complicated but what the state was trying to do is get away from good school, bad school, pass, fail,” says Rickman, “and use this as a learning tool for the districts and the schools.”
Anything bureaucratic that is “very complicated” is not being performed in a direct manner.
12. Nolt said the complexity and shadings within theses ratings will be channeled into an easier-to-understand format for parents.
-Complexity and shadings? No thanks. Completely irrelevant fog-speak.
13. Morris News Service reporter Walter Jones just asked Rickman what parents can do if they are not happy with their school. She says she recommends parents join the PTA and get involved and try to push change. Another reporter asked now what parents can do if they have gotten involved and are still unhappy. (These reporters come across the state so I don’t know all of them.)
“PTA doctrine” is a redirect. The best schools in the nation do not have “PTA” and do not want one. Parents want work and home, not to play-act like they have something to do with school management that is the job someone else is being paid to do. There is no teacher anywhere that wants anything to do with a PTA meeting. This is a nice idea for eco-recycling and the like, rightfully should have nothing to do with school administration.
14. Rickman says parents can choose another option for their child. She says there are choice options now in Georgia.
-Many sane persons who know how to produce want nothing to do with schooling that lacks linear curriculum and resources and instead occupies itself with overt authority as an end in itself (birth to work, peasant).
15. Principals will do two 30 minute observation sessions of each teacher. There are also four 10-minute walk-throughs where principals are looking at one or two standards in action. If principal does not see enough evidence when he or she visits the classroom, then the teachers will have an opportunity to provide documentation that they are meeting the standard.
- Principals are now force co-opted into enforcing scripted worker mono-culture. The only educators who want to work in this type environment are opportunistic fakes seeking to max out the government system for personal gain.
16. For teacher teaching in non-tested subjects — 70 percent of courses in a school , including art music, AP class, IB classes, foreign language are in the non-tests category — state is now developing pre and post tests for those courses. They are called SLOs, Student learning objectives.
- If you are focusing on testing prior to putting into place linear curriculum and standardised support materials, you have a major dysfunction on your hands.
17. State is dealing with findings from pilot information on teacher evaluations. This year will be a hold-harmless year for value-added measures. Now Andrews is talking about the companion evaluation system to measure leader effectiveness.
-Therefore, when fully activated, evaluation system will contain “harm.” That’s what it says.
18. This is for building-level leadership. Principals will be rated on eight standards. They must meet all eight of those standards. They also have to develop two unique goals tied to their own school improvement plan. Every staff member, including cafeteria, custodians, completes a climate survey on the principal. Principal will choose which groups will rate assistant principal. Principal evaluations will look at student attendance. Also, look at how effective principals are in retaining effective teachers.
- This is like a dreamscape for running off good people and “retaining” politically pleasant folk. It has turned work review into fetish, huge emphasis on finding something wrong. It is said in a country of many laws, everyone is guilty of something. So school effectiveness is now a popularity contest, and has nothing to do with whether or not there is linear curriculum and standardised support materials? This is a sad situation when codified into law. The authority people have built themselves a doll house and are calling it education. No one is building doctors and engineers, but school emotional “climate” is the priority upon which people’s careers are determined.
19. “We know that teachers… leaders first. So, we want to see how effective principals are in retaining those effective teachers.”
-Where did principals suddenly become so “powerful?” Who are you kidding. Central run off and route principals just like they do with good teachers who are not brother / sister / cousin of these bizarre school board folk. If you think otherwise, you’re not looking very much. Nice move- shift the whole mess onto the principal’s head. It is like they have maxed out tight-control on teachers, and are now moving up the food chain. Something tells me none of this “evaluation” method will extend outside of the school house. Okay, do your thing, but don’t tell us that a principal is the determinant of who wants to work where. If that’s the case, you’ve got a political problem with who has the power. Effective teacher should be able to work anywhere without some gorilla principal on their neck for good, bad, or worse. You’re taking basic functioning and turning it into politically loaded gamesmanship. And the people doing this don’t even know it because they do not know anything else and have not studied public administration and are rolling their own dope handed to them by Gates and Duncan, making “politically charged” environment where there should be none. Run for your life from this amatuer-hour substitute for principled management according to rules for public administration.
20. Also, state will look at student performance piece for principals. Looking at how the achievement gap between bottom 25 percent and rest of student is being closed.
- more authority fetish simultaneous to a void in linear curriculum and support materials. The state bosses have taken a left turn and the easy way out. Now to blame the principals for student achievement, meanwhile the state is not doing their job making sure you’ve got quality math, science, language books and software, whether you are in Valdosta, Brunwick, Macon, Atlanta, of just south of Chattanooga. But you’re going to blame the teachers and principals for not sprinkling around enough pixie dust and “inventing” effective “methods.” Meanwhile resources are all over the place, some have them and some do not.
21. So, now, we have both teacher and leader effectiveness measures.
-Yes, we are informed, ad infinitum, for it is all that you do.
22. “Race to the Top is not driving the work. The work is driving Race to the Top. These are initiatives we wanted to do. We didn’t have the money to do them. Race to the Top gave us the money.”
- Be glad when this thing is done and put to bed like a mad cow.
23. Greatest challenge with Race to the Top is moving from piloting, refining, implementing to sustaining.
- This is the language of an agenda of self-important incoherence. Fine for a weekend party, but that’s not what you do. You code it into law and force people to role play to the point that those who know better have no choice but to get away from you, for your priorities do not match your mission. You think education is appropriating people and telling them what to do as an end in itself.
24. Gates Foundation… consider video reviews of teachers in the classrooms.
- wow. just wow. Do you not think the “Computer man” Gates would be concerned that everyone has curriculum materials and books and software before he pushed an agenda of his emphasis on evaluating other people. This is completely bizarre. I do not want to work in a school without books and software and then have the emphasis be videotaping me teaching the materials I have been forced to author myself because there are no official resources. Maybe Bill just wants to steal the creative work of teachers. You latest lesson plan will end up being packaged and sold by a division of Disney, coodinated by Bill Gates’ consortium. (It could happen, Walt Disney is dead and gone. They’re a big company now that has stolen IP from creative people and used it to produce / sell media)
25. Her answer: It make take a culture shift but principals have to realize that their top priority (is doing work review of teachers)
- Head meet desk. Head meet wall. Beat head against wall, will feel better. “Georgia” seems to have some basic issues about “what is education” and what are duties and “priorities” and how the intellectual food chain works that transfers knowledge and ability.
26. She says we have seamless articulation from technical colleges and four-year schools as part of Deal’s Complete College Initiative. She said Deal was inspired by Florida’s Take Stock in Children program, and has replicated it here. Kids selected in middle school are asked to sign contracts that they will work hard. If they have satisfied the contract and worked hard by the end of high school, they are given $2,500 from the state to attend college.(You can read about the program here.)
- Seamless say what? This is political double speak. Okay, so the capable kids from good homes are each going to get $2500.? yerrrhhh o-kay. This is like putting a bouquet of flowers on the table and then serving oatmeal for dinner (without sugar on the oatmeal.)
27. HOPE: Deal is adding 3 percent to HOPE Scholarship awards this year. But tuition has gone up more than 3 percent. “What a student got last year will increase by 3 percent in terms of this year,” says Bernhard.
– Know a lot of people getting benefit of “Hope” scholarship. They tend to be professional level families who exploit this system. Personally, I think the state should not be in the gaming / gambling business. To my view, “Hope Scholarship” is like when people know how to exploit certain tax loopholes. The rest of us who are less crafty both pay tuition and also know what it is like to pay your way and not exploit other people for your own gain.
28. Her theme is the changing classroom and changing schools. She has a prepared and passionate speech, which essentially says the old ways won’t work with students. Content is no longer delivered as much as it is discovered. There is an app for everything.
29. “Education is no longer one size fits all, which, if we are honest, is really one size fits none.”
- More smoke and mirrors double-speak. If you’re training doctors and engineers, you either do it or you don’t. Hey – welcome to the rest of the world. (Nobody gives two faxes about your multi-methods, especially when it is a cover for not having equitable linear curriculum and books/software supplies for all students.)
30. Asked about the new teacher evaluation system, Eckman says she like the new system better than Class Keys which “told us so much, it told us nothing.” The new method gives teachers more feedback, more meaningful insights in what they must improve.
- Who thinks this evaluation festish is productive? It is like grading Burger King workers on counter skills, meanwhile the food’ll kill you if you eat too much of it. Nice technique for avoiding the food-stuffs, make a fetish out of focusing on labor – ad infinitum. Then, think up a new way to do it and do it again.
31. Eckman says that the state is about to graduate its first class of high school school students who are truly digital natives, raised with all the new technologies and at ease with them. When these digital natives go to college and become teachers, they will bring their expertise to the classroom and be able to share it with veteran teachers, she says.
- In the 1970s, we had “bell bottomed natives” and “incense natives.” But the state did not use them as props. Math, Science, and language were taught at career level, before the great federal emotion indoctrination began combined with mixing it up in the math book and putting algebra and geometry together like an incomprehensible salad.
_____________________
INTERPRETATION
What is being emphasised: Hey, if you keep people dumb, you can rob them blind.
I’d like to thank Steve Hackett and his artist collective for keeping me company while I typed this response.
Private Citizen
January 13th, 2013
11:46 am
I’ve seen them refuse to impose any home-based discipline that would have been effective in dealing with academic issues (such as withdrawal of cell phone privileges until tardiness ceased and assignments were handed in). Permitting them to attend football games and go to the movies with their friends even though they were failing most of their classes. But then, when you impose home discipline, you need to be willing to put up with some whining and upset from your little darlings when you enforce it.
This is a boundary issue. There are limits educator’s duty or ability to “raise kids” and the kids and families legitimately have the right to act like trash or rich kids or tarts or whatever. Truly, it is their business. The school house should govern behavior on the premises and fail kids who do not do the work, or at least exhibit appropriate moderate effort. School administrators and teachers must be regarded to govern their environment and professional work. If the situation is otherwise, and admin. and teachers are treated as a doormat by entitled parents, then like Reagan told Gorbachev, (adapted) “Leave this environment now. Do not work there.” Corrupted environments only get worse, too. They do not self-cure.
Fred in DeKalb
January 13th, 2013
11:49 am
**Some of the worst parents I’ve ever dealt with were white, suburban, and upper-middle class.**
Truer words could not have been blogged! What some have been doing in DeKalb for years would not be tolerated by Alvin Wilbanks in Gwinnett.
Fred in DeKalb
January 13th, 2013
11:52 am
Private Citizen, you are on a roll with your posts!! Keep up the good work as you are telling it like it is.
Colonel Jack
January 13th, 2013
1:17 pm
@Dr. Henson … I agree with you 100% that lecture is not solely a good instructional method. But the current climate (at least in the system I just left) is that lecture is NEVER a good instructional method, and anyone who uses it even occasionally is violating some form of protocol regarding being an effective teacher. I consider myself one of those who can use lecture perhaps 50% of the time, because I have also been a professional entertainer and can indeed gain and hold the attention of my middle school students. I use a variety of other instructional techniques as well, but for some reason my administrators focused on the fact that I do lecture … and that turned into a major downcheck for me.
You see, as much as we would prefer it not be so, many (if not most) administrators simply use a checklist for their evaluations. Is the teacher doing this? Does the teacher have this, that, and the other on the wall or on the board? Are the students talking? Is the teacher “facilitating”? (And before anyone says otherwise, save your breath. I’ve seen the checklist. I have copies of the checklist. It exists and administrators use it to the exclusion of actually evaluating.) As long as administrators evaluate teachers on a yes/no checklist, the evaluations aren’t worth the paper they’re going to be printed on.
I’ll tell you what kind of evaluation caught my attention. A few years ago, one of my former students was selected STAR student for his high school (and for the system). Rather than choose any of his teachers from high school, he went back to middle school and selected me as his STAR teacher. That kind of evaluation spoke volumes, in my view.
Dr. Henson, from all I’ve read, I wish I’d worked in your school. I’d still be teaching. And most likely enjoying every minute of it.
Phil Brown
January 13th, 2013
2:48 pm
#1 is administration…Teachers should be private practitioners like doctors practice medicine. They should be licensed and governed by a board of ethics. There is no need for principals, boards of education or superintendents. They are complete wastes of money and time. The state needs to stop legislatively micromanaging (emotional abuse) and allow teachers to diagnose student problems and prescibe treatment plans. Parents should be held completely accountable for following teacher prescriptions. If the parent fails to follow the plan they should be charged with educational neglect ans investigated for child abuse.
Dr. Monica Henson
January 13th, 2013
4:58 pm
Colonel Jack, the kind of evaluation you describe (a STAR Student choosing you as his STAR Teacher) says it all, and quite eloquently.
Competent administrators don’t attempt to force competent teachers to fit a mold. I do argue, however, that teachers who do not exhibit proficiency need to have their work directed until they do. The key is to train administrators to distinguish accurately among the levels of competence in any evaluation instrument.
On the topic of “the checklist” (”I’ve seen the checklist. I have copies of the checklist. It exists and administrators use it to the exclusion of actually evaluating.”), are you making reference to TKES? During credentialing training, administrators are repeatedly reminded that the rubrics are not checklists and are not to be used as such.
Dr. Monica Henson
January 13th, 2013
4:59 pm
Phil Brown, you are aware, are you not, that physicians in private practice operate their own businesses? Are you suggesting that each teacher become an independent contractor and run his/her own school?
Physicians who work in hospitals are subject to administration by the hospital authority.
ColonelJack
January 13th, 2013
5:23 pm
Dr. Henson … TKES is precisely what I’m referring to. And while administrators may indeed be told not to use them as checklists…at least in my building for the last two years I was there, that’s exactly how they were used. During my final year I wasn’t even actually evaluated (timed visit by the principal) at all. Just videotaped … and the results of that videotape were never discussed with me. By that time, the decision about my future had already been made, and as I noted, it was primarily payroll driven (the only Ed.S. holder on the school’s teaching staff, I made too much money).
You said it all in your words, “Competent administrators…” At my school, we did not have competent administrators. (I happen to know that our principal just received her leadership certificate last year — her SECOND year on the job.)
bob
January 13th, 2013
9:41 pm
If all the ills of society are based on teachers and teaching. Who get paid so much. Why be one?
Phil Brown
January 13th, 2013
9:55 pm
Dr. Henson, I am aware of what you are saying. Unless teachers demand respect they are never going to get it. I am suggesting teachers have their own private classroom. The state could give vouchers to families and let them choose their own teacher. They fund things like this all the time such as mandated court decisions for mental health treatment. They are also funding private charter schools…Imagine education without political agendas where parents and children are held accountable for their own progress. Currenlty, administrators hold teachers accountable for outcomes they can never control. This is emotional abuse and an enabling factor leading children to be irresponsible. This filters down to the children not unlike an abusive family.
I know my philosophy must seem extreme to you…I respect your philosophy. However, think of all the road blocks standing in the way of success. Get rid of them and rely on the individuals trained to educate our children. We rely on doctors and attourneys all the time…why not give the same respect and prestige to teachers? Stop abusing them with constant change and buzz agendas such as STEM learning and making kids choose a creer in 8th grade…We’re using our children as a social experiement instead of being a steady and consistent tool for cvreating our future.
Cassidy
January 13th, 2013
10:53 pm
Dr. Henson – you seem like an excellent administrator and I think you probably do use these evaluation tools in the appropriate manner, but you seem so intent on defending them that you might be missing the point from the other commenters. Maybe the tool isn’t the problem, but the problem is the people using the tools. You seem to be taking your perception of the evaluation system and how it is used in your area and assuming it is used that way in every district. I think this is the big problem here because I don’t really feel that you are HEARING what is being said. You keep repeating training and how the evaluators have been told not to do XYZ, but what the people who are in the schools are telling you is that it is still being misused regardless of training. You must hear this and really take that point in. How it should be used is not how it is being used. This seems to be running off the good teachers and it doesn’t appear to be improving education.
I’m just an objective party in this and I don’t really have any skin whatsoever in this game. I am not from the Atlanta area and am just here working for a government agency to pay off my student loans from my Masters program. I don’t have any children and am no longer buying a house here because I don’t feel comfortable making any investment in the area based on the level of corruption and the problems with schools (probation, accreditation, out of control BOEs) because the schools have such a great impact on communities and housing prices. I lived in the Atlanta area ten years ago before I decided to change careers and return to school and this needs to be heard, too: the metro Atlanta area has fallen apart and is a ghost of what it was just a decade ago. Atlanta will not make a comeback until people put away pc speak and start addressing the real problems and the real root cause of those problems. Teachers are NOT (and make sure you really hear this) the problem. Are there bad teachers? Probably, but not so many that it would explain the decline of the area. This is a cultural problem (not a race problem, but a cultural problem).
Understand what I am saying here. I lived in Atlanta before, but left for career reasons. I wanted to come back to Atlanta and was excited to do so. I am leaving Atlanta as soon as I can because of the corruption and cronyism that has led to the decline of the metro area. This is a systemic problem due to the inability of the voters to vote in quality people at all levels of government both Democrat and Republican. Much of this inability is cultural. If I see this then others will see it, as well, and that could have a negative effect on any economic recovery. Additionally, it doesn’t help that an armored truck has to patrol neighborhoods in South Fulton. Seriously, any time an armored truck has to patrol an area within 50 miles of your home you have to really consider if you really want that to be your home.
Dr. Monica Henson
January 13th, 2013
11:56 pm
Phil Brown, I actually like parts of your idea quite a lot. I wouldn’t be opposed to a much freer marketplace for education, where the money truly follows the child. I was just asking clarifying questions to see if that’s what you were getting at. I think for most teachers it would be unmanageable to try to operate a classroom as a business, though, the same way that doctors operate private practices.
One important clarification–there is no such thing as a state-funded “private” charter school, despite some of the misinformation tossed about on this blog. Read the statutes.
Dr. Monica Henson
January 14th, 2013
12:03 am
Cassidy posted, “You keep repeating training and how the evaluators have been told not to do XYZ, but what the people who are in the schools are telling you is that it is still being misused regardless of training. You must hear this and really take that point in. How it should be used is not how it is being used.”
I do understand what the participants are saying, and I’ve witnessed it myself with other evaluation instruments. The research on teacher supervision & evaluation is really clear on the problems with any instrument–it’s not the instrument itself, but whether the people in charge of applying it are actually using it the way it was designed to be used.
TKES and LKES should not be dismissed out of hand by teachers, however, based on the fact that so many administrators don’t apply it correctly. That’s a classic case of throwing out the baby with the bathwater. What needs to happen in this state is a frank, honest, and open conversation, at the superintendent, BOE/charter board, and GaDOE levels, of the simple fact that teacher supervision & evaluation is generally not valued highly or practiced correctly. If it were, we’d have a lot less complaining and attrition of our teacher corps, not to mention improved student outcomes. But that’s not a problem created by TKES/LKES–it’s a systemic defect in the public education system, and it can be remedied.
Dr. Monica Henson
January 14th, 2013
12:06 am
Look for Mr. Garrett & GSSA to fan the flames of discontent among PAGE & GAE members on this issue. It’s in the establishment’s interest to stir up the rank & file in opposition to reform that might lead to increased accountability at the administrator level.
ColonelJack
January 14th, 2013
8:06 am
Dr. Henson … I agree with you that the evaluation system itself is not the issue; it’s how the system is implemented. And your suggestions to remedy the situation are sound.
But, to quote Judge Judy, “Shoulda, woulda, coulda.” (No disrespect intended.) As long as the people responsible for evaluating teachers choose to do it the “easy” way, it doesn’t matter how valuable a tool the evaluation system is. Unless (and until) that systemic defect in the public education system is remedied, and that honest, frank, and open conversation takes place, what happened to me and to God knows how many other long-time educators will continue to happen.
What we need is more people like you in these positions, and not folks who got their administrative positions because of who they know (or what they know about whom).
Private Citizen
January 14th, 2013
8:13 am
1. Thought: WIth the advent of the TKES and LKES, the political class has basically invented an activity to give themselves something to do. It’s like they’re having a party for themselves and the teachers have to deal with it and those who do not want to be used as objects for this sort of indulgence will get away from them, the political caste.
2. There is also the aspect that through this emphasis, Gates / Duncan have bought-off the political caste, who then will implement whatever it is that Gates / Duncan (appointed to power by an investment banker, father is a University of Chicago psychology professor) are up to, whatever social engineering, testing, behavior databases, and continuation of caste system, for the up/down performance gradients are based on situational condition. One district has the golden spoon and fork and another district has the sack of potatoes and plastic-ware.
3. There are at least four classroom education environments: private school, charter school, public school district approved membership academy school, and public general education populace school, yet this TKES / LKES seems designed to use only one of these are objects: public general education. Therefore it is not an “education” philosophy, it is something else. Let’s call it an attention-seeking attention-consuming, money-consuming exploit, for central all of those appropriated administrators hours and teach hours attending indoctrination meetings cost money, and emotional energy.
4. Continuing with the concept of looking at teachers as doctors, is there any doctor where a manager comes in with a checklist to evaluate their medical work based on patient interaction, emotional climate, etc.? Are teachers independent practitioners? When you have twenty teachers each teaching the same subject and grade level and each doing something different because they must design and furnish their own teaching materials? Yes, they are independent practitioners. Usually doctors, yes also work alone, and are telling other people what to do, and would not put up with a manager who is not a doctor coming into their treatment room and evaluating them based on a checklist or “1 hour observation.” It’s just foul is what it is. Fortunately for doctors, they are in a little higher demand that to have to suffer such treatment as wage labor from efficiency experts. This is a whole-study section in study of labor management, when the people with the clipboards decide they are going to get more production out of the assembly line workers. hey teachers, don’t be dumb about it, even if Gates and Duncan are so morally bankrupt as to misrepresent their activities.
5. One reason I am lacking some unreserved respect for management, a work review with the very powerful principal who is evaluating, summing up my professional work and giving me advice, on the work review the title of the work I am teaching out of the text book is misspelled on the work review where it describes what I am doing. But I’m university trained in my application field, not seminar trained in “psychological operations as management.”
Private Citizen
January 14th, 2013
8:24 am
Conservative Think Tank Ranks Countries With Government-Run Health Care As The Freest In World
http://thinkprogress.org/health/2013/01/11/1429241/conservative-think-tank-ranks-government-run-health-care-as-compatible-with-freedom/
Private Citizen
January 14th, 2013
9:27 am
Point is doctors working in hospital have a pretty good idea of the tools they will have to work with. Teachers in government school do not. Why are Gates / Duncan vacant on this, and insist on emphasising process and method?
Private Citizen
January 14th, 2013
9:37 am
increased accountability at the administrator level
The term “administrator” has different meanings. Maybe we need more terms. To Gates / Duncan / LKES, “administrator” means either principal or assistant principal inside the school house. To many teacher, “administrator” means people in the main office and peripheral to the main office, a different caste from teachers in both activity and pay. Even increased attention on “administrators” will likely not address the pay / caste difference, where many teachers are paid $40k and it is typical / standard for main office staff and periphery to be paid $100k even in smaller districts. And especially considering the type of extended and personal-time hours teachers have to put it, I think it would be sensible to normalise pay scales and put some attention to what I call the “cult of executive compensation.” I am keen to do an international comparison to see how the rest of the rich world does pay for teachers / administrators. It seems in the U. S., over time, this arrangement has become leveraged to favor the “administrators.” It is also meritous to evaluate what are expected credentials for management positions. To me, it means accounting license for accounting, and public administration degree for public administration. When you have people with “advanced degrees” from for-profit distance learning schools and they are governing over persons with brick and mortar degrees from substantial university, there is a problem as there is a different set of ethics associated with each, a different culture. The distance learning for-profit managers can and do alienate and displace teachers who are there to do professional work, not work the government system for a $100k+/ year pay rate. There is quite a lot of this.
Just A Teacher
January 14th, 2013
11:06 am
@Colonel Jack . . . I am sorry that you lost your job due to discriminatory practices. I would never have believed that could happen until recently. The school system for which I work has been undergoing some of the most drastic cuts in local supplements, furloughs, and benefits supplements of all the school systems in Georgia, so I have been trying to move to another school system. the problem is that I have been a good teacher with an advanced degree and a loyal employee for a long time. Therefore, I have moved up near the top of the salary structure. I haven’t even been able to get an interview for the past 2 years because school systems are less interested in the quality of instruction the students receive than they are in how much it costs to provide it. The difference between hiring an experienced teacher with a master’s or doctoral degree and a couple of decades of experience and hiring a beginning teacher with a bachelor’s degree can be tens of thousands of dollars per year. Both teachers would be listed as highly qualified according to Georgia’s standards, so the school systems are going for the cheaper option.
Private Citizen
January 14th, 2013
11:22 am
The difference between hiring an experienced teacher with a master’s or doctoral degree and a couple of decades of experience and hiring a beginning teacher with a bachelor’s degree can be tens of thousands of dollars per year
Problem is no one seems to have the nerve to address this and to equalise pay. At least then, people who love to teach could work instead of being run off. I think the years / seniority teacher pay is a problem and should be address. I’d be fine working at moderate pay without the political harassment. Another factor is that as money is tight-tight-tightened, the deeply connected survive the cuts. I made it through three rounds of budget cuts. When the fourth round came, I did not want to be a classroom warrior with a heavy work load combined with kids evaluating me (I think it is morally reprehensible / inappropriate) combined with working with what is left of the survival-tribe. A heavy work load is one thing. A heavy work load with lots of political indoctrination and required meetings where they glorify this stuff is another thing. I guess I am just cut from a different block of wood. I also felt some conscience that I can survive “out here” and maybe I made a little room for someone else who might get less harassment. One thing is for sure, when I did the heavy work and delivered results, it seemed that no one cared in the least. And this is the same management that does everything in the name of “performance.” Strange times.
Private Citizen
January 14th, 2013
11:29 am
The Orwellian present in the United States: Department of Homeland Security has decided to invade academic programs:
________________________
To maximize DHS’ return on investment (???) in university-based research and education, the OUP (Office of University Programs) will:
Build a stable community of homeland security researchers and educators at U.S. colleges and universities.
Foster a homeland security culture within the academic community through research and educational programs.
http://www.dhs.gov/st-office-university-programs
Private Citizen
January 14th, 2013
11:31 am
Looks like we’ve got a new term for the lexicon:
homeland security researchers and educators
___________