States no longer have to evaluate teachers based on standardized tests. What will Florida do?

From the New York Times, by Motoko Rich

Acknowledging that the nation’s educators face large challenges in preparing students for more rigorous academic standards and tests, Arne Duncan, the secretary of education, told state education officials on Tuesday that they could postpone making career decisions about teachers based on performance evaluations tied to new tests.

Mr. Duncan wrote in a letter to state education officers that they could delay using teacher evaluations that incorporate test results for “personnel determinations” by another year, until 2016-17. The postponement was in response to growing complaints from teachers’ unions and school administrators that they were being held accountable for results on tests before they had time to adjust to new curriculum standards.

Over the past 18 months, states have agreed to adopt new “college and career ready” standards for mathematics and reading and to tether teacher performance ratings partly to student achievement on standardized tests based on those new standards. These changes are part of an agreement with the Department of Education that allowed states to qualify for waivers from No Child Left Behind, the signature Bush-era federal education law.

Most states were at risk of violating the most onerous provisions of that law, which required that all children be proficient in math and reading by 2014. The waivers relaxed that requirement in exchange for agreement by the states on a timeline for instituting the new standards and teacher evaluations.

As states have scrambled to revise their public school curriculums and develop the new performance ratings, teachers have complained that they have not had time to learn how to bring the new standards into their classrooms before being subjected to new tests. They have also protested that they are in effect forced to teach one curriculum in the morning and another in the afternoon, because some states are still administering old tests while introducing new standards.

Teachers’ unions have fought with education officials and lawmakers over the proper role of standardized tests in public schools and, most controversially, in individual ratings of teachers. A backlash against high-stakes testing has also been building in several states, including New York, Texas and Washington. And legislators and Tea Party critics in states including Indiana and Michigan have said that the federal Education Department has pushed the new standards on states without consulting teachers or parents.

In April, Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, warnedthat the new standards could be consigned to the “dustbin of history” and proposed that teachers be given a year to master the new curriculums before test results counted in tenure or other personnel decisions, including possible firings.

In his letter to state education chiefs, Mr. Duncan wrote that he appreciated “both the courage to tackle so many challenges at once and the burdens this imposes on frontline educators.”

The department will now allow states to apply, in effect, for waivers from their waivers. States that are introducing new tests will also be relieved of having to give both new and old tests in the same school year.

“This decision ensures that the rollout of new, higher, state-selected standards will continue on pace,” Mr. Duncan said in a statement, “but that states that need it will have some flexibility in when they begin using student growth data for high-stakes decisions.”

In a conference call with reporters, Mr. Duncan insisted that Tuesday’s announcement did not amount to a “pause or moratorium” in introducing new standards, tests or performance evaluations.

Some education policy groups expressed disappointment. Daria Hall, K-12 policy director at the Education Trust, a nonprofit group that advocates for racial minority students and low-income children, said the evaluations would be introduced without any teeth. “So you’re saying set up a system that tells us we have teachers who aren’t up to it, but don’t do anything about it for another year,” she said.

In an interview, Ms. Weingarten said she welcomed the flexibility. “It’s a big recognition that you have to actually prepare people to do the work that they need to do when you’ve asked them to do something fundamentally different,” she said, adding, “You can’t lead with measurement and testing.”

Some states have already put teacher evaluation systems in place and may begin using them to make decisions about raises, tenure or staff changes earlier. New York, for example, already rolled out new tests based on the more rigorous standards this year and has begun carrying out teacher evaluations in most of the state. Mitchell D. Chester, commissioner of elementary and secondary education in Massachusetts and the president of the Council of Chief State School Officers, said he hoped the secretary would guard against further extensions. “Inertia is a powerful force you can’t overestimate,” Mr. Chester said. “So I do worry that any signals on delays really do allow folks to hope that new evaluation programs are not implemented.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/19/education/us-lets-states-delay-using-tests-to-rate-teachers.html?smid=fb-share&_r=0

Are Florida’s teachers getting raises or bonuses?

 Since the governor announced he wanted to put 400 plus million aside for teacher raises, I have wondered does he mean raise or bonus and we all know the difference between the two.

I received this from the DTU, There is a question about the Legislature’s intent on how the money is to be distributed. Is the money to be placed on the salary schedule? If so, that money would have to be available for future allocations. There has been no indication from the State that the money will be reallocated in the future.

The state stole 3% of teacher’s salaries two years ago to fill budget gaps so many teachers are dubious about anything they do, throw in merit pay, odious evaluations and the loss of job protections and those that aren’t angry are scared. I just want to know if they will continue to allocate money for Florida’s teachers who are some of the lowest paid in the country in the future or if they just wanted some Kumbaya sound bite.

Either way teachers haven’t forgotten their terrible treatment at the hands of the state and throwing a few dollars at us won't make us do so.

Gary Chartrand’s latest contradictions

Chartrand when talking about the grade relief districts are asking for said, "We want to make sure that the system that is governing accountability is the right system,"

Chartrand asked Education Commissioner Tony Bennett to quickly pull together a small group of superintendents, state educators, and maybe outside data experts. "If there needs to be a change," Chartrand added, Bennett would have time to recommend one before the first batch of school grades are released. Those grades for elementary and middle schools are expected in July.

First credibility is something they should worry about too especially with all the changes they have done to the system over the last few years, many of which have corresponded with his time on the board. He added, the state needs to "make sure that we're careful and considerate, and we're thoughtful."

I think Chartrand is now trying to back peddle a system he helped create but regardless this sounds reasonable to me, the state should strive above all else to get things right. http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/education/os-school-grades-worries-20130618,0,1566130.story

Chartrand however quickly goes off the reasonable reservation when he noted that other states have provisions for state takeovers of persistently struggling schools. "Maybe that is part of the solution" for Florida, he said.

Notice no "make sure that we're careful and considerate, and we're thoughtful" here.  He also seemed to agree with Vice Chair John Padget’s view that one D or F is enough to warrant a change in principal. Forget about really getting into the school and seeing what the issues are and then crafting strategies to overcome them. 

This is what happens when the state puts someone who was top 50 in grocery store news run our schools.  

http://www.tampabay.com/blogs/gradebook/state-board-members-call-for-quicker-interventions-at-struggling-schools/2127284

What education reformers say and what they mean, a dictionary

From, That Way Madness Lies, by Karen Fraid

Assessment (noun): A test made by a corporation and protected from peer review and public scrutiny by intellectual property laws and strict confidentiality agreements.

Data-Driven Assessment (noun): A test made by a corporation and protected from peer review by intellectual property laws and strict confidentiality agreements whose purpose is to provide numbers too complicated and nuanced for the general public to understand, but vague enough that they can be molded into a variety of purposes as the need for “data” to support reforms arises.

Failing School (noun): A school for poor children of color whose intended funding subsidizes corporations.

For the Children (phrase): This actually doesn’t mean anything.  The Reformy equivalent to chanting “USA! USA!”

Market-Based Reform (noun): A euphemism for “Corporate Subsidy Disbursement,” “Economic Power Grab” and “Fear-Based Economic Policy.”

No Excuses (phrase): A slogan which means that a person (especially a child) is lacking in grit if they cannot solve all of the problems of society.  NOTE: This slogan can only be used when speaking to a person of a lower socio-economic status than oneself.  If a person from a higher socio-economic status voices frustration at the aspects of society that stymie their efforts, the appropriate response is a government subsidy, tax credit, protectionist tariff or bailout.

Rigor (noun).  Difficulty for its own sake, regardless of any applicable research, science or desired outcome.

School Choice (noun): This is when politicians choose to close a public school and let charter schools open instead. School choice also refers to subsidizing upper-income families and religious institutions with tax dollars, often redirected from “failing schools.”  School choice also refers to the choice made by charter and private schools to discriminate against students with disabilities, students in extreme poverty and high-risk students by choosing policies guaranteed to skim only the students that they choose.  School choice is also used as a tool to stem the tide of white flight, without having to convince white folks to spend time with those unlike themselves.

Status Quo (noun): (NOTE: Please do not be confused by the Latin definition of these words; in Reformy Quasi-Latin they have a different meaning.) The Status Quois the situation in the present moment as observed by a Reformer who has arrived in medias res like a deus ex machina with a curriculum vitae full of plutocratic bona fides. Ergo, to Reformers, all that matters in determining the Status Quo is a tabula rasasnapshot of a given moment in time without regard to yesterday or tomorrow, context or content.  According to Reformers, the cure in toto for the Status Quo (which is always, to them, the worst-case scenario) is a de facto ad hoc doubling down on the same policies and in vivo experiments that are already in place.  Remember, those policies were put in place to fight the OLD Status Quo.  The new Status Quo is moreStatus Quoier, so we need MORE of the same policies to create a NEW Status Quo to fight, ad infinitum…ad nauseam.  Got it?

Value-Added Score (noun): The application of a scientific, statistical model designed for predicting outcomes to assessment scores.  A model allows constants to become variables and vice versa.  When applied in real time, in real life, with attached consequences for the resulting data, this becomes a synonym for “self-fulfilling prophesy.”

Accountability (noun): The act of holding children responsible for choosing to be born into the wrong families or in the wrong geographic locations.  Alternately, the act of penalizing teachers who do not advise at-risk students to quit school quickly and avoid wasting everyone’s time and money.

Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) (noun): A number pulled out of a hat by a politician or political appointee which schools must earn on standardized tests.  Alternately, the number on a dartboard hit by a politician or political appointee which schools must earn on standardized tests.

Achievement Gap (noun): Synonym for wealth gap.  Achievement correlates to poverty. SHHHH! Don’t say poverty!

High-Stakes Test (noun): An assessment in which the margin of error is often greater than the desired gains; nevertheless, such assessments have the power to close schools, fire teachers, cause children to repeat a grade, defund districts or schools, cause states and municipalities to lose funding, fire administrators, shame communities, stifle economic growth, increase dropout rates, disenfranchise parents and children, increase race-based segregation, increase crime rates, raise taxes, burden local governments, increase poverty, pit neighbors against each other, determine which students can attend well-funded schools or institutes of higher learning…[Editor’s note:  Actually, this term is pretty much right-on. -K.F.]

Incentivize (verb): To make people offers they literally can’t refuse.

Longer School Day (noun): (Synonyms include Full School Day, Expanded Learning Time, Extended Day.)  An arbitrarily chosen length of time that adults with no knowledge of child development think that children need to spend in school.

Norm-Referenced Test (noun): An assessment which grades on a bell curve by definition, yet holds children, schools, teachers and communities responsible when half of the children are below average.  Supporting high-stakes norm-referenced testing is a good way to send a message that, when it comes to mathematics, you are NOT smarter than a fifth grader.

Outcome-Based Learning (noun): (Synonyms include Proficiency-Based Learning, Standards-Based Reform, Performance-Based Education, and any combination of any of the previous words that include at least one hyphen and no awareness of irony.)  An education philosophy in which the outcome or performance on assessments is the goal in and of itself.  Any learning that does not assist the student immediately in test performance is a waste of time and resources, since reformers know that they never use anything that they learned in school in their jobs today.

Poverty (noun): The worst curse word ever known to Reformers.  Never, never, ever, ever say the word “poverty” out loud.  If nobody ever mentions it again, it will magically cease to exist.

Trapped (adjective): Synonym for segregated.  Example: “Our children are trapped in failing schools.” (Translation: “Our children are segregated in underfunded schools.”)

21st Century Skills (plural noun): These are what students gain when an educator is replaced with an iPad.  How else will kids ever get enough screen time if we don’t provide it in schools?

http://karenfraid.tumblr.com/

Another day another attack on teachers

This time it came from a source you might not expect National Public Radio. NPR, along with the Wall Street Journal, the Palm Beach Post, US News and World Report and even our very own Times Union ran with a report criticizing Teacher’s Colleges put out by the National Council on Teacher Quality.

Who is the National Council on Teacher Quality? Good question. They are an off shot of the conservative Florham Institute and all the usual suspects in the corporate reform movement fund them.

Then there is their methodology, which seems to wholly be a cursory review of college catalogues and syllabus. No interviews, no site visits and no study about how recent grads are doing. It would be like me looking at your trash and coming up with a complete report of your life.

Here is the thing, I want the right answer I don’t want my answer to be right which is what separates most people who care about education and people like Jeb Bush, Bill Gates and the writers of this laughable report. They don’t care about our kids; they care about sound bites that will enrage low information citizens. It’s shameful. NPR, which is now funded by Bill Gates, is shameful.

To learn more or read the report click the links. 

http://media.npr.org/assets/news/2013/teacherprep.pdf

http://deanfeuer.wordpress.com/2013/06/18/nctq-report-reflections/

http://dianeravitch.net/2013/06/18/linda-darling-hammond-on-the-nctq-report/

Superintendent Vitt asks the state board of ed for grade relief

He is not mentioned in the article but at the last school board meeting he said he was going to participate.
-cpg

From the Miami Herald

BY DAVID SMILEY, DSMILEY@MIAMIHERALD.COM

Concerned that another round of changes to Florida’s testing and school grading formula will paint a dire picture of improving education systems, officials from Miami-Dade and elsewhere on Tuesday are headed to Tampa to urge the State Board of Education to reconsider the way schools are judged.

This year, important letter grades will be based in part on new exams, higher proficiency cut scores in writing, and scores from student groups that weren’t previously considered. In addition, Florida’s safety net last year keeping schools from dropping more than one letter grade is gone.

Education Commissioner Tony Bennett has said those tweaks, following a number of changes from the previous year, will improve education around the state. But they’re also expected to cause school letter grades to plummet - unless the State Board of Education reconsiders Tuesday.

“They will have an opportunity to revisit this issue,” Miami-Dade Superintendent Alberto Carvalho said Monday. “I have a feeling that they will.”

Miami-Dade students mostly fared well on tests this year, making large gains in reading and writing, and to a lesser extent in math. But district administrators nevertheless expect a drop in grades, which factor into real estate values and teacher bonuses and evaluations. At failing schools, students can transfer.

Carvalho stressed that he supports accountability measures and increasing standards, but said recent changes “are too dramatic, too fast and go too far without an understanding of the true impact.”

That point has been echoed by others, including Florida Association of District School Superintendents President Wally Cox, who earlier this month wrote to Florida Board Chairman Gary Chartrand and asked him to “mitigate” the impact of accountability changes. In his letter, Cox twice used Miami-Dade schools as an example.

“Lower school performance grades will not be the result of lower student performance, but will be caused by changes the state has made, yet again, to the school performance grading formula,” Cox wrote on June 6. “The ever-changing nature of the school performance grading formula and its resulting outcomes continue to confuse the public and further erode trust in the state’s accountability system.”

Cox urged the state to return to last year’s writing cut score of 3.0 and bring back the one-letter-grade-drop safety net, among other considerations. Carvalho has made his own recommendations.

Neither Commissioner Bennett nor members of the Florida Board of Education responded to interview requests.

The debate is reminiscent of last year, when state board members established new accountability standards, including decisions to factor in the test scores of special needs students and students who have been learning English for just one year. Criticisms led the state to convene a task force to craft recommendations, though few were considered.

Also last year, board members held an emergency meeting to lower writing cut scores after too many students failed the test.But just as there are critics of the board’s new grading formula, there are supporters.

Patricia Levesque, executive director of the Foundation for Florida’s Future, has urged Chartrand not to keep “school grades looking good in the name of public perception.”

“Every time we have raised the bar in this state, our schools, teachers and students have met the challenges and more students, especially minority, low-income and disadvantaged students are benefitting,” she wrote.

However, Wayne Blanton, executive director of the Florida School Boards Association, said the problem isn’t raising the bar but tweaking an accountability system so often that it becomes too difficult to gauge progress.

“You don’t have to be a math major to know that if you constantly change the baseline you can never judge what has actually been done,” said Blanton, who said he will also be at Tuesday’s meeting. “The standards and tests are constantly changing and it makes it very difficult to measure one year from the next. That’s been our complaint for years now.”

Carvalho on Monday noted that the latest “dramatic” changes come a year before Florida will move to new Common Core standards and a new testing system. He also said the state hasn’t adequately explained to the general community that there will be a dichotomy between improved student and teacher performance and the letter grade assigned to schools.

“This is going to drive schools that would have earned a “C” down to a “D” or “F. From an “A” to a “B” or “C,” he said. “Nobody is going to understand this.”

http://www.miamiherald.com/2013/06/17/3456493/education-officials-head-to-tampa.html

Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/2013/06/17/3456493/education-officials-head-to-tampa.html#storylink=cpy

47 out of 48 highly effectives gets the district a 1.59 million dollar fine

That should be our supers nickname, 47 out of 48. Now he didn’t arrive till November so some of this is a parting gift from Ed Pratt Dannals but the district was fined 1.59 million dollars. the biggest in the state because of violations to the class size amendment and if the buck stops with Vitti, well he has to be partly responsible for that.

By the way that’s about the salary of 25 librarians.

If class size compliance is a category our super may now be down to 46 out of 48 highly effectives.   

Duval County gets states biggest fines for violating the class size amendment.

From the Tampa Times by Jeff Solochek

Forty-two Florida school districts will get a bump to their budget bottom lines later this month, when the state reallocates its class size funds for 2012-13.

The 25 districts that did not comply with Florida's 2002 voter mandate on class sizes will pay $5.6 million in fines, which will be redistributed to districts that met the mark. In the Tampa area, the Hillsborough district stands to receive $687.240; Pinellas, $359,176; Pasco, $235,535; and Hernando, $80,761.

The largest donors to the fund are Duval ($1.59 million), Broward ($1.3 million) and Miami-Dade ($1.08 million).

The electronic fund transfers are due June 26. Some district officials have already indicated they plan to apply the money to offset deficits in 2013-14.

See the reallocation list here.

http://www.tampabay.com/blogs/gradebook/

A little more on the insanity that is Florida's teacher evaluation system

These are comments from readers and I felt where very different were both really good and talk about some of the flaws in the system. -cpg

We should stop pretending that the current evaluation system is anything resembling objective. Administrators have too much latitude to interpret the rubric to their own personal liking when they observe a classroom. We have seen far too many examples of principals who have made up their minds long before they stepped into a single classroom. They are out there to reward their friends and cronies. They are also out there to demoralize and condemn their perceived foes in the classroom. This is why CAST needs to be seriously reformed. Politics is all over this evaluation system and it is shameful. 

The conversation about test scores connects with teachers eval is endless. Its just like saying i failed in school not because i was lazy or lack of self-drive, but i failed in school because my mother didnt take away my video games or my ipad and didnt drown me for spending too much time facebooking instead of doing homework, and lastly i failed in school because my teachers didnt offer me a pencil and a calculator during a math test and my english teacher didnot have an extra "to kill the mocking bird" book for me to borrow !!!! Gezzz i am sick to the stomach of not just the system and the bureaucracies but of the irresponsible kids we raise at home!!!!

Proof that spending little on education hurts kids.

Utah spends the least on education in the nation. Here is some proof they are getting what they pay for.



To learn more click the link: http://247wallst.com/2013/05/31/states-that-spend-the-most-on-education/4/