Why are Teachers that want to take care of their families and get paid a reasonable wage bad guys?

For some reason education reformers many of whom are seeking to profit off of education feel they can criticize teachers for wanting to have a reasonable wage, decent benefits and a manageable workload. How dare they be so selfish right?

When explaining that teacher unions really aren't that powerful, because if they were then my salary would be higher and my work load would be smaller, I was instantly accused or not being in education for the children.

I guess they don't think teachers should be allowed to put food on their table or to be able to take care of their families? I get it teachers became so knowing they would never be rich but come on, aren't we allowed to have something? According to US News and World Report a little over one in six teachers hold a second job though other sources have that number as high as half.

http://www.usnews.com/news/blogs/data-mine/2014/07/23/more-than-1-in-10-american-teachers-rely-on-second-jobs

http://www.heraldtribune.com/article/20130320/ARTICLE/130319547

Teachers are some of the lowest paid professionals around and increasingly districts are breaking the covenant for a pension and good benefits to make up for the lack of salary that teachers in the past were willing to trade.

The powers-that-be have long banked on the selflessness of teachers. They have taken advantage of it too and it's time teachers said no more especially if we are going to be the scapegoat for all of societies problems.

In Florida nearly half of all new teachers don't last five years but instead of working to make the profession more attractive they are doubling down on blame the teacher evaluations designed to drive more and more teachers out of the profession. This is how highly they think of us.

It's time we pushed back.

Florida's school will never reach their potential as long as we marginalize, neglect and ignore teachers.

Media Matters recently did a piece outlining how when discussing education the big three cable news networks, CNN, MSNBC and Fox had on sixteen actual educators and 169 non-educators, that's roughly a ratio of ten to one against professional educators when discussing education issues. Pretty outrageous right.

Well unfortunately it just mirrors what Florida has done with the sate board of education where you won't find one true educator. There is the chair Gary Chartrand who is a grocer by trade and who has close ties to charter schools; John Padget the owner of a private equity investment firm, Ada Gonzalez, a healthcare executive, John Colon, a banker,  Andy Tuck, a citrus grower, Marva Johnson a cable TV executive and finally Rebecca Fishman Lipsey currently a social impact director (a direct quote from the FLDOE website) who is a recent transplant from New York where she taught for two years as a Teach for America Teacher. And there you have it the entire board has two years of public education teaching experience and that happened a decade ago in New York City.

Can you imagine running a police department without law enforcement personnel or a hospital without doctors, or a newspaper without editors? Well that is basically what we have done here in Florida by putting completely unqualified people for the job on the board. Now they might have great business acumen, though I am not sure what a social impact director does but shouldn't we have more professional educators than Rick Scott campaign donors on the board? The job of leading our education system should be done by professionals not by donors and friends of the governor.

Florida's schools will never reach their potential as long as we marginalize, neglect and ignore professional educators. Contrary to the governors opinion not just anybody can do the job. So next time you get down on public education or teachers you might want to start with the board of education.

Teachers not optimistic about the future of Duval County Public Schools

Here are three recent comments I have received from veteran teachers. 

It seems the only teachers who can do what they know to be best for their students are the ones who can walk away from their job at the end of the year. Otherwise, their hands are cuffed and we have to do the will of the government of Florida, and a school board that is all about the bottom line. Neither of these parties seem to care what happens to the kids as long as their personal agenda and bottom line is achieved.

They are trying to eliminate teachers with these stupid (reading) programs. They want teachers to surprivise students on the computers while they're working with a small group while another group is working on a project. Nothing gets done. Kids run their mouth the whole time while the teacher is being drawn and quartered. Group work and web based programs are great but they should only be used to supplement good old fashioned teacher led instruction. Am I the only one?

 I was on leave for part of this year, and came back to find my students' reading grades suffering because we are expecting first graders to master third grade sight words! Oh and the dropping down of curriculum was not a state thing, it's a district thing. They seem to think that increasing rigor is increasing the level and that is not the case. I received a highly effective evaluation last year, but am not trusted to know what is developmentally appropriate for my students. Duval county will have even bigger gaps than they already do if teachers only follow these ridiculous expectations.

Cable news coverage of education, guess who isn't included.

To read more, click the link: http://mediamatters.org/blog/2014/12/30/teachers-on-trial-5-times-the-media-failed-educ/201956

Reading teacher laments, Duval is getting it all wrong, students suffering for no reason.

I received the following note today, which is basically the same note I have received a half dozen times or more from ELA/reading teachers throughout the district this year. The gist is the state shifted down it's reading instruction, second became first, first became kindergarten and so on and many teachers don't feel this change was appropriate. 

As you read the note below imagine the frustration and angst the teacher must be feeling wanting to what's best for their students but not being able to, instead stopped by a system that wants  to try out the latest new thing. Here is a hint, there is always a latest new thing.

Hi Chris,
My name is xxxx xxxxx, and my dad told me about your blog and I wanted to reach out.
 
This is my 10th year teaching. I am at a very high frustration level with Duval county and their i-ready kick. I have seen it frustrate my 1st grade students, my daughter and other teachers, including myself. I know enough about what is developmentally appropriate and what isn't to know this is not. This is going to come and go, but take a lot of students down in the mean time. I refuse to let this take place any longer.


Not only is it not following the curriculum we are teaching, but our teacher EOY Eval. scores are based on what the students do on this program. It has nothing to do with what we are teaching them, but yet our score will be based on them clicking a button!


We are supposed to be implementing 2nd grade reading in a 1st grade class and 1st grade reading in a kindergarten class.....there's something wrong with this. My class average went down after just assessing them 2 weeks on the fry words the district is wanting us to use, which of course are not 1st grade level. So, I am going against what the other teachers are doing and what is "required" of me because I REFUSE to see students suffer for no reason and give them words that are not developmentally appropriate. Including my own child.


Why do teachers sit back and not stand up for what is right? I don't understand? I would love to blog, start a petition, anything to get this madness to stop. Something has to be done. What can I do and who should I go to? Thank you.

They ask a good question at the end. People don't come to me first. They raise their hand at faculty meetings, they voice their concerns at department ones. Teachers I believe want to work with the system but what are they supposed to do when the system starts hurting the children it is supposed to help?

Is Florida purposely hurting its children?

If Florida weren’t so intent on dismantling and privatizing our public schools we could really do a lot of good for our children. Northwestern University just completed a study that said class size helps and helps a lot. Unfortunately Florida has gutted the class size amendment to the point it is nearly unrecognizable.

We also know there is a teacher shortage and almost half of all new teachers leave in five years but the Florida legislature seems to be intent to do whatever it can to handicap the profession. Not only our Florida’s teachers some of the worst paid in the nation but we have saddled them with evaluations, tied to pay based on the junk science of Value Added Measurements which the Department of Education even admits are wrong more than a third of the time.

Florida has also stifled creativity and put a premium on teaching to the test. If we paid teachers a competitive wage and allowed them to be creative and innovative and didn’t saddle them with an evaluation system no one thinks is valid and a punitive test then immediately we would both attract and retain more teachers.

Then there is poverty which Florida thinks it can fix by ignoring it and blaming teachers for not being able to overcome it.  How about we helped instead by putting in measures that mitigate poverty like smaller classes, a longer school year and wrap around services for our neediest children.

Finally we need to stop siphoning off precious resources to charters and vouchers. Despite advantages charters perform worse than public schools and the system is set up so we have no idea how vouchers are doing.  That should infuriate everyone.

Florida could really do some good for its children unfortunately almost everything we do does the opposite.

The worst four words in education, It's for the children!

School choice fans think all they have to say is, “it’s for the children” or “what if we put the children’s needs first” and people who have legitimate concerns or questions will slink away. It’s as if those two phrases give them justification to say or do whatever they want. Here is what happens when we put those words with some of the byproducts of Florida’s school choice movement.

Segregation, what charter schools are bringing back, is all for the children.

Counseling out poor performers, what many charter schools do, is putting the needs of the children first.

How about, voucher schools don’t need accountability both academically and financially, because it is what is best for the children.

Starving public schools of resources, that’s both it’s for the children and putting their needs first.

Not providing services to or excluding disabled children what most school choice schools do, hey that’s best for them too.  

Let’s put the needs of children first but filtering them into substandard options, like charters and vouchers, many of which are for profit.

I wonder if Lloyd brown knows how ridiculous he sounds when he criticizes Wayne Blanton the outgoing head of the School Board Association who has spent a lifetime serving children and like most educators do putting their needs first, when he asks what if we put the needs of the children first.

When the School Board association, supported by the PTA, the NAACP, the League of Women voters and many other organizations took vouchers to court they didn’t do so because they see children as FTE money they did so because they are putting the needs of all our children first.

Private schools and charter schools that take public money are bad for democracy.

Private schools and charter schools that take public money as a group and despite advantages perform worse than their public school counter parts.

Private schools that take public money resist both financial and academic accountability.

Finally many charter schools that take public money are for profit.

Lloyd Brown and other fans of school choice may think all of that is putting the needs of children first but what it really is, is privatization and it’s bad for our children.

John Thrasher takes his hypocrisy to Florida State

Full disclosure I am not a Florida State fan, in fact as I type this I am wearing my favorite Florida tee. This however is not about football rivalries it’s about the hypocrisy of FSU president, John “golden rule, he who has the gold makes the rules” Thrasher. That’s a quote from him by the way.

Example 1, as a republican he preached financial responsibility for his entire career, but then refused to drop out of his race for senate even though his appointment at Tallahassee was all but assured. At the same time he is getting a hundreds of thousands of dollars raise, he is costing the tax payers of Florida hundreds of thousands of dollars, the cost of his and several other special elections that him not dropping out has created.

Example 2, despite fighting against tenure for public school teachers, he accepted tenure from the trustees at Florida State. Apparently what is good for the golden goose is not good for the ganders.

Example 3, one of his first acts at Florida State is to give Jimbo Fisher an eight year contract.  I won’t argue that he deserves job security, I believe everybody does if they do a good job but I would like to point out that now teachers do not have any. Since 2011 all new teachers hired and all veteran teachers that want to switch to the merit pay plan (none that I know of) can now be fired at the end of the school year for any reason or for no reason because none has to be given. This is what John Thrasher through his teaching profession kneecapping Senate bill 736 has created. Successful football coach, 8 years, successful teachers, year to year.

Welcome to Tallahassee where public school teachers are constantly marginalized and neglected while football and hypocrisy reign supreme.

As I said above I am not a fan of Florida State, and thanks to Thrasher I have a lot of company. 

Florida districts pushing back against charter schools: it's still not enough.

The Sun Sentinel, behind a pay wall, when did news just become for the well off, did a piece on how more and more Florida districts are rejecting charter school applications that don't have air tight financing. Where long over due when you consider that over 260 have open taken public money and failed over the last few years, it's not nearly enough.

More and more charter schools, usually part of for profit chains have changed their business models. Ditching innovation, they have started opening schools in affluent neighborhoods. In my home town of Jacksonville we have approved charter schools down the street form A schools and this despite our superintendent publicly lamenting the loss of resources. I believe privately he doesn't care.

The concept of charters is an attractive one, parent/teacher driven laboratories of innovation. The reality is many have become for profit schools that care first about the bottom line, that don't offer anything approaching innovation and that as a group perform worse.

Opening up a charter school should be more difficult than filling out boxes on an application and having bought off a few politicians. They should at the very least offer something the surrounding schools are not. They should have local teachers and parents collaborating together to develop programs rather than using the regurgitated programs presented by chains and I don't believe they should be for profit. All the resources available should be put into the schools not into some far off connected business man's bank account.

The idea of charter schools has a place, a role to play as a supplement to public education where the reality of what they have become should be regulated to the dist bin of bad ideas.

The disastrous consequences school choice, vouchers and charters has for disabled children.

We have long known that charters take fewer disabled children than their public school counter parts  http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/charter-schools-enroll-fewer-disabled-

but what happens to the few that do attend? Well recent news reports indicate they have a rough time going. By themselves the examples below show a callousness towards the plight and needs of disabled children but when taken together they show a disturbing pattern of neglect towards our most needy children.

New Orleans lauded by Arne Duncan, who inappropriately said hurricane Katrina was the best thing that could have happened, and other for their charter schools recently lost a law suit where they admitted they had not been providing services to disabled children. From the Times Picayune.

The Louisiana Education Department, Orleans Parish School Board and Southern Poverty Law Center asked federal Judge Jay Zainey on Friday (Dec. 19) to approve a settlement in a landmarkspecial education suit. Plaintiffs said the Louisiana Department of Education and Orleans Parish School Board did not adequately educate children with disabilities in the fragmented network of charter and district schools that sprung up in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina.

http://www.nola.com/education/index.ssf/2014/12/parties_ask_federal_judge_to_a.html

Next we move to Pennsylvania where Charter Schools USA is attempting to take over an entire district and in doing so plan massive cuts to ESE staffs. From the York Dispatch:

Making comparisons: For example, the staffing matrix included in the proposed contract presented to the school board showed a plan for 16 special-education teachers district-wide.

Currently, there are 14 special-education teachers at William Penn Senior High School alone.

Across its eight buildings, the district currently employs 68 special-education teachers, according to information recently provided by Superintendent Eric Holmes.

http://www.yorkdispatch.com/breaking/ci_27161874/charter-schools-usa-expands-plans-york-city?source=pkg

Then there is Florida where some schools were paid extra to provide services but never did. From State Impact: A StateImpact Florida/Miami Herald investigation shows most charter schools in 

Florida are failing to serve students with severe disabilities.

Statewide, 86 percent of charter schools do not have any students classified as severely disabled.

That’s despite state and federal laws that require charter schools to give equal access to these students.

https://stateimpact.npr.org/florida/2011/12/14/no-choice-florida-charter-schools-failing-to-serve-students-with-disabilities/

Here is another one from the world of vouchers.

From the Sun Sentinel, talking about private schools that receive vouchers: Florida spent $8.5 million in taxpayer money last year to provide vouchers to learning disabled students in Palm Beach County to attend private schools – but makes no effort to ensure the schools are providing the required services.

The law that created the vouchers does not require private schools to have anyone on staff with any sort of certification in dealing with children with learning disabilities. Nor are there public controls in place to check whether the schools are helping them.

http://articles.sun-sentinel.com/2014-06-13/news/pb-mckay-scholarship-no-ese-20140606_1_private-schools-vouchers-mckay-scholarship

Segregation, for profit, exclusion, counseling out, are all brought to you courtesy of the school choice movement and our most vulnerable children are paying the biggest price.