Santa Fe/ Superintendent Joel Boyd Takes Hot Seat at 1st of 9 Community Forums
By Robert Nott
The New Mexican
September 11, 2012
Acknowledging that he doesn't yet have all the answers to problems facing Santa Fe Public Schools, new Superintendent Joel Boyd took questions Tuesday on an array of education topics during the first of nine planned community forums.
Tuesday evening's event, held in the library at Capshaw Middle School, drew some 50 people, about half of whom were district personnel. While he gave specific answers to detailed questions and broader responses to broad inquiries, the very fact that Boyd responded quickly to each query seemed to please the crowd.
He took questions on:
- improving student achievement,
- dealing with overcrowded classrooms,
- holding principals accountable,
- building district/community relations,
- balancing college and career readiness programs and
- addressing the district's large Spanish-speaking populace (the forum benefited from having a dual-language translator on hand).
The forums are part of Boyd's 100-day entry plan to compile data, see what is and is not working within the district, and come up with an action plan to improve student proficiency and ensure quality teaching, among other measures. He said he plans to release a 100-day report with specific findings and ideas around Dec. 1.
During the forum, Boyd reiterated some points he's already made regarding his desire to give successful schools more autonomy and struggling schools more direct guidance and extra resources. Ideally, he said, teachers and students can convey what they need to learn at each grade level so the district can let schools better design curriculum to fit those kids' needs.
He said the district plans to unveil a plan to hold its principals accountable at the next school board meeting, slated for Tuesday, Sept. 18. "We have to make some hard decisions that this district has not been making, judging [principals] on performance rather than personality," he said.
Changing the teacher-evaluation system, he said, will take more time and require patience as the state's districts wait to see what the Public Education Department has planned.
When a retired educator told Boyd she is concerned that the district is focusing on preparing its students for college rather than for a trade, Boyd said, "College readiness does not mean you have to go to college," and said the district will work to offer students a portfolio of choices when it comes to their post-public school lives.
A mother said her mentally challenged child is not being helped by the punitive, rather than positive, responses from educators in one of the district's elementary schools. "We're not doing a very good job of educating children like yours," Boyd told her. "We owe you better. ... I don't know if there is anything we can do better now, but we are listening."
He said a generation ago, public education was focused on the three R's - reading, writing and arithmetic. Now, he said, schools need to redefine those three R's as rigor, relevance and relationships, with educators building relationships with students to make the work relevant so that classroom standards can become more rigorous.
He also emphasized his commitment to successfully carry out the district's five-year plan, which the school board, working with former Superintendent Bobbie Gutierrez, created and adopted last spring. In a nutshell, that plan calls for systematic reform on many levels to make Santa Fe the best district in New Mexico.
"We'll listen to you. We'll hear you. And we'll try to work together to get to a better place," he said in response to a query about how to eliminate bullying, but which spoke to his overall tone for the evening.
One of the few moving moments of the evening came at the tail end, when a little girl who said she is a student at Chaparral Elementary School told Boyd she had been bullied last year. "It was really bad," she said, adding that although she told her mother - who told the teacher, who then told the principal - "nothing was done."
Boyd told the young lady that she should follow that same protocol this year if she is bullied, and if she's not satisfied with the response, her mother should call his chief academic officer, Almudena Abeyta, who now supervises the district's principals.
"Don't accept it," Boyd told the girl. "It's not right for someone to treat you that way. Stand up. Speak out."
Asked what he has learned about Santa Fe that has surprised or challenged him, Boyd, who last worked as an assistant superintendent in the Philadelphia public school system, said, "One of the issues here is an apprehension to confront the problem." At first, he said, he took this to be a general acceptance of the status quo, since "in Philadelphia, everybody was right in your face."
He added, "I need to hear from families. That needs to be every family, not just some families."
The next community forum is planned for 6 p.m. Monday, Sept. 17, at Tesuque Elementary School. Visit www.sfps.info and click on the "Community Forums" link for a full schedule.
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Roswell/ NM Mexico Military Institute: Class of 2012 Bests State & National ACT Averages
Roswell Daily Record Report
September 1, 2012
New Mexico Military Institute's Class of 2012 completed a number of firsts during its time at the school.
- As a class, they received the highest composite grade point average over 3.0.
- Many were accepted to schools previously unattended by NMMI students such as Cornell, Georgetown, and Stanford.
- One female cadet was awarded a seven-year Reserve Officers' Training Corps scholarship through law school.
- And now the school is boasting the class's record high 2012 ACTTest Composite average score, which surpassed both the New Mexico and national averages.
NMMI cadets are required to take the ACT, a national college admissions examination that tests on the areas of English, mathematics, reading, and science, prior to graduating from the high school. Cadets usually take the test during their junior year.
The Class of 2012 graduated 89 students and received an ACTTest Composite average score of 23.3.
- The state average was 19.9 and
- the national average was 21.1.
- The highest possible score is 36.
"We've been higher than the state and nation for 10 years," said NMMI Superintendent Maj. Gen. Jerry Grizzle. "But in the past two years particularly you can see how we've driven that gap to be a lot wider. We're unique in that we are a boarding school, but I think the things we do can be done in any public school setting."
While NMMI encompasses both a high school and a junior college, Ret. Brig. Gen. Douglas Murray, academic dean, said the school's philosophy is to provide a six-year living, learning environment, and this in turn helps boost measures of success like ACTscores.
- "We focus on developing the entire person not just academics, the mind but also the body, character and values. It's been brought to our attention by folks like the secretary of education and others that there is much that could be learned from looking at the way we do learning here."
NMMI 's curriculum focuses on the fundamentals:math; science; English; language; communications. Its classes are structured and small in size, enabling the teachers to get to know their students. The school's curriculum is rigorous but students often find encouragement from their peers.
- "Our high school students are lifted up by our college students. They look up to them. If you're a ninth-grader and you're studying in your room ... or you're sitting across from someone who is going to be attending West Point in the fall, that changes everything. It is those expectations that the cadets have of one another that I think makes a profound difference,"said Col. George Brick, vice dean/high school principal.
- "Our faculty is able to maintain these high standards because the students are going to meet the standards. They don't get to decide whether or not they get to turn in their homework. Your homework will be turned in. And we have a very good system in place to monitor all that."
On the high school level, all prospective NMMI students must complete the COMPASS test series, which is affiliated with the ACT. "This tells us where they are in their learning curve, and allows us to place them properly in the classroom,"Grizzle said. NMMI does not have honors or Advance Placement classes at the high school level.
- "If you test through that COMPASS placement test at such a high level, we're going to go ahead and put you in a junior college class," Grizzle said.
- "So we honestly have high school freshmen who could be taking junior college classes, so the dual-credit concept you hear a lot about in education we do every day here and have been doing it literally since the school has been in business."
Cadets must attend supervised, nightly study halls for two and a half hours from Sunday through Thursday. They are also required to attend morning study halls and tutoring sessions. Teachers are on hand during these times and after hours, providing a 24-hour learning laboratory, Murray said.
Brick said struggling students are identified very quickly. "If a student is having trouble in the Corps of Cadets, trouble being where they're supposed to be when they're supposed to be there and those kinds of things, we look very closely to see if they're also having trouble in the classroom and we often find that to be the case.
- We monitor our high school students very closely the first couple of weeks to make sure that they're in the correct classes, and by that we mean they're in a class where they can succeed ... So by the second or third week we're absolutely certain that every student is in a class where they can succeed. And then we change them if they need to be changed."
A fourth-year student at NMMI , Angel Reyes, 17, who plans to study social sciences in college, said he felt well prepared when taking the ACT.
"Our adviser requires us to take an ACT prep class; depending on how seriously you take the class it helps you a lot,"he said. "We also have this program online called Method Test Prep that simulates ACT questions on the computer." Reyes said he performed strongest on the reading and English portion of the test. He attributed his performance to his junior year English teacher.
"He taught us really well and had us look deeper into the material that we read." Reyes' classmate, Angela Cross, 17, also a fourth-year student, agreed. "Our teachers really prepare us for that," she said. "Our English teacher really made us look inside our vocabulary and just question everything about our reading."
Jaime Padres, 18, a fourth-year student from Mexico, said his curriculum is more challenging than that of his friends back home, "because Iget two parts, it's the military and the academics and they only get the academics. I would consider this overall, it's better." He added, "The teachers help you. They encourage you to improve."
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Clovis/ Clovis & Portales School Enrollment Down Slightly
By Benna Sayyed
Clovis News Journal Staff Writer
September 11, 2012
Clovis Municipal Schools and Portales Municipal Schools experienced a decrease in enrollment this school year, according to preliminary numbers.
Meanwhile, Clovis Christian Schools had a slight increase.
After four straight years of increases,
- Clovis Municipal Schools' enrollment was 8,675 on Monday, a drop of 185 students (2 percent, according to Cindy Martin, deputy superintendent of instruction for Clovis Municipal Schools.
- Elementary, middle and high schools all showed decreases.
"We were down a little in 2005 and down a little in 2007 but the district grew a little every year between 2008 and 2011."
Martin attributes the decrease to local dairy closures this year and military families moving in and out of Cannon Air Force Base.
Portales Municipal Schools Superintendent Randy Fowler said enrollment in his district is down to where it was two years ago.
- In Portales, enrollment dropped by 36 students (1.21 percent) to 2,973.
"We can look at our student withdrawals," Fowler said. "The majority of the students moved to different districts either in or out of the state. We've tried to see if there is a pattern there and we don't see one."
Fowler said enrollment impacts the district's state funding.
"Normally if your funding is consistent and the number of students drops, your funding drops," Fowler said.
Fowler hopes his district will receive slow and steady growth in enrollment throughout the next five years.
At Clovis Christian, enrollment increased by five students to 227.
Clovis Christian Schools Superintendent Ladona Clayton said her district experienced growth at the kindergarten and first-grade levels.
She said the district added a second kindergarten class and first grade is filled to capacity.
Clayton attributes student growth to the school's accreditation, a growing sports program and accelerated academic programs that integrate new technology.
"We individualize and create a tailor-made program for every student at CCS," Clayton said.
"I think that has been a key seller to families in our community. Also, every single one of our varsity sports teams competed at the state level last year."
Clayton believes enrollment will continue to grow in the future and has a goal of enrolling 500 students.
Official enrollment numbers are turned into the state in mid-October.
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Farmington/ ConocoPhillips Awards: $100,000 for 39 Projects
By Chuck Slothower
Farmington Daily News
September 11, 2012
ConocoPhillips on Tuesday donated $100,000 to 39 educational projects in San Juan County.
The grants will help move education out of the classroom and differentiate instruction for students, said Kirk Carpenter, superintendent of the Aztec Municipal School District.
- "These grants are investments," Carpenter said. "These grants are investments not just into the classroom, they're investments into our staff and into our kids."
The grants were awarded to Farmington, Aztec, Bloomfield and Central Consolidated school districts, and to Emmanuel Baptist Child Development Center and Academy.
ConocoPhillips' San Juan business unit has donated nearly $575,000 to more than 200 educational programs since 2007.
Teachers must apply for the grants, which are reviewed by ConocoPhillips' local philanthropic committee. The committee reviewed 79 grants for the 2012-13 school year, and approved nearly half.
Among the recipients were:
- 4 teachers from Lydia Rippey Elementary School in Aztec.
- Third-grade teachers Elaine Gerry and Sue Allen were awarded a grant to purchase thesauruses and other materials for their "Ready to Write" program. Pupils will go all the way through the writing process, from conception to a first draft to a published book.
- Robin Collins and Kristi Brooks, also Lydia Rippey teachers, won a grant to provide age-appropriate books that kids may take home to continue reading after the school day.
The teachers said the grants will help what they do in the classroom.
"The things that we purchase with these grants wouldn't necessarily be there for us" without the grants, Brooks said.
The grants were awarded at an evening banquet at Courtyard By Marriott. The event featured motivational speaker Alvin Law, a Calgary, Canada man who was born without arms due to a birth defect caused by Thalidomide. Law, who drives a car and plays the drums with his feet, touched on the role a music teacher played in his life.
"I believe I'm here today because of a teacher," he said.
Law told teachers, "You deserve the recognition for the difference that you've made."
ConocoPhillips has about 700 employees in San Juan County.
The Houston-based company was second in New Mexico natural gas production in 2011, behind only Burlington Resources. ConocoPhillips produced nearly 166 billion cubic feet of gas in 2011, according to the New Mexico Oil Conservation Division.
"ConocoPhillips is proud to give back to the communities where we operate, especially when it benefits future generations through education," said Michelle Ahlm, philanthropic coordinator for ConocoPhillips' San Juan business unit.
The company, she said, is "pleased to put more money directly into the hands of educators to support their important work."
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ABQ/ EDITORIAL: Game Puts Fun, Real World Back in Math
ABQ Journal
September 12, 2012
"In the real world, you have to frame the problem yourself."
- Cheryl Leung, Desert Ridge Middle School math teacher
In the real world, you also have to find the solution yourself. And that's exactly what some Albuquerque Public Schools students are doing, in the guise of an addicting - and free - online video game, "The Lure of the Labyrinth," developed at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Out are the trains that leave the station going different speeds; in are the monsters that need to be fed eyeballs and puréed ladybugs at different proportions in order to reclaim a lost pet.
Out are pencils, eraser crumbs and paper; in are full-color computer graphics and mouse clicks.
And out are the dog-ate-my-homework excuses; in are extra hours spent working ahead to solve problems.
Barbara Chamberlin, the director of the Learning Games Lab at New Mexico State University, says of the pre-teen students "of course they played for longer than they were assigned. When you're given genuine problems to solve, that is always going to keep you engaged for longer periods of time."
Those genuine problems involving fractions and ratios, along with classroom guidance, make Labyrinth more than "a dressed-up quiz or a waste of time," she says.
It makes Labyrinth a promising new way to appeal to students in a medium they enjoy, while also tracking the educational results.
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ABQ/ OPINION: Charter Schools Still Subject to Assault by APS
By Rick Harbaugh [Albuquerque resident]
ABQ Journal
September 12, 2012
The Albuquerque Journal editorial of Aug. 22 reported the obvious competition between Albuquerque Public Schools and local charter schools for students and funding and noted, "District officials repeatedly have made it clear APS should really be the only schools-game in town."
Superintendent Winston Brooks has made a concerted effort to discredit charter schools in the last few years. For example, in the last few years he has attacked Southwest Secondary Learning Center at least four times. He threatened to close down the charter school based on his changing of the financial reporting timetable for the school while APS was its "authorizing entity." Later, he openly criticized the "small-school funding formula" used for funding Southwest Secondary.
No surprise, then, that new charters in Albuquerque seek state authorization over APS authorization and Southwest Secondary shifted away from APS to state authorization.
Following the graduation of an APS Albuquerque High student who received a needed credit through Southwest Secondary's extended credit learning program, the Public Education Department in Santa Fe was contacted by Brooks, who wanted an investigation of Southwest Secondary for allowing this APS child to take a "distance learning class." Brooks released the story to the press, apparently hoping to embarrass Southwest Secondary.
APS was not required to accept the English credit, but did because they had painted themselves into a corner. To not accept it, they were the bad guys! There were minor procedural issues in the PED investigation that pointed out things both Southwest Secondary and APS could have done better, but at least the case is now closed! Right?
Not so. Now the Public Education Commission has launched its own investigation into this incident. The commission is the state "authorizer" of charter schools. The commission heard a complete report of this event from the PED on Aug. 9 in Santa Fe in which PED planned no further action. The commission wanted additional answers to some 50 questions being put to Southwest Secondary. Eugene Gant, a Public Education Commission member, was particularly concerned at the Aug. 9 meeting about how many APS athletes had made up grades at Southwest Secondary using state-approved distance learning software.
Why is that a significant issue in regard to the above case, and why should the commission care as long as the kids are taking and passing state-approved classes? Others on the commission expressed concern about the number of students being pulled away from regular public schools to New Mexico's charter schools. Clearly, their focus is on money, politics and power rather than on what is best for students.
The Public Education Commission plans to take up this issue again this month. Aren't four months of investigations concerning one student taking a state-approved course sufficient?
The Albuquerque Journal wrote, "New Mexico lawmakers enabled the establishment of charter schools to add much-needed choice to the state's educational menu. ..."
The Journal has it right. Our state needs to be placing its focus on making our kids' educational careers successful; the Southwest Secondary Learning Center programs should be replicated across the state. It's time to put this issue to bed!
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Paris FRANCE/ OECD Study Finds US Trailing in Preschool Enrollment
By Lesli A. Maxwell
Education Week, Vol. 32, Issue 3 [Edweek.org]
September 11, 2012
The United States lags behind most of the world's leading economies when it comes to providing early-childhood education opportunities to young children despite improvements in recent years, according to a new study by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.
According to the Paris-based OECD's "Education at a Glance 2012," a report released today:
- the United States ranks 28th out of 38 countries for the share of 4-year-olds enrolled in pre-primary education programs, at 69 percent.
- That's compared with more than 95 percent enrollment rates in France, the Netherlands, Spain, and Mexico, which lead the world in early-childhood participation rates for 4-year-olds.
- Ireland, Poland, Finland, and Brazil are among the nations that trail the United States.
The United States also invests significantly less public money in early-childhood programs than its counterparts in the Group of Twenty, or G-20, economies, which include 19 countries and the European Union.
- On average, across the countries that are compared in the OECD report, 84 percent of early-childhood students were enrolled in public programs or in private settings that receive major government resources in 2010.
- In this country, just 55 percent of early-childhood students were enrolled in publicly supported programs in 2010, while 45 percent attended independent private programs.
"The United States is still pretty far behind much of the rest of the industrialized world," in terms of publicly supported early-childhood opportunities, Andreas Schleicher, OECD's deputy director for education and the special advisor on education policy to the secretary-general of the OECD, said in a briefing.
Mr. Schleicher noted that the benefits of early-childhood education are apparent in the outcomes for individual students, but are less obvious at the school system, or country level.
He pointed to France, where participation is nearly universal, but overall outcomes for students who take OECD's Program for International Student Assessment, or PISA, are nearly as strong as they are in Finland, for example, which ranks even lower than the United States on participation in formal early-childhood programs.
But, apart from outliers like Finland, "generally, what we see is that those children who have participated in early-childhood education and care have significant outcomes at age 15 at the individual level," he said. Overall, students in OECD countries who have attended early-childhood programs tend to perform better on the PISA test than those who did not, he said.
OECD's annual international comparison of education systems included the early-childhood indicators for the first time this year, just as the focus of state and federal policymakers in the United States increasingly homes in on the need for increasing access to quality early education for 3- and 4-year-olds as a key strategy for preparing students-especially those from poor families-for academic success later on.
The study also examined other new measures, including how a parent's education influences a child's academic-attainment levels and factors that affect how immigrant children perform academically.
The study found that the United States presents some of the longest odds for college attainment for children born to parents who did not finish high school, ranking near the bottom on this indicator for upward social mobility.
- Just 29 percent of U.S. students whose parents did not finish high school are likely to go onto college,
- compared with over 70 percent in Iceland, and
- more than 60 percent in Turkey, Portugal, and Ireland.
- Only Canada and New Zealand ranked behind the United States on the social-mobility measure.
The study also found that the relationship between poor reading performance and the proportion of students whose mothers have low levels of education was much stronger than the relationship between reading performance and the proportion of immigrant students who do not speak the primary language of instruction at home, or the relationship between reading and the share of immigrant students in a school.
Across OECD countries, including the United States, more than one-third of immigrant students attended the schools with the highest concentrations of low-educated mothers, according to the report.
Among other key findings for the United States, the report also notes that:
- The United States ranks 14th in the world in the percentage of 25-to-34-year-olds who have earned a postsecondary degree;
- American students rely more heavily on private sources to pay for higher education than their peers in other OECD countries; and
- Teachers in the United States are paid less and spend more time teaching-between 1,050 and 1,100 hours per year-compared with their peers in most other OECD countries.
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New York NY/ US Students Struggle More Than Global Peers to Top Parents
By Eric Morath
Wall Street Journal
September 11, 2012
Receiving a better education than one's parents sounds like a tenet of the American Dream, but it's a reality more commonly achieved in other developed nations.
The U.S. ranked fourth-worst among 29 developed countries for children obtaining a higher level of education than their parents, according to a report released Tuesday by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.
- In the U.S. only 21.6% of those 25 to 34 years old achieved a higher level of education than their parents.
- That compares to an OECD average of 36.8%.
The study found that even Americans with the lowest level of education had a poor chance of seeing their children achieve higher levels.
- "The odds are low that young person in the U.S. will go on to higher education, if their parents didn't," said Andreas Schleicher, OECD deputy director for education.
If a young American's parents failed to finish high school, there is just a 29% chance that he or she will even attend college, the third worst odds among the countries OECD studied.
The failure of subsequent generations to achieve higher levels education contributes to a cycle of those born into poor families staying poor themselves.
- In the U.S., those with a college degree earn about three times more on average than those without a high school diploma, OECD found.
- A separate Labor Department report last week showed the unemployment rate in August for high-school dropouts was 12.0% versus 4.1% for those with at least a bachelor's degree.
U.S. students fail to receive more education than their parents for a number of reasons.
- For one, the proportion of American parents with college degrees is relatively high at 40%, which makes obtaining an even higher degree difficult.
- However, the U.S. lags behind other countries in ensuring students at least obtain high school degrees.
The OECD study found 23% of U.S. students failed to obtain a high school diploma, down from 30% in 2000, but still the sixth-worst rate among the countries studied.
The OECD study does not count those who hold general equivalence degrees but didn't finish high school as graduates.
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Washington DC/ $9.8 Million to Fund Centers for Parents of Students with Disabilities
US Department of Education [ed.gov]
September 11, 2012
The U.S. Department of Education today announced the award of more than $9.8 million in grants to 16 states to operate 25 Parent Training and Information (PTI) Centers for parents of students with disabilities. The Department also awarded $1.1 million to provide funding for 11 Community Parent Resource Centers (CPRCs) in nine states and Puerto Rico.
With the new grants, the Department now funds 101 information centers for parents of children and youth with disabilities.
- Every state has at least one PTI that assists parents as they work to ensure their children receive a free, appropriate public education as guaranteed by federal law.
- In addition, CPRCs provide services to underserved parents of children with disabilities in targeted communities throughout the country.
"Parent Centers are critical in helping to empower parents and families who have children with disabilities," U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan said. "These centers help parents understand the services to which their children are entitled and deserve under the law. They also are powerful resources in communities across the country."
The centers provide parents with the training and information they need to work with professionals in meeting the early intervention and special needs of children with disabilities.
Many parent information centers work closely with state and local school systems to engage parents in working collaboratively to improve outcomes for their children.
The network also includes CPRCs, which receive grants to assist underserved populations such as minority parents in the Denver and New Haven, Conn., metro areas. For a list of U.S. Department of Education-funded parent training and information centers, visit www.parentcenternetwork.org.
New Mexico: Parent Training and Information Center - Parents Reaching Out to Help, Inc., Kendra Morrison, kmorrison@parentsreachingout.org, $277,918.
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New York NY/ Chicago Teachers' Strike Reflects National Feud
By Jackie Mader
Hechinger Report [Hechingerreport.org]
September 11, 2012
Striking teachers in Chicago are fighting a contentious education reform that could overhaul how teachers are paid and evaluated, highlighting the difficulty of judging teachers by the performance of their students.
While the debate plays out dramatically in Illinois, new teacher evaluation systems have created conflict in other states, including Florida and Tennessee, which now use students' standardized test scores in their evaluations of teachers. And the stakes of such evaluations are increasing in many places, with personnel decisions often hinging on the results.
A 2010 law passed in Illinois requires that all schools in the state adopt a new evaluation system by the 2016-2017 school year. In Chicago, student "growth"-or improvement-on standardized tests will count for at least 25 percent of a teacher's evaluation, a system that Chicago Teachers Union President Karen Lewis has called "unacceptable."
- Lewis says that the new system will place undue emphasis on scores affected by student factors outside of a teacher's control, like poverty and homelessness.
- Her concerns echo those voiced by teachers around the country, who argue that student growth measures are unproven and should not be used in decisions about tenure and layoffs.
- Proponents say the new systems are far superior to those of the past and hold teachers accountable for how much students do-or do not-learn in their classrooms.
For decades, teacher evaluations were based on infrequent, scheduled observations. In most cases, teachers would be deemed either satisfactory or unsatisfactory, and unsatisfactory ratings were rare.
Chicago's evaluation system, developed in the 1970s, is based on "a checklist of subjective, surface level details such as references to clothing, administrative tasks, and bulletin boards," the Chicago Public Schools said in a press release earlier this year.
- The push to change teacher evaluations has been driven largely by nonprofit groups and politicians, and it follows research demonstrating that teacher effectiveness is the most important in school-factor affecting student performance.
- The Obama administration's 4.35 billion dollar Race to the Top initiative, a competitive grant that offered states money in return for reforms, included incentives for states to adopt evaluation procedures aimed at better determining teacher effectiveness.
New teacher evaluation systems have been changed in at least 33 states since 2009, and more than two dozen states are relying on both observations and student growth on test scores to judge a teacher's effectiveness.
- Many states are using "value-added" models to grade teachers, which involve complex formulas that take into account factors like a student's past test scores and attendance to predict what his or her score will be on this year's test.
- Teachers in these states will be held responsible for getting their students to meet or exceed that expected score.
Chicago will use a value-added model at the elementary level and an "expected gain model" at the high school level. The expected gain model does not take other factors like attendance or poverty into account, and only measures the percentage of a teacher's students who meet or surpass their expected growth scores, which are based on beginning-of-year tests.
Other systems rolling out new evaluation systems have also experienced push-back.
- In 2010, when officials in Washington, D.C., implemented a new evaluation system, seven percent of the teaching force was fired.
- In Tennessee, where student test scores count for 35 percent of a teacher's evaluation, questions have been raised about the system's accuracy and reliability, with some teachers seeing inconsistencies between the scores they receive on observations and their value-added ratings.
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Chicago IL/ National Schools Debate on Display in Chicago
By Motoko Rich
New York Times
September 11, 2012
What started here as a traditional labor fight over pay, benefits and working conditions has exploded into a dramatic illustration of the national debate over how public school districts should rate teachers.
At stake are profound policy questions about how teachers should be granted tenure, promoted or fired, as well as the place standardized tests will have in the lives of elementary and high school students.
One of the main sticking points in the negotiations here between the teachers union and Mayor Rahm Emanuel is a new teacher evaluation system that gives significant and increasing weight to student performance on standardized tests. Personnel decisions would be based on those evaluations.
Over the last few years, a majority of states have adopted similar systems, spurred by the desire to qualify for the Obama administration's Race to the Top education grants.
- The Education Commission of the States says that 30 states require that evaluations include evidence of student achievement on tests, and
- at least 13, and the District of Columbia, use achievement measured by test scores for half or more of a teacher's rating.
Proponents say these measures are needed to improve teaching in a country where 33 percent of fourth graders are not reading at grade level and about one-quarter of public high school students do not graduate on time, if at all. They say the new rating systems will help districts identify the best and worst teachers.
These efforts are stirring skepticism and anger among teachers, some of whom express a sense that those behind the new evaluations know little about what it is like to be in a classroom. Others fear that heavy reliance on scores will turn schools into test-taking factories.
That sentiment certainly permeated the picket lines and rallies in Chicago this week.
"Children are so much more than data points on a grid," said Elizabeth Coughlan, a third-grade teacher of gifted bilingual students, who was marching in a rally where teachers clogged downtown streets on Monday. Another teacher held a sign that read, "Let's teach kids to think outside the box not fill in circles."
Advocates of the new evaluation systems say test scores should not be the only measure of a teacher's quality. Even those who believe that such systems can work in theory say that it is important to get teacher buy-in.
"It's tough work because it's hard to get it to be fair," said Kathy Christie, a vice president at the Education Commission. "We've only recently started getting student data that could be traced back to the classroom. It's all very intertwined and complex, and it could fail very easily if people don't get it right. Teachers have very valid concerns."
Still, she said, efforts to reach a consensus could cause the rating systems to collapse in practice. "It's like trying to put a man on the moon by committee," Ms. Christie said. "At some point, decisions have to be made."
In Chicago, the teachers union has bristled at what it sees as a unilateral effort to install a system that will start by basing 25 percent of a teacher's rating on student achievement, going to 40 percent in five years.
The Illinois legislature passed a law in 2010 that requires all districts to develop teacher evaluations based in part on student performance, with Chicago being the first district to begin its system this year. The law, which passed unanimously in the Senate and received only one opposing vote in the House, requires that various test results be used for at least 25 percent of a teacher's rating in the first two years, growing to 30 percent. Classroom observations also figure prominently in the evaluations. A separate law passed in 2011 allows teacher evaluations to be used in tenure and layoff decisions.
Chicago's teachers say they would accept a rating where 25 percent was based on student achievement on tests, but balk at the increase to 40 percent, higher than the state standard.
Across the country, critics have seized on the Chicago fight to blast the use of a teacher's ability to raise scores as an unreliable measure. The National Center for Fair and Open Testing put out a statement from its public education director, Robert Schaeffer, saying, " 'Enough is enough' to so-called reforms based on standardized exam misuse."
Several studies have shown that teachers who receive high value-added scores - the term for the effect that teachers have on student test performance - in one year can score poorly a year later. "There are big swings from year to year," said Jesse Rothstein, associate professor of public policy and economics at the University of California, Berkeley. But other studies have shown that students taught by teachers who achieve high value-added scores go on to have lower teenage pregnancy rates, are more likely to go to college and earn higher incomes as adults.
Some studies, including one that looked at a pilot of teacher evaluations here, have shown correlations between teachers whose students' test scores improve and those who receive high marks in classroom observations and on student surveys.
Sara Ray Stoelinga, senior director at the Urban Institute at the University of Chicago who conducted the study, said that using student test scores protects teachers from arbitrary decisions by principals. "The theory," she said, "is that if you have multiple pieces of information, it gives the most fair and accurate measure."
But with research at an early stage, other districts and states have stepped carefully.
- In Colorado, where a sweeping education law passed three years ago stipulating that half of a teacher's evaluation should be tied to student performance, the state is slowly introducing the programs, with training. "We want to make sure to do it right rather than do it fast," said Michael Johnston, a Democratic state senator who sponsored the bill.
- And in New Haven, Conn., the district and the union spent more than six months discussing a new evaluation system, and union members felt their feedback was valued. "We knew we were being treated as equal partners," said David Cicarella, president of the New Haven Federation of Teachers. "It can't just be one test that the kids take one week in March."
Even those who say there is value in using test scores to measure a teacher's performance say there are plenty of other factors. "There are other things that teachers do that aren't captured by test scores," said Douglas Staiger, an economist at Dartmouth College who has studied the effects of teachers on student achievement.
The debate over whether test scores accurately reflect a teacher's ability, he said, should ultimately be about "how much importance we want to place on academic achievement defined by the test."
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Denver CO/ School Reform Group Wants More Consistent, Better Arts Education
By Karen Auge
The Denver Post
September 12, 2012
Arts instruction is robust in some Denver schools, not so good in others, and opportunities for students to excel in the arts is often a matter of economic status, a new report by A+Denver Schools contends.
The study by A+, an independent group that advocates for school reform, points out that numerous studies link overall academic achievement with arts participation. And while arts education prepares students for work in creative industries, it also enriches kids who will become nurses or chemists or math professors, the authors argue.
Denver Public Schools officials don't disagree. "Arts are a critical component of a well-rounded education," the district said in a written statement.
But, like everything else, high-quality arts education costs money and that has been in short supply in schools around the state.
- "State funding cuts have forced many schools to reduce the number of arts programs," the statement said.
The report's release follows closely the school board's decision to ask voters for a $49 million mill levy override. If passed, $11 million of that would go toward "the expansion of enrichment programs throughout DPS schools," including art and music, according to the district.
- In the meantime, few benchmarks or goals for measuring success in arts education exist, the report said.
- And it criticized the district for using outdated standards - namely the number of credentialed teachers in arts fields - to track how it spends the money it now has for arts education.
The report estimated that the 315.5 full-time DPS arts teachers translate to $21 million a year spent on arts education, or about 4.2 percent of the district's total budget.
Despite the obstacles, the report committee, which included school board President Mary Seawell, former Lt. Gov. Barbara O'Brien, arts and business leaders, found bright spots.
- Kunsmiller Creative Arts Academy exposes 770 mostly low-income students to a rich arts curriculum.
- Polaris at Ebert Elementary School incorporates art into virtually every subject.
- And the Denver School of the Arts middle and high schools are gaining national reputations.
But a by-product of greater autonomy among schools has been inconsistency when it comes to arts, the authors suggest.
Moreover, opportunities for low-income kids to get access to the district's standout arts programs are limited. DSA, for example, requires students to audition or submit portfolios to be admitted. "The fact is that few low-income families have the same access to private instruction as wealthier families do, so they are at a disadvantage as far as preparation goes," the report states.
Last year, only 13 percent of DSA students were considered low-income, compared with 73 percent district-wide.
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San Francisco CA/ INTERVIEW: San Francisco School Superintendent Richard Carranza
By Carly Schwartz
Huffington Post
September 11, 2012
After serving as San Francisco's Deputy Superintendent of Instruction, Innovation and Social Justice, Richard Carranza assumed the role as the district's head honcho this past July. Since he began working on behalf of San Francisco schools, Carranza has made closing the city's "achievement gap" - providing all the district's students with equal access to quality education - his top priority.
And it's working. San Francisco public schools saw a rise in standardized test scores across almost every subject this year, and the city's most underperforming institutions have all shown signs of improvement.
Carranza, who grew up in Arizona, entered his own school system speaking no English and spent more than a decade in front of the classroom as a high school teacher before crossing over to the administrative side, recently caught up with The Huffington Post to discuss his goals for the new year, why money really does matter and where he finds inspiration during his down time.
- What brought you to San Francisco four years ago?
The school district. It was very impressive; the strategic plan was engaging to me...the notion of really focusing on closing the achievement gap. I was drawn by the integrated way the city works, the way of living in SF, the political climate, the environmental climate. Everything about San Francisco was truly appealing to my family.
- Do your own kids attend San Francisco schools?
I have two daughters in the SFUSD. One is a sixth grader and the other is a high school junior.
- What are some of your biggest goals for the district?
The achievement gap is our critical area of focus. Our goal is to increase access and equity for all students. The fact that a large urban school district in the United States has called out the achievement gap is a breath of fresh air. Most school systems will allude to an achievement gap but won't address it directly. It's really a social justice issue.
- How do you measure the achievement gap?
First and foremost we measure what our students are learning. I'm not a proponent of testing for testing's sake, but its one variable we have to look at. We're looking at our data very closely and asking, are students starting to catch up?
The data is starting to show that students of color are starting to make up some ground without sacrificing the improvement of other students. Students of color are starting to accelerate. That's really exciting. Our work is to identify why these students are showing this increased acceleration. What's behind it? How can we replicate it? It's great teachers, a specific and rigorous curriculum tied to state standards. It's having coaching for instructional practices, it's providing intervention for students who are not successful.
- Can you describe the ethnic makeup of San Francisco's student body?
Off the top of my head, I believe it's 33 percent Chinese, 12 percent white, 24 percent Latino, 10 percent African American, nine percent Asian [non-Chinese], 12 percent other/declined to respond. We don't have any one ethnic subgroup in San Francisco that dominates. It's pretty heterogeneous.
- What's the one biggest challenge facing the student population?
Funding is absolutely critical to us. We've never funded schools the way we should have funded schools. And funding really does make a difference.
How so? It takes funding to be able to provide better classroom instruction. We're proving that point in San Francisco. Students come to school with lots of needs. They may be homeless, have nutrition issues, have health and dental issues. The schools serve as the hub for those students and their families to access broader services. It takes funding to have people on staff be able to make those connections. We are proving that we can make a difference when you use funding in a strategic, well-defined way.
- A common criticism among San Francisco residents is the lottery-based system in which students are placed in schools. How do you respond to those criticisms?
The school assignment policy is a work in progress; it's an evolving process that the Board and I will continue to look at. We're dealing with multiple opinions and examining the data, and it will be a continued conversation.
- Do you ever miss being in front of a classroom?
I loved being a teacher; I went kicking and screaming into administration because I was tired of complaining. I still miss the classroom. I consider myself a teacher who happens to sit in the administrator's chair. I love what I do as a superintendent; it's an important role only if you keep the focus on the classroom. I like to think that's what my focus and my legacy will be here.
- Outside of the schools, where do you find inspiration around town?
I never get tired of looking at the Golden Gate. I find peace when I see it. The ability of the human race to build these magnificent structures goes beyond me. To think at one time or another all these people were in school! I grew up in Tucson, was the son of a sheet metal worker and a hairdresser. I never thought that one day I'd be responsible for 55,000-plus students in a city like San Francisco, and I'd be able to ponder my job while looking at the Golden Gate. That spot really conjures gratitude for the blessings I've had.
