Innovations in Teacher Evaluation
Tomorrow, in Sacramento, we’ll be holding a forum titled Innovations in Teacher Evaluation in collaboration with the Los Angeles Unified School District. It promises to be an exciting event and is coming at just the right time with four bills in the state legislature on the teacher evaluation process.
Mayor Villaraigosa will be keynoting the event. And the three presenters are the LAUSD’s teacher effectiveness task force, the College Ready Promise consortium of charter management organizations and the non-profit TAP: The System for Student and Teacher Advancement, in collaboration with Lucia Mar Unified. These fabulous presenters including teachers, will walk through the elements of innovative, multiple-measure teacher evaluation systems being designed and implemented in California to show how these systems work; how they can be used to provide critical supports to teachers and improve student performance; and how state policy can promote these innovative practices for all California teachers and students. The goal here, is to show an audience of policymakers, the great work that’s occurring in California to reform what most of us know is a broken system for both teachers and students.
In a few days, we’ll be posting the Powerpoints from the event along with video. We hope that this will move along the conversation on these reforms in California and make a real difference in the policies that our elected leaders pass to improve the teacher evaluation. There is nothing more important in closing opportunity and acheivement gaps than the quality of the teacher in the classroom and without a robust, mutliple-measure evaluation that’s conducted annually, there’s no way for us to how effective our teachers are or give the feedback they need to improve.
Reading the Report Card
It’s become increasingly acceptable in some circles to say that the problem with California’s education system is the kids and their parents. Our District Report Card confronts that “conventional wisdom” of the status quo directly. It reveals districts that have made remarkable gains for their Latino, African-American and low-income students. It highlights three school systems where demographics are not defined as destiny because of leadership from all levels.
The power of school districts to change the lives of children is often underestimated. There’s a tendency to focus at the school level – on the heroic teacher or principal – defying the odds and bucking the system to do the right thing for their students.
Our dependence on this idealized vision of school improvement has serious flaws. It de-emphasizes the importance of the larger organizational change process of school districts. It ignores the difficult work necessary to use human and financial resources effectively and promote sustainable change at scale. This process requires vision, goal development, planning, implementation, monitoring and accountability. Most of all, it requires leadership.
We know that this is another challenging year for our education system and its leaders. We stand with our entire education community in calling for the funding vital to our students’ future. At the same time, we know that the results of our system have been highly variable in good times and bad. And we also know that some districts have done more with their resources to improve student outcomes than others. At ETW, we hope that district and community leaders will proactively use the information in our Report Card to benchmark their performance and set targets for improvement. The grades in the report and rankings are more than just letters and numbers. They represent countless missed and lost opportunities for millions of students. While applauding progress where it occurs, it is vital to continue to focus attention on where our education system continues to fail and hold it accountable for its results for our children. They are – our most precious resource.
It’s Already Doomsday
The amount of ink that will be spilled over the next few weeks on the “Doomsday Scenario” for the Education budget will be enough to swamp just about any other story. Given that this is the fourth such scenario we will have faced in CA over the last four years, you can imagine why some folks might shrug it off. We’ve been pretty good at raising the stakes to apocalyptic proportions in CA whenever we confront another budget crisis. Now, we hear that the CTA and others will be leading Wisconsin style actions in Sacramento in a couple of weeks – occupying the Capitol and picketing the homes of Republican legislators. This will raise the temperature and should get them a lot of ink. But will produce any results? Seems to me the only ones that Republicans listen to are other Republicans. Or folks with a lot of money. Course the same could be said for some Democrats…
Edging Closer to Education Armageddon
http://toped.svefoundation.org/2011/03/30/california-schools-move-closer-to-doomsday/
So this is what we’ve come to. After three years of budget cuts to the community, medical and educational services and supports critical to our highest need students and families and three years of federal bailouts that have allowed districts to maintain salaries and benefit levels for their most senior employees while cutting spending on the programs vital to their highest need students, we’re supposedly on a crash course to education Armageddon. Please excuse me but as far as I can determine, our poorest students and communities have been getting hammered for years. They didn’t have the education system they deserved in good times and in bad times, they’re the ones who lose out.
The evidence of the imbalance in our system is pretty clear. Nobody in power ever loses their job. No lobbyist ever loses his or her job. Politicos can still attend fancy fundraisers in San Diego. And political strategists still rake in the dollars. Oil companies and polluters make their profits. Wall street bankers make their bonuses. Public employee unions keep their benefits and pension levels. And politicians still think we’ll vote their way on taxes without giving us reform as part of the bargain.
Is it too much to imagine that one day in California, perhaps a generation of leadership from now, that we will be able to put the past twenty-five years of lunacy in the rearview mirror and forge the kind of compromise we need on budgets, on education reform, or anything? Californians aren’t stupid. Our system is.
Last in First Out – Also known as LIFO
Last week, we released a brief titled Victims of the Churn: The Damaging Impact of Seniority-based Layoffs on Students, Schools and Communities. The report shows the negative impact of California’s teacher layoff policies on students in high-poverty schools in three urban school districts. These students were found to bear more than their fair share of the pain when it comes to teacher layoffs, with their schools 65 percent more likely to have a teacher laid off than a low-poverty school. Some high-poverty schools lost more than 15 percent of their teachers.
We’ve been pleased with the response from district leaders and teachers and coverage in the press but have ben saddened by the failure of most of our elected leaders to respond to it with an aggressive push for changes in policy. We know that some of them, even those who represent communities that are disproportionally impacted by these policies, are dependent on the campaign contributions of adult interests who defend these rules. We know that others do not want to irritate the powerful California Teachers Association prior to asking them for money to fund a campaign to pass ballot initiatives to raise more money. We know that courage in the face of Sacramento adult interests with deep pockets and hundreds of campaign workers and long relationships with staffers who haven’t been outside of Sacramento for decades, is difficult. But courage is what our state desperately needs. And courage in our elected leaders is what we most often remember about them. Statues aren’t built for those who press for legislative changes in areas that “every stakeholder” can agree on. Statues are built for those who put themselves and their careers on the line to advocate for the civil rights of students and their parents.
Parent Trigger: A Disturbing Sign from the State Board of Education and SPI
http://toped.svefoundation.org/2011/02/10/parents-dont-weaken-parent-trigger/
If anyone wanted a sign as to the possible direction of the state board of education on policy issues, they got one last week in its vote or non-vote on the parent trigger. It’s already clear who’s been pulling the strings in the background at the Department of Education based on the testimony of our new Superintendent of Public Instruction. He even got a shout-out tweet from union-favorite Diane Ravitch the next day for stomping on the hopes and dreams of parents in Compton But hey – those are just a bunch of parents and “we have to pay attention to the concerns and needs of all stakeholder groups”. Last time I checked, the parents were the customers and when they don’t like a product, like any other customer, they ought to have some rights – particularly when the right we’re talking about here is the right to decide what constitutes a quality education for their child. Now, there are certainly a number of issues that need to be worked out around the parent trigger. It can’t just be a way to turn a public school into a charter. But what you look for from leaders, is a clear intention to do the right thing for students and their parents. And that’s not what we saw or heard from the new State Board and SPI.
Half a Loaf in Governor’s Brown Speech
Walters: Jerry Brown’s plan still faces big hurdles
The tone that Governor Brown has set in the first month of his administration is a welcome change. Over the last six years, we’ve had an awful lot of Hollywood. And that’s great when the economy is booming because two bedroom housesare selling for $800,000 but when the same house is in foreclosure and its former owners are unemployed, Hollywood story-lines are hard to stomach. There’s an austerity to Jerry Brown and his new administration that fits into the reality that many Californians are experiencing. There’s an apparent willingness to face down the cold hard facts of budgets and numbers that’s refreshing. And an apparent unwillingness to “kick the budget can” much farther into the future that’s also refreshing. I’ve always felt when visiting Sacramento that the Capitol was insulated from local pain. It’s nice to see a Governor looking at perks like government cars and asking whether we can afford them. It’s nice to see him downsizing his public relations staff in comparison to the previous resident of the office. There’s an old school puritanical streak to his administration that contrasts very well with the prevailing culture in Sacramento of cigars, suits, steak houses and self-absorption.
The danger, of course, with setting this type of Puritanical tone is going too far. Back in another time, in another great recession, an American President named Carter carried his own briefcase and refused many of the perks of his office. But some folks say suffered politically as a result. People seem to expect a certain level of panache and vision from our leaders. Carter lost to a politician with more panache. And his speech referring to “malaise” gripping our nation was trumped by Reagan’s vision of “morning in America.”
We don’t need Hollywood pipe dreams but we do need a vision of a better future. I think Californians want to be inspired. We are still a state of big, outrageous dreams. We lead the nation in rags to riches stories. We are still a center of innovation. Hope is like sugar. It helps the medicine go down. As Dan Walters says in his article, Brown’s plan faces big hurdles. But with a vision of a better future for CA’s students and parents and a willingness to confront the entrenched education interests in Sacramento, he just might be able to jump over those hurdles with a skeptical public.
Reality-Based Budgeting
A Bold Idea to Stop the Pink-Slip Blizzard
I have to applaud San Diego’s board for thinking out of the box. Four years ago, when a different SDUSD board sent preliminary layoff notices to nearly a thousand certificated staff , I thought the move was penny wise and pound foolish. By that, I mean that the actual harm caused by projecting layoffs based on illusory numbers from the Governor may have satisfied the budget crunchers but was educationally unsound. Based on previous experience, it seemed that many of the cuts would be rescinded and the federal government might come to the rescue. In the end, that’s what happened and most of those notices were rescinded. However, the damage was done – to staff, to students, to schools. I reccomend that San Diego and other boards start to advocate for some fundamental changes in the system. For years, CTA and their partners have supported the March 15 notice even though “real” numbers aren’t available until months later because they like the crisis that it creates. It’s an effective political strategy – and who cares about the harm to less senior teachers. The unions don’t really focus on them anyway. If they did, perhaps they would also advocate for the elimination of seniority-based layoffs.
That’s a thought for San Diego and other district’s in the same boat. Perhaps, they could join LAUSD in their legislative agenda to change many of the crazy rules and regulations that govern the layoff and dismissal processes! Let’s end the last in/first out seniority based process. Let’s put a stop to bumping! How bold would that be!
Only Half the Story from Dr. Kerchner
Kerchner: Imagine teachers as free agents before adopting pay for performance
In an interesting piece of commentary, Dr. Kerchner argues that the push for pay for performance in education might have the same impact as free agency in baseball. He raises the possibility of teachers unions functioning as “agents” for the best teachers, distorting salary schedules and teacher distribution as teachers are lured to the best, most financially rewarding jobs.
His analysis reminded me of a Star Trek episode where the crew is transported into an alternate dimension where everything is the opposite of reality. In the alternate universe, the Stark Trek Enterprise is feared for its brutality and its crew and captain are evil and greedy.
In order for Dr. Kerchner’s analysis to be accurate, we would actually have to live in an alternate universe where school systems recognized teacher talent as a valuable commodity, the primary function of unions was support and create great teachers instead of defending the worst and ensuring that everyone was paid based on seniority.
Currently, we have shortage fields such as math, science and special education where districts, no matter how willing they are to pay extra for high need teachers, can’t do it because of local teacher’s contracts and the blinding intransigence of our statewide teacher’s unions to consider differntial pay for skills (much less pay for talent). As a special education teacher, I used to get recruitment flyers in the mail from other districts who had a shortage of special educators. But the incentives they offered were never all that great.
Teachers with hard to find skills and those who are exceptional at improving student performance should be rewarded to for their work. There are a hell of lot more of them than top tier professors or baseball players. Many of them work wonders in difficult circumstances while the burned out or incompetent teacher down the hall gets paid a lot more because of how many years they’ve been teaching.
That’s the reality of our current system. The scenario Dr. Kerchner describes could only exist in an alternative universe.
2011 – Challenges and Hopes
2011 promises to be an interesting year. Jerry Brown is the Governor. Tom Torlakson is the SPI. There are new members of the education committees in both the Assembly and Senate. There are new players in the education landscape such as the recently established non-profit known as CORE, composed of seven of the more forward thinking, high-profile districts in the state. And there is a giant budget deficit with no prospect of a federal bail out (with Republicans now in charge of the House). In fact, the talk coming from the Republicans is about cutting the education budget, not adding to it.
Brown is expected to propose more cuts to K-12 and higher education when he comes out with his January budget. And with the loss of two years of federal funds to plug holes, a lot of districts will be in deep doo-doo (as a former President used to say).
The Governor is likely to put two options on the table to fix this problem for districts – more categorical flexibility – and a ballot initiative to raise taxes to bolster public education. The question that needs to be asked about both options is this – who benefits from them? If the answer is students, then I’m all for both. But if the answer is the adults that are dependent on school systems serving as glorified jobs programs with terrible results for students, than the answer is no. Categorical flexibility is great when it’s used in districts with leadership focused on improving student performance. But that’s not always the case. More dollars for public education is great if it’s used to help struggling students and retain vital progams. But not if its used to support underfunded pensions or unsustainable salary and benefit levels. The bottom line is dollars for the students first. They are the future of California.
