2012Fri17Feb

Teachers Ordered To Learn From TFA

Permalink | Shortlink | Comments (9) | TrackbackFiled in polityTags: corporate education, dr. casey wardynski, teach for america, teaching

So today is a professional development day in Huntsville City Schools, and some teachers across the district are being told that they must learn to teach from teachers who have five weeks of training.

How’s that for a morale booster?

Dr. Wardynski’s been quite busy lately telling the city that the schools used to be corrupt.

But who is watching the watcher? More on this later.

Right now, highly qualified teachers, most with years of experience, but even the most inexperienced with months more experience than a Teach For America candidate, are being told that they must learn from TFA and their superb ability to create leaders.

Of course this is their own PR staff telling our teachers this. And it’s being forced on our excellent teachers as training by Dr. Wardynski, who received his excellent training from The Broad Foundation who also funds Teach For America.

So our teachers are being Professionally Developed as I write this by being told that all Teach for America “teachers” are “High-Performing,” and that non-TFAers, are by default, not. You may read the PR piece that’s being forced on our teachers for yourself, here.

You see there’s nothing wrong with teachers being told that Teaching is Leadership. Except, of course, teachers already know this.

There’s nothing wrong with teachers being told to “set big goals.” Except, of course, teachers already know and do this.

There’s nothing wrong with teachers being told to “plan purposefully.” Except, of course, teachers already know and do this.

Teachers already, everyday, make “on your feet” adjustments. That’s where experience matters.

Dr. Wardynski has paid a ton of money to “consultants” (wanna bet they were Broad Foundation funded consultants) to prove that “efficiencies needed to be made.”

One efficiency that might need to be made is not wasting teachers’ time by making them read TFA propaganda.

2012Sat11Feb

Teaching to the Test

Permalink | Shortlink | Comments (13) | TrackbackFiled in polityTags: dr. casey wardynski, teaching, testing

On Thursday, February 2, 2012, Dr. Wardynski, in his monologue, had this to say about my comments when I mentioned in passing that teachers weren’t simply teaching to the test:

Uh, those who claim that testing, we teach to the test, that testing is not a valuable resource simply do not know what they are talking about. There is no way to test, to take, to teach to the STAR test. It’s a computive, computer-adaptive test in which every child will face a different question. And the questions aren’t the kind you can teach to. If you don’t know algebra, you can’t teach to answering an algebra question. If you don’t know how to factor an equation, you can’t teach to answering a question like that. If you can’t read, we can’t teach you what the paragraph said, cause you haven’t seen the paragraph. And so we’re after the business of literacy and numeracy. Uh, we’re taking a very strategic approach to raising the proficiency of our children, and our excellent teachers are responding.

Wow, where to begin.

It’s important to note that I didn’t claim in my statement that the district was teaching to the test. What I actually said was:

It’s [a love for education] what motivates Mrs. Dodson to take on extra work of evaluating additional assignments like poetry writing projects to encourage advanced students to continue to grow beyond merely the requirements of the test.

Perhaps he was reacting to others’ comments that claim that when testing is the single method of evaluation offered for both students and teachers, then our classrooms set education aside in deference to teaching to the test. While I didn’t say this on Thursday night, it is a problem that I recognize. If the score on the test is the only metric by which we evaluate student and teacher performance, then the test takes the highest priority in the classroom.

It becomes more important than critical thought.

It becomes more important than critical analysis of ideas.

It becomes more important than guided social development.

It becomes more important than intellectual curiosity.

In short, teaching to the test leaves a whole world of education in the dark. You can read more about what standardized tests do and do not cover in The Myths of Standardized Tests: Why They Don’t Tell You What You Think They Do.

But with his decades of experience in education, Dr. Wardynski wants you to know that “those who claim we teach to the test, that testing is not a valuable resource simply do not know what they are talking about.”

That’s right. Dr. Wardynski thinks I don’t know what I’m talking about. Thank you sir, that’s high praise coming from you.

So let’s look at his argument to see if Dr. Wardynski is right or not.

The Straw Man Fallacy

It’s always useful, when you enter into a debate with someone, to have an opponent who says something that’s easy to rip apart. Sadly, sometimes we enter into debates with people who aren’t stupid. When this happens, one common method of attack is to set up a straw man that’s easy to knock down. This is a useful technique as typically if you can show that your opponent is wrong on one point, then those listening to the debate will assume that your opponent is wrong on all points. But when your opponent doesn’t give you an easy target, well then you can just create your own.

This is the straw man fallacy. Claim that your opponent has claimed something that is false, even when he or she hasn’t.

Despite Dr. Wardynski’s claims, no reasonable person is claiming that “testing is not a valuable resource.” Every educator knows that testing does have value. But every educator also knows that no matter how fantastic the test is, the test is but one of many methods needed to evaluate education. You’re claiming that your opponents are speaking in absolutes when it is in fact you who are elevating the test to the level of absolute in student performance, in teacher performance, and in school performance.

I am not claiming that the test has no value. I am simply claiming that the test does not have absolute value.

Knowing What You’re Talking About

Dr. Wardynski then goes own to offer an impassioned defense of how it would be impossible to teach to the STAR test. He says:

There is no way to test, to take, to teach to the STAR test. It’s a computive, computer-adaptive test in which every child will face a different question. And the questions aren’t the kind you can teach to. If you don’t know algebra, you can’t teach to answering an algebra question. If you don’t know how to factor an equation, you can’t teach to answering a question like that. If you can’t read, we can’t teach you what the paragraph said, cause you haven’t seen the paragraph.

His argument seems to be that since no one sees the actual questions ahead of time, that it would be impossible to teach to the test. He’s arguing for the security of the STAR test and in doing so, he shows that he doesn’t understand teaching, testing or teaching to the test at all.

I do so love situational irony.

Let’s see if we can help him out here a little. If a teacher knows, as he claimed in his “we’re not teaching to the test speech” that her students are going to be tested on algebra, then a teacher knows that spending time talking about geometry is a waste of time, even if the students raise questions that are geometry questions. If a teacher knows that the test questions are based on the ability to remember details from a paragraph, then a teacher knows that spending time talking about the meaning of a paragraph is less important than talking about the content of the paragraph.

Teaching to the test doesn’t require knowing exactly what questions will be asked on a test. That’s cheating, not teaching to the test.

Teaching to the test means that a teacher knows that the test will cover 10 mathematical concepts, and so the entire focus of the class is then directed toward mathematical concepts ignoring the other questions or pathways that might arise from classroom discussion, questions, or as I mentioned above, intellectual curiosity.

In short, Dr. Wardynski has once again demonstrated his failure to understand the educational process.

Education is More than Testing

Let me see if I can finish with an example of what I am talking about here.

I teach, among other things, a Survey of the New Testament class. In this class, we review the historical underpinnings and development of the New Testament. One of the final assignments in the class is to write an argumentative research essay on what the New Testament has to say about a controversial subject such as abortion, homosexuality, poverty, whatever the student wishes to study.

This is the test that the students must complete. It tests their ability to use resources they’ve been exposed to in the class. It tests their ability to use various methods of Biblical criticism that we’ve discussed in the class. It tests their ability to discuss Scripture intelligently and reasonably.

One semester, I had a student who just couldn’t get her mind around the assignment. She had been struggling all semester, her writing was, to be frank, terrible, and I was to the point of suggesting to her that perhaps trying the class again at a time when her personal life wasn’t interfering with her education might make the class and the assignments easier. You see, her child was dying, and the idea of debating Scripture just wasn’t connecting with her.

But while talking to each other, I discovered that she did have an extensive interest in Mary, Jesus’ mother. She felt connected to her and her loss of her son, especially at that moment in her life. So since I had been the one to design the test, and since I have the freedom to find a student’s interest and run with it, I was able to redesign the assignment into a research essay on Mary.

This student, who had had difficulty even stringing together three sentences in a coherent way, wrote the best essay of the class, and in fact, one of the best essays I have received since. She was getting the learning objectives of the class, and once the test was modified to the student, she was able demonstrate that to me.

Education must be a personal, direct experience between the teacher and the student. When a district determines the test, the curriculum, and what’s important for a student to accomplish, they are taking education out of the hands of the teachers and students, and putting it into the hands of politicians and private companies who sell the test.

We should, we must teach to the student not to the test.

This is why Dr. Wardynski is unconcerned about the quality of the teachers he hires or the experienced ones he runs off. Teachers don’t matter in this brave new world.

A hyper-emphasis on testing results in an educational system where neither the teacher nor the student actually matter.

2012Wed08Feb

Entirely Unacceptable: Morale Matters

Permalink | Shortlink | Comments (23) | TrackbackFiled in polityTags: doubt, dr. casey wardynski, fear, Jo Ann Thompson, teach for america, uncertainity

Another Sunday, and another pep talk for our teachers from the Superintendent.

Well, I suppose you might find it motivational if you work for Teach for America.

If, however, you one of the thousands of traditionally trained teachers, fully certified teachers, highly-qualified teachers, who has dedicated your life to the children of our community, there’s not much there for you.

Sorry.

So, Dr. Wardynski has written an op-ed piece for the Huntsville Times this past Sunday singing, yet again, the praises of Teach for America as being far better suited to teach in “our lowest-income and highest-need schools” than “traditional measures” that have failed.

Just what are these “traditional measures?” It would be nice of him to explicate this for his readers, but that would simply take too much time. Just trust him. Traditional measures are failures.

So lets see if we can figure out what he means here by traditional measures. Well, since the non-traditional measure he’s pushing through is to pay Teach for America up to $1.9 million dollars for five years simply to recruit and train people who didn’t want to be teachers enough to receive that training on their own, I suppose that the traditional measures he’s talking about here are traditionally trained teachers.

(Since there often seems to still be confusion about this money, let me attempt to make it clear. New traditionally trained and certified teachers in Alabama and here in HCS will make $36,144 per year with a BS degree. New TFA trained and non-certified TFAers in Alabama and here in HCS will make $36,144 per year with a BS degree. They will both have exactly the same benefits package. The only difference here is that the non-certified TFAer who choose to go to college to get a degree in something other than Education, will cost the system an additional $5,000, per year for at least two years. So after two years a traditionally trained teacher will cost HCS $72,288. A TFAer will cost HCS $82,288. Teach for America “teachers” cost 13% more than traditionally trained teachers.)

Just in case you didn’t catch it: Traditional Measures=Traditionally Trained Teachers who have failed. Our Motivator in Chief has struck again.

He offers exactly no explanation for why traditionally trained teachers have failed, so I thought I would offer a few possibilities. Our nation, our state and our city have spent the last 30 years devaluing teachers, and devaluing education. Since “throwing money at the problem” won’t fix the problem, lets starve it to death instead. And so that’s been the traditional approach we’ve taken with education. Cut all resources for education to the bone, cut salaries and benefits of teachers, increase class sizes, increase the work load, increase the required reporting to district, state and federal officials, and decrease professional development. These are the “traditional measures” that have failed.

So we can’t “just throw money at the problem” that we’ve created for traditionally trained teachers (you know, teachers who actually wanted to be teachers), but we can just throw money–$1.9 million here in Huntsville–at a company to recruit people who didn’t want to teach and who don’t stay in education to come in and fix the problem for us.

And when they have at best exactly the same results as the teachers who didn’t cost us $1.9 million to recruit, well, we just need to spend even more, right? Cause giving public funds to a private organization with $309 million dollars in NET assets just makes us feel better than say spending $500 a year on professional development for our teachers in “our lowest-income and highest need schools.” Making the rich, richer isn’t throwing money at a problem, it’s a “good investment.”

I’m sure that “most” of our “highly effective teachers” will feel the love tomorrow as they drive to work for the start of another day of school.

One thing you can say about Dr. Wardynski: he’s consistent.

I noticed in his comments on Thursday night that he doesn’t like all the negative press that the system has gotten. He said:

Teachers are folks who are key to learning. They’re key to student growth, and there are many who are doing great jobs. And it’s no secret that this superintendent addresses those that we think are not doing great jobs. We continue to do so. But when that becomes the story for our school district, what we miss is the key teachers that are doing great work.

It truly is a terrible thing when one teacher’s actions reflect badly on all the other excellent teachers in our system. He’s right to say that when that happens, we do indeed miss the great work of our key teachers.

But what he’s not owning up to is that the reason that the story for our school district has become focused on teachers who are not doing their job is because that’s what he continually talks about. If he would stop saying that our traditionally trained teachers aren’t capable of teaching low-income students, the story would change. If he would deal with personnel matters without bragging about what he is or isn’t going to do to teachers who don’t meet his expectations, the story would change.

On August 11, 2011, there was a special board meeting at 12:00pm noon with a very brief agenda that included a discussion of the job description for the Director of Community Engagement and Partnership Development. After this meeting, Dr. Wardynski approached me to chat. (It was early. Before he started just shouting orders as he walked by.)

At the conclusion of our discussion, Dr. Wardynski said that he had to leave as he was going to go meet an AWOL teacher as she departed her plane at the airport. With glee in his voice, he was excited to tell me that he was going to catch her and hand deliver her termination. He evidently was saying the same thing to the Huntsville Times before the meeting that day.

It was as if he believed I would cheer him on. In fact, what I said to him was this, “Dr. Wardynski, I don’t believe you should be telling me this.” As he had already started turning away, I don’t believe he heard me.

The teacher whom he met at the airport was Jo Ann Thompson who found out today that she would be getting her job back at Davis Hills Middle School.

I haven’t written about her firing before. Since I’m not privy to her personnel records or even all the details of what actually happened, I thought that the best I could say about her firing would be, “We’ll see what happens.”

As the Times reported today, Dr. Wardynski did not give me the entire story when he claimed that Mrs. Thompson was AWOL, and as Dr. Wardynski now knows, the devil is in the details. It seems that she decided to leave after being told that her punishment for doing so would consist of being “written up” by her principal.

In other words, Judge Sandra H. Storm believed that Mrs. Thompson had been set up.

(For the record, I do not think that a teacher should miss the first week of class except in cases of extreme emergency. But I also am convinced that Mrs. Thompson was set up for the sole purpose of instilling fear in our teaching corps.)

So again we see that this superintendent is actively going out of his way to intimidate, demoralize, and frighten the teachers working in Huntsville.

All of them.

In other words, Dr. Robinson–who has said many times that the only teachers opposed to or afraid of Dr. Wardynski are those who aren’t doing their jobs–is wrong. She is as wrong as the Deputy Governor Danforth from The Crucible who claimed that, “them that fear not the light will surely praise it.”

Dr. Wardynski has regularly and consistently sought to create an environment in Huntsville City Schools of fear, uncertainty and doubt. And board members like Dr. Robinson have gone out of their way to help him.

Today, speaking of the decision, Dr. Wardynski said that the ruling was “entirely unacceptable.” He compared her disobedience to that of a student disobeying a teacher and claimed that the “student would face strict punishment.”

According to Policy Number 106-1: Student Discipline, a student may be punished for “1.10 Unauthorized absence from class (cutting class).” A student may also be punished for “1.14 Failure to follow instructions – examples: failure to carry correspondence home; failure to obey directions in the hallways, assemblies, etc. Both of these are listed as Class I – Minor Offenses. The disciplinary action for a Class I offense is to “Conference with student and reasonable effort to make parental contact.”

Perhaps we should have called Mrs. Thompson’s parents instead? It would have had the benefit of saving the district quite a bit of money.

Rather, Dr. Wardynski, what is actually “entirely unacceptable” is your desire to run off our excellent teachers and replace them with “alternatively certified” (not certified as he stated in his editorial) TFAers. Your approach of intimidation, demoralization and fear, sir, is what is entirely unacceptable.

2012Sat04Feb

Morale Matters

Permalink | Shortlink | Comments (6) | TrackbackFiled in polity, spiritTags: dr. casey wardynski, huntsville city schools, morale, school board, teaching

It seems that nearly every week, Dr. Wardynski does something else to consolidate his power over our school system. This week, every principal in Huntsville City Schools awoke on Sunday to read, “All Huntsville Principals’ Jobs on the Table, says Superintendent.”

This type of headline tends to put a bit of a damper on your week, don’t you think? Not exactly making that Monday morning commute to school an enjoyable one did it?

I’m certain that if you asked them individually, they would tell you, with no prevarication, that it didn’t effect them in the slightest. Our principals are professional educators. And every single one with whom I’ve worked or met absolutely loves their job. Without exception, they would clearly tell you that they have the greatest job on the planet as they get to help educate our children.

So, since that would be their public response, I want you to step into their shoes for a moment. Imagine how you would feel if you woke up Sunday morning to see your direct supervisor telling the city that your job is on the table? (I fully realize that this isn’t a difficult thing to imagine for many of you. The tragic cuts to NASA have made this a recurring reality for many in this city.)

Answer honestly: Would seeing that in the paper have an effect on your morale? Would it affect your desire to go to work on Monday?

For myself (and I’m one of those people who do have the best job on the planet), the answer is a resounding yes.

This is why I decided to speak at the board meeting on Thursday night. Again. Yes, I know that the board and superintendent are sick of me and wish I would just go away. I know that many in the community who attend the meetings or watch them online feel likewise.

It may come as a surprise, but I feel that way, too.

I hate spending every other Thursday night away from my family. I hate sitting and watching the board members (not all, but the overwhelming majority) fall all over themselves praising Wardynski (pretty much as they did in the article above). I would much rather spend my evenings at home helping with homework and playing with the kids.

I go for one reason: I believe it is the right thing to do. I believe standing up for our kids, our teachers, our principals and schools is my duty as a parent and citizen.

And so I go: if only to remind the superintendent and the board that they work for us.

Here are my comments from Thursday night:

I’m here tonight to speak about morale in the district.

Morale and Motivation Matter. It matters how you treat people. It matters what you say to them. Morale matters.

When our teachers go for four years without a raise, when they see their step raises frozen, when they see their starting salaries reduced to the state minimum, all while the board votes to give bonuses, “state-competitive salaries,” and raises to the maximum posted salaries of the senior administration because they wouldn’t come for less, morale matters.

When our superintendent dismisses “traditionally trained” teachers as often ineffective in teaching students in high poverty areas, morale matters.

When our superintendent attempts to “motivate” teachers by posting student performance data on teachers’ doors, morale matters.

When our superintendent says that “all principals’ jobs are on the table,” morale matters. Punitive or not, morale matters.

When our board members claim that our superintendent is doing exactly what he was hired to do in doing these things, morale matters.

A love for education is what motivates teachers like Mrs. Roth to organize a star gazing event, on her own time, for Mt. Gap elementary students.

It’s what motivates Mrs. Bowling to continue to push her students to express themselves even when that expression is difficult to understand.

It’s what motivates Mrs. Dodson to take on extra work of evaluating additional assignments like poetry writing projects to encourage advanced students to continue to grow beyond merely the requirements of the test.

It’s what pushes parents and teachers to work together on projects like this year’s PTA Reflections competition on Diversity allowing for a total of 42 students across the district to go the state competition.

Good morale is not an enemy. We have excellent teachers. We have excellent principals. They love education. Help them, let them do their jobs.

Strangely on Thursday, the board seemed more than willing to respond to citizen comments. Dr. Wardynski, however, held his response to my statements until the very end of the night. This time, at least, he made his remarks in a publicly. You may read a transcript of all of those remarks here.

At a couple of points, Dr. Wardynski seems to be directly responding to myself and a parent who followed me, Ms. Kelli Thomas who spoke passionately about the fear she experiences every time she sends her child to school. I will be responding in great detail to his speech in the coming days, but there’s one issue that I would like to clear up tonight. At one point during his comments, Dr. Wardynski claimed that I was mistaken in my assertion that he was attempting to “motivate” teachers by posting student performance data on their doors. He did, in effect, imply that I was lying about the posting of data. Here’s exactly what Dr. Wardynski said during his comments following Citizens’ Comments:

We know the growth of students in our classrooms. Uh, we do not post it on the doors of our classrooms. We don’t need to. Our teachers can see it on their computers. And we discuss it every week in virtual teleconferences with our principals and our school leaders. And we review school performance at the classroom level in some cases, and at the school level in all cases.

Seemingly in response to my comments (although I know for a fact that many other parents have raised this issue with Dr. Wardynski privately as well) that teachers (at least in the “managed” schools) are required to post their students’ performance on standardized tests such as DIBELS and STAR Enterprise Testing in public areas for the entire school to see. Dr. Wardynski said, “Uh, we do not post it on the doors of our classrooms. We don’t need to. Our teachers can see it on their computers.”

Concerning this, this superintendent is mistaken. It is actually quite common among the managed schools (those who students do not achieve some pre-determined testing goal) for compiled student testing performance data to be posting in public places in these schools. Some schools, such as Morris Elementary, post this information on the wall immediately beside the teachers’ classrooms. Other schools, like Highlands Elementary have posted all of their classes scores on the window looking into the lunchroom as seen in the photos below. I have intentionally blurred these photographs so that no personal information may be seen in them, but the photos still clearly show 22 individual charts displaying the standard STAR Enterprise Test Report. Highlands Elementary’s website shows that they have 20 Grades 1-5 teachers or if you prefer classrooms. Here is a sample of the STAR Enterprise Tests Classroom Report.

What we see in the photo below are complied student performance results for the STAR Enterprise Tests displayed in a public area for everyone to see. These pictures were taken by a concerned parent with a child at Highlands Elementary.

Next we see a shot of the DIBELS testing results as well.

I have furthermore received reports that similar displays may be seen at the following schools:

Chapman Elementary
Highlands Elementary
Monte Sano Elementary
Morris Elementary

I am fairly certain that these four schools are not anomalies in this. In so far as I am aware (I have not searched the entire school in either case), neither Challenger Elementary nor Mt. Gap Elementary have similar displays. I am convinced that either they have not been asked to do so, or that their principals have simply refused to do so. Either way, I am grateful.

Education is not a zero-sum game. It is not a competition where teachers fight against each other to make sure that their scores are higher. When such competition occurs, the result quite often destroys the educational process.

Posting scores in this manner creates a competitive environment in our schools between our teachers and between our schools. If this continues, our kids will be the ultimate losers.

Thus, it would seem that Dr. Wardynski is correct when he states that “we do not post it on the doors of our classrooms.” So far I haven’t found an actual case where it is posted specifically on the classroom door. However, it would seem that he is mistaken when he suggests that the scores are only displayed on teachers computers.

Either way, I am convinced that there is a systematic effort underway at the district level to demoralize our principals, teachers, and at least the “uppity” parents who question decisions and actions of the superintendent. That was what I was speaking against. It is what I am writing to oppose even today.

No single resource is as valuable to the education of our children as our teachers. Now, I agree with Dr. Wardynski that not every teacher should be a teacher. There are a small handful of teachers in every system who likely should be doing something else. And he is also correct when he says that good teachers “don’t appreciate working with teachers who don’t do their job.”

However, despite his words to the contrary on Thursday night, I know that given the concerns I outlined in my comments that the morale of the teaching and principal corps of our district are currently at dangerously low levels.

Our teachers and principals are the public face of our educational system, and it’s far past time that they were honored for the nearly impossible task they have shouldered. It’s far past time that we parents recognized our excellent teachers and principals publicly.

Look, as a parent first, I am completely aware that any teacher or principal caught on the wrong day can come across as difficult, uncaring, or blindly stubborn. I’ve had a few of “those” meetings where I left shaking my head thinking, “Were we talking about the same child?”

But those times, even in an extraordinarily stress-filled year as 2011-2012, are extremely rare. And when they have happened, in my experience all that has been required to correct the issue is simply another discussion with them to clear the air.

Our teachers and principals are human. They are not machines. They will occasionally make mistakes or seem brisk in their tone. However, these issues pale in comparison to the ever-increasing workload, ever-decreasing financial support, and more importantly, steadily increasing attacks.

Teachers and principals teach because they love our kids and believe in education. It’s far past time that we realize that standing up for our kids means that we must almost always stand up for our teachers because they are usually on the same side.

I do not believe that this superintendent nor this board are regularly standing up for neither our kids nor our teachers. And it is far past time for that, and the kind of attacks I’ve mentioned above to end. Not to challenge Willie Nelson, but my heroes have always been teachers. They are the light-bringers. They are the Truth-tellers. And if we value those qualities in our community, we must stand for them now.

I hope that the superintendent and the board have a better Sunday morning than they gave to our principals last Sunday.

2012Sat04Feb

Wardynski Speaks: “We’re Moving With Purpose”

Permalink | Shortlink | Comments (0) | TrackbackFiled in polityTags: corporate education, dr. casey wardynski, huntsville city schools, school board, teach for america

Editor’s Note: Below you will find a transcription of Dr. Wardynski’s nine minute monologue that he delivered after the conclusions of Citizens’ Comments on February 2, 2012. This type of response from Dr. Wardynski is a new approach to communicating with the public after the Citizens’ Comments have concluded. (Yes, this could be considered a response even though Mr. Blair repeatedly tells the public not to expect any response. In short, the board was chatty with citizens Thursday night.)

This monologue allowed for no public response as it came at the conclusion of the meeting immediately preceding the adjournment. I am posting it here in its entirety, and I will be posting several extended responses to the comments he made over the next couple of days. As I mentioned, this is a transcription of that statement. Any typographical errors are entirely the editor’s responsibility. Once the video of the meeting is made available, I will also post a link here.

Dr. Wardynski begins:

So, we’ve been implementing a program called Star Enterprise in our district. We’ve got some early results, and I just want to celebrate one or two. We’ve got some outstanding teachers in our schools. And we also have some teachers who are on probation and pending tenure who we are reviewing. Teachers are folks who are key to learning. They’re key to student growth, and there are many who are doing great jobs. And it’s no secret that this superintendent addresses those that we think are not doing great jobs. We continue to do so. But when that becomes the story for our school district, what we miss is the key teachers that are doing great work. They’re the vast majority of the folks in our schools, so for example, Mrs. Murphy.

Mrs. Murphy is a teacher in Rolling Hills Elementary School and in the past nine weeks she has raised student proficiency in her classroom in Math by 17 points. So what was previously about 70% of her students were proficient in reading, er excuse me, in math at the common core standards. So these are standards well above the Alabama Reading and Math Test. She’s raised that from about 70% to about 87% in nine weeks. We have heroic teachers in our classrooms doing great things. Uh, they appreciate working with great teachers. They don’t appreciate working with teachers who don’t do their job. Uh, we don’t have many who don’t do their job, and many of efforts underway are designed to address teachers that aren’t keeping up with the rest of the team. These range from Teach For America to our practice of bringing in teachers at the school district level and selecting them at the school district level because not every school faces the same hiring pool. Some face a fairly thin pool of applicants. And every schools needs to face a very deep pool of talent because every child deserves a great education. So the challenges of some of our schools are not a secret to this board or to this superintendent. But Huntsville City did not get into this position in a day. And we’re not going to get out in a day. We’re working on getting the most excellent teachers we can in the classrooms. That’s going to take some time.

We’re reviewing every probationary teacher this spring. Based on information available to me, that’s a first in this district. Every teacher going for tenure is being review by our committee of excellent teachers and administrators. Many people who think they were going to be tenured will not. Um, we’re building up from a base that was here, that was created over a period of years, and we’re going to reach a new level of excellence. But it is not going to attained in a moment, and it is not going to be retained, attained without great effort. And it will not be attained without measurement. And so we measure everything today.

We know the growth of students in our classrooms. Uh, we do not post it on the doors of our classrooms. We don’t need to. Our teachers can see it on their computers. And we discuss it every week in virtual teleconferences with our principals and our school leaders. And we review school performance at the classroom level in some cases, and at the school level in all cases.

In our next round of evaluations of school and child performance, we’ll be drilling down to standards. Standards that are being met across the district. Standards that are being met within schools and those within classrooms. To identify systemic gaps in our education across the district, gaps within schools, gaps within classrooms. Uh, this is the work that’s going to take some time, but it’s the work that we’re about. And it’s a very systematic effort that involves the use of data that is now going to be adopted, in my understanding, across the county and within other cities in our area. We’re leading the way in this effort.

Uh, those who claim that testing, we teach to the test, that testing is not a valuable resource simply do not know what they are talking about. There is no way to test, to take, to teach to the STAR test. It’s a computive, computer-adaptive test in which every child will face a different question. And the questions aren’t the kind you can teach to. If you don’t know algebra, you can’t teach to answering an algebra question. If you don’t know how to factor an equation, you can’t teach to answering a question like that. If you can’t read, we can’t teach you what the paragraph said, cause you haven’t seen the paragraph. And so we’re after the business of literacy and numeracy. Uh, we’re taking a very strategic approach to raising the proficiency of our children, and our excellent teachers are responding. Mrs. Murphy is but one of many, many across our district, from schools that here to for have been thought of as challenged, to those that are thought of as excellent. Children are seeing a change in their learning environment.

We’re providing them the resources, from computers, to excellent teachers, to excellent leaders. We’re reaching across our country to do so. We’ve reached across our city to bring in new partners to address discipline problems. Last board meeting we signed on with Pinnacle Schools. We’ve had the opportunity to visit our students at Pinnacle Schools over the last week. It’s a different place. The children over there are working diligently. They’re not visiting with each other. Uh, they’re focused on instruction whether they’re special education students or whether they’re general education students. Those who do not comport themselves according to the regulations and rules of Pinnacle Schools will find themselves living in a teepee. And they won’t be coming back until they can behave. And if they can’t behave, they won’t be coming back to our schools.

So while some of our high schools have seen disturbance, some of them have seen student who don’t know how to behave, some that want to bring street violence into our schools, uh, we are taking steps, we have taken steps. And those steps are now in place and underway. Uh, we have 125 seats waiting for children at Pinnacle Schools. And we have plenty of space in teepees. So misbehave in our schools, and you will see a new regime of discipline. Seldon Center will close at the end of this semester.

Uh, in partnership with bringing on excellent teachers, we’re creating an environment in which teachers can teach and children can learn. Uh, you saw it tonight in our discussion of Westlawn’s proposed school. Uh, identifying a way to structure a building so that sixth graders can enter a more, um, a learning environment for which their more responsible for their learning and others are less responsible. The transition from fifth to sixth grade. Uh, we’re looking to smooth that ramp for them. They’ll be in a space that will be somewhat separate from seventh and eighth. We’ve had previous discussions about ninth grade. Smoothing the transition from middle, which has, um, some structure to high school which has less structure with regard to governing the movement and the activities of students, needs a ramp as well. So ninth grade academies are a part of that.

We’re well aware of the challenges our students face, and we’re not happy that they face these challenges. Uh, we’re taking steps with the resources we have to provide a safe learning environment. Uh, we delayed the opening of our newest high school to ensure it was safe. We’re installing ZoneR on our buses to ensure we have safe transport of our children from home, to school, to home. Um, not all this can take place in a moment. I know that’s not a comfort to moms or dads who would like for it to. It’s not a comfort to me. Um, we’re moving with purpose. We’re moving with speed and increasing our efforts daily. Uh, I believe our city will see the payoff of this, and I believe it already is seeing the payoff. Uh, when you step into our classrooms, the data is there.You can see the children’s progress. And in the coming months, we’ll report it on our website so that parents can see the progress of classrooms. They can see the teacher’s ability to generate growth among the students in that classroom. Um, Huntsville City Schools is becoming a place that is known in our state and across the nation for rapid innovation, rapid change, but these things still take time. We’re moving with every effort we can muster, and we’re moving as quickly as we can. I’m not happy when a parent comes here and has to be unhappy about a school. Uh, you can be certain of that. So, I know our administrators are working, and I know our teachers and our principals are. And we will continue to do so. So I thank everybody for their attention.

2012Thu02Feb

Teach For America’s Biggest Cheerleader Speaks

Permalink | Shortlink | Comments (9) | TrackbackFiled in polityTags: corporate education, dr. casey wardynski, dr. jennie robinson, teach for america

In a move that is somewhat out of character, Dr. Wardynski offered an interview to the editor of Rocket City Mom yesterday in the third article of a series concerning the reasons for and role that Teach for America will play in Huntsville City Schools beginning later this year. If you haven’t already read the article, please take a few moments to go read the entire series.

The discussion began with a posting by Dr. Jason O’Brien on January 17th entitled, “Teach For America Explained.” Dr. O’Brien is a teacher and the father of five kids in Huntsville City Schools. He makes an effective argument that TFA is based upon a fallacious argument that “anyone can teach.”

Such a suggestion is as wrong as it is offensive. Just as some individuals are particularly gifted writers, artists, designers, doctors, lawyers, military leaders and ministers, some individuals are particularly gifted teachers.

The central issue facing student achievement is not that they don’t have the right technology, home life, or even clothes (as much as my daughter would disagree), the central issue facing achievement is student motivation.

Good students are motivated students. Weak students aren’t.

And time and again, we have learned that the single best way to improve student motivation is through direct, personal interaction with a teacher who is committed to connecting to a child and pulling them, kicking and screaming if necessary, into a world that stimulates and captures their interest. In short, a child who wants to learn will do so regardless of the obstacles that stand in that child’s way. A child who doesn’t can rarely be taught anything regardless of how excellent their technology or building is. (An excellent technology blogger, Bob Cringely, is writing about this very point in connection to technology right now. Go take a look at his argument.)

And so finding, keeping and rewarding teachers who have the experience to understand that finding a way to motivate a child to learn is the first and most difficult step of education is central to improving student achievement.

But as any parent, and in particular a SPED parent can tell you, motivating students to learn is often the single most difficult job on the planet. The fact that anyone manages to consistently find ways to motivate and encourage curiosity is clearly miraculous, and it should be celebrated as such. Finding, developing and implementing motivational techniques requires time and experience.

Dr. Wardynski ignores this truth in his support of hiring TFA in the article entitled, “TFA: Dr. Wardynski Responds.”

Since he was kind enough to offer his responses to the Editor’s questions, I would also like to offer a rebuttal to some of his more egregious claims.

Dr. Wardynski wrote:

We will be using Teach for America to address the problem of persistent low performance in several schools with high rates of poverty. Within the Huntsville system we have such schools that have been in school improvement for up to seven years. Traditional approaches to raising achievement in these schools have not worked and other approaches are required. In addition to low performance, these schools are characterized by high teacher turnover.

It certainly appears to be true that there is an “achievement gap” in Huntsville City Schools and that gap absolutely must be addressed, but once again, Dr. Wardynski is laying out ideas, hinting at reports and statistics without offering any direct evidence. Were he a student in my English 101 class, I would send his argument back to him with the suggestion that he offer specific evidence. Show us, Dr. Wardynski, exactly how bad the “persistent low performance” is and has been. Perhaps he was referring to a 2010 report in the Huntsville Timesthat stated that thirteen Huntsville schools were “persistently low-achieving.”

But who knows.

He offers no evidence supporting his claim that “traditional approaches to raising achievement in these schools have not worked” either. What does he consider a “traditional approach?” When were these approaches tried? How effective were these approaches? If they failed, why did they fail? All of these are questions that should be considered and answered before making a decision to move in a radical new direction, shouldn’t they? Especially if the goal is indeed to address the achievement gap?

It’s hard to make informed decisions when the top educator of the city refuses to take opportunities to teach and support his case. (Refusing to support your claims with data is however a common characteristic of the Broad Foundation’s disciples.)

But setting that aside for a moment, let’s consider his claim that using untrained, uncertified, TFAers (80% of whom will be gone after the third year, I doubt that these “persistent[ly] low performing” have a turnover rate that high), will actually close the achievement gap. Somehow that seems to shout in the face of logic, doesn’t it? What it really means is that Huntsville City Schools will spend at least 1.9 million dollars over the next five years to help an organization whose own tax returns from 2010 show that they have over $309,115,182.00 in NET assets.

Perhaps instead of sending $1.9 million out of city and state, we would be better served using some of these funds to address the “high teacher turnover” rate at these schools?

I’m certain that we will find that the “traditional approaches” he claims have failed do not include offering a financial incentive, or additional costly professional development to the teachers who are already teaching at these “persistent[ly] low performing” schools. Anyone willing to offer me odds on that one?

Last year Teach for America received over 48,000 applications for 5,200 teaching positions. This level of selectivity is without peer and brings unparalleled levels of talent to schools for which we have traditionally seen very few applications.

Once again, our top educator has failed to offer any evidence supporting his claim that the “persistent[ly] low performing” schools do indeed receive “very few applications.”

Where’s the evidence of this? I know that it’s considered to be conventional wisdom that this is true, but we’re dealing with our students’ lives here. Give us something to base these decisions on other than conventional wisdom. Show us the actual numbers. Show us the “traditional approaches” that have failed. Surely this information is sitting in a folder on Dr. Wardynski’s desk. Publish it. Prove it to us.

Furthermore, what exactly is the TFA measure of this “talent?” Is this based on GPA’s? Communication skills? Connectedness of their parents? Since TFA refuses to share their selection criteria with the public(gosh, I wonder where they learned that?learned that), it is impossible to assess or evaluate the actual level of this “unparalleled” talent by any objective standard.

How helpful are good grades in engineering classes when attempting to teach an unmotivated student to read? Last time I checked, the basic skills required to instruct and motivate a student to read were not standard curricula in those classes.

But, now we move on to a BIG claim.

Beyond being highly selective, Teach for America provides initial and ongoing professional development to new teachers focused upon the challenges of teaching in high poverty schools – a focus not found within traditional teacher preparation programs.

You’ll have to forgive Dr. Wardynski for this one. His lack of time in Alabama and lack of experience in education has meant that he likely is unaware that this statement just simply isn’t true. He claims that “traditional teacher preparation programs” don’t train their students for the challenges of teaching in high poverty schools.

The truth is that they certainly can, do and will if they are asked. You see, unlike TFA which charges extra for their “training,” traditional teacher preparation programs at the “teacher colleges” that Wardynski is so quick to dismiss actually provide the following Teacher Warranty:

Teacher warranty. According to regulations mandated by the Alabama State Board of Education, the College of Education ensures that “a candidate’s competency to begin his or her professional role in schools is assessed prior to completion of the program and/or recommendation for certification” and establishes, publishes, and implements “policies to guarantee the success of individuals who complete its approved programs and are employed in their area(s) of specialization.” The College of Education provides “remediation at no cost to such individuals who are recommended . . . and are deemed to be unsatisfactory based on performance evaluations established by the State Board of Education and within two years after program completion.” (University of Alabama 2010-2012 Undergraduate Catalog)

In other words, these “traditional teacher” colleges and universities actually provide a three year warranty for the teachers they produce. If within three years of graduation, a candidate’s competency to serve his or her school’s particular needs is questioned due to a need for additional training, such as how to teach in high poverty schools, the “traditional teacher” colleges and universities here in Alabama will provide that training “at no cost to such individuals who are recommended.”

Traditional teachers come with a warranty, cost less, and have full certification. And yet, Dr. Wardynski is unaware of this. Perhaps this will help him in the future.

He continues to press his point.

Within Alabama there are several routes to teacher certification ranging from traditional teacher preparation programs to the Troops to Teachers program. These alternatives are designed to bring talented individuals into K-12 education to meet the varied needs of students.

Under alternative certification programs, candidates are usually required to successfully complete a 16 week, split placement internship. Under the tutelage of experienced mentor teachers (and university supervisors who teach pedagogy), student teachers learn the “craft” of teaching. When newly hired teachers enter the classroom without this experience, they end up “learning on the job.” For a detailed description of this, please see Dr. Veltri’s book, “Learning On Other People’s Kids: Becoming a Teach For America Teacher” which details the struggles of TFA participants who consistently report feeling “overwhelmed” and “underprepared” for their initial classroom experiences.

As Dr. Veltri concludes:

I wondered, “Who’s America is Teach for America really teaching for? Why is it tolerable for education to be less than for other people’s kids? And, what are we, as a nation, really prepared to do about it?

I have asked Dr. Robinson for a specific detailed listing of which schools the TFAers are going to be placed. The contract calls for their placement to be restricted to schools where at least “70% of attending students are eligible for free or reduced lunch unless mutually agreed upon by School District and Teach for America,” but the discussion that Dr. Wardynski has had with Rocket City Mom implies that the placement of these teachers could be much broader than anticipated. Dr. Robinson, for example, told me November 3rd that all of the TFAers were going to be placed at “secondary schools.”

It seems that I must have misheard her because when I asked why TFA were now going to be placed at elementary schools she responded:

A small number of the TFA teachers will go in elementary schools. The vast majority will go to middle and high schools. That’s always been the plan. (February 2, 2012)

I apologize for my misunderstanding. I suppose that I merely assumed that when Dr. Robinson was critiquing the Heilig and Jez study as having focused on elementary eduction, and that our TFAers were going to be placed at the “secondary” level that she meant that there wouldn’t be any TFAers in the elementary schools.

Unfortunately, Dr. Robinson hasn’t responded yet to my request for a listing of the schools where TFAers will be used. Since these candidates are so excellent, I have to wonder why they aren’t being placed at every school in the system and why Dr. Robinson and Dr. Wardynski aren’t screaming from the rooftops the names of the lucky schools selected to participate.

Wardynski continues:

We will measure the results obtained by Teach for America teachers and teachers from traditional programs. We will make future teacher selections decisions with these results in view. We are not wedded to specific teacher programs or certification pathways.

This is excellent news. Well, except that Dr. Wardynski has demonstrated a stubborn refusal to actually produce one scintilla of actual evidence supporting his claims so far. I’m sure, however, that a Broad Foundation trained superintendent, evaluating a Broad Foundation teacher training program will be completely objective in his evaluation.

For example, many of our high poverty schools already see 200 to 300 percent higher turnover than other schools. By using our Teach for America teachers in teams and by supporting their development in the education profession we anticipate reducing turnover in our high poverty schools.

Higher than average turnover in “persistent[ly] low performing” schools is a problem nationwide. It is still a problem in areas where TFAers have been placed because, as cited above, TFA does nothing but perpetuate the problem of rapid turnover.

Wardynski wraps up:

We seek to hire highly talented staff who can deliver results in the form of raising student achievement. Teach for America has a track record of delivering such teachers.

Actually, as has been demonstrated time after time after time, TFAers do not out perform traditionally trained teachers. They, in particular, cannot compete with experienced teachers in raising student achievement.

In conclusion, this push to replace traditionally trained teachers who are certified, warrantied, and experienced has little to nothing to do with a desire on Dr. Wardynski’s part to “raise student achievement.” It is, instead, a desire to control a school system from top to bottom and to remake it into the Broad Foundation’s image regardless of the studies that show it won’t work, regardless of the cries from teachers and administrators who have been begging for the resources and support to effect change at our struggling schools, and regardless of the parents who are concerned that their children are being used a pawns in a national game.

This is about control, pure and simple. And unfortunately for us, our elected representatives are falling over themselves to let him take over and take our limited funds out of our schools and into the coffers of a multi-million dollar corporation that has a history of ignoring the public’s calls for transparency.

Our city deserves better. Our schools, administrators, and teachers deserve better. And by god our kids absolutely do.

2012Tue31Jan

Things Returning to Normal

Permalink | Shortlink | Comments (6) | TrackbackFiled in polity, techTags: hacking, technical difficulties

That huge rushing wind sound you’re hearing . . . me heaving a huge sigh of relief.

I believe that I have things back to just about normal around here. It is now officially safe to share links to the site again. (And please do so.)

So, what happened?

The simple answer is that my site was hacked. Someone (or thing–much hacking is automated) gained access to my server and installed a bit of code there that redirected links from other sites to mine to spam sites.

When you clicked on a Facebook, Google, Yahoo, or Bing link to a post of mine, you would be redirected to a site selling Starbucks or fake Antivirus Software.

As I said, I’ve now corrected this problem. The site is safe for viewing and sharing as you wish.

Let me take this moment to apologize to all of you for the problems the site has had over the last week as well as for your having been redirected to sites that you did not wish to view. I hope that this was only an inconvenience for you, and that it did not cause you serious issues. If it did, please contact me via the comments feature at the bottom of the page.

Credibility is a difficult thing to build, yet insanely easy to lose. I pay close attention to the content of my site because of this. (This is why I do not have, and will never place any ads on this site. This isn’t about getting rich or famous. It’s about making our schools better than they are.)

Where I failed was that I did not pay closer attention to the impact that the delivery system could have on my credibility. I know that my credibility was harmed by the spam sites as well as the outages, and I take full responsibility for all of it. I will do a better job of monitoring the site in the future, and should I find that something has caused my readers issues, I will move to address that problem immediately.

Part of the reason this event took so long to address was that I couldn’t believe that I had been hacked. Once it became clear that I had, fixing it really didn’t take very long.

So again, I apologize.

In the future, I will verify links that I post are not redirecting my readers away from the site, and I will do my best to address the issue much quicker than I did this time around. Most of my readers hear about my posts because y’all share them, and I absolutely need that to continue.

Finally, I would like to take just a moment to address a rumor/joke that has circulated around my outage. A few friends have joked that perhaps the outage was caused by Dr. Wardynski or someone connected to Huntsville City Schools. For the record, I have no reason to believe that Dr. Wardynski or anyone else connected with the district had anything to do with this outage.

Frankly, it would be stupid for Dr. Wardynski to attempt to silence me by hacking my site. Doing so would give instant credibility and credence to my questions and posts. Dr. Wardynski is not stupid.

__________

On one other note, I posted on January 29th that I was hearing rumors that Huntsville City Schools had blocked access to my site through their servers. I was able to confirm yesterday that you can actually access Geek Palaver from the HCS servers. However, as with many things, just because you can do something doesn’t mean that you should. I would still recommend that readers access the site on their own time.

Remember that you may do so via email or by subscribing to the RSS feed above.

2012Sun29Jan

Strange Days at Geek Palaver

Permalink | Shortlink | Comments (2) | TrackbackFiled in techTags: technical difficulties

In case you haven’t noticed, things have been hinky around here lately.

On Monday, January 23, 2012 the website went down for no apparent reason. It was displaying simply a white page. No text. No links. No way to access the administration side of things to alter things. After a day of attempting to get information from my host, I found that others had had similar issues through a google search. It seems that the problem was a bad plugin.

Disabling all the plugins on the site got us back up and running, but things haven’t been right since.

This morning it seems that links on Google and Facebook to my site are now sending people to spam sites.

Yes, if you google Geek Palaver, most of the links you find there now send you to other spam related sites.

Stranger still, if you click on a link that’s posted in Facebook, that link will take you not to the Geek Palaver site, but rather to spam sites. Potentially they will lead you to sites that could give you a virus.

No, I don’t have any idea what’s happening here. I am trying to find out, but until things get corrected, please don’t share links to my site particularly via Facebook.

Strangely enough, the links on Twitter are still working fine. I also believe that the email distribution is working just fine.

I am working on this, but honestly this is all brand new to me. In the past, links take you to the place where you were intending to go. Now, not so much.

This is also only happening to the Geek Palaver site. It isn’t happening to my other site which is hosted on the same server.

So, I apologize for the inconvenience. I am working to fix it.

Thanks everyone, for reading my thoughts on the school board. I’ll keep you updated.

May 2012
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