They Are Not Waiting to be Told What to Do!

Betsy DeVos got off on the wrong foot with public school teachers, as any fool could have expected.

DeVos criticized teachers at D.C. school she visited — and they are not having it

The Washington Post

Emma Brown 

© AP Photo/Molly Riley Education Secretary Betsy DeVos addresses the department staff at the Department of Education on Wednesday, Feb. 8, 2017 in Washington.

 

Newly minted Education Secretary Betsy DeVos had a hard time getting inside the District’s Jefferson Middle School Academy last week when protesters briefly blocked her from entering. But at the end of her visit — her first to a public school since taking office — she stood on Jefferson’s front steps and pronounced it “awesome.”A few days later, she seemed less enamored. The teachers at Jefferson were sincere, genuine and dedicated, she said, they seemed to be in “receive mode.”

“They’re waiting to be told what they have to do, and that’s not going to bring success to an individual child,” DeVos told a columnist for the conservative online publication Townhall. “You have to have teachers who are empowered to facilitate great teaching.”

DeVos, who has no professional experience in public education, is an avowed proponent of voucher schools, charter schools, online schools and other alternatives to traditional public schools. Teachers across the country have been galled by what they see as her lack of faith in — and understanding of — the public schools that educate nearly nine in 10 of the nation’s children.

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The Core is Common

You’ve got to love Rashaun James!

Test Scores Under Common Core Show That ‘Proficient’ Varies by State

By MOTOKO RICHOCT

OCT. 6, 2015

Rashaun James and students in her seventh-grade English class at Berwick Alternative K-8 in Columbus, Ohio. She uses Common Core principles in her classes. Credit Andrew Spear for The New York Times

COLUMBUS, Ohio — Ohio seems to have taken a page from Lake Wobegon, where all the children are above average.

Last month, state officials releasing an early batch of test scores declared that two-thirds of students at most grade levels were proficient on reading and math tests given last spring under the new Common Core requirements.

Yet similar scores on the same tests meant something quite different in Illinois, where education officials said only about a third of students were on track. And in Massachusetts, typically one of the strongest academic performers, the state said about half of the students who took the same tests as Ohio’s children met expectations.

It all came down to the different labels each state used to describe the exact same scores on the same tests.

SNIP

New laws requiring that teacher evaluations be based partly on student test scores further stoked anxieties, and a growing number of parents, balking at what they view as an oppressive testing culture, have opted their children out of standardized tests altogether. In over 40 districts throughout Ohio, more than 5 percent of students opted out of tests last spring, said Michael Evans and Andrew Saultz, professors of education at Miami University.

SNIP

“There will always be a crime scene in my classroom.”

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Uh-Oh! It’s not like we didn’t know….

It’s not about the standards.  It’s about the assessments.  Scoring is only one issue.  How the scores are used is another.  I think we all know that there are plans to evaluate teachers and whole schools based on these scores.

Grading the Common Core: No Teaching Experience Required

By MOTOKO RICHJUNE 22, 2015

Photo

Rose Rodriguez-Rabin, left, and Valerie Gomm scored Common Core exams at an office in San Antonio. Ms. Rodriguez-Rabin has worked for the testing company Pearson on various projects since 2009. Ms. Gomm described the scoring process as challenging, saying that “you go into analyzing every trait.” Credit Ilana Panich-Linsman for The New York Times

SAN ANTONIO — The new academic standards known as the Common Core emphasize critical thinking, complex problem-solving and writing skills, and put less stock in rote learning and memorization. So the standardized tests given in most states this year required fewer multiple choice questions and far more writing on topics like this one posed to elementary school students: Read a passage from a novel written in the first person, and a poem written in the third person, and describe how the poem might change if it were written in the first person.

But the results are not necessarily judged by teachers.

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Christie Reduces Impact of Test Scores on Teacher Evaluations

S.J. educators applaud Christie move to phase in teacher evaluations

Phil Dunn, Courier-Post  July 16, 2014

Gov. Chris Christie signed an executive order Monday that allows districts to gradually phase in results of new standardized tests to judge the performance of New Jersey’s teachers.

Glassboro School Board President Peter J. Calvo believes that’s the right approach for New Jersey’s 1.4 million students and 120,000 teachers.

“We love our children ‘to the moon and back’ and don’t want to leave them stranded or falsely blame teachers for bugs that may be realized in the first couple of years of implementing these new test instruments,” Calvo said.

If Christie had done nothing, the new evaluation system would have gone into full effect in September. But his order made it possible to slow implementation of the new test, developed by the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness of College and Careers (PARCC).

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Another Professional Day of Frustration – iPad Included

My “partner in crime,”  Lynn, posted this on Facebook,  and I thought it deserved wider circulation.  Your “Race To The Top”  tax dollars at work.

A Day of Professional Development…or Professional Discouragement?

Yesterday, I attended a day of Professional Development offered by our local BOCES Center. The title “Math and Technology Integration” sounded fairly benign, and I agreed to attend when asked by my Principal if I would be interested. The day long “training” also included some prizes – an iPad and an iPevo document camera for each participant. Needless to say, in a rural cash-strapped district, an opportunity to get some new technology into the building is met with great excitement, and since we already pay for the COSER, it makes sense for us to send our maximum of three people.

I was actually quite pleased that we were being given time to explore and learn about the technology. The three of us talked about how these things could be used in our school, with our students. But then, the other shoe dropped.

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While I believe the best teachers do script their lessons and eschew improvisation (best sign of lazy or no planning), I think they are also mindful that knowing their students and involving their life experiences in the lesson material is the best way to keep students engaged.  Scripts about fictional characters manufactured by (government granted) consortia do not make the best “hook.” I thought we had learned that lesson from the ALM materials of the 60s. “Bonjour, Isabelle. Comment allez-vous?” Remember that, anyone? Plus ça change, plus c’est la meme chose.