Love this. I hope Rep. Castro is talking with Rep. Lucio III to devise a strategy for how to prevent this knowledge that future competent counselors would gain from being lost in a system that relegates them to testing duties.
-Patricia
by Reeve Hamilton | Texas Tribune
February 1, 2011
State Rep. Joaquin Castro, D-San Antonio, is looking to shake up the way Texas trains, educates and certifies public school counselors.
In a December Texas Tribune article on school counselors, Castro said there were a number of fixable issues — he called it "the low-hanging fruit" — with the state's approach to the profession. This week, he filed a handful of bills addressing those issues.
The first, House Bill 1016, would require that counselor-certification programs specifically address the admissions and financial aid process for higher education. Knowledge of that process is not currently a required component for certification, even though state statute requires high school counselors to provide information on it to students.
"The state has been sending mixed messages to school counselors for years," Castro said in a statement.
HB 1017 and HB 1018 would require schools to notify parents if they do not employ at least one full-time counselor. According to the Legislative Budget Board, that applies to at least 748 campuses in the state.
Finally, HB 1019 would require separate certifications for elementary and secondary counselors. Six states — Delaware, Iowa, Massachusetts, Missouri, Nebraska and Pennsylvania — already have separate certifications. They also have a higher percentage of students that enroll in higher education directly from high school.
Castro says the state's one-size-fits-all certification policy spotlights a key assumption by policy makers "that the duties and responsibilities of an elementary school counselor are the same as those of a high school counselor." He says, "Clearly they are not."
Saturday, October 1, 2011
With school jobs on the line, little agreement on where to make cuts
Some say nonteaching positions should go first, but officials say they are crucial part of system.
Andrew Kaspar | AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
Monday, Jan. 31, 2011
If the nonteacher employees of Texas public schools were a company, its work force would be larger than those of all but six of the Fortune 500. It would be larger than the population of Corpus Christi and that of the world's 10 smallest nations combined.
The image of bloated bureaucracy is a favorite target of small-government advocates, a boogeyman all the more popular in these austere times for public finances.
Fiscal conservatives say nonteaching jobs are the first place school districts should look when considering layoffs, but school officials say such positions are crucial to a functional public school system. The need for janitors and bus drivers is obvious, they say, but grant writers and data analysts are also essential; they bring in federal money and compile valuable information on school performance.
Almost half of the state's more than 661,000 public education employees are not teachers, and most of the nonteachers are so-called auxiliary personnel — janitors, cafeteria workers and bus drivers who on average make less than $23,000 a year, according to Texas Education Agency data from 2009-10. The same data indicate that the ratio of teaching to nonteaching positions has remained about the same for the past 15 years.
Peggy Venable , director of the Texas chapter of the conservative group Americans for Prosperity, says it's time for that to change.
"We have to do a better job of educating our children with less," she said. "If there's one nonteaching staffer for every teacher in our school districts, you bet we can cut significant spending without cutting teachers, without cutting classroom instruction."
Jenny Caputo , spokeswoman for the Texas Association of School Administrators, said classroom instruction is just one piece of the puzzle.
"Clearly that's the most important thing, but somebody has to get (students) to that classroom; someone has to register them in the front office; someone has to feed them lunch every day," Caputo said.
With the state facing a multibillion-dollar revenue shortfall, school districts grappling with dwindling property tax receipts and federal stimulus money running out, many districts are slashing their budgets, and teaching positions are on the line.
Last week, the Austin school district proposed cutting 485 jobs to make ends meet, the vast majority of them (421 ) teaching positions. The district eliminated 113 administrative and other nonteaching positions last year. This year, Superintendent Meria Carstarphen said, trustees will have to trim another 50 to 100 administrative positions to help make up for the lost state aid.
Venable said that districts should look first toward nonteaching positions and that high-paying professional support and administrative jobs would be a good place to start. Such cuts would have less impact on student learning and give schools more bang for their budget-cutting buck, the thinking goes.
On average, professional support staffers earn $8,000 more than teachers, and administrative staffers make almost $27,000 more, according to TEA data.
Bigger in Texas
A recent report by the Texas Conservative Coalition Research Institute says the state's administrative apparatus "diverts resources from classroom instruction and also grows the cost of education while not contributing to improved educational outcomes."
The Legislative Budget Board has found that among the 15 most populous states, Texas has the highest number of public school employees per 10,000 residents, with 273. New Jersey is next, with 266, and California employs only 193 people per 10,000.
Caputo said those numbers are at least partially attributable to the state's geographic breadth and diversity: Rural areas that have "in some cases 100 or fewer kids in the entire district" can't take advantage of the same administrative economies of scale as, for example, the Houston school district, which enrolls more than 202,000 students.
There is also the increasing scope of educational mandates to consider, from the state's demographic, scholastic and financial reporting requirements to the federal No Child Left Behind Act, said Leander district Superintendent Bret Champion . With each new law, schools need people to implement requirements and ensure compliance. Still, he said, "I don't have a problem in the world with looking at every process. Everything that can be looked at should be looked at."
Doing more with less
The TEA requires that each district submit information on the number, salaries and function of all district positions. While most categorization leaves little room for uncertainty, the criteria for some 19,000 "other campus professional personnel" and "other noninstructional district professional personnel" are broadly defined. The average salary of workers in these categories is almost $60,000 .
"I believe that there's a lot of monkey business being played with the school district reporting and expenditures, and the public has a right to know what those positions are," Venable said.
Agency spokeswoman Suzanne Marchman said a more specific breakdown of these 19,000 employees is not available.
"School districts can create job positions to meet their needs, so we collect it the best we can," she said.
Lawmakers looking to make cuts to education received little guidance from the Legislative Budget Board's biennial "effectiveness and efficiency" recommendations. Its analysis of public schools cites no areas where administrative overhead might be reduced for the upcoming two-year budget.
One section focuses on school counselors, nurses and librarians but finds that, if anything, most Texas schools are understaffed in these areas — personnel the report says "play a critical role in campus effectiveness and student achievement."
Districts often use staffing formulas to determine how many nonteaching employees to allocate per campus. In Eanes, for example, janitors are employed based on a school's square footage. Those formulas will probably require adjustment, and, as Eanes Superintendent Nola Wellman makes clear, virtually nothing is off the table.
"We might have teachers and kids emptying trash," she said.
Andrew Kaspar | AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
Monday, Jan. 31, 2011
If the nonteacher employees of Texas public schools were a company, its work force would be larger than those of all but six of the Fortune 500. It would be larger than the population of Corpus Christi and that of the world's 10 smallest nations combined.
The image of bloated bureaucracy is a favorite target of small-government advocates, a boogeyman all the more popular in these austere times for public finances.
Fiscal conservatives say nonteaching jobs are the first place school districts should look when considering layoffs, but school officials say such positions are crucial to a functional public school system. The need for janitors and bus drivers is obvious, they say, but grant writers and data analysts are also essential; they bring in federal money and compile valuable information on school performance.
Almost half of the state's more than 661,000 public education employees are not teachers, and most of the nonteachers are so-called auxiliary personnel — janitors, cafeteria workers and bus drivers who on average make less than $23,000 a year, according to Texas Education Agency data from 2009-10. The same data indicate that the ratio of teaching to nonteaching positions has remained about the same for the past 15 years.
Peggy Venable , director of the Texas chapter of the conservative group Americans for Prosperity, says it's time for that to change.
"We have to do a better job of educating our children with less," she said. "If there's one nonteaching staffer for every teacher in our school districts, you bet we can cut significant spending without cutting teachers, without cutting classroom instruction."
Jenny Caputo , spokeswoman for the Texas Association of School Administrators, said classroom instruction is just one piece of the puzzle.
"Clearly that's the most important thing, but somebody has to get (students) to that classroom; someone has to register them in the front office; someone has to feed them lunch every day," Caputo said.
With the state facing a multibillion-dollar revenue shortfall, school districts grappling with dwindling property tax receipts and federal stimulus money running out, many districts are slashing their budgets, and teaching positions are on the line.
Last week, the Austin school district proposed cutting 485 jobs to make ends meet, the vast majority of them (421 ) teaching positions. The district eliminated 113 administrative and other nonteaching positions last year. This year, Superintendent Meria Carstarphen said, trustees will have to trim another 50 to 100 administrative positions to help make up for the lost state aid.
Venable said that districts should look first toward nonteaching positions and that high-paying professional support and administrative jobs would be a good place to start. Such cuts would have less impact on student learning and give schools more bang for their budget-cutting buck, the thinking goes.
On average, professional support staffers earn $8,000 more than teachers, and administrative staffers make almost $27,000 more, according to TEA data.
Bigger in Texas
A recent report by the Texas Conservative Coalition Research Institute says the state's administrative apparatus "diverts resources from classroom instruction and also grows the cost of education while not contributing to improved educational outcomes."
The Legislative Budget Board has found that among the 15 most populous states, Texas has the highest number of public school employees per 10,000 residents, with 273. New Jersey is next, with 266, and California employs only 193 people per 10,000.
Caputo said those numbers are at least partially attributable to the state's geographic breadth and diversity: Rural areas that have "in some cases 100 or fewer kids in the entire district" can't take advantage of the same administrative economies of scale as, for example, the Houston school district, which enrolls more than 202,000 students.
There is also the increasing scope of educational mandates to consider, from the state's demographic, scholastic and financial reporting requirements to the federal No Child Left Behind Act, said Leander district Superintendent Bret Champion . With each new law, schools need people to implement requirements and ensure compliance. Still, he said, "I don't have a problem in the world with looking at every process. Everything that can be looked at should be looked at."
Doing more with less
The TEA requires that each district submit information on the number, salaries and function of all district positions. While most categorization leaves little room for uncertainty, the criteria for some 19,000 "other campus professional personnel" and "other noninstructional district professional personnel" are broadly defined. The average salary of workers in these categories is almost $60,000 .
"I believe that there's a lot of monkey business being played with the school district reporting and expenditures, and the public has a right to know what those positions are," Venable said.
Agency spokeswoman Suzanne Marchman said a more specific breakdown of these 19,000 employees is not available.
"School districts can create job positions to meet their needs, so we collect it the best we can," she said.
Lawmakers looking to make cuts to education received little guidance from the Legislative Budget Board's biennial "effectiveness and efficiency" recommendations. Its analysis of public schools cites no areas where administrative overhead might be reduced for the upcoming two-year budget.
One section focuses on school counselors, nurses and librarians but finds that, if anything, most Texas schools are understaffed in these areas — personnel the report says "play a critical role in campus effectiveness and student achievement."
Districts often use staffing formulas to determine how many nonteaching employees to allocate per campus. In Eanes, for example, janitors are employed based on a school's square footage. Those formulas will probably require adjustment, and, as Eanes Superintendent Nola Wellman makes clear, virtually nothing is off the table.
"We might have teachers and kids emptying trash," she said.
Business leaders urged to support ‘balance'
Great article showing just how far the business community is from being a monolithic group. Props to Hobby's concern for the longer-term view of what's best for the state.
-Patricia
By Peggy Fikac And David Hendricks | SA Express News
Monday, January 31, 2011
AUSTIN — Former Lt. Gov. Bill Hobby is helping lead an effort to rally Texas business leaders against what he calls a “catastrophic” cuts-only approach to balancing the state's budget in the face of a massive shortfall, estimated at $15 billion to $27 billion over the next two years.
Hobby, a board member of the Center for Public Policy Priorities, and F. Scott McCown, the group's executive director, say in a letter being sent today to the state's hundreds of chambers of commerce that such an approach would undermine the state's economic recovery, weaken education and leave vulnerable Texans unprotected. The center focuses on low- and moderate-income Texans.
“We simply can't balance the budget through cuts alone without doing terrible damage to our economy and our future,” Hobby and McCown said in the letter.
They want business leaders to speak up for a “balanced approach” that includes spending the state's rainy day fund savings account, which is expected to contain $9.4 billion; adding new revenue through such options as increasing alcohol or tobacco taxes; raising taxes on “sugar-loaded” drinks; eliminating “unwarranted” sales tax exemptions; or temporarily increasing the state's sales tax rate.
Legislative leaders emphasize that the bare-bones proposals released by House and Senate leaders represent the start of a budget discussion that will unfold over months. GOP leaders have spoken against new taxes, saying they'd be damaging in tough economic times. Gov. Rick Perry has even said he's against spending money from the rainy day fund, although some other Republicans indicate they're open to spending at least part of it.
Among other points, legislative leaders' budget proposals would cost Texas billions of federal dollars as a result of paring back state spending. The letter notes that more than $10 billion would be lost in federal matching dollars for Medicaid.
“We're going to make these horrendous cuts in education, and we're not going to accept federal money that we have paid into the federal government,” Hobby, Democratic lieutenant governor from 1973 to 1991, said in an interview. “That's idiotic.”
Bill Hammond, president of the Texas Association of Business, which has 220 local chambers as members, said his group opposes a cuts-only approach, although it doesn't back spending the entire rainy day fund and doesn't want new taxes. It favors keeping spending about the same over the next two years.
The association has recommended items including spending $6 billion from the rainy day fund, putting slot machines at racetracks and expanding Medicaid managed care into the Rio Grande Valley, Hammond said.
“We should stay away from cuts in education,” said Ramiro Cavazos, president and CEO of the San Antonio Hispanic Chamber of Commerce. “The best investment for state funding is for education. ... As for tapping the rainy day fund, if now is not the time to tap it, then when is a good day?”
Hispanic Chamber leaders are traveling to Austin today. “We're going to talk to folks about how important education is,” Cavazos said.
Duane Wilson, president and CEO of the North San Antonio Chamber of Commerce, said his organization agrees that an all-spending-cuts approach is wrong.
“Texas needs educated workers. It's exactly the wrong thing to do, to cut, cut, cut,” Wilson said.
He said the North Chamber would not mind seeing San Antonio being allowed to hold local referendums for funding transportation projects if that will help the state budget. “We can build our own roads,” Wilson said.
“I think the former lieutenant governor is on the right track,” said Richard Perez, president and CEO of the Greater San Antonio Chamber of Commerce. “I think the budgets that have come out of the Senate and the House are worst-case scenarios. I believe the rainy day fund will be tapped.”
Cindy Taylor, president of the South San Antonio Chamber of Commerce, said that “more taxes on people and businesses is not the answer. Tightening the belt across the board on spending and a common-sense approach to future spending is the key to surviving this mess.
“(I) don't mind using the rainy day fund as long as it is only temporarily used to fill funding gaps and promptly paid back. Using sin taxes is not the way to go. Taxing sugar? What's next? Coffee? Beef?”
-Patricia
By Peggy Fikac And David Hendricks | SA Express News
Monday, January 31, 2011
AUSTIN — Former Lt. Gov. Bill Hobby is helping lead an effort to rally Texas business leaders against what he calls a “catastrophic” cuts-only approach to balancing the state's budget in the face of a massive shortfall, estimated at $15 billion to $27 billion over the next two years.
Hobby, a board member of the Center for Public Policy Priorities, and F. Scott McCown, the group's executive director, say in a letter being sent today to the state's hundreds of chambers of commerce that such an approach would undermine the state's economic recovery, weaken education and leave vulnerable Texans unprotected. The center focuses on low- and moderate-income Texans.
“We simply can't balance the budget through cuts alone without doing terrible damage to our economy and our future,” Hobby and McCown said in the letter.
They want business leaders to speak up for a “balanced approach” that includes spending the state's rainy day fund savings account, which is expected to contain $9.4 billion; adding new revenue through such options as increasing alcohol or tobacco taxes; raising taxes on “sugar-loaded” drinks; eliminating “unwarranted” sales tax exemptions; or temporarily increasing the state's sales tax rate.
Legislative leaders emphasize that the bare-bones proposals released by House and Senate leaders represent the start of a budget discussion that will unfold over months. GOP leaders have spoken against new taxes, saying they'd be damaging in tough economic times. Gov. Rick Perry has even said he's against spending money from the rainy day fund, although some other Republicans indicate they're open to spending at least part of it.
Among other points, legislative leaders' budget proposals would cost Texas billions of federal dollars as a result of paring back state spending. The letter notes that more than $10 billion would be lost in federal matching dollars for Medicaid.
“We're going to make these horrendous cuts in education, and we're not going to accept federal money that we have paid into the federal government,” Hobby, Democratic lieutenant governor from 1973 to 1991, said in an interview. “That's idiotic.”
Bill Hammond, president of the Texas Association of Business, which has 220 local chambers as members, said his group opposes a cuts-only approach, although it doesn't back spending the entire rainy day fund and doesn't want new taxes. It favors keeping spending about the same over the next two years.
The association has recommended items including spending $6 billion from the rainy day fund, putting slot machines at racetracks and expanding Medicaid managed care into the Rio Grande Valley, Hammond said.
“We should stay away from cuts in education,” said Ramiro Cavazos, president and CEO of the San Antonio Hispanic Chamber of Commerce. “The best investment for state funding is for education. ... As for tapping the rainy day fund, if now is not the time to tap it, then when is a good day?”
Hispanic Chamber leaders are traveling to Austin today. “We're going to talk to folks about how important education is,” Cavazos said.
Duane Wilson, president and CEO of the North San Antonio Chamber of Commerce, said his organization agrees that an all-spending-cuts approach is wrong.
“Texas needs educated workers. It's exactly the wrong thing to do, to cut, cut, cut,” Wilson said.
He said the North Chamber would not mind seeing San Antonio being allowed to hold local referendums for funding transportation projects if that will help the state budget. “We can build our own roads,” Wilson said.
“I think the former lieutenant governor is on the right track,” said Richard Perez, president and CEO of the Greater San Antonio Chamber of Commerce. “I think the budgets that have come out of the Senate and the House are worst-case scenarios. I believe the rainy day fund will be tapped.”
Cindy Taylor, president of the South San Antonio Chamber of Commerce, said that “more taxes on people and businesses is not the answer. Tightening the belt across the board on spending and a common-sense approach to future spending is the key to surviving this mess.
“(I) don't mind using the rainy day fund as long as it is only temporarily used to fill funding gaps and promptly paid back. Using sin taxes is not the way to go. Taxing sugar? What's next? Coffee? Beef?”
G.O.P. Governors Take Aim at Teacher Tenure
We're headed in an ugly direction with regards to teacher policy. Check out this notable statement from the article:
There's some relevancy here for Texas. One of the differences that sets apart the Senate and House budget proposals is that the former leaves in grant funding for teacher incentives such as merit pay and efforts to tie "effectiveness" to student test performance. We already have Houston ISD using this model. Let's hope the state doesn't follow Indiana's "professional" labeling of teachers.
-Patricia
By TRIP GABRIEL and SAM DILLON | NY Times
Published: January 31, 2011
Seizing on a national anxiety over poor student performance, many governors are taking aim at a bedrock tradition of public schools: teacher tenure.
The momentum began over a year ago with President Obama’s call to measure and reward effective teaching, a challenge he repeated in last week’s State of the Union address.
Now several Republican governors have concluded that removing ineffective teachers requires undoing the century-old protections of tenure.
Governors in Florida, Idaho, Indiana, Nevada and New Jersey have called for the elimination or dismantling of tenure. As state legislatures convene this winter, anti-tenure bills are being written in those states and others. Their chances of passing have risen because of crushing state budget deficits that have put teachers’ unions on the defensive.
“It’s practically impossible to remove an underperforming teacher under the system we have now,” said Gov. Brian Sandoval of Nevada, lamenting that his state has the lowest high school graduation rate in the nation.
Eliminating tenure, Mr. Sandoval said, would allow school districts to dismiss teachers based on competence, not seniority, in the event of layoffs.
Politics also play a role.
“These new Republican governors are all trying to outreform one another,” said Michael Petrilli, an education official under President George W. Bush.
In New York City, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg has campaigned aggressively for the state to end “last in, first out” protections for teachers. Warning that thousands of young educators face layoffs, Mr. Bloomberg is demanding that Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo scrap the seniority law if the budget he will unveil Tuesday includes state cuts to education.
Teachers’ unions have responded to the assault on the status quo by arguing that all the ire directed at bad teachers distorts the issue.
“Why aren’t governors standing up and saying, ‘In our state, we’ll devise a system where nobody will ever get into a classroom who isn’t competent’?” said Dennis Van Roekel, president of the National Education Association. “Instead they are saying, ‘Let’s make it easy to fire teachers.’ That’s the wrong goal.”
Tenure laws were originally passed — New Jersey was first in 1909 — to protect teachers from being fired because of race, sex, political views or cronyism.
Public-school teachers typically earn tenure after two or three years on probation. Once they receive it, they have a right to due-process hearings before dismissal, which in many districts makes it expensive and time-consuming to fire teachers considered ineffective. Tenure also brings seniority protections in many districts.
In recent years, research on the importance of teacher quality has sparked a movement to evaluate teachers on how well students are learning — with implications that undermine tenure.
The movement gained momentum with the Obama administration’s Race to the Top grant contest last year. Eleven states enacted laws to link student achievement to teacher evaluations and, in some cases, to pay and job security, according to the American Enterprise Institute.
Now some politicians and policy makers have concluded that if teachers owe their jobs to professional performance, then tenure protections are obsolete.
The former school chancellor of Washington, D.C., Michelle Rhee, who campaigned against tenure as early as 2007, has made abolishing it a cornerstone of a new advocacy group, Students First, which has advised the governors of Florida, Nevada and New Jersey.
All are Republicans, but Ms. Rhee, a Democrat, insisted that the movement was bipartisan.
“There’s a willingness to confront these issues that has never before been in play,” she said, noting that some influential Democratic mayors, including Cory A. Booker in Newark and Antonio R. Villaraigosa in Los Angeles, have also called for making it easier to dismiss ineffective teachers.
In a speech in December, Mr. Villaraigosa — who once worked as a teachers union organizer — said, “Tenure and seniority must be reformed or we will be left with only one option: eliminating it entirely.”
The two national teachers’ unions insist that they, too, favor some degree of reform. The American Federation of Teachers endorsed a sweeping law in Colorado last year that lets administrators remove even tenured teachers who are consistently rated as ineffective.
Many teachers who accept linking job security to their effectiveness still want to require administrators to present any evidence against them in a hearing, which critics of tenure like Ms. Rhee say is unnecessary.
Ada Beth Cutler, dean of the education college at Montclair State University in New Jersey, said, “One of the fears I hear from teachers is that in these tough budget times, what’s going to stop someone from firing someone at the top of the pay scale?”
Mr. Van Roekel of the National Education Association labels tenure laws “fair dismissal laws” that protect from arbitrary firing.
“In all my years in education I don’t remember a time when there was this much concerted effort to eliminate fair dismissal laws,” he said.
In New Jersey, Gov. Chris Christie, whose combativeness with the teachers’ union has buoyed his national reputation, appears to have a good chance of getting a bill from the Democratic-controlled Legislature that reshapes tenure.
Under a pair of bills moving through the Indiana General Assembly, teachers would have to earn “professional” status based on evaluations tied to student learning, and their collective bargaining would be limited to salary, not seniority rules.
“Most of these reforms would have been dead on arrival” last year, said Tony Bennett, the Indiana superintendent of public instruction.
Gov. Mitch Daniels of Indiana has said that “teachers should have tenure,” but the bills introduced by his fellow Republicans call for teachers’ traditional protections to be sharply reduced.
It is similar in Florida, where lawmakers plan to reprise an anti-tenure bill from last year that provoked such an outpouring from teachers that the moderate Republican governor, Charlie Crist, vetoed it.
That is unlikely under the new Republican governor, Rick Scott, who told the Greater Miami Chamber of Commerce last month: “Good teachers know they don’t need tenure. There is no reason to have it except to protect those that don’t perform as they should.”
And in Idaho, Gov. C. L. Otter, a Republican, presented an education plan last month that said bluntly, “The state will phase out tenure.”
Idaho’s schools superintendent, Tom Luna, argued that the plan would not subject teachers to arbitrary dismissal.
Mr. Van Roekel of the teachers’ union disagreed. Recounting a story that had the burnish of something told many times, he recalled that around 1980, when he was a union leader in Arizona, he had arranged to have a speech pathologist assess a teacher whom a principal was trying to fire because of a speech impediment. The pathologist determined that the teacher had a New York accent.
“She would say ‘ideer,’ instead of ‘idea,’ ” Mr. Van Roekel said. “The principal thought that was a speech impediment. Without a fair dismissal law, that principal could have fired her arbitrarily, without citing any reason.”
Why aren’t governors standing up and saying, ‘In our state, we’ll devise a system where nobody will ever get into a classroom who isn’t competent’?” said Dennis Van Roekel, president of the National Education Association. “Instead they are saying, ‘Let’s make it easy to fire teachers.’ That’s the wrong goal."
There's some relevancy here for Texas. One of the differences that sets apart the Senate and House budget proposals is that the former leaves in grant funding for teacher incentives such as merit pay and efforts to tie "effectiveness" to student test performance. We already have Houston ISD using this model. Let's hope the state doesn't follow Indiana's "professional" labeling of teachers.
-Patricia
By TRIP GABRIEL and SAM DILLON | NY Times
Published: January 31, 2011
Seizing on a national anxiety over poor student performance, many governors are taking aim at a bedrock tradition of public schools: teacher tenure.
The momentum began over a year ago with President Obama’s call to measure and reward effective teaching, a challenge he repeated in last week’s State of the Union address.
Now several Republican governors have concluded that removing ineffective teachers requires undoing the century-old protections of tenure.
Governors in Florida, Idaho, Indiana, Nevada and New Jersey have called for the elimination or dismantling of tenure. As state legislatures convene this winter, anti-tenure bills are being written in those states and others. Their chances of passing have risen because of crushing state budget deficits that have put teachers’ unions on the defensive.
“It’s practically impossible to remove an underperforming teacher under the system we have now,” said Gov. Brian Sandoval of Nevada, lamenting that his state has the lowest high school graduation rate in the nation.
Eliminating tenure, Mr. Sandoval said, would allow school districts to dismiss teachers based on competence, not seniority, in the event of layoffs.
Politics also play a role.
“These new Republican governors are all trying to outreform one another,” said Michael Petrilli, an education official under President George W. Bush.
In New York City, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg has campaigned aggressively for the state to end “last in, first out” protections for teachers. Warning that thousands of young educators face layoffs, Mr. Bloomberg is demanding that Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo scrap the seniority law if the budget he will unveil Tuesday includes state cuts to education.
Teachers’ unions have responded to the assault on the status quo by arguing that all the ire directed at bad teachers distorts the issue.
“Why aren’t governors standing up and saying, ‘In our state, we’ll devise a system where nobody will ever get into a classroom who isn’t competent’?” said Dennis Van Roekel, president of the National Education Association. “Instead they are saying, ‘Let’s make it easy to fire teachers.’ That’s the wrong goal.”
Tenure laws were originally passed — New Jersey was first in 1909 — to protect teachers from being fired because of race, sex, political views or cronyism.
Public-school teachers typically earn tenure after two or three years on probation. Once they receive it, they have a right to due-process hearings before dismissal, which in many districts makes it expensive and time-consuming to fire teachers considered ineffective. Tenure also brings seniority protections in many districts.
In recent years, research on the importance of teacher quality has sparked a movement to evaluate teachers on how well students are learning — with implications that undermine tenure.
The movement gained momentum with the Obama administration’s Race to the Top grant contest last year. Eleven states enacted laws to link student achievement to teacher evaluations and, in some cases, to pay and job security, according to the American Enterprise Institute.
Now some politicians and policy makers have concluded that if teachers owe their jobs to professional performance, then tenure protections are obsolete.
The former school chancellor of Washington, D.C., Michelle Rhee, who campaigned against tenure as early as 2007, has made abolishing it a cornerstone of a new advocacy group, Students First, which has advised the governors of Florida, Nevada and New Jersey.
All are Republicans, but Ms. Rhee, a Democrat, insisted that the movement was bipartisan.
“There’s a willingness to confront these issues that has never before been in play,” she said, noting that some influential Democratic mayors, including Cory A. Booker in Newark and Antonio R. Villaraigosa in Los Angeles, have also called for making it easier to dismiss ineffective teachers.
In a speech in December, Mr. Villaraigosa — who once worked as a teachers union organizer — said, “Tenure and seniority must be reformed or we will be left with only one option: eliminating it entirely.”
The two national teachers’ unions insist that they, too, favor some degree of reform. The American Federation of Teachers endorsed a sweeping law in Colorado last year that lets administrators remove even tenured teachers who are consistently rated as ineffective.
Many teachers who accept linking job security to their effectiveness still want to require administrators to present any evidence against them in a hearing, which critics of tenure like Ms. Rhee say is unnecessary.
Ada Beth Cutler, dean of the education college at Montclair State University in New Jersey, said, “One of the fears I hear from teachers is that in these tough budget times, what’s going to stop someone from firing someone at the top of the pay scale?”
Mr. Van Roekel of the National Education Association labels tenure laws “fair dismissal laws” that protect from arbitrary firing.
“In all my years in education I don’t remember a time when there was this much concerted effort to eliminate fair dismissal laws,” he said.
In New Jersey, Gov. Chris Christie, whose combativeness with the teachers’ union has buoyed his national reputation, appears to have a good chance of getting a bill from the Democratic-controlled Legislature that reshapes tenure.
Under a pair of bills moving through the Indiana General Assembly, teachers would have to earn “professional” status based on evaluations tied to student learning, and their collective bargaining would be limited to salary, not seniority rules.
“Most of these reforms would have been dead on arrival” last year, said Tony Bennett, the Indiana superintendent of public instruction.
Gov. Mitch Daniels of Indiana has said that “teachers should have tenure,” but the bills introduced by his fellow Republicans call for teachers’ traditional protections to be sharply reduced.
It is similar in Florida, where lawmakers plan to reprise an anti-tenure bill from last year that provoked such an outpouring from teachers that the moderate Republican governor, Charlie Crist, vetoed it.
That is unlikely under the new Republican governor, Rick Scott, who told the Greater Miami Chamber of Commerce last month: “Good teachers know they don’t need tenure. There is no reason to have it except to protect those that don’t perform as they should.”
And in Idaho, Gov. C. L. Otter, a Republican, presented an education plan last month that said bluntly, “The state will phase out tenure.”
Idaho’s schools superintendent, Tom Luna, argued that the plan would not subject teachers to arbitrary dismissal.
Mr. Van Roekel of the teachers’ union disagreed. Recounting a story that had the burnish of something told many times, he recalled that around 1980, when he was a union leader in Arizona, he had arranged to have a speech pathologist assess a teacher whom a principal was trying to fire because of a speech impediment. The pathologist determined that the teacher had a New York accent.
“She would say ‘ideer,’ instead of ‘idea,’ ” Mr. Van Roekel said. “The principal thought that was a speech impediment. Without a fair dismissal law, that principal could have fired her arbitrarily, without citing any reason.”
Duncan: Teacher Salaries Should Be $60,000 to $150,000
By Michele McNeil | Ed Week
July 29, 2011
U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan called for a radical upending of the nation's teaching pipeline—higher salaries, improved performance-based teacher accountability, and a higher bar for prospective students to enter schools of education.
In remarks today to a conference of the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards, he called for teachers to start out making $60,000 a year, topping out at around $150,000. His speech comes as thousands of teachers from across the country descend on the nation's capital to protest many of the Obama administration's policies, from the increasing reliance on standardized tests to using test scores to help evaluate teachers.
"We must think radically differently," he said, according to prepared remarks. "We must ask and answer hard questions on topics that have been off limits in the past like staffing practices and school organization, benefits packages and job security—because the answers may give us more realistic ways to afford these new professional conditions."
Top salaries of $150,000 a year won't come cheap, and Duncan acknowledged as much.
"And it will cost money—and—given the current political climate with the nation wrestling with debt and deficits—I am sure some people will immediately say that we can't afford it without even looking at how to redirect the money we are already spending—and mis-spending.
He called on colleges of education to raise the bar for prospective students, to lure the brightest in. "Top undergraduates will flock to a profession that demands high standards and credentials," he said.
Although Duncan's remarks today shouldn't surprise anyone, this does mark a fresh, reinvigorated push from the secretary, who wants to help remake the way we find, educate, evaluate, and compensate the nation's teaching force. He's already pushed states to alter policies on merit pay and teacher-student data linkages through the Race to the Top grant competition.
Now, he appears to be using the bully pulpit to continue to advance that message. As he begins to explicitly lay out the problem—the first step in any public policymaking process—expect him in the fall to begin proposing exactly what the Education Department can do to achieve this radical transformation.
July 29, 2011
U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan called for a radical upending of the nation's teaching pipeline—higher salaries, improved performance-based teacher accountability, and a higher bar for prospective students to enter schools of education.
In remarks today to a conference of the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards, he called for teachers to start out making $60,000 a year, topping out at around $150,000. His speech comes as thousands of teachers from across the country descend on the nation's capital to protest many of the Obama administration's policies, from the increasing reliance on standardized tests to using test scores to help evaluate teachers.
"We must think radically differently," he said, according to prepared remarks. "We must ask and answer hard questions on topics that have been off limits in the past like staffing practices and school organization, benefits packages and job security—because the answers may give us more realistic ways to afford these new professional conditions."
Top salaries of $150,000 a year won't come cheap, and Duncan acknowledged as much.
"And it will cost money—and—given the current political climate with the nation wrestling with debt and deficits—I am sure some people will immediately say that we can't afford it without even looking at how to redirect the money we are already spending—and mis-spending.
He called on colleges of education to raise the bar for prospective students, to lure the brightest in. "Top undergraduates will flock to a profession that demands high standards and credentials," he said.
Although Duncan's remarks today shouldn't surprise anyone, this does mark a fresh, reinvigorated push from the secretary, who wants to help remake the way we find, educate, evaluate, and compensate the nation's teaching force. He's already pushed states to alter policies on merit pay and teacher-student data linkages through the Race to the Top grant competition.
Now, he appears to be using the bully pulpit to continue to advance that message. As he begins to explicitly lay out the problem—the first step in any public policymaking process—expect him in the fall to begin proposing exactly what the Education Department can do to achieve this radical transformation.
With Change in Formula, Texas School Ratings Drop
By Morgan Smith | Texas Tribune
7/29/2011
The new accountability ratings released Friday for public school campuses in the state's 1,228 districts and charter schools present a "far more accurate look" at academic performance, Texas Education Commissioner Robert Scott said.
They are also markedly lower — with far fewer schools achieving the highest ratings than last year. Instead, most schools fall in the middle "acceptable" category.
Many districts find themselves with lower ratings even though their student achievement has remained the same. That's because the formula used to calculate the ratings, based primarily on students' standardized test scores, no longer includes a mechanism called the Texas Projection Measure. The TPM gauged students’ future test scores based on a campus-wide average instead of using their actual test scores and had the effect of giving schools credit for students passing when they hadn't.
In April, Scott announced he would discontinue the measure after state lawmakers took a unanimous vote against it during debate on a testing bill.
Here are the changes in ratings from 2010 to 2011:
* "Exemplary" schools dropped from 19.5 percent of all districts to 5 percent
* "Recognized" schools dropped from 49.1 percent of all districts to 34.4 percent
* "Acceptable" schools rose from 27.6 percent of all districts to 53.3 percent
* "Unacceptable" schools rose from 3 percent of all districts to 7.2 percent.
(Find a detailed description of what the ratings mean on the Texas Education Agency's website.)
At a press conference today in which he released the ratings, Scott said that despite the fact that fewer schools achieved the highest categories, the "school system as a whole is strong" and that parents should feel confident that the ratings are "absolutely real and valid."
These ratings will stay in place for the next two years to give schools a chance to adjust to STAAR, the state's new, more rigorous standardized testing system, which will be rolled out next spring.
Scott also said that two districts would lose their accreditation. One of those is Houston's North Forest ISD. He declined to name the second district because it had yet to be notified.
We're putting together a searchable database of all campus ratings that will be available later this afternoon. Check this space for updates.
7/29/2011
The new accountability ratings released Friday for public school campuses in the state's 1,228 districts and charter schools present a "far more accurate look" at academic performance, Texas Education Commissioner Robert Scott said.
They are also markedly lower — with far fewer schools achieving the highest ratings than last year. Instead, most schools fall in the middle "acceptable" category.
Many districts find themselves with lower ratings even though their student achievement has remained the same. That's because the formula used to calculate the ratings, based primarily on students' standardized test scores, no longer includes a mechanism called the Texas Projection Measure. The TPM gauged students’ future test scores based on a campus-wide average instead of using their actual test scores and had the effect of giving schools credit for students passing when they hadn't.
In April, Scott announced he would discontinue the measure after state lawmakers took a unanimous vote against it during debate on a testing bill.
Here are the changes in ratings from 2010 to 2011:
* "Exemplary" schools dropped from 19.5 percent of all districts to 5 percent
* "Recognized" schools dropped from 49.1 percent of all districts to 34.4 percent
* "Acceptable" schools rose from 27.6 percent of all districts to 53.3 percent
* "Unacceptable" schools rose from 3 percent of all districts to 7.2 percent.
(Find a detailed description of what the ratings mean on the Texas Education Agency's website.)
At a press conference today in which he released the ratings, Scott said that despite the fact that fewer schools achieved the highest categories, the "school system as a whole is strong" and that parents should feel confident that the ratings are "absolutely real and valid."
These ratings will stay in place for the next two years to give schools a chance to adjust to STAAR, the state's new, more rigorous standardized testing system, which will be rolled out next spring.
Scott also said that two districts would lose their accreditation. One of those is Houston's North Forest ISD. He declined to name the second district because it had yet to be notified.
We're putting together a searchable database of all campus ratings that will be available later this afternoon. Check this space for updates.
Education Policy Critics March on White House
Also check out this short clip from the rally: href="">
-Patricia
By Nirvi Shah | Ed Week
Washington
Teachers and their supporters gathered near the White House on Saturday afternoon to chant, cheer, and march for a variety of changes they hope to see in public schools—most notably, a 180-degree shift away from standards- and testing-based accountability.
Aside from that message, those who attended the Save Our Schools March and National Call to Action in the scalding sun preached everything from boosting support for teachers’ unions, to booting U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, to getting more federal money for low-income schoolchildren. Student poverty was repeatedly cited as the most pressing problem in public schools.
The more than two hours of speeches and hourlong march, along with other related events, were organized by teachers and teacher-educators who say they are fed up with test-driven accountability for schools—and, increasingly, for teachers. Speakers ranged from such prominent education authors as Jonathan Kozol and Diane Ravitch to the actor Matt Damon.
Organizers estimated the size of the crowd at 5,000, but a rough count by Education Week put it closer to 3,000. Before the event, organizers had said they were expecting 5,000 to 10,000 people.
Read on...
-Patricia
By Nirvi Shah | Ed Week
Washington
Teachers and their supporters gathered near the White House on Saturday afternoon to chant, cheer, and march for a variety of changes they hope to see in public schools—most notably, a 180-degree shift away from standards- and testing-based accountability.
Aside from that message, those who attended the Save Our Schools March and National Call to Action in the scalding sun preached everything from boosting support for teachers’ unions, to booting U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, to getting more federal money for low-income schoolchildren. Student poverty was repeatedly cited as the most pressing problem in public schools.
The more than two hours of speeches and hourlong march, along with other related events, were organized by teachers and teacher-educators who say they are fed up with test-driven accountability for schools—and, increasingly, for teachers. Speakers ranged from such prominent education authors as Jonathan Kozol and Diane Ravitch to the actor Matt Damon.
Organizers estimated the size of the crowd at 5,000, but a rough count by Education Week put it closer to 3,000. Before the event, organizers had said they were expecting 5,000 to 10,000 people.
Read on...
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