The Education Narrative

There is an education narrative being rammed down the people’s throats by the powers-that-be. Prominent citizens like Michael Bloomberg, Bill Gates, Michelle Rhee, Jeb Bush and their proxies are telling it. Like most snake oil salesmen they weave a smooth tale using cherry picked facts and figures and enticing sound bites blurbs and promises to get their way message across and in doing so have made teachers and their unions the boogey men of the story. Watch out parents, they shout, teachers and their dirty unions are robbing your children of a proper education and destroying America to boot

The truth however is a bit different. They are using these self serving stats and figures to try and convince, make that to try and scare Joe and Judy public into believing their story. If we could just get rid of five percent of the bad teachers we could have dramatic improvements but we can’t because the teachers unions sole reason for being is to protect bad teachers.

They whisper seductively into the publics ears, we want to give vouchers to all parents so they can have school choice but the teachers unions are against them too, that means teachers and their dirty unions are against parents having parents have the abi;ity to make decisons for their children's future and the money to help out too. We want to reward the top teachers with merit pay, it’s unbelievable that the unions are against more money for their best members but they are. Our education ranking in the world has also steadily dropped over the last quarter century, it must be because we have bad teachers. Why can’t we be more like Finland? On and on they go. Well friends not since a snake convinced a naive young girl to take a bite of an apple has their been such a masterful con job been perpetrated.

Until the recent recession you couldn’t give a teaching job away as there were always openings. Does anybody remember how they were advertising in Canada and India to find teachers, does anybody remember the push to get people from the business world to enter the classroom? I do. Of course we want our best and our brightest in the classroom but you know what else we want, we want the willing to be there too. Are there teachers that should be replaced, yes of course there are just like there are people in every profession that would serve them best by not being in them. Where is the call to get rid of the worse five percent of police officers firemen and doctors?

Unions however are not protecting bad teachers they are just making sure that all teachers get due process and in my home town that only kicks in after teachers have proved themselves for three years. That’s right at any time during a teachers first three years at the end of one they can be let go. But say we did somehow identify and get rid of the worse five percent, not the five percent the admin doesn’t like because they more often than the worse are the ones targeted for removal, they are the ones who suffer the consequences of speaking up or being innovative, who would we replace them with? Teaching is no longer a career for so many as less than half of all first year teachers make it to year five and the reasons they give for leaving the profession are rarely, the children or the money.

Another stat the ant-teacher mongers like to throw out is that education draws just under a quarter of our top graduates, which I guess means they are saying that the most of our kids are being taught by someone other than a teacher with a high college grade point average. First I am not sure if straight G.P.A. should be a factor but why is this a bad thing? Are 23 percent of the nations top grads entering law enforcement, or medicine or business or any other field? I don’t think so and if the stat is right that means over a fifth or our supposed best and brightest are choosing education over the thousands and thousands of other careers out there. But instead of celebrating that, it’s used as an indictment against the entire teachering profession. Teachers can’t win at the top, not enough of the best grads enter education and they can’t win at the bottom because the unions are protecting bad teachers.

Then the weavers of the story compare America’s education system to industrialized countries like Finland that have zoomed past us in the international education rankings. This to must be the teachers and their union’s fault they scream because they are protecting all those bad teachers and resisting reforms. They don’t tell you that if we factor out kids that live in poverty our ranking zooms all the way to second or about the countries they are comparing us to. Finland may have the best education system in the world and does draw the vast amount of its staff from the top third of college graduates but the ed deformers fail to mention that teachers in Finland are paid substantially more than their American counterparts, there classes are very small, they play a role in policy and curriculum and are one of the most highly unionized groups around. They fail to mention that Finland as a country decided to make a huge commitment to education where here we have decided to blame the teachers for the problems. Comparing teachers in both countries is not like comparing apples and oranges it’s like comparing apples to a five-course meal, with America being the apple.

What about vouchers the ed deformers ask? How can people who really care about children and education be against them after all they give parents the choice to do what they feel is best for their children. Sounds pretty seductive right, especially in Florida where they are promising parents five thousand five hundred dollars in education accounts. The problem is charter schools and their private school counter parts despite the fact that they can pick and choose who they allow in or keep and who don’t have to play by the same rules as their public school counter parts (having to have certifyed teachers, take standardized tests etc.) but haven’t been found to do any better. In fact study after study has said the vast majority do the same or worse. Furthermore the proposed universal voucher system in Florida will really be a welfare for the well off program costing the state 1.7 billion dollars as the five hundred thousand kids already in private school will now get this free money.

Then what about the consequences of siphoning much needed money and resources away from already cash starved public schools, where most of the children already attending them will still be attending them because the money in the education acounts won't cover the cost for most private schools. Now the children who remain in the public schools and their teachers will have even fewer resources. Furthermore we don’t get to pick our police, our fire department, our military. our meat inspectors and so many other things but for some reason the powers-that-be will have you believe it is better to abandon public schools. Isn’t a better answer to improve our public schools rather than dismantle them?

You want proof unions are against education reform those spinning the anti-teacher narrative ask. Well look at merit pay, how can they be against merit pay for the nations best teachers. The thing with merit pay is like school choice it sounds very enticing but like school choice often becomes no choice merit pay can be very misleading. The one-year I received merit pay I knew there were a dozen teachers better than me that didn’t. The one-year I didn’t receive merit pay I knew there were a dozen teachers worse than me that did. So often it comes down to whom the principal likes or whatever perception he or she has but worse than that it there is no relationship between those who receive merit pay and their children doing better. That’s right friends studies show kids whose teachers don’t receive merit pay do just as well as kids with teachers that do. Extra money is great but you know what would be better? Counselors and social workers to get to the root of the problems some of our children have and to provide wrap around services. So often why kids act up at school has nothing to do with schools. Legitimate after school and summer school programs, and busses, at my school we don't have after school detention and one of the reasons I was given was because there was no way for the kids to get home.

The anti-teacher narrative has more holes in it than a colander and the arguements seem self serving desighned to fill the pockets of some of thse making them but despite this somehow it is gaining traction and teachers have gone from valued members of society to borderline pariahs holding the country back. Teachers who I remind you, the vast majority of work many hundreds of un paid extra hours, donate their time and resources to other peoples children as often theirs wait in extended day or in front of the television why they take home papers to grade or lesson plans to write. Teachers who give so much and frankly throughout time have received so little have become the bad guys of the narrative while the policy makers, politicians, Joe and Judy public who want a caviar education system on a spam budget, absentee parents and children raised without a sense of respect or a willingness to work get a pass.

Furthermore it’s even worse than all that. Do you know where Mayor Bloomberg and Jeb Bush and many of those selling the anti teacher story sent their children? They sent them to private schools, which tout teachers experience and smaller class sizes as selling points, two things the ed deformers have recently been minimizing, a first year teacher can be as good (and cheaper) than a tenth year teacher and class size doesn't matter if the teacher is good enough, they say.

Jeb Bushes family and Bill Gates have made millions and stand to make millions more on the education reforms they are selling (standardized tests and virtual, computer based, schools). Also do you know how many of the people selling the teachers union bad, teachers substandard story have never been teachers or actually in classrooms? Of Florida Governor Rick Scott’s education team only one is a teacher and he works at a virtual school. Of the leaders mentioned in the opening only Michelle Rhee was a teacher and she came up through Teach for America which some have renamed Teach for a while because of the staggeringly high amount of participants who serve their two years and then leave. This is who is writing the education narrative, those that have had nothing to do with teaching and those that would seek to profit off of it.

Teachers are not against reform. Teachers unions are not in the business to protect bad teachers and there is not an epidemic of bad teachers destroying America. Get the story straight.

Who does Teach for America have nude pictures of

John Affeldt.Managing Attorney at Public Advocates, a non-profit civil rights law firm; twice recognized as California Attorney of the Year

As I reported in the Huffington Post last Thursday and updated since, Congress seems ready to lower the standard of teacher owed every child in the country -- particularly impacting children in poor and minority communities -- and to hide that fact while they're at it.

Slipped in at the 11th hour into the Continuing Resolution to fund the government, the provision at issue proposes to call novice teachers still learning how to teach in alternative preparation programs on nights and weekends "highly qualified" under No Child Left Behind (NCLB). That designation relieves districts of having to tell parents of the teachers' sub-par preparation and allows their continued concentration in poor and minority schools.

Pushed by Teach for America so that they can continue to operate business as usual, it appears more important to Congress to change the law to accommodate TFA than to ensure the equity provisions of NCLB operate as intended. Alternate route trainees (only a few percent of which are actually from TFA) are disproportionately concentrated in low-income, high minority schools despite NCLB's requirement that teachers lacking full credentials be equitably distributed across schools.

The problem is that actual parents and students in schools where these alternative route trainees teach don't want their classrooms to be the exclusive training grounds. They also want the disclosures that NCLB promises as to which teachers have been fully prepared to teach their children and which haven't.

Secondly, serious concerns have been raised by researchers about exposing children to a churn of these novice teacher-trainees in low-income schools--both because these teachers on average do not seem to produce the same achievement gains that fully-trained teachers do (i.e., those who have graduated from traditional or alternative preparation programs like TFA) and because the interns are churning through and not staying around for the long haul.

And that will be the biggest loss under NCLB if amended: states and districts will be relieved of having to develop policies that attract and retain fully-prepared teachers to the neediest schools. Instead, they can continue to maintain the status quo of having so-called "highly qualified" alternative route trainees learn on poor peoples' children--and then move on.

Of course, these same parents and students want Congress to enact new laws requiring states and districts to evaluate teachers for effectiveness and to equitably distribute effective teachers too. But it's not an either or proposition, especially since effectiveness cannot meaningfully be measured for two to three years in. Parents want their child's new teacher to be adjudged fully-prepared and ready to teach on day one.

Responding to some of these concerns which were noted by Valerie Strauss in her Washington Post blog today, Senator Tom Harkin, Chairman of the Senate Committee that covers education, issued the following statement:

"There is broad, bipartisan agreement among members of Congress and the Obama administration that it is the intent of Congress for alternative-route teachers to be considered highly qualified, consistent with the regulation that has been in place for several years. Chairman Harkin strongly believes that teacher quality is essential to student success, and intends to address this issue as part of a comprehensive ESEA reauthorization. While that process is underway, the 9th Circuit's decision - which reverses a previous court ruling in favor of the regulation - could cause significant disruptions in schools across the country and have a negative impact on students. Maintaining current practice is a temporary solution, and underscores the need to act quickly and reauthorize ESEA early in the next Congress."
Senator Harkin's statement fails to acknowledge that what the courts have called an illegal expansion of the "highly qualified" teacher definition has never been part of the law, and was rejected by Senator Kennedy and Congressman Miller early on. To write what was an illegally expansive regulation into law will be a major change from the past. To permit a teacher who may have only just enrolled in preparation to be called "highly qualified" before they have met any training standards defies common sense. To visit those underprepared teachers disproportionately on low-income students and students of color -- and on special education students who are among those most often taught by underprepared teachers -- and then hide that fact from parents and the public under a "highly qualified" moniker flies in the face of the equity, transparency and accountability that NCLB and our leaders apparently stand for.

The fear of "significant disruptions" in the teaching force has no basis, as the court case is currently being appealed and no classroom assignments will be upset mid-year. Furthermore, where there are needs, schools will continue to hire less-than-highly-qualified teachers, as is the case in several hundred thousand classrooms today. NCLB permits such teachers to continue to be employed as long as they fill shortage areas, are publicly disclosed and equitably distributed.

If this were just about enacting a "temporary solution" to avoid short-term disruptions, the language would not seek to modify the highly qualified teacher definition for the next 2½ years. Instead, it has now become more important to maintain the status quo of using poor and minority schools as the proving grounds for these trainee teachers than enforcing teacher equity as NCLB called for and as parents are demanding.

There is a real disruption here -- and it's been to the democratic process. Significantly modifying the standard of teacher quality owed every child in the nation is not something that should happen at the close of session, in the dead of night, behind closed doors in an appropriations bill, but where it is supposed to -- in the light of day during the ESEA reauthorization, with time for deliberation and public input.

[Update: 12/21/10: As expected, the Senate and House enacted the Continuing Resolution today. Congressman George Miller issued a statement explaining his vote in favor of watering the down the highly qualified teacher standard he played a significant role in writing. Miller maintained the vote was necessistated by the possible "major and unpredictable disruptions to schools across the country" if the 9th Circuit's decision were to be implemented. Both Harkin and Miller have now referred to disruptions without articulating just what these disruptions are. As I explained to Congressman Miller's staff on Monday, no disruptions are anywhere on the horizon given the status of the case on appeal and the desire of all parties to avoid any "disruptions." Certainly no imminent disruptions have been identified that warrant enacting this significant amendment to the ESEA without proper public processes and deliberation.]

[Disclosure: I am the lead plaintiffs' counsel in Renee v. Duncan, the case that produced the recent 9th Circuit decision striking down the Department of Education's regulation awarding highly qualified status to teacher trainees.]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/john-affeldt/congress-lowering-standar_b_799523.html