Superintendent Vitti, let data decide if Teach for America expands or not!

This is the response I gave to Superintendent Vitti about Teach for America, -cpg

First thanks for getting back to me as ever you have a rationale well thought out position and I completely agree with you that TFA does have a role to play, I think where we differ is what place in line they should be.

You are right the teaching profession has greatly changed over the last ten years or so, fewer and fewer people enter the field with plans of being there a life time. I also think if the powers-that-be continues their campaign against teachers, getting rid of tenure, attacks on the pension, merit pay, evaluations based on high stakes tests etc. then we are going to need a lot more than the hundred or so TFA recruits that the district plans to bring in annually.

However I know you are a data driven decider so I would like you to think about these numbers, numbers I got from the district last year.

Only 4 of the first group of 51 TFA teachers stayed for 4 years, that’s 8%.

Then only 10 of the next group of 41 stayed 3 years. That is less than 25%.

Of the fist 91 teach for America teachers to come to Jacksonville only 14 stayed past their two year commitment. That’s about 16%

http://jacksonville.com/opinion/letters-readers/2012-04-17/story/con-too-few-teach-america-teachers-remain-system#ixzz2SSuanMRD

I have asked Masha Oliver for updated numbers and she has said she will get back to me but as you can plainly see those numbers are abysmal. 

Then Trey Czar on the radio program First Coast Connect said first and second year teachers struggle and often have poor classroom management. Well when we put a TFA recruit in a classroom we assure that classroom will have a revolving door of teachers who will most likely struggle.

I also worry about the amount and expense of training that goes into TFA teachers who will never use it. I had more training that required subs during my first two years than in the next 5 combined. Then TFA has negative ramifications on teacher pay, the cost of benefits and the future of pensions.

Finally the whole notion of TFA is insulting to many veteran teachers and myself. It says anybody can do my job regardless of experience and training and that’s not true.  It turns my job from a profession into an extended summer gig for recent college grads.

As I said TFA does have a role to play but in every instance I sincerely believe and the data I believe backs me up, the district should strive to put teachers who may spend a lifetime teaching in our classes. Only when we have exhausted all other routes should we turn to TFA for help. That 11 million dollars would be so much better spent recruiting veteran teachers from the surrounding communities and top graduates from the states colleges of education unless like Jeb Bush believes you think they should all be blown up.

All I ask the district and you to do is to look at the data before making the decision to expand the program. Our resources are already spread so thin.

You might want to check this out too.

http://studentslast.blogspot.com/2013/05/top-ten-reasons-i-joined-teach-for.html?showComment=1368384693425#c1456101220366101441

Again thanks for writing me back. Have a great day

Chris Guerrieri

Top ten reasons why people join Teach for America

From Students Last

Kai Merikal, a twenty-two-year-old from Wisconsin, will be teaching fourth graders in Newark, New Jersey beginning in September. Below she shares her reasons for joining Teach for America.

10.  I didn't get into law school... yet.
  9.  I want to be sainted.
  8.  I believe that if teachers just expect their students to learn, they will.
  7.  How hard could teaching really be?
  6.  Because I'm blind to the long-term consequences of my actions.
  5.  My other temp job didn't offer health insurance.
  4.  I ran out of things to blog about.
  3.  Two TFA years qualify me to head up just about any school district that education reformers
       can get their hands on.
  2.  It's the only way I could get TFA recruiters to stop calling and emailing me.
  1.  The kids I'm going to teach are already so screwed up, how much harm can having
       an untrained teacher do?

http://studentslast.blogspot.com/2013/05/top-ten-reasons-i-joined-teach-for.html?showComment=1368384693425#c1456101220366101441

Jesus would have been rated ineffective by the CAST

How do people support Republicans in Florida’s state government again?

First let me say, something like 12 in the house and 7 in the senate went against their party bosses to vote against the parent trigger. I also know there have been good republicans in the Florida Legislature, Legg, Dockery, King and Weinstein quickly come to mind. The problem however is that there are enough bottom feeders whose sole purpose is to generate profits for themselves, friends and associates that the entire party should be held suspect and since this is the case it is maddening that Florida’s citizens keep voting for them.

The latest two are senators Eric Fresen and Anitere Flores. Read only on an empty stomach. –cpg

From the Tampa Times, By Michael LaForgia and Kathleen McGrory

As the legislative session neared an end this month, state Rep. Erik Fresen found himself in an awkward position.
Just last year, Fresen helped keep a torrent of public money flowing to private tutoring firms.

But after revelations of fraud and lax oversight turned the program into a black eye for education reform, his new orders from House leadership were clear: End subsidized tutoring, and do it now.

A friendly face from the upper chamber, Flores had much in common with Fresen. Both are Republicans from Miami. And both had backed subsidized tutoring without disclosing ties to the industry.

At stake: $100 million in federal education money — cash that could, depending on how things played out, remain committed to private tutoring or be freed up for districts to spend as they liked.

As the session entered its final week, it was far from certain where the money would go.

• • •

A year earlier, tutoring's fate was equally undecided — until Fresen stepped in.

In the last days of the 2012 session, records show, Fresen added subsidized tutoring to an essential education bill that came out of his subcommittee. It led to a compromise negotiated by Sen. Bill Montford, D-Tallahassee. Private tutoring firms would again get a cut of the money.

Fresen voted for the proposal, but records show he didn't disclose ties to the tutoring industry.

In 1998, Fresen's brother-in-law, Fernando Zulueta, and sister, Magdalena Fresen, started a charter school firm that now doubles as a subsidized tutoring provider.

Last year, the business, Mater Academy Inc., won $380,000 in tutoring contracts from Miami-Dade and Broward counties.

In an interview with the Times/Herald on Wednesday, Fresen downplayed his role in securing funding for the industry in 2012. He said he simply was following his committee's plan when he amended a bill to include money for subsidized tutoring.

Fresen said he saw no need to disclose his family connection because his sister and brother-in-law's firm no longer controlled the charter school they founded more than a decade ago. Instead they were managing it on a contract basis, he said.

The school's independent board, he said, made its own decision to become a tutoring vendor, just as it made the decision to hire his family's management company.

He added that the only reason the school began tutoring "is because they were being forced to hire fly-by-night providers. At no point was it a profit-maker for Mater."

He said the school opposed subsidized tutoring and would shut down its tutoring arm as soon as the program died.

Flores, too, voted for the proposal last year but didn't disclose a connection: She works as CEO of Doral College Inc., a nonprofit charter school and private college company founded in 2001 — by Zulueta and Magdalena Fresen. And, like Mater, Doral too is now run by Zulueta's management company.

The board that hired Flores in 2011 included business associates of Zulueta's. It now includes at least one person who has lobbied for him.

In a statement to the Times/Herald, Flores defended her record on subsidized tutoring, saying she supports it because it helps impoverished, minority children.

"To imply that the reason for my support is in any way connected to my employment is ridiculous and baseless," Flores said in the statement. "This is an issue that has been important to me since I was first elected because it directly affects the children in my district."

Trouble for tutoring

When the bill passed last year, it marked a hard-won victory in a nationwide campaign by the tutoring industry to keep the tax dollars flowing.

Then something unexpected happened.

In a series of stories published in February, the Tampa Bay Times showed that the poorly regulated program had paid criminals to run tutoring firms. It also allowed operators accused of fraud to continue doing business with districts, the Times reported.

The stories galvanized leaders of Florida school districts, who long had viewed the mandated funding as an unwelcome intrusion.

With the next session approaching, they readied for the biggest fight yet over subsidized tutoring.

First blow, stalemate

It started quietly, gaining momentum as April turned into May.

School districts landed the first blow when Rep. Kathleen Passidomo, R-Naples, added an amendment to an education bill that would make tutoring optional.

But the move got no traction in the Senate, and it created an opening to push the fight into the budgeting process. There, the matter could be hashed out in private, between a Senate committee headed by Bill Galvano, R-Bradenton, and a House committee headed by Fresen.

More wrangling ensued. The Senate, urged on by Flores, pushed to keep requirements to fund tutoring. Fresen took up the House position to do away with them.

A week later, when lawmakers emerged from the series of closed-door budget meetings, they still hadn't reached a deal.

Less than a week remained before the end of the session.

Dramatic finish

The fight over tutoring ended four days later, in a dramatic showdown on the Senate floor.

In a move that closely mirrored Fresen's from the year before, Flores proposed adding subsidized tutoring to an unrelated virtual education bill. It was a priority for House Speaker Will Weatherford and a bill that was almost certain to pass.

Then, after questions from a Times/Herald reporter, Flores withdrew the proposal. Another Miami-Dade Republican, Sen. Rene Garcia of Hialeah, offered an identical amendment in her place.

The Senate's sponsor for the virtual education bill, Sen. Jeff Brandes, R-St. Petersburg, said later that the flurry of amendments caught him off guard.

"What was going through my head was, 'This is a heck of a thing to be putting on a bill at its second or third reading. This is obviously something that should be vetted by a committee,' " Brandes said.

For the next several minutes, Garcia, Flores and Sen. Dwight Bullard, D-Cutler Bay, took turns defending the language, which called for about $80 million in federal education money for private tutoring firms.

"At the end of the day, the ones who benefit from this are the minority students," Garcia said.

But this time, the Senate turned on tutoring.

Montford, who had brokered the tutoring deal last year, led the charge.

"What's happening this year, we are having students who are not being served because I was a part last year of the compromise," Montford said. "And I can't stand here today and vote for something, and feel tomorrow like I do today."

Minutes later, they put it to a voice vote.

The amendment, and an industry's hopes for the coming year, died in a chorus of nos.

When it was over, Fresen said, he felt like the Legislature had made the right decision.

After all, subsidized tutoring "was like the wild, wild West," he said, and it was time somebody stepped in and restored order.

http://www.tampabay.com/news/education/k12/lawmakers-battle-behind-the-scenes-for-tutoring-money/2120446

Senate President Done Geatz, good job Florida (sic)

I have to be honest I didn’t realize that Geatz made all his money in for profit hospice care. I didn’t even know there was such a thing as for profit hospice care. I was ignorant to the fact that people profited off people as they lay dying.

My mother was in hospice her last few weeks and it makes me sick to think her death may have paid for some executive’s golf clubs.

It turns out Geatz not only profited off the suffering and death of untold Floridians but he may have broken the law while doing so. Something Rick Scott’s health care company was fined over a billion dollars doing.

This is what passes for leadership here in Florida, self-serving individuals looking to make a buck off the people.

What does this have to do with education? Well first this ghoul was partly in charge of the disastrous education  agenda over the last few years and it is the same thing with on-line and testing education companies, vouchers, and charter schools,  those aren't in place to help our kids and improve education  they are their so self serving people can make a buck off the people.

Good job Floirda, I am the opposite of proud.

http://www.miamiherald.com/2013/05/09/3388766/florida-senate-presidents-former.html

Why tax dollars should not follow the student, or,. why vouchers and charter schools don't get the job done.

Motivating teachers through fear and reprisal does not work

By John Louis Meeks, Jr.

Thanks to CAST, the teachers are increasingly afraid of their pupils.

With apologies to Morrissey, who wrote a similarly titled song, I must point out how the teacher evaluation system in place is judging teachers based on student behaviors that are typical for their age, but can torpedo a teacher's evaluation score.

For example, I used to frequently doodle in class when I was a student.  I was paying attention, but I preferred to pass the time by making little drawings to pass the time.  Today, this would be evidence that my teacher failed to control my behavior.  What should my teacher have done?  Should he have intercepted my notes and demanded that I conform to the mandated student behavior?

When the observation day comes, teachers try to control every aspect of their lesson and their class, but end up falling prey to the feedback from administrators that focuses on the minor details that put the entire class in a negative light.  

"Mr. Smith, you gave a nice lesson but you failed to notice that a student was twiddling her thumbs.  This is proof that you did not engage that student in learning," goes the typical refrain.

And we wonder why we are creating a system in which we have teachers who are neurotic and insecure about their work.  The result in my opinion, is an increase in teachers who are demanding that students stop acting like students and that students become props in putting on shows that are designed to impress the adults in the room.

This is shameful because even the most eagle-eyed teacher cannot be expected to force children to become silent and still lambs who fit easily into a Stepford classroom filled with children who can be forced into perfect little learners who are devoid of any human element.

There, of course, is a price for many teachers who are literally begging their students to tow the line for administrators.  I know of quite a few teachers who ply their students with incentives (pizza, doughnuts, etc.) for making them look good for the folks with clipboards.  Yes, this is bribery, but it seems to be part of the game.  Others deliberately choose their 'best' classes for observation days with the hopes of limiting the potential damage of an observation.  

This supposedly foolproof observation and evaluation system is already being gamed for better results and we are fooling ourselves if we believe that it cannot be somehow manipulated to avoid failing marks.

The most frustrating aspect of this system, in my opinion, is that a teacher can have the entire class on the reservation, except for one or two who are not 'engaged.'  Those one or two students are the ones who receive the most attention from observers and are the ones who end up defining an entire class period.  It makes me wonder why teachers even bother to plan a decent lesson if their efforts are going to be discarded because CAST is training administrators to deliberately seek out ways that the teacher is not doing his or her job.

The most unintended consequence of the CAST evaluation system is that we are bringing out the aspects of teaching that made education a chore for students.  Ask any average layperson about their experience in school and they would quickly point out that public education is notorious for its treatment of students as mere parts of a larger machine.  The education establishment, however, fails to see the folly in this and continues to value collective conformity among students as a cherished virtue.  This is detrimental because every class is doomed to becoming a clinical clone of other classes for the sake of putting up the appearance of learning.

And what do we make of teaching and learning that is not part of the do-or-die CAST rubric?  Nothing.  I look back to earlier in my career when I was teaching U.S. history and encountered a student who wanted to learn about history beyond the learning schedule.  I crafted an independent study for her in which we discussed the turbulent year of 1968 and focused on the events leading up to the Democratic National Convention in Chicago.  It was a highly instructive experience as we compared the political process of the late 1960s with the coming election year.  The result was a student who felt connected with learning and who eventually attended and graduated from Rutgers University.  Yes, I know I am a chronic failure as a teacher because I failed to document her reading scores and failed to pin data to a spreadsheet that made numbers dance across the computer screen.  Did I make a connection through encouraging learning?  Yes.  Did I manage to color between the lines?  No.

And, until we improve the way we evaluate our teachers, we will keep committing the grievous sin of using fear as the best motivator for teachers and we will continue to remove any real joy for teaching as the elements of teaching are reduced to being petty supervisors who are increasingly afraid of their charges acting their age.

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Why are Bill Gates and Rupert Murdoch really interested in Education?

https://www.inbloom.org/sites/default/files/docs-developer-1.0.68-20130118/ch-data_model-

Teacher appreciation week comes to an end, did Obama even notice it happened.

Probably not as he declared this charter school week.

A Charter School Teacher wrote into the Diane Ravitch blog and this is what she said about all that appreciation she was getting.

“I’ve been an educator in Columbus, Ohio since university. In my 8th year, I currently earn 34,000 before taxes at a 9-12 charter school. I can be fired at any time. I have no tenure, no union, and scarce resources to teach. I also act as a librarian, though I wear no such title nor do I earn pay for wearing this hat. Students come in and depart through a revolving door of enrollment procedures I am not privy to. I’ve seen two administrators at two different charter schools resign because they were stealing. One continues his work at another charter in the city. My family needs the money I earn, so I must teach, but I just pray a public school gives me a chance.”

This is what Diane Ravith had to say.

Bear in mind that almost 90% of charters are non-union, that charters may fire teachers at will, that charter teachers do not have tenure, that many charters are known for high teacher turnover due to the stress of longer school days, and that many do not hire certified teachers. In some states, like Ohio, charter teachers earn half as much as public school teachers, because the charter teachers are typically younger and less experienced.

Mr. President it would have been better had you kept silent and let teachers think you were a douche with terrible education policies and a palpable disrespect for teachers rather than to make your idiotic proclamation and confirm it.

Thanks for nothing.

How many years in prison should Jeb Bush get?

How many years in prison should Jeb Bush get?

Pennsylvania judge Mark Ciavarella Jr was sentenced to 28 years in prison for conspiring with private prisons to sentence children to maximum sentences in return for bribes and kickbacks, which totaled millions of dollars. Ciavarella used his public position to trade the lives and futures of children for 30 pieces of silver.

What does this have to do with Jeb Bush? Well isn’t Bush doing the same thing? Isn’t he ruining kids futures to make a buck?

Think about it, charter school operators, virtual school operators, testing companies and voucher proponents, all privateers of public education, fund his foundation. He is making money off of them so they in turn can make money off our children. His brother Neil Bush made lots of money already.

Jeb Bush conspiring with private education concerns has sentenced many children to a mediocre education and a tenuous future at best. This guy in Pennsylvania got 28 years for basically doing the same thing.  

How many years should Jeb Bush get?