Why being a teacher is harder than being a doctor or lawyer

Does Duval have Edgenuity or Eduinsanity?

Edgenuity is a computer program that the district is using to satisfy high school students requirement that they have to take one on-line class, they are primarily using it for government classes . Sounds good right, well here are the problems.

First kids are taking it at the same time they are taking their brick and mortar government classes. They are taking both together as kind of a hybrid class. Which seems to me they are not getting the full benefit of either but what do I know. The program, was sold as a supplement initially for the classes but that morphed into teachers next semester having to use it a set amount  (51% of the time). The reason being, I imagine is because crossing that threshold makes students eligible for the on-line credit.

The program did not go live until about six weeks into the school year, and the determination that it could be used to satisfy the requirement wasn't made until a couple weeks after that according to the Government teachers that contacted me.

There was back and fourth with the district if Government teachers would have to fail kids, regardless of their in class grades if they didn't meet the 51% completion of the computer program. At first I am told they were told to fail kids but as of a couple days ago the district has dialed that back making it optional for teachers. Optional.

I think the districts heart is in the right place on this one, letting kids take their on-line classes for free and during school when they are most likely to do it, even if that kind of messes with the spirit of the law,  the problem is they gave teachers mixed answers and directions about how much to use it and what it was going to be used for  and if teachers are going to have employment and pay decisions based on how they teach and what the kids learn is it really fair to make them use a computer program they may or may not be giving the kids what they need to be successful.

Maybe all this is just growing pains of a district trying to help kids out with their on-line requirement or maybe it's symptomatic of a district which is having terrible communication problems, the fact they are on their second high schools social studies person this year can't help, and that seems to be making things up as they go along.
  

Comparing the opponets of school choice to murderers and racisists never works.

People can passionately disagree about things but one thing I have learned is you should never compare your opponent, the person with the opposing view to Hitler. A close second would be to compare them to the racist power structure that beat, oppressed and murdered people of color during the civil rights movement, unfortunately that is what the reverend H.K. Mathews does in the News-Press.com as he compares people who don't support school vouchers to them.

http://www.redefinedonline.org/2015/01/civil-rights-leader-draws-connection-selma-school-choice/ 

Mathews is for school choice, though I think that is just a code word for privatization. On the other side, or the ones that he is comparing to Sherriff Jim Clark, Governor George Wallace and the Klu Klux Klan, are the league of Women Voters, the Parent Teachers Association, The Teacher’s Union, the School Board association, various other parent groups and ironically the NAACP.    

Isn’t it possible that this debate as important as it is, is little more than an earnest disagreement between people that both care about the future of children? People that think vouchers should have minimum qualification and accountability, people that lament the loss of resources to public schools and people that want facts and evidence be the barometer we use when making education policy are not seeking to disenfranchise the poor and downtrodden, they are not seeking to limit empowerment. This may be a shocker but they passionately care about the welfare and education of the state’s children too.

As the various pro-school choice groups ratchet up the inflammatory rhetoric they distract people from legitimate concerns and questions.   

They say they are for the poor and mostly minority students who have the least but then shrug their shoulders at the massive cuts to Bright Futures which disproportionately effects poor and mostly minority students the most. They say they are for accountability and voucher students have to take a norm referenced tests, well if they are so great why don’t we dump the high stakes testing agenda for public schools and say they can take the same types of tests too? They say they save money while at the same time districts lament the millions and millions of dollars.

They say they are just for poor families but then ask you not to remember that the legislature just expanded the eligibility for a family of four from making just over 20 thousand to making just over sixty. Furthermore the supporters of vouchers usually are also for S.T.E.M, Common Core and teacher accountability but shrug their shoulders at those things for private schools that take vouchers where teachers do not have to be certified nor curriculums recognized. Also private schools that take less than a quarter of million dollars, the vast majority of them, don’t even have to report how they spend the money and since over seventy percent of the money goes to religious institutions we have effectively dismantled the first amendment as well. Finally this program with the barest of oversight is allowed to expand 25 percent a year, in less than five years it will take a billion dollars annually out of the state coffers and our education system. Shouldn’t above be enough to give us pause?

None of it though gets addressed by voucher supporters. They are too busy calling their opponents heartless and making unfair and ridiculous comparisons. We need to have an honest debate but in my opinion one side isn’t interested and since that is the case it should tell us all we really need to know.

Vouchers hurt public schools.

Vouchers divert money from the public school system by allowing corporations to fund the voucher program instead of paying taxes to the state. A corporation may receive tax credit for up to 100 percent of its state income tax liability. These tax dollars would otherwise be available to fund the public school system. With 67,142 students receiving vouchers, that is $86,069,038 lost by public schools.

Private schools receiving vouchers spend our tax money without accountability. Teachers do not have to be certified. Schools do not have to abide by curriculum standards or take state assessment tests. Some 70 percent of these schools are religious schools. Of these, 164 teach creationism, according to the online news site Slate.

Current voucher programs as structured violate the separation of church and state. The Florida Constitution states: “No revenue of the State or political subdivision or agency thereof shall ever be taken from the public treasure directly or indirectly, in aid of any church, sect, or religious denomination or in aid of any sectarian institution.” The Legislature, by giving tax credits to corporations for payments to voucher programs, is taking tax money from the state and directing it to private schools, most of which are religious schools.

Florida is now ranked 45th in per student funding for education. Instead of vouchers, our tax dollars should go to making the Florida public school system work for all our children.

Shirley C. Arcuri

We must fill the opening on the state board of ed with an Educator

Friends, Parents, Concerned Citizens, Florida Bats, we have a real opportunity to facilitate positive change. With the resignation of Ada Armas from the state board of education, we must demand governor Scott put an educator and supporter of public education on the board because right now there isn't one.    

On 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,  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 now there is an opening and we must let Rick Scott know we want it filled by an educator. Send him a message here: http://www.flgov.com/contact-gov-scott/email-the-governor/

And just to back that up send a letter to your local paper to let them know how important it is too.

Florida's education game is rigged!

Student progress is critical factor

Imagine you are coaching a basketball team with no assistant coaches. You have no choice in who your players are, but they are young and eager. Their ability range varies widely, as does their athleticism. What do you do?

Perhaps you start everyone out on the basics, teaching them all aspects of the game. Perhaps you give a skills assessment and you have the players work on their weakest skills, so while some are passing, others are working on defense, and yet others are working on shooting all at the same time.

When the day of the big game arrives, you find out the entire game will be scored based solely on how well your players shoot free throws if they are fouled. Nothing else matters. It's all based on free throws. If you don't win, you are fired as coach despite coaching for 20 years.

This is exactly the scenario that teachers and students find themselves in on the state tests. According to the state, it does not matter how much a child has grown under your tutelage. It also doesn't matter if they have a personal crisis. It doesn't matter that they had a well-rounded education that touched on all aspects of learning. All that matters is what is on that test and how students did on that test the week they were assessed.

What would you have your players work on? Free throws or the whole game of basketball? What should teachers work on, educating the child or preparing them for the test?

Kelsey Lewis

We can't just wait for the courts to settle school choice.

I read Julie Delegal’s piece about the Jacksonville Public Education Fund and school choice and where I fundamentally agree with her position, I disagree with her tenor. 

http://contextflorida.com/julie-delegal-lousy-education-policy-blurs-line-public-private/

Trey Csar of the Jacksonville Public Education Fund (JPEF) and Mrs. Delagal would have you believe the school choice debate should be just civil discourse between disagreeing groups and that if you really cared you would either remain above the fray or wait for the courts to settle it. Well I can assure you the JPEF is doing neither.

Last summer during Jacksonville’s school board races the JPEF partnered with numerous local non-profits, including the NAACP and the League of Women Voters to put on forums with the single stipulation being that none of the non-profits would endorse a candidate.  They did this while at the same time members of their board were not only endorsing the same three candidates in the three races but giving them thousands and thousands of dollars too. Csar might say something like “that’s the board and they do what they do and it has nothing to do with what the JPEF does” to which I ask you, who believes that for a second?

Who believes Gary Chartrand, who is the char of the state board of education despite never having taught for a day in his life, and the man responsible for bringing Csar and JPEF to town, as well as contributing to numerous charter schools, the Public Policy department at Jacksonville University, Channel 7 (which gave Csar and Chartrand education awards), providing the lion’s share of the Quality Education for All (QEA) funds, and who has his hands in seemingly every Jacksonville pot that has to do with education would just throw up his arms and say, “ JPEF just do what you do, I and the rest of the board will stay out of it.”

Heck Chartrand even wrote the Duval County School Board and urged them to drop out of the voucher law suit. He didn’t say let’s let the courts figure it out, he said, I am the chair of the state board of education let’s see if I can influence some weak willed school board members, all but one by the way he had given money too. It is ridiculous and insulting for Csar to think we would believe that Chartrand and the board plays no role at all in what they do. Or that he is passionate for school choice and JPEF is “whatever” about it.

Make no mistake friends this is not a cordial debate between disagreeing parties, there is a war being waged and the forces that would seek to profit off of or privatize public schools are winning.

The Duval superintendent has lamented the loss of tens of millions of dollars due to the growth of charter schools and vouchers. There is not one true educator on the state board of education but Chartrand and his charter school and voucher interests is; legislators who have charter schools or close ties to charter schools routinely introduce and vote on legislation that would benefit them to the detriment of public schools. Rick Scott’s transition education team had more charter school owners than educators on it too. Tampa Millionaire John Kirtley, the man behind Step up for Students and Vouchers has funneled money into school choice PACs to influence races all cross the state and Jacksonville’s local Republican Party has even said supporting vouchers will be a litmus test and those that don’t will be opposed. Csar, shrugs his shoulders at all those things as if they don’t matter. Sit it out he says, be above the fray, there is no room for partisanship in education. Julie Delagal says, let the courts figure it out.

Just so there is no mistake I am partisan, I squarely believe in the efficacy and value of public schools but at the same time what choice has the other side given me. JPEF’s own report says we have no idea how schools that take vouchers are doing and that school choice through the siphoning away of resources hurts public schools. Then Csar’s own web-site says Jacksonville Charter schools which have grown by nearly 400 percent since the time the JPEF arrived do worse than their public school counterparts, Julie Delagal has even reported on this in the Folio Weekly and in Context Florida.  In short the choices besides public schools are either a mystery or worse. If the JPEF truly cared about kids why would they be trying to funnel kids into those options? Isn’t there choice just for the sake of choice stance irresponsible? I believe it is and I believe it is hurting kids too.

The JPEF which is now also managing money for Duval County something I think we should be wary of and well informed about has done some nice things. They have hooked up donors with classrooms, they have taken over the running of the teacher of the year program and have been behind some rallies for our public schools too but at the same time their forays into policy are disasters and the reason being is despite their claims to the contrary they are partisan as you can get because they want school choice even if that is a bad choice for our children.

Like Csar does, I urge you to go to their web-site and read their school choice report too and let their very own words speak for them but unlike Delegal I don’t think we should wait for the courts who have had a spotty record at best when it comes to protecting our children, to figure it out. I would urge you to pick a side too. Trey Csar and the Jacksonville Public Education Fund have.

A teacher talks about Rigor and Differentiation and how the district is getting it all wrong.

From a reader

Hi Chris,

I composed a compelling, heartfelt muse to you regarding "rigor," which my daughter read over my shoulder. She was so moved that she wanted a copy, so I went to add her and hit something on my keyboard, which deleted most of my muse. I thought I sent you what remained, but no such luck. In a nutshell, I complained that the word "rigor," like "differentiation" drives me crazy. 

The District and admin don't know what it is, cannot recognize it, and do not know how to implement it. It is not teaching up a grade level or requiring "touted" software programs without prior instruction. It is delving deeply into material and spending as much time as is needed to explore, analyze, and ponder. It takes time, patience, and discipline to provide rigor. It requires spiraling between the fundamentals and the esoteric. This can take weeks. 

It is not evidenced by "exit tickets." Rather, it is evidenced when student walk out of a classroom with more questions than answers. It is magical when accomplished. For a teacher to really teach with "rigor" requires the student and the admin to trust the teacher because it cannot be observed by a quickie walk-through. Little trust exists in this environment, as is reflected by the mandated curriculum that focuses on software programs (meant to be supplements), as well as district mandates of identical and uniform presentation and implementation of their curriculum. Our school-based administrators' jobs are in constant jeopardy, so it is difficult for them to buck downtown to prevent this fiasco. Regardless, we will be blamed for the District's impeding failure.

I don't know about you but that seemed pretty perfect to me. 

Teachers as a return on investment.

Regardless of our rank in the Quality Counts School rankings it has always said two things our teachers do a good job and Florida invests poorly in our schools.

That is apparently okay with Education Commissioner Pam Stewart who said:  “As a result of Florida’s hard-working teachers, Florida students are once again being recognized for their outstanding performance, Today’s news is evidence that the state’s focus on student achievement is working and Florida has a good return on its investment in education.”

http://jacksonville.com/news/metro/2015-01-08/story/floridas-education-ranking-nosedives-national-quality-counts-ratings

Well what about teachers return on investment? What about all the teachers who have to get second jobs or have crippling student debt? What about all the hundreds and hundreds of unpaid hours teachers work too? I would say Florida teachers who are some of the worst paid in the nation are not getting a very good return in what they have invested in their education or how they spend their time.

I have been teaching for 14 years now and I am fifteen thousand dollars below the national average. Florida’s teachers are also some of the most put upon teachers in the nation too. New teachers don’t have work protections, they can be let go at the end of the year for any reason or none, they all took a three a percent pay, are subjected to a ridiculous evaluation formula, VAM, which the DOE says is inaccurate more than a third of the time and doesn’t factor in things like absenteeism and poverty and are stripped of creativity and innovation as they are forced to teach to the test.

But I guess none of that matters because Florida is getting a good return on their investment but you should ask yourself, if we leave things the way they currently are how long is that going to last.   

Florida falls to 28th in school rankings, we never should have been ranked very high anyways.

I have covered the quality counts rankings in previous years

http://jaxkidsmatter.blogspot.com/2013/01/breaking-down-floridas-quality-counts.html

http://jaxkidsmatter.blogspot.com/2012/01/in-education-quality-should-count-in.html

and the truth is we never should have been anywhere close to the top ten. Now this is not to say we have terrible teachers and schools, this is to say that the previous year’s rankings always had a lot more to do with things that were on the peripheral of education. Like we would get tons of points for just giving assessments, who cares if they were valid or sucking the life out of education, they heaped points upon us anyways. The new rankings recognize the quality of our teachers as past rankings have but also recognize the value that the powers-that-be put on education, which quite frankly isn’t that much.

Jacksonville Superintendent Vitti summed it up nicely in the Times Union: “Although it is true that we are likely to have one of the highest returns on investment in the country, imagine how much stronger our students would perform if the policy commitments were maintained and balanced with an increase in per pupil funding,” he said. “Fiftieth is completely unacceptable. We can, and must, do better.”

http://jacksonville.com/news/metro/2015-01-08/story/floridas-education-ranking-nosedives-national-quality-counts-ratings

Another problem with these rankings is they can be used to justify anything whether we are ranked fifth or 25^th.

See school choice is working we’re ranked fifth. Or, we don’t have enough school choice so we’re ranked 25^th.

Bush’s reforms are working, we’re ranked fifth. Or, we don’t have enough of Bush’s reforms so we’re ranked 25^th.

Why do we need to pay our teachers more we’re ranked fifth. Or, why should we pay our teachers more we’re ranked 25^th.    

Florida has some wonderful teachers but they can only do so much especially when constantly marginalized, disrespected and blamed and as long as we either ignore poverty or treat it like an excuse we shouldn’t really expect much more than treading water.