In her recent State of the State address, Governor Granholm proposed retirement incentives for 39,000 eligible Michigan teachers and school personnel. In theory, once our “old” teachers retire, younger teachers can take their place. Jobs will be created, unemployment rates will decrease and more college graduates will remain in the state.

Those who agree to retire will have their pensions ever-so-slightly boosted. (Those who qualify but refuse to be arm wrestled out of their jobs will be penalized.)

At the same time, President Obama is proposing 50 billion dollars in discretionary funding for education. His focus? Teacher accountability. “Good teachers” (those whose students improve their overall test scores) will be rewarded with merit pay.

So let me get this straight. Michigan would like its experienced teachers – many of whom are merely in their early 50s and in the prime of their careers – to get out of the stinking way. And newer teachers (who, by the way, will not have the benefit of being mentored by the most experienced) have the fantastic opportunity to increase their salaries when their unpredictable students do well on standardized tests.

Well, hot dog!

Yes, I’m well aware that we are experiencing both an economic and educational crisis. However, demanding that teachers retire and offering merit pay based on student performance are both poor solutions.

First, “out with the old, in with the new” is a nice idiom when shopping for new furniture. It is not appropriate when applied to human beings, especially when those same human beings have spent their entire careers educating our kids.

Unfortunately, many believe the stereotype that teachers morph over time into “lounge lizards.”(Kelly Flynn cleverly coined the term in her book, “Kids, Classrooms, and Capitol Hill: A Peek Inside the Walls of America’s Public Schools.”)

Granted, bad teachers exist. Every profession has its loafers. But by its very nature, education demands that teachers keep up-to-date with current trends and strategies. In order to maintain their certificates, teachers never stop learning, growing or adapting.

Suggesting that they no longer have something worthwhile to contribute simply because they’ve accumulated 30 years of experience reeks of ageism.

Second, demanding accountability from our teachers by measuring their worth in student test scores is absurd. Who in their right mind wants to have their compensation dependent on the erratic performance of children?

Anyone? … Anyone?

If we’re going to link a teacher’s salary to student test performance, perhaps it’s time to apply the same principle to other professions.

Doctors’ pay should be determined by the number of patients they actually heal.

Bankers’ pay should be determined by the number of clients they are able to keep out of debt.

Nutritionists’ pay should be dependent on their ability to convince this fast food nation to eat healthily.

And parents should be held to higher standards of parenting. (I would hate to know the percentage of parents who can correctly recite the winners from every season of American Idol, but are unable to name their children’s teachers.)

Most would balk at these suggestions. They would tell me that doctors cannot help the fact that patients fail to follow their advice … that bankers cannot control America’s inclination to spend more than it makes … that nutritionists cannot keep people from fulfilling their drive-through cravings … and that parenting is a private affair. What happens behind closed doors is nobody’s business.

Hmm. Let me think about that.

Eileen Button’s column appears weekly in The Flint Journal. Reacher her by e-mail, buttonhouse@juno.com.

Click here to download the Jan., 2010 District O Board Report. ]]> http://mikkic.com/2010/02/the-january-10-district-o-board-report/feed/ 0 http://mikkic.com/2010/02/government-for-the-people/ http://mikkic.com/2010/02/government-for-the-people/#comments Wed, 10 Feb 2010 18:09:31 +0000 admin http://mikkic.com/?p=344 While we argue about the economy and what is going to fix it, it is the infrastructure of California that crumbles. Most people in our State want reliable roads and water systems, dependable police, fire and public safety/service departments and quality education programs. And while we may debate what constitutes reliable, dependable and quality, one thing is for sure, it takes money to fund any of those things.

At least once a week, we have a new water main break on the news that has undermined a road. Our police and fire department personnel are being slashed at a time when demand for both has been great. And then there are the lines at DMV and other State Offices because of furlough days. Our pre-K through Higher Education system has taken nearly $20 BILLION in cuts over the past few years. Yet, for all of that the debate continues around what more needs to be cut rather than how to restructure our funding bases to continue to provide the Government Services we need, deserve and expect.

Government isn’t the politicians in Sacramento and Washington DC. Government is the people and services of the State. Taxes and Fees are not about salaries for politicians. We pay taxes to provide roads and freeways and for the implementation of security and safety forces like our police officers, prison guards and fire fighters. They built the waterways to bring much needed water to Los Angeles. They provide the funding for our education system. And they were meant to provide salaries for Legislators and Statesmen to help oversee and manage this great country of ours.

At the time Ronald Reagan was Governor of California, this State spent approximately 5.6% of personal income on education each year. We had the best higher education system in the country and we paid for it. In 2005, before these cuts, we spent about 4.4% or just over $15 billion less per year. Now it is down to approximately 3.4% of personal income. In that time, we have demanded much more from our schools but given them less resources to accomplish the goals set forth.

As we look to another budget crisis in California, I think we need to ask ourselves what we are willing to pay for the services we require. It’s time to look beyond what we can cut from the programs we have and figure out how to establish a more stable funding source. That is a function of our Legislature. Let’s hope we have legislators and not politicians working on our crisis this year.

This report is available using the following link:

http://www.lao.ca.gov/laoapp/PubDetails.aspx?id=2193

That begs the question, who is going to teach California’s children in the future?  For years, a future teacher shortage has been predicted because of rising student populations and the large number of impending retirements. With the decline in teacher preparation enrollment, this shortage is sure to be worse.

We can debate the myriad of reasons that this decline has occurred but I would like to put forth three reasons I think we are seeing our young people move away from education as a profession.

1. The Politics of Education

Can you remember the last election in California where there was no education related issue? Education has become the flag that politicians run up the pole every year.  Rather than talking about what we do well and working with educators to capitalize and improve on current practice, our politicians bash teachers and make education look ugly.  What other profession gets so much negative press from people who work in another profession? Everyone who has ever stepped into a school thinks they are an expert on how to teach. With the constant negative focus on teaching, the appeal of this particular public service has been lost.

2. The Financials

College is expensive. After amassing student loans for undergrad, graduate school, certificate and/or continuing education programs, a new teacher goes to work in a profession that pays less than others with similar educational requirements. With the current California budget crisis and resulting education budget cuts, teachers are not even assured they will keep that job.  27,000 teachers were given pink slips last year.  Some were hired back, but many are still looking for employment.

A secure retirement is one of the benefits of public service. California teachers do not contribute to Social Security but to the State Teachers Retirement System. While, the California State Teachers Retirement System is still strong and is weathering the economic crisis, there are currently two initiatives filed attacking our defined benefit system and putting current benefits in danger. With little financial incentive or security, teaching loses out as a career choice to other professions.

3. The Joy of Teaching and Learning

It was said by former CTA President Barbara Kerr and has been repeated oft times since that No Child Left Behind (NCLB) and the testing movement has sucked the joy out of teaching and learning.  When the standards movement began in California, it was a good thing. Teachers knew what the standards were and worked to have California’s students meet those standards.  It is always good to know where you want to go and how you plan to get there. Teachers were able to communicate these standards to students and parents and to hold students accountable through their grades on meeting these standards. With the advent of NCLB, the target moved away from student achievement towards the California State Standards. The focus has moved away from individual student performance to teacher and whole class outcomes on a single test.  This moved education away from creativity and engagement and into a position of rote learning to maximize the testing outcomes on one particular day, on one particular test.  Gone is the “teachable moment” when the students’ interest allowed you to delve into a particular subject with more breadth and depth.  Gone are multiple instructional opportunities to engage learners. Gone is the variety teachers used to turn the light of learning on in students. What has taken its place is scripted learning with an emphasis on being on a certain page in a text book, along with all the other classes in a grade level. Students today are great test takers. They can bubble answers on a test with aplomb. What has been left behind in our rush to “accountability” is music, art, the sciences, social studies, career, technical and vocational education and all the elective offerings that engage students in learning. And with this, we have left behind potential teachers who are choosing other less prescribed careers.

We need an education system that engages students and that prepares students for college and career. Without teachers, we have no doctors or lawyers or scientists or computer programmers. California needs to stop bashing teachers and education and start emphasizing education as a profession.  California deserves a quality public school for every child. That is going to be hard to do if we don’t have teachers in our preparation programs

The moderated WebDialogue will be organized around the four core education reform areas on which the Race to the Top Fund is focused: * Adopting internationally-benchmarked standards and assessments that prepare students for success in college and the workplace; * Recruiting, developing, retaining, and rewarding effective teachers and principals; * Building data systems that measure student success and inform teachers and principals how they can improve their practices; and * Turning around our lowest-performing schools. You can join the dialogue at any time and participate as your schedule allows, but you must register to participate at: http://www.webdialogues.net/rttt. For more information about opportunities to participate in California’s Race to the Top proposal, visit: http://www.caracetothetop.org/. Online dialogues are web-based discussions with a purpose. They enable policy-makers, subject experts, and the public-at-large to discuss issues in a structured web-based environment. They encourage conversation that respects all voices with goals of learning, sharing perspectives, exploring solutions, and weighing tradeoffs inherent in policy issues and practices.

Tom Burbank • Special to The Desert Sun • October 15, 2009

Assemblyman Brian Nestande’s blueprint for education reform (Valley Voice, Sept. 28) is flawed and has the potential for destroying public schools, meaning that education in the future will be reserved only for those who can afford it. Every argument he makes is based on false premises.

Using test results to evaluate teachers is not “necessary.” Parental involvement, public safety and language barriers are not within the control of teachers, so linking test scores and teacher evaluation does not measure what a teacher is doing in the classroom. If you’ve ever said, “I don’t do well on tests” you acknowledge that a single test administered on a given day doesn’t measure what a child has actually learned, in a single year or over a lifetime.

Test scores are not tied to promotion or graduation in any way, so unless a student is intrinsically motivated to perform at a high level, there is no motivation to do so. Excessive testing causes students to fill in bubbles on their answer sheets creating patterns or spelling out words.

Third-grade teachers must spend valuable instructional time teaching students how to fill in bubbles so responses will be recorded accurately. None of these measure student learning, thus cannot be a valid measure of teacher effectiveness.

The “enhanced accountability” model is archaic, deceptive and undemocratic. Successful school models encourage collaboration amongst teachers searching for best practices to increase student learning. Framing principal autocracy as “accountability” would allow teachers to be fired simply for disagreeing or clashing personally with a single supervisor. This would breed a culture of fear amongst teachers, so their focus would be on retaining their jobs instead of doing what’s needed to help children learn.

Charters better?

No evidence currently exists that student achievement is greater in charter schools than non-charter schools. A large-scale study of student data in 16 states completed at Stanford this year found that only 17 percent of charter schools produced academic gains that were significantly better than traditional public schools. Students in 37 percent of charter schools performed worse than their traditional public school counterparts.

In 46 percent of charter schools, there was no significant difference between their students’ achievement gains and those of their demographically similar peers in district-run public schools.

Portraying the relationship between parents of students with special needs and school districts as a “fight over appropriate levels of care” is spurious. School officials patiently and caringly collaborate with parents to establish educational objectives that challenge students while accommodating their needs.

This relationship carries these students out of isolation and into a world where they can not only survive but actually thrive.

Empower teachers

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has called a special legislative session to change California laws in order to compete for federal grants.

If the available money was divided evenly among all the states, California’s share would be about $500,000. Putting that into perspective, it cost $3billion to implement current state educational standards. Worse yet, the governor will be able to spend 50 percent of the money on more bureaucracy instead of decreasing class sizes or rehiring teachers.

True education reform includes multiple measures for both student achievement and teacher evaluation; the use of test scores to measure the progress of the individual student — not the teacher, school or district.

True education reform means overhauling the method used to fund public schools in California, creating ongoing new revenue streams, not relying on funds generated by a statewide lottery we can no longer afford to play.

True education reform means overhauling the budget process that requires two-thirds approval of legislators resulting in a small, vocal minority of special interests holding our students hostage every year.

We must acknowledge that some protections approved by our parents and grandparents with passage of Proposition 13 in 1978 did not accomplish their purpose, and in many cases left gaping loopholes that discriminate against the vast majority of Californians.

We must re-evaluate the concept of term limits, which sacrifice the value of experience, knowledge, and awareness in the name of “new blood.”