A good example of the bad side of market guidededucation reform and how corporately trained thugs are using amoral tactics to drive away great teachers in pursuit of minuscule savings.
A war has been declared on public education and the quote above sums it up. Nothing reveals an effect more than the lives of real people who have been hurt by the misguided ideas of an elite who has used their wealth and power to force their views upon parents, educators, and children. To Broad, Gates, Rhee, Duncan, and the Walton family, we are viewed as sheep that can be easily controlled and manipulated. However, we sheep are real people and many individuals have been hurt. It is time to talk about what happens to real people because of this misguided reform.
A good friend of mine who was a master teacher in midtown Manhattan was a year away from retirement when her principal retired. Under this principal, she became a coach and mentor to many teachers. …
Great points made by Lamar about the voucher program. The audit did not find that most schools were in compliance, merely that most schools could not be effectively audited. Ironically, the only school singled out by White for inappropriate use of funds was one of the only schools to document how they used their funds. I guess the Takeaway message White was trying to send is he doesn’t care what you do with the money he throws at you, just don’t document it, because if you make him look bad, he’ll toss you out. Its a shame he doesn’t care about strength of curriculum, having teachers or physical buildings, just if you document how you use your funds in a semi-transparent way.
Two weeks ago, late on a Friday afternoon, John White, Louisiana’s Superintendent of Education, announced that- as a result of the findings of an independent audit- the New Living Word School in Ruston was being kicked out of the state’s controversial school voucher program. White attempted to put the best possible spin on the story, suggesting that the school’s removal was proof that the Department of Education was committed to accountability. “These findings are evidence that the oversight process is working,” he said, “and that there will be zero tolerance for fiscal mismanagement of taxpayer dollars.”
Superintendent White had an advantage on the media: The audits total 475 pages, and considering that New Living Word had already generated national attention, he likely knew that would be the story. So, the narrative he “muddied up” was simple: If only one of the 117 schools was being forced out of the program for…
Had to try an make this topic at least “look” a little more interesting. . .
If you are a teacher, you know what CCSS is, but for those of you who don’t let me give you a refresher from what I can recall off the top of my head. Forgive me if this is incomplete and feel free to fill in the blanks or correct me.
would like to see the implementation of CCSS delayed,
in particular the attachment of high stakes testing and outcomes.
There seems to be some consensus
(although certainly not universal)
that this process was co-opted by Corporate interests,
that teachers nationwide are currently ill-prepared
to teach these standards,
and that introducing these standards midstream on students
may have discouraging or deleterious effects
(since they will not be phased in starting with lower grades
but introduced all at once,
regardless of whether students have been introduced
to much of the material they are expected to know in the higher grades.
It also seems to be widely accepted and anticipated
that there will be much testing involved
in verifying students are acquiring the skills
the CCSS lords dictate they learn.
This is where our story begins. . .
The amount of testing may be subject to some debate, but the clear intent of developing a Common Core set of standards is for comparability of student achievement across the states. It’s probably pretty hard to compare something, without measuring anything, so I’d say it’s a fairly reasonable guess that there will be much testing involved here. If it is a significant amount it is pretty clear it will cut into instructional time and possibly have a negative impact on student achievement. Testing companies are very excited about promoting these standards, because all this testing will mean big bucks for them. Some of the problems I’ve seen mentioned about the tests developed to date (in a number of articles) are: incorrect answers, multiple correct answers for non-multiple choice tests, and corporate product placement in exam questions such as: (if Tommy drinks an 8 oz. Coca Cola, and then eats 3 Doritos flavored Tacos from Taco Bell before cleaning his hands with some Johnson & Johnson wipes, how much will Pierson earn on the backend for including these products in their testing materials?)
Could the testing be limited to something reasonable and perhaps replace existing tests? Perhaps, but based on all the companies getting into the test prep and evaluation business and looking to market massive data intensive student and teacher evaluation tools like inBloom, Ed-Fi, Amplify, Wireless Generation, and others, the expectation of many vendors and investors is that this will be a enormous money making market going forward.
Non-public schools have adopted, or are planning to adopt CCSS too. Some non-pubs are resisting, but that may be a losing battle if these standards truly become widespread, and “standard” as any tests that might be used to compare their children to public children will eventually be geared towards verifying CCSS mastery, and without being taught this material at the right times. . . well they probably won’t compare very favorably.
For the most part I have only heard negative comments and discourse about CCSS, but admittedly this may be related to the company I keep. 🙂 Some of the criticisms I’ve seen are that the math curriculum is light on the basic memorization of multiplication tables and practice, and heavy on the use of calculators and word problems. I’ve heard the math is very confusing and complex to children who are unprepared for learning this way, and that the math, particularly at the higher grade levels is typically less rigorous than most current math standards. I’ve heard and read that the English curriculum is light on traditional literature, like your Beowulf, Hemingway, and Shakespeare and heavy on the non-fiction technical guides and historical non-fiction, particularly in the higher grades. In Louisiana, many teachers have reported they are currently ill-prepared for CCSS, and that they and their students will be evaluated based on CCSS tests and teacher evaluations. From what I’ve gathered preparation for teachers varies widely by school and school district and may be dependent on local resources and independent research done by teachers.
Here are some stories that have been sent to me:
Teacher of Calculus who helped to develop the math curriculum for the State of Louisiana has seen the Common Core math at the high school level and commented that they did not understand some of the changes made to the bullets. Teacher will never teach the common core math and has decided to retire the year that it will be implemented in their grade level.
Teacher who is the head of the math department at their non-public Louisiana high school went to a common core math workshop two weeks ago. Teacher found it to be not so different than the curriculum used at their school, but definitely inferior.
New teacher in Louisiana who just completed a masters education – taught first grade(Elementary) and quit after their first year of teaching. They said the math consisted of questions and that there was no way that the kids were going to learn math this way – just talking about it.
Parent of student taught (common core math pilot in 4th and 5th grade in non-public school in Louisiana.) It was presented all year long in the form of complicated word problems requiring many different skills. The only problem was the kids were never taught the skills necessary to work the word problems. Lattice multiplication and partial quotient methods were taught in lieu of traditional multiplication and division methods. There is a video of M.J. McDermott illustrating these methods which was exact method student had . One of the word problems they remember that child struggled with in 4th grade was “If you borrowed $250,000,000 from the bank at 4 5/8 % interest, what would be your payment the first month? What would be your payment the 12th month? The next leg of the problem included making a minimum payment of $20,000 per month making it more complicated – I can’t remember exactly how it was worded. Why would they even want kids to think that it is o.k. to borrow large sums of money? It was just bad all the way around.
Similar story this past weekend in Florida – one mom of a 3rd grader said that she could not help her son with his math – in particular their problem was with partial quotients. They believe “elite” private schools not adopting common core.
Now I’ve heard some people claim they actually like CCSS and have implemented it successfully. The idea behind CCSS was developing a single set of rigorous standards that would be universally applied across the United States to make test scores and progress more comparable, to make textbooks more standardized, to retool the curriculum for something more 21st century appropriate, and to properly prepare students for college and career readiness.
How is this working out for you?
When providing an example or story please provide the following information:
Setting (Non-public/public)
State
how long you’ve employed or implemented stats
grade level taught
subject
You may choose to provide more information than this such as your name, school name, etc, but be aware that this is a public forum and there should b e no expectation of privacy. If you have a superintendent and/or principal particularly gung-ho on CCSS, and you post something negative, there’s a good chance that will get back to them.
Feel free to post both positive or negative information, but please maintain a civil discourse. I know this may seem like an absurd request coming from me, but every once in a while I like to moderate a civil discussion so people can feel free to express their feelings to investigate and understand a topic more thoroughly. I am not a teacher, nor are many of my readers, but many of us know teachers, parents or students so this should all be of some concern to some of us on some level. I’d like to understand, and for my readers to understand, if there is a problem or problems, or if despite the dubious way this curriculum was conceived, it might turn out to be a net plus if properly resourced, applied and addressed.
Some of you may have seen some articles and letters to the editor lately relating to TFA (Teach For America Contracts) To help bring clarity to this issue I have submitted some FOIA (Freedom of Information Act) requests to the Louisiana Department of Education. I believe the questions many people are asking is if TFA has an undue influence on contract issuing, bidding and approval. Before anyone gets the idea in their head that I am anti-TFA people, let me reassure you that I am not. Many of the folks that enter the TFA program are some of the finest people you will ever meet in your life, and I’d say the majority honestly care about doing good, saving students and saving the world through their contributions to society. Those are very admirable goals, and ones I feel I’ve come to share. My wife is a former TFA corps member, and I truly believe knowing her has made me a better, and more caring and empathetic person. Her passion for making the world a better place and her kind heart were some of the qualities that drew me to her. So when I say things about TFA, I do not mean any disrespect for the individual corps members, although I certainly understand where they might be offended. I am referring to the organization in its current form, and how it has come to do “business” how it has matured over the years, rather than how I believe it was originally conceived.
Many of you have seen me say rather unkind things about LDOE, where I used to work with many great and fine people. I have pointed out before, that when I speak or refer negatively about LDOE, I am not referring to most of my colleagues or the previous incarnation of LDOE I worked in, but the usurpers such as John White and his underlings that have invaded and purged the LDOE of its original mission and personnel, reincarnating it as dysfunctional dystopian private agency stuffed to the brim with overpaid inexperienced lackeys that do his bidding, rather than what’s best for Louisiana and its children. (Defending voucher schools teaching students without teachers from DVDs in a gymnasium was a horrible an idea as it sounds and even John White finally agrees, at least a year too late for hundreds of children and hundreds of thousands of taxpayer funds.)
Even some of our finest and most esteemed institutions, such as the Catholic Church, have their Saints and their Satan’s – in the form of predatory pedophile priests that impersonate our pastors while preying on our young. For too long the Catholic Church protected these predators, to their ultimate detriment. Great harm befell many children who became tragically scarred adults. Protecting false prophets of education like John White will have a similar impact on TFA, jeopardizing their mission and bringing scorn to many fine young adults who entered this program to make a difference.
Now perhaps everything John White and his circle of friends is doing is fine and above board, but considering his previous record (on just about everything), it seems highly unlikely.
From middle Left to bottom left we have Wendy Kopp, National Head (CEO)of TFA (although she is moving on to form/lead an international version now), John White Louisiana Superintendent of Education, Hanna Dietsch Assistant Superintendent of Talent and Acquisition (and I believe in charge of COMPASS and VAM), Michael Tipton Executive Director for Teach for America in Louisiana, Kira Orange Jones Executive Director for Teach for America in the New Orleans area and also the BESE member representing this area on the state Board of Education.
While the ethics commission did okay Kira Orange Jones to serve on BESE while remaining an active director of TFA, and approving TFA contracts, that are submitted by TFA executives in the TFA lifecycle, it’s not clear the commission understood the complete relationship Kira has with the folks submitting the contracts, nor did they give her a blank check to vote on any measure under any circumstance. For instance, did they realize other TFA folks were creating a need for the contracts by driving out qualified teachers with VAM results that have been documented as being manipulated for at least political/personal gain (as was the case in the Seabaugh Solution situation) but may there have been a monetary incentive as well? I wasn’t sure about the monetary connection until I heard the details on this latest BESE contract that sparked such controversy. Before I get angry comments telling me about how Mrs. Jones recused herself from voting on this particular TFA contract, I’d like to remind my readers it’s easy to bench your starters when the game score and outcome is already decided before it’s started. What will be interesting to see is if Jones continues to recuse herself if board membership became less lopsided than the 9/2 decisions we see on almost every agenda item, or the 8/2 decisions when Jones recuses herself.
However, as bad as this seems, if the services being provided and amounts being charged were reasonable, and competitively bid, then I would have much less of a problem. However take a look at this contract that recently created a controversy at the June 18th BESE meeting between Lottie Beebe and John White and has been covered vaguely in the Advocate. This is an amendment to a previous no-bid TFA contract for “recruitment” services. The amount of the amendment is $820,000 to recruit up to 25 TFA teachers for New Orleans. If you’re doing the math that comes to 32,800 dollars per recruit assuming they place 25 recruits. This is not the full contract but I see nothing to indicate if this contract will be adjusted on a prorate basis, or if TFA only manages to recruit 1 teacher they still get the 820,000 dollars. My understanding is this is in addition to the placement fee of up to 5,000 dollars each school district much pay to employ a TFA teacher. That would make the total recruitment cost 37,800 dollars per teacher. We have approximately 47,000 teachers in Louisiana. Michael Tipton, executive director for TFA’s in Louisiana, has reported as many as 525, or 1%, are TFA recruits. If you multiply the 37,800 dollars by 525 the fees TFA may be raking in off of their “placement” services we now need under John White comes to close to 20 million. Most TFA recruits only stay 2 years, and according to this contract, even though we paid 320k to recruit 23 teachers last year, some of that 820,000 is needed to “guarantee” they stay recruited. After all, it would be a shame if something happened to all our TFA teachers in these high risk areas, right? Approximately 400,000 per 25 teachers per year seems to cover the bill, or 800,000 for 2 years to keep those previously placed teachers stay “placed.”
Below is a text extract of the contract: It is a public record and you can find it with the directions I’ve enclosed. I have no idea how many more “recruitment” contracts DOE has with TFA, but I’m sure this isn’t the only one.
Research or pilot programs designed to improve elementary or secondary student
academic achievement.
Contract Information:
Contact Person: Nash Crews
Contact Person Telephone #: 504.373.6200
Section/Office: Achievement
Competitive/S. Source
Non-Competitive / Education
Program Specialist
Purpose:
To recruit and place up to 25 first-year state and federally qualified teachers and retaining 23 second-year teachers
in RSD schools through the 2013-14 school year.
Departmental Goal:
Placement of qualified individuals in teaching positions at RSD schools in order to ensure that each student in the
Recovery School District is being taught by a qualified, driven, and engaging teacher.
Description:
Contractor will recruit and select for placement 25 first-year teachers meeting all state and federal legal requirements for
teaching the content areas and grade levels as needed by the RSD (high needs subject areas) and satisfy current
federal and state requirements for “highly qualified” teacher status. This contract will also allow for the retention of 23
second-year teachers through the 2013-14 school year.
Justifications:
Contractor will assist the Recovery School District in teacher recruitment and placement for normally hard-to-fill teacher
vacancies in RSD schools.
Impacted:
RSD students, school staff, RSD Achievement Dept.
Does the contract assist in complying with state and/or federal regulation or laws?
Yes – aligns the RSD with BESE funding guidelines in accordance with 8(g).
So with the implementation of COMPASS and VAM our local school districts will be forced to fire as many as 10% of our teachers, after 2 years of ineffective ratings. These teacher evaluations are based on curves, so the lowest 10% are ineffective, by definition. I wonder where we will get so many new teachers, as many as 10% more every year? I have 200 million reasons to think the TFA will be more than happy to help us out there, and every year. Since most TFA recruits only stay 2 years as teachers, every 2 years they will need replacing, and the lowest 10% of teachers will come from the remaining educators. Under this arrangement TFA could grab as much as 25% marketshare in our teaching corps. I wonder what they will demand we pay then when most of our original teachers are driven off replaced with a perpetual temp teaching force?
I haven’t gotten a response yet except to say they will notify me when they manage to locate my records. I promised to publish what I asked for so they couldn’t claim they haven’t seen it at the next BESE meeting. John White has made it a habit of promising everyone that he will provide documentation while the cameras are rolling, but promptly forgets everyone again when he leaves the room until the next meeting. He’s hoping we will stop asking and take the hint that he’s not telling, but perhaps you can ask him to?
Here is the text of my FOIA:
Pursuant to the Public Records Act of Louisiana, R.S. 44:1 et seq., I respectfully request the following information:
Please provide a copy of the detailed contract between TFA (Teach For America) and RSD referred to and voted upon at the June 18th 2013 BESE meeting for 1.2 million dollars that was amended from a previous contract of approximately 380 thousand dollars that included an 820k amendment for recruitment of 25 teachers. (I believe this contract was summarized and listed in contracts over 50k, item 6.4 of the BESE Finance agenda.)
Please provide details on any contracts or incentivization packages offered or provided to top graduates in any Louisiana State university teaching programs since January 1st, 2012 and any correspondence with University Deans of education related to recruiting top candidates. (An answer of no such documentation exists is an acceptable answer.)
Please provide any contracts between TFA (Teach For America) and the Louisiana Department of Education, or any contracts between TFA and RSD (the Recovery School district) that were signed on or after January 1st, 2012 or existing contracts that were amended after 1/1/2012.
Please provide any documentation, contracts, or salary schedules, about signing bonuses school districts must pay to recruit TFA teachers which I am told can range from 3000 – 5000 dollars.
Please provide a list of all LDOE, RSD, or BESE department staff, their titles, dates of hire, and salaries that submitted SF10’s or resume’s citing TFA experience, or any staff members known to have previously been affiliated with TFA in any capacity.
Crazy Crawfish 