Steven Wise is no friend of education
Let me tell you about the months of coloration and input on the bill that Wise seems so proud of. It was the equivalent of forcing a four year old who has no love for vegetables to choose between squash and lima beans. I use a four year old in my analogy because the legislature has chosen to treat teachers like children. These same teachers when testifying who were overwhelmingly against the bill were filed in one after another only to be dismissed while another NFOE Michelle Rhee was given rock star treatment. John Thrasher perhaps the biggest NFOE around even cut off testimony, saying how many times can I hear the same thing; so much for democracy at work.
Wise says people are against teachers having tenure, well I bet they are against teachers losing their right of due process, which is what they actually have even more. He says they are for merit pay, well who isn’t, except education isn’t as simple as, fire bad teachers reward excellent ones. Study after study has shown has shown merit pay based on standardized tests does not work. It rewards the luck of the teachers draw (who is in their classes) rather than the teacher’s ability to teach. Yet Wise would have you believe differently. Do we want education policies decided on what sounds good (FCAT anyone) or tried and true research. Who should be making decisions for what’s best for kids, teachers in classrooms and parents (most of whom are likewise against the bill) or politicians who have already meddled with public schools almost to death.
Friends don’t let slick packaging and a snake oil salesmen’s tongue convince you this bill is good for education and it’s doing teachers and children a favor. It’s not on both accounts. It’s another attempt by those who hate public education to further cripple public education.
I would say urge your representative to vote against this bill except it was a done deal, regardless of what Wise would have you believe, as soon as Rick Scott was elected, it would be pointless of me to do so. Instead I urge you to remember this day the next time you are in a voting booth. Then please vote what’s best for Florida’s children.
Chris Guerrieri
Showing posts with label FCAT. Show all posts
Showing posts with label FCAT. Show all posts
Friday, February 25, 2011
Thursday, February 17, 2011
School Board Vice Chair compares apples to oranges
This is a problem the school district has. They cherry pick stats that support their points, they disregard stats when they don’t report what they want (this past years FCAT for example) and then they make stuff up, discipline problems are not way down, instead teachers ignoring bad behavior and enduring toxic learning environments is way up. The district does all this why Rome is burning down around them. -cpg
From the Florida Times Union
I am writing in response to Betty Burney's guest column in which she suggests that students at Raines, Ribault and Jackson high schools may be achieving better than tests are indicating.
The basis of Burney's argument is that the postsecondary reading readiness rates reported for these schools under the state's high school grading rule are substantially higher than the reading performance reported based on the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test.
What Burney fails to report is that the two tests measure different groups of students:
- The FCAT reading performance is based on all students in these schools.
- The postsecondary reading readiness standard is based on a very small number of the students in these schools.
It is commendable that the small number of students in these schools who score at level 3 or above in FCAT reading and math and graduate on time perform comparably with their peers around the state in terms of postsecondary reading readiness rates.
However, it is a gross misrepresentation to suggest that the performance of this small number of students is indicative of the performance of these schools.
The unfortunate truth is that these schools are not adequately serving the vast majority of their students.
As a service to readers, an "apples to apples" comparison of the FCAT reading performance and the college readiness rate for the entire cohort of students who entered the ninth grade in fall 2007 is attached.
These three high schools - Jackson, Raines and Ribault - are included among a group of 12 public schools around the state that have been identified as critically low performing based on requirements of Florida statutes.
This represents 12 schools out of over 4,000 public schools in the state.
A student entering one of these three high schools between 1999 and 2006 had on average less than a 50 percent chance of graduating on time, if at all.
Misrepresenting the facts to defend the status quo is a disservice to the students, families and surrounding communities these schools serve.
T. Willard Fair is chairman of the Florida Board of Education
Read more at Jacksonville.com: http://jacksonville.com/opinion/letters-readers/2011-02-16/story/guest-column-state-tests-high-schools-are-consistent-and#ixzz1EEZk3exj
http://jacksonville.com/opinion/letters-readers/2011-02-16/story/guest-column-state-tests-high-schools-are-consistent-and
From the Florida Times Union
I am writing in response to Betty Burney's guest column in which she suggests that students at Raines, Ribault and Jackson high schools may be achieving better than tests are indicating.
The basis of Burney's argument is that the postsecondary reading readiness rates reported for these schools under the state's high school grading rule are substantially higher than the reading performance reported based on the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test.
What Burney fails to report is that the two tests measure different groups of students:
- The FCAT reading performance is based on all students in these schools.
- The postsecondary reading readiness standard is based on a very small number of the students in these schools.
It is commendable that the small number of students in these schools who score at level 3 or above in FCAT reading and math and graduate on time perform comparably with their peers around the state in terms of postsecondary reading readiness rates.
However, it is a gross misrepresentation to suggest that the performance of this small number of students is indicative of the performance of these schools.
The unfortunate truth is that these schools are not adequately serving the vast majority of their students.
As a service to readers, an "apples to apples" comparison of the FCAT reading performance and the college readiness rate for the entire cohort of students who entered the ninth grade in fall 2007 is attached.
These three high schools - Jackson, Raines and Ribault - are included among a group of 12 public schools around the state that have been identified as critically low performing based on requirements of Florida statutes.
This represents 12 schools out of over 4,000 public schools in the state.
A student entering one of these three high schools between 1999 and 2006 had on average less than a 50 percent chance of graduating on time, if at all.
Misrepresenting the facts to defend the status quo is a disservice to the students, families and surrounding communities these schools serve.
T. Willard Fair is chairman of the Florida Board of Education
Read more at Jacksonville.com: http://jacksonville.com/opinion/letters-readers/2011-02-16/story/guest-column-state-tests-high-schools-are-consistent-and#ixzz1EEZk3exj
http://jacksonville.com/opinion/letters-readers/2011-02-16/story/guest-column-state-tests-high-schools-are-consistent-and
Monday, February 14, 2011
Betty Burney, a day late and a dollar short
So let me get this straight there is some miraculous stat which shows our kids are actually doing well at the intervening schools and the powers-that-be are conspiring together to keep it hidden. If that sounds far-fetched it seems to be what Mrs. Burney would have you believe in a recent op-ed to the Times Union. The problem with the test Mrs. Burney mentioned, the Post Secondary Reading Readiness test is it's irelevant to the problems that the intervening schools are facing. I don’t like the FCAT but passing that test is what they need to do. I bet the majority vast majority can add two didgit numbers too but that doesn't matter either.
Speaking of the FCAT, she complained about the 2010 results and here is the day late part. I believe she and all reasonable people should have been complaining about the FCAT for about a decade now. This test has single handily transformed education and not for the better. No longer as an education system are we concerned with all our children getting a well rounded education that prepares them for life, now all we are concerned about is if they can pass the FCAT or not. I have to say I also find this a little disingenuous because she and the district have readily embraced the FCAT when it told them what they wanted to hear but now she dismisses it when she hears something that she doesn’t like.
She however was right when like Deborah Gianoulis did the day before, she wrote about all the great things going on at those schools because there are many. Every day kids go to them and work with dedicated professionals and it is truly a wonderful thing. Unfortunate though, the vast majority of the good things happening at the schools are just the interactions between students and their teachers. The reason is because teachers have been hamstrung by the school board and the administration at 1701 Prudential drive's policies to the point that so many of the students and teachers start out in a hole so deep that few are able to climb out of it.
At no time does Mrs. Burney mention the real problem the schools are facing which is kids getting pushed to high school without the skills they need to be successful. This includes the ability to read and do math at grade level, discipline and a serious work ethic. Instead she mentions the districts rigorous graduation requirements and points out that kids are passing. Talk about not seeing the forest for the trees. There is absolutely no grasp at what the big picture is.
Well Mrs. Burney I will point out to you that there is a big difference between learning and passing. Just ask Florida State College at Jacksonville which says seventy percent of our recent graduates have to take remedial classes. Teachers in fear for their jobs, evaluations and performance pay, under tremendous pressure from their admins not to fail any children regardless of what they do or don’t do, or teachers sympathetic to the child pushed into their room without the skills they need, it’s not their fault they rationalize, can and do just pass children along. This passing however doesn’t always equate to learning.
Betty Burney has been on the school board for over six years and the problems we have today are the same problems we had six years ago and 3000 children who could be attending the intervening schools have left already. Blaming the FCAT when it doesn’t tell us what we want to hear, pointing to tests that don’t count and equating learning with passing when for many kids nothing could be farther from the truth is no way to get those children back and solve the education problems here in Jacksonville. Our schools, our teachers and most importantly our children deserve real solutions.
Chris Guerrieri
School Teacher
Speaking of the FCAT, she complained about the 2010 results and here is the day late part. I believe she and all reasonable people should have been complaining about the FCAT for about a decade now. This test has single handily transformed education and not for the better. No longer as an education system are we concerned with all our children getting a well rounded education that prepares them for life, now all we are concerned about is if they can pass the FCAT or not. I have to say I also find this a little disingenuous because she and the district have readily embraced the FCAT when it told them what they wanted to hear but now she dismisses it when she hears something that she doesn’t like.
She however was right when like Deborah Gianoulis did the day before, she wrote about all the great things going on at those schools because there are many. Every day kids go to them and work with dedicated professionals and it is truly a wonderful thing. Unfortunate though, the vast majority of the good things happening at the schools are just the interactions between students and their teachers. The reason is because teachers have been hamstrung by the school board and the administration at 1701 Prudential drive's policies to the point that so many of the students and teachers start out in a hole so deep that few are able to climb out of it.
At no time does Mrs. Burney mention the real problem the schools are facing which is kids getting pushed to high school without the skills they need to be successful. This includes the ability to read and do math at grade level, discipline and a serious work ethic. Instead she mentions the districts rigorous graduation requirements and points out that kids are passing. Talk about not seeing the forest for the trees. There is absolutely no grasp at what the big picture is.
Well Mrs. Burney I will point out to you that there is a big difference between learning and passing. Just ask Florida State College at Jacksonville which says seventy percent of our recent graduates have to take remedial classes. Teachers in fear for their jobs, evaluations and performance pay, under tremendous pressure from their admins not to fail any children regardless of what they do or don’t do, or teachers sympathetic to the child pushed into their room without the skills they need, it’s not their fault they rationalize, can and do just pass children along. This passing however doesn’t always equate to learning.
Betty Burney has been on the school board for over six years and the problems we have today are the same problems we had six years ago and 3000 children who could be attending the intervening schools have left already. Blaming the FCAT when it doesn’t tell us what we want to hear, pointing to tests that don’t count and equating learning with passing when for many kids nothing could be farther from the truth is no way to get those children back and solve the education problems here in Jacksonville. Our schools, our teachers and most importantly our children deserve real solutions.
Chris Guerrieri
School Teacher
Wednesday, February 9, 2011
How I would save our schools
I write about education issues a lot but a recent commenter on my work said I am pretty good at pointing out things that were wrong but I am a little light on solutions. I thought I was pretty good at putting ideas out there but if they thought differently let me clear that up. This is how I would turn around the four struggling schools, Jackson, Ribault, Raines and North Shore K-8.
The first thing I would do is start a come home campaign. At a recent school board meeting Becki Couch said there were over 3000 students who could be attending those schools but who had chosen to go elsewhere. I would try and get those kids back and I would do so by convincing them and their families that those schools would become academically rigorous and safe schools to attend.
The next thing I would do is make those schools safe and academically rigorous schools to attend.
I would tell the teachers that I trusted them and end arbitrary amounts of students they could or could not fail. I would have them teach the material and make it rigorous, which would mean that if somebody passed their class it was because they earned it and not because a teacher gave them a grade or pushed them through. I would tell the teachers they could go as slow as they felt their kids needed, they could reteach if necessary and that the pacing guide was a suggestion, nobody was going to get in trouble for being more than five days behind. After a few weeks I would move kids around and have groups that were quickly moving through the material and groups that needed extra time.
Then at the same time I would make sure the teachers and students had good learn environments. Rudeness, disrespect and violations of the code of conduct would not be tolerated and consequences would be swift and strict. If you came to learn you would have nothing to be afraid of. If you came to cut up or steal learning time from your peers or teachers then you would have a tough time. The adults not the children would be running the schools.
I wouldn’t dismantle the staffs but in my system everybody would be teaching. Academic coaches would have nearly full loads and even assistant principals would be expected to teach a class too. It would be all hands on deck and this would stop admins and psuedo admins from losing touch with the jobs that teachers do. It would also help keep classes smaller and hopefully allow us to have some electives.
I would tell my teachers to be prepared to work long hours. However I am not worried about volumes of data notebooks, two-page lesson plans and complicated board configurations. Put up a daily agenda and then go. Spend the time you have been doing those things the last few years figuring out how to connect with the kids and keeping the families involved. I would want my principals and A.P.s in the classrooms looking for quality instruction not word walls.
Then not only would I instruct my teachers not to teach to the F-Cat but I would tell them not to even mention it. About a week before it was taken the principals could have an assembly to discuss it’s importance and that would be it.
That is how I would turn around those schools. With our current structure in place that is what I would do but that’s not to say I wouldn’t have a wish list too.
I would like the kids to have six one-hour periods a day, with no A/B block. 90 minutes is way to long for many of our kids and teachers. If the students had class everyday I believe the transfer of knowledge would happen quicker. With A/B blocks, weekends, holidays and absences can lead to four, five and sometimes six days between class meetings.
After the first nine weeks kids failing a class would be required, not asked if they wanted to, to stay after school for tutoring.
Every student would have at least one elective each day so they could have a safe spot in their schedule. I would want the schools at a minimum to have art, graphics, shop, home economics, music/band, and drama.
If some kids would not get with the program I would suspend them for five days at a time, which could be shortened if a parent would come and spend the day with their child going to their classes.
There would be a zero tolerance policy for fighting and bullying. Kids that did so would be sent to alternative schools.
I would ban cell phones and high heels because neither are necessary for learning.
I would like to have several different curriculums that serve more of the kids needs including a skills acquisition program for kids not interested in college who would like to learn a trade.
Real summer school classes not grade recovery would be offered, where kids could get extra help, get ahead or make up credits.
I would like to have social workers and mental health counselors on campus. The social workers could provide wrap around services and the counselors could try and get to the root of some of the kids problems. Why kids do poorly in school often has nothing to do with school.
I would have monthly meetings with the community and businesses to discuss education issues and get their input. I would look for internships and mentors under every rock.
These last few suggestions are outside of what we do now but would be helpful.
The first thing I would do is start a come home campaign. At a recent school board meeting Becki Couch said there were over 3000 students who could be attending those schools but who had chosen to go elsewhere. I would try and get those kids back and I would do so by convincing them and their families that those schools would become academically rigorous and safe schools to attend.
The next thing I would do is make those schools safe and academically rigorous schools to attend.
I would tell the teachers that I trusted them and end arbitrary amounts of students they could or could not fail. I would have them teach the material and make it rigorous, which would mean that if somebody passed their class it was because they earned it and not because a teacher gave them a grade or pushed them through. I would tell the teachers they could go as slow as they felt their kids needed, they could reteach if necessary and that the pacing guide was a suggestion, nobody was going to get in trouble for being more than five days behind. After a few weeks I would move kids around and have groups that were quickly moving through the material and groups that needed extra time.
Then at the same time I would make sure the teachers and students had good learn environments. Rudeness, disrespect and violations of the code of conduct would not be tolerated and consequences would be swift and strict. If you came to learn you would have nothing to be afraid of. If you came to cut up or steal learning time from your peers or teachers then you would have a tough time. The adults not the children would be running the schools.
I wouldn’t dismantle the staffs but in my system everybody would be teaching. Academic coaches would have nearly full loads and even assistant principals would be expected to teach a class too. It would be all hands on deck and this would stop admins and psuedo admins from losing touch with the jobs that teachers do. It would also help keep classes smaller and hopefully allow us to have some electives.
I would tell my teachers to be prepared to work long hours. However I am not worried about volumes of data notebooks, two-page lesson plans and complicated board configurations. Put up a daily agenda and then go. Spend the time you have been doing those things the last few years figuring out how to connect with the kids and keeping the families involved. I would want my principals and A.P.s in the classrooms looking for quality instruction not word walls.
Then not only would I instruct my teachers not to teach to the F-Cat but I would tell them not to even mention it. About a week before it was taken the principals could have an assembly to discuss it’s importance and that would be it.
That is how I would turn around those schools. With our current structure in place that is what I would do but that’s not to say I wouldn’t have a wish list too.
I would like the kids to have six one-hour periods a day, with no A/B block. 90 minutes is way to long for many of our kids and teachers. If the students had class everyday I believe the transfer of knowledge would happen quicker. With A/B blocks, weekends, holidays and absences can lead to four, five and sometimes six days between class meetings.
After the first nine weeks kids failing a class would be required, not asked if they wanted to, to stay after school for tutoring.
Every student would have at least one elective each day so they could have a safe spot in their schedule. I would want the schools at a minimum to have art, graphics, shop, home economics, music/band, and drama.
If some kids would not get with the program I would suspend them for five days at a time, which could be shortened if a parent would come and spend the day with their child going to their classes.
There would be a zero tolerance policy for fighting and bullying. Kids that did so would be sent to alternative schools.
I would ban cell phones and high heels because neither are necessary for learning.
I would like to have several different curriculums that serve more of the kids needs including a skills acquisition program for kids not interested in college who would like to learn a trade.
Real summer school classes not grade recovery would be offered, where kids could get extra help, get ahead or make up credits.
I would like to have social workers and mental health counselors on campus. The social workers could provide wrap around services and the counselors could try and get to the root of some of the kids problems. Why kids do poorly in school often has nothing to do with school.
I would have monthly meetings with the community and businesses to discuss education issues and get their input. I would look for internships and mentors under every rock.
These last few suggestions are outside of what we do now but would be helpful.
Sunday, January 23, 2011
Is the end of the FCAT in sight?
Only nine years and thusands of childrens growth stunted to late. -cpg
From the Miami Herald
BY CARLI TEPROFF
cteproff@MiamiHerald.com
Saying the FCAT creates more harm than good, a freshman state legislator said Tuesday she is championing a bill in the House that would do away with the annual state exams.
But, kids, don't get your hopes up. It's not the first time a bill has been introduced in the state Legislature to end the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test -- and each attempt has failed.
Still, Rep. Daphne Campbell is not deterred.
``There's too much pressure on parents, students and teachers,'' Campbell said outside North Miami Senior High School on Tuesday afternoon as she promoted her bill. ``The bottom line is the FCAT is not helping.''
Campbell, a Democratic state representative for District 108, which includes North Miami, filed House Bill 71 in an effort to replace the FCATs with the High School Competency Test.
The HSCT was used from 1990 to 2000 in Florida as a requirement for graduation. It was given to 10th-graders to ensure they could perform at an eighth-grade level.
``There was no pressure like there is for the FCAT,'' Campbell said.
But proponents say the FCAT has given teachers a way -- if imperfect -- to measure students' year-to-year progress and to compare student achievement across the state.
Miami-Dade School Board member Wilbert ``Tee'' Holloway said he believes the state needs to take another look at an accountability exam, but does not agree with going back to the HSCT.
``Children don't come in a one-size-fits-all model,'' he said. ``There needs to be a better way to hold the children accountable for what they learn.''
Tom Butler, press secretary for the Florida Department of Education, said the FCAT has improved statewide standards.
``Since the establishment of the current system, we have seen dramatic increases in our academic performance, especially among our minority and other underrepresented students,'' Butler wrote in an e-mail.
Campbell said she agrees there needs to be accountability, but says too many students are failing out of school because they cannot pass the exam.
North Miami 10th-grader Monique Roberts, 15, said the FCAT does not test what students really learn.
``It's like the test comes out of nowhere,'' she said.
The FCAT tests students in reading and math from third- to 10th-grade. There are also science tests for students in grades five, eight, and 11 and writing exams for students in grades four, eight and 10.
Criticisms over the years have led the state to make tweaks to the 12-year-old FCATs, including more rigorous math and reading exams.
Now, the state is moving toward end-of-course exams for some high school classes, and new, more rigorous FCATs are being used at the elementary and middle school level.
State Board of Education Member Bob Martinez said he and does not see a chance of the FCATs being eliminated.
``There's as much chance of that happening as having a snow blizzard in Miami every day during the winter,'' he said.
Read more: http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/01/19/2022463_florida-lawmaker-pushes-bill-to.html#storylink=addthis#ixzz1BsXYbKkP
From the Miami Herald
BY CARLI TEPROFF
cteproff@MiamiHerald.com
Saying the FCAT creates more harm than good, a freshman state legislator said Tuesday she is championing a bill in the House that would do away with the annual state exams.
But, kids, don't get your hopes up. It's not the first time a bill has been introduced in the state Legislature to end the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test -- and each attempt has failed.
Still, Rep. Daphne Campbell is not deterred.
``There's too much pressure on parents, students and teachers,'' Campbell said outside North Miami Senior High School on Tuesday afternoon as she promoted her bill. ``The bottom line is the FCAT is not helping.''
Campbell, a Democratic state representative for District 108, which includes North Miami, filed House Bill 71 in an effort to replace the FCATs with the High School Competency Test.
The HSCT was used from 1990 to 2000 in Florida as a requirement for graduation. It was given to 10th-graders to ensure they could perform at an eighth-grade level.
``There was no pressure like there is for the FCAT,'' Campbell said.
But proponents say the FCAT has given teachers a way -- if imperfect -- to measure students' year-to-year progress and to compare student achievement across the state.
Miami-Dade School Board member Wilbert ``Tee'' Holloway said he believes the state needs to take another look at an accountability exam, but does not agree with going back to the HSCT.
``Children don't come in a one-size-fits-all model,'' he said. ``There needs to be a better way to hold the children accountable for what they learn.''
Tom Butler, press secretary for the Florida Department of Education, said the FCAT has improved statewide standards.
``Since the establishment of the current system, we have seen dramatic increases in our academic performance, especially among our minority and other underrepresented students,'' Butler wrote in an e-mail.
Campbell said she agrees there needs to be accountability, but says too many students are failing out of school because they cannot pass the exam.
North Miami 10th-grader Monique Roberts, 15, said the FCAT does not test what students really learn.
``It's like the test comes out of nowhere,'' she said.
The FCAT tests students in reading and math from third- to 10th-grade. There are also science tests for students in grades five, eight, and 11 and writing exams for students in grades four, eight and 10.
Criticisms over the years have led the state to make tweaks to the 12-year-old FCATs, including more rigorous math and reading exams.
Now, the state is moving toward end-of-course exams for some high school classes, and new, more rigorous FCATs are being used at the elementary and middle school level.
State Board of Education Member Bob Martinez said he and does not see a chance of the FCATs being eliminated.
``There's as much chance of that happening as having a snow blizzard in Miami every day during the winter,'' he said.
Read more: http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/01/19/2022463_florida-lawmaker-pushes-bill-to.html#storylink=addthis#ixzz1BsXYbKkP
Wednesday, January 12, 2011
How bad do you think our schools are?
From the St. Petersburg Times
By Ron Matus and Donna Winchester, Times Staff Writers
Floridians give glowing marks to the schools their kids attend yet are profoundly pessimistic when comparing Florida's education system with those in other states, according to a St. Petersburg Times survey.
Only 12 percent of respondents said the education Florida children get is better than in other states, while 45 percent said it was worse.
Parents with children in school weren't quite as downbeat: 25 percent said Florida schools compared well;39 percent said they did not.
The standards are too low, and the emphasis on standardized testing -- in this case, the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test -- is too high, said Michael Squillace of Spring Hill.
"The problem with the FCAT is that teachers try to teach only what's on the test," said Squillace, 33, who has three children in elementary school. "If kids don't do well on the test, the teachers worry that it will reflect on them. It waters down the curriculum."
The Times education survey was administered to 702 registered voters Feb. 6-10 and has a margin of error of plus or minus 4 percentage points.
It also found Floridians are:
Strongly divided about the FCAT, with 44 percent saying it has hurt education and 44 percent saying it has helped.
Strongly opposed to grading schools based on FCAT scores alone, with 55 percent opposed and 37 percent in favor.
Largely satisfied with Gov. Charlie Crist's handling of education issues.
The results come less than three weeks before the state Legislature meets for its annual session to tackle a long list of vexing education issues. Among them: potential changes to Florida's school-grading system; potential tweaks to the class-size amendment; and potential cuts to education spending for the second time in a year.
On the upside: Florida parents like their schools.
Seventy-five percent rated their kids' schools good or excellent, while 20 percent said only fair and 1 percent said poor, the survey found. Meanwhile, 80 percent gave their kids' teachers a good or excellent rating.
On the downside: They don't like how Florida stacks up to other states, or at least how they think Florida stacks up.
On some academic indicators, Florida has made strides in recent years, but it continues to rank near the bottom in per-student spending. With more education cuts on the horizon, it's hard to see how the public's take on school quality will change for the better, said Darryl Paulson, a professor of government at the University of South Florida St. Petersburg.
Education spending is "almost a cornerstone of how education success is viewed," said Paulson, who teaches courses on education policy.
Also on the downside: The public still doesn't like the FCAT.
Former Gov. Jeb Bush, who left office last year, made the test the keystone of his accountability system. Now FCAT scores determine school grades, factor into teacher bonuses and help decide whether third-graders can be promoted.
Supporters say that system has forced schools to better tailor teaching to a student's individual needs, and put a spotlight on poor and minority students. But critics say it has elevated test preparation over real learning and has led schools to cut back on noncore classes.
The Times survey found FCAT frustration crossed party lines, with almost as many Republicans 42 percent as Democrats (51 percent) saying the FCAT has hurt education in Florida.
"You have to have some measure, I understand that," said Ashley Andrews of Clearwater, the father of a third-grader. "But I feel that too much emphasis is put on the FCAT. I don't feel it's a good indication of whether a child has gotten a good education."
Carol Sampey of Indian Rocks Beach said the FCAT has helped and hurt.
On the one hand, "You're not just passing kids who don't know how to read," said Sampey, a mother of three small children. But on the other, "You hear schools are failing because of one student who has a disability. It seems like they're saying, 'Here's the formula and you have to stick with it, even if it doesn't make sense.'"
To date, Republican lawmakers who supported Bush's agenda have not backed away from high-stakes use of the FCAT. They say evidence is on their side.
National test scores show Florida is making some of the biggest gains in the country in elementary reading and math. The state is a leader in the percentage of high school students taking and passing rigorous Advanced Placement tests. And a recent report by Education Week magazine credited Florida for boosting the academic performance of poor kids.
Kim Black, president of the Pinellas Classroom Teachers Association, said some of the negativity reflected in the Times poll could be based on the public's perception of the state's status rather than the reality.
"The Legislature continues to underfund public schools, and the public knows that money equates to a quality product," Black said. "But I think that when you look at the data, we are improving."
Sen. Don Gaetz, R-Niceville, chairman of the Senate Education Committee, said he doesn't see "the decline and fall of the FCAT" during his time in the Senate. On the other hand, Gaetz and other education leaders are considering changes to the system, including some that could diminish the FCAT's role.
They're openly exploring use of other standardized exams to supplement or replace the FCAT in some grades. And there is talk of rolling other factors into the school grading formula, especially for high schools.
Among the factors mentioned: graduation rates, scores and participation rates on AP exams, and the percentage of students earning industry certification -- a nod to the growing importance state officials are putting on career and technical education.
"If I was a mom or a dad, I'd want to know ... how a school is performing that I want to send my child to," Education Commissioner Eric J. Smith told the Times in a recent interview. "That is not to say that we can't continue to really work on what are the best components of that mark."
"Nobody I know ever said, 'This is it, we're done,'" said Rep. Joe Pickens, R-Palatka, chairman of the House education council. "The underlying reasons for an accountability system are going to stay pretty much about the same, but how we go about measuring that accountability and rewarding it" could change.
The Times survey suggests the public's sour view on schools hasn't affected people's opinion of Crist, who on substance has stayed true to Bush's vision. He has made no major policy announcements on education. And his latest proposed budget continues to offer financial rewards to teachers and schools whose students do well on the FCAT.
And yet, 46 percent of respondents said they approved of how he was handling education issues, compared with 23 percent who did not. Nearly a third said they didn't know if they approved or disapproved.
By comparison, 40 percent of respondents in a 2006 Times poll approved of Bush, while almost as many, 37 percent, did not.
The public isn't blaming Crist for the firestorm Bush created, said Paulson at USF. But style may be at play, too. Crist rarely misses an opportunity to praise teachers, and he says he is open to making changes to the system. People across the political spectrum have praised his more inclusive, less combative tone.
Bush "didn't hesitate to twist arms," Paulson said. But Crist "is a nice guy. It always helps to be a nice guy."
Ron Matus can be reached at matus@sptimes.com or (727) 893-8873. Donna Winchester can be reached at winchester@sptimes.com or (727) 893-8413.
http://www.sptimes.com/2008/02/16/State/School__good_system__.shtml
By Ron Matus and Donna Winchester, Times Staff Writers
Floridians give glowing marks to the schools their kids attend yet are profoundly pessimistic when comparing Florida's education system with those in other states, according to a St. Petersburg Times survey.
Only 12 percent of respondents said the education Florida children get is better than in other states, while 45 percent said it was worse.
Parents with children in school weren't quite as downbeat: 25 percent said Florida schools compared well;39 percent said they did not.
The standards are too low, and the emphasis on standardized testing -- in this case, the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test -- is too high, said Michael Squillace of Spring Hill.
"The problem with the FCAT is that teachers try to teach only what's on the test," said Squillace, 33, who has three children in elementary school. "If kids don't do well on the test, the teachers worry that it will reflect on them. It waters down the curriculum."
The Times education survey was administered to 702 registered voters Feb. 6-10 and has a margin of error of plus or minus 4 percentage points.
It also found Floridians are:
Strongly divided about the FCAT, with 44 percent saying it has hurt education and 44 percent saying it has helped.
Strongly opposed to grading schools based on FCAT scores alone, with 55 percent opposed and 37 percent in favor.
Largely satisfied with Gov. Charlie Crist's handling of education issues.
The results come less than three weeks before the state Legislature meets for its annual session to tackle a long list of vexing education issues. Among them: potential changes to Florida's school-grading system; potential tweaks to the class-size amendment; and potential cuts to education spending for the second time in a year.
On the upside: Florida parents like their schools.
Seventy-five percent rated their kids' schools good or excellent, while 20 percent said only fair and 1 percent said poor, the survey found. Meanwhile, 80 percent gave their kids' teachers a good or excellent rating.
On the downside: They don't like how Florida stacks up to other states, or at least how they think Florida stacks up.
On some academic indicators, Florida has made strides in recent years, but it continues to rank near the bottom in per-student spending. With more education cuts on the horizon, it's hard to see how the public's take on school quality will change for the better, said Darryl Paulson, a professor of government at the University of South Florida St. Petersburg.
Education spending is "almost a cornerstone of how education success is viewed," said Paulson, who teaches courses on education policy.
Also on the downside: The public still doesn't like the FCAT.
Former Gov. Jeb Bush, who left office last year, made the test the keystone of his accountability system. Now FCAT scores determine school grades, factor into teacher bonuses and help decide whether third-graders can be promoted.
Supporters say that system has forced schools to better tailor teaching to a student's individual needs, and put a spotlight on poor and minority students. But critics say it has elevated test preparation over real learning and has led schools to cut back on noncore classes.
The Times survey found FCAT frustration crossed party lines, with almost as many Republicans 42 percent as Democrats (51 percent) saying the FCAT has hurt education in Florida.
"You have to have some measure, I understand that," said Ashley Andrews of Clearwater, the father of a third-grader. "But I feel that too much emphasis is put on the FCAT. I don't feel it's a good indication of whether a child has gotten a good education."
Carol Sampey of Indian Rocks Beach said the FCAT has helped and hurt.
On the one hand, "You're not just passing kids who don't know how to read," said Sampey, a mother of three small children. But on the other, "You hear schools are failing because of one student who has a disability. It seems like they're saying, 'Here's the formula and you have to stick with it, even if it doesn't make sense.'"
To date, Republican lawmakers who supported Bush's agenda have not backed away from high-stakes use of the FCAT. They say evidence is on their side.
National test scores show Florida is making some of the biggest gains in the country in elementary reading and math. The state is a leader in the percentage of high school students taking and passing rigorous Advanced Placement tests. And a recent report by Education Week magazine credited Florida for boosting the academic performance of poor kids.
Kim Black, president of the Pinellas Classroom Teachers Association, said some of the negativity reflected in the Times poll could be based on the public's perception of the state's status rather than the reality.
"The Legislature continues to underfund public schools, and the public knows that money equates to a quality product," Black said. "But I think that when you look at the data, we are improving."
Sen. Don Gaetz, R-Niceville, chairman of the Senate Education Committee, said he doesn't see "the decline and fall of the FCAT" during his time in the Senate. On the other hand, Gaetz and other education leaders are considering changes to the system, including some that could diminish the FCAT's role.
They're openly exploring use of other standardized exams to supplement or replace the FCAT in some grades. And there is talk of rolling other factors into the school grading formula, especially for high schools.
Among the factors mentioned: graduation rates, scores and participation rates on AP exams, and the percentage of students earning industry certification -- a nod to the growing importance state officials are putting on career and technical education.
"If I was a mom or a dad, I'd want to know ... how a school is performing that I want to send my child to," Education Commissioner Eric J. Smith told the Times in a recent interview. "That is not to say that we can't continue to really work on what are the best components of that mark."
"Nobody I know ever said, 'This is it, we're done,'" said Rep. Joe Pickens, R-Palatka, chairman of the House education council. "The underlying reasons for an accountability system are going to stay pretty much about the same, but how we go about measuring that accountability and rewarding it" could change.
The Times survey suggests the public's sour view on schools hasn't affected people's opinion of Crist, who on substance has stayed true to Bush's vision. He has made no major policy announcements on education. And his latest proposed budget continues to offer financial rewards to teachers and schools whose students do well on the FCAT.
And yet, 46 percent of respondents said they approved of how he was handling education issues, compared with 23 percent who did not. Nearly a third said they didn't know if they approved or disapproved.
By comparison, 40 percent of respondents in a 2006 Times poll approved of Bush, while almost as many, 37 percent, did not.
The public isn't blaming Crist for the firestorm Bush created, said Paulson at USF. But style may be at play, too. Crist rarely misses an opportunity to praise teachers, and he says he is open to making changes to the system. People across the political spectrum have praised his more inclusive, less combative tone.
Bush "didn't hesitate to twist arms," Paulson said. But Crist "is a nice guy. It always helps to be a nice guy."
Ron Matus can be reached at matus@sptimes.com or (727) 893-8873. Donna Winchester can be reached at winchester@sptimes.com or (727) 893-8413.
http://www.sptimes.com/2008/02/16/State/School__good_system__.shtml
Sunday, January 2, 2011
Words to get used to hearing in 2011 Florida education debate
From Tampa Bay.coms Gradebook, a great source for education news and commentary. -cpg
What would education be without acronyms, buzzwords and jargon?
Some of them confuse. Others mislead. Still others do their job of making conversation easier. (Do you even remember what FCAT stands for anymore?)
We expect quite a few phrases to fight for space in the lexicon as debate heats up over Florida education policy in 2011. Here are five key ones. Please nominate others, and we'll watch through the year to see which ones stick and which fizzle. Here goes.
Education savings account -- That's how supporters describe the idea of letting parents take the state portion of their education funding to use as they see fit. Opponents call it vouchers for all. Governor-elect Rick Scott has put the issue on the table, and the rhetoric already has exploded, including the battle over the dueling descriptions. More details here.
Funding cliff -- Florida school district leaders use this phrase for the end of federal stimulus money to schools. It usually comes in the same sentence as "budget cuts." Some employee groups have taken the position that "funding cliff" is an excuse for not setting spending priorities that include raises. Get used to hearing this one.
Ineffective teacher -- Don't send hate mail over this one. We know, teachers feel like they take a load of abuse as the accountability crowd seeks to improve outcomes. But it isn't likely to end. Scott and others already have spoken about the need to weed out the "bad" teachers, or alternatively to let parents remove their kids from the classrooms of teachers deemed ineffective in whatever new evaluation system lawmakers gin up. More details here.
Parent trigger -- Begun in California, this idea gives parents in an academically failing school the ability to vote in a turnaround option. The concept has begun making the rounds in Florida. But with parents already able to conduct votes on charter conversions with their schools, will it gain traction? Or will the trigger shoot off a blank?
Course completion model -- Florida funds schools based on the number of students in classrooms. The advent of virtual schooling has begun to change that, as online programs get paid for students who successfully finish courses within a set time, whether it takes a day or a whole semester. That course completion model is gaining interest among some policy makers looking at traditional schools. CCM, perhaps?
http://www.tampabay.com/blogs/gradebook/content/words-get-used-hearing-2011-florida-education-debate
.
What would education be without acronyms, buzzwords and jargon?
Some of them confuse. Others mislead. Still others do their job of making conversation easier. (Do you even remember what FCAT stands for anymore?)
We expect quite a few phrases to fight for space in the lexicon as debate heats up over Florida education policy in 2011. Here are five key ones. Please nominate others, and we'll watch through the year to see which ones stick and which fizzle. Here goes.
Education savings account -- That's how supporters describe the idea of letting parents take the state portion of their education funding to use as they see fit. Opponents call it vouchers for all. Governor-elect Rick Scott has put the issue on the table, and the rhetoric already has exploded, including the battle over the dueling descriptions. More details here.
Funding cliff -- Florida school district leaders use this phrase for the end of federal stimulus money to schools. It usually comes in the same sentence as "budget cuts." Some employee groups have taken the position that "funding cliff" is an excuse for not setting spending priorities that include raises. Get used to hearing this one.
Ineffective teacher -- Don't send hate mail over this one. We know, teachers feel like they take a load of abuse as the accountability crowd seeks to improve outcomes. But it isn't likely to end. Scott and others already have spoken about the need to weed out the "bad" teachers, or alternatively to let parents remove their kids from the classrooms of teachers deemed ineffective in whatever new evaluation system lawmakers gin up. More details here.
Parent trigger -- Begun in California, this idea gives parents in an academically failing school the ability to vote in a turnaround option. The concept has begun making the rounds in Florida. But with parents already able to conduct votes on charter conversions with their schools, will it gain traction? Or will the trigger shoot off a blank?
Course completion model -- Florida funds schools based on the number of students in classrooms. The advent of virtual schooling has begun to change that, as online programs get paid for students who successfully finish courses within a set time, whether it takes a day or a whole semester. That course completion model is gaining interest among some policy makers looking at traditional schools. CCM, perhaps?
http://www.tampabay.com/blogs/gradebook/content/words-get-used-hearing-2011-florida-education-debate
.
Thursday, December 23, 2010
New grading formula responsible for schools gains
By Jac Wilder VerSteeg of the Palm Beach Post editorial board
The Post reported Sunday that a new grading formula, not better FCAT scores, caused the much-ballyhooed jump in grades the state assigns to each high school. Resist the conclusion that the new formula allows cheating. It's actually a slight improvement. The Post's findings, however, do show that under the old and the new formulas the grading system is useless.
The dubious track record for the high school grading formula also shows that educators are right to be skeptical of any formula the Legislature concocts to calculate merit pay for teachers. The old formula for grading high schools relied heavily on FCAT scores by ninth- and 10th-grade students in a few subjects. So those scores never reflected the entire high school's quality. Yet for a decade, those grades affected everything from teacher bonuses to principals' jobs to the real estate market as parents bought near A-rated schools.
FCAT scores are just half of the new formula. Other factors include the graduation rate and the percentage of students enrolled in advanced courses. Student scores on standardized tests in advanced courses are just a small part but will count for more as the formula is further revised. Overall, the formula measures more students in more courses, so it's a better gauge.
Still, it's wrong to believe that all students at A schools are getting a great education and all students at F schools are failing. The Post's analysis showed that only 33 percent of students at A-rated Lake Worth High had top reading FCAT scores, while 86 percent at A-rated Dreyfoos School of the Arts - which gets to choose its students - did. A school with relatively low FCAT scores could pump up its grade by enrolling more students in AP courses. Schools that started with low scores earned extra points for improvements, even if the students didn't get up to grade level.
It's bogus to assign an overall grade to an entire high school. Establishing a merit-pay formula can be just as difficult. Is the Dreyfoos teacher who takes students from a B-minus to an A better than the Lake Worth High teacher who takes students from a D-minus to a C? What about variables, the most important being parental involvement?
Despite the history of school grades, some state legislators are just as eager as they were last year - with Senate Bill 6 - to dictate a merit-pay formula to teachers. Gov. Crist vetoed that bill because it didn't have a formula taking into account all the variables that could make a teacher's job harder or easier.
As The Post analysis has shown, changing the formula can make a huge difference in grades and perception. Legislators are hellbent on imposing a merit-pay formula, just as they were hellbent on imposing a grading formula for entire schools. That attitude earns them an F. Striving for and establishing a valid merit-pay formula would earn them an A.
http://www.palmbeachpost.com/opinion/editorials/school-grading-system-still-flawed-but-improvement-possible-1140766.html
The Post reported Sunday that a new grading formula, not better FCAT scores, caused the much-ballyhooed jump in grades the state assigns to each high school. Resist the conclusion that the new formula allows cheating. It's actually a slight improvement. The Post's findings, however, do show that under the old and the new formulas the grading system is useless.
The dubious track record for the high school grading formula also shows that educators are right to be skeptical of any formula the Legislature concocts to calculate merit pay for teachers. The old formula for grading high schools relied heavily on FCAT scores by ninth- and 10th-grade students in a few subjects. So those scores never reflected the entire high school's quality. Yet for a decade, those grades affected everything from teacher bonuses to principals' jobs to the real estate market as parents bought near A-rated schools.
FCAT scores are just half of the new formula. Other factors include the graduation rate and the percentage of students enrolled in advanced courses. Student scores on standardized tests in advanced courses are just a small part but will count for more as the formula is further revised. Overall, the formula measures more students in more courses, so it's a better gauge.
Still, it's wrong to believe that all students at A schools are getting a great education and all students at F schools are failing. The Post's analysis showed that only 33 percent of students at A-rated Lake Worth High had top reading FCAT scores, while 86 percent at A-rated Dreyfoos School of the Arts - which gets to choose its students - did. A school with relatively low FCAT scores could pump up its grade by enrolling more students in AP courses. Schools that started with low scores earned extra points for improvements, even if the students didn't get up to grade level.
It's bogus to assign an overall grade to an entire high school. Establishing a merit-pay formula can be just as difficult. Is the Dreyfoos teacher who takes students from a B-minus to an A better than the Lake Worth High teacher who takes students from a D-minus to a C? What about variables, the most important being parental involvement?
Despite the history of school grades, some state legislators are just as eager as they were last year - with Senate Bill 6 - to dictate a merit-pay formula to teachers. Gov. Crist vetoed that bill because it didn't have a formula taking into account all the variables that could make a teacher's job harder or easier.
As The Post analysis has shown, changing the formula can make a huge difference in grades and perception. Legislators are hellbent on imposing a merit-pay formula, just as they were hellbent on imposing a grading formula for entire schools. That attitude earns them an F. Striving for and establishing a valid merit-pay formula would earn them an A.
http://www.palmbeachpost.com/opinion/editorials/school-grading-system-still-flawed-but-improvement-possible-1140766.html
Thursday, December 9, 2010
Florida Education Reform: Follow the money
Make no mistake; education in Florida has become big business. Whether it’s Pearson, College Board or one of the other companies involved with data collection and test making and scoring or charter and private schools that don’t play by the same rules as their public school counterparts, somebody is getting rich. Sadly this more than what is best or the states students and teachers is what's driving our leaders’ policies.
I would have more faith in the education reforms the powers-that-be are proposing if most did not involve short changing students and teachers. Florida has long underfunded education and many of these new or considered reforms are designed to continue to do so.
Take the class size amendment for example. For all of time smaller classes were thought to be better then suddenly when it came time to pay for smaller classes the legislature balked. The same legislature by the way which has doubled the homestead exemption, allowed owners of multiple houses to have exemptions on each property and given huge tax breaks to bottled water companies and luxury yacht makers among others. The legislature has many friends, sadly however, public education is not among them.
Then there are the changes that they are attempting to make to how teachers are paid. Teachers with advanced degrees get paid more; suddenly advanced degrees are no longer important. Teachers who have been teaching longer get paid more, now all of a sudden experience doesn’t matter either. Now I don’t think having a masters or Doctorate degree makes you automatically a better teacher. Teaching is a profession where you have it or you don’t, but it certainly doesn’t hurt, to work on and/or improve your craft through further education. The lack of experience argument however is very disingenuous. Yes sometimes you will have a wunderkind teacher hit the ground running but more often than not the first few years of teaching is less about teaching and more about surviving. These two reforms will enable districts to get teachers on the cheap.
Even the reform that the anti-teacher movement hails will be a boon to teachers, performance pay is unreliable. There are so many factors that can determine success or not, who is deserving or not, but among them are very few quantifiable numbers that can point to who is high performing or not. Yet certain people, most of who were never teachers, seem to think this is the panacea that will save teaching.
After that there are vouchers. I think a parent has to look out for their child and I wouldn’t fault one for wanting to send their child to a school they thought was better but at the same time this does take money away from cash starved public schools. Shouldn’t the answer be first to make public schools better, before we tried other things out. I also see vouchers becoming welfare for the well off. With the way things are going, how long will it be before any kid from any neighborhood, regardless of how much their family makes, be able to get a voucher?
Furthermore a lot of these vouchers go to for profit private schools, private schools by the way, that like their charter counter parts have not proven to be any more effective than public schools. An article in the Times Union about a local charter schools a few years back reported the principal was making over 150 thousand dollars and that several of her immediate family members were making considerably high salaries too. Private and Charter schools don’t have the same oversight as public schools and where I am all for everybody making as much as they can, I just don’t think they should make it on the backs of our children.
Next there is the data collection and high stakes testing which has become the tent poles of the blame the teacher education reformers, tent poles that are making some parties very rich. Friends, Pearson just signed a contract to collect data for 320 million dollars, which has me wondering, why I am still spending my planning time entering data and how much of that money is going to be a profit for them? Think about this, if the state of Florida said, you know what, we’re done with data and spent that money on teachers instead; they could have hired almost 5000 more. What do you think is more important, a company that basically gives teachers the same information most get anyway from working with their kids for a few days, or 5000 more boots on the ground providing instruction and services.
Finally let’s talk about the unions which are bearing the brunt of the ire caused by the blame the teacher crowd. Despite the fact we have unions, teachers here in Florida are some of the lowest paid, most over worked professionals in the country. Can you imagine how many teachers would flee the profession if they lost the little cover provided by the unions? Also I have never heard of our local union protecting bad teachers, just making sure all teachers get due process and they work with the district so much and so closely that many of us rank and file teachers think the line between them sometimes gets blurred.
Many of these reforms seemed designed to save money and why? Is it so the legislature can reward their friends and remember make no mistake the legislature is not a friend of education, or to make their friends at the education companies rich. Sadly all of this is done on the backs of our children and those dedicated men and woman who teach them.
Where are the realistic reforms that add to public schools not take away? The last one before it was vilified (the class size amendment) seems to have had some success. I imagine if we followed the money we would have a better idea.
Those seeking to steer the course of education reform in Florida, which includes many of Governor elect Rick Scott’s education team, would have the public believe several falsehoods.
Poverty is just an excuse. The truth is poverty is a huge issue. Kids that come from homes with absentee parents, where a lack of food and violence are constant factors often perform poorly in school. Quite frankly they have more serious issues to deal with than learning the capital of Alaska and dividing two digit numbers.
Class size doesn’t matter: Class size is extremely important. It allows students to gain more valuable face time with their teachers and fewer kids get lost in the crowd. The Heritage Foundation (Jeb Bush’s education think tank) recently touted all of the great progress that Florida’s schools have experienced over the last decade but completely ignored the fact that most of the progress has occurred since 2003 when the class size amendment began to be phased in.
Test scores are the way to measure student learning. Test scores should be a component of education not the end all be all that they have become. Some kids don’t test well, some kids have bad days, and no kid should be tested all at once time over a whole year, or several years worth of material.
Reform MUST be driven by external measures such as comprehensive tests. Assessments are most useful and reliable when they are closely connected to classroom instruction. Furthermore just who is going to get rich creating and scoring these tests? The Bush family profited greatly from the F-Cat and No Child Left Behind.
Classroom experience doesn’t matter. Most teachers don’t hit their stride, where they are most effective, till they are several years in. Unfortunately about half of all teachers do not last five years.
Tenure provides teachers with lifetime jobs. Teachers do not have "jobs for life"; they have due process and what’s wrong with allowing professionals who sacrifice so much having at least that.
Charter schools are deserving of public funds and support. Actually, charters have not been shown to have better test scores, on average, than regular public schools, their teachers aren't certified and they pick and choose who they allow in and retain.
Data must drive our children’s education. How about having a child’s ability, aptitude and desire drive their education; that might prove more effective.
Vouchers give parents choice. Vouchers also provide welfare for the well off and take much needed resources from cash starved public schools. The answer at least in the short term should be to improve public schools, not further erode them.
Performance Pay for the most deserving teachers. This sounds great in a vacuum, unfortunately when put in practice it is arbitrary and hard to quantify. Somebody way smarter than me would have to come up with a way for this to be done fairly if it is to be both effective and meaningful.
I would have more faith in the education reforms the powers-that-be are proposing if most did not involve short changing students and teachers. Florida has long underfunded education and many of these new or considered reforms are designed to continue to do so.
Take the class size amendment for example. For all of time smaller classes were thought to be better then suddenly when it came time to pay for smaller classes the legislature balked. The same legislature by the way which has doubled the homestead exemption, allowed owners of multiple houses to have exemptions on each property and given huge tax breaks to bottled water companies and luxury yacht makers among others. The legislature has many friends, sadly however, public education is not among them.
Then there are the changes that they are attempting to make to how teachers are paid. Teachers with advanced degrees get paid more; suddenly advanced degrees are no longer important. Teachers who have been teaching longer get paid more, now all of a sudden experience doesn’t matter either. Now I don’t think having a masters or Doctorate degree makes you automatically a better teacher. Teaching is a profession where you have it or you don’t, but it certainly doesn’t hurt, to work on and/or improve your craft through further education. The lack of experience argument however is very disingenuous. Yes sometimes you will have a wunderkind teacher hit the ground running but more often than not the first few years of teaching is less about teaching and more about surviving. These two reforms will enable districts to get teachers on the cheap.
Even the reform that the anti-teacher movement hails will be a boon to teachers, performance pay is unreliable. There are so many factors that can determine success or not, who is deserving or not, but among them are very few quantifiable numbers that can point to who is high performing or not. Yet certain people, most of who were never teachers, seem to think this is the panacea that will save teaching.
After that there are vouchers. I think a parent has to look out for their child and I wouldn’t fault one for wanting to send their child to a school they thought was better but at the same time this does take money away from cash starved public schools. Shouldn’t the answer be first to make public schools better, before we tried other things out. I also see vouchers becoming welfare for the well off. With the way things are going, how long will it be before any kid from any neighborhood, regardless of how much their family makes, be able to get a voucher?
Furthermore a lot of these vouchers go to for profit private schools, private schools by the way, that like their charter counter parts have not proven to be any more effective than public schools. An article in the Times Union about a local charter schools a few years back reported the principal was making over 150 thousand dollars and that several of her immediate family members were making considerably high salaries too. Private and Charter schools don’t have the same oversight as public schools and where I am all for everybody making as much as they can, I just don’t think they should make it on the backs of our children.
Next there is the data collection and high stakes testing which has become the tent poles of the blame the teacher education reformers, tent poles that are making some parties very rich. Friends, Pearson just signed a contract to collect data for 320 million dollars, which has me wondering, why I am still spending my planning time entering data and how much of that money is going to be a profit for them? Think about this, if the state of Florida said, you know what, we’re done with data and spent that money on teachers instead; they could have hired almost 5000 more. What do you think is more important, a company that basically gives teachers the same information most get anyway from working with their kids for a few days, or 5000 more boots on the ground providing instruction and services.
Finally let’s talk about the unions which are bearing the brunt of the ire caused by the blame the teacher crowd. Despite the fact we have unions, teachers here in Florida are some of the lowest paid, most over worked professionals in the country. Can you imagine how many teachers would flee the profession if they lost the little cover provided by the unions? Also I have never heard of our local union protecting bad teachers, just making sure all teachers get due process and they work with the district so much and so closely that many of us rank and file teachers think the line between them sometimes gets blurred.
Many of these reforms seemed designed to save money and why? Is it so the legislature can reward their friends and remember make no mistake the legislature is not a friend of education, or to make their friends at the education companies rich. Sadly all of this is done on the backs of our children and those dedicated men and woman who teach them.
Where are the realistic reforms that add to public schools not take away? The last one before it was vilified (the class size amendment) seems to have had some success. I imagine if we followed the money we would have a better idea.
Those seeking to steer the course of education reform in Florida, which includes many of Governor elect Rick Scott’s education team, would have the public believe several falsehoods.
Poverty is just an excuse. The truth is poverty is a huge issue. Kids that come from homes with absentee parents, where a lack of food and violence are constant factors often perform poorly in school. Quite frankly they have more serious issues to deal with than learning the capital of Alaska and dividing two digit numbers.
Class size doesn’t matter: Class size is extremely important. It allows students to gain more valuable face time with their teachers and fewer kids get lost in the crowd. The Heritage Foundation (Jeb Bush’s education think tank) recently touted all of the great progress that Florida’s schools have experienced over the last decade but completely ignored the fact that most of the progress has occurred since 2003 when the class size amendment began to be phased in.
Test scores are the way to measure student learning. Test scores should be a component of education not the end all be all that they have become. Some kids don’t test well, some kids have bad days, and no kid should be tested all at once time over a whole year, or several years worth of material.
Reform MUST be driven by external measures such as comprehensive tests. Assessments are most useful and reliable when they are closely connected to classroom instruction. Furthermore just who is going to get rich creating and scoring these tests? The Bush family profited greatly from the F-Cat and No Child Left Behind.
Classroom experience doesn’t matter. Most teachers don’t hit their stride, where they are most effective, till they are several years in. Unfortunately about half of all teachers do not last five years.
Tenure provides teachers with lifetime jobs. Teachers do not have "jobs for life"; they have due process and what’s wrong with allowing professionals who sacrifice so much having at least that.
Charter schools are deserving of public funds and support. Actually, charters have not been shown to have better test scores, on average, than regular public schools, their teachers aren't certified and they pick and choose who they allow in and retain.
Data must drive our children’s education. How about having a child’s ability, aptitude and desire drive their education; that might prove more effective.
Vouchers give parents choice. Vouchers also provide welfare for the well off and take much needed resources from cash starved public schools. The answer at least in the short term should be to improve public schools, not further erode them.
Performance Pay for the most deserving teachers. This sounds great in a vacuum, unfortunately when put in practice it is arbitrary and hard to quantify. Somebody way smarter than me would have to come up with a way for this to be done fairly if it is to be both effective and meaningful.
Thursday, November 4, 2010
The Education Shell Game
At a recent faculty meeting I turned to my neighbor and asked, did he (our principal) just tell us to pass everybody no matter what. She didn’t have time to answer my question because almost as if on cue, my principal with his fingers making quotation marks said, now I am not telling you to pass everybody but you need to be aware of where you are in the game. Well friends he was right and make no mistake by thinking it otherwise but education has become a game, a shell game, where we hide the pea and there is only one winner, the corporations that provide the shells. Who are the losers? Well there are many and among them teachers and children.
In case you are wondering what a shell game is it’s a pretty common game played at carneys, street fairs and on the sides of the road, you know the most reputable of spots. It’s where a dealer hides a pea under one of three shells. First he shows the player where the pea is and moves them around some so the person playing can get a feel for where it is. It seems easy at first, like say having a standardized test to see where kids are. However once the game starts and money is on the line it becomes impossible to win as the pea seems to defy logic and is never where it should be. If the dealer does it right, no degree of concentration can save the mark, that’s the sucker playing the game from being separated from his money.
This is a pretty accurate metaphor for what education has become, with children being one of the marks separated from having any chance of a productive future and tax payers who are separated from the money they send to the government for legitimate education purposes being the other. Friends we have been sold a false bill of goods from the education companies that currently drive, more so than teachers and the needs of children, what is taking place in education.
Our principal who is just the messenger by the way, though at some point somebody needs to stand up and say enough is enough what we are doing is hurting kids, was talking about how if kids failed a grade but then made gains on the standardized tests then those gains would not count for two years. What’s the point of failing somebody who will make a four on the f-cat, he asked. Well first very few kids who can make a four on the f–cat fail, though at the same time I can think of several reasons to fail them.
If a kid never comes to class but makes a four he shouldn’t be rewarded with a passing grade. Wouldn’t it be great if you could miss 20 days in a row come in one afternoon do a report and get paid for a month. Unfortunately the real world doesn’t work like that.
What about the kid who constantly acts up and doesn’t do their work but is the one in a million who can make a four, well likewise they shouldn’t be rewarded with a passing grade. I would love for my kids to be able to remember the scientific methods I spent three weeks teaching to them twenty years from now, but the more important lesson I hope they learned how to behave and how to work. These are two of the most important lessons schools should be teaching but because teachers have been handcuffed by inane policies and procedures they often don’t.
Then what about the kids who make ones on the test, and there are far more of them than those that make fours that can’t pass classes when any degree of rigor is used. They need to fail or here is a novel idea, be held back until they can master the skills they need to be successful, education shouldn’t be just about a one size fits all destination, but about the journey and kids move at different paces as well.
We push kids along until there is no longer any place to push them to (in high school). Then we scratch our heads and wonder why they aren’t successful. How about instead we make sure they have the skills they need before we pass them there. Also why does this provision even exist, could it be to encourage teachers not to fail kids?
We do these kids no favor when we push them along with consequences for their behavior or pass them with the bare minimum amount of work or substandard work done. When they enter “real” life they are in store for a “real” wakeup call, delivered by both a bucket of cold water and a ton of bricks because the real world doesn’t work like it. You don’t get along, behave, do your work or do it well; you will very quickly find yourself on the street. That however is the real world, a place that public schools don’t seek to mimic.
Employers wonder why they can’t find capable workers, colleges’ wonder why so many kids arrive without the basics and society wonders why so many young people aren’t respectful and commit so many crimes, well friends
I’ll tell you why. It’s because schools have abdicated their responsibility to prepare the next generation, with what should be their paramount duty and that is to be productive and respectful citizens. Nope friends, all we want them to be able to do now is to pass a test and one that will have very little to do with the rest of their lives then empty their seats as quickly as we can. We don’t care about rigor, we don’t care about validity, heck we don’t care about attendance, behavior or taking care of responsibilities either. All we care about is making gains on a test, which now won’t count if a kid is retained.
It’s even worse friends because we have messengers that pass the message along all too willingly. It’s like they either don’t know or don’t care that they are tearing down the very fabric of society as they do so, after all it’s all become a game to them, a game of hide the pea, sadly the pea, or a proper education in this instance is missing, and our children and our society will be paying the price for it..
I get that a decade ago having an all encompassing assessment seemed like a good idea. Who doesn’t want to know where their kid is compared to others and what they can or cannot do. It’s unfortunate that the test turned out so much more and so much worse than what it was supposed to be but what didn’t need to happen if the fact it has turned into a G*D damn Shakespearean tragedy because the powers-that-be have doggedly allowed it to continue. Like a compulsive obsessive they can’t let go of the fact these high stake tests have been perverted into monsters that are almost single handily wrecking education. Tokyo had a better chance against Godzilla than some of our kids have against the f–cat.
It has to be that they are doggedly committed to the idea right? I mean it can’t have anything to do with the fact educational testing, that’s creating, delivering and scoring assessments/standardized tests has become a several billion dollar a year business can it? Or maybe it does because the sad truth is unless you are a teacher; education has become big business and a very lucrative one that is all about delivering it’s product to customers that are choking on it. Somebody is getting way rich and sadly it’s not the teachers who were in my faculty meeting with me.
My messenger, my principal wasn’t telling me not to fail kids and neither was the administrator a few weeks back when she told her staff that more than failing ten percent of students in a particular class could jeopardize ones job or performance pay. Furthermore the system has not told teachers they can’t fail kids either, that’s definitely not what it is saying when it requires mountains of paperwork that a teacher has to do before they dare give a child, the F that they earned or when it tells us kids who fail classes will not see any gains they make count for a school or a teacher or two years. No, nobody says it, not in words anyways, it’s all done with winks and nods and finger quotation marks.
Education has become a shell game without a pea and a game that only the people who are handsomely paid for providing the shells wins. Everybody else loses.
In case you are wondering what a shell game is it’s a pretty common game played at carneys, street fairs and on the sides of the road, you know the most reputable of spots. It’s where a dealer hides a pea under one of three shells. First he shows the player where the pea is and moves them around some so the person playing can get a feel for where it is. It seems easy at first, like say having a standardized test to see where kids are. However once the game starts and money is on the line it becomes impossible to win as the pea seems to defy logic and is never where it should be. If the dealer does it right, no degree of concentration can save the mark, that’s the sucker playing the game from being separated from his money.
This is a pretty accurate metaphor for what education has become, with children being one of the marks separated from having any chance of a productive future and tax payers who are separated from the money they send to the government for legitimate education purposes being the other. Friends we have been sold a false bill of goods from the education companies that currently drive, more so than teachers and the needs of children, what is taking place in education.
Our principal who is just the messenger by the way, though at some point somebody needs to stand up and say enough is enough what we are doing is hurting kids, was talking about how if kids failed a grade but then made gains on the standardized tests then those gains would not count for two years. What’s the point of failing somebody who will make a four on the f-cat, he asked. Well first very few kids who can make a four on the f–cat fail, though at the same time I can think of several reasons to fail them.
If a kid never comes to class but makes a four he shouldn’t be rewarded with a passing grade. Wouldn’t it be great if you could miss 20 days in a row come in one afternoon do a report and get paid for a month. Unfortunately the real world doesn’t work like that.
What about the kid who constantly acts up and doesn’t do their work but is the one in a million who can make a four, well likewise they shouldn’t be rewarded with a passing grade. I would love for my kids to be able to remember the scientific methods I spent three weeks teaching to them twenty years from now, but the more important lesson I hope they learned how to behave and how to work. These are two of the most important lessons schools should be teaching but because teachers have been handcuffed by inane policies and procedures they often don’t.
Then what about the kids who make ones on the test, and there are far more of them than those that make fours that can’t pass classes when any degree of rigor is used. They need to fail or here is a novel idea, be held back until they can master the skills they need to be successful, education shouldn’t be just about a one size fits all destination, but about the journey and kids move at different paces as well.
We push kids along until there is no longer any place to push them to (in high school). Then we scratch our heads and wonder why they aren’t successful. How about instead we make sure they have the skills they need before we pass them there. Also why does this provision even exist, could it be to encourage teachers not to fail kids?
We do these kids no favor when we push them along with consequences for their behavior or pass them with the bare minimum amount of work or substandard work done. When they enter “real” life they are in store for a “real” wakeup call, delivered by both a bucket of cold water and a ton of bricks because the real world doesn’t work like it. You don’t get along, behave, do your work or do it well; you will very quickly find yourself on the street. That however is the real world, a place that public schools don’t seek to mimic.
Employers wonder why they can’t find capable workers, colleges’ wonder why so many kids arrive without the basics and society wonders why so many young people aren’t respectful and commit so many crimes, well friends
I’ll tell you why. It’s because schools have abdicated their responsibility to prepare the next generation, with what should be their paramount duty and that is to be productive and respectful citizens. Nope friends, all we want them to be able to do now is to pass a test and one that will have very little to do with the rest of their lives then empty their seats as quickly as we can. We don’t care about rigor, we don’t care about validity, heck we don’t care about attendance, behavior or taking care of responsibilities either. All we care about is making gains on a test, which now won’t count if a kid is retained.
It’s even worse friends because we have messengers that pass the message along all too willingly. It’s like they either don’t know or don’t care that they are tearing down the very fabric of society as they do so, after all it’s all become a game to them, a game of hide the pea, sadly the pea, or a proper education in this instance is missing, and our children and our society will be paying the price for it..
I get that a decade ago having an all encompassing assessment seemed like a good idea. Who doesn’t want to know where their kid is compared to others and what they can or cannot do. It’s unfortunate that the test turned out so much more and so much worse than what it was supposed to be but what didn’t need to happen if the fact it has turned into a G*D damn Shakespearean tragedy because the powers-that-be have doggedly allowed it to continue. Like a compulsive obsessive they can’t let go of the fact these high stake tests have been perverted into monsters that are almost single handily wrecking education. Tokyo had a better chance against Godzilla than some of our kids have against the f–cat.
It has to be that they are doggedly committed to the idea right? I mean it can’t have anything to do with the fact educational testing, that’s creating, delivering and scoring assessments/standardized tests has become a several billion dollar a year business can it? Or maybe it does because the sad truth is unless you are a teacher; education has become big business and a very lucrative one that is all about delivering it’s product to customers that are choking on it. Somebody is getting way rich and sadly it’s not the teachers who were in my faculty meeting with me.
My messenger, my principal wasn’t telling me not to fail kids and neither was the administrator a few weeks back when she told her staff that more than failing ten percent of students in a particular class could jeopardize ones job or performance pay. Furthermore the system has not told teachers they can’t fail kids either, that’s definitely not what it is saying when it requires mountains of paperwork that a teacher has to do before they dare give a child, the F that they earned or when it tells us kids who fail classes will not see any gains they make count for a school or a teacher or two years. No, nobody says it, not in words anyways, it’s all done with winks and nods and finger quotation marks.
Education has become a shell game without a pea and a game that only the people who are handsomely paid for providing the shells wins. Everybody else loses.
Sunday, October 10, 2010
No child left behind: the turn
As in this is when education began to turn
Teachers in Florida have been doubly impacted by this “well intentioned” legislation. Florida was one of the first states to jump on board attempting to meet the mandates since little brother Jeb was our governor when big brother George brought it to Congress. Our state had already developed standards years before, so a test to measure the students’ success in meeting those standards had to be written, field tested and adopted. Two tests were administered to our students; the FCAT (Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test) and The NRCT (Norm Referenced Criterion Test). The FCAT measures actual growth in meeting the state’s standards and the NRCT was used to measure our student’s academic growth against other students in the nation. The NRCT was eliminated two years ago because our state could no longer afford the cost of administering it and having it scored. This is a great loss to classroom teachers because every state has developed their own standards and assessment test (and we have no idea how the degree of difficulty of those tests might match to the FCAT), so the NRCT was the only tool we had to see how our students were progressing nationally.
The test began to be linked to money available to districts with schools that made an A receiving additional funding and schools that scored a D or F also receiving additional money to improve their academic programs. But there were also consequences tied to those Ds and Fs which could include replacing administration and faculty to closing the school and opening a new school, possibly charter, in its place. So districts began to hire more people to oversee the progress of all their schools, but especially the low performing schools. This has impacted the amount of money that actually makes it to the school level.
Then NCLB kicked in another component known as AYP (Annual Yearly Progress). This is a measure of each subgroup of students in a school (by ethnicity, socioeconomic status, ESE, etc.) to make sure no subgroup of students was being left behind. There are several problems with this plan; one being that once again the states set their own standards and way to be measured so a school not meeting AYP in one state very well could in another. But the public is unaware of how this works. So a state with higher standards could appear to have lower performing public schools then a state with lower standards. Go figure!
And a school in Florida could receive a grade of A from the state but still not meet AYP and then be under state supervision to improve the AYP status. This guarantees that the district will become even more involved in that school’s academic progress, even though it is an “A” school. So now more funding is being spent at the district level to meet the mandates of NCLB and enormous amounts are being spent at the state level, but more and more children seem to be “left behind”…
Teachers in Florida have been doubly impacted by this “well intentioned” legislation. Florida was one of the first states to jump on board attempting to meet the mandates since little brother Jeb was our governor when big brother George brought it to Congress. Our state had already developed standards years before, so a test to measure the students’ success in meeting those standards had to be written, field tested and adopted. Two tests were administered to our students; the FCAT (Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test) and The NRCT (Norm Referenced Criterion Test). The FCAT measures actual growth in meeting the state’s standards and the NRCT was used to measure our student’s academic growth against other students in the nation. The NRCT was eliminated two years ago because our state could no longer afford the cost of administering it and having it scored. This is a great loss to classroom teachers because every state has developed their own standards and assessment test (and we have no idea how the degree of difficulty of those tests might match to the FCAT), so the NRCT was the only tool we had to see how our students were progressing nationally.
The test began to be linked to money available to districts with schools that made an A receiving additional funding and schools that scored a D or F also receiving additional money to improve their academic programs. But there were also consequences tied to those Ds and Fs which could include replacing administration and faculty to closing the school and opening a new school, possibly charter, in its place. So districts began to hire more people to oversee the progress of all their schools, but especially the low performing schools. This has impacted the amount of money that actually makes it to the school level.
Then NCLB kicked in another component known as AYP (Annual Yearly Progress). This is a measure of each subgroup of students in a school (by ethnicity, socioeconomic status, ESE, etc.) to make sure no subgroup of students was being left behind. There are several problems with this plan; one being that once again the states set their own standards and way to be measured so a school not meeting AYP in one state very well could in another. But the public is unaware of how this works. So a state with higher standards could appear to have lower performing public schools then a state with lower standards. Go figure!
And a school in Florida could receive a grade of A from the state but still not meet AYP and then be under state supervision to improve the AYP status. This guarantees that the district will become even more involved in that school’s academic progress, even though it is an “A” school. So now more funding is being spent at the district level to meet the mandates of NCLB and enormous amounts are being spent at the state level, but more and more children seem to be “left behind”…
Sunday, October 3, 2010
What we "MUST" do
Below a teacher speaks out about the "extra resources" that turn around schools receive.
As as an elementary teacher in the district, I will agree that the turnaround schools do have more funding available. My colleagues at the turnaround schools are just as committed as I am to educating our country's future citizens. And the teachers at those schools have their hands tied even tighter then mine are when it comes to implementing innovative ideas in their classrooms.
Duval County has paid for learning schedules to be written. At the beginning, a learning schedule was a great idea because it kept all our students in approximately the same area of the curriculum which made it easier for students transferring to be successful at their new school. BUT then, we started seeing "improved" learning schedules. These schedules tell us what to teach on a given day and what materials are to be used. Teachers are to follow these plans with fidelity and rigor. If a teacher is "caught" using other materials, regardless of if the students are showing progress with an alternative curriculum, s/he is in danger of being terminated. If a teacher is too far "off" the learning schedule, regardless of how the students are mastering the material, s/he is in danger of being terminated. And so it goes. And how would the district know this? Because a large number of people are employed that have nothing more to do then visit schools and walk through classrooms checking for "artifacts" and "data".
In my school, we MUST write our own lesson plans and have a week's worth o our desks on Monday AM, even though plans are provided in the learning schedule for most subjects.
All elementary teachers in the district MUST post a word wall, MUST post essential questions (the objective of each lesson), MUST post bulletin boards with "current" student work accompanied by standards, commentary, teaching/learning rubrics, and whatever else a building administrator deems necessary.
All teachers MUST keep a data notebook on their students and be able to name the students most at risk for district personnel when they visit our classrooms. The data notebook MUST also show plans for remediation of the unsuccessful students and when it takes place.
All teachers MUST record their grades in a county purchased program with little or no training in its use. And the requirements go on ad nauseum.
When does all this get done? After contract hours if teachers TEACH when they are supposed to. But wait, you ask, what about your planning time? That is spent in meetings and contacting parents (which also must be documented). All of these requirements have come around since the implementation of NCLB. Once our schools were no longer "making gains" as mandated by the federal government and measured on the FCAT, more controls were put in place to monitor the classroom teachers. No one has even dared to suggest that it might be NCLB and the FCAT causing the problem, it MUST be the teachers! So even more money is spent at the turnaround schools "monitoring the teachers" because their students are having the most difficulty making gains. Has spending more money policing the teachers lead to increased learning gains in any school? Can this expenditure be considered a resource?
As as an elementary teacher in the district, I will agree that the turnaround schools do have more funding available. My colleagues at the turnaround schools are just as committed as I am to educating our country's future citizens. And the teachers at those schools have their hands tied even tighter then mine are when it comes to implementing innovative ideas in their classrooms.
Duval County has paid for learning schedules to be written. At the beginning, a learning schedule was a great idea because it kept all our students in approximately the same area of the curriculum which made it easier for students transferring to be successful at their new school. BUT then, we started seeing "improved" learning schedules. These schedules tell us what to teach on a given day and what materials are to be used. Teachers are to follow these plans with fidelity and rigor. If a teacher is "caught" using other materials, regardless of if the students are showing progress with an alternative curriculum, s/he is in danger of being terminated. If a teacher is too far "off" the learning schedule, regardless of how the students are mastering the material, s/he is in danger of being terminated. And so it goes. And how would the district know this? Because a large number of people are employed that have nothing more to do then visit schools and walk through classrooms checking for "artifacts" and "data".
In my school, we MUST write our own lesson plans and have a week's worth o our desks on Monday AM, even though plans are provided in the learning schedule for most subjects.
All elementary teachers in the district MUST post a word wall, MUST post essential questions (the objective of each lesson), MUST post bulletin boards with "current" student work accompanied by standards, commentary, teaching/learning rubrics, and whatever else a building administrator deems necessary.
All teachers MUST keep a data notebook on their students and be able to name the students most at risk for district personnel when they visit our classrooms. The data notebook MUST also show plans for remediation of the unsuccessful students and when it takes place.
All teachers MUST record their grades in a county purchased program with little or no training in its use. And the requirements go on ad nauseum.
When does all this get done? After contract hours if teachers TEACH when they are supposed to. But wait, you ask, what about your planning time? That is spent in meetings and contacting parents (which also must be documented). All of these requirements have come around since the implementation of NCLB. Once our schools were no longer "making gains" as mandated by the federal government and measured on the FCAT, more controls were put in place to monitor the classroom teachers. No one has even dared to suggest that it might be NCLB and the FCAT causing the problem, it MUST be the teachers! So even more money is spent at the turnaround schools "monitoring the teachers" because their students are having the most difficulty making gains. Has spending more money policing the teachers lead to increased learning gains in any school? Can this expenditure be considered a resource?
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